Today we’re joined by Aruna Chandrasekhar. Aruna is a climate and environmental journalist based out of Mumbai, and I wanted to have her on after reading an excellent essay she wrote for Equator called City of Sweat. If you’re listening to this from the UK, the US, Canada or indeed from a good chunk of the world, you experienced heatwaves this year. Very few places experienced them like India did however. So we talked about this summer’s heatwaves across the country and Aruna’s attempt to report on what it’s been like along with photojournalist Ishan Tankha. What folks in Mumbai went through is a warning for the rest of us, and note that Mumbai wasn’t even on the list of the world’s hottest 50 cities in April - all of which were in India. Yes, all. But this is TFTT so this point of this episode is not to simply make everyone mdapresseen - as we’d say in Lebanon - ie depressed, but merely to equip ourselves with the tools we need to face the worsening climate crisis. I wouldn’t be doing episodes like this otherwise.
We also talked about the Cockroach Janta Party and the ongoing protests, because we couldn’t not.
Recs:
Anything by Lina Mounzer
The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables that Connect our World by Samanth Subramanian
Run Modi Run by Rahul Bhatia
But first, some admin:
You can still register for my November class, the 5th and last class on modern Lebanese history and politics before I take a long break from it all. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Lebanon and why it matters so much to today’s geopolitical nightmare, I think you’ll benefit from taking this class.
I also wanna make the case for joining the Patreon of TFTT at Patreon.com/thefirethesetimes
Not only do you get early access to everything I do as well as other perks such as the monthly hangouts and exclusive video interviews, but you only need to commit to the first year. It’s cheaper to subscribe on a yearly basis anyway, but I understand that not everyone can commit for longer than that. If that’s you, please know that you can continue being on the Patreon for free after that initial year. Just message me closer to the date and I’ll send you a free invite.
That initial support is, I’m hoping, enough for me to make this project financially sustainable, and I’m grateful for the 200 or so listeners who currently support TFTT on Patreon.
Just a note: If you have an iPhone, I recommend subscribing from a browser instead of your Patreon application as it’s less expensive for you to do so since Apple decided it can rip people off through the Patreon app.
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Credit: Elia Ayoub (host, sound editor, episode design), the rosa artist (TFTT theme design, 2026-), Rap and Revenge (Music), Wenyi Geng (TFTT theme design, 2022-2026), Hisham Rifai (FTP theme design), Molly Crabapple (FTP team profile pics) and Antidote Zine (Transcriptions).