#
Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and
#
Please welcome your host, Amit Verma.
#
Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
#
My guest today is Hussain Haidari, a poet, lyricist, writer who I first noticed when
#
I came across his brilliant poem Hindustani Musalman.
#
If you haven't heard it already, it's linked from the show notes, do check it out, deeply
#
moving especially in these times.
#
Also that was Hussain reading out the poem Chhipkali moments ago.
#
Now these are difficult times in India.
#
Our country is being torn apart by anti-Muslim bigotry and almost on a daily basis there
#
is news of some horror or another.
#
This bigotry itself is not new, but its expression seems to be touching a new peak every day
#
or maybe I should say a new low every day.
#
And it is based on this toxic narrative of otherness, the belief that Muslims and Hindus
#
are different in ways that cannot be reconciled.
#
The bizarre belief that Muslims somehow do not belong to India.
#
That reminds me of something Kapil Khome Reddy once said on the show, that after partition
#
the Hindus of India obviously stayed on here by default, almost by inertia, but the Muslims
#
who stayed on, they made a choice, they chose an inclusive, tolerant idea of India and they
#
were the true patriots.
#
Hussain makes a version of this argument in this episode where he argues that arey, asli
#
And I agree with him, I had loved the poem Hindustani Musalman when I first heard it
#
because it expressed a truth about us that I keep going on about in this show, that we
#
all contain multitudes.
#
The stereotype that so many people hold of the Indian Muslim is not only simplistic and
#
wrong, it is also dangerous because it is being used to weaponize the bigotry we see
#
Interestingly, when I spoke to Hussain, he was ambivalent about that poem and I soon
#
You'll hear him speak about it at length in this episode, but I'd sum it up by saying
#
that Muslims should not have to fit in with the majority community to have their rights
#
respected as equal citizens of India.
#
This episode also contains multitudes by the way.
#
We hear about Hussain's childhood and the journey he made doing a CA, an MBA at an IIM
#
and then giving it up to live the life of a writer, discovering himself in the process.
#
We hear about what it is to grow up Muslim in India and besides politics, we also talk
#
about his art, how he became the poet he is, his journey into writing lyrics and screenplays
#
for films, his journey of learning that craft.
#
Throughout this episode, I was struck by Hussain's deep wisdom on so many subjects and I'm sure
#
there will be moments here when you too are struck by those insights and pause and reflect
#
This episode is in a mixture of Hindi or rather Hindustani and English by the way and I apologize
#
to listeners who may be more comfortable with just English.
#
I wanted this conversation to be easy and natural and mirror the way we speak in real
#
Much of the flavor of what Hussain talks about would be lost if translated to English.
#
Anyway, let's get started but before we do, let's take a quick commercial break and talk
#
Have you heard that old expression, there but for the grace of God go I?
#
No, I'm not a believer but I find that statement to be wise because it reminds us that we are
#
all creatures of circumstance.
#
The genes we get, the life we are born into, the things that happen to us, all these accidents
#
can take us to strange places.
#
Who knows, if your life was a little different, you could have been a gangster or serial killer.
#
This is why I find stories about crimes so fascinating, they could have been about me.
#
And one excellent source for such stories is a sponsor of this episode, the Desi Crime
#
The Desi Crime Podcast is hosted by Aishwarya Singh and Aryan Misra and they talk about
#
crimes from India, Pakistan, Nepal, any place you'd call Desi basically.
#
You may have heard of Jack the Ripper and Son of Sam but Aishwarya and Aryan also tell
#
you about the dawns of Delhi and the killers of Karachi.
#
We learn about the most prolific murderer in history, Thug Bairam.
#
We get inside dope on the massacre of the Nepali royal family.
#
We get suicide pacts and police brutality, disappearing journalists and charming serial
#
If you like storytelling and crime interests you, you should listen to the Desi Crime Podcast.
#
You can find it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
#
You listen to the Desi Crime Podcast and remember this could have been your story.
#
Hussain, welcome to the Seen and the Unseen.
#
Hi Abhit, thank you so much for inviting me.
#
And thank you, your reading of Chipkali was so nice, I loved that poem.
#
Yes, I liked that poem and I liked that we started with it.
#
No, and I mean it's a lovely metaphor and I think this metaphor is even for our own
#
perspective, for our own life because I think when I was growing up, you know, a very privileged
#
childhood and seeing only the best of everything around me.
#
I think I used to see that photo of Gandhi, I didn't see the chipkali behind it.
#
And I think in the last 15-20 years, I can see the chipkali behind it, the layers have
#
Yeah, so I wrote it actually with that context in mind, how the state and the society essentially,
#
how the state and society inflicts violence under the garb of non-violence, that they
#
say don't hit, they say non-violence, they say that Gandhi is alive, but what they do
#
They do it there, they put a
#
nail in it, they crush it and then they go back there.
#
So I had that in mind for many years and I don't know if you are interested in listening
#
I wrote this in Kolkata and I went to a government office and there was a discussion going on
#
They were asking for some fees.
#
Now what does fees mean in a government office, I used to understand that, but I was pretending
#
that I didn't understand because I didn't have the approval to pay the fees.
#
Because now this is also a thing that if there is approval, you can also pay the fees, but
#
I didn't have the approval.
#
No, what they were asking for was a little too much and while talking, when I saw their
#
face, while talking, they were smoking in the government office and there was a picture
#
It was not a picture of Gandhi, it was a picture from which a lizard just went out for a second
#
And that image stayed in my mind, nothing had happened essentially, it was just somebody
#
else's photo and the lizard just came out for a second and then I was seeing this guy
#
and I was in a fix and the moment I went down, I messaged my boss that, okay, I'm coming
#
so the meeting is over and then I started writing, so I wrote it in a cab.
#
So and of course, like then I went to office, then I worked and everything and at night
#
when I was trying to copy this whole poem in my laptop because I used to store my poems,
#
I used to not publish them, I used to not share them with anybody at all, I used to
#
be very embarrassed of them actually but when I was rewriting it, I suddenly realized that
#
I can change the word Sadi Rang Diwaro to Khaki Rang Diwaro and it would change everything
#
because the word Khaki means completely, gives it a very different context when combined
#
with the Gandhiji's photo.
#
So the lizard would change, the nature and the universal implications of the lizard would
#
change and that was just a one word change that I did during the rewrite essentially.
#
So yeah, I mean that's how I wrote that poem.
#
It's so lovely and it's interesting that sometimes this happens where you see an image
#
and just the image stays with you where you may not know what to make of it and I'm struck
#
by how that little moment of the lizard darting in and out is something that stays with you
#
and then something comes out of that.
#
Are you a noticer in that sense because of my many guests, I think they can be especially
#
among writers and painters and so on, can be divided into two categories and one is
#
kind of like me, I'm ashamed to say, where I'm not mindful enough.
#
So I'm not really noticing all of these things.
#
So if somebody commits a crime in front of me and the police gets a sketchwala person
#
and they say describe him, I would not be able to do it because I just don't notice
#
anything which I think is a flaw in myself that especially if you're a writer, you have
#
to be better at, you know, noticing these and then there are some people who are almost
#
natural here that they'll remember something that happened when they were 10 years old
#
and they will remember every detail and all of that.
#
Is it part of your sort of the way you are, your personality to notice these little things
#
and be affected by them or is it something that you feel that as a poet and an artist,
#
you have to train yourself to do?
#
I don't think I trained myself to do it.
#
I think I was sensitive to minute details and small, small things that I could perceive
#
So in that sense, I am a noticer, I don't know if that is how, what is the positive
#
connotation to this word, but yeah, I do notice things, I do notice moments, I do notice very
#
small sliver of details in certain things, sometimes much to my annoyance and missing
#
the larger picture also.
#
And it's not just with eyes, it's also with ears.
#
It's also with how you simply feel when you go out in a city, what you feel when you eat
#
something at a place or at a different place, how small gradations of human behavior or
#
I like to observe them, I think about them, I also waste my time on them.
#
And to give an example, I had come to Bombay.
#
I was, when I shifted back in, after completing my CA in 2009, I had come to Bombay to work
#
for a Chartered Accountancy firm, Ernst & Young.
#
And the first thing I noticed in Bombay was the poverty.
#
I could see a lot of poverty.
#
I could see a lot of poverty.
#
What really shocked me apart from the poverty was that how there is a lot of rich and affluent
#
people living right beside poverty.
#
And the juxtaposition of the two of them in Bombay was always a bit uncomfortable for
#
On the same street, you will find a piece of a cigarette and a piece of a cigarette, you
#
will see both of them standing at the bus stop with the same shoes on.
#
And that somehow is a bit weird to me that a person who is living in a glazed building
#
with Rs. 5 lakhs, who earns for a month, and there are juggis next to him, I mean, you
#
can see from the building, I used to go to Mahalakshmi Audit, I used to see from the
#
building, from the 15th floor, I used to see the sea of juggis.
#
So I used to find it very strange that who is calling it a city of dreams.
#
Is this a city of dreams for them?
#
And what are these dreams that are being spoken in the sweet voice and shown here?
#
So I used to find it a bit strange.
#
So I, of course, when I used to speak to people, people used to call me weird.
#
They used to say that you talk very negatively or you think anything.
#
But those thoughts did not go away.
#
I used to think of that and I still think that way.
#
So one disadvantage in observing is that sometimes a lot of people around you, I mean, you think
#
of a lot of things differently from them, you start developing about something else.
#
So there is a danger of reading strange things.
#
Also, I mean, in general, in life, I think I am a person who is quiet in social groups.
#
I think I am a person who listens a lot, so I think that has helped me a little.
#
So maybe I have just started speaking in the last 4-5 years, but generally it's more
#
like I am an observer, a noticer.
#
So the one who is roaming around, but listening, observing, watching, but no one is asking
#
much, no one is saying much, I am just like that.
#
A lovely metaphor for what you just said about the juxtaposition is, I mean, it's not intended
#
in this way, but I find it a lovely metaphor.
#
There is a book by the science fiction writer Chinam Evil, which is called The City and
#
And the premise of that is that there are two cities inhabiting the same geographical
#
So they are different cities, but they are in exactly the same place, and they are invisible
#
And it's a crime procedural set in a sci-fi world.
#
So basically there is a murder in one of these cities, or there is a murder in, I forget
#
which one, and this policeman who is investigating it has to go from one of these other cities
#
has to pass into the other one and all of that.
#
So, but you know, just as a metaphor, the city and the city, it kind of speaks to me
#
because it's like, you know, all of us think that the world that we see around them is
#
a world that there is, but the point is all of us, without exception, are blind to so
#
You might be driving in a car, but the beggar or the traffic signal is unseen to you.
#
And in Bombay at one level, you know, I mean, everything is normalized, right?
#
So, and I can understand people reacting negatively to that also because you're pricking their
#
bubble, you know, when you kind of point this kind of stuff out.
#
Let's, you know, go back to your childhood because I'm very fascinated to, you know,
#
learn more about, you know, where did you grow up?
#
What was your childhood like?
#
Tell me a little bit about that.
#
So I was born and brought up in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and you could say probably a lower
#
class, slightly slanting towards lower middle class family.
#
So in Indore, there is one place called Rajwada, Prince Yashwant Road, there was a chaal there.
#
So that is where we had our first pucca house.
#
Before that, my father used to live in another chaal, it was called Loharpatti because he
#
My father was a blacksmith and my grandfather was also a blacksmith.
#
But then my father at the age of 18 decided to become a bookseller.
#
He just started collecting old books wherever he could find them.
#
And instead of giving them in Radhi, he spread a sheet on the road and he became a bookseller
#
And now he has a bookshop in Indore.
#
So actually, so yeah, he's the one who actually broke the whole poverty circle.
#
But I was mostly born in that kind of a, I mean, I was poor too, but I was more than
#
So I was always thankful that I was poor, but earlier I was even more poor.
#
So I was thankful that this much is there, so I was able to go through it and I mean,
#
I used to find it funny, you don't know that you have learned English so much, you have
#
to read books, you have to discuss with people, so you can contextualize a little bit.
#
But then whatever is in the funny joke, that is reality.
#
So I was born and brought up there and thankfully because my father had by then started the whole
#
bookshop, it was a very small bookshop at that time and so I was, because he was interacting
#
with a lot of people who were reading books and he was selling largely English books,
#
so that he gained some access through those people and I ended up getting in a good school
#
in Indore, which was an English medium school.
#
And that is where I think, I think, I mean, that is the outcome of my whole life, I mean,
#
if I had not gone to that school, then I would not have been able to do CA in the future,
#
because I mean, I don't have that basic education base with which I can jump.
#
If I couldn't do CA, then I wouldn't have been able to do a job.
#
If I couldn't do a job, then I wouldn't have been able to do MBA from that experience and
#
And if I couldn't do all that, I don't have the comfort of 2 degrees, I don't have a cushion
#
that I won't die of hunger because of poverty, then I may not be able to come in writing.
#
So the atmosphere of the school was quite interesting, which was of childhood, it fills you with a
#
very strange feeling, at least it filled me, I mean, on the one hand you are very ashamed
#
that everything is strange, I mean, that you are wearing a better uniform than you, you
#
can see that they are better than you, but you can't speak, then you feel a strange
#
embarrassment in it, you feel a sense of inferiority complex, which can be called inferiority complex
#
in English, but you also have a feeling that no, I have to be equal, because you mean you
#
don't know all this ism, ism, in childhood, you feel that if I crack here, then I will
#
So you mean I was trying to study well, that later, I felt that maybe I would go ahead
#
of these people, if I study well, I tried to fill in the shortcomings in myself, I tried
#
to do public speaking, I tried to play table tennis, I played to the state level, so I
#
was aware of this when I was a teenager, I was aware that I was trying to fill in the
#
shortcomings in myself, that there are a lot of shortcomings in me that if I learn this,
#
I will learn that, I will get better in this, I will get better in that, I will become an
#
all-rounder, so this word used to be common during that time, that maybe I will get studded
#
in life, but it doesn't happen, it has its own influence, I guess that's how people
#
are made, different people are made differently, so whatever it is, so this was in school,
#
there was of course, the good part was that the teachers were by and large never discriminated
#
to me, so I think that even though a lot of many or rather many classmates of mine were
#
extremely bigoted and not a pleasant memory to recall, but I think it never left a permanent
#
amount of bitterness in me is because I knew they were good people also and I knew that
#
at least because at that age, I was probably more looking towards my elders to emulate
#
them, perhaps, and because the elders did not be bigoted or did not openly and brazenly
#
and violently discriminate against me, perhaps that never left a permanent bitter scar, but
#
that cannot be generalized, it's something that I am talking about myself, so I think
#
that is what keeps me in restrain even today and then I guess after all that was over,
#
so yeah, how I ended up doing CA is just because to be honest, I wanted to be in a college,
#
be one of those cool kids, I thought that I have to be cool in life, but then I realized
#
that this fees is too high, I didn't know that other than SRCC, I didn't know any college,
#
I didn't have a computer, I didn't have internet access, sometimes I used to go to cybercafem
#
and do it, so I used to do it, so I used to think that only SRCC is a college in Delhi
#
and there is no college, I didn't get a percentage for that, it was a 91 cutoff at that time,
#
now it's insane, it's 9900 and I had 86 something in 12th, so I was thinking of going to Pune,
#
but then I found out the fees of Pune, so the fees were too high and if I stayed in Delhi
#
then I knew that 36000, 40,000 rupees a year, 2-3 thousand rupees a month would be spent,
#
the fees would be 2-3 thousand rupees, so I thought that I won't be able to afford 40,000
#
rupees a year, so I was talking to a friend and he said that why don't you do CA, it's
#
not a very expensive course, so when I found out that there is some 1500 rupees registration
#
and 7-8000 rupees coaching and I will go from cycle to coaching, so I said that this is
#
a good option, I didn't have this in mind that this is a lucrative career option or
#
this is a prestigious degree and that I learned after I went to the coaching classes and after
#
the people told me that this is a very prestigious degree and this and that and all that, but
#
for me it was more like an economical decision, that this is what I can afford, this is what
#
I can and apparently there is a very high rate of return and after the third year I
#
could do internship and I will get a stipend, I will end up getting 1000 rupees per month
#
and then 1250 per month and then 1500 rupees per month which was the rate of stipend back
#
then, so I was like yeah this looks good, I will probably end up making a few bucks
#
as well while studying, so yeah that's what got me into CA and yeah so then the CA was
#
I think the chartered accountancy phase was extremely gruelling, it was something that
#
I did not particularly enjoy, I do owe my corporate career, the latter half of my corporate
#
career in Calcutta to the chartered accountancy degree, I will not and it has taught me a
#
lot of things, it has given me a lot of perspective but while I was doing it, it was tormenting,
#
it was just stifling because I was also a guy who was reading stuff when I was a child,
#
my father had a bookshop and I was always going to the bookshop and I would read stuff
#
but then in the chartered accountancy course, I would not find people who would read books,
#
I would not find people who would be interested in talking about things and just for the heck
#
of it, they would not be interested in watching the kind of films that I was thankfully watching
#
because some of my friends had gone into IIT and they would tell me something, ki ek LAN
#
hota hai, waha se hum download karte hain aur yeh movies hai yeh dekh, I didn't know
#
about them, they would give it to me on hard drives like I, toh mein paas laptop faghara
#
tha nahi, toh unse pata lagta tha mujhe, lekin jab mai yeh dekhta tha, unse baat karta tha,
#
I would see that they would not have interest, toh yeh mujhe stifling lagta tha thoda and
#
phir usdoran hua yu ki mai ek debate competition mein participate karne ke chakkar mein, main
#
hai apne school ke Hindi teacher se baat ki, main hai kaha madame mujhe original shairi
#
chahiye, mujhe yeh SMS wali shairi nahi chahiye, toh mujhe 2 naam bataaya gaya hai, Nida Fazli
#
aur Dushyant Kumar, toh jab main hai Nida Fazli ko padha, toh main thoda addict ho gaya, matlab
#
mujhe laga hai yaar yeh badai gazab baat hain, do do misro mein baat, do do lines mein baat
#
kar deta hai, yeh shair hai, yeh gazal hai, itne kam shabdo mein itne saari baate ho jati
#
hain, toh phir up chunki kitab ho ki dukaan thi aur main pehle English fiction agara padha
#
karta tha, magazines padha karta tha, comics padha karta tha, random kitabe utha ke pehle
#
2-3 page padh liya karta tha, matlab phal tu phal tu kitabe ho padh tata tha, reki kya
#
hoti hai, meera koi lehna dena dena reki se aur numerology se, main yeh sab bhi padh
#
liya karta tha, kuch bhi matlab mere bakwaaz bhi main padh tata tha, toh wo jab maine
#
shairi padh nahi shuru ki toh mera rujhaan, matlab I really started liking it and then
#
I started reading a lot of poets because I had access to them and the first time I had
#
a conscious access and I decided that I want to read something, so I decided and then I
#
started reading a lot of poetry, so now there is on one hand there is this grueling charter
#
accountancy course which is sucking this life out of me and on the other hand there is poetry,
#
so I am reading a lot of poetry, I am not writing anything, I am just reading and for
#
some reason I am memorizing it, I don't know why, it is purposeless, nobody is interested
#
in hearing what I have learnt, nobody is interested in also talking about it, people would probably
#
end up joking that arre kya pagal hai, yeh padh leta, isse chahe toh corporate law padh
#
leta, so things like that is what, but I used to enjoy it, I used to take it as a respite
#
from that and of course ek certain kind of resentment bhi develop hota hai aapko, bhaat
#
saari cheezon mein, I guess apni family hai, matlab aap jahan belong karte ho, aap jahan
#
se ho, I think usse ek certain resentment bhi belong aana shuru kar deta hai, jab aap
#
uss aasa kamtari aur sharmindagi mein rehta hai, jo kiya mujhe lagta hai galat tha, bhaat
#
abrasive behavior tha mera, immature bhi tha, aur kash me usse theek kar paun lekin ma
#
kar nahi sathta hu, lekin, haan, toh wo sari cheezon saath chal rahi thi aur jaise tese
#
karke matlab maine khatam kiya charter accountancy, aur mera yeh tha ki mai Bombay hi jaaunga,
#
mujhe bhaat clear tha ki ma Bombay hi jaaunga, because maine galat sa lit kitabe padli thi,
#
Maximum City, Fine Balance, Shanta Ram, wg wg, toh mujhe kaafi yeh tha ki yaar jahenge
#
toh Bombay hi, toh because I was able to speak in English, I guess in a city like Indore
#
at the time, I cleared CA back in 2009, so I was able to get through PW, Pricewood House,
#
I was able to get through KPMG, I was able to get through EY, but I ended up choosing
#
EY because it was in Bombay and it would make me travel in Bombay, within Bombay, so the
#
job in KPMG was in Bombay but it was an internal audit, it would make me travel all around
#
the world, like all around the country and the one in PW was in Gurgaon and I knew I
#
will hang myself if I will end up living in Gurgaon, like itna toh pata tha mujhe ki wo
#
concrete ka shehar hai, barwi class mein, apne CA pass karte karte hain, toh yeh tha
#
ki waha nahi jahenge, toh bacha wo EY wala job, toh haa matlab wahi Bombay ka khayal tha,
#
toh even when I was doing my coaching, like all my coaching and all was done in Indore,
#
jo bhi ma kar pata tha uss time, toh uss dauran hua yun ki mujhe pata chala hai ki gmcs karke
#
I think, nahi ek kuch ek, ek humari workshop hoti thi, jis mein management and communication
#
skill, general management and communication skill type kuch ek workshop hoti thi, 15 din
#
ki CA ka course ho jaa, final clear karo, uske pehle apko karne hoti thi, main uske
#
liye Bombay aaya tha, mujhe laga tha ki main Bombay ke CA se milunga, toh mera value
#
addition hoga, unki personality dekke, unki baate sunke, unki English bolne ke style se
#
aur wo Big 4 mein kaam karte hain, toh unse main baat karunga, toh mujhe kuch knowledge
#
ke nahi hoga, main yahan aaya mujhe laga yahan bhi wahi hal hai, ki yahan bhi koi kisi ko
#
kitabe mitabe, kisi aur se koi wabastagi hai nahi, aur matlab, matlab thoda sa mera confidence
#
boost bhi kiya, ki main utna bhi gaya guzran nahi hu, kuch na kuch toh ho jayega mera,
#
toh jab CA khatam hua, toh mujhe exactly yaad hai, I was in a train from uss time, swine
#
flu hua tha uss doraan, toh main lot raha tha wapas, my workshop was paused in between,
#
so I was returning back to Indore, and my brother called me and told me that I have
#
passed, I have cleared my CA final exam, and I think I was maybe in a train Mumbai Central
#
jaane ke liye aur main roane lag gaya, and it was not like I was crying ki koi bahut
#
emotion, it was just, I just couldn't control, and the only thing I kept saying to myself
#
was it is over, the only relief I had was that it is over because it was so grueling,
#
it was, the pressure is extreme because every time you fail the exam, you have to give it
#
all over again, and I was just tired of it, I wanted to get out of the course, perhaps
#
the city also, and of the house, and I was like yaar ye khatam ho gaya, khatam ho gaya,
#
khatam ho gaya, main roye jaar ho, it's over, it's over, khatam ho gaya, khatam ho gaya,
#
toh jab main, jab main job karta tha khaer wo ek dosra torture tha, lekin jab main MBA
#
mein aaya toh mujhe itna dukh nahi hua, matlab MBA was not that grueling for me, even though
#
it was in IIM Indore, but it was never that grueling for me, because I knew yaar mainne
#
CA kar liya yaar, main wo jahannum dekh ke aache oka hu, toh ye kitna hi bura kar denge,
#
halaki phir bhi they managed to make it very bad, but being the, I mean the hardships that
#
they create are terrible, but still it did not break me as a person as much as perhaps
#
CA did, toh hain ye hai matlab, CA toh khaer ye daastan hai, poetry aur CA phir collide
#
hua hai, matlab jam mai Bombay aaya, ki jam mai Bombay aaya, toh mere paas ye tha ki bhai
#
suna toh bada rangin hai, maine Bombay aaya, wahi Bombay me usual jo sabka rehta hai, aane
#
ka ki bhaiya ghar nahi milta hai, ki yaar ye Muhammadan ko ghar nahi denge, broker bhi
#
Musliman hai, usko bhi pata hai, itna naturally wata deta hai ghar nahi denge, ki matlab casual
#
hai aap pe, matlab itna casual hai, ki Muhammadan ko ghar nahi denge, it's taken as a fact,
#
toh jaise tese ghar mila chaal mein, bazar road mein, Bandra mein, toh musliman krishnan
#
chaal hi hai wo, toh wahan rehta tha main, toh wahan main dhunda karta tha, ki yaar kuch
#
cultural type ka kuch mile hai, kuch baat karne ko toh ho, ki ma office me toh 14 gata
#
12 gata excel sheet pe bata rehta hu, audit audit ka mere dost sunna thodi chaate hain,
#
toh sunna chaate hain kya Bombay mein rang karmi dekh kar rahe ho aap, toh main dhunda
#
karta tha, yaha wahan jaya karta tha, so in a particular event I met this guy and he told
#
me something about a poetry open mic, I was like okay, what is that, so I went to a poetry
#
open mic, and confidence ekdum kam tha, matlab chote share se bade share hain, toh ye toh
#
pata tha ki aapn toh sabse uncool hain, apne se koi baat kare na kare pata nahi hain,
#
thek hai, but matlab ye tha ki haan, pehli-pehli baar paise kama hai, toh kabde kabde thek
#
pehle lete the, toh ye tha ki ekdum se bhaga bhi nahi dekha sabne wala, toh ye, jaise
#
taise karke poetry open mic mein gaya hai, and I heard a few poets and I was like, arey
#
yaar ye toh main bhi likhsapta hu, ye toh, because I had read a lot, I had never written much,
#
I had written very few poems by then, but I was like, ye toh main bhi kar sakta hu,
#
so the concept of poetry open mic is back in 2009 when I first attended it, a lot of
#
people say that the whole thing began or rapidly burgeoned in 2015 or 16, many may claim that,
#
but it actually began as more of an underground subculture back in 2009, in September 2009,
#
October 2009, and what was happening was that there were just random people from any walks
#
of life who were just coming over there and reading out their poems, good or bad or, and
#
it was purposeless, there was, I mean the biggest purpose you could find was that one
#
of the organizers would give a cash prize of 1000 rupees to the winner, the best poem
#
of the day, what does 1000 rupees do anyway, I mean even in 2009 it was not a big deal,
#
but what it gave me was the kind of stress, humiliation and unwillingness to do a corporate
#
job and lack of self-esteem or rather damages to my self-esteem that were happening in my
#
job at the time were being compensated by these monthly poetry bike events where I was
#
going and I was citing poems and I was being appreciated and I was, people were okay with
#
who I am, and I knew that I wasn't this cool guy who would read out English poems, I can
#
speak in English but I cannot read poems in English, I can write them, and I know that
#
they won't be bad either, but what I want to say will come in my own words, what I think
#
in my own words, so I never even tried to write in English because I knew that it would
#
not be true, so I used to get appreciation there, so this is a very strange, I mean like
#
to say, counter, I used to do the treasury of every month only because I used to go here
