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0:46

Ibsitta is a pop star and

0:48

behavioral scientist. Having millions

0:51

of people idolize you and sing along

0:53

to every word. 230 million

0:55

views on YouTube and over half

0:58

a billion streams. Sounds like

1:00

a pretty dream life in your early 20s. But

1:02

it's not always been so straightforward.

1:04

And I kind of went into depression a little bit

1:06

in that time because I just

1:09

felt worthless. Like I didn't know if I was

1:11

getting cast in anything. I didn't know if I

1:13

would make it. In the latest episode

1:15

of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future,

1:17

Ibsitta joins me to discuss her

1:20

music, mental health,

1:21

and behavioral science.

1:26

Ibsitta, welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. Thank

1:29

you for having me. And so talk to

1:31

us about the, let's start with the

1:33

pop star bit because that's what you're obviously most known

1:36

for. How did you become a pop

1:38

star? It just kind of unfurled in

1:40

a very uncanny way. I just started uploading

1:42

mashups of Hindi and English songs on

1:44

my YouTube channel. I've always been

1:47

a singer and we'll get to that I guess in a minute.

1:49

But I was raised with this sort of mentality

1:51

that you can't be an artist for a living.

1:55

My mom's a doctor, my dad's in the civil service, very academic background.

1:58

So it's good that you can sing.

1:59

dance and act and keep doing that for fun as

2:02

a hobby but do something meaningful

2:04

with your life. So

2:06

it just kind of came about as I enjoyed

2:09

singing and I just wanted to put it out there

2:12

and over I think two years

2:15

one of the mashups went viral. It got

2:17

picked up by this Indian rapper

2:20

whose team contacted me and asked me

2:22

to come and audition for a song which

2:24

was such a foreign concept to me. I was like oh wait you

2:27

auditioned to be a singer because

2:30

that's not what you typically hear but it is quite

2:32

common in India. So I went

2:34

and I think I was one of many girls who sung

2:37

the song. They essentially

2:39

sent me a verse and chorus, said learn

2:42

it, come and perform it. They

2:44

recorded it and then I didn't hear back for quite a few months,

2:47

like three or four months so I just assumed

2:49

I hadn't gotten it. This was while I was

2:52

still in

2:52

my undergrad by the way. And

2:54

your undergrad was at Yale? Yes. So

2:58

I kind of forgot about it but then just

3:00

as I was graduating, I think it was my last semester,

3:02

they said you've been locked, you'll be

3:05

the playback singer and then I was like wait

3:07

can I be in the video as well? And

3:11

then there was that whole other conversation that

3:13

oh okay she wants to feature in it and

3:17

yeah I guess not to get really heavy in the beginning

3:19

but it was essentially like okay you're gonna have to lose weight and

3:21

look like a model if you want to be

3:23

in the video because you don't look like one right now. I

3:25

was about 15 kilograms heavier than I am right

3:27

now. So that was a lot of like oh my gosh

3:29

okay I'm gonna have to really focus on this. So

3:32

I graduated, I took a year off, moved

3:34

back to India and kind of

3:36

just worked on myself and

3:39

got in shape and had to learn hip hop because

3:41

I don't know if you've seen the video but it's a lot of

3:44

hip hop dancing. So yeah I went

3:46

into classes for that and then COVID happened

3:48

and lots of delays but eventually it released and

3:50

that was kind of the beginning of my

3:52

like professional music journey. It went from

3:55

just being

3:55

a cover artist or

3:57

just someone who does it for fun to then

3:59

being long. launched in the Indian music industry, so

4:01

it was a massive step and I got really

4:03

lucky. So

4:06

you're doing the undergrads, you sort of, you know,

4:09

almost follow this thing as a long

4:12

shot and it kind of comes off and then

4:14

you think, okay, so I'm going to take

4:16

a year off to like properly

4:18

have a crack at this.

4:20

And like you say, like, there's some quite, you know,

4:23

it's, you've got to learn some skills in hip hop

4:25

as well, but you've also got to focus on your looks

4:27

and so on. Like, how do your parents

4:29

kind of respond to that?

4:30

Yeah, that's such a good question. So I mentioned that

4:33

the upbringing was very much

4:35

centered around academics and like being a smart

4:37

kid. From

4:40

that, they just did a full 180 and they were

4:43

the ones who were like, take the gap year. This

4:45

is not something you can avoid,

4:47

like it's fallen into your lap. Yeah, this

4:49

you could make a career out of it, you know, you're talented,

4:52

give it a shot. And so they

4:54

really, and they were really lucky that I will support you

4:56

don't worry about like, I'm

4:58

having a job or you know, whatever, because they lived

5:00

in India. So it definitely

5:03

went from like, my mindset being I'm the

5:05

next step for me is master's and PhD, and I'm going to be an

5:07

academic in behavioral economics, to

5:09

then being like, okay, hold on a second,

5:12

let's put it all on pause. I had still

5:14

like gotten into LSE and another

5:16

place that you and I applied for my master's into

5:19

places. So behavioral science itself

5:21

is also relatively new and growing

5:23

field. That's where my academic

5:25

passion was. So I was double majoring in economics and psychology

5:28

at Yale while performing in like

5:30

six musicals and two or three

5:32

dance shows and like acting

5:35

gigs. You know, because that's basically

5:37

why I wanted to go to Yale, which is to be academic,

5:40

but also be a performing artist. And that's known as

5:43

one of, you know, the best universities

5:45

you can go to if you are a performer. They have

5:48

an excellent because the Yale School of Drama is next

5:51

to Juilliard. If you want to train

5:52

to be a professional. Okay. Yeah. So

5:54

that was part of the part of the logic. Part of

5:56

the logic. Yeah, I was always looking for that

5:59

outlet because it a central identity

6:01

of mine. Even getting into these colleges,

6:03

I wrote about being a performer in

6:06

some of my essays and it obviously showed

6:08

through like all my extracurriculars

6:08

where

6:10

you know apart from debate and student council it was

6:12

acting, dancing and singing.

