AT LEISURE | 'Our Ancestors Were The Toughest Buggers Around': Why Amish Tripathi Choked Up Talking About His Father

It’s 2 pm. The video call connects at precisely the appointed hour. Amish Tripathi appears on screen against a backdrop of warm lighting and a carefully arranged bookshelf with copies of his latest Cholas — the studied informality of someone who has done many such interviews.

He asks for coffee, which he'll sip intermittently throughout our conversation, and there's a calm about him that feels deliberate, almost meditative. At 51, the author of the Shiva Trilogy looks settled into himself in a way that younger writers rarely manage.

"We hope you had your lunch," I begin, the formality feeling slightly awkward even as I say it.

"Yes, I have, thankfully," he replies, and we sort out the logistics, framing, timing, the usual preamble. But within minutes, we're past the pleasantries and into deeper waters.

I begin with how I first read his work in 2010, in the tenth standard, and how his journey from the Shiva Trilogy through the Ramchandra series to now the Cholas has traced a map of India itself. His latest book brings together a Tamil warrior, a Gujarati merchant, a scholar king from central India, and a man from Kerala—a deliberate pan-Indian team facing an external invader.

Is it, I ask, a pushback against the narrative that India fell due to internal divisions?

Tripathi leans forward slightly—something he repeats throughout our conversation whenever he wants to emphasise a point. "Good question," he says, and his hands begin to conduct an invisible orchestra as he speaks. "Let us say it is part narrative change, part looking with a sense of fairness to our ancestors, and part a bit of hope as well."

What follows is not the measured academic response one might expect, but something closer to a measured manifesto. His voice rises with an intensity that makes it clear this isn't just authorial philosophy. It's personal conviction.

"There is no doubt that we lost many battles for a thousand years," he says, ticking off facts on his fingers. "There is no doubt that foreigners ruled us for a thousand years. That is a fact." He pauses, and I can see him gathering momentum for what comes next. "But what there is also no doubt of is that those foreigners who invaded and conquered us went to many other parts of the world as well."

He begins listing civilisations like a litany of the fallen: Zoroastrian Persia, Pharaonic and Coptic Egypt, Greco-Romans, Byzantine, Native Americans, Incas, Aztecs. His hands gesture outward, sweeping each name into oblivion. "They are all dead," he says flatly. "We are still standing after a thousand years."

There's something almost reverential in his eyes now. Not for victories, but for endurance. "Our ancestors were not cowards," he continues, his voice dropping to something more intimate but no less intense. "They were the toughest buggers around. We should be proud of them. Our backs should be straight. Our shoulders should be pulled back and our head should be high."

He pauses to sip his coffee. In that moment I gather that this is the central animating force of Tripathi's work. Not just nostalgia for some golden age, but a fierce pride in persistence, in survival against improbable odds which explains how he blends history with fiction. "We are not descendants of losers," he says, "we are descendants of the toughest buggers around."

But then comes the turn. Yes, he acknowledges, many wars were lost due to internal divisions. He mentions Hem Chandra, Malik Kafur (an Indian convert who went on to become Alauddin Khilji’s most trusted general and consequently the second-biggest temple breaker in history), Jallianwala Bagh where every person firing a bullet was a native from the subcontinent. The gates of Somnath opened from within. "Lack of unity," he says, and his body squeezes inwards as if trying to hold something fragile. 

“And to me that second part of what you said, showing Indians from all over, yeah, that is hope. But the courage and the fierce resistance, that's not hope, that is a fact.. You know, we have our internal divisions. We are Indians. You put 10 Indians in a room, you will not just get 11 opinions, you will get 21 opinions because each Indian will have two opinions. You know, we are so argumentative, often we argue with ourselves also. But never pick the side of a foreigner against a fellow Indian. That is one lesson of the last thousand years. To me, that's the hope in my story.”

I press him on this, because India's divisions today aren't just natural diversity, they're being actively weaponised. Also because it’s been my pet-peeve for years now, the deliberate attempts to balkanise India using caste, language, region, panth, and what not. The narrative that Cholas weren't Hindus, the controversy around films like Kantara supposedly appropriating folk religions. How does one push back against fault lines that are being manufactured and deliberately exploited?

"Enemies will do what enemies do," he says with a shrug that suggests he finds the question almost naive. "It's silly to expect enemies to care about our country or want to create unity. Why will they do that?" His voice becomes pedagogical, as if explaining something obvious to a student. "The question is, how do we react?"

What follows is perhaps the most elegant articulation of his philosophy. He talks about two forms of unity—the unity of uniformity versus the unity of diversity. The former, he says with evident distaste, is the Middle Eastern and Western model: "The rose will tell Mogra and Rajnigandha and a lotus that you guys are all useless, everyone has to convert into a rose. If you don't, the rose will behead you."

