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If you're a writer or a filmmaker or a musician or a photographer, bloody hell, what a time
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We live in a golden age for creators.
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And this is clear when I think back, say, just 25 years.
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In 1995, when I was a writer, I had to attempt to please third parties to get my work out
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If I wrote articles, I had to submit them to newspapers or magazines.
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They were gatekeepers in my way.
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Even if I got through them, the formats in which I could write were fixed.
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The pay was a pittance, always coming through intermediaries who sold eyeballs for advertising.
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There was no way I could connect directly with my audience or even capture some of the
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value that I brought into their lives.
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Because the possibilities were limited, many of the things I could have done were left
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undone, unimagined, and therefore unseen.
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But between then and now, all those restrictions have vanished.
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Those of all sorts have the means of production and distribution in their hands.
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They can play with different forms.
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They can connect with their audiences.
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They can form communities of those audiences, and they can get paid directly.
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And for someone like me, so exciting.
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I'm speaking into my microphone right now directly to you.
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There's no one between us.
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Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics, and behavior
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Please welcome your host, Amit Varma.
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Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen.
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If you're a creator, then there are many, many lessons to learn from my guest today,
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Roshan, in a sense, was a new age creator in the old world before the new age.
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He started with theater, became a radio superstar in the 1990s, moved onto television and rocked
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that scene, took his destiny into his own hands by starting an events management company
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called Encompass, made that big, sold it, wrote a play, made a feature film, wrote a
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couple of books, invested in a bunch of successful creator startups, and began Commune, a performance
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arts collective that has launched many careers.
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He didn't stick to one thing.
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He never ossified, which is the reason that his insights on this creator economy are so
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I first came into direct contact with Roshan when he signed up for my online course, The
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Art of Clear Writing, and I've learned a lot from all our interactions since.
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In fact, just last weekend, I held a session for the alumni of my course on this brave
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new world for creators.
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It lasted three and a half hours, almost like a scene unseen episode, and many creators,
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including Roshan, shared their learning there.
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I was so charged by that session that I couldn't sleep all night.
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What an exciting world we live in, and what a lovely conversation I had with Roshan when
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I invited him for this episode.
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Before we get to it, though, a quick plug, registration is now open for the September
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cohort of The Art of Clear Writing.
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Head on over to indiaankar.com slash clear writing to register.
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And now, a quick commercial break before Roshan Abbas takes
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Roshan, welcome to The Scene and The Unseen. Thank you at last.
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At last, yeah, we've been talking for a long time and I'm also a little intimidated because
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this is actually my return to studios after COVID times. And I'm speaking with a sort of
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a radio legend from the 90s, from a time I didn't even take audio seriously. You know,
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before we get talking about your life so far, how have the last few months been for you?
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Because it's been a very interesting time in the sense that our lives and all our habits
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and everything has changed. But it's also been a very fascinating time for creators,
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where I personally, I think in the last few months, I have learned more about the creator
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economy than I had probably done for years and years. And a lot of it while things were sort of
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changing on the fly. So what was it like? No, I think it's a great place to start because
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when the pandemic started, I mean, my biggest passion nowadays is Commune. And that's meant
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to be actually a place where we are trying to just empower artists to do whatever they can.
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And we were doing it the way we knew it, which was largely saying spoken word events, helping
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people learn poetry or learn how to tell stories, trying to get a little bit of brand work. But it
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was a lot of physical work. But, you know, in March last year, a financial company reached out
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to us and said they want to do something for Women's Day. And we were very excited and said,
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yeah, we'll do an on-ground festival because we know how to do that well. I mean, after spoken
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fest, we built that. But they were like, no, we want a digital festival. So I somehow, I kept
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telling my team in April saying that, you know, God gave us this once in a lifetime opportunity
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to test pilot how to do a digital festival. So we actually ended up doing Instagram, Facebook,
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YouTube, all together simultaneously. We had about concurrent, about 5,000 people, which we
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thought was fantastic. I mean, in March last year saying, oh my God, we've got 5,000 people
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coming concurrently onto an event. But when we put out each of those pieces of content by themselves
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and we put a little bit of marketing money behind them or push them, each of them crossed a million
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plus. And now suddenly for the brand, this mattered a lot more. And we just sat with the team and I
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said, guys, isn't this a great way to actually do content? Because if for a brand, they're looking
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ultimately to say what's been the reach and what's been the engagement and what's the call to action,
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et cetera, et cetera. And everybody said, yeah, this is exciting. Maybe we can do this for brands
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later. But in April, this is what we were doing day in, day out. The first two, three months,
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I mean, and though you asked me about the last couple of months I've gone, I've rewound a little
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bit too much. So what happened was that the first two months, I told everybody saying, guys, pause,
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just pause. I try and bring a lot of what I learned from different places here. So one of the things
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that I had learned from a Tom Peters book was about the VUCA world, right? I mean, and the VUCA
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world says, you know, volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous worlds, which was essentially what
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happened when, and again, what a reference to Afghanistan and when the American army went in.
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And they said, how do you handle volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous situations?
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And said, the first thing you should really do is pause, take a pause, assess. And that's what we
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did. So I think in the month of April, we assessed and we looked around and said, what can we do?
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And then, you know, there is this huge jump in attitude that we have at Commune and it's a home
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for creators. So what happened is that first month, I was talking to Quazar about theater,
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Ankur Tiwari about music, Tess Joseph about acting, Sheena Khalid about, you know, again, acting and
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theater, and tons and tons of my friends, Cyrus, Gaurav, everyone. And everybody was saying, what
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do we do? And that's when we just said, listen, you know, this is really digital is an ocean of
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opportunity, right? And I love coming up with these little ones. I told him, I said, boss, pebbles of
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possibilities and oceans of opportunities, you know, and all the guys were like, ah, okay. And
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you know, what we did was we experimented with about 27 different formats over three months.
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We would do a short midnight. We would do an Instagram live. We would be doing poetry while
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cooking. We would do all kinds of things and some would strike a chord. Some would sink.
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But the joy of experiments in the digital ether is the ones that don't work disappear. You don't
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do anybody an explanation. You tried and that's enough. But the ones that worked, we then started
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doubling down on. And those over the last couple of months have actually bought a whole new identity
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to what we do. So on the commune front, I was extremely happy with what we managed to do.
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The team consolidated creative teams, learning how to work remotely was our next big challenge.
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And, you know, in an Excel sheet is mostly anathema to a creator. But I told these guys,
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listen, all I want you to do is every morning, I want a one hour call where everyone just tells
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each other what are they up to. And every evening, if you can do a catch up call. The evening calls
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actually, I don't think happen so often because the teams are all involved, but we do a weekend
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call. And this started getting the team to work together a lot better because they started
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respecting what the other person was doing. So 10 creators tinkering in a corner, what you know
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they're up to. So this gave us a great way of working together. Because we had done a couple
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of these digital experiments, and we knew what was working. Now brands start noticing and saying,
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you know what to do. We started doing that. I get the opportunity to speak at too many things. And
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I think sometimes I'm blamed for, I'm the resident gyani at most conferences on something or the
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other. Because I've had 11 different careers, you know, so I'll be called into a music conference
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and a conference on media and something on digital and events, blah, blah, blah. But in all these
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places, I make it a point to talk about all that we're doing because I am out there, almost, you
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know, I'm the trumpeter saying, hoga. Right? And optimism is something which again, I was what's
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called the eternal reservoir of optimism. It'll happen. It has to happen. So we did like, I mean,
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you won't believe Amit in June or June, we were doing an online play. People like, how can you do
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a play online? I said, guys, if I had a script called check, please, which was a play about a
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boy who's just moved to a new city, a girl who's looking for love and how they blind date through
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the column in a newspaper. This was the original script. I said, okay, in the age of Tinder,
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of Tinder, et cetera, why can we not do a play where these are zoom meetings? Right? Because
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and it worked and we got you and you know, we when we were initially saying, how do we
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audition people, we had to add one thing to everyone's actor CV, which was your bandwidth.
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Because we had a lovely girl in Goa, but her bandwidth was so bad that she would just get,
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you know, thrown off every every rehearsal. We're like, listen, we love your acting, but you just
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don't have internet. So very soon resumes, you know, internet speeds, download speeds, camera
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pixels will be there. But we did a play and you know, the minute we did the play in the first play,
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we invited loads of people. And this is where again, I use the power of our network to say,
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let's call brands, let's call creators, let's call people who can spread the word.
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And the minute that happens, five brands will come back to you saying, can we do a variation
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of this for students? Can we do this for X? And that's where the monetization comes in. So
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somewhere we were able to find these kinds of experiments to monetize.
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We had a huge contract with Spotify where we were doing, we were meant to go and do this podcasting
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national fest almost. So what we did at SpokenFest was to tease people with a little thing of what
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is podcasting. So Unni came and spoke, Gaurav spoke, Mantra spoke. I did a little workshop,
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which was more about reminiscing about radio days and what I believe podcasting should be.
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And at the end of that, we came up with a physical event at SpokenFest called PitchFest.
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This PitchFest threw up about 50 people who gave us podcast ideas. And Unni and Amar,
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everybody was there, Nihal and everyone were there. And they all looked at it and said,
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you know, this is great if you're getting 50 people at a festival who are interested
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in podcasting with unique ideas. Can I tell a city story through poetry? Can I do a thing on
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women criminals through the years? And, you know, and we just kept saying, this is good,
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this is good, this is a great idea. Conversations on local trains in Bombay. And I said, these are
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great ideas to experiment with. So we were already starting work on this. And we said, hang on,
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we don't need to travel to 10 cities to find podcasters. In the digital world, if you're able,
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again, to create enough of a racket around what you're going to do, people will gather.
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And we started doing this. And because we learned a little bit of digital marketing,
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and again, I wear a hat as one of the mentor investors at Glitch, which is a digital agency.
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And they are a highly creative agency. So I would often just say, look, guys,
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we want to do this, what should we do? So I end up getting a lot of free advice. We use that.
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And now we were lo and behold, doing a podcasting, five podcasting workshops around themes,
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you know, and at that point in time, I hadn't heard your podcast. Otherwise,
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I remember when the podcast festival happened, we were like, we have to get you. But before that,
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I said, okay, Kalki has done a good piece with BBC. Let's get her. Kenny has done a good comedy
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podcast. Let's get him. Pooja Dhingra has done a good thing with food at its base. Let's get her.
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Ranveer Allabadi has done something in motivation. So yes, we did have to use a little bit of the
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influencer pull on top. But then I would run a little workshop on anchor because I again,
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I dabble and tinker with tech like crazy. I'll be the one trying one new app doing something.
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So I did all of that. And the team joined in. So we managed to do this whole piece on podcasting,
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which then suddenly told us that in the pandemic, one of the things that we noticed,
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and we were talking about this the other day that on that midnight session of yours,
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where, where we said that Sunday people had two to three hours extra in every day, minimum
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drive time, commute time, useless meeting time, right. And meetings that could be emails. Remember
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everybody's saying that. And so suddenly we said, what do people want to do in those two, three
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hours? They either want to improve themselves personally or professionally. Now in the personal
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front, what are you saying? I can meditate. I can do some yoga. I can exercise. I can spend time with
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my children, et cetera. It's, it's a lot of that in the professional. It's what can I do as a skill
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enhancement and commune can really help because in that, in this world, suddenly people were looking
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to do different things. So, Hey, I've got an R. Can I learn poetry? I thought I was a writer. Can I
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learn the art of writing? And this started a whole new learning vertical for commune. So creative
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learning has become a commune vertical. Online events has become a vertical for us. Content was
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always a vertical for us. So what we used to do on ground would become videos that would go on air
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and do really well on YouTube, et cetera, for us. That's what happened with commune, but this was
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just one hat. So the, the event hat that I put on was a, was a, I mean, a business in crisis.
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I also was president of the event association and therefore looking out for all the event
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companies in India, we kept knocking on the government's doors to little success. I mean,
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we did get a couple of relaxations of events for 200 people. We ran a whole campaign on how to run
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safe events. We managed to get some local relaxations. There was a small subsidy for artists
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that started, but this was what is happening for artists. Personally at Encompass, we did have to
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take a couple of hits in terms of reducing staff, understanding that for a long time, we would be a
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virtual production studio because virtual events, unlike physical events, physical events are theater,
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virtual events are broadcast. So do you have a broadcast mentality? Thankfully we do because a
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lot of our people at Encompass have been ex broadcast people. I've recruited people from
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radio, television, et cetera. And these people thrive. So strategy, creative, and, you know,
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broadcast kind of content did well. All our physical production people suffered, you know,
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traditional. And you suddenly also find that maybe as agencies, we were built for big,
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you know, that nimble, agile 10, 15 people agency, which is where you started, has bloated to 300
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people. And over the years we had made some reductions, but those are the kind of haircuts
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that everybody took. We took a salary cut ourselves there. Glitch was doing well. Obviously everybody
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had a little bit of a pause for two, three months when no one knew what was going on. Then they
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picked up again. In the middle of the pandemic, we managed to sell one of our businesses. So
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Chatterbox, which was an influencer marketing agency, which had gone through its ups and downs
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as well, suddenly found a great suitor in a Canadian company called QU. And these guys came
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on board and said, hey, this is a great influencer marketing company, which was why we'd invested in
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it. You know, and Gaurav used to often sometimes turn to me and, you know, on a bad day, he'd turn
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and say, why did we do this? And so when we sold it, he was like, okay, now I know why we did this.
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And I'm like, it's okay. It's not, it's not about the money. I mean, at least for me, it isn't.
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And, you know, and that sort of built for us. These were the businesses on the personal front.
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I got to spend a lot more time at home. I managed to travel a couple of times because I'm one of
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those, okay, my parents are in Lucknow. I've got to go. I must go. So I did a lot of that. I also
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got a little bit of time to learn. So I attended a whole host of workshops. I attended your,
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the art of clear writing, which actually helped me so much. Thank you for that.
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No, it's incredible how I've always been a curious child, you know, so give me anything
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which is shiny as an object and I'll be the first one there. Sometimes I get over enthusiastic. I
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mean, over-enthusiasm is a little bit of a, sometimes my flaw, but you know, like I'll do
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your workshop and then I will, and then, you know, Legion was doing this wonderful course for creators
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and Anuj Gosalia from Terribly Tiny Tales, he had done the creator course she did, but then she
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had an angel investor course. Now I am a serial angel investor because of GSF and Rajesh Soni.
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And I've done that for about eight, nine years, but in my heart, I'm looking at how does a creative
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fund, when will there be a creator fund? And this is what has happened in the last five months that
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I've actually realized that a lot of mediums that used to play intermediary between creators and
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audiences have just realized that they're not needed anymore, right? And so when you can get
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directly to an audience, then why not do it yourself? Now this power to the creator is
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translating into likes, shares, subscriptions, that is becoming currency. So social capital
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is translating into real capital. And this real capital is why you play an influencer to promote
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your brand or somebody to do a content piece, et cetera. But the day is not far. And I mean,
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this is what I'm really, really looking forward to. I mean, if I find five companies, I'll invest in
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them today, which will do this whole tokenization. I mean, the day you have the Amit token, the day
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there is an NFT of your first show or just your sketch. I mean, why it hasn't happened, I don't
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know, but it will, it has to happen. The day you have play to earn, I mean, the kind of things that
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are happening in this space. This is the creator economy. This is our second Renaissance. This is
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a time when you don't need the Medici family. Every individual owner, I mean, every listener
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is your Medici family who will be your patron, you know, who will pay for you. And this is the
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best time. And if we don't as creators take advantage of this now, I go everywhere and
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talk about how the circle of intimacy you've built, right? And this is it, that either you'll
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have this circle of intimacy or you still want to be huge. But when you want to be huge, you need
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management, you need a team. And, you know, you could do without those trappings, but that's
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what suddenly makes the sale a hundred X, right? I mean, Virat needs that social management team
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and, you know, oh, there'll be a team of people who are looking after the styling, et cetera,
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et cetera. You and I don't. We need great content and we need to be able to find those.
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And this will be the hundred thousand, ten thousand true fans. I really believe that
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there will be at least ten thousand true fans for a good creator and ten thousand fans from whom you
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can get a thousand rupees a year, right? That's a carol. Now, how many of those will exist
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is the challenge. You know, I sometimes see management agencies shaking and shivering.
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They put on this brave front, but imagine if they disappear as intermediaries, what are they doing
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for you? More often than not, they are handling contracts. They're handling a couple of your
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pain points, which is great, but you're losing 15 to 20% there. Now, I believe that for good
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management agencies, it's a worthwhile expense, but then comes the platform, right? The whole
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Apple fight that's happening with Epic games, 30%. Then comes YouTube, right? I mean, another
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platform and everyone's got their own rules, right? So, I mean, did anybody question why
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YouTube was giving you what they were giving you per view? You just took it. It was, you know,
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manna from heaven. But we've got to fight for it. We've got to turn and say, no, I am entitled to
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75% of this earning and that will only happen when creators unite. So, you know, so Lee is a bit of
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this socialist who's going out there, you know, and I mean, she's creating waves in the US and I
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believe that creators need to do that here. I believe this Renaissance is upon us and that's
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what happened in the last so many months. Excellent. So, we'll, you know, postpone talking
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about your personal journey for a while because this creator economy is something that excites me
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a lot. So, let's continue. I have a bunch of questions for you. Before we get to the creative
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economy itself, something that struck me and I'll, you know, take your metaphor of the ocean of
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opportunity further by pointing out that many creators, including me for a while, we tend to
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ossify ourselves into islands in this ocean and we don't look around us and we are like in the sense
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that you build your self-image. You say that I'm a writer, I have to write a book or you say that I
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am so and so, I have to do this, I have to do filmmaking, but I have to keep pitching to producers
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and keep doing all of that without realizing that the landscape has changed so much that if you are
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a talented writer, there is something more than books. If you are a filmmaker, you can make your
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own movies as people like Casey Neistat and all have, you know, shown on YouTube. Everything has
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opened up in a big way. Now, going over your career, I find it incredibly exciting because you have
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just like in one interview you spoke about how it's important to say yes when our default is no.
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Every opportunity that's come your way, you've kind of taken it, you've done radio, you've done
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events, you've built so many things, you've thrown many things at the wall. Some of them have worked
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out. So you've always been open. You've never had that ossified image, but you work with so many
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creators. Do you see this as something you'd like to tell creators about that? Do you see this as a
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trap that you see people fall into? Because I obviously don't know as many creators as you,
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but even I can look around and look at people who I think are, they're islands, they're too
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restricted in the view. They don't realize how much has changed.
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No, you know, you're so right. And honestly, I will thank 2015 is a landmark here because yeah,
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yes, you know, when I did radio and then I did television and events and all that kept happening.
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But 2015 is when subculture, the subculture, which was comedy, indie music, spoken word,
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you know, I would even say the startup tech culture, all of these were little subcultures
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here. They started coming into their own. OML is the first people who actually noticed this.
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And I think they did a very good job of it. And they focused on music and comedy. And they
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started building that. Now they wanted to build it through live events, which is what they
#
attempted to do. They built a bunch of IPs, which they were creating. And it started at that point
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in time. The issue was this exactly what you said, people were very happy doing one thing and saying,
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I'll just do this one thing well. The important thing about the creator universe today is
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collaboration is key. But in collaboration, the mentality that traditional mediums gave you
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always was use, abuse and run. Right? And I hate this. Like I have pointed this out to so many of
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my friends saying, listen, when you started doing your show, you begged and borrowed and told those
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people saying, please do this for free, you know, one day when I'll make money. But that's what's
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being solved today. What's being solved today is, hey, there's a site called Copyright Exchange,
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for example, to do with music. But imagine Copyright Exchange says you think you're a great
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musician. Prove to me you're a great musician. So you've got a little bit of a track record.
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You've done that. You then make me a contract which says for five years, if you invest in this
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work, and you can define the length of time, the amount, the volume, the percentage, right,
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five years, 40% of my earning after this amount is yours. Now you're doing a true creator contract.
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This hustle in the early stage and then, you know, abuse later is default. It's default because
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people are like, you know, I've got this one opportunity, let me make everything. I have
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stood at comedy events on stage and seen a great comedian. And I'm talking of the old when Great
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Indian Laughter Show had started. You know, and that set of comedians, Hindi, Heartland, with 10
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writers behind them, who are writing their jokes. And when I would go in, because I was a host,
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so I would introduce them. And then I'm curious and I love to talk to people. And I would sit with
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them and say, what do you make? And then, you know, I get food. And it's just to piss me off
#
because I'm like, this guy is actually equally a part of your thing. So why not pay him more?
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Why not do more of this? This thing about collaborating is something which people need
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to do a lot more. This thing about then collaborating and sharing, share commerce,
#
share opportunity. I have been knocking on so many creator, and you can call them collectives.
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And I've been saying, if you believe in me and respect what I do, and I believe in you and respect
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what you do, why can there not be a common contract between a couple of us which says,
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you know what, we'll all succeed together. Let's try and figure out a way to work together.
#
But let's also do an equity swap. Now, it's a little too futuristic. People are like,
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no, no, how will this happen? My valuation, your valuation, etc. You'll find a way.
#
But imagine, imagine 10 collectives working together who say, in the success of each of
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us lies everyone else's success. And this is why the word commune, you know, I mean,
#
this word has been on my mind for many years because I used to hear of art communes.
#
My father used to tell me about Osho, you know, and the commune.
#
And sometimes these things just stay with you in a residual manner. And when we formed it,
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we actually originally wanted to create an incubation fund for creative ideas.
#
If five years ago, you know, I had met you before IBM and said, okay,
#
what does it take to get this done? How? What will happen? What's step two? What's step three?
#
Try and put it in some format, get brands on board then, and let the creator be.
#
The creator knows what they do best. I have sold my soul to serviced creativity
#
because of the work that I did with events, right? I mean, I used to tell my teams and
#
creatives at events, you know, in our event teams saying, guys, the first creative is for you.
#
After that, take your heart out. Because now the guy is going to make his birthday party.
#
He wants that blue, he wants that blue. He wants that artist. You gave the first most honest.
#
Now, my best brands, which worked with me for years, are the ones who took my first idea,
#
saying, we believe in you. The other brands, which also worked with us, were the ones who said,
#
you know, I wanted this way and I wanted that way. And I would move out of the conversation
#
because I was far more the creative ideation person there. And I'd say, you know, they don't
#
deserve your big idea. And that's what typically ends up happening, you know, I think in advertising,
#
et cetera, at some point you start getting wedded to this is what the brand wants.
#
But ultimately, if you want to be honest to any brand, any platform, it is what does the consumer
#
want, right? So I really feel that there needs to be far more collectives. You know, there used to
#
be an event called the coalition that OML used to do. There are very few creator conferences.
