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How well do you know yourself? I don't mean this question in a sense of self-reflection
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in some metaphysical or existential sense. I mean your material self. How well do you
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know your body? Do you know what the food you eat does to your body? Do you know what
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hormones are released when you don't get enough sleep? Or why staring into a screen
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all day alters your chemistry? Often, we lack the tools to measure these things. But even
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if we had them all, I suspect we would be in denial. Unless we fell ill and had no choice
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but to solve that problem. Or unless we played sports and the incentives were aligned. By
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knowing our bodies, we can not just live healthier and longer, but we can be the best version
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of ourselves. And we can also discover, if we truly test ourselves, that our limits are
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not where we thought they were, and that we can go beyond what we thought possible. This
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is not just true of sports or physical activity. This is true of life. Sometimes other people
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place limits on us, and sometimes we do it to ourselves. Don't let that happen.
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Welcome to The Scene and The Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral
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science. Please welcome your host, Amit Varma. Welcome to The Scene and The Unseen. My guest
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today is Shruti Jagirdar, a volleyball player, a fitness freak, a trained nutritionist, a
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startup founder and a petroleum engineer by training. Shruti is based in Berlin and I
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met her on Twitter where we interacted a bit and then she said I really must do an episode
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on women's sports in India. That seemed like a great idea to me. I'd done an episode with
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Snehal Pradhan, but that had looked mainly at cricket and covered a lot else apart from
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sport. It's a great episode. So I asked Shruti to suggest a guest and she gave me a few names.
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But while talking about her experiences, I realized that hey, I had the perfect guest
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and there was a lot else we could talk about as she's a trained nutritionist who goes beyond
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the flawed conventional wisdom of the day. She runs a fitness startup. She's trained
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for the MMA in Thailand's top mixed martial arts school. She's run through the desert
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in the UAE and she's overall done such crazy things that I lost a bunch of calories just
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listening to her stories. This conversation was recorded when she came to India and visited
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Mumbai where we recorded at my home studio. I found it both fun and enlightening, but
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before we get to it, let's take a commercial break.
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Have you always wanted to be a writer, but never quite gotten down to it? Well, I'd love
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to help you. Since April 2020, I've taught 20 cohorts of my online course, The Art of
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In the course itself, through four webinars spread over four weekends, I share all I know
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about the craft and practice of clear writing. There are many exercises, much interaction,
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a lovely and lively community at the end of it. The course costs rupees 10,000 plus GST
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or about $150 and is a monthly thing. So if you're interested, head on over to register
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at indiancut.com slash clear writing. That's indiancut.com slash clear writing. Being a
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good writer doesn't require God given talent, just the willingness to work hard and a clear
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idea of what you need to do to refine your skills. I can help you.
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Shruti, welcome to The Scene in the Unseen. Thank you for having me, Amit.
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So I was just chatting on WhatsApp yesterday with a frequent guest on my show Shruti Rajgopalan.
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And I told her that I'm recording with another Shruti tomorrow. And her antenna immediately
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went up and she was like, who, who, who? And then I sort of sent your Twitter bio. And
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this is an interesting recording for me because on the one hand, it's about a subject that
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I haven't really thought about too much. Sport, especially the kind of sport that you have
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experience in and also things like fitness and nutrition and all of that. So it almost
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feels like I'm traveling a little bit out of my comfort zone in terms of subjects I
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know a hell of a lot about. But at the same time, I'm really glad I'm doing so because
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I'll hopefully get to learn a lot. But tell me where you are now and what you do now and
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what are you doing in Bombay right now?
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Yeah, I guess apart from from recording this podcast with you in Bombay, I am right now
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based in Berlin. Very late in my life, I took the decision to do an MBA. And, and I realized
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I'm getting to an age where the MBA colleges might not want me. So I better do it now.
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And so I'm based in Berlin and I'm studying at the moment. But prior to that, I came from
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Pune and I studied engineering. And yeah, you want me to get into
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No, no, we'll get to that. We'll get to that in just a bit right from the very start. But
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you know, so the way we connected was you wrote to me on Twitter and we had a conversation
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there and all of that. You know, over lunch, I was finding your sort of use of Twitter
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fascinating in the sense that you went on for a brief while when the Chennai floods
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happened, then you went off, then you came back, then you found that there are good things
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and bad things about it. Let me check out what they're like. And the good thing, of
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course, is that people like you and I can connect and Twitter is something that I really
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have mixed feelings about because on the one hand, it's a toxic space, the discourse is
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so polarized, the most unpleasant people in the world get a platform to, you know, attack
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you and get personal if that's what they want to do. And it can be really ugly. But at the
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same time, it's a beautiful space and two margins. And one of them is that you can curate
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your own feed, you have the best minds in the world thinking aloud every day for your
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benefit, you know, where else do you get that's mind blowing. And the other is that people
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can just connect like you and I could have a conversation about what you do on Twitter
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and you are in Berlin and I'm here and now here you are and we're sitting in kind of
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recording this. So what is your sense of Twitter given that you are a relatively new person
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and before you really got active, you thought about it. And for the rest of us jaded Twitterites,
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it might be, you know, the both the good and the bad might be normalized. Yeah, so yeah,
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you're absolutely right. I was on Twitter in 2015, just to see how I could help the
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Chennai flood situation. And then I did a little bit of it for a month or so and and
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then just got off it. I also feel that a lot of people who are engineers who are in the
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corporate doing, you know, their desk jobs, most of them are not too active on Twitter.
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I mean, if you talk about a large part of my circle as well, none of them are on Twitter.
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That's another reason why I probably never got back on to Twitter until 2021. Because
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I was active on Instagram and I was active because I've traveled quite a lot and I know
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quite a lot of people that I don't see regularly and they're all on my Instagram and so I was
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active there. Although I got on to Instagram as well very late in 18 and 19. But then back
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back in 2021, I came came on to Twitter to check what how people were helping with the
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second wave during COVID. Then I did a bit bit of work with some some groups that were
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calling different places and checking on the bed situation, the oxygen cylinder situation.
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And when that was done, I stayed back because I sort of found a couple of handles that I
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hadn't seen on Instagram or if I did follow them, they were not active. And I think you
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know, I'm a big fan of the Wait But Why blog by Tim Urban. And I saw that he had he was
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very active on Twitter. Some some artists that I like are active on Twitter. And I was
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like, hey, these people are not very active on Instagram. So maybe I should stick around
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and I should I should see if I get to learn a little bit here. And it was a weird space
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to navigate because, you know, when you open an Instagram account, you instantly have at
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least 50 or 70 of your friends just following you. And then you sort of have conversations.
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Somebody is liking your pictures and you know, these are your friends. But with Twitter,
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I sort of always felt that hey, I know nobody here. Like none of my really close friends
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are on Twitter. Or if they are, they're not very active. Because of my background, which
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is engineering and not a lot of engineers on it. So I stayed on it. I started following
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people that I liked. And what actually made me really stay on Twitter was some women I
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was following and how articulate they were on Twitter and how bold they were on Twitter.
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I really, really admired them. I admired the depth of their knowledge or the depth of their
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opinion, how strongly opinionated they were. And I mean, there was a variety of people.
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There were artists and actors, there were geoscientists and a variety of writers. And
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I was really impressed. And I was like, hey, you know, this is something I would like to
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learn, if at all. And where are they getting it from? And also, I was not so exposed to
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the wider world in terms of me putting my opinions out there. Because I wasn't on Twitter.
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And because I was trying and setting up my own startup at the time, I was literally sort
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of 24 hours of my time sucked into making my startup work. So I had absolutely no time
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to get onto Twitter and find out what's happening with the world. And then at some point, I
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realized that, hey, if I am on Twitter, it's sort of prompting me to put my opinion on
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it. Because I do have opinions, I am opinionated. And now you're reading someone else's opinions,
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and it's triggering you, or in a good way, your thoughts. And then you're like, hey,
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now I want to share what I feel about this. And then after I was on it for about three
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or four or five months, I was sort of looking back at my own tweet, couple of my own tweets
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and feeling like, hey, I did not know I could express myself like this. It doesn't matter
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how many people had like those tweets or whatever. But I hadn't tested myself on my really putting
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my opinions through in writing, especially in a short form writing. And so to be very
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honest for me, Twitter is about how I am learning and discovering what I am. What topics really
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trigger me positively or negatively? What topics prompt me to tweet? What sort of people
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do I really enjoy following? Sometimes I even feel like there are a lot of people who are
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popular on Twitter, who are very intelligent, who write well. But then sometimes I look
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at their tweets and I'm like, hey, these tweets don't connect with me the way they write.
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They are very emotionless. And sometimes you go back and read these people's writing, like
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they could be writing articles or opeds or whatever. And you feel like, yeah, perhaps
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that's their job. Like that's the article they are writing. Maybe the writing is great,
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but it doesn't require them to be too emote in it in a way. And then you see that in their
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tweets as well. And even that I have learned about myself, that there is a certain form
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of tweeting or expressing that I do not like. I do not want to do that. So it's really self
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exploration for me. And sometimes I feel very, very frustrated with myself because I look
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at Twitter and I'm like, hey, this is a space for journalists, artists, people who have
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very specific skill sets. And here I am, who's an engineer, who's a bit of a generalist.
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And sometimes I feel like, hey, what do I really tweet about? Why should I be on Twitter?
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And it frustrates me. I sometimes look at my tweets and I'm like, hey, I don't have
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political opinions. And okay, I may have them sometimes, but you can't identify my account
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as a political commentary. And then I'm also not maybe, you know, so much into tweeting
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about the startup world because I'm also a little aware of the fact that I don't want
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to give Gyan on Twitter because I have experienced something, make my Twitter account into an
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advice forum. I don't want that to happen. I'm not a poet. I'm not a writer. I'm not
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a journalist. I'm not an artist who by their popularity itself get followers. So sometimes
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it really frustrates me. And I'm asking myself, why am I on Twitter? What am I tweeting about?
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Why is anybody following me at all? You know, but I guess that's part of the excitement.
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Yeah. And it's also fascinating how there is this dichotomy, almost like a Jekyll and
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Hyde side of Twitter in the sense that something that you remarked upon earlier during lunch
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is how so many people, so many women, especially are so open with sharing what they go through
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and that can be valuable to other women as well because it can tell them that they're
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not alone in terms of what people are feeling. It can maybe show them a way forward and all
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of that. And just even outside of the context of women tweeting and women reading, I just
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feel that the most magical kind of interactions I have had in general through the internet,
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not just Twitter, are those personal ones where you get to feel like you know someone
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personally, either because you're reading something from them or maybe you've written
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something and that's touched them and they reach out to you. And those personal connections
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are valuable. I certainly feel these with many of my writing students, including people
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I haven't met in real life, that over time you build a connection, you talk so much and
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that can be one of the beautiful things of Twitter, that you have these personal connections
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between people sharing their lives and their thoughts in good faith. But it's also a space
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which is incredibly public, incredibly toxic, that you could say something in one context
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which is making you vulnerable and revealing a side of you and then the next day you have
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people picking that up as a gotcha moment and attacking you and misinterpreting that
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Well, that happened with me as well. I was very new on Twitter. I think I replied to
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somebody's tweet and I made a comment about ambition. And I, of course, made it in a very
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specific context. But as we will maybe get into it a little bit later, you know, the
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moment you use the words ambition and competition, people take it personally. And they have become
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topics where, you know, it's very easy for people to start saying things like, oh, but,
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you know, why should everybody be competitive? Why should everybody have ambition? And then
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just get into, I think, the circular discussion. And somebody, some people started trolling
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me on it. And it doesn't bother me. But yeah, sometimes you, none of what you do or say
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on Twitter is controversial, nor is your account that big. But then something gets picked up
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and people start trolling. And you're just looking at it and you're like, you know, this
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is so out of context, this whole trolling bit of it. But yeah, that's life on Twitter.
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Tell me about life before Twitter. So, you know, where were you born? What was your childhood
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So, I was born in Pune. My parents both met in Pune. My father studied journalism in Pune.
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And he was a freelance journalist for the Indian Express in Times of India. And he started
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in Bombay TV, actually, and then moved to Pune. And he worked in the Film and Television
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Institute as a senior faculty for Direction.
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He retired in 2011, actually. So the 30 years before that.
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So my dad was director of FTII between 86 and 91.
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Then I'm sure he knows him.
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Yeah, I mean, he's a small world. Yeah. So, and my mom was acting in films and very, very
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active in theatre, in Marathi theatre in Pune. And they met in the Film and Television Institute
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when mom was shooting for something. Then I was born in Pune and studied there. I studied
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petroleum engineering. And as we discussed before as well, at lunch, we have Ferguson
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College in common as well, which is very close to, I think, all Pune girls' hearts.
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And yeah, pretty much grew up in a middle class, upper middle class Maharashtrian setup.
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And very proud of my Pune background, as all Pune girls are. Always had a very active life
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and the best part about Pune is it's surrounded by hills. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Used
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to go up the hills, do a lot of sport. Due to my family's background in art, I guess,
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always enjoyed music, films, reading. So got the best of both worlds, enjoyed sport while
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growing up, enjoyed art a lot. Went to Abhinav Vidyalaya, which is, which was at the time
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sort of a unique school for Pune. Very popular, but not a convent. So an English medium school,
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but which wasn't a convent. And it was started by a lady who came up with the concept of
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a school where she was like, I'm going to expose children to each and every form of
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exploring their skills. So we would have all kinds of activities in school. The school
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would support it and including academics and sport. And I guess that's how I really, really
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got into sport as well. Yeah. And you just made me nostalgic by mentioning the take res.
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We used to go up and down and Ferguson, Ferguson, there was a anywhere and everywhere you feel
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like you want to climb, you can, you can find an entry point.
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So this brings me to a tangential question. Like one, of course, there were the take res
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of people who wanted to climb, could climb. And two, you happen to be in a school where
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you were exposed to everything, including sport. But by and large, you know, the environment
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for Indians is just not, doesn't seem to be conducive to sport. Like we just don't have
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a sporting culture. You go to Australia or Europe or whatever, people will engage in
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sport beyond watching sport on TV and giving Gyan on Twitter. They'll actually go out and
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play different sports and they'll go out surfing on the weekend or whatever. They'll be doing
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things. But Indians have never had that kind of sporting culture. And there are of course,
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various theories for it, like, Hey, the weather is too hot, which to me is not a great theory
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because you know, even Brazil produces such great footballers and so on and so forth.
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And it's kind of similar weather there, isn't it? So what is your sense of why we don't
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have that kind of sporting culture? Is it a vicious circle that at some point you have
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an equilibrium where perhaps people are too poor to have leisure time and there just isn't
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much sport and then that sort of, you know, feeds on itself and the culture never forms
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or are there external factors to it also? Or what is, what is, what is sort of your
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sense of that? Yeah, for sure. It's a mix of it. I mean,
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it's a mix of things. I think first and foremost is the mindset doesn't have to be only sport.
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If you find children that are interested in arts or show an early inclination towards
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a specific art form or sport, it's the school and the parents, I think, in India that do
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not give it the importance that they give academics. Even now, I have rarely seen parents
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who say, Hey, you know, my son has been doing so well at sports or my daughter's been doing
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so well at sport. I'm fine if they drop out after 12th. And I honestly feel if you want
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to develop as a sportsman, you cannot say that I'm doing it parallelly. I'm that, Hey,
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I'm going to be doing okay at my studies at the same time, parallelly give time to sport.
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Then you cannot say I want to be world class because it needs the time it needs not only
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for skill development, but also physical fitness and growing up as an individual. So if you
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look at countries outside of India, the sportsmen that do well in their teens itself, like take
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Coco Goff, for example, in tennis, who went to the third or the fourth round in the French
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Open in her first showing a couple of years ago, was just 16 years old. So I think first
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of all, countries outside of India have that ability to spot talent, and then say that
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hey, you know, this is what you need to do now. And we have a program for you. And that
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program then includes letting the person letting the sportsman grow as an individual as well.
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What that person can do in terms of their sporting skill is a part of the process they've
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shown they've shown that they're prodigal or whatever. And the skill development continues
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on the side, the strategy and planning what tournaments to enter everything. But I think
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the countries out apart from India, they're also looking at how this sportsman can grow
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as a person. And if that can happen in time, then they can compete at international levels
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with sportsmen much older than them. So for example, Coco Goff played the first round
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with Venus Williams on her first showing, and she beat Venus. And, you know, just to
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be able to, to play a match in a Grand Slam with a sportsman you've grown up admiring,
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no matter how, you know, no matter how senior Venus is to her, Venus can really beat a 16
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year old purely based on how experienced she is. But to give her a tough competition and
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then at the end of the match at the net literally, you know, hug her and say that, hey, I grew
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up looking at you, but not have that feeling when you're her opponent. To teach all those
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things that you need to first grow as a person. And if they can make a 16 year old understand
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that, then she can become a competitor at an international level. Now, when you come
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to India, what is the 16 year old doing on average in India? We are probably writing
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our 10th standard exams. Everybody in the society is asking you, oh, which college you're
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going to take? What stream you're going to take? And how much did you score? How much
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did your friends score? And that is where I think the problem is that we do not, we
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do not allow somebody to say, hey, academics is not my thing. You know, you should be able
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to say that openly and say that I am spending eight hours of my day not in school, but in
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a sports school. And we will talk when I have done something in what I am focusing on. So
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it's really the society. But also if you talk about infrastructure, we don't have that kind
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of infrastructure that can allow world class sportsmen to really shine. So I have in my
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school as well, had the company of a lot of sportsmen who represented India internationally
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in TT. Now I know somebody in rock climbing. I have played with women, volleyballers who
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played for the international team. And at some point, everybody says that, hey, okay,
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fine, I played nationals, internationals, everything. But what does this give me in
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terms of career? And I guess that's also another reason why parents don't really see a future
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and don't want to promote a skill beyond a certain point. So I think it's everything.
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It's infrastructure, it's mindset, it's actually not having enough opportunities compared to
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studying and doing something with your life. Yeah, I would say that that's the difference,
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I guess, countries outside of Australia and the US especially. I was just speaking to
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a friend of mine two months ago, she is Spanish and she spent two years in high school in
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the US. And over a conversation, she told me that, you know, I was doing swimming when
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I was in US and I was winning. And I had this final competition, maybe school level competition
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or something on the day of the final exam. The authorities at school just called me and
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said, go do your swimming, win medals, do not even worry about your exam, you're going
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to get 100%. Now, you know, I have been excused on a lot of my sports tournaments as well.
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But nobody tells you in these terms, you know, just go do your thing, we are going to take
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care of your studies and we are going to pass you or you don't hear it in these very words.
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So that's the kind of support and this is just for somebody who was studying high school
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and who was probably just doing sport because at that time, she was liking the sport. So
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imagine if they actually found somebody who had very high potential, what kind of support
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that person must be seeing?
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Yeah, lots to double click on. Just tangentially thinking aloud, you know, what you said about
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needing to grow someone as a person. I remember back in the day when I was covering cricket,
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we used to discuss why so much young talent from Pakistan that would come into cricket
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would just blaze their way to the top of the game and then completely fall apart and disappear.
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And this was a pattern that kept happening in the 90s and the early 2000s and all of
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that. And I don't follow the game closely enough to know how it is now. And my feeling
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at the time was, and I think Harsha Bhogle agreed with me in a conversation that I had
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with him, maybe we discussed it on a podcast, I don't remember. But the gist of it was that
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because Pakistan didn't have a middle class per se, it was either really poor people or
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it was an elite at the top. And your cricketers enormous talent would emerge from, you know,
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the lower layer. They would not then have the sort of the social and cultural tools
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to be able to deal with the sudden success and the sudden fame and the sudden money and
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everything that attends those things and they would not be able to cope. Whereas if you
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look at all the great Indian cricketers of that time, they were, and this was a point
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Harsha made, that they embodied middle class values in a sense. So your Tendulkar, your
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Dravid, your Laxman, even Ganguly, sort of embodied those middle class values and therefore
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they were less likely to just flame away and fall apart and all of that. And later, I think
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what happened post IPL and what you see in the current day is that they are so exposed
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to sort of top quality cricket at the IPL level that by the time somebody actually plays for
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India, they've played many of the best players in the world already in packed stadiums full
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of screaming people. So there's no pressure to them, which is why, you know, we could
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do what we did in Australia last year where, you know, our third string, 11 as it were,
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you know, won the series for us. Now a couple of points that, you know, sort of emerged
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from what you were saying. And when I was speaking about sporting culture, I was talking
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about a broader sporting culture, not just in terms of parents supporting their kids
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when, if they want to do sports, but just the parents going out and playing themselves
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on a Sunday afternoon when they are free. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, not even parents.
