Selected Videos
Namit Arora on Indians: The Avid–BLF Lecture New!
Longer of two trailers, with narration and music (3:00 minutes).
Shorter of two trailers, with captions and music (1:25 minutes).
A journey to Zambia, including a national park, Lusaka, Livingstone, Victoria Falls, and more.
A journey to the shores of Lake Malawi, a lovely national park, and the capital city, Lilongwe.
A journey along the beautiful coast of Mozambique, its countryside, and its capital city, Maputo.
For our learning, natural talents, and labor, what rewards and entitlements can we fairly claim?
Namit Arora's TEDx talk on why civic sense matters, why we Indians have so little of it, and what might raise it.
A documentary film about the Kumbh Mela 2013, an ancient pilgrimage festival that's by far the largest gathering of humans on the planet.
Selected Photo Essays
A metropolis of the Harappan Civilization in the Rann of Kutch (2600–1900 BCE), with amazing water harvesting and fine reservoirs.
How did Vijayanagar acquire its riches and vast armies that foreign travellers gushed about? What is its legacy in south India?
"Saints, I see the world is mad.
If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,
if I lie they trust me." –Kabir, 15th cent.
Third cent. CE Ikshvaku city, home to the great philosopher Nagarjuna and where rich women were the primary patrons of Buddhism.
Between 5–13th cent. CE, monks from across Asia came to learn grammar, logic, philosophy, theology, astronomy and medicine.
How did a culture that exalts penance and renunciation depict sex so vividly on temple walls? Why did this tradition disappear?
Selected Writing
1: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Weather
4: Tales From a Changing World
6: Modern Myths of Human Power
10: The Perils of Progress 29 Mar
"Nearly all meat-eaters in America participate quite directly in a cycle of suffering and cruelty of staggering scale"
A Brief History of a Civilization
by Namit Arora (2021)
“Illuminating, absorbing and a joy to read. I defy anyone to peruse it and not feel richly rewarded by its insights.” —John Keay
“A gem of a book ... seamlessly combines travelogues, historical accounts and biographies.” —Tony Joseph
A novel by Namit Arora (India edition, 2019)
“Namit Arora takes the lid off life in the Great Indian Dream of Silicon Valley.” —Jerry Pinto
“A cleverly written tale with a social conscience featuring themes of family, inclusiveness, racial divides, and the theatrics of love.” —Kirkus Reviews
A novel by Namit Arora (US edition, 2019)
“Namit Arora writes with an enviable briskness and ease ... Readers will be amused, saddened, angered and educated as they read this rigorously unsanitized version of the desi dream.” —Suvir Kaul
A novel by Usha Alexander (2018)
“A beautifully written story about love and war . . . This is historical fiction done right.” —Anil Menon
“Told with skill and consummate detail . . .” —Namita Gokhale
On Inherited Social Inequalities
by Namit Arora (2017)
By “one of our finest critics. In a raucous public sphere marked by blame and recrimination, these essays announce a bracing sensibility, as compassionate as it is curious, intelligent and nuanced.”
—Pankaj Mishra
A novelette by Usha Alexander (2017)
When Craig Olsen returns to Idaho to say goodbye to his dying uncle, who raised him, he comes face to face with matters he can no longer evade ... [He] is forced to confront the shadows of his past, including what he must accept and what he must disown about the people he loves.
A novel by Usha Alexander (2005)
"The clash of cultures and identities between the first and second-generation Indians in America is poignantly portrayed... a saga of hardship, betrayal, survival, spirit and enduranc... a good read."
—The Sunday Tribune