#
I went to South by Southwest three years ago. I just, you know, I told my wife I'm going to
#
South by Southwest. I've always wanted to go here. I took a backpack. I went from room to room and I
#
saw 70 creators who were AR creators sharing their show. I mean, it was like, you know,
#
displaying your wares at a fair, but then everybody sat together. The evening was having
#
a drink and discussing, I can do this. I'm doing this. This is my problem. And people were solving
#
together. And this solving together is something we need to do. You know, who's going to figure out,
#
oh, how do I reduce background noise in your house? If you want to record your podcast there,
#
that's the solve. Who's going to say, okay, once your show has crossed so many listens,
#
there's a sale. That's the solve. Who's going to say, you know, managing the guests for Amit.
#
I mean, you don't need it, but like so many young, the number of people who will be in your inbox
#
saying, sir, come on to my podcast. Who waits them to say, you'd love to do them all because
#
we all want to promote them, but which is really worthwhile. Who has the listens, et cetera. So I
#
think a lot of this needs to be done. And I hope and pray that we can do some bits of it at Commune.
#
We keep organically evolving every now and then, but like, I mean, Pranika was my head of growth
#
and strategy and the joy of hiring diverse people is this. I mean, Pranika walked in because she
#
told us a coffee story and I just loved the story. I didn't know anything else about it. Then I realized,
#
oh, oh, she's an economics graduate. Oh, she's worked at a consulting firm amongst the top four.
#
Oh, she's also done finance, blah, blah, blah. And suddenly, you know, one day this girl walked
#
and said, listen, some of the things you're doing are great. Some of the things you don't get,
#
you don't know how monetization and I don't share, but I know I can help you with monetization.
#
And she came in and the other day she was sitting and saying, if we just built a division that made
#
creator tools, imagine. And I mean, creator tools are simple as contracts, right? At our last
#
festival, we promoted a small bunch of people who have a, I think it's called contracts for
#
creators, which is on Instagram. And they just came and said, listen, we are so sick of being
#
jibbed by people. We've created some standard contracts that are available to people. I said,
#
just come, use our handle. Let me promote it. Come do a little session with people, et cetera.
#
That's what you need. You need to be able to find these kinds of tools, you know, oh, I need to do
#
my billing. 80% of creators don't know how to create a bill. Do they pay GST? Do they not? How
#
much do they pay? When do they pay? What? No clue. Collections. And this is where the whole
#
exploitation mafia works in our business. And they've always worked in that way. I remember
#
that when I had started in radio, I had a goal to earn 10,000 rupees because I had rent. I was
#
already married. These are some thankful accidents that happened along the way. So I was like boss,
#
10,000 to kamaana hai. 3200 ka rent hai, 500 ka tel hai, itne ka khaana hai, whatever. So when I
#
went to All India Radio, they were giving me, though they were putting me in their best category,
#
they gave me 750 rupees per show for six shows. That was the max you could do because isse dada
#
monopoly ho jayega. So in All India Radio, there was this rule, no, not more than six shows. I said,
#
if I'm good, why can't I have a daily show? Ne, ne sir, yeh allowed nahi hai. Okay, toh
#
theek hai, toh sade 4000 rupee ho. How do I make the rest? How do I make the 5,500? And I do voiceovers.
#
One day Times FM approached me and said, and I used to do a Hindi show. So they thought I can only
#
speak in Hindi. So the guy who came to meet me did this whole, his name was Ajay Munjal and he's a
#
lovely guy. I think he's still doing some work with them. And he came and said, Roshanji, yadi aap
#
humare saath karikram kareke toh? I said, buddy, I can do this conversation. And he was so shocked.
#
He said, you can do a program in English? I said, I can do it in English. I can do it in Hindi. I can
#
do it in spoken Urdu. I'm willing to do all three, but I need 10,000 bucks. So that was my pitch.
#
And he turned and said, you know, they kept trying to tie me down to be an employee. I said,
#
employee nahi banunga. Creator employee banta hai na, khatam ho jata hai. Mujhe lagta hai, creator ko
#
employee banna hi nahi chahiye. Because I read it somewhere saying, the minute you're working for
#
a salary for someone else, it's absolutely fine. But if you want to be a creator, then your time
#
is now beholden to someone else. And they will define what your creativity is going to. I mean,
#
I think you should do it this way, you know, and because, oh, I'm paying your bills. No,
#
I think creators can be as independent as they want today. So I hope I'm not giving you a completely
#
surrogate answer. No, this is lovely. This is lovely. And you know, for my listeners, you know,
#
for the writing community, we had this long session which went on for three and a half hours
#
on Sunday night where Roshan joined us for a while. And we spoke about the creator economy.
#
And it's very interesting, you know, I'll quickly sort of sum up my thoughts on how things have
#
changed and how that ties in with what you were saying. That number one, I think, as far as you
#
were talking about the exploitation mafia, you know, I've often on other episodes, spoken about
#
Jagdish Bhagwati's observation that Indians tend to have a rent seeking mentality, where according
#
to him, Chinese had a more of a profit seeking mentality. I remember listening to that. Yeah,
#
and I, so I don't know enough about the Chinese to comment on that part of it. But my theory for why
#
Indians were always like this, why so many people will say I have a business idea, isko chutiya
#
manate hai. You know, that's almost the mentality of going for it. And my sense of that was one that
#
we had institutions which were rent seeking all the way for decades, the only way to actually
#
make money was to become part of that apparatus and exploit somebody else. You know, we didn't
#
have those kinds of free markets where like how do you and I make money today, we add value to
#
people's lives, and we get money and it's what I call the double thank you moment, sabka faida hota hai.
#
And I think a lot of this exploitation mindset is a habit that's come from the scarcity economy
#
of the past, where even for creators, there might be limited opportunities. Toh kuch aage toh pura
#
bana lo, bring all the juice out of it. I think that's changed drastically. And it's changed
#
drastically in really three ways. Like when I look back on, you know, between 1995 and say today,
#
and I'm kind of amazed at what a forward thinking attitude you had in 95 saying I won't be a
#
salaried employee, because I think that is a rational approach today. But it wouldn't have
#
been the rational approach then. And the three ways it's in which it's changed to keep it brief
#
for the listeners, because we want to get back to Roshan is that number one, back in the day,
#
if you were a creator, you had to go through an intermediary to reach your audience. So if you want
#
to write opinions, for example, you have to pitch op-eds to newspapers, there are gatekeepers.
#
And one of the consequences of that is that even if you break through, you're not writing enough.
#
So you you know, iteration makes for excellence, you're not doing enough of that.
#
And two, you are sort of bound by format ki art so word likna hai, and all of that. That's
#
completely changed today, we can all reach audiences directly. And I think 2000 to 2012
#
was probably a transition period, but it's just grown enormously. Secondly, for money, you were
#
again dependent on these intermediaries, they would take your content, they would get advertising or
#
in rare cases, subscription, but in India, most things were advertising, and you'd get a very
#
tiny percentage of that. And third is tools, you simply did not have the tools to do things
#
yourself. You know, you spoke about how creators today are much more collaborative,
#
they talk to each other. And like just a few days back, I had an email exchange with our mutual
#
friend Varun Duggirala, your partner in the glitch. And yeah, so he's setting up something for YouTube,
#
I'm also setting up something for YouTube. So we were discussing kaunsa mic lena hai, kaise
#
lights lena hai, discussing all of that. And both of us, of course, have kind of through trial and
#
error figured out a podcasting game, where today I can record something at home, which I would not
#
have been able to in 95. I mean, forget the fact ki interneti yasa nahi tha, tu you can't have
#
conversations. So in these three ways, you can reach the audience directly, you can sort of make
#
money directly from your audience through various ways. And the tools not just for writers, but even
#
for filmmakers, like I think a lot of people are interested in filmmaking haven't realized
#
to what extent YouTube has democratized that and how cheap it really is. Like when I was in college,
#
I wanted to be two things filmmaker and writer. And I said ki nahi yaar, unlike you, I'm not a
#
people person. I'm just extremely introverted. So I thought nahi yaar filmmaking ke liye, I have to
#
work with other people. I have to sell my ideas, you know, and indeed in till 2015, I would have
#
believed that nahi ban sakte hai because, you know, both of us live around Versova. And that is really,
#
you go to any cafe there, it's a graveyard of broken dreams. If you just listen to the
#
conversations around you. And today all of that is possible. Like the editing software that I've
#
just started using, I'm using the free version of Da Vinci Resolve. But if you sold just a color
#
grading part of that in 2010, it would cost $800,000. I remember we used to go and do edits
#
for films in the early days and you would go to Prime Focus Studio because they were the only guys
#
who had the smoke machine. And you had to go there. Imagine now I'm grading stuff which is being sent
#
in a file to some other country, it comes back the next day. So people are doing, you know,
#
efficiencies of that level. But you know what, you said that you're not a people's person. I'm a
#
people's person, but I'm not a position person. See, very often in film, et cetera, you're meeting
#
people, you're meeting more people than humans. Right? I often say, oh, the CEO of so-and-so. How
#
is that important? Right? And it's more important to meet the creative writer, et cetera. So like
#
even at Commune, we started a small division called Crave, which is our holistic management
#
division. I mean, if I call it artist management, Ankur will kill me. We said, no, we don't want to
#
be brokers. We want to be hand holders for life. We want to be able to say, what is it that you
#
crave? Like, you know, and we built this really fun little form, which when we send to people,
#
they read it and say, do you crave to be in a newspaper and a headline? Or do you crave to
#
learn? Or do you crave a collaboration? Who is the one person if you saw yourself sitting next to
#
in a conference, you'd be happy. So people haven't answered these questions. So it's that,
#
that we really want to be able to say that, that if I was to be able to actually say, hey, listen,
#
buy, this is the platform you need to go to. Like, see, you're discussing, again, what you said
#
about Varun and you, right? You're discussing lights, et cetera. Are you discussing, how will
#
you make money from YouTube and how much money will they give you? That's the conversation that
#
people shy away from. You know, my mother will often tell me, don't talk to me about how much
#
money you make. I tell you, I don't care. I'm like, what will happen? What's the big deal?
#
The first time I remember, I had an exchange and genuinely, I mean, my respect for what you do
#
in the show is very different. I mean, it's, I love what you do there. But when I asked you how
#
many listens you have, you didn't shy away from answering me. 90% of people will not give you a
#
correct answer, right? I do well. I'm doing decently, good in interiors of Bihar. Say it,
#
you know, because only when you say it, only when you share the problem and say, you know what,
#
I have the same problem. And, and you know, we, we had a little bit of a discussion that day where
#
some people were like, no, no data is not critical. And I keep trying to explain to them saying,
#
listen, vanity metrics. I'm not talking of, you know, that your engagement is 40 minutes.
#
That is a metric worth selling. But many people shy away from measurement because they don't want
#
to be measured because they are hobbyists and not creators. And what you said, the graveyard,
#
a broken tree. It's fine. It's fine. I'm happy. I think I'm a creator. Are you willing to take
#
the bull by the horns and say, are you really a creator? Uh, which and I had had a conversation
#
in the early days of comedy. And I said, how do you realize what to sell this person's show for?
#
And he said, you know, if a corporate comes to me and we were talking about, because I was
#
discussing saying, I want four comedians for a corporate event. And he quoted a price and I
#
said, tell me, how did you arrive at this? And he said, Roshan see a thousand seater would have
#
sold at 500 rupees a ticket for these guys. That's five lakhs. That is their public cost.
#
Now you want a private show, right? Which is only for this limited audience. The numbers might be
#
smaller, but it has to be at least two X of this because that person is not going to get the same
#
response. The numbers are smaller, et cetera. You're doing it exclusively. There's no hundred
#
people who are going to tweet about it, et cetera, because they want it private. That's the price you
#
pay for exclusivity or weird today has one done. I mean, he, during the pandemic, he said something
#
so wonderful because we were on a conference and he said, listen, I think there will be two layers
#
of ticketing in the future. There will be the exclusive hundred people who can be socially
#
distanced and willing to pay 10,000 rupees. And I need those hundred people because without that
#
laughter, without that feedback, I can't exist. He says, and then there will be a 10,000 people
#
at a hundred rupees, right? So it'll be exactly the reverse. And this will become the economy,
#
but nobody discusses these numbers. People don't talk about how many views are real, how many are
#
fake. I recently found a site and I'm going to experiment with it, which will tell you the total
#
number of fake followers you have. And I really want to do one anonymous account and every day
#
put out, say hello. This is the number of fake followers you have. Because again, I think being
#
a creator is a God given gift. If you can do it, then you bloody well do it well, you know? And
#
if you need to do it, do it with a focus, you know? I mean, work towards it, measure yourself,
#
measure what matters, see what you can do next, collaborate. And you know, the morning show which
#
came on Apple is one of the big shows with Jennifer Aniston, et cetera. There is a scene in there
#
where, I'm forgetting the actress's name, my wife will kill me, but she's a small town reporter,
#
but she's really got the people's pulse. And they get her in. And when she comes to New York and she
#
sees the studio and everything and she gets asked all the questions, et cetera, and initially they're
#
just taking off on the fact that her view on, I think her view on abortion is different from what
#
the majority says and therefore she might have to go back. And Jennifer Aniston picks her up and
#
she was taking the car to go to the airport and brings her to the studio. And she says,
#
why are you doing this? He says, because you've been given the God given gift of being able to
#
do this. And you cannot do yourself the disservice of running away from it. There's one word that
#
you have to learn and that is to be relentless. I mean, being relentless defies me. I go after
#
something and then I stick to it. Once I've achieved it, I move very quickly off it. I've
#
done it. I've done it in Compass, built it, I've sold it, I'm out. I'm concerned for the people,
#
but I need to move to the next bigger canvas. What can I do next, et cetera. But I think those are
#
the things that, you know, I don't know whether that's the right word. I was thinking, Nilesh kya
#
kya kaita. But that's not the right thing to do. Don't be half-hearted. Yeah, yeah. For the
#
listeners, before the show, we were just chatting about, Ambrosh and I just heard my episode with
#
Nilesh Mishra. So that's where the mention comes from. Before I go to my next question,
#
you spoke about how we spoke about the different layers of ticketing. And it's very interesting
#
that Kevin Kelly in 2009 or 10 wrote this essay called A Thousand True Fans. And the
#
funda behind the essay then, which seemed outlandish to many people, is that as a creator,
#
you don't need to scale. As a creator, if you get a thousand people who pay a hundred dollars
#
per year for you, that's a hundred thousand dollars a year. That's a lot of money. Can you
#
get there? Now, at that point, it would have seen that very few creators can really do that.
#
Today, I think it's becoming more and more of a reality for people. You see people like that
#
on Substack, for example, who have people pay a hundred dollars a year, which is a very standard
#
subscription fee and have thousands of followers. And similarly, that was also developed into the
#
hundred true followers who will pay a thousand dollars each. Here's my next question. So it's
#
going to be kind of long-winded. It's really two questions in one because they seem related.
#
Number one, what I often tell young creators and which I think has worked for me in
#
serendipitous ways. It's not like I knew it before. It just worked for me. And now I figured it out
#
is that don't get too obsessed with the metrics. Creators tend to overestimate the short term and
#
underestimate the long term. So therefore they think that in the short term, I will do this,
#
I will do that, I will become a star. And that doesn't really happen. It takes a long time to
#
get going. So initially there will be no metrics. I often talk about, you know, how Ali Abdal,
#
who was a YouTube creator, when he was in YouTube, he did this 50 first videos. Yeah, he did this
#
video when he reached a million subs. And he pointed out that when he made his 50th video,
#
he reached 1000 subs on that day. And I think most of us, most young creators, they would get so
#
disheartened. If they're on video 40 and they have 800 subscribers, they'll just stop. It takes so
#
much effort. But Abdal's point, and Abdal in fact went on to give in a separate video, more advice
#
to creators, which I think applies, which is that for two years, make two videos a week, which comes
#
to a total of 200 videos without looking at the metrics. Now one, I think this is great advice
#
because only endless iteration leads to excellence. You start doing something, you're bad. You do it
#
again and again, you're good. So this is one part of the puzzle, but an almost contradictory part of
#
the puzzle and something that you've been stressing about, and even Varun was stressing about how he
#
looks at data so closely, is that you need to look at the data because that's part of building an
#
audience. You need to figure out what's working, what's not working. And you also need to kind of
#
focus on that. So how does one reconcile the two? And the second question, which I think is linked
#
to this is, and this, you know, I'd done this old episode on agriculture, and I'll tell you why I
#
bring it up here. But one of the things we discussed in that was that not allowing large
#
land holdings or corporatization of agriculture means that every farmer also has to be an
#
entrepreneur. And that is not fair. A person may be good at farming, but bad at being an entrepreneur,
#
which might mean therefore that most of these farmers are bad entrepreneurs because they're
#
two separate skills. And therefore the exploitation economy sucks them up. It's a similar thing that
#
in this modern age where yes, creators can reach audiences directly, they can get money out of
#
audiences directly, the tools of production are with them. But equally to take advantage of this,
#
it seems to me that every creator is also being asked to be an entrepreneur at the same time.
#
And I understand that there are plenty of people like some of the things you do, no doubt,
#
who are saying that we'll enable this, we'll take the friction out of many of the entrepreneurial
#
things you have to do, like making bills and all that, which is useful. But if you don't have the
#
entrepreneurial mindset, like which I didn't for the longest time, my thing was, my whole life is
#
a story of you do one labor of love after another. And I got lucky that this clicked, because honestly
#
Roshan, I did not think entrepreneurial. Cricket, poker, writing, lock shock.
#
And then I kind of got lucky. But how does one resolve this? Like if a guy says, Roshan,
#
I want to do art, I want to write a book or I want to do all that. I don't know Excel files.
#
You know, I don't want to think of all this. I don't want to think of metrics. So on one hand,
#
he might say, Amit, I agree with your advice, don't look at metrics, don't look for validation.
#
You know, do labors of love. That's what makes for excellent content in the end.
#
But so no, see, let's take part one, which was the whole thing about data and they can I can
#
you they can I whatever, etc. Why is it important to look at data today is because it's not one see
#
the days when I started there was radio and there was only radio. And in the evening,
#
you watch TV for two hours. You didn't watch TV through the day, right? You had nothing on
#
your phone. There was in fact, I remember, I mean, I must have got my first phone 97 or something.
#
Right. So because there was a paucity of media, there was sustained attention available.
#
So therefore, you just did one thing or whatever. Now, today, what happens is I can tell you that
#
if I actually took a piece of your content, I could create about 75 pieces of content for
#
various mediums from this one episode, the best quotes, right, the best solutions. So therefore,
#
entrepreneur listen to 10 hacks for creativity, the best quotes, I mean, stop 10 of the day,
#
blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. So now, if you did all of this, it is today available that
#
which of these should go on to Snapchat, which of these should go on to Insta, which of this should
#
go on to Twitter, what now a creator, sometimes most creators know what their core audience is.
#
Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you suddenly discover saying why am I popping on Insta?
#
And you won't know why. But that's where the data can help. Right. There was this whole debate
#
discussion that day about visual. I'm far more visual. Should I be on Instagram? And I was like,
#
listen, when you're on Instagram, that's a good gateway. But what are you leading them to? Are
#
you connecting them to one of these six sites that are for great photographers? And I can tell you
#
who they are. Now, you can build your own site. And this takes me now to part two of your question.
#
You can build your own site, which means be an entrepreneur, find a great person.
#
You built a great site, but your load time was bad. And therefore, 80% of our people came and
#
left you. You didn't know this because you were not a techie. Now, there is a beautiful site called
#
Yellow Corner. You go to Yellow Corner, which curates pictures from the best photographers
#
in the world and puts them up, has optimized the site, delivers HD quality, et cetera,
#
has also got physical galleries to display your work. This is when you choose that for the exposure,
#
what are you willing to pay? This has been the A&R model for music for the longest time. I mean,
#
you know, people used to go as A&R artists, you know, and I've often been asked what it stands
#
for. I think it's artists and repertoire, if I'm not mistaken. But these were people who would go
#
and go through the bars of cities, listening for voices, find that person, invest in the person,
#
take them to the studio and record with them. This is what MagnaSound and BMG, Crescendo,
#
et cetera, did when they discovered the layer mendis, et cetera. This is what T-Series does
#
even today. But what they do there is saying, look at the size of opportunity. I will take
#
all your pain away, but what are you willing to pay me for it? This is where creators get cheated.
#
And here is where, if creators talked to each other, they would A, be aware of what they could
#
make. I know of so many friends who made films, shows, whatever, who have not known what their
#
IP is worth, who have not known what their value is and have regretted and been bitter about it for
#
the rest of their life, right? Somebody had once told me saying that Sunil Gavaskar sometimes is
#
just very unhappy about the fact that he was the man who was the backbone of Indian cricket,
#
but there weren't enough sponsors in those days. So there was those four sponsors which you might
#
have had, right? Simons for the bat and, you know, one Gillette, I remember something. But today
#
you've got 300 sponsors chasing those cricketers who may have 100 the craft, you know, and that
#
must be irking a person saying your opportunity, but opportunity here, what are you willing to
#
pay for that opportunity for the exposure for taking the pain away? And this is where again,
#
you know, what you said about the creator who doesn't make it. This is what Legion says in a
#
beautiful article talking about the creator middle class. What does the creator middle class going
#
to do? And if you notice every platform right now has put up this honey trap of saying I built a
#
billion dollar fund. I've been to a hundred million fund clubhouse has built it. Snap has built it.
#
Spotify has built it. Tiktok has built it. Everyone has built it. Moj has built it. Taka Taka has
#
built it. They're only doing it because they're saying, look boss, I want to pay you because I
#
value you being here. Even if you're anonymous, I want you to be here because even if you get me
#
a hundred people and there is 10,000 of you, that's a crore. So those are the kind of numbers that
#
even the faceless masses of creators can get to a platform. But can they monetize it? No,
#
because you built metrics, which says only when you cross a particular point. And that's where
#
I don't know whether there'll be, I mean, whether I'm actually talking about the unionization of
#
creativity, but it's just that, that what should the least person be able to get? Should they get
#
or shouldn't they get? How will they get it? They have to be able to prove that they've got some
#
value, which is where again data comes into play. So I'm saying it's, it's a cycle and it's something
#
that people need to understand. It's the same thing that sometimes we went to Prithvi, right?
#
For the longest time I was thinking, Prithvi was the luck-sabun of theater, right? Prithvi
#
performed, now I'm a recognized actor. No worry about money. But right after the recognition,
#
what's next? How will I get the film? Did someone come and see my show? Did I get noticed? Right?
#
And, and I, and again, I think very often people hide behind this.
