0:06

Where do our laws come from? Society

0:08

runs because of a combination of social

0:10

norms that people follow without thinking about

0:12

them and explicit rules set by the

0:14

state. These laws come about ostensibly to

0:16

preserve harmony in the world and they

0:18

are based on what the world is.

0:20

But as the world changes, as technology

0:22

evolves, as societies are turned inside out,

0:25

some laws prove to be unnecessary, some

0:27

can be counterproductive, some are inadequate. And

0:30

when the world changes at the kind of warp

0:32

speed it is changing at now, it is difficult

0:34

for laws to keep up. Over the past

0:36

couple of decades, technology has transformed the

0:38

way we live our lives. A few

0:41

centuries ago, for example, privacy was not

0:43

considered a big deal. Then, as potentially

0:45

invasive technologies like the printing press and

0:47

portable cameras became widespread, it became something

0:49

we need to think about. And today,

0:51

with so much data generated by us

0:53

and around us, technology knows us better

0:56

than we can possibly know ourselves. Everything

0:58

seems out there and upper grabs. And

1:00

for the sake of human freedom and

1:02

flourishing, it's become important to make sure

1:04

that this doesn't get out of hand. How

1:07

do we protect our privacy? How do we

1:09

regulate technology which is already being used to

1:12

hack our brains? How do we do this

1:14

without giving too much power to an already

1:16

oppressive state? This shit matters. And

1:18

for our own sake, we need to engage. Welcome

1:24

to The Scene and the Unseen,

1:27

our weekly podcast on economics, politics

1:29

and behavioral science. Please welcome your

1:31

host, Amit Barma. Welcome

1:38

to The Scene and the Unseen. My guest

1:40

today is Rahul Mathan, a founder of the

1:42

celebrated legal firm, Traleagle, and an important player

1:44

in the shaping of public policy for the

1:46

last decade and a half. Rahul's deep interest

1:49

in tech and the fact that he became

1:51

one of the leading technology lawyers in this

1:53

country meant that he saw parts of the

1:55

future before some of us did. For example,

1:57

he realized long before it was in the

1:59

public discourse. that protecting our privacy would

2:01

be one of the great challenges of the tech

2:03

age. When Adhar and

2:05

India's digital public infrastructure were in the infancy,

2:08

Rahul got in at the ground floor to

2:10

work on a privacy law with the government.

2:12

Spending almost a decade and a half helping

2:14

the state with policy, he dived deeper into

2:17

the history of data regulation and the challenges

2:19

and the political economy of it. He also

2:21

wrote two superb books about it. Privacy 3.0

2:24

is a brilliant book that contains a history

2:26

of privacy, sheds light on the meta issue

2:28

around it, describes the evolution of the right

2:30

to privacy and helps us understand how it

2:33

evolved in India and the battle ahead

2:35

is packed with insight and some great stories.

2:38

His next book, The Third Way, is a

2:40

supremely important book. It lays out first the

2:42

US approach to data regulation which was laser

2:44

fair and led to big tech companies that

2:46

sometimes seem to have too much power. It

2:49

lays out the European approach which is

2:51

so intrusive that it perverts the incentives

2:54

of the private sector and he argues

2:56

that India is uniquely placed to show

2:58

the world a third way in which

3:00

these values are written into the protocol

3:02

itself which makes a lot of regulation

3:04

unnecessary. As an example, he offers us

3:06

Adhar and India's digital infrastructure. Now, I

3:08

opposed Adhar for years because it was

3:10

basically mandatory, it was being coerced upon

3:12

us and that principled objection remains. But

3:14

apart from the coercion angle, the design

3:17

of Adhar and in fact much of

3:19

our DPI is actually pretty damn

3:21

good. It protects privacy, it makes surveillance

3:23

hard and some of the misconceptions I

3:25

had about this were cleared by Rahul's

3:28

book and by these conversations. I

3:30

do have some objections, you will hear me voice them in

3:32

the next few hours but I look at

3:34

DPI differently now and I am also so

3:37

glad that people like Rahul are part of the process. He

3:39

is a big picture thinker who is also great

3:42

at the small details and both his books contain

3:44

so much insight and so much to think about

3:46

as does this conversation. But before we get to

3:48

it, let's take a quick commercial break. love,

4:00

a YouTube show I am co-hosting with

4:02

my good friend the brilliant Ajay Shah.

4:04

We've called it Everything is Everything. Every

4:06

week we'll speak for about an hour

4:08

on things we care about, from the

4:10

profound to the profane, from the exalted

4:12

to the everyday. We range widely across

4:14

subjects and we bring multiple frames with

4:17

which we try to understand the world.

4:19

Please join us on our

4:21

journey and please support us

4:23

by subscribing to our YouTube

4:25

channel at youtube.com/Amit Varma, A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A.

4:27

The show is called Everything

4:30

is Everything. Please do check it out. Rahul,

4:38

welcome to the Sain and Deon Sain. Amit,

4:40

it's a pleasure to be here after listening

4:42

to many episodes over many years. Yeah,

4:44

you were just telling me about how you heard my

4:46

episode with KP Krishna, which was over

4:49

eight hours and you were joking

4:51

when I called you for the show that you

4:53

come with adult diapers. But let me just tell

4:55

you my episode with KP was recorded over four

4:57

sessions across three days and

5:01

the second and the third day were like a week

5:03

apart and in different cities. So, no,

5:06

I was thoroughly enjoyable. KP is,

5:10

I like to say he's sort of my mentor

5:12

in some of the public policy

5:14

work that I've done because he was extraordinarily kind

5:17

to me when I was just starting out doing this

5:19

kind of stuff. I

5:22

was just very interesting to hear some

5:25

of that Stephen's life of

5:27

his and just

5:30

some mentions of the things that he's done before

5:33

I knew him. So,

5:35

it was very enjoyable. Did

5:38

you learn something about him you didn't know already?

5:40

Oh, lots, lots. I don't know that

5:42

much about him in the sense that we've

5:45

sort of engaged professionally.