6:13

And

6:14

these universities in the US look at that like

6:16

they want people who are well-rounded. So

6:19

yeah

6:19

it was always people with an extra bit of flair

6:22

and whatever. Because

6:23

everyone has a 4.0 GPA which is like

6:25

distinction equivalent you know. Everyone like all

6:27

the candidates I'm flying have

6:29

the same grades which is the best grades and

6:32

you know they're super academic.

6:34

So then what how do you add that edge? Either

6:36

someone's found a cure for cancer or

6:38

you're like a secret pop star

6:41

or I don't know you have something else going for you. Anyway

6:43

I just decided.

6:45

Why did you pick economics and psychology?

6:48

Two fascinating fields right?

6:50

Yeah yeah I got

6:52

introduced to it by my dad he gifted me this book

6:55

called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

6:57

You've heard of it. You're smiling. Yeah he won the Nobel

6:59

Prize for it. So

7:02

well for the work. Cited in the book to be clear. Yeah

7:04

my dad is an avid reader and so was I. He

7:07

was always giving me books. We've done this cute

7:09

thing where we're like I'm always buying him physics books and

7:11

he's buying me books that he thinks I will enjoy. Yeah

7:13

so he was reading it and he was like this is kind of fascinating

7:16

you might like it because I displayed interest

7:18

in like human behavior or just just

7:21

the human mind in general. I think I

7:23

was in the 10th grade when he gave me that book and

7:27

in India you have to pick a stream in

7:29

your 11th and 12th grade. So

7:31

my high school was in New Delhi. So you

7:33

have to pick science, commerce or

7:35

humanities. Those are the three streams. Science

7:38

will include physics, biology, chemistry. Humanities

7:41

is like political science, you

7:44

know psychology,

7:44

geography, history and

7:47

then commerce is business and finance and accounting.

7:50

So what just put that into the

7:53

British equivalent then so grade 11

7:55

what grades that what age is that? 11

7:57

is the penultimate year. of

8:00

high school. So

8:00

yeah. So you put some

8:02

one of the three things that you pick there is

8:05

commerce. That's quite interesting.

8:07

Like one of the three that you can pick

8:09

is commerce.

8:10

Yeah. In India. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

8:13

It's quite fascinating.

8:14

Um, but then we don't have that here really

8:16

at all. Like

8:17

you can pick whatever, right?

8:18

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. You can pick whatever,

8:20

but business is not, business is not

8:22

something that's really on the curriculum. 16, 17. Yeah. That's

8:25

interesting. I think it's because

8:27

a lot of families in India

8:29

have, have been in business and are industrialists

8:32

and it's just a big stream.

8:35

There is a, there's a reason why they call it a stream

8:37

is cause like, first of all, the population is so

8:39

big, you kind of funnel the population into like,

8:41

okay, which domain do you want to go into? Right.

8:43

Some people are very clear because they've been raised

8:45

by businessmen and, and it's just the precedent

8:48

that of course

8:48

I'll work for my family's business. And

8:50

what does the commerce stream involve then?

8:53

It's like finance, accounting, economics,

8:55

math. Um, again,

8:58

in like English medium schools in India, which

9:00

I went to an English medium school, which means that your

9:03

entire syllabus and curriculum is held

9:05

in English, not conducted in English. Um,

9:07

you have to pick English as one of your five subjects.

9:10

And then whatever other four you pick kind

9:13

of

9:14

puts you in a stream.

9:15

So what I did is I ended up starting

9:18

in science. So I had math,

9:20

chemistry, physics, English, and economics.

9:23

Um, they did this thing where economics could

9:25

be part of science or humanities or

9:27

commerce. They kind of shuffled it around. Um,

9:30

but then I dropped physics, which was again,

9:32

like, no one had done that in, in our, in the

9:34

history of the school, because it was not allowed. Yeah.

9:37

But I took a liking to behavioral economics

9:40

given like reading this book and then some others

9:42

that I got into, um, that

9:44

I basically figured out a hack where if

9:46

you've got the principles permission and

9:49

you got them to like sign off on a letter that said, this

9:51

person will not be able to appear for Indian,

9:54

um, entrance exams to

9:56

anything, like not law,

9:58

not medicine, not engineering. their

10:01

only kind of shot is either a liberal arts

10:03

college in India or abroad, they

10:06

just apply abroad, that you could essentially

10:09

make streams because the board did not distinguish,

10:11

like the board just said have English

10:14

and for other subjects, it was schools making

10:16

their own lives easier so people weren't like mixing

10:18

and matching too much and you could put people in sections.

10:20

So

10:21

my school had 26 sections, it was

10:23

massive, just in my year there were a thousand kids and

10:26

so imagine the logistical nightmare

10:29

which would occur if people were like I'm gonna do

10:31

biology and then history and you know because

10:33

the whole point is like you shepherd them into a class, the

10:36

teacher comes, teaches and leaves and another teacher comes,

10:38

that's the model so you don't like leave as a class.

10:40

Yeah,

10:42

yeah, yeah it is different so then essentially

10:45

I just got the permission from the psychology head of department

10:47

and the physics head of department and my school principal saying

10:50

this girl is weird, like you let her do what she wants as

10:52

long as when her section is doing physics she's

10:55

just gonna leave the classroom, go find

10:57

the psychology head of department

10:59

and study with her one-on-one or go

11:01

find a class that was having a psychology

11:03

seminar at that time and she would just go sit there. So

11:05

I ended up mixing streams and now it's a thing apparently

11:07

I heard from people who are younger than me that like now it's the

11:10

norm and everyone's mixing streams but

11:13

that's how it kind of came about my dad gifting me the book

11:15

and me just realizing this is fascinating.