#
He'll support you. Yeah. What I keep saying that the Renaissance and the Medici, which people talk
#
about, right? I mean, that was what happened there. You had patrons who were there. There was no
#
starving artist. You know, the starving artist is a myth at that point in time. So you were getting,
#
you know, commissions, you were making portraits, you were painting the Sistine Chapel. All these
#
things were also happening. And there were a hundred people below who were getting maybe
#
Abitraj or whatever, maybe a little less because, oh, you were just filling in the... But that's kind
#
of survival bias. I mean, there were a thousand people below that are starving, perhaps. But,
#
but I do believe, and again, this whole thing about, I think one big reason, which has also
#
helped the creator economy, and I was thinking it after our discussion that way, was the cashless
#
economy. See, imagine today you don't... I own one of my workshops at somebody joining me from
#
Scandinavia. I'm like, why? But there was one Indian sitting there who had heard me on radio
#
at some stage and joined. Now, if there was no cashless economy and this ability to transfer
#
money digitally, would I ever have been able to do it? So I think we must also understand that this,
#
the fact that there's a cashless economy. Now, the next level of the cashless economy is,
#
here comes the famous word Bitcoin, crypto, Ethereum, all of this, which people are not
#
understanding. I saw a documentary this morning, 20-minute piece. I mean, it blew me away about this
#
game in the Philippines called Elphi, which is a play-to-earn game. Started during the pandemic,
#
you create a character online and you keep this character alive. If the character wins a couple
#
of rounds, et cetera, et cetera, you get something called SLPs, single love potion. The SLPs when
#
collected can be converted to crypto. You can sell it for crypto. And today there is this wonderful
#
tweet where this person said that my kid, who's all of 11, has played this game, built these SLPs,
#
converted them to crypto, sold the crypto for this currency because it was performing better,
#
converted it. She says, my kid is earning more than I am, 11-year-old child. Now look at this
#
thing, what's happening tomorrow. Again, I'm saying this, that when your token, oh, to meet
#
with Amit, you need to spend a thousand tokens. People will. To take a copy of the episode,
#
you need to give 100. To attend the clear writing course, you need to give 500. Every creator will
#
build this economy of intimacy. Or as I keep saying, there will be this economy, which will
#
be this explosive. I don't know what the word should be for it. I mean, is it the, you know,
#
what is the opposite of intimacy? You use the term intimacy at scale. Yeah, intimacy at scale
#
because last year we were in a music conference and someone said the rise of the singer songwriter.
#
I said, no, it is the rise of intimate conversation because people were craving.
#
Suddenly you couldn't do a video with 60 background dancers and 40 locations. So everything else got
#
pared out and all that remained was the music, the lyrics and the voice. Now you were talking
#
pure music. Now you were actually going back to the ruffy Lata days. Because nobody's going to
#
be able to do voice synthesizer. Nobody's going to be able to give you that little flip of this
#
button and et cetera, and make you sound great. This is where the true value of a creator came.
#
Now people started, there's a boy on Instagram called Bhuvan. I love his songs. Another one
#
called Osho Jain who I discovered last year. Ankur has been obviously Pratik and Ankur have been
#
great. Look at the rise of Pratik Kohar. Pratik is not an overproduced artist. Look at Ankur.
#
Ankur is not a, like doesn't go with 300 pieces or whatever, five piece band and doing whatever.
#
But here's the guy who's doing the music supervision for Gully Boy. Pratik Kohar is
#
on Obama's playlist because this is pure creativity. And I think intimate experiences
#
have done this. Why do people come to your course? Because they get value in terms of the course.
#
They get value in terms of the cohort. I mean, that prompt is something where I can't write
#
for the prompt. I feel so shit I couldn't write today. But then I'll read a brilliant piece and
#
it'll inspire me to write. That's what online education, MOOCs have failed. So this massive
#
online courses have gone. They just don't work. They're at completion rates of 8% if I'm not
#
mistaken. Right? During the pandemic, they shot up Sunday, everyone's valuation went. But then
#
somebody said, you know what? Doing this course, letting the people gather, letting them have
#
conversations, suddenly the course head appears and says, I've got something new for you. Hey,
#
I just discovered this. On a WhatsApp group, you share something, which you just read. Oh my God,
#
the master has given us something to do. It's a beautiful framework. I mean, I think this is what
#
will really create future creator economies. Yeah. And it's not just quote said, like for my
#
listeners, the community that Roshan is talking about is all the past cohorts of my clear writing
#
course have come together and formed something called the clear writing community. So more than
#
I think 750 people active on it. And the thing is, there's no course head. It's voluntary,
#
it's free to join for people who've done the course. And different people run different parts
#
of it. So one person runs a nonfiction book club, there's a fiction book club, they meet every month.
#
There's stuff happening on Discord. So most of the time, I don't even know what is the latest
#
thing. It's kind of taken over and it's beautiful. So I do my business storytelling course and I'm
#
telling you, my metric of success is the day that that happens. Right now, I've got a hundred people
#
who've done the course. It's done really well. A lot of corporates pick it up and do it individually
#
for themselves. And I really, and honestly, to the people who did version one, two and three of the
#
course, it has kept evolving because I too, as a trainer or as a person was understanding,
#
am I delivering value? What is the real value I'm delivering? And I'm extremely conscious. I mean,
#
my parents are both teachers. All my life, it's been drilled about this thing of saying, you know,
#
knowledge is the key that you carry with you for life. It'll unlock some door, but don't waste it.
#
And therefore this whole thing of, I know it, I must pass it on. It's a huge thing with me.
#
So when I do it, I actually feel that when I was in Dubai, I did a course, which suddenly I changed
#
from two, I used to do a weekend course over two days for two, two hours and whatever. I just felt
#
it's too little. And then I split it into four over two weeks and I saw it evolve. And I saw that the
#
gaps in between gave them time to do things, to interact, to make mistakes, to get, you know,
#
feedback from me. I said, Hey, this is actually the real structure, you know? So it also evolves
#
over a period of time as you do it. And then when you hit the sweet spot, you end up with the kind
#
of community that you've got. And as you rightly said, the true power of a community is when the
#
members of the community own every aspect of it. When I get feedback on something that commune has
#
done, which comes saying this was horrible. I love the fact you care enough to respond. Otherwise,
#
what do you do? Just scroll on, you know, at a, at a YouTube shorts conference where they were,
#
because they were, they said, nobody can escape this vertical format. Somebody said from an
#
advertising agency, you know, sometimes they get these really pithy ones where they said that
#
the minute you shift from vertical to horizontal, you shift from lack of focus to attention.
#
I thought it was such a beautiful thought at that moment. And it also worries me. You know,
#
I feel that this, I have to get your attention in 30 seconds. How will you ever discover a person
#
in 30 seconds? Right? How will you ever have a deep conversation? How will you let layers of
#
that person peel off to see the real person itself? 30 seconds of, let me show you a dance.
#
And you know, sometimes my young people are this is our medium. You don't stop being, you know,
#
a boomer. Okay. Maybe I'm being a bit of a boomer in this, but really anybody who is 40 plus has
#
seen the best of both worlds. I think we saw an analog life and we've seen a digital life and we
#
had Janice standing in the middle, looking at December, the December of analog and the January
#
of digital. And it's there and you're there in the middle of it. And it's beautiful. But I look at
#
my kids today. I look at my daughter who's 14, who's thankfully, because every time I travel
#
abroad, we are seeing 10 plays in 15 days. And my kids are like, initially they were like, oh,
#
but now they've developed a love for theater. Now my daughter says, I want to be a Broadway
#
performer. So be it. But it's only because you have given them that. And in this short form,
#
I'm just scared that this is the only fear that if this life is made, small things, attention is
#
going, attention, which is called paying attention to something, you know, to indulge, to focus,
#
to dive deep, this diving deep. And maybe again, maybe we were equally distracted when we were
#
young. Maybe, but I look for depth today. I mean, I think that's what I'm looking for. And I love
#
that. And it resonates deeply with me. No, I'll tell you, this is one thing where I kind of,
#
you're talking about short attention spans. I disagree slightly in the sense that when I
#
started the scene in The Unseen early 2017, my impression was short attention span.
#
You got to hook them in 30 seconds. Your average listening time might be two minutes or three
#
minutes. 20 minutes is optimal length. So if you look at my early episodes, like today someone on
#
Twitter commented that she's reached episode 50 from episode one. Yeah. And I was like, no,
#
no, you're doing it the wrong way. Please listen in reverse order. Because those early episodes,
#
one of the things I learned is that I was wrong. People don't have short attention spans.
#
What happens is that podcasts are uniquely different because of a number of reasons. I'll
#
give four for the benefit of listeners who may not have heard me expound on this before,
#
but it's a subject I'm passionate about. So why not? One, if you look at when people listen,
#
they are commuting or working out or doing errands, but they've chosen to be a captive
#
audience. So when you're watching a YouTube video, you can just click on a tab, turn your head,
#
pick up a book. Those distractions aren't there. They've chosen to be captive.
#
Two, the brain can comprehend language at 500 words a minute while we speak at about,
#
like, I am pretty slow at my age, so it's about 160 a minute, but it's not more than 200. So
#
people listen at double speeds. They're consuming two hours of content in really one hour or even
#
less. You know, Krisha Shouk, who's been a guest on this show, listens to the scene in the unseen
#
at 3x. I can't listen to it at less than, you know, less than 2x or never. Two and a half is
#
normal. So the content is getting consumed. And the third thing is, of course, intimacy, the point
#
that you sort of brought about, that every other medium is broadcasting. So what they do, yeah.
#
So they are... No, you know, I didn't mean that people have short attention span. What I meant
#
is that formats are only allowing you. See, TikTok is saying, you're putting everything in that. So
#
people will find the other mediums as well. But I feel that if you... See, nobody can escape right
#
now that the three formats that are working are reels. It's TikTok and now Facebook, like, sorry,
#
YouTube shorts. These are the three. So if you want to get more followers on any of these mediums,
#
indulge in any of these, you will see a 100x growth. Otherwise you won't. Now everybody is
#
falling onto this trap, which suddenly means you're trying to crunch everything and say,
#
you know what, how can I be really exciting in 30 seconds? You know, and I do a storytelling
#
course and I keep talking about the hook and then I talk about, you know, saying, so what's the hook
#
and how it's going to bring them in. But it's fine, you know, you'll get that hook. But I can't tell
#
you if you scroll through these for a while, they are dopamine hits. But, I don't know, I'm telling you,
#
after a while, it's comfortably numb. My favorite song has always been Comfortably Numb. You know,
#
and I keep saying that. I say, you know, that has just become... I don't want to see people
#
sleepwalking through... Zainab Tufekci, have you ever read Zainab? Of course. Zainab, when she
#
talked about the whole Arab Spring and how quickly it moved on, she said, you know, you felt that
#
these digital tools gave you this ability to change the world overnight. And then you realized
#
it can't be changed overnight. You realized you need to sit on protests for 40 days. And you were
#
like, but on Twitter, it takes me 30 seconds to type this. I don't need to sit outside for so long.
#
And that essay and that YouTube thing, which was there, had me thinking for a very long time,
#
saying that, are we losing steam in all our political battles because of this? That we just
#
don't have the courage to be there. Will you sit at a location for 100 days? Will you be part of
#
these protests with the farmers for half a year? You can do it. And I believe that you can't do it
#
90% of the time. And again, it's a little philosophic. I think we're all trying to say,
#
when will it change? Zainab wrote this excellent book also. And I did an episode with Pranay Kotasini
#
on it. Pranay's term for this is Radically Networked Societies. So that was kind of fascinating. But my
#
sort of, not a counterpoint exactly, but a further point I'd add is like, I'm a big fan of TikTok.
#
So number one, people contain multitudes. We'll see TikTok, we'll read essays, we'll read books,
#
we'll do everything. The other, I think, trade-off that creators probably face and something that,
#
you know, everybody sees that a short attention span formats like TikTok and all will give you a
#
lot of numbers. Whereas something like a podcast won't give you those numbers, but will give you
#
far greater engagement. So you want big numbers with low engagement or small numbers or relatively
#
small numbers with much higher engagement is something interesting to sort of think about.
#
So before I go on to the next question, a couple of asides, one aside, you mentioned Gavaskar.
#
And I remember when I was a cricket journalist in the early 2000s, I called up one of his
#
teammates, one of the famous Quartet. And I was working in Wisden at that time, so British
#
company and all that. So he actually, his wife, in fact, said, what about Vitamin M?
#
And then I realized the deep bitterness that people of that generation felt because they were
#
such great players. But for artists, I think that that lament should not exist because,
#
you know, I did an excellent episode with Kavita Rao recently, where she spoke about late bloomers
#
that, you know, it doesn't matter how old you are, the opportunities are still there.
#
They are still massive. Now, the other aspect to sort of follow on to my question about artist
#
slash entrepreneur. Now, the thing is, I was on a conference call a couple of days back with someone
#
who's building a platform with creator tools and all of that, just wanted my inputs on that.
#
And one of the things I realized is that my sense was a lot of the early friction points for me,
#
once I sorted them out with specialized apps, I don't need anything else. So I do remote
#
recordings with Squadcast. I'll do all my research in Roam research. I'll do, you know,
#
once I set up my payment gateways, that is done. And I took care of those friction points with
#
those specialized points. But there are many things I'm not doing. For example, and most of
#
them I'm not doing because I don't want to, but perhaps that's a rationalization. For example,
#
one easy thing that I definitely won't do is people come to me and say, yaar episodes lambe hain,
#
ek ganta karo. Otherwise, break it up into half an hour bits or whatever.
#
I will also confess that I said that at the minute I said it, I said, oh no.
#
So, and my take on that is I understand that. But number one, I think what's special about
#
the show is the depth which people love. The second thing is that the moment I start thinking
#
in terms of even breaking it up into chunks, let's say not a one hour episode, even breaking it up,
#
then my brain formats a conversation accordingly. Like if I was breaking it up into half an hour
#
chunks, you and I have already been gabbing for more than an hour. In my mind, I would have had
#
to format it and say, let's not ramble. Let's get to the point. So the format pushes you into
#
a certain kind of content. If we were doing only a one hour episode, we wouldn't have had this
#
ramble. We would have had to, you know, be much crisper. I have the luxury because I don't have
#
the time limit. So one, by compromising there, perhaps my marketing improves, ki yahan pe bite
#
dal denge, wahan pe wo kar denge, wo ho jayega. But mentally, it also changes the content.
#
Therefore, it changes what I do. In a sense, it changes both the art and the artist.
#
No. So see, again, my counterpoint to that is that I don't want you to do anything with
#
your process and your core product. Once you have created it, you're giving it to a set of
#
other creators to say, here's my, here's me. Now, what would you do with it? And I will,
#
I will decide whether I put it out. So like, for example, at Commune, people come and tell stories,
#
right? Somebody will come and they will do a story and we will ask them, are you comfortable
#
with us putting this out? One day, I remember we put up on Father's Day, we somebody, one of our
#
young social media people put up a story where this girl was talking about a bad relationship
#
and it wasn't her own relationship with her father. And this got showcased and below that was this
#
comment about Father's Day and whatever. And the person wrote to us saying, listen, this is sort
#
of portraying the fact that I have a bad relationship with my dad, which I do not. And
#
you know, we immediately took it down. And I, and I said, guys, you're forgetting the basic, which
#
was that every piece of content that belongs to someone else should be done once by them to say,
#
are you comfortable with this? That's an important thing. So I'm saying that, you know,
#
you've created this masterpiece. Now somebody can look at it and say, you know what, what's the
#
quote for the t-shirt? And here it is. And Amit, are you okay with it? And if you say yes, then
#
it's out then if you don't, then it's not. Or from this podcast, what is the 30 second clip that we
#
should put on TikTok if you want to be on TikTok so that we can then do a link back to the episode
#
and get you more listens for the five hours or four hours. That's what I'm talking about. So I
#
don't want to interfere with your core product, but allow a bunch of people who understand the
#
nuance of marketing and selling and branding, et cetera, to build upon it, which is what I mean,
#
Gary Vee is doing that. I'm the core content really honestly doesn't appeal to me, but I like
#
the process. The way that he has built that process is exciting. Yeah. No, I think I was
#
sort of coming from the place where every creator I think also has to draw a balance between how
#
much they are purely creating and how much they are being an entrepreneur. And I, you know,
#
and I went out there and became a bit of an entrepreneur in a sense because, you know,
#
but at the same time, then if you're thinking about audio gram banana, Instagram may presence
#
kanna hai that takes away mind space. Do you really want to do that stuff? I haven't resolved
#
again. I'm saying you should not do it. You know, that's why I'm saying that. I mean, I'm blessed
#
to have built a team today that when I talk of my, you know, business storytelling piece,
#
they come back to me saying, we can do this. We can do this. We can do this. We can do this.
#
And I will pick and choose. Right. And so I believe that I am not now you're right. At
#
some way I might have a little bit of a saying, Oh, that sounded very nice. Maybe next time.
#
So the process might get impacted a little, but I try to keep these two things exclusive.
#
And you know, and this creator versus entrepreneur debate has defined my life. You know, I mean,
#
and I must say that, you know, having heard the show so much, one of my, my internal thoughts was
#
where will you slot me? Right. What will you stop me as? Because I have been just a radio
#
jock and I've done 11 shows on television and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. All of that made a film,
#
you know, partly succeeded, partly didn't or whatever. All of that has happened as well.
#
Built companies, sold companies, which of this is, where will you slot me? Am I going to be
#
the voice of radio? Am I going to be the first guy on television who did the road shows, et cetera?
#
Am I the first person who sought trends before? What do I, you know, and, and it's just exciting
#
to know where do you see yourself in the eyes of others? And, and the one you respect,
#
it's that one review you're looking forward to when you create something saying what will they say?
#
Right. So that was in my head and this creator versus entrepreneur has been my biggest battle
#
always. Nobody in my family has ever done a business. My grandfather was a lawyer,
#
very well known. My parents are both teachers. My sister wrote for journals. And when she was
#
a journalist for a while, then she taught for a bit. She still teaches. Right. I mean, all around
#
me, if I look, there are some doctors, there's a, there's a botanist, there's a scientist, there's,
#
you know, where did this come from? I have no clue, but this understanding, there's a gap in the
#
market. It needs to be addressed. What will address it? What's the team needed? Will it scale?
#
What is the investment? What's the risk? My mind processes things at one side like this.
#
And occasionally when I apply this to the film script that I want to write and I'm like, keep
#
this thing out. Don't. And it's very, very difficult. So there again, I start finding partners.
#
So now, I mean, I'm again back on the journey. I'm writing a film again. I'm writing a couple
#
of shows and I'm telling you every now and then, that is not my concern. Then I'm not being true
#
to my creative soul. Then the entrepreneur is saying, I don't want to be the Selu on it.
#
So it's this. That's why I'm trying very hard to preserve this. And it's fun. I mean, it's a
#
dichotomy, but it's a good place to be. My approach to slotting is this. Like, first of all,
#
I have a title for this episode, but it came up while we were chatting, which is Roshan Abbas
#
and the Creator Economy. So that's my title. But otherwise, I don't think about it because I don't
#
want to slot anyone. I think that's the problem with modern media. It's a problem with our politics
#
that you slot everyone. I'll tell you. You know what used to happen. So I have the joy of having
#
been with Arnab in college and he was my junior and I was the captain of the debating team.
#
So in some strange way, he has always looked on me as being the guy who introduced him in the
#
debating team and very, very respectful, very loving always. So initially when he was on Times
#
Now, if I was called in a debate, I would get two and a half minutes to speak without an interruption.
#
So it was a rare thing that used to happen. I used to keep digging and ribbing him on this thing.
#
One day I was on his panel and there was Ashish Shalhar from the BJP and I was there and
#
Sunday turned and said,
#
And you know, because I'm a debater, I'll catch you. I said, look, we are not your people and you are not a king.
#
You are our servant. Right? Because he was using that whole analogy of government and I took off.
#
And in one minute I gave it and everybody was quiet and because I was given the space, etc. to speak.
#
Next morning, you know, here come the trolls on Twitter and whatever and I have these side conversations
#
with some lovely people, Harsha messaging me saying, don't engage, so and so saying, don't do it, leave it, whatever.
#
I said, boss, one of those days when I said, I will take on each of them and I know how to handle them.
#
And I had three simple ways. The first thing was, go to Pakistan, do this.
#
That's where it started because immediately my surname becomes my moniker. Right? I'm slotted.
#
And I would start replying in clished Hindi because I can speak Hindi better than most of these guys.
#
And I'm typing in Hindi. You know, 80% of them just, they just didn't know how to respond.
#
Because they have to click and then hit the translate this button.
#
And I'm telling you, whatever I'm telling him that why are you here, the topic that you are talking about,
#
what is your meaning, now he is stuck. That man, he should have answered in Urdu. Number one.
#
Number two, I said, you know, go to Pakistan. I said, if I go, do you realize that X number of people
#
will lose their livelihoods because I've given jobs to more than so many people.
#
So I built an economic lease. Again, they would not have an answer because, you know,
#
because they feel that you are dependent on them. So, you know, these were some of the ways in which
#
I would try and avoid this because yeah, slotting is something, sorry, just suddenly triggered from
#
what you said about, you know, getting slotted and this happening and whatever. So it has happened.
#
And this is where I go. Yeah, you know, we'll talk about social media at length as well.
#
But, you know, people expect my episodes to be about a particular subject.
#
And I think even if I get a guest who is an expert on one subject,
#
it doesn't work for me if it's about the subject. You have to have that one hour
#
conversation about the person which we haven't started yet and kind of.
#
I think I'm going to, I'm going to message my mom and say,
#
because my parents have come here to say, okay, you guys can have dinner, we can talk.
#
You guys can talk, it's really fun.
#
Excellent. So let's, let's kind of take a quick commercial break at this point.
#
And then we'll get to talking about your life after this, which I'm so excited about.
#
Have you always wanted to be a writer but never quite gotten down to it?
#
Well, I'd love to help you.
#
Over the last year, I've enjoyed teaching my online course, the art of clear writing
#
and an online community has now sprung up of all my past students.
#
We have workshops, a newsletter to showcase the work of students
#
and vibrant interaction with much stimulation.
#
In the course itself, through four webinars spread out over four weekends,
#
I share all I know about the craft and practice of clear writing.
#
There are many exercises, much interaction and a lovely and lively community at the end of it.
#
The course costs rupees 10,000 plus GST or about $150.
#
And the September classes begin on the 4th of September.
#
So if you're interested, head on over to register at indiancut.com slash clear writing.
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That's indiancut.com slash clear writing.
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Being a good writer doesn't require God-given talent,
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just the willingness to work hard and a clear idea of what you need to do to refine your skills.
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Welcome back to The Scene in the Unseen.
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I'm chatting with Roshan Abbas.
#
And so far we were chatting really about the creative economy, which we'll get back to
#
because hey, that's what both of us do, not just our bread and butter,
#
but safe to say our lifelong passion as well.
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But so speaking of lifelong, let's go back to the start.
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Now, tell me about your childhood.
#
You grew up in Lucknow, right?
#
And paint me a picture of those days,
#
because one of the things I've realized while doing the show
#
is that, you know, 60% of India is born after liberalization.
