Lunch with BS: Historian Sunil Amrith talks about monsoon and migration

The MacArthur "Genius" grant awardee talks to Anjali Puri about Unruly Waters, the book he has just finished writing, and why history matters even more in an era of majoritarian politics

The injunctions printed on the wall above us in determinedly quirky SodaBottleOpenerWala — “No laughing loudly”, “No feet on chair” and so on — seem funnier today because my soft-spoken guest, historian Sunil Amrith, has perfect manners. This stagey, noisy mock-up of a Mumbai Irani cafe in Delhi’s Khan Market with Irani, Parsi and Bohri food is where you go for the “experience” rather than to talk. But it feels right to be lunching with Amrith in a place that celebrates what he evokes brilliantly in his work — the creative energy of migrants.

Cambridge-educated Amrith is a professor of