11:18

Economics is traditionally very math heavy

11:20

and like quantitatively rigorous and

11:23

it wasn't able to predict the 2008 financial crisis,

11:25

it wasn't able to predict a lot of what

11:28

actually happens in the market which is which is where

11:30

psychology comes in like how do people actually think

11:32

and behave and how can we use

11:34

those insights

11:34

to remodel economic theory. What's

11:37

the most surprising thing about

11:39

behavioral economics?

11:41

It used to be people are

11:43

irrational but now everyone knows

11:45

we are

11:46

but I think for me the most

11:48

surprising is the fact

11:50

that you can read up on all these biases and you can

11:53

educate yourself on like oh this is

11:55

for instance like the sunk cost fallacy is

11:57

you know you've probably heard about that or the conference

12:00

information bias or there's about 120 cognitive

12:02

biases, but that doesn't prevent

12:04

you from falling into the trap. You

12:08

can know about them and still fall prey to them

12:10

and still continue to be an irrational

12:12

human being because that's fundamentally like who

12:15

we are as social beings. So

12:17

that is the surprising part that you can, like I

12:19

am committing all of these errors despite having been

12:22

studying them for all these years and working

12:24

now in consulting, telling people

12:26

how to avoid them and I'm still like everyday

12:28

planning fallacy. How many hours will it take me to complete this

12:31

task? Five, turns out take

12:33

me eight, you know.

12:34

Yeah. No, no,

12:36

I like having studied entrepreneurship

12:39

politics. I still find myself falling into lots

12:41

of mistakes all the time with

12:43

both of them. And so how was that

12:45

year? Let's go back to the gap year. How was

12:48

that gap year kind of taking it off?

12:51

And yeah, how did you then think, because you're

12:53

switching from studying

12:54

some big topics

12:57

there at University of Yale

12:59

to focusing on your kind of physical

13:02

skills

13:03

in that gap year back in India. How

13:05

did you make that mindset shift?

13:08

I don't think I quite made the mindset shift. I

13:10

just launched myself into it

13:12

and it was really hard, I have to be honest. You

13:16

kind of go from feeling like

13:18

an imposter at a university like that

13:20

where like you're just surrounded by everyone who's

13:22

a genius and so good at what they do and

13:25

being very academically honest, you

13:27

know. I don't know

13:30

how to say this without sounding

13:30

pretty. She's not a pro. It's

13:34

just a literal job. I don't

13:36

think you're saying it like most

13:38

of our guests. We used to think

13:41

we were businessmen. You were all in the script.

13:44

It was all good.

13:46

Yeah, it was a huge mindset.

13:49

Mindset. It was a huge

13:52

mindset shift because

13:54

I kind of went from doing

13:57

everything all at once. classes,

14:01

five credits a semester and doing all these performing

14:04

arts. So then just being unemployed pretty much

14:06

and being the struggling artist.

14:09

The thing is like you don't know when your next job

14:12

is going to come or in my case it

14:14

was the first one. Like I'd been locked for a song

14:16

but it took about six months to

14:18

actually go and record the final version. So

14:20

there was a constant like mental battle

14:23

of like have I made it, have I not? Is that guaranteed?

14:26

There's no contract that's been signed, not at that

14:28

point. And then you're just kind

14:30

of showing up to auditions. You're just going to network,

14:33

meet whoever you can, kind of expand your

14:35

circle like who's doing what type of casting, where

14:37

would I fit in, going and meeting casting

14:39

directors, giving them your introduction and sometimes

14:42

they give you a random scene on the spot and you just perform

14:44

it. And that was kind of what I was doing.

14:46

So it was very different from studying

14:49

and writing papers and like solving questions

14:51

to just performing or trying

14:54

to perform. And I wouldn't lie,

14:56

it was really, really difficult. I

15:00

also felt my brain cells dying. I

15:03

won't lie because I suddenly then wasn't

15:05

reading the news or you know, wasn't

15:07

using a part of my brain that you're used to using

15:10

on a daily basis as a student. Yeah.

15:13

And

15:14

did you, because you talked about at the

15:17

beginning, you know, sort of music

15:19

performing being an outlet for you. And

15:22

then when you were like, okay, well, I'm going to take a proper

15:24

shot of this and I'm going to dedicate my life to it.

15:26

Did it start becoming less fun?

15:32

Maybe in a way. Yeah. I

15:34

will still say that when I'm in the studio and whenever I was

15:36

still auditioning for a song, I was having the time

15:38

of my life because that's genuinely my

15:41

passion. And there's

15:42

a certain like

15:45

energy that comes to you when you're doing

15:47

something that you love. So I still

15:50

had that outlet and I still, whenever

15:52

I was even just auditioning without a guarantee of

15:54

being in a song, we're still able to.

16:00

Okay.

16:01

Yeah, so

16:03

when I moved to Mumbai, I was going on a lot of auditions

16:06

for acting and singing and I

16:08

found that whenever I was in those situations,

16:11

I was still having a lot of fun. So

16:13

I still found that outlet and I was still

16:15

singing at home and posting my amateur covers

16:17

on my Instagram and that was always fun.

16:21

But for sure, there's something different about being

16:23

in a production. So I was used to performing

16:27

with a cost, right? And there's so much social

16:29

interaction that comes about with that and

16:31

preparation and you're like doing table readings

16:33

with your co-actors. Then

16:36

you're doing tech rehearsals and there's almost

16:38

a month of prep that goes into a production.

16:41

All of that I missed because it went from like

16:43

being a social art to just

16:45

being independent and thinking

16:47

for yourself and going on an audition solo

16:50

and performing solo and then coming home

16:52

and it was just that was hard to

16:54

deal with especially because as

16:56

I said, I didn't have all these other things filling up my time

16:59

anymore.

16:59

Yeah.

