[Interview] 'Where Was The Kannada-Ness In Tipu Sultan's Kingdom?': Vikram Sampath

Dr Vikram Sampath, historian and author of several books on the Wodeyars in Mysuru and notable personalities from the past such as Veer Savarkar, has come out with his latest—Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (1760-1799).

In this insightful interview, historian Dr Vikram Sampath joins Swarajya’s Sharan Setty to discuss his latest book on the contrasting reigns of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan. Dr Sampath delves into his research methodology, the challenges of historical impartiality, and the paradoxes surrounding these two rulers.

He explores Tipu’s controversial policies, engagement with different sources, and the reliability of historical narratives in popular media.

Additionally, Dr Sampath sheds light on fostering historical inquiry through the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research (FIHCR) and the importance of institutional support for young historians.

Edited excerpts: 

This could have been two books easily, one on Haider and one on Tipu. Was there a conscious decision you made just to focus on Tipu? 

Out of the three lakh words, the book has about one lakh words — about one-third dedicated to Haider. I didn’t think it would spread so much, but as we discussed, he’s quite a fascinating character. Fascinating doesn’t mean he’s good—before people start saying I’m pro-Haider! I keep hearing all this, but for those who’ve read the book, his brutality, cunningness, and ruthless politics just built out over the pages.

I didn’t think it would go this far, but you can’t understand Tipu otherwise. The context—how he was different from his father—wouldn’t be there unless you expound on Haider’s life, struggles, and rags-to-riches story. And how this man (Tipu), who got it all on a platter, squandered it away.

I wanted it as two books, but the publisher said to whip it up. And nationally, would people buy a book on Haider Ali? That’s a conundrum. Ideally, he should have been more popular, considering his victories and the brutal statecraft he displayed.

[In this book], you're offering me both accounts, accounts that glorify and accounts that demonise Tipu Sultan. And mostly historical accounts. And even that is written with a certain lens. If you look at colonial records, that is almost written with a sense of hostility against Tipu in some cases. So to be able to sift through all of that, how do you still try to present an impartial book when the personality himself is so partial towards history?

I think that's the craft of a historian. We are taught to triangulate facts. The best part, at least not so much with Haider, but Tipu wrote prolifically. He was well-educated, documenting everything—his letters, embassy instructions, daily tasks, market goods—remote-controlling from Srirangapatna. Even his dreams were recorded, unlike Indian rulers or Indians today. We don’t document our lives, though we are history in the making. In 2050 or 2060, our worldview will be archival material for future historians, but we don’t see it that way. He seemed to have had that foresight.

There is so much that you’re unsure if he was exaggerating, but by and large, some truth exists. That’s the central piece—your subject himself cooperating as a biographer, sharing daily details, some very intimate. That became my main focus. Some records were in Persian, for which I had a translator, including the original registers of his dreams.

Along with that, other sources exist. British and French records likely counter his accounts. Tipu may say one thing about war, while his court chronicler, Mir Hussain Ali Kirmani, in Nishan-e-Haideri, gives another. The French documented much—his negotiations, letters to Mauritius, Louis XVI’s court, and embassies abroad.

Ambassadors to the Middle East maintained their registers and diaries, noting what they saw, people’s reactions to Tipu, India, Mysore, and its products—whether they were valued or good enough. Contemporary art, particularly in London, also plays a role.

Does that mean that Tipu was conscious of how he was perceived abroad? 

I think so, not only abroad, but everywhere he wanted to be. After his death, he gained more popularity outside India because people like Porter painted scenes we see today— the storming of Srirangapatna Fort, his body being discovered, or when he was alive. None of those painters ever came to India or knew what Srirangapatna looked like. They interviewed East India Company officers who had returned from war, using rough sketches and improvisations. These also became important contemporary sources, along with French accounts.

One set of sources, unfortunately, underutilised in India, is the Peshwa Daftar. Every letter that went in and out of the Peshwa’s court was chronicled. The 18th century was a Maratha century, with the Peshwas dominating Indian politics. Records in Marathi and old Marathi, including from the larger Maratha confederacies like the Holkars and Pathwardhans, became crucial as they frequently interacted with Tipu and Haider in wars.

Kannada accounts of the time, like Haider Nama, were also valuable. Written by a temple priest, it includes descriptions of a mural depicting Tipu subduing a tiger and snake—shown as symbols of his 'munificence and secular spirit', whereas they were protected by the king. So it could be sycophantic also, as Haider Nama almost calls him an incarnation of God, if not for some vices.

