Episode 5: Prayaag Akbar's "Mother India"
Our guest today has published a novel that beats with the pulse of here and now. Set in a world, a nation, that finds itself caught up in the many, many complexities of the digital age, that tussles still—as the cliché so suitably goes—with the old and the new. We access this moment through two young characters, Mayank and Nisha, located firmly in post-liberalisation India. Mayank, proud and loving patriot, burdened with a middling education, works as a content creator for a right-wing YouTube celebrity, while Nisha, driven to the big capital city from her hometown in the hills of Uttarakhand, plays salesperson in a posh store in a mall selling chocolates from Japan. It’s a new India, indeed, but who really is this New India for? Who is it serving? Who is it selling? And at what cost? "Mother India", Prayaag Akbar’s new book is scathing and tender, expansive and intimate, tragic and humourous, all at once. It brings to us, right to our doorstep, face to face, with a nation on fire. Prayaag is also the author of "Leila", which won the Crossword Jury Prize and the Tata Lit Live! in 2018.He has worked as a journalist and editor with several leading publications and he is also Associate Professor of Literature at Krea University.