17:00

And I definitely want

17:02

to touch on the fact that this can be super isolating and

17:04

I kind of went into depression a little bit in

17:06

that time because I just

17:08

felt worthless. Like I didn't know if I was

17:10

getting cost in anything. I didn't know if I

17:12

would make it. I didn't know if the thing that had

17:15

been offered to me was still on the table or yeah,

17:17

I just went from like having a lot going for me to

17:19

then just nothing. Yeah.

17:22

And then there was this weight that I definitely always

17:24

put on myself. It's like I

17:27

am not contributing to society. I'm not earning and

17:29

like I'm if anything, I'm relying on my parents

17:31

who are helping me out and I don't know why

17:33

I've always had that like internal pressure

17:35

that I cannot live

17:37

like that. You know, if anything, I want to

17:39

help my parents now and you know, just be

17:42

off support rather than take support and

17:44

it's not like they were saying anything. They were just the loveliest.

17:46

They're like, keep doing this. It's fine. It'll happen. We believe

17:48

in you. But I think I

17:50

had that itch somewhere of

17:52

like still wanting to do my master's because

17:55

that was you know, you grow up having a plan and

17:57

like I spent four years that you're having that plan.

18:00

And every time something didn't work out, I was like,

18:02

I could always go back. I haven't escaped. And

18:05

then honestly, Covid kind of provided that because.

18:08

And how did you keep going? Like,

18:11

how did you

18:13

sort of when you were having those, what's kind

18:15

of like the operating system that you

18:17

used to keep going with that?

18:20

It's just, I think, keeping your eyes on the prize

18:23

and not letting anything get to you. It's just resilient,

18:25

I think. And it's easier said in retrospect

18:28

than it was while I was going through

18:30

it. And to be honest, I still go through that. Like,

18:32

I'm still auditioning for things and most

18:34

of the times not hearing back. The

18:37

funniest part for me still

18:39

is. When

18:41

I go for acting auditions and people keep calling

18:43

me back to the last stage and then they

18:46

say, sorry, like, you know,

18:48

last day you didn't make it. And I'm like, can you please give me feedback?

18:51

And sure, one time it has been you just just

18:53

you weren't good. There was someone else who was better than you. And

18:55

I respected that. And I almost asked for that tape

18:57

and I compared and I was like, yes, she performed it this

19:00

way. That's good. I like learned something from it.

19:02

But 99.9 percent of the time it was you

19:05

look like a Latina. You don't look Indian

19:07

enough. We want this. This character is very

19:09

Indian. And I'm like, but I am Indian.

19:12

I am born and raised here. Like, how

19:14

do I change my physical attributes?

19:16

I was already trying to lose weight for

19:18

that music video.

19:19

And that was another one. I was body shamed a

19:21

lot. It was like, how can you look the way it like?

19:23

How can you be this big and want to be an actress?

19:26

Which is a very toxic

19:29

side of the industry. But at the same time,

19:31

I understand where it comes from because you

19:33

are playing a character. And if

19:35

as a person, you mirror what the character looks

19:38

like and what the director's vision is, you

19:40

just make your life easier and you increase your chances of

19:42

getting the role. I realize

19:44

it's more about how you look

19:47

than how you perform and how much talent

19:49

you have, which is a hard realization

19:52

to have in the industry.

19:53

It's well, I know

19:56

nothing about

19:57

acting at all.

19:59

necessarily kind of like Indian acting I know even less about

20:02

but what is it like

20:04

that at the beginning does it because I always

20:06

assume that it's quite

20:08

focused on books like at the beginning until

20:10

you've kind of

20:11

begun to make the step ups and then it becomes

20:13

a bit more about the skill.

20:15

Yeah, I would say the casting

20:17

portion is about how you look. Once you've

20:20

been cast it's all about how you perform because

20:22

the audience will judge you on can

20:25

you act like have you done

20:27

justice to the character? Did you portray,

20:29

did you carry the story pretty much right? So

20:33

it's a lot of pressure. It's almost like you have to look perfect,

20:35

you have to like perform perfectly, you just there's

20:37

no room for error but

20:39

again like as you said I think that's a really good point. Once you

20:41

get started and then you're

20:44

no longer a newcomer and you're just you've made it, you've

20:46

made a debut I

20:48

guess then you kind of have some

20:51

margin of error in exploring different

20:54

characters and like what you're going to bring to the table and

20:57

some things will just work and others

20:59

won't but I would say the casting

21:00

portion is the hardest to crack. Yeah.

21:03

Yeah. You said something about

21:05

sort of having resilience and so on

21:08

and part of it was keeping your eyes on the prize.

21:11

What is the prize?

21:13

Whatever your dream is.

21:15

What was it for you?

21:18

Getting started to be honest, getting started

21:20

and doing the best I could and

21:23

I think I got really lucky with my first

21:25

music video because I did eventually

21:28

end up being in the video and that

21:30

was very different from what you see as

21:32

industry practice especially in India because

21:35

Bollywood is and this is maybe something

21:37

new for the audience watching because it's not

21:39

the same in Hollywood but in

21:42

Bollywood since the 40s, 50s, 60s the norm is that an actor

21:47

performs in the video which is traditionally

21:49

in the film so films are four hours long.

21:53

There were about four or five songs each

21:55

five minutes in that time like 60s and

21:58

the actors were just dancing. like performing

22:00

the song that they had not sung. So

22:03

they were just actors. And

22:05

that's where playback

22:07

singer, as the term comes from,

22:10

where you're the singer who's lending your voice,

22:13

you get paid for it. And that's pretty much it. Someone

22:15

else is going to come and be on the screen to

22:18

your voice. But I

22:20

kind of grew up with a very heavy Western influence.

22:22

My training was an opera rock and pop. And

22:25

I kind of grew up with like, you are the star of

22:27

the show. Like you are the face of the video.

22:29

So the triple threat concept, like at

22:32

Yale, everyone I was acting with could

22:34

sing, dance and act, or most people could. And

22:36

that was valued and it was an asset that gave

22:39

you an edge. Then I went to Bombay

22:41

or Mumbai and people were like, so what do you want to

22:43

do? Do you want to act or do you want to sing? Pick one. And

22:45

I was like, what?