Maybe 100 or 150 years later, you had Bowring, Louis Rice with the gazetteers coming out and Mysore historians, whether it was Shama Rao or Hayavadana Rao. So it’s a conglomerate of all these different sources that I tried to put together to build a picture of the times and If you've read the book, you'll also know that it is not just the lives of these two people, it’s also placing them in the context of 18th century India—a tumultuous era of utter chaos—right from the Carnatic wars to all the succession wars.

Not one player comes out smelling of roses here. Even among the Marathas, there was no larger ideology—alliances shifted based on political expediency, as politics always has been.

Oral sources also add depth. The Mandyam Iyengars’ family letters describe how 700 men, women, and children of the Mandyam Iyengar community, who belong to the Bharadwaj Gotra, initially the people associated with Melukote but nothing to do with Melukote (the place) were killed by Tipu in Srirangapatna in Lakshmi Narasimha temple. A descendant and a senior scholar from Melukote confirm these events but clarify that Melukote itself wasn’t involved.

And the scholar also was a Iyengar, but not of the Mandyam Bharadwaj Gotra. They celebrate Diwali. So this is a misnomer that Melukote is plunged into darkness and all that. But in the capital city of Tipu, if 700 people had to be killed in that manner, maybe Wilkes or Hayavadana Rao would have made a mention of that.

But it is not mentioned in any of their accounts. The mentions are from Maharani Lakshmi Ammani’s letters to the British, carried by Mysore Pradhans of the Mandyam Iyengar community, detailing their struggles and sacrifices.

So that becomes a deductive kind of a thing, but that's always intrigued me about how that episode was not chronicled by any contemporary, including Kirmani, he would have gloated that 700 kafirs have been killed. Oral accounts persist in folklore and living memory, so I included them with disclaimers, ensuring honesty as a historian.

Other contemporary accounts include those of the Nairs and Mangalore Christians, with records from the archdiocese and the Kannada Barkur manuscript detailing temple destruction. Kodagu’s Pattole Palame offers oral history, and some temples still show damage. And there's this whole case of Lavanis, which I think Dr. (SL) Bhyrappa in his foreword also mentions that in those days these uneducated lavani singers were going everywhere and some had Muslim benefactors who would give them some bakshish and so for that they would make these eulogising lavanis.

So, a lot of people bring up these lavanis also as proof of the fact that Tipu is still revered by the country's populace. Girish Karnad, I think, talks very often about the lavanis in praise of Tipu. 

You've spoken about the paradox between the two (Haider Ali and Tipu) and how both personalities are so different from each other that there is almost no inspiration that they draw from each other because I think there was so much begrudging in the relationship that they did have. But what's interesting is how Haider himself had some sense of consciousness that he was not as educated, not as polished, so he would have to perhaps hold himself back even if he had some wild ideas which is why he probably never disallowed Dasara from being celebrated.

And he was not as vengeful in comparison to Tipu. How do you draw a comparison between these two personalities?

Vikram: I think Haider understood this very clearly, considering his life’s trajectory. He was bought off by the Maharaja of Mysore when debtors, to whom his father owed money, caught him and his brother, put them in a kettle drum, and started beating it. Their mother pleaded with the Maharaja, who, unaware of what he was getting into, showed mercy, paid for their release, and promised them positions in the Mysorean army when they came of age.

And there are so many instances where both, I think, father and son knew that they did not belong to the ‘class’. . .

. . .They knew they lacked royal pedigree. Even Kirmani mentions a supposed Quresh-tribe ancestry, and pro-Tipu historian Mohibul Hasan acknowledges the era’s tendency to exaggerate lineage. So, you need to show your high status. But he (Haider Ali) understood that completely overthrowing The Hindu king who was his benefactor, who had stood by him in his troubled childhood and a Hindu-majority kingdom, would not go down well without uprisings.

And at that time he was expanding the kingdom just after usurping it. Mysore under the Wodeyars had shrunk by the time Immadi Krishnaja Wodeyar was in power and they were an impoverished treasury. Anybody who came would be paid large sums of money to drive them back from the invasion.

And then you had corruption. Karnataka’s history of corruption would make today's politicians look small, all these daDwais, the Devrajaiah and Nanjarajaiah, were looting the treasury like anything. And so a couple of times, I think when the Peshwa or the Nizam invaded, the royal family had to pawn their jewels, personal belongings, and even silver vessels in the Ranganatha Swamy temple.

