0:06

This is rather an obvious metaphor but I

0:08

often think of the similarities between travel and

0:10

life. Many of the questions you

0:12

could ask yourself about travel also apply to

0:14

life. Do you travel for the

0:16

sake of travelling or do you travel

0:18

to get somewhere? Do you move slowly,

0:20

soaking in the moments or do you

0:22

move fast, accumulating experiences, ticking off boxes?

0:25

And how much reflecting do you do

0:27

on both your travelling and your living?

0:29

How much intentionality do you bring into

0:31

both your travelling and your living? Do

0:34

you want to get somewhere or are you happy in

0:36

the present moment? Are you restless even when you

0:38

are still? Or have you found a

0:40

way to always be at peace even when you

0:42

are moving perhaps especially when you are moving? Do

0:45

you think about travelling? Do

0:47

you think about life? Welcome

0:52

to The Scene and the Unseen, our

0:55

weekly podcast on economics, politics and

0:57

behavioural science. Please welcome your host,

0:59

Amit Barmak. Welcome

1:06

to The Scene and the Unseen. My guest

1:08

today is Utsav Mamoria, the creator of the

1:10

great travel podcast, Postcards from Nowhere. Utsav

1:12

is a creator who thinks deeply about what

1:14

the act of creating means and he is

1:17

now sharing his insights with all of you.

1:19

Utsav and Chag Gopala, the Deepak Gopala Krishnan

1:21

who has been on a memorable episode with

1:23

me are starting a project together called the

1:25

6% Club in which they help creators get

1:27

from idea to launch in 45 days.

1:30

So if you had creative ideas for

1:32

a while but not had either the

1:34

momentum or the know-how or the

1:36

non-bingoliness to launch these ideas, don't just stand

1:38

there, sign up with the 6% Club. Utsav

1:41

and Chag will get you there. The URL

1:43

is in the show notes and Utsav also

1:45

talks about it at the start of this

1:47

conversation and we talk of

1:49

a lot else. We talk of slow travel,

1:52

we talk of noticing the world, we talk

1:54

of intentionality, we talk of learning how to

1:56

see, we talk of being a creator, we

1:58

talk of how a philosophy towards travel

2:00

can also be a philosophy of

2:02

living. The best travelers don't just

2:04

look outwards, they look inwards. What's

2:06

up certainly does and that's why I love

2:08

this conversation so much but before we get to

2:10

it let's take a quick commercial break. The

2:16

music started and this sounds like a commercial

2:19

but it isn't. It's a plea from

2:21

me to check out my latest labour

2:23

of love, a YouTube show I am

2:25

co-hosting with my good friend the brilliant

2:27

Ajay Shah. We've called it Everything is

2:29

Everything. Every week we'll speak for about

2:31

an hour on things we care about,

2:33

from the profound to the profane, from

2:35

the exalted to the everyday. We range

2:37

widely across subjects and we bring multiple

2:40

frames with which we try to understand

2:42

the world. Please join us on our

2:44

journey and please support us by subscribing

2:46

to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash

2:48

Amitwarma A M I T V A R

2:50

M A. The show is called Everything is

2:52

Everything. Please do check it out. What's

2:59

up welcome to the scene and the end scene. Thank you so

3:01

much Amit. Happy to be here. Yeah we've been talking about this

3:03

for a long time and it's been a long time sort of

3:06

happening and I'm really glad you're here and

3:08

I'm especially glad to learn about your new

3:10

venture with our good mutual friend Chag Gopal,

3:12

the great Deepak Gopal Akrishnan who did such

3:14

a memorable episode with me a couple of

3:16

years back and I just think

3:18

he's one of the most brilliant content creators out

3:20

there not just in terms of content but in

3:22

thinking meta about content and getting meta about it

3:25

and the show is called that and

3:27

I don't want to play in that but so and

3:29

then you two are coming together to help content creators so

3:31

I'm just so excited about this. So tell me more. So

3:34

this actually just started off with you know

3:36

Deepak you know telling me that hey you

3:38

know I have been always wanting to do

3:40

something in this space and Deepak and I

3:42

go our way back right so we move

3:44

over. Yeah so he was just

3:46

a bad senior to me at our MBA school Mika

3:49

and we have been discussing things

3:51

on and off he got me into podcasting right I

3:53

think that's the story I really want to tell because

3:56

I remember it was 2018 or 17

3:58

sometime. time and

4:00

he reached out and said, hey, I run a podcast and

4:03

I wanted to come on it. My two questions were,

4:05

what is a podcast? Right. And

4:07

I was like, what do you think I will have

4:09

to say, which is going to be of any value

4:11

to you? Right. He's like, no,

4:13

you work in market research, you work in

4:15

consumer behavior. So just come and

4:17

speak and we'll figure it out. We'll have some fun.

4:19

I'm like, well, it's your show, but feel free to

4:22

junk it if you think it's not worth it.

4:24

Right. So we went on to that show and

4:26

I had a blast, absolute blast with the simplified

4:28

team. And then

4:31

it's around that time I took a sabbatical.

4:34

Right. I was always into traveling, but it's something I

4:36

really wanted to do. So I took three months off

4:38

from work. Right. And I then

4:40

did a episode with them talking

4:42

about how to take a sabbatical in India. I've heard that

4:44

I was lovely. That was super meta. Right.

4:48

Because one thing is very very

4:50

conscious, right, that unlike a lot

4:52

of creators out there, you know,

4:54

including yourself, my side

4:56

gigs are my side gigs that they are

4:58

not my main gigs. I still have a

5:00

full time job and I know I need

5:02

my to pay and so on. So

5:05

was it a wise decision? Should I do that or

5:07

not? You went to go through all those things and,

5:09

you know, also navigate that at your organization and

5:12

kudos to my former organization who said that, you know,

5:14

yeah, just sort of go for it types. Right.

5:16

So that happened. I came back, did a whole couple

5:18

of episodes on budget travel. And it's

5:20

around that time when, you know,

5:22

we were sitting in one of the recordings and I had

5:25

set myself a goal when I started out saying that in

5:27

three months I want to write a

5:29

book of whatever my experience is. Right.

5:32

Now, the funny bit is that I actually wrote the

5:34

book and I have been sitting

5:36

on the manuscript for the last six years for

5:38

a variety of reasons. But when I was talking

5:40

about this entire thing, one of the producers said

5:42

that why don't you pitch your own travel show?

5:45

Right. And this is where my favorite enemy

5:47

came back to me, which is called self

5:49

rejection. Right. And I'm like, yeah,

5:52

sure. But really, I mean, I have traveled a

5:55

bit. Sure. I've done a sub

5:57

article, which is interesting and different, but, you

5:59

know, create. creating content is completely different game.

6:02

But then Deepak said,

6:04

just give it a shot. I mean, why don't we submit a

6:07

pitch to IBM? And

6:10

then we went through a couple of random iterations and

6:13

that's how postcards from nowhere,

6:15

the show was born. And I think

6:19

one of the things which at least

6:22

I did not realize then and now or I realize now is

6:25

that all of creativity,

6:27

content creation, podcasting, YouTubing,

6:29

whatever you do, the

6:31

most important journey you take is actually

6:34

the journey which you take within, right?

6:36

The amount of sheer discipline it gives you, right?

6:39

Because you can't, you simply cannot do

6:41

it without discipline. Motivation is

6:43

fickle, right? And sort

6:46

of this thought has been with both of us

6:48

between Deepak and I for a

6:51

while. Right. And just

6:53

about a couple of months ago, I sort

6:55

of said to

6:57

him that, you know, we should do something in this space. So

6:59

initially we thought of, you know,

7:02

just talking about accountability. And this

7:04

also happened completely by chance because a couple of

7:06

friends told me that, hey, listen, I'm trying to

7:08

do these things. One of them is an entrepreneur,

7:10

is a freelancer saying that these are

7:12

important for the future of my work, but because I'm

7:14

so caught up in day to day stuff, I'm

7:16

never going to dedicate time to it. So please be

7:19

my accountability partner, right? And

7:21

help me through this. And both of them said, I'll pay you. I'm

7:23

like, why are you paying me? You're my friends. There's no reason for

7:25

you to pay me. And it told me, no,

7:27

I should feel the pain of paying you because

7:30

I should feel that something I should have done

7:32

by myself. I'm literally paying someone else to tell

7:34

me, Hey, have you done this? Right.

7:37

So that's how it started. I'm still working

7:39

with those two individuals for their goals. Right.

7:42

And that's when we sort of came

7:44

up with the idea and we call it the six percent

7:46

club. Now, you know, people are very, you

7:48

know, say that what is the point of six percent club? If

7:50

you have to be a club, be a one percent club, be

7:52

a 0.1 percent club. But this really comes

7:55

from the fact that there is some research which says

7:57

that 94 percent people don't reach the goals they

7:59

are. into. Right. And

8:01

we've been on that side, both him and

8:04

I, but we now also feel that we are

8:06

on the 6% side. So we just want to sort

8:08

of create a club called the 6% club and help

8:11

people get their content projects off the

8:13

ground. And we understand

8:15

it's very hard because he runs

8:17

a full time venture, right? I have a full

8:19

time job. And it's really hard

8:21

to balance these things. And it does

8:23

not come easy. But we always sort of found

8:25

ways and we really want it to be the

8:28

30 day, 45 day period where you just go

8:30

from an idea to an execution. You're getting another

8:32

friend on board who's a full time YouTuber, right?

8:34

So he's done the proper, the Indian

8:37

dream of engineering and MBA,

8:39

and then decided that this is not what

8:41

I want to do. And

8:43

took a plunge into YouTube about

8:45

four years ago. And now

8:48

he's monetized and he has built

8:50

products on the back of his YouTube audience as well.

8:53

And he's also in the travel space. And so he's again, a

8:55

old friend, I know for about 20 years now. Right.

8:57

So what's his name? His name is

8:59

Abhishek Vaid. His show is called The

9:01

Untraveled Show. I know it's on

9:03

YouTube. And just the three of us

9:06

felt that, you know, with

9:08

Deepak doing podcasting and newsletter and a whole bunch

9:10

of other stuff he has done, I've

9:12

done two podcasts now. And next year,

9:14

my book should come out. And

9:17

Abhishek, of course, is a full time YouTuber. So we

9:19

felt that the larger space of content creation, which is

9:21

what most people want to do, sort of covers the

9:23

three of us. So again, that's

9:25

it. We really have no idea how this is going

9:27

to go. But it's just such

9:29

an exciting and fun thing to do. Because,

9:31

you know, when you when

9:34

you get when you get to see

9:36

your dream projects come to life, there's

9:38

a certain joy, which honestly, no amount

9:40

of corporate promotions sort of can give

9:42

you or maybe I'm too old

9:44

for it to be overjoyed by corporate promotions

9:46

now. But yeah, so that sort

9:48

of has been the discussion between Deepak and

9:50

I. And we agree on a

9:53

lot of fundamental principles in this.

9:55

Right. And while our approach is a different people is a

9:57

very different person in terms of his tastes. Right. he

10:00

listens to, I just don't know what to do

10:02

with. And I'm sure it's vice versa. And

10:05

he's a cyclist and he does a whole bunch of other

10:07

things. And I'm

10:09

not, I'm not as diverse, nowhere as diverse

10:11

as he is. So

10:13

yeah, so we're just now taking

10:15

this plunge and we'll

10:17

see how it goes. Mind blowing, and I hope the 6% becomes

10:20

12% because of you, that more and more

10:22

people, you know, manage to do stuff. What

10:25

do you find are the roadblocks? Like I

10:27

know for a creator for me, the biggest

10:29

roadblock is just willpower, just getting started. Right?

10:32

And luckily, whenever I've gotten started, the fact that

10:34

I'm putting a timeline to it, it's every week

10:36

forces me to go on. But otherwise, discipline is

10:38

also something I have really struggled with in my

10:41

life. And I'm trying to sort it out this

10:43

year, and I can share some of the experiments

10:45

I'm trying. But what have you found when you

10:47

know, what are the problems you are solving for

10:49

people while doing this? Yeah. So a few things,

10:52

right now, discipline is a problem everybody struggles with,

10:54

right? I don't think even the people who have

10:56

figured it out are not. So

10:58

one of the first things we decided that,

11:00

you know, it's really hard to take something

11:02

off the ground just by yourself. Right?

11:05

Now, if now everything is everything you're doing

11:07

with Ajay, right? It would be

11:09

much hard to do the show just if you

11:11

were yourself. Yeah. Right. So the the just the

11:14

aspect of having someone you are

11:16

working with and who's aligned to your vision

11:18

of what you're doing really helps. Because

11:21

while you may be in a certain week or in

11:23

a certain month, not in the zone,

11:25

the other person will push you and say that, Hey, guys,

11:27

we really need to get this done. Right.

11:30

So that's at a very, very broad level.

11:32

Right. But then with any

11:34

sort of passion project or content creation,

11:37

what tends to happen is that it comes down to the brass

11:39

tracks, it comes down to execution. So

11:41

we are approaching it in three

11:43

broad ways. Right. The first ops and

11:45

of course, because I did an MBA,

11:47

I have to create a framework for

11:50

everything. We call it the maps framework.

11:52

Right. It's mindsets, accountability, process and systems.

