Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The Next Edition with Mallika Kapur

Canadian author Yann Martel talks about his Booker Prize winning novel, Life of Pi, a fantastical and philosophical tale of a boy stranded on a boat with a tiger, the power of faith, and how stories help us make sense of the world. 

What happens when a boy, a Bengal tiger, and the vast Pacific Ocean become an unlikely story of survival and faith? Canadian author Yann Martel revisits his Booker Prize-winning novel, Life of Pi and discusses what it may look like if written today. Pi would be in his sixties - how might he tell his story with the wisdom that comes with age? This is The Next Edition of one of literature's most beloved stories.

Foreword: Yann talks about how his novel has been received. He discusses the debates readers have between the two endings, and if there’s a “right” one. 

Epigraph: Once a hardcore rationalist, a trip to India opened Yann to faith and spirituality. In this episode, he reflects on the novel’s origins, imagines how Pi’s story might shape up in today’s world, and expresses increasing concerns about the rise of materialism and makes a quiet case for holding on to faith.

Author’s Note: Winning the prestigious Booker Prize helped Yann connect with readers across the globe. He talks about keeping Life of Pi alive through its many iterations – on the screen, on stage and in translations. 

Epilogue: What's next? Can technology nurture creativity? What different formats is Yann experimenting with in his writing? And, will Pi return to India someday? 

Featured Clips in this episode:

Life of Pi (2012), directed by Ang Lee

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producers: Rachna Sukuru, Meghna Gulati

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Welcome to The Next Edition, a show that dives headfirst into the glorious creative mess that lies behind every masterpiece.

In this season, writers, journalists, filmmakers, newsmakers and artists revisit their most iconic works and reveal how they would reimagine it, if they were given a chance. 

Because a story is never truly done.

Alka Joshi, author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Henna Artist, reflects on a body of work that feels like a personal tribute to her heritage. She opens up about the circumstances that led to her beloved trilogy and gives us a glimpse into what’s next for the author whose writing has become a love letter from India to the world.

A Life Reimagined:
At the heart of The Henna Artist lies a deeply personal question: what would Alka Joshi’s mother’s life have looked like, had she not gotten married at eighteen? She reflects on her relationship with her mother, with India in the 50s and 60s, and versions of her characters that never saw the light of day.

The Cultural Ambassador:
Alka was nine when she left India for America. For years, as she assimilated to life in the west, she kept one part of her identity quiet. Until she didn’t. India is front and center of her novels. Today, she stands as a cultural and historical ambassador for the country of her birth, and she's proud to show the world an India that's far more alive than the one a global audience usually gets to see.

Fragrance and Memories:
Alka talks about her third book in the trilogy, and why she chose to center it around perfumery. She takes us through a trip down memory lane, invoking memories through fragrances.

The Pivot:
A career in advertising. Then, full-time writing in her 60s. Alka reflects on this pivot, and how her age and experience aided the transition. And, how, if not for Reese Witherspoon, the book might not have seen global success.

Featured Clips in this episode:
1,000,000 Indians On The Move (1947)
Teesri Manzil Original Soundtrack by Saregama
Reese and Alka LIVE on @reesewitherspoon

Credits:

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas
Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni
Producer: Rachna Sukuru
Assistant Producers: Karan Solanki, Aditi Sutar
Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar
Artwork: Alika Gupta

What happens when Death tells a story about life? Twenty years after the publication of The Book Thief, Markus Zusak revisits the novel that transformed his career and became one of the defining works of contemporary fiction. He reflects on language, imagination, history, and the unlikely creative decisions that gave the book its singular voice and lasting impact.

A 20 year Legacy:
Markus Zusak was just twenty-seven when he began writing The Book Thief–young enough to be fearless, bold enough to take creative risks. The story he wrote remains relevant and draws new audiences even today.

The Tradesman:
Markus Zusak does not consider himself to be a literary genius. For him, writing is less about having a great imagination, and more about solving problems. He opens up about how family memories, wartime anecdotes, and fragments of real lives were woven together to create unforgettable characters.

Death, The Messenger:
One of literature's most distinctive narrators was almost abandoned. Markus recounts the long journey to finding Death's voice—from a dark, cynical observer to a character haunted by human beings and their capacity for both cruelty and beauty.

The Failurist:
Markus explains why he proudly embraces failure as part of the creative process. He reflects on how every version of The Book Thief that didn't work ultimately paved the way for the version that did—and why success is often built on a foundation of countless mistakes.