#
and read poetry one day and I used to run away from the office, I used to make excuses
#
that I am not feeling well today, I have this, I have that, because I know that I won't
#
leave the office before 9 o'clock and I will be late on my way back, so I used to do that
#
and I used to be alone who used to take a laptop bag and used to wear office clothes
#
and used to go there and we used to study in Urdu, but that poetry event gave me a lot
#
of things, I have won a lot from those poetry open mics, I have won about 7-8 poetry open
#
mics and I have never used that cash, the 1000-1500 rupees that they have given me, a small
#
trophy or envelope, I have never spent it, so that is also there and so the good thing
#
is that I got a lot of friends there and I cherish them a lot, I mean the friends I
#
got there and I have been living for many years with them, I have been living for 5 years
#
only with the memories of those friends and the memories of these poetry open mics,
#
which I will tell you later, so that was a very important period of my life, I have
#
learned a lot and most importantly I got addicted to writing, because every month for
#
some reason I had made a rule from my heart that I will read a different poem every month,
#
there was no such rule defined, but I had made this rule in my mind, so every month I
#
used to write 5 poems and I used to read one of the best poems, so that became my habit
#
and the habit of writing, so I started enjoying it, everything started happening and during
#
that time, when I used to go to poetry open mics, I got a lot of good poets, like Varun
#
Grover was one of them, Ghazal Dhalewal was one of them, both of them are very known screen
#
writers right now and then there was Vineet Garg, there was Anand, there was Mayank Tiwari
#
who is again a very big writer right now, then there was Alfred Lee, Sushil Cheryan
#
and these are very good poets, so these people used to come very often and they all became
#
my friends, I learned a lot from them and Rohini was hosting them, Rohini Ramnathan
#
was an RJ and she was a very good host at that time, so I realized that auditing is a very
#
corporate drudgery, it's probably the peak of corporate drudgery, I mean the big fours,
#
I'm not saying this in a slandering way but there are articles written on the internet,
#
but it's too much corporate drudgery, it is perhaps designed to suck the soul out of you
#
and to make you so incapable of doing anything else with your life but the job itself and
#
I did not particularly admire that, I did not admire the people who admired the system
#
for that and I used to be not vocal about it in the beginning of my job but in the latter
#
half of my job I started talking about it because thinking about thinking is going on
#
in your mind, you are doing your work with your mind closed which is being told by you
#
but it's not fully shut, you reflect on things, the way your nature is, so this was the story
#
of CA and when he used to do poetry events, one more thing happened that I had written
#
an associate dialogue for two films, Ghazal was actually at that time a writer and she
#
was trying to get a break in the industry and she had written a film and she wanted
#
a dialogue writer and not a dialogue writer, basically somebody who could help with the
#
dialect, I was from Indore and she figured out that this guy is from Indore so he will
#
help with something, so I wrote a few dialect improvements in her dialogue and then there
#
was another project that she was doing which was on a writer, the story of a writer and
#
all, so I ended up doing associate dialogue of sorts in that project as well, but then
#
I was frustrated with my job and I didn't want anything, I was just like okay I will
#
get some credit ready type, I had no idea what writing is, I had no idea what film writing
#
is, I was just like having fun, this is screenplay, this is dialogue, can I write like this,
#
okay I can do this, and I was just okay even if I didn't get any credit or money, I was
#
just okay, we didn't want to get any money because he was getting very little as well
#
so he decided and I was earning anyway so I didn't even need it, but I was just happy
#
that I was getting to do something new and when we will go to see a movie with our friends
#
we will say that you know I worked in this, you know I worked in this, that's all, I
#
had no purpose in it, it was just like to have a good laugh, like if I will go to watch
#
the film or something like that, so this is it and after that, I was giving a cat during
#
that time, so I gave a cat for a year, then I was having a very high fever, but suddenly
#
I got 95.6 percentile, I thought I can do this, so because I was good at math in school
#
also, I was really good at math and I knew English because I used to study, so I think
#
I needed math and English, I think the cat people have decided that in life if you just
#
know English and math, then you will be called intelligent, so apart from this, they have
#
never learned any level of intelligence, neither have I been able to see it in college,
#
I have been there for two years, that they have given the level of intelligence to something
#
else, so apart from that, I gave the cat back next year, so I got some 98-99 percentile,
#
so I got a call from IM Indore and then I got a job, sorry I got admission in college,
#
so that was also a strange interview, I thought they will remove it, I thought they were laughing
#
at me after the interview, but somehow I got selected, so yeah there were just three people
#
and one guy just took off at me, where are your papers, these are not your papers, you
#
don't have the degree over here and then he started asking me about law, tell me about
#
sick industries act, what is the difference between private and public companies, he started
#
listing, you are a chartered accountant, you should say according to section 3, section
#
4, and I am like they are talking about cutting, and then he was like you are earning 35,000
#
over here, 38,000 is what you are getting in hand, why do you want to do MBA, I think
#
you shouldn't be doing MBA, and I am like what kind of interview is going on, then the
#
other guy was, I don't know, was he attentive or was he just fooling around with me, he said
#
do you know anything about brand valuation, I said no I don't, but I can say a few things,
#
I have read a few articles on it, so I can talk about it, he said okay then tell me how
#
does Brown value, I said but I don't claim expertise, because I am anyway an accountant
#
and valuation is an exercise which is an expert's report is what we consider in chartered accountancy,
#
as per auditors standards and all, so he said I told him that I have zero expertise in this,
#
I told him that I know nothing about this, and then he asked another question, okay so
#
when do you think that the brand value goes down, I was like sir like I explained earlier,
#
I am not an expert at this, but I can attempt answering your question, and then I attempted
#
answering your question that perhaps a negative PR news or something can and that may lead
#
to amortization of your brand value and things like that, then the other person started shouting,
#
if you don't know about it, why are you talking about it, why are you wasting our time, and
#
I was like sir I told you that I don't know, I told you that I am still answering,
#
because you have to listen, you are not listening to me, then the third person apparently was
#
the good cop perhaps, there were two terrible cops, there was one good cop and he started
#
asking me about my work experience, that what is the consolidation of accounts and you say
#
that you have done consolidation of accounts with foreign subsidiaries as well, so how
#
did you deal with the foreign exchange differences that happened during conversions, and what
#
are the kind of fund flows that were happening, what are the kind of share capital patterns
#
like that were there in the subsidiary and the subsidiary of the subsidiary, so then
#
I explained all that to him, then he was asking me about there was this one big energy plant
#
audit that I had done, there was also shopping mall audit that I had done, there was also
#
there was one airport construction audit that I had done, there was a shipping audit that
#
I had done, so there were a lot of industries that I had covered, and of course then, so
#
he was asking me about all that and those were the questions that I was able to answer,
#
and then they were asking me about excel and all, do you know this, and I was like I mean
#
I could teach this, for me speed is as important as knowing features, actually speed is more
#
important than knowing features, because otherwise I would just end up working for 18 hours a
#
day, so yeah I mean all that happened, and so as soon as I got into Indore, and so yes
#
I mean when I left Bombay, I was sad that I would miss my friends, those who do poetry,
#
I mean I was very sad that I would lose contact with these people, and maybe I would lose
#
contact with poetry as well, so these people have been my strength, I mean in my memories,
#
it's not like I was in touch with any of them, generally I was living my own life, and
#
these people were also living their own lives, but yeah, so this happened, so I think I will
#
stop, I have been talking for a long time.
#
No, no, it's all fascinating and I have so many questions from different parts of this,
#
and you know one thing that strikes me is, this one thing that interests me a lot is
#
how do people become themselves, in the sense that all young people, and I remember this
#
certainly in my case, that we are constantly dealing with a set of different anxieties,
#
and one of those anxieties is the anxiety of fitting in, of being liked, of that validation
#
of your peers and all that, so if you think that being cool is a certain way you start
#
behaving like that, and when you do that you are not yourself, right, and you try to fit
#
in in all these different ways, and when you do you are not yourself, and one you pointed
#
out that when you were in school, you were doing this but you had the self awareness,
#
like you said that I knew that I was doing my shortcomings, so you had that little self
#
awareness that this is what I am doing and this is why I am doing it, but nevertheless
#
what were those sort of early anxieties like, because it seems to me that in that process
#
of finding yourself, of figuring out who you are, you perhaps had to shed two different
#
kinds of skins, and one kind of skin is the skin that is taking into account that what
#
people are thinking, or how you want to appear to the world, and that is one kind of skin,
#
and you know you pointed out that when you used to go for poetry reading that skin is
#
not there because you can be yourself, whereas even in office you have to have that skin,
#
and the second skin is the skin of what you are doing, the things you are doing, like
#
it is very moving for me when you point out that when you knew you had passed the CA you
#
started crying because it is over, right, which indicates that you know that second
#
skin was so constricting, so difficult, to be able to just shed it off was so kind of
#
liberating, and I find this very interesting because I think most people don't even go
#
through this process, like it took me to reach middle age to realize, to actually have the
#
self realization that these are the anxieties that I deal with, and these anxieties are
#
pointless, and maybe these anxieties are hardwired into us so we can't do anything, but at least
#
being aware of it helps, like when I teach my writing course, you know, the one point
#
I make is that the one anxiety we have to be aware of and get rid of while writing is
#
what will other people think of this, if you are always going to second guess ki duniya
#
ka response kya hoga, you cannot ever do good work, you have to put that to the side and
#
do what you want to do and you know all of that, and your process seems to have involved
#
some kind of pain because you are doing things you hate like CA, like I can't imagine myself
#
doing it frankly, I would just die, so what was that kind of process like, like you said
#
there was some germ of self awareness, but that whole process of figuring out who are
#
you, settling down in that, what was that like, and was being Muslim a part of that,
#
because you pointed out that in your school, in your class of 100 there were 3 Muslims,
#
up and down classes had 0 Muslims, now the thing is that means India being what it is,
#
that you are carrying a separate layer of awareness that none of the other boys are,
#
that I didn't have to carry when I was a kid, like I have realised this and I have spoken
#
about this a lot and I have realised this with respect to gender for example, that extra
#
layer that women carry, ki I can go for a walk at midnight and not think twice, I can
#
enter a lift and I don't even notice who the other people are, and women can't do any
#
of those things, right, there is that extra layer, are there extra layers for you because
#
Yes, there are, one thing that you said, you said something in between, I forgot,
#
about anxiety, skin, the skin shedding that you are saying is absolutely right, I have
#
never thought about it in words, but I know that feeling is the same, but what you are
#
saying is right, I have felt the skin shedding, second, you feel that extra layer too,
#
because what happens is that on one side, what I am telling you, there is a feeling of
#
shame, a feeling of inferiority, which is there, this is a part of it, a part of it is a Muslim
#
identity, because what I remember from my childhood, what I remember from my teenage,
#
is that on one side, I also feel that I should be like them, I should do what they do,
#
because this is normal, this is being said that this is normal, I am abnormal, this is
#
not being said, but it is being said that this is normal, there is a lot of difference
#
in this, so you are celebrating Diwali, and you know everything, what is happening in
#
Diwali, what is not happening, but every year, you are explaining to your classmates,
#
what is happening on Eid, what is not happening, why are you celebrating, why are you not celebrating,
#
ok, at that time, you don't understand what is happening, why is he ignorant, but now
#
you are understanding, at that time, you feel that you have come to ask again, you have to
#
tell again, it is strange, you come to ask every time, you are a kid, you think like this,
#
and people think like this in normal life also, I mean, no one explains it very deeply,
#
but this thing, on the other hand, you have an inferiority complex, that I am not normal,
#
I am different, something is different in my house, one class equation is different and
#
communal equation is also different, ok, it is an awareness, second, you also feel that
#
I am ok, I mean, I am different, but I am ok, I mean, I like it, I mean, if someone
#
would have asked me today, that if you become so envious of everyone, that you become
#
suppose Sourav Pandey type, then I will not become, because I am ok with who I am, and
#
I was always, I mean, I was ok with being a little different also, even though that difference
#
would not, would like 90 out of 100 times, it will go on for my disadvantage, it will
#
create a disadvantage for me, but I was ok with those 10 things that will fall in my
#
favor also, that sometimes someone asks more questions, if he is a Muslim, sometimes someone
#
talks nicely, sometimes someone else looks Muslim, so he will definitely talk properly,
#
so I used to like these things, but those things also bring you inferiority, those things
#
create a normal in your psyche, which is not your normal, like this vegetarian food
#
is made normal, and non-veg always becomes a stigma in childhood, while eating and
#
eating like this, now this is very strange, I used to feel like this in my childhood, but
#
I had internalized this, that I am such a bad person, if I am eating non-veg in front of
#
someone and vegetarian, I mean, if the person in front is vegetarian, then I will be like
#
you, sir, I will not eat, sir, I will eat bhaji, but it was a friend of mine after many
#
years, and you know later I would, the same thing carried forward in my job also, I used
#
to get constantly taunting here and there, that non-veg, or this happens in you people,
#
this happens in you people, and then I used to do very weird things, like in Bombay, some
#
people will say that they will go from JJ Flyover, that whole area, Bombadali road is very bad,
#
it is terrible, and I will be like, that is not terrible, all my relatives live there,
#
I am living in the same trap, whenever I come to Bombay, I am seeing all these big
#
houses in Bombay, when I have earned money, I am living in the same trap, how are you
#
saying this, I mean for me JJ Flyover is a monstrosity, which is standing above my head
#
and my sky is stopping, you are seeing from above, I am seeing from below, and you are
#
feeling like a monstrosity, don't say that you are shielding a dirty area and going,
#
so this is a different perception, I mean of course I didn't say this in front of them,
#
I used to say slowly that no, it is not like that, there will be traffic, if it is your
#
boss, you can't say things like that, but now he is not my boss, so now I can say it,
#
so this is weird, so this layer is always there, you know that you are a cognizant,
#
you also know that, I also know from my childhood that I can't move forward by playing
#
a game of 19-20, if I play a game of 19-20 and I am 20, then I will lose, I will have to
#
play a game of 19-25, I will have to be so much better than the person in front of me,
#
that I mean you can't give a chance to the person in front of you, now this is also a part
#
of the psyche, keep overcompensating all the time, that take more, take more, it still
#
manifests that I am taking so much money for this song, I will have to write so well,
#
I have taken more money in this, although I haven't taken much money, actually I am
#
taking only half of the money of my level lyricist, but I am also feeling guilty about
#
whether I will be able to give service or not, I understand, so this doesn't go, I mean
#
my guess is, at least mine has not gone yet, and I want it to go, and people give
#
me a lot of confidence and it has gone to a lot of extent, I mean it's not like it's
#
zero, I mean it's not like it's still at 100, it's a lot less, I mean people have
#
given me courage, I am also open to something, so this layer always remains, it doesn't
#
go, now see I am coming to Mumbai, so I mean, on the first day I realized that
#
I will not let Mohammedan go home, so your name, your personality, your identity,
#
it is not leaving you, it is not leaving you, your name, your identity, it is going with
#
you all the time, and it is taking shape in a metropolitan city, which claims to be a
#
melting pot and what not, it is getting into a company like EY, which claims to be a multinational
#
company and what not, at the best places, at the cleanest, the brightest places, people
#
are brainwashed, and you are saying that I mean, I mean I think that, I mean I
#
contextualize it in this way by going near, that this is a bright place, this is a good
#
place, this is a clean place, how are the people here brainwashed, so this amazes me, and
#
somewhere or the other when you try to shed that layer again and again, but you think
#
that by going up in the class equation, by going up in this equation, by going up in the
#
education equation, by going up in the merit quote unquote equation, I will compensate
#
for that, but that does not happen, so there are very strange feelings, sometimes there
#
is rage, sometimes there is helplessness, sometimes there is value in self pity, sometimes
#
there is cockiness, that it is us, sometimes there is bitterness, sometimes there is sorrow,
#
so maybe I am that kind of a natured person who has a strange cocktail reaction every
#
time, but I can say that this is almost the same for every Muslim, that there is a gamut
#
of reaction, which is in a strange way, in a different way, at different times, at different
#
times, now sometimes someone talks bigoted in front of you, you freeze, you know that
#
the other person is such a powerful person that you can't even speak, but what will you
#
do, you have to do what he is saying, like can you give an example without naming
#
up to you, I mean if you want to name your name, but I don't want to put you in an awkward
#
spot, yes, I think I have seen it many times in the office situation, that this happens,
#
and the person is a senior manager and I am merely an executive, which is like three levels
#
below, so the person says something very weird and
#
type statement and then you are like
#
why is he talking like this, he is not supposed to talk like this, but then you also know
#
that I cannot speak anything against this person because he is a senior manager, I can't
#
say that, so all these things are very, I mean you remember all these things, you know
#
that I couldn't say anything and I had to quickly divert topic, divert like the topic
#
so that it goes away from here, like yes sir, but actually sir I wanted to ask one more
#
thing, I have updated the lead, what happened, because I don't have an option, I don't
#
know what to say to that, now how much history should I go, I mean should I be present, should
#
I tell context, should I correct his language, should I give my own explanation, what should
#
I do, I don't have any option at that time, so it is better to leave it, but this behavior
#
is not like, if you make a video of it, it will not look violent, if you make a video of it,
#
then it is not like the watermelon of the radio is broken, so you will feel pity after seeing
#
it, what happened, these are very light violences that happen in an air conditioned office,
#
they become very quiet, they don't even go out of the window, and if you make a video
#
of it, it will be very boring, so and I can still tell you from the claim that in corporate
#
India, it is very important that a study is done or someone is known about hiring, behavior,
#
culture, how Muslims and Dalits and Tribals people are treated, right from their hiring
#
to the way they are inducted and how the behavior is during induction, what is the kind of response
#
and everything that happens during their training, what are the kind of projects they are allotted,
#
what are the kind of things that they feel, especially in the last 2-3 years that Muslims
#
have worked in corporates, and of course it doesn't mean that everybody is bad, everybody
#
is bigoted, it does not mean that, but there are, you would find a few pockets in many
#
organizations which will be not conducive at all for a Muslim to work, and that is, and
#
I am pretty sure that it is still happening, because the reason why I can say that it is
#
happening, is because I recently went on a Twitter space, recently means 2-3 months ago,
#
I had written about this on Twitter, so I try to listen to this right wing content very
#
clinically, but sometimes it gets to my skin, okay, now there was this one particular Twitter
#
space where I had gotten into, where they had caught hold of this stupid Muslim guy who
#
was just adamant that I will not go out of this space, okay, whatever you want to do,
#
do it, I will stay here type attitude, and the boys and the girls mostly about 20 years
#
old, they had started abusing that guy, and all of it were communal slurs, all of it were
#
communal abuse, and I can tell you that that is the same communal abuse that I heard in
#
2021, which I have heard in 2001, not even the words have changed, not even the sentence
#
framings have changed, they must be from not perhaps not metro cities, or from the not
#
so posh areas of metro cities, the posh people do it differently, okay, or they must have
#
been from tier 2 cities or tier 3 cities, I belong to Indore, I know that I have heard
#
everything in this language, and that got to me, and I just started, I mean, last year
#
after 7-8 months, I started crying while listening, because I remembered everything,
#
that this is what I used to hear, nothing has changed, nothing has changed, how is it
#
possible that nothing has changed, how is it possible that nothing has changed, so I
#
mean, I was I think more crying out of disbelief, that how did this not change, it was not
#
like, it was not that, it was more like, how is this, why is this boy listening, he is
#
also stupid, go away from space, on the one hand I am getting angry at him, but of course
#
I am not supposed to do that, then the concept of victim blaming and all that is there, but
#
my human reaction is also that go away, why is he listening, something like that, but
#
this is why I feel that yes, this is it, and you are conscious, now what has happened,
#
I think in the last 5-6 years, the whole skin shedding has happened, which you are telling,
#
so, and I think largely during the CNRC movement, I think I also consciously decided that now
#
I have to speak, because now everyone is speaking, so now we can also speak.
#
Earlier, I would un-Muslimize myself to fit in a lot of times, I don't have a problem
#
with it, as long as I do want it as a personal preference, but then for the first time during
#
CNRC, I felt that whatever I have thought, whatever I have seen, I can speak, because
#
now we are talking, if we are talking, then we will talk, is what my larger thing was,
#
and it was more of a, I want to be a part of this, as a Muslim person I want to contribute,
#
if I would have been a tent house guy, I would have supplied tent house, if I would have
#
had a printing press, I would have published pamphlets, if I would have been a cook, I
#
would have made biryani, or I would have made sandwiches for the people over there, but
#
I would have contributed, I was a poet, and apparently as per a poet, I need to go on
#
the stage and speak, so I did that, but if I could have done something else, someone
#
told me to keep accounts, to do accounting, to make certificates, to make control in
#
excel sheet, I am ready to do that, I have nothing to do with that, but I know that
#
for the first time people have awakened, the Muslim consciousness has awakened in a different
#
way, and together a unity is being formed, so this has to be a part of it, and whatever
#
I can do in this unity to contribute to it, I would like to do that, this was my very
#
clear thought process during that time, and I am just going from there, so that is it.
#
I find this really mind blowing description, what you said that for me JJ flyover is also
#
a monstrosity, that some people are up looking down, some people are down looking up, so
#
that is the perspective, and that also sheds light on what you said that, you know, when
#
you were talking about the little office microaggression, that if we make a video, then we will not
#
know, it will be a normal conversation, but it depends on where you are looking from,
#
if you are looking from below JJ flyover, then it is a big deal, and you know, the way
#
One of the layers that has fallen off from my eyes, and it has been a very difficult
#
one to come to terms with, is that when I kind of grew up, I thought that by and large
#
India is tolerant and liberal in different ways, of course there are so many problems,
#
you know, gender, caste, all these problems are there, but by and large we are moving
#
in the right direction, and we are, you know, everything is kind of going well.
#
And one of the things I have realized in recent years is that I was in an elite bubble, or
#
I was in an elite English speaking bubble, speaking to, you know, interacting with people
#
like myself, everything outside, if something kind of didn't belong there, or saw something
#
from outside, you said, no, these are fringe elements, you know, or these are typical,
#
And what I have realized, and it's really a couple of observations, I had done this
#
episode with, and like the first time I recorded with Aakar Patel, we were chatting, and you
#
know, his sense was that there is no, at that time he had just begun his book on Hindutva,
#
and his sense was that, look, there are no right-wing intellectuals, there is no coherent
#
thought there, and all of that, and later on I did a bunch of episodes with people who
#
had grown up not reading in English, but reading in Hindi, reading in other languages,
#
So they said, no, this has been going on for a long time, they have their own tradition,
#
whether you agree with it or not, they have their intellectual traditions, they are internally
#
coherent, and all of that, they hold up.
#
I did an episode with Akshay Mukul, who wrote that great book on the Geeta Press, and that's
#
also eye-opening, because you realise that this way of thinking is so deep within Hindi
#
society, like within Indian society, sorry, where, you know, there are little books on
#
how women should behave, deeply sexist and misogynist would sell millions of copies,
#
literally millions, right, and issues like love jihad and cow slaughter are issues of
#
the 1920s, not the 2020s, they have been with us forever.
#
So my sense is, number one, that we were always an illiberal, bigoted, sexist society, and
#
you know, for a while, we had elites who gave us a constitution, which it's an imperfect
#
constitution, I have many complaints, but it was more liberal than society itself, but
#
you could not change society from the top down, which is where that project failed.
#
You know, in that sense, Gandhiji was right, that you can only change society from within,
#
and our society was always this.
#
And the second observation is, that what has happened in recent times, is there's a Turkish
#
sociologist called Timur Kurhan, and he had written a book in 1999 called Public Lies,
#
Private Truths, and his funda was that we, the way we behave in public is obviously different
#
from what our private beliefs are, and the example he gave was of the Soviet Union.
#
In the Soviet Union, nobody would dissent, because they thought that they were the only
#
ones feeling the dissent, because nobody was allowed to speak, and that was called
#
preference falsification, everybody is behaving like everything is alright, but the moment
#
there is a critical mass of dissent which has been expressed, then everybody feels
#
that fuck, I'm not alone, these people are also there, and then that leads to what is
#
called a preference cascade, and everybody speaks up.