Mysore had been reduced to that state.

The first thing Haider did was expand his kingdom with the Bidnur conquest, making it his main base. He always calls that his Swarajya because that is where he conquered it with his might, whereas this he had usurped.

He minted his coins, the Haidari Pagodas, in Bidnur, not Mysore, because there, he only officiated under the Maharaja, who remained the Karta of the kingdom. Haider was conscious of this but was no less brutal. There are instances when he goes to Malabar in Kodagu, he has like five rupees for every head that is brought and Wilkes also mentions that he sits ghoulishly counting heads and distributing money as a reward for people who are bringing, blood-soaked heads and after 700 heads have come, then two heads come of two young boys who are very good looking.

And then he says, 'Oh, these people are so good-looking. So let's stop the attack.’ So he had all those barbarities. But within the kingdom, that's what people do- what they want. You worship anything, as long as I have power, that's all that matters.

But even in his contemporary accounts, this overemphasis on religion is not there in Haider's. Killing the Nayars or Kodavas can be seen as political conquest—eliminating opponents or rebels. So that's, that's still understandable. But, there's no mention of wanting to establish true faith or calling them kafirs or infidels. But in Tipu's, you have that all through.

So that difference becomes very clear that right from (Tipu’s) childhood, that consciousness that I am different from the others and the other has to be subdued seems to have been very prominent there. So Haider, in that way, comes across as a jolly-go-lucky man, always given to a lot of un-Islamic acts, including being addicted to drinking, womanising and coarse language.

In comparison, Tipu was so austere. According to some of the accounts, I believe no part of his body, except his hands, was ever visible.

Education does not necessarily mean you become wiser. So, an uneducated Haider was perhaps wiser and more diplomatic and strategic.

What are you doing with your love for languages? I want to get a controversy out of you on this because Haider spoke multiple languages like the average Indian from the South. He spoke Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, etc. 

I think he knew French also a bit because of the conversations with them and everything.

So why didn't that get passed on to Tipu? And Tipu was quite particular about certain languages. 

Yes, it's quite a travesty that the Kannada and culture department of Karnataka is part of the Tipu Jayanti and other celebrations. Whereas this was a man who was probably not pro-Kannada at all.

There used to be Marathi and Kannada in the court because a lot of Maharashtrian Brahmins were there as accountants, but the Persian language replaced both. Even after his death, the British found his library contained hardly any Kannada works.

In his personal collection, everything is Persian and Arabic, including accounts of physics, geography and poetry and loads of books on jihad and what it means to be a mujahideen and ghazi, holy warrior. All that was in Persian. He wrote his dreams in Persian. The only time he writes Kannada letters is to the Shankaracharya, which both he and his father wrote.

But everything else, including messages to emissaries and ambassadors, was in Persian, as was Mir Hussain Ali Kirmani’s writing. So where was the Kannada-ness in his kingdom, besides the Haider Nama, which was written back then? 

If a king was popularising a language, he would inspire his courtiers to write in the language he wanted to popularise, right? Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, in the 1920s and 30s, urged his musicians to compose in Kannada to popularise it. Mysore Vasudevacharya and others. I believe they said—found it difficult for Sancharas and Nirvals—but Hari Muthaiah Bhagavatar managed a few compositions. This reflected Kannada consciousness and an effort to fill literary gaps. 

For those who claim Tipu was pro-Kannada, the proof lies in how few Kannada works were commissioned during his reign. Even in independent Karnataka, many revenue department terminologies—Khaata, Khardi, Pahani, Khaneesumari, Gudasta, Takhte, Thari, Khushki, Bagaytu, Banjaru, Jamabandi, Ahavalu, Khaavandu, Amaldar, Shirastedar—are Persian, dating back to Tipu’s time.

And if you also see the Muslims in southern India, whether it is in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, they speak the local language. But largely in Karnataka, the Muslims don't. 

Tipu and the anti-colonial resistance. How was he with his treatment of the Wodeyars? And how did he perceive them? Has he written of them?

I also want to discuss his fascinating dreams because, in a general context, you see that many famous personalities have these premonitions.

And I do believe that somehow if you tend to overthink, there tends to be that psychological effect on you. And you've been studying history. Personalities, across the spectrum in India's history.

So do you see such examples, not to say whether it's good or bad but beyond that? 