11:55

Right. We believe all of these are required for

11:57

you to really, you know, succeed at whatever. you're

12:00

trying to do. So the first

12:02

bit is essentially an assessment

12:04

exercise to really understand a few things. The

12:06

first thing we really want to understand is that what

12:08

are the limiting beliefs people hold about

12:11

themselves? What are the

12:13

limiting beliefs that hold about the others and what

12:15

are the limiting beliefs they hold about

12:17

life? Now, to give

12:20

you an example, a limiting belief which people

12:22

hold about life is everything

12:24

is destiny. What's going to happen is going to happen. So if

12:26

my content project has to happen, it will happen or does it

12:28

not happen? That's one way

12:30

of a limiting belief which people hold. A

12:34

personal limiting belief is what value do I have to

12:36

give to the world or I'm

12:38

not good enough for this or why should

12:40

someone read my writing? So the first step

12:42

is to really understand what are those limiting

12:44

beliefs people are sitting with. Then

12:46

go one level deeper and understand that what

12:48

are those experiences or reinforcing

12:51

memories they have, which

12:53

sort of doesn't help them break out of it. Because

12:57

often what we find is that, and again Freud

12:59

of course talked about it, talked

13:01

about the parent ego, the child ego and

13:03

the adult ego. So things we

13:05

are just mimicking from our parents, things we are

13:07

mimicking from our childhood and things we are mimicking

13:10

from our adult here and our experiences. I

13:13

think that is a fundamental

13:16

building block of how we want to approach it because

13:19

I think it's rarely a

13:21

lack of talent,

13:23

if I may use the word loosely

13:25

or knowledge or experience. It's

13:28

really a lack of mindset

13:31

or maybe we are in a negative mindset when

13:33

we are in some of these spaces. So that's

13:35

the first step. The second

13:37

step is really helping them think through the content

13:39

idea itself because what happens is

13:41

that, and again Amit,

13:44

you have seen this with the evolution of the

13:46

show itself, Scene Unseen, that you started off with

13:48

15-20 minute episodes and now you

13:50

are until much longer oral histories going beyond politics,

13:52

economics, behavioral science, is that one content creators have

13:54

to be okay with the idea that what they

13:57

start off with and what they eventually go

13:59

down the road would be different. different. And

14:01

second, never create an idea

14:03

which is so limiting that you cannot think

14:05

beyond 10 ideas. Right? At

14:08

the same time, do not worry about niches. I

14:10

feel the whole niches thing is

14:12

honestly overrated in the sense that you

14:15

do what you like you do niches will figure themselves

14:17

out over time, right? You start interacting with the kind

14:19

of stuff you do and so on. So that's really

14:21

the second step. The third step

14:23

is where we provide more technical

14:26

advice. For example, if you're setting up YouTube, right?

14:29

What kind of gear should you have? What kind of

14:31

setup should you have? How much your budget should be

14:33

and so on. So very, very brass tacks stuff. And

14:36

then of course, talking, getting

14:38

into the accountability part of it, right? Because

14:41

my intention is that if I'm able to help

14:43

someone get off from a 30 to 45 days

14:46

to start, I want them to continue, right? I

14:48

mean, that is a real measure of my success.

14:50

In fact, Deepak and I have been discussing that

14:52

the metric which at least I like to define

14:54

and his agreement is of

14:57

success is the percentage of

14:59

clients we lose. Right?

15:02

Because they don't need you anymore. They don't need us anymore.

15:06

Right? Because that's really the true success, right? If I've gotten

15:08

you to the first five episodes is great, but I want

15:10

to do 50. Right?

15:12

That's really the metric I want to gun

15:14

for because if you're able to do

15:17

that, right, you don't need marketing, honestly, word of mouth

15:19

will take care of at least the

15:21

zero to one kind of building of this. So

15:23

that's the accountability part where we

15:25

know help maybe help you build a plan.

15:27

We understand what the cadence of your life

15:30

is, right? People have all kinds of responsibilities,

15:32

whether at work or at home, right? Deepak

15:34

and I and my friend Abhishek also, we

15:36

have made some life choices which allow

15:38

us a little more time in our lives, but

15:41

not everybody has that luxury. So how do we

15:43

look at your day structure in such a

15:45

way that you have dependable,

15:48

repeatable, reliable time slots in

15:51

time for you to do it, otherwise you're not going

15:53

to do it. Your other things will take over. Right?

15:56

And the last bit is equipping them

15:58

to keep going. Once you have

16:00

built a system, also give them an understanding of

16:03

how to tweak that system. Because

16:05

you know, life will not always be where it is

16:07

now and you will need to make adjustments and shit

16:09

will happen. So that's how we are

16:11

looking at it as a three four step sort of a thing.

16:14

Again I have not nailed it down completely in terms

16:16

of what the journey of someone who's coming into it

16:18

and at the end of his life we are doing

16:20

that now. But that's

16:22

what we are really kicked about at the moment. So

16:25

I'll link to this interview Deepak did with

16:27

you on his sub-stack. And I really

16:30

loved your definition of passion and that, where you

16:32

distinguish between passion and interest and you say, you

16:34

know, you can't just say I'm passionate about music,

16:36

you're interested in music. A passion means that you

16:38

put in a lot of time in it and

16:40

that compounds and etc etc. And

16:42

I also like there or elsewhere I forget where

16:44

but you've made the point that you have to

16:46

treat your passion like a job. So if you

16:48

have another day job, you have to treat this

16:51

like a second job but you don't have the

16:53

luxury of like at work you don't have the

16:55

luxury of telling your boss that hey I can't deliver by

16:57

Saturday I don't feel like it I'm not in the mood

16:59

etc etc. You have to do

17:01

it and in a similar sense you have to

17:04

sort of treat this with that kind of rigor.

17:06

And one of the sort of, I think

17:10

what happens with a lot of creators and it's

17:12

true of myself in certain contexts or projects that

17:14

I am planning is that I'll be stuck in

17:16

a vicious circle and I won't do

17:18

it and because I'm not doing it I'll keep

17:20

wondering can I do it maybe I can't do

17:22

it and I won't do it and I'm just

17:24

stuck in that cycle. And the moment you break

17:26

out of that cycle if there's an inflection point

17:28

where you actually start doing it then it can

17:30

turn into a virtuous cycle and then it doesn't

17:32

matter what is the quality or you know like

17:34

Ajay and I have made a pact that we

17:36

are going to do two years we

17:38

are going to do 104 episodes no matter

17:41

what we will not look at the analytics

17:44

so of course he's a geek so he keeps

17:46

looking at the analytics and he's got a weekly

17:48

email about analytics and I'm like fuck you I

17:50

don't care don't tell me you know we'll talk

17:52

after And

17:54

I think that that sort of

17:56

mindset shift for creators is really

17:59

important that. If you are into

18:01

creating because you want to be a YouTube star

18:03

or you want to be an influencer and you

18:05

want crypto brands and Ayurveda brands to pay you

18:07

money to hog that nonsense, then you know you're

18:09

not really going to get very far. But if

18:11

you're into it because you just love it, you

18:13

want to do shit, right? You want to just

18:15

get down and dirty and do shit and at

18:17

some level you don't even care about, you know,

18:19

whether it's working or not. We just

18:22

released episode 35 of Everything is Everything today.

18:25

And there's so many things I just feel

18:27

like I'm like, I wish I was learning

18:29

faster. I can see how much I've learnt

18:31

in 35, but I'm also frustrated because I can see

18:33

all the things that all the areas in which I

18:35

wish I was better. But that journey is

18:37

the whole thing. You just got to get in there and you got

18:40

to keep doing. No, I

18:42

completely agree because and one of the

18:44

things while looking at statistics, not looking

18:46

at statistics is so important, right? In

18:49

fact, I would say it actually helps every content creator

18:51

that they don't go viral, at least in the initial

18:53

times, right? Because you make your

18:55

mistakes, right? You just enjoy the craft

18:57

of doing what you're doing. I

19:00

think the enjoyment part is so important. And

19:03

for everyone who has ever worked

19:05

a job, right? You can't compete against someone

19:07

in your organization who's having fun at the

19:09

job. Who simply cannot because

19:11

the kind of intellectual input they're getting

19:13

in, the kind of hours they're putting

19:16

and the kind of thinking they're doing, someone who's not interested

19:18

in the job will never really get that in. And that

19:20

same goes for content creation. And this

19:23

is why I feel that I have done a

19:25

whole bunch of content projects, which I have failed

19:27

spectacularly at in the past, right? And

19:30

the one thing I realized is that while

19:32

I was interested in them, I don't think my reasons

19:34

were right, right? And

19:37

I think with my show postcards, what really clicked

19:39

was that I really wanted to tell those stories,

19:41

right? That I know there

19:43

is a ton of travel content was there, will

19:46

there, will be there. But I wanted

19:48

to bring a certain perspective of saying that, hey, can

19:50

you just take a step

19:52

back? Okay. Don't rush through five

19:54

countries in 15 days in Europe. I know maximizing

19:57

the F out of your Schengen visa is something that

19:59

I think is important. I think, you know, Indians are

20:01

very hardwired at. But if you just

20:03

take a step back and start to think about

20:05

how you are traveling a little differently, you

20:08

know, that's really going to change your travel experience. That was

20:10

the only thing I really wanted to bring out in the

20:12

world. Because I

20:15

have traveled the other way, which is, you know,

20:17

just going through things and places very quickly. And

20:20

then I started with my sabbatical really

20:22

slow travel. Like I spent the first

20:25

month in Bosnia and

20:27

Hasguvina, right? Not exactly the kind of place

20:29

where most people would think, Hey, let's go

20:31

for a month to Bosnia and Hasguvina. I

20:34

spent a month in Armenia and

20:36

Georgia. And the third month

20:38

which I spent, which was where the bulk of

20:41

my writing got done, was actually

20:43

a one-room cottage about an hour up

20:45

from Manali. And this

20:47

was a very funny experiment I feel

20:49

in hindsight I tried to do. Is

20:52

that how much can I disconnect? So

20:55

that cottage doesn't have anything around

20:57

it except trees. It's super

20:59

basic. It has one light bulb. It has one

21:01

chair, one mattress on the floor and a bookshelf.

21:04

That's it. Right? And

21:06

you can walk maybe about 200, 300 meters

21:08

to find a reception somewhere. But

21:10

sitting in your cottage, you're not going to find anything.

21:14

And I remember that for the first

21:16

two or three days, I was

21:19

losing my mind. I

21:22

just did not know why is time passing

21:24

by so slowly. And

21:26

I was genuinely struggling for the first two, three

21:28

days. But then by

21:30

day four, day five, that sort of cloud

21:32

starts to lift off your head and

21:35

you find a rhythm. So

21:37

of course the routine helps. And because

21:40

that place is sparsely populated,

21:42

I went on for long, short

21:44

hikes, walks, and these

21:47

adorable mountain dogs were accompanying you everywhere

21:49

you go hiking. Right?

21:52

And then I started talking to the caretakers of it.

21:54

So I used to just sort of, you

21:56

know, I spent a total of rupees, 18,000 in that month for

21:59

my stay. stay and food, right? Which

22:01

is, I mean, if any of you are worried about can

22:03

budget travel be still done in India very much, this

22:06

is an example of it. And I

22:08

started to understand the rhythm and cadence of life

22:10

in the mountains. And it's a

22:12

very romanticized idea that, oh, I want to retire to

22:14

the mountains, right? So the two

22:17

caretakers, Dolmanti and Uncle, you

22:19

know, they are well into their seventies, right?

22:21

And they catered three meals for me. And

22:24

just to sit down with them and talk

22:26

about what life looks in the six months,

22:29

when it snows, right?

22:31

And the amount of preparation they do,

22:34

right? Amount of food drying they do,

22:36

food preservation they do, right? How the

22:38

cuisine completely changes in the winter when

22:40

it comes to food versus in the

22:42

summer, right? And your entire

22:44

idea of food habits, food systems changes

22:46

once you see something like that up close.

22:49

And you start understanding what farm to table

22:51

is because literally my veggies were growing right

22:53

next to where I was living. And

22:58

I could see that they were so fit at 70, like

23:00

Auntie could outrun me on a mountain,

23:02

right? I was 33

23:04

then and she's into her seventies

23:06

and she could outrun me even

23:09

then. And now when

23:11

you go through an experience like that, I'm

23:13

not saying that I had some crazy life

23:15

changing insight or anything, but

23:17

it just showed me the value of slowing

23:20

down, right? And the

23:23

value of slowing down is that

23:25

you suddenly start observing so much

23:27

more because ultimately when

23:30

we experience reality, we're only experiencing a sliver

23:32

of the reality which is actually happening around

23:34

us. But the moment you

23:36

slow down, you will

23:39

start seeing things. For example, I started

23:41

noticing the treetops, right?