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This happened with me a few years ago. I really enjoy skating as a pastime. It's something,
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it's probably the first sport that I sort of started learning, but not taught by anybody.
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Just watching people skate on the streets and then get my skates and then skate on top
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of the take D in Pune, by the way. So it's something I've always enjoyed doing as a pastime.
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And I was fortunate enough to live in Dubai for a couple of years. And at that time I
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bought myself a pair of skates. This was in 2015. And then I used to go skating on the
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beach with my friends and stuff. And then I got my skates back to India when I came
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back and I still wanted to skate. And I'm not a very early morning person, which is
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why I'm also not a very huge fan of running because everybody starts at four and five
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in the morning. But I did not want to do that with skating. If I wanted to find good roads
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and go skating, I didn't want to wake up at five or five 30 in the morning and go skating.
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So I went to a club in Pune and they have a lovely skating school and great facilities.
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And I was like, Hey, I want to just, I have skates. I'm not a very professional skater,
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but I would like to use the facilities. And they said, no, but we do not have these free
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hours where you can just come and skate. You would have to join a class. And I said, okay,
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why not? I've never really learned skating, so I don't mind it. And then I said, but what
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batch are you going to take me in? And then they were like, no, but you're an adult. So
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we will take you in with our senior batches. And I was like, okay. And then I went on that
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day and the senior batches were full of 12 year olds and 11 year olds. And I was like,
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hey, listen, this is not going to work out. And so I basically couldn't skate. I couldn't
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find a place in Pune where adults went skating. Or I would say the only place where you see
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adults really pushing themselves and getting into it is badminton courts in India.
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So if they are not experiencing the sport and the benefit of it and the goodness of
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it, and if they are not part of the sporting conversations, how do you expect them to as
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parents do it for their children? So absolutely, I don't, it's, you're right. When you, when
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we talk about the sporting culture, it's the adults in India who themselves drop out and
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do not consider themselves competitive anymore, which is also a problem.
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And also I think that, you know, the, the field of possibilities for someone discovering
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that they're good in sport as a kid is limited when that sporting culture isn't there because
#
it's not a natural thing that Sunday co time hand the whole family goes out and plays or,
#
you know, whenever the kid has free time, the kid goes out and play. I'm sure in most
#
of India, many more kids are sitting in with their phones or their laptops or doing other
#
stuff rather than actually playing a sport. And the proportion for that would be greater
#
than elsewhere. So we're probably losing a lot of quality sports people because of that,
#
because they never discovered that they love the sport or want to play it because they
#
never really get into it in the first place. And equally apart from the culture itself,
#
I guess incentives matter a great deal. Like the reason we have this cricket renaissance
#
with so much strength and so much depth is really because the IPL changed the incentives
#
and now you don't just have so a kid in Delhi isn't just thinking that shit, I have to get
#
into the Delhi team. There's one buyer for my services and there's so much corruption
#
and all of that. But now there are so many teams competing for you. And I guess, you
#
know, Joy Bhattacharya's volleyball league, which we were speaking about would hopefully
#
do the similar kind of thing in volleyball. So I guess those incentives also sort of matter,
#
but we'll come to that. Let's talk about your journey in sport. Like, how did you start
#
getting into sport? Because just given who your parents were and all of that, one would
#
imagine you'd be into arts and you'd be acting in plays and you'd be, you know, learning
#
Bharatnatyam and singing. I did learn Bharatnatyam. No, I think I was always exposed to the arts
#
and I always enjoyed them. And I was always taking part in elocution and singing competitions
#
in school. And so I was pretty much into arts. But my inclination was always on towards sport.
#
And that's that's another thing that I always feel that there is, you know, there's no element
#
of discovering what somebody's interest you would be able to see it and you would see
#
it at the very nascent phases of somebody's growing up years. So you don't really have
#
to, you know, find out. And now I sometimes feel there's all kinds of tests to find out
#
what our interests are, what our skills are, what our thought processes are like. But most
#
often than not, your core beliefs, your core skills, your core abilities are shown at some
#
point. And for me, it was the same. So in school, like I was just I mean, I'll take
#
you back to the skating story. So when I was about seven, eight or nine years, my friends
#
and I from my building, we used to carry our skates up the Taikdi, which is a hill in Pune.
#
And it was about just 10 minutes from where we lived. And I don't remember how often we
#
used to go, but very often. And we used to carry them up the hill, which took us about
#
15 minutes to climb. Because the ARAI, which which is a company that was that was nestled
#
in the hills, used to test cars before they they were launched commercially. And because
#
they tested those cars, the road up the hill that led to ARAI building was always very
#
well maintained. And only the cars that were being tested or the employees of ARAI would
#
use that road. And so all kinds of skating lessons used to happen early in the morning
#
on this road. And my friends and I we used to go up early. And we used to get our skates
#
on and we used to compete with the guys who are getting trained by a coach. So they would
#
start and they would skate and we would be parallely skating with them and we would try
#
and compete and try and beat them. And their coach was not really teaching us what we were
#
competing with them. And we got better at it at some point. So I guess that's the first
#
time I sort of did any sort of sport. And I have to thank my parents to somehow have
#
agreed to get me a pair of skates. But even in school, right from your, you know, spoon
#
and lemon races to your gunny bag races or whatever, I was always very I was very competitive
#
in them from the age of six and seven. In my first standard, I have sort of flashes
#
of some of those races as well. Even now, now I'm way past my thirties. But, you know,
#
the times that you really overcame and you won, those flashes are still very clear in
#
my mind, even if they were like these little races. And then of course, as you grow up,
#
as you come to come to your fourth standard or so, you start participating in inter-school
#
dodgeball and other things. And by then the school has seen that, OK, there are a few
#
girls that are very active in sports. So they would take you into those dodgeball teams.
#
And then in my case, in the fifth standard, my school decided to create a girls volleyball
#
team. And we did not have a volleyball coach. So one of our sports coaches in school was
#
sent on some training program where he had to learn and then come back and form a volleyball
#
team. At that time, I was among the taller girls in class and I had been playing in the
#
inter-school matches in the previous years and all of that. So he gathered a team and
#
then he started training us. It wasn't really like, oh, I love volleyball, so I'm going
#
to join this this sport. It wasn't like that. And we just started practicing volleyball
#
in school with Sanjay Sir, who remains my biggest influence or guru in terms of sport.
#
Then the team that he collected, we became very good friends. And we just enjoyed going
#
to the school in the evening and practicing together and just being friends as such. And
#
then, you know, then then you participate in the city tournaments, then you learn, oh,
#
after the city tournaments, there's further levels up all the way up until nationals.
#
And then if you're inherently competitive people and you are also part of a sports team,
#
you obviously slowly and steadily start aiming for higher and better. And yeah, so that just
#
sort of continued with me. And we started enjoying the game, having a lot of success.
#
So my school volleyball team was the number one team in Pune that always won the city
#
tournaments and then reached all the way up to the state level. And then there is another
#
school in Pune called Symbiosis. The boys team of that school was always the winners
#
at the city level. So we wanted to maintain legacy at some point. So that's how it continued.
#
And when you would skate with these boys, would you beat them? I don't remember now.
#
I would. But you know, it's really funny. I honestly believe that nothing you've ever
#
done in your life goes waste. I do not remember if I used to beat them. I remember I was very
#
good. But many years later, when I was 22 or 23, like I said, I studied petroleum engineering
#
and I joined Shell afterwards. And we had an onboarding program in Oman. The onboarding
#
program, of course, had like, you know, new recruits from everywhere in the world. And
#
there was this team building activity. And it was an amazing race. So we had to go from
#
Muscat, take a car with our teammates, and try and do quite a few activities on our way
#
to another town where we had to finally assemble and make a scrapbook. And one of the challenge
#
activities was that the entire team should be on an ice skating ring. And nobody falls.
#
And all seven of us should be there without holding anybody's hands. And I had never done
#
ice skating before that. And the Omanis with me, for them, they had seen the ice skating
#
ring before. It's quite a popular sport. And they had done it. And when I finally wore
#
the ice skates and I had never even worn, I used to do roller skating. I hadn't even
#
worn the inline skates before. And it took me just 15 minutes to get the hang of it.
#
And I was like, yeah, I'm ready. Let's take this picture. And then now I'm a huge fan
#
of ice skating. So after Tekri, I had never touched skates until that day in Oman. But
#
I could get on to the ice skating ring only because I knew originally how skating worked.
#
So that's, honestly, I really believe that no matter what happens, give whatever opportunity
#
you have to try something new a chance, because you don't know where you're going to need
#
No, and this is such a fabulous story. You know, when you started talking about Oman
#
and you're 22 and you're in this new company, I thought there's going to be some angle about
#
how this another boy from Pune who remembers you because you used to beat him in skating
#
down the hill and you know, very filmy kind of thing.
#
Yeah, no, I hope I don't have any such enemies that I've created when I was seven and eight
#
years old. Come back to haunt me now.
#
Not even enemies. Someone who could have fallen for you maybe. You know, who knows. Nice arc
#
for a Bollywoodie sort of story right there. So what was the experience like of sort of
#
going and playing at the inter-school level? Because, you know, earlier you spoke about
#
how your friend in the US was, you know, sporting event coincided with exam and these people,
#
you know, the people said go and play. And I remember when I was in the 11th or 12th
#
in Ferguson, I forget which I qualified for the Maharashtra team for the inter-school
#
chess championships. And I came third in Maharashtra and Sholapur. And then ultimately the event,
#
the inter-school event coincided with the ICSE exams or something, or HSE exams or whatever
#
it was. So I had to miss it. And I presume most of the people who qualified had to miss
#
it. And it was just so bizarre. But what I remember about the qualification at Sholapur
#
was it was an inter-school event. So it wasn't only chess, right? So but my chess team from
#
Pune was about four of us. And we land up there. And all the other sports are there.
#
There's, you know, all your wrestling and running and all of those. And some 150 of
#
us were then asked to sleep in this large hall, which would be, yeah, so we had to somehow
#
lie down on the floor, like side by side and cheek to jowl and all of that. And part of
#
the floor was wet and all of that. And in the morning, there were just these two outdoor
#
toilets which you had to compete for. And we were chess players. There are wrestlers
#
and judokas and all of that. So what chance do we have to do our ablutions in peace? And
#
that was kind of what it was. And I thought, my God, what a massive disincentive, you know.
#
And this was the late 80s, right? So the thing is, no wonder I didn't have, like, I kind
#
of retired from chess at 19 because I figured that, look, in India, the way it is, you know,
#
if I wasn't Vishwanathan Anand, I was nobody. And of course, I wasn't that good. So one
#
of the kids I used to play with went on to become a grandmaster and a national champion
#
and all of that. But it just wasn't rational for me to stay on in that particular sport,
#
whether or not one calls it a sport. And for other people from, people from, say, a different
#
economic strata, they might still have been the incentive that you'll get a job with services
#
or railways or whatever. But otherwise, for someone like me, it just didn't make sense.
#
So, you know, there's a famous story of Sunil Gavaskar. And this was, of course, in the
#
late 60s when he used to play for Bombay University. And there was a guy called, I think, Ramesh
#
Nagdev, who used to open with him, who was a swashbuckling stroke player. And everybody
#
was as impressed with him as by Gavaskar. But Nagdev went abroad to do degree and job
#
and all of that and completely understandable. And I would imagine things are different now.
#
But what were they like in your time? Like, and especially you're a group of girls, right?
#
So when you travel, what is it like? How do you, you know, how do the authorities treat
#
you? You know, are you always sort of fighting against the odds to do what you do?
#
Yeah. So, I mean, first and foremost, I know a lot of these sports biopics touch upon the
#
gender biases and the patriarchy in sport and all of that. But to be honest, I haven't
#
seen a lot of that for the main reason being that volleyball itself needed being propped
#
up in the first place. Then comes any gender bias and whether the boys teams were treated
#
better than women or anything like that. So I cannot really comment on that. I haven't
#
seen that in volleyball. But of course, as a women's team, we were careful. Yeah, surely,
#
like our coach would tell us, oh, you have to wear your tracksuit all the time and just
#
be on in your team t-shirt and shorts on the court just before the match and for the warmup.
#
But that's fine. They were just being careful. In my many years of playing volleyball, and
#
the great thing about having become a volleyball player was that most of the volleyball matches
#
used to happen in very small towns in Maharashtra, because I think the idea was to uplift those
#
towns. So if you really ask me if I've traveled to some of the best parts of Maharashtra and
#
tourist destinations, I haven't been. But if you ask me where else I've been in Maharashtra,
#
almost all small towns, I've been to places like Barshi, Solapur, Bede, Varanagar, Bilawadi.
#
Who talks about these towns? Even when we were playing chess, we went to Solapur, Sangli,
#
Kolapur, Aurangabad. Sangli, Satara, Panhala, Kolapur, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Daund, which
#
is closer from here. And you know, I have literally traveled everywhere in Maharashtra.
#
I have seen every dirty toilet there is to see, basically. And I mean, I've tried water
#
from all of these towns. And now when I travel as well, I think what I've picked up from
#
there is I don't notice the change in taste of the water. I'm not always complaining.
#
And now when I go and travel somewhere, I'm not looking for bislaries. I think your body
#
just adjusts at some point. And I think that really made us very, very independent as women.
#
Like you said, all these sports facilities that would be offered to sports teams at the
#
time would basically be one of the rooms from a government school with Shabbat tiles and
#
those iron nets on the top. And basically, it's really funny because you would start
#
by cleaning that room. And the magical thing about Shabbat tiles is no matter how much
#
you try to clean them, you cannot succeed. So you end up sleeping on whatever you're
#
carrying, whatever bedding you're carrying. And I think that kind of brings you together
#
in some ways because now I'm still close with all my original volleyball team from school
#
and we really laugh about these things. And that's why movies like Chakde really sort
#
of strike a chord with us because they've kind of gotten closer to the living conditions
#
and all those things. It's quite nostalgic in that sense for us.
#
But in terms of the levels of the game that you mentioned earlier on, so how it used to
#
happen with volleyball is there used to be a city level tournament. So let's say I'm
#
from Pune, all the girls teams from Pune play. Then the team that wins plays the district
#
level tournament and then all the teams from the districts play and then you play the divisions
#
and you play as a team. Then the team that wins at the divisions plays the state level
#
tournament. And then that's pretty much as high as you can go as a team. And then after
#
that, a few of the players that are selected during the state level tournaments enter the
#
national level selection trials. And from there, the national level team is then selected.
#
Yeah, it's pretty much that whole journey by the time you actually end up playing the
#
nationals. And you were saying that a lot of people drop out because they didn't see
#
opportunities after maybe getting to this level, which is true, which is what it was
#
during my time as well. And regardless of how well I did or not, at some point I would
#
have dropped out. But for me, I attribute all of my life's success so far to a specific
#
event that happened during my 10th exams. And it was to do with volleyball. And what
#
had happened is that you were just mentioning that your CBSE exam.
#
HSE, I think, since I was in Ferguson. Yeah, so your 12th exam was close and so a lot of
#
people drop out. I had that situation when I was in the 10th standard. So my 10th final
#
exam was at the end of March or so. And at the end of January, we received the invite
#
for the nationals trials. And while I had started playing when I was in the sixth standard,
#
I had played a lot of state level tournaments, but then every sportsman wants to play that
#
national level. And so you are literally waiting and you have really seen a lot of your colleagues
#
and everybody get selected over the years. And you're like, hey, this is something I
#
really want to do. A lot of people at that time would be like, hey, I'm not going to
#
go anymore because my 10th exam is coming is really close. And I decided to go. And
#
I have to thank my parents that they have never, never ever pushed me to be academically
#
very ahead of the game or so. I decided to go. It was the trials were in Solapur. And
#
I got selected. And then there was a seven day camp before the team left for Hyderabad.
#
And I used to play a position called as a tosser. So if the volleyball team has 12 players,
#
six reserve and six mains, there are only two tossers. So they are like the game makers,
#
the ones who stand near the net and they are the ones who toss the ball to the smashers.
#
So we are the ones who are deciding how the game is played because we decide the strategy
#
on which smasher will play, whether behind us, ahead of us, far, far back of the court.
#
So in that sense, we are the game makers, but there are only two positions in the team.
#
And so I was selected. And after the camp, there was a girl who I think was more experienced
#
than me who came from Nagpur. And her father, I think, paid the coach at the time some five
#
or ten thousand rupees or so and to get me out of the team and let her play. And that's
#
what happened. And because the national team was announced, this was not during the trials.
#
It was shocking. And this was corruption. And I don't think there's any sportsman in
#
India who has not seen corruption. And I was absolutely shocked. If there was any time
#
I have hoped that my parents had any connections to reverse this decision, it was that time.
#
And of course, we didn't. So we couldn't do anything about it. And and my aunt stays
#
in Solapur. So she came to get me. And then, of course, there was a lot of crying. And
#
how can this happen to me and all of that? But then I came back to Pune. And I remember
#
that Solapur to Pune was about four or five hours of drive. And the first two, three hours
#
was literally like I left my exams and I jeopardized my exams and spent so long here. And if it
#
was just the trials, it was two, three days. But now I finished the camp. How could they
#
do this to me? It is in 10 days of my study time is just gone. And I mean, what happened
#
with me was wrong. But it wasn't like by that time, I was doing something amazing in terms
#
of my studies in school. I wasn't some topper or top 10 or whatever. I was probably scoring
#
like mid 70s and not too bothered about it. But in that five hour journey, I don't know
#
what happened to me. I was like, I cannot fail. If I'm if this is what's going to happen
#
to me, I'm going to kill it in my exams. It just it was just like a switch in my mind.
#
I had no prior data to prove that I could kill it in my exams, basically. But it was
#
just the competitive spirit that there has to be a win at the end of this. So I came
#
back home. And I sort of made a study plan. I had about a month left before my exams.
#
My dream was to get into Ferguson College, because everybody's is in Pune. And it's
#
the best college and I knew I wanted science and it's the best college science closes
#
at a high percentage. And I was like, okay, this is my goal. I wrote it on a on a piece
#
of paper, I stuck it on the wall, I made a schedule, etc. I think that one month, I must
#
have studied 18 hours every day. I don't I don't think I have focused as much in my
#
entire life. And I scored some 84 85%. I was well within Ferguson's range. And I was admitted
#
to Ferguson. And I was the only one amongst my friends circle at the time who actually
#
got into Ferguson, because I had scored well enough. And I had not seen such academic success
#
or my own potential in academics so far. At that level, I did I surprised myself. So from
#
that day onwards, I have never thought that any failure that came in my life was a personal
#
failure that I couldn't better. I guess that event became a turning point in my life. It's
#
unfortunate when corruption happens in sport, and I'm sure a lot of players get disappointed
#
with it. I guess I always knew that I was going to drop out of the sport in that sense.
#
But for to drop to sort of get this out of that negative incident that happened in my
#
life allowed me to stay competitive my entire life. So once you have gotten into Ferguson,
#
you're again in a deep in a pool of very competitive people or very talented people, good academically,
#
whatever, then you continue. You've seen success. So now you don't want to you don't want to
#
do any less than what you have. And that then just continues and becomes your new normal.
#
I think that for me it worked to have faced that that thing. And then later that year,
#
I had another chance to go to the nationals trials, I got selected, I played the nationals.
#
So you know, in that sense, the circle was completed. But but I would say that by the
#
time I actually played my nationals, I think I had what I what I really wanted. So yeah,
#
I mean, I guess you convert your failures into into something that works for you or
#
sort of reveal what you already had in terms of your desires. So that's that that's my
#
story in terms of that's an amazing story. And so many shades to it, which I'll come
#
at but the girl who took your place, did you speak to her? What was that like? I don't
#
think I spoke to her. No, I didn't see her again. I didn't see her again. No. Yeah, I
#
wonder where she is today. Yeah. No, that's an amazing story. And I want to ask you therefore
#
about a couple of C words. And one is camaraderie, which you you know, you referred to how you
#
became so close to all the girls in your volleyball team and all of that. And the other is competitiveness.