Sometimes it had no meaning. And some of the dreams end with- ‘At this point, I woke up’, which means immediately after he woke up, he wrote it so that it remains. After two, or three days, you'll forget what you saw in a dream. So those became his interpretation. There’s an instance that I quote often where there's a big katora in which there are shaligramas, the Holy stone which, Vaishnavas worship as an embodiment of Vishnu.

And then there are shaligramas and badami, and he sees himself sitting and rolling that pot and then all the shaligramas are turning into badami. Then he wakes up and interprets it himself- just as a shaligrama has converted to badami so all the Hindus need to be converted to Islam as ordained by the higher power. So from that, [he] almost justifies all the time that I am doing this conversion, not out of my own volition, but for a higher cause.

Similarly, you also have Prophet Muhammad or some angel that appears suddenly and says, go so far, break that temple. And there's one more where he goes into a temple and there are lots of female deities and then he sees one deity's eyes start rolling all over.

And he wakes up and interprets that as the Marathas. That they are so effeminate, 'pansies and sissies'. So I think these were giving him some solace when he was getting defeated by them. 

Another thing is the treatment of women, having concubines. Even Haider. He was quite affectionate about some of them in the sense that he never wanted them to go out or anything, but many of them, he never even interacted with. 

He [Haider] had some 4,000 spread across the kingdom. But I don't think he was affectionate at all because he was so jealous and possessive. There's one episode where he kills someone.

In mujra, the dance. . . [once] one of the courtiers makes eye contact with a poor dancer and she also looks, for which I think she is strangled to death.

And this courtier is skinned alive. So no affection coming there at all and all kinds of weird protocols, like if he was in the mood for sexual intercourse someday, then all of them had to stand in a row with a nose ring in their hand and whoever’s nose ring he took had to go to his bedroom.

So these types of things are there, but I wouldn't hold these against kings of those times. I think it was common for people to have multiple mistresses and concubines, even now people have. But Tipu isn't such a womaniser at all. So there also, he was quite a purist.

But in terms of sexual violence, taking away people to the zanana and harem, he did. Haider was a different thing. He was also drawing a lot of sexual pleasure from the people whom he captured. The dolu lady used to go as kuravanji's soothsayer from village to village. And they had access to people's homes. So they would see if there was a pretty girl in that family, news would go to Haider and he would send for the girl to be taken away the next day to the harem.

What's your take on the history movies that are made?

Cinema reaches out to everybody, the educated and not so educated and so on.

But I feel in India, historical period drama is so much trash. They're all reduced to caricatures. That is mainly my opinion, filmmakers don't invest much in research. Which should be the mainstay. A historian should be an integral part of the filmmaking process. And that's not just the story.

Wikipedia will give you stories of everything. But as a historian, I have immersed myself in the times in which these people lived. So everything right from maybe what they ate, what they wore, till the scenery of that time, the geography, the buildings; a historian will have a ringside view of all of that.

You can pay crores (of rupees) to an actor, but the same thing for a thinking person who will make your research foolproof, you don't. There's also excessive romanticisation. People remember Bajirao not for his bravery but as a Road Romeo obsessed with Mastani, reducing him to a caricature.

Even in cultural history, when you see things like Heeramandi, I researched extensively on the tawaif culture and the devadasi traditions. The show never depicted them discussing art. Across eight episodes, there’s no mention of thumri, kathak training, or poetry. Instead, they only conspire—how to steal a man or seize property. That may have been part of their world, but they were also keepers of the arts. When were they shown learning music, debating poetic nuances, or composing poetry?

That won't attract eyeballs. As far as industry, statecraft policies, land grants, conversions and all of that were concerned: the practices that existed before Haider and Tipu, how much of those were continued and for what reason? Was it because of mere lethargy or were there too many things to be done in the process that it took a while and what kind of an influence has it had later on?

And you were also mentioning some of the terms that we use today. So in that sense, how much of it was diplomacy, like the grants to temples? How much of it was carefully crafted by both the rulers and how much of it was a mere consequence of their duration of rule?

Yes, so one is this Sringeri Shankaracharya episode people talk about. No doubts about that because I've extracted letters from the Sringeri archives where both Haider and Tipu wrote very eulogising letters to the Shankaracharya, maybe realising he is an important pontiff of a mutt. But the grants they gave to temples, if looked at clinically, actually reduced as Tipu's reign progressed. Most seem to be from Haider's time, probably continuing from the Wadiyar era. Some were likely just pariharas and pujas, as he was deeply superstitious.

