Sep 09 2025 to Sep 09 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Sundar Sarukkai’s second novel published recently titled Water Days is a reflective look at the changes in his home city, Bangalore, how everyday life gets formed and what happens to the city insidiously and quietly. He explores migration and the changing social fabric, patriarchy, language, linguistic conflicts, power, and who gets to belong in the melting pot that is Bangalore.

Water Days is not just a novel about a city; it is a novel about what it means to belong when everything around you is changing. Sarukkai does not romanticise Bangalore, but he listens carefully to it, and implores you to do so as well.

Somak Ghoshal says of the novel in Mint: “Water Days is as much a call to reckon with the transformation of a city as an object lesson in empathy, observation, and community living. As urban India becomes divisive, unliveable, and intensely self-serving, it is chroniclers like Sarukkai who continue to do the work that no policy maker or political leader is doing – inspiring us with feelings to make us more concerned and caring citizens.”

Sundar Sarukkai will be in conversation with Stanley Carvalho, followed by interaction with the audience.

Speakers

Sundar Sarukkai
Philosopher
Sundar Sarukkai has held the positions of Professor of Philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Founder-Director of the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, and Visiting Faculty at the Centre for Society and Policy, Indian Institute of Science. He is the founder of Barefoot Philosophers, an initiative to take philosophy to children and the public. He is the author of the following books: Translating the World: Science and Language; Philosophy of Symmetry; Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Science; What is Science?; JRD Tata and the Ethics of Philanthropy; Philosophy for Children; and The Social Life of Democracy, as well as two co-authored books with Gopal Guru: The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory and Experience, Caste and the Everyday Social. His last two books were critically acclaimed novels, Following a Prayer (2023) and Water Days (2025).  His forthcoming book is an introduction to philosophical thinking titled Being Human, Becoming Philosophical. For more details, see www.sundarsarukkai.in

Stanley Carvalho
Independent Journalist
Stanley Carvalho is a retired Reuters journalist with over three decades of experience in reporting, writing and editing. Prior to Reuters, he worked for two newspapers covering business and finance. Carvalho is the author/editor of four books: Bangalore Blue (2013), Past & Curious (2016), Playback – Sports Legends of Bangalore (2019), and Musings of a ‘Middleman’ (2024). A media trainer with the Reuters Foundation since 2020, he is also visiting faculty (Journalism) at Alliance University, Bangalore. Widely travelled, he holds a degree in Commerce (St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore) and a Master’s degree in Economics (Karnatak University) with additional diplomas in Journalism and Business Administration. Currently, Carvalho is a Bangalore-based independent journalist writing opinion pieces and features for Deccan Herald and The Hindu.