He leans back, and there's a slight smile. "And wo hi karna hai to bhai fir original wo hi ban jao." (If you want to do that, then brother, just become the original.) "Why pretend to be Dharmic or Indian?"

Instead, he offers the metaphor of the garland. Each flower is beautiful in itself, held together by a string of dharma. He uses it to navigate what is clearly a variation of the ‘Indian thali versus American melting pot’ example. His mother tongue is Hindi, but he's against Hindi imposition anywhere. He'll celebrate all Indian languages, and here he lists them rapidly, apologising if he's missed any. But what's clear is that being Indian transcends all of them.

"I will not pick French over Malayalam," he says. The specificity of the comparison is telling given that one of the main characters in his latest book is from Kerala.

The conversation turns to religion, and Tripathi doesn't shy away from complexity. Lord Karthik is a bachelor in the north, married with two wives in the south. Some follow folk traditions, some scriptural. Some practice animal sacrifice. "As long as you are not forcing your way on someone else and you respect each other's right to be a part of Dharma and there is mutual respect, you are one of us."

This extends, he insists, to Indian Islam and Indian Christianity. "As long as they believe in mutual respect," he is particular with the caveat. He mentions Muslims coming to Venkateswara temple, Hindus going to Dargahs. "As long as that mutual respect and that unity in diversity and India is above all, as long as those non-negotiables are there, to me that is unity."

My co-interviewer, Arush, catches the thread of a thousand-year-long foreign rule. “It's also true that Indians fought it back. But at the same time,” he raises an intriguing question, “for 800 of the thousand years of foreign rule, there was no serious Indian study of those foreign people or cultures.” No Purvapaksha, as it's called in our tradition—understanding the opponent's position before critiquing it. “Why was that the case?”

Tripathi pauses, and I notice this is a question he hasn't really encountered during his recent interviews. But then he offers something more nuanced. 

"Now, one of the things I feel, you know, often is because there are so many ancient manuscripts in India that have not been translated and studied. Is it that we did the Purvapaksha and that we don't know about it? That could also be true."

I sense a refusal to accept the premise of the question without examination. He explains that there are millions of manuscripts that have not even been translated, let alone studied. The problem compounds: "Too few Indians have knowledge of both the classical language and the script. Because remember, it won't necessarily just be Sanskrit. It could be Sanskrit and Modi script. You may know Sanskrit, but you don't know Modi. It may be Devanagari. Sometimes Tamil was written in Devanagari. You may know the script, not the language."

He gestures illustrate the gap between language and script knowledge. "So for all you know, maybe it was done. And we are not aware of it. Could be possible."

But he also acknowledges it might be an intellectual shortcoming. "Let's go on the assumption that maybe it was not done. Why was it not done? In my mind, I think it was an intellectual shortcoming. I think our warriors did a good job keeping on fighting. I think it was an intellectual shortcoming."

The problem in inept Purvapaksha, he suggests, is swinging to extremes. Either hating the culture you're studying so much that you lose analytical objectivity, or loving everyone so much that you refuse to see genuine threats.

He gives examples of how Purvapaksha should be done. "Acharya Chanakya studied others but there was always this calm analytical approach when he approached the Yavanas." He recommends a Marathi book by Sheshrav More, Muslim Manacha Shodh. "I would encourage you to read that book. It is a thick tome. And actually he [More] got Muslim ulemas to write forewords for it. But it is a very calm balanced analysis both positive and negative. Dr Ambedkar for example did that very often."

The key, he insists, is avoiding both extremes. On one side: "You start hating the other side rather than doing a calm rational analysis because you have suffered so much violence. That is one extreme."

But the other extreme, he argues, is equally counterproductive. "You see that a lot more in the modern liberal West." He suggests it was present in India too, particularly in parts that became "excessively liberal”.

His voice takes on a slightly mocking tone as he ventriloquises this position that he finds foolish: "No group is fundamentally opposed to you. Multiculturalism is our strength. That's the other extreme. Because you dislike those who have started hating, you want to say, I want to love everyone, even those who want to destroy me. That's equally silly."

He's animated now, his hands moving to mark out the two poles. "The side which starts hating excessively or the side which says all religions are the same. If all religions are the same, why are there so many religions? There should be one religion only." Here Tripathi uses a simple logical point to puncture what he sees as empty platitudes.

He talks about the need for intellectuals who can be calm, rational, deeply analytical, "unafraid to go to any area but speaking politely." Finding a balance point in the air, he says, "don't swing on any extreme."

Then we turn to tradition and memory. I mention an earlier interview where he'd talked about how figures like Rajendra Chola or Chhatrapati Shivaji were ignored in our national history.

"Actually both of them are ignored in our national textbooks," he interjects immediately, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. "Both of them."

I nod, "most of our history in the textbooks is Delhi-centric history."