5:48

I didn't know anything about the Stephen's side of

5:50

his life. So that was interesting

5:54

and just generally, you know,

5:56

it just pulled apart some

5:58

of those things that I instinct. I think

6:00

that the

6:02

work of bureaucrats is extraordinarily

6:05

difficult. Many

6:08

things that you have to do are not optimal

6:10

and so just hearing it from

6:13

him of course I knew all of these things but

6:15

just hearing it with examples and stuff like that was

6:17

really interesting. So, tell me something

6:19

I mean I have a tangential question here I

6:21

have noticed that there are times I have sat

6:24

down to record an episode with someone I know

6:26

extremely well and that I

6:28

have known for 15 years or 16-17 years or

6:31

you know I have known them for a long

6:33

long time and yet I realized during the episode

6:35

that I just learned so much more about them

6:37

it is just they completely flesh

6:39

out and become more HD as it were

6:41

the resolution just goes up and

6:44

then I realized that in the course

6:47

of our normal friendship sometimes there is

6:49

a danger that you fall into these grooves where

6:51

you do not really know the other person

6:53

well they might be a friend you establish a

6:55

certain comfort zone and within the

6:57

particular relationship you have everything is smooth

7:00

but you know you

7:02

do not go much deeper than that and sometimes

7:05

I ask myself the question that how

7:07

you know if one is to be intentional

7:09

about all our relationships as I think more

7:11

and more one should try to be rather

7:13

than just you know kind of get things

7:16

happen in the background then does

7:18

that intentionality also include kind

7:20

of making this kind of an

7:22

effort because to some extent I fault myself that

7:24

you know these guys are I never

7:26

asked them these questions before it is never come

7:28

up in conversation I have never asked any friend

7:30

outside of without these two mics in

7:33

front that you know tell me about your childhood

7:35

your you know in your life how have friendships

7:38

evolved and how has your approach towards friendship

7:40

evolved. I guess it is also stage of life

7:42

kind of a thing I think when you

7:44

are much younger you have

7:46

a lot of friends you

7:49

know them all superficially in the

7:51

context of your saying you probably know them well

7:53

but perhaps not with the level of depth that

7:57

the older you get you tend to want to

7:59

know I I guess the older you get the

8:03

less time you have and

8:06

so you want to optimize the

8:08

time that you have with people that are really worth it and

8:10

it is at that stage where you

8:12

start to sort of get deeper into some of these

8:14

things and try and figure out you

8:16

know I am spending time with this

8:19

person what exactly is this person

8:21

you know is this a

8:23

person I can have a conversation with without

8:25

being guarded at all. In order to

8:27

do all of those things I guess you got to know the person a lot

8:30

better. So

8:33

I think when I was younger I had lots of friends

8:35

you know I still have a lot of

8:37

friends but as you are seeing the ones

8:40

you know I do not normally have a mic

8:42

between me and my friends

8:44

ever so I do not have that

8:46

opportunity but I take your point that

8:48

there are some people who you know much much

8:50

better. I am you

8:52

know I was part of an organization called the

8:55

Entrepreneurs Organization and we

8:57

had fairly unusual construct

8:59

called the forum which

9:02

is you know a group of members

9:05

of the larger largest organization they were chapters

9:07

in various cities I was in the

9:09

Bangalore chapter and you have

9:11

this construct called a forum where you have

9:14

no more than 10 people who commit to meet

9:17

once a month and

9:19

they discuss you know work

9:22

personal family and they

9:25

do it in a structured way which

9:28

encourages this sort of depth

9:31

of understanding. I

9:33

have been in my I have left you what I

9:35

have been in my forum for over 20 years so

9:37

for 20 years this

9:40

group of us is met once

9:42

a month and so these

9:45

are people who I know better sometimes

9:47

then their current partners know them

9:49

because you know we

9:51

have been friends we have been forum before

9:54

we were married after

9:57

some of them have been divorced one of them

10:00

is dead, so we have been through

10:02

all of those cycles, you know they have not had children

10:04

or the children are going to college, we

10:06

have seen that whole journey. But

10:10

I think the transparency that that process

10:13

allows is quite

10:15

remarkable, so you know we these

10:17

are the eight people who can

10:20

tell me to my face that I am

10:22

being silly about something or my

10:25

model compass says something and I am working

10:27

in the opposite direction to that and that

10:29

is super valuable. So, yeah

10:31

long story short I think whether it

10:33

is a mic between us or whether

10:35

we have got some

10:37

kind of a structured way

10:40

of interacting and please this is

10:43

the once a month that we do the structured

10:45

interaction, but you know we are really good friends

10:49

otherwise. I guess that is

10:51

the closest to describing what you are

10:53

saying, it is very very people

10:56

describe the forum as your personal board of

10:58

directors and if

11:00

you can think about it that way it is who

11:03

do I go to if I have got some

11:05

problem at business or

11:07

family or just my

11:10

personal life who is not going to judge

11:12

me, who has complete context of

11:15

everything that matters to sort of

11:17

give me direction, it is these guys. So,

11:20

it is a yeah it is interesting. One of

11:22

the previous guest on my show Sudhir Sanobhat came

11:24

on episode 350 is also been part

11:27

of a group like this for I think about 10 years now I do

11:29

not know if it is the same organization or it is called the same

11:31

thing, but it is exactly the same

11:33

structure you describe 10 people meeting once a

11:35

month and I think he

11:37

use a phrase personal board of directors either

11:39

in the episode or otherwise and

11:42

I am just wondering if there

11:44

is something to that structure

11:46

which engenders that sort

11:48

of intimacy or that

11:51

sort of trust you

11:53

know you may not have been friends with these people in

11:55

the normal course of things or even wanted to, but

11:57

because of the structure where you shared so much you. big,

12:00

interesting one another and I

12:03

have been thinking about form a

12:05

lot, like even both your books are

12:07

a lot also about structure, you know,

12:10

like in your book on privacy there

12:12

is a fascinating section on how just

12:14

the structure of how you live, you

12:17

know, changes the person you are and the way you live

12:19

and you know, you have that sort

12:21

of fascinating understanding of how walls as

12:24

a technology really made privacy a thing

12:26

and split ourselves into two cells, the

12:28

private self and the public self and we

12:30

will speak more about that as

12:33

we go along. But I am just

12:35

wondering that even in this case how

12:37

you structure your friendships and the way

12:39

those interactions take place possibly

12:41

then has an impact in the quality of them

12:43

and I wonder if there is something to think

12:45

about for all of us in how

12:47

do we structure these that even

12:50

in the existing friendships we have are there

12:52

different ways to sort of think

12:54

about it. You look at the intentionality

12:56

of things always adds a different dimension

12:59

and of course, friendships or

13:01

our interactions are meant to be spontaneous

13:04

and dynamic. So, sometimes

13:06

intentionality comes in the way, but

13:08

if you want to get these

13:11

outcomes you have to be

13:13

intentional to some extent. I

13:17

know you also spend

13:19

a lot of time with things like personal

13:21

knowledge management etcetera. Now, there is intentionality

13:24

in that you need a

13:26

structure, you need form in

13:28

order to be able to extract additional

13:30

value. We can all read books

13:32

and when you read books you are absorbing stuff,

13:34

but if you want to really

13:37

take that to the next level you have got to create

13:39

some structure around how early that is the way I see

13:41

it. And

13:44

I mean I have read books all my life

13:46

it is only when I got intentional about that

13:48

whole process was it

13:50

that I could start extracting that sort

13:53

of additional level of value out

13:55

of it. So, I mean

13:57

I think relationships are extraordinarily important the old. the

13:59

more you get in life the more you realize

14:01

that you know everything else

14:03

you can sort out but relationships and

14:06

you know people that can

14:08

it is not people that you can turn to for

14:10

help because that is just sort of emergency kind of

14:12

it is people who you can rely

14:14

on to give you a steer. So

14:17

very often when I write a piece I

14:19

am not comfortable with something you know

14:21

I am worried that I have

14:23

written this piece in a way that someone will

14:25

there it will offend someone or get someone upset

14:28

and you know sometimes I am I do not really care but

14:30

I run it by someone and I say look

14:32

what do you think about this and then this

14:34

person will say look maybe you gone maybe you

14:36

can say it differently maybe you can sort of back off

14:38

a bit on this sentence I

14:40

will not show it to too many people but

14:43

those who I do and who I

14:45

trust will give me sort of good advice

14:47

that those are invaluable because they understand where I

14:49

am coming from but at the same

14:51

time can sort of give me a steer I think

14:53

it is also really important

14:56

to be actively listening to these people of

14:58

course if you go to them you

15:00

know you cannot just go to them and they have said something and

15:02

you ignore it that is really not the point at all you

15:05

cannot also just listen to whatever they say because then

15:07

they might as well write it. So

15:10

how do we you know get

15:12

the most out of it it is an art and you

15:15

know I talk

15:17

to a lot of younger people

15:19

and I more and more

15:21

I am convinced I can keep telling them all of these

15:23

things but you cannot take

15:26

a helicopter to Mount Everest you basically have

15:28

to climb all the way up and so

15:30

there is no shortcut to getting

15:32

this kind of experience. So you know

15:34

I think as

15:36

much as if younger people listen to this

15:38

they try and imbibe this there is no way they can

15:41

do it unless they have lived their life to a certain

15:43

level and do it their own way I

15:45

guess. I mean first time I am

15:47

thinking about it you cannot take a helicopter to Everest I

15:49

mean is there an alternative to helicopter? No of course you

15:51

could you can take a helicopter there is no problem at

15:53

all it is just that that is not climbing Mount Everest.

15:55

Of course it is you are on the peak yes you

15:57

can put a flag down there but you have not I

16:00

am not Everest and so can you are

16:02

you a mountain you know you are

16:05

not. If the idea of going to

16:07

Mount Everest was to take a photograph with a flag then

16:09

yeah of course you achieved it. But yeah

16:12

I was just wondering I mean I am very

16:14

tempted to just do all tab on my laptop

16:16

and look for pictures of Everest and helicopter and

16:18

see if there is something there. So

16:20

a follow-up question you know before we get to your

16:22

childhood and you know you know the standard sort of

16:24

things I like to talk about but before we get

16:26

there sort of a follow-up question

16:28

going down the same route that you

16:30

spoke of intentionality that you also spoke

16:32

of personal knowledge management. I know

16:34

that you are a person who is deeply into

16:37

tech and I want to talk about that as

16:39

well. Give me a

16:41

sense of the things that you are intentional

16:43

about now and how do you

16:45

organize those things whether it is reading or

16:47

knowledge or whether it is your habits and

16:50

what is your tech stack right now with which

16:52

you kind of organize your life and not every

16:54

piece of technology you have obviously has to be

16:56

for an instrumental purpose some stuff you just have

16:59

for pleasure but you know kind of

17:01

describe that for me. Yeah so I mean I am

17:04

I don't have a standard tech stack I think that

17:06

is I used to think that

17:08

I would have a standard tech stack and then I realized that tech

17:10

keeps evolving and so there are new things. So

17:12

I have come to terms with the

17:15

fact that there are certain things I want to do and I

17:18

will do it with the tools that

17:20

I have learned and then if a new tool comes

17:22

up tomorrow I will try

17:24

the tool see if it works for me if

17:26

it doesn't work for me you know I will go through. So

17:29

you know just to answer the question on intentionality

17:31

you know I guess I

17:34

am very focused around increasing

17:37

my understanding and knowledge of

17:39

the world in

17:41

my area you know it is just it is too vast

17:44

so it is impossible to know everything

17:46

so clearly reading is

17:48

a very important part of it being a lawyer

17:51

that was always the case I keep

17:54

telling everyone who starting out at

17:56

law look you just have to keep reading it

17:58

is there is no shortcut that like the

18:01

article C70 judgment came out yesterday

18:03

I had to read it 450 pages it is not

18:06

in my area but you just have to read it so

18:08

it is there you know I have

18:10

read the summaries and I have to read the

18:12

whole thing and of course you know when the

18:14

other judgment came out I had to read that

18:16

and I read that four or five times because

18:18

that is you know an important judgment and it is in

18:20

my area of work. But

18:23

more importantly in sort of tangential areas I

18:25

mean history

18:27

for example I think history our past

18:30

informs our future so histories are extraordinarily

18:32

important to understand the world we are

18:34

in and will give us

18:36

some direction of the world we are going to and

18:39

I have never been a history student and

18:42

you know particularly histories of modern India have

18:44

been fascinating for me the post 1947 India.

18:48

I am still just scratching the

18:50

surface I realized that I have very

18:52

very imperfect knowledge I also realized that

18:55

histories are written by many

18:57

different people and so in order to really

19:00

form a view you have got to read

19:03

different versions of the same thing often told by

19:05

people who disagree with each other who have different

19:08

ideologies from each other and it

19:10

is in the intersection that you will find it. So

19:13

if this is sort of part of the stack

19:15

then you know part of the part of what

19:18

I want to do then the tech stack and

19:20

just the habits are designed

19:23

to optimize that and

19:26

so you know

19:28

tools like Rome which you use I was

19:30

a very early adopter of Rome

19:34

and just the idea of being able to

19:36

write notes that you could link to each

19:38

other and then surface

19:40

connections was extraordinarily interesting

19:43

to me. But since then you know

19:45

I have moved to Tana I have tried all

19:47

the others I have tried log seek I have

19:49

tried obsidian I have tried I have tried everything

19:52

and a lot of time in Tana very

19:54

recently for

19:57

a while loved the structure and then the structure

19:59

was too difficult. for me. So, I

20:01

am back to Rome and I am all

20:03

into a very unstructured Rome. So, you

20:06

know I sort of double square bracket

20:09

all sorts of things and now

20:12

I am because I have

20:14

got a fairly large database

20:17

my Rome graph is you know quite big

20:19

I have not looked at the graph for

20:21

a while, but it must be quite big.

20:25

If I click on you

20:27

know on anything any sort

20:29

of link there

20:32

are really bizarre connections that come up. Why

20:35

is this useful because obviously it cannot just

20:37

be this, but I because I have been

20:39

writing this weekly column since 2016 I

20:42

have to generate 950 words of thoughtful

20:45

content every week

20:48

and sometimes these serendipitous connections that just

20:50

pop up spark some idea and it

20:53

is not it is not something new

20:55

it is just more a different

20:57

way of looking at things which

21:00

now is starting to pay dividends. I think with a lot

21:02

of these things you have got to put

21:04

in the time put in the effort it

21:06

is not immediately evident and then

21:08

compounding kicks in and once compounding kicks in

21:11

then you basically do not have to do anything. So,

21:14

that is the so that is the I mean

21:16

we can get into all sorts of

21:18

other elements of tech stack I have a

21:21

part of the stack to optimize

21:24

my to-do's and you know getting things done

21:26

and what is useful. So,

21:28

I am a I am a getting things done

21:30

freak. So, ever since

21:33

I read David Allen's book I have now that

21:35

is the most gifted book I have given it

21:37

to you know everyone who comes

21:39

up for partnership in the firm and comes to me

21:42

their biggest problem is time management. So, I just given

21:44

the book I was like read the first half of

21:46

the book the second half is why

21:48

if you really want to know about on it for the first half

21:50

it will change your life many

21:53

people it has not change their lives but the few

21:55

who have you know really get it. So,

21:57

for that yeah

21:59

I. I use things on the

22:01

Mac, it is a very simple to do manager

22:03

but can get very deep. I have tried once

22:06

again everything in the stack, I have tried OmniFocus,

22:08

I have tried to do it, I have tried

22:10

the whole thing. So this is you will figure

22:12

out this is the way I do it, I

22:15

try almost everything that is recommended and

22:17

then I settle for that which works

22:19

for me and things works for

22:21

me that is the one that I have been with for

22:23

the longest time. And it

22:26

is actually and I have tried using

22:28

Roam for 2-dos, it does not

22:30

work for me, Roam is just for notes, I cannot

22:32

and it is designed for all sorts of things but

22:35

I think I am increasingly becoming a person

22:37

who uses an app for one

22:40

thing, I do not like to have

22:43

a super app that has everything, I like to,

22:45

so I have a physical kindle,

22:48

I do not read the kindle on my phone because

22:50

my phone is for my phone and if

22:53

I want to read a book, I want to do it without distraction so I

22:55

pick up a physical kindle and I move to

22:58

another device and I read it on that and

23:00

of course I read physical books as well but

23:03

I try to use the phone I guess

23:06

just for things

23:08

that you need the phone for,

23:10

phone calls, WhatsApp, deliveries, I guess

23:13

those sorts of things and everything else I

23:15

try and do else, so I

23:17

can, the other thing I do not know how

23:19

it is for you but I am increasingly

23:21

becoming laptop

23:25

focused as opposed to trying to do things

23:28

that are better than on the laptop on a

23:30

mobile phone and mobile phone is

23:32

for what that is. So there

23:36

was a time when people said look Roam misses the fact

23:38

that it does not have a mobile device and I am

23:40

actually, I like the fact that it does not have a

23:42

mobile device because the kind of intentional

23:45

note taking I want to take, I want to take

23:47

you know in a on a desktop

23:49

or on a laptop or something like that not

23:51

on this, not on a phone when I

23:53

am waiting for a flight or

23:55

something, it would not be like a serious note,

23:59

so that of the way

24:01

I started thinking about this. I

24:03

think I spent way

24:05

too much time trying to improve my

24:07

tech stack because eventually I

24:10

just get back to the things

24:12

that worked for a while. So,

24:14

Tana was a really interesting diversion,

24:16

very interesting software. I just

24:18

could not find the

24:21

utility for what I wanted. Yeah, that

24:23

is interesting how the design of these apps

24:25

can shape the way you think even if

24:27

you are using them as aids to that.

24:30

For me using Roam was

24:32

a game changer. It is the first app of

24:34

the sort I tried. I looked at Roam Obsidian

24:36

Notion but I really like Roam and

24:38

it just in the way

24:40

that it allowed me to structure everything and

24:42

I have a video on productivity with Ajay

24:45

Shah for the YouTube show we do so

24:47

where I actually screenshot and I show

24:49

how it works. So, I linked that from the show notes for the

24:51

listeners. Interesting how like one

24:53

earlier when I would take notes on Microsoft Word

24:56

it was just a massive linear mess you have

24:58

60 pages of notes and the guest you are

25:00

with will mention something and then you are frantically

25:02

scrolling up and down doing control F and you

25:05

know Roam just makes it easier with the

25:07

nested entries and all that. But also the

25:09

sort of the distinction between say Roam and

25:12

something like Notion is that

25:14

Notion is great for productivity, Roam

25:16

is just great for a kind

25:19

of free association notetaking like in

25:22

you know writers will often talk about

25:24

architects and gardeners you

25:26

know where architects will just plan everything, construct

25:28

everything beautifully and gardeners are just pottering around

25:30

and things happen and things emerge out of

25:33

there and I think Roam is more for

25:35

gardeners and Notion is more for

25:37

architects and I am probably mixing up concepts

25:39

from two completely different fields. I

25:43

think it is gardeners and yeah I guess it

25:46

is probably the same I think I am somewhere

25:48

between the two I like structure.