Featured Clips in this episode:

The Book Thief (2013) Official Trailer

The failurist: Markus Zusak at TEDxSydney 2014

Credits:

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas
Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni
Producer: Rachna Sukuru
Assistant Producer: Aditi Sutar
Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar
Artwork: Alika Gupta

Host Mallika Kapur sits down with some of the world’s most celebrated storytellers to revisit the works that define them. They return to abandoned drafts, imagine alternate endings, and explore one enduring question:

If you could do it again, what would the next edition hold?

Because a story is never truly done.

Author and poet Jeet Thayil’s work moves fluidly between fiction, poetry and memoir. He reflects on the Booker-prize shortlisted Narcopolis years after its release, the emotional intensity of writing it, and how his latest book The Elsewhereans marks a shift—from stories of addiction and survival to deeply personal explorations of family, memory and loss. 

Epigraph:

More than a decade after ‘Narcopolis’ first released, Jeet Thayil reflects on his relationship with the book today. He describes the process of writing the book as the opposite of catharsis, exploring how it made him reconcile with the city’s and his own traumatic past. 

Poet in Prose:

Jeet takes us into his creative process—how poetry shapes his sentences, why writing fiction demands a different discipline, and how he crafted one of literature’s most unforgettable long sentences. 

Elegy:
In The Elsewhereans, Jeet Thayil turns the conversation inward – writing about family, grief, and the passage of time. He opens up about the delicate balance of writing about loved ones, the responsibility that comes with it, and how the book has become a quiet memorial to his parents. 

Epilogue:

For Jeet, the role of the artist is simple yet profound: to connect. Whether through the troubled worlds of Narcopolis or the intimate reflections of The Elsewhereans, his work reaches readers in different ways — offering recognition, resonance, and a sense of shared humanity. 

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producer: Rachna Sukuru

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

When Deepa Mehta began filming Water in Varanasi, India, protesters burned the sets and forced production to a halt. The film, the final chapter in her trilogy exploring fire, earth, and water as metaphors for social realities across the Indian subcontinent, was eventually made in Sri Lanka. Twenty years later, Mehta and actor Lisa Ray look back on what they built, what it cost, and why the story still matters.

Critics’ Choice

Deepa Mehta and Lisa Ray reflect on what it meant to commit fully to a story about women on the margins and why the film continues to move audiences around the world. As Lisa Ray puts it, it was made with such sincerity that people could feel it — “it was the little indie film that could.”

Close-Up:

Deepa described making Water without an agenda; Lisa described surrendering to the role rather than performing it. Here, they focus on the process — how the film was made, the close-knit community that formed around it, and what it felt like to work in a simpler time, when no one retreated to their trailer between takes.

The Edit

This conversation moves across memory, politics, identity, and time with two of the most influential women in Indian cinema thinking aloud together.

Epilogue

Twenty years on, Water is no longer met with outrage or political defence. As Deepa puts it, it feels like a truth that never dies, it’s still finding new audiences, still landing where it needs to.

Featured Clips in this episode:

79th Academy Award Nominations

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producer: Rachna Sukuru

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Lara Love Hardin lost everything. Writing helped her find her way back. In this conversation, the author of the New York Times bestseller  and Oprah’s book club pick reflects on The Many Lives of Mama Love, a memoir of addiction, incarceration, motherhood, and recovery. She talks  about reading as her first addiction, writing as a survival tool within prison walls, and what it takes to tell the truth without softening it for the page.

Author’s Note:

Lara traces her earliest attachment to books, long before prescription drugs or heroin, framing literature as both refuge and obsession.

Margins

Lara reflects on what it means to carry a past without being defined by it. Addiction, prison, motherhood, and authorship are all layers that make her who she is. 

The Spine

Lara speaks about prison as a place where every woman had a “superpower”. Hers 

was writing. By helping other inmates with their correspondence, writing got her through her darkest days. 

Footnotes:

The conversation goes  beyond the book. Lara speaks about re-entering the workforce after incarceration, the barriers women face, and her work today as a ghostwriter, literary agent, and co-founder of the Gemma Project. She considers what Mama Love could not yet include — a quieter chapter defined by steadiness, work, and rest.

Featured Clips in this episode:

Oprah selects "The Many Lives of Mama Love" as newest book club selection

Message from Lara Love’s sons for Oprah

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producer: Rachna Sukuru

Editorial Assistance: Devanshi Chandak

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Indian journalist, historian and bestselling author Shrabani Basu has spent her career rescuing stories that history forgot. She talks about uncovering the extraordinary bond between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, bringing spy and SOE agent Noor Inayat Khan into the light, and why these stories matter more than ever.

Preface: From researching the story of curry, to writing about Abdul Karim’s extraordinary  relationship with Queen Victoria, and bringing Noor Inayat Khan’s story to light, Shrabani Basu has dedicated her career to uncovering stories that history has overlooked.