23:43

Because I have so much free time. So

23:45

if you're just going to sit and gaze

23:47

at nature and she started pointing

23:49

out to me trees which have been struck by lightning,

23:52

right? Because the entire crown has sort

23:55

of completely burnt off, but

23:57

the tree still is not being used for

23:59

wood. or timber because the

24:01

trees play a certain role in the ecosystem. I

24:04

started walking with them and she took me to the

24:07

forest and showed me their kind of you

24:09

know basic herbs you know which

24:11

they use sometimes so very normal

24:13

ailments or they would use something

24:15

which adds a completely different dimension

24:17

of flavor to the food. Now

24:22

this is what I really got

24:24

attracted to using myself article that you know

24:27

I want to think of a place

24:29

like an onion that I want to

24:31

take off layer after layer after layer

24:34

and understand the core of it and

24:37

living in India you know that in a lifetime

24:39

is less to experience India and it holds true

24:41

for most countries but then I started

24:45

thinking about how much

24:47

time do I want to spend when I go

24:50

to a place. So since then

24:52

my idea of travel changed completely I started

24:55

doing you know

24:57

trips which are at least two weeks but

25:00

in two weeks I would just go to one

25:02

country I have usually now do actually almost a

25:04

month I work two weeks remotely and two weeks

25:07

I take off completely. So

25:09

the idea now is that you stay in the larger

25:11

city of a country for the first two weeks where

25:14

you have good internet connection and you are able to

25:16

do your work very enough and the time zone is

25:18

not completely off so you are up at three and

25:20

a half four hours you can manage with your time

25:22

zones and the next two weeks you go

25:24

off anywhere in the country because you don't have to work and

25:27

what tends to happen is that I

25:29

give an example of Ireland my wife is there a year

25:31

and a half ago she decided to take

25:34

a career paper to pursue the master's and

25:36

this was my eighth or ninth day of

25:38

going on the bus in Ireland right and

25:41

I noticed the ad which said that get

25:44

paid to be thanked okay very

25:46

strange ad and the ad

25:49

is actually about a recruitment drive for bus drivers in

25:51

Ireland because in Dublin at least every time people get

25:53

off a bus they say thank you to the driver

25:55

right I find it is a very sweet thing to

25:57

do because labor jobs. are

26:00

so underappreciated, at least in India, if not

26:02

abroad. And that's

26:04

what got me thinking that, you know, where does

26:06

this really come from? Right? I've

26:08

not seen it in a lot of other Western European countries

26:10

I've been to, right? It's very specific

26:12

to Ireland. And

26:15

that sort of led me down to a rabbit hold

26:17

of, you know, the economic history of Ireland. Right? We

26:20

all, if anyone who's familiar with Ireland knows of the

26:22

great famine, which Ireland went through the potato famine, which

26:25

underestimated the population of the country. And

26:27

then you start understanding why did the famine

26:29

happen? How were the British involved? You start

26:31

connecting it back to why

26:33

did the troubles exist? Why was there

26:35

a conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland? And

26:38

why does the, do the Irish

26:41

people have the world's largest diaspora, you know, outside of

26:43

its own country and probably even larger than the population

26:45

of the country? And

26:47

then you start understanding that fundamentally as

26:49

a race of people that because

26:51

so many of these people went

26:54

and did all kinds of jobs, right? Because they

26:56

were immigrants, they didn't have the choice. And

26:59

this was the 1800, late 1890s or 1880s you're talking about that there came

27:01

a very distinct

27:06

respect for every job while

27:08

it exists in many parts of the Western world. It's

27:11

really taken to another level in Ireland,

27:13

right? I could not

27:15

have figured this out in two days in Dublin because

27:18

in two days in Dublin, I would be figuring

27:20

out, okay, where is the best beer

27:22

in the country and it's right. But

27:24

this is what happens once you hit all the pubs,

27:26

for example, right? There is, I've done an

27:28

episode on this, there's a pub called the grave diggers

27:30

pub, right? And

27:33

it's literally next to a cemetery. And

27:35

whenever there's a service in the morning, the

27:37

grave diggers would come very early at four

27:39

or five in the morning, start digging the

27:41

grave. Once they finished digging the grave,

27:43

they would come and have a pint of

27:46

beer, right? That's why it's called the grave diggers pub. And

27:49

one of the strange things I found is that after

27:51

the funeral, everybody who comes to

27:53

the funeral goes to the pub to have a drink, right? Now

27:56

as an Indian, as a South Asian, right? You are thinking,

27:58

okay, people are like, okay, people are like, okay, people are like, okay, consuming alcohol

28:00

at a funeral. This is not making

28:02

any sense. Then

28:05

you start thinking, but this is so accepted. Why

28:07

is it so accepted? Then

28:10

I got into, I read a

28:12

fascinating book. I forget the author, but it's called the

28:14

Irish way of death. What are

28:16

the death rituals of the Irish people? And

28:19

that's where the word wake actually comes from. So

28:21

the origin of the story of the word wake

28:23

is that because medical science wasn't

28:25

very developed even 150 years ago, a lot

28:28

of times people who were in some sort

28:30

of coma or were passed out for long

28:32

periods, people thought they were dead, but

28:35

they were not actually buried for three to four days because

28:37

there's a chance that they might wake up.

28:40

That's why it's actually called the wake.

28:42

And then you understand that how Ireland views death

28:44

and it's in many ways it's celebration of someone's

28:47

life, which is a beautiful way to look at

28:49

death. Of course,

28:51

there is grief and loss and longing, but there

28:53

is also a celebration of a life

28:55

well lived. You're not

28:57

going to end up in the grave diggers pub after

28:59

two days in Dublin, right? You need to

29:02

stay a while and you know, get out those things.

29:04

So it's not always about, Oh, this is

29:06

a hidden gem, but really

29:09

what are you seeing and consuming and observing

29:11

as users just people are going about their

29:13

daily lives, right? All

29:15

across Dublin, if you notice carefully, you

29:17

will see the graffiti, which says

29:19

fuck the rich. Now, fuck the rich

29:21

is of course, not specific to Ireland. Of

29:23

course, it's been used as a way to

29:25

talk about uncontrolled capitalism, but one

29:27

of the largest crisis is which most people

29:29

don't see upfront is housing crisis in Ireland,

29:32

right? There might be one house and 700 people

29:34

have showed up to see that house and you

29:36

know, and rents are completely out of

29:39

control. Now what that does for

29:41

someone who is, who has a, who has a

29:43

very dignified job of let's say a bus driver,

29:45

right? Is that it still makes it unaffordable for them

29:47

to start living. And you would see that you

29:50

see Irish people migrate into countries like Australia, which itself

29:52

is not a cheap country to begin with, but they

29:55

feel that it's still cheaper to live in Australia as

29:57

an immigrant as compared to living back home. And

30:00

then you start understanding that, oh, there is a safety

30:02

net which people have. But

30:05

that safety net, and I'm sure you

30:07

probably have more nuanced take on unintended

30:09

consequences of a universal basis like income,

30:12

but there is a rise of homelessness and drug abuse

30:14

as well. And

30:16

that's also a ramification of how

30:18

the country, because

30:21

Dublin is a tax haven. I mean, that's

30:23

why so many of the IT companies are headquartered there, so

30:25

that amount of tax is the same. Now

30:27

that brings in a certain amount of money

30:29

for the economy, which helps proper universal basic

30:31

income, but that has unintended consequences.

30:36

This is what I really enjoy about

30:38

my travel, right? To try and peel

30:40

off that every sort of single layer

30:42

about a country. And even

30:45

if it means I understand 2% of what

30:47

this country is, I

30:49

feel that 2% is way better because it

30:52

stays with you. And

30:54

this is where the idea of

30:57

memory becomes very important, right? Memory

31:00

fails, of course. All of our memories

31:02

fail, and next time we

31:04

recall a memory, we are really remembering the memory of

31:06

that event and not the event itself. But

31:10

what also tends to happen is that if

31:13

you slow down and experience things slowly

31:15

and a little more deeply, when I

31:17

say deeply is that when you are

31:20

able to make these multiple connections, the

31:23

experience stays with you much longer. And

31:26

the beauty of what experience is that, and

31:28

I'll give an example of someone we both admire,

31:31

Narinar Shinoi, who's been on this show for so

31:33

many times. The stories

31:35

he talks about, some of them are really old stories. With

31:39

the beauty of an experience and a retelling of

31:41

that story, the film of memory goes on and

31:43

on and on. And with

31:45

every telling and retelling, we imbue a certain

31:47

weight and a value to it, not

31:50

just as the person who's narrating it, but also

31:52

to the listener. Now,

31:54

slower travel allows you to accumulate those memories. So in

31:56

a way, postcards for me is a

31:58

very important thing. is a way to

32:02

really write down those experiences in

32:04

the moment, in the way I was feeling them, in

32:09

the very incomplete way I was

32:11

doing. And in fact, I brought the

32:13

book for a very specific reason. There's a

32:15

certain passage I want to read out because

32:17

all this while I've been thinking about what's

32:19

really my way of travel and philosophy. And

32:22

then this is a book by Barry Lopez.

32:24

It's called Horizon. This is his

32:27

autobiographical take. He's been traveling the world for

32:29

50 years and he has gone

32:31

to places most of us would not go. But again,

32:33

he's not the kind of person who would say, hey,

32:36

there are 180 countries, I need to take off 180

32:38

countries. But again, very methodical, slow

32:40

travel. And even after traveling

32:42

the world for you know, that many years, and I'm

32:44

just going to take a couple of minutes to get

32:47

that passage. One of the

32:49

things which really stands out for me is how

32:52

does he think of his own role

32:54

as a traveler? So I'm

32:56

just quoting him now. I had

32:59

an ethical obligation as a writer, in addition

33:01

to an aesthetic one. It

33:03

was to experience the world intensely and then to

33:05

put into words as well as I could what

33:07

I had seen. I was

33:09

aware that others could see better than

33:12

I, and also that other people were not able

33:14

to travel in the way I had begun to, going

33:16

away habitually. And

33:19

whatever reader might make of what I tried to

33:21

describe, I already understood that

33:23

their conclusions might not match my own.

33:26

I saw myself then as a

33:28

sort of a courier, a kind of

33:30

runner come home from another land after some

33:32

exchange with its denizens, carrying by the way

33:34

of a story, some incomplete bit

33:37

of news about how different, how

33:39

marvelous and incomprehensible really life

33:41

was out beyond the pair of the

33:43

village in which I had grown up. So

33:46

for me, this really sort of

33:49

brought a life of how I think

33:51

about seeing the world today.

33:54

And we'll also read one more bit

33:56

from him that

33:59

talks about No matter how

34:01

much you slow down and how much you want to

34:03

understand a place how little you see of it One

34:07

can never even by paying the strictest attention

34:09

at multiple levels Entirely comprehend

34:11

a single place no matter how

34:13

many times one might travel there This

34:15

is not only because the place itself is

34:18

constantly changing But because the

34:20

deep nature of every place is not

34:22

transparency. It's obscurity I

34:24

have never been drawn to the idea of writing

34:26

definitely about anything especially her

34:29

Calton nature of cultural geographies In

34:32

revisiting these places then I was

34:34

more interested in how in reviewing my previous experience

34:36

of that location I might find

34:38

another truth one different from

34:40

the one I first wrote about I Was

34:43

also interested in how my memory of a place

34:45

might trigger new emotions and in

34:47

how the truth of such emotions might

34:49

Differently inform the facts I

34:52

had once so carefully gathered Nobody

34:54

has the biggest notion of what this world is

34:56

really like The only thing that

34:58

can be safely predicted is that

35:01

it is very different from what anybody supposes

35:04

so this sort of

35:06

oil is always stayed with me because I know that

35:09

someone who would go to Ireland for another

35:11

month might see a completely different side of

35:14

Ireland and Both of those

35:16

truths are as valid as any other truth Which

35:18

is out there and one

35:20

of the things which I strongly believe

35:22

and if any of you have now

35:24

bought into my spiel Of loads slow travel by

35:26

now and are considering it is that

35:29

you have to be intentional about your travel So

35:33

one of the things I highly recommend is getting

35:35

a guidebook And I know that for someone who's

35:37

a travel content creator a guidebook is the exact

35:40

antithesis of what I'm trying to do but

35:42

what a guidebook really helps you is that The

35:45

first 10-15 pages of a guidebook is a

35:47

super short crash course and history of the

35:49

place it really brings out the

35:51

seminal events of what the country has been shaped by

35:53

and That

35:56

history doesn't go away that history continues to shape

35:58

us for decades and we seeing that in our

36:00

own country. So that

36:03

becomes one step. And

36:05

second, understand that what

36:08

really interests you. So

36:10

I don't drink whiskey, I do not

36:12

care for alcohol in general. But for

36:15

someone who's a beer drinker, Dublin is the Macau, where

36:17

you should be drinking beer, it's House of Hose, home

36:20

of Guinness, right? There are a whole

36:22

bunch of Irish whiskies, you can take whiskey tours,

36:24

you can go to whiskey tasting sessions, you can

36:26

understand how blending is done, and

36:28

so on. Now that's a part of Ireland,

36:30

I will never experience. But

36:34

for someone who genuinely appreciates whiskey or

36:36

beer, it can be a

36:38

fantastic experience just focusing your travel towards that.

36:41

And that is where being intentional is so

36:43

important because fundamentally all

36:45

travel is self discovery. When

36:48

you go to a place, we go and see that

36:52

hey, I like this thing, but have you ever

36:54

considered why I like this thing? There

36:57

are so many times that many of us have gone to

36:59

really famous places, and we were like, it's

37:02

nice, but it really do much

37:04

for me. And we go

37:06

to other places and you're like, man, this completely

37:08

blew my mind. I remember this, I had

37:11

gone to the Adalat Steppels

37:13

near Ahmedabad. And this

37:15

was, we were doing this lovely course in Maika

37:17

called Imagining India, where we were

37:19

asked to bring in what

37:22

growing up as an aspect of Indian Richmond out

37:24

for us. And those Steppels

37:26

are absolutely gorgeous. I mean, you can look up images

37:28

if you've not been there. But the

37:30

idea of what Steppels constitute that it has

37:32

a functional purpose, it has a spiritual purpose,

37:35

it even has a military purpose for that matter,

37:37

right? Completely blew my mind. So

37:40

now, of course, I became

37:42

obsessed with Steppels since then, I have gone to

37:44

many of them, I bought books around it and

37:46

understood why they exist and what the future in

37:48

terms of living heritage looks like. But

37:51

you have to really start spending more time

37:54

in a place to understand what attracts you.