22:47

Why can't I do both?

22:48

And it's still like that. A lot of times,

22:51

I think there's just a lot of catching up to do. But luckily

22:53

we're getting there with Amazon

22:55

and Netflix shows where it's

22:58

about a girl who sings and is

23:00

acting in it like a star is born, Lady Gaga, that kind

23:02

of a thing. Like these stories are now becoming

23:05

normal and there are some actors

23:07

who are now releasing their singles or

23:09

singers who have now become actors in India.

23:11

So I think they're charting the way for people

23:14

like me who want to do it all. But

23:16

I remember when one

23:19

of these auditions that I went to was with a music

23:21

director who was like, OK, now you sing

23:23

as if I'm not going to say the name, but like

23:25

this Bollywood actress is on screen and

23:27

her hair is flying and you just give the emotion.

23:30

I was like, hold on. Why is

23:31

she on screen? I'm on screen. And he was

23:34

just like, you can leave like you're

23:36

not going to understand what I want.

23:38

And

23:39

if you think that highly of yourself, good luck to you.

23:42

But yeah, there's you deal

23:44

with a lot of characters.

23:45

Yeah.

23:47

And so tell us about First Kiss and that sort

23:49

of that sort of tipping moment that happened.

23:51

Because that's you know,

23:53

I guess that is the first prize and the prize is

23:55

always changing, get bigger and evolve, don't

23:57

they? But that first prize is

23:59

like, well, let's

24:01

go viral, let's get noticed.

24:04

Tell us about how that felt with

24:06

First Kiss.

24:07

It was amazing. As I said, it took

24:10

a long time to become.

24:13

It kind of got released when I had moved to London.

24:15

So I came here September 2020 to

24:18

do my Masters after

24:20

a year of kind of waiting around and not knowing

24:22

when the song would come out. So we'd shot it in

24:24

the summer of 2020. So lockdown, the

24:28

COVID was a thing and we had to follow

24:30

protocols for how many people can be on set, et cetera,

24:33

et cetera. Got permissions to film it. I

24:36

was so happy when we were filming it. It was a three

24:38

day shoot,

24:40

6am to 10pm. I

24:42

was not used to that. But

24:44

honestly, like I can do that all day every

24:47

day because it doesn't feel like a 12, 14,

24:49

16 hour day. It's

24:51

just so much fun for me to do that. So that was a

24:54

great insight into now that after

24:56

a year of auditioning and stuff, now that I'm doing it, just

24:58

realizing I love it, you know, and

25:00

that's the first step. Like whichever

25:03

job you do, you kind of have to have that

25:05

moment of do I like what I'm doing? And

25:08

in the performing arts, there

25:10

can be a huge weight up to getting

25:12

to do it. Being

25:14

on stage was a thrill always my entire life, but I'd

25:16

never been on screen in that grand

25:19

setting before. So it was a massive realization.

25:21

Okay, I'm following my

25:24

impulses and this is genuinely my

25:26

passion. So that felt amazing

25:28

to like realize that after a year of, as I

25:30

said, dealing with depression and just struggling

25:33

a lot mentally. But then

25:35

I almost didn't know how big

25:37

of a deal it was going to be. There was

25:39

no way of me knowing that apart from obviously

25:41

knowing I was working with such a renowned

25:44

like, you know, person who has legendary status

25:46

in India because he brought rap. He commercialized

25:49

rap in India. Yeah. We kind of grew

25:51

up listening to her songs. So he was a huge deal.

25:53

And I kind of knew what that meant as a

25:55

theoretical concept, but only when the song

25:58

released and

25:59

blew up.

26:00

and I started getting messages and my Instagram

26:02

was blowing up. And I was

26:04

out there for people to comment on and it's like,

26:07

you know, just be a public figure. It was

26:09

of completely like foreign territory for

26:12

me. There was no way of me like coming

26:14

to terms with it rather than instead of just going like

26:16

the only way was go through it. Yeah. And

26:18

that was amazing. However, I was a full time

26:20

student when it released. I was here a month

26:23

into my master's degree and suddenly my classmates

26:26

are like, what is going on with her? And

26:29

that's why I like say Hannah Montana.

26:31

So when yeah, when was the motor?

26:34

Because I'm fascinated by it, particularly being in

26:36

London as well. I think that's really interesting of like,

26:39

it was waking up one morning and then seeing

26:41

it. It got to kind of like half

26:43

a million views or a million views. What was

26:45

the sort of like, oh, this is this is

26:47

popping off.

26:48

It was insane. We reached 30 million

26:50

views in three days. Wow.

26:52

And takes us a week to go.

26:59

Yeah, I think it was the

27:01

most viewed video on YouTube within

27:03

the 24 hours that it released. So it was trending

27:06

on number one on YouTube charts. Yeah. And

27:08

that's what I mean by like that scale and

27:11

that level you can't grapple with

27:13

until it's just your reality. Yeah.

27:15

So it was fully like waking up India's five

27:17

and a half hours ahead. Yeah. Time-wise. So

27:20

I would be catching up to all the comments and all

27:22

the views and all of these things. And I remember

27:25

day every day I would wake up and spend an hour like

27:27

reading all the comments, reading all the messages that were coming

27:29

and trying to respond to them and just

27:32

feeling so excited to

27:34

see

27:35

something I'd put so much of like hard

27:38

work into just, you know, materialize

27:41

and people were liking the song. People were messaging

27:43

me saying it's that earworm song like it's

27:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your honey thing makes catchy songs. So

27:49

people were like, I cannot I have an exam and I cannot

27:51

get this song out of my head like please help.

27:54

Yeah, no, it was surreal.

27:55

And how do the economics

27:58

of something like that work?