#
And I believe that social media made it happen in India in the negative direction, in the
#
sense that there were many people who were what I call closet bigots, right?
#
That you can't tell someone in a polite society that a woman's place is in the kitchen,
#
and a Dalit should be given water in a separate glass, you can't say that in polite society,
#
at least in my kind of polite society.
#
So you have to do preference falsification, you have to pretend, but the moment you realize
#
that the entire public is like this, you feel emboldened, a community is formed, and then
#
it gathers a force, and there is no stopping it.
#
So on the one hand, my sense is we were always like this, but on the other hand, I think
#
it is amplified in the extent that nobody is pretending anymore, there is no dog whistling,
#
they say open arms. So what is your take on this?
#
Like, because you, you know, you mentioned that what you heard in 2021 was the same what
#
So is this correct that society was always like this?
#
What is what is your sort of sense of this?
#
I think no one thing is correct in these matters.
#
I think both of them are both the things are correct, because there was people were bigoted
#
They were, for example, if I talk about the children who were bullying or who were giving
#
communal slurs when I was in school in 1112, they were spending the school time with me,
#
they were spending the coaching time with me.
#
The only time when we used to play sports, etc., they were playing it with me.
#
What was the only time where they could have learned all these communal slurs?
#
You guess what the place could be when they're at home with the parents.
#
Yes. So it's very clear that where they got it from, and perhaps the parents got it from the
#
television or the radio or the other sources that are not generally talked about, like
#
Geeta Press and Panjanya and other meetings at the samitis that people might be going to.
#
Now, that is also true that people were bigoted, but there was also a certain amount of
#
pretense, like you said, I think both is true.
#
The same people, like I said, while we were talking earlier, the same people who were bigoted,
#
who would do communal slurs at me, if they would be presented in front of five people
#
who are educated, sophisticated, they would be ashamed to call me all those names.
#
They would have a certain sense of fear or shame.
#
If not a fear, at least a shame, that it is not okay.
#
They know that it is wrong.
#
It's not that they don't know it is not wrong.
#
They don't think that I'm saying it right.
#
If someone is being slurred, they know that they are saying it wrong.
#
But if there are four progressive people, they will be afraid to speak.
#
And he wanted to speak and he spoke and he learned from home, this is also true.
#
So I believe that it was both, but the veil that has been lifted right now,
#
I mean, there are such people who I mean, I met a person when I went to America during the CNRC.
#
So he was telling me that it's about 2003 or 2004.
#
It's about 2004 or 2005.
#
And he is sitting at home and eating biryani and says, don't discuss Modi.
#
What people did in 2002 was right.
#
And this guy was flabbergasted that he is at my house.
#
He is eating food with me.
#
And he is saying that what happened in 2002 was right.
#
But now that is something that he is saying in confidence because he is his friend.
#
He may not have the sense that he is a Muslim friend, I am talking bigoted, whatever it is.
#
But now these things are being written on social media by 10 people.
#
So the fifth is seeing that four have written, the sixth is seeing that five have written,
#
which is the preference falsification that you are saying.
#
That the whole crowd, I mean, as people are increasing, it is becoming clear that it is a crowd.
#
And now this is okay to say.
#
And a lot of things I think have contributed to this.
#
First is the dog whistling by the politicians themselves.
#
Second is the kind of things that come on WhatsApp.
#
The kind of things that I see on Telegram.
#
The kind of things that I now see on Instagram.
#
Earlier they were not very active on Instagram.
#
The kind of things you see when you go down that Twitter rabbit hole.
#
You go down that whole right wing.
#
So you understand that this thing has progressed a lot.
#
I used to listen to Twitter Spaces when Naina came.
#
They are talking so casually about weapons.
#
They are talking so casually about killing.
#
They are talking so casually that we don't have.
#
But you know, Modi can't do that.
#
We need someone who can get their hands dirty.
#
And you know, we need to increase the presence of Bajrang Dal in such areas or VHP.
#
That person knows that Bajrang Dal and VHP are violent organizations.
#
Here we are trying to educate people.
#
So this has come in the open.
#
That we have to do this.
#
And so now I don't know about this.
#
What you are saying is absolutely right.
#
That it will go down to up.
#
And I think now the hate has started going as much from the bottom to the top as it is coming from the top to the bottom.
#
It is a very sad comment.
#
That now if like we were discussing that there are a few people who call Modi as Maulana Modi.
#
Which is the extreme right wing.
#
Which is like pretty much waiting to eat up the BJP and some of its players.
#
But which is who they are also afraid of by the way.
#
But the thing is that for them even that has started to decrease.
#
That they are beating, beating, not allowing them to do business, not allowing them to meet, not allowing them to get married.
#
Meaning they are stopping everything.
#
So that has also decreased for them.
#
So I think both are true.
#
These people speak, these people are useless, I mean sorry people are also open.
#
But it was a little bit earlier.
#
They have been compromised a little bit because propaganda is coming from all sides.
#
You have 360 degree propaganda.
#
So even someone wants to understand a little bit.
#
I mean I don't believe that someone is a fool, doesn't know how to understand.
#
Somebody reads about the Delhi pogrom, they read about the violence in Delhi.
#
And they feel very sad.
#
They are like oh some of my friends live over there, I am feeling really sad.
#
And then probably a tear drop will fall and they will be like oh shit communal violence ho gaya, Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai.
#
And they will be very sad.
#
Genuinely a Hindu person will be sad.
#
And then there will be ping, ping, ping on his phone, WhatsApp.
#
It will say Hindu Virodi Hinsa.
#
It will say dekh ho ye aadmi maara, isko 400 bar chaako maara.
#
Dekhiye ye muslimaan ka photo jala raha hai.
#
What they do with that propaganda is that they have created a mechanism, they have created a guilt alleviation mechanism.
#
They have created a shame alleviation mechanism.
#
A society which in parts, not all, which in parts has the ability to feel shame, which in parts has the ability to call its morals and take the right action, is prevented from doing so.
#
So it's on, ye bhi sahi hai aur ye bhi sahi hai, they might sound, that's what I am trying to say, ye saari baathe, unfortunately,
#
I mean unfortunately bhi nahi, saari baathe mere khayal se sahi hai.
#
Koi bhi ye completely true or completely false, it's not mutually exclusive of each other.
#
I do feel a part of, ek to preference falsification hai jo aap kaha raha hai.
#
Ki bahot se log isi guman mein hai ki yaar, ye ulta preference falsification bhi hai na, ki bahot se log isi guman mein hai ki yaar,
#
me toh Modi ke baare main sahi nahi soch raha hoon, lekin yaar ye ghar mein phupa jo hai, ye daad denge agar maine bol diya toh.
#
Yaar yaar ye chaar log jo hai WhatsApp me ye chilla denge, lekin ho sakta hai wo chaar log bhi bolna chahte hain.
#
Wo bhi wait kar rahe hain, koi bolne toh hum haan haan karke jawab de.
#
I mean hum bhi pura nahi bolenge, lekin haan bol denge.
#
Toh yeh wo bhi hai, aur yeh jo guilt aur shame ka alleviation jo ho raha hai, bahot continuously WhatsApp karta hai, jo WhatsApp bhi karta hai, Twitter bhi karta hai,
#
aur jo news channel karta hai, jo Hindi ke aghwaar karta hai, yeh jab tak bharam nahi tutega.
#
Koi nah down up kuch possible hai, nah top down kuch possible hai.
#
Main hameesha mera yeh, matlab bahot time se mera yeh maan na raha hai, mujhe pata nahi meri political samaj ke saab se jo, sahi hai, galat jo bhi hai.
#
Lekin jab tak yeh House of Cards me aap propaganda ka pata nahi khichenge, yeh girega nahi.
#
Kyunki bahot aap, matlab ino na bahot kabza karke rakha hai dima ho.
#
Main kyunki right wing ka Twitter bhi alak se follow karta hu, main Instagram bhi alak se follow karta hu, Telegram bhi follow karta hu.
#
WhatsApp me kar nahi baata hu kyunki meri baat access nahi hai, aur Facebook pe bhi kayi baar dekhta hu.
#
To mujhe pata hai ki ino ne itna extreme persecution create kar diya hai, matlab itna zyada bichha rahe Hindu, mar rahe Hindu, kya aapne hi desh me paya rahe hain.
#
And a lot of things that they say are contradictory, and they are fine with the contradictions.
#
Kyunki wo contradictory baate to humko dikh rahe hain, lekin unki logon ko ek ek do do baate hi pata chal rahe hain.
#
Woh toh jaisa matha dekh rahe hain, waisa tilak laga rahe hain.
#
Toh bhai usko jahaan propaganda wahan usko dila diya, aap wo aadmi dimaag me bhar gaya hai wo.
#
Toh yeh, mere mana hai ki yeh bahot possible hai lotna, lekin mushkil hai.
#
Aur wahi jo, again I would repeat ki wo, saari baate mujhe true lagti hain ki wo bigoted bhi hain, wo gumraa bhi ke gaya hain.
#
Aur yeh kuch kuch ke liye, matlab har aadmi ke saath up, poori society ke liye aap ek baat nahi bol sakta hai.
#
Asa mujhe lagta hai ki kuch gumraa bhi hua hain, kuch gumraa bhi honge, bigoted bhi honge, matlab uninformed bhi honge.
#
Matlab ek aadmi mein tino combination bhi mil sakta hai aapko, alak-alak topics mein aap baat kare toh.
#
Toh yeh mera mana hai ki yeh phil haal haal hai.
#
Yeah, I mean there's that old saying, whatever you say of India, the opposite is also true.
#
And you know, these are two sides of it that, you know, one thought is society is like this, always been like this.
#
The other thought is that, hey, the weaponized propaganda is making it so much worse.
#
And I want to address both of these one by one. Let's first talk about the propaganda.
#
Like when we were having lunch before this, we were chatting about, you know, I was telling you about how I decided a couple of years back to enter these right-wing rabbit holes and see what they're like.
#
Toh maine YouTube pe decide kiya, so I just, I didn't want my YouTube algorithm to get messed up.
#
So I, you know, opened an incognito window, different Gmail account and start.
#
And so all these guys like Yathin Arsalanand and all, I was watching them with horror two years ago and wondering that, like, my God, you know.
#
And as you said, they were referring to Modi as Molana Modi and even Adityanath is too moderate for them because what has he done for the Hindus and all of that.
#
And the striking thing is, like, if I am to open those two YouTubes now in front of you, they are different universes.
#
Bilkul. It is like site hi alage hai. Toh mere regular YouTube mein jo bhi mere interests hai wo sab aate hai.
#
Dusre YouTube mein pura, this is, it's like this bigoted and full of hate and full of all of this.
#
And, you know, even efforts to make that sound reasonable and all of that. And it is crazy.
#
And then you think about if there is a 15 year old kid in the year 2015 aur kisi ne usko ek video bheja and he opens a video which is full of shit like this,
#
then the algorithm will make sure to maximize engagement and he just gets more of that till he is seeing nothing else.
#
Like, I think, you know, one, another mistake I think people like me have made is that we suffer from the curse of knowledge,
#
that we think ki humari ek baseline thinking hai India ke baare mein and everybody must be sharing that, ki India aisa hai, India baisa hai.
#
Actually, it's not the case. That 15 year old kid is getting his whole knowledge of the world from this universe of propaganda, you know,
#
which the algorithms of the big tech sites are making sure that he stays within that bubble and within that echo chamber.
#
And he sees nothing else and you can't really blame him because that's the world that he sees.
#
So I completely get that, that sometimes you can't just blame society or all these ways of weaponizing misinformation play a part in that.
#
Tell me about your experiences of tracking right-wing Twitter, right-wing Instagram and all that.
#
Like, why did you think you want to do this? And, you know, what are the kinds of things that you've seen or learned while doing this?
#
So I started tracking them because I was driven out of Twitter by them.
#
I, during Delhi pogrom, I had basically said something that now we should use the vocabulary Hindu terrorist.
#
Now it was a single tweet. If I would have explained the context of what I'm trying to say,
#
that when an act of terrorism is done under the pretext of a religion, which it was in Delhi,
#
then it can be called as ex-religion terrorism. People don't flinch before saying Islamic terrorism.
#
Why must I flinch before saying Hindu terrorism as well? If I would have explained it in a rational way,
#
perhaps people would have got it, but I said it in a hyperbolic way and that was not wrong,
#
but it was usable by the right-wing to demonize me.
#
And there was an old tweet where I was basically trying to say that, you know,
#
why are you telling us to speak politely or in a poetic form?
#
Why don't you go to your neighbourhood and wear slippers, basically, is what I was trying to say.
#
But that is something that I'm talking to liberals about.
#
Why are you telling us to write poetry? Why don't you go to your neighbourhood and wear slippers?
#
So that they portrayed as, I'm telling Muslims to go and wear slippers.
#
So this is again something very interesting, what they do, what these websites do.
#
They will take what you are saying and they will make it a completely different distortion.
#
They said that he is saying all Hindus are terrorists. No, I did not say that.
#
I said that this is the vocabulary to be used for this kind of violence, which is Hindu terrorism.
#
And it is not a new word. It has apparently been said by Kamal Haasan also in 2017.
#
The last to last, as old as I have found the origin of this Hindu terrorism word,
#
was found in the New York Times in 2009 on Google.
#
Before that too, of course, until 2012-2013, I remember until 2013, in fact, until 2014,
#
there were entire episodes on Bhagwa terrorism on television.
#
So they delegitimised this later, including the Prime Minister, everybody, that Hindus are not terrorists.
#
This statement is a very strong propaganda of them because,
#
I mean, what kind of violence has the RSS accepted that yes, we did this?
#
They have accepted one thing that we did this. They do not believe it.
#
Whenever it happens, they sideline it or say that they resigned just now.
#
Something or the other comes out that they are not able to associate with it.
#
Anyway, so I started tracking because they took these two tweets out of context, completely out of context.
#
That I am saying to use this vocabulary. They are saying that I am saying all Hindus are terrorists.
#
There is no sense of that. Then here I am saying to the liberals that
#
where are you from us tone policing? Why are you doing our tone policing?
#
I mean, go and slap your neighbors that why are you voting for BJP?
#
They took it that it is a provocation to violence and they were at that time searching for people
#
who, because their Kapil Mishra and these were visible in front,
#
so they wanted people who could see that they have done violence directly.
#
So they had brought anything from anywhere, so I had to go off Twitter because
#
then they had gotten hold of the director and the film that I was working for at that time.
#
It was a big film and a very big director, known director.
#
So they had threatened to an extent that the threat was so real
#
and it spilled onto my real life so quickly and so heavily in my professional life
#
and also personal life because at that time I was going from Chicago to San Francisco
#
and my event got cancelled in San Francisco.
#
It was that bad because the people over there, the right wing groups, the IT hubs,
#
the so called educated NRIs, software engineers of India who are no better than the Hindutva troll mobs on the Twitter,
#
they made sure that the restaurant I have to perform in in San Francisco,
#
they dropped their Yelp rating, they started threatening him by calling him,
#
they started getting long WhatsApp messages, Facebook messages,
#
that guy got scared and cancelled my event.
#
Means these people have a tool kit that they have to do this, these are the boxes we have to take.
#
And this group, this San Francisco Bay Area Professionals group,
#
I was shown a whole slide in which there are screenshots.
#
I was shown a slide of 10 pages.
#
In that, they have a group of legit working professionals in the Bay Area,
#
a group of software engineers.
#
This is not a bot army, this is not an IT cell.
#
These are proper NRI working professionals.
#
Imagine what they must be doing in their offices.
#
If this is what they are doing in software.
#
You can imagine some of them in their offices.
#
And if he is in the US, he must be a very civil person.
#
Imagine what this guy must be doing in India.
#
So when this happened, I had to go out of Twitter.
#
Because there was a lot of risk and I was in it a lot.
#
So I started and after that they did a book my show on a poetry event.
#
They arrested Hussain Haideri and did a book my Jihad.
#
And apparently around 5-7 lakh people were uninstalled.
#
People including Kapil Mishra and everybody were part of it.
#
So when that attack had happened, during those tweets of mine after the pogrom and all,
#
when they were trying to put me down,
#
there is not a single big account of right wing ecosystem that had not written against me,
#
made a video against me, wrote an article against me.
#
In fact I want to quote from OpIndia who wrote about you quote,
#
Hussain Haideri who is an out and out Jihad propagandist has been exposed in the past
#
from being a pervert and expressing his sexual desperation out in the public stock.
#
These are the funny ones.
#
So these are the tweets from 2011-2012 out of context.
#
But when you are a guy you don't understand what you are saying.
#
Now of course I will be embarrassed to see what the tweets were.
#
But the way these people tell it, the way it is written,
#
or why would I say all Hindus are terrorists, am I crazy?
#
But they have written an article on it that this is how they are saying it.
#
There is a video of The Frustrated Indian on it.
#
I mean all Hindus are terrorists, am I crazy?
#
Would any person be crazy to say this?
#
I mean who would do such a stupid generalization in a rightful way?
#
I can understand that they have written a couple of articles
#
but the event is being cancelled there, Yelp rating is going down,
#
BookMyShow is happening here.
#
Why did they target you so hard?
#
My guess is that I think what has happened with the new batch of Muslim voices
#
ranging from liberals to even conservatives,
#
what has happened largely but tilting most towards liberal voices,
#
is that with this fresh batch of Muslim voices, active liberal voices,
#
is that they are very eloquent.
#
They know many languages.
#
I can go and speak in a crowd of Muslims in Urdu
#
and I can go to the US and speak in English.
#
I can also go to a Hindi literary event and speak in chast Hindi.
#
I can also speak in complete Indori by changing the dialect.
#
These make me a very different person because
#
I can talk to a very big businessman,
#
I can talk to a CFO, I can talk to a CEO,
#
I can give a speech on the ground,
#
and I can make a PPT and present it.
#
Do you understand that language gives you a lot?
#
The second is that I am giving people less opportunities
#
that by calling me ignorant, or by calling me wild,
#
wild is not the right word, but by calling me arrogant,
#
by calling me barbaric, or by calling me uncivilized,
#
you cannot make me fall.
#
Because I will talk to you in a very civilized language.
#
If you are saying that I will be beaten up,
#
then my answer will not be that no, no,
#
What I will say is that what you are saying is illegal.
#
This is a very sharp turn.
#
This is not something that they want.
#
They want me to say the opposite.
#
They want me to reply to their religious bigotry
#
with more religious bigotry.
#
But I am saying no, this is incorrect, this is illegal.
#
And this is a problem for them,
#
which is why this matter has been stopped for 8 years.
#
He will say this, I will say this, so this is it.
#
So this is a fresh batch of...
#
They have also written an article in OpIndia
#
that the punctured ones are not the problem,
#
the ITIM ones are the problem.
#
So one thing is that a person like me
#
who makes straight hair,
#
has a beard, wears shirt pants,
#
I don't look very Muslim.
#
I mean, I have a very westernized look.
#
And then he will speak in English,
#
he will talk softly, he will do this and that.
#
They want to say that he can also be a terrorist.
#
Be careful of this too.
#
So in that sense, I am very useful for them
#
to make a poster boy of
#
hey, even the normal educated guy can be a bigot.
#
Even he can be a jihadi.
#
So it gives a rationalization to them.
#
Second is appearance and normalization
#
that I am causing through my education and qualification.
#
Third is the profession I am in.
#
I am writing songs too.
#
I am writing films too.
#
This is not a light medium and they know this.
#
I mean, if they were light mediums,
#
they wouldn't have attacked them so brutally
#
the way they are doing.
#
So a person like this shouldn't be political.
#
I think this is what they understand.
#
Because, you know, to have someone like Javed Sahib
#
who will say that look,
#
Hinduism is a big threat,
#
but ISIS is also a big threat.
#
He takes a sharp turn and balances both.
#
I am not going to take that sharp turn.
#
I am going to say that hey,
#
this Hinduism is a danger to my life
#
and I am talking only with respect to our country.
#
And I think that this is not correct.
#
I need to live with dignity.
#
So this is a very straight and without balancing
#
political voice and that is not acceptable.
#
And what if more will get political like that?
#
So that will be a problem for them.
#
So I think that is the reason by and large.
#
And also, I mean, by these mediums,
#
I can show my humanity.
#
I can show that all the emotions of a human being
#
or the human condition resides in me as well.
#
And that is something that they don't particularly,
#
when you are otherizing a community,
#
when you are demonizing a community,
#
the last thing you want is for them to show their humanity.
#
If I will write a post that I am feeling really depressed about,
#
you know, the way people are behaving,
#
they were all my friends and this and that,
#
it will show my humanity that I am feeling helpless,
#
If I will say in a very poetic way that what are you doing?
#
I mean, do you want to do this?
#
I mean, do you want to go here?
#
So they have a problem with that as well.
#
So I think that is one of the reasons for targeting.
#
But again, I mean, I digress a lot ahead.
#
I was like how did I come on the right wing?
#
So when all this happened,
#
when I got attacked because of these reasons,
#
and when I went out of Twitter,
#
because I didn't have any option,
#
it is like a big storm is coming straight to your face.
#
You can't do anything other than getting into a bunker.
#
You can't fight that storm because there are so many troll bots,
#
there are so many people and there are genuine people as well.
#
It's not like there are only troll bots.
#
So I hid in that in 2020 and it was a very bad time in my life
#
because it's also a phase of,
#
first it was a pandemic and then it led to a lot of ostracization.
#
First there is isolation and then there is ostracization.
#
Because a lot of things happen in silence.
#
I mean, when there is an attack like this,
#
when someone calls and asks if everything is fine,
#
then I can't tell you how much relief it gives you.
#
And I'm not sure if you felt that way when you were getting attacked by trolls.
#
But even if one person will call me and ask me,
#
hey, you're okay, it would just mean the world to me.
#
That someone is asking if I'm okay.
#
But during that time, there were no people to count on.
#
And I will always remember this.
#
Of course, I won't take the bitterness of this,
#
but I will remember that there were no more people to count on.
#
During that time, there were those who said,
#
And it was obvious to everyone because whoever I talked to,
#
whether I talk to some work or someone else,
#
and it's not like I was a person who knew little,
#
I was doing poetry, I was writing lyrics,
#
I was writing screenplay,
#
I was a well-known writer during that time.
#
So I will remember that.
#
I will never take the bitterness of that,
#
but I will never forget that my leg was broken,
#
you guys were watching,
#
I walked and went to the hospital myself,
#
and two of them didn't come.
#
They said, let's go together.
#
So I will remember that.
#
But yes, when this was going on,
#
that I said something wrong,
#
Then a lawyer explained to me,
#
are you crazy? Why are you feeling guilty?
#
I didn't say anything wrong.
#
Nothing will happen to you.
#
If I had said this, nothing would have happened to me.
#
You said your name, that's why you are feeling guilty.
#
So I was feeling guilty.
#
I was like, who are these people
#
who are so angry with me?
#
I used to see on a fake account
#
what is going on on Twitter.
#
I started following only the right wing.
#
And when I started following only the right wing,
#
I saw very interesting things.
#
First I understood that they are not a monolith.
#
They also have gradations.
#
One wants to hit, one just wants to give money
#
One just wants to clap on the one who hits,
#
but he himself gets beaten up.
#
One doesn't want to clap on the one who hits,
#
but he is quietly watching,
#
he is understanding that yes,
#
let it be, it's his rule.
#
nor is he understanding it right,
#
but he is thinking that he is crazy.
#
So this is a whole gradation
#
a lot of people don't agree with each other.
#
You understand some interesting things,
#
like what Zubair put in the middle,
#
I also observed that a long time ago.
#
So like how Mohammed Zubair
#
once put a scam on the iPhone.
#
And I was so happy to see it.
#
Because I saw this scam on the right wing.
#
What happened? Just remind me.
#
used to deal with the iPhone.
#
And he bought the iPhone
#
He took the money from the iPhone.
#
He did a scam. And I was reading it.
#
I said that there is a fight going on
#
And I was like, okay, there is a fight going on.
#
And of course, when I came to my Twitter,
#
there was no mention of it.
#
But then Mohammed Zubair posted it and he started making fun of them.
#
And I realized that they were very embarrassed.
#
The writing was very embarrassed.
#
So when you burst their bubble and bring out their conflicts,
#
they were very embarrassed.
#
They were very embarrassed about Yati.
#
They were very embarrassed about Dharam Sansad.
#
They will not talk about it, you make them talk about it,
#
they will not speak about it.
#
You make them speak about Suleybhai and Bullivai,
#
they will not speak about it.
#
You make them speak about Bajrang Muni.
#
Will they not speak about it because they
#
think it is wrong and they are embarrassed for that reason
#
or will they not speak about it because
#
they feel it is not strategic to
#
And Yati Narsinghanand also comments very terribly about Hindu women.
#
Even if they talk about raping Muslim women, Hindu women who are pro-BJP, Hindu women who are Hindutva, pro-Hindutva,
#
they will feel a chill in their body. They may deny it or they may accept it, but they will not like the fact that a man is saying that we will go and rape a Muslim woman.
#
Most of them will be repulsed by it and they do get repulsed by it and it shows from the head of NCW that many people revolt for Yati Narsinghanand.
#
Both are correct. On the one hand, they feel ashamed that they shouldn't have said such a bad thing, but on the other hand, they have a lot of awareness that this strategy is not right.
#
These are the ones who are really terrible people to be afraid of because they very well understand that they have to do it within the norms of the constitutional freedoms available.
#
How to use the constitution in your favor and yet propagate bigotry, yet inflict violence or yet create conditions for the inflicting of violence or yet create an environment where there is silence after the inflicting of violence.