#
A lot of young people today don't have a sense of what life was like.
#
And there were many good things and bad things,
#
a lot of charm also in growing up the way that you did.
#
And of course, you know, many of the things kids have today,
#
we didn't have like the internet and access to all the books and movies
#
and music in the world and all of that.
#
But you also had a sort of a chance to cultivate a thairav as it were.
#
You weren't always rushing from sensation to sensation,
#
chasing the latest dopamine hit.
#
So give me a picture of your childhood.
#
What kind of kid were you?
#
So Lucknow, you know, by its nature in those days was always very laid back, right?
#
I mean, I have the standard joke where I say that
#
most people used to wear white kurta pajamas
#
because they were too lazy to make a choice.
#
This famous phrase they use about Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb that
#
it's really a confluence of so many cultures.
#
There's a small Anglo-Indian community,
#
there is a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, you name it.
#
I mean, you know, and really honestly in those days growing up,
#
I mean, I was born in 1970 and I remember that
#
everything would be slow and undulating.
#
I mean, my parents were teachers.
#
We grew up in a very small house in the early days
#
where we would have to constantly be on the threat
#
of watching the main road from a window
#
because if someone stood in front of the car,
#
you know, how will the scooter get out of our house?
#
Because my father out of the fear of robbery,
#
which never used to happen,
#
but was this thing of placing the scooter inside the house,
#
you know, so it was quite crazy.
#
I mean, I remember and my dad was an electrical engineer.
#
He used to teach electrical engineering in the polytechnic.
#
So he would leave in the morning
#
and my mom was a secretary in a college in those days.
#
Later went on to be a teacher and a professor, et cetera.
#
My mom and dad's only ambition was
#
that their children should study in the best schools.
#
My sister went to Loretto.
#
Before going to Lamartanya,
#
I was in this very small school called City Montessori.
#
Sorry, why am I, oh my God, I'll be killed.
#
I was in municipal nursery
#
and municipal nursery had this principal called Popli or whatever.
#
And being four, I mean, I remember being on stage
#
when I was four years old, right?
#
And we would have these jhakis at Janmashtami
#
where I would play the guard who's nodding off to sleep
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as, you know, Yashoda is giving young Krishna
#
to be taken, you know, across the river in spate.
#
And I would play this guard who's nodding off to sleep six times
#
so that, you know, let everybody notices me, you know,
#
because I think it was a little thing early on.
#
Or, you know, you would play Ram in a Diwali thing.
#
And, you know, they would do a beautiful thing
#
where they would put up this whole Raman
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and everybody would dress up as, you know, the monkeys
#
and Hanuman or Ye and Vanarasena
#
and somebody would be a Rishi Muni.
#
So it was a fancy dress kind of thing.
#
I was a fair child and whatever, et cetera,
#
and reasonably decent in that sense.
#
So I was, I played Ram, I remember.
#
And therefore you got to fire the arrow
#
which actually burnt Ravan.
#
And it was, it was done in this huge.
#
So I think drama became a very early part of my life.
#
And then at the age of five, we went to Ravindrale,
#
which was this slightly imposing auditorium, right?
#
Every city, small city has this one place
#
where you can, this is the theater.
#
And at Ravindrale, there was an annual day happening
#
and I was recruited to play this, do this little play
#
where I was playing this Nawab
#
and there are two people who are fighting over
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is it day or is it night?
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So it was a stupid little joke that you would have found.
#
I mean, nowadays it would have been a WhatsApp forward
#
and a two minute kind of thing where I resolved the issue.
#
I went on stage with these two children
#
after two weeks of rehearsal or three weeks of rehearsal,
#
borrowed my uncle's sherwani,
#
had a walking stick of my dada,
#
went on stage with a topi and stutter
#
to realize that two other actors have frozen
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on seeing such a big audience.
#
Because when you rehearse in school,
#
you rehearse to 10 people and a benevolent teacher.
#
Now you've got an auditorium lights in your face,
#
thousand people looking at you and these two kids froze.
#
And I said, before my grand moment on stage,
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these two guys are, I mean, they'll bring the curtain down.
#
And actually we were in interlude before the next performance
#
so we were in front of the curtain.
#
So they just put off the spot
#
and that's the end of being in the spotlight.
#
And I said, seize the day, you know,
#
and I told both the kids what their lines were saying.
#
You were probably trying to say this, you know,
#
I did that and I told the other guy saying,
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and you're getting angry because of this.
#
And I gave them both their lines
#
so I could get my grand moment on stage,
#
did it, got a lot of applause,
#
went off stage and our theatre teacher,
#
and I still have that picture somewhere
#
in one of those old black and white albums.
#
And he hugged me in front of my parents.
#
But you know, more than that,
#
that moment on stage of seizing that moment
#
and controlling that thing had just stuck with me.
#
And by the time I moved to Lamartinia,
#
which really became the school
#
where I did from prep all the way till class 12.
#
Lamartinia had this culture of,
#
obviously there would be a set of kids
#
who would go to, you know,
#
science and engineers and IIT wale bache.
#
Then there was a second category
#
which was army me jane wale bache,
#
air force me jane wale bache.
#
We had a big tradition of the army.
#
I mean, we were one of the schools
#
which has military honours,
#
not for the right reasons
#
because the kids helped in the mutiny in 1857.
#
So there were British battle honours and stuff.
#
But again, when I try to explain Lamartinia to people,
#
it's difficult because it's Hogwarts.
#
It was built by Claude Martin
#
who used to actually sell things to the Nawab in those days.
#
He was a brilliant merchant as well as a soldier.
#
And if you read some of the books on him,
#
And he built, you know, a palace
#
that actually looked like an amalgamation
#
of some things he saw in Egypt
#
and some things that he saw somewhere.
#
So you'll have Sphinx right on top
#
and then you'll have some angels and it's crazy.
#
And it's across, I don't know how many acres of land.
#
There's a golf course on the, you know, in Lamartinia.
#
So space was always there.
#
You know, in fact, when I come to Bombay, et cetera,
#
sometimes the space just gets to me
#
because we were used to undulating lawns
#
or laying on grass, et cetera.
#
So that was one part of life.
#
The other part was that
#
because both my parents were working,
#
they were very clear in the early days
#
that look, go to school, study.
#
If you want to do something else,
#
do extra curriculars and come home.
#
And the extra curriculars from very early
#
I mean, that was my amusement park.
#
That was the place that I thrived.
#
So I would take part in everything, Amit.
#
I would be in the Hindi elocution
#
and the English elocution.
#
The debate in Hindi, the debate in English.
#
The dramatics in Hindi, the dramatics in English.
#
The quizzing team, the just a minute, the music, name it.
#
The only thing I couldn't do is sport.
#
I was failed when I tried to,
#
when I went onto the football field
#
and I had this funny teacher who told everybody,
#
Baga, this boy, he's a brilliant, brilliant,
#
he's a brilliant footballer.
#
I had never played football before,
#
but I had a good looking kit,
#
which my parents had given me and I went onto the field
#
and I had only seen stuff in newspapers.
#
Television had not come, I think,
#
because this is pre-82 before we know it.
#
And I thought every ball has to be headed.
#
So if the ball used to come near me on the ground,
#
They thought I'd kill myself by the end of it.
#
So I was a failed footballer.
#
Then I got a hockey stick,
#
tried to get onto the thing,
#
missed the ball every time.
#
So I would just keep holding the hockey
#
in a really fun manner.
#
So after these two tries, I said,
#
you know, I'm best at commentary.
#
So I would go and sit on the side and give, you know.
#
And you see, the team is doing this,
#
and the other team is attacking from the other side.
#
And we were used to radio commentary, right?
#
And look, as far as Iqbal has gone,
#
those lines were just incredible.
#
And the way radio commentators,
#
and the way they used to explain these things was wonderful.
#
I got a little fascinated with radio.
#
My mother and father used to occasionally go on radio
#
and do those little talks, you know.
#
I mean, morning show, etc.
#
And my dada used to call me Mirza Tolpul,
#
because I used to want to get to the bottom of everything.
#
I mean, what's going to happen on TV,
#
what's going to happen in this,
#
what's going to happen behind the radio.
#
So I was fascinated, and I went to the radio station.
#
And the minute I went to the radio station,
#
I realized that, wow, again, you know,
#
there was a mic, and there were people.
#
And this gentleman who we used to hear every Sunday
#
was now a live person sitting in front of me.
#
So a little bit of a fascination with public speaking
#
and theatre started right there.
#
The other thing about Lucknow was that
#
I think somewhere I was this energizer bunny
#
who was, you know, who used to keep doing things.
#
While everyone else was really laid back.
#
Like there are friends of mine in Lucknow,
#
if I go to their house and they ask you for a cup of tea, right?
#
So you're sitting and they turn and say,
#
will you have tea? I said, of course.
#
Now it's been half an hour since the tea came.
#
So once I turned to my friend and said,
#
Faisal, what is this? Why hasn't the tea come?
#
He says, who will raise the voice?
#
When they come from the front, they will ask.
#
So, you know, it's a very,
#
and I keep telling these people these stories
#
so that they understand where we come from.
#
Arguments are not encouraged.
#
You will not say that you are feeling cold.
#
You will say, the fan is running a little fast.
#
You know? And then you turn to the person and say,
#
So you will not turn and say, make the fan slow.
#
So like my wife's biggest problem is sometimes saying,
#
why can't you be direct? But in Lucknow,
#
And you know what used to happen is
#
undulates through the city,
#
also goes through the city.
#
We are not going to confront the issue right up front, etc.
#
all of this. And then in the midst of all that
#
was the joy of great food
#
also in Lucknow. Nothing is made fast.
#
The kebab is made overnight.
#
Nihari must be cooked for 24 hours.
#
Right? The whole thing about Dampukht
#
I don't know whether you know the story behind how
#
Dampukht cooking actually when it started.
#
So it was incredible that apparently
#
there was a Nawab who had lost his teeth.
#
that it should melt in his mouth.
#
And so the Kakori Kebab,
#
which is so famous, became famous
#
because the recipe was that
#
it melts in the mouth. Galouti Kebab,
#
Kakori. These are all kebabs that were created
#
as a cuisine so that the Nawab would not
#
have to use his mouth because there were no teeth.
#
loving solutions to life
#
I think was what Lucknow was about if I was
#
trying to paraphrase it all. But that's
#
what happened. And in the midst of this is Energizer
#
money. Energizer money wants to do everything.
#
Sab karna hai. The other thing is that for
#
a family where knowledge means a lot,
#
awards mean a lot, prizes mean a lot.
#
And, you know, I was winning prizes
#
All those prizes in Lamarknia
#
when you could go and buy books. Because
#
of parents being teachers, a huge little library
#
in fact doing her BA when I was very
#
small. So I keep telling people saying
#
was Midsummer Night's Dream. My mother used to read
#
that to us because she was preparing for her exams.
#
Or she was talking about, you
#
know, her history paper. So I knew
#
more, at the age of eight, I knew about
#
Axis and Allies and who came
#
and who was what and Luftwaffe and
#
whatever. Because that's what she was reading.
#
feel that a lot of this fascination with
#
books and knowledge started happening.
#
meter, 300 meter door ek Amirudola
#
library thi. Amirudola.
#
the name of a person, but it was this thing that see this
#
And it had these really imposing steps. And I keep telling
#
people, I often do this in schools when I
#
go and speak. And I say, you
#
type a word in Google. We used to have
#
to climb these steps, meet a librarian
#
who would give us attention when he wanted.
#
Because he was the only person who knew kitab kahan rakhi hai.
#
of books hidden under layers of
#
dust. Once I tried to find
#
a book, I came back, I think, looking like ancient
#
Indian history. Because you were just covered with dust.
#
still smell that dust. I mean, somewhere at
#
times I can smell that dust because when you
#
found a book, it was finding a treasure.
#
And therefore, this thing about knowledge
#
which then gave you victory
#
and awards and the ability
#
the wealth of knowledge versus the wealth
#
of material gain was such
#
a big thing in our family. My
#
parents didn't care about money.
#
And so this fascination with winning prizes
#
again became a big thing for me.
#
Obviously, for a young boy, it puts you in the spotlight.
#
You're always there. You're always climbing
#
the stairs seven times on
#
Prize Day. And your parents
#
are looking at you with pride. It's wonderful.
#
were still sequestered to, all this
#
is fine, lekin bada achha doctor banega.
#
I could, I would want to find this
#
book called A Functional Approach
#
to Biology by A.B.B. Roberts. While everyone
#
was reading Dignam and Nigam
#
and all these books, I wanted to
#
read this because it was in the British Council Library.
#
And this book was fascinating
#
because it suddenly took the human body and said,
#
you know, there are three kinds of
#
All plants and all animals come from a functional
#
approach. They all come from a stem,
#
from a cell. And that cell has evolved.
#
And I was obsessed with this theory
#
and I would keep writing this in all my exams
#
and keep getting bad marks in bio
#
in my 11th and 12th. Because they wanted me to study
#
that this is the book, read from this.
#
So, I would want to question
#
because I was in the debating team and I was the debating
#
captain and everything, I loved doing all of that.
#
had started. We were traveling outside of school.
#
And I had this wonderful teacher who
#
unfortunately passed away during
#
COVID, Mr. Elton D'Souza.
#
he discovered me as a young boy and
#
I started acting in the school plays.
#
And he became a mentor and a guide.
#
really, I mean, your parents
#
are parents at home and there's always a teacher
#
who's a parent in school. Elton
#
was that for me. There were a lot
#
of other teachers. But Elton
#
built a joy for me for literature,
#
for theater. We did plays.
#
Mousetrap in my final year
#
when we were passing out actor Christie's Mousetrap. And I was
#
playing the key character, you know,
#
Detective Sergeant Trotter. And even our
#
prizes were so beautiful. So, the prize in
#
school for the best actor was called the
#
Metro Golden Mere Award
#
for the best actor. And because it was instituted
#
how, but it was an MGM award. So, you know,
#
the fascination with winning
#
that. And I had won it before
#
or whatever. And in the 12th, I said, this is the ultimate
#
culmination. And I remember
#
taking part and they didn't give me the prize
#
and they gave it to someone else. And my mother was most upset.
#
Why didn't I get it? So, Elton came and
#
said, he said, because this rascal
#
turned the play upside down.
#
He started from play age 11 and then went
#
to page this. And he said, you should have seen the other actors.
#
They were meant to be stricken
#
by this thing of who will die next.
#
They were stricken by which line will come next.
#
And I just kept laughing. I would
#
do this. I was very good with
#
speaking extempore, off
#
the cuff, doing things. And
#
in the midst of all this, I think we
#
were carving out our own little space. And
#
I say we because my family's, this whole thing
#
about knowledge being what we were,
#
the wealth of knowledge. You know,
#
I often say this thing, don't mistake
#
self-worth with net-worth. Because
#
the self-worth came from all of these things.
#
And you love this, the attention.
#
once told me that there was some,
#
you know, the normal trader families
#
in Lucknow, or someone's halwai
#
shop. And you know, you used to go with
#
everyone. We used to go in a rickshaw, in a school
#
where six kids used to sit. One was a halwai
#
kid, one was a shop, one was a
#
clothes shop, whatever. And we were
#
teacher's kids. So, one of the ladies once
#
came to my house and apparently told my mother saying,
#
our kid will get better.
#
I'm not sending my kid, what if he gets spoiled?
#
So, very protective in that sense,
#
parents. But this fascination
#
for biology, this thing about
#
this love for theatre, suddenly
#
in class 11 took me to this point
#
of sitting with my parents and saying, you know what?
#
a frog beautifully, but it doesn't
#
and when I crack one line on stage,
#
I look at the whites of the
#
people's eyes in front of me and it's a
#
drug. It's so exciting.
#
So, can I do that instead of this?
#
And my parents, who had built these things
#
and my aunt was a very well-known
#
doctor and she'd gone to Riyadh,
#
made a lot of money, made a big name.
#
So, everybody was thinking, this is the road
#
to Abbas' success. And I
#
saw them over tea in the evening
#
and they just turned and said, my dad
#
got up. He opened his Godrej
#
steel almirah, which had three locks, remember? The first
#
lock, then the side lock, then the inner lock
#
and in the inner lock, he took out his
#
passbook. And he came very dramatically, showed me
#
his passbook and said, beta, this
#
is the money I have saved. It was four lakhs, I remember.
#
He said that on maturity, this will be four
#
lakhs. Two lakhs is for you, two is for your sister.
#
Whatever you want to do in two lakhs,
#
I am a very selfless person. Whatever I've
#
earned in life, my dad said, I've never
#
taken a bribe. I've never
#
tried to make money the wrong way. So, beta, this is all
#
kept this aside for your education. I
#
don't even know whether this would have got you
#
a merit seat in CPMT, yes,
#
without money. But if I had to
#
buy a seat, I couldn't have done it.
#
So he said, this is the extent of play
#
I can give you. This is the extent to which I can
#
stretch the tarpaulin, the trampolin for you to jump
#
two lakh and one rupee, I won't do it.
#
If you expect that you'll come back
#
with a great idea and say,
#
you know, dad, I need ten thousand to invest in this and I'll make
#
a crore, I won't do it.
#
So, hearing this, I realized the gravity
#
of the situation. At the same time, I realized
#
the freedom I was being given. And
#
this, I keep telling people, is saying
#
that give yourself goals
#
yourself denominators to be
#
able to judge on. This, you know,
#
just having a numerator on top
#
What was the yardstick of measurement?
#
What is it that you're going to say this and no more?
#
So, I came to Delhi with this
#
fascination and saying that I've
#
flown the coop, I've left Lucknow and come to
#
Delhi. And you know, you won't believe my parents were like,
#
go and do it yourself. And not with a
#
go, we're abandoning you. You know, it's
#
no, it was, we have so much faith in
#
you, you'll do this on your own. And I went with one attachi,
#
from school. You know, fashion in Lucknow
#
So, there were one jeans which I found very fashionable.
#
now that I think about it. You still have the grey pant?
#
No, I don't. You know, I wish I did.
#
You know, I had one jacket which one girl
#
had taken off me in college because I was in the band
#
and she wanted the singer's
#
lived affair which I realized was actually all
#
she wanted was the jacket. But anyways,
#
college. I went to St. Stephen's, I had 79.6
#
as my aggregate because I really screwed up
#
biology. And I had gotten 92
#
in my 10th, right? So, I mean, suddenly it was a big
#
drop as well. So, suddenly there was this one story
#
in Lucknow saying, the boy has gone the
#
wrong way. You know, the boy is ruined.
#
were not, they were telling me one thing, he'll figure.
#
came to Delhi, didn't get into Stephen's. Cut-off was
#
80. Somebody said, let's put a pull,
#
let's put a source. I said, I don't even know
#
what happens. I was crossing the road,
#
it was a Hindu college. I went in, JP Kakaria
#
was our teacher. He went in and
#
see, the minute I'm with a person, I
#
know how to engage them. So, I sat
#
with him and I told him two stories of Lucknow, etc.
#
And he smiled and he says, well, you don't
#
make the first list cut-off, but I think with
#
extracurriculars, we can get you in. And I got it.
#
Didn't get the hostel. Went and
#
stayed with my aunt in Pusa Road, used to
#
keep coming back. Sorry, you asked me about Lucknow, I moved to
#
Delhi. I hope that's fine.
#
I said, oh my god, he said
#
Lucknow and I'm in Delhi already. Actually, let's come back to
#
this later. I want to go back to Lucknow for a moment.
#
One, your stories are so resonant
#
for me because, you know, my father also
#
spoke about how when he
#
was in college in Calcutta in the early 1960s,
#
whatever exams he would
#
get in the top and all of that, he would get
#
books in the prize. Like you would get a set of books,
#
he'd go to the bookseller, he'd be like, I already have
#
these because I won it last semester, give me another
#
set of books. And that same sort of
#
love for knowledge and all of
#
had those Godrej Almira's at home.
#
And my father used to keep them,
#
one particular Almira, one particular thing
#
was locked. So, I was a curious
#
kid, what is it? I want to see.
#
So, one day when my parents had gone out, I
#
took the key and I kind of opened
#
the world. Yeah. And there
#
was one copy of Playboy and one copy of
#
Mayfair was a similar magazine to Playboy.
#
And those physical products, of course, don't
#
exist. But this is just to give a picture that
#
tell you what, I'll give you my example.
#
So, we had a library in college and
#
the boys, the senior boys, so even in
#
class eight, which is when you sort of just discovering
#
all this, right? And the senior boys
#
always go to one corner and say, Nick Carter
#
Nick Carter. Nick Carter
#
which was created as a book, as
#
Right? And the difference between James Bond
#
was in James Bond, everything was suggestive.
#
You know, they went into the room and
#
zip and that's it. Nick Carter
#
had two pages of steamy sex.
#
that all the boys would go and get the Nick Carter.
#
And the librarian would sit there saying
#
whoever would take a Nick Carter, she would give them that
#
look of, I know what you guys are up
#
to. Right? So, I remember the first
#
time I went and I asked for it. I felt
#
so embarrassed. But my dad
#
just again, like, you know,
#
my dad realized that, oh, this is the age.
#
So, Debuneer aati thi yaar. So,
#
one day I found next to my bed a Debuneer lying.
#
Because my dad was saying, beta
#
it's time. I was telling
#
him the other day, why did you just have a chat
#
about the birds and the bees?
#
And I know where my dad is very quiet,
#
very shy. Also, I think
#
a big introvert that way, you know. So, I'm
#
an exact opposite. But it's that
#
wanted to tell me something. I was like, I'll figure
#
it. So, I figured it, you know,
#
through friends playboys and
#
an exchange of Commando comics for something
#
else. And, you know, again
#
early discovery. So, like, you know, like
#
sometimes somebody says, I read
#
Ayn Rand in college. I said, I read her in class 8th.
#
so impressed. I thought, that's life.
#
You know, Harvard Roac.
#
Even now, when I was doing
#
up my house just now in Dubai, I was like,
#
can I get a couple of originals?
#
Can I get one of those quotes from Ayn Rand?
#
So, it's still a residue. But, you know,
#
Tarzan comics. I have read Edgar
#
Rice Barrow. And it's, you know,
#
while it, if you read it now, you realize
#
there's a whole thing about, you know, race and
#
color. But it was so vividly written.
#
You know, Wilbur Spitt bhi tha.
#
Agatha Christie. I mean, and you know, these are
#
early things or whatever that you have as writings. And then
#
slowly my dad was reading Osho.
#
So, I was reading a little bit of the Rajneesh stuff.
#
And then there was a lot of, I remember Bertrand Russell.
#
You know, so you suddenly
#
got these diametric, and then my mother's history
#
books in the middle of all this.
#
You know, Ainey Akbari.
#
And she would read these out to us.
#
So, it was such a rich environment.
#
my father would get these Ghazal cassettes.