#
And competitiveness, to me, in many ways, seems like a double edged sword. And I say this from
#
experience because I can also be competitive in different ways. So never really in sports
#
unless you call chess a sport. But you know, on the one hand, it drives you to do better
#
and better and better because you want to beat someone or you want to do better than
#
someone and so on and so forth. But on the other hand, it can also sort of corrode your
#
character in the sense that you begin to think of the world as a zero sum game, you know,
#
because that's automatic sport is zero sum society is not you don't have to beat anyone
#
in society to get ahead. It's just the other way around. It's a positive something. But
#
sport is zero sum, you have to win, you know, and if you win well, if you humiliate the
#
other person while you're at it, right, you just while you're playing against them, you
#
just want to destroy them, as it were. And it seems to me that there is a certain amount
#
of negative emotion that kind of gets in there. And this is both at perhaps a personal level
#
in terms of what it does to you as a person. And this is also at a wider level, it can
#
bring out our worst tribal instincts, like when it's between countries, it's like Orville
#
said war minus the shooting. And we can come to camaraderie after this. But to just speak
#
about competitiveness, what is your sense of the competitive person in you? Because
#
on the one hand, it seems that when you go for that volleyball tournament, what you really
#
want at that moment is to play the nationals. And when this incident happens that you're
#
not in the team, you change wanting that to wanting to murder the exam so you can get
#
into Ferguson. And all you all you have done is you've shifted your locus of competition.
#
And at some level, one could even say and I'm not saying this about you, I've thought
#
about this for myself that when I have been competitive, when I have tried to win, is
#
it just about ego? Is that what is kind of driving it? You know, that kind of a sense.
#
And so that always interests me because on the one hand, I think it's important to be
#
competitive. On the other hand, I find that more and more, I find myself suppressing that
#
instinct. You know, like now, the one way in which I simply like, you know, people will
#
ask me about other podcasts, how are these podcasts doing? How are your podcasts doing?
#
You know, so and so is such a star on YouTube. And for me, I'm not thinking about that, because
#
on the one hand, I can rationalize it and say I'm trying to do something so different
#
that, you know, I'm kind of alone in that space. And I'm just doing it for myself and
#
you can't really compete, which is the right way to think about it. But there is always
#
that competitive instinct. And I try to fight that in myself more than I let it sort of
#
drive me and take me to another level. So what is your relationship with your competitiveness?
#
Yeah. So, Amit, before I come to your question, I want to sort of say that over time, we've
#
demonized this word competition. And sometimes we repeat it in that very emotion. And then
#
it becomes that emotion. And I think if we talk about the bad things of being competitive,
#
we have also have to talk about the other side of the coin. And I mean, I'm going to
#
be abstract here because you asked me what my thoughts are. And I feel like we have so
#
many words describing so many emotions, but I can't think of many words that describe
#
competition, the joys of competition. And I don't know if you've heard the song Allah
#
Ke Bande. There's a line in that song. And the line is basically, it's talking about
#
a bird, the song that a bird that's sort of falling down. And it says,
#
girtah hua wo aas maa se, aakar gira zameen par, khabo mein phir bhi badal hi the, wo
#
kehta raha magar. So that is competition for me. Now, in this case, here's somebody who's
#
faced failure and fallen flat on their face. Now, if they are, they are on the ground and
#
yet thinking of their best days, then at some point, they want to get there. And that is
#
competition with the self. Competition does not always have to be with an opponent. It
#
doesn't always have to be with another team. It doesn't always have to be with your class.
#
For me, competition. Yeah, sure. If I'm playing a sport, like, you know, Martina Navratilova
#
said about, about sport, she said, she said something like, those who say that winning
#
is not always important, probably lost. And that's true with sport, you know, because
#
why are you on the, on the court if you're not there to win? And by winning, it means
#
if you're not there to give your best, if you gave your best and somebody bested you,
#
then accept it and come back. But for me, competition is also about bettering myself,
#
about understanding competition as a concept. Think about Usain Bolt, for example. How did
#
he know that his nine seconds plus something timing was the best in the world? Because
#
some other people competed. He went on to beat his own record. That's a different story.
#
It's a competition he was in with himself. But if other people were not running, he would
#
not know that this nine second was something amazing. So that's how I really look at competition,
#
that others allowing me to know what my limits are. That is competition for me. Because if
#
I was running all by myself in whatever I am doing, I would not know if I'm really doing
#
my best, or there are people doing much better than me. Are they doing much better than me
#
or they're at my level? How do you know that? So that's, that's my only definition of competition.
#
Apart from that, I use my competitive spirit when I'm failing miserably, because you really
#
need to find something to pick yourself up. And apart from that as well, I think you need
#
to if you're, if you're really getting all the experiences and absorbing everything that
#
the sport or whatever you are trying to to improve is teaching you if you're really introspecting
#
what a certain experience a certain match or certain certain competition is has taught
#
you so traveling with your team has taught you if you're absorbing that you're growing
#
as a person and learning to put competition in perspective. So I am not a voracious reader,
#
but I'm very good at picking random things that somebody saying in a in a certain context
#
and using it in some other context. And I was recently watching some funny video by
#
Kusha Kapila. And she had a very funny take on a teacher is talking to a parent. And the
#
teachers trying to advise the parent that yeh kitabe waghra hai class ki yeh isko padni
#
chahiye to B plus to aajayega. And obviously, it's an Indian parent. So the Indian parent
#
asks lekin A plus ke liye kya karna padega. And then the teacher says nahi A plus wala
#
to aapka bacha hi nahi hai. So I am like that I know where I'm not A plus. So I'm not trying
#
to compete in that zone. I think it's self awareness in that sense. So when it comes
#
to competition, I'm able to distinguish where I can be competitive and where I cannot be
#
competitive. And I'm not trying to be competitive in places where I know I'm going to be disappointed.
#
That's some sort of self awareness for me. And so it doesn't become toxic for me that
#
I'm trying and trying and trying and not doing better at all. I don't get into that zone.
#
But because I worked for Shell after my engineering, and at that time Shell was only recruiting
#
from the IITs. And apart from that, they were recruiting from MIT Pune's petroleum branch
#
because it was in the top two in India at that time after ISM Dhanbad. So we were the
#
only non IITians who were joining the small batches of engineers that Shell was taking
#
at the time. So I have spent eight years in Shell only working with IITians. And if I
#
did not have competitive spirit, I could not have survived that environment. Because that's
#
they are not only intelligent, but very, very, very hardworking and very competitive. So
#
I guess the only way I could have survived in that environment was with my competitive
#
spirit. And I have seen the negative sides of competition as well. Because if there are
#
people who are not able to separate things in their life that are that where they are
#
not competing, where they want peace, where they want growth, but not in a very professional
#
sense, if they're not able to separate that, then it can make them miserable. No matter
#
the amount of money you're getting, no matter the amount of wealth you're accumulating,
#
experiences you're accumulating, your mind is constantly thinking about the same thing
#
that my colleague is doing better than me, has gotten a better early performance or whatever.
#
And over time, that just makes you a very, very unevolved person in a sense. You're also
#
looking at other individuals from the same lens. And I think that's where that's where
#
I would say one should stop with stop and think. So I would say competition, if you
#
use as a as a concept in your life, then you will be able to choose where you want to really
#
put all your time and effort, and where you're not competitive enough, and where you need
#
to do just enough, because there are some places where you need to do just enough to
#
survive. Yeah, and I honestly, if I look at it, I don't find it toxic if you constantly
#
look inwards. If you're constantly looking outwards, then you are basically comparing
#
yourself with things that are out of your out of your circle of influence, and then
#
trying to be competitive with those things. And it's it's really like being a fish trying
#
to climb a tree then. Yeah, that's, that's well put. And the thing is, most people aren't
#
given to self reflection. So in that sense, they can get trapped in that. And I'll just
#
think aloud here, like, one concept, you might have heard me exploring with some of my recent
#
guests has been something I picked up from Luke Burgess, his book wanting of thick and
#
thin desires. And the way he defines it is that thick desires are what you really inherently
#
want to do. You're not doing it because somebody else is or because you feel that's the kind
#
of thing you should do. And thin desires are desires that are often mimetic desires or
#
desires that, you know, you see them as desires in the environment around you. So you pick
#
them up, but you don't really, really want them. So you know, if I want a new Mercedes
#
C class, that could be a thin desire. Or if a kid growing up today says, Oh, I want to
#
get married and have kids that could be a thin desire, because you just see that as
#
a default thing to want over there. And over time, I think people need to kind of figure
#
out what their thick and thin desires are, especially because your most intense desires
#
at a moment in time could actually be thin desires. And I'm thinking aloud and thinking
#
about how sometimes, you know, in your story of shifting that competitiveness from volleyball,
#
once you fail to make the team to your exams, you know, one way to look at it is that both
#
of those could have been thin desires, or maybe volleyball could have been thick and
#
then you transferred it. But another way and I'm thinking aloud is that the thick desire
#
perhaps was to compete because it would be in your nature to compete and therefore the
#
thick desire is to always compete. And it doesn't matter so much what you're competing
#
in, just a very act of competing and doing your best both improves you in that domain
#
and also builds your character because then all those other things of discipline and working
#
hard and self reflection even because that is how you improve often kind of come with
#
it. So what are your sort of thoughts?
#
I think for me, Amit, it has come out of ambition. It's competitiveness is not my base level
#
or my everyday level. If I speak about me, there are people who are competitive 24 hours.
#
I'm not those type of people, but I'm ambitious. And when I say ambitious, I'm not saying I
#
want to be the next Jeff Bezos. And, you know, when we talk about ambition, also we are talking
#
about I want to be Roger Federer, I want to be Serena Williams or Jeff Bezos. I'm saying
#
my own ambition, my own best that I can achieve. And in my mind, there's a sort of a mind map
#
that these are the few things that have to happen if I have to get there. And if I am
#
at this moment tackling a big milestone on that mind map, which is in my mind, then I
#
will be very competitive. But let's say I'm between milestones. And there are a few things
#
that have to happen, but they are okay. They, you know, okay milestones, then I'm not my
#
best most competitive at that time. So for me, that's why I know it is it's it's coming
#
out of ambition and not out of not out of constantly enjoying competition. And in that sense, I
#
get a lot of mental break as well between being very, very competitive and not being
#
competitive. So to give you an example, to apply for my MBA last year, for example, it
#
was so last year was the worst year to apply for an MBA program because the entire world
#
was applying because a lot of people had lost their jobs. And so it was a very, very competitive
#
year to apply for a program. And so that naturally meant that you had to ace your entrance exam,
#
which is the GMAT and you needed to be higher than you would have otherwise been because
#
you have to stand out. Plus, we are all applying as Indians. So the colleges want to ensure
#
that there's not too many Indians in the class. So they're going to choose the best or whatever
#
applications come. So you're competing with Indians and with the world. Apart from the
#
profile that you cannot change, you've done what you have all your life. The only thing
#
that you can influence is how well you do in that exam. And so I again went into that
#
zone where I was literally studying most of my time and trying to get this exam out of
#
the way and at a level that I really wanted it. I answered it one time and it wasn't sufficient.
#
So I took another couple of months. I answered the exam again because I knew that I would
#
not be happy with the substandard college. And once I got in to a university of my choice,
#
now if you look at me, am I very competitive in my class? I'm not. Because now I'm thinking
#
of what I want to do afterwards. Now I'm thinking, okay, if I want to do A, B and C things after
#
my MBA, do I need to be first in class for that? The answer for my future is no. So then
#
you would not see me really burn myself out. I would do everything that's required. I would
#
still be slightly competitive. I still don't want to see myself at the bottom of the pack
#
or whatever. But you would not see me really, really work very, very hard to be in the top
#
five or 10% because for me, it logically doesn't make any sense. So I would say, hey, why should
#
I burn myself out then? I would if I again come across some milestone which has to happen
#
on my path. So that for me is then ambition coming together with competition, but I cannot
#
constantly be in the competitive zone.
#
I think these thoughtful collaborations that you're carrying out as it were of how competitive
#
you are come from, again, being very clear in your thinking about what you want and what
#
you're optimizing for, which I find many people aren't. And certainly I wasn't for a large
#
part of my life, so it's something that I admire. And to get to camaraderie, and even
#
more than that, you'd earlier mentioned about how sport changed you, how all of you in that
#
early volleyball team, you're still in touch, you were changed in a different context. You'd
#
mentioned how you find yourself different from all the other people around you who didn't
#
play sport at the time, all your friends around you. And you also sort of spoke about the
#
influence of that early coach, Sanjay Sir, and the kind of regard you held him in and
#
all of that. And I'm guessing that that coaching would not, you know, you're not calling him
#
a good coach because he was a strategic genius or a tactical mastermind. There were other
#
elements of mentorship or whatever that kind of came into play. So tell me a little bit
#
about how playing sport changed you as a person in fundamental ways.
#
So I would want to go back, Amit, to the story which I said, you know, started my transformation.
#
First of all, when in my sixth standard or seventh standard, I was selected in that volleyball
#
team. It was a great time to feel that, hey, I was taller in class, so I got this opportunity,
#
I was chosen somewhere, whatever. When that happened, and when we started becoming friends,
#
we started valuing friendship. And that's why we started practicing together more and
#
not missing practices. And there's one thing that I've always had, that I do not like to
#
join something and then start missing it. So that was an inherent thing. Even in school,
#
I was not somebody who would bunk school very often. I was not somebody who would be unwell
#
too much. And so the fact that I would like to be disciplined and show up really helped
#
me. And that camaraderie with the seniors in my school, the juniors who came afterwards,
#
and then competing together, and then going on shoestring budgets and staying in these
#
small government schools and everything just brought our experiences together. It grew
#
us up. All of us came from sort of middle-class, upper-middle-class backgrounds, and nobody
#
was carrying a lot of money. We never, I don't remember buying a Bisleri. I remember, you
#
know, shutting all the lights in the room and holding towels and then changing and helping
#
your teammates. And then all those experiences, and I'm sure even Snehal mentioned this in
#
your podcast, Snehal Pradhan, that the one time that your team would get a train ticket
#
with a booked berth, everybody was celebrating. It was a day that we'd never seen. And I had
#
to play like six, seven years for my nationals to happen, for us to get a train berth in
#
sleeper class on our return back to Maharashtra from MP, my nationals were in REWA. And the
#
funny thing is that one time when we were so happy that we have a berth, because all
#
other journeys we've done are sat in front of the train toilets with all our bags. And
#
there was some sort of a protest going on. And all those guys filled our bogies. They
#
took all our berths. And we were eventually 12 of us sitting in the uppermost berth. And
#
so it's almost like it's, you know, it's destiny that till the time you're playing the sport,
#
you're never going to get a, you know, confirmed berth on a train.
#
So only your parents gave berth to you.
#
That was the only berth I got. And there's a story in that as well. So when we didn't
#
get these berths, and we had to sit on the topmost berth, there was a friend of mine,
#
who's a dear friend even now. And she is, she was looking forward to seeing a brother
#
of hers who was going to bring pizza on a certain station where this train stopped for
#
10 minutes. And on the 15, during the 15 days of our nationals, I think the Maharashtra
#
team was carrying, like took a cook with them. But we always got like roti and aloo sabzi.
#
And we were, we were tired of it. Like tired as in we had forgotten what food and taste
#
was like. This was December. It was very cold. None of us had seen that kind of cold. And
#
this girl was at some point went to the cook and she was like, make something else, make
#
anything else. And this guy was like, yeah, yeah, ma'am, today we're going to make something
#
different. And then she tells everybody today we're going to get something else for dinner.
#
And then they serve us aloo sabzi and this chapati. And she's almost crying. She's just,
#
she's lost it completely. And she's like, what is different in this? You've told us
#
that you're going to make and he's like, and she was, she started crying. And then
#
I remember a few of us, we were like, Disha, let's go. We'll buy some catberries or something.
#
And we were also like, we were also much younger, but she was a couple of years younger than
#
us. And then we go into these streets of Reva somewhere in the evening. And then she sees
#
a small tapri somewhere at a distance and she runs and she's maybe about a hundred
#
meters ahead of us. And she goes to that tapri and she speaks to him. And then we are still
#
walking. And then she turns around and she says loudly and she's shouting from there.
#
And she's like, this guy does not even know what a dairy milk is. She was so disturbed.
#
And so when we, when we were returning, this brother was going to bring pizzas for her
#
and we did not have even an inch of space left. It was in the entire bogie. It was full.
#
And Amit, this girl just made everybody move. She marched out of the train, got the pizza,
#
got into the train again and got upstairs, brought the pizza up on the upper berth for
#
all of us. And if you had seen, there was not, there was, there were people everywhere in
#
the train. And I have seen how, you know, I remember all these moments when, you know,
#
she showed you their strength or courage because I don't know, everybody was saying that she's
#
not going to get her pizza today. And she got it. And she fed everybody that day, pizza.
#
So all those, all those things happen. And then you remember all those things. And I
#
think many years later, when I was in a situation where I was traveling for work and I was put
#
in, put into five-star hotels with like the slurries and everything. And to date, every
#
time I'm treated well, I really value it. Because, because for many, many years we did
#
not have that. I guess that is something that never goes. And, and let me know if I'm digressing
#
from what your question is. But I guess in that sense, if you ask me how my sport, how
#
did sport change me? First of all, these were the, these were the early growing up experiences
#
that allow you to become much more adjusting, but also demand for what you want. Look after
#
your, look after your team, because again, there's benefits of being in a team sport
#
compared to an individual sport like tennis. So you look after your teammates, you learn
#
off the court and on the court as well. And that's why I keep mentioning that I love the
#
movie Chakde because there's so much going on on the court between seniors and juniors
#
and the politics on the court itself. So you learn from all of that. But apart from that,
#
after this whole corruption incident that happened with me during 10th, I discovered
#
that I could move, I could do well academically or so. One of the tricks that I have developed
#
to be successful in smaller endeavours and in large endeavours after that is to fantasise
#
about success. I mean, it is my mantra. If I'm on the treadmill, for example, and I have
#
decided, so that's another thing. And later when I got more into fitness, I used to tell
#
this to my clients as well. Do not do anything with no goal whatsoever. Don't get into, onto
#
the treadmill, just saying that, hey, I'm there to walk. Either you're going to walk
#
because you want to walk at a certain speed, or you want to test out a certain inclined
#
level, or you want to walk for, let's say, one hour, which you've not done before. Maybe
#
you walked 55 minutes before, but now you want to walk 60 minutes, at least that's a
#
goal. But don't tell me I'm just on the treadmill. Tell me, what's your goal? Why are you on
#
the treadmill? Because if I wanted to make you really test yourself and really get the
#
most out of being on the treadmill, you can do that in 10 minutes also, you can do that
#
in 16 minutes also, in 60 minutes also. So don't try to tell me that because you were
#
on the treadmill for 60 minutes listening to music and just walking, you've exercised
#
a lot. Tell me, what did you achieve today? So I don't get onto the treadmill if I don't
#
have a goal. And normally I'm trying to run a five kilometre or something on the treadmill.
#
Like I mentioned, I'm not an early morning person, so I end up doing some of my runs
#
on the treadmill. And even in a five kilometre run, it's very challenging because you
#
want to, even if you want to improve by half a minute or let's say 40 seconds or so, it's
#
quite an achievement. And it takes strategy. How and at what point are you going to save
#
those 40 seconds compared to your last run? And that last run couldn't have been yesterday.
#
I have to do something in between the two runs such that I can expect a 40 second less
#
timing this time. Part of that strategy is if I can imagine, if I can fantasise about
#
a situation. I mean, sure, I will have improved the running strategy. I may have improved
#
my nutrition or I may have done a few practice runs to sprint in the middle or whatever.