37:56

I am big on architecture, I am big on

37:59

food, right? I am not

38:01

a party person. I'm a very boring person. I don't

38:03

like going to parties I believe that any place which

38:05

does not allow you to talk is not a place

38:07

worth going to Maybe it's being late 30s, but maybe

38:09

that's how I I think about

38:12

it, right? But for someone who probably loves

38:14

partying Barcelona could be the perfect place for

38:16

you to go So instead

38:18

of saying that hey the world views

38:20

this destination from this lens What

38:23

is your lens of using the world and

38:25

that's what I believe travel should help you cultivate

38:27

you can aid it with reading of books

38:29

like I love reading books before I go

38:31

to a place because that

38:34

Intentionality helps me, you know

38:36

uncover so many things people often We know would come

38:38

to you and say that this is

38:40

a very academic or boring way of travel I mean,

38:42

no what I'm not I'm not saying that I

38:45

will only go and do this But what

38:48

suddenly starts to happen and an example is I

38:50

had spent a day in Belfast This

38:52

is Northern Ireland, of course Completely

38:54

different my Ireland, please never meet an Irish person

38:57

and confuse them from Northern Ireland that conversation will

38:59

not go down well, and we

39:01

were just walking and and I

39:04

just happened to look up and

39:06

I saw a plaque which sort of

39:08

commemorated John Dunlap and

39:11

that that plaque was put at a building

39:14

Where he accidentally actually discovered welcome ization of rubber

39:18

right now I Did

39:20

not know this I did not read about

39:22

it, right? but because

39:25

There were so many other things I understood the moment

39:27

I entered in the city I was able to

39:29

look beyond that first level of observation and Then

39:32

have time to actually look at the other things,

39:34

right? So, of course when you go to Belfast

39:37

you can do the tour tours of the graffiti

39:39

of the troubles and it's a fantastic tour I

39:41

highly recommend everyone take that if you

39:43

ever end up in Belfast But

39:45

it's those small things which you start noticing and

39:48

that makes the travel unique to you Because

39:51

now you have a very unique memory. I must have

39:53

seen ten other things in Belfast But this stays with

39:55

me as the first memory I tap into the moment.

39:57

I think of Belfast And

40:00

that is what makes it more memorable. And

40:02

the memorability is important because

40:06

ultimately as we age and one

40:08

of my beliefs is that we

40:11

become the stories we tell about ourselves to

40:13

ourselves and to the world. So

40:16

if you start telling that, hey, I

40:18

am a person who appreciates architecture and

40:20

nature and food, for example, I

40:23

will start seeing those things whenever I travel because

40:25

that will attract me the most. And

40:28

that becomes a virtuous cycle in that way. And

40:30

then you really start enjoying your travels beyond, this

40:33

is what is to be checked off in itinerary. I

40:35

have no idea where I started, but go

40:37

on in this random direction. It's not random at

40:39

all. No, no, you've given me 40,000 things to

40:41

double click on. And what I find really evocative

40:44

about this is that I

40:46

don't think of it as just slow

40:48

travel, but slow living in the sense that I

40:50

have been thinking more and more about the rhythms

40:52

of living, which we adopt for ourselves. And

40:55

often what happens is that I find, and this

40:57

is a lament about myself, that I'm

40:59

sprinting through life, that I'm scrolling,

41:01

scrolling, swiping, swiping, do

41:03

one episode, do another episode, write a newsletter,

41:05

blah, blah, just sprint after sprint after sprint.

41:08

And there is a part of me that longs to be able

41:11

to not sprint, like in a sense, we

41:13

are traveling through life, right? What is that

41:15

mode of travel? You can either travel

41:17

through life accomplishing one thing after another,

41:19

just like a tourist with a

41:21

checklist, ya jana, ya jana, ya jana, ya jana, ya jana.

41:24

Or you can just not

41:26

have an objective in mind in

41:28

per se, but just sit back

41:31

and kind of soak it in

41:33

and absorb things more deeply. And

41:35

therefore, what you said

41:37

about travel being a means of self-discovery,

41:39

I not only buy

41:41

that, I will go further and say that the way

41:43

you travel, whether it is through a place or through

41:45

life, is a way of shaping yourself,

41:48

right? Like if you are remembering things

41:50

differently because you're in a different mode,

41:52

then in that remembering what you have

41:54

seen teaches you to see differently the

41:57

next time, right? When you talk about

41:59

a, beautiful quote from

42:01

Barry Lopez where you

42:03

used the phrase ethical obligation. I

42:05

also think it is an ethical obligation

42:08

to oneself to not treat us

42:10

in the shallow manner by just living on

42:12

the surface of things and therefore the surface

42:14

of ourselves. But kind of you

42:16

know getting deeper and this is something I kind

42:18

of struggle with now because there's like so much

42:20

work all around and I keep wondering like I

42:23

keep trying to build those slow moments for

42:25

myself and sort of compartmentalize in that way

42:27

and give myself those slow spaces. But

42:30

I want to dig a little bit

42:32

deeper into your sort of introduction to

42:34

slow travel like my sense is

42:36

that it would have affected every

42:38

part of your life not just a travel right

42:40

it changes you as a person and

42:43

my question is that while you

42:45

mentioned one instance of appreciating

42:47

it which is when you were in that cottage

42:50

north of Manali and you really got to see

42:52

the tops of trees and notice

42:54

things more deeply. I'm guessing

42:56

that that would have been one milestone on

42:58

your journey that like was

43:00

that a seminal moment in terms of shaping

43:02

your love of slow travel or were you

43:04

already on that journey along the way and

43:07

that sort of became something that allowed you

43:09

to you know think overtly about it and

43:11

so I was on that

43:13

journey in the sense that I was on it

43:16

but the realization of being what their journey hit

43:18

me then. So the

43:20

reason I kept Himachal for the last was that

43:22

I wanted to travel for two months so that

43:24

I have enough ammunition to write about

43:28

and so what

43:30

happened in Armenia was that

43:34

it's a lovely country very easy to get to from

43:36

what I remember it's movies on arrival so and

43:39

cheap flights from Delhi so please go for it

43:42

is that I and this is completely

43:44

by luck of chance the kind of things which happen

43:46

when you slow down is

43:48

I went and stayed with a

43:51

couple homestay booked it off booking.com

43:53

so the very usual nothing not

43:55

some super specific country specific website

43:59

and the person. the couple was

44:01

running it, the husband was ex-army,

44:03

Armenian army. And

44:07

when he understood that I am from India, he

44:10

actually told me that outside of his

44:12

army UT, he

44:14

along with two other people are the last

44:16

three remaining Aryan priests of

44:18

Armenia. So

44:21

I went to the house and he said

44:23

that Armenia is about 99% Christian and

44:27

a very small percentage of people who identify

44:29

as Aryan. And they

44:32

next day took me to a ceremony

44:36

which was an actual fire ceremony. So they were worshipping the

44:38

fire. And because

44:40

it was outside the Givni temple and they were

44:42

just living there, they actually invited

44:44

me, made me a part of

44:46

it. He sat down and explained what these fire

44:48

rituals mean. And

44:51

that suddenly sort of made me realize that

44:54

if I had not taken this

44:56

detour, so as to say, I would

44:59

have never uncovered this. Now that

45:02

sort of led me

45:04

to the

45:06

history of Armenians in India. There is an

45:08

Armenian church in Calcutta which still exists. And

45:12

if you go back to records that Armenians did for

45:14

a very significant part of time, they did live in

45:16

India. So now what started to happen

45:18

and I am just going to, I am using this example

45:20

to sort of bring out the point that in

45:23

my own life as well, because

45:27

I grew up middle class, single

45:29

parent, my father passed away quite early, you

45:33

were always very focused on hitting that next

45:35

milestone. This

45:38

entire experience taught me that while

45:42

milestones are important, you

45:45

do not have to live your life by milestones.

45:48

So what travel really teaches you is

45:50

that there are a hundred thousand different

45:52

ways to live your life and

45:55

all of them are as valid as any

45:57

of the others. Then

46:00

I started realizing that, OK, who

46:02

has set this milestone? How

46:05

much of it is, and it comes back to

46:08

the point of thing and take desires, how much of it is

46:10

something which I really want to do? And by

46:13

no means, I am discounting my privilege.

46:16

While I grew up middle class, I did have

46:18

the privilege of an English education from

46:20

some of the better schools in India, and of

46:22

course, accessibly to the job market. But

46:26

I imagine a lot of your listeners also would

46:28

have very similar privileges. What

46:31

are we doing with that privilege?

46:33

That was a question which sort of kept nagging me

46:36

that I can run on

46:38

this treadmill. And this was a

46:40

realization I had for a very brief moment when I used

46:42

to live in Bombay for 10 years. And

46:45

I took the local trains between probably

46:47

two of the worst most crowded stations rather in Koorla.

46:51

And there was a time which

46:53

I said, sorry, Bombay.

46:55

I refused to run. Because

46:59

living there after a point made me realize that there

47:01

is no end to this running. There is just no

47:03

end. But at the same time,

47:05

I had to balance that

47:07

realization with making

47:09

a living, being financially secure, and

47:12

having a life which I want and with the comfort

47:14

which I enjoy. And

47:17

in a chance conversation with a friend, and I

47:20

mentioned one of my simplified appearances as well, she

47:23

very pithily said that, that's

47:25

why I'm thinking of a VP. Why

47:30

are you thinking of a VP? No one is going to care whether you

47:32

are VP or AVP. So

47:34

that sort of came to me to the question that

47:37

most things in life matter only because if they matter

47:39

to you. If they stop

47:42

mattering to you, they don't matter. But

47:45

because as a society, as a

47:47

country, we have been so conditioned.

47:50

Now, I was thinking about why

47:53

do we Indians maximize the F out

47:55

of a Schengen Visa? Five countries, why

47:57

do we want to see in 15 days? Because

48:00

for most people like me who grew up in

48:02

the 80s and the 90s, right,

48:04

we grew up with fairly

48:06

limited resources. Only after

48:09

91 did things start opening up for us. So

48:12

what we saw from our parents is that if you had a

48:15

material object, you will give

48:17

it a second life, a third life or a fourth life

48:20

and maximize whatever value you can get out of

48:22

it. Now, when we grew

48:24

up as adults, when and we were the

48:26

first set of people who really made some

48:28

significant money in our lives, where

48:31

we could actually invest in our wants, we

48:33

transplanted the philosophy into

48:36

our experiences as well. We

48:38

work, right, and I talk

48:41

about this idea which I call that

48:43

we became consumption maximizers, we became memory

48:45

minimizers, right. We just consume,

48:47

consume, consume, we've gone down to the treadmill

48:49

and that then sort of extends to every

48:51

aspect of our life. We start thinking of

48:53

relationships that way, we start thinking of our

48:55

work that way, we start thinking of how

48:58

we spend our time and then

49:00

at some level I realize that the

49:03

entire talk about productivity is also a

49:05

trap because

49:07

the productivity mindset talks

49:09

about be productive,

49:11

be disciplined in every aspect of your life but you

49:14

have to realize you're not a machine, you need to

49:16

have aspects of your life where you're

49:19

slowing down because boredom

49:21

is a very necessary condition

49:24

for creativity, right. You

49:26

have to be bored for your mind to go

49:28

away from the cycles and you know the rails

49:30

you have put on for your own thoughts and

49:33

that's where it started affecting the

49:35

kind of decisions I took, right. Now

49:39

while I would love to

49:42

get promoted, I'm not particularly bothered by whether

49:44

I get promoted or not. As

49:46

long as I feel that I'm contributing to my

49:48

organization, I'm doing good work and I'm

49:50

trying to hit it out of the park more often than

49:52

not, I'm okay. I do not want to

49:54

change the next promotion, I do not want to change the leadership

49:57

roles because I know that that comes

49:59

at a cost. that comes at a personal

50:01

cost, that comes at a health cost. I

50:05

think that's where travel went

50:08

from being a tool of self-discovery to

50:11

also a way to live life

50:13

better. And

50:16

better as in my own very limited perspective of how

50:18

I see my life and my world. Because

50:21

you started realizing that so many of

50:23

these myths you have built up in

50:25

your head, right? They are really myths,

50:27

right? And mythia, they are actually mythia.

50:31

They are not so much as myths. And

50:33

once you start taking that control back,

50:35

it's liberating. It's liberating because

50:38

now you genuinely see that so much of

50:40

what the world expects of you, you

50:43

don't have to live up to it. It doesn't matter. And

50:46

that feeling that it doesn't matter is very

50:48

liberating because then you can focus on doing

50:50

things which you truly enjoy. I

50:53

want to talk about intentionality. And I think that

50:55

there's a paradox in intentionality which I sometimes think

50:57

about, which is that at

50:59

one level if I'm traveling to a place like

51:02

you, I will have the instinct that let me read up on it and

51:05

let me have a better depth of understanding when I get there. And

51:08

you said that that extends before and after and

51:10

that journey is always becoming more and more alive

51:12

as you find out more and more. So

51:15

at one level there is an intentionality, that

51:17

you are trying to be more and more

51:19

aware of. More

51:23

sort of intense about your experience. But

51:25

at another level, this runs a danger

51:27

that you are too focused on the

51:29

things you are being intentional about. And

51:32

you can't just sit back and soak it up. Like if

51:34

I'm on a riverside in a foreign country, intentionality

51:37

can tell me that a certain war happened here and

51:39

this is a culture of the place and this is

51:41

the kind of food they eat and why. And

51:44

all of that is in my mind space.

51:46

Whereas another way of traveling slowly would be

51:48

to just leave all of it out and

51:50

just enjoy the river for what it is.

51:53

Like every place is at its core,

51:56

it is a place without that baggage

51:58

of history with self-importance. humans put on

52:00

it. The river was there long before

52:02

humans came, it'll be there long after

52:04

we are gone. There is a beauty

52:06

to that as well. And I think

52:08

this dilemma extends to life itself. Like

52:10

when I am unwinding for example and

52:12

I don't have work, there is one

52:14

part of me which is saying ki

52:16

kyaar amit kuch, relax karor but read

52:18

a book. Ya kuch, you know, do

52:20

some self-improvement, read a book, you know,

52:22

whatever, read a, watch a good film,

52:24

don't waste your time. And another

52:26

part of me rationally knows that, no, fuck it.