#
They also understand that these people who say that they have to do it with strategy, they also understand that they need cultural domination, intellectual domination and legal domination.
#
Preferably, if they have to pick up a sword or a trident and if they get blood on it, then they should wash it off quickly. And if they have to say something, why should they feel ashamed, then they should take the trident and take the blood to the market.
#
This is our pride. So I understood the right wing. Then there is another bubble that Pushpendra Kulshresh is not on Twitter. He has 25-30 accounts on Twitter, although he has a very big right wing voice.
#
He has videos on YouTube. But he doesn't have a presence on Twitter. But if you look on Twitter, you will find 25-30 accounts. You have all the fake profiles. Then what you also observed was trad and raita, which is very dangerous.
#
Then one thing that I found very interesting was why Kapil Mishra is making his ecosystem. BJP is an IT cell. He is the leader of BJP. Why is he making it? Why is he supporting Kriyatli? Why is he making a telegram group by making a Hindu ecosystem?
#
When Arnab went to jail in the Republic, then why is he standing alone with a flag, saying to leave Arnab? He is the leader of BJP. So the propaganda machine that BJP has should get a part of it according to its stature.
#
So why is he doing extra? Then one thing that I understood is why is Yogi Adityanath's own IT cell separate? There is a separate IT cell for UP. There is for separate states also, but the Yogi one is slightly more prominent. Why?
#
I don't know. I really don't know. I have only been able to observe these things, but I have no reasons for these things. But the thing is that the large point I am trying to make is you start not looking at it as a monolith.
#
You understand that everyone has different opinions there. Someone is saying something, someone is fighting with someone, someone is fighting with someone. There is no ecosystem by doing a right wing. There are gradations in them too.
#
They are fighting and doing this. And a lot of times there are a lot of things where they don't talk about it, where they are fighting and those fissures are not adequately exploited.
#
So I have a follow up question, but before that I just want to say that what you mentioned about the reason they are targeting you is because you are the kind of Muslim they are afraid of. Educated, articulate, who is not going to respond to their rabble rousing with more rabble rousing.
#
I think that is a great point. I think of someone like Munawar Farooqi. And it is natural that they would see him as a threat because not only is Munawar a fantastic comedian, but how can you see him and not love him?
#
So obviously they will want to cut down on him, on you, on Umar Khalid for example, poor guy in jail for so long. So that is sort of a great point worth thinking about.
#
In that context, in fact yesterday I did a long episode with Mukulika Banerjee might release after your episode. We spoke about all her books, very long episode.
#
And in that she spoke about a book that she had edited. And the book is called Muslim Portraits, where she got portraits of different Muslims written by different writers.
#
And her point was this. And it is a point that I think, you know, in a different way you have tried versions of that.
#
And her point was that right now there is a stereotype that Muslims are like this.
#
And the point is that is, you know, I often use the sort of the framework of abstract and concrete, where I think a lot of the negativity in us comes from abstract concepts like nationalism, purity, civilization, all of that crap.
#
But in the concrete, when we encounter something, we may not, you know, react quite the same way.
#
And what she was trying to do in a sense is go beyond that abstract stereotype of a Muslim and give you nine specific Muslim lives of people who are just like you,
#
who share your humanity, who might, you know, be sad about the same things like the same music, eat the same food, all of that and therefore kind of humanize them.
#
And, you know, in a sense, in a different kind of aspect, you did that with your great poem Hindustani Musalma also where you're showing that, hey, you know, we contain multitudes.
#
It's not just one thing. My follow-up question is this, when you say that they're not a monolith.
#
And I did an episode early last year with Raghu Sanjay Lal Jaitley, that's a pseudonym.
#
He doesn't write under his real name. He writes this great newsletter.
#
And we were discussing the political theorist Carl Schmitt's formulation that in politics you need an other, right, an enemy.
#
It's always about that. Like you will not go out there with a positive emotion and rouse the people to vote for you.
#
You will go out there with a negative emotion. You need an other.
#
So at one hand, obviously, the other for the BJP is a Muslim.
#
But if you look in the political space, they have eviscerated the other in the sense that there is no opposition to speak of.
#
And we'll come to that later also. But there is no opposition to speak of.
#
And therefore, you know, both Raghu and I felt when we discussed this whole Trads versus Raitas Singh,
#
that now the opposition will come from within because they'll start eating themselves up from within.
#
The Trads versus Raitas has started. You know, you will have the well-heeled Swapandas Gupta kind of bigger tool,
#
wear nice clothes and go to a party and all that.
#
But tomorrow, the Trads are going to turn around and say, why is your wife wearing sleeveless?
#
Yes. You know, why are you eating mutton for lunch? Why are you etc, etc?
#
And it will splinter. And in a sense, that was our hope that eventually the center cannot hold.
#
It will keep splintering till it kind of falls apart.
#
And you're saying you've seen the same phenomenon that it is kind of splintering. So any thoughts to add to that?
#
No, not at all. I mean, perhaps this is not the most appropriate example to what you're saying, but this bulldozer phenomena.
#
I look at it as a competition between BJP ministers.
#
I also look at it as a competition between BJP ministers apart from the clear-cut threatening and demolishing of Muslim houses.
#
It was done by Yogi Adityanath, then it was done by Shivraj Singh Chauhan.
#
And if you look at the recent Delhi demolitions in the propaganda, in the cartoons and everything that they're sharing,
#
the propaganda they're sharing, apparently it has been done by Amit Shah.
#
What they're crediting is what the right wing is crediting. They are crediting it to Amit Shah.
#
So it is in a way them trying to say that, hey, listen, I demolish 20 houses.
#
Now the other guy says, hey, listen, I demolish 50 houses and send them compensation notices also.
#
And then the third guy comes and says, hey, I demolished 100 houses. And guess what? I did it in Delhi.
#
This is how I look at it.
#
So now the scary part for me is what if when they decide to like heap a pile of bodies,
#
they say, hey, I demolished 20 houses. Someone will say, hey, he said, I demolished 50 houses.
#
Then the third will say, hey, I demolished 500 houses in three days.
#
What if they make their strong big swinging dick assertion by a pile of dead bodies
#
instead of a pile of a demolished house?
#
Now will it go there? Will it escalate there?
#
Now that is how I look at it. Scary.
#
And will they eat it up? That is happening.
#
There is a huge number of people in right wing who have turned to Yogi as their next PM.
#
And it is strange because during CNRC, if you remember, it was Amit Shah who was constantly coming in the propaganda news
#
that it is Amit Shah and Modi, Amit Shah and Modi, but then he fell sick.
#
And then Amit Shah has disappeared from propaganda since then as the next PM, which is strange. Why?
#
Now, I don't have the answers to these. I just observe and I sit at home and I am like, yeah, this is happening.
#
And I don't know what to do with these thoughts.
#
But there is definitely an interesting conflict.
#
And I do feel that when there is so much power, so much money and there is no conflict inside, it is not possible.
#
You are sitting on the edge. Meaning, your cultural model, its entire manifestation,
#
through the political front, you have taken over the government institutions.
#
And you have not forced the government institutions to take over.
#
People have done it a little bit in fear, they agree a little bit.
#
They have a little bit of benefit as well.
#
It is not like they have beaten everyone up.
#
So now what can make them fall?
#
I think they have fought with each other or it is not possible that they have not fought with each other.
#
So I think this is one thing.
#
And what I am saying to you is that I just hope that this bulldozing that is going on,
#
it never escalates to violence, is there.
#
Yeah, very worrying thoughts.
#
And you know, you were talking about competition.
#
And one thing I felt while watching the Dharam Sansad videos, for example, from Haridwar,
#
is that if it was one guy making a speech, it would not have been so extreme.
#
But because it is a whole bunch of them on the same munch talking to the same rabid crowd,
#
out of competition, they were each trying to be more extreme than the other guy.
#
And I think what social media does, and this is in many different aspects of politics,
#
not just Hindutva, not just India, is that it gives an incentive towards extremism.
#
Because once you join a tribe, ideological tribe, religious tribe, whatever it is,
#
once you join a tribe, the only way to raise status within your tribe
#
is by posturing more than the next guy.
#
And you inevitably then swing to the extremes,
#
where you will attack people on the other side and just attack them,
#
not engage with them in any way because engagement is you are not supposed to be respectful.
#
Or you will attack people on your own side for not being pure enough.
#
And you know, you eventually eat each other up.
#
And that's what I felt was happening in that Dharam Sansad in Haridwar.
#
Now, here's a worry I have.
#
One worry I have is like, for example, when they attacked you, right,
#
with the kind of language that they used,
#
they might have hoped that you would respond in kind,
#
and they can then use that to paint you as an extremist yourself, right?
#
And I worry that with all the violence that is happening,
#
and I don't think it's a rhetorical question what you are saying,
#
that will bulldozers go to violence? That is a nightmare for all of us, right?
#
And at one level, all of this is also designed to get an extreme response from Muslims,
#
where some frustrated Muslim somewhere does something,
#
and then its viral video will go everywhere on WhatsApp.
#
And you are just asking for a mini genocide in some place or the other because of that.
#
And my question is this, and I ask this with a little bit of wonderment,
#
is that Muslims in India have actually been incredibly restrained.
#
Like, there is a very moving point Kapil Komaredi made, Kapil Komaredi wrote this book called Manival and Republic,
#
and did an episode with me, and there is one great point he made to me.
#
He said that, look, when partition happened,
#
the Indian Hindus just stayed here out of inertia because, you know, this is where they are.
#
But the Muslims who chose to stay, they are the greater patriots
#
because they made that choice, they used their agency, and they said no, you know.
#
And, you know, in that sense, it is not doing nothing, it is an active choice,
#
which is something to be looked at.
#
And by and large, what we've seen is that it blows my mind,
#
because if I put myself in the skin of, say, the average Kashmiri after what's been going on out there,
#
or, you know, anybody within this country who is at the receiving end of all of this,
#
I would be just filled with anger and rage all the time.
#
And yet, within the community, there has been so much restraint.
#
Help me understand this, like...
#
So, it is true, I mean, it is...
#
I mean, as you can see, it hasn't stopped since 2019.
#
It hasn't stopped since Kashmir's 370th abrogation.
#
In the news cycle, every month, you can see one or two major anti-Muslim news violence.
#
And this has been going on since mid-2019.
#
And in the last 6-8 months, it has increased so much that I think every month is filled with two or three big news,
#
So, they have been relentless with this.
#
The restraint, I think, is phenomenal,
#
because I think this whole consciousness has set in that we don't have to behave in this manner,
#
the way they are behaving with us.
#
It's of... I don't know how this realization came about, people.
#
Maybe it came about through CNRC, maybe they...
#
I think people got trained that this is how we resist, this is how we did that.
#
And like we discussed earlier, I mean, of course, Gandhi and the Constitution are a part of it,
#
but they are not the only reason for it.
#
The reason why Muslims have restrained or the Muslims have non-violent methods of protest
#
is also because it is inherent to them as Muslims.
#
The whole picture of portrayal as violent at the spur of the moment is not a correct portrayal.
#
It is the Muslim consciousness only that makes them non-violent in the first place.
#
And then there are covers of Gandhi and the Constitution as well.
#
So, the restraint, which is called Sabr in common words,
#
sabr karo, sabr karo, sabr karo, Allah dekh lega, Allah dekh lega.
#
So, this is a very good thing.
#
Also, the restraint comes from understanding the limitation that being a minority,
#
the state is out there to persecute you, directly, openly, brazenly.
#
So, society is either part of it or is not looking at it, is just totally apathetic to it.
#
Or the ones who are supporting it are like, okay, yeah, we are supporting, sometimes, sometimes not, things like that.
#
So, they have a very clear cognizance of, and this is all unsaid, I don't think it's said in these many words,
#
but this is a very clear understanding that if you react, the state will come after you and so will society.
#
Of course, society will not come after you completely, not everyone will come to beat you,
#
this is obvious, but it will be a problem.
#
And the media is against it.
#
Meaning, you don't have an institution to go to, you don't have a judiciary, you don't have media.
#
You don't have IAS, bureaucracy, DM, etc.
#
You don't have police, you don't have RTI, you don't have any tool, institutional cover.
#
So, the state can do whatever they want with you.
#
You don't have opposition, there is no political party right now in India which is willing to talk to Muslims,
#
which is willing to speak to Muslims publicly, addressing them, address their fears, express their aspirations.
#
There are political parties, and I understand the limitation,
#
but the rationalization of the limitation does not make me feel my pain any less.
#
So, they are not willing to do it.
#
So, there is no opposition, there is no judiciary, there is no media, there is no police, there are no bureaucrats.
#
Ultimately, after taking it, a person starts crying that do something in civil society.
#
Why should I write something that why people are not talking about it?
#
On Twitter, it's such a stupid thing to say if you look at it like that.
#
If someone hits me on a communal basis, then the police should help me.
#
Why do I need you to amplify my voice?
#
Why do I need you to speak about my injustice?
#
The institution should be there to protect me, but it is not.
#
And the court has done this, a series of justice.
#
So, in general, restraint comes from an innate nature.
#
Restraint comes from the development of a culture of resistance from Shaheen Bagh.
#
Restraint is coming in a strategic way and it is also coming with a little fear.
#
And I think this restraint is, I mean, you can guess the maturity of restraint from this.
#
That people are still not saying that they will kill.
#
People are saying that what you are doing is wrong, go and rectify it.
#
Meaning, you are being looted, you are being exerted control by killing us.
#
This is still being said in different words, of course, from where it is from.
#
I think my personal observation has been that why can't I be radicalized?
#
It is because I can't talk about others.
#
Radicalized means that I don't want to leave restraint and go towards violence.
#
Personally, only myself.
#
I know that society will not give me a chance to return.
#
Neither social media will give me a chance to return, nor will society give me a chance to return.
#
There will be no way for me if I become violent.
#
I will be put in jail, I will be blamed for my name, I will be blamed for my work.
#
I will be blamed for my entire life.
#
This is not an easy thing to do.
#
This is just my observation.
#
If this happens to someone else, then maybe he will become a hero, a revolutionary.
#
If he does this non-Muslim work, then he will become a revolutionary.
#
But I will become a criminal in the eyes of society and the government.
#
And I will become a criminal for the rest of my life.
#
So I have no way to return.
#
But of course, having said that, someone will put a gun on my armpit.
#
And will say, tell me Shri Ram.
#
Or I will try to take his hand and release the gun.
#
I mean, what else can I do?
#
I will start fighting, whatever my human reaction will be at that time.
#
I mean, how long will the restraint last?
#
Yeah, there is, I think Bob Dylan once said,
#
when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
#
And you know, the danger is that too many people are pushed to that point where they have nothing to lose.
#
And they lash out and that's perhaps what these guys want.
#
And you know, you mentioned about,
#
about restraint, you also showed that there are so many aspects.
#
Restraint is not just one thing that you are restrained only because of practicality or incentives or fear.
#
You know, some of it comes from a different place.
#
Some of it is a conscious strategic choice that, you know, this is how we must resist.
#
This is how we must not act.
#
And some of it is also cultural.
#
Like we were talking before this, I just recorded an episode with Tamukul Kabana ji,
#
which will come out after yours,
#
where we speak at length about the Khudai Khitmadkar.
#
You know, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan's movement, the biggest sort of non-violent,
#
one of the biggest non-violent movements in the world.
#
And part of what she did in her work, one of the books she wrote was exploring the mystery
#
of why such a large non-violent movement could come from the Pathans.
#
Because the Pathans had been stereotyped as your typical, you know, macho warrior people and all of that.
#
But this large non-violent movement,
#
and I don't mind giving a spoiler alert for this and I don't think Mukulika will mind.
#
This episode will come next week.
#
And what she realized was that it did not come from, say, Gandhi,
#
because Gandhi was an influence on him. He was called Frontier Gandhi.
#
It did not come from Gandhi. It did not come from the West.
#
Many people say we import ideas from the West.
#
It came from within Islam.
#
And in great detail is described how that is.
#
So even this stereotype that Islam is necessarily violent and all of that,
#
and all those strands may well exist also,
#
but there is also, there are these other strands of resistance and dignity and non-violence.
#
And when you read about the Khudai Khidmatgar and what they went through,
#
and by the way, they oppose partition and they were immediately banned by the Pakistan government.
#
After that, disbanded, hounded, arrested.
#
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan eventually died in Afghanistan many years later.
#
And it's a very sad story what kind of happened to them.
#
And yeah, and that drives home that point.
#
So in case, you know, anyone listening felt that, oh, what is Hussein saying?
#
That, you know, it came from within.
#
Just, it did come from within.
#
And we need to, it just shows how much we have been sort of indoctrinated by stereotypes
#
that, you know, we react with this belief to that in case, you know, anyone reacted with this belief.
#
It is very difficult to explain to people.
#
Like, there is so much ingrained and ingrained in so many ways, in so many mediums, in so many times.
#
I mean, it is very difficult to explain to you.
#
I mean, even now, I mean, there are a lot of false equivalences on Twitter or here.
#
I mean, people, even though they might be well-meaning sometimes,
#
and sometimes it is a deliberate false equivalence so as to not concede completely.
#
And it is not entirely, it shows that it is not.
#
But, I mean, this is happening, so it is like that.
#
And the base denominator is always Muslim.
#
Either Taliban or ISIS.
#
Oh, this is happening, it has its own nature.
#
It has its own history.
#
It has its own land complexity.
#
It has its own growth trajectory.
#
It has moulded itself in its own way.
#
It has changed some of its ideas in its own way.
#
It has adopted a lot of ideas.
#
It has gone up and down in its own way.
#
And suddenly, you compare a Taliban with ISIS like this.
#
It seems disingenuous in some places.
#
You can understand it in the way it is written and spoken.
#
When you can clearly see who is the one who is going to get beaten up.
#
And sometimes it seems very simplistic.
#
In which case, we don't even argue.
#
So this is so developed in the psyche.
#
That the base of terrorism is Muslim.
#
So either compared to ISIS or compared to Taliban.
#
So this sharp cut that comes out.
#
While criticizing the Hindus.
#
It's not like I'm in support of ISIS or Taliban.
#
But why does this sharp cut come?
#
It comes because you have made it a denominator.
#
You have made it a currency.
#
That this is like this and this is like that.
#
Whereas this is very homegrown.
#
We are the world's teachers in this hypocritical violence.
#
As I was saying earlier, RSS never accepts.
#
I always say this as a joke.
#
If you want to make a base for Muslim terrorists.
#
The bomb doesn't explode.
#
In three days, they say, yes, we did it.
#
But they don't even believe it.
#
Of course, I mean, nobody should listen to this.
#
And like condemn me that I'm justifying.
#
It's just something in a very light tone.
#
But I think people need to stop looking at it as a baseline.
#
It's something that feeds.
#
And also, I think the other thing to remember about ISIS and Taliban is that
#
yes, they are wild, reprehensive bodies.
#
But the majority of their victims are Muslims only.
#
So you are basically imitating them by making other Muslim victims over here.
#
What else are you doing?
#
Is that your kind of model?
#
I mean, how illogical it is.
#
You are hitting a Muslim in India because a Muslim hit another Muslim in Afghanistan.
#
How stupid do you look even while doing violence?
#
And there is no logic to it.
#
And this whole, I think this is again one of the things that what has happened with new Muslim liberal voices
#
and at least the voices that become prominent, whether they're liberal or not,
#
is that they are not taking all these international defenses head on.
#
If you talk to us about Pakistan, if you talk to us about ISIS, Taliban, Erdogan,
#
I can criticize them independently.
#
But I will not get defensive in my stance as an Indian Muslim wanting his rights and his dignity in this country
#
because something internationally is going wrong with someone Muslim.
#
I might discuss that on a separate matter altogether.
#
But one cannot put me in a defensive stance because of these.
#
And this has happened a lot of times.
#
In fact, this has happened for the last two, three decades.
#
And I think this was one more thing.
#
Then a lot of Muslim voices are also unwilling to discard their pasts.
#
They are unwilling to be detached from the slums or the ghettos or the community that they come from.
#
I may become rich. I may become known.
#
I may go into a glittery world of film and cinema.
#
But I remember where I come from.
#
And I remember the people who I have come from.
#
And that is something that I see common in many, many, many voices.
#
I mean, whoever I meet, they either have a new insight or a new thing because everyone is studying a lot.
#
Everyone's protest, everyone's resistance is also a mental resistance.
#
So that is a mental resistance.
#
And the mental framing of your mental makeup, which I believe comes largely from three places.
#
It comes from media, it comes from entertainment and it comes from academia.
#
And you are slowly reaching Muslims at these three places.
#
Especially those who have reached their voice, especially in the media.
#
There is a lot of entertainment, but the ones that are present in entertainment are less political.
#
And those who have been in defense mode for 30 years, they have been trying to prove that they are patriotic.
#
But what you are saying is that I have the same stance.
#
That I am the default patriotic.
#
I could have gone, I didn't go.
#
I am the default secular.
#
Because when I go out of my house, I meet 10 Hindus.
#
And I don't discriminate against anyone.
#
I am the default secular of India.
#
Now you prove whether you are or not.
#
Why should there be an organization called Indian Muslim Secular Organization?
#
There is apparently some organization which signs.
#
They asked me also to sign documents and this and that.
#
Is there any Indian secular Hindu organization?
#
Because they assume that Hindus are secular.
#
Oh, they don't even want to be secular for the most part.
#
I mean, I find it very strange that this whole portion.
#
Here, the control over psychology.
#
Don't call it control, but the effect on psychology.
#
It comes from these three places.
#
They are coming in the media.
#
Muslims who are right and political, they are saying their own.
#
I mean, you think that if 20 years ago.
#
If I read an article of a liberal journalist.
#
And I think what bullshit is this?
#
What could I do? My father must be reading.
#
He must be thinking what bullshit is this?
#
Could my father have done anything? No.
#
But with social media today, I can just write a complete thread.
#
Or I can approach an editor and say that.
#
Hey, I don't agree with this opinion.
#
I am going to write a rebuttal of it.
#
Or I am just going to write a thread.
#
And that thread will go completely viral.
#
So at least now 10 people, 15 people, 20 people in different parts of the country.
#
With different voices, with different life background.
#
And different levels of persecution and experiences and educational backgrounds.
#
Now they are able to express their disagreements.
#
And they are constantly challenging for equality and dignity.
#
I don't want more than you.
#
But I want as much as you.
#
And I am not willing to compromise for that.
#
So these things are happening.
#
In entertainment, as I said, they take it in defense.
#
And in academia, they are concentrated.
#
You will get it in AMU, in Jamia.
#
But like when I went to Ayam Indore,
#
I had no Muslim professor.
#
I did not study from a Muslim professor at all.
#
There was one Muslim person, I think he was in the library.
#
There was not even permanent EO.
#
So when I was coaching for CA,
#
I did not see a single Muslim professor.
#
This does not mean that a Muslim does not teach any CA.
#
This does not mean that no Muslim has ever taught in any Ayam.
#
This does not mean that, of course.
#
But the presence is so less.
#
And if this is not the case, then it is not that the professors were finished in that era.
#
Where will they be? I think they will be in AMU.
#
They will be in Osmania.
#
They may be somewhere else.
#
So their concentration was somewhere else.
#
Meaning physical concentration.
#
So I think it is very important to work on these three things.
#
Media, Entertainment, Academy.
#
So that people can pass on their thoughts, their stories, their opinions.
#
To be able to connect with each other.
#
To be able to refine their thoughts.
#
If I talk to someone, someone can teach me two things.
#
I may teach someone a couple of things.
#
Then we will have four thoughts.
#
Then we will take four thoughts and go somewhere else.
#
If someone else has three thoughts, then four and three together will be six or seven thoughts.
#
So this is being tried among us.
#
And I think it is a good thing that this is happening on a constructive basis.
#
At least what I am seeing among Muslims.
#
I have been talking to activists for three to four years.
#
I have been talking to a lot of people.
#
I have never spoken to anybody who is saying that they will do violence.
#
Even in the closest and the most confidential of meetings.
#
I have never seen people who are extremely bigoted or poisonous attitude towards Hindus.
#
They might say yeah and them.
#
But they do not have intentions of harming.
#
They do not have intentions of completely.
#
They might say bitter things sometimes.
#
But then they would know that this is not so bitter.
#
And I have seen a lot of constructive dialogue going on.
#
How to do this, how to do that, how to do this, how to do that.
#
And a lot of thoughts getting exchanged.
#
A lot of skills getting exchanged.
#
A lot of differences getting diluted.
#
Like sectarian differences, regional differences.
#
So that is something that is positive that is going on.
#
So this is the same baseline that you are talking about.
#
So I think people have no idea that there is a lot of leap.
#
I mean there is a lot of growth of people.
#
Muslims, especially the youth.
#
I mean people should be scared of this.
#
That these people are being educated a lot.
#
They are understanding a lot.
#
And I mean a 20-22 year old boy will tell you about Malcolm X.
#
He will do this, he will do that.
#
They have a good understanding of the world.
#
And they have a good understanding.
#
Now they are looking at seeds and this and that.
#
And I am like how much they read.
#
So it is a very positive level.
#
But you will actually understand it after 20 years.
#
I don't think you will understand it now.
#
But you will understand its impact after 20 years.
#
When you realize that so many people have spread in civil society.
#
They are such qualified and highly educated Muslims.
#
They are doing extremely well.
#
And they are rooted to their identity.
#
And they want to do well for their community.
#
They do not want to discard the ghetto that they left.
#
The ghetto lives inside them.
#
Even when they are living in a posh apartment.
#
As I hope they one day would.
#
So I see this thing in a good way.
#
I hope such a time comes when we can see that freedom.
#
And you mentioned lamented about the media and academia.