. . .The Pindaris were the irregulars in the Maratha. They come and destroy the mutt. They vandalise even the murti of Sharda Devi, and that causes so much angst that the Shankaracharya sits on a fast unto death. And this whole thing sends tremors to Pune. And there are letters where the Peshwa writes apologies, saying—this is not part of our state policy, this happened inadvertently and whatever money has been vandalised, we'll give you double the thing. 

He even chides the Miraj Patwardhans, saying it was under their watch that this happened. At that time, Tipu writes to the Shankaracharya saying don't take money from them and he chides them that a minute's bad decision can lead to generations of misery and ill will, and says you don't take money from them, I'll give you.

So that could also be realpolitik statecraft—stealing a march over your opponent. But almost one year after that episode in Sringeri, the Shankaracharya makes a visit to Pune as a state guest. So if there was angst and ranker against the Peshwa in his heart, he would not have gone after one long year. 

Tipu also came to break the deity Guruvayurappan. It’s known because the priests get to know and remove the idol and take it away to this place called Ambalapuzha. And even now the place where God got a temporary shelter is worshipped.

But then you find in the registers, his grant to Guruvayur temple. So it's a very strange thing. Are you giving a grant and then breaking the deity? Then what is the grant for?

There was this chela brigade that Haider used to have. All the Nayars and others whom he would convert, they would be called chelas and they would have one ring or something on their ear as a symbol of their slavery. Some guy called Hydros Kutti, who was there in Guruvayur, shielded the temple or probably brought in the news that they were coming to break the idol and gave the priests enough time to take it away to some other place.

. . .So this religious policy, I think it's such a peeled onion. If you just say, oh, Marathas also attacked Sringeri. No, they were not the Marathas. They were the Pindaris and the Pindaris were largely Muslim. 

The same patterns emerged in Goa also, if you look at it like after Chhatrapati Shivaji came there, he restored a lot of the temples and idols were moved away from one place to the other when the Portuguese came.

We see that everywhere. Even Nathadwara, Srinathji going all the way from Awadh to Rajputana. So our deities have been moving crisscross across and now so many underground deities are coming up. So yeah, we've been the artful badger who's been surviving through centuries.

So I was reading this book by Sanjaya Baru on India's power elite. There's a chapter where he mentions the role of the upper classes in the administration during colonial times and the Mughals. And he mentions how, of course, Brahmins were involved as administrators and Vaishyas were involved as accountants.

. . .So in that sense, tell me something interesting about how and whether they would be entrenched within the system. Did they have a conscious choice of trying to do something, say trying to liberate or doing something good for the locals or were they helpless and were just trying to do what they could for themselves?

Very varied because in Haider's time, a lot of the people in the firmament were Brahmins. One of the most powerful courtiers of his time was this man called Anchesha Maya and he was also a Mandyam Iyengar. But he was a very vicious character who gave barbaric punishments to people. He would make what were in those days known as sullu pattis, place false allegations against one another, against his opponents, and then they would be flogged. 

. . .There were so many others who all turned treacherous under Tipu. And so he eliminates most of them.

Especially after the third Anglo-Mysore war, when he lost whatever little confidence he had about the Hindus and particularly the Brahmins. Other than Poornaiah and one or two others, you see him putting Muslims in the administration and the army only by them being Muslims, not whether they had merit, education, or qualification.

Even a historian like Mr.Gopal, talks about how the administration was completely dominated by Muslims right in the last decade of Tipu's rule.

. . .Once in open court, he [Tipu] casually tells Poornaiah to convert. And since Poornaiah is also a diplomatic guy, he says he’ll consider it and then runs away from the court. But Tipu's mother, who's sitting in the purdah, comes out and admonishes him saying, your father never did such things and that is why he was able to maintain his rule. If you do such foolhardy stuff, your end is near.

One more controversy. Because you choose these topics, it's incredibly brave of you to explore these personalities. Veer Savarkar and now, Tipu Sultan. There's a genuine need for good research on these personalities to throw more light.

But is it also a conscious choice of yours? How do you decide on what to write? 

My topics decide me.

Okay, now I'll put you in a spot. Suppose there is a movie on Godse coming. Would you genuinely as a historian want to consider writing something on personalities like that, even if it's so dividing perhaps?