#
That whole strategy is there. But part of it is you are running towards, you have maybe
#
the last five or seven minutes left, you're really low on energy. And at that time, you
#
fantasise about something. You fantasise that maybe somebody you absolutely love is at the
#
end of this run and is really applauding you. Or maybe a stadium is applauding you or maybe
#
you are fantasising, hey, I'm going to take a picture of this treadmill when that timing
#
comes so that I can put it up on Facebook or I can put it up on Twitter. So I have learned
#
to fantasise. And that helps me. And I use that technique sometimes for these short term
#
things like I'm on the treadmill or whatever. But sometimes I will use it for a longer term
#
goal as well. Like I'm studying for an exam or I'm working on my startup, for example,
#
and even startups where you're putting in your own money, you're you're full of doubts.
#
How do you bring in those endorphins? Sometimes you're just sat there and you're like you're
#
fantasising that, hey, maybe 100 people in the US are using my fitness program or they're
#
maybe talking about it. They want to share it on on Facebook or somebody sitting in other
#
cities in India is using it or or so. So you learn to better fantasise and then use those
#
endorphins to to get that last bit of success. And that's that's something I've got from
#
sports because you draw from from an applause you had enjoyed. You draw from somebody who
#
said something nice to you after you did something. That's something I've gotten from from sport.
#
And the other thing that I have mentioned before is don't take failure personally. Like
#
if if you failed at something, either you were not very good at it or circumstances
#
didn't allow you to do it. It's how you look at it. Or maybe you have to take time off
#
to understand if it was just something that you will not be able to do better anymore.
#
So it's you in that case. Or what was it because of circumstances? And in that case, you just
#
reattempt it if you could, if you can. And this time the circumstances would be different.
#
So for me, I have faced I faced a lot of failure at different points. But somehow I have I
#
have always thought that this wasn't me. Something else happened. And so when I when I'm going
#
to attempt it again, I am pretty sure I'm going to do well. So it happened to me in
#
engineering as well. So there was a there's a fairly difficult paper in the first year.
#
It's called graphics, if you remember. And I didn't do engineering. So I don't remember.
#
But yeah, so graphics and strength of materials are two topics that engineering students are
#
quite scared of in the first year. And graphics is this four hour paper where you are with
#
your drafter and you're trying to draw all kinds of figures and 3d figures and come to
#
answers of what at what angle is what or whatever, and takes fair amount of visualization, somebody
#
has to sort of teach you how to do that. I was I was taking a class for this paper because
#
everybody does. And you have quite a bit of equipment with you and these big books on
#
which you're drawing. And it was I think March or April, it was very hot. And this class
#
that I was in had some hundred students packed in a very small room. And the AC ACs were
#
not working. And when the class got over, I took my activa out, I had an activa at the
#
time, and which my father had gifted me because I played this national the year before. And
#
I had a big accident. And I have I don't have memory of what happened really. But some people
#
tell me that I was maybe on the side of the road. And there was a car parked who opened
#
their the the door of the on the driver's side and then it hit me and I fell or something.
#
I don't remember. But it ups I mean, and then my whole my my activa really sort of wasn't
#
a bad shape after that accident. It was inactive. It was inactive. Exactly. But so so because
#
my dad had gifted me this activa after my nationals. And he had taken like a massive
#
loan or so for it. I was very, very upset. And I was then upset because this person was
#
running these classes in such a small space and putting us through this. And then my activa
#
was like maybe I think two months old or so. So I was very emotional about it. And I was
#
like, I'm not going to his class again. And I'm going to try and study at home. And invariably,
#
this is a subject that you cannot study at home because somebody has to help you visualize
#
things. And I failed it in first year and I hadn't failed I think in at any academic
#
in an academic situation before that. And I was I think I got the result in and for
#
some reason, I just felt that hey, I know why this happened. And I'm going to answer
#
the exam again. And there's always people who will be like, Oh, now what will happen
#
to your recruitment and somebody is going to see you fail this paper. And none of that
#
bothered me because I never thought that I did not understand what was going on. I had
#
to answer that obviously in the next semester again. And I probably ended up scoring one
#
of the highest in in my batch in my university, because I gave it time and I was in the frame
#
of mind to really answer that paper once again. And it turns out that I did better than I
#
would have done the first time just to try and pass that that subject. So I guess that's
#
something also I draw from sport that hey, failure can happen. Don't take it personally,
#
unless you think that you cannot do it. So when I do face some some failure, I don't
#
feel like it's me. I feel like I yeah, maybe I didn't do well enough. Maybe there are other
#
ways of doing it. I'm not I have not really explored all those other ways. So I cannot
#
conclude that I cannot do it. That that's that's I'm just taking you through how my
#
mind would would think in those situations. And then I guess one of the very short points
#
that I have that I would like to make about sport is that I don't think sport builds character.
#
I do not think it builds character. It you just have the character that you have. It
#
can maybe sharpen it in some ways, because it allows you a lot more experiences to sort
#
of introspect and then carry forward. But your character is what it is. And in sport
#
as well, I have seen, for example, there was a there was a girl that was a very good volleyball
#
player. And she was much more senior to me. And I'm not going to name her, but she was
#
always a gunda. She was always a gunda. And everybody was scared of her. And she was always
#
you would imagine ends up backing people or, you know, getting violent. And she later ended
#
up joining Eminence as well. The party. And she was she was leading the youth wing. So
#
you could tell when when you were with her during during the game. But she was a brilliant
#
volleyball player. And we always knew that when we heard that this is this is what she's
#
doing now, none of us were surprised. So at the same time, somehow my sports team from
#
my my immediate team, we were all the academic types. So most of us ended up playing nationals
#
eventually. Some ended up sort of getting to the international trials and things. But
#
again, we ended up being academically. We did academically very well. So that's also
#
something that that was that didn't happen just like that for anybody. We always knew
#
we were like that. In terms of in even if you see in sports, all sportsmen don't have
#
the best character, you know, so to make make these blanket statements like sports builds
#
character. No, it doesn't. Look at look at tennis. Djokovic is very different in terms
#
of how his character is in general from Nadal and Federer. You can even take a I mean, look
#
at how Nick Kyrgios for example, compared to some other younger players who are his competition.
#
So it can sport can at best reveal character. But you are sort of built in a certain way.
#
And I guess that's actually why you got into sport or any other activity that you naturally
#
sort of were sucked into. So yeah, and I guess I want to travel, I keep wanting to travel
#
because sport introduced me to that. And the experiences that I have had through sport
#
are the ones that have allowed me to build my best friendships across the world. I have
#
not ended up making friends as good friends outside of sport as I have in sport. So that's
#
a gift of the sport I would say. That's a great point about sport revealing character
#
and I agree with you there. I think there's this quote by Steven Pinker about how nature
#
gives you knobs and nurture turns them. And in a sense, I guess sport could turn some
#
of those knobs that are already within you, you know, if you have a deep competitive sense,
#
maybe hone that if you are a gunda, maybe hone that and take you to M&S. Who knows if
#
she didn't play volleyball, she may not have been M&S. I want to go back to Disha and the
#
pizza. And that's such a fantastic story because it also reveals the power of incentives
#
and who knows, maybe, you know, maybe it helped her discover a little bit of herself that
#
no one can mess with her when she really wants something, she gets it.
#
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what we got out of that story about her. And that's
#
what we say to her as well. And you would see that about her even afterwards. If you
#
much later when all of us had cars and we were driving now, Disha was absolutely a boss
#
on the road. Like she could be she could be stuck in the worst traffic ever and act like,
#
you know, you guys are all wrong. I am right. And I'm really cool. And I'm going to turn
#
my car around and leave. A lot of people really panic in those situations. And to stay calm
#
and really get your and I don't know how this happens. But I don't know. Maybe because all
#
my friends come from the sports background or something. But most of my friends are incredible
#
drivers, incredible drivers, women. I don't I don't know how that is. But I mean, there
#
might be a little bit of self-selection there in the sense that people who get into sport
#
and stay into sport would naturally have things like good hand-eye coordination and all of
#
that. That might play a part. I want to double click on something that you said earlier about
#
how like, for example, if you're on a treadmill, you have to have a goal. You can't just be
#
there as part of whatever. I mean, I guess Disha could think of I'm going to order a
#
pizza after this hour of running or whatever. But that also seems to sort of run parallel
#
to not necessarily contradictory to but parallel to the advice that one gives all sportspeople
#
and I, in fact, give my writing students of process being more important than goals.
#
Like in his excellent book, Atomic Habit, James Clear also talks about how don't focus
#
on goals, focus on processes. And that's something I also drive home to my writing students that
#
what's important is to build a writing habit. If you just say that I want to write op-eds
#
and send them off, then once every three months you feel like writing something, you'll open
#
your laptop and you'll open a Word doc and then you'll struggle like mad because you
#
don't have the habit. It's more important to build a habit. And once you have the habit,
#
you can do pretty much anything you want. The goals kind of take care of themselves.
#
And this doesn't mean that don't have goals, but it just means that processes are all important
#
and you got to kind of follow them through. Otherwise, the goals won't really materialize.
#
Another way of looking at it is don't think of the things you want to do, but think of
#
the person you want to be. So the example I give my writing students here is that if
#
you decide you want to read more, you could say, okay, every day between seven and eight,
#
I'm going to read, right? And you do it one day, you do it two days, but then you fall
#
off the wagon and then it just goes, life gets in the way. And then it leads to a vicious
#
cycle where you beat yourself up and say, I'm not a reading kind of person or I'm a
#
Netflix kind of person and everything kind of falls apart. But instead of doing this,
#
if you just think about who is the best version of you, which is something I think everyone
#
should sit and do anyway, if you just think about who is the best version of you, what
#
that person does, which you don't do, what that person does not do, which you do and
#
internalize some of that. And then let's say then you make yourself image as I am a self
#
taught person who loves to read. When I am bored, I don't reach for my phone. I reach
#
for a book. You know, if you can internalize that self image, then the reading habit automatically
#
flows from there. Even if you don't read on a particular day, it doesn't matter because
#
you've internalized that self image that I am a reader and that self image will sort
#
of drive what you do instead of the other way around. And that's incredibly powerful.
#
And I found this sort of powerful in my own life, not being able to implement it as much
#
as I would like to. But I think that much of my youth possibly went thinking too much
#
about goals. In fact, the exact word you use fantasizing about goals and not actually building
#
the processes and the habits that would give me the ability to actually accomplish these
#
goals. Now, I know that when you spoke of having goals, you weren't contradicting this.
#
You were on a parallel track where your point, I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, your
#
point was that you have to be clear about what you want out of something. Only then
#
can you get the most out of it. You know, what are sort of your thoughts on these different
#
tracks? So, Amit, first of all, when I said fantasizing, I meant using fantasy as one
#
of the tools to achieve what you're trying to achieve. I did not mean fantasizing in
#
terms of just dreaming away. So I did not mean dreaming away in that sense. So for me,
#
fantasy is just a tool you sort of use sometimes to get those extra endorphins to push the
#
last mile. And in terms of goals, the reason, like, of course, like you said, we want to
#
somehow find a way to instruct our mind to have a process. And for everybody, that instruction
#
works very differently. And so sometimes you ask people to set a goal so that they start
#
thinking that, hey, if I am on the treadmill tomorrow, I need to achieve this. So what
#
do I need to do today? And sometimes that may be seven days before you get on the treadmill.
#
Sometimes it's just tomorrow. Sometimes it is this evening. And today morning you're
#
thinking about it. But what I feel is I have a problem with pointlessness, especially if
#
you're giving time, because it can really waste your I see a lot of people wasting their
#
time in the gym with with false ideas of, oh, I've spent one hour on the treadmill.
#
So I've done a lot. If I if somebody spent 10 minutes, that doesn't that that may not
#
mean they've done enough. Maybe they've just warmed up. That's not that's all not true.
#
So we need to constantly ask ourselves why we are doing something that we are doing.
#
And if you if you try and force people to sort of have a goal, a short term goal, then
#
it forces them to to ask themselves, what is it that I'm trying to achieve here? Then
#
sometimes people will come back and say, no, no, I just want to relax on the treadmill.
#
And I'm just not going to put myself in that mental pressure. And then I then I say that
#
if that's what that's your goal is, then why are you doing it on the treadmill? Go walking.
#
Listen to some music. Why is it? Why should it be on the treadmill? If that's if you're
#
looking for relaxation, if you're looking at being on the treadmill because you want
#
to get fitter, then you have to somehow push yourself. So for me, it's really, you know,
#
looking at the goal and pushing them to form a process behind why how you will how how
#
will you really reach that goal? And in general, I think you are not going to discover yourself
#
if you're not trying to do something specific. If I'm just going to go to go go to the gym
#
and say that, hey, I'm going to lift weights today and I'm just going to be on the treadmill.
#
Then what am I discovering about myself today? Maybe I'm going to try and run my fastest
#
five kilometers and I fail. Then even then I have discovered something about myself.
#
Maybe maybe I was not in the mood. Maybe evening doesn't work for me. Maybe I should try morning.
#
Maybe I've not eaten enough. Maybe I was not feeling well. Something. It could be just
#
a small thing. But if I did not have a goal in the first place, I'm just going to be on
#
the treadmill for an hour without learning anything about myself. Forget forget achieving
#
something great. But I'll have not learned anything about anything, not about fitness,
#
not about myself. Then why not watch a movie instead? So that's how I look at it.
#
Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying from a point of view of sort of being clear about
#
what you want. And then once you're clear about what you want, you can build the processes
#
that help you get there. But being clear about what you want is useful. So, you know, before
#
we, you know, continue with your personal journey into engineering and all of that,
#
and before we go there, we'll take a break. But before all of that, just wanted to finish
#
talking about your sporting experiences through the system that you, you know, you're in the
#
school team, and then you play city level, district level, all of that, you go through
#
those motions. Now, it would seem that in the case of you or your friends, you enjoyed
#
playing the sport, you were competitive, you loved it, you went through all of that. It's
#
obviously a thrill to play at the national level. I went through all of that in chess
#
as well. So I totally get it. But all of you knew all along that you're not going to be
#
professional volleyball players. This is not going to be your life. There are other things
#
that you will do. But for a lot of other people, it may not always be the case. There might
#
be people from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds who aren't good at anything else,
#
who don't have other opportunities necessarily available to them. But they are bloody good
#
at this one sport. So what is that journey for them like? Because I'm assuming that the
#
kind of corruption which you were victim to would be endemic in sport, especially in North
#
India, from whatever I hear, Delhi, Bihar, and so on. It would be absolutely endemic
#
and making it hard for talented people to come up through the system. What would their
#
incentives be like? Like you begin playing sport, I'm guessing, where you are dreaming
#
of a future when you're playing for India and you're playing in the Olympics and all
#
of that. And then at a certain point in time, you got to temper it down and realize that
#
all this is not going to happen. That the best I can hope for is a job in services or
#
railways and it's a steady job. And that's kind of my life. Right. So that kind of facing
#
reality for a person like that can also sort of be pretty heartbreaking. So give me a sense
#
of that landscape. And you were in a sense, part of that landscape, but not a prisoner
#
of it, because you had other things to do. But a lot of people, you know, were much more
#
invested in it than you would have been. Yeah, you're right. And in that sense, I must admit
#
that we came from privileged backgrounds in that sense, where we always knew that our
#
paths will be fairly academic in whatever directions, science, art, commerce, whatever.
#
But people who come from smaller towns, who are from the underprivileged backgrounds,
#
they are normally mostly trying to get a job into railways. And some of them make it. And
#
I would say that's a good scenario for them, because at the end of the day, it's a government
#
job. If you talk about women, per se, I do not know if they really enter with any ambition
#
at all. I think it's just that these smaller towns in Maharashtra had a really good sporting
#
culture. So we saw a lot of women come out and play volleyball. But at some point, they
#
got married. And that's pretty much the end of it. And there are some that continued and
#
they played far too many nationals, got into railways and continued to play the sport and
#
do so now as well, and played for the international team. But the truth of their life is also
#
that they are in railways. And there's not really much above, much to say beyond that
#
future, unless some people really desire it. And I do see a place for it, especially for
#
people who are coming from smaller towns. And those who want to desperately continue
#
playing the sport. But at some point, realities of life take over, you want more money because
#
now you have a family, you have children, perhaps, and it's just not enough. And that's
#
when people start dropping off. And I came from the same landscape. And I do think that
#
the landscape is changing. I would not say that for volleyball, it's changed a lot, because
#
I think more than two or three women that were active during my time are now among the
#
top 15 all time great volleyball players. But we don't know their names, unless you
#
were following volleyball. So I would not think that they're getting anything out of
#
it besides the fact that they're playing for railways and then for the international team.
#
So I think in sports such as volleyball, we really need to make a lot more effort so that
#
there is enough funding, enough privatization in a sense that allows sportsmen from these
#
sports to start making money. And if you look at volleyball as a sport, take any cricket
#
ground, a community ground or so, you'll always see a net there. I see a lot of potential
#
for volleyball in terms of how exciting it can be for people to watch it. And so, yeah,
#
I mean, when Joy said that he is pioneering the league, I was very, very happy. Because
#
I do see that people will be interested in volleyball. I have seen the crowds in smaller
#
cities really enjoy the games. And if that privatization happens, and for games like
#
volleyball, we're still waiting for it. We're still quite stuck with cricket, I would say
#
in that sense. And why even volleyball? I was among maybe the 10 people that bought
#
tickets to the hockey Premier League back in 2012 or 2013 for the games that happened
#
in Bangalore. And again, I was friends with some hardcore sports fans from who worked
#
with me. And we were all like, hey, you know what, we are going to buy our friends tickets
#
if they don't want to come, we're just going to request them to give us two hours of their
#
time. And we're going to ensure that we take at least 10 people and these players see at
#
least 10 people in the stands. And we went for all the games and the tickets were merely
#
100 bucks or so. But that was not our idea. Even if the tickets were 500 bucks, we would
#
have still bought them and we would have ensured that we took a sizable crowd to watch the
#
hockey Premier League because we wanted to support these sports. And this is our national
#
game. If we were not able to fill the stands for the national games, then what hope do
#
we have, especially from a future for sportsmen point of view, not just viewership. So yeah,
#
I am not particularly bought into the whole idea of sports has a future even now, unless
#
I would say for individual sports, if your parents are able to afford getting you a really
#
good coach and a nutritionist, then I think individually you can still risk making sport
#
your career. But otherwise for team sports and especially non cricket sports, I don't
#
see the landscape very different. And I also think of this from the point of
#
view of incentives. You know, I'm glad you mentioned privatization a few times because
#
that is the only way out because when the government runs sport, I mean, cricket is
#
practically the only sport which is not completely run by the government. And we've seen what's
#
happened there. And, you know, commerce kind of rescued the game in a sense, you know,
#
the IPL and all was, yes, done because of the desire to make money. But you make money
#
only by giving other people value. And those are great incentives. And that's exactly
#
what happened. And it therefore transformed the game. And, you know, Joy has of course
#
been on the show a couple of times and he's spoken about all the work he's done first
#
when they organize the under 17 football World Cup a few years back and how hard they work
#
to try to build an ecosystem of that. And then of course, his volleyball league. And
#
it strikes me that that's really what will determine which sports become popular and
#
which don't in the future. Because the incentive of the government, any government organization
#
will always be just to do whatever little rent seeking they can do, just keep things
#
going. The incentive is not to think ahead and invest and nurture people and nurture
#
ecosystems. That simply doesn't happen. That all fades away in the graveyard of good intentions.
#
And that also sort of makes me kind of think about, you know, which sports survive and
#
which sports don't. Like one of the reasons Joy gave for, you know, why volleyball could
#
be a good TV sport is that the ball is big and people can follow the ball on TV. Whereas
#
with table tennis, you're just kind of seeing a sort of blur. So the one could argue that
#
then golf shouldn't work either way. That's a very big sport.