27:59

in terms of like, are you paid a fee upfront?

28:02

Or do you get some royalties off the YouTube?

28:04

Or how does that work?

28:06

It completely depends on the

28:08

labels you're working with. Because this is not

28:10

an independent release. This went out on

28:14

the most subscribed channel in

28:15

the world, which is T-Series, Indian music

28:17

label.

28:18

And I was just kind of a free

28:21

writer when it came to just

28:23

being the artist that was being featured. So it was

28:25

Yo-Yo Hani Singh's song, it was his

28:27

music production. Essentially in music, the

28:30

economics 101 is

28:32

the music producer is the

28:35

owner of the intellectual property of the song.

28:38

If you have written the song, so if you're a lyricist,

28:42

you can make some percentage of the royalty,

28:44

or you could be paid a flat

28:46

fee. Singers

28:47

are usually paid a flat fee as well.

28:50

So you don't own the song at all.

28:53

And then the way you earn from it as a singer is when

28:55

you perform in shows. So when

28:57

you're selling out a concert, then

28:59

you get to like profit from the song because

29:02

it was always your voice. So it's a little bit,

29:04

it's a little bit exploitative because

29:06

the

29:07

rationale you were being fed is you're the voice

29:09

and people are listening to you and they're liking you and you're

29:11

kind of the one becoming the star or the celeb.

29:14

So the money is not yours to keep, unless you

29:16

produce the song, which I did and I just was a

29:18

singer.

29:20

So that kind of I guess explains

29:22

the model. But as the other

29:24

thing is, as you become more and more popular labels

29:27

treat you better. In the beginning, they

29:29

want to keep the entire pie to themselves

29:32

and tell you that without them, your

29:35

song wouldn't have been released or it wouldn't have reached

29:38

an audience. We're talking like 249

29:41

million subscribers on YouTube, like

29:43

that kind of platform would take

29:46

an entire person's lifetime if that to

29:49

get to, you know, as a viewership.

29:50

And

29:53

what

29:54

other sort of cultural differences

29:56

that you've noticed? And I'm partly asking about

29:58

creative cultural differences.

29:59

but also more just your sort of broader

30:02

thoughts on, you know, you've spent time in

30:04

the States, in the UK

30:07

and

30:08

born and raised in India. What are

30:10

the sort of differences that you've noticed between

30:12

those places?

30:13

So many. I don't even know

30:15

where to start.

30:16

Big question, I thought that. Let's

30:19

try and narrow it down. So what

30:21

are the creative

30:23

cultural differences between the States, the

30:25

UK and India?

30:27

I have found that there's a lot more

30:30

rigor and

30:32

structure to creative processes, whether

30:34

it's acting or singing in countries

30:37

like the US and the UK. There's an art

30:39

to it. There's books people have read to

30:43

begin with. People who want to perform

30:46

professionally are getting trained. Like

30:48

that, that might be such a basic concept to you,

30:50

even listening to this, like you want to be an actor,

30:52

go to acting school. Of course, right?

30:55

That's not the case in India. Most actors have not

30:57

been to acting school. They've been engineers

31:00

or high school dropouts or like

31:02

historians or lawyers and

31:04

found their passion. And I think

31:06

that comes from an underlying cultural expectation

31:09

of the arts being looked down upon

31:12

as an industry or as a profession,

31:15

right? Like I kind of hinted at it in the beginning. There's a

31:17

reason why my parents didn't want me to

31:19

become an artist, which historically

31:21

is linked to like a bad girl

31:24

or a corrupted girl as an actor. Because

31:26

if you go into this profession, there are things

31:28

like casting couch and people being inappropriate

31:30

with you and ulterior motives

31:33

and not again, as I mentioned, it not

31:35

being about your craft, it being about

31:37

what do you bring to the table?

31:40

And so like in the 60s and 70s, women who

31:42

acted were considered morally loose in India,

31:45

because their dignity was not intact. You

31:47

know, it's like, you guys have seen Bridgerton,

31:49

but like that's the society I grew up in. Like

31:53

that kind of you cannot be seen talking

31:55

to a guy kind of an energy, of course, is

31:57

better for my generation. I went to a co ed

31:59

school I had friends who were guys and stuff.

32:01

But my mom's generation, if you were seen with a guy, then

32:04

the worst was assumed a few. And

32:06

so we're talking like undoing of that level,

32:09

like that culture to now I

32:12

go back and India feels a lot like the UK

32:14

and the US and it's very free and

32:17

I can't talk about whatever I want openly and

32:19

all these topics that were taboo are now

32:22

being discussed. And I think the

32:24

pace at which India is growing is so

32:26

rapid every time I go back, which is

32:29

every three or four months, I feel like I go

32:31

back to a different country.

32:32

Right. And people went all through the same experience,

32:34

right? Which is a bit of a bombing experience

32:37

like sort of cross-culturally as well. Exactly.

32:40

And so you're like, you're coming back

32:43

to London, you're doing the Masters.

32:45

So yeah, I mean, it's four

32:47

years undergrad, Yale economic psychology,

32:49

year gap year chasing

32:52

the prize, which then sort of comes

32:54

to fruition when you were doing your Masters

32:56

at the LSE. What was the Masters? Behavioral

32:58

science. As well, right? Yeah. What

33:02

made you decide to undo the Masters?

33:05

So when I was at Yale, I was double

33:07

majoring and those two fields

33:10

didn't have a huge overlap, even

33:13

though behavioral economics had taken off and we had

33:15

a Nobel Laureate teaching at the Yale School of Management,

33:17

Robert Chiller. He won a Nobel for his work in behavioral finance.