52:28

Sometimes, like I think John Lennon said no time

52:30

is wasted unless you feel it is wasted. And there's

52:32

another part of me which is saying ki nahi kushni

52:34

karna. But you know, I can

52:37

sit and look at the sky and that

52:39

is good enough. So how does one balance

52:41

this? Because in intentionality, there is also the

52:43

danger of overthinking it. No,

52:45

that absolutely is a danger. And it's always a

52:47

danger for me because I know that

52:49

at some level, some of these experiences will end

52:51

up on the podcast. Right? So

52:53

there's always that angle that content, right? And

52:56

that, you know, I want to give, I

52:58

want to be right. I don't want to

53:00

mistake facts. I don't want to use

53:02

only one interpretation of a certain thing that always is

53:04

there and there always be gaps in those things. So

53:07

I mean, what intentionality does is

53:10

the first intentionality is that

53:12

I have created a month to see a country. That

53:16

intentionality automatically negates a huge

53:19

part of what you feel

53:21

is too over preparing to go to a place. Right?

53:24

Second is I'll give an example. I've been to Paris

53:26

a couple of times and

53:29

none of the times I have been to the Louvre. I love

53:31

art, right? But there is

53:33

a reason I didn't go to the Louvre because the

53:35

era from which Louvre has art, I actually

53:38

don't know anything about that art. Right?

53:40

I know, I know Monet, I know van Gogh,

53:42

I know that generation of impressionist painters.

53:46

Now, if anyone who's been to

53:48

the Louvre knows that you need at

53:50

least half a day to one day to at

53:52

least scratch the surface of what that place is.

53:54

Now, by not going there, I have instead

53:56

decided to go to the museum or see, I

53:59

don't know what's how it's pronounced, where

54:01

I could see a vanguard for the first time in my

54:03

life. Right now, there

54:06

is intentionality, but now it allows me to

54:08

just sit there for half an hour. Look at that vanguard.

54:11

So your intentionality doesn't mean it's restricting

54:14

the intentionality allows you to open vistas

54:16

for you, which were not available to

54:18

you earlier. Right. Not

54:21

doing the same thing in life. And I struggled

54:23

with this thing, exactly thing, which you said, right?

54:25

Like yesterday, I was sitting and I was just

54:27

reading this book because I love it so much.

54:30

And I was thinking, should I

54:32

prepare something for Amit's interview? And

54:34

I mean, in the heart side,

54:36

I know that you cannot prepare for podcasts like this,

54:38

but that, that thing comes up, right?

54:41

That, like, I should do something with

54:43

this. And this

54:45

actually brings me to a very important point

54:47

for people who work full time,

54:49

very regular corporate jobs, like I do, is

54:52

that the biggest mistake we do, the biggest

54:54

disservice we do to ourselves is

54:57

we define our identity by

55:00

our jobs. Right. So

55:02

what happens is that if something

55:05

goes wrong in your day job, right? It

55:07

just messed up for different reasons. If it's also for small

55:09

things, so you got laid off or something, it

55:12

completely brings you down as a person. Right.

55:15

Which is why I believe art for art's

55:17

sake, like I sketch. I

55:20

do not put any of my sketches anywhere

55:22

on social media. I

55:25

mean, I showed to some couple of friends and some of them

55:27

give me feedback and stuff and I was just like it. Right.

55:30

But when I'm doing that, there

55:33

is absolutely no intentionality

55:35

of this has to yield something, but

55:38

I enjoy, I do pen sketching, right?

55:40

So you cannot undo a stroke.

55:43

Right. So you then just do it. And

55:46

of course, because I'm a beginner, there will be a lot of

55:48

flaws, but you accept

55:51

that piece of art saying that I

55:53

enjoyed this. That's why I have done

55:55

it. And that is the end goal of

55:57

it. So it is very important

55:59

to get out. of this intentionality, productivity mindset

56:01

to say that you cannot program every single

56:03

aspect of your life, you shouldn't because you

56:05

are not a robot. AI, we have AI

56:07

for that. Let AI do what

56:10

it needs to do. You are human. Retain

56:12

that quality of being a human that you

56:14

are not living an only task based

56:16

life. And that is how I feel

56:18

led you to balance intentionality without

56:21

being over preparing for a certain

56:23

experience. How has the

56:25

journey both in terms of travel and in terms

56:27

of creating the content around it changed the way

56:29

you look at time? Like in

56:31

a lot of your episodes, and I must

56:34

confess I haven't heard them all, but I've

56:36

loved everything that I've heard. In a lot

56:38

of your episodes, there is this sense where

56:40

we are not just traveling through geography, we

56:43

are traveling through time. For example, a recent

56:45

episode you spoke about how, you know, the

56:47

charts of Rajasthan are 90% from all over

56:49

the place. I think your episode title is

56:52

about how we are all Hungarians from Rajasthan,

56:54

which I thought was absolutely fantastic. And there,

56:56

of course, you're looking at genetic evidence and

56:58

so on. But in a lot

57:00

of your travels, there is that sense that you're

57:03

not just traveling through space, you're traveling through

57:05

time, which partly comes about because you have

57:07

that intentionality of, you know, understanding a place

57:09

and uncovering its layers. I want to later

57:12

on, I'll double down on architecture also how

57:14

every little thing in the design of a

57:16

place will tell you so much about its

57:18

history. But at

57:21

a broader level, how does that then change the

57:23

way that you look at your own life? Because

57:26

one of the realizations of being

57:28

able to step outside of this

57:30

time, and you know,

57:32

see it as this flowing river and so much of

57:34

the present influence by the past which is still flowing

57:36

in it would also make you

57:38

then think about your own life and think

57:41

about your own goals and etc, etc. Like

57:43

you've spoken about how you won't

57:45

let your job define who you are,

57:47

you know, VP, IVP, Kavarak Pratay, etc,

57:50

etc. And so

57:52

how much of that has been changed by you like

57:54

I'm so impressed by the fact that you have this

57:56

intentionality key, I'll take a month off and for a

57:58

month I'll go to Poland or whatever. I'll go to

58:00

personally or I'll go to wherever and you know I'll

58:03

do the rigor of doing my job remotely because it

58:05

has to be done but a couple of weeks I'll

58:08

also just go off on my own and all of

58:10

that but how do you now look at time compared

58:12

to maybe 15 years ago like when you were young

58:14

when you were in college just out of college what

58:16

are the kind of what was the

58:18

story you told yourself then and what is the

58:21

story you are telling yourself today? So

58:24

in terms of time and I

58:27

my day job involves using

58:30

statistics to some degree I

58:33

would think of thinking of time

58:35

and life in cross-sectional and longitudinal terms

58:37

right. So cross-sectional is right

58:40

here right now in this point of time

58:43

and longitudinal is of course over a longer period of

58:45

time I think the shift for me what has happened

58:47

is I started looking

58:49

at life longitudinally and not

58:52

cross-sectionally. So for me earlier

58:54

I was used to think hey

58:56

this is what I'm doing now this is not

58:58

good enough I can

59:00

do better I can see other people are

59:02

doing better right but

59:05

in that cross-sectionality I was neither looking at my own

59:07

journey and I was also not looking at that their

59:10

journey because of course I was not aware of their

59:12

journey right. Now

59:14

if I look at anyone and that that sort

59:16

of lens you know beautifully to content creation as

59:18

well because if you are starting

59:20

now somebody else is doing it better

59:22

than you and somebody has

59:25

been doing it for much longer and they

59:27

already have an audience so the question you ask is

59:29

why do it right

59:32

and in Deepak's newsletter which we

59:34

were talking about I talk about

59:36

this that what if you started

59:38

treating all your content projects

59:40

like your children you

59:42

are not people don't have children because say oh

59:44

my child will become the next year's grandmaster or

59:47

they will go and to will the you know

59:49

Nobel prize in literature very

59:52

unlikely it will happen right. Too many Indian

59:54

parents have that attitude though. Yeah right but

59:57

the realistic part is that your child will have a

1:00:00

life with a few highlights here or there. So

1:00:03

that doesn't mean you don't have children. A lot of people find joy

1:00:05

and purpose in having children. Can

1:00:07

you treat your content project like your child? Right? You

1:00:11

don't expect your child to come out and

1:00:13

start solving the Pythagoras theorem. Right? Or say

1:00:15

that, listen, I will solve Fermat's last theorem

1:00:17

by the time I'm 18. It's

1:00:19

not going to happen. So the

1:00:22

moment you start thinking of your life

1:00:24

longitudinally, you understand that this is a

1:00:26

journey. Right? If

1:00:28

somebody goes off the blocks going to be

1:00:30

to St. Bolt when you start running, you are

1:00:33

not going to do that either. The most successful content

1:00:35

creators out there have put in time

1:00:37

for their craft. The

1:00:39

moment you start understanding that, you

1:00:42

start worrying far less about the

1:00:44

cross-sectional view of things. You

1:00:46

start worrying far less about, you

1:00:49

know, where other people are and what are they

1:00:51

doing. Because let's face it,

1:00:53

at whatever age you are, someone is doing it much

1:00:55

better than you, whatever you have wanted to do. But

1:00:59

they have come from a different circumstance. They

1:01:01

have come from a different life experience. They

1:01:04

have come from a different mindset

1:01:06

owing to their own life.

1:01:09

And that is their journey. And

1:01:11

you know, I used to read this philosophy, I

1:01:13

think it was John Rilke, I don't know how

1:01:15

to pronounce the name. He says

1:01:18

that the only journey worth having is a

1:01:20

journey within. I used to feel what

1:01:22

sort of garbage this person

1:01:24

has written sitting in some fancy

1:01:27

town in Europe being funded by

1:01:29

royalty. But it makes

1:01:31

complete sense. It makes complete sense

1:01:33

now though. It did not make complete sense 15 years

1:01:35

ago. It sounded like

1:01:38

utter garbage. But it

1:01:40

makes complete sense because only if

1:01:42

you think of your life in longitudinal terms, you will get off

1:01:44

that wheel. And you have to get off that

1:01:46

wheel. The only wheel you should be

1:01:48

willing to accept to some extent is a wheel which you have

1:01:50

designed for yourself. If you say that day

1:01:52

this is the wheel, either wheel I chose is one

1:01:55

episode, one week, come what may.

1:01:58

I would say I have been fairly successful at you know. doing

1:02:00

that. But that

1:02:02

wheel is what I

1:02:04

have defined and the difference is

1:02:06

the cross section and the longitudinal. When you start

1:02:08

thinking everything longitudinally, you start

1:02:10

approaching life longitudinally because you will

1:02:12

stop expecting immediate results, you will

1:02:15

stop expecting immediate improvements, your

1:02:17

idea of success itself change. Now, one

1:02:19

of the things which I have started thinking about

1:02:22

differently is that the input is the output. You

1:02:25

can control the input, you have no control over the

1:02:28

output, how much ever we would like to believe we

1:02:30

are masters of our own destiny, we are not. We

1:02:33

are definitely subject to the

1:02:35

vagaries of the societies and the

1:02:37

nature we live in. But the

1:02:40

moment you say that my intentionality

1:02:43

is only putting in the

1:02:45

effort because without the effort

1:02:47

there is no outcome. And

1:02:49

when you start focusing only on the effort is

1:02:52

when also things start to change in this

1:02:55

space. So,

1:02:57

my typical answer for those people who say,

1:02:59

KI MAKU, podcast KARU, YA MAKU, YouTube, SHO

1:03:01

KARU or whatever, there are so many like

1:03:04

me and etc. And I always remind them

1:03:06

that there is one thing that no one

1:03:08

in the world can be better at than

1:03:10

you are, which is at being you. If

1:03:13

you are simply authentic to yourself and the

1:03:15

point is all of us are on journeys

1:03:17

of different kinds, journeys to life, intellectual journeys,

1:03:19

you are at some point in that journey,

1:03:21

somebody on some other point in that journey

1:03:23

will relate to you and will

1:03:25

feel useful. And therefore, I think that too

1:03:28

many creators are second guessing your audience.

1:03:30

And I think that that is a

1:03:32

terrible trap and a race to the

1:03:34

bottom. And what is worst about

1:03:36

it is that it takes you outside

1:03:38

of yourself. Like the way that

1:03:40

I think good content is created is not that

1:03:42

is not outside in the logo. But inside out

1:03:45

that I am

1:03:47

what I am and here I'm putting this out there.

1:03:49

And I'm just doing that. And in a sense to

1:03:51

me, you know, that input

1:03:54

is the output which you said, you know, that

1:03:56

input is all that really matters. That is

1:03:58

a result you wanted to create. something,

1:04:00

the result is not how other people react

1:04:02

to it. The result is the creation itself.

1:04:05

I have done it. Now I don't care. Of course, it is nice when people say, I

1:04:07

had a great conversation,

1:04:12

but it is a doing that matters. You know,

1:04:14

you kind of, so tell me about your content

1:04:16

journey, because earlier you said that, you know, there

1:04:19

were some things you did for

1:04:21

the wrong reasons. And I'm guessing those wrong

1:04:23

reasons would be reasons of positioning or to

1:04:25

focus on what others might want on markets

1:04:27

and so on. And postcards was for the

1:04:29

right reasons, which you can make out

1:04:31

from the product. It's obviously for the right reasons. So

1:04:33

elaborate a little bit on this. So

1:04:36

I started, I've done a bunch of stuff

1:04:38

like a lot of things

1:04:40

in the travel space because I've always been

1:04:42

fascinated by travel that I started a newsletter,

1:04:45

which will help you find the cheapest

1:04:47

air phase internationally because traveling from India

1:04:49

abroad is expensive. It

1:04:51

actually did quite well, but I

1:04:54

just lost motivation after point

1:04:56

simply because I feel

1:04:58

my intent was right in

1:05:00

terms of that I did want travel to

1:05:02

be more accessible to people and so

1:05:04

on. But it

1:05:06

felt like a maze after a

1:05:08

point, I was just running in that maze and it

1:05:12

was not fulfilling me in any way. Right. And of course, people would

1:05:14

say back, say, thanks to you, I got such

1:05:16

a great deal and everything. So what of that sort

1:05:19

of, you know, fizzled out. Then

1:05:21

I tried to start a blog about behavioral

1:05:23

sciences. Right.