#
Right? And Mukhadar ka Sikandar ka
#
Aur phir, you know, Sikandar aage
#
balha aur. And one dialogue, Zorabhai.
#
You know, it was fascinating.
#
You would listen to Modi ke Matwale
#
podcasts today, when I hear mantra,
#
I look back and I say, you know,
#
of that time. It's just being
#
narrow-casted. It's just being done.
#
And they're still keeping that radio ethos
#
because, I mean, radio plays still have that. Though America
#
has obviously figured a way in between.
#
You know, medium batal gaya hai, cheezein wohi hai,
#
Hawa Mahal hota tha, Modi ke Matwale
#
There was one Adalat, which used to happen, which then
#
became Aapki Adalat. And I see
#
from medium to medium. But
#
that was what was happening in Lucknow
#
in those days. So, let me ask you a question
#
about your parents. Like, at one
#
point, you've spoken about how your
#
dad was into calligraphy. He was into
#
the arts. He was into poetry. And
#
yet, he had to do a job. He had kids.
#
Woh responsibility aa gayi. Even your mom at one point
#
stopped studying, took up a job because job
#
karna hai bache hai. And you just said earlier
#
that the kids were everything for them.
#
Your father used to cycle 11 kilometers
#
to his workplace. You've said... He had
#
a moped. He had a moped. So,
#
he used to go on the moped. And in the early days, he used to cycle.
#
You're right. In the early, early days, he used to go on the cycle.
#
Yeah. And all to get you into
#
a good school and all of that. And it's very
#
sad, in a sense, that people, even
#
creators... I mean, there were the... Perhaps
#
you could call your dad a creator of that age.
#
But there's no possibility
#
of doing anything more. So, you...
#
No. And, Amit, you know, I'll tell you. So, my dad,
#
everything he did, the books that he's
#
written... I mean, this is his eleventh book that
#
he's just released a couple of weeks
#
ago. And it's all about history
#
and lost monuments and calligraphy and influences.
#
do this because... So, my dad told me
#
that, beta, the reason I let you do it... And the other
#
day, we were talking to a doctor. And the doctor said,
#
Mr. Abbas, how did you let your son do this in
#
Lucknow in those days? He said, because I could not do
#
it. And, you know, and I... And for that
#
moment, it was such a big moment for me
#
when I heard that saying that
#
because he was... My dad loved
#
shairi and all this stuff. But his dad said,
#
dad was a judge and dad was being himself.
#
He was saying, deko boss, yeh safe
#
nahi hai, safe hai electrical engineering.
#
So, my dad actually went to AMU, studied
#
that when he sat for his final exam, he was
#
so angry with his father that he
#
filled all the correct answers and then scratched them
#
all out. So, instead of
#
giving him a degree, they
#
said, he's given all the right answers, but he scratched
#
them out. So, how do we discipline this boy?
#
So, they gave him a diploma instead of a degree.
#
And he didn't contest it.
#
And then he came back and said, with a diploma,
#
what can I get? And he got the job of a lecturer.
#
Otherwise, he could have been... I mean, imagine what
#
trajectory in life would have gone.
#
But he took that. My mother wanted to be a
#
doctor but stuck back because of us.
#
But, you know, then made the most
#
of this whole thing. So, I think they
#
really gave both my sister and me.
#
Like, my sister was doing cookery
#
things and this and oh, what you want to do? You want to learn
#
the guitar? Learn this. You want to do this? Do this.
#
They really gave us as much as they could.
#
for me, it became a big thing
#
of saying responsibility and
#
payback and I've got to achieve, etc.
#
You know, when people turn and say, you know,
#
there are a lot of constraints. I said, constraints
#
think that everything is bad.
#
they were the early creators.
#
No, and one very sort of
#
moving story is how when you were 30,
#
your father was 62, and he said
#
to you, my son, I'm retiring. Is it okay?
#
Do you need me to work? And
#
you told him, no, obviously, I don't.
#
And he's written some 11-12 books since then.
#
In fact, because that's what set him, you know,
#
this happened. So, first this thing was
#
kya mujhe kaam karna hai? And I said, nahi karna hai.
#
Because I was doing really well at that
#
point in time. Then he contacted me and
#
he says, beta, can you give me some
#
dad asking me for money. And you know, with my
#
family, I keep telling them that everything I have is yours.
#
You can tomorrow say you want it all. It's yours.
#
So, I said, dad, what are you asking
#
me? And I suddenly said, in my head,
#
dad's telling me he wants some money.
#
My brain is saying, okay,
#
he must be wanting 25 lakhs,
#
whatever, etc. That's how my mind
#
started. And then I said, okay, 25 lakhs
#
is not enough. It's 2 lakhs, etc.
#
So, I said, what do you want it for? So, he says, listen,
#
there's a mosque nearby, which
#
It's really old. It's owned by the Waqf
#
board, but it's come to ruin.
#
There is a man who has lost his job
#
because he used to do the Urdu calligraphy
#
before the evening news on
#
Doordarshan, Lucknow Doordarshan.
#
So, you know, they used to do
#
translations in Urdu, English, and whatever.
#
So, his job was to do the Urdu calligraphy.
#
He's lost his job because they're no longer promoting
#
calligraphy in this mosque is really
#
bad. I believe that if I employed
#
three months, he says, I can do this.
#
Now, again, you know, see Bombay,
#
okay, must be a couple lakhs, whatever.
#
I said, how much do you need? He says, 25,000.
#
And I said, you're asking me?
#
I said, again, I said, dad, it's your money.
#
And you believe you're me? Because he said, no,
#
you know, mama has put your money, I mean
#
our money in savings and FD, whatever,
#
for a second bat an eyelid. And you know what happened?
#
He gave that money to this
#
man who felt that he was, who used to get
#
5000 rupees a month, mind you, and therefore for him
#
this was five months of salary. And he
#
happily went and took paint
#
and did up this thing, and suddenly the
#
mosque started looking beautiful from
#
the calligraphy viewpoint.
#
The Waqf board people came and said,
#
look at us. We have not been able
#
to do anything. This one man has done this.
#
put electricity and fix the walls.
#
They did that. Somebody
#
came and said, oh, but now this needs a carpet.
#
And suddenly from a ruin
#
it became a running mosque.
#
And this for me was saying
#
effort sometimes to start
#
a revolution. But somebody
#
needs to start. And again
#
I think that's something which I take from him.
#
we go on vacations, and we
#
as in my mom, my dad, and me, no one else.
#
Because I'm like, no, this is my space.
#
one year they went to Iran, etc. on their own.
#
But every year we go on
#
this one vacation. And I tell to my dad
#
where do you want to go? And he will pick
#
Uzbekistan. Why? No, because
#
I want to trace where the Mughal family
#
actually came from. And we go
#
I've never even heard of. But it's
#
such a fascinating, and I become a child again
#
because I go there. I'm a parent to
#
my parents at that moment because I'm guiding them
#
and holding them and making sure they're safe and whatever.
#
And then when I see my dad
#
child to take a picture of something
#
more heartening. And we've done
#
Turkey and we've done Uzbekistan and
#
London where my mother everyday would go with him
#
and my mother diligently, her heart is
#
stuck in my dad in every way.
#
So he wants to go to the British
#
library. My mother's behind.
#
And she's finding the book and he's sitting there.
#
And then my dad will like a little, and like I'm telling you
#
like a child, do you think I can buy
#
this book? And I say you can buy them all.
#
And he's like, no, no, I just want this one.
#
So like his suitcases when they come back from
#
holidays have nothing, not a single cloth.
#
Not a single item of, he
#
buys miniatures because
#
the shelves at home were very small so he would
#
buy only miniatures in the early days.
#
But we've got such beautiful miniatures
#
from everywhere. A ballet dancer,
#
a little Russian doll, all of these. And
#
then there are books and books.
#
And now there are these encyclopedic
#
books because he'll find the Islamic calligraphy
#
from here and buy it. But
#
it's just such a joy to do these things.
#
And I'll let my listeners know that you should pick up
#
Confluence of Cultures by Saeed Anwar Abbas.
#
That's your dad. And it's got
#
by himself. This is just so
#
82 now, right? Exactly. To see someone do
#
this kind of work. And three trips to Gujarat
#
I want to show that the
#
monuments in Gujarat have
#
so much Confluence of Cultures. Why do people
#
want to share? And my father
#
makes these statements in his own way and I love that
#
because like, and he grew up in those early
#
days in Lucknow when there used to be
#
Shia-Sunni riots. So he
#
always, he was quite an atheist himself
#
and at one point said, okay,
#
I'm an agnostic. Let me be, let me
#
at least not argue. Because people used to tell
#
us not to argue because when you argue
#
But he would ask them questions like, so
#
what is God and where is God and all of these.
#
There was a little Javed Akhtar about it in that sense.
#
But I love that. Even today I love
#
that, you know. Yeah, it's damn inspiring.
#
Like Kavita Rao who was on my show was telling
#
me, her mother learned Sitar at 75 and
#
now plays it fluently. It was beautiful, yeah.
#
And it's like, you know, we young people, relatively
#
young, should have no excuses.
#
Thank you for that. That is such a good, big compliment
#
because young is nowadays this thing which I'm saying.
#
So what is young? I think in this
#
context I can say we young people.
#
To move on to my next question now, one of
#
the interesting things you said about
#
was that you like to get to the bottom of
#
everything. So obviously
#
if you don't have a TV, you don't watch football that much
#
and everyone is playing with their heads. But
#
otherwise get to the bottom of everything.
#
Now, this also strikes a chord
#
with me because whenever I learn
#
something new, I don't just
#
want to randomly imitate things which are happening.
#
I want to get meta. I want
#
to get to the heart of it. Basic core
#
principles kya hai? And
#
what was that journey like for you?
#
Because you've gotten into, for example, acting.
#
What makes a good actor? Is that
#
something you think about? What makes a good debater?
#
And at a time when there aren't
#
books or YouTube videos that deal with
#
just these subjects, I'm assuming,
#
you have to figure out a lot of it yourself.
#
You have to build your own base.
#
What was that process like where
#
one, you perform because you love performing, you're a natural
#
performer. But two, then you start thinking
#
about this stuff. And how does that
#
work? For example, how would your
#
conception of an actor have evolved
#
over the years where initially
#
what you see on the big screen
#
is just Bollywood style performative
#
stuff which is also what
#
theatre would be more projection
#
and performing, I'm guessing. No, it
#
wasn't. So this was what was the unique
#
thing because English theatre,
#
which Elton used to do, was
#
very, very British in its
#
seen some VHS tapes and his
#
house in the college used to have
#
I had access to, not many students had,
#
which had all his play scripts. And therefore
#
we would sit every afternoon with lunch
#
at his home and his mother used to make the best
#
in those days you could have beef tongue and all of these
#
make this and that and chicken and
#
whatever and we would go for the meal and stay of course
#
for the literature because it was fun. But
#
we would read plays. We would just
#
ten people sitting together and reading
#
manner that it needed to be done. So Elton was not
#
about overdoing it or whatever.
#
He was such a wonderful
#
hours and hours on him because he was
#
the person who would enter class and look at a
#
child who was misbehaving and say, out, out,
#
brief candle. And then we
#
would have this discussion on Shakespeare and Macbeth
#
sit for two hours and discuss why Duncan's blood
#
was golden. Except brief candle has missed it
#
because he's out of the class.
#
love again for knowledge, the joy
#
you know Lucknow in those days
#
there was this streak of
#
sameness and I often use this
#
line in many places where I say avoid the
#
sea of sameness because
#
conformity was so cool. It was so easy.
#
Sab ho hi kar rahe hain. Sab ko hi kar rahe hain.
#
Why are you? So I remember
#
when I used to go to the old Muslim colony of Chowk
#
where we had some relatives.
#
take jibes at me and my sister because we would
#
talk in English and Hindi and Urdu as
#
a mix. So they would turn and say, arre, and to shantoo aage.
#
Because you know we would turn and say, and this
#
and that and whatever. So
#
and to shantoo, and to shantoo. But my parents
#
would turn and say, listen, it's jealousy.
#
you're not fitting in and now you need to fit in.
#
And they were very protective of us.
#
So there would be these big families
#
which would descend on you on all summers.
#
My dad would be like, listen, itne din
#
theek hai, lekin after this I want to take my children
#
on a holiday. I mean the museums used to take us
#
to, or the movies. Sunday mornings
#
were for an English movie that we would see.
#
To hum pe Bollywood ka influence
#
the film that I remember watching
#
the three or four films was Sholay.
#
You know because obviously it was a classic
#
at that time. Satyabh Satyabh I just loved
#
the comedy. And then my dad would say, this is
#
actually Seven Brides and Seven Brothers. Have you seen
#
that? Let's, you know, so he would
#
build that entire thing behind it. Bridge on
#
the River Kwai. So, you know, hum yeh
#
dekh rahe the. Hum nahi dekh rahe the ussam.
#
Hum gaman dekh rahe the. Because my father
#
was so fond of these. Hum umrao jaan
#
dekh rahe the. Hum junoon dekh rahe the.
#
Like I remember I was in love in the Visali
#
when I met her. I was like, oh my god
#
what all can I tell you about it?
#
Because my dad took us to see Junoon.
#
it was set in Lucknow. Delhi
#
and Lucknow. I think Lucknow tha because
#
there was a bit of a mystery. And you would have been like
#
nine, ten at the time. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
#
You know, and going to Sholay because, you know,
#
we're watching that and you're being told
#
about what is it referencing from a western
#
point of view. I mean there's so many western
#
film influences in that, right? If you look at it
#
I can break it up into Sergi Leone part one
#
this, this here plus this, right?
#
And great script and great dialogue etc.
#
But it's all of that. So when you have
#
this kind of discussion
#
toh wo nahi tha. Stage acting with Elton
#
I, you know, got into Amir Hussain's
#
theatre group Stage Door. And that
#
was of course a completely different world.
#
But then Delhi was professional theatre.
#
So you couldn't now come and do, you know,
#
you were rehearsing for months on end etc.
#
And so theatre, many people think
#
acting is about, oh, it's a flair.
#
At the core it's discipline.
#
It's the discipline of turning up. It's the discipline
#
of rehearsal. It's the discipline of
#
knowing that you could have a two
#
line role. My director, I mean Amir
#
was the man who took me from, in my second
#
play I was his beloved boy, you
#
know. And I went out and, you know,
#
had a drink with a couple of my
#
friends and ended up at rehearsal a little high.
#
And for Amir who was this
#
seeing that this bunch of boys has come
#
and he of course blamed the senior boy the most
#
but he chucked us all out.
#
I was playing the lead, I think we were doing
#
ten little Indians as it
#
was called because the original name as you know
#
unparliamentary and you know whatever. So
#
we were doing that and I was going to play
#
And suddenly overnight I was
#
demoted to a, I don't even think
#
you know, Narakot has a
#
I don't, he just comes in
#
and says I bought the supplies I think.
#
That's it. So from the lead to this
#
and you know for two weeks I'm traveling
#
from Delhi University changing
#
two buses, traveling for two hours
#
to come for a rehearsal for four hours
#
where I have to say one line and then just stand.
#
testing that are you going to stick
#
think, that process, you know this quick fame issue
#
which again I have this one little
#
theory as you can see but it's like boss
#
karthe ro, karthe ro. I mean the other day
#
I turned and said because I guess there are
#
lots of people I come across in my industry who are
#
really loud and really talk about
#
what they've done and even if they've not done enough they will
#
talk about it all the time.
#
So that day I said I'll do it subtly
#
from the front. So I just turned and said
#
you know it's better to be a river because you know
#
you can be quiet but you will get the job done.
#
But do it, do it quietly.
#
blow it out of proportion which I see so
#
much of in our industry. Karha ek hai
#
I'm still a little careful about saying
#
I don't want to ruffle too many feathers at times
#
but one day when I will write
#
a little bit of a expose
#
of many things. But I really
#
want to put it out there saying man there's so
#
much shit that is shuffled everywhere
#
and people love it. And they
#
don't know the core behind it. I can't wait
#
for your memoir. Whenever it happens kindly
#
this is the first podcast you come on to.
#
question about learning. Like how does one
#
learn something. Sorry yeah I
#
completely missed that I'm sorry.
#
So I'll tell you one is
#
I'm a note taker like you.
#
Now I've started transcribing right so that
#
day when I was doing it because it's so much that I don't know what
#
to do and now there's technology available.
#
Par main tap se notes leta tha.
#
If I did a debate, I remember in the first debate
#
I said something and I was in class
#
so you had a senior speaker, a middle school speaker
#
and a junior speaker. So karna toh hai toh main chala gaya.
#
Now my dad had written my speech for three pages.
#
My dad had told me very quietly after the speech saying
#
talk about this topic. I said yaad toh kar liya.
#
And I went there and I remember
#
in the eye of the beholder. A typical school topic
#
right. And then the senior
#
student spoke and I decided I'm going
#
to rebut the senior school student you
#
know with my question saying you know
#
if you think beauty doesn't lie in the eyes of the beholder
#
what do you want? A beautiful pancreas
#
ridiculous for class four. Please excuse
#
me. And you know I could see a
#
couple of sniggers and whatever and I got off
#
and then somebody asked me some question and I didn't
#
have an answer. And I went that day and my dad
#
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
#
Toh ye sweeping statements mat mara karo.
#
it then discuss it to the core. And I think that stayed with
#
me. So I now started taking
#
Kyun hota hai, kya hota hai, process kya hoti hai.
#
So for me if you were doing
#
just want to know about what's the play
#
but I wanted to know is this the Italian tradition
#
of comedy or delata or is this this
#
that seeking would continue and this
#
would then create a process.
#
When I set up the event company
#
even for a couple of years
#
somewhere along the line it became a digital book
#
and it's somewhere there. But I had a black book
#
of mistakes that we used to make in every show
#
and that's why Encompass became known for its
#
culture and creativity because we would say
#
these are the mistakes we made, these are
#
ten more, this is the list
#
so the list would just keep continuing
#
and adding up. So I think
#
finding the process, so for example like
#
in acting, so stage acting
#
became to me about the discipline
#
of first learning your lines.
#
So like when I do theatre with
#
people sometimes and I try to tell them about
#
the process, like the first thing we were taught was
#
that don't emote a single
#
Now what happens is we would read the first line and immediately
#
add an expression to it and what happens is this
#
becomes, you know, memory,
#
it gets imprinted in your brain
#
and if you don't do that action and the director
#
changes that action, you will realize you'll falter at
#
that point. My simplest way of learning
#
I did Aladdin a couple of years ago and I played Jafar
#
and you know, it was just a whim that I
#
wanted to do a musical.
#
I couldn't remember my lines and I went back and I
#
said what was the first rule? The rule was
#
read the script, read it aloud, read it
#
to someone else. Now, write
#
the script, write every dialogue.
#
Where I used to stop is where you'd
#
forget and then I would write it and after three times
#
when you would cross that moment,
#
this was the best way of learning your lines. Then I
#
will never, if you put me on stage 20 years later
#
for an Aladdin show, I won't forget. I did
#
My Fair Lady. I remember everything. I can go
#
start now and go. Because
#
this was a process that you learned.
#
So I would break things down into these processes.
#
to do that. Now I do that with business sometimes. Or
#
I'm fascinated when Satyanshu
#
does his script writing and I attended
#
one of the brilliant classes I attended during
#
the pandemic and then Commune started
#
promoting that because I said this is
#
a great screenwriting course.
#
He knows his material, he's passionate about
#
it. The techniques he taught
#
I have noted them all down. Now, when I
#
write my film, I write it according to that.
#
I go to Satyanshu. Is this a good
#
idea? Can I take your time? I'm happy
#
to pay and he'll be like
#
we've got a great relationship going. He says no sir, you don't
#
need to do it. I said no, but it's something that you get
#
paid for. I'm willing to pay for
#
your knowledge. If you wanted to go to a
#
regard and respect someone's time and
#
if you can make a process out of it, then go ahead.
#
And again, let's see, I'm telling you
#
when I come up with this whole
#
where I keep talking about intimacy at scale
#
you are the person I put at the centre
#
of it and said how does this economy
#
get defied? And I promised you
#
when you attended the podcasting day
#
my heart says that's the day when you
#
said so many people are talking shit here.
#
I will do my own podcast.
#
It might have been the trigger saying boss,
#
what are they saying? Many people are sharing
#
knowledge here, but the truth is I have done
#
this, I have lived this experience for
#
four years. Let me tell you.
#
what happens. So I know
#
what you have built and then it's
#
come out of that. I want to know your process.
#
I want to document it and put it down somewhere
#
saying okay, so this is how this
#
circle of intimacy and this economy is built.
#
There's a friend of mine who's currently working
#
he said see what's happening is
#
the audience gets lost.
#
So everybody in the chat
#
is an AI machine learning kind of person.
#
He said the tool I am building is going to
#
analyse chats in any software
#
intelligently give the person
#
data. So imagine you're
#
conducting your cohort and you keep it really small
#
but imagine you were doing a concert of 500
#
you suddenly turned and said where are you all from?
#
will pick all the answers and tell you
#
of people are from South India. Now will that
#
So it's like a prompter in your
#
head. Now I am fascinated
#
by this thing, the process
#
invisible but visible. We call it
#
between us, I mean he said it I think first
#
thing, the economy of recognition.
#
Right? Can you recognise the person
#
and see what YouTube does?
#
need to be able to call that person out in your chat.
#
Right? Now could you do that if tomorrow you started
#
doing a 10,000 people course
#
one day and said one day only.
#
you're able to suddenly turn and say and all the people from
#
Mirzapur. And they're like
#
how does he know? But that process
#
that intelligence. So I keep
#
trying to put these little formulae
#
up every now and then. I experiment with them and I
#
see what happens. AI is mind blowing.
#
I mean in fact we're talking about the golden age of creators
#
which I believe is upon us. But who
#
knows 20 years later there may be no golden age
#
of creators because AI is creating everything.
#
So here's my next question
#
before we get back to your
#
time in Delhi. One sort
#
of question that struck me when you spoke about
#
discipline. Now many years back I'd come across this
#
interview which I cite sometimes because I think
#
this particular insight really
#
hit me hard at that point where a
#
great sportsman was asked about talent.
#
And he said that you know what talent
#
is. Like people will think
#
sporting talent, hand eye coordination,
#
body ACF, fast twitch muscles
#
whatever. All of those things. He said you know what
#
talent is. Talent is you've been getting up
#
every day in the morning at 6 to go running
#
and one day you get up at 6
#
and your whole body is tired and it's raining
#
outside and you're like shit aaj Sunday hai aaj
#
get up and you still go and run in the rain
#
and that's talent. And that really struck me
#
because just now you said ki creativity
#
is not ki aarey andar feelings hai
#
but it's discipline. It's you know
#
getting your ass on that chair and
#
just work work work. Like you pointed out
#
the way you learned the lines of Aladdin that
#
you know you read it, you write it, you put
#
in all of that hard work. And
#
it's kind of sad that many talented people
#
I know like when I look back in the 90s
#
when I started my working life
#
and I think of people I thought were talented then
#
and so many of them haven't done anything. And people
#
I thought weren't talented then. But
#
they just worked hard because it's constant
#
iteration. Baitho karo karo karo.