25:52

But once again you know too much structure

25:54

and you would not proceed I mean you

25:57

are so focused on the structure that you

25:59

are you are trying to map

26:02

out every single rivet and at that point

26:04

in time it is pointless. So,

26:08

it is important I think to build

26:11

the broad outline and then get

26:14

into the more free association kind of stuff because that

26:16

is where the magic happens. I mean it is no

26:18

point sticking, you need to stick to

26:20

structures as that you know you know how long you are

26:22

going to go, where this is leading to,

26:25

but beyond that you know to

26:28

craft every paragraph or to you

26:31

know micromanage that then it at

26:33

least it does not work for me. I think it

26:35

works for some sort of I think there is this there

26:37

was this lovely book

26:40

about the process behind

26:43

writing Alleluia, Leonard

26:46

Cohen song. I think

26:48

there is a podcast as well I think it

26:51

was I cannot

26:54

remember which episode but and

26:58

it was just like you know you compare

27:00

Leonard Cohen with Bob

27:02

Dylan and Bob Dylan will churn

27:05

something out like overnight and

27:08

Leonard Cohen was just agonized over it and he will

27:10

just go on and on and apparently that is what

27:12

happened with Alleluia and actually

27:14

the story is that is just one

27:17

part of the story the whole story is how eventually you

27:19

know long convoluted way it lands up in the

27:21

hands of Jeff Buckley who then sings

27:24

this completely iconic version of Alleluia

27:27

and how that is

27:29

very different. But just on

27:31

the pain of that artistic process depending

27:33

on who you are and how you do

27:35

it I am clearly not in

27:38

the Leonard Cohen camp though I am certainly not

27:40

in the Bob Dylan camp, Bob Dylan is just

27:42

someone who is called genius and you do not

27:44

need structure but you come out with magic. But

27:48

I am I think I am quite clearly

27:50

halfway in the middle I really like structure

27:53

but I think too much structure really stifles me.

27:55

One of the things when I write the book

27:57

is you know a

28:00

very good friend of mine who is actually a very good writer, Lavanya

28:02

Shankaran told me you just

28:05

have to get out a shitty first draft, that is what she

28:07

calls it. And so, I

28:09

have always focused on getting that

28:11

shitty first draft out as quickly as possible, once

28:14

I have got that out then you

28:16

know, so the weight is off your shoulders, you

28:18

can see it is really crap, you can start

28:20

afresh, but at least you got something in

28:24

front of you that you can pull apart. Yeah,

28:27

you mentioned the phrase shitty first draft and where Lavanya

28:29

probably got it from, where all of us got it

28:31

from is this great book by Anne Lamott called Bird

28:33

by Bird, which is one of the great books on

28:35

writing and I just want to kind of read out

28:37

the full quote for those of my listeners who could

28:39

take inspiration from this. Lamott writes, perfectionism

28:42

is a voice of the oppressor, the enemy

28:44

of the people, it will keep you cramped

28:46

and insane your whole life and it is

28:48

a main obstacle between you and a shitty

28:50

first draft. And you

28:53

know, so I was slide in one of my writing

28:55

webinars where I use this and

28:58

what I say about what I point out is the

29:00

way that free shitty first draft is used as a

29:02

feature not a bug, that it does

29:04

not matter that it is shitty, you

29:06

kind of have something to work with

29:08

and that is sort of important and

29:10

the Dylan versus Cohen thing is also

29:12

interesting because Dylan would

29:14

churn them out and have you, are you a Dylan

29:16

fan? Yeah. Have you heard the new basement

29:18

tapes? Yeah. Where all these guys

29:21

took discarded lyrics from Dylan and made

29:24

songs out of them. Yeah. So

29:26

what is your favorite? Oh God, it

29:28

has been so long since I listened to Dylan, I cannot pick

29:31

one up. Out of the

29:33

new basement tapes? Yeah, yeah, which these other

29:35

musicians took his discarded lyrics and turned it

29:37

into like my favorite from that, they all

29:40

go to Mumford's

29:42

Kansas City. You

29:45

remember that? Yeah. And that was

29:47

also a wonderful thing because like there was a film made

29:49

on it and it's great to see them look at these

29:51

lyrics and they're locked up for two days and they have

29:53

to turn it into songs and they're

29:55

just putting their own spin on it. So you know

29:58

that, okay, the words are Dylan. It's

30:00

you know, there's another sensibility sort of

30:02

in the music which is kind

30:05

of fascinating. So

30:07

let's go back to your childhood

30:09

now. Like when you entered my

30:11

home studio, you mentioned that you were a

30:14

Bombay Scottish kid, you'd run up in Mumbai

30:16

and all of that. So

30:18

take me back, you know, where were you

30:20

born? What was your early childhood like? So

30:22

I mean, I was born in Chennai, but

30:24

that's because my mother's

30:26

family was there. My father

30:28

was in Bombay,

30:31

not Mumbai because it was Bombay then. And

30:35

we spent a little

30:37

time in Delhi because

30:40

my father was setting up a project.

30:42

My father worked for BSCS, which

30:45

is now Reliance Power or has it now

30:47

become something else? I have no idea. So

30:50

BSCS and BST were the

30:53

two private power supplies in

30:55

Bangalore in Bombay. And

30:57

my father worked for BSCS. And so I

31:00

spent my most of my school

31:04

days till the 8th standard

31:06

in Bombay Scottish. And

31:08

then my father moved to

31:11

another company. It

31:14

was called General Electric, which is actually G, but

31:16

it was in those days called General Electric. And

31:18

we moved to Calcutta, where

31:21

I studied in a school called St. James

31:23

till I finished the 12th. And

31:26

then by that time, my

31:28

father, with the same company, had moved

31:32

to Chennai and eventually to

31:34

Bangalore. And

31:36

it so happened that I got to a national law school. And

31:39

national law school is in Bangalore. So I

31:41

came back and I was in national law school.

31:44

So I mean, it sounds like my father had

31:47

a sort of a traveling job kind of thing,

31:49

but it wasn't. It was just

31:51

sort of that's the nature of it. He

31:53

used to set up power projects. And

31:56

so he would go where the projects were. He

31:58

spent some time. in Saudi, setting

32:01

up a project there. But

32:04

we've been in Bombay for

32:07

most of my school life,

32:09

a very different Bombay. And

32:13

then Calcutta, which was a great experience,

32:16

because I think Calcutta is a very

32:18

interesting city for someone at that particular

32:21

age. The cultural stuff is

32:23

great. There was, you know,

32:25

there was quizzing, there was a lot of

32:27

literary and demoting activities. The theatre was really

32:29

good. I mean, theatre of course

32:31

in Bombay is excellent, but you know, for amateurs I

32:33

think Calcutta is better than Bombay, because

32:35

you really have a chance in Bombay. It

32:38

might have been harder to do. So

32:41

I did all of those things. And then law

32:43

school, of course, I was the second batch

32:45

of law school. So my

32:49

parents were not so

32:51

sure about this, because if you

32:53

just think back to the second batch of national law school,

32:55

the first of the five-year colleges, at that

32:58

time law was the thing that you did if you

33:00

could do nothing else. And to be

33:02

completely honest, that's exactly why I was doing law.

33:04

That's how I used to think of journalism in

33:06

the 80s. Well

33:08

law was, I think, you know, in those days you

33:12

enrolled for law school. It

33:15

wasn't even called law school, it was called law college. And

33:17

no one went for class. You'd

33:20

pay the people some money to give you attendance at

33:22

the end of the year. You'd

33:26

get these exams

33:28

from past years and do some mugging

33:31

and you'd sort of get through and

33:33

you'd spend the whole day

33:35

actually in a law firm or in

33:37

a chamber. You're

33:39

not qualified to practice law, but you were learning on the job.

33:41

And so that's the way you really learned. And

33:45

so my parents knew that and

33:47

they saw me getting into this thing. And

33:50

from the get-go to the very different experience.

33:54

So national law school was none of

33:56

these things. It was extremely rigorous. But

33:59

you know, you're pretty. So, the priors at that

34:01

point are lawyers are those who you

34:04

know are ambulance chasers or hanging around the court

34:06

and doing your part

34:08

of attorney something like that right. So, it

34:10

was I think it was my

34:14

parents were like look if you do well

34:16

with this then great but otherwise the

34:18

seams and remember the National

34:20

Law School when we joined did not have

34:22

its campus. So, we

34:24

were on a borrowed set of buildings

34:27

you know three classes in the Central College campus

34:32

in the heart of Bangalore, but this

34:34

was like an asbestos roof little shed

34:36

and we were there. But

34:39

the glorious thing about that was that we

34:41

had just the most outstanding faculty we had

34:43

mother men you know

34:46

who is like a just an icon in as a

34:48

jurist who would teach us legal method. I

34:51

remember of course this was maybe while we were in

34:53

the Central College campus, but we you know within a

34:55

couple of years we moved to our campus. But

34:59

Ram Jait Malani taught me murder and

35:03

when the you know he was a visiting professor

35:05

and he would come for spend a

35:07

week or maybe two weeks teaching

35:10

us sections of the

35:12

IPC and the regular

35:14

professor who had the you know who had

35:16

the responsibility during the bulk of the teaching

35:20

would recite some case and Ram

35:22

Jait Malani stand up and said yeah you know that

35:25

is what the case says, but

35:27

I argued this and this is what happened

35:30

and this is the reason why I did it and

35:32

so you know you just get a completely different perspective

35:35

and we had so many visiting

35:38

lectures like this. So,

35:41

it was a very different experience I

35:43

think to what anyone was

35:46

getting in a law education.

35:48

So, I you know it was it was a

35:51

extraordinary experience and in National

35:55

Law School of course has gone on

35:57

to become a very good well-reputed. institution

36:00

and so I think

36:02

my mother, despite all her reservations,

36:04

is now

36:07

reasonably glad that it ended up

36:09

the way it did. You

36:12

know Ram Jait Malani taught me murder is such a great

36:14

t-shirt line. You should

36:16

get that made ASAP. But

36:19

why law? I mean, did you kind of

36:21

drift into it or did you, were you attracted to

36:23

law for some reason? How did that

36:25

decision kind of come about? Was it a happy

36:27

accident or is it a complete happy accident? And

36:30

I'd love to make it romantic and say, you

36:32

know, but quite frankly this is absolutely

36:34

the last thing I wanted to be. I

36:37

knew I had an aptitude for it because I

36:39

would debate and I had sort of, you know,

36:44

I could hold my own

36:46

from a logical perspective and things like that. But

36:50

you know this is just not even on the

36:52

menu. If you

36:54

think about those days you would either become

36:56

a doctor or an engineer, it's just that.

36:59

You wouldn't even think about business because that's something

37:02

you did after you became an engineer. It's

37:05

not something that you would do upfront and

37:07

law, journalism, all of these things were just

37:10

not on the menu. And

37:12

so like a, you know, like

37:14

a good Indian in those days, I

37:17

applied abroad, did my SAT, did all of

37:19

those things. But

37:23

with a certain amount of, I guess,

37:26

optimism, I decided that I wouldn't go

37:28

abroad unless I got into one of the Ivy Leagues and

37:30

of course none of the Ivy Leagues would have me. So

37:33

I did the IITG without studying for

37:35

it thinking that there would

37:37

be some stroke of genius and I would make it through. I

37:39

didn't make it into any

37:41

of the medical colleges. One

37:44

of the people who was one year senior to me in

37:46

St. James was in the first batch

37:48

of National Law School, Nikhil Nair.

37:50

So Nikhil came to us and

37:53

said guys just think about this as

37:55

an option, it's a really good place. And

37:57

so we signed up for the entrance exam.

38:00

Now if you sign up for the entrance exam basically odds are

38:02

against you that you will get in those days it was not

38:04

known and heard about it and Nikhil and I had not come

38:06

and spoken to me I would not have signed up for it.

38:09

So I got in but you know

38:11

that just goes to show that happy

38:14

accidents sometimes are

38:16

just the way that things are

38:19

meant to be because when I

38:21

think back there

38:23

are probably few things that I am better

38:25

suited for than what I am currently doing.

