"RSS Doesn't Speak for All Hindus"

Vikram Sampath has authored four acclaimed books, Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold Story of The Wodeyars, My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician and Voice of the Veena, S. Balachander: A Biography and Savarkar: Echoes From A Forgotten Past, 1883-1924. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted as a play, 'Gauhar', by Lillete Dubey and is being adapted to a Hindi movie by Ashutosh Gowariker. Besides being a former senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, he is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India's first digital sound archive for vintage recordings. He is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, Indic Thoughts Festival and the ZEE Group's ARTH: A Culture Fest. Watch him take us through the idea of reclamation with his new book, Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi.