Unboxed — Unwrapping Indian Cultural Artefacts
Unboxed is a series of engaging conversations that explore the history and culture of quintessentially Indian objects and ideas, offering diverse perspectives. From the story of the harmonium to the quintessence of the mango, discover their Indianness.

Unboxed is a fascinating conversational series that examines conventional ideas and familiar objects through a multidisciplinary lens and contrasting perspectives. From the history of the harmonium to the mango in Indian economy and folklore, we unpack them from the boxes in which they have been conveniently placed, and visit them afresh.
We begin this series with the two-part story of the harmonium in India. So organic and familiar is its sound that few Indians would imagine that the harmonium’s origins lie outside their country. Yet, packed into its compact box-like shape is a fabled history that meanders from 19th century Europe to 20th century colonial India. Discover the essence of the harmonium in two exciting episodes.
From the music of the fingertips, we journey to the melodies of the palate.
Whether you call it aam, mangai, aamra, or mango, just uttering the word can evoke a plethora of sensations and emotions. Yet, the proverbial King Of Fruits unites and divides Indians equally. Presented by three die-hard mango aficionados, this slice of Unboxed is a juicy celebration of a fruit that embodies the essence of Indianness for the Aam Janata – the Mango People.
Credits
Akshay Ramuhalli, Bijoy Venugopal, Bruce Lee Mani, Gorveck Thokchom, Kishor Mandal, Narayan Krishnaswamy, Prashant Vasudevan, Sananda Dasgupta, Seema Seth, Shraddha Gautam, Supriya Joshi, and Velu Shankar
Explore the series
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The Harmonium In India | Part 1 — Is It Really Indian?
Once scorned by purists as ‘harm-omnium’ and criticized by nationalists as an assault on the Indian musical ear, the harmonium has firmly entrenched itself in India’s musical landscape. Sharmadip Basu presents the first episode of an engaging two-part story of the harmonium’s journey in India. Listen to Unboxed, our series on the history and culture of quintessentially Indian objects and ideas.
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The Harmonium In India | Part 2 — Equally Loved And Hated
Unboxing the second part of the story, Sharmadip Basu explains why some Indians hated the harmonium while many others loved it, why some banned it, and others patronised it. Listen to the second episode of our series, Unboxed.
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Mango People — How The King Of Fruits Unites And Divides India’s Aam Janata!
The proverbial King Of Fruits unites and divides Indians equally. Whether you call it aam, mangai, aamra, or mango, just uttering the word can evoke a plethora of sensations and emotions. Presented by three die-hard mango aficionados, this slice of Unboxed is a juicy celebration of a fruit that embodies the essence of Indianness for the Aam Janata – the Mango People.
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Lightbulb Moment — The Dazzling Story Of Electric Lighting In India
In Unboxed — The Lightbulb in India, Sharmadip Basu and Proteep Mallik explore the story of electric lighting in India through the lenses of history, science, popular culture, and more. They are joined by guests Antara Das and Sunandan K.N. for an enriching and enlightening conversation. Listen to the episode on Radio Azim Premji University.
Featured in this series
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Sharmadip Basu
Sharmadip (Toy as he is fondly known) obtained his doctorate degree from the social science programme at Syracuse University. His undergraduate training and early graduate training were in Economics, with a BSc degree from Calcutta University and an MA degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He also has an MPhil in American Studies…
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Amit Basole
Amit Basole is Professor of Economics and from 2018 to 2023 he was the lead author of the State of Working India report. Amit has taught at Bucknell University and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst as well as a PhD in Neuroscience from…
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Divya Uma
Before joining Azim Premji University, I was a post-doctoral fellow at IISER Trivandrum examining hunting and web-building behavior of social spiders, and personalities in these spiders. Prior to this, I did another post-doctoral stint at University of Maryland, Collage Park, USA, looking at the response of crayfish towards predatory cues, and also exploring non-invasive methods…
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Antara Das
Antara is a neurobiologist interested in studying how genetic mutations in ion channels leads to electrical imbalance in the brain, resulting in brain disorders such as epilepsy. Epilepsy affects about 1% of the world’s population including ~12 lakhs of people in India with active epilepsy. Epilepsy mutations can give rise to diverse clinical phenotypes and…
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Proteep Mallik
He grew up in Bengaluru and completed his schooling at The Valley School. He pursued further education in America, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Physics (honours) and Mathematics from the University of Oregon and a master’s degree in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona. Thereafter, he worked for several years as an optical engineer,…
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Sunandan K N
After attaining BTech in Production Engineering, I did MA in Sociology from Mahatma Gandhi (MG) University, Kottayam and MPhil in Science Policy Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. I completed the degrees of MA in History and PhD in History from Emory University, Atlanta, USA. After finishing PhD in 2012, I taught at…