From the Archives: Shrabani takes us through her process. Her books  often begin with a chance discovery, followed by years of research, poring over archives untouched for over a hundred years.

Legacy: Shrabani shares the pride she feels in reviving buried stories and the impact they’ve had. From reconnecting Abdul Karim's descendants with his story to campaigning for the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial in London, the first plaque dedicated to a woman of Indian origin.

Keeper of History: Shrabani continues her journey to bring untold stories to life, giving  trailblazers their rightful place in history.

Featured Clips in this episode:

Victoria & Abdul (2017) Official Trailer

Victoria & Abdul (2017) Movie clip

Noor Inayat Khan: The Unveiling of the Memorial

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producers: Rachna Sukuru , Meghna Gulati

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Pulitzer winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario has spent her career documenting war and covering conflict. She discusses her commitment to capturing hard truths and opens up about what happens when she puts the camera down and steps back into life as a wife and mother. 

Aperture: She captured images of the moon as a child.That sense of wonder and beauty guides Lynsey as she travels the world, documenting pivotal moments in modern history with grace and grit.

Focus: Lynsey talks about the boundaries she sets for herself as a photojournalist: being respectful of her subjects, knowing when to intervene, and stepping back when the situation calls for it. 

The Raw image: Lynsey opens up about what it’s like to be behind the lens – the grief that comes with witnessing lives lost, the constant threat to her own wellbeing, and processing the trauma of being held hostage twice.

Exposure: Lynsey talks about photographing a subject to becoming the subject in the recently released National Geographic documentary, Love+War.  

Featured Clips in this episode:

Love + War Official Trailer

Credits: 

Host: Mallika Kapur

Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producers: Rachna Sukuru , Meghna Gulati

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Award-winning British-Turkish novelist, political scientist and activist Elif Shafak discusses  her bestselling novel The Island of Missing Trees, her multicultural upbringing and the fragile bond between humans and nature.

Prologue:
Elif opens with a daring narrative choice: choosing a fig tree as storyteller. 

Roots:
Moving between countries, cultures, and languages, Elif grew up feeling like an outsider. She speaks candidly about displacement, belonging, and finding her literary voice in a language that is not her mother tongue. 

Trunk:
Elif confronts the realities of being a woman novelist in Turkey, where writing about ‘taboo’ subjects brought public scrutiny and an investigation. She reflects on the responsibility that comes with storytelling and her resolve to do so with honesty and purpose. 

Ecosystem:
In an age of speed and instant gratification, Elif makes the case to slow down and appreciate literature and nature. She champions the power of curiosity as a way to keep creativity alive.

Credits: 

Host:
Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producer: Rachna Sukuru

Editorial Assistance: Devanshi Chandak

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta

Indian journalist Barkha Dutt is one of the most fearless reporters of her generation. Not just for the conflicts she's covered, but for her unflinching commitment to the stories others simply won't tell. 

Breaking: From the peaks of Kargil to covering India’s COVID crisis, Barkha Dutt has had a front row seat to India’s defining moments – bearing witness to war, terror, and tragedy while navigating the personal cost of the stories she tells.

Inside Story: Barkha shares the stories that have stayed with her - – the soldiers she’s met on the frontlines, the world leaders she’s interviewed, and the moments that forced her to question the meaning of life.

Exclusive: She opens up about trauma, grief, and loss, including the heartbreak of losing her father during the pandemic, and reflects on what it truly means to bear witness with empathy and humanity.

Feature: Today, as founder of Mojo Story, Barkha is clear-eyed about technology. It can sharpen your tools, but it can't identify a story. That, she says, will always be the job of a human reporter.

Featured Clips in this episode:

NDTV Music
NDTV We The People
Mojo Story - Pahalgam Attack - Barkha Dutt
NDTV Kashmir Terror Attack
NDTV Pahalgam Attack
NCC Girls Marching Contingent
Barkha Dutt Kargil Reportage
Capt. Viram Batra “Yeh Dil Maange More”
Pepsi Yeh Dil Maange More Jingle
Vishal Batra & Barkha Dutt Interview

Credits: 

Host:
Mallika Kapur is an award-winning journalist and seasoned interviewer with over two decades of experience in television and live journalism. Across three countries and various impactful roles at CNN and Bloomberg, she has reported on major global events, including the London train bombings, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. She also moderates news making panels at global forums, leading insightful conversations with the world’s top figures in business and culture.

Reach out on Instagram and LinkedIn

This is a Maed In India Production

Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni

Producers: Rachna Sukuru, Meghna Gulati

Sound Engineer: Nihar Temkar

Artwork: Alika Gupta