38:28

Now whether that is nurture

38:31

or that is nature I do not know put

38:34

in that environment I got the

38:37

skills and so I am what I am but

38:40

I have no regrets I mean that is

38:42

exactly what I

38:45

guess I was meant to be a technology lawyer that

38:48

you know of that time and doing

38:51

the things that I am doing right now. In

38:53

a parallel universe you are an unhappy doctor somewhere maybe I

38:55

should do one of those exactly I would not I do

38:58

not know if I would be unhappy you know one of

39:00

the things that actually one of the things I really regret

39:02

is medicine my

39:04

wife keeps saying that I should stop

39:06

thinking that I am a doctor because

39:08

I you know I keep trying to

39:10

do my own sort of quack research

39:12

as to what would happen I think

39:15

doctors hate me also because I would have read up

39:17

on the internet before I have gone to see them

39:19

about something but that

39:21

is I guess the only I think in

39:24

a parallel universe I really been unhappy as

39:26

like an engineer somewhere or something like that

39:28

is certainly not my cup

39:30

of tea. And is there a certain kind

39:32

of temperament that thrives

39:34

in law or that

39:36

perhaps and maybe it is a positive

39:38

feedback loop well you know because I

39:40

would imagine that if you are someone

39:42

who likes to think in a structured

39:44

systematic way studying law is something that

39:46

you might find enjoyable or at least

39:48

it is easy for you and

39:51

then you know the study of

39:53

law would also then enhance those faculties for

39:55

regular and structured thinking and so on. So

39:58

is there something like that is it the case that. that

40:00

you happen to be someone whose temperament and whose

40:02

interest kind of match what you were doing and

40:04

you were also in a good college not a

40:06

shitty law college of course that makes a difference

40:09

or you know it is

40:11

it the case that that really does not matter that anyone

40:14

can just you know. Yeah, I do

40:16

not know the answer to that once again you

40:18

know going by my personal experience may not be

40:20

a good way to extrapolate things because I know

40:22

there are others who perhaps

40:25

have switched out of law with

40:27

very similar circumstances I think I

40:30

was fortunate in that out after

40:32

law school I was

40:34

part of the first campus recruitment in any law school

40:36

now it is sort of part of the way in

40:39

which law schools run and I

40:41

was picked up by the law firm called the associates that

40:44

pick me up for the Bangalore office there

40:47

was no one in the Bangalore office other than the

40:49

three of us national law school graduates who were picked

40:51

up. And so

40:53

you know we had extraordinary

40:56

client access so we were

40:58

because there was no one else to do the job we

41:01

were front and center we also had

41:03

a lot of experience with you are just

41:05

doing silly things like office administration because really

41:07

there was no one else to do it

41:09

there was a full-fledged firm

41:11

in Delhi you know

41:14

very well established firm but Bangalore was in a

41:17

sense an outpost there

41:19

was a gentleman called Padmanavan, Paddu

41:21

who ex general counsel

41:24

of Hindustan Leaver who

41:26

was you know in his retirement sort of

41:28

running this office so as a result a

41:30

lot of that was left to us now

41:33

I think it was all those circumstances plus

41:36

the fact that I was in Bangalore at

41:38

a time just before

41:40

the tech boom had become you know

41:43

what it was look I graduated in 94

41:46

to remember back to year 2000 the

41:48

Y2K which was really that big event

41:50

where you know everyone thought the planes

41:52

would fall out of the sky because

41:55

we had only two digits instead of four digits

41:57

for the year and I

42:01

was in the middle of all of that with direct

42:03

client access. So I was fortunate in that I

42:06

could get to do things that really piqued

42:08

my interest and curiosity. If I was stuck

42:10

in a firm pushing papers or you know

42:12

just going to court for

42:15

adjournments or you know three

42:17

levels down so there is some partner doing the client

42:19

access and I am just churning out documents maybe life

42:21

would have been different. But

42:24

I think certainly temperamentally it

42:27

is important in law to be

42:30

curious. It is

42:32

important in the type of law that I and

42:34

we do to have

42:36

the intellectual curiosity around

42:38

the business of the client as opposed

42:41

to just the specific legal problem they

42:43

have come to you with. I

42:46

think it is important to be constructive in providing

42:49

advice. Any law is when

42:52

they give opinions it is just a yes or a no. You

42:54

have been asked is this possible and you say no and that

42:56

is really not helpful to a client

42:58

that is you know not fighting a case. I

43:00

mean if you are fighting a dispute then perhaps

43:02

that is okay but if you are looking to

43:04

structure a business and entry into the country you

43:06

want to know okay it is not possible, what

43:08

is possible. And for

43:10

all of that you need to have a wider

43:13

frame of reference than just the laws that

43:15

apply to it. And the business

43:17

and how it works you got to understand

43:20

the intentionality of the clients what they

43:22

want to do and I

43:24

think all of those are attributes that are necessary

43:26

in order to become a good lawyer in this

43:28

area. So

43:31

my friend and co-host for the YouTube show

43:34

I do Ajay Shah and a mutual friend

43:36

as I believe he is

43:39

extremely fond of you he was saying good things about my

43:42

recording with you. He introduced me to this

43:44

phrase which I love called below the API and

43:46

above the API. I think he got

43:48

it from Venkatesh Rao of Ribbon Pharma, linked that essay from

43:50

the show notes as well. And Ajay's

43:52

point is that most people live below the API

43:55

that there is a certain set of instructions that

43:57

you have to do for your profession and you

43:59

follow them. out at a very simple level and

44:01

Uber driver gets a message, go here, pick up this

44:03

person, drop him there, collect this much money and he'll

44:05

do exactly that. And in every profession,

44:08

I would imagine 90 to 95%

44:10

of people are actually below the API,

44:12

that they're doing what they have to

44:14

do, they're following the routine and there's

44:16

maybe a small chunk of people who

44:18

are thinking a little bigger and so

44:20

on. And I would imagine that that

44:22

kind of approach of being a below

44:24

API person or an above API person

44:28

would extend to college

44:30

as well. And you mentioned that

44:32

you had all these great teachers, inspiring people

44:35

who've teaching you not just about what the

44:37

law is like, but going back in history

44:39

and foundational stuff and all of that. So

44:43

were you always in a sense and

44:45

above the API thinker? Because you

44:47

clearly are now obviously, and

44:50

your books are brilliant above

44:52

the API books for me in the sense

44:54

that there is so much original thinking, you're

44:56

encapsulating all of the history of a particular

44:59

sort of movement, whether it's privacy with your first

45:01

book and data governance with your second book and

45:03

then taking it forward and imagining the future. But

45:06

was it sort of always like that? Do you

45:08

think those are inherent traits in people that some

45:10

people, no matter in what profession they are or

45:12

where they are taught or regardless of

45:14

context will always be satisfied with the

45:16

minimum stay below the API build a

45:18

respectable life. And some people who

45:21

are just curious that they will never be

45:23

satisfied with what is in the textbook or

45:25

with pushing papers as you said, but they're

45:27

always thinking kind of one level ahead. A,

45:30

what were you like? B,

45:33

do you think that these are inherent traits

45:35

in people like in all

45:37

the professions that I know somewhat, I look

45:39

around and I realized to my dismay that

45:41

90% of the people are just going through

45:43

the motions. Very few people are taking in

45:45

initiative and sort of

45:47

being innovative. And C

45:50

as a tangential thought that just occurred to

45:52

me that does it perhaps have something to

45:54

do with the good fortune of a

45:57

background where you're not necessarily rich

45:59

that's irrelevant. you are encouraged to

46:01

read for leisure and surrounded by

46:03

ideas and discounts. So you

46:05

know how would you think about that below the API above

46:07

the API thing like by self-selection

46:09

I would assume by now you are surrounded by

46:12

people who are thinking like you above the API

46:14

you have to but in general what is your.

46:17

Yeah look I mean clearly in college I

46:19

was not above the API perhaps

46:22

also because we were

46:24

such a new type of education if no one knew

46:26

where the API was. So we had no idea you

46:29

know what we were doing we have

46:31

as I said I was the first

46:33

campus person was hired from

46:35

campus through formal campus recruitment it

46:37

was the only campus recruitment that was conducted

46:40

by the faculty ever since then there has

46:42

been a recruitment committee run by students. So

46:46

yeah it was very difficult to know that this

46:48

is what you optimized for is only when I

46:50

got into the final year my

46:52

fifth year that we even knew there

46:54

was going to be a campus recruitment

46:56

so up until then the API as

46:59

it were was to find a litigation

47:02

chamber that you could associate with I did

47:04

not even know there was such thing as

47:06

law firms. What I also mean

47:08

is when I say API also mean is that you

47:10

would be taught what is in the constitution this is

47:13

how it has been interpreted these are the cases but

47:15

above the API would be thinking back on

47:17

why is this in the constitution why is say

47:19

the right to privacy not in the constitution you

47:21

know thinking about it philosophically why is

47:23

the US constitution like that and all so were you

47:25

doing that kind of thing. No I mean completely I

47:27

had none of that I

47:30

was just going through the motions because I you know what I

47:32

was trying to say was I had no idea

47:34

that I could that knowing all

47:36

of this would be useful to me because

47:38

we just did not have a path

47:41

that someone else had had walked

47:43

to show us that I

47:45

was not interested in writing academic

47:48

papers and so you know to

47:51

bring this larger body of knowledge

47:54

to simple question was not even

47:56

within my frame of reference I

47:58

was quite frankly below the API. Even

48:00

though I did not know what the API was, I would have been below

48:02

it. I think

48:05

this you are very kind to say that

48:08

I am above the API, but it is

48:10

perhaps because of the special circumstances I found

48:12

myself in. I was in Bangalore at

48:15

a time when tech was taking off.

48:19

For some strange reason I understood tech. I

48:21

have never studied tech, but you know when I

48:23

was in school I was interested in computers. I

48:26

remember I did a course

48:28

during the summer where

48:31

I passed around with basic

48:34

the programming language and it

48:36

was just like a summer course something to

48:39

do during the summers for school

48:41

students and so it is very very basic. But

48:44

I understood the logic of computers

48:47

and so in our office in the door

48:49

associates there was one computer

48:52

that was connected to a modem. This is

48:55

a 2400 bauds per second modem which screamed

48:59

and this is before the internet. I remember those days

49:01

was. So he

49:04

was there and no one knew how it worked.

49:06

It was basically like when the fax machine did

49:08

not work they would send it send the stuff

49:10

over this. And

49:14

I do not know how I figured out, but I learnt

49:16

that in Bangalore there was such a thing called a bulletin

49:18

board service and I

49:20

figured out how to connect to it. And

49:23

I do not know if you played

49:26

around in those days, but there

49:28

was this guy called Atul Chitnis who is no

49:30

more. He used to run this bulletin board service

49:32

called CIX and it

49:34

was essentially a telephone connected to

49:36

Atul's computer and if

49:39

you the way you use it was

49:41

you dialed into that telephone it

49:43

would connect to his computer. You could set

49:45

up an account there and people could send

49:48

you messages. You could download whatever

49:50

games he had stored on his computer.

49:53

But the etiquette was that you should do all this

49:55

really quickly because there would be

49:57

the entire you know the etiquette.

50:00

entire group of people on that bulletin board service

50:02

were waiting in line to actually call and it

50:04

was considered to be rude to

50:06

hog the telephone line. One at a

50:08

time you can. It was one at a time. So,

50:11

you logged on you would

50:13

download all the messages that were left for you and

50:15

you log off then at your

50:17

leisure you would read all the messages you would

50:19

answer to them and once you are already you

50:21

log back on and upload your answers back. So,

50:24

this is true asynchronous email.

50:27

That was my first sort of

50:30

experience with the internet as it were

50:32

which is this really asynchronous thing. Now

50:35

the reason I am telling you all this is because it took

50:37

a fair bit of pausing around

50:39

to make all this work. Look I am

50:41

just a lawyer I have no background in

50:44

all of this and this was very terminal

50:46

line kind of programming.

50:49

I somehow managed to get it to work. I

50:51

remember for the rest of my colleagues in

50:54

at work I downloaded a golf game and we

50:56

used to play the golf game like

50:59

a you know an 8 bit kind of a

51:01

golf game and

51:03

because of all of this I

51:06

was able to understand the

51:09

technology side of the queries that

51:11

my clients were asking. Now

51:14

is it about the API is it below the API I do not know I was

51:16

just interested this is just something that

51:18

piqued my interest and so. But

51:20

the fact that you did something as radical as learning

51:23

a programming language when your day job is as a

51:25

lawyer is itself above the API in a way is

51:27

not it. Anyways we

51:29

know is that play is that work this had

51:31

no connection to work. So, I mean I do

51:33

not know so the way you described above the

51:36

API is bringing to bear lots of things on

51:39

to the simple task and this is

51:41

not that this is play. So, this

51:43

is once again part of the same

51:45

to its knowledge that has somehow you

51:47

know contributed to whatever it is. I

51:50

did not do this mindfully it

51:53

was just fun to do, but if you look

51:55

back and if you want

51:57

to trace my interest in technology and some

51:59

of my. understanding this is back to some of these things

52:02

the fact that the technology was

52:04

not something I learnt and I

52:06

knew I just tried

52:08

various things and you know that community is

52:11

very helpful. So, they say no

52:13

you know you just do this is all you

52:15

have to do get there and then there will be

52:17

like an FAQ somewhere on the site you download

52:19

that read it a bit make

52:21

a few mistakes make lots of mistakes and then

52:23

you figure out how to do it and then I think the most

52:26

important thing is that the fear of technology

52:29

was beaten out of me I am not afraid of any

52:32

technology I think if

52:34

I read enough I don't think any technology will

52:36

be too difficult and we don't understand. So,

52:38

you know when the Satoshi Nakamoto paper came out there

52:41

is a bit of maths at the end of it

52:43

but I just sort of went at

52:45

it like literally when it when

52:48

it just came out so there were no explainers

52:50

and all lovely YouTube videos on how Bitcoin works

52:52

and double spending and stuff like but I was

52:54

like look I just have to figure

52:56

this out because this sounds like something really

52:58

interesting in the tech space. So,

53:01

I think the really big thing that that

53:03

gave me at that time was it just broke the fear

53:07

of technology I think a lot of people are just

53:09

afraid of technology and so I don't engage I think

53:12

I lost that fear very early on.