33:21

But I found that in the undergrad departments, the

33:24

economists, professors were still heavily

33:27

scrutinizing and looking down upon other

33:29

social sciences, including psychology. There was

33:32

almost like holier than thou attitude. We

33:34

are quant, you know? We

33:36

are mathematically derived and you guys

33:38

are just fuzzy, unscientific

33:41

or, you know,

33:43

but yeah,

33:44

a lot of my economist professors are just kind of like, behavioral

33:47

sciences, whatever. It's a wave, it'll

33:49

come and go. So I don't

33:51

think people woke up to it as much in

33:53

my time then. We're talking 2015 to 2019.

33:56

This is like, not units have been set up all over the world

33:58

and like the field is advanced. but

34:00

I think it took some time to catch up. However,

34:02

every year I was there, like my fourth year, there was finally

34:06

a senior seminar in behavioral

34:08

economics. But that was the first time it was being

34:10

offered. So 2019 was I think they started

34:12

to be like, okay, this is becoming a

34:14

thing and people are interested in it. And let's teach

34:16

it. Let's learn from, you know,

34:19

even though Yale was super interdisciplinary, I

34:21

don't know why I found it really hard to find

34:24

classes that were teaching me a subset

34:26

of both fields. If it weren't

34:28

for the School of Management, which is the MBA

34:31

program, like the Graduate School

34:33

for Business

34:33

basically,

34:34

they were teaching a lot of behavioral science, but

34:36

not undergrad. So I kind of was like,

34:38

I need to specialize because I want to be

34:40

in this field. I'm sure I

34:42

have these degrees now from my undergrad.

34:45

But what do I know about the subset

34:48

and what what sub area do I

34:50

want to specialize in. And higher

34:52

education was the right next step for that. Like you

34:54

kind of do have to get a PhD.

34:55

Yeah.

34:56

At the very least the masters to be able

34:59

to be like, okay, what sort of behavioral scientist are

35:01

you because the field is not so wide. There's

35:03

neuroscience, cognitive science, anthropologists,

35:05

sociologists, public health experts all

35:07

coming into feed data scientists coming into feed

35:10

into behavioral science. So now I think the future

35:12

of behavioral science is like, what is your expertise and what

35:15

what type of behavioral problems can you solve? And

35:18

so I had to get a master's. Yes.

35:20

What was

35:22

what was a particular dissertation

35:25

or focus the masters was there

35:27

a topic that you were particularly studying?

35:29

Yes. So there were more

35:31

core modules you had to take then there were electives

35:33

that you've dropped into. And then there was a dissertation,

35:36

which was your piece of work. I

35:38

studied the impact of

35:42

art on life satisfaction. So I wanted

35:44

to kind of bridge my

35:46

performing

35:47

arts and behavioral science passions. This is

35:49

COVID-19 where everyone's

35:51

life satisfaction

35:52

scores, which is happiness scores were declining.

35:53

They couldn't

35:55

see each other. It was like a lockdown basic life,

35:59

you know, taken away from them and

36:01

I studied the impact of pre-COVID

36:04

if people participated in the arts, whether it was

36:06

through performing or consumption

36:09

in general like that. So it was all secondary research

36:12

which means I didn't run my own experiments, I used existing

36:15

datasets. So the first

36:17

part was in general people who perform

36:20

or consume art have higher

36:22

life satisfaction scores

36:23

and that's kind of been evidenced in the literature

36:26

for a variety of reasons. Yeah.

36:28

I won't get into that but the

36:31

second part was like a, I'm getting

36:33

super statistical like nerdy here but like a

36:35

difference in differences approach of since

36:38

COVID lockdown have people who have

36:40

continued to perform or engage in

36:42

the arts had a buffer effect in their

36:44

life satisfaction. So have they been happier

36:47

than people who haven't performed or been consuming

36:49

art and I found that yes that was the case. So

36:52

performing arts is a buffer to mental health which

36:55

has been like my entire life like I am happier

36:57

as a person when I perform.

37:00

I've got a statistical rigger behind it

37:02

to prove it. And do you

37:04

think like that your career

37:08

will forever be sort of

37:10

bridging between those sort of disciplines

37:13

of

37:13

behavioral economics and performing

37:15

arts?

37:17

I would like it to but

37:19

if I blow up and I'm the

37:21

biggest star ever, I

37:23

wouldn't have time I'm joking. That's so silly.

37:26

I think what I'm

37:28

doing. They

37:29

clearly feed each other. They do. Like

37:32

you get that impression from you that you sort of,

37:35

whatever you're focusing on the other is almost

37:37

a release.

37:38

Yes, 100% and that was a

37:41

realization for me in that gap year when

37:43

I was doing zero behavioral science or like zero academics,

37:46

a huge part of me felt like it was gone.

37:49

So it is I think for me as

37:51

an individual it's about figuring out what

37:53

balance will I be drawing. I do think they will

37:56

both be a part of my life but

37:59

right now it's maybe more behavioral science because I'm doing

38:01

that full time and music is more as

38:03

in when songs come up or as in when I go to India

38:06

and do more. But I can easily

38:08

see that switching around

38:10

and music is more full time but I still dabble

38:14

in behavioral science as a consultant or

38:16

a contractor for the company I'm currently working

38:18

for or however, I think I will

38:20

find an outlet for both.

38:21

Yeah.

38:23

Again, it's like I don't think I can switch

38:25

one off forever. It

38:28

does feed in a lot as well. I think

38:30

I've also relied on both because

38:32

human behavior is like so applicable to anything

38:34

you do. So when you're doing character work

38:36

as an actor, like even preparing

38:39

for an audition, I can like understand

38:41

what a character's motivations are based on

38:43

everything I know from behavioral science. So it

38:45

helps me become a

38:47

better actor. And because I act

38:50

and I have empathy for the roles that

38:52

I'm performing or an actor just has

38:55

to have great empathy, otherwise they wouldn't be able to like

38:57

bring it to life. That helps me be a better

38:59

behavioral scientist and ask the right questions and really

39:01

get into people's core beliefs and

39:03

attitudes and perceptions and engage

39:06

with them better. So I think it's mutually beneficial

39:08

as well.