#
But I would sorry to interject there. But I think there's one more reason why a sport
#
like volleyball would survive is because people see the nets around them. Every cricket ground,
#
every community ground that you see, there are two poles and a net. It's not so difficult
#
to find it. It's not expensive to get one ball among five or six or 10 players if you
#
can gather them. So accessibility to the equipment. And the other beauty of volleyball, like I
#
was telling you earlier at lunches, you can you can be a volleyball enthusiast who just
#
punches the ball and and just lets it go to the other side of the net. Or you can really
#
know the technicalities of the game and really be passionate about that. But the beauty is
#
that everybody can really try playing the game and come across people around in and
#
around their communities playing it. So if this game is now on the TV as well, and whoever
#
feels like, hey, I want to to get my hands on a volleyball, they actually can. But if
#
you talk about, let's say a game like tennis, or even hockey, for that matter, it's very
#
difficult to suddenly say, hey, from tomorrow, I want to play hockey, I don't know where
#
I'm going to go and how I'm going to go and start. How am I am I going to gather people
#
who have who can make any head or tail of how to hold a hockey bat and then you know,
#
just even even for fun sakes have a game. Tennis, tennis for that matter. I think tennis
#
is one of the sports I've tried my hand at a number of sports. And tennis is one sport
#
where I feel like unless you understand even the basic swing, you will not be able to get
#
the ball on the other side of the net at all. Even even you know, just you you have to understand
#
how that basic forehand swing happens to even be on the court. Otherwise, you'll be like
#
I'm hitting balls in the net or just outside the court somewhere. So it's a very technical
#
sport in that sense. But I think with volleyball, that's the beauty that that that is the beauty.
#
And I guess to some extent, that is true for basketball as well. And so both of these sports
#
have, I think, a good future. And we've always even for basketball, we've always had really
#
good players. My school team for that matter was amongst the best in Pune city for the
#
men's basketball team that we had. And I've seen some phenomenal matches. And I'm somebody
#
who's who's watched a lot of these sports that I talk about internationally as well,
#
like I've gone and watched the NBA in the US. I've watched people like Lionel Messi
#
play live. I've watched Roger Federer play live. I've seen how these games are set up
#
what people are enjoying. And I would say that if India was able to pick up team sports
#
more and and really bring more glamour into it in some sense, then people would enjoy
#
these sports as well and would pay for them. And I feel that the one thing that we should
#
sort of not do, and I'm making this comment as a sportsman and not as somebody who's in
#
the business of sport, in that desperation to make that sport known and popular, I don't
#
think we should start bringing the sport to the public outside of the courts, you know,
#
like just staging it in in malls or anywhere else. And I feel like people would not genuinely
#
build love for a sport when you are trying to sort of get them to like a sport desperately.
#
So that is my personal opinion. But it is like any, you know, classical passionate person
#
for any subject who tries to have a negative opinion about anything anybody is doing. But
#
I agree about the sort of the reasons volleyball could be so popular, because I remember, you
#
know, when I was 11 or 12, I tried playing a game of tennis, I just tried once, I spent
#
15 minutes, I could not get the ball across the net. You're absolutely right about that.
#
So then I said, forget it, you know, I'm not going to. Well, another of my friends was
#
watching a lot of tennis on TV, and he saw all the winners are not ones that go through
#
the middle, they go on the side. He was saying hit this, hit the side of the other court
#
and all of that. I was saying, boss, I can't get it over the net. Yeah. But the little
#
volleyball I have played, I have got it over the net. It is not a big deal.
#
Exactly. And which is why it's a wonderful sport to promote, because everybody will be
#
able to get that instant gratification. Even if they don't know the rules, even if they
#
don't know exactly how the ball is hit, even if they're making fouls, they'll at least
#
get that instant gratification. And I guess, badminton is famous for that particular reason,
#
because even if you've never touched a badminton racket today, I could take you to the court
#
and in the next 10 minutes, you'll be like, of the 10 shuttles that have hit at least
#
four or five went on the other side. So there is that instant gratification.
#
Yeah, that's a fascinating way to think about sport. Like one thinks about sport in terms
#
of its qualities based on how we see elite sportspeople play it. But to think about how
#
the common person would take to it and the instant gratification, which I never really
#
thought about in this context. The final question before we go into the break, which is that
#
it also therefore strikes me that, you know, typically what has happened is that sport
#
has been a government thing, right? So sporting bodies that come up everywhere tend to be
#
either from the government or they tend to be monopsony of a sort in the sense that any
#
sports person within a country then has really got to be in the good books of that particular
#
board or sporting body or whatever, and there's no choice and that be deviled even cricket
#
for a long time. My sense is that a lot of sports don't have a market. They would not
#
exist if the government wasn't supporting them. And in some ways, they are artifacts.
#
Like when I think of, say, javelin throw or discuss throw or whatever, most people are
#
watching those sports once in four years in the Olympics, if at all, you know, they might
#
be even watching it in the background while the 100 meters is going on or somebody's flinging
#
a spear into the air. But that leads to the question of what should the government's role
#
in sport be? Because there are deeper issues here in the sense one issue, of course, is
#
the issue of whatever the government does has an opportunity cost. You know, every pass
#
out that the government has is acquired by coercion. So there's a moral cost there. And
#
while you accept that there are things that the state should do and things that the state
#
should not do, I would be one of those who would argue that the state should not fund
#
sports, especially in a poor country like India, where you have so many other problems
#
and you know, you have scarce resources. So it almost in a lot of places, it feels like
#
a nationalistic vanity program that we have to have the best team in this or the best
#
team in that and the government puts money into it and all of that. And also on the one
#
hand, I have like dual instincts. On the one hand, I'd love to see the market determining
#
this that whichever sports get an audience, you know, that much money goes into them and
#
they survive and they thrive accordingly. And at the same time, entrepreneurs everywhere
#
like Joyce doing with the volleyball league can, you know, use their creativity and skills
#
at innovation to bring sports in front of the public and create that demand if they
#
feel that the sport is inherently worth it. But if there's no market for watching javelin
#
throwers apart from once in four years, I'm like okay with that, right? As sad as it is.
#
That's one aspect. But on a contrary note, I also feel that there is a romantic charm
#
to having these artifacts around to having these sports. For example, I believe that
#
test cricket would not survive today if not for the IPL. It's very sad and test cricket
#
is a great game. I am a cricket tragic when it comes to test cricket, but equally I love
#
the IPL and all of that. And one of the reasons I love the IPL is that it's actually a
#
subsidizing the other forms of the game and keeping them alive. So whereas, you know,
#
on the one hand you could say that just let the market dictate if no one wants to watch
#
stress, that's what it is. But what I actively recommend is that we keep subsidizing test
#
cricket for what it is. So I'm kind of torn between these two instincts at a purely rational
#
level. I don't see that why a sport which is watched by no one should be funded by the
#
hard earned money of taxpayers, which could be put to other good uses. But on the other
#
hand, I do see sort of the point that there is much richness there and variety there which
#
we don't necessarily want to lose. So what are sort of your thoughts on this?
#
So I agree with you. I can see why somebody would say that, hey, I'm not a Javelin fan
#
and why is my my money being used to fund this? But it's also, Amit, sort of a chicken
#
and egg question whether we create the audience or whether the audience exists. And I guess
#
the only sport where in India the answer is clear is for cricket. And so for everything
#
else, we need to create the audience. Because in that sense, if you think about it, and
#
if I'm being very cribby, then I'm going to say that we haven't even invested in other
#
sports enough to for people to decide if they like the sport or not. Do I not go for a basketball
#
match because I don't like basketball or because I don't know about basketball? And then whose
#
responsibility is it to make me aware about whether I like watching basketball or not,
#
or volleyball? So in that sense, I definitely think it's the government's responsibility
#
to bring these sports to us. And like I said to you, when we were playing state and national
#
tournaments in smaller villages, we used to have big crowds. So start there, come to the
#
city, maybe slowly. These sports are definitely helping smaller cities and the youth in those
#
cities find focus, find a certain ambition, watch with their own eyes people who they
#
can idolize in that sense. I mean, watching a Neeraj Chopra on national TV is very different
#
from watching somebody being cheered in front of your eyes and them winning a national medal
#
or a state level medal. And for you to be able to go to them and say, Hey, I really
#
thought you were very good and think about somebody from a smaller village looking at
#
that, that person at that time is Neeraj Chopra for them. And so we need to multiply those
#
Neeraj Chopras in that sense. And when it comes to athletics that you specifically mentioned,
#
a market has to be created for them as sports that are clubbed together. Discus throw, javelin,
#
all those sports, long jump, short jump. And to be honest, Commonwealth Games come every
#
two years. And so why should the government really do something else for you to go and
#
watch that sport? I guess they are in that sense being supported when it comes to showcasing.
#
I think Commonwealth Games do get enough attention from everybody. People go and watch it, buy
#
tickets, talk about the wins at the Commonwealth Games, as well as they talk about our Olympic
#
wins. So I wouldn't say that we need to do something very different to platform these
#
sports more. And the other thing is, if you really ask me about audiences and what they
#
enjoy, I definitely think that you should start with team games, because there's a lot
#
more dynamics that's being displayed when a team game is being played versus sports
#
like badminton and tennis, where what's going on in the sportsman's mind is really anybody's
#
guess. But with team games, you will see drama, you will see the interaction with the coach,
#
you will see the interaction between players, you will see the fights. With basketball,
#
you're going to definitely see some random fouls and everything. So if I purely look
#
at it from a commercial point of view, all that can be done. I was super, super excited
#
when the Super Fight League was launched also in, I guess, 2016 was 2017, January or February
#
was the first time it was held. And it had MMA, all kinds of mixed martial arts. And
#
you actually then saw a lot of the wrestlers, even women, who may or may not be doing as
#
well as aiming for an Olympic medal, but who had the skills for a mixed martial arts. And
#
then, you know, there was the stage of Super Fight League again, available to them. And
#
coincidentally, I think the Delhi Dons, or I don't remember, Delhi Super Dons or something,
#
something like that was the name of the team that won. And the captain of that team, two,
#
three days before he came to Delhi, was doing Muay Thai in Phuket with me. And he was, so
#
of course, I was a beginner, he was in the advanced category. And somebody stopped by
#
and said, hey, there's an Indian fighter here as well. He's training at Tiger, where I was
#
training as well. And then I spoke to him and Jason Solomon, his name is. And he was
#
like, yeah, I'm going now. And he was like, I have all these personal training tickets
#
that that I got because I'm sponsored. But now I cannot because I have been called to
#
the Super Fight League. And then he left me all his personal training tickets and I did
#
a lot of personal classes. But it was very interesting to watch the Super Fight League.
#
And I hear that it's going to happen again, or sometimes it happened, I think one more
#
year. And it attracted a lot of crowd. And I don't think I've seen a more technical
#
game than MMA. You know, the little experience that I have had with Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai
#
and basics of wrestling, you find out things about the body that you did not know. Like
#
you would not know what little movement I can do in your body that can choke you. You
#
do not know how I can lock your body in a second. You learn so much about these things.
#
And I am happy to see that these attempts are being made. I want to see them happen
#
more regularly. So I think we are moving in that direction. I see the intent. I'm sure
#
that they have sponsors and people are trying to bring these sports to us. But it has to
#
be much more consistent. And like I said to you, it has to be, it has to begin with team
#
Yeah, all all wise sorts. And I agree with you, except that I think I'd love to see civil
#
society and individuals and companies take the initiative to do all of this. I think
#
the government has pretty much broadly failed over the last few decades. But that is sort
#
of just kind of where I come from. And I said that was a final question, but I can't help
#
this follow up. Like I've gotten into different sports at different points in time. Cycling
#
is my latest drug. But me as a watcher, you as a doer. So there is a difference. Like
#
Neil Simon once said in his play by foot in the park, there are two kinds of people in
#
the world, watchers and the doers. And the watchers sit around watching the doers do.
#
So you know, you're the doer, I'm the watcher. But among the sports I got into very briefly
#
was boxing. And this was around the time Lennox Lewis was at his peak. And you know, so and
#
obviously I entered that rabbit hole and the guy was such a technical genius and just a
#
brilliant boxer. But then later, I began to just be repelled by boxing. It seemed to me
#
like a barbaric sport. Like I seriously think it shouldn't exist. Like what fun can you
#
get from watching people, you know, beat each other up in brutal ways. And I'm sorry if
#
I sound like a bit of a sissy. I mean, I wouldn't want to box myself. And I get the technical
#
aspects of it and all of that. But those are there in every sport. Right. And but that
#
just seems to me like one sport that is both an artifact and something that, you know,
#
so I'm not saying ban it because why, you know, consenting adults has a market for it.
#
All of that is great. But my personal feeling is that I just feel repelled. I feel that
#
is where sport crosses the line from being healthy to something not so much. So what
#
It's really funny. I mean, I can I can completely see why you would think that. See, for me,
#
I accidentally learned a bit of boxing because there was a point. I mean, it's a it's a
#
long story. Do you want me to get into it?
#
OK, so so I had just I had just quit my eight year long stint with Shell in the later part
#
of 2016. And I had this startup idea and I wanted to put my money into it and and launch
#
my startup. And it was in the field of fitness. But, you know, you go through a period after
#
you worked with a company like Shell for eight years, you go you quit. And while you're quitting,
#
you have all kinds of great feelings about how courageous you are to quit your dream
#
job and all of that. But then reality strikes you for a few months after that. And you have
#
basically in all these years started defining your you've associated your identity with
#
the company you work for, which a lot of people fall victim to. And that happens with somebody
#
who's worked with Google, with Facebook, whoever is the I mean, whichever is the top company
#
in your field. And I did not know where to sort of get rid of that anxiety that I've
#
quit. Now I I must put money where my mouth is. And some of my friends from Dubai had
#
been to these sports schools in Thailand. And Thailand is very famous for its sports
#
schools. And they had been there. And I said, OK, I've never done a solo trip in my life.
#
I'm going to find out about one of these sports schools. And I was already doing quite a lot
#
of sport. But I said, OK, I'm going to go there. And I had never done any contact sport
#
before this. And there were all these schools have a fitness element as well, fitness classes.
#
And I was like, yeah, maybe those are the classes I will do. And then I already I booked
#
like a month of training in this school called Tiger Muay Thai, which is in Phuket. And it's
#
one of the world's best school to train in mixed martial arts. So some of the top most
#
players currently are sponsored by Tiger Muay Thai. So the world's second best female champion
#
right now, Valentina Shevchenko represents Tiger Muay Thai. A lot of other MMA current
#
stars are sponsored by them. So I didn't know all of this. I just knew that the school was
#
popular. Came up in my Google search and I was like, OK, I'm going to risk it and I'm
#
going to do my first solo trip. And I had never been to Phuket before that. And I landed
#
in Phuket and it's it pretty much looks like Goa. And it's just these small lanes. And
#
you Tiger had put me up in in one of the little hotels near near it. And these are all really
#
rooms because all you do is you are working out like dogs the entire day and coming back
#
to shower and sleep. And I get into the room and I'm freaking out. And I was like, OK,
#
I've noticed the school on my way to the hotel and and the entire street called I forgot
#
the name of the street. But so so I tired. That's what that's what the street is called.
#
It's about 800 meters and it has over 10 or 20 sports school schools. And you go through
#
that street to your hotel and all you're seeing is men and women with six packs and tattoos.
#
And here you are. And you're like, OK, have I literally booked classes among these people?
#
And so I'm freaking out. I get to my room. I go I go to the school. I say, OK, I've booked
#
this package. And they're like, yeah, you can take as many fitness classes as you want
#
and as many MMA classes as you want. So MMA had different classes, Muay Thai, boxing,
#
jujitsu and it had Krabi Kabong and all those things. And I didn't know where to start.
#
And I was like, OK, fine, I'm going to muster the courage and I'm going to just go for this
#
boxing class. I have never done boxing. I go to the coach and before the class, I'm
#
like, what what do I need to buy? And then he tells me about the wraps and the gloves
#
and the sizes and I get them. And I forget to ask him, what's the level of this class?
#
And it was a Friday and it was a sparring class. So that's when you actually fight.
#
They don't teach you skills on that day. And there I am. And the class starts and I get
#
punched so badly. There's this Canadian girl who's already a boxer or whatever. I get
#
punched really badly. And but I finish the class and I'm in pain after the class. The
#
next day I wake up and I'm like, I want to do this again. I'm this time I'm like, I want
#
to learn how to do this. This was interesting. You know, so you were talking about whether
#
you were. So there are there's obviously a cult audience that follows these sports because
#
maybe they are they are also trying, trying it out on the side or understand the details
#
of the sport. And then there is an element which purely enjoys people beating each other
#
up. But if you ask me personally, I would end up following MMA and I ended up following
#
it only after I had respect for the sport. And that that is pretty much how I function,
#
whether I'm talking to certain people or not, whether I'm watching something or not.
#
For me, that's how I do it. That person or that sport or that thing that I'm doing has
#
to win my respect for me to give my time to it. But so I can see why people feel all this
#
adrenaline when they see these sports. But if you found boxing so violent in a way, then
#
you would absolutely not like Muay Thai because Muay Thai is was the old form of martial arts
#
that the national game of Thailand and it was used in war. So they were actually creating
#
soldiers who basically use no guards, nothing. And with boxing and kickboxing, there's a
#
lot of dunking and jumping around and all of that. But the Muay Thai is very classical.
#
It's like I am here, punch me or I am going to punch you. So you don't have any jumping
#
around and dodging and everything. It's literally there and people are going to hit you and
#
you are going to have to hit back. But then you develop respect for the skill that you're
#
using and you trust the fact that the opponent is playing by rules. But having said that,
#
it needs a lot of courage. I don't know if I'll ever get to a point where I'll even play
#
a friendly match. Right now, I only do classes. But I think it's the endorphins and that people
#
really want to watch these games for. And imagining themselves that sort of anger, pent
#
up anger, whatever, that feeling of getting adrenaline. Some people will go and do skydiving.
#
Some people will do scuba diving. Some people will be like, okay, I want to get to try this
#
new sport that challenges me. And sometimes it may start by watching it and feeling like,
#
okay, you know, this is interesting. So, or how do these people do it? I would probably
#
also watch boxing just to see how, like, okay, I want to see if this person gets punched
#
so many times. How is he still standing? So, yeah, I think there could be multiple reasons,
#
I would say. But I can see I think your question is very valid. I don't know why people who
#
would want to watch such violence in a sense. No, I mean, for me, it's really like for any
#
sport I'm drawn to, it's an intellectual challenge also figuring out what's happening inside
#
someone's head. What are the strategic aspects? What are the tactical aspects and all that?
#
And recently, I watched this video, I think, as usual on Twitter, somebody posted it of
#
this ex-British boxing champion. I forget the name. If I find it, I'll link it in the
#
show notes. This ex-British boxing champion who was working as a bouncer in a nightclub.
#
So they had, I think, this CCTV or mobile phone camera footage that he's outside and
#
there's some other random guy who is arguing and behaving obnoxiously and all of that.
#
And this guy's fellow bouncers are trying to handle him. But at one point, he just gets
#
too obnoxious. So this guy goes and just gives him one punch and he's out flat. Yeah. And
#
I rewinded and watched that moment some 20 times because it is such a thrilling moment.
#
Like one, of course, it is good versus bad. The asshole gets punched, right? But the other
#
aspect is surely some kind of primal thing, you know? Yes, it is. And as I'm rewinding
#
and watching it, I'm also asking myself that why do you find this moment so thrilling as
#
someone who has never punched anyone, right? I run away from violence as fast as I can.
#
But so why is it so thrilling that you're rewinding and watching it? And it's a madly
#
viral video. And it's that moment which is viral. You know, there's a lot of calm. You're
#
just standing there calmly, calmly, calmly, calmly, then suddenly walk up and whack. But
#
you know, conversely, Amit, the funny thing is now because because I have been to Tiger
#
many times and spent a lot of time there and seen some world class fighters, a lot of them.
#
The funny thing is, these fighters who you see in these fights really going at each other
#
within the rules of the game, but really with power with, you know, you are sometimes looking
#
at the spot and thinking, oh, my God, this is so violent. If you actually meet these
#
people in person, you'll notice that some of these people are the kindest and the most
#
soft spoken people you'll meet. And sometimes you're not able to make that connection. You
#
know, it's easier to make that connection with Roger Federer, with Rafael Nadal and all
#
of that. But you look at these people and some of them are full of, you know, like tattoos
#
all around and really aggressive entry to the arena and all of this. But if you meet
#
them otherwise, I have seen that some of them are the warmest, most kindest accommodating
#
people. I don't know if that happens because they just have a better understanding of their
#
body and their mind and controlling it as well. I think controlling it in controlling
#
yourself and staying within the rules when you're doing something as provocative as a
#
contact spot. I think that takes a lot of character. I do feel so. And when I have also
#
tried to do wrestling or something and you're doing all these exercises and some of these
#
exercises are ones where you're taught how to take someone down. Now, if I am walking
#
or if I am in a match with you and you bring me down, all of that is our times when I'm
#
falling down, when I don't know it. But when you're doing exercises and when you're learning
#
and you know that, OK, Shruti, Amit, stand like this. This is how this this take down
#
is. I'm allowing you to take me down. And then when you get it right, when you get that
#
technique right, even though I know you're going to make me fall down now flat on my
#
back, it happens in a second because you've got the technique right. And when you fall
#
down, you feel the chills all the way from your spine to your brain. And to put yourself
#
in those situations again and again and again and then learn how to do it and then slowly
#
your technique improves and then you realize, oh, my God, if this technique is so powerful
#
that I can take down somebody twice my height or size because you understood in terms of
#
the human body where those trigger points are, what you have to push or pull. And when
#
you get that feeling that, hey, I have I have, you know, I've overcome this fear of falling
#
down and feeling those chills. And then you show up for training the next day as well.