#
And my response to that actually would be that.
#
I would not be so worried about them.
#
Because one increasing trend that I see across all of these.
#
Is that the mainstream is disintegrating.
#
And therefore expression and knowledge are being decentralized.
#
Learning is being decentralized.
#
You don't anymore need to go to a big university to learn something.
#
I think for example the voices like yours and Alishan and Zubair and all that.
#
Are followed by many more people and heard by many more people.
#
And respected by many more people.
#
Than any random journalist in a major newspaper would be.
#
And that's kind of completely diminished.
#
I can say this as someone who's both been in mainstream media.
#
And is now outside of it.
#
Because I realized that it is now irrelevant.
#
It is living in a past world, a past kind of era.
#
We'll take a break and I'll come back to my...
#
The second question I was going to ask on this whole subject of society versus propaganda after that.
#
But before that, we were discussing before the show.
#
What poems would you like to read?
#
And on the subject of propaganda.
#
There's this beautiful poem I saw you read, not by yourself but by this great Adivasi poet.
#
Called Jahaan Kuch Nahi Paushta.
#
So would you like to read that?
#
So this is a poem by Jasanta Karkataki.
#
Which is a very favorite poet of mine.
#
And her poems are very...
#
They seem very simple in the script.
#
If you go inside the script, you understand how deep it is.
#
So this is her poem on the subject of propaganda.
#
It's called Jahaan Kuch Nahi Paushta.
#
People drink mountain water on the mountain.
#
Government water doesn't reach there.
#
People drink mountain water on the mountain.
#
Government water doesn't reach there.
#
No school reaches there in mother tongue.
#
No doctor reaches the hospital.
#
Electricity doesn't reach there.
#
The internet doesn't reach there.
#
In the name of religion and cows.
#
How does so much poison reach for a man's murder?
#
And I'll ask you about this also after a short break.
#
Have you always wanted to be a writer
#
but never quite gotten down to it?
#
Well, I'd love to help you.
#
Since April 2020, I've taught 20 cohorts of my online course
#
The Art of Clear Writing.
#
An online community has now sprung up of all my past students.
#
We have workshops, a newsletter to showcase a work of students
#
and vibrant community interaction.
#
In the course itself, through four webinars spread over four weekends,
#
I share all I know about the craft and practice of clear writing.
#
There are many exercises, much interaction,
#
a lovely and lively community at the end of it.
#
The course costs Rs 10,000 per GST or about $150 and is a monthly thing.
#
So if you're interested, head on over to register at IndiaUncut.com slash Clear Writing.
#
That's IndiaUncut.com slash Clear Writing.
#
Being a good writer doesn't require God-given talent,
#
just the willingness to work hard and a clear idea
#
of what you need to do to refine your skills.
#
Welcome back to The Scene On The Unseen.
#
I'm chatting with Hussain Haidari about his life and work
#
and the times we live in and all of that.
#
And, you know, one of the threads we sort of explored before the break is,
#
you know, we spoke about how, you know, both these things are true,
#
that our society always was, you know, had issues,
#
was illiberal, was bigoted and all of that in a certain way,
#
but also that the propaganda today is making it much, much worse.
#
And we discussed that propaganda is at some length.
#
And I want to now go back to the question of society itself,
#
where, you know, I've always kind of believed in that Andrew Breitbart quote
#
that politics is downstream of culture.
#
The culture comes first.
#
If you look at the political marketplace, a demand-supply equation runs.
#
So given the demand, the supply accordingly comes.
#
Like I did an episode with Vir Sanghvi, for example,
#
where he spoke about politics in the 80s.
#
And he mentioned something which, you know,
#
he gave me a different way of thinking about something.
#
He said that here's the thing.
#
The big win that Rajiv Gandhi had in 1984 was a Hindu vote.
#
It was a Hindu vote expressing itself against what, you know,
#
they perceive to be a Sikh problem and all of that.
#
And at that time, the BJP, when it was formed by Vajpayee,
#
you know, in their charter, they spoke about Gandhian socialism and all,
#
and they had for a temporary moment turned away from Hindutva.
#
And then when they realized that the Hindu vote has been captured by the Congress,
#
by Rajiv Gandhi, they decided they have to do something about it.
#
And Rajiv did open the gates of the Babri Masjid in 87 and all that,
#
but then he turned away.
#
He didn't really know what he was doing.
#
He wasn't a political strategist.
#
He turned away and the BJP came in and they were supply responding to demand,
#
ki iski demand hai, that we got to get back to this because, hey,
#
why should we kind of, you know, sort of give it up?
#
And they go back to this.
#
Now I've done, I did an episode with Vinay Sitapati about the BJP before Modi.
#
And he also talks about how this whole process was political and he breaks it down.
#
And, you know, he said something there which was very interesting, in fact.
#
He said that while Vajpayee and Advani were not true believers,
#
he thinks Modi and Shah are true believers,
#
but Vajpayee and Advani were just, they were politicians.
#
They saw a political opportunity ki market aisi hai,
#
yahan pe under-served niche hai, yahan pe ghusj jaate hai,
#
yahan pe market expand karte hai and all of that.
#
Now what has happened since is that obviously that vote has played a really big part.
#
In fact, like we were discussing, you know, the extreme elements of the Hindu right wing,
#
I think they got on a tiger that they can't ride anymore, right?
#
It's outside everybody's control.
#
But that's an orthogonal point.
#
My main point ye hai ki when I look around today,
#
I feel that other parties look at the landscape and they also believe
#
that it is that Hindutva vote which is worth going for,
#
that there is no other margin on which it can be fought.
#
Like even when the Babri Masjid judgement came,
#
Priyanka Gandhi said, remember, my father opened the gates, right?
#
Even when a 370-ka abrogation hua,
#
Aam Aadmi party put out a statement saying this is the right thing.
#
Or you look at, you know, what has happened recently with these bulldozers and all that
#
and the Aam Aadmi party.
#
Instead of saying that don't touch the Muslims,
#
they are giving statements saying, basically saying that it's the Muslims to blame only,
#
only the BJP put them there, right?
#
Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, all of that nonsense.
#
And just appealing to that vote.
#
Now what I wonder about and maybe I'm being too idealistic,
#
but my assumption would have been that people contain multitudes, right?
#
And you've also pointed to this in various places.
#
Nobody is one thing. A Muslim is not one thing, nor is a Hindu.
#
People contain multitudes.
#
Now there might be a person who might be bigoted and sexist
#
and doesn't like Muslims or whatever.
#
But as a politician, if you see the entirety of that person,
#
he will also perhaps want good governance.
#
He will want his kids to go to a good school.
#
He will want them to have a good future.
#
He will want to upgrade from a scooter to a car one day, you know?
#
And surely there are other margins on which politicians can appeal.
#
But political parties don't seem to be doing that.
#
They seem to be taking that Hindu vote as a be-all and end-all.
#
And even the poem that you read out before the break speaks to that.
#
Water doesn't reach, electricity doesn't reach.
#
There's no governance, right?
#
None of those things are there, but there is a poison, right?
#
And I just want to know your view on that because you've been,
#
and I agree with you 100% on this,
#
you've been outspoken against, for example, what the Aam Aadmi Party does
#
where they're catering to the same vote and the same bigoted sentiments, right?
#
And we see that happening.
#
And it gives me great despair that there is no political party, like you said,
#
which is actually taking this issue head-on.
#
So, like you're saying, one thing is that the Aam Aadmi Party,
#
and not just the Aam Aadmi Party, but all the parties,
#
whether it be the TMC or even the Samajwadi Party,
#
the ones who are being voted by Muslims,
#
and the ones who are being voted in the bloc,
#
because they are the primary opposition party against BJP.
#
So, the debate that is going on, the debate that is going on in the air is that
#
BJP has to be defeated, Hindutva has to be defeated.
#
Ideally, the talks and votes are only going in the direction of Muslims.
#
The rest of them are not going.
#
So, first, what you're saying about the Aam Aadmi Party,
#
I think a lot of people want to say,
#
what is their understanding of society?
#
Do they understand that we can't convince this society on moral grounds
#
that killing Muslims is wrong, that we'll have to arouse their self-interest,
#
that they're either conceiving or selfish.
#
So, how bad do they think about their own society if they're conceiving?
#
That we'll only talk about education, development, governance,
#
and through self-interest and selfishness,
#
or by showing them roti, electricity, water, etc., we'll show them that
#
look, you're being harmed, but because they've accepted that
#
we can't convince them on moral grounds that killing Muslims is wrong.
#
So, I think they show this somewhere.
#
I guess that's not just a satirical inference,
#
I think they show this because this is reflected in other things as well.
#
As it is often said, a lot of times we say that polarization will happen
#
if you show Hindutva content.
#
My question is whose polarization will happen and why?
#
The next sentences are never told.
#
Everybody just concludes their political opinion by saying that polarization will happen.
#
What kind of an inference do you derive about a society
#
where you see a video of violence being inflicted upon a minority
#
and then you choose to vote for the person who is perpetrating the violence?
#
How much will a Muslim be polarized and what will he gain from this polarization?
#
You can only win a little bit of resistance from the primary opposition party
#
if they're already strong,
#
or if the primary opposition party is weak,
#
you can make them sit on a good platform like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh
#
or the Aam Aadmi Party and TMC which were in a strong position.
#
You can't do anything more than this.
#
Your vote doesn't have any relevance more than this.
#
And they know this as well.
#
So, what I'm saying is that society has such a strange comment
#
that polarization will happen.
#
What kind of a society is this
#
where you see that Modi created a riot
#
and now he's sitting on a clean sheet
#
and you go and vote for Modi.
#
What kind of a society is this?
#
What kind of fear has been created in you?
#
What kind of insecurity has been created in you?
#
What kind of feelings of vengeance have been created in you?
#
Instead of an abhorrence,
#
this is such a strange thing that
#
when there is a riot, Bhajpa gets benefited.
#
Research should be done so that
#
when there is a riot, the political party immediately crashes.
#
The ideal that you think that
#
this party is getting violence done,
#
this party is spreading poison,
#
we won't support this party.
#
So, this is something that I find very interesting.
#
Secondly, I think violence against Muslims
#
I personally consider it a cultural problem.
#
Even if its form is political,
#
even if its discourse is political,
#
I can easily convert it into a cultural problem
#
If you look at the whole history,
#
you will see that every time
#
the assignability of the blame of violence
#
is either in the name of the political party
#
or in the name of a Hindutva outfit.
#
Or the riot, which we call a riot,
#
but there is a process of it.
#
But for now, we use the word riot.
#
That the riot sometimes goes to the Congress,
#
sometimes to Shiv Sena,
#
sometimes to Hindu or Wahini,
#
sometimes to Bajrang Dal,
#
sometimes to Sanatan Sanstha,
#
sometimes to Sri Ram Sena.
#
If I remove all these political parties and outfits,
#
if I remove their names,
#
and I only make a list of perpetrators,
#
then which are the people of the society
#
who are killing Muslims?
#
Or the Sikhs, if you take Chaurasi.
#
This assignability of blame
#
which increases in political parties and outfits,
#
then I can see a society
#
which is directly against me.
#
Till then, it will be denied.
#
Of course, I understand why assignability of blame also happens.
#
You think that if you give a punishment in the legal framework,
#
you will get a punishment.
#
But where do you get the punishment?
#
It reaches the Parliament,
#
it becomes the Prime Minister,
#
flowers are being worn.
#
If the assignability of blame to a political party and outfit
#
then why must I not remove them?
#
And why must I not show the mirror to the society?
#
And make a clear list of perpetrators?
#
And anti-Muslim sentiment also runs across castes.
#
So, any esteemed Ambedkarite intellectual
#
can also not shy away from speaking about it
#
because it is a binder element among all castes,
#
one of the binder elements among all castes
#
that Hindutva offers or that Hindutva propagates
#
or that Hindutva compels them to believe in
#
because taking advantage of the situation
#
or whatever the reasons may be.
#
But this is a cultural problem.
#
When I remove political parties and outfits,
#
and if you remove political parties and outfits,
#
then you will see that this is happening across decades,
#
across geographies, since partition.
#
And everyone takes advantage of it.
#
Everyone takes advantage of their piece of flesh.
#
So, this common man party is doing
#
the branding of Ivy League college to college students.
#
But this has happened before and it will continue to happen later.
#
So, these were some of my things.
#
Now, this is also a nomenclature.
#
Fringe is known to many outfits and organizations.
#
I have visited many cities in India.
#
I am not like this because I used to audit.
#
In general, I have traveled a lot because of poetry.
#
So, I have visited many cities and states in India.
#
I have also visited villages because I used to audit
#
Plus, I have stayed in tier 3 cities
#
because the auditing profession is such that
#
you have to stay in internal audits.
#
So, my guess is that when in the country,
#
tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, village or any district,
#
you are getting RSS, Shaka, Bajrang Dal, VHP,
#
Hindu Yovaini, Hindu Rakshaq, Shri Ram Sene,
#
Sanatan Sanstha, Shiv Sena.
#
All these groups, which you can call
#
RSS tentacles, affiliated or non-affiliated
#
you are getting one or the other branch.
#
You are getting the branch, you are getting the office.
#
You won't get this in big highways,
#
big buildings of Heera Nandani,
#
But when you go to the streets of that park,
#
where sweepers come, you will get it.
#
And you get it everywhere.
#
So, your presence, the presence of RSS
#
and its affiliated organizations,
#
which is present in IT parks in a different form
#
and which is present in Juggi in a different form,
#
how did it get fringe if it is present everywhere?
#
So, I don't understand why it used to get fringe.
#
I think their way of speaking, their behavior
#
we agree with everyone's thoughts,
#
we welcome everyone's thoughts,
#
our doors are always open, etc.
#
Their incorporation with the caste,
#
which they have understood,
#
and the way they have adapted,
#
especially in the mid-70s,
#
when the RSS people were going to jail,
#
the way they have adapted,
#
their quotation is also very interesting,
#
that within RSS, they used to say,
#
if there is no sin, then there is no sin.
#
So, how they have brought acceptability,
#
which is their Hindu project.
#
So, where did this fringe come from?
#
I think calling them a fringe on the part of some liberals
#
would have played into their delusion
#
that it is fine, India is fine,
#
and also on the parts of say bodies like the RSS,
#
it would have played into plausible deniability,
#
that we are a cultural institution,
#
it's these other people who are doing whatever.
#
My formulation of the problems that we face today,
#
and I shared this with Aakar in the recent episode,
#
I did with him as well,
#
my formulation is this,
#
that we have three problems, right?
#
In my personal view, not everybody needs to agree with me.
#
We have three problems.
#
Problem number one is a proximate problem,
#
which is the government in power,
#
which is the BJP, right?
#
And you need not agree with me necessarily,
#
somebody may support the BJP, that's fine,
#
but my personal viewpoint, that is a proximate problem.
#
But there are two deeper problems,
#
which in my mind are much bigger than that,
#
and which will remain with us.
#
And one problem is the oppressive state,
#
the way it's been designed and structured,
#
and that's just a whole different argument,
#
and we don't need to go into that now.
#
But the second of those deeper problems is our society,
#
that all of these things,
#
communalism, caste, gender,
#
everything that's wrong with our society,
#
our society is a problem.
#
Because politics has come from society,
#
and not the other way around.
#
Now, my question is this,
#
that if there is no political solution to this,
#
and I don't see how there can be, if society is this way,
#
you know, there will be no political solution beyond the point.
#
I mean, Ahmadmi Party also, if they come to power,
#
they are playing to the same crowd, right?
#
It's not going to make a difference.
#
Then the question is, how does change happen at a social level?
#
And I'm trying to figure this out, like,
#
you would assume that, okay, there will be a change in modernity.
#
People will go to cities, there will be a change.
#
But it's not like what you're experiencing.
#
You were saying that, you know, if you go to IT parks,
#
there won't be any fringe elements,
#
but there will be some in the streets.
#
But IT parks may be the way people think,
#
it's the same, like you pointed out.
#
No, no, in IT parks, it's possible that...
#
Yes, I mean, like I'm saying,
#
where there are people working in the streets,
#
they are sitting in a solid office.
#
But the person who is sitting in the IT park office...
#
...has the fringe in his mind.
#
It's not like, I'm saying,
#
one person is present there, the other person is here.
#
He has the fringe inside him,
#
and he is manifesting the fringe in that language,
#
in that way, in that place.
#
what you're saying is that I'm mostly understanding that.
#
I'm trying to figure out, what do you think
#
about possible ways in which we can move ahead?
#
Because 15 years ago, I would have said that,
#
okay, as we go towards modernity,
#
as we live in cities, incentives will change,
#
it will get better, and to a certain extent,
#
I think those play a part.
#
We see that modernity is no guarantee,
#
that sitting in IT parks is no guarantee,
#
even leaving the country and going to the US
#
and going to San Francisco, like you pointed out,
#
that this shaka doesn't get out of your head,
#
in that metaphorical sense.
#
You've travelled in all these small towns,
#
you've seen small town India.
#
If you see any change happening,
#
where do you think it's coming from?
#
If you see any pockets,
#
which are better than other pockets,
#
where do you think those are coming from?
#
What are our sources of hope?
#
I think, if the problem is cultural,
#
then I think the solution will also be cultural.
#
And if state is an ancillary of a cultural problem,
#
and state is a problem in itself,
#
then state will also be an ancillary solution,
#
can be an ancillary solution.
#
This is my broad, abstract understanding.
#
Which is very strange, poor, naive, and foolish.
#
we need a counter-cultural organization like RSS,
#
which does exactly the same work as they do,
#
which talks about the constitution
#
and not exactly talks about the constitution.
#
They don't say that we are talking about Manusmita,
#
they just transfer its essence to you.
#
They transfer its talks to you.
#
They don't say that Akhand Bharat was written by this organization,
#
and that's why we are Akhand Bharat.
#
They just transfer Akhand Bharat to your mind.
#
So this presence across spheres of life and society,
#
institutions are present.
#
It is not just the government where the organization is present.
#
The organization is present everywhere.
#
So a counter-cultural force like that,
#
which is comparatively inclusive,
#
because the organization is very inclusive.
#
The organization takes everything.
#
The ambedkar, which is the opposite of the organization,
#
has also been co-opted.
#
The one who opposed the organization,
#
except for Nehru, I think,
#
has co-opted everyone. Nehru and Gandhi.
#
I'll just interject with one thing.
#
I think caste is more entrenched in Hinduism than in Hindutva.
#
Normally everybody says that Hinduism is a way of life,
#
it's good and all that, and Hindutva is this political ideology.
#
This is one way in which Hindutva is not as bad.
#
That caste is entrenched in Hinduism,
#
and in Hindutva, because of political strategy,
#
because of whatever, it's never been a big deal for them.
#
Yes, but that caste operates in a different way there.
#
My understanding, what I have seen, understood, read,
#
it's not like they dilute the caste and destroy it,
#
They don't want to let the caste become a barrier
#
to create an equal majoritarian force.
#
To create a large majoritarian,
#
juggernaut of a majoritarian force.
#
They don't want to let the caste become a barrier.
#
That's why they invent ways
#
that they don't create fissures within groups.
#
So, it's not like that, because there are, of course,
#
many Dalit intellectuals or writers who have come out
#
after being discriminated in the Sangh.
#
But there are still many intellectuals who are Dalit
#
or OBCs who are present in RSS,
#
and they are still there and they are respected.
#
And, of course, it is not like I'm incriminating them,
#
it is a fact, and so I'm mentioning it.
#
So, they manifest it in a different way.
#
They portray it in a different way.
#
I was reading a book called Sangam Sharnam Gacchami.
#
Someone once said that a politician said,
#
You're not promoting me,
#
you're not giving me a chance to forget
#
And the next day, that lady was not seen in the meeting,
#
some whatever meeting that was to be held later.
#
And it was because she mentioned caste and accused RSS
#
of being casteist that she was this.
#
If she would have just probably asked for it,
#
So, this manifests in a strange situation.
#
Like there is one Shri Hari and Ranga Hari,
#
if I remember correctly.
#
He has written the RSS main points,
#
which is also called as the rule book of,
#
pseudo sort of rule book of RSS,
#
which is called Vishay Bindu.
#
And he's also written a sort of Jeevani of Golwalkar.
#
And he's a Dalit intellectual.
#
Mr. Chopal, who had done the Smarak,
#
had laid the first foundation.
#
So, that too, Ram Kumar Chopal,
#
Rameshwar Chopal, I don't remember the name correctly.
#
So, I think this manifests in a very different way,
#
but for me, it's not important.
#
For me, I don't see it that way.
#
See, the very basic thing I was saying,
#
that we have to play largely on the primary opposition party,
#
that Mayawati has also been voted in it.
#
Kanshi Ram has also been voted in it.
#
Our Socialist Party has also been voted in it.
#
Akhilesh has also been voted in it.
#
After that, Tejaswi Lalu has also been voted in it.
#
After that, Kejriwal has also been voted in it.
#
After that, Mamata Banerjee has also been voted in it.
#
That Muslims are ready to vote across castes.
#
Again, what I'm saying is,
#
Muslims are the default secular of India.
#
You don't have a single Muslim Chief Minister.
#
You don't have a single Muslim Prime Minister.
#
Muslims continuously vote for non-Muslims.
#
There are so many Hindu Constituencies where Muslims will win.
#
In fact, the existence of a Muslim leader is an objection.
#
It is said to be a sign of Communalism by every party,
#
unless it is the leader of a so-called secular party.
#
The existence of a Muslim leader is declared as Communal in itself.
#
That the polarisation of a Muslim leader will increase.
#
A Dalit leader is coming to the state level.
#
Why should a Muslim leader come?
#
This cultural change that we were talking about,
#
the society has never learned to accept Muslim leaders.
#
It has not cultivated Muslim leaders,
#
and the political parties are equally responsible for it,
#
including the secular parties,
#
which have ruled for decades.
#
Why is it that it is very easy for Muslim citizens
#
to vote across castes and Hindus,
#
whatever voting has been done?
#
But it is virtually impossible for a Muslim leader
#
to win from a Hindu Constituency.
#
I am not saying there are zero.
#
Historically, there are zero examples.
#
There must be, of course.
#
But how many Chief Ministers have we had?
#
How many Chief Ministers do we have today?
#
In fact, how many Ministers do we have today?
#
So, the society should ask itself.
#
Yeah, and at one level, you know,
#
a slight change in the political system would have helped in this
#
because if we had proportional representation
#
instead of first-past-the-vote system,
#
then it would have been a whole different ballgame.
#
The Muslim voice in politics would have been, you know,
#
much better represented and, you know,
#
less possible to, I mean, the entire game would have been different.
#
But, I mean, sadly, that horse is bolted.
#
I will have to express a little skepticism
#
with your thing about a cultural organization like the RSS.
#
Yes, it will take 100 years.
#
Because I think, you know, RSS, to me,
#
is not the disease, it is a symptom.
#
The problem is that people think like this.
#
You know, there is a marketplace there also.
#
It is not creating the demand.
#
It is an inherent way that people feel.
#
And somebody might come as a supplier
#
and might use good marketing and good messaging
#
to amplify that and to feed into that.
#
So my point being that even if you had a counter-cultural organization,
#
say, which is preaching the values of the constitution
#
without naming the constitution, like you said,
#
even if that were to happen,
#
unless those values were already present in society,
#
And my counterpoint to my own counterpoint is that
#
there are people who say that those values also exist.
#
Rohit Dey wrote a book called People's Constitution,
#
pointing out that those values do have expression among the people as well.
#
Which is an interesting...
#
Because for India, everything that you say, the opposite is also true.
#
Yes, the opposite is also true.
#
Well, yes, actually, to be honest,
#
I don't have a solution as such.
#
I believe that this can be a part of a solution.
#
I would rather frame it like that.
#
But now you can't change people individually.
#
Now, unfortunately, you have lost the WhatsApp race.
#
Bhajpa has won the WhatsApp race.
#
And Sangh has entered the WhatsApp race
#
at the level of the booth.
#
And if that doesn't happen, they do.
#
30-40,000 WhatsApp groups are opening up
#
when the Bihar election is starting.
#
They know very clearly what to do and how to do it.
#
I mean, yes, that's what it is.
#
It's a part of a solution.
#
So this is largely what I mean.
#
I mean, in all political parties,
#
you see that no one is ready to talk,
#
no one is ready to raise any issues.
#
And because everyone knows that we will be crushed
#
So that's what I think comes out of it.
#
As I have already said,
#
first of all, what kind of society is this
#
that votes for riots after seeing riots?
#
What kind of thought process is this
#
that the Muslim leader hasn't come?
#
I mean, why hasn't he come?
#
I mean, there can be a lot of reasons.
#
Even now, if you find a Muslim leader,
#
he stands in the Muslim area,
#
where his daughter-in-law is from.
#
So why can't this happen?
#
So this is why I, in general,
#
what you are saying, default secular,
#
your argument is that, the partition one,
#
but my default secular argument is two.
#
The first is that I go out of the house,
#
My exposure is 1 is to 7,
#
according to the population.
#
I can't avoid interacting with seven people.
#
So I have to remain secular.
#
Secondly, my political exercise of,
#
my most powerful exercising is my vote.
#
I trust that and give it to non-Muslims.
#
And I have been giving it for so many years.
#
Without anyone saying that,
#
I mean, how dare anyone ask me, is my...
#
And you have been giving votes to non-Muslims,
#
and they have been betraying you.
#
and this is also taboo,
#
that if you bring a Muslim leader,
#
then he is also communal.
#
Or he is in the shadow of the secular party,
#
that in the shadow of the secular party,
#
a Muslim leader will be allowed to grow,
#
that you become the plants under this bargat,
#
but you don't try to become a bargat.