Today, everything about history is dividing, divisive, polarising. When I wrote Gauahar Jaan, even that had created some trouble because I remember mentioning that Badi Malka Jaan, Gauahar's mother used to give grants to a particular masjid in Calcutta. Then some fellow from Calcutta, I think the head of that mosque, had written to me saying, do you have the actual record? Because if this mosque has taken a grant from a Tawaif, then it is haram and the prayer we offer here is haram. So I said, I didn't want to be the cause of some mosques getting demolished.

What I mean to say is, that these figures are not polarizing. We make them polarizing. So then a historian could lose their job. I'll just be sitting and writing chiclet and fiction. So it doesn’t matter either way.

And I think you've done a great job at institutionalising a lot of support for young and upcoming historians, and even people who generally don't have that bandwidth because you need support, people who can assist you with research, time, and monetary support also.

And you've been doing that and it's been of great help. So in that sense what is it that you envision perhaps a few years down the line?

I see for sure that there is always a lot of interest and optimism, despite the gloom among the young people in India. You talk and give lectures at so many places, and interact with so many youngsters. So you know that a lot of them may not read but listen to these podcasts, that's why I engage in so many of them because even in airports, they'll come for a selfie and say we have heard you.

I said, I'm a writer, you should have read me. They’ve not read my book, but they’ve heard me. This podcast will also probably capture five per cent or one per cent of this book, but even that much is enough rather than not knowing anything at all.

I see youngsters are showing interest and that this is a new hunger that lets us know about our past. And especially with this whole narrative that things have been hidden, things have been told wrongly to you. So there's a quest, obviously, about the truth. It's a normal, young, rebellious mind, which works there. But, I think there is a dire need for institutionalising this.

And those on the non-left, are very good at complaining all the time, not taking responsibility. I don't want to generalise and offend everyone. But by and large the solutions are very few. It's only complaints, and faults. You're a good doctor to diagnose the problem, but the doctor should also administer some medicine.

Either you blame the Thapar, Habib, Jha school or whatever. You blame the Modi government saying they've not done anything, which is true also. They've done precious nothing, but at the same time, what are you doing?

There's only so much the governments can do.

Governments can do a lot. There's to scale up and to go particularly across schools. I mean, in 10 years, nothing has changed; three generations have come and gone in that.

For a young child in India, his or her brush with history is only up to class 10. 

It's been 11 years, which means that a nine or a 10-year-old child, would be a full-grown adult now. 

Yes. And give up history after maybe the age of 15 or 16 unless they take up arts. So many have gone away and they've been indoctrinated in that. And once you come to the university setup, you already have the same books of the people you love voodoo doll pins on, Jha and Thapar, books which are being studied for UPSC exams. 

So, that's how this foundation for Indian historical and cultural research, FIHCR started last year, largely with the help of Bhavish Aggarwal of the Ola Foundation who is also very passionate about it. And we want to do something.

As a young man himself, I went to his factory recently during the EV revolution and saw firsthand the kind of technologies and R&D that are being developed there. You could do something rather than keep talking or complaining. So this is how the FIHCR is giving fellowships in the name of Sir Jadunath Sarkar to write books. We have a projects team where we take up a research project which is incubated in an educational institution, a university.

Our first project is with Nalanda on the rise and fall of Buddhism in India. Then we have a vertical called Yuva which reaches out to children and young adults to make Indian history interesting and exciting for them. It can be meticulously researched, but you talk to them in the language that they understand or in the format, length, and attention span that they can grasp. 

I don't know how many will see this podcast of ours, but if you make it into a reel and then entice them with all those graphics, more people will see that. And that can go viral. So if this is how youngsters today are consuming info, then we need to do that and not be preachy.

And we're also trying to see how modern technology and AI, etc can be used to digitize manuscripts, translate them and all of that. So we have a vast canvas of work left to do and I find my life slipping out of my hands. There is no time to complain. And I think we can all do something more substantial than just conclaves and podcasts. 

So thank you so much. It's heartfelt for all of us, what you've said towards the end. And I hope there is more initiative that the youngsters learn to take themselves. Find support, do things on your own, get noticed, and sort of build that for yourself because we are at the crossroads of history, right? It's one of the most important phases of 2,000 years of Indian history, and we should at least try getting somewhere in the footnotes. And I think that will make sense for us to contribute something to nation-building.

Thank you so much, Vikram, all the very best with whatever you have in the pipeline. I hope to have a conversation around your next book, whenever it comes out.

Thank you, Sharan. Always a pleasure and good luck to you too.