#
You learn something about yourself because you want to experience the thrill of it. You
#
want to get you want to feel the endorphins of of being courageous once again. So that
#
is that is that cycle in a way. So I can understand it from the point of view of players or people
#
who've tried it, that they are big fans of the sport. And for everyone else, it's a spectacle.
#
That's fascinating. And I'll actually double click on that. But we'll do it after the break.
#
And then we'll get back to your personal trajectory where I think you're still early in the story.
#
So that's after a quick break. Yeah, sure. Hi, my name is Nishant Jain. And besides creating
#
episode art for Amit, I also make the Sneaky Art Podcast, a show where I have deep, insightful
#
conversations with other artists who, just like me, draw and paint their world from observation.
#
This show is for you if you are trying to be an artist. It is also for you if you just
#
want to make more room for art in your life. This show is for you if you simply want to
#
become a more mindful observer of your fast changing world. Conversations include a cross-country
#
cyclist making a painting every day of an incredible 4000 mile journey, an artist in
#
Malaysia who found inspiration in a reality show about tattoo artists in LA, and a sketcher
#
in Mumbai who chronicle the lives of the city's artisans through the first wave of COVID.
#
It is a more beautiful world once you begin to see the sneaky art of everyday life. Add
#
sneaky art to your podcast feed. Use the link in the episode description. Welcome back to
#
The Scene In The Unseen. I'm chatting with Shruti Jahagirdhar about her fascinating life
#
and what the impact sport has had on her life and also later on in the show, her insights
#
on nutrition, health, the human body, so on and so forth. I want to pick up from the schools
#
in Thailand where one of the points that you made was that many of these MMA fighters contrary
#
to stereotype, they end up being really gentle people. And there are two possible reasons
#
for this. One would be that the distribution of gentleness within MMA fighters is the same
#
as in the general public, but you just notice it more when you meet them because you don't
#
expect them to be like that and they are the ones you remember. But the other one is that
#
the sport, the nature of the sport genuinely changes people, maybe by making them more
#
aware of their power, maybe by making them, just changing them in different fundamental
#
ways. So before we continue sort of with your Thailand experience, that's sort of a question
#
that I also want to get into. That earlier we spoke about the different ways in which
#
sport changed you as a person. But more specifically, you know, what did sport teach you, for example,
#
about your own body? What did it teach you about the limits of what you can do and what
#
you cannot do? And in what ways did it shape your attitude towards other people?
#
That's a very good question, Amit, because I don't think I learned so much about my body
#
when I was a volleyball player. But because I enjoy sport and because I enjoy putting
#
myself in challenging situations, I have, like I said, tried my hand at a lot of sport
#
and I continue to do it. And part of that exploration happened because as I went into
#
engineering and into corporate, it was very difficult to find women volleyball players.
#
And everywhere I have gone, I have played a little bit of volleyball, etc. But you couldn't
#
find continuity. So you start exploring other sports. And the things that I have learned
#
about my body is really, first of all, putting yourself out there and testing yourself against
#
something instead of imagining you'll not be able to do it and not letting others tell
#
you what you can do and what you cannot do. Because, you know, this thing happened with
#
me back in 2009 or 2010. I had just joined Shell and there's a lot of beautiful treks
#
around Bangalore and in Karnataka. And my company had a bunch of very, very interested
#
folk who formed a group and who would go trekking every two months. And I've ended up trekking
#
a lot around Bangalore and some of the most challenging treks around Bangalore I've done
#
with them. And at one point, there was a trek that was organized to Brahmagiri. And Brahmagiri
#
is this trek that normally people would end up doing over two days. And a group of our
#
matchmates from Shell, they all went for this trek. And the way this trek is, is you climb
#
a mountain, which takes you about six, seven hours, eight hours or so. And then there is
#
five kilometers of grassland before you reach the peak itself. And the grasslands have short,
#
dense forests in the middle. They're called sholas. And that's where you have wildcats
#
and you have elephants and other things. So you have to scale those grasslands and then
#
you come to the peak, which is about 700 meters or so, but which has a 70 degree incline.
#
So this group of our colleagues who went and they could not get to, they all got to the
#
peak, but the group was found it so difficult that half of them just couldn't climb the
#
peak. And some people who were helping others were not able to scale the peak and then they
#
had to come back or so. And then four or five of them said that we want to do this again
#
because we didn't complete the trek. And this was around the time when one of them asked
#
me, Oh, do you want to go to this trek? I hadn't been to the first expedition. And they were
#
like, no, no, we want to do Brahmagiri in one day. And I had done trekking around Pune
#
as well and some challenging treks, but many years before that. And I was like, okay, fine,
#
let's do it. And then I go and then the five of us get to the top of the peak by four in
#
the evening. And we had started climbing at around six or seven in the morning. And then
#
what happens is, so there's a funny story there as well. We get there at four o'clock
#
and it was a very difficult trek. The whole point of the trek was that once you scale
#
the peak, you come back to the guest house that the forest, the whatever the forest officers
#
have set up for trekkers and all that. And so at four there's dusk in the up in the hills
#
and in the mountains and it starts getting dark. And we were so tired, we were still
#
up the peak and then there's a guide who takes you because there are wildcats in the area.
#
And our guide was like, okay, we have to hurry up. And once the light starts dwindling, then
#
everything that's moving seems to feel like it's coming at you. And we come down the peak
#
and there's a group of elephants and they start moving. And, you know, it's so different
#
to see elephants in the wild compared to just thinking of them as domesticated animals or
#
animals that we sort of understand. And this guide is like, we have to start running because
#
we have to at least cross these five kilometers of the grasslands of the forest. And then
#
we enter the forest and we're smelling the near the water, we're smelling the wildcats.
#
And I have never focused on running as much as I have behind that guide because it was
#
so dark and we were so sure there are wildcats behind us. But so anyway, that was a side
#
story. We did that trek, we were very happy that we did it in a day and not a lot of people
#
do it. And then in my office, there were some people who were forming a team for the first
#
urban stampede, which was a relay race where four people are in a team and each team member
#
runs five kilometers. And the condition is that there should be one girl in the team.
#
Now I work for a petroleum engineering company, which means there are fewer girls in general.
#
And so everybody is trying to hunt for a team member and a girl to join the team. And there's
#
this one guy who was on the trek with me and his friend in the company, who's now my best
#
friend, was looking for a girl to join. And then this person, Nidhan, who was on the trek
#
with me, he tells Amit, that my friend's name is Amit, that Shruti will run five kilometers,
#
you ask her. And at that time, I was a little bit bigger. So my friend Amit, he's from Haryana
#
and he's like big into sports. And he tells me much later, he's like, I came around your
#
desk just to see who she is, because I was a new recruit and they were senior to me,
#
so they hadn't met me before. And then he went back to Nidhan and he said, yeh toh
#
agree. So and then later he told me that Nidhan told him that agar koi five kilometer bhaagega
#
toh yeh ladki bhaagegi. And I had never done a five kilometer. I was not, I was a sportsman,
#
but I was not an athlete in that sense, not a runner or whatever. So Amit then approached
#
me and he was like, we are forming this team, do you want to do a 5k? And I was like, okay,
#
fine. And then he said, okay, next tomorrow we are meeting five kilometers, tomorrow we
#
are meeting at five AM and running five kilometers and I want to see how you do. And he's going
#
to be jogging with me and all that. And then he's like the first day itself when we did
#
that five kilometer, you did not stop at all. You didn't walk for a minute and you had never
#
run five kilometers in your in your life. And that day I just knew I was like, okay,
#
this is the girl who's going to be in my team. And then I did much better when I practiced
#
and finally I did it. But that first five kilometers was me testing myself, keep that
#
I'm not an athlete. Can I run a five kilometer or not without walking? So again, this was
#
the first time I was doing a five kilometer, but I didn't in my mind allow myself to say
#
that I will walk in between. And I've seen this a lot with people. If you really can't,
#
your body will tell you that you have to walk. Why do you have to start running by thinking
#
that if I can't do it, I will walk? So in my mind, that was the thing that I'm not
#
going to walk no matter what. And I didn't. So this is how I first noticed that, okay,
#
now I can run. And from then on, I have improved every time I'm running five kilometers, I'm
#
trying to do something different. I'm trying to run differently. And there are many every
#
time you run, you get you have a new experience, you discover something new about yourself.
#
The second time I really pushed myself and I noticed something about myself was when
#
I was in Dubai, like I was just telling you, I spent a couple of years in Dubai. And conversely,
#
I mean, when you think of Dubai or the Gulf in general, everybody is like both Indians
#
have happy and you see a lot of Indians everywhere. They're almost like citizens there, even though
#
we never get citizens citizenship. But there's they're they're everywhere. And then I was
#
in Dubai and I was I registered with my team with a team of my colleagues who were ex New
#
Zealand military. They were also in Shell and they were they wanted to form a seven
#
member team to participate in the Desert Warrior back in 2015. And they used to so Desert Warrior
#
is 10 kilometers run in the October heat in Dubai in the sand with 22 obstacles. And that
#
sort of test you there can be slides, there can be jumping over walls that you can imagine
#
that. And I was like, OK, fine. I was already doing fitness, but nothing at the level that
#
they were doing. And there was these military guys were setting our workouts. So we would
#
end up doing a lot of really challenging workouts. And then during one workout, in 40 minutes,
#
I had to climb 92 floors of nine flights of stairs and swim about 75 meters or so, 100
#
pushups and two kilometers run or so. We were doing that in rounds. So we were the gym of
#
the building was on the 30th floor. So we had to go down, climb 30 floors and and whatever.
#
And the idea was that in 40 minutes, this is how much you can do the max. And you have
#
to finish it. And otherwise, we're going to stop the clock anyways. Like nobody's putting
#
pressure on you if you didn't finish all the rounds or whatever. But this is the max you
#
could do. And I ended up finishing it. And 92 floors. Yeah. And I still it shows up on
#
my Facebook memories sometimes. And I'm like, Oh, my God, how did we end up doing this?
#
But so so that's another time when I realized that both willpower and and your ability to
#
do sport coming together, you can still do a lot of things. And then on the day of the
#
Desert Warrior, right? That it was the first time in Dubai, where I went to the spot where
#
the race was starting. No Indian, no Indian and no Pakistani. The same with Thailand. I've
#
been to Thailand many, many times. And we every time I'm in Thailand, we work out like
#
four or five hours a day. And then the day gets over pretty early. You don't see a lot
#
of fighters and everybody, you know, just drinking away the night or whatever, maybe
#
on a Saturday night, because Sunday, the school is off. But on the day is everybody's fairly
#
disciplined and no Indian again. Like I have I've been there many times and you see one
#
or two Indians, it's becoming more popular to go there now. And sometimes I've heard
#
some South Indians actors and stuff go there. But otherwise, I've hardly met. But in the
#
sports schools, you'll never see anybody. So during Desert Warrior is when when those
#
military workouts that were set were sort of made me realize that, okay, I can push
#
myself in these directions as well. And what you learn every time is how much you are able
#
to push yourself. That learning was okay for me. Like I knew that I can push myself and
#
I'm able to sort of really, maybe I don't want to fail in a sense. So you you set those
#
goals. All that was great. But when I went to Thailand is where I really, really realized
#
that you first of all, you're in a company of hardcore sportsmen, a lot of people from
#
Germany, Canada, and a lot of them are fighters. And even the ones who have a different career
#
or whatever, are have actually been fighting for a very long time, even if they don't
#
have fighting as their career. And you're literally like a tiny person there. I made
#
all these people that are like super fit. And you're not really unfit. But you're looking
#
at them, you're underestimating yourself. And then you start going to the classes and
#
you're like, yeah, whatever happens, I'm going to show up. And then you start realizing
#
that you're able to keep up with with even even if the level of the workouts is very
#
high. There are some things you can't do. But then there are a lot of things you can
#
do. And like I said, when it came to trying and learning, even a little bit of the jiu-jitsu
#
or the wrestling and Muay Thai that I have done, for me was not about me now picking
#
the sport up or something. It was about me constantly being courageous, because you are
#
bruised, you are tired, you have you're working out five or six hours a day, you are hoping
#
that your body is recovering. And those those are the things that teach you something more
#
about yourself. And like I said, it made me more aware of our body in general human body
#
in general. And the most important thing was also that it was the first time that in Thailand
#
that I saw women really push themselves. I had been doing sport, I had seen fit women
#
and, and yes, of course, the women in the Olympics in India, and I'm not saying that
#
Indian women weren't really pushing boundaries. But back in 2016, gyming and all that really
#
women pushing themselves on, and you seeing them in gyms around you, all that was not
#
as common. And I go there, and I'm in like this group class, and there are women lifting
#
hundred kilos deadlifts. And I have, by then I had not even studied fitness sciences. So
#
and I wasn't into weightlifting. And I'm just looking at this, these women and I'm
#
like, girls can do this. And this is me who's been in sports being completely taken aback
#
by how how easily women were loading 100 kilos on the deadlift. And, you know, after that
#
one month in 2016, I was like, Oh, my God, I have just not tested myself enough. And
#
we've been to, I mean, in India, the only weights that I had seen was doing some dumbbells
#
before that. And then I think after I came back, I have every single time I have been
#
in the gym, I have really tried to push myself like I was telling you earlier on, I was like,
#
man, what do I need to eat so that I can lift 100 kilos. And I like in Thailand, I saw women
#
that lifted like 190 kilo deadlift. I haven't seen guys doing that. And I had just not seen
#
such strong women forget. I mean, they had six bags or not all that is different. I had
#
just not seen that kind of strength. I had not seen Indian women with that kind of strength,
#
at least with my purse. Personally, I had not seen it. You can see a maleshwari or you
#
can see, you know, you can find out about the weightlifters or whatever in India. But
#
I had not with my own eyes seen it. And it had such an impact with me. I was like, Oh,
#
my God, you've been holding yourself back for so long, and really not pushing your limits.
#
And so so that fear of of you know, that women show in the gyms in India as well. No, no,
#
I will you know, this is a deadlift. I will just try 40 kilos, I will just try 30 kilos.
#
And that's what I keep telling people who at least ask me about how they should improve.
#
I will tell them that, hey, just work on your technique, so that you don't get injured.
#
But do not hold back from lifting more weights. And the high of just allowing yourself to
#
test your limits transcends into your work, translate transcends into what else you do
#
outside of the gym, because it builds your courage, your risk taking ability or in case
#
of women, to some extent, the aggression that they need to assert themselves even outside
#
of, I mean, even at work and outside of the gym. I think all that you use, you know, you
#
learn doing all of that, if you purely speak about learning from sport, I mean, I don't
#
mean that these qualities can't be learned, learned outside of sports. But because we
#
are talking about my experiences, these are the things I learned. And I, I am quite grateful
#
that I am so greedy for experiences, most of, to be honest, I mean, most of the money
#
that I have earned, I have spent in traveling and gaining experiences. Because they stay
#
with you. And like I said, when you're thinking about how can I succeed, or when you're not
#
doing your best, there's just this whole bag of experiences you have, and it doesn't
#
even take you a minute to find something that's relevant to that situation. And so I completely
#
believe in, in building experiences, but go just go out there, even going to Thailand
#
as my purse, my first solo trip, by itself was a courageous decision. Because it wasn't
#
like four days of Bangkok or something like that. It was booking 30 days, it was booking
#
a hardcore fitness school, it was booking alone, and just hoping that you end up meeting
#
people and the kind of people I met, oh my god, that was that, that's, I would do that
#
over and over and again, no matter what country I want to, I have to go to get those kind
#
Yeah, and the fantastic lesson here is not just a sporting one that that lesson applies
#
to everything, which is that don't make assumptions about what your limits are, just keep kind
#
of testing them and going outside your comfort zone. I have a running story, it's a slightly
#
embarrassing running story, but I'll share it nevertheless. Now, around three years back,
#
I was 25 kgs lighter, I was on keto plus intermittent fasting, like I told you in which you're an
#
expert in and we'll come to that later as well. Your learnings on nutrition, and I was
#
running so I had I was running to a point where I would get up every day in the morning
#
at 530 go out and run for an hour. I ran a 10k have a photo of me biting my medal. Happy
#
times. Then one one day I was in Bangalore for a bunch of recordings. And my good friend
#
Mohit Satyanand, who's been a guest on the show also happened to be there. And Mohit
#
just turned 66 recently. And he I think around the time he was 60 got into fitness and he's
#
run triathlons and all that. So he has a huge community of triathlons and runners. He's
#
actually based in Delhi, but he happened to be in Bangalore at that time. But he got hardcore
#
into that ran triathlons. I think he spent some time in Greece because he was doing a
#
specialist course in swimming there for swimming techniques and all of that. So really hardcore.
#
So I was chatting on the phone with him one evening and I was there for recordings. He
#
was there for something else. And he said, I'm here, you're really into running. Let's
#
go running tomorrow. So I said, okay, let's go running tomorrow. So he said, okay, 530
#
carbon park or whatever the time was, right? It's a beautiful park. It's an amazing park.
#
Bombay people should be incredibly jealous. But anyway, so I was, so I was staying right
#
next to carbon. So I said, okay, so 530, I go there and he's there and he greets me and
#
then he says, I'm it, let's run. Okay. Now I've got to set the scene. This is a moment
#
where the camera kind of pulls back slowly and you're setting the scene around. There
#
are something like 32 men, 18 women and three dogs in the vicinity, right? And they're all
#
doing different things. They're doing pushups or they're lounging or they're chilling or
#
they're running or whatever. The moment Mohit starts running, they stop what they're doing
#
and they turn and they look at him with their mouths open. It's like a freeze frame for
#
a couple of the dogs, the tongue comes out because a man is running like a gazelle. It
#
is the most beautiful balletic thing I have ever seen. It is like an angel is jogging
#
through the clouds, right? It's like that. And he has just said, let's run Amit. So I
#
have to go with him. So like an ungainly beast, I'm like, you know, kind of running behind
#
him. And at some point I run out of breath and he notices and he stops and he says, okay
#
Amit, I have run enough. Now I will watch you will run. So he from one pocket of his
#
track pants, he whips out a notebook from another pocket, he whips out a pen and he
#
says, okay, run. Now I got to tell you at this point that whenever I get into something,
#
I get really geeky about it, right? So I have read every book on running that there is at
#
this point. I have watched all the videos. I know my form is good. I don't land on my
#
heel. You know, I have taken close up videos of my feet running and everything. I have
#
like nailed everything, right? So I'm assuming that there are no notes to take. So I run
#
for a bit and I go back and then he's got some 32 points that your ankle is coming at
#
this angle and so and so and he tells me or he takes me through each of those. And, and
#
that day I decide, you know what, I'm going to take a break for a week from running and
#
then I never got back to it. Oh, I would have imagined that that sort of motivated you.
#
But yeah, that's that's interesting, right? When somebody geeks out on you, what impact
#
that would have on you? I'm actually partly kidding. Most I totally appreciate this way
#
of going in depth and thinking about this thing. And it's actually a correlation, not
#
a causation. I had a slight crick in my knee and I thought, let me rest it for a few days
#
and I never got back. But this event happened around that time. But I swear to you, man,
#
the way the way that gentleman ran and he's like a little taller than me is tall, slim
#
and the park just froze. That's amazing. I would I would I mean, definitely look him
#
up maybe if he has like a page or talks about his experiences. These people don't have time
#
to be to be active on any social media. He's got a lovely newsletter, which I'll link from
#
the show notes. So I don't think he's written about his running there. But if you happen
#
to be in Delhi, I'll introduce you guys. But let's sort of get back to your story. And
#
let's in fact, chronologically get a little. Before that, I have one running story too.