#
Basically, this is what is being said.
#
What else should I say?
#
that comes to my mind many times,
#
secularism and such things,
#
like the thing about Ganga Jamni Tahzeeb,
#
I have said this many times before,
#
and I have said it publicly as well,
#
that I personally don't rubbish off this Ganga Jamni Tahzeeb,
#
nor do I glorify it and romanticize it.
#
I have a very rational approach towards it.
#
I believe, first of all,
#
that this should happen from both sides.
#
This has to be an arms-length, fair,
#
there are several levels of this,
#
and those three or four levels should be fulfilled.
#
The first one is social.
#
That I have a festival, you have a festival,
#
you have convinced me, I have convinced you.
#
The second one is spiritual.
#
That the other person has read some Marasya,
#
I have read a Shloka, I have read something.
#
This spiritual accommodation has happened somewhere.
#
One social accommodation, one spiritual accommodation.
#
Let's call it religious accommodation.
#
the bonds of strength that exist,
#
but to acknowledge them more,
#
and to solidify them more,
#
and to put them in their conduct more,
#
the current economic jihad,
#
these are also ways to ostracize economically.
#
is taking you towards poverty,
#
is taking you towards discrimination.
#
So that social inclusion,
#
I want it in the economic system as well.
#
I am not saying that you should give me more money.
#
I am not saying that you should make a monopoly in every business.
#
I am not saying that we will sell and no one else will.
#
I am saying that we will also live like you.
#
It is not that it is not happening.
#
There is an exceptional market.
#
This is a very normal thing.
#
Many markets were secular.
#
So this is poisoning it.
#
I mean what this basically amounts to is
#
you are saying give us equal treatment and equal opportunities,
#
this is a very secular industry.
#
This is not a fighting industry.
#
Muslims are growing fruits,
#
Hindus are growing fruits.
#
They are not fighting there.
#
But they have put poison in it.
#
They have put butter in it.
#
So an economic equality,
#
an economic association,
#
an economic arms length transaction in mind
#
Economic manifests in different ways.
#
12 people are working in your office.
#
You can just ensure that 1 or 2 are Muslims.
#
Now, even if you are doing it in the name of tokenism,
#
as much as you think you are doing it in the name of tokenism,
#
but it will be very beneficial for 1 or 2.
#
I mean, it is possible that if someone hears it on Twitter,
#
they will cancel me that you are doing tokenism,
#
But I know that I have been in such a firm.
#
That is why I know how much benefit it gets from all this.
#
And there are equal treatments.
#
So this is an economic.
#
And the fourth is political.
#
Are you ready to vote for a Muslim leader in politics?
#
I think I have asked for a condition.
#
I think if it is good, I will ask for his hand.
#
He will cut it off and give it to me.
#
I think he will not vote for a Muslim leader.
#
But I am saying that at least in politics,
#
I expect so much that when they are beating me
#
someone is ready to put their body and interest on the line.
#
Because I am also asking you this because
#
not because I am very poor and you are a great messiah.
#
I am asking because the institution has failed.
#
Media is spreading poison about me.
#
I mean, the court is not ready to listen to me.
#
The opposition is not ready to talk to me.
#
The opposition is not ready to do anything to me.
#
So unfortunately, that's why I am asking for that body and interest on the line.
#
But that body and interest on the line actually
#
works even in a tranquil government
#
when all institutions are in place.
#
But for three or four days, they go out of order.
#
For example, in the case of riot,
#
if a barricade is put outside my lane
#
and I know that a truck is coming.
#
And I know that it is coming to harass me.
#
So I should have such people
#
who will call the DM and say, sir, what is happening?
#
Non-Muslims will say, sir, what is happening?
#
Or they will come to the barricade and say that we will not let them come.
#
No, how are they scaring us like this?
#
No, sir, we will not let them go.
#
You are the police. Why are you not doing your job?
#
So I want this interference in Ganga Jamni Tehzeeb.
#
And of course, it has to be both sides.
#
Of course, it will happen from the other side.
#
But I will wait for the day when
#
the state will put a barricade in a Malviya Nagar
#
and attack the Joshis and the Ayyars.
#
And unless people are looking for a reason to get angry at you,
#
I must point out that this is not what you are asking for.
#
I am not asking for that.
#
I am saying that when the day will come,
#
inshallah, you would find us there.
#
No, and in fact, you are speaking of putting bodies on the line in politics.
#
I am not a big fan of the communist parties.
#
But when these bulldozers went down,
#
it was Brinda Karat who went and stood in front of the bulldozers
#
and actually put her body on the line out there
#
and actually physically showed up.
#
It was happening in Kejriwal's Delhi, not a peep out of them.
#
They are perfectly happy to go down a different line.
#
Rahul Gandhi is in Europe having pina coladas.
#
That is what I am saying.
#
This work has unfortunately reached the civilian level
#
because the opposition is either not listening to us
#
or indirectly cutting our own throats,
#
in whatever way they are doing it.
#
There is nothing to do with judiciary.
#
When the judiciary is not ready to take the case of the electoral board,
#
then what will they care about the Muslims?
#
There is a huge transaction of thousands of crores going on.
#
You can see the whole line, the funding line.
#
And they are covering it up.
#
There is one more thing.
#
There is one more thing.
#
Why don't I talk more about governance?
#
Why do I talk about society in general?
#
It's not that I don't understand all this.
#
I have fought a lot during demonetization.
#
Like you were saying that you wrote an article.
#
Actually, I have been flipped since the time of demonetization.
#
Because I saw when I was writing a post on demonetization,
#
and I wrote a very innocuous post.
#
I didn't write a very critical anti-Modi post on Facebook.
#
I realized that people in my college
#
who I thought were more intelligent than me
#
in finance and economics
#
came and commented like absolute idiots and bigots.
#
I am trying to explain to them that,
#
boss, first of all, the post that I have written on Facebook
#
is about the havoc that it caused on Muhammad Ali Road.
#
It has nothing to do...
#
I am just trying to say that the amount of havoc
#
that a single speech of PM can make
#
only on an economic policy.
#
Imagine if it was something incendiary.
#
It could have been disastrous.
#
It is the only innocuous comment I made.
#
The question was, should we give power
#
on a Prime Minister so much power
#
that one speech can save him?
#
That was my core argument.
#
They started commenting like idiots and bigots.
#
These are more intelligent people than I am.
#
Or I perhaps would ever be.
#
They are more polished.
#
They have more work experience.
#
They have more better grades in college than I did.
#
They are telling me effects of demonetization.
#
Now, the thing about demonetization is that
#
the unfortunate part of demonetization,
#
the unfortunate advantage that I had
#
about demonetization at that point
#
that they did not, is that
#
not only have I audited for
#
security printing mill Hoshangabad
#
which used to make the paper of our currency notes
#
which was two-thirds cotton by the way earlier.
#
Now it is... I don't know if there is any cotton at all.
#
But I had also audited for
#
which prints the currency.
#
Then I have also audited for
#
Narmada Malwa Rural Bank
#
So, and then I had the experience
#
healthcare company at that time
#
which was in rural areas.
#
not only did I know that
#
capacity wise this is not possible
#
the banking system is roughly
#
broadly going to crash.
#
And I am trying to explain to them
#
to abuse me as a Muslim
#
And I realized that these
#
30-40 lakh earning corporates
#
unwilling to listen to me who are also more
#
intelligent than I am. I don't know about
#
the more intelligent, more polished and all that
#
perhaps like you said but
#
how could they be more intelligent if they are
#
supporting demonetization?
#
They are first of all willing to concede
#
existences which is merit.
#
I am giving them merit.
#
Boss, I have audited this, what is this?
#
I am telling you, it won't be possible.
#
Capacity doesn't exist.
#
It is a process of 4 days to destroy the old note.
#
to them like a fool that it's a very complex
#
process to make a currency note.
#
And they are not willing
#
to listen. They just know
#
They just know that BJP is right.
#
that order which Manmohan Singh said in
#
complete exact proper words
#
it was organized loot and plunder
#
people, if demonetization
#
like an accident, if people
#
are not able to understand that
#
the government is a thief or
#
they are capable of stealing
#
governance doesn't matter
#
there have been many mishaps in governance.
#
anything to the corporates.
#
It's not like after GST
#
everyone has made a golden throne.
#
Their minds are always bad
#
You see, sometimes tomatoes
#
become 120 rupees per kilo, sometimes
#
petrol becomes 105 rupees per kilo.
#
They take out the logic of everything.
#
In everything they are able to become
#
sometimes they become spontaneous
#
historians, sometimes they become spontaneous
#
economists. Spontaneous
#
biologists during Covid. Spontaneous biologists
#
there was a lot of horror to see
#
Chartered Accountant students
#
students, to see people with
#
such, who I have always
#
claimed that they are more intelligent than I am.
#
Hussain would I have to tell you
#
the biggest beneficiary of DEMON
#
and the botched implementation of GST
#
were Chartered Accountants only.
#
should say that even if
#
the printing capacity and all of that was
#
perfect and the notes could be printed overnight
#
it was still a big mistake.
#
And I'll by the way quickly give my
#
listeners context on this because
#
you know this came up when we were having
#
a conversation on the break and
#
during the show and this happened because
#
Hussain mentioned that he is trying to quit smoking.
#
So where it came from there is that
#
Hussain mentioned he was trying to quit smoking and
#
we were talking about different kinds of
#
addictions and I told him about the gambling addiction
#
that I saw in other people during my years playing poker
#
and then I confessed to my
#
own little addiction which is that when
#
demonetization happened I wrote
#
a bunch of pieces where
#
obviously I was critical of it from day one.
#
One of the TOI pieces I wrote
#
against demon was you know retweeted by
#
both Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal
#
went incredibly viral so obviously
#
the IT cell got after me. And the kind
#
of abuse I received in those four days
#
was unbelievable. Though of course
#
nothing compared to what women get or Muslims get.
#
But it was great for me because
#
I would just block everybody because I
#
block for rudeness. I don't block for disagreement
#
I block for rudeness. So anybody abuses
#
me or say something snarky block.
#
3-4 days when the volume
#
went down that I was having withdrawal
#
symptoms. You know because
#
every time I hit block my
#
dopamine rush used to go on my brain. And I
#
was like shit this is fun and all that.
#
is that blocking really
#
I blocked so many of them at that time
#
that I just don't get trolled so much anymore
#
because that ecosystem doesn't really notice me.
#
And obviously I am not such an important
#
person. I am not a Barkhadat or a Ramguha.
#
online and I see that I am getting a lot of
#
abuse randomly, I realize that either
#
Barkha or Ram have retweeted something I have
#
done. So I have got all their chips.
#
So you also have some philosophy
#
in blocking as you were telling me earlier.
#
Yes, yes. I am very clear.
#
In fact I have also tweeted about it very
#
clearly. I have created a
#
the high intelligence of our
#
sorry I will just finish that demonetization
#
point. Oh sorry, you were sitting on it.
#
There is one concluding thing.
#
That is I think 2017 when
#
demonetization happened, 16 years.
#
I think after a year of demonetization
#
and the way people were not willing to accept
#
its adverse effects, I think
#
I concluded that governance issues are not
#
they are not going to care.
#
If they are not going to care about demonetization
#
they are not going to care about anything. I thought they were
#
going to get wiped out in the UP elections.
#
Wiped out because it was the largest
#
assault on property rights in
#
human history. Demon. I am talking about the 2017
#
suffered because of this. How can they
#
shitting out the old reason and gobbling
#
up the new shit that is being fed to them.
#
And I am writing a new column.
#
phenomenal how nobody speaks of it
#
And these are corporate people.
#
They would have remembered those times.
#
I mean that is actually when
#
I shifted from 2017, 18,
#
19. And after 2019 there was
#
to go back to governance issues
#
personally because I realized that they
#
So that was a turning point for me.
#
And this was also a turning point for me
#
that I should not expect from educated people
#
that this correlation between education
#
is better for my health.
#
Anyway, I will come to blocking now.
#
So the fund for blocking is
#
that the good thing is that
#
leaders like Adityanath
#
about them is that they follow
#
They follow poisonous journalists.
#
all these useless IT cell
#
people and they will have to
#
if they unfollow then who will
#
So the good thing is that
#
my policy is that I went on their profiles
#
and blocked the ones they follow.
#
basically goes out of the channel
#
of the right wing ecosystem because even if
#
somebody like Barkha Datta or Ram Guha
#
then if they simply RT it
#
then most of the ecosystem will not see it anyway.
#
one thing that I figured out and this is especially
#
useful for women because
#
the most Hindu trolling, right wing trolling
#
And if you are a Muslim woman
#
then it doubles. If you are a Dalit woman then it doubles.
#
I mean such a bad trolling
#
that I think if Hindu women hear
#
what these people say about women
#
then they can get their vote out of the way.
#
No, no. I'll tell you what. I had been on
#
a Twitter spaces or a club house. I don't
#
remember one of those a long time back
#
where there were a bunch of these Hindu
#
men and they were talking about
#
a woman's anatomy, a Muslim
#
woman's anatomy in extremely demeaning
#
way and a couple of Hindu women
#
there actually joined them.
#
I am saying that of course they join.
#
It's not that they are separate from it.
#
I am not saying that 100% will not
#
cooperate. Even I have heard that.
#
And I have seen women also do
#
that. And I have seen that
#
spaces I talked about where I started crying. It
#
also had women talking about that guy.
#
Saying communal slurs. But what
#
I am trying to say is that if
#
women who are not generally
#
used to Twitter and the hate and
#
you know who would not know. Like somebody
#
40-50 year old woman in say
#
Indore who is not on Twitter. Maybe she is on
#
Facebook and Whatsapp and she just gets to know
#
that what is he saying. He should not
#
talk like this. Yes, yes, he is a Muslim
#
and if you don't give him, he is a traitor.
#
But he doesn't talk like this.
#
means this happens with blocking. Because
#
these people are very bad.
#
Secondly, the effects come on real life.
#
OpIndia and all these people
#
want to write articles on me. They will make some other account
#
absolutely garbage interpretations.
#
and write what they want to write.
#
that they will not write every week.
#
They will write once a month.
#
You will get this much ease.
#
Secondly, when you block
#
everybody from right wing.
#
And when you open another account.
#
Because you created a bubble.
#
You created your left liberal republic.
#
Then someone will come and say that there is an echo chamber.
#
You made another echo chamber.
#
By the way, I also block left liberal trolls a lot.
#
So bhakts and voks are liberally blocked by me.
#
So I am saying that when you block
#
You meet people of the same ideology.
#
In which you can say that you have
#
thickened the echo chamber.
#
opened another account where I only followed the right wing.
#
So I got many benefits from that.
#
As I was telling you earlier.
#
From that I got a monolith break.
#
That monoliths are not there.
#
Who is not their friend.
#
Who is sitting in their 80 cell
#
Who doesn't promote who.
#
such small useless observations.
#
But like the example of Zubair.
#
Sometimes they do something.
#
So you can take advantage of it.
#
I don't have access to WhatsApp.
#
navigating on Facebook is a little difficult.
#
The fake accounts of Twitter and Instagram.
#
With that you get to know
#
I have made a lot of progress.
#
In the Twitter and right wing accounts.
#
I have made a lot of progress.
#
In the last one year or so especially.
#
Because I think what happened was
#
and a lot of protest material
#
and a lot of scheduling and gathering
#
mass mobilization posts
#
were mostly on Instagram.
#
So Instagram was equally instrumental
#
And there was a lot of protest.
#
these people weren't there.
#
We are countering Twitter.
#
They are making a schedule from there.
#
So they made their catch there.
#
And they have made it strategically.
#
They know their shortcomings.
#
Because I have heard them on Twitter Spaces.
#
Talking to a lot of people.
#
So these kind of things are understood.
#
This is also understood.
#
What language will pinch.
#
Because I used to use that language on Facebook many times.
#
But then I realized that
#
I am only sounding more bitter
#
as I use their own language.
#
Can't you bear this much?
#
They have raised a lion.
#
So this vocabulary becomes much more clear.
#
When you read that vocabulary.
#
When you understand that vocabulary.
#
how beautiful literature is.
#
But admire it in the sense the way
#
it is designed in a simple manner.
#
to evoke certain emotions.
#
Very sentiments of pride.
#
And sometimes even call to action.
#
it won't work in Madras
#
as it used to work before.
#
these are certain things that you learn
#
with Alishan on this very
#
same thing. Because when Sully
#
by the first time it had happened
#
there was a Twitter space
#
I had gone to just to show solidarity.
#
But I thought if I will be a speaker
#
more people will join in. That's the only reason
#
I went there. And I saw Alishan
#
I heard Alishan speak for 5 minutes.
#
And at that time he was like
#
there was a 1500-2000 follower
#
account and I didn't know that
#
he is a journalist and all this.
#
But I heard him for 5 minutes and I was like okay
#
who is this guy? Because how does he know
#
about Trident Raitha? I thought I was the only foolish
#
person who looks at all this.
#
something very unnatural to me
#
and I DMed him. I generally do not
#
speak to anyone on Twitter.
#
I DMed him and then we had a conversation
#
and then we spoke for 4 hours.
#
The same night. And I realised
#
that we have so much to offer
#
to each other in terms of thoughts
#
in terms of argument construction
#
in terms of news exchange
#
do not agree with in the discourse
#
or what things we agree with
#
and want to speak more about
#
what things really bother us
#
and what are the approaches we want
#
we were pretty much on the same page
#
and we still are and it's
#
something that I mean it made me realise
#
that I should probably connect more
#
after that whole ostracisation
#
and that whole thing that happened with blocking
#
and this and that I mean that experience that I
#
that I am going to be a lone wolf
#
because if there will be a fall I will take it alone
#
and if there is something I don't want
#
again that I get I get I don't want it
#
But that made me realise
#
that no it is good to connect to people
#
because what we are doing is constructive
#
what we are doing is not we are not trying
#
to propagate hate we are not trying to do this
#
what we are trying to do is we are trying to defend ourselves
#
in a reasonable way in a certain
#
perhaps some people want to
#
I won't assume that many people want
#
to listen to it but maybe some
#
want to listen to it so we
#
spend a lot of time on it.
