May 09 2026 to May 09 2026 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

She was stubborn, fearless before teachers and gods alike, and completely convinced she was right about everything.

She usually was.

Vasudhendra wrote these essays after losing his mother. What started as an expression of grief turned out to carry so much more: a son slowly realising that the woman he’d spent years misreading was, all along, just a person. Flawed, fierce, and holding everything together anyway.

I Love My Amma was originally written in Kannada, the language of his home. It found readers in Tamil and Telugu. To mark the release of the English edition, author Vasudhendra joins translator Narayan Shankaran in conversation with Harini Nagendra. They discuss the essays, the North Karnataka childhood that shaped them, and what it means to carry something this personal from one language into another. After the conversation, they will take audience questions.

Speakers

Vasudhendra
Author
Vasudhendra is a bestselling author in Kannada. Among his fifteen books are the critically acclaimed Mohanaswamy, which has been translated into several languages, the historical novel Tejo Tungabhadra that has become hugely popular, and the award-winning collection of essays Nammamma Andre Nangishta. He is the recipient of several literary awards, including the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Book Prize and the U.R. Ananthamurthy Award. After working as a software professional for over twenty years, Vasudhendra now runs his own publication house, Chanda Pustaka.

Narayan Shankaran
Writer & Translator
Narayan Shankaran served as a Development Officer with the Life Insurance Corporation of India for over three decades. He holds an MBA and a PhD in Management Studies, with a specialization in emotional and social intelligence. An accomplished writer and translator working between Kannada and English, his original English essay collection, Figuratively Speaking: Musings of the Lockdown (2020), complements his notable translations. These include S.V. Ranganath’s travelogue Sindhu Darshan (2019); Guruprasad Kaginele’s short stories, published as The Preferred Pronoun and Other Stories (2024); and, most recently, Kaginele’s critically acclaimed Kannada novel Kaayaa (Penguin Random House India, 2025).

Harini Nagendra
Director, Research Centre & School of Climate Change & Sustainability, Azim Premji University
Harini Nagendra is Director of Research Centre, and Director, School of Climate Change and Sustainability, at Azim Premji University. Her work focuses on urban ecology, forest conservation and climate change amongst other themes. She is a well-known public speaker and writer on issues of urban sustainability in India Her books include Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future; Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities; So Many Leaves, and Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities. She also writes the acclaimed Bangalore Detectives Club series, a set of historical mysteries set in 1920s Bangalore.