#
And it's really funny because it's not a running, running story. When I launched my startup,
#
which was which which is like a fitness platform. You know how there is this compulsion of putting
#
these before and after pictures and you know, it's it's almost like a compulsion. You have
#
to do it. It doesn't matter if it if you believe in it or not. And I myself had a big transformation
#
at some point and I had these before and after pictures. And then I made a very impressive
#
before and after pic where I looked quite big in one and the picture I had that I looked
#
quite big was a running picture. And it was again one of those urban stampede that I've
#
done quite a few of them. It's one of those. And then on the right side of the collage
#
was me who had become quite fit during my time in Dubai and all that. And then, of course,
#
I put it and I launched my startup and all that is happening. And then one day I'm talking
#
to a friend of mine and I'm telling him, I'm like, you know what, this this pic on the
#
left side when I'm doing this five kilometers in urban stampede was my fastest run ever.
#
Like all of my friends could not believe I got the timing that I did. And I was at my
#
heaviest at that time. And I have just found this picture to pair it up with a picture
#
where I had lost a lot of weight. And yeah, I was doing I was fitter in other areas. But
#
if you really ask me, this is not a before and after story because I was very I was doing
#
very well when I was bigger and I was doing very well on the right side when I had lost
#
weight. So I do I sometimes laugh about compulsions that our our jobs makers do, you know, like
#
or our professions makers do, because you have to sort of make up things that you have
#
to let people assume things based on what you put up on social media. But the story
#
could be really different. But then sometimes when I'm talking to or I used to when I used
#
to counsel clients for nutrition or so, and sometimes I used to bring up my own story
#
because it helps them to open up when you've shared your own. That time, I used to tell
#
them that, hey, you know what, I don't care the size that you are at, because it is not
#
a reflection of your ability, because you could have some natural abilities that allow
#
you to excel at the size that you are at. And so we need to find that we need to find
#
what is it that really gets you going, regardless of your size. And I guess then then I would
#
explain to them that, that, yeah, I mean, look at your fat loss journey as a fat loss,
#
but it does not mean that whatever size you are at, you you're not able to perform, you
#
could really excel if you found what you like. And if sometimes we found what they like,
#
then they could they could focus their fitness journey on that. Because you since day one,
#
you have the gratification of having hit your goals in that sense.
#
So let me ask you a related question coming off from this, that I'm fascinated with the
#
process of how people kind of get comfortable in their own skins, because we're always so
#
sort of struck through life by the anxiety of what other people think of us and how they
#
perceive us, which is largely pointless because no one is thinking of anyone but themselves.
#
Right. But it's still an anxiety that is there and is still there with me, you know, every
#
day. Like if I put on a T-shirt, I'll be thinking about, you know, will my poncho in this and
#
why don't they have Indian sizes and all of that. So did sports make that process easier
#
and not just in a physical sense of the way you look, but even at a sense of kind of who
#
you are just being like, like, like for me, I'm comfortable in my own skin in other non
#
physical ways in terms of the things I know or what my accent might be or what my weaknesses
#
might be and all of those. And if you know, but both physically and in terms of the people
#
they are and the things they like and the things they want, I think many people find
#
it hard at one margin or the other to kind of get that comfort with themselves. So how
#
was that process for you? And since you counsel so many people, you know, and speak to them,
#
how do you see that process playing out in others? Is this an anxiety that kind of needs
#
to be fought? How do you get past it?
#
So first talking about myself, Amit, you just learn to deal with it. It's like I think it's
#
like you being in the field of acting or modeling where you have to, you know, you're being
#
perceived in a certain way all the time and you're expected to look a certain way, which
#
is, of course, slowly changing. But when it comes to sport as well, people judge your
#
ability based on how you're looking. I'd like I just gave you the example of me getting
#
into running and somebody looking at me on my desk and being like, oh, she cannot run.
#
And I went through that myself as well. And there are some things that are to do with
#
your weight. But then there are a lot of things that have to do with your height. What are
#
you going to do about that? I wasn't volleyball. And of course, if there are people who are
#
taller than me, who are who are competing with me in trials or so, then you do have
#
a disadvantage and you have to sort of get over it. Sometimes you lose out. Apart from
#
that, when it comes to being comfortable in my skin, I have cycles. And I think everybody
#
should should accept that you have cycles. You unless your money is coming from how fit
#
you look all the time. Nobody is 100 percent fit perineally. And in a sense, that is real.
#
It's authentic. It's how it is because your life goes through phases. Your focus goes
#
through phases unless you're a sportsman or whatever. And that's going to show on your
#
body. And so long as by and large, you understand that this is a phase and by and large, you
#
know that at some point you have to make an effort to remain fit and happy. And if you're
#
exercising for the endorphins of it, like, for example, right now, I live in Berlin and
#
the weather is very I mean, the sun rises at four a.m. So many times it's it impacts
#
your sleep. It's setting at 10 or in the in the winters, the sunset is at four and you've
#
not even started your day. You've probably ended work or classes in my case and you still
#
have a lot to do. How do you how do you train your mind to be sharp after that time? So
#
I would now sometimes go and exercise because I want to feel really fresh because I have
#
a lot to do and not really because I want muscles. I'm, you know, wanting to be very
#
fit. So I think allowing yourself those phases is really important. And whatever however
#
that shows up on your body. But the only one thing that I am quite cautious of is this
#
whole idea of blanket statements like be comfortable in your body. And I'm completely for body
#
positivity. And I have just given you many examples of no matter the size of the body,
#
you could have many things that are going for you. But having said that, there are some
#
very, very specific things that are related to carrying a lot of body fat or in terms
#
of not being fit and to gloss over them because of body positivity or not having a P.S. statement
#
after after saying that I'm comfortable in my skin is is actually being very, very untrue
#
to science in that sense. I mean, it's important to be comfortable in your skin, but it's also
#
important to be brutally honest about your health, at least with yourself. And and if
#
you have understood that, then reciprocate that in the messaging that you are you are
#
putting out. So so yeah, it's just a minor statement on the side that that waves about
#
messaging around body positivity have to be also very cautious.
#
And do you see this in the people around you, the people you counsel, the people around
#
you and so on? Like, is it a problem that you see? Because part of my earlier observation
#
about a lot of people not doing enough self-reflection is also this, that many of those people who
#
don't do enough self-reflection are also people who are at some level not comfortable in their
#
skin just because they haven't thought about it enough. And this just doesn't mean the
#
physical aspect of it. Somebody's too fat or too short or whatever. But, you know, even
#
otherwise, you know, like people keep pointing out to me when I can't pronounce a word properly.
#
Like I said, that instead of, you know, D.H.A.T. how it's supposed to be. And I'm completely
#
comfortable with that because yeah, that's what I do. So what? People know what I mean.
#
You know, but there might be other aspects where I'm not so comfortable. But I see a
#
lot of people around me who are, in a sense, pretending not just to the world around themselves,
#
but even to themselves that they are something other than they are. Is this something you've
#
I think the larger perspective on behaving like that is finding excuses not to face the
#
reality. Right. And I think this is a deeper issue that goes beyond, like you said, beyond
#
was it body positivity or anything for that matter that that you may think is different
#
about you or is the world notices about you, but not in the most complimentary way. I guess
#
it has to do with people not accepting that there is, if at all, a problem or at least
#
within themselves, within their mind saying that, hey, is this a problem or is this not?
#
And if your mind is going to accept that it is a problem, then automatically at some point
#
you're going to accept that you have to do something to change it. If you're going to
#
constantly avoid facing the reality, then it could be your weight, it could be addictions,
#
it could be anything that you want to change at all, if at all, and you're not going to
#
get to it. And I think that's why that was my thought behind putting the bell hooks,
#
bell hooks quote the other day on Twitter, which said that you have to learn to be solitary
#
and happy in your own space, because otherwise you start using other people as escape because
#
you want distractions. And in that sense, your relationships or your outings are going
#
to be meaningless because you cannot stand to be by yourself in a room without any distractions.
#
And that's true for all of us to some extent for all of us, because even if I'm sitting
#
in a room by myself, if I'm distracting myself with my phone, or I can't imagine sitting
#
by myself without my phone and with just a book, or if I am not going to be watching
#
some Netflix or drinking or something, then I'm actually not yet in that zone where I'm
#
comfortable with myself. And for many people, and I have seen a lot of such type of people
#
who constantly want to hang out with others, because they just don't know how to be by
#
themselves. And being by let's face it, being by yourself is not easy. Even those that are
#
managing to do some of that, it comes with its fair share of doubting yourself for being
#
just bored out of your mind, or sort of going down the rabbit hole of your own negative
#
thoughts. It's not easy. But if you are able to, to sort of face that and be by yourself,
#
then at some point, the self reflection, the acceptance of the things that you want to
#
change about yourself or not change that sort of starts revealing itself.
#
I love that Bell Hooks quote, so I'll just read it out for the benefit of listeners.
#
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can
#
be with others without using them as a means of escape. And that's a profound thought in
#
the sense that it also, I think, acknowledges the tendency that when we are with others,
#
we are playing a part. There is always a filter, there is always this consciousness of how
#
we are perceived. Whereas if we are just with oneself, we are what we are. There's an excellent
#
book I read by Seth Stephens, David Owitz, which I'll link from the show notes, where
#
what he essentially did was his thesis was that people are most themselves when A, they
#
are alone and B, when they're searching for stuff on the internet, because that's what
#
reveals their true desires and what they really want and all of that. So he got anonymized
#
data from Google, Facebook, and I think a bunch of others, and wrote an entire book
#
about what people are really like, what they really want, what they really care about,
#
what turns them on, and so on and so forth. So I kind of found that a very illuminating
#
approach and obviously anonymized data. So there's another quote you posted recently
#
from one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, which goes this way, quote, tell me what is
#
it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life stop code, which is a lovely question
#
that I think anyone of any age can pause and think about. And so when you look back on
#
I find it a very difficult question to answer. I mean, the reason I posted it was because
#
I was like, who is able to answer this? At what point? You can have ideas, but sorry
#
to cut you off, but that was my thought behind posting it.
#
No, it's a great question. And the reason I said that anybody of any age can think about
#
it is that people assume that after you reach a certain age, surely you have answered this
#
question. And that is not the case. Most adults are winging it. You know, adulthood is winging
#
it better than, you know, when you were not an adult. So it's a difficult question even
#
for me, but to sort of use this as a way to segue into your past life. So when you were
#
sort of going through school and about to enter college and you're of course playing
#
volleyball and you love sport, but you're not going to be a professional and you don't
#
want a job in railways and you opt for sort of engineering. What was your conception of
#
yourself then and what was driving you? Like, did you fall in love with engineering, which
#
is why you did it? Or, you know, I just smiled as I said that because I can't imagine anyone
#
falling in love with engineering, but that is just my arts-wala bias as it were. Or,
#
you know, were you just sort of following a particular template that, okay, good students
#
do engineering and let me do this or whatever. Tell me about, you know, your motivations
#
and why you did the things you did back then. So to be honest, becoming an engineer was
#
somewhere in my, in the back of my mind since I was six, maybe. I'm not saying this because
#
I feel very passionate about engineering or to say that I was feeling very passionate
#
back then, but I must have heard it somewhere and it stuck in my mind. And that's, to be
#
honest, I didn't grow up in my schooling days thinking about, oh my God, what am I going
#
to be? But like I said, because I got into sport, because of a few other things that
#
happened that made me much more confident as a person that I think doing something good
#
in sports or excelling in sport, in my case, made me feel valued. And because like I said,
#
I was not like a topper in class or something, but then once you are a state and national
#
player, you're valuable to the school. You can see that the school, your colleagues,
#
everybody knows that, hey, this is her thing. This is her skill set. And I used to really
#
enjoy that feeling. And I guess that's what I sort of was chasing as a school kid. And
#
then the rest of my 10th and 11th and 12th, I guess I just wanted to do well, continue
#
playing volleyball. And then when it came to choosing, I had a brief moment in 11th
#
when you went to Ferguson Arts and who was not interested in Ferguson Arts. And with
#
my background as well, there was a moment when I sort of wanted to rebel. And I took
#
admission to science in 11th, but I wanted to move to arts in the 12th. And like I said,
#
my parents were always very supportive. And they said that, okay, if you wanted to really
#
do it, you should. But I have to be honest with you. I came from a middle-class family
#
and I had absolutely no examples of my colleagues who studied arts at the time, whose family
#
was not very well-to-do. They were all absolutely very well-to-do and could allow their children
#
the choice to join arts.
#
The indulgence. And to be fair to these examples that I had in front of my eyes at the time,
#
they were all extremely intelligent people. And later on were gold medalists in Ferguson
#
Arts as well. But they had the freedom to choose at the time arts. And for people like
#
me, we made peace with the fact that arts can be done later on or you can join and change
#
your field and all of that. So I sort of followed. And then of the choices available to me, engineering
#
seemed to be the most natural for me. And the only thing that I knew when I was choosing
#
engineering was I knew what I didn't want to do. And it was to do with all kinds of
#
IT and computer engineering. And I wanted to do mechanical engineering. And also, at
#
the time, it was really more about what felt interesting rather than me having thought
#
about it in depth. And then with a combination of a university or a college that ranked well.
#
And then I didn't get mechanical. And at that time, some students from the petroleum
#
engineering department were living in my building. And they told me about this branch that only
#
MIT offered. And what I really, really liked about petroleum, and I know the industry doesn't
#
have a great name in this moment, but I wasn't thinking about all of that. I was thinking
#
about what do I like to do and whether it will have prospects. Because you're coming
#
from a middle-class background. It's very easy for you to have saved up a little money
#
and sit here now in your mid-30s and look back and judge your decisions. But for me,
#
at that time, it was about what is unique, what is creative. And petroleum was the only
#
engineering course that allowed me to study geology, which is anyway between creativity
#
and science, and also engineering subjects along with it, and mechanical engineering.
#
Half of the first two years were mechanical, and I already knew I was interested in it.
#
And then I was going to study geology, paleontology. I was going to study fluid flow. And that
#
combination of and the uniqueness of petroleum engineering is because all the oil and gas
#
fields are hundreds of kilometers wide. No company ever has enough data. There's only
#
one or two wells that are drilled, and you have data in a certain radius. And then we
#
used to have to build those 3D models with that little data over 100 and 200 kilometers
#
and extrapolate that data. And it's really a mix of physics and creativity and imagination.
#
And to then put it all together logically, I found that very interesting about petroleum.
#
And that's how I ended up joining it. Throughout this whole journey, there was really no long-term
#
goal that I want to become this or that. And continued to be very active in things outside
#
of academics. And then eventually all of that came together in getting a job with Shell,
#
which was a dream job, because it was at the time the topmost company on the Fortune 500
#
in 2008. I would say I thoroughly enjoyed that journey. I guess I've followed my gut
#
all the time. What is it that I'm really going to enjoy doing on a day-to-day basis, not
#
in terms of principles and all of that? At the age of 18, I was not thinking about all
#
of that for sure. But on a day-to-day basis, what am I going to do? And that is something
#
that I did, and I really enjoyed it. Definitely, I think even my background with sport allowed
#
me to take that risk, because in the petroleum engineering class, there were only three girls,
#
and the rest of them were boys. And people would scare you when you would make that choice
#
– rig pe jaana padta hai, waha pe ladkiyon ke liye kuch hota nahi hai, and then you may
#
not be treated very well. And all these things people would tell you, and you still go ahead
#
and choose that branch, and then you have a flourishing career afterwards. And because
#
I was in petroleum, most of my life and most of my career, I have been in meeting rooms
#
and in situations where there are hardly any women in the first place. And I guess because
#
I came from the background that I did, I was fairly independent, and I was quite risk-taking
#
in that sense, and so it never bothered me. Of course, I agree with the whole idea of
#
women not being given a platform and a voice, but if you put me in a room where I am the
#
only girl sitting with a lot of men, I would not find it very weird, because that's the
#
experience I've had ever since I joined engineering. But yeah, I didn't have a very long-term
#
Yeah, and I wouldn't at all be apologetic about the petroleum industry like you half
#
were, because it's one of the engines of the modern world. So whatever might be the case
#
now and how situations may have changed. So post-engineering, you said at one point you
#
quit, you wanted to do your startup, and at that point you also kind of went to Thailand
#
and all this stuff happening. So what's happening in your life through this period? Like you
#
joined Shell, how was that experience for you of actually being a petroleum engineer?
#
And what was your relationship with sport through this time? And then at what point
#
did you decide that you want to strike out? And what was it that you intended to do when
#
So when I joined Shell, in terms of sport, like I said to you, I did a lot of trekking
#
with the group that I had, because Shell in India was a young company. They had just launched
#
a technology center in about 2007 or so. And the interesting thing about that was that
#
they were recruiting about groups of 40 people or so from these IITs and then from MIT Pune.
#
And they had only started doing that in 2007. So that means the whole building, I joined
#
in 2008, so there were maybe two batches before me. So the entire building was of the age
#
group of 21, 22, 23, which is very unique compared to joining an IIT company. And then
#
there were a few expats who were in their late 50s or early 50s or so, and some Indians
#
who were brought in from ONGC, who were our managers, who were also much more senior,
#
but that number was very small. And so there was a lot of scope to continue doing sport
#
because we did a lot of running in those days. I did a lot of trekking and I played a lot
#
of badminton because Shell used to book these courts for us and we had a great group and
#
I got really good at badminton in those days. I used to play it since I was a child, but
#
I really, I think honed my skill in those days. So continued doing things, participated
#
in corporate tournaments and things like that, but nothing really, really competitive as
#
such. But that was about it. And then, like I said, in Dubai, I was with these colleagues
#
who were ex-New Zealand military and we participated in this Desert Warrior. So that's how it was.
#
I was active. In terms of career, so in Shell, I was a reservoir engineer. So what reservoir
#
engineers do is when a couple of wells, exploration wells are drilled on oil and gas fields and
#
data is collected. So initially seismic surveys and all are done and then these surveys go
#
to the geologists and another group of people called petrophysicists, who then give us an
#
idea of what are the rocks, where is the oil found. And normally oil is found in carbonates
#
or sandstones and how the formation looks, how big is the field and what is the porosity,
#
what is the permeability, can we get it out. And then they make some models and then as
#
reservoir engineers, we had to basically use those models and model the fluid flow. So
#
we look at the viscosity of the fluid, the pressure under which it is, the saturation
#
of the liquid. And we have to eventually, if the oil field is produced before, then
#
we have to bring our model closer to what oil and gas it has produced before and then
#
forecast how much it will produce later and then come up with the number of wells that
#
we want to drill to bring that much oil out. And so our job was to find the locations from
#
our 3D modeling of how can we get the most out by drilling the fewest number of wells.
#
And then there is various challenges, there is fractures in the rock, there's places
#
you can't get to, then the types of wells you have to drill. And so that was mainly
#
my job and then I was looking at the business planning as well. I was in my last posting
#
in Dubai, I was working on the oil field in Iraq, which is called Majnun, which is currently
#
the world's second biggest oil field. Yeah, I'm pretty much worked on oil and gas fields
#
across the world. And then after having done that for eight years in 2016, I was like,
#
it's time to move on. By then you of course think that you don't want to be associated
#
for too long. You're wiser. You've probably come to a point where you've sort of supported
#
your family, the things that you immediately needed your job to do as a youngster has been
#
taken care of, and you're in a risk taking position. And I was always interested in fitness
#
and sport. And then like I said, in Dubai, I really took it a notch higher. And then
#
around that time, I had my startup idea. And I came back to India. And then I decided that
#
I want to now quit. And I was about 29, 30 then and I was like, this is when I'm going
#
to take a risk. This is a good time to risk doing something different. And that's how
#
I ended up quitting. I took about six months off. And then in 2017, I went on to study
#
sports nutrition and personal training from the K11 Institute of Fitness Sciences in Pune.
#
And then I launched my startup and it was a whole new journey because as a petroleum
#
engineer, I didn't know how to build tech platforms and all of that. So then started
#
a new journey after that.