#
I can't tell you how much
#
time I spend on this thing
#
we spend 1-2-3 hours on these things
#
is something I can't do
#
not everyone has a knife on their neck
#
That's a lovely way to put it
#
this night at 2 o'clock
#
our discourse doesn't end because
#
we know that these people will start again the next day
#
can't shut down Twitter at 12 o'clock
#
and stop fighting fascism
#
it is not an option for me
#
another thing gives me confidence
#
and which I believe that
#
it has its own religion
#
whatever is there in the Abrahamic religion
#
it is a theological discussion
#
I am not giving theological discussion
#
which a religion provides
#
which provides in a country like India
#
I am saying from that context
#
that it is giving its own God
#
it is giving its whole God
#
till the temple of the temple
#
it is giving its whole God
#
it is giving its whole book
#
it is giving its whole God
#
food has its own influences
#
but food has its own way
#
if you demonize biryani
#
then you will get shawarma
#
culturally you will go to
#
there are many cultural things
#
there is its own architecture
#
there are clothes of its own
#
you can criticize different things
#
modesty, fashion, hijab
#
there are many differences
#
girls will be able to tell better
#
boys will also be able to tell better
#
like I wear kurta and pajamas
#
we wear hats, we wear hats
#
there are so many cultural things
#
we wear kurta and pajamas
#
that also came from Islamic countries
#
stitch clothing came to India
#
because of the Europeans
#
how much will they remove that right
#
one is spiritual fulfillment
#
then cultural is also its own
#
in music there are qawwalis
#
in poetry there is Urdu poetry
#
we have our own language
#
we have our own language
#
so if I accept that it is our own language
#
then we have our own language
#
we have Arabic and local language
#
is very difficult to break
#
in the name of spiritual fulfillment
#
you are not giving us anything
#
we are happy with our culture
#
we take what we like in your culture
#
this is Hindu's, that is his
#
we will not do this, we will not do that
#
some are religious, some are custom
#
of course there are exceptions
#
but we are not rejecting
#
I don't have any objection to beef
#
so I have accepted both
#
you have an issue with independence
#
I am independent and I am also
#
then linguistically I don't have any objection
#
is like a vehicle of Hindutva
#
I don't need your language
#
independent on my own language
#
this thing gives me confidence
#
many communitarian things also come
#
or to pray daily on Friday
#
the one who has studied knows
#
that you don't just pray
#
like you are doing wazoo together
#
some things happen, you meet someone
#
a different communitarian
#
because this religious principle
#
like help me, I am not hungry
#
difficult to break these things
#
how RSS is working on this
#
gives me solace that this is strength
#
of the Muslim community by and large
#
linguistic omnipresence
#
and political in which they kill us
#
people must be very sad
#
I don't know how much you agree with this
#
or how much you find it
#
I find it extremely interesting
#
I might be born a Hindu but I consider myself
#
my community is really a community
#
of choice which is the next thing
#
I will speak about with you
#
and in that sense that communitarian thing
#
is something that is absent
#
I understand that it is something that
#
all the different organized religions
#
it is an interesting way of putting it
#
except that it is not an argument I would make
#
because it almost seems adversarial
#
whereas so far a lot of the arguments
#
that you have made are not adversarial
#
don't do criminal things
#
I get what you are coming from
#
perhaps I don't know what made it sound like that
#
but it is not adversarial in the sense
#
if at all it is adversarial
#
percolation and poisoning
#
which I think I am allowed to
#
absolutely, so it is not adversarial
#
where you are saying these are the things that I value
#
of course not, it is a beautiful thing in fact
#
the way you stated it in context as an argument
#
and this tribe vs tribe
#
argument doesn't appeal to me
#
and I don't mean that in a negative sense
#
I don't mean tribe in that sense
#
tribe vs tribe, I think what I am trying to say is that
#
because had it been a tribe vs tribe
#
I think I would have probably
#
ended up saying that this is how we will fight them
#
or this is how we will resist them
#
I think that what I am trying to say is that
#
there are certain omnipresent
#
features like economic and political
#
with muslims and muslimness
#
the basis of being muslim
#
so economically and politically they are
#
they are finding it difficult to pervade
#
largely what I am trying to say
#
as a statement of fact I completely agree with you
#
I don't think this would be
#
an effective argument against them
#
because they have those economic and political
#
tricks where they will just get the bulldozer
#
economic and agreed agreed
#
that is absolutely correct
#
what is the economic and political stick
#
so I started it that it gives me
#
I did not say it as a conflict
#
I said this is what gives me peace about the
#
community that these three are safe with us
#
but what you are saying
#
is absolutely correct because this is also happening
#
whether it is boycotting
#
those who are ready for the fruit
#
using economic and political
#
breaking mosques, religion
#
architecture or clothes
#
attacking or linguistic
#
in the film industry and everyone demonizes it
#
so I completely agree with you
#
it keeps on reading on all three
#
but I take peace on this
#
maybe it will stay alive
#
I am not a very religious person
#
I mean I have to say it at home unfortunately
#
I mean I have to say it to my family
#
a very religious person
#
and my family is angry with me
#
it is your right to be as religious or non-religious as you want
#
the proportion of their anger has decreased
#
but earlier it was enough
#
read, why are you not doing
#
what are you doing, you are not going to the mosque
#
you are not going to the mosque, you are not going to the gathering
#
so all those things used to happen
#
now slowly I have grown up
#
I have understood that ok
#
he is doing so much, he sees, he understands
#
Let's get back to talking about
#
your personal life and your art and all that
#
because I feel that I almost feel guilty
#
that I am stereotyping you by talking on these
#
subjects as oh I have a Muslim with me
#
let's talk about what's happening in India
#
today but there is obviously a lot more
#
that I want to talk about
#
and the first is this like I was with a friend
#
in Bangalore recently who works in a very
#
senior position in a bank and he was
#
complaining that boss, every time
#
you know all the executives in my bank
#
they go out for lunch or dinner or whatever
#
it's so boring because they don't
#
have subjects to talk about
#
they don't read books, films, music
#
anything, it's entirely
#
boring and this came to my mind
#
because earlier when you were talking about your time
#
doing CA or when you were talking
#
about your MBA this thing
#
in some other interview
#
that their topics are limited
#
you have other interests in poetry
#
and this and that but these guys are all
#
talking about the same things and they are looking at
#
everything as instrumental
#
as you spoke of shedding your
#
skin as it were and meeting
#
people like you and the friends that you made
#
at the first open mic and you know the
#
fact that those friendships meant so much to you
#
and just now you spoke about how you met Alishan
#
at this thing and you connected with him
#
and you spoke for us and that really speaks
#
so many people if you are in an office
#
or whatever don't have that kind of interior
#
life that you might and I am not passing
#
judgment and saying one is good, one is bad
#
maybe they are happier but they don't have that kind
#
of interior life where they are engaging with the world
#
engaging with books, music, whatever
#
and therefore one kind of gets
#
trapped by that and the thing is if this
#
was 1970 or if this was 1960
#
we would be fucked right
#
we would be restricted by geography
#
and circumstances to a particular
#
small sample size of people
#
and that's all we have to deal with
#
so you are born in Indore, you are not coming to Bombay
#
to go to an open mic to meet a particular
#
kind of person who comes there
#
you are not going on the internet to
#
randomly encounter somebody who happens
#
to share so much with you and who can be your friend
#
so I think one of the great
#
is that we are not restricted
#
anymore by circumstances of birth or
#
geography and all of that we can form
#
our communities of choice which is one of
#
sort of the things that I take comfort
#
in that you and I who might never have met otherwise
#
or been in Bombay otherwise can sit and
#
have a conversation like this would we know of
#
each other in a different time you know
#
tell me your sense of this because
#
about that process of shedding the baggage
#
and figuring out what you want to do
#
and what you want to you know
#
how has this process been like
#
a way like what are you
#
rooted to what is your sense of home
#
which is a slightly different question
#
but the reason it occurs to
#
I feel a little deracinated
#
that I can't point to a city and say this
#
is my home or that is my home or that is my home
#
in this community of choice which is
#
located nowhere which is everywhere
#
like I'll be very embarrassed to answer
#
I think it's also something
#
can I clarify that question I want
#
I want to read out something
#
which is I had done an episode
#
with Amitav Kumar so he had quoted
#
from Rahim Azum Raza and he had
#
written and this is based
#
around the time of partition
#
and he wrote in Raza's Adha
#
Gaon the protest against the nation is
#
being made in the name of the village when the fiercely
#
well educated Muslim students
#
come to Gangauli to preach about
#
partition and the necessity for the creation
#
of a new nation of Pakistan the Muslim
#
villagers are genuinely bewildered
#
one of the villagers is a young man
#
called Tannu who has returned from battle
#
fighting for the British in the Second World War
#
he argues against the urban visitors
#
in the name of his village and he says
#
I am a Muslim but I love this village because I
#
myself am this village I love the indigo
#
warehouse this tank and those mud
#
lanes because they are different forms of myself
#
on the battlefield when death came
#
very near I certainly remembered Allah
#
but instead of Mecca and Karbala I remembered
#
I asked Amitav and I think I've asked
#
one or two people since then is
#
and that mud is not necessary
#
a neighborhood of that city
#
or that neighborhood can only be a street
#
I never meant not as a Muslim
#
but maybe that's why I have never
#
evoked a Muslim feeling
#
what do I have to do with the nation
#
as a child you have a very small
#
world without that in that era of
#
no internet and everything my attachment
#
was always to the mud in the sense
#
so what is there in Indore
#
which I could understand a little bit
#
even those 3-4 areas where I used to roam
#
I could understand that much of Indore
#
there is no such thing that I have mastery over Indore
#
I understood all this politics
#
what is going on there, what is this
#
what is the zone, not all this
#
the 3-4 neighborhoods that I have seen
#
that is my childhood, that is my youth
#
that also forms your base
#
if I point to the city level
#
then my sense of home is probably Indore
#
but then there are different things in it
#
like we used to have a joint family
#
so in my mind, in my imagination
#
always that joint family
#
where all those people are present
#
and this is my pain point
#
that now everyone is converted into nuclear
#
very difficult to imagine
#
so it is difficult for me
#
to consider my home as one
#
so it's very strange, like even when I dream
#
always as they are young
#
they are in their 40s or
#
so in my head, they probably haven't aged
#
and that's also the age
#
40s or 50s basically I guess
#
somewhere they haven't aged
#
oh that's very interesting thought
#
and I managed to I think
#
and mixed them together
#
like mud and water and became slushy
#
so the other question which
#
kind of got lost was about communities of choice
#
about communities of choice yes
#
so I think that again is a very
#
that was my weird phase
#
came to Mumbai after doing this
#
I thought that I will meet good people in Mumbai
#
and it's not like I had bad friends in CA
#
that I will meet people in Mumbai
#
but there was no such atmosphere
#
there were poetry people
#
so I had a sense of belonging with poetry
#
and I have cherished that friendship with poetry
#
and I have always kept it
#
above other friendships
#
I had a sense of belonging there
#
after that when I went to MBA school
#
I never had a sense of belonging
#
capitalism indoctrination going on
#
I was conscious at that time
#
I don't have a personality
#
I don't have that ambition
#
so I never had a sense of belonging there
#
not the first one which I did in Mumbai
#
but the second one which I did in Kolkata
#
I found a sense of belonging there
#
it had a lot to do with
#
the fact that it was a start up
#
I was given a lot of independence
#
it had a lot to do with the fact that I had matured
#
I knew that I am not going to take bull shit from many people
#
where I had taken only bull shit from everybody
#
and I realized what happens when you have
#
it's not like everything is Muslim
#
I just realized that it was much more egalitarian
#
consciously to be egalitarian
#
and that was a very weird thing
#
and I think you mentioned that he used to scold you a lot
#
and you later realized he was
#
and he is again a person I am very fond of
#
and a very erudite person
#
he often used to scold me
#
it's not like I used to work
#
for the first time I checked my freedom
#
you can work in your own way
#
so maybe I used to come in that rage
#
that you have to understand
#
I can't favor you all the time
#
or I can't favor you because
#
so everybody will think I am favoring you because of that
#
since he is so egalitarian
#
he is constantly pushing for
#
representation and things like that
#
and there is a certain amount of fairness which is valued in the system
#
I was shocked that he is so conscious
#
and I had never thought about this
#
this also happens in the world
#
I think I came into the film industry
#
then I started writing songs
#
so this sense of belonging
#
I hope something good happens
#
sense of belonging in terms of
#
communities which might be
#
whether it's poetry or profession
#
and sense of belonging may be
#
it's fragmented but I think that's
#
so let's talk about your poetry
#
you were reading all these great poets
#
but you weren't actually writing
#
and you started writing circa 2009
#
you realized that what are these people reading
#
so what was that process like of discovering
#
your craft and discovering your voice
#
like one of the things that
#
some of your poetry just captures
#
the way people speak in everyday life
#
jaise aapki ek poem hai chai coffee
#
words like sophistication, frustration
#
very naturally the way people speak
#
and you're kind of reproducing that
#
which shows a lot of confidence I would imagine when one
#
starts writing poetry you don't have
#
that confidence and you are
#
in some way or the other you're looking at what the
#
greats have done and you're trying to do that and then
#
gradually you find your voice and
#
the kind of rhythms you like and all of that
#
so what was that process like of discovering
#
your work of figuring out the craft
#
confident about it I was also not
#
uninterested in sharing it with anybody
#
for two reasons that first
#
or secondly I will be shamed
#
yeh thaye masle hai par
#
main jab likhta tha shuru shuru main to process yeh
#
tha ki mujhe sif palaha hua nahi tha
#
mera bahot saara I had memorized a lot
#
of poems as well and I could
#
in that age while I was in my early
#
twenties and even now if I start
#
matlab uss time agar main 5-7-8 gata
#
continuous recite kar sakta hota
#
toh aaj bhi main 2-3 gata toh nikal sakta hu
#
bina prep ke toh itna toh mujhe yaad tha
#
toh abhi dhar kam ho gayi
#
so what happened was that
#
when I used to write there was a
#
certain sound, a rhythm
#
in a way that was already happening
#
subconsciously bahot ho gayi thi
#
main koi consciously learning nahi karna chahta tha
#
main toh shauk se par raha tha shairi
#
shuru shuru main toh wahi jo main likhta tha
#
jo abh main padhta hu purana toh mujhe samajh maa
#
aata hai ki kaafi kaccha hai abhi bhi koi asa nahi
#
bahot kharaa sona ho gaya hai
#
lekin pehle toh aur bhi kharab tha
#
topics jo hua karte the
#
mera ek frame of mind tha us daur main
#
jo abhi bhi maujood hai
#
wo yeh hai, aur jo ki bana tha
#
saare shairo ki biographies
#
padke, introductions padke
#
aur writers ke baare me padke
#
tha wo yeh tha ki aap honest
#
rahe hain, aap jo likh rahe hain
#
zyada smart dekhane koshish na karein
#
aap simple baate bhi, simple
#
kahene ki koshish karein
#
it's kuch bahot acchi bhaasha likhe
#
sahitya create karde hain aisa nahi hoga
#
aap bahot badi badi baato ko, bahot sade
#
lafzo mein kya sakta hain, toh yeh frame of
#
mind mere 2 develop, 3, 4
#
develop huye toh jaise ki ek toh
#
honesty honi zaruri ki aap jo
#
mehsoos kar rahe hain aap ko wo hi kahna
#
aap ko pretend nahi karna hai ki
#
main bada intelligent ho main yeh soch raha hu
#
personal experiences ko
#
kah sakta hain ki loko lage
#
main apne aap beeti ko jag beeti
#
yeh frame of mind mere pehle hua karta
#
3rd itna kam hi tha thoda
#
yeh 3rd actually main gaane
#
meh zyada I guess koshish karta hain
#
honesty aur sadhgi pe mera
#
hamesha focus pehle bhi tha, abhi bhi hai
#
bahot complex thoughts ke upar
#
bahot simple poems likhi ja sakti hain
#
maine kavita hain likhi hain jo ki
#
jisme bahasha ka koi aapko bahot
#
rang rogan nahi milega, aapko aisa nahi
#
layega ki waha waha kya zaban hain, waha kya craft
#
hain saadmi na to kya kamaal phor diya hain
#
lekin halaki wo bhi zero
#
matlab agar aap urdu ki aazaad nazme
#
kamaal phor aur wo saari cheeze
#
matlab, jaise maine dosro ko bhi sunta hain
#
toh mujhe lagta hain ki maine iske baare me kya jana
#
maine gaane bhi likhta hain
#
lyrics ka kam pasand aata hain
#
bhale wo hit ho gaya ho
#
lekin agar mujhe gaana sunke lagta hain ki
#
ye aadmi ko maine zara sa pehchaan gaya
#
toh mujhe lagta hain ki maine iske baare me kya
#
poem sunke mujhe lagta hain ki
#
yaar ye yahi baat kar raha hai
#
toh mujhe lagta hain ki
#
maine pehle honesty pe zyada tarz deta hain
#
of course craft barely important hain
#
maine craft ko leke snobbish nahi hain
#
par mera maana hai craft
#
koshish nahi chahi hain usse improve karne ki
#
toh ye growth rahi meri
#
craft main dhime dhime improve hua
#
kuch frame of mind add hua hain
#
jaise kuch kuch kavita hain maine
#
political thought pehle aaya hain
#
rationalize maine baadne kiya
#
chhipkali me koi mera bhaat zyada
#
jaise ma aapko sunaaya aapko
#
toh koi mera koi bhaat zyada political thought
#
nahi tha uske andar mae bas jaanta tha ki
#
hain ye khaki hai aur ye gandhiji hai
#
mota moti hi samajh mein
#
so mera ek friend hai jo bhaat kitabe
#
padhta hai jo literature bhi bhaat padha hua hain
#
writing ke baare bhi bhaat padha hua hain
#
wo ye hi kehta hai ki it's ok agar tum main nahi samajh mein aata
#
you write what you feel
#
and maybe you'll figure it out
#
toh what you've written or maybe somebody else
#
will figure it out for you
#
toh mujhe theekh lagta hai
#
matlab har cheez khabar ho zaruri nahi hai
#
toh thoda main conscious bhi
#
raheta hu writing process ko leke thoda
#
unconscious bhi rahene ki koshish karta hu
#
it's ok if i don't understand a few things
#
about honesty is great like i think
#
i think you know not just for
#
poets or writers but in generally in the
#
creator economy i think ek cheez
#
jo bilkul non-negotiable hai is authenticity
#
to yourself you can't try
#
to be somebody else you can't wear a
#
mask you know if you are yourself
#
that is what people will really relate to
#
because everybody is unique at one
#
level you know the only thing that sets you apart
#
from the 7 billion people in the world is you
#
you're unique in a certain way and at the same time
#
everybody is the same in the
#
sense we go through the same emotions and the same
#
crisis and all that so that
#
into something that has universal appeal is
#
i think you know what all great art does
#
so you know and as far as craft
#
is concerned you know there's this great quote
#
by George Orwell which i love where he says
#
good prose is like a window
#
pane and the idea is you know
#
the window pane is supposed to show you what's on the
#
other side not draw attention to itself
#
it's a means to an end so you know
#
something by you and i don't notice a craft
#
that means there is craft that's a
#
and i believe in this thing that
#
should look so innocuous that i
#
if you do it then you will sweat
#
under your teeth that this is not happening
#
in simplicity there is a deception
#
sometimes it happens with me
#
but i hope i know better
#
it more frequently so this
#
and you know i first heard of you
#
when obviously i saw your viral video
#
in the sunny muslima which
#
moved me a lot and still moves me i mean just
#
for my listeners hussein was just
#
you know taking it very casually
#
and i think you're just very used to it and maybe you're
#
tired of it and bored of it or whatever
#
but it's a wonderful poem especially
#
the way you know things have progressed in
#
the last few years and i won't ask you
#
to read it out because i don't think you'll want to do
#
that i'll i'll i'll link it from the show notes
#
but tell me a little bit
#
about that because what i love about that
#
poem is you know i keep saying on the show that
#
you know people contain multitudes
#
and with that beautiful poem you are really
#
the multitudes of the indian muslim
#
about how impossible it is to
#
tie someone down or even want to tie them
#
down and all of that so
#
just tell me about you know that
#
the reception to the poem and how
#
people responded to it what
#
that meant to you because it's one
#
thing like writing poetry
#
very often is a solitary activity
#
you're writing in a bat's notebook
#
you're alone with your own
#
you know solitariness and
#
all of that and what you
#
do when you perform it for
#
a crowd of people is is that you
#
turn it into something else entirely
#
process like of having to perform
#
something take something private and
#
you know perform it for the world and
#
two what were the sort of responses to
#
that and you know how did that
#
shape the things you do did it help your
#
so one I'll tell you about the performance
#
when I was performing in 2009
#
I was only performing because
#
I knew that nobody knows me
#
the judgments that people would pass on
#
my emotional sappy stupid
#
poetry which I thought was supposed
#
to shame me but then in
#
2016 when I returned to Bombay
#
and when I was performing I was performing more
#
from the point of view that perhaps somebody
#
would notice me and would
#
lyrics that is all that I had
#
in my mind I had no idea what
#
work is going on in the industry I had no idea
#
what the industry is I had no idea
#
despite all the googling and all the
#
technology available to me I just came to
#
Bombay without any prior
#
and I'll get some kind of a project
#
there but reaction and response
#
especially to Hindustani Musalman
#
it was just meant to be a 30
#
40 people listening at event
#
it was supposed to be a poem that I'll read
#
in front of 40-50 people
#
7-8 times and then I'll get
#
bored of it and then I'll retire the piece
#
which is what generally what I do
#
I get bored of it myself even though
#
people want to hear it I'm like hey read something new
#
which is a good thing also because it makes
#
me write more but it was supposed
#
to be that but then the video was to be
#
recorded and before that
#
one of my videos went viral which was on smoking
#
that it'll get around 10,000, 15,000
#
people will be happy so
#
they'll read it in front of people
#
and invite 2-3 more people
#
there was no vision of it
#
at that time there was no spoken word poetry
#
there was no scene of any virality
#
there was no scene of any virality
#
I mean when LUT got viral
#
an article was published in 1-2 places
#
it had 70-80-90,000 views
#
there were not many views
#
virality was not a crazy virality
#
you know a thing at that time
#
this was I'm talking about February 2017
#
I was seeing that it got 5,000 views
#
10,000 views and I thought let's end it
#
it got 10,000 views now what to do
#
1-2 hours, 3 hours I was seeing
#
that it got 30,000 views, what happened
#
how did people understand so much
#
I mean this is common sense
#
that a person is not of one type
#
I mean what did people understand so much
#
that it is getting more viral
#
someone is writing a news article
#
then all the journalists are calling
#
that I am speaking from here, I am speaking from here
#
I talked to some people
#
I didn't talk to some people
#
and I didn't talk to those people
#
so I wasn't interested in talking to them
#
I was surprised by the reaction
#
that what did people understand
#
I mean this is not old wine in new bottle
#
this bottle is also old
#
but what happened was that
#
it brought spoken word poetry on the map
#
I might be blowing my own trumpet here
#
I am mildly disappointed by people who don't do it
#
I am happy to do it for you
#
there was no spoken word poetry scene
#
you can check YouTube and you can check Google
#
and you can check all articles
#
it happened on 10th February 2017
#
before that you will get only one video
#
in English, there was a poem on introvert
#
all the viral poems that have come
#
so you were the gateway drug
#
and also two things were done
#
first is that spoken word poetry was slapped
#
political poetry is also allowed
#
and I did not know it at that time
#
I was just doing what I was doing
#
I mean I was just happy that it went viral
#
and I was like maybe I can just
#
send a link to more people and say
#
people were taking interviews
#
because I didn't come to Mumbai to give interviews
#
what will I do with so many interviews
#
people will think I am a big guy
#
but nothing happens with that
#
only work happens with work
#
so although Ravish Kumar
#
a lot of people heard, saw, read
#
a lot of people were inspired by it
#
and I, although he was also
#
refusing the interview for NDTV
#
but then he talked and I said
#
because I used to listen to him before
#
the response reaction was that
#
and I was a little surprised
#
that why it is looking good but I generally
#
said thank you thank you
#
because what do I tell them
#
started reading from him
#
so I think it was mostly
#
a response to the propaganda
#
of that time when I wrote it
#
a response to the propaganda
#
that was taking a very sharp turn
#
towards collectivizing of the other
#
and 17 because I realized that all
#
the propaganda was suddenly getting diverted towards
#
Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
#
and I was of the opinion
#
that brother Muslims are not of one kind
#
we don't know how many types exist
#
how did you come to know that
#
so it was more of a response
#
I mean one thing that I
#
and especially after CA also
#
is that during the CNRC
#
movement what happened was that
#
instead of me trying to tell the
#
majority community that hey
#
but we are one in the sense that
#
I think during the CNRC it got interpreted as
#
that hey we are all together
#
and we are Indian Muslims
#
and we need to resist this as Indian Muslims
#
I think the whole thing inverted
#
and I didn't realize it until I
#
read it two or three times
#
and one of the reasons why I kept reading
#
that poem during CNRC was also
#
because I wanted to very clearly
#
register the fact that this is
#
also a Muslim resistance
#
I didn't want to counter
#
anybody on the stage as they
#
tried to talk about other aspects
#
because that would have been confrontational
#
but I also wanted to assert
#
is not only unconstitutional
#
it is communal, that's why it is a law
#
it's not like they are attacking
#
the constitution because it's communal
#
that's why it's being done
#
so I wanted to keep this
#
some things in this poem
#
I changed some things in response
#
because I have read this poem so many times
#
for example whenever I say this line
#
I have a month of Ramzan and I have done Ganga
#
now I wish to ask people
#
what if the person does not want to do Ganga
#
does not want to do Ganga
#
is he any less Indian Muslim
#
if he does not want to do Ganga
#
he could very happily be
#
like I am not interested
#
what do you mean, am I an anti of seafood
#
no, it could be anything
#
there is another response
#
that I don't have a leader
#
why is there an applause to that
#
want a politician of my own
#
why could I not be political
#
why could I not remove the apoliticalness
#
that perhaps you desire
#
so as to look less aggressive
#
political stance make me
#
is what I am trying to understand
#
why would there be an applause to this
#
then I am talking about myself
#
even though I am metaphorizing
#
so I should get his concession
#
whenever I would come to the portions
#
that I am a bubble of Babri
#
I am the border between cities
#
broken roof of madrasas
#
why is there silence over there
#
physical response while reading this poem
#
why do you feel ashamed
#
why do you feel uncomfortable
#
when I am talking about this
#
so you should understand why
#
because in this so called sweet poem
#
I am giving you a little
#
so you feel uncomfortable
#
for me to melt like sugar in milk
#
I can be like pebbles in the river
#
they don't have an answer
#
people consider this image steadfast
#
that we have to do gangasthan
#
by talking about all this
#
the reaction responses of poetry
#
you would also see that I have not
#
made my youtube channel
#
I could have easily made my youtube channel
#
I could have also written 3 more 4 more poems
#
on Muslim identity right after Hindustani Musalman
#
I had to advocate a TV serial
#
which is on Indian Muslim families
#
and I had to read this poem
#
this serial but I didn't do that
#
because I also understand that this is a poem
#
it does not make me some kind of
#
it is 1 by 130 crores and so is yours
#
and that is what I think
#
my share in Indian Muslims
#
is only 1 by 120 crores
#
and so is everybody else's
#
you know why I like Hindustani Musalman
#
so much and including those parts
#
you mentioned and including the parts which others
#
is for me it's fighting essentialism
#
and it's fighting essential
#
because I just hate essentialism of all
#
types Muslims are like this or Hindus
#
are like this or blah blah blah
#
you know because I just feel we all contain
#
multitudes we should celebrate that
#
and not tie people down to identities
#
or birth or something they could not control
#
it seems an expression that Muslims
#
are everywhere doing everything
#
and there is that possibility there
#
and there is also agency
#
there in the sense we are interpreted that I can do
#
any of these things not that
#
I have to do all of them like I have never done
#
Gangasana and I never will obviously
#
why is that even something desirable
#
those individual things but that overall
#
thing just makes me feel
#
sort of brings into focus
#
what I love about this country
#
and what is worth fighting for for all of us
#
think you are being a little hard on yourself
#
perhaps on many other people
#
who like it because I suspect many people
#
I am not like I said earlier
#
I am not dissociating with it
#
I am not criticizing it I am
#
not saying that I don't like
#
the poem anymore I own it completely
#
with all the humility that all the
#
appreciation that I get and all the criticism
#
that I may get for it but I
#
I don't dissociate with it and I
#
also understand its importance
#
you are reading that poem even today
#
so it appeals to you because
#
what I am writing I am saying
#
that one kind of people cannot live in a society
#
there are many parameters
#
on the basis of which people are on different scales
#
and they live on different
#
points in different axes
#
and many times it becomes a 3D axis
#
there is a religion there is an education
#
there is a language there is a food habit
#
there is a caste location there is a sect location
#
there are so many parameters
#
in the problems that you
#
and this fact will stand
#
true for the next 25 years
#
it is very difficult to disagree with that
#
when you are going conservative
#
or modern or quote unquote modern
#
from religious to less religious
#
so you feel those ironies
#
and its not just being hard
#
betrayed actually because
#
I tried very hard with this poem
#
trying to tell people that hey this is not
#
otherizing or demonizing
#
a community I was still that guy
#
access is lost I am still that guy
#
who wants to say that the same things again
#
but I think now that access is lost
#
now I think the people may not listen
#
now I am like how humiliated you guys are
#
I used to tell you not to do it
#
a positive and a negative note
#
lost by then in the sense
#
that society is what it is
#
not going to change that that's
#
the negative view but the positive view
#
you know so many people
#
to society out there it may not be
#
many people but in absolute numbers still
#
if hundreds of thousands of people are
#
I don't know how many million views it has but if
#
all those people are appreciating
#
it and agreeing with it and all of
#
that it still means something
#
it is there you know one
#
is not completely alone in the world
#
I mean I think what artists really
#
do in a sense is play the long
#
you are playing the long game
#
maybe now you can't change anything
#
maybe now it doesn't make any difference
#
but 30 years later you know
#
kids listening to that their whole world view will be shaped
#
thing is I am making a very basic argument
#
that Indian Muslims are
#
divided into many things
#
and you know all of them
#
are equally valid and all
#
of them are equally good and all of them are equally
#
in a very reasonable way
#
I am not saying it like
#
I am saying we are like this
#
and it is said so beautifully you know like you said it isn't
#
that you were saying something new or whatever
#
if you just say it in normal words it is almost banal
#
but the beautiful way in which you say it
#
people feel that emotional connection
#
and that is what art does right
#
it is strange I mean sometimes I think about it
#
I mean where does it start from?