#
I tell all my participants of my
#
writing course that you have to exercise your
#
writing muscle. If you join a gym
#
muscles by gaining an intellectual
#
understanding ki muscle aise hoti hai.
#
Aapko roh jaake workout karna
#
hai. You know there's that
#
cliched one but you know kabhi baar kya hota hai
#
ki these work well in some places. But who
#
kaita nahi ki a diamond is a piece of coal that's stuck
#
aap yeh hai. Par main isko isliy
#
logon ko bol deta hoon kabhi ka baar ki ki samaj ba
#
jaata hai unki. Point is just that you know
#
this friend of mine wanted many years ago
#
when he was starting Commune he wanted to do a comedy
#
show and he was going through this whole thing. Chalega
#
I wanted to do comedy with it or whatever. I
#
said you know what you do just announce the date.
#
I said announce the date. Satyanshu
#
says the same thing. He said jab mujhe kuch naya karna hota hai
#
main twitter pe jaake uski date announce kar
#
deta hoon. Aap karna hi hai.
#
You know and how we did when we
#
did spoken I mean sorry we like keep jumping all over the
#
place but you know spoken fest when it happened it was I announced
#
Ab announce kar diya boss 17th october ko
#
hona hai. How do we do it?
#
We've got no sponsor. I said ho jayega yaar.
#
When you put that pin in the ground or whatever
#
jhanda gaar diya hai toh phir tujhe build
#
karna hi hai toh karo. And these
#
are simple hacks for creators you know
#
because as I said creators hide behind
#
so many walls of layers
#
this whole thing of people keeping you away from
#
the truth right nobody guiding
#
you. All the points you said in that
#
evening those five you know things that you said
#
have made a business out of distancing you from
#
anecdote. We used to work with Ronnie
#
Shruvala and Zarina when they were running
#
Bindas and Hungama as channels.
#
And for Hungama which was meant to
#
be a kids channel we came up with this idea
#
called Captain's Hunt. And Zarina was
#
very astute so she just said listen
#
every child in school wants to be
#
a captain. Only one person becomes
#
a school captain. For the channel we
#
will have ten school ten captains
#
of the channel who will decide
#
the programming. I said brilliant idea boss.
#
Great campaign great marketing campaign
#
for me has encompassed great on ground
#
Purnendu was if I remember
#
Purnendu boss was the CEO of
#
Hungama and he turned to say you must
#
do print. I said koi bacha
#
print se nahi aata. He said no
#
no you know kids and whatever. I said
#
see no kid reads a newspaper
#
people to read in some senses
#
She said no no but you know and somebody came and
#
obviously sold him a media plan which had so many
#
hoardings and so much this and whatever. I said I'll tell you what
#
hoarding and the newspaper
#
And let's see how many entries
#
the PO box gets. I am telling you
#
because I will go to school and I will enter a
#
classroom and I will tell a hundred kids to fill a form
#
and all hundred will fill the form
#
I will get you thirty thousand
#
and this media plan will get you
#
so there are how many entries. I said I'll
#
tell you you will get less than ten.
#
what bullshit. You know and if there was a smart
#
media planner he would have told fifty families
#
to fill them and send them so that I would
#
get beaten. There was one entry
#
He told me later he said Roshan that one entry is my child.
#
So you know you have to
#
people don't understand
#
half the time this happens
#
that you are sold so many of these
#
You have to break through. You have to go and take the challenges
#
and not like this, do like this.
#
And I think that's somewhere where you just
#
keep experimenting and pushing that barrier
#
that boundary a little further.
#
No and you know again continuing
#
on that tangent what I find in media
#
today is a lot of people
#
it's a brave new world but they'll get settled
#
in a way of doing things and they'll tick boxes
#
ki iska Instagram presence hona chahiye
#
Facebook pe ye campaign karenge
#
ye karenge, wo karenge.
#
You know Ambhi Parmeswaran was on the show many
#
a phrase spray and pray for
#
digital marketing. And I find ki
#
he said that thing about you know
#
fifty percent advertising works you don't know
#
which half. Sean Bannemaker. These are
#
the most classics that you know.
#
this thing of what do I love
#
about Varun for example. Varun I work
#
so closely with him I mean I mentored the team
#
in some way but I mean he is
#
constantly trying new things. He tried one
#
podcast and it didn't work, tried another, did something.
#
And I know where he's building it towards or whatever
#
etc you know or a whole bunch
#
of people that I work with this is what I love that
#
they are constantly innovating
#
they are scared of that sea of
#
sameness. Of course occasionally all of us get that
#
imposter syndrome of you know
#
do I know enough, am I really the right person or whatever.
#
Par wo phasers sabko hoti.
#
I think creators tend to
#
what they can do in terms of their
#
work and overestimate how much it
#
will get them in the short term. So I think
#
you just have to throw things at the wall like Varun
#
is doing. Sameer Bangara
#
I mean god rest his soul. I mean he was
#
running QQ and doing a wonderful job and I remember
#
where he turned and said that you know
#
and in those days he was
#
talking about being a creator
#
in the early days and I think this is about 6
#
years ago. And he said that
#
And again see this is something that just stuck
#
with me. Saying that bilko sahi baat hai.
#
You know I have not so far
#
killed the podcast game
#
because I did a season of one thing and I
#
said do I really want to ask
#
more questions in this line. You know so what do we
#
do now for me was how do I solve the pandemic?
#
How do I solve the pandemic? For
#
creators, for doctors, for so and so.
#
After 8 topics se say yaar yeh thoda
#
ab answers same a rahe hain sabke.
#
Toh yaat ho either I find
#
a new twist to it or whatever. So I said no nahi karna.
#
Or like you know when we did this whole
#
thing about good night stories for adults
#
what were we saying? So
#
my team said you have a great dramatic
#
voice. I modulate really well. You've done
#
it so long. People used to love that about you
#
on radio at one point. Let's try
#
The other day I got a bunch of people when I was doing a Q&A
#
on Instagram. I said where is the next story? I said okay
#
and then I asked a whole bunch of stories. What
#
stories work? And these are a little
#
I mean to use your word
#
meta stories. When I said
#
dekho isme wo dramatic aakh nahi hain jo honi chahi
#
ghani ki. Chalo yaar try kartein.
#
Chalo try kartein. So we did it.
#
But I am now veering towards something
#
on the creator economy as a podcast. I said
#
yaar yeh mera domain hai. Mujhe bahot
#
keela hai ispe. I can connect
#
to anybody in the world. Thankfully that network
#
today is, I can call somebody in the US, I can call somebody
#
in Egypt, in Arabia, here
#
kahan hai kahin pe. And dost bhi hain.
#
So maybe this is the space.
#
Maybe this is where, this is the one which I can
#
crack. But jab tak crack
#
nahi kar rahe hain wo try kartein ro
#
I can't give up on this
#
now. I want to do it. I'm like okay
#
you can, thankfully it allows you the thing of pause
#
start again, do something new.
#
Should it be an interview? Should it be two people?
#
Hindi mein ho, Angrezi mein ho. Sometimes
#
you get caught in this problem of also
#
saying that because of this language thing
#
sometimes I get a little, you know, divided
#
on, oh Hindi is the easier
#
one to do because it has a larger reach.
#
And Hindi mein itni nahi hain.
#
Abhi. Par dekhte hain. I don't know.
#
So here's a question. On the one
#
hand, the advice is so many things of the world.
#
On the other hand, it's also
#
useful to not pay too much attention to metrics
#
to just keep trying to do something
#
till you become really good at it.
#
Now for a person like you and very specific
#
a sea of things that you can do.
#
How do you decide ki kya karna hai
#
kya nahi karna hai because money is no longer
#
an issue. So how do you now decide
#
ki ye karna hai, ye karna hai, ye karna hai
#
baaki sab nahi karna hai because
#
in your 20s you're possibly in a phase
#
where like you said you're saying yes more than no
#
and the world is opening up. Today I'm
#
guessing you have to say no more than yes.
#
No, you know, so I'll tell you what I do.
#
divide things into saying are these
#
things that I need to do as an individual
#
or do I need to do them
#
as a collective or as an entrepreneur.
#
Those that I need to do as an entrepreneur
#
very often I see it as businesses.
#
I'm a venture capitalist in a small way.
#
I'm an angel investor. I invest in
#
tons of things and frankly
#
I've now got a person who's just there to
#
take care of what all investments
#
we have because sometimes ish mat humara bhi kuch paise lagaye.
#
Par mein, because main usko paise ki usse
#
interest nahi karte hain. I keep saying
#
a dream through someone else. It's my job
#
now to say how can I help you.
#
Right? I put aside a little bit of time.
#
I also don't bullshit them. I say I can
#
help you tell your story better. I can help you
#
connect you to good people in media. I can get you a
#
X number of things. These are the things I can do for you well.
#
Product kya hona chahiye? Maybe I can
#
help you a little bit in terms of the look and feel.
#
But beyond that don't come to me with AI share
#
kya hai mujhe nahi pata. Toh don't come to me with all
#
of that or whatever. Sale cycle kya hoti? Mujhe
#
nahi pata. So I'll tell you what to do there.
#
The things that I am very
#
passionate about and I want to be more
#
involved with are my ventures.
#
So there is you know Kala
#
Kaksha which is a very small Hindi
#
no not Hindi only I would say
#
Indic language focused creator
#
are promoting only spoken word artists etc. but we're
#
trying to do it focused more
#
on the Indic languages because I believe regional will be
#
a big push. Who will get there? Who knows?
#
Commune right? Because again
#
I think it's coming life coming full circle.
#
I mean I got on stage and that stage gave me
#
life. Can I give that stage to everybody else for their
#
life? I think that is somewhere the
#
hypothesis that is deep inside me on
#
that. Now there are two
#
personal goals right? I believe
#
in me and there are a couple of scripts in me.
#
found I believe in Sathya
#
Anshu and one or two other
#
people that I know. Good sounding
#
I now want to like a good student
#
and not make an earlier
#
someone rather than servicing
#
Which is a mistake that I have made and I made it
#
at events earlier and I said there I made it saying
#
it's your show do what you want. But
#
when I did it with a film
#
I just realized a little too
#
late that the name of the title is yours.
#
Right? I mean that's it. You have
#
to acknowledge it and own it and say
#
yeh mera kaam hai. Hundred percent mera kaam hai.
#
Main subtitle nahi daal sakta hu ki
#
Amit ne kaha tha ki yeh scene bahut chali daal do.
#
Quentin Tarantino said when I go to set
#
I have to be your worship at the altar of
#
Quentin Tarantino. I used to think it's such a selfish
#
statement. What a egoistic statement.
#
But the truth is that on set
#
and I realized this in an Indian film set
#
and any film set. Everybody
#
there from the gaffer to
#
the make up person to the cinematographer
#
actually wants to make a film.
#
You're the one person given the opportunity
#
to make it. God forbid you
#
suddenly open it up for democratization.
#
But I really thought that
#
filmmaking is kya kar sakte.
#
Everybody would have an opinion.
#
Ulta tang do yeh kar do yeh laga do yeh laga do.
#
Yeh kya ho raha hai? You'd be given a flood of ideas.
#
And that's when you've actually got to turn and say
#
no. I've heard everyone this is how
#
it needs to be done. But
#
don't end up servicing someone
#
else's creativity when it's a
#
individual project. And
#
because I also at some level have this whole
#
try and be selfless about something
#
then this conflict happens that should I
#
can I be selfish about this?
#
Can I really do this? So one
#
thing of course is that I definitely want to put
#
some piece of content out there because
#
like when I put the book
#
out there and it did decently in terms of speech
#
it's not a huge thing but
#
I know public speaking. I know
#
how to get an audience on stage and I was
#
sick of hearing you know people
#
who went on stage and said this show is magnanimous.
#
I'm like what are you saying buddy
#
that's not you know and a client saying this
#
and whatever now become usage. So
#
it's a tragedy that many of them believe they are
#
there for their looks rather than
#
what on the day when the makeup man is not there
#
what on the day when the dress doesn't look so good
#
what on the day when you put 20 kilos
#
on and whatever. Is your mind
#
you know being able to say
#
enough. So I was solving something
#
so I did the book and it was a personal project
#
and I believe that okay it's something
#
that is going to be there
#
hopefully for digital posterity
#
and I think at some point
#
in life as a creator you
#
yearn to create something that everyone
#
Digital ether mein itna ban raha hai
#
Amit ki kaunsi ek podcast
#
like I would love to know which is that one episode
#
that you say you know everything else will
#
die but this will remain
#
for that one piece that can have
#
Roshan Abbas on it and live for posterity
#
you know we went to Mars and people
#
would still turn and say that you know this was a great thing
#
that he did and I guess legacy
#
and these are these are other issues
#
that always come with maybe
#
with age and with time. I was
#
appalled and my son said the other day that I'm
#
not here for a long time I'm here for a good time
#
and I heard it and I said
#
he's a 19 year old kid and
#
I followed it up and I said why do you say that
#
he said I'm so disappointed with your generation
#
he said look at the world that we're living
#
in right will we survive more than 20 years
#
what I mean you want me to think of
#
when I maybe just I mean I've
#
got a couple of years and whatever and you know what happened
#
one of my friends said all of us
#
said this do you remember you also said this at the time I said
#
maybe maybe I don't remember now but
#
for him it's the shot for me
#
right now it's the you know the long
#
it's the scene in the unseen
#
no so I'll quickly address
#
one hypothetical question that you brought up
#
what episode will I remember
#
I think you know I actually don't have any
#
favourites there are many
#
I don't have any favourite kids
#
there are some that I remember fondly
#
but those are probably 30 40 episodes a lot
#
and the reason for that is that
#
I just put myself in every episode
#
and then once it's done I don't look back
#
I just keep kind of moving forward which
#
brings me to my next question that one of
#
that I give young creators
#
and that I have tried to make my credo
#
is be authentic to yourself
#
okay because what's the gap in the market
#
what the audience wants is okay
#
but out of the 7 billion people on this planet
#
the only thing you have which no one else does
#
and this is also what you've pointed out
#
that if I make a film now then I will worship
#
at the altar of Roshan Abbas that's what you're
#
going to do now how has
#
that sort of evolved because initially when
#
you start you are doing a lot of gigs
#
you are doing assignments here
#
you are being a host at this event
#
is you're playing a role you're playing the role
#
that you're expected to play first
#
of all when we talk about authentic to myself
#
that obviously just a definition of that
#
must be changing with time like
#
who are you like when you're young what is your dream
#
what is the ultimate thing to earn money
#
you can do this you can do that
#
what is the ultimate thing that who am I how
#
has that evolved and what are the
#
things therefore that in your career you
#
I came to Delhi and you know my breakthrough
#
again it's one of the things that I often talk about
#
and saying that I was this mass comm student
#
who came out and my graphics teacher
#
Mr. Rajiv Lochan turned to me
#
turned to the entire class at the last day
#
and he said he had his card
#
and he gave us the card he says I used to laugh a lot
#
when we used to talk he said
#
tomorrow you will go and make such a card
#
and pass out from MCRC and say so and so
#
film director no one will believe
#
you'll have to prove yourself
#
and I said you know he's right
#
because we believe in the two years
#
that we are here that Shahrukh Khan came out here
#
Kabir Khan is my senior so and so is this so and so is that
#
we are Gods of our medium
#
but when you go out a person says
#
you are a human being come to earth
#
you have now got to pay your dues
#
we were told again at film school
#
saying that two years do all the mistakes you can
#
because you are doing it on our dime
#
when you do it on someone else's
#
dime and their time boss it will
#
and it hit me for six months in terms of saying
#
I just wasn't getting the right job
#
and I came out of mass comm and I married
#
a classmate of mine you know so suddenly
#
there was this thing of I have to earn that
#
ten thousand rupees and my parents were like saying listen you can
#
love someone don't need to marry right now
#
but you know love and youth and everything else in between
#
and I said no no I have to do it
#
now with that I suddenly had this number
#
in my head and the means to reach it
#
so Usha Albuquerque signed me for a
#
television show for Zee called Hum Hogue Kamiyaan
#
paying me two and a half thousand rupees
#
a episode four episodes
#
a month ten thousand is done
#
but the first day when I went on set
#
and I still remember his first line
#
to get a role in established art
#
if you, now look at that right
#
Usha was being true to the fact that this show is
#
for Zee it's meant to be in Hindi
#
so she took a Doordarshan writer and said
#
script lik do, usde lik di
#
after doing those lines I kept
#
hesitating faltering because I
#
was having to learn them
#
and then I stopped and said guys this is not me
#
ne ne beta kallo beta kallo beta kallo maine chaar episode kari
#
at the fourth episode I ran off to Lucknow
#
and I was again I said you know non-confrontation
#
so bhaage kya se, bhaage
#
went there and I called and I said
#
this is not me, she says you know what you're doing
#
you're destroying your career
#
I said but this is not me
#
and it tells me every time I go on set
#
you make me dress up in those fancy clothes and stand
#
in these places and talk about you know
#
giving people a way to be kamiyaab
#
main khud to na kamiyaab hota jaar hoon na
#
so main kaise kar sakta hoon
#
and I just walked out and everybody said how can
#
this was your 10,000 goal
#
but it was not my authentic goal
#
so I gave it up, now what am I doing
#
I go to Aamir Azhar sir my theatre director
#
I worked with him for two months, theatre
#
discipline at the end of two months
#
you're given an envelope, you don't know
#
is it 500 rupees or what
#
and I ended up with a 1000 rupees and I said
#
but this man is aware that I need 10,000 rupees
#
I've said it so many times to him in so many ways
#
I still took it saying no
#
theatre will make me big, the third
#
month I got a gig to host in Lucknow which was
#
a fashion show, 5000 rupees for one night
#
committed to theatre and I said no I'm not committed to theatre
#
I don't want to do this
#
so whatever etc, his audience is small
#
turning your back on the medium that made you I said maybe
#
and unfortunately Aamir and I went our own ways
#
after that and tried once or twice to get together
#
but it just became too much of a fault line
#
went to Lucknow did the show came back
#
thing and again I said this I do
#
but there were not so many live events
#
so I came back after that little bunny
#
I said now what do I do
#
switched on the radio one evening
#
50 rupees in my pocket left you know very
#
scared of what am I going to do will I ask my parents
#
the minute I heard it and the song got over
#
and I now forget because he played
#
a villain in one Hindi film and you know he
#
was a theatre actor from Bombay therefore he had that
#
clipped accent and everything and he did this whole
#
thing of the next piece that you're going to hear is about
#
so and so and you know you could
#
descending tone and it just
#
yaar itni achchi music bajar rahe ho
#
usse pehle jo banda bajar rahe ho
#
All India Radio ka wo hai aur
#
agar itna kussa aaya to karo
#
let the pressure cooker
#
let off steam and the steam was
#
I have to go and change this and the next
#
morning I took my ESD bike went to All India Radio
#
now I had to do all the jhol I learnt
#
and theatre you know from painting the set
#
to driving the person to get
#
permission sab kuch humne kiya tha
#
toh yeh sari cheeze jo kari thi
#
unki wajhe se mere ko learning thi
#
so I got into All India Radio and I
#
again I say this so many times saying
#
most of these big places
#
have got these fancy doors which keep you out
#
because they're so imposing right I mean castles
#
etc I've got and All India Radio and
#
Doordarshan if you ever go has got the same thing right
#
massive doors but sometimes
#
the key to that door is with the most
#
smallest person which was the gate guy
#
and I observed him for 10 minutes
#
while he told everyone kahan se aayon
#
kya lege aayon kise milna hai
#
kept checking like lineye laggi hoti thi All India Radio
#
mein jaane ke liye because this was the medium
#
right gatekeepers to these mediums
#
of broadcast I watched him
#
for 10 minutes hai kabhi toh break lega
#
aur main uski baate saari sun raha tha sides
#
main chai ki tapri pe gaya
#
and as he came there se bhaiya do chai dina
#
and I turned to him I said aap lege
#
toh Hindustan mein chai ko koi refuse nahi karta
#
agar coffee pinawala aaj ho toh baat dosri hai
#
par chai coffee main I tell people
#
kamse kam 10 minute toh samane mali ko aap baat karne hain
#
so the minute I gave him it's a peace offering
#
it's a conversation starter
#
and usko chai di kahan se aayon
#
now he started I said bhaiya main
#
original Lucknow se hoon Delhi me padh raha hoon Mass Communication
#
yahan par amare jo FM me hai wo bhi wahi se hain
#
kya padhatne hai because I had already passed out
#
he said haan unan abhi wahan par padh raha hai whatever
#
bachche aate hain unke yahan pe
#
tum kyu aaye ho may be FM walo ko jaana chata ho
#
and this is somebody said
#
this about Anand Mahindra saying that if you want to get
#
why not get to know the lift man of the building
#
and say what time does he come every morning
#
rather than try to seek an appointment with his secretary
#
karo to sahi jugad karo
#
and I went in and I told this guy there saying
#
I want to do a radio show
#
and he laughed at me saying you are coming into
#
All India Radio and saying I love FM your jockeys suck
#
but I can do a better show
#
and he said really I have been
#
and I think he must be laughing at my audacity of saying that
#
and he called Linda Mukherjee who was the assistant station
#
Linda look at what this young boy is saying
#
dono khade hua hai main unko
#
ab mai I have got the door in
#
I love Indian music and my dad did this and I love
#
ghazals and I love that and whatever so I was giving them
#
I can do all of these things I was opening up my box of
#
wares I said what do we have a slot
#
they said ya Sunday we have a slot 10 to 11
#
I said mera show ka naam hoga 10 se 11
#
he said stop joking 10 se 11 that's the time
#
I said no no no and now I am thinking on the fly
#
saying 10 gaane honge aaj ke
#
it will be like a countdown
#
ek gaana hoga purana to show you what is timeless
#
and I will string this with
#
interviews kaun se lao ge interviews
#
this was Friday and he said
#
he must have just thought Thursday
#
and Sunday is the slot so I have got Friday
#
Saturday to prepare he says okay
#
let's try him out now you have
#
given me the opportunity and see again
#
this is my medium talking to people
#
getting them comfortable getting them to
#
every paan shop because
#
that was where the conversations on music
#
used to happen I said bhaiya log kya kharid rahe hain
#
kaun se gaana chal raha hai
#
when I did television per public demand it's nothing
#
more than what I did on this first radio show
#
so I know now as a creator
#
I am great with conversation
#
I have come up with a format
#
I went in I did that first radio show
#
when it got over there was a man
#
standing outside saying aapko station head ne bula hai
#
mein gaya lag gayi yaar chalo par kar tu liya
#
Mr. Khanna I remember was the station head
#
and he called me and he says and you know
#
these are moments you remember
#
he says you've got a gift
#
he says tum kisi se connect kar sakte ho
#
radhi wala ho yaar raees ho
#
this was his line and you know that he could be
#
a rich man or a guy who is selling radhi
#
and he alliterated in Hindi can you imagine in Hindi
#
that was the way people used to talk
#
aap radio pe chahiye aaj bhi log aise aap se baat karenge
#
and he turned to me and he said
#
yeh mat bholna and then jaate jaate
#
he gave me that thing of saying yeh maine
#
Amin Saini mein dekhi thi
#
usse bada kya kaab toh I said boss
#
now I'm authentic I believe I can
#
do this and now I follow this journey
#
on my door and says Rohit Khanna
#
was one batch senior to you in
#
is now at TV 18 he has sent me and said
#
agar inko leke nahi aage toh mai naukhri chadi aegi
#
he said wo ek TV show bana rahe hain called Public Demand
#
Mahima Chaudhary Ritu Chaudhary