53:15

Did you buy any Bitcoin after reading that? I

53:17

bought a Bitcoin one Bitcoin

53:19

I think it would have

53:21

been like a

53:23

hundred dollars or two hundred dollars one Bitcoin I

53:25

have never bought one since I mean I bought a Bitcoin very

53:28

early on just to sort of figure out how to

53:30

buy it what it was and how it was is

53:33

this you know I still have it I

53:35

still have it oh you still have that Bitcoin. So,

53:37

if it is ever a million dollars you can I will

53:40

never sell it you will never sell it So,

53:42

for me now I am

53:44

fooling around with L3s so you

53:47

know Bitcoin is fine I am now

53:49

sort of on Ethereum one

53:52

of the one of the things I am playing around with a lot

53:54

now is this Farcaster protocol which

53:56

is Twitter for web3. newsletter

54:01

is web 3 newsletter which

54:03

means you can actually collected your

54:07

mint in NFT off of it and stuff

54:09

like that. It is not particularly

54:11

useful to anyone not a single one of

54:13

my readers has minted

54:15

it I have not gated

54:17

anything to prevent people from accessing it

54:20

unless they have eep. But

54:23

it is more just to I think the

54:25

real value of the blockchain is going to come

54:27

in the L3's and

54:29

so I feel I just must play around in

54:31

that space to understand you know how that works

54:35

because when it happens I need

54:37

to explain what the regulations and the laws are at that

54:39

point in time and I cannot if I do not

54:41

know. So I mean

54:43

I like to just dabble in some of these things

54:45

perhaps it is a waste of time but I

54:48

feel at some time it will be off. I

54:50

had an episode of the scene in the unseen

54:52

with Vitalik Bhutar and I was absolutely terrified going

54:54

into that because I know I heard that with

54:56

Ajay was with you. I made

54:58

Ajay co-hosted with me I mean we were

55:01

at a conference and the day before I

55:03

said listen I am recording tomorrow with Vitalik

55:05

who here can sit down and explain to

55:07

me in half an hour what the hell

55:09

is going on because I just had really

55:11

basic knowledge of Ethereum and that entire ecosystem.

55:14

But he is a very profound thinker outside

55:16

of this. He is absolutely above the API

55:18

like Ethereum is like 1% of what he

55:20

can talk about just a phenomenal thinker

55:23

on philosophy and politics

55:25

and so on. I do not agree with anything he says

55:27

all his views but that is just that is the

55:29

reason why I like listening to him because it is good

55:31

to you know

55:33

see what he thinks and try and say it

55:35

does it work as much. He has got incredible

55:38

clarity around a

55:40

lot of understanding of how society works what society

55:43

should be its

55:46

limitations. I think he is quite wise

55:48

to the limitations of this

55:50

completely decentralized protocol that he promotes

55:53

as well. He

55:56

is a strange guy. I mean he is a strange guy.

56:00

know he's a complete nomad as you

56:02

as you discovered on the podcast and

56:04

I actually he's got a little I

56:07

follow his blog and he had

56:09

one post on what is the

56:11

ideal setup that

56:13

you need to be a nomad these are the things that

56:15

you need to have like this is the electric toothbrush that

56:17

you need which is powered on batteries so that you don't

56:19

you can even use it when you don't have a plug

56:22

point I mean it's just so of course I haven't bought

56:24

it I find

56:26

there's an underpowered electric toothbrush so I

56:28

think that's a bad idea but

56:30

yeah so you know he's

56:32

an interesting guy to just completely

56:35

non Bitcoin

56:37

blockchain pieces of wisdom will

56:39

come out of his mouth. Yeah he sparks

56:41

thinking and I'm just thinking louder and thinking

56:43

that there are maybe these two kinds of

56:45

interesting thinkers and one is someone like someone

56:48

like Vitalik who spark thinking new thinking in you

56:50

and someone like Paul Graham who will present frames

56:52

which suddenly makes things clear to you that were

56:55

not clear before and they're both

56:57

probably and like additional is also part of that

56:59

I mean driven arm is just a fount of

57:01

wisdom Balaji is

57:03

another guy completely different type

57:05

of thinking network status I

57:08

don't agree with it in many ways

57:10

but it'll spark your thinking kind of force to engage

57:12

with it who are the other

57:14

thinkers you like these things I mean these are the

57:16

these are the ones that I you name

57:19

the ball Paul Graham is another sort of

57:21

a great sort of the

57:23

way he puts it is is really good but

57:26

literally you've listed that entire name though

57:29

the entire list Venkatesh

57:31

was the other one that I would say

57:33

Balaji is also really an outstanding thinker these

57:36

are the people who you know when they when they put out

57:39

a post I will sort of listen to it

57:41

you know Mark and recent keeps

57:44

coming up with these oracular posts but it just so

57:46

happens I don't agree with a lot of the things

57:48

that he says so it's interesting to to read the

57:50

post that he comes up with but

57:53

I don't necessarily always agree with

57:55

him on any on

57:57

the medical side I think someone likes that Mukherjee

58:00

in you know just in in the vast

58:02

volume of information that he brings to the

58:04

page and the way he strings it together

58:07

I mean he's a storyteller. So I

58:09

think that that's sort of what he is Carlo

58:13

Ravelli for science gosh, there's anything

58:15

by Carlo Ravelli is is worth

58:17

worth reading He

58:19

just got a I mean in Italian

58:21

is remarkable way of putting these things together

58:24

I like all these guys as well and I actually like Mark and

58:26

Risan a lot I think I agree with him more than you do

58:29

but agreement is often not the point

58:31

It's just you know who can really

58:33

sort of stay there. Very provocative I

58:35

think you know effective acceleration as a

58:37

as a rebuttal to effective altruism is

58:39

a great position

58:42

at the other end of the spectrum. I don't agree

58:44

with it I mean once again when I say I

58:46

don't agree is I don't like black and

58:48

white. I think there's always a midway

58:51

between between the two So

58:54

if his idea was to provoke, you

58:56

know full marks to him. He certainly did. I

58:59

don't agree with everything but you know kudos

59:02

for him for seeing a rather you

59:04

mentioned doing things to play tell me more

59:07

about your play because I have heard from

59:09

informed sources that you will play the guitar

59:11

that You know your deeply

59:13

into music that you're deeply into food. You're a

59:15

connoisseur of food your wildlife photography is of course

59:18

legendary By the way, you mentioned a zebra photograph

59:20

in your privacy book and I googled for it

59:22

and looked for it But I couldn't find it

59:24

so you can send it to me after this

59:27

and maybe I'll link it from the show notes

59:29

but yeah gosh, you know, I

59:34

Can't play the guitar but I haven't played for a

59:36

really long time Have you sung like I look for

59:38

you on Spotify and there is a Rahul Mathan artist

59:40

and there is Some album from what

59:42

looked like a music school and there is one

59:44

Rahul Mathan singing and that is right you yeah

59:48

So there's one song that is

59:50

on Spotify It

59:53

was a song And

59:55

and there's a video as well. So you probably

59:58

be able to I

1:02:00

love the gear, I am a gear

1:02:03

head so give me an excuse and I will buy

1:02:05

new gear. What is your favourite camera or a tune?

1:02:07

So, I am currently on

1:02:09

the Sony A9, the

1:02:12

one I think I will upgrade to is the Sony

1:02:14

A7R, 5 is

1:02:16

just released, I just need to figure out whether it is the 4 or the

1:02:18

5 or I played with the 4 as well. But

1:02:23

I now do not lift my camera if

1:02:25

it is not wildlife photography, I

1:02:27

think that is one of the

1:02:30

more challenging types of

1:02:32

photography. I

1:02:36

can technically tell you all the things

1:02:38

that you have to do, how you have to do it but

1:02:41

that visualizing a

1:02:44

picture is

1:02:46

still hard for me. I

1:02:49

can get it like in focus, I can get it motion

1:02:51

blur, I can do all of those things but

1:02:53

just visualizing the picture is what I am really working at right

1:02:56

now. So,

1:02:58

I mean I enjoy it, I enjoy going

1:03:02

out, I enjoy the whole process of making

1:03:04

a picture because 99% of wildlife

1:03:07

photography is waiting but

1:03:11

it is worth it for the 1%. I

1:03:15

am very lucky that my son also

1:03:17

likes this, so it is

1:03:20

a father-son thing to go out.

1:03:22

We are also very fortunate that just down the

1:03:24

road from me is down a long road

1:03:27

is Kabini which is one of the

1:03:29

finest forests in South India. We

1:03:34

spent a lot of time my son and I tracking

1:03:36

down the black leopard there

1:03:40

and we have got more

1:03:42

than one very good photograph

1:03:44

of that black leopard. So,

1:03:47

it is a lot of fun, I mean it is very rewarding to

1:03:49

do that. It is technically challenging but

1:03:52

it is also just sitting out in nature and just

1:03:55

waiting for this guy to come out

1:03:57

for a few seconds. is

1:04:00

extremely rewarding. I think

1:04:02

Sonil just got this new camera

1:04:04

out the A93 which has this

1:04:07

global shutter thing where basically typically

1:04:10

what happens is with every frame all the pixels

1:04:12

they do not sort of refresh

1:04:14

at the same time they do it in a sequential way

1:04:17

which is why you have the rolling shutter effect and all

1:04:19

that if you are moving the camera and here they all

1:04:21

refresh at the same time. So that

1:04:23

is according to my photographer friends I am

1:04:25

not a photographer I am kind of more

1:04:27

into video but according to my photographer friends

1:04:30

that is like absolutely radical

1:04:32

change especially for sports

1:04:34

photographers I am you know so I am

1:04:37

I just which would translate to wildlife because

1:04:39

there is a lot of wildlife it is

1:04:41

very slow but the really exciting

1:04:43

wildlife is very fast like

1:04:45

we want to get a cheetah on the run you want

1:04:48

to be able to use equipment

1:04:50

is performing in the same way that sports

1:04:52

photographers equipment performs. So

1:04:55

yeah I will be really interested to see that. And

1:04:58

I am also intrigued by what you said about how

1:05:00

99% of it is waiting and earlier you know when

1:05:02

you came here you spoke about how you have been

1:05:05

travelling so much and you need to travel less how

1:05:07

does how have you sort of found

1:05:09

that balance because I guess in the kind of life that you do

1:05:11

where you know you are one

1:05:14

of the people running for legal you are also involved

1:05:16

with policy at the government level you are travelling all

1:05:18

the time you are going to conferences and blah blah

1:05:20

blah it is a constant blur of

1:05:22

motion and etc etc. And

1:05:24

yet like you pointed out photography would be a

1:05:26

certain kind of tariff even playing

1:05:29

music and so on would put you in a

1:05:31

quiet zone where you are just you know trying

1:05:33

to go ahead of time and meet a deadline

1:05:35

or whatever you know to get to your next

1:05:38

meeting. So how is that balance for

1:05:40

you I mean has it been a conscious effort

1:05:42

where at some point in your life you have said

1:05:44

that you know like earlier you mentioned your friend who

1:05:46

passed away that he did not live long but he

1:05:48

lived a full life and for

1:05:51

you is that play the photography the

1:05:53

music or maybe just

1:05:56

a quiet moments doing nothing is that

1:05:58

an essential component of that full life. Absolutely

1:06:01

and look I will

1:06:04

put it this way I don't think that any

1:06:06

aspect of my life that I'm not enjoying even

1:06:11

the travel and the travel is tiring but

1:06:13

it is with a goal and a purpose

1:06:16

I am very fortunate in that I think if

1:06:18

I had to travel and I will really didn't

1:06:21

like it I didn't like why where I was going and

1:06:23

in like why I was going there I

1:06:26

would be a very different person but you

1:06:28

know at this stage of my life all

1:06:31

the various aspects of it I thoroughly enjoy

1:06:35

but on

1:06:37

that on the question around you

1:06:39

know essentially doing photography is it

1:06:41

a break from normal life

1:06:44

it absolutely is it is it

1:06:47

is just rewiring your brain to do

1:06:49

something completely different at a completely different

1:06:52

pace I don't need it but

1:06:55

when I do you know do

1:06:57

that it's extremely refreshing but

1:06:59

I could achieve the same

1:07:01

thing and I do achieve the same thing every

1:07:04

day with two hours of reading so

1:07:06

you know in the morning I wake

1:07:11

up early if I'm at home I try

1:07:13

and go for a cycle ride in the morning I

1:07:15

take my dog for a walk and then

1:07:18

it's two hours of reading because I wake up at 5.30 in

1:07:20

the morning and so I have

1:07:22

like two hours of reading which

1:07:24

would be ideally you know the

1:07:26

newspaper and then whichever book

1:07:28

it is that I'm reading right now and I

1:07:30

like to put two three hours without sort of

1:07:32

restraint unless I've got a meeting you know then

1:07:34

you have to head out to it but read

1:07:37

until you know you're done

1:07:39

that's sort of satisfied and it's not don't look

1:07:41

at emails it's not like I don't look at

1:07:43

emails I wake up I look at

1:07:46

emails I'm not particularly fast about no screens and

1:07:48

things like that I'm not driven

1:07:50

by it I can put it aside

1:07:53

but the conscious slowing down

1:07:55

of the pace of regular

1:07:58

life by up

1:08:00

something else and for me just

1:08:02

reading a book is enough. I

1:08:05

think that is really important to be

1:08:08

able to actually speed it up and

1:08:10

you know go about things

1:08:12

at the pace that that life demands.

