Last June, the journalist Raghu Karnad began meeting with the renowned Indian historian Romila Thapar. Thapar, now 94 years old, has spent her life studying ancient figures who embodied major currents of Indian philosophy and ethics, and Karnad, 50 years her junior, was keen to explore what resonance those ancient lives and ideas may have had in her own life and, as he wrote to me when he first proposed the piece: ‘how a historian reflects on living long enough to witness – and suffer, in some personal ways – historical change.’ Their conversations – on identity, authenticity, political courage and its costs – unfolded over the course of a year, culminating in an intimate Portrait of Thapar and her extraordinary life, published in Psyche this week.

Romila Thapar: Doyenne and Dissenter is the fourth instalment of Psyche’s new monthly series of long-form psychological profiles, each asking: what makes a life meaningful?

– Alizeh Kohari, Life Stories Editor

Why it’s so hard to agree on what counts as true

New research has mapped people’s contrasting conceptions of the truth. No wonder so many arguments feel irresolvable

by Lukas S Huber, David-Elias Künstle and Kevin Reuter

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