Books & Authors podcast with Jubanashwa Mishra, author, 28 Jobs, 28 Weeks, 28 States

"In India when someone does a menial job, he isn't respected. But I'm so inspired by Jodie Underhill who founded Waste Warriors in Himachal Pradesh and is cleaning the mountains. We have to kill the ego to do such things. In all kinds of menial jobs, the caste system figures. I have always been fascinated by Varanasi but I have also always been afraid of dead bodies. It's almost impossible fora sane person to work at the cremation ghats burning 100 bodies in a day. You have to be high to forget what's happening around you; you need to be in a non-conscious state! I had the smell of burning flesh in my nostrils for a month after that," says Jubanashwa Mishra, author, 28 Jobs, 28 Weeks, 28 States, a fascinating memoir-travelogue. He talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about his adventures doing everything from selling condoms in rural Bihar to working on a houseboat in Kerala, assisting at a Bullet workshop in Aizawl, and burning bodies in Varanasi