"From Khyber to Agra, that's it," he says with a sardonic laugh masking his irritation. "Everything happened between Khyber to Agra." The sarcasm is heavy, deliberate. An evident complaint about what many of us clearly see as an absurd constriction of Indian history spread across a wide geographical expanse.

It's a natural segue into something I've noticed across all his work, from Shiva Trilogy to the current Cholas novel: the vivid descriptions of India's geographical expanse, its flora and fauna. Even in this book, when the journey starts, there's a lush rendering of landscapes. Is this, I ask, a conscious attempt to thread together India's sacred geography, or simply a literary device?

"If you read our classics… I'm not just talking about the Ramayan and the Mahabharata, obviously," he begins. "Ramayan and Mahabharata are sacred geographies described in detail. You read our Sanskrit plays as well. You read ancient texts as well. You see how our land is described."

Arush chips in with an example: "Meghadootam."

"Exactly," Tripathi says. "I don't think that's a literary device. I think that's an Indian tradition. There is an obsession with mother India, with what makes mother India." He pauses, and his voice becomes reflective. "And I think those of us who are Indic authors, we are inheritors of that without even realising it."

It's a revealing admission. For an author to admit that this isn't his craft or calculation, but something inherited, almost involuntary. The tradition has come down through the generations, he says. Though perhaps, he laments, it is not as strong now. "But till my father's time, my grandfather..." He trails off for a moment, and I notice his eyes beginning to glisten. "I don't know if you've seen... When they used to get off the bed—and I still tear up a bit when I think of it—when their foot would touch the ground. They would apologise. The line used to say, I'm touching you mother with my feet. I'm sorry."

There's a pause. His eyes are visibly moist now. "That obsession with India. I think that is part of being an Indic author." Another pause, longer this time. He's looking down, composing himself.

"You never tire..." His voice breaks properly now. "You never tire of looking at and admiring your mother."

The silence that follows is profound. Arush is, I’m sure, as uncertain as me whether to wait or move on. “If you want to take a moment,” I break the silence. 

Tripathi wipes his eyes and takes a sip of water.

"I would like to revive that tradition at home," he says finally. "My son doesn't do it, I don't do it. I wish I had learnt it from my dad. There was a Sanskrit line he used to say..”

“What line was that?” Arush asks.

"Yaar bhul gaya yaar mai..." (Brother, I've forgotten it...) He recovers himself, but there's a vulnerability now that wasn't there before. "You know one of the biggest misfortunes in life is when you grow up you realise, I should've learnt more from my father, man. And by the time you realise that, your father is gone. And you can't learn anymore. You are so busy with work, things which appear so important. 'Arre papa, we'll talk later. I have to go to office.'"

The moment passes, but it has revealed something essential. Beneath the confident public intellectual and bestselling author is someone genuinely haunted by questions of transmission, of what gets passed down and what gets lost. Be it ancient manuscripts or traditions.

Arush, perhaps sensing the need for a tonal shift, asks about Varanasi. “Aap Banaras gaye kya haal me? (Have you been to Banaras recently?)” 

And instantly, visibly, Tripathi lights up. “Yeah, yeah, har saal jaate hai.. Practically every year.”

When asked about the changes he has seen as someone who has spent many years of his life there, "Amazing!" he says, and the transformation is immediate. His posture straightens and becomes more animated. 

He launches into a description of his family's connection to the city. His grandfather was a pandit at Vishwanath temple, taught at BHU, his entire family grew up there. Though he and his twin brother Ashish were born in Mumbai, they used to visit every or every second year. "It was always a bit like coming home whenever we went there."

But then his tone shifts. "But there was also a feeling of sadness." The Varanasi of his childhood visits was beautiful yet heartbreaking. "We used to go to Vishwanath Ji's through narrow dirty lanes. We're praying to Baba. We know it's not the original temple. Because Nandi Ji is still staring at the Gyanvapi structure. It used to hurt."

He describes how pandits were so poor that his family would give donations directly to them rather than put money in the temple hundi. "Unka ghar to chale. Bhuke marte the bichaare" (The poor things were starving). Many had to take other jobs, being a purohit only as a side occupation.

"The areas weren't well maintained, the ghats were dirty. One used to feel sad," he says. "Which is where, how it feels right now when you go out there, it's amazing. What a transformation. I never thought I'll see it in my lifetime. And so fast." The enthusiasm is genuine and unguarded. He talks about Prayagraj, Lucknow, Ayodhya, Vindhyachal, places he never thought would see such change. 

Arush jumps in: "Arre Vindhyachal... We were like Mirzapur... Varanasi was still possible, but it won't ever happen in Mirzapur." Tripathi laughs in complete acknowledgment of that hopelessness. "And wo jo theth purabiya hai... They used to call it Mirjapur, not Mirzapur", he uses exaggerated hand gestures to show the difference in pronunciation. "Waha to kuch nahi ho sakta. But there too, man, the transformation that's happening is fantastic."

But he acknowledges the tension that this transformation has generated in certain quarters. Some traditionalists, many of whom are his friends and relatives, feel things are changing too quickly, that old ways are being lost. "Isse nahi hatana chahiye tha" (This should not have been removed), "we should not do this, this is our tradition, ye yaha pe likha hai" (it's written here).

His response to this is measured but firm. He quotes Krishna "change is the only constant" to make a pragmatic argument. "And maybe the situation got so bad that a little bit you have to adapt so that it actually becomes good."

His son or anyone else who is living in Mumbai or abroad must have that first positive impression. “bhai they have seen other places, they should go to that temple and think 'waaah,' you know? Because later on, of course, once they go to the Vigraha, they will get impacted. But first impression also has to be good. When you come to Ganga Ji, you see the ghats, you see the steps. You know, when I take my son there, he says, 'Dad, wow, this is so beautiful.' Right?”

Then comes a line he's clearly proud of, one he and his sister Bhavna Roy used in their book Idols: "Maintaining traditions is not about the worship of ashes, it's about the preservation of fire."

"Hum to marr jayenge bhai," (We'll die anyway, brother) he says. "How will our culture live on? Unless we pass on that fire to the next generation, unless they also hold it as tenderly with as much pride and commitment. So we have to make it attractive to them too." 

Arush offers support, "aur Mahadev us gandagi me rahe... Ye kaunsi parampara hai? Ya kaunse shastra me ye likha hai? (Should Lord Mahadev live in that filth? What tradition is this? In which scripture is this written?)" He brings up an old visual memory: a tub of dirty water that used to sit in the path to Vishwanath temple, visible in every TV broadcast for years. "I've seen that tub all my life."

“Ab jaa kar," (Only now) he says, "now when the corridor is made, that tub is removed." The relief in Arush's voice is palpable. "I think the scale of change and the speed—I think both have shocked people."

"Tremendous, tremendous, tremendous," Tripathi responds, nodding vigorously. "And see, our tradition has always been of keeping the best of the old but also adding in the best of the new. Goswami Tulsidas Ji had done the same with Ramcharitmanas."

He gives a specific example: "Lakshman Rekha isn't there in Valmiki Ramayan. But it's there in Ramcharitmanas. This is a tradition in India."

Then another example, this one about temple-going days. "So many of our traditions even today, you know, in some places they go to a Hanuman Ji temple on Tuesday and in some places—"

"Saturday," I interject involuntarily, Hanumanji being the kuladevata of my family.

"Yeah, Saturday. Arre, but there were no Tuesday and Saturday in ancient times. We had 15 days bhai. We have the Krishna Paksha and..."

"Shukla Paksha!" I complete.

"Yeah, the Shukla Paksha. Right?" He affirms the the lunar cycle. "Where did the Tuesday-Saturday tradition come from? Where did Monday for Shiv Ji come from? This is angrezi. It's western.” He clarifies that he doesn’t find anything wrong with it. That it's our way. We keep the best of the old. But add in something of the new as well."

Arush finds the perfect pivot to something that we had discussed a few days back: "And talking of our way of doing things, of looking at things, where do you stand on this history-centric approach to read our Puranas? That whatever is there, prove that it happened in actual historic time. Arre bhai, even if it didn't happen, it didn't. But we will still believe in it."

He offers a comparison: "Caesar crossing the Rubicon has no value for me in my life. But that an elephant's head was placed on Lord Ganesha's body and that all the gods said that you will be the first to be worshiped, may or may not have happened on planet earth in historic time. But still it is more valuable in my life than Rubicon and Caesar's army. So where do you stand on, on the history centric approach to our own stories?"

Tripathi's response is immediate: "Again, not on any extreme." His fingers glide side to side, indicating a spectrum. "So, are there historical facts hidden within our Puranas? Yes." He explains that Puranas have certain characteristics—theories of creation, lines of Suryavanshis, Chandravanshis, and various royal lineages. "But you'll notice in the line of kings it comes down to even the Nandas. Correct. So, is there some history within our Puranas? Yes, and it must be studied."

He gives the Western parallel: "Just like the Westerners tried to find the history of Troy in Iliad and Odyssey as well. Remember when Europe got Christianised, Iliad and Odyssey were negated as pagan mythical texts, right. In fact, they were hated, many of those copies were burnt, temples to the gods, the Greek, Roman gods were all destroyed as you know, right."

He recommends a book—there's a brief back-and-forth as we try to recall the exact title. "Catherine Nixey has written a wonderful book on that," he says. "The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, if I remember correctly."

"The Darkening Age," Arush and I blurt out almost simultaneously.

"The Darkening Age, yeah, yeah, yeah," he confirms. "But when they reconnected to the Greco-Roman past, post the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, they tried to find the history of Troy from what were considered mythical texts and they did find the location of Troy. So can we find history in our Puranas also? Yes, okay. That we should do."

But then comes the crucial distinction: "Now, what the Westerners didn't try and do from Iliad and Odyssey is try and find the stories of the gods that their ancestors worshipped. They only wanted to find history. They didn't want to find spiritual connection to their ancestors. But that is their choice. Which is why Western or Westernised Indians only think of the history part."

His voice takes on an edge. "Because their spiritual approach is nihilism. Nihilism means anything before that was Jahiliya..."

"Barbaric," I murmur.

"Barbaric, has to be destroyed, burned, we are starting afresh. Even reformat it. We don't believe in nihilism. We believe in being connected. So for us, it's not just the history in the Puranas, it's the spiritual and philosophical traditions of the Puranas that are also important and this is our unique privilege because we are the only pre-Bronze Age culture that is still alive."

He pauses to let that sink in. "We cannot expect Westerners to understand this because they have decided to negate all their ancestors. Westerners or Middle Easterners, it's their choice. Okay? We don't want to do that."

That he is passionate and non-apologetic about our ancestors is one thing that is thoroughly established after this conversation. (Hard relate).

Then he draws a contemporary parallel. "Are there people in the West today among the Gen Zs and Millennials who want to almost hate their parents' generation, the boomers? Yes, there are. And you'll notice many of them actually want to say all our previous generations have messed things up completely and we are trying to save the world. Who's that environmentalist, the child.."

"Greta Thunberg," I offer.

"Haan, Greta," he says, nodding. "So she speaks of all the older generations as almost monsters. Yeah.” Almost exhaustingly he stresses that they want to hate all their parents and start afresh.

His voice rises with conviction: "Bhai hume wo nahi karna" (We don't want to do that). "Mujhe apni maa se pyaar hai" (I love my mother). "I love my father. Why should I do this? I don't want to do this. I want to be connected. So we want this spiritual connection as well." He speaks like a defiant child. “Yes. I don't hate my parents. I love my parents. I don't hate my ancestors, I love my ancestors.”

“Good luck with your way of life. I want to do mine.”

But he is characteristically aware even when it appears he is carried away: “If there are things that need to be reformed, we will reform, of course we will reform. But I don't want to cut-off from them."

The conversation shifts to his craft. Arush asks him to talk about turning these ancient stories into books for young modern readers—what is his process?

"You know, one is having knowledge of it," he begins. "I read a lot. I've been reading five, six books per month on average for decades. I have also learnt it the old-fashioned way, which is by listening to my elders. Like I said, my grandfather was a Pandit. So I’ve read many of the..."

And just like up until this point in the conversation, he meanders again. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad.

“There are various Ramayans as you know.” He cites various traditions. "There is the Adhbhut Ramayan where Goddess Sita killed Ravana. There is the Ananda Ramayan where there is a fierce war between Ravana and King Dashrath close to the sea at the beginning which is also credited to Valmiki Ji. There is a Ramayan Darshanam. There are so many. And this is just the Ramayan."

The Puranas too have variations. "Like in the Shaivite Puranas there is no daughter of Lord Shiva but in the Padma Purana which is the Vaishnava Purana there is a daughter of Lord Shiva. Correct?" I nod in affirmation.

"So, there you get access to so many different texts, just good fortune of birth, I have either heard them the old-fashioned way or I have read them. But our knowledge base is so much—our ancient traditions—that even if you spend your entire life, you will only…"

"Scratch the surface," I complete.

"Yeah! Outside of Adi Shankaracharya Ji and a few others, who can claim to be a complete pandit of our culture? It is impossible. So, whatever knowledge within my limited human capability I could absorb, I have had the good fortune of absorbing that."

Then comes something that I’ve read in the beginning of all his books. Credits to Mahadev.

"How it gets converted into a story is completely Lord Shiva's blessing." His voice is unmistakenly confessional. “There I am afraid I cannot give you a good answer. I don't know how it comes. I don't question. The way it comes to me I just write it. Lord Shiva just sends it and I am a witness. I am not a creator. I am a witness." 

"Drashta," Arush says softly, using the Sanskrit term for it.

It's cliché but also revealing. The modern bestselling author invokes a creative process that echoes how the rishis themselves understood their role as drashtas—seers and not creators—unlike contemporary novelists. Many of the latter don’t tire of waxing eloquent about their 'process' and 'craft', often a post-hoc concoction.

But anyway.

Taking the conversation forwards on his craft (or Lord Shiva’s blessings as he’d prefer), I mention that his fight sequences don't read like a book. They feel cinematic. This leads to discussion of adaptations. His previous book, Legend of Suheldev, is being adapted into a movie. The Shiva Trilogy had also been in talks with Dharma Productions, but nothing eventually came of it.

We've seen a proliferation of Dharmic content lately—movies, web series, even animated content like Mahavatar Narsimha and Adi Kurukshetra. But along with good work, there's also a lot of poorly made junk and even AI-generated slop. Given his earlier point about aesthetics mattering for the next generation, how does he see the balance?

"Anmol, the balance will only be created by time," he says without hesitation. "I am a believer in the Indian way and the Indian way is about freedom of expression”, he emphasises that those who are doing it just for a lark have as much right to make content as those who are aesthetic and committed. Time decides what survives.

He becomes more emphatic. "It's not for us to block people who may not offer the quality. The Sanskrit word for a classic is Kaaljaiyi, that which defeats time. Let time decide."

I almost immediately remember my college dean and professor, Nigam Dave using this term to describe Harry Potter. That which I, my child, and my father can enjoy and value equally is a classic. It is Kaaljaiyi.

Tripathi comes back to temples and I to the present conversation. 

"We were talking about temples and how I want my son to be awed by the aesthetics. But there are temples which are very rustic. Some of them—I am a Shaivite and we know what Shaivites are like—could even be at a cremation ground."

He mentions how Aghoris have practices which trouble many leftists and they want to ban them. He cites a Maharashtra Act which bans any Aghori practice. “Who the hell are you to decide that it is right or not right?” he asks exasperated.

He applies the same logic to cultural production: book or movie. “Let people do what they want to. There is freedom and time will decide which is good quality, which is not. As long as there is devotion to our culture, I support it."

Maybe I wasn’t clear about my question. So I press on production quality. Surely there's scope for improvement in storytelling, in craft.

"Oh there is much more scope," he agrees immediately. "Look, and it will get better. One big thing is simply budgets. Some things were just not possible 10 years ago because India did not have the money. They are becoming possible now."

He gives his own example: "Like one of the challenges why the Shiva trilogy rights came back to me is actually because the scale is so big. There are three books which will mean four, maybe five movies. It is very difficult to put so much money together. But as India becomes a bigger and bigger economy, many things become possible."

Then he quotes Chanakya, his voice taking on a pedagogical tone: "As Acharya Chanakya had said, Sukhasya Moolam Dharmaha, Dharmasya Moolam Arthaha. The heart of everything is Artha."

The quote landed, immediately reminding me of the systemic slander faced by wealth-creators in India. It is a necessary counter to the cringe-inducing and almost sadistic romanticisation of poverty by the Left. Artha is the indispensable foundation for the propagation of Dharma. This is the core reason why forces keen on keeping India poor consistently attack Indian businesses, fueling the targeted hate against entrepreneurial communities like Marwaris and Gujaratis.

Consciously checking my instinct to pursue this tangent, I move on with the discussion with something that I’ve been excited about. Especially after being depressed with chronic delays in the launch of GTA VI. I turn to the video game he's been working on—Age of Bharat. Whether it is coming in 2026. Or will it go the GTA VI way?

"No, it will probably take some more time, not in '26 I think." But his enthusiasm is immediate and palpable. He becomes more animated. "Look, this is a AAA video game. There has never been a AAA video game on an Indian subject ever. Anmol you are probably younger, so you are probably on video games. I'm talking Assassin's Creed level, that quality."

He is right. The West has dominated high-end AAA (highest quality) gaming. China entered the game with Black Myth: Wukong, which was a huge hit.

Tripathi contextualises the importance of this medium. "Video gaming is bigger than movies, books, music, theatre combined," he says, his voice rising with excitement. "It's a massive industry. It's not a subculture. Video gaming is actually the culture. The rest of us are a subculture."

“Streaming too,” I concur.

I’m cautious but equally hopeful when he declares the time has come for India to influence the world of video games. 

Age of Bharat, he explains, will be based in the world of the Ramayana. But aware of the theological implications and his own values, he clarifies that you don't get to play Lord Ram or Ravana—they exist at the meta level. 

His involvement also means that the game won’t be indifferent to morality. “Grand Theft Auto or whatever, when someone is in front of you, you just keep killing. It's not going to be that way.”

How do you make an attractive game which the kids will love and will find cool and yet subtly teach them dharma through it? Dharma is much deeper than simple morality. But that's the aim of this game, he chimes.

He mentions that Amitabh Bachchan is a co-founder and did the voice-over for the trailer. Gaming veteran Nouredine Abboud is the other co-founder. “So it's like an absolute top end.”

Then comes a story that clearly delights him. The chairman of their company, Tara Gaming, is based in London—a French guy. "So he sent me a message late in the night for him, early in the morning for me. I wake up early normally and he sent this: 'Dude, Asmongold has reviewed our trailer and he loves it.' I was like who the hell is Asmongold?”

He forwarded the message to his son who said, “Dad, you've finally arrived. Asmongold said your name.”

He laughs at the memory, a full-throated laugh at his teenage son's metric for success—not book sales or literary awards, but the approval of a major gaming influencer.

Approval. Hmm. 

I take this opportunity to bring in Francesca Orsini, the supposedly indispensable Hindi scholar.

I mention that while getting a positive review from a major gaming influencer like Asmongold clearly matters, there seems to be a different dynamic when it comes to our own scholars and academia—a tendency to seek approval from the West. Case in point was hyperbolic encomiums like: ‘few have shaped our understanding of Hindi and North Indian literary cultures like Francesca Orsini.’ 

Naturally, when her visa was cancelled on technical grounds, the ecosystem went berserk. Tripathi had then chipped in saying, “those of us from a rooted background, who speak Hindi at home, read Hindi books as well, can only roll our eyes at this rather bizarre claim that 'few have shaped our understanding' of Hindi literary culture like a British SOAS Prof!”

So naturally, even before I complete my question, his face breaks into a broad mischievous smile, the first time I've seen him look genuinely amused by something in our conversation. 

"Who will define how we Hindi people understand our literature," he says, his voice taking on a rhetorical tone. "I didn't have any view on her scholarship. But humne Maithili Sharan Gupt padha hai, Mahadevi Verma..." (We've read Maithili Sharan Gupt, Mahadevi Verma...) "Bhai ye hume samjhayegi what Hindi sahitya is?" (Will she explain to us what Hindi literature is?)

Diksha, my colleague who's also on the call in the background, unable to stay away from the absurdity, jumps in: "And we were surprised that there was a certain group saying 'how do you not know that person?’"

"And yaar," Tripathi continues, clearly warming to the topic, “the same people who were saying this were calling Hindi a ‘cow dung language’ just six months back.”

He's careful not to name names, but gives enough detail about a Bangalore based cricket administrator-cum-historian who wanted South India to separate from the Hindi belt. "Now suddenly he is saying how will we understand Hindi if she doesn't teach us. I am like how do you understand Hindi suddenly? They used to call us gaumutra and what not."

He's laughing throughout this, a full-throated laugh that makes him turn slightly red. The absurdity of it all tickles him. "A native English speaker will never even say that someone like Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore informed his understanding of English,” he raises his hand to emphasise the nobel laureate’s stature, “and I am talking about Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore here. It is the equivalent of some JNU professor teaching British scholars what English is."

Still chuckling, “aisa thodi na hone wala hai?" (That's not going to happen, is it?) However, he re-stresses that it was not a reflection on her scholarship. 

But the real kicker for him is the sudden conversion of Hindi-haters into Hindi-lovers. "The most interesting thing was this Punjabi guy in the US who has called Hindi a ‘cow-dung language.' He speaks in proper English. But suddenly, Hindi Prem jag gaya" (love for Hindi awakened). "Waah yaar... Mrs. Orsini is a miracle. Otherwise for him Hindi and Gaumutra and Gobar were like almost synonyms.”

"At least she united us," I add.

"For the first time," Arush completes, “and by the way, what are you reading these days, Amish Ji?"

He mentions a Hanuman Chalisa. "This is a very interesting translation by Vikram Seth. It's a quick read. Just read through that."

In an instant he circles back to the controversy with a slight note of regret. He says he felt like reading something by Maithili Sharan Gupt and picked up Yashodhara. “I started reading that too. I wonder if that Bangalore historian has even heard of Maithili Sharan Gupt."

"In the last few days," Arush notes dryly before bringing up another angle: "Has she written some books or has she just written academic papers?"

"Once again, listen, I'm not deriding her scholarship. I've been told she has written some books. For all you know, maybe it's very good.” Tripathi describes how he tried to buy her works on Amazon to read just out of interest, but couldn't find. “Maybe next time I go to the UK, I'll try and get a book.”

He's gracious about it, in the end: "If those who hate Hindi are developing a love for Hindi from her books, it would just be interesting to just read what she has written. I'm sure there must be something worth learning from them."

It's a revealing sequence—not just his enjoyment of the controversy's ironies, but his refusal to take seriously the gatekeeping of a language he's spoken his entire life by people who until recently disdained it. Yet he maintains enough graciousness to acknowledge that perhaps there's value in her work if it can convert Hindi-haters into Hindi-lovers, even if momentarily or opportunistically.

The mention of the UK provides a natural transition. I ask about his time as director of the Nehru Centre in London, his role as a cultural diplomat.

His tone becomes more measured, more professional. He describes it as India's equivalent of the British Council, housed in a beautiful Edwardian building in Mayfair. The goal was cultural diplomacy—not just preaching to the converted, but reaching those who might not know enough about India.

"London is one of the key cultural hubs of the world," he explains. "The cultural conversations you have in London, New York, DC, LA, or San Francisco end up impacting the entire world." He gives the example of Hamilton—a play in New York that changed how the world thinks about American founders. "It's not just about the beauty of that play, it's the power of New York City. London has that cultural power as well."