#
it starts with guilt that while smoking on the street
#
I mean it is a very strange construction
#
I don't even know how it happened to me
#
I have no idea how I wrote it
#
but those lines were always in my mind
#
I used to write it in 2015 in Bhutan
#
I used to write it while going to Bhutan
#
when I was going from Kolkata to Bhutan
#
got lost from me but this line
#
that while smoking on the street
#
I heard Azan so I remembered
#
and this thought came to my mind
#
what kind of a Muslim I am
#
and I remember this because
#
I used to smoke and Azan used to come
#
why do I smoke at the wrong time
#
I don't know why I used to stop it
#
but this is just a condition
#
that I can't do this, I am doing it wrong
#
so after starting from there
#
once again this happened to me
#
so I think it just colluded with that
#
there was an internal dialogue
#
that how much of a Muslim I am
#
what kind of a Muslim I am
#
and I think then I realized
#
that maybe the multitudes
#
that I contain are also reflective
#
of the multitudes that the land in which I am born
#
Imtiaz Dharkar who is a
#
she also took my interview and she was
#
I was surprised that she was able
#
to relate to it so much as well
#
that I was not able to believe
#
she is a very superior poet
#
so I am nothing in front of her
#
complimented and the kind of things
#
she was saying that I was relating so much
#
on each line and I was like
#
so I understood that it has worked
#
somewhere, I still don't understand
#
that maybe this is good
#
this is bad or whatever people tell me
#
but truth is I don't know
#
and I am not sure if I will be able
#
to understand fully also
#
you know and the other thing
#
and I will segue with this to my next
#
question, you know the other thing
#
I liked about Hindustani Musalma also is
#
the sound of it, it sounds so beautiful
#
and its also a reminder
#
of how languages are so
#
fundamentally different that
#
in English you wouldn't get this kind of rhythm
#
this kind of easy movement, you will have your own rhythms
#
and your own ways of doing things
#
but this sort of musicality
#
is something that really appealed to me
#
that after this you went on to
#
it strikes me that there is a challenge there
#
when you are writing poetry there is an inherent music
#
when you are writing lyrics you are given
#
music from outside either before
#
or after your writing and you have to bring
#
the two together to make them work together
#
and all of that, so what was that
#
process like, like did you
#
like how did you get into lyric
#
writing, how did you feel that this is
#
you know the kind of thing I would like to do and what were
#
the early challenges you faced when you were doing it earlier
#
actually before Hindustani Musalma
#
Kareeb Kareeb Singhal and Mukkabaz
#
I had written these songs before Hindustani Musalma
#
I mean a lot of people think
#
that I got those songs because of that
#
but it's not like that, they were released later
#
I mean this is it, but the
#
challenges that I, I mean yeah but of course
#
I was doing poetry before that, I was doing performance
#
the biggest challenge was that
#
what happens in poetry is that
#
the whole control is in my hand
#
what topic will I speak on
#
what language will I speak
#
what kind of words will I choose
#
who will I take the feedback from
#
and who will I accept the feedback from and who will I not
#
all of this is in my hand
#
everything is mine in that
#
except for the words, nothing is mine
#
there is a lot of interference
#
in the words of other people
#
a brief is given, the character's
#
language is given, then there is music
#
then there is a situation
#
that what that character is doing
#
then there can be a dialect
#
at least I try to be a little poetic
#
I try to bring in an angle which
#
I want to talk about as well
#
sometimes it does not work
#
sometimes directors are fine with
#
me doing that, sometimes directors don't like it
#
but thankfully I worked with more who like it
#
so that has been advantageous for me
#
the metrical musicality or the
#
rhythmic quality of the poem is set by me
#
either I have to make it short
#
like the metrical has to be slightly
#
short or in that 4 by 4 pattern
#
there is a sense of limitation over there
#
then there is a certain phonetic
#
but then the tune in a lot
#
of ways dictates the phonetic quality
#
Jesse can you illustrate that
#
tune is going something like
#
prachand, it's not going to
#
I will have to use soft phonetics
#
I don't know how to explain it
#
but each phonetic has a
#
it flows like the music, in my writing class
#
I speak about how Shakespeare used language
#
and I speak about soft and hard sounds
#
songwriters kind of use them
#
you know I am going to snip this and make everyone
#
listen to this because it's such a beautiful illustration
#
soft sounds are necessary
#
but then there are some ironies also
#
Shelly ji has written a song
#
how did she forget her name
#
she is a very good composer
#
it's Clinton's song which she composed
#
one of her songs is dugg duggi dugg
#
now you will think that dugg duggi duggi
#
but the composition is very soft
#
then you are playing with the rules
#
but generally you can't do this
#
you can play with the rules once you know the rules
#
but you can't do random
#
second, the difficulty in the songs
#
the first song of kareeb kareeb single
#
in which I was going very poetic
#
actually Tanuja is a person who can be
#
Tanuja Chandra is a person who can be credited for
#
teaching me how to write lyrics
#
because even though she is a director and not a lyricist
#
herself but she has worked with Anand Bakshi
#
so she was able to teach me
#
that first of all you have to write simple
#
you know a lot of poetry
#
all the sentences, people are listening to music
#
they will get confused in your sentences
#
if you are going to write convoluted sentences
#
those convoluted sentences
#
work in poetry but they do not work in songs
#
I finished this song called Tanha Begum
#
and then came a song which had
#
eventually on a single composition
#
and I ended up writing some 40 drafts
#
the brief changed 3 times and the 4th
#
brief was eventually taken
#
I had written 6 or 7 drafts
#
so I ended up writing around
#
completely that taught me one thing
#
I used to be petrified of rewriting
#
I mean someone used to tell me
#
if I change the line then my BP would increase
#
but I used to die of anxiety
#
and I used to think that you will catch me
#
how will I change the line?
#
but that song taught me
#
when somebody asks you to change a line
#
that it's ok let's try this
#
it's not working ok let me try this
#
if there is something working and I know it's good
#
then I will probably push
#
and generally they respect my opinion
#
and they generally take it
#
even if I like something then I have to be ready
#
so kill your darling type
#
so if there is a good line
#
if a director or music director
#
then he should not feel sad about his death
#
but then the result that came out
#
she managed to teach me
#
she managed to convince me
#
that my approach towards writing
#
which was not be so rigid
#
I don't get rattled by that
#
all that learning I took
#
up my alley in terms of the language
#
because it was UP Hindi
#
I had to understand the dialect
#
and that I did by basically
#
talking to a lot of people from UP
#
I was living at Muhammad Ali
#
I used to go downstairs
#
where are you from Eastern UP or Western UP
#
and that time I was supposed to learn
#
in the script as per the script
#
so if someone from Western UP
#
will say then I will just listen
#
but then I will not talk to them again
#
but if they are from Eastern UP I will listen to them again
#
and of course I had met a lot of people from UP
#
when I was working in Calcutta in the healthcare sector
#
I think those songs did come out well
#
there was a couple of songs that I had
#
narrated to Anurag Sir, Anurag Kashyap
#
interviewing me so to say
#
one of them was Hatta Pai
#
he read those and he was like
#
ok, you write, you write
#
so that's how he makes decisions
#
in the first album with Rochak Koli
#
and Karip Karip single I wrote on composition
#
in Mukkaba's all songs are written
#
Dhaga was written on composition first
#
I mean I had to write it on a composition
#
then Chacha Vidhai Ke Hamare
#
the title song that I have written is
#
lyrics first but then Vishal Dadlani
#
has composed it so well that
#
Taish me I had written two songs
#
I had written a song Bandar Baat
#
and it does have a lot of political
#
and it was so difficult to fit
#
the singer is not breathing at all
#
until it comes to that focus
#
I had assumed that it is focus
#
I was not able to understand
#
so there is a weird complication
#
I had composed the intro
#
so it happened like this
#
so all these things stay like this
#
you have to write comparatively small sentences
#
comparatively simple and direct things
#
writing in English is not very clever
#
this is my unpopular and cancelable opinion
#
because when you write in lyrics
#
then you write the same thought
#
as you are thinking in your mixed language
#
an easier process to write in
#
so write in one language
#
you won't sweat under your teeth
#
who write good songs in mixed language
#
their hands are not that clean
#
to create one universe of vocabulary
#
every song has its own universe of vocabulary
#
if you write something in English
#
in the first three lines
#
so that means you have to write it properly
#
first you write something like
#
it will just not make sense
#
so there is a universe setting
#
in vocabulary in lyrics
#
many people can even counter this
#
by saying that you are stopping freedom
#
that is also a way of thinking
#
but I know most will agree to it
#
that every song should have poetry
#
there should be a poetic
#
there should be a tone of phrase
#
there should be something
#
and you have rephrased it
#
that there should be a cliché
#
that there should not be a cliché
#
I am saying that if you can write it properly
#
the benefit of cliché is
#
that the audience understands it quickly
#
the audience wants to hear
#
so I find this interesting
#
put them in the hook line
#
that you have spent a lot of time with
#
you know there are a lot of words
#
that you have spent a lot of time with
#
something I prefer more than
#
using a word that I have learnt
#
probably 3 months back, 6 months back
#
and I thought hey this is an edgy nice word
#
it has a nice ring to it maybe it can be a hook line
#
you know things like that
#
before I come to my next question
#
that I often make in class
#
that you know a lot of the greatest art
#
from Shakespeare to Dillon to Springsteen
#
simple everyday language that point you made
#
about keep it simple and all that
#
and the example I gave is
#
and I will link it from the show notes
#
there is a great song by Bruce Springsteen called You're Missing
#
which was written after 9-11
#
and he is writing about
#
which is mourning someone who is not there
#
coffee cups on the counter
#
papers on the doorstrap you are not there
#
everything is everything
#
and who would have thought that
#
words like everything is everything
#
can be the stuff of art
#
you are taking the most common words
#
there is so much craft also because of mute sounds, heart sounds
#
actually it is very difficult
#
it is very easy to write simplistic
#
easy to write difficult
#
but I think it is difficult to write easy
#
difficult to write simple
#
when you are writing lyrics everything is changed
#
in the sense that now there are
#
all these constraints on you
#
about the kind of lengths you can use, the kind of words
#
you can use, this heart sound, soft sound
#
thing, the music that you are given, you have those
#
parameters and these constraints
#
the language really closely
#
make you examine every element of what you are writing
#
does this then play into
#
your poetry as well, play into your other
#
writing and make you better at that
#
because you have been forced to pay attention
#
with such granularity to all these
#
and the thing is I like it
#
I like thinking about words
#
new usages of the words
#
there are a lot of words that
#
for some reason phonetically make
#
and there are a lot of words that I phonetically do not prefer
#
there is nothing wrong with that word
#
I don't like the sound of
#
either of the three words
#
do I have a reason for it
#
I don't have a reason for it
#
it's a clear preference
#
no you were absolutely right
#
I mean you were answering the question in the sense
#
I was asking is that did the close attention
#
I mean in the close attention
#
the fine details of the songs
#
they enter your subconscious training
#
I am not like keep this and that
#
whatever you can cut and cut
#
you have to talk about the point
#
I could have written the poem
#
that I went to the office
#
it is just that moment which is relevant
#
in phrases that I learn
#
subconsciously from songs
#
does flow into my poetry
#
the poetry is still more
#
it gives me more freedom
#
in what I want to write
#
songs of course there is a brief and everything
#
a lot of things in songs
#
it is not that I am not myself
#
it is just that I have put up the UP dialect
#
and does Tanha Begum also then have your
#
it does, even simple things like
#
tu chale toh hosho ke chaldu me bhi khumar me
#
even those basic things
#
ishka haafiz that guilt and love
#
politics dekhun toh jo bandar
#
billiyan hai wo marginalized demo lade hi hai
#
aur bandar jo hai jo upar
#
betha hua hai wo kha raha hai roti
#
wo bhi wahi se aara hai
#
even Madhyantar naam ki jo short film
#
maine likhi hai netflix me
#
toh usme badi choti se cheez
#
wo bhi interesting lagti hai usme
#
ladki khaana hi khaati rehti hai
#
aap agar dekhenge wo film
#
toh mujhe bada aji bh lagta hai ki
#
jabbi ma film dekhta hu toh
#
ye khaana kyu nahi khaari hoti hai
#
matlab kya khaana nahi khaati hai ki ladkiyaan
#
aur aisa nahi ki there are zero scenes of women eating
#
a man eating is shown much more
#
times than a woman eating
#
aap mujhe nahi pata hai ye koi revolutionary
#
feminist thought hai ya nahi hai
#
lekin matlab obviously nahi hai
#
but toh mujhe aisa lagta hai yaar
#
mera common observation
#
ladkiyon ko sirf aur sirf khaana ke baare
#
aur zyadartar khaana ke baare me baat karate suna hai
#
toh mujhe laga ki ye kitni basic chisa
#
jo ma dikha sakta hu us character mein
#
ki usko khaana pasand hai
#
aur usko sweets bhi pasand hai
#
aur iska bahut dihaan rata hai
#
of course phir wo poetic type
#
usme metaphorization ho jata hai cinema mein
#
asociation kiya ja sakta hai
#
magar ma actual mein ye hi
#
dikhaana chata hai ki ladkiya
#
usko khaana bahut pasand hai
#
by one of my favourite film makers
#
Louis Bonoil which is called the discreet
#
charm of the bourgeoisie
#
I think it came in 1973
#
screenplay was by Jean Claude Carrier
#
who also wrote the screenplay of
#
Peter Brooks Mahabharat and
#
unbearable lightness of being
#
and that film is only about a bunch of people
#
who are always sitting down to eat and never actually eating
#
something or the other happens
#
so the whole freaking film
#
is sitting down at various places trying to eat
#
and something or the other happens
#
and they can't eat and that's the whole
#
so if you watch the whole thing by the end of
#
it you are hungry ki khaana kaha hai
#
nahi nahi, personal wala toh ma kaafi daalta hu
#
maine co-write kiye laakho mein ek
#
usme jo 3 saal maine health care mein gaam kiya hai
#
uska bahut saar experience daala hai maine
#
jo cataract operation hote the
#
vasta pada, jin se baat vaat hui
#
kis taraki personality, kis taraki
#
hospital mein kya kya cheeze lagti hain
#
kya crisis hote hain, kitane ajeebo
#
gareeb kisam ke incidents ho jate hain hospital mein
#
ek rather sugar candied
#
bay mein jo health care
#
aur hospital ko dekhaya
#
gaya hai abhi tak cinema mein
#
India ka health care system
#
mein uska effect dekh liya logon hain
#
pandemic ke baat, lekin main ja pandemic
#
log khabre par rahe the, mujhe lag raha tha
#
yaar ye sab toh humne bola hai
#
series mein, aise hi toh bataya hai
#
ki aisa hoga baisa hoga, lekin
#
bahot saari jagahon pe main apni baat
#
karta hu, matlab ek gaana
#
hai tripling mein, jis mein kaha suna
#
sab maaf karna, toh ye ab
#
humare gharon mein bola haata hain ki
#
gujrati mein bholta hain
#
ek phrase hai jo, meri dadi bhi bola
#
karthi thi, bolu chalo maaf karje bhai
#
eum karana, toh ye ma kahan se kya
#
utha rahe hu, mujhe bhi nahi pata chalta hai
#
yaar se kar rahe dua hain, jo lag jaye
#
toh je, toh ye meri dadi bola karthi thi
#
ki aame toh yaar se dua kariye, chetan
#
kabhi-kabhi bolte the, toh ala ye
#
jaisi, kahi baar thodi si
#
aur theme hai, ek patang karke gana hai
#
tripling mein, jismei I have talked about
#
very indirectly about migration
#
not talking about migration, but in the
#
end, it somehow reveals
#
kuch-kuch chhuti-chhuti kalawazi aap karte hain
#
again, matlab writing craft
#
jaisi hum baat karein, toh first I had written
#
Hawaon mein jo kho gaye, patang jaisi ho gaye
#
toh Hawaon mein jo kho gaye, patang jaisi
#
ho gaye is what I had written initially, then
#
it literally translated to that
#
when I got lost in the winds
#
ke jo ho gaye, patang jaisi kho gaye
#
when I became of the winds
#
this is more interesting
#
this is very small changes
#
screenwriting mein kaafi matlab maa apna
#
it has to come naturally in the story
#
art will always take precedence
#
matlab agar aap kavita likh rahe hain
#
toh fir wo kavita bhi acchi honi chahiye
#
matlab ho sakta hai apka koi political
#
thought ho uske andar, ho sakta hai
#
aapko koi baat kehni ho aapki
#
jo personal bhi ho, political bhi ho
#
and fir of course wo ek debate bhi hai
#
and mujhe personally lagta hai ki
#
art form ka jo medium hai
#
uske jo rules hai, uske jo craft ho
#
stand alone bhi hold karna chahiye
#
agar mai kisi ko na batahun
#
maine kyun likha hai ye, kya sochke likha hai
#
kisi ko na pata ho ki maa kya bol rahe hain
#
abje chhipkali hai agar
#
agar mai wo par rahe hain
#
kya koi tropical climate wala
#
Africa mai isko parke relate nahi karega
#
jahan chhipkali hoti hai
#
kyunki usne ye image dekhi hui hai
#
meri poem hai, toh usme I am talking about
#
oppressed, marginalized
#
can complain or can resist
#
in different manner, some of them can be rude
#
some of them can be polite
#
is going to give you the same narrative
#
in the same language, in the same
#
fashion, at the same time
#
consumption, in the way
#
pellet able to your ears and
#
soothing to your ears rather
#
toh that's what the poem
#
is talking about, but then if one
#
then it has to make sense
#
there is another poem I have written
#
it's called Mai Sipahi Nahi
#
I am not a soldier, that I have been
#
and those who have thrown me
#
know that I am going to lose
#
and I don't even know how to fight
#
but you know, I just want to tell you
#
that I am fighting but I am not a soldier
#
yeah, I mean that's how
#
what I was going on about
#
this is a lovely insight into your
#
the way you think about writing, so tell me
#
something, you've done screenplays, you've
#
dabbled with that, you've done a lot of
#
lyric writing, you are a poet
#
it that you see yourself fundamentally
#
like in the sense that many
#
artists will say, this is my art
#
and this is what I do to pay the rent
#
that I do for work, but left to myself
#
if I was not getting paid
#
this is what I would do, and what you do
#
which you are not getting paid for is
#
of course a poetry, that's your
#
kind of labour of love, but apart from
#
that, how do you see yourself
#
like what is your conception of yourself
#
now, are you a poet, are you a
#
writer, are you, you know
#
how would you kind of define the things you want
#
yeah, I think I am more
#
I mean, the base is poetry
#
I like Urdu poetry and poems
#
I will choose poems and poetry
#
there is no doubt about it
#
but there are some things
#
the poetry that I have done, I have never
#
done any kind of brand collaborations
#
I will perform on stage and ask for
#
compensation, that is true
#
write and perform commissioned pieces
#
if there is an advertisement
#
they want me to write some poetry, if it is a biscuit
#
but I am not going to go on a stage and say
#
and I am not going to put my face and my name and my
#
performance poetry on that
#
you have said in one of your poems, eat biscuits
#
your chai coffee, you speak about having chai with biscuits
#
instead of coffee with muffins
#
I know what you are saying
#
it is not, Pali ji is not sponsoring it
#
I didn't write it because Pali ji paid me
#
that is something I am not done
#
if you are not ready to sell yourself
#
then what will you do to others
#
this whole spoken word poetry business began
#
and a lot of brand sponsorships and everything
#
money started flowing in
#
this poetry is sacred for me
#
and we just watch people
#
so poetry is something that
#
private to me in a sense
#
and I would want to keep it that way
#
I would not want to commercialize it
#
that is why I have never
#
but if I make it, I will not
#
get money, it would be just
#
that I am fed up, I have to put my work somewhere
#
that would be the only reason
#
and I don't have any stock songs
#
and every time I feel like
#
this time everyone will know
#
that I don't know anything
#
that the other person doesn't find out
#
whether someone else works on me
#
that he will get me out
#
when it is made, the whole process
#
and the other person also wants to make a good song
#
and the singer is also putting
#
the orchestra coming in and the music
#
director is constantly trying to make it better
#
it's a very good feeling
#
especially when there is a collaborative effort
#
with the music director
#
screenplay and dialogue
#
it's like a bigger canvas
#
I am not, even though I understand the craft
#
and I know how to do it
#
and of course I am not great at it
#
and I can be much better
#
my head than my instinct
#
I think the instinct is something I apply
#
more towards the structuring
#
of the story and the way I lay out the scenes
#
but it's largely mathematically
#
my mind is more in that
#
and my practice gets better
#
I will be able to play it more
#
I have always done in poetry
#
I have learned to do in lyrics
#
hopefully learn that in screenplays too
#
which is why I am not writing
#
my own screenplays as of now
#
even though I have ideas
#
I am not writing them down right now
#
because I think I want to learn more
#
because I have worked with
#
so it's been almost 6 years
#
I have ended up working with people like
#
Amit Masurkar, Abhishek Chaubey
#
Tanuja Chandra, Anurag Kashyap
#
who is a fabulous director and Biswa Kalyanrath
#
Sameer Saxena with whom I have worked
#
I don't know of any writer who
#
but still it's not like
#
no but it's so lovely to get both success
#
and the joy of doing the work you love
#
you are not a chartered accountant
#
and you are saying I have bought a big flat here
#
and I have bought a new car
#
you are doing the work you love
#
and you are successful with it
#
what can make for greater happiness
#
I am not sure if I am successful
#
occasionally successful
#
I have not done the kind of projects
#
that make you quote unquote successful
#
as per the film industry
#
it was a mainstream commercial project
#
and now its status is unknown
#
what has happened is that
#
because I calculated my position
#
I was doing what I had to do
#
and what happened in that
#
that I only did projects
#
that I wanted to do, Zakir also I worked with
#
and people that I wanted to work with
#
that what happened was that
#
the list of directors seems illustrious
#
I have done seem nice but
#
it has come with its own
#
set of challenges and sacrifices
#
in most of these projects
#
they were not very high paying projects
#
live a lifestyle which is frugal
#
had to manage my expenses
#
sometimes go without work
#
okay with what is being offered to me
#
whenever it is being offered to me
#
and it is not often that things are offered to me
#
but the good part is that everybody I have worked with
#
and they thought I was worth
#
and these like people like Amit
#
they evaluated me even Karan sir
#
and many people have put faith in me
#
Sameer sir, Zakir, Biswa
#
they have put a lot of faith in me
#
I mean I can be a much more successful
#
mediocre lyrics for a big actor film
#
two or three mediocre songs
#
for a film that is going to be
#
with reasonably well known actors
#
be more successful with that
#
I won't say that I would rather be more successful with that
#
but I would be more successful with that
#
is the kind of success that I wanted
#
I am a little sad of course
#
would reach more people
#
I wish more people would listen
#
and even if someone listens
#
but they think that maybe
#
this is how folk would write
#
this monkey, monkey, snake came in the song
#
in our songs we want to write
#
love, love, love that is fragrant
#
I know how to write that too
#
but I am not able to do it
#
so these are the things
#
let's see, that time will also come
#
when we will get something in the mainstream
#
I hope that I get opportunities where I can
#
even in the quote unquote mainstream
#
I think, you know, one of the lessons
#
I have learnt in life is that sometimes you
#
shouldn't let, you shouldn't go by
#
other people's definition of success
#
and what they think success means, you know
#
it's an important part of defining success
#
that you do it according to your own terms
#
what makes you happy, what kind of work you want to do
#
but yeah, I mean, godspeed to you
#
inshallah you will get those kinds of
#
so I will end the episode eventually
#
by asking you to read a particular
#
poem but before that, a final question
#
which is, you know, for my listeners
#
and for me, why don't you
#
mean a lot to you, things which are very close to you
#
like desert island, this kind of thing
#
in poetry, I mean, you can read
#
I think I must have read some
#
in Urdu, I must have read
#
know if that is also the correct number
#
who are the ones closest to you
#
I am a big fan of Sahil Udhyanvi
#
any memorable poem you remember?
#
oh, his book, Talkhiyan
#
is the first poem in it
#
Duniyaan-e-Tajurbaat-o-Hawadis-ki-Shaklam-e
#
Whatever I have been given, I am returning
#
whatever the world has given to me
#
in the form of tragedies and experiences
#
that is all I am returning it back to
#
Sahil Udhyanvi is one of my very favorite
#
I like Nidha Fazli a lot as well
#
because he is very simple and yet
#
he has the ability to get very profound
#
I like a lot, his romantic poems
#
are very good and yet a lot of
#
his political poems are very good
#
that in lyrics, I would say
#
I like the craft of Javed Akhtar
#
very much, he brings a lot
#
of Urdu poetry aesthetics into
#
lyrics of Shailendra very much, I like the
#
lyrics of Anand Bakshi very much
#
I also like the lyrics of
#
I don't know how many people know Mehboob
#
Saab but he has written some very good
#
should I recommend? In poetry, I like
#
Sahil Udhyanvi can be read a lot
#
John Elia can be read a lot
#
John Elia, even though he has come
#
in the zone, so a lot of people
#
must have read it, but I had read it back
#
his PDF was secretly circulated
#
in that era, I mean when
#
the translation of Yani was
#
you are a progressive writer
#
old poets like Rahat Indori Saab, Waseem
#
Barelvi Saab and Munawar Rana Saab
#
I like this too, I like Abbas
#
Tabish very much, I currently
#
like Rehman Faris very much
#
Azhar Farag writes very well
#
Noman Shauk is a very good poet
#
Ali Zarion in Pakistan is very good
#
Taizib Hafi is very good
#
you must listen to Umair Najmi
#
Waris Wasi Shah is a very good poet
#
you can read and listen, you are a very good poet
#
then in the English book
#
I find Maximum City very interesting
#
I will have to read it again, although I have already forgotten
#
I felt that he took me to Bombay
#
what else is coming to my mind in English
#
had a big influence on me a long time ago
#
Affine Balance had a big influence on me
#
after reading the last pages
#
you will find it very weird
#
although people have their own thoughts
#
it is not original, it is from On the Waterfront
#
but I still like Ghulam
#
what other films do I watch
#
I think I have watched Fandry
#
at least 8 or 9 times in the last 5 years
#
what else is there, this is Mota Moti
#
I don't remember the films
#
Where is the Friends Home
#
I find it very interesting
#
he is not doing anything
#
he is saying that I have to return the copy
#
this is the only premise
#
and there is a film on that
#
so I like films like this
#
the inner world will show the outer world
#
and the premise is very small
#
he is not saying anything, it feels like he is not talking
#
but he is saying everything
#
something like this comes in my mind
#
it is a pleasure for you to read out
#
because you have spoken in the past
#
about how when you were trolled
#
when you were attacked at one point in time
#
you wouldn't be able to sleep at night
#
and it would just kind of worry you
#
and in a different context I was watching your videos
#
and I saw this lovely poem called Soiye Ga Mat
#
and I think it is a good way to
#
that the shadow of terror
#
and this was written during the protest
#
because we were awake at night
#
that the shadow of terror should not sleep
#
and run away from our questions
#
how important it is to wake up
#
we have not been able to break a rock
#
till now, we have not been able to break a rock
#
we have to cut mountains
#
in the intoxication of the government
#
in the intoxication of the government
#
to get rid of their intoxication
#
Hum par yeh farz hai, so nibhaayenge isse hum, is mulk ko sawaar na hai. Soiye ga mat.
#
Hussain, thank you so much for all the work you do, all the poems you write and for, you know,
#
spending so much time with me and being so patient.
#
No, no, shukriya, shukriya. Aapka shukriya.
#
Mai tu khud hairaat mein hoon ki mai itni der se kya bol raha hoon ki,
#
I hope koi aathak paucha bhi hoon.
#
Pata nahi kod pauch paayega, but theek hai.
#
Bahut log paunche hoongi, aap sunayenge hul se.
#
You can go over to sceneunseen.in slash support and contribute any amount you like to keep this podcast alive and kicking.