39:09

So

39:12

when it comes to acting, it's not been a discipline

39:14

I've appreciated at all until recent years.

39:17

And now actually understanding the cultural

39:19

sort of differences and understanding those roles

39:21

and actually speaking to actors about

39:24

what they kind of go through in terms of

39:27

understanding because often playing an actor

39:30

is understanding a job actually, right? So

39:32

it all comes back to Jimmy's jobs. But

39:34

like it's sort of like it is

39:36

that thing of you got to understand the mentality of people

39:39

and so on. And I think it's fascinating the

39:41

research that people have to do

39:43

and so on. Mel Shriepo

39:45

played Margaret Thatcher like went and spent a lot

39:48

of time, including my

39:50

dad as well, understanding what it was like working

39:52

with her and all of that and sort of

39:55

really engrossing herself in it. And actually

39:57

when she plays it, they kind of like

39:59

rave it.

39:59

reviews she gets for it are

40:02

like extraordinary and

40:04

so on. So it's one of these things I've got

40:06

to appreciate much more. Who

40:09

are your sort of inspirations and

40:12

idols that you've kind of looked up to on

40:14

this journey?

40:15

Yeah, there have been so many. You mentioned Meryl

40:17

Streep. She went to the Old School of Drama. So yeah. And

40:21

there are many others. Sometimes it was

40:23

a bit scary because when you were getting

40:26

like dressed, like wardrobe would come and fit you into

40:29

shoes, you would like see the names of people like

40:31

Meryl

40:31

Streep. Like you're literally in

40:33

her shoes. Literally, yeah. So

40:36

obviously she is just incredible. I

40:38

think I have separate ones for acting and singing,

40:40

but if I were to combine and be just

40:42

a two... I'm very glad you're not like that.

40:45

Yeah, surprisingly and sadly

40:47

not many women in that field. Which

40:50

needs to change. Anyway, I

40:53

think people like Beyonce and JLo.

40:56

Yeah. Because they've managed

40:58

to do both and set the

41:00

precedent for it. I watched JLo's documentary

41:03

recently where she was fighting the

41:05

same thing. And this is like in the 90s and early

41:07

2000s where she started off her career as a dancer

41:10

and then dabble in acting. And

41:12

then realized she could sing really well. And there

41:14

was this awakening in people in Hollywood saying,

41:16

pick one or you will forever

41:18

suffer. Yeah. She's

41:19

kind of just been like, you can

41:21

all say what you want, but I'm still going to do both

41:23

and just sit and watch. And I have huge

41:25

respect for people who don't then

41:30

easily listen to what the society wants

41:32

of you. And I face this a lot in India, which is like everyone

41:34

wants to limit you. Everyone wants to put you in

41:36

a box and say... Because it

41:39

makes it easier to answer the question, who are you?

41:41

Who

41:42

are you? You run a... You're a podcaster. If

41:45

you tell me your 10 other things, I'll probably lose interest

41:46

or be like, yeah, sure, whatever. But what's your number

41:49

one label? Yeah.

41:49

But people who've been able to defy that

41:52

norm, you know, and be on San Jello are like,

41:54

I have mad respect because they've been able to do

41:57

it all.

41:58

What did Jello make from that?

41:59

a JLI documentary?

42:03

It was really heartbreaking. It's really

42:05

heartbreaking to see that she's still

42:07

not where she wanted to be

42:10

all along. And

42:12

it's a constant battle of just

42:15

proving yourself.

42:17

And no matter what you do, you're

42:18

not good enough. But at the same time,

42:20

people who like you will always love you and you'll have

42:22

that fan base. I think

42:25

what I realized more and more is to make

42:29

a life and make a living out of performing arts.

42:31

You have to also have good business acumen.

42:34

And she's really done well with her skincare

42:36

brand and her beauty company. And you'll see

42:38

all of them do, right? Rihanna launched Fenty and Sadeya

42:41

Gomez, who also did Singing Anne Acting

42:44

and struggled with the same thing I've been talking about,

42:46

has now launched her own beauty company. And I

42:49

don't know, there's just something about this industry

42:51

where you're always under scrutiny.

42:53

You're never good enough. And people are looking to tear you

42:56

apart, no matter what you do. So

42:58

that way, it's one

43:01

of the most difficult

43:03

industries to step into. Because

43:06

you won't face that kind of... Sure,

43:08

politicians maybe face a bit of that. But

43:10

I think it's just being a celebrity or being

43:12

in the public's life.

43:14

Yes. But isn't it also just

43:16

any high performing individual

43:18

is never quite satisfied. And that's

43:21

partly what separates them.

43:22

Yeah, there's the intrinsic part and the extrinsic

43:24

part. Sure, I don't know

43:26

JLo personally, but in the documentary, I saw

43:28

that there's so much she wants to do. But

43:31

then there's almost all that battle of if

43:33

you want to do that, you produce it yourself, which is

43:35

something that was a big takeaway for me. Just

43:38

even at that level, when you're a massive celebrity,

43:40

you would like people all over the world know you and

43:42

respect you. Still, in order to

43:44

perform in a movie where you want to play what you

43:47

want to play, you fund it. Because

43:49

people aren't making that. And isn't

43:51

that sad, but also,

43:53

it kind of inspires you to be like, okay, let me make myself

43:56

as successful where if I want to tell the stories I want

43:58

to tell, I don't have to rely on other

44:00

people to build them for

44:01

me. Yeah, yeah, totally. Have

44:04

you ever had any business entrepreneurship

44:06

ideas?

44:10

Not any that are good enough to share on Jimmy's

44:12

job, but

44:15

I do think I will definitely, I see

44:17

myself going down that path.

44:18

As well, brilliant.

44:20

Well, in the future, we'll get you back. I'll

44:23

ask you about that. Thank you so much for

44:25

coming on Jimmy's job in the future. It's been fascinating.

44:27

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.