In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona talks to Vikram Sampath, the best selling author of four acclaimed biographies, ‘Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold Story of the Wodeyars’ on the Mysore royal family; ‘My Name is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician’- the biography of India’s first recording superstar Gauhar Jaan of Calcutta; ‘Voice of the Veena: S Balachander – A Biography’, the story of eminent veena maestro late Dr. S Balachander and ‘Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924’ which is the first volume of a two-part biography about the legendary Indian revolutionary leader– Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Vikram walks us through the process of research and the writing of a biography (calling it a ‘love affair’) and the surprisingly vexing events that follow post publication. They discuss the account and impact of each of his biographies and lives of the misunderstood and forgotten characters in it, the troubles writers face and about their extensive presence online, the issue with the lack of nuance and the binary perspective of people.

Tune in to find out more about his relation with music and history, his wish to be its ‘night watchman’, and about the Archive of Indian Music, which is India’s first digital sound archive for vintage recordings of the country.