Under his tenure, they ramped up to 20-25 events per month, often two in a day. They started doing Nehru Centre events outside their venue—at Lords, at the British Parliament. "Actually it was a very good experience," he says with evident satisfaction.

I have one more question, something that's been nagging at me throughout. It is about the current moment. I ask whether we're actually reading books at the same pace and interest given the barrage of content. Is it a good time to be an author, especially with AI-generated content proliferating? I’m sure my tone here betrays my personal pangs.

"Anmol,” he knows that it came from a personal place, “your question ends up applying not just to books, but even to movies, to all art, actually," he says, and I can sense he's been thinking about this deeply. His answer is sophisticated. 

"We were told the internet is a democratisation tool. Actually, it's ending up being a concentration tool," he says, his hands moving to illustrate polarisation. 

He explains how in books, movies, music, podcasts—across all art forms—the middle is disappearing. There used to be authors selling hundreds of thousands, average hits of 50,000-60,000 copies. "But what's happening now with books is that the average hits are dying out. The top sellers are selling even more. And the long tail is extending even more."

The same in movies: thousand-crore blockbusters that were once unheard of now happen regularly, but average hits are vanishing. "Either the film is a flop in the first weekend itself… or it makes a thousand crores. Kantara, Animal. Matlab hisaab hi nahi hai. Banaate hi jaa rahi hai… But that average hit is dying up."

Why is this happening? There are theories that he has. He pauses for emphasis on the impermanence of it all. If you are a hit today, there's no guarantee that you are a hit tomorrow. Actors who had the Midas touch a few years back, are churning out flops. But on the other side, a Telugu actor is bigger than even Shah Rukh Khan in Gorakhpur. “Who would have thought?” It's either super hits or nothing. And it's the same with books. “It's just extremes. And I think the internet is causing it.” 

He weaves into it the consumption habits of the younger generation. Either they give you nothing or they give you everything. Either they swipe up in literally 1.5 seconds or they'll give you an entire weekend. “They'll buy all three books of the trilogy and spend the full weekend reading it. Or download the full season and do nothing else over the weekend.”

"Either it's binge watching or..." I start.

"Or nothing," he completes. "There is no middle ground. And this is a challenge, I think, for all artists, not just authors, all artists.” Whatever you create has to be top of line and it may still not make it. His fingers spread wide apart, then crash together to illustrate the all-or-nothing nature of contemporary cultural consumption. "That's what I'm seeing."

It's a sobering analysis, delivered without self-pity but with clear-eyed recognition of the new landscape. The democratisation promised by the internet has instead created a winner-take-all economy in culture, where the middle has been hollowed out and artists face binary outcomes: obscurity or superstardom, with little in between.

Arush signals we're nearing the end of our allotted time and as a fitting conclusion asks for Tripathi's favorite chaupai from the Ramcharitmanas.

He recites without hesitation, his voice taking on a different quality, almost devotional: "पुरुष नपुंसक नारि वा जीव चराचर कोइ। सर्ब भाव भज कपट तजि मोहि परम प्रिय सोइ।" He offers a translation too, "that any man, any woman, any transgender, any living being, any plant, any animal, give up deceit, love each other, come to me, you're my people.”

"These are the words of Lord Ram," he says. "I can't think of a more inclusive thing to say. At a time today when men-women fights, transgender-women fights are causing so much chaos... to have a beautiful inclusive line like this from the words of Lord Ram, I can't think of a more appropriate message for the modern day."

It's a fitting end to a conversation that has ranged from the resistance of ancestors to the transformation of holy cities, from the absurdities of academic gatekeeping to the challenges of creating art in the age of algorithms. Throughout it all, Tripathi has been gesturing, sipping coffee, occasionally choking up, frequently laughing, always animated and yet calm.

We've exceeded our hour, and I thank him for his time.

"Always a pleasure speaking to Swarajya," he says with evident warmth, addressing all of us—Anmol, Arush, Diksha.

Even after Amish Tripathi goes off the screen, the conversation lingers. Urgent, unapologetic, and deeply felt. I'm left thinking about that moment earlier when he spoke of his father and the forgotten tradition of apologising to the earth. For all his confidence about India's resilience, its culture, its future, there remains that personal ache of discontinuity, of things lost in the busy-ness of modern life.

Perhaps that's what drives the novels, the games, the cultural diplomacy, not just pride in what survived, but anxiety about what might not. You never tire, he said, of looking at your mother. But you can forget to learn the words your grandfather knew. And once they're gone, they're gone.

Postscript: As I finish writing this, India is abuzz with the name of Devvrat Mahesh Rekhe, a 19-year-old Vedic scholar who chanted nearly 2000 mantras of the ‘Shukla Yajur Veda’ from pure memory, continuously over a duration of 50 days. He did it using the "Dandakrama" method that creates 25 lakh word combinations. Appreciation came from all corners, including the Prime Minister. 

We truly are the toughest buggers around.