1:08:15

But most importantly I think

1:08:17

the reason why I can do all of these things is because

1:08:19

I enjoy every single one of them. I even enjoy the travel,

1:08:23

I you know I the plane is

1:08:25

when I am going from Bangalore to

1:08:27

Delhi which is my like once a

1:08:29

fortnight regular schedule if not once

1:08:31

a week it is two and a half hours to read a book. So

1:08:34

very often I finish a book going

1:08:36

and coming that

1:08:38

is lovely. I absolutely

1:08:41

do not I used to have an iPad but

1:08:44

it is gathering more pearls somewhere. I do not

1:08:46

watch videos on the

1:08:48

plane or I do not watch Netflix you know at

1:08:50

home when I come back from work that

1:08:52

is what I do. I do not read a book at

1:08:54

night, I watch some stupid

1:08:57

in a Netflix and I or maybe

1:08:59

some movie I absolutely have to watch but you know

1:09:01

it is not like I do not do video. But

1:09:04

on a plane I just think

1:09:07

that is a great time and opportunity to read

1:09:09

and I get a lot of reading done early in the morning I get a

1:09:12

lot of reading done. Do you always read?

1:09:14

Always. Very

1:09:16

recently a non-fiction very recently as in maybe

1:09:18

over a decade and a half a non-fiction

1:09:20

reader most of my life a

1:09:23

fiction reader and particularly science fiction.

1:09:25

I have been a science fiction reader since I was

1:09:28

a child my dad used to say you know at

1:09:31

some point I will grow up and stop

1:09:33

reading these fantasies but I if I if

1:09:35

I was to read fiction now it would

1:09:37

almost always only be science fiction.

1:09:41

Actually the non-fiction of today like the world as it

1:09:43

is today is like what science fiction would have been

1:09:45

25 years ago. Yeah exactly.

1:09:47

So a lot of a

1:09:49

lot of science fiction has come true essentially

1:09:51

so you know but I actually

1:09:54

like the really the science fiction

1:09:56

that really pushes the

1:09:58

online forces you to rethink. different

1:10:00

sort of construct. Like what are the big influences

1:10:03

on you which really you know made you set

1:10:05

up? I mean look

1:10:07

the so Isaac Asimov

1:10:09

was someone I read a

1:10:11

lot, I have read all his all his different

1:10:15

categories of books and

1:10:17

towards the end you start to see him

1:10:19

stitching all the various worlds together. You know

1:10:22

the robot world stitches into the foundation world

1:10:24

and we are watching the foundation world

1:10:27

on Apple TV plus right now and you already can

1:10:29

see it stitch but you know for someone who watched

1:10:31

it being pieced

1:10:33

together as it were was

1:10:36

phenomenal and you know even just the

1:10:38

concept of psycho history.

1:10:41

I wrote in an article

1:10:44

sometime back that the idea of

1:10:46

psycho history essentially once you have

1:10:48

enough data you can predict

1:10:50

the future because patterns

1:10:54

societal population scale patterns are

1:10:57

not predictive unless the

1:11:00

population is large enough and

1:11:03

his theory is that once you got

1:11:05

galactic size population you can predict the

1:11:07

future in a way that nothing an

1:11:10

individual can do will change the future.

1:11:15

Now what are all our algorithms and social media guys

1:11:17

doing right now other than that I mean they are

1:11:19

not predict in the future but they are in a

1:11:21

microwave predicting your future because they are predicting that you

1:11:23

are now going to be interested in buying such and

1:11:26

such thing and more often

1:11:28

the North get it right. So

1:11:30

have we reached a kind of a mini

1:11:33

psycho history with the algorithms

1:11:35

and are we going to reach do

1:11:38

a quantum leap in that with AI I do not

1:11:40

know but it looks like

1:11:42

that is another you know

1:11:44

science fiction that may be coming true in

1:11:47

a small way. So

1:11:49

these are the things that I you know that I

1:11:51

really find interesting that I

1:11:53

find worth thinking

1:11:56

about May not be true, may

1:11:58

not be. but it is just like worth. having what

1:12:00

dallying with for a bit. When.

1:12:03

I know you know across your books

1:12:05

you've mentioned some of the insight started

1:12:07

go to gyms having to us for

1:12:09

example woman in the second trimester or

1:12:11

likely to shifts and scented lotions to

1:12:13

and scented lotions and marketers know this and

1:12:15

this starter the serving up ads accordingly

1:12:17

and and he was who spoken about

1:12:19

how you know whether a person types

1:12:21

in all caps or what the average

1:12:23

Betty life when your phone is can

1:12:25

give an insight into your creditworthiness and

1:12:27

are like these are insane things kind

1:12:29

of from and I know you know big

1:12:32

data can tell us. Have you read

1:12:34

the great book? Everybody Lies by Sixty

1:12:36

Funds? Davidowitz. And I

1:12:38

was really struck by that book because

1:12:40

you know and I thought of that book

1:12:43

when reading your book on privacy because I

1:12:45

thought direct coolest But I have it says

1:12:47

so far has really been on google search

1:12:49

what are we searching fallen into different places

1:12:52

will be so it's because you as you'll

1:12:54

notice completely private and for my listeners and

1:12:56

everybody loses a book by said she was

1:12:59

Davidowitz where he took anonymised data from a

1:13:01

bunch of platforms and what people are

1:13:03

searching from and a game up with some

1:13:05

are incredible insights and some great to. Be

1:13:08

a years of for example know

1:13:10

you know India and Bangladesh Her

1:13:12

leg we ahead of the world

1:13:14

in the obsession of adult men

1:13:16

with best feeding and I could

1:13:19

never figured out the way of

1:13:21

that. but just the fact of

1:13:23

that is kind of from ah

1:13:25

so sort of for mindblowing but

1:13:27

I mean that that that's an

1:13:29

aside know I look. I think.

1:13:33

He. Approves He I, I. Ki.

1:13:35

Ay yeah he is something I stumbled into. I

1:13:37

know it's not going be popular when I say

1:13:39

this, but. In the

1:13:41

book actually say that to

1:13:44

see is an abnormality. human

1:13:46

societies I the only places

1:13:48

where bluesy is tolerated. in

1:13:51

the wild it's not and i

1:13:53

think don't own a price of

1:13:56

the book is that will perhaps

1:13:58

reverting back to a be civilization

1:14:01

kind of a space where it's

1:14:04

becoming more and more, you know,

1:14:06

I mean, Mark Zuckerberg goes up and says,

1:14:08

he went up in

1:14:11

the beginning and said that privacy

1:14:13

is overrated and I

1:14:16

think that that taken out

1:14:18

of context sounds terrible but as a matter

1:14:21

of fact, it

1:14:23

is not the norm. It

1:14:26

is a luxury that some of us have and

1:14:28

many of us do not. Should

1:14:32

we allow everyone give everyone the space for

1:14:34

privacy? Absolutely. It allows

1:14:36

you freedoms

1:14:38

that otherwise would make you less

1:14:40

of what you are but let's completely

1:14:43

understand that it is a privilege and

1:14:45

those who speak about it also speak about it

1:14:47

from a place of privilege. We

1:14:49

should do more to give other people that privilege and

1:14:53

sometimes it's not, they don't always have that choice. You

1:14:57

know, since you brought it up, let's actually

1:14:59

sort of double click on this aspect of

1:15:01

privacy now and obviously when you say it's

1:15:03

not the norm, it's something that created by

1:15:06

technology essentially, it's not a normative thing you're

1:15:08

saying, it is describing the way things are

1:15:10

and I, you know, love those early chapters

1:15:12

of privacy 3.0 where you

1:15:14

write about how if you look back in

1:15:17

history, no animals have privacy, on

1:15:19

the contrary, solitude is a bad thing and of

1:15:21

course, privacy arises out of solitude and on the

1:15:23

contrary, solitude is a bad thing because it is

1:15:25

dangerous for you. Herds have to

1:15:27

stick together and they always have to watch

1:15:29

each other and every bit of information helps

1:15:31

them survive and we have also

1:15:34

evolved like this and as an example,

1:15:36

you speak of the Talahari Bushmen or

1:15:38

the Kumb tribesmen where

1:15:41

you know, you describe their hearts

1:15:43

where they rarely spend time alone,

1:15:45

their hearts weren't habitable and if

1:15:47

seeking solitude is

1:15:49

regarded as bizarre by them, why would you do

1:15:51

something like that and the hearts were so close

1:15:53

to each other, you could sort of, you

1:15:56

could hand utensils to someone in another house without

1:15:58

getting up, that is what they were optimising. that

1:18:00

the civilized us mitigating the

1:18:03

animal us, because it is out of

1:18:05

that privacy, it is out of solitude

1:18:08

and introspection that art emerges, that reflection

1:18:10

emerges, that science emerges and all of

1:18:12

that. What do you think about

1:18:14

that larger civilizational process? Because

1:18:16

earlier you spoke about psycho history and you

1:18:18

can predict the future and I was going

1:18:21

to ask you if you believe in free

1:18:23

will and at some level I think

1:18:25

most of us do not realize

1:18:28

how much our civilized self is

1:18:30

just a veneer and really we are in control of

1:18:32

the animal self and a lot of

1:18:35

the time all that the civilized self is

1:18:37

doing is rationalizing what the animal sense self

1:18:39

does. And it is there is

1:18:41

a huge cognitive load on doing that and that

1:18:43

is the reason why privacy is important. So, I

1:18:45

do not want anyone to think that I am

1:18:47

a privacy lawyer that is

1:18:49

essentially what everyone knows me as. But

1:18:53

the fact is that for 99%

1:18:56

of our lives we have a veneer that

1:18:59

absolutely no one can get

1:19:01

through, not a spouse, not our

1:19:03

children that is the

1:19:05

you know that is the last frontier that

1:19:07

you have to crack through to really see

1:19:10

the true person. And

1:19:14

in some societal constructs

1:19:16

is extraordinarily hard to

1:19:20

create an environment where you could

1:19:22

let that last world on as

1:19:25

you say in the slums in the Ravi in

1:19:28

you know very early civilizations you

1:19:31

know even though houses grew

1:19:35

to have walls they had external walls not internal

1:19:37

walls. It was

1:19:39

only when the fireplace was and you

1:19:41

know I only have anecdotal

1:19:43

information from the west. So,

1:19:46

there was the need for a fireplace. The fireplace was

1:19:48

located centrally within the house at the center

1:19:51

of the house that you need to create

1:19:53

a wall around the fireplace to support the

1:19:55

house. And then by that you divided the

1:19:57

house into two and so there was some.

1:20:00

modicum of privacy, but

1:20:02

beds, you know beds are a

1:20:04

new invention and so when you had a bed you

1:20:06

had one bed that everyone slept on, cows

1:20:08

and goats slept on the floor

1:20:11

and the human being slept on all one together and

1:20:13

we look at the pictures

1:20:15

of the plague hospitals everyone

1:20:17

was on one same bed because bed was an

1:20:19

expensive thing to construct. So, this concept of privacy

1:20:22

is something that is an evolution,

1:20:25

but why is it important? It is for

1:20:27

the reasons that you talked about, you know

1:20:30

the fact that once

1:20:32

you have the mind

1:20:34

space, you have the ability to drop that last

1:20:36

veneer, it is out of that that creativity comes

1:20:39

when you are when the cognitive load of keeping

1:20:41

up these false pretenses,

1:20:43

it may not be false, but it

1:20:45

is slightly you know it is unreal.