1:05:25

Because I, my, my work is in consumer

1:05:27

psychology. So what happened there

1:05:30

was that again, I lost motivation because

1:05:32

after writing few posts, I realized that I'm not

1:05:34

as interested in the topic. I thought

1:05:36

I was, I was not as invested in it.

1:05:38

And it's around that time where I

1:05:41

realized that the question you need to ask for

1:05:43

anything you want to achieve in life is that

1:05:45

are you willing to suffer pain for it? That's

1:05:48

really the only question you have to ask because if

1:05:52

you are willing to suffer pain for it means it

1:05:54

intrinsically matters to you and you will suffer

1:05:56

pain for it without anyone having a

1:05:59

ring of your heart. side view of you suffering

1:06:01

that pain and making a spectacle of that

1:06:03

suffering. That's a great illustration of thick and

1:06:06

thin desire as well. So

1:06:09

when I started understood that what am I willing

1:06:11

to suffer pain for. So

1:06:14

again I told you the story about how

1:06:17

postcards came to be somewhat serendipitously. But

1:06:20

by then I definitely wanted to write that, had

1:06:22

already written that manuscript. And

1:06:25

what happened then was that I

1:06:28

started doing postcards, postcard of course as a

1:06:30

show also evolved initially it was only about

1:06:32

how to travel differently but then it went

1:06:35

into specific stories, uncovering countries, doing like a

1:06:37

three month long series on a country. So

1:06:42

two things happened, one thing which I

1:06:44

am absolutely thrilled about is

1:06:47

that I got back my reading habit. This is one

1:06:49

thing as an adult I have struggled. I

1:06:51

have had phases where I read prolifically, I have had

1:06:53

months where I have not lifted a book, I

1:06:56

have had times where I could not finish books, even there

1:06:58

is nothing wrong with the book, it was really me problem

1:07:00

not as much as a book problem. But

1:07:03

the intentionality of doing

1:07:05

postcards and having IBM

1:07:08

help because I had a producer who was going to say

1:07:10

boss where is the episode and you are like

1:07:12

okay I have two days I need to get this out. So

1:07:16

I got my reading habit today I buy at least one

1:07:18

or two books a week. I

1:07:20

read only 20% of it but

1:07:22

the rest 80% which sits there is

1:07:27

my acceptance of how much of the world I

1:07:29

do not know and

1:07:32

when I accept that there is so much of the world

1:07:34

do not know I will go out and seek that

1:07:37

knowledge. There are times when you know

1:07:39

okay I have ideas for two weeks after that I

1:07:41

am not really sure what I want to do. I will just pick up

1:07:43

a book, I will read something,

1:07:45

I will connect it over a decade of

1:07:47

travel experiences put three points together. One

1:07:50

of my favorite episodes and in surprising it has

1:07:52

also done well because things you personally like do

1:07:54

not always do well in content right. It

1:07:57

is an episode called sunlight Europe versus Asia.

1:08:01

I could have done with a better title, but again, early

1:08:03

days of content creation, you don't

1:08:05

understand much, is that if

1:08:07

you look at how architecture uses sunlight,

1:08:10

in India we have this entire system of jali

1:08:12

architecture, right? That you go to so many

1:08:14

of these places and now one of the

1:08:16

reasons was that, you know,

1:08:18

it actually blocks out harsh sun

1:08:20

rays coming into a building and

1:08:23

we are a very hot country and we

1:08:25

did not have as many cooling techniques back then. And

1:08:28

because the moment you create a jali, you create a

1:08:30

lot of these small, small, small holes and

1:08:33

thanks to Bhanali's principle, the air which passes through it

1:08:35

actually cools down, air you get inside is much cooler

1:08:37

than what you get outside. Now

1:08:40

take the same sunlight and look at how

1:08:42

Europe uses sunlight in architecture. Most of these

1:08:45

churches where you have stained glass works actually

1:08:49

do the job of concentrating sunlight. The

1:08:52

reason is that because those places don't get

1:08:54

as much sun as we get, right?

1:08:58

Now this is something which occurred to me, I

1:09:00

was reading a very random book called imaginary cities

1:09:02

and by Kelvin. No,

1:09:06

I think that is invisible cities. That's invisible

1:09:08

cities. I forget the author, I am very

1:09:10

bad at remembering author names, this book called

1:09:12

invisible cities and I was reading about this

1:09:14

and suddenly struck me that there is a

1:09:17

very intentional way sunlight is being used. Now

1:09:20

as a traveller, there is a joy

1:09:22

that inside gave me. I

1:09:24

am pretty sure someone else has also figured it out

1:09:26

somewhere else. I am not limited to

1:09:28

be the inventor of this theory but the

1:09:31

joy that which it gave me really propelled

1:09:33

me to keep doing this because I am

1:09:35

like now I am seeing the world in

1:09:38

a way which I have not seen the world before I

1:09:40

am able to experience it more closely. Now

1:09:43

when you start building that level of

1:09:45

intrinsic motivation and podcasting in

1:09:48

India, the kind of content I do,

1:09:50

I know is a niche. I know

1:09:52

it will not explode. It

1:09:55

could be a function of how I do it or it could be

1:09:57

a function of the subject itself, a whole bunch of things. But

1:10:00

because I enjoy doing it so much, I am

1:10:03

not particularly fussed about what are the listener

1:10:05

numbers. Of

1:10:08

course, when someone writes in and say that really enjoys it,

1:10:10

I feel good. There is no doubt about it. I am

1:10:12

not above validation. I am very much in the validation game.

1:10:16

But I am not also worried about how

1:10:18

much episode, how many numbers did this episode do. So

1:10:23

my content journey, when it pivoted from stuff,

1:10:26

it said that this

1:10:28

sounds fun and it is cool too. I

1:10:30

really like doing this. That is where

1:10:32

the switch really happened because I have gotten up at 4 in

1:10:35

the morning, wrote till

1:10:38

6, went through one round of edits,

1:10:41

done by 7.30, take half an hour to record in 4

1:10:43

hours, I have turned out an episode for 10 minutes. But

1:10:46

I have done the pre-work to know what to write it when I am

1:10:48

sitting down at 4. So I was not figuring

1:10:50

out what to write. I had already done the pre-work. Now

1:10:54

doing this and then walking into

1:10:56

work. The

1:10:58

next day when that episode lands, just the

1:11:00

landing of that episode gives

1:11:03

you joy saying that, listen, I have put a part

1:11:05

of me out there. That

1:11:07

is important because the moment you start putting out your

1:11:09

content, you are putting out a very intimate part of

1:11:11

yourself out there. You are really

1:11:13

putting out saying that, hey, this is who I am. This is how I

1:11:16

see the world. It could be

1:11:18

esoteric. It could be obscure. It

1:11:20

could also be maybe just intellectual masturbation at some point.

1:11:22

But this is literally how I see the world. There

1:11:25

are a few thousand people out there who find value in it. So

1:11:30

then what starts happening is that then

1:11:33

the flywheel starts to work. Now

1:11:36

because of the

1:11:38

podcast, I got approached

1:11:40

by a publisher to do a travel book on India.

1:11:43

Now the publisher is also reaching

1:11:45

out to me because they see that, OK, this

1:11:47

person has a sense of what he

1:11:50

is doing. He definitely has an audience which will help sell

1:11:52

the book because ultimately publishing is a business. And

1:11:54

so on. But all that wouldn't

1:11:56

have happened till

1:11:59

I did four results. postcards. I

1:12:02

am here because I did postcards. That's

1:12:04

literally the reason I am here today. Then

1:12:07

what happens is that the flywheel starts to happen that

1:12:09

opportunity start to open up. Because of

1:12:11

postcards, Spotify hired me to

1:12:13

train some of the podcasters. I

1:12:15

did another show with IBM which was a paid

1:12:17

show and so on and

1:12:19

now because of that we are doing 6% love. And

1:12:24

that's why they say that you cannot connect the dots.

1:12:27

You have to look only backwards and connect the dots.

1:12:29

When I started on that journey, I had no

1:12:31

idea all of this would happen. Sure, everyone who

1:12:34

writes would always have that dream of writing a

1:12:36

book. I also had that. But to see actually

1:12:40

happening it without me going to chase a publisher and this

1:12:42

is not a brag I am trying to make. I am

1:12:44

just saying that all of these things are now

1:12:46

falling in place because of the

1:12:48

four years or so. Then you

1:12:50

start realizing that if it can happen in

1:12:53

this dimension, you can take

1:12:55

that same philosophy in any dimension of life. Last

1:12:58

one year is when I have consistently worked out three

1:13:00

to four days a week

1:13:04

and I have been able to reverse

1:13:06

my cholesterol issue. You know that

1:13:08

you have reversed your own diabetes. So you

1:13:10

understand that if you actually find a system

1:13:12

and stick to it, that applies to

1:13:14

every life, that applies to your relationships. You

1:13:16

can significantly improve your relationships if you start

1:13:18

investing in them in a very committed manner.

1:13:20

Because as much as I will

1:13:22

talk about love, I believe love is very intentional.

1:13:25

You choose to love the person

1:13:27

you love every single day. Otherwise, there

1:13:30

is no amount of attraction, chemistry,

1:13:33

shared interests will guide you through life. You have

1:13:35

to make that choice. So

1:13:38

I think my

1:13:40

content journey has

1:13:42

one made me realize

1:13:44

that you should stop self-rejecting. Let

1:13:46

the world reject you. And

1:13:49

because you are doing what you are

1:13:51

doing for yourself, the world rejecting you does not matter as

1:13:53

much. So I am not saying that to modify

1:13:55

the book and it does not say well, I will not feel bad,

1:13:57

but I will definitely feel bad. But it

1:13:59

will not stop me from writing my second book. It

1:14:02

will not stop me from doing postcards or YouTube which

1:14:04

we were discussing before the break that I'm getting started

1:14:06

on YouTube myself. Because

1:14:09

I know that I'm doing it for myself. Yes,

1:14:11

I am also doing it and to your point

1:14:14

of niches, right? I will feel that

1:14:16

niches figure out themselves out. You just

1:14:18

have to put in the hours and naturally

1:14:20

as a person who is who has put in the hours

1:14:22

you start to say, this is doing like for example, some

1:14:25

of the episodes which do the best

1:14:27

on the podcast are food episodes because

1:14:30

we are country are crazy about food. We love our food.

1:14:33

And in a way, because

1:14:35

I like food myself and I love reading what food

1:14:37

is trees and evolution of food. I

1:14:40

double down on it. It didn't feel like,

1:14:42

oh, I'm trying to game the algorithm or

1:14:44

do something. I like architecture. I like food.

1:14:46

Food is doing well. I'll do more of food. I

1:14:49

didn't stop doing architecture. I'm still doing architecture. I just

1:14:51

do more of food. So it doesn't feel that you

1:14:53

are trying to game the algorithm, but you're still providing

1:14:55

some inherent value to someone who's saying that they're giving

1:14:57

your attention in this world. I mean, what more can

1:15:00

you ask for? I feel somebody's giving you attention is

1:15:02

more important than they're probably giving you money. And

1:15:05

that is how I stopped self rejecting

1:15:07

that this book thing also came. I

1:15:09

had this moment of thought that isn't, can

1:15:12

I really write this book? And then I'm

1:15:14

like, well, they think

1:15:16

that I can write it. I can

1:15:19

write it, right? I just have to

1:15:21

put in the hours, right? And of course

1:15:23

I will edit it. There is an editor and the

1:15:25

whole process goes through and it'll come out as a finished

1:15:27

product, right? The

1:15:30

only thing with changes is, and now

1:15:33

I want to be proud of whatever I'm putting out. And

1:15:35

pride doesn't mean perfection. Pride

1:15:38

means I feel I have given it my

1:15:40

time, my consideration, and

1:15:42

that is pride to me now. Pride is not about, oh,

1:15:45

this piece reads flawlessly. I mean, nothing reads

1:15:47

flawlessly. You can always improve whatever you've written.

1:15:50

And that I think has been my sort of content journey.

1:15:53

And that also propels me now to do even

1:15:55

look at, you know, I'm starting my

1:15:57

YouTube journey now. I am exactly at the same place

1:16:01

I did not know anything about podcasting. Now I

1:16:03

don't know anything about YouTube. But

1:16:05

my philosophy is very simple. If I do it for

1:16:07

another four years, I'm sure I will get good at

1:16:09

it. So I have a story

1:16:12

I love, which in fact I related in the episode

1:16:14

of Everything is Everything we just released today. But

1:16:16

I'll tell you anyway. It's a story about

1:16:18

the Soviet chess player Tigran Petrov here. He

1:16:21

played, he was a grandmaster in the 50s, 60s

1:16:23

and 70s world champion for a big file. And

1:16:26

he was once playing and this is when

1:16:28

he's a veteran. So probably 1970s. He's

1:16:31

playing a game with someone who wants to draw. Basically

1:16:34

for whatever reason, maybe it's the last round of an

1:16:36

interzonal. There's nothing to gain. Maybe he needs a draw

1:16:38

for a norm. He wants to draw. So

1:16:40

he wants to draw with Petrosian. And

1:16:42

at one point after the game starts, he leans forward and

1:16:44

he asks Petrosian, are you playing to win? And

1:16:47

Petrosian says no. So now

1:16:49

our friend is happy. He's like, okay, draw. So then

1:16:51

he leans forward and very hopefully he asks, are you

1:16:54

playing to draw? So Petrosian says

1:16:56

no. So he goes

1:16:58

like, what the fuck? And then he asks, so why are you playing then?

