A love story, across timelines as one woman tries to reach the other through the words she left behind.

In this episode, Tara sits down with Tarana Hussain Khan, writer and food historian, to talk about her novel The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, a book that moves between two women and their love stories separated by a century, bound together by letters that almost didn't survive.

The conversation explores how Tarana first discovered Daag’s letters to Hijab in archival material and why Hijab became such an enigma to her. Through Hijab's story, they get into the larger world of Tawaifs and the extraordinary dichotomy of women who were the most culturally significant of their time, yet whose writings were lost, romanticised, or dismissed.

Through the parallel journeys of Hijab and Rukmini, a contemporary aspiring writer, they also unpack the realities of becoming a woman writer in India today, with Tarana reflecting her own insecurities of pursuing writing full-time and her relationships in Rukmini’s world and the ways women now have more agency and opportunities than the generations before them. Tarana also opens up about her process in fiction and non-fiction, and the emotional toll of delving into these stories.

They discuss Tarana’s bold structural choice of writing Hijab's entire narrative in second person to let Rukmini speak directly to Hijab across centuries, questioning the silences left by history.

Press play to be transported to a world of poetry, music and a love story of epic proportions.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1. Deg to Dastarkhan by Tarana Hussain
2. Last of the Earth by Deepa Annapara

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

This episode contains discussions of sexual violence, human trafficking and child abuse. Please listen at your discretion.

Have you ever read a headline, felt the rage to make a difference, but didn’t know where to start?
But an 8-year-old girl acted on it and inspired millions to make a difference, no matter how small

In this episode, Tara sits down with Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, Asia's largest institution combating sex trafficking, and Padma Shri recipient, to discuss her memoir I Am What I Am. Over three decades, Sunitha and her team have rescued more than 32,000 survivors and prevented 18,000 children from entering the sex trade. This is the story behind all of that.

She traces her journey from a 17-year-old with no experience walking into red light areas to building one of the most sophisticated rescue and rehabilitation operations in the world. She talks about what a rescue actually looks like on the ground, speaks candidly about her own experience of gang rape at 15 and why she refused to let it become her entire identity.

From being beaten up and accused of kidnapping the very children she was rescuing, and when she had to spend 23 days in jail, the stories of her fearlessness are endless.

Tara and Sunitha ji also get into the process of writing the book. She spent 13 days in a hotel room alone with her memories, writing for 14 hours every day. She spent two hours being violently ill as her body released what her mind had been holding for decades, but she didn't leave until every last memory was on the page.

Courage can also be contagious. Press play and maybe you’ll be inspired to take that step you might’ve been putting off.

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

If you’ve ever wished for food to transport you to new places, this episode is for you!

In this episode, Tara sits down with Lavanya Lakshminarayan, international award-winning sci-fi author and game designer, to explore the world of Primus in Intergalactic Feast, a sequel to her Interstellar Megachef.

They dig into her two-book series, where food is not just sustenance, but culture, conflict, memory and resistance all at once. Lavanya talks about how it all started with a bowl of rasam made by her grandmother during a bout of dengue, and a question that wouldn't leave her alone: who decides which foods matter?

Lavanya also dives into her elaborate process of building speculative worlds rooted in Indian food history, designing alien species and futuristic systems, and writing emotionally immersive sci-fi. From flowcharts that map out all the civilisations and systems to writing 120,000 words under an international deadline, she reveals her recipe for a bestseller that’s unmistakably Indian and universally loved.

Press play and maybe sit with a bowl of your comfort food before you do, because you are in for a feast!

Books mentioned in this episode:

1. Interstellar Megachef & Intergalactic Feast by Lavanya Lakshminarayan
2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Do you actually need a big personality online for your book to succeed? The answer might surprise you.

In this episode, Tara sits down with Naiyya Singh, Assistant General Manager of Marketing at HarperCollins India, to pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to get a book into the right hands.

They get into what a book marketing campaign really looks like and why fiction and nonfiction get treated completely differently. Naiyya tells us how plans have to adapt to news cycles and trends, and why an intimate launch of 20 people can be as significant as a packed auditorium.

Naiyya also breaks down the question of virality every author asks, as well as the other elements that go into marketing a book.

From escape-room campaigns to intimate roundtable launches, they explore the creativity, unpredictability and occasional frustration of book marketing. They also dig into the resurgence of book clubs and why the best metric for a successful book has nothing to do with first-week sales.

If you are an aspiring book marketer or an author nervous for their launch, you don’t want to skip this chapter!

