SynTalk

Of what womb are you born? Are there good & bad animals? ‘Where’ is there no Law? Are the outlawed animal-like? Who gets to be a citizen of the polis? Are Pandavas princes in the forest? Are the freer nobler? Does the wolf look down upon the dog? Are animals truly in the open? Are humans, in a sense, the most abandoned? Is the jungle still within us? Did our ability to exchange (& imagine) enable us to curb our animal instincts and establish ‘humanity’? Where do Gods and demons come from? Is divinity empathy? What exactly is tiger-man? Does hunger lead to evil? Is empathy required in the jungle? Did peasantry play a role in reconfiguring human-animal relationships? Can (all) animals be sacrificed for humans? Do animals have to be attributed with a Being? What do they have in common with us? How do we turn Other humans into animals? Why are inter-species social relationships possible? Do you understand how insects suffer (or, how larvae wait to be captured)? Are we overwhelmingly anthropomorphic? Must species barriers be blurred? Would we, in the future, have everything we desire? Are the werewolves here to stay? &, would the repressed always return? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from comparative literature (Prof. Peter Arnds, Trinity College, Dublin), philosophy (Dr. Prasenjit Biswas, NEHU, Shillong), & mythology (Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, Mumbai). Listen in...