1:17:01

And Petrosian says, I'm playing to play. Right.

1:17:04

This is this. I want this to be the philosophy

1:17:06

of my life. I have adopted this. I'm

1:17:09

playing to play, you know. So when you write a book,

1:17:12

you're writing the book. Like

1:17:15

yesterday I recorded an episode. I don't know whether

1:17:17

I had released after or before this, but with

1:17:19

Malini Goel, who's written this lovely book called Unboxing

1:17:21

Langaluru. And she was saying that when the book

1:17:23

launched, she was so busy, so busy that she

1:17:25

couldn't enjoy the launch, that her mind

1:17:27

simply couldn't go to the thing. And

1:17:29

in my mind, I was

1:17:31

thinking, you know, you move on, you do

1:17:33

the next thing. The Dharma is to write the book. You've written

1:17:35

the book. We move on. Dharma

1:17:37

is to record episode. Move on to

1:17:40

the next thing. You know, don't kind of linger

1:17:42

back. So I, I kind of really love

1:17:44

that. And you know, I

1:17:46

want to talk about food and architecture, but we'll

1:17:48

talk about food later. I want to talk about

1:17:50

architecture first because you mentioned the jali and the

1:17:53

sunlight and that sort of insight. And

1:17:55

There are insights like that sprinkled

1:17:57

through your work. Like, for example,

1:18:00

In was Vegas on you spoken of. Other

1:18:02

dogs would make the Lord's right to the

1:18:04

doors will have to loosen them and earth

1:18:06

uniting in one of your posts and medium

1:18:08

use. Have a photograph of those loops and.

1:18:11

You know what I did and it made of

1:18:14

different materials and if you know good one loop

1:18:16

you're a man. If you look with another loop

1:18:18

woman see you can tell by the north with

1:18:20

it it's a man or woman at the door.

1:18:23

You know You've pointed out why. The doors outside

1:18:25

the buildings are so incredibly small. your know you

1:18:27

for in a in a different context you've shown

1:18:29

pictures of a bullish building with no balconies or

1:18:31

doors and you've spoken about. You know why that

1:18:34

is a case and these wise fascinate me. I

1:18:36

remember once traveling from the Charlotte I'd gone in

1:18:38

two thousand and six to cover the Cricket to

1:18:40

a difficult to death. And offended some

1:18:43

to god and be managed to dave

1:18:45

down to the border with Afghanistan right

1:18:47

and a on the baby boss said

1:18:49

dwellings of the of and instead of

1:18:51

windows a body's natural foods and as

1:18:53

somebody villa by are these Madison it's

1:18:55

instead of big windows and I am

1:18:57

not the news of his on sober

1:18:59

to disclose when which has given the

1:19:01

machines and okay because he always said

1:19:03

what I don't know I suspect a

1:19:05

desert you know a d but although

1:19:07

it is a minute but I'm I'm

1:19:09

always fascinated by all these little things.

1:19:11

Which to a tourist. Would.

1:19:13

Go unnoticed but a traveler.

1:19:16

Me: Actually see so give me some sense

1:19:18

of a new started noticing architecture. And then

1:19:21

what does it do for you to experience

1:19:23

a city with this extra layer of scene

1:19:25

where you're asking those questions about design? It's

1:19:27

because for me all these different forms we

1:19:29

see it on us and we take them

1:19:31

for granted. The originated for a reason. That

1:19:34

is it that is that he's in town

1:19:36

houses and France will look a certain way

1:19:38

that it as a reason that many Indian

1:19:40

houses will be like you know the to

1:19:42

be a good yard in the center which

1:19:44

is opened and everything is facing inwards. In

1:19:47

depth of a joint families of living and

1:19:49

through architecture you can learn so much about

1:19:51

a society so tell me about you know

1:19:53

your sort of how, your understanding and interest

1:19:55

in that group. Saw

1:19:57

my understanding. Of. It. I.

1:20:00

Really Still super limited. But.

1:20:02

My interest has always been that so

1:20:05

for me. And. I always

1:20:07

think of all travel writing as an individual

1:20:09

space and time. You discuss this issue while

1:20:11

ago that you know you can see it

1:20:13

regularly. Element of Fame same seen that architecture.

1:20:16

Is. A space. But. It

1:20:18

is also time because it's existed for

1:20:20

so long it's been going on Ten

1:20:22

January date denotes box have been added,

1:20:24

packs have been taken away, and so

1:20:27

on. So. It's the

1:20:29

monument is actually a living thing. It's

1:20:31

not a dead thing. Because.

1:20:33

The monument Is this a study? Know.

1:20:37

If. You look at. The. Much architecture

1:20:39

and of cause. I am very biased towards architected

1:20:42

in India because I'm biased towards India as a

1:20:44

country is that there's a lot of. Very

1:20:47

specific reasons why things are being done. I.

1:20:49

One episode called Jeopardy Architecture as

1:20:52

did Cuffed. Made that.

1:20:54

How have I done? One thing

1:20:56

I know who had accepted these

1:20:58

was in a d of the

1:21:00

British you know. started using aspects.

1:21:03

Of architecture from different parts. As.

1:21:06

Of the to please certain factions of people he was

1:21:08

sent to work with I could look at Dublin have

1:21:10

you been to deprive him again later. So if you

1:21:12

go to the old by trade when it was it

1:21:15

is being and that of these cystic shop jobs that

1:21:17

when we went and of shots at the how did

1:21:19

this type that such because he wanted to set up.

1:21:22

You know or of letting city because I'm a

1:21:24

had become too small for him and he knew

1:21:26

that to set up was it you need money.

1:21:29

And A to needing money you need to

1:21:31

attracted Hollywood protected us. He said that Listen,

1:21:33

I'm going to set up specific markets and

1:21:35

you need to look out for anyone who

1:21:38

listen to this. Opens the map and you

1:21:40

go to the was a d of jeopardy.

1:21:42

You will see specific leans. Named

1:21:44

after professions. Fate.

1:21:47

Some good could still were looking a little.

1:21:49

he was looking illegal. he all of them

1:21:51

late night is because he said listen this

1:21:53

is the place where I warn everyone who

1:21:55

said infiltrate. And. See

1:21:58

big, that and that stuff. The dusty. Of

1:22:01

was some of the things have changed but that

1:22:03

seems to this day and that becomes the foundation

1:22:05

of jeopardize the city. Not.

1:22:08

Someone took a very deliberate choice to say that I

1:22:11

want to set of. Jeb wouldn't have any intentional and

1:22:13

smart about it if I miss it. And.

1:22:18

I had these realizations in Windy

1:22:20

Edema to clients of article I

1:22:22

was a know I'm sorry able

1:22:24

I'm said boys One of my

1:22:27

favorite cities in the world I

1:22:29

would say I'm. Istanbul.

1:22:32

Competes with it for me, but he added

1:22:34

organ. Though I'm not the biggest center, what

1:22:36

he's doing, Do that. It's like. That

1:22:39

single city you can see. Within

1:22:42

our. Maybe.

1:22:44

A thirty me that. If.

1:22:46

You just look at the architecture it go some

1:22:48

seventeenth century, twenty first century. And. Thirty meters.

1:22:52

Along with that, it has different styles

1:22:54

of architecture. Along. With that.

1:22:56

It. Has different religions. Interesting that

1:22:58

architecture. Know. You could stand

1:23:01

in. Those had to me. Does. On.

1:23:03

Unravel the history of Sarajevo from the

1:23:05

thirty meters. What? You

1:23:08

need wouldn't isn't about it. So

1:23:12

architecture became also very important for

1:23:14

me because. I.

1:23:17

Said that you know all countries try

1:23:19

to. I'm mortified that

1:23:21

a collective memories teens, you're done. All

1:23:23

power struggle is essentially and disorder reminds

1:23:26

me of my master's thesis. I had

1:23:28

done this. So this is around anti

1:23:30

war odd in Cambodia or around to

1:23:32

commit who period. And

1:23:35

absolutely brutal. Peter of Com Or does history

1:23:37

and have. Been in things which

1:23:39

a sort of understood from is that. The.

1:23:41

Struggle for Power is actually a

1:23:43

struggle for nationally. What?

1:23:46

Do you institutions organizations where the

1:23:48

party's want to be? No foot?

1:23:53

And once you start seeing that, you see that

1:23:55

guess of. People. With a

1:23:57

vested interest will try to buddy history. But.

1:23:59

Architecture. living history. Because

1:24:02

there's so much of it is already been documented. Sure,

1:24:04

it might be lying a little obscure, but it's definitely

1:24:07

there for you to access. And

1:24:09

to me, that became just another tool

1:24:12

to really understand the place better. The

1:24:15

same goes for food and we'll talk about food, but that

1:24:18

is why I find I for 2015, I lived in China

1:24:21

for about six months. I

1:24:24

traveled for work and I

1:24:26

went to Tiananmen Square and I have an

1:24:29

episode on town squares. Why

1:24:31

dictators love town squares? Why dictators love town squares.

1:24:34

And if you go to any of these town squares, there

1:24:37

is never a bench, there is never

1:24:39

a tree, which means you

1:24:41

can't rest, you can't sit, you can't organize,

1:24:43

you can't protest. Tiananmen

1:24:45

Square is that way because of what happened in

1:24:47

1989 in Tiananmen Square. Now,

1:24:51

you go to Tiananmen Square and there

1:24:53

are people all the time there, you can

1:24:55

see nothing. But the moment you bring

1:24:58

in this lens, you

1:25:00

know why this is the way it is.

1:25:03

And that way of hiding

1:25:05

something actually reveals more than

1:25:07

what was trying to be hidden. And

1:25:10

there are so many aspects of architecture

1:25:13

which completely blow

1:25:15

my mind. Sometimes it is ingenuity,

1:25:18

sometimes it is vanity,

1:25:21

which you see, sometimes it is the

1:25:23

sheer craftsmanship of it. And I feel that

1:25:25

what we call as deep work now in

1:25:28

the modern age, people did deep work

1:25:30

then. The kind of

1:25:32

nakashi which you see in

1:25:34

palaces, in temples, in so

1:25:37

many other architectural elements that

1:25:40

people were doing deep work and that

1:25:42

deep work has stood for hundreds, thousands

1:25:44

of years. The

1:25:47

other thing about architecture which fascinates me

1:25:49

and which continues to interest me is

1:25:53

what is absent. So, you

1:25:56

know, the absence or the force of

1:25:58

the architecture is not just is

1:26:00

absence of something in architecture tells us so

1:26:02

much, right? Like the Hindu right talks about

1:26:04

Mohammed Ghazni coming and sacking

1:26:06

the temples X number of times and

1:26:10

while of course it is true, he defended that but

1:26:14

the fact that you start understanding architecture

1:26:16

as a tool of power, right?

1:26:19

The sacking of the temple is very deliberate. He

1:26:22

could have done hundred other things. He very

1:26:24

chose to sack temples because he wanted to

1:26:26

further a certain philosophy of what he believed

1:26:29

in and that was a straight

1:26:31

craft. There is this historian Aniluth Khanisati, he said in

1:26:33

a brilliant book, The Lords of the Deccan and in

1:26:35

one of his articles he talks about that,

1:26:38

you know, why it is very easy for us

1:26:40

to, you know, fall into that, oh, X mosque

1:26:42

was demolished, X temple was demolished but

1:26:45

in the medieval times, kings used to

1:26:47

demolish coming from the same region, same

1:26:49

religion, same community would demolish another temple

1:26:53

so that they wanted to build a bigger temple in that place

1:26:55

to show that, listen, I am more

1:26:57

powerful than him. So,

1:27:00

when you start seeing this, it also helps you understand that

1:27:03

a lot of narratives which you see

1:27:05

and it doesn't matter which side it is coming

1:27:07

from are also narratives

1:27:09

of convenience of propaganda in

1:27:11

many ways and a deeper

1:27:14

look at architecture helps you see through it much

1:27:17

more easily than you would sort

1:27:19

of, you know, see it from the outset and

1:27:21

that is why what I love about travel is

1:27:23

that it might seem as one singular aspect of

1:27:25

what you do but it really insights go into

1:27:28

all directions. So, you mentioned

1:27:30

Aniravath, in this very room in the

1:27:32

Takshishala studio, I once sat with him

1:27:34

doing a voice role for

1:27:36

his podcast, I think, you know, he used

1:27:38

to do a podcast here, he used to

1:27:40

do a podcast here when he used to

1:27:43

work in Takshishala. Yeah, echoes of India, I

1:27:45

think. Yeah, yeah, something like

1:27:47

that. So he would have these voice effects with

1:27:49

kings saying things and princes saying things and I

1:27:51

was a king for a brief while. So I'm

1:27:53

going to think aloud and ask you a question

1:27:56

and see if you have any thoughts on it

1:27:58

now. I'd done and Early

1:28:01

episode of Everything is Everything on this where

1:28:03

we were still trying to figure the medium

1:28:05

out, which was about the pinkness of Jaipur.

