Sandip Roy's Dispatches from Kolkata: Recent Episodes
Sandip Roy
Every week NPR contributor (and former San Franciscian) Sandip Roy brings you a little taste of the 'new India' – a letter home from his other home.
There's a current trend in Bengal called "Deem therapy," but while it's a great pleasure for the public at the moment, Sandip wonders when the yolk will run out.
Last week was Rath Yatra, the chariot festival in India. Sandip hops aboard and takes us on a trip to revive a once thriving system of tansit in Kolkata.
On the 250th Anniversary of American Independence, Sandip Roy reflects on what then "American Dream" means to him.
A controversy over a 4,500 year old "Dancing Girl" once again raises the question over what constitutes obscenity and vulgarity. Sandip Roy covers his eyes and looks into the situation.
Even as corporates and multinationals move away from DEI policies that once made June an explosion of rainbow, LGBT lives are not going back into the closet. Sandip Roy visits and old tattered building in Mumbai to explain.
As the Whitehouse lawn showcases one very specific version of America, Sandip speaks with someone who has another version.
It's the "controvery over public art" game show again, this time in Kolkata. Sandip Roy kicks it around for us.
Sandip talks with author Anuradha Roy about her home in the Himalayas and how they've witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change.
They say you cannot ever go home again but as long as there is a paash baalish you can come pretty close. what IS a Paash Baalish? Sandip Roy explains.
As David Attenborough turns 100, Sandip remembers his mother and all the things left to be done.
West Bengal just went to the polls with several million voters struck off the electoral rolls, banished to some kind of limbo land. The Special Intensive Revision or (SIR) process was meant to clean up the voter list. But we will be no nearer a consensus on how to determine what citizenship really means.
It's election time in India and that means noise and songs and speeches. But this year both parties are using fish to prove their local credentials.
Bengali New Year celebrations are filled with street fairs, noise, colors and.... food. The more deep fried, the better. Sandip partakes in the festivities.
It would seen that in India, at least, there's an acceptence of non-binary people. Ah, but there's always one more box to check.
A TikTok video by Madhu Raju, an Indian immigrant in the US on an H1-B visa sparks a lot of controversy, but Sandip wonders, are we missing the point?
Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to rich and powereful people seems never ending, but Sandip wonders if we had been invited onto that gilded island, how many of us would have had the willpower to refuse.
When we go on vacation we visit the sights, try the local cuisine, and buy a few souvenirs. But on a trip to Dhenkanal in the eastern Indian state of Odisha recently Sandip Roy saw the hands that make the craft. His friend Milena led them into the home of a weaver.
The 2024 Presidential Election has marked an irreversible cultural change in the U.S. Sandip Roy sees the connection in an unlikely symbol, the Postage Stamp.
Royal past meets the tourist future at India’s Palace Hotels. Sandip had a nostalgic visit to Dhenkanal in the Eastern state of Odisha.
Durga Puja, Kolkata's biggest festival comes face to face with the biggest protests the city has seen in recent years.
In a city chaotic with light and noise, the Goddess has come home and is calling out to us. Now if we could just cut through the static and be on the same wavelength.
Mahatma Gandhi is revered as the Father of the Nation in India. But how was he as Father of his own family? His grandson Gopal talks about the legacy of the Mahatma with Sandip.
Food is the way we often break down barriers between people AND food is also the way we “other” the other, as the recent presidential debate shows.
Durga Puja is a season of homecoming, but this year artists turned protesters in Kolkata cannot shake off the image of the Durga who did not get to go home.
We are trained from the beginning on how to win but no one teaches us how to lose even though life often comes with more losses than wins. To lose with grace is also the mark of true champions.
Sandip Roy attends a raucous protest about the recent rape and murder of a junior doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College that brought out thousands of women who are tired of excuses.
As India celebrates it’s 77th Independence Day people are telling the stories of the freedom fighters who didn’t make the history books.
What used to be a wondrous event every year in India, has this year taken on a darker hue. Sandip Roy looks to the skies and considers this seasons monsoons.
The US presidential election is playing out in India as a big fight between the two southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
In an age where everyone can be a social media influencer, the recent attempt on former President Trump’s life shows that experience still matters.
A five-month countdown to India's most expensive wedding ever ended last week with the big bash that saw celebrities from all over the world descend on Mumbai. Sandip did not have an invite but sends us a postcard nonetheless.
Almost 100 years after Gandhi, the British Prime Minister seems to calling for a ‘British’ Swadeshi movement. But as Sandip Roy points out, Sunak’s call for a nationalist rebellion has only ignited a meme war.