Press play to get the scoop on what really sells a book and why even the best ones take time.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1. The complex by Karan Mahajan
2. Politics, Policy and Predictions: Views from the Front Row of Parliament by Derek O’Brien
3. Dream Count - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4. Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
5. The Only City: Bombay in Eighteen Stories by Anindita Ghose
6. Lightning in a Shot Glass by Deepanjana Pal
7. Dakini by K. Hari Kumar
8. The Enclave by Rohit Manchanda
9. August 17 by S. Hareesh, translated by Jayasree Kalathil
10. The Complex by Karan Mahajan
11. Ghost Eye by Amitav Ghosh
12. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
13. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

What do you do when the person you love wants something you're not sure you can give?

In this episode of Books & Beyond, Tara speaks with Rahul Singh, debut novelist and academic, about his book Unfolding, which follows two gay men navigating a long-term relationship where their expectations of love begin to diverge.

The conversation moves through the emotional complexity of open relationships, and how the book holds space for desire without rushing to label or judge it. They also discuss the novel’s domestic world, where much of the story unfolds inside the home, and how class and gender shape the characters’ lives and choices.

Rahul also shares the unusual journey of writing the book without a publishing contract, across multiple drafts and years of uncertainty, all while his parents still don’t know what the novel is really about.

If you’ve ever struggled to stay on the same page in love, this one will stay with you.

Books Mentioned in the Episode:

1. Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar
2. Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
3. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Are you one of those who cancel plans because you’re tired, then spend the next two hours feeling guilty about it? Let’s talk.

In the latest episode of Books & Beyond, Tara chats with Ankur Warikoo about his new book Winning People Without Losing Yourself, and what it actually looks like to keep everyone happy all the time.

Ankur talks about spending years trying to be the person everyone liked, and why that never really works out the way you think it will. They get into boundaries (especially with family), that turns into resentment when you don’t set them, and how often we end up breaking our own boundaries before anyone else does.

They also talk about the idea that the right relationships in your 20s shouldn’t be a distraction, but an enabler, what really happens when you expect someone else to make you happy, and how most conversations fall apart when you’re only trying to get your point across.

The episode touches on comparison in the age of the internet, and how easy it is to measure your life against what you see online.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing a lot for people but still feeling off about it, this one is just for you.

Books Mentioned in the Episode:

1. Do Epic Shit by Ankur Warikoo
2. Get Epic Shit Done by Ankur Warikoo
3. Beyond the Syllabus by Ankur Warikoo
4. Make Epic Money by Ankur Warikoo
5. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
6. Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried
7. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
8. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

If you've ever felt the pull of a new city and the desperate need to start over, keep listening.

In this episode, Tara sits down with the award-winning author Rahul Bhattacharya to discuss his latest novel, Railsong.

Writing about the freedom of a woman set in the 1970s, as a male author, is no small task. Rahul talks about Charu, a motherless daughter of a railway worker who flees to Bombay to build a life from scratch, on her own terms, in a country that's also figuring itself out.

Together, Rahul and Tara explore the role of research in fiction to make the audience feel like it's their story. Rahul explains what it was like to navigate this Everywoman story and how the domestic and the political are never really separate, whether it's 1974 or now.

He talks about why the computer undid his ability to go deep and how Toni Morisson’s method inspired him to write his first draft of 133,000 words by hand.

Whether you are stuck in the train or traffic, this episode will surely help you escape to another world.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1. The Rabbit Angstrom series by John Updike
2. Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence by Shrayana Bhattacharya
3. Pundits from Pakistan by Rahul Bhattacharya
4. The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul Bhattacharya

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

If you decided to go analogue this year but still find yourself doomscrolling at 2 a.m., then this episode is for you.

In this latest episode, Tara sits down with Ria Chopra, writer, influencer, and Youth Advisor to Google, to unpack what it really means to grow up with the internet, how it builds identity, memory, relationships and sometimes completely messes with all of it in her debut book, “Never Logged Out.”

Ria dives into the rebirth of antiquated notions of love through dating apps alongside the rise of trad wife content and femininity gurus. And then she questions the new norm for weddings and proposals, where we put on a show thanks to our ‘panopticon gaze’, trying to make it all ‘Instagram worthy.’

Ria also gets honest about what it means to build a writing career online, navigating how much of your life (and the lives of people around you) becomes content and how to stay authentic without feeling like you’re ‘selling your soul’ to the algorithm.

Finally, they touch on some trends that might shape us, including AI influencers with millions of followers, the analogue revival (trend or genuine shift?), and why extreme gender polarisation online is something we should be paying closer attention to.

Press play, and then maybe pause to check how you're actually using the internet.

Books and documentaries mentioned in this episode:

1. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
2. Don’t Date Me, I’m Dalit by Christina Dhanraj
3. Algo Speak by Adam Aleksic
4. Inside the Manosphere by Louis Theroux (2026)

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.