1:20:49

I think somewhere in the book I talk about the

1:20:51

fact that people there is a you know in your

1:20:55

bedroom you put on your face

1:20:57

and then you open the door and you get out into

1:20:59

your living room where your guests are, but

1:21:01

in your bedroom you are your real self that is

1:21:03

when you are all alone. But

1:21:05

in order to be able to do that you need to

1:21:07

have that wall to be able to do that because the

1:21:10

moment you are in a public space even if it is

1:21:12

the close your closest friends you are still putting

1:21:15

on some sort of an appearance and

1:21:18

there is a cognitive load to that and I think that

1:21:20

cognitive load comes in the way of creativity

1:21:22

and all the wonderful things that we can do

1:21:24

when we are completely free without the

1:21:26

burden of having to do that. Now

1:21:29

in the slums of the Ravi and that is

1:21:31

a modern like a even

1:21:34

today kind of an example,

1:21:37

but as I did the research we had slums

1:21:39

in New York and you know the New York

1:21:41

that you see now was a very polarized world

1:21:45

and you know particularly in

1:21:47

Boston which is where I start the idea

1:21:49

of the right to privacy there

1:21:52

was a very very fragmented society. There were the

1:21:54

really really poor people who lived in slums that

1:21:56

were no different from the Ravi and

1:21:58

there were the rich people who Good

1:22:00

you know sort of walk around

1:22:02

and get into their houses and

1:22:04

take the veneer off and will

1:22:07

will perfect outside. And the technology

1:22:09

that broke those barriers was photography

1:22:11

and particularly and be a Eastman

1:22:13

Kodak Audible camera know everything. Back

1:22:15

cameras were on a stand and

1:22:18

yet it's still a while a

1:22:20

photograph was taken an easement. Good.

1:22:22

I came up with this thing

1:22:24

to do to carry around with

1:22:26

you and people who. Would

1:22:29

walk around without a video on

1:22:31

the streets related to put on

1:22:33

a new video because someone might

1:22:35

catch them in an unguarded moment

1:22:37

and take a photograph. And.

1:22:40

Then that will be published and

1:22:42

they would see that unguarded version

1:22:44

of them. And so he that

1:22:46

them pop razzi ah of of

1:22:48

definitely wasn't aware that existed. Stripped

1:22:50

away one more live ah of

1:22:52

privacy and and in response we've

1:22:54

all become that much more. Got

1:22:56

it outside because but agree now

1:22:58

with mobile phone cameras you don't

1:23:00

know when someone's gonna take a

1:23:02

photograph of you. were you up

1:23:04

And you've got to be even

1:23:06

more conscious of if you don't

1:23:08

want to get. A into trouble

1:23:11

of maintaining a a these these

1:23:13

appearances even when it out that

1:23:15

evening. The party, even when you're

1:23:17

among friends that you trust, is

1:23:19

a tremendous cognitive load with all

1:23:21

of it. And and so Bluesy

1:23:23

is important for these concepts of

1:23:25

rules here. Importance of. Use.

1:23:28

You the it's important that people, even

1:23:30

if they have access to. Information

1:23:32

about you are prevented from using

1:23:35

it in a way that violates

1:23:37

you know your rights, your your

1:23:40

your personal space and things that

1:23:42

I made out of that that

1:23:44

laws around privacy develop. I'll.

1:23:47

I'll come back to a dumb you know,

1:23:49

the evolution of those laws and all those

1:23:51

that have for a contextual reasons of the

1:23:53

game into being but a couple of things

1:23:55

to double click on first and on one

1:23:57

is there to begin with. you know, I

1:23:59

think. In many ways where are you

1:24:01

know we don't even know ourselves what is

1:24:03

or to says the incense we're we're putting

1:24:06

on an accurate ourselves and we're finally at

1:24:08

a time. Verdict on as you can strip

1:24:10

through that as well that I would argue

1:24:13

that technology eve with from using the don't

1:24:15

an abstract when was as better than we

1:24:17

know ourselves and even shapes us perhaps into

1:24:19

a more extreme version of that by a

1:24:22

sort of going under direction but what really

1:24:24

fascinated mean thinking about how the form of

1:24:26

living node you have was in your privacy

1:24:28

and to live in. A different way and

1:24:31

humans who pointed out on for example them

1:24:33

though you know different civilizations and started building

1:24:35

inward looking houses and your outward facing world

1:24:37

would have a window deck was high so

1:24:39

no one could look in and etc etc

1:24:42

and that leads to these sort of least

1:24:44

two says and oh you know one is

1:24:46

he outward facing sense and one is as

1:24:48

sense in the bedroom and I'm imagining it

1:24:50

is not just her to leave the bedroom

1:24:52

and you put on a face but when

1:24:55

you leave the living room on so you

1:24:57

put on a feast you are constantly changing

1:24:59

feces and. Perhaps becoming part hours and

1:25:01

you know I wonder will the feedback

1:25:03

loop is they go to M I

1:25:05

learned recently from an episode with Good

1:25:08

when the book was looking glass and

1:25:10

on which is determined psychology which indicates

1:25:12

your century shaped by the reflection you

1:25:14

see of yourself in the eyes of

1:25:16

others which is a great reason I

1:25:18

think to keep good company. And here's

1:25:20

my question. I'm trying to think back

1:25:23

on how before this kind of separation

1:25:25

of the personal life in the public

1:25:27

life happens that everybody's watching everybody else,

1:25:29

How the shaping. Of the sense happens, rate

1:25:31

and one and a log in. again I'm taking

1:25:33

a node is I used to be very fascinated

1:25:35

with Big Boss once upon a time acting circa

1:25:37

two thousand and eight to two thousand and nine

1:25:39

a human trait on a tweet at once and.

1:25:44

crazy and i'm like oh this is

1:25:46

great because even though these people know

1:25:48

they have canada's canada's watching them after

1:25:50

little while that it vanishes it vanishes

1:25:52

and this and then i think you

1:25:54

see the to says they cannot hide

1:25:56

the to says it is kind of

1:25:58

dad and i imagine that in a tribal

1:26:00

society where everybody is kind of sleeping around in the

1:26:03

open and whatever little hutments

1:26:05

are for storing grains or whatever,

1:26:07

I would imagine that in those

1:26:09

moments that at one

1:26:11

level there is no pretense, you know the pretense kind of

1:26:13

drops and you are who you are. But

1:26:15

in contrast, I am also fascinated

1:26:18

by the experiment

1:26:20

you have described where a panopticon

1:26:23

was actually built. Right now for my listeners,

1:26:25

I will just sort of simplify this a

1:26:27

bit, you might have heard the term panopticon

1:26:29

and this is basically an idea Jeremy Bentham

1:26:31

had where his idea was how do you

1:26:33

build a good prison, you build a good

1:26:35

prison according to him whether prisoners are being

1:26:37

washed all the time. So, they would not

1:26:39

do anything wrong because they are being washed.

1:26:41

So, it is a circular structure and in

1:26:43

the middle there is this tower and you

1:26:45

cannot look into it, but you can look

1:26:47

out and all around there are these prisoners

1:26:49

rooms with open windows or they just open

1:26:51

to the tower, they can be watched at all

1:26:53

times from the tower, but they do not know

1:26:55

when they are being watched and therefore, it is

1:26:58

like a constant whatever and luckily not many of

1:27:00

these were built, but one was and Bentham by

1:27:02

the way was completely serious not saying this is

1:27:04

a metaphor as I first thought it must be

1:27:07

some thought experiment, but one of

1:27:09

those was built and in your book you describe quote. Prisoners

1:27:12

incarcerated in panopticon style prison

1:27:14

suffered debilitating psychological side effects

1:27:16

that stayed with them long

1:27:18

after being discharged rather

1:27:20

than rehabilitating them as he had hoped

1:27:23

they would. The panopticon ravaged the mental

1:27:25

well-being of his inmates in many instances

1:27:27

driving them mad, their loss of privacy

1:27:29

led to chronic stress, depression and mood

1:27:31

disorders, the living arrangements fostered a sense

1:27:33

of powerlessness and loss of autonomy, but

1:27:35

above all it stripped them of their

1:27:37

individuality and dignity by reducing them to

1:27:40

objects of observation in an

1:27:42

inherently dehumanizing manner stop quote.

1:27:46

And now it strikes to me as I read

1:27:48

this out that this is what happens to a

1:27:50

lot of people with social media as well you

1:27:53

know Jonathan Haidt speaks about the increased rights especially

1:27:55

among teenage girls and mental illnesses

1:27:57

and part of it is the anxiety that there

1:27:59

are is being watched and

1:28:01

they are comparing their real lives

1:28:03

with the projected lives of others

1:28:05

on Instagram and obviously they can

1:28:08

never keep up, it is a

1:28:10

race to an unattainable target. And

1:28:13

you obviously thought about this as lack of

1:28:15

privacy, this feeling of always being watched and

1:28:18

always being judged much more than

1:28:20

I have. So what is your? No, that was the

1:28:22

reason why I actually made the comparison. I was

1:28:24

struck by the fact that we are constantly

1:28:27

being watched. Social

1:28:29

media forces us to engage that

1:28:32

sort of the attention economy and when you

1:28:34

engage you are constantly on display.

1:28:37

And it is not, so there was actually Jeremy

1:28:39

Bentham came up with the idea and he could

1:28:41

never build up an opticon in England but all

1:28:44

over Europe there were an opticons built. I

1:28:46

understand that the cellular jail in Port Blair

1:28:48

was also an opticon, it was designed, the

1:28:51

idea of an opticon was to

1:28:53

have cells that is the prison

1:28:55

cells but the cells are arranged around the

1:28:58

central thing and whether the guard was watching

1:29:00

or not you would never know because you

1:29:02

could not see into the guard but just

1:29:04

the thought that you are being watched changes

1:29:07

your behaviour. And as you read

1:29:10

out that quote it actually you know

1:29:13

over a period of time severely

1:29:15

affects your mental wellbeing, just this thought

1:29:18

that you are constantly being watched. And

1:29:21

then when you think about the performative

1:29:23

nature of social media right now is

1:29:26

no different at all than that same

1:29:28

thing and if you can see the

1:29:30

mental stress that people are

1:29:32

going through just trying to keep up with

1:29:35

social media there has got

1:29:37

to be some parallels. It is

1:29:39

not like you are confined to a space but in a

1:29:41

sense you are confined to a space, you are confined to

1:29:44

performing within that thing. I mean you

1:29:46

just think about Snapchat as an example

1:29:48

they have these streaks that

1:29:50

you have to do with every 24 hours you

1:29:52

got to post something that

1:29:54

is as good as being shackled to a jail, you are shackled

1:29:57

to your camera you got to post something you know it is

1:29:59

like something inane like. you know your sneakers or something like

1:30:01

that. It is you

1:30:04

know the pressure of not breaking your streak

1:30:06

is high, there is social pressure

1:30:08

with not breaking your streak and you know

1:30:10

your entire peer group is like we kept

1:30:13

it going for a hundred days and this

1:30:15

fellow sort of slacked off and so now

1:30:17

we all have to start from here. So,

1:30:20

it is like a lot of pressure and then of

1:30:22

course there is all the Instagram stuff, the

1:30:25

unreal body image issues all of

1:30:27

these sorts of things and

1:30:31

you can see how it is taking a

1:30:34

toll on our lives right now. Now,

1:30:38

the reason I am saying all of this is more by

1:30:40

way of explanation because I think that

1:30:44

as much as we have opted

1:30:46

into it there is clearly something that we

1:30:48

get of value whether it is entertainment, whether

1:30:51

it is vicarious pleasure. So,

1:30:53

I am not qualified to explain

1:30:56

all of those sorts of things. It

1:30:58

is not Indian the panopticon Jeremy Bentham's

1:31:00

panopticon people had committed a crime and

1:31:02

they were incarcerated we are it

1:31:04

is not the same for us. So, I think that

1:31:07

the larger message there is

1:31:11

really around I guess the

1:31:13

addictive nature of some of these technologies and

1:31:16

then to say that once you are caught

1:31:18

into it, once you have been dragged

1:31:20

into the grip of these

1:31:22

technologies that the

1:31:25

mental health and well-being

1:31:28

and the stresses on them if

1:31:31

you look at what happened with the panopticon

1:31:33

you can now start to explain why some

1:31:36

of these are happening. Now,

1:31:39

I as much as I am

1:31:42

an observer of technology I am

1:31:44

a huge techno-optimist and so

1:31:48

I think that we will all sort

1:31:50

of figure this out and get past this.

1:31:52

We are already seeing Christian Harrison people are

1:31:55

that who are Weaning us

1:31:57

off the use of technology. Now the

1:31:59

technology. The holiday itself has figured

1:32:01

out ways in which to wanna sit.