June has become Pride Month all over the world. In Kolkata this month groups are celebrating 25 years of Sappho for Equality, the city's oldest support group for lesbian. bisexual women and transman rights as well as 25 years of the first Pride Walk in India.
Polar ice caps are melting. Huge swathes of the world are sweltering under record high temperatures. But how do you talk about climate change to children, the ones who will inherit this changing world of ours?
India's cola wars have gotten more interesting with the entry of a new cola which is actually an old cola. Campa Cola was once a Coca Cola substitute in India. Now it wants to be a competitor.
Fountain pens might seem part of a vanishing world but a group of pen enthusiasts seen signs of hope in India. Sandip visits a Fountain Pen festival in Kolkata.
Some hailed it as a brave new financial revolution. But where there’s big money to be made, and made fast, there will also be people playing fast and loose. Just as crypto grew by leaps and bounds in India, so did crypto crime.
There’s a new focus this election season in India, a new type of influencer, the ‘Netizen.’ But what does this really mean for the democratic process?
An Indian institution turns 90 at the end of this week.It’s not a bricks and mortar institution. It’s one of India’s most prolific writers - Bond, Ruskin Bond.
It’s election season in India and time for two months of marching bands and rallies, but not much talk about economic and healthcare rights. In fact, in India economic rights became known as “directive principles of state policy.” Sandip Roy questions what that actually means.
It’s election season in India and time for two months of marching bands and rallies, but not much talk about economic and healthcare rights. In fact, in India economic rights became known as “directive principles of state policy.” Sandip Roy questions what that actually means.
As the Indian heat descends on Kolkata, Sandip considers how our perceptions about the rituals of summer have changed.
Nepal’s constitution protects sexual minorities. Most recently after a long struggle Nepal registered its first same sex marriage, something India next door has refused to do. And now Nepal’s tourism industry is set to cash in.
The very word vacation has its roots in vacare or to be unoccupied. But in reality vacations are anything but unoccupied. Sandip recounts the woes of waking up at the crack of dawn to make your checklist items while on vacation.
Sandip explores a 100-year-old history of Bengali comics and what they gained and lost from their encounter with Laurel and Hardy and Tarzan and Tintin.
A new food fight has erupted in India. And it’s about one of the most famous dishes to come out of India, one that every other Indian restaurant in the west usually must carry.
The stars are aligned this week. Its a week for Holi, Ramadan and Good Friday, which is a perfect way to showcase how many faiths in Kolkata exist shoulder to shoulder.
Sandip began his Dispatches from Kolkata thinking he would tell listeners in the Bay Area stories from India to show that we were ultimately all connected in this global local world. But as we cross 500 episodes of Dispatches, he discovers something more.
Self-help books promise a secret formula to individual success and Jay Shetty is just the latest Dale Carnegie to do so. But, even after the Guardian’s expose on Shetty, Sandip wonders if the problem lies elsewhere.
Kolkata is often regarded as a city that has slipped behind other metropolises in India when it comes to money and industry. But the country's crime bureau says it's one of the safest cities in India. And some activists are hoping to keep it that way by encouraging more street life instead of complaining about crowds and dirt.
Sandip Roy remembers his childhood radio guru, Amen Sayani died last week at the age of 91.
Pandit Chitresh Das is credited with bringing the Indian classical dance of kathak to America. Now the Chitresh Das Institute takes it back on tour in India but this time with live piano in accompaniment.
Kolkata has India's only Chinatown. The Chinese community is dwindling but they still put up a good show for the Chinese New Year. Sandip got a taste.
It’s wonderful that lit fests are coming out of their English cocoons. At this years Kolkata Literary Meet I noticed so many other Indian dialects on stage, often with an interpreter doing live translation.Finally it seems we are no longer lost in translation. Instead we are finding ourselves.
Kolkata has a reputation as a city that loves books. One evening, at least, it came through, making for our winter of content.
Sukumar Ray is sometimes called the Edward Lear of Bengal. Abol Tabol his book of nonsense rhymes was part of my growing up. And I dare say every Bengalis. That book turned 100 this year. Now we understand why his nonsense still makes so much sense.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's images of the Indian islands of Lakshadweep triggered a social media spat with the Maldives.
Though the plea to recognize same-sex marriage was quashed by the Indian Supreme Court, queer life continues to bloom in India in many different colors making December a veritable Pride Month.