#
Mohan Kapoor as the main anchor
#
comfortable in his own skin that after
#
two episodes he said these kids are better than I am
#
just see I am sitting in a studio they are on the road
#
they are talking to people they are mad
#
and you know we had that whole exuberance of
#
youth ke kuchh bhi kar sakte hain riksha bad jao chalo riksha chalaalo
#
chalaalo you know tower pe chal jao
#
chal jao I used to do the craziest things in that
#
converting conversations with people
#
that you say as anchor lines and I said okay
#
this became what I was doing and this then
#
translates into translating what people do
#
on stage and conferences and being the good host
#
who can quickly sum up and put
#
this out so I have understood
#
these are my strengths for a period
#
of time the same strength
#
of translating someone's thought into
#
something small and pitching it back to them became
#
the way I would pitch events
#
right so somewhere till
#
now everything is the same
#
say that as a creator I just
#
kept looking for larger audiences wo Ravind Rally
#
ki audience radio ki ban gayi radio ki tv
#
ki ban gayi tv ki event ki ban gayi
#
event ki film or digital ki ban gayi
#
pata nahi ab kya banegi
#
you're searching for a larger audience
#
in the classic form of saying boss
#
for a large audience go for
#
the lowest common denominator not the highest
#
common factor which I think is a fallacy
#
age you believe that right
#
and you often believe kya ha chalo yaar it to quick
#
tariqa hai countdown show karlo game show
#
karlo game but being the
#
fifth member of a nuclear
#
family it became my role on Indian
#
television and whenever I
#
fulfilled that role I was successful whenever
#
I tried to be something else I wasn't
#
I did one show as an actor in
#
Delhi early because I was big on radio and this
#
Delhi producer wanted me you know
#
Khalid Sultan and he used to think
#
he's Anthony Quinn and everybody should
#
like that beta maine tumme kuch dekh liya hai
#
maine nahi dekha na aapne dekh liya hai
#
after one episode I said yaar yeh nahi hota
#
you know theatre acting and screen acting
#
ke beech mein ek gap hai
#
jab aap kate ho cut aur phir se karte ho kate ho
#
theatre actor ko lagta hai
#
main toh kar liya I've done it once now I should
#
do a variation you'll see
#
and you go with a theatre actor on a film set
#
it takes them a little bit of time to say
#
oh they want the same thing again
#
because you're saying it's performance number two
#
let me do it differently let me emphasize
#
and the guy is tearing his head out saying I can't edit this shit
#
because that is the way
#
quickly said I will not act
#
and you know so many times you will turn and say you know if
#
you had acted I said no no it was not
#
my strong suit it wasn't what
#
I would have done really well toh kyun
#
karun toh main hat gaya main college
#
main gata bahut tha main contest
#
main you I mean little piece
#
of thing KK used to come first
#
the singer KK right who did Tadap Tadap
#
and all this time Yashwant Singh
#
used to come second and I used to come third
#
first toh aana nahi hai toh kyun kar raha hu
#
Sonu Nigam toh ban nahi sakte
#
you know so it kept sifting out
#
what you're good at what you're
#
great at what makes you really excited
#
and you know somewhere having
#
reached this little successful
#
craving started that I want to teach
#
I want to teach what I know
#
and in summer I started doing these theatre
#
these workshops for kids from school
#
because I would be called to speak
#
to students and I would again feel this
#
need for them to do things but nobody
#
created the Roshan Abbas summer
#
academy or something I don't know what it was called also now
#
but it was sold on my name I remember
#
and we would do a couple of ads on radio and something and I
#
had a huge following on radio
#
so all these kids would turn up
#
we had to charge them and in those
#
days you know we charged the five thousand bucks
#
for a month but it was a month every day
#
sab aate the and I would have forty
#
kids odd so it was decent
#
money two lakhs for you know that
#
remember having kids who
#
couldn't afford it I remember some kids
#
you know and feeling really bad because once
#
I remember that I somebody else took a class because
#
I couldn't and this lady came to me and said that
#
and I was like what do you mean
#
and she said I'm a single mother and then her daughter was
#
crying because she was so embarrassed the mother saying
#
this she said I'm a single mother and I'm doing
#
this for my child and I just felt
#
zameen phat jaye you know because she said you know
#
she comes for you and when you don't do the class
#
you're cheating her and you're cheating
#
and I was like but you know I actually wanted this to be a
#
multi and I suddenly said no yaar
#
isme koi khot nahi karna hai
#
and I just felt so guilty about
#
that entire thing that I think I extended the
#
sessions or something or whatever
#
I could I used to get too broken up in doing
#
one television show something else all this was going on
#
teaching like I would love to teach
#
and I would teach public speaking
#
one day radio one day theatre one day
#
until one day these kids all came to me
#
and said you've taught us everything except for writing and I said
#
and I know and I'm like okay now see you're playing god
#
to these little bunch of things how does god
#
say it mere paas hi ho to aata nahi hai
#
I said kuch koshish karta mujhe pata nahi hai
#
but let's do something I put together some notes
#
and came back and theatre main
#
conventions hoten hai and told them to write
#
a script the kids came back
#
after a week and they had written
#
about Tom and Jack and Jill and whatever
#
and I took all of it and promptly tore it up in front of them
#
and I said likhna hai to apne baare
#
me likho apne experience ke baare me likho it's what you
#
said that you know you're this there's one
#
unique self which is you
#
and what they wrote became
#
inspiration for me to write
#
my first musical which was called Graffiti
#
and Graffiti was about passing out
#
from modern bara khamba in Delhi because I had seen
#
that school and I had seen these young kids and I
#
and the children had written such wonderful things
#
and who was in that workshop
#
Sameer Kochhar, Cyrus Sahukar
#
Gaurav Kapoor who had just become a jockey
#
so he would occasionally drop in
#
Priyanka Bose so people who are today
#
actors, performers, Neha Dhupia
#
all of these people this was a Delhi
#
Sudhe Sachdev my god I can just
#
keep rattling off names and all these
#
came together and now I had to create
#
a musical and now this creating
#
something which is your own
#
became my burning desire I mean for
#
everything I used to earn I would put in this
#
I came to Bombay I got Shyamak Dawa
#
to do the choreography Shyamak was like are you mad I've never
#
gone to Delhi baba I'm never going to come
#
Shyamak you gotta do this what will you charge
#
you know and Glen who was
#
manager turned and said listen Roshan he is dying
#
to do it or whatever just push him a little bit more and
#
all this happened and we figured out some
#
cost and he started flying in
#
Meridian sponsored it so he could stay at the hotel
#
I would pay for the air tickets
#
and stuff and they would land up
#
I had a friend who used to be one of the
#
Val Shipley passed away also I think
#
during the pandemic last year and
#
sit at my house and I would
#
auto narrate the entire thing I would say this happened
#
this happened this happened and the song starts and I would
#
because I could sing and Val and I would do
#
he would do the dooba dooba bit and
#
whatever which was his song and then I would turn and say okay do my song
#
and then we would go and perform it
#
for the kids at the workshop and they would hear it and say
#
and I would listen to them because it was about them
#
and we cobbled together a play with this
#
back and forth back and forth over
#
eight months I think it was the longest rehearsed play
#
because it was in development
#
and then we did a show and it was
#
Kamani auditorium where I had learnt
#
my craft where I had worked under Amir
#
where I had played every role
#
and hung in every rafter and every
#
you know side aisle and things
#
and that for me so now that for me was
#
this is something which has your name
#
Shweta Tripathi the actress
#
and I met her on the first day and she said oh my god
#
I loved graffiti you know and I'm like saying
#
ye mujhe aap bol rahiye
#
first marriage moved out of that
#
met Shaheen came to Bombay
#
when I came to Bombay I came
#
to Bombay because entertainment television
#
was here now entertainment
#
television family fortunes
#
public demand you know shopping
#
hangama these are the shows I was doing I was doing three
#
TV shows going from one shoot to the other shoot
#
when I was making money
#
and everything I was doing was
#
it was honestly if you ask me
#
I have very few memories of this time
#
because I was just going through a routine
#
it was a successful routine
#
it made me a lot of money
#
but I kept getting called
#
back every now and then by
#
someone or the other to say to this whole thing of
#
who you are so I remember
#
I used to do family fortunes where because of a
#
camera position I used to have to
#
contestant and pull them into
#
a position because they couldn't move there was only
#
in those days there was fixed camera it didn't
#
have a dolly or anything or whatever so you had to
#
keep the person here and if they change
#
we have to re-shoot and because it's a game
#
show you can't re-shoot so I used to hold
#
them with an iron grip and one day
#
I was walking through Vasanth Vihar market and this lady turned and said
#
beta I love your show etc I said
#
ma'am thank you she said can I say something
#
she said yes she says you know
#
don't hold girls with your hand you know
#
explanation and I said look for
#
holding a person you know and
#
for a Lucknow it's hardly the whole Lucknow
#
conservatism this is a girl's place
#
your place all these things came to me
#
I told the guys look brief them seven
#
times but I'm not going to do this anymore
#
so sometimes these small little
#
things because you say yes they do
#
consider me another part of their family
#
in those days Amit what
#
had happened was that with every year of television I used to
#
put on a kilo so I keep saying
#
that I could track my television
#
journey with the 16 kilos that I put on
#
every year right ting ting one
#
from starting and whatever happy and this
#
thing but it didn't matter
#
television was more about
#
the feeling you gave people
#
Kapoor was this mad cap
#
anchor who knew everything about Hindi music
#
and who could keep singing for three and a half hours
#
mad wit who would just be able to say I mean
#
anything at all everyone in television
#
was known so much for the way
#
they looked there was one or two they would have one or two
#
anchors who would have that thing but we
#
were there for what we said and the way we spoke
#
people and I said look make people
#
comfortable this is your place
#
right and I continued with that
#
so as a creator I was continuing down this path
#
got involved in Encompass
#
Encompass in 2008 and again this
#
sold a company don't know what to do
#
with the money honestly like I was like okay I have two loans
#
to pay one is a house one is my something else
#
now when you have made that
#
money I sometimes talk about saying
#
escape velocity saying creative ideas need
#
escape velocity where they are not weighed down
#
there was no material need now I
#
can follow my mad cap dream mad cap
#
dream kya hai graffiti ko film marana hai
#
and low and behold I start anchoring shows
#
with Shah Rukh and I'm travelling across the world
#
and I'm enjoying I'm seeing this
#
that there I can write books on that time
#
he knew what to do with an audience
#
he knew in a conversation
#
he was the most intelligent guy in the conversation who would keep
#
dumping things down for people and
#
sometimes I think that's what he has done with some of the
#
films that he dumps them down so much for people but
#
zarwat nahi hai itna intelligent aadmi hai
#
and what he loved was that
#
every show I would ask him different questions
#
aapne aisa hai no I would ask him
#
some mad cap question and he would turn and say
#
you asked me this today whatever
#
and on the fifth show something we were in Dubai
#
and we were sitting and he you know half
#
an hour we had a break before the show and he turned and said kya kar raha hai
#
he said yeah really and
#
this is where over that period of time in my
#
head I had figured that
#
to be engaged in something
#
either you really know what
#
he wants or you tell him that
#
and I just turned to him and I turned and said hain
#
film mara raha ho lekin doesn't need a star
#
of the moment maybe oh maybe
#
he already wanted to make a film about kids and
#
whatever and he was saying yes and he knew about it
#
maybe but for me the wonderful
#
moment is that he turned and said really kyu
#
and I said because it's about teenagers it's about
#
young kids a young you who was 15 or 16
#
could have done it but it could do
#
with the support of an actor like you
#
because you know young kids launched
#
in Bollywood will be anonymous
#
I said yaar yeh interesting hai main chahta hoon ke Red Chillies main
#
I don't want to do films that are only about me
#
I've done Billu Barber with Irfan
#
so when you come to Bombay you let
#
me hear the script I remember we were flying back and I was so excited
#
and I always used to keep a draft of the play
#
so I went in the flight only to give it to him
#
and he was sleeping and he looked at me and said yaar Bombay
#
two weeks later I got a call and
#
he said why don't you come over
#
and then you go to Mannat with a
#
Mannat in your heart saying oh something will happen
#
and I narrated my play script
#
to them which I had converted into semi
#
screenplay and he heard
#
it and he said some things
#
I love about it he said one or two things I think
#
cinematically are not right
#
and he said see I've never made a film before you have
#
so many so I will look for you for
#
guidance or whatever and things
#
I said yaar kuch cheezein thoda dekhenge
#
to 2011 perhaps the longest journey
#
of not the longest I think many people have
#
spent many more years on making a film
#
but I went through you know
#
drafts of writing doing this doing that
#
and while I was doing all the writing drafts of the script
#
you know there has to be a
#
but here now became the burning ambition
#
as a creator that I want to make a film
#
only 200 people in India get to make a film
#
I have a producer like Shah Rukh
#
my god kaise manani hain
#
okay let's do this because he
#
knows this better or whatever etc you know and the road
#
to hell is paid with good intention in some
#
so again it's even today like some people
#
say you know you beat yourself too much about it or
#
whatever etc it's a nice
#
it's not it's not it's not what I had
#
set out to make my first
#
draft is not what I finally made so
#
that creative compromise is what I'm
#
unhappy about the learning I got
#
everything that I got to know Ali Fazal
#
being discovered as part of the film
#
I mean just a brilliant boy and I made him
#
do every Bollywood convention which he must be hating
#
I'm sure and I feel sorry Ali
#
but you know but he learned it he
#
enjoyed it also I think at times and then
#
Gizeli and Zoa and Satyajit
#
but you know these four young kids and
#
doing that film doing it in Lamartania
#
almost paying a tribute
#
to school in a sense these were
#
the really happy moments but 2011 when I came
#
out from it I had a creative
#
vacuum because I had put
#
everything I knew into the
#
film from from just from
#
an intellectual capital and whatever
#
else and you you discover
#
that it's a medium which has
#
eight department heads right there's an editor
#
who knows this better there's a cinematographer who knows
#
this better blah blah blah and
#
working with all of them is a different story
#
journey of what you said but I think as
#
a creator it keeps going
#
from these there's some
#
personal things that you're trying to fill right
#
I mean somewhere you're saying I've defined myself
#
to be the fifth member of that family
#
it's a great place to be but
#
want to teach because I want to impart what
#
I have learned so the workshops
#
these kids life suddenly has struck me
#
so hard because I remember the things
#
that written then I was like oh my god it has to be written
#
and so I dedicate two years to
#
just doing that play I mean and thank god for all
#
the people in Encompass who supported me at that
#
time but I did that play
#
you know and and that play actually
#
set many things for Encompass right as well but
#
my creator piece was I put that up
#
I'm doing fun fun fun fun fun and
#
it's everything's safe and comfortable
#
till Shah Rukh's moment happens and I'm
#
like oh my god that one opportunity
#
to make a film and put something which will
#
perhaps be there for posterity
#
I then went through this whole
#
creator vacuum because I suddenly
#
you know everything that can happen
#
mentally physically started happening to me because
#
I think a lot of your insecurities
#
start manifesting physically I
#
I was physically really ill
#
after the film just oh I've
#
got an issue with is it a prostrate
#
issue is it this issue and I'm like I'm 40
#
how is this happening to me you know I'm 41
#
and I realized that my mind
#
is not in the right place and my friends
#
realized this and a whole bunch of my
#
friends and you know and all of
#
them whether it was Vikram whether it was Gaurav
#
Shaheen my wife you know
#
when you've had so much success
#
and I think you know this is said by the
#
author of Eat Love Pray
#
right when she says you know what if
#
the first thing you do is so successful then what do you do
#
next when you've seen a lot of
#
success and then suddenly something doesn't
#
work the way you thought it would
#
suddenly it's this thing of saying am I a failure
#
do I know things right am I
#
really creative and that's when you
#
have hit that you know that cave
#
which they talk about in the hero's
#
journey and I'm like yeah I know that
#
what brings you out frankly was the set
#
of friends who said it's alright to fail everybody
#
fails there is no problem you can make a
#
mistake kya problem hai and it took me
#
a lot of time because I'm very hard on myself
#
very very hard on myself with these things
#
happened there which really got me
#
Julia Cameron happened and I read
#
The Artist's Way and those two things of doing
#
don't do regularly I do it for a period of time
#
I did it after your workshop you know for a period of time
#
disciplines you know going on a creative
#
date I started doing and that's
#
where Commune happened because I suddenly discovered
#
Sarah K and I said wow this is
#
amazing who is Sarah K what
#
is spoken word and now I went down that rabbit hole
#
you know so that curiosity of saying yeh kya hai
#
kaise hota hai kahan hota hai
#
kaun karta hai and then collaborators
#
I mean Vijay and OML gave us our first performance
#
at stage they were wanting to do a festival called
#
Stage 42 and I did that festival
#
Ankur and Gaurav coming in Ankur saying listen
#
don't sell out at any point
#
what you've created is pure and beautiful and
#
he is a founder at Commune because he sometimes
#
is like main nahi karta hain baoth kuch and I say you're busy
#
with your life but just keep us pure
#
and authentic you're our conscience
#
keeper Tess Joseph who's an executive director
#
casting director great performer
#
these two Gaurav came and said dekho
#
you and Ankur na you both love this hundred people
#
clapping for you because tum log stage ke loghe I am
#
who's made his career on television
#
main wo pandra minute ka show karta hain
#
aadhi gante ka show karta hain cricket ka aur uski
#
broadcast ki wajah se main karta hain
#
whatever you do make it digital
#
and I was like but why do we need to let
#
it rest in its origin and he said no no boss
#
this is all very good for you you know and
#
theatre types and I was like
#
you're right and we just put
#
everything and recorded it so this became
#
the trio that sort of came together for Commune
#
wo jo hota nahi ke main akela hi chala tha
#
jaane be manzil magar log saath aate gayi
#
yeah in fact you gave a TEDx talk which I'll link
#
from the show notes where you
#
had this really pithy quote where you said
#
build campfires to attract fellow
#
travellers and that's exactly what this is
#
so very resonant you mentioned Vikram there
#
by the way Vikram is a close personal friend of mine
#
also for many many years so
#
shout out to him if he is listening
#
many many questions emerged from
#
this but I'm so glad that you took me
#
down your journey in the manner that you did
#
you mentioned your time
#
in radio when you were like doing
#
TV shows a day to earn that 10,000
#
used a phrase in one of your earlier interviews
#
that I became people's habit
#
and that really struck with me because
#
that's a phrase that you would associate
#
in a sense with this economy
#
of intimacy which we see today
#
burgeoning like when someone
#
starts a podcast one of the things I tell them is
#
that you want to become someone's habit
#
ki har Monday morning do ghanta sir ke liye hai
#
you want to become someone's
#
habit so it's important to be regular and to
#
keep doing it and all of that because they
#
feel that connection right it's
#
almost like you know you spoke about being the fifth
#
to my mind this is something relatively
#
new given the scale that it's
#
happening in but you clearly experienced
#
and you know because you know what happened
#
realised this because times FM
#
come back and because I was a freelancer I would go
#
I would shoot the breeze with everyone in the afternoon
#
there was time style which was a lot of fun
#
people a lot of friends even today
#
lots of radio jockeys Rajesh Soni who's
#
my partner in crime at the venture
#
capital fund GSF you know
#
he was the sales head and so great bunch
#
of people but I could choose going in and
#
so I would do my show go there come back
#
year of times FM they decided
#
to do a road show to celebrate
#
and by this time they would not give
#
us our mail or whatever etc we
#
would get some messages that would be collected by
#
onto the road and I remember we were in front
#
and we were supposed to go into the college and
#
suddenly there was some lack of permission whatever
#
so we were waiting outside
#
Gargi the entire college
#
boycotted the college and came
#
some people were dancing Sanjay Renna
#
was singing his song at that point time one
#
song he had which was very popular in Delhi Veronica
#
Jacob and the planets were dancing and we were
#
standing at the back and we were just hearing chants
#
that was the day when I realized
#
their habit because you
#
saw it up front and that was
#
I could see the production and the people
#
used to manage us I could see fear in their eyes
#
guys are bigger than the station and
#
after that there was a big boycott because all of us
#
wanted our contracts I didn't want my contract
#
to be negotiated they said everybody become an employee
#
I said I don't want it and it was
#
Mr. Vinit Jain who actually came
#
and I mean god bless him because
#
these guys were adamant they said we will put you
#
off air I said you can do
#
anything you want I am not signing an employee
#
contract and he came and said
#
what is the boy saying they said this he said let him be
#
somewhere he saw the power and I was not asking
#
I wasn't suddenly being greedy saying pay me 10 times
#
nothing I said guys this is what I want
#
I just want that instead of
#
doing 3 shows a day because I was doing a Hindi show
#
a morning show I used to do a rock
#
show in the morning and afternoon show in Hindi
#
and then I used to do this talk show
#
and then at some point when I found
#
it too claustrophobic and I started doing
#
television I moved out and I started
#
and live wire was a show because everybody
#
said in those days the phone was
#
dead live there was just a 5
#
second pause and they said if somebody
#
uses somebody curses you know
#
aap pe yeh case uskta hai uskta hai
#
but we were just trying and experimenting with a show
#
getting see it was still the time when people wrote postcards
#
and inline letters and my home
#
because my home address was there they didn't stop you from
#
taking it bhar jata tha
#
khato se and when you read them
#
you could sit for nights and it was
#
your little fan fiction
#
you know bit that you were reading
#
and there would be people talking about their deepest secrets
#
you know people want a proposal to marry
#
all that would happen marriage proposal bhi aage hai
#
all this would happen and one day
#
on one of the shows and it's something that
#
in India Today I think they talked about
#
the India Today reporters had come that day to sit
#
in on the show by chance
#
and this girl called and the minute
#
we were talking and something she said
#
this thing about saying why do you all lie so much
#
and you know I was like
#
yeh kya bol rahi hai and my ego was playing
#
up saying she's telling a radio joke that he lies
#
mai hiski halat kharab kar dunga mai yeh sab bolunga
#
and she just suddenly went
#
to this thing of saying you know
#
you lie, the government lies, the army lies
#
and I said there's something deep here
#
what are you talking about it says you know my
#
brother he went in the army he went to
#
Siachen and she said you know
#
he never win a medal or whatever because you know he died
