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.

What if the most defining moment of your career was the one you never planned?

In this episode of Books & Beyond, Tara speaks with Dr. Ashok Ganguly, former Chairman of Hindustan Unilever, former Rajya Sabha member, and author of We Are Our Future.

From failing in school to becoming a global business leader, Dr. Ganguly reflects on a life shaped as much by chance as by choice. He shares the idea that who we become is influenced long before we make conscious decisions; by our genes and our environment.

Tara and Dr. Ganguly moves through different defining chapters of his life: an accidental interview that ended up shaping his career, the decision to return to India at a time when pursuing a life abroad was a dream for many, and his years navigating leadership and nation-building during a transformative period in India’s history.

But beyond career and success, this episode is also a reflection of failure, the confidence instilled in him by his parents, the support of his wife, and the grief of losing her. It's really about how he makes sense of it all in hindsight.

Tune in, there’s a lot to take away here.

‘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.