As a journalist, when you ask someone what a good time for them to talk would be, you expect them to be specific, especially when it's right in the middle of the week. After briefing him about what we're going to chat about — the association between Chennai-based audiobooks publisher Karadi Tales (KT) and theatre icon Girish Karnad, who passed away this week — I ask Narayan Parasuram, the co-founder of KT, the same question. "Any time. I am happy to share my experience of working with Shri Karnad," he responds. And a lot has been said in a couple of sentences.

The company was founded in 1996 and has since brought on a star-studded list of narrators on board, including Naseeruddin Shah, and Saeed Jaffrey. Karnad came into the picture in '98. "We had just come out with a mythology series and were in search of a narrator. When we approached him, KT was already quite popular and Karnad, being a writer, was familiar with the literary scene. Also, our stories were not to do with religion but with storytelling and he had a background in it," Parasuram says, elaborating on how the eminent playwright, has always had an independent existence in the literary world despite carving out a niche in Bollywood.