#
for no reason he died of gangrene
#
battle no no you know and in my head
#
I'm suddenly you know going into Nobel's
#
will toll for him etc in my head
#
realised that this girl is yeh hatash hai
#
yeh bahut hi zyada she's depressed
#
talking and you know and I want to rid myself of these
#
lies and I want to rid myself of this world I said
#
oh god this might be a suicide caller
#
but she has called me out up front
#
and said you lie so anything I say to her
#
and that's the moment when I noticed that
#
that biggest moment of my life honesty
#
that I remember I turned and said I've got a pager
#
I used to have a pager people used to message me the numbers
#
and I used to call them and I said look
#
I'll keep her on the call
#
and she doesn't trust me
#
this girl doesn't believe in me but
#
resurrect her belief send messages for her
#
and I'll wait here and you know there's a 30 second
#
gap before people obviously have heard it and
#
are sending messages and there was silence
#
and I narrate this often at commune as a story
#
and I say that you know that for a while
#
it was just a flat line and suddenly the pager started
#
beep there was a message and there were messages in broken
#
English sister I'm brother
#
of yours from Haryana whatever
#
but I kept reading those messages
#
messages messages messages and then I
#
had cued everybody hurts by
#
to read a lot of stuff so Vikram Seth had this poem
#
All You Who Sleep Tonight and I just
#
turned and said I said you know if you're still on the line
#
all I want to say to you is not my words
#
because you don't believe in them but I will use Vikram Seth's
#
words and I said All You
#
Who Sleep Tonight I said the entire poem
#
and I played everybody hurts below
#
and you know just segued into it and that was
#
the end of the show and these reporters
#
were sitting behind and they were like boss yeh
#
and then that girl paged me and said you know
#
was the moment of saying
#
this is the power of a creator
#
so whenever I said this thing about becoming a habit
#
I saw these things happen
#
and I would say yeh hai this is
#
and this just used to go on and on
#
intimacy with the audience actually
#
mere ghar pe ek baar ghanthi bajhi
#
you know my wife opened the door and this
#
girl came and sat with a cake and she
#
said main roshan ke liye hi hu and she just
#
and I was sat and I said
#
aap kaun hai didn't say a word
#
sat, got up and left after
#
pata hi nahi kaun hai, aaj tak nahi pata kaun hai
#
but yeh cheeze hoti thi
#
because you were that close to your audience
#
so I realised then that
#
there was this intimacy that I could
#
maine television pe yeh kar raja, maine Sinistas
#
ki khoj kar hi thi which is a show on Zee
#
which actually if you ask me was the
#
Indian precursor to any of these
#
Indian idols got talent because
#
Gajendra knew the pulse of people
#
and he used to do Antakshari and Saare Gama Pa
#
which were the two biggest shows
#
and he got Sinistas ki Khoj
#
to happen and I became the anchor for it
#
aur jab main wo show anchor kar raha tha
#
jo saare bache usme thi
#
bache because they were selected
#
from various cities as young actors and two of them
#
these Sinistas and Zee would make a
#
film with them and every week
#
these kids would become closer to me and even
#
today if you go to my Facebook they are all my
#
friends, kisi ko bacha ho gaya hai, kisi ne yeh
#
kar liya hai, kisi ne car wash ki business
#
ki hai, koi producer ban gaya hai, kisi ki film
#
last year released huye hai but they are still in my circle
#
keep those people in your circle I think
#
is important because very often as creators
#
we carve our path and we just keep leaving
#
that same TEDx thing that I said
#
I called it the roadless travel if
#
you remember because I said that diko
#
rasta hi nahi tha, there was no
#
road, you made the road
#
and you built these campfires
#
and you leave them for people to follow
#
and honestly I think that's what
#
somewhere I believe is my creator
#
journey and keeps me going. Yeah that's a moving
#
story, I teared up during it because it's
#
so powerful and you were talking about
#
writing letters to people, physical letters
#
and I remember in Delhi like after
#
I graduated from college I worked for
#
a year in Delhi 94 to 95
#
and I was listening to FM
#
one day and there was one guy who was
#
talking like a normal person but playing music I loved
#
which I wouldn't expect to hear
#
on radio so there was like Velvet Underground
#
and Morrison was doing all that
#
so I wrote him a fan mail
#
a physical letter and he replied with a
#
physical letter which is stunning I don't even
#
remember his name but that is such a
#
beautiful moment of connect
#
now it also strikes me that
#
there are in a sense two kinds of connections
#
one is this intimate connection
#
where you feel like you know this person
#
so well which I feel for the
#
podcasters I listen to regularly and
#
I get that same feeling back from people who listen
#
to the show the other is that
#
whole superstar projection kind of
#
thing like Amitabh Bachchan has made a temple
#
in fact your predecessor at Jamia
#
in the mass comm course Shah Rukh Khan is
#
exactly an example of that it's so much
#
larger than life so huge
#
must have faced both you must have
#
experienced both adulation in the
#
second sense yes when I was on
#
television a lot of Shaheen
#
you know I met her in Bombay
#
and you know we traveled
#
once to the auto expo and she
#
was so irritated on the end of day one she said
#
all the girls come to me and say you're
#
his girlfriend yes but I wanted
#
to marry him she said I've
#
heard this through the day what are these people
#
whatever you know but that
#
used to happen but you know I'll tell you
#
supernovas which carry a
#
and it's been written about Steve Jobs right
#
saying that around them they carry a
#
I'm forgetting the exact phrase but
#
they say that it's this
#
the minute you enter that
#
field you believe anything they say
#
and I've noticed it up front
#
I've been with Mr Bachchan I've done interviews
#
magnetism which is called aura
#
and superstar and all this stuff
#
it stems from a genuine belief
#
that I know I'm a superstar
#
in my head I was I know was
#
never the phrase you think I am
#
I'm grateful was my thing and it has always
#
you know people turn and say why do people
#
approach you people will call me with
#
saying Roshan I'm getting this much money what should I do
#
whatever etc. I say because na main usme
#
kuch apna dhundh raha hota hoon and
#
main sant manne kushe nahi kar raha hoon par mujhe
#
kya zarwate hai tomorrow
#
I've had three comedians call me saying sir doing this
#
contract is this worthwhile you think we should do it
#
and I'm like I'll take away
#
but I'm putting I'm not saying
#
agar main usme aaja hoon
#
which is such a Bombay thing
#
one of the famous stories that I
#
once remember was that one
#
actor right and the car must have been
#
couple of years ago so imagine one of those big vehicles
#
who was another actor saw
#
the car and his driver was with him
#
and I know it because my driver knew the driver
#
so his driver was with him
#
and the driver turned in
#
at the start and said boss I love this vehicle
#
can you get me one as well
#
his haan to ko achha price dila dunga
#
so he said oh great great great
#
and whatever so when the guy sat in the car
#
driver ke samane hi called
#
the guy from whom he got the car he said suno
#
so and so ne gari maangi hai
#
main ne tumhe recommend kiya mera 2% rakh lena
#
so I said you're a guy who can afford
#
and you still want 2% in the other vehicle
#
you know and many people say this is the cost of doing
#
business but it's not the cost
#
at which I do business and I will never
#
do it and I have friends who turn and say but you know it's my
#
I say yaar tumhe lagta hai toh karloon main
#
main nahi karta main isme
#
vishwas nahi lagta I don't believe it and is it just
#
my imagination ki jo new creator
#
economy hai creators youtube wale
#
podcast wale unme hiye nahi hai
#
just willing to help and share
#
and perhaps because they haven't gotten
#
that mindset they're much younger perhaps because
#
they know the ecosystem is growing
#
there are both sorts honestly I've come across
#
there are far more of the ones
#
I'm happy to help and share
#
but there is a set a lot
#
of it depends on how secure or
#
insecure they are I've seen this
#
with huge actors as well also by the way helping
#
another actor on set but there's a set
#
which who will not do it there are people who are still
#
in competition with their own
#
you know people who they've worked with
#
for 40 years and still want to score a point
#
I mean the other day we were having this conversation and when I heard it I just kept
#
cracking up saying really that person's been in the
#
industry for over 25 years
#
sir nahi but they're in competition
#
you know that person is still in competition with everyone
#
because that's their elixir that's what
#
drives them so I'm thinking
#
I'm waiting for your tell all memo
#
jinka aap naam nahi lete mere aise
#
how does one learn like one
#
learns by doing which of course everybody knows
#
but one of the things I've realized recently
#
is that one learns also by teaching
#
so you have taught so much
#
tell me a little bit about that experience and are
#
there any specific times
#
where you remember ki yeh sikhake
#
construct kartein yeh to maine sikhahi
#
maine I had never written a play before
#
but those childrens believe in me
#
and when they wrote and me being able to tear that stuff
#
and say this is rubbish and them coming back
#
and then talking about themselves and I mean
#
I never forget this one girl writing about
#
my mother doesn't let me take part in athletics
#
because she thinks I'll scrape my knees
#
and not be a contestant for Miss India
#
because I couldn't stand in the bikini round
#
me and I said oh my god
#
required me to sell a dream to
#
X number of people and travel with them but it happened
#
because the fuel was the
#
belief of all these children these children
#
stuck by me for two years
#
teacher wants to be a doer
#
see there is a thing of
#
I learn and Elton when I
#
had left school had given me a card
#
I still remember and he had written
#
it said that he who can does and
#
and he wrote this line and I said sir why are you
#
writing this and he said no no my boy I've never
#
moved beyond this college and you know
#
I know that you have always gone
#
beyond the boundaries and I have often learned from
#
you and you'll do really well in
#
the universe and whatever and I think at one level I keep saying
#
people say no who are you
#
beholden to and I said my parents and Elton
#
because I was always thinking of how to
#
do good by them good by them
#
and I continued this and
#
this bit of people believing in
#
do I often see a lot of
#
teachers who are not able to
#
practice what they are teaching you
#
feel extremely jealous of the fact
#
that you have that I've seen it you know that
#
it didn't happen in our times right
#
it happens in our times
#
so you have to bridge that thing like
#
in film school I remember saying you know the
#
film you are touching is worth millions
#
so all of us were like we don't know
#
and you turned and said you know
#
if this goes bad in our times you know
#
if we broke this they would make us run around
#
and do this and whatever and I said I
#
don't want to live my life with your guilt
#
the guilt of you having had a bad
#
trip your students I've seen fine teachers
#
they have this old teachers have this habit of
#
guilt tripping their students in our times
#
no man the times have changed it's someone else's
#
times so this is one thing the second
#
when I move forward from that teaching experience
#
when I set up an event company I would often
#
workshops in institutes
#
so I would go to Symbiosis
#
I would go to EMDI I would go to so many places
#
and teach I set up a radio institute
#
here for two years with when FMH
#
just started saying who can teach
#
radio to people and after two years every
#
station started doing their own courses so we said
#
we don't need this course anymore
#
who was a student there is today one of our
#
poets with commune and he says
#
sir mujhe abhi tak wo cheeze hiyaad hain
#
when I went to teach at Symbiosis
#
by Rohit and Varun who are the glitch
#
founders saying you remember the class where you came
#
become TV and then you asked
#
us to come up with an idea and these boys
#
came up and I still remember the
#
idea it was called English babu desi
#
meme and what they said was that
#
we'll take ten city slickers and put them in a
#
and they have to make uplas and they've got to cook
#
food on a changeethi and the anchors
#
of the show are Ravi Kisan and
#
Malaika Arora and I heard that I said guys
#
can you leave this college right now
#
I will give you a job and I said we'll go and make
#
this show and they were like you've got six more
#
months or whatever, nahi hua
#
these are the people I meet and they become
#
glitch and when I met them I said you're the
#
same guys and they were like I told you
#
did the titles for my film because I had no money
#
in this little relationship that you build
#
with people you're able to do these kind of things
#
don't just you learn when you tell people
#
I don't know, I am very happy
#
to say I don't know at times
#
yeh har cheez ka gyaani jo log
#
ban jaate hain, ja main seekh leta hu
#
to mujhe bada maza aata hai baatne hai when I've learned
#
then I'm an enthusiastic supporter of saying let me tell you
#
let me tell you but before that
#
like in the creator economy there's so much
#
really well but there is this dao
#
mao bao whatever etc. when I'm saying
#
yeh thaada bhi samay mein nahi aara hai par samajhna hai
#
ab isko karne ke liye you'll have to do a little
#
bit of crypto, isko karne ke liye you'll have to do a
#
token, make some mistakes and tell
#
a whole set of young creators I don't know
#
but I don't know this can we work it together like when we
#
build glitch and actually
#
when Varun and Rohit build glitch but
#
they used me, they used me
#
I had times in a really fun way
#
that when Pooja pitched
#
herself who's now married to Varun and his
#
Pooja got him to pitch and said
#
these guys are great at creative, they shit at
#
strategy, you need a strategic head and I said
#
great and then two days
#
later I got Varun now saying by the way we've got a problem
#
saying Pooja has pitched herself to us as
#
strategy head what do we do
#
she said what do you mean what do we do she's a great person let's
#
take her said but you know I'm also having a
#
relationship with her so what if she doesn't work out what do
#
we do I said I'll tell you what let me
#
be the front person for this because neither
#
of you should take the blow you're best friends
#
let me hand and I had that conversation and even today
#
for whatever it's worth to her
#
but to me it means a lot I am Pooja's
#
mentor but like it's that one conversation
#
a month it's that one chat in a
#
quarter it's the one how do I handle
#
this and I really value that because I
#
will not tell her that I know how to run a digital agency
#
but what I know I know and
#
to teach you that but I will immediately
#
turn and say this I don't know and I want to learn from you
#
you know I'll give an example
#
suddenly somebody reached to commune and said you know can you do
#
I said we don't do this you know this
#
this transmedia campaign that will happen
#
across mediums I said see the core
#
idea we've given is beautiful I don't want
#
to lose it for not knowing this I connect
#
with Pooja Pooja can you
#
tell us how this is done
#
I'm just asking that you know Varun can you tell me
#
this or somebody else you know and
#
I'm very happy to reach out to people and
#
the other thing that I've learnt is
#
we won't ask, we will die but we won't ask
#
once I remember Shaheen and I had a fight
#
and one of our aunts said listen
#
if you don't like this thing tell her
#
to drop into and whisper it into her ear
#
or that some Lucknow guy will tell who will tell the third person
#
who will come and tell it to her say it
#
and it was still a problem
#
to me if you ask me to say things
#
I said I was saying things directly
#
but what I don't know I ask
#
and if somebody wants it then I ask
#
because now I'm ashamed that somebody
#
before I was told that if I ask and somebody says no
#
yeah and you know you mentioned that thing
#
about your film teacher saying don't
#
touch the film and I'm reminded
#
of this old saying this old Japanese
#
saying which was if I remember
#
correctly if you want to make a man
#
a pauper give him a camera
#
because poora paisa film mein chale jayega
#
and today that's just not there
#
it's like you know we kinda
#
take it for granted I've taken a lot
#
of your time so I'll head towards
#
sort of final general questions
#
one of them is this that
#
you know the pinned tweet on
#
your Twitter feed is quote
#
humility is not thinking less of yourself
#
it is thinking of yourself less
#
stop quote it's by C.S. Lewis
#
and humility is a question I want to
#
ask about because one thing that I have
#
noticed and you will of course have the humility
#
to shrug away the compliment but one thing
#
I've noticed is your tremendous humility in the sense
#
that one would imagine a person
#
with the kind of career that you have had
#
with your achievements behind you
#
you'll bring an attitude with it but you
#
are so open so curious about
#
you know learning from other people
#
you know as you just mentioned just
#
always starting these campfires
#
taking fellow travellers in that talk
#
that you gave you also spoke about
#
the philosophy of geese where you don't
#
have to be a leader all the time you know so
#
it's like a cycling peloton there'll be one person
#
leading and then they'll drop back and
#
is this something that's come with age because
#
it is something that I did not have
#
and I had to cultivate it
#
and become conscious of it and realise
#
that I was making many mistakes because
#
of this and it came over a period
#
this has been there from the very beginning simply
#
early age turned and said that you know
#
you know like my father used to always say
#
that you know beta zindagi me na paise ni
#
izzat kamahi jaati hai and
#
genuinely to live in the hearts you
#
leave behind is not to die right I mean
#
that's stone for Danny Fisher of
#
all things Harold Robbins but you know
#
it's something I remember because it was a line
#
about this whole piece because that piece
#
starts with saying the dead will lie below their
#
monuments remembered for what
#
they built but not for who they were
#
you know but for me and he's talking about
#
a common man and he says for me when everyone when
#
a person cries for their loved one they cry for me
#
you know and I remember these elocution pieces
#
but this one resonated with me for
#
that reason ke kisi ki zindagi
#
mein agar aap kuch bhi kar sakte hain
#
without stressing how important
#
Aladin Vikrant who was my director I remember the last
#
day he just came and he just said he says you know
#
I had to give you very little direction
#
but he said you know what I loved was that
#
you came on time every day
#
you attended every rehearsal whether you were required
#
or not not once did I hear you complain I heard
#
people half your age do that
#
and he says I just want to tell you that this is
#
the quality yeah you're a great actor yeah you
#
got a great voice yeah you did this etc etc
#
quality aur ye mujhe bachpan se hi
#
mere saath hua hai and I
#
don't know I mean you know I keep saying be interesting
#
or be interested and I'm always
#
interested because I mean and that's what maybe
#
just keeps it interesting as well
#
and that doesn't happen with this you know let me tell you
#
about me nahi yaar suno
#
suno jaano I mean I could continue
#
this with you outside and just talk to know
#
to know you because mujhe
#
wo jaana hai mujhe abhi jaana hai ki yaar Amit
#
kaise hua poker kaise kara
#
kyun kara kahan se kara and main wo chhote chhote
#
cheeze pick up karta rehta ho
#
aur ultimately usse mujhe hi seek milti hai
#
so I think that's the thing
#
such a great line be interesting or be interested
#
lovely line what other advice would you
#
give young creators today who are looking
#
at this creator economy who have
#
multiplicity of opportunities which can often
#
be bewildering who also have
#
this expectation or this
#
desire for validation which is perhaps
#
even greater than ours because we live in
#
an age where everyone's competing
#
so hard for validation through social media
#
with all the posturing that goes on
#
it's just constant what
#
advice would you give you know
#
fame is ephemeral it comes and it goes
#
in the evening when we were having that conversation
#
saying don't forget that the TNC of the
#
creator contract is trust and credibility
#
are the two tenets that you got to
#
live by the day the trust breaks
#
the day they think you were a false
#
profit they have so many other people
#
to turn to and yaha par this
#
cancel culture unfortunately doesn't give you a
#
second chance to is may just
#
remember that because it's a very
#
heady feeling I see a lot of
#
young people making mistakes then I feel
#
should I call them and tell them and I say baby it's not my
#
place to do so if they ever ask
#
me I tell them I tell them very very clearly
#
and I mince no words about it
#
but I just feel that this is very important
#
that's the important thing and
#
that's the one thing I keep telling people same because I can see
#
people suddenly making lots of money
#
it's not it's not over till it's over so
#
number one you know if you're losing it's not over till
#
you're over if you're winning it's not over till
#
it's over so stay with it
#
know the limits to what you have to do
#
and what's ahead of you
#
now like we've established we are both young you're
#
47 so we are both young
#
what lies ahead of you now what
#
do you look forward to in the decades to come
#
inshallah so approximately
#
a month or two ago I came
#
across a small whatsapp
#
forward you know where there
#
I'm forgetting his name but he was the
#
he runs a big foundation which helps
#
students and things and he was also the
#
head of HCL technology so I'm not
#
mistaken and it was a young
#
entrepreneurs thing for times or something where he'd come out
#
and he spoke and he said that Mr.
#
he told a parable about this
#
ant who's asked what you want to be one guy said I want
#
to be the fastest ant I want to be this thing and whatever
#
and the last ant turned and said I want to be a
#
he said think of something so scary that people
#
thinking scary honestly the
#
last scary thing I thought was spoken fest
#
and we built it it was scary
#
as hell but my god was at a high
#
to see those people walking into Geo
#
garden and then see those numbers grow
#
right and commune spoken fest
#
I told China sir I'm investing a child's
#
education money in this because I
#
know how much money goes into a festival
#
but the returns are tremendous
#
that I want to take that brand global
#
and it's a scary thought because it requires me
#
to invest time effort money
#
I do want to build commune as a
#
global organisation and
#
I have to understand many other cultures which I
#
know nothing about right now I'm
#
exploring the middle east there's India there's UK
#
there's US and I will keep doing this
#
so like a road less traveller
#
I will find new roads there as well
#
and it's very scary because I haven't navigated
#
I'm very happy to do that so that is what
#
is exciting I have definitely a
#
all of those in me and I'm
#
also very keen to like I said do
#
unparalleled etc where I think that this
#
whole creator conference which here when I
#
saw when I did coalition I loved
#
globally when I attended south by southwest I
#
did so I have proposed three
#
IPs with commune which I think can be global
#
again they're scary as hell to do
#
but we'll do that you know so
#
that's what's next you know you mentioned the
#
ant and I thought of this old old quote
#
which I remember from the 80s I don't know
#
why it suddenly hit my head now
#
it's by Richard Bach the quote
#
goes quote what the caterpillar calls
#
the end of the world the master calls a butterfly
#
stop quote so inspiring words for all
#
creators out there and just keep pushing
#
your boundaries and you
#
know trying new things Roshan
#
I could have spoken to you for many more hours and hopefully
#
so thank you so much for your time
#
and insights today not at all and I can't tell you
#
what an honor and a pleasure it is to be
#
here an honor because every time I
#
used to hear people I used to say you've got to be really worthy
#
to be there so a little bit of a
#
self gloat today which I will do
#
because getting to know you as a person is
#
something that I genuinely felt I felt that this
#
would be the beginning of many conversations
#
whether on a podcast or otherwise
#
Well I would say apke mo mein ghee shakkar
#
but since I know you are kind of weight
#
conscious no shakkar the ghee is fine
#
If you enjoyed listening to this episode
#
do check out the show notes
#
rabbit holes abound you can follow
#
Roshan on Twitter at Roshan Abbas
#
one word you can follow me on Twitter
#
at Amit Varma A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A
#
you can browse past episodes
#
of The Scene and the Unseen at
#
Thank you for listening
#
Did you enjoy this episode of
#
The Scene and the Unseen? If so
#
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