1:32:03

We've been on to the too long

1:32:06

and things like that until Will get

1:32:08

busted. But

1:32:10

I think the bottle what I wanted

1:32:12

to do in that segment of the

1:32:14

book is is to highlight the fact

1:32:16

that these things happen for people who

1:32:18

baths and underwear. Leviticus shed some light

1:32:20

on some of these explanations, trying to

1:32:22

draw battles with things that happened in

1:32:24

the past. I'm not because I'm pessimistic

1:32:27

at all. I think a lot of

1:32:29

people have. Made the most out

1:32:31

of this either. Social media has allowed people

1:32:33

to flourish in ways that the other ways

1:32:35

me not have been able to flourish. And

1:32:37

before Aqua shutdown we had so many creators

1:32:39

in in the country. And

1:32:42

that I was wonderful to watch. I think gear you've

1:32:44

spoken about it and for years but does his way

1:32:46

to squatting. Tic Toc creators of

1:32:49

having you're making a lot of money

1:32:51

coming getting same oh without having to

1:32:53

go to any intermediaries which would get

1:32:55

defeat a Venice is wonderful to watch

1:32:58

but along with that came the about

1:33:00

it them and you have to master

1:33:02

the of i don't see eye to

1:33:04

start bringing weirder and weirder things in

1:33:07

order to. Stay at

1:33:09

the top of the Indus the book of be ago

1:33:11

them. Is a fine

1:33:13

line between east and when. I liked

1:33:15

the democratization of Access but I worry.

1:33:18

About. You. Know what the a lot

1:33:20

of the loo force us to do and co

1:33:22

at what point in time. Does.

1:33:24

Your your of a human need for

1:33:27

a theme in a claim a force

1:33:29

you don't have bought that. He

1:33:32

in your right mind and if he were thinking

1:33:34

said you wouldn't w iron ore I bought by

1:33:36

than do crossover that lane is Israeli society needs

1:33:38

to be ordered the and up with that we

1:33:40

respond to these sorts of things I do not

1:33:42

have announcing these a I guess questions that are

1:33:44

about thirty five things I'm going to double click

1:33:46

on or but after a short break because much

1:33:48

as we do need for him in a claim

1:33:50

As you said we also need foods and will

1:33:53

take a short break or get a bait and

1:33:55

than week and. The

1:34:00

wintertime and pudding used to be Goldilocks one

1:34:02

of the East. It was a have of

1:34:04

social movements of educational institutions. Which

1:34:07

since to see to come into

1:34:09

his beliefs on the policy making

1:34:11

happen said well on his back.

1:34:13

This episode of Money. And

1:34:17

put it on. the quality is an

1:34:19

important step towards establishing the city and

1:34:21

to see do differently to the schools

1:34:23

on the nineteenth and twentieth of January.

1:34:25

Twenty Twenty Four Booties brightest experts, a

1:34:27

business and policies will interact with some.

1:34:30

Of the most eminent economists and

1:34:32

think was a country this particular

1:34:34

event on the trade off that

1:34:36

India was face in the next

1:34:39

decade date else between growth and

1:34:41

quality, level of minted environment, convenience

1:34:43

and technology and boozy professionals and

1:34:45

bureaucrats, academies and students, insiders and

1:34:48

outside experts will gather together to

1:34:50

discuss the shaping of the word

1:34:52

on audience and to register. head

1:34:54

on over to www.bpp F.i and

1:34:57

civil civilian from the show Notes:

1:34:59

Opponent: Public. Policy Festivals: Twenty Twenty

1:35:01

Fourth or Historic City Building towards

1:35:03

a brave new. Like.

1:35:15

Come back to the scene in the unseen

1:35:18

and chatting with travel Martin and you're talking

1:35:20

about his life and privacy and look into

1:35:22

Big. We were just talking about coffee and

1:35:24

you mentioned to keep the Christian episode and

1:35:26

I just got a common getting this morning

1:35:28

from someone about that on twitter somewhere that

1:35:30

he loved. the way it's a Christian described

1:35:32

his coffee making mattered. So take me to

1:35:34

your journey with coffee. So. I

1:35:36

don't have anything like keep his

1:35:38

method for making coffee. I

1:35:42

want to and I in a high. I've

1:35:44

done the traditional route with coffee. Started with

1:35:46

this cafe because you don't know any different

1:35:48

and then of course you realize he other

1:35:50

those shoes world out there. right

1:35:53

now my coffee ritual assessed

1:35:55

of very simple not arrow

1:35:57

press type of a ritual

1:36:01

But I do, I

1:36:03

have selected a set of beans that I

1:36:05

like from a friend who gets it roasted

1:36:07

in his roastery in Oroville and

1:36:10

he ships it to me and

1:36:13

small batch because you

1:36:15

know you want it fresh, put

1:36:18

it grind it myself, put it in

1:36:20

the AeroPress, that is my sort

1:36:22

of morning ritual it takes me 2-3 minutes

1:36:25

and I make my coffee but I really

1:36:27

like that coffee and the reason

1:36:29

why we were talking about this is because I

1:36:31

am about to go down a

1:36:33

rabbit hole with espresso machines. I

1:36:37

do not know maybe I have been tempting fate but the

1:36:39

algorithm has been showing me a lot of really

1:36:42

delicious espresso machines. Like once you click on

1:36:44

one it will show you every other. Yeah

1:36:47

but you know and this is the insidious thing you do

1:36:49

not have to click you just have to pause longer than

1:36:51

normal on the feed and then they

1:36:53

know and some of

1:36:55

these are just delicious I mean you just

1:36:57

watch the espresso coming out. So

1:37:00

I have been slowly sucked in and now

1:37:02

I feel that I should perhaps start

1:37:05

doing the research on what is a good espresso

1:37:07

machine and then let

1:37:09

us see I do not know. What is your relationship with food? I

1:37:11

hear you are quite a foodie as well. Yeah

1:37:14

I like food a lot and I

1:37:18

like just a wide range

1:37:21

of experiences with food and

1:37:23

because I have a good fortune of being able to travel with

1:37:26

work I end up going to a lot

1:37:29

of interesting places and

1:37:32

you can do all sorts of things there.

1:37:35

You could go to a nightclub and you could

1:37:37

drink a lot and for me I just said

1:37:39

look I could

1:37:41

buy things or I could buy experiences and some of

1:37:43

these things are really you know they

1:37:46

cost a lot to buy a

1:37:48

good meal at a Michelin three-star restaurant

1:37:51

but man that experience is worth it. And

1:37:53

it is just the inventiveness of

1:37:56

the chefs, it is the

1:37:58

conceptualization. of each

1:38:00

individual dish or the whole thing

1:38:03

put together and that is really

1:38:05

that is really interesting those

1:38:07

are you know experiences

1:38:09

really worth investing in. It

1:38:12

is a it is a vanecent you know

1:38:14

some of these meals will not last more than

1:38:16

2-3 hours and then you have

1:38:18

to remember it after that because it is

1:38:21

gone sometimes those places

1:38:23

shut down and do not exist. So

1:38:26

I made it a point to whichever place

1:38:28

I go to try and do the research

1:38:30

in advance to try and find you know

1:38:32

the restaurant worth eating at sometimes

1:38:35

that is not enough because these

1:38:38

restaurants open reservations 3 months

1:38:41

in advance and within 1 or 2 hours the

1:38:43

reservations are all gone but

1:38:46

when you can make it work these

1:38:48

experiences are just worth what

1:38:50

sort of doing even for that

1:38:52

short time. What are

1:38:54

the most memorable food experiences you had? So

1:38:57

I ate at Noma when before

1:38:59

it shut down and before it sort of came back

1:39:01

up and all shut down again that was

1:39:04

so interesting because it was the number

1:39:06

one restaurant in the world at that time and

1:39:10

we were because I guess it was

1:39:12

the only Indians eating there we were waited

1:39:15

on by an Indian

1:39:17

starge called Garima who went on

1:39:19

to starge with

1:39:21

Gagan in Bangkok and

1:39:23

then open her own restaurant called Gee which is

1:39:26

doing really well in Bangkok. I

1:39:30

thought you know that was a I think

1:39:32

that the thing the story around Noma

1:39:34

is that they will only cook with

1:39:37

ingredients that they can forage and you

1:39:39

know it is in Denmark which means if you go in

1:39:42

winter you are probably going to get moss that is the

1:39:44

only thing that you will get and

1:39:47

the other really interesting thing is that there is

1:39:49

no lime or

1:39:51

no citrus that grows in

1:39:54

Netherlands it is just not native there. So

1:39:58

if you want to get citrus. taste

1:40:00

what do you do? Well, he took fire

1:40:02

ants, he flash froze them and

1:40:05

he garnished the

1:40:07

dish with fire ants because

1:40:09

if you bite into like

1:40:12

I mean if you squash an ant the formic acid

1:40:14

is out, but if you allow the

1:40:16

ant to be killed with the

1:40:18

formic acid still in there, when you

1:40:20

chew on it the formic acid comes out and

1:40:22

it tastes like lime. So,

1:40:25

you know this is it is just incredibly

1:40:27

inventive to put yourself under

1:40:29

these constraints and then deliver. So,

1:40:32

you know so Noma was interesting because of that there

1:40:34

was that constraint I

1:40:37

think you know some of the so Gagan is like

1:40:40

just wildly creative. I ate at

1:40:44

dinner by Heston in London

1:40:47

where Heston other that you know he

1:40:49

did not do his like really complicated

1:40:51

molecular gastronomy, he just took old really

1:40:54

really really really old English recipes which

1:40:56

you would think could be terribly boring, but

1:40:59

he put a Heston twist on

1:41:01

it and it was modern interpretations

1:41:03

of very old English

1:41:05

recipes. So,

1:41:07

yeah I mean look at you know some of

1:41:09

the one of the best weekends that I had

1:41:11

with food was at

1:41:14

San Sebastian where

1:41:17

we went through a

1:41:19

very traditional restaurant

1:41:22

and then one completely crazy

1:41:24

restaurant where the last item

1:41:27

on the menu was not a dessert it was a savory

1:41:29

thing, no cutlery was

1:41:31

served you have to lick it off the plate and

1:41:34

it was a big dot which was like

1:41:36

the full stock symbolic of the end of

1:41:38

the meal. So, you know crazy things it

1:41:42

is as much the taste is as much

1:41:44

the texture as it is the story

1:41:48

and that experience and things

1:41:50

like that and if you

1:41:52

do it with the with some friends who really

1:41:54

enjoy this it is absolutely worth it, they

1:41:57

are expensive in the context of. That's

1:42:00

a lot to pay for food, but

1:42:03

you know we pay a lot for holidays, we

1:42:05

pay a lot for buying vehicles

1:42:07

and stuff like that. You

1:42:10

put some of that aside and

1:42:12

buy yourself an experience and

1:42:14

you know, force your mind to remember it. There's

1:42:16

no other way you can do it. That's I

1:42:18

think what's beautiful about it. I can take photographs

1:42:20

but the

1:42:23

taste, that experience, there's

1:42:25

no way to do that unless you fix it in

1:42:27

your mind. Is there pressure on you to be mindful

1:42:29

in those moments? There

1:42:32

is in a sense but it

1:42:35

doesn't really matter. You're not being graded on this

1:42:37

afterwards and some of the

1:42:39

memorable muse just stick like

1:42:42

the finance on the stake in

1:42:44

Noma. There is

1:42:46

sticks and yeah,

1:42:49

so there are little things like that.

1:42:52

Beno in San Francisco once again, one

1:42:54

of the finest restaurants I've eaten at.

1:42:57

They serve something that looked like an eyeball but it

1:42:59

was the most delicious thing that I ever

1:43:02

had. That's another extremely memorable

1:43:04

meal. And then of course there's like

1:43:07

really, really good street food in San

1:43:09

Sebastian. There's a place that's known only

1:43:11

for its risen

1:43:15

souffle. And so you

1:43:17

just go there and stacks and stacks of these things

1:43:19

and you just sort of eat it you know off

1:43:21

the wall. There's sort of street

1:43:23

food around the world and I've done

1:43:26

all sorts of stuff. I've done the

1:43:28

insects in Bangkok. I've done

1:43:30

you know whatever

1:43:33

as long as I don't get an upset stomach I'm happy to

1:43:35

do anything. And it's

1:43:38

really the experience. I

1:43:40

enjoy the experience and there are a

1:43:42

lot of very, very good chefs in

1:43:44

India who if you just

1:43:46

ask them, they're just begging for you to ask them

1:43:48

to do something off the menu. Extremely

1:43:51

talented. And you

1:43:54

don't have to go to Denmark

1:43:56

to eat an outstanding meal. You've got

1:43:59

really good food. really good chefs in

1:44:01

the country even people are not

1:44:03

known who are sort of

1:44:05

slaving away with a set menu because that

1:44:07

is what the commerce demands if

1:44:09

you just give them the option to do

1:44:11

something outside there are many in Mumbai there are

1:44:14

many in Bangalore and Delhi and I do not

1:44:16

know all the other cities but it

1:44:19

is really worth doing that food is an

1:44:21

experience as opposed to food is just energy

1:44:24

to get through the day is another way

1:44:26

to think about it. So last week

1:44:29

before I released the

1:44:31

latest episode I asked my writing students right here the

1:44:33

next episode is you know you have to guess what

1:44:35

it is I will give you a one word clue

1:44:37

and the word is Copenhagen and

1:44:40

they were all going off in different directions one of

1:44:42