1:28:07

One of the things I realised when I went to

1:28:10

Jaipur and obviously I did the kind of thing that

1:28:12

you would recommend reading up and all of that and

1:28:14

one of the things I realised is that that pink

1:28:16

city thing is kinda recent. In 1876, Prince

1:28:19

Albert was going to visit the city so they

1:28:21

painted it pink in his honour. Now

1:28:23

somehow it caught on and it became a

1:28:26

branding thing and because it's called the pink

1:28:28

city, what it does is it does this

1:28:30

kind of part dependence where certainly in

1:28:32

the touristy areas it became the rigour

1:28:34

to paint everything pink and pink became

1:28:36

a destiny thereby foreclosing other possibilities, right?

1:28:39

Now this is a relatively trivial thing,

1:28:41

it doesn't really matter whether a building

1:28:43

is pink or blue in a deeper

1:28:46

sense but you know I

1:28:48

focused on this because I felt that this

1:28:50

kind of part dependence happens in our own

1:28:52

lives for example, if you see yourself in

1:28:54

a particular way, you know if a young

1:28:56

girl is raised for a particular attribute that

1:28:58

oh she's so coy or oh you

1:29:00

have a charming smile then you focus

1:29:02

more on that to the you know

1:29:05

detriment of other things and there is

1:29:07

a part dependence that comes in and

1:29:09

similarly I'm thinking of the part dependence

1:29:11

of architecture like Winston Churchill once said

1:29:13

that we shape our buildings and thereafter

1:29:15

our buildings shape us. So

1:29:17

when I think about town squares, it is

1:29:19

not just that a

1:29:22

town square design like that without benches or

1:29:24

trees is useful for a dictator, it is

1:29:26

also that a town square that remains like

1:29:28

that is useful to a future dictator that

1:29:31

in a sense we are shaped by our

1:29:33

architecture as much as in the past we

1:29:36

shaped our architecture and it's

1:29:38

important to watch out for these sort

1:29:40

of falling into these

1:29:42

part dependencies in our own lives in various ways

1:29:44

but in the context of cities and the way

1:29:46

they are and the kind of life they enable

1:29:48

and the kind of life they don't enable, you

1:29:50

know do you have any like further observations? So

1:29:54

while the pink city example of course

1:29:56

is deliberate and there are deliberate examples

1:29:58

right in so many parts of. of

1:30:00

the world, you're not allowed to change the outer

1:30:02

facade of buildings because it maintains a certain look,

1:30:04

right? In Bombay, for example, Art Deco buildings, you

1:30:06

cannot modify, you know, matter what you can do

1:30:08

inside. I

1:30:11

know that a lot of people have

1:30:13

an issue with this to say that,

1:30:16

hey, why do we have to do this? Let

1:30:18

places be what they are. But

1:30:20

nothing is just as they are, right? Everything

1:30:22

is intentional. Someone is taking an intentional choice.

1:30:25

And one of the things I, and you

1:30:27

did mention the tourist and the traveler thing, right? I

1:30:29

actually don't think there's a difference between a tourist and

1:30:31

a traveler. I'll come to why. But

1:30:35

the fact that a place is popular for a certain

1:30:37

thing allows a lot of people to come. And

1:30:39

of course, leads to issues like overcrowding of

1:30:42

places. But at the same time, it runs

1:30:45

someone's house. And I think that

1:30:47

is what we, you know, forget that,

1:30:49

you know, I can, I can talk wax eloquent about,

1:30:51

you know, how amazing slow travel is that is that

1:30:53

is an, oh, but sometimes

1:30:56

the best known places are genuinely

1:30:58

worth it, right? They're genuinely worth the

1:31:00

hype they have. And even if,

1:31:02

you know, you may not like it, but it's

1:31:04

running someone's house, it's a part of the economy.

1:31:07

I think we should not forget that, that sometimes

1:31:09

these places and ideas and experiences have to be

1:31:11

designed, right? Why do countries run tourism

1:31:13

campaigns? They run it for a simple reason that they want more

1:31:16

people to come, right? We all, you know,

1:31:19

project this idea of what our country

1:31:21

is. And this takes me

1:31:23

to a very brilliant anthropologist called

1:31:25

William Mazzarella. He had written a

1:31:27

book called shoveling smoke. So he

1:31:29

had done an ethnography of advertising agencies in

1:31:32

India, I think late

1:31:34

90s, if I'm not wrong, or maybe early 2000s. And

1:31:37

he came up with this idea of auto

1:31:39

Orientalism. He says that

1:31:41

Orientalism was how the West viewed us. We

1:31:45

have now, we have now made it our own

1:31:47

and we are now sending it back to the West, right

1:31:49

in a very crude form, if I may say. So

1:31:52

even when we do incredible India

1:31:54

campaigns, right, and I think we

1:31:56

do the same thing. And I Do not

1:31:58

think that is wrong In. The in innovative sense

1:32:01

that. There are some

1:32:03

good to see. Two nights. They. Have

1:32:05

caused an exaggerated images not too but did a

1:32:07

sumptuous two seater type safe. If someone is digging

1:32:09

let's say some sort of a spiritual experience It

1:32:11

is possible in a country like India is that

1:32:13

they have the right mindset able to that are

1:32:15

some of that I places. It's at least possible

1:32:18

may or may not happen. So. I

1:32:20

am. I'm quite or give it some of these

1:32:22

influences on choices. And this actually

1:32:24

reminds me of one of my favorite weird

1:32:26

saw the be They are one of the

1:32:28

reasons I did you like a been out

1:32:31

of everyone else I have little bit of

1:32:33

I take off his. Go. Read was

1:32:35

of us. Gabi. Was a man

1:32:37

in the at enough? So. He was not

1:32:39

an aesthetic was that I'm going to quit everything and

1:32:42

breeds isn't I am. I am. I am of events

1:32:44

I believe I read a sticks with the market if

1:32:46

it says i eat if it does not that I

1:32:48

don't eat. And eight. And.

1:32:52

Gabi talks about this and dieting of invincibility

1:32:54

that do know that you can dog any

1:32:56

and of was as a huge amount of

1:32:58

could even religion of an organized religion because

1:33:00

he was against it. And that

1:33:02

isn't a lot like it is idle as

1:33:04

as as much as he talks about things

1:33:06

which are metaphysical, those ritual is very grounded

1:33:09

in reality and I feel like whenever you

1:33:11

are traveling you cannot let go of that

1:33:13

going. And. I think that's very important. That's

1:33:15

why the I actually like the mentality in some cases

1:33:17

because he and I would be trying to please them

1:33:19

a piece of his seat. right? And

1:33:22

allowing us to read aloud to take

1:33:24

that beast or that sample and help

1:33:26

us imagine the universe. Because. We

1:33:28

don't know today what the vagina get him by looked

1:33:30

like. Would. Be says that winter tempers we

1:33:32

have and what his audience of able to put together

1:33:34

we can imagine will generally of notice. And.

1:33:36

Buy it in in that time and that's why

1:33:38

See that intensity was. Yeah.

1:33:40

and and you know what i was not

1:33:42

talking so much about those two to see

1:33:44

element of it did you take one aspect

1:33:46

and then you for drowned out and or

1:33:48

let's but even little it's parts of the

1:33:50

design shape the culture for example how much

1:33:53

public transport is it in a city with

1:33:55

ship the way people live or the second

1:33:57

tax on odd was hip the way people

1:33:59

live i originally this profound dissonance when

1:34:01

I think of the city of my birth

1:34:03

Chandigarh, right, at a sort of philosophical level

1:34:05

I am opposed to it, because it's like

1:34:07

top-down urban planning, it's not going organically from

1:34:10

the needs of the people. Now every time

1:34:12

I go to Chandigarh, I see the wide

1:34:14

roads and the green parks and it's like

1:34:16

utterly beautiful, but the counterfactual is something that

1:34:19

is far more vibrant and you know, far

1:34:21

more colourful and that vibrancy hasn't been allowed

1:34:23

to come up, you know, you contrast it

1:34:25

with any other Punjab city, for example, because

1:34:28

of the way that is designed, because you

1:34:30

can only have a certain amount of

1:34:32

density possible and you know, that restricts

1:34:34

the sort of possibilities, so all of

1:34:36

these different choices, the way they lead

1:34:38

to, you know, cities being what they

1:34:41

are. I

1:34:43

think Amit, it's important

1:34:45

that we recognise that

1:34:47

there is an equal

1:34:50

mix of beauty and chaos in how cities evolve,

1:34:53

right, there is a beauty because

1:34:55

the 30-metre stretch in Sarai, where I spoke

1:34:57

of, right, that walking down that

1:34:59

street, you can understand Bosnia as a country,

1:35:03

if I may say, and that street has

1:35:05

been preserved for a reason, right, because,

1:35:08

and it actually comes back to the

1:35:10

point of national memory, right, we preserve things the

1:35:12

way because we believe that this is the national

1:35:14

memory we want people to carry, this is what

1:35:16

the idea of conception of people we want to

1:35:18

carry, but at the same time, we understand that

1:35:20

memory is malleable, right, you can change

1:35:23

people's idea of what a country is and what a

1:35:25

memory is by doing things in various ways

1:35:27

and we are seeing a play out in India right now

1:35:29

as we speak, right, we want to

1:35:31

change the conception of what India as a country is. So

1:35:35

yes, Chandigarh, like an example, I have been to Chandigarh

1:35:37

a couple of times, Chandigarh is a

1:35:39

rich man city, right, Chandigarh is

1:35:41

a privileged city. Exactly, that is the cost,

1:35:43

but yeah. Yeah, right, now, but there

1:35:46

is an upside to it, that it looks beautiful, it's organised

1:35:48

and you know, I have not really seen

1:35:50

traffic in Chandigarh from what I remember. Now

1:35:52

Bombay, the city which both of us have spent

1:35:54

considerable time in, has layers

1:35:56

upon layers of history, is chaotic,

1:35:59

still matters. manages to function but

1:36:01

has some serious issues as a city now. So

1:36:05

I don't think this question can be conclusively

1:36:07

answered. I think very few

1:36:09

people and people talk of

1:36:11

their love for European cities,

1:36:13

you consider as a child of enlightenment for

1:36:15

sure. But

1:36:17

the fact is that how many European cities

1:36:19

can take the population load we have today. Exactly.

1:36:23

Exactly. They evolved because they

1:36:25

knew they were catering to certain aesthetics to

1:36:27

certain population to a certain way of life

1:36:29

which is why Paris is out

1:36:31

of control in the city. Paris simply cannot take

1:36:33

the amount of immigration which is coming into Paris

1:36:35

right now. And also as you pointed out in

1:36:37

an episode of your podcast, European cities are literally

1:36:39

built on shit. That

1:36:43

is what I call a cheap sales episode. Yeah I'm going

1:36:45

to link it from the show notes so we are not

1:36:47

going to elaborate, you have to listen to the episode to

1:36:49

find out why they are built on shit. So

1:36:52

yeah I don't think this question can be answered and

1:36:54

I don't think there is a balance

1:36:57

also in a sense you can strike because some

1:36:59

cities will always be weighed down by the history.

1:37:02

No matter how much of the context you want

1:37:04

to do, the history doesn't leave them and

1:37:06

it will never leave them. Delhi's history will never

1:37:09

leave it. You can do whatever amount of social

1:37:11

engineering in a country but some things are very

1:37:13

hard to erase. I would hope so. You

1:37:16

know from a recent episode I think it

1:37:18

was Swapna Little who gave me this insight

1:37:20

that you know we think of domes as

1:37:23

inherently Islamic architecture but domes actually there's nothing

1:37:25

like that. You know domes were used by

1:37:27

everybody. It's a freaking technology. It's a technology

1:37:29

for how you you know cover the top

1:37:32

of a building from the elements but you

1:37:34

know these associations have come so when you

1:37:36

rewrite history and you rewrite design and

1:37:38

etc etc all of this random shit

1:37:40

gets in on that note let's take a quick break and

1:37:43

after the break we have lots more to talk about. I

1:37:50

always wanted to be a writer but never quite gotten down

1:37:52

to it but I'd love to help you. Since April 2020

1:37:55

I've enjoyed teaching 27 cohorts

1:37:57

of my online course the autofk writing. and

1:38:00

an online community has now sprung up of

1:38:02

all my past students. We have workshops, a

1:38:04

newsletter to showcase the work of students, and

1:38:06

vibrant community interaction. In the course itself, through

1:38:09

four webinars spread over four weekends, I share

1:38:11

all I know about the craft and practice

1:38:13

of clear writing. There are many exercises, much

1:38:15

interaction, and a lovely and lively community at

1:38:17

the end of it. The course costs Rs.

1:38:20

10,000 plus GST, or about $150. If

1:38:25

you're interested, head on over

1:38:27

to register at indiancut.com/clearwriting. That's

1:38:30

indiancut.com slash clearwriting. Being a good

1:38:32

writer doesn't require God-given talent, just a

1:38:34

willingness to work hard and a clear

1:38:36

idea of what you need to do

1:38:38

to refine your skills. I

1:38:40

can help you. Welcome

1:38:46

back to the scene in the unseen. I'm chatting

1:38:48

with Utsav Mamoria, and we just went traveling. He

1:38:50

took me down on a slow

1:38:52

travel down Church Street, where we had a

1:38:55

slow pizza, positively, leisurely. And

1:38:59

as we came back, we picked up coffee,

1:39:01

and we discovered the concepts of OD and

1:39:03

AC. And I think we owe

1:39:05

it to the public to tell them what

1:39:07

is OD and AC. So I can begin

1:39:09

with OD, and then you go on to

1:39:11

AC. And together, we'll

1:39:13

do a teamwork job of explaining

1:39:16

this as it were. So OD means optimum

1:39:18

delusion. And here is a funda behind it,

1:39:21