When artist Benigna Chilla got a frayed sari, more than six decades old, from Sandip's mother it set the stage for an artistic conversation that spanned generations and continents.
Sandip Roy’s search for the Christmas experience has taken him from old markets in Kolkata to resorts in the Russian River wine country in California...
Sanjay Patel was the first South Asian to make a Pixar film, Sanjay’s Super Team, but after 20 years with the studio he was ready for a new adventure.You can visit Sanjay Patel’s colorful world of Gods and Goddesses on the Ghee Happy YouTube channel.(https://www.youtube.com/@gheehappystudio)
Sandip Roy tries to call his mother, but it proves to be more challenging than one would expect.
Joe Biden and other world leaders landed in Delhi to a grand multicolored G-20 welcome. But the beautification of the city left some of its residents seeing red.
This week's 'Teacher's Day' celebration in India was marred by reports of a teacher telling her class to beat a student for not knowing his multiplication tables.
On August 23, 2023 India became the first nation in the world to pull off a soft landing on the moon's south pole.
The death of a Kolkata teen allegedly because of ragging, or hazing, has re focused attention on bullying in schools and colleges.
India celebrated its 77th Independence Day this week. Sandip talks with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni about the turbulent and traumatic years of Independence.
Barbie has made the color pink a"thing," but in India a Bollywood film is even more pink and it celebrates a shade of pink called Rani Pink.
The release of Barbie the movie seems the perfect excuse to look for the origins of patriarchy with science writer Angela D Saini.
With social media app Threads trying to trip up Twitter, Sandip Roy wonders about why we have the itch to be on these platforms at all.
Sandip takes a ride back in time on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, an UNESCO World Heritage train.
the inclusion of Millets as the main grain of the White House dinner with Narendra Modi signals a sea change in the perception of ancient grains.
At a time when June is celebrated as Pride month both in Kolkata and San Francisco, Sandip reflects on a what it took to reconcile both parts of one's identity. Queer and South Asian, and all those who helped make it happen.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has always featured women in her writing and her new book Independence is no different.
In the wake of the terrible train accident in eastern India Sandip remembers a gentler kind of train travel in India.
Sandip Roy remembers Tina Turner as the only rockstar whose poster he put up in his bedroom as a boy in Kolkata.
River towns in India are often temple towns and come with their own rituals. But Sandip Roy visits Jabalpur which comes with boatmen who talk in rhyme.
April was Dalit History Month in India. But even though caste-ism is officially outlawed in India, some of the old biases remain.
Kolkata’s streets continue to clog with cars. The fate of an already established, cleaner transit option, teeters in the balance.
Kolkata was the first city in India to have streetcars and the only city to still have them.
The short documentary Oscar win for The Elephant Whisperers is being widely celebrated in India because it's a first for India. But what will it mean for India's elephants, both the ones in the wild and the ones in captivity?
Sandip Roy is getting nostalgic after Naatu Naatu wins an Oscar for best song in a film.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and former award winning San Francisco radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Ex-pat author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
On World Animal Day I think about Anjali Gopalan and her marvelous sanctuary All Creatures Great and Small.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
Author and award winning radio personality Sandip Roy comments on life from his home in Kolkata, India.
The Sundarbans in Bengal, India have become a speeded up version of global climate change.
We don’t have to win the war against Covid as much as we need to learn to make peace with its existence in our world for now.
The COVID-19 lockdown has forced many street vendors inside, but now the sounds of the street are returning.
The COVID pandemic has had a terrible effect on all of us, and opened our eyes to some of those who were invisible before.
I had assumed the lockdown was a time when the frenetic world would finally slow down...
Nature marks the season whether or not our human world is out of whack, but soon it will all be back to its old noisy polluted self. But for these few weeks as humans suffer, the earth is healing itself. I just wish we didn’t need a pandemic to hear our earth breathe.
This week Sandip remembers his early childhood attraction to that group of 'mustachioed morons.'
As the world self-isolates and more and more countries enact lockdown policies, Sandip reflects on the connections between us, and the responsibility of us all to remain apart.
The Indian festival ‘Holi’ is usually a riot of abandonment and color…but then Corona came to town.
Sandip Roy looks at all the ways Trump’s recent visit to India has been a benefit to all concerned. To see the video of Trump as Baahubali visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPGZ1IuFd9c
Sandip takes us to one of his favorite places, the Kolkata Book Fair, now in it’s 44th year!
After watching “Tales of the City” on Netflix, Sandip reflects on his own tale of the city.