#
So tell me about this journey of actually learning about fitness and learning about
#
nutrition and so on. Because one of the things that one of the rabbit holes I kind of went
#
into was just how everything we knew about nutrition once, not too long ago, was completely
#
wrong. Like, you know, there are great books by Gary Taubes and Nina Tycoles and all that.
#
I'll sort of link those from the show notes and Jason Fung.
#
I love those. I think Nina Tycoles is really good. Gary Taubes is really good. Yeah. Yeah.
#
And I was going to gift you one of those books, by the way. I didn't find it in Crossword
#
and I didn't have enough time to order it.
#
No, no, I read them all digitally and you did give me a lovely book on running by Murakami.
#
So thank you for that. I'll use that to inspire myself. And one of my realizations looking
#
into that was that for decades, we have demonized fat and exculpated carbs and especially sugar.
#
And that many of the studies that blamed fat for many of the misfortunes that we go through
#
like heart disease and so on were funded by the sugar lobby. And these books have great
#
details of the politics behind it and the economics behind it and the incentives at
#
play. And I think in the late 70s, the US Health Association or some US government body
#
came out with their dietary guidelines, which essentially caused the obesity epidemic in
#
America because they were like sugar is completely fine, carbs are fine, fat is evil. And today
#
we know the opposite is true, that sugar is poison. As you pointed out earlier during
#
lunch, sugar is like cocaine. It is a dangerous addictive drug. And I have, of course, been
#
on keto plus intermittent fasting a couple of years back and found the benefits of it.
#
And with your kind guidance, I started keto three days ago again before we met. But you've
#
guided many people into keto and I'll take your advice on this as well. But what struck
#
me through all of this, through reading up on all of this and entering these rabbit holes
#
was how the conventional wisdom on this is so incredibly wrong. And therefore, even when
#
you speak with people who are professionals in this, whether they are doctors or nutritionists,
#
they are actually giving you bad advice because they are practitioners who learn their theory
#
at a time before, you know, the science changed, so to say, before we knew what we know now.
#
And therefore, many of their ideas are actively dangerous and sort of wrong. And what I also
#
realized during this time is that we assume that all of this knowledge, which is in these
#
guidebooks and government organizations, give it out into bullet point format and all of
#
that. It has a ring of science about it. But the science of nutrition, it seems to me,
#
is really at a very early stage. It's where, you know, other medicine possibly was in the
#
19th century. We don't really understand what's going on. And it's, you know, only with time
#
that we are getting more and more knowledge of it. So tell me about your journey of understanding
#
nutrition, understanding how the field had evolved, not just at the point in time where
#
you actually, you know, take the course and start learning about it, but even before that
#
as a sports person and so on, you've obviously been thinking deeply about that stuff. So,
#
you know, tell me about that journey of just learning all of this.
#
So, Amit, first of all, when I was in school and university and when I was playing competitively,
#
there was literally no understanding or discussion about nutrition. I mean, yeah, for sure, people
#
would be like, oh, Vasant, come and do it. All of that would happen. But then nobody
#
would tell you what to do about it. And coming from like middle class backgrounds, we weren't
#
really thinking about, oh, there are nutritionists, so people actually go to them. Actually, I
#
think going to a nutritionist has become mainstream in the last five or six years, I guess. And
#
some of the digital startups are also sort of have helped that whole journey because
#
they made it more affordable. But so when I was growing up, there was really not much
#
knowledge about nutrition. There was just the understanding that, hey, you should eat
#
less so that your weight doesn't go up. You know, that that's about it. I think after
#
I studied nutrition, and the reason I studied it is because I wanted to launch an online
#
tech platform that did like video workouts and personalized nutrition and all of that.
#
But for me, it was about, hey, how am I going to know or understand the quality of my product
#
if I haven't certified myself in the first place? So you can think of it like an engineer's
#
mindset that, hey, I have to know scientifically how these things work, even if I can employ
#
other nutritionists or personal trainers, because how do I know the quality of my product?
#
Anybody could be telling me anything, but I'll have no opinion about it. So that's
#
how I started the course in personal training and nutrition. And thankfully, and the reason
#
I joined K11 in Pune was because even though there are a lot of international courses,
#
there are very few that go into the scientific detail of nutrition as much as K11 does. And
#
that is because it was founded by Kaizat Kapadia, who's no more. Unfortunately, we lost him
#
last year during COVID, but who I immensely admire. You can easily call him the father
#
of fitness in India, because he is the only person who went into so much depth of nutrition
#
in India and created a course that was highly, highly scientific, open to debate, that it
#
allowed us to understand why a keto diet or why some other diet, why something works,
#
why something doesn't. And so long as you're learning by asking why and getting a scientific
#
answer, I would say, regardless of where we are in our understanding of nutrition, you're
#
in good hands. But most often than not, people will not ask why. And for me, that journey
#
was first of all, because I met Kaizat and I was convinced that he was a science-inclined
#
person and not just somebody doing fitness courses. Otherwise, it wouldn't have kept
#
me engaged. But so I learned a lot from him. He was the one who told us about the books
#
that you mentioned earlier from Nina Tisholz and Gary Taubes. And then we read those books
#
and Nina Tisholz is a health investigative journalist. And if you would want to find
#
out about proofs for what we are saying nowadays, then you go into these books. So there were
#
some things that were introduced to me in my sports nutrition course. But again, the
#
course is like six or seven months. So the questions that you have, you also try to answer
#
them by reading these books by these people. There is also a wonderful book that I read
#
that's called The Wheat Belly. And that literally goes into how the wheat that we eat today
#
isn't even wheat. It's like some 100, 200 strain of some plant that has come out of
#
sort of experimenting with the original wheat plant, because we need to meet the demand
#
and supply. And the original wheat plant, for example, was five feet tall. And today
#
the wheat plant is very short because a lot of the produce was being lost because of the
#
winds and the demand was growing. And slowly, slowly we started changing how the wheat plant
#
could produce more. And what we have today is so altered from the original that we don't
#
even know if it is called wheat anymore, how many strains of the original plant are there.
#
And so you start reading all of this and you start thinking about, hey, what makes sense
#
to me the most? And if I'm going to convince somebody on how they should eat or how they
#
shouldn't, can I back myself up? That was pretty much my journey. And that's why I have
#
gone on to read these books, because you're asking, especially when it comes to a ketogenic
#
diet, and given that there is so much information and misinformation online, you're going to
#
have to really talk to people and explain to them why you're doing what you're doing.
#
And at the same time, you want to educate yourself enough to let people go who do not
#
let you function with your scientific beliefs, because you're going to have clients who are
#
going to hold very strong opinions. And you don't want to get into circular discussions
#
with them. Because this can keep this kind of discussion can keep going on. You can engage
#
genuine questions and answer them. But for me, it's like, if somebody is coming to you
#
with a religious or a strong belief, then then they are not the people you're going
#
to try and convince because they have a certain belief system. This is not to do with science,
#
then I'm going to be like, okay, follow whatever you want. If you're a Brahmin or a vegetarian,
#
because you are a religious person, then what is the point of discussing science, you're
#
you're eating a vegetarian diet because of that. So that's fine. Then I allow allow,
#
I mean, then then in my mind, I'm like, okay, that's fine. But I have a problem when people
#
just go on propagating diets, for example, vegan diets, by just saying that, hey, this
#
is healthy. So I'm doing it. If you're doing it because you feel for animals, that's wonderful.
#
I'm not going to debate that. But don't try and say that, hey, this is a very healthy
#
diet. Because scientifically, it's very difficult to prove that with a vegan diet, you're getting
#
the kind of first class proteins that you need. And then trying to convince people that
#
pea protein is very good. I am I'm not very sold on on those things, because I just cannot
#
stand the scientific backing that these things have at this moment.
#
Like I understand what you mean about there being no point in discussing something with
#
people. And there's this lovely essay Paul Graham had written called The Four Quadrants
#
of Conformism. And one of these four categories was a type called the aggressively conventional
#
minded ones. And you run into them all the time. Right. And in this context, also, I've
#
run into them when I talk about sugar being poison and how it's dangerous and all of that.
#
And these are people who would have been taught in school that fat is a problem, that dietary
#
cholesterol is a problem, and so on and so forth. And that eggs are bad. I mean, there
#
are actually people who have egg white omelets and think they're eating something healthy
#
while they're not eating the healthiest part of the egg. And and there's no point arguing
#
with them because it what happens with people, conventional people, what happens with everyone
#
is that we look for frames to explain the world. And for many of us, there is a frame
#
we adopt, which is a conventional frame which has been handed down to us, which could include
#
things like fat is bad or India's problem is its population and so on and so forth.
#
Another margin on which I face resistance when I say our population is not a problem.
#
People are brains. I completely believe that. I think population is a strength. Yeah. People
#
are brains, not stomachs. But again, I get enormous pushback. And the reason for that
#
pushback, the reason aggressively conventional minded people exist is I think aggressively
#
conventional minded people, I love Graham's formulation here, are either lazy or stupid
#
because once they get that, get a framework that explains the world to them, they simply
#
do not want to reconsider it because it takes intellectual effort or intellectual honesty
#
or even intellectual ability to be able to, you know, hold multiple thoughts in one's
#
head simultaneously. And these are really the kind of people who irritate me the most
#
on Twitter who will come at you and be aggressive with a completely conventional point of view
#
and think that, you know, they are independent thinkers of some sort of the really kind of
#
figure it out. But that is a sort of a pet peeve I have. And let's not kind of go into
#
that. But so when it sort of came to nutrition, you've pointed out your journey in terms
#
of weight as well. You know, you have your before and after picture and you also lost
#
a lot of weight and all of that. So when you started learning about fitness and nutrition,
#
at one level, some of it would have corresponded with what you already knew from experience
#
or kind of deepen that or back that up. And some of it might have been new to you and
#
sort of challenge the way you thought about it. And then in the second category, I'm
#
guessing that you would have said, Okay, let me do this. If I am going to recommend this
#
diet to other people, let me do it and let me see how I feel. So tell me a little bit
#
about that sort of journey. And, you know, is that the reason for for example, weight
#
loss or whatever? Or, you know, what was
#
No, so my weight loss journey happened even before I studied nutrition. But that was just
#
me following another trainer's plan, exercise, and then keep your calories, calorie count
#
and stuff. When I actually learned nutrition, then I realized what is the what are the functions
#
of proteins, fats and carbs in our body. And so when we say eat 1200 calories a day 1300
#
calories a day, now I don't talk in calories. Now I now I don't just don't talk in terms
#
of calories, I talk in terms of what is the quality of food that you're eating. So that
#
was a big change. Why am I eating a lot more fat or why am I eating a lot more protein,
#
I learned that I could have a low calorie intake, but and I could have seen becoming
#
fitter. But I could really optimize it if I knew that my my first class protein intake,
#
for example, was very low as a vegetarian, I have to make extra effort, of course. But
#
so my learning was that that what are what are proteins, fats and carbs really doing
#
on my plate and for me. And when I studied that, and I started applying that on my fitness
#
routine, what then I started noticing was, first of all, you start getting a lot more
#
stronger. And I could see that happen in the gym as well. And I did end up getting to a
#
point where I was lifting 90 and 100 kilos. And if you looked at me, I look fairly lean,
#
not not a very thin person, but also built but you can't see the muscle kind of a thing.
#
And you could see it when I'm exercising in the gym. And then I started seeing that I
#
could do new new things that people couldn't and people who look cleaner than me in the
#
gym and I was able to do things that they are not able to do, for example, pistol squats
#
or squatting on a single leg. So that came from my nutrition, but also from exercising
#
with pure science behind you. I mean, purely keeping science in mind when you are even
#
planning your fitness regime and then backing it up with nutrition so that you get you see
#
that that improvement. And so that was the difference. Initially, when I lost weight,
#
it was purely calorie counting, low fat. And I mean, I was happy doing it. In general,
#
I was a lot more active. I was in Dubai. So you end up walking a lot. And I was very I
#
was doing volleyball very, very regularly when I was in Dubai. So lots and lots of exercising
#
as such as walking to work and walking back. So I guess all of that came together. So I
#
became fitter. But it's only after I studied it that I saw gains in in that sense of in
#
my strength, in my energy levels. So that was the difference, a lot more educated approach.
#
And I guess that must be incredibly empowering, because with everything else that I do, I
#
like to understand why the output is related to the input that I am doing this and therefore
#
something happens. And I feel for most of us with our own bodies, it is mysterious.
#
We don't know what's going on in there. We don't it absolutely is. Yeah, like, I was
#
diagnosed with type two diabetes last year. So recently, I got a continuous glucose monitor
#
from Freestyle Libra, and I was trying that out. And, you know, and my intention was always
#
that, OK, I'm going to reverse this, I'm going to get back to keto and intermittent
#
and work out more. And I can, as you've told me. But what gave me the ultimate Philip to
#
it was putting that continuous glucose monitor and just seeing that I have two slices of
#
toast and my blood sugar explodes. And and I have a wholesome meal of bacon and eggs
#
and lots of cheese. And you compared it, right? I compared it and my blood sugar didn't
#
move. The needle didn't move when I had a full packet of bacon and three eggs and lots
#
of cheese. And the needle did not move when I have one slice of toast and the needle shoots
#
up. Yeah. And and it's so useful to be able to sort of are you an optimist as I certainly
#
am about this kind of biohacking? Because it's not biohacking, though. Keto is not
#
biohacking. No, but I mean, things like CGM. So you get information about what's happening
#
in your own body and all of that. Maybe I use a wrong term. I don't know what's a good
#
term for it. For experimenting with yourself. I mean, let's just call it that biohacking.
#
Yeah. It can be quite a quite a rabbit hole. Okay. So it's a fancy phrase like blockchain
#
and so on. Yeah, I mean, I guess biohacking is just you being open with your body and
#
testing things on your body. I mean, for example, another thing that I do, which the aggressively
#
conventional minded people argue about is I have modafinil, right? I use it a lot. It's
#
like it's a cognitive drug. It's like slightly more advanced, the next generation after Adderall
#
and so on. But I researched it heavily, went into Google Scholar, read all the papers,
#
realized it was completely safe. And now I use it on days where I really need to focus
#
and don't want to lose concentration like today because I have a recording. And I find
#
it is so way better than something like coffee. Coffee is an incredibly blunt tool. And modafinil
#
just keeps your mind so alert and sharp even when you're physically tired. And it's miraculous.
#
But whenever, but you know, when I mention I'm using it, one in four people will say,
#
oh, it must be so dangerous and this and that. Sorry, carry on.
#
Yeah, no, I mean, people who are not quite used to people who do biohacking or experiments.
#
And, you know, honestly, the people who are doing these experiments or who are biohacking
#
and testing it on themselves are the most well-informed. And I know a few others as
#
well who have tested things on themselves and they reveal things about their body.
#
So honestly, like no comments on that. It's like a personal decision that people
#
find something that works for them and probably research and convince themselves that it's safe
#
enough. But when it comes to, for example, keto diet, I would say that it's far too established
#
now to call it biohacking. I was referring to keto. I was referring to my getting my numbers
#
about my blood sugar constantly. Yeah, exactly. And then coming to measuring each and everything.
#
If you personally ask me, if you're generally convinced about the science, you don't have to
#
measure anything every day. If it gives you some sort of a kick to measure it every day. And
#
I would say I have friends who've experimented with a variety of food items and tested their
#
blood glucose level and they wanted to see. I'm sure at some point of time, you would see that
#
these results are now repeating themselves. You learned what you should. There is about 10 or 20
#
items that you end up eating in a week or two typically, and you've tested all of them. And
#
then you've measured your blood glucose. And at some point that whole energy level will be like,
#
okay, I know this. At that point, you can say that that glucometer has served its purpose
#
and it has taught you. It does. So I'm completely for you learning or teaching yourself in the way
#
that works for you. Because I don't think that anybody is able to follow anything at all,
#
regardless of nutrition, but any plan. If they have not questioned it enough, if they've not
#
tested it enough, and if they have not grown their knowledge from where it was. And if I'm
#
going to act like an instructor and I'm going to give you a plan that's in the dark and I'm going
#
to be like, hey, just follow this plan. And then magically at the end of a month, you'll have seen
#
some results. But if somebody else was to ask you, Amit, you're losing weight, what are you doing?
#
And you're like, I don't know, my nutritionist gave me this plan. That's the worst outcome.
#
In that sense, I sort of feel quite passionate about the teaching part of nutrition than
#
me writing a plan for somebody. Because it's easy to find a plan on the internet. It's not easy to
#
find somebody who you can ask all your questions and for that person to be able to connect with you
#
enough to explain the science behind it to you. And I guess that's why we end up paying nutritionists.
#
We don't pay them because they're going to give some unique diet plan. And that's true for all
#
famous nutritionists, everybody. People would really find some amazing nutritionists and be
#
like, okay, I'm going to pay her because I'm going to pay her one lakh rupees, 10 lakh rupees,
#
8 lakh rupees, whatever it is, she does some magic. No, the body works on science.
#
And she doesn't have any magic pill. What differentiates one person from the other is who
#
you connect with the most, who your personality connects with the most. Because when then that
#
person is going to tell you what you should do, you're more likely to receive it. And when you're
#
in that mindset, then you're going to follow it and then you're going to see results. I mean,
#
that's my thought process about and then in terms of measuring, I think that the first month people
#
end up measuring however many things they can measure. But once they start seeing some changes,
#
then they are just convinced that all this is working and I'm not going to measure as much.
#
Having said that, I would definitely say that people who are desperate to take fat burners,
#
who are desperate to get onto creatine in the gym, these people need some more guidance and
#
these kind of things are definitely not for everybody. And they are dosage specific.
#
And who can take them? For example, fat burners that are coffee based are not good for people who
#
have heart conditions. They are not good for people who are on depression medication.
#
And so when it comes to those kind of things, I would definitely say people need much more guidance.
#
And do you find people pushing back sometimes when you give some of this guidance? Because some of
#
it would again, as we discussed, be contrary to what they would have learned or even what their
#
doctor would tell them. Yeah, they definitely push back and the unfortunate thing is everybody who
#
comes to you already thinks that they know a lot of things. So you first have to listen to them.
#
And then you have to slowly start explaining to them if some of them might have the right notions
#
as well. So you sort of say that, OK, these are the four or five things that I agree with you on.
#
These are the four or five things that I have a different opinion on without really saying that I
#
don't do, you know, I disagree with with what you believe in. And then there are some people who will
#
sort of buy into what you have just said. I have a very long process of going into the science and
#
I'm sort of trying to understand the people who have come in come to me and their patients levels
#
and their interest levels, because if they are not going to be in the mindset to learn,
#
then there is no way I can write a plan for them that they are going to follow or really connect
#
with or whatever. So sometimes I let people go as well. Sometimes people come with preconceived
#
notions. And then there have been times when people have come to me and said, Oh, no, no, but
#
all this is fine. But then I we know somebody who gives this powder or whatever. And people have
#
lost weight on that. And sometimes when I see that they're too convinced on this, and they're
#
trying to give you this example because you're charging too much for the according to them.
#
And then sometimes I tell them, OK, go. And then invariably, they'll come back to me in a
#
worse condition three months later. And of course, you don't say I told you so, but you did. So
#
that makes your job even more difficult in that sense, because they've not they've now come back
#
to you at a at a point than they were before. Since everybody listens to this podcast, they just
#
heard you say I told you so. I know I did. No, it's true. And I find difficult this point very
#
difficult when people come to us because people nowadays that are actually making the effort to
#
come to your office and pay you a lot of money to to get a diet plan, which perhaps is available on
#
the Internet, are actually coming to you for reasons way beyond that diet plan. And those
#
reasons are that they don't have anybody to talk to. And the everything that's showing up on their
#
body is actually a reason is because of something else. And your diet plan is something else.
#
And your job is really to make them comfortable and allow them to tell you what's bothering them.
#
And I have had so many younger audiences, young adults who are on depression medication.
#
And of course, you know, their psychiatrists or psychologists have told them that, you know,
#
you're exercising. It will help you with your moods. It will help you to become fitter.
#
Maybe it allows you to improve your self perception. It's like the side activities.
#
But so this was the most revealing thing to me when I became a sports nutritionist, because
#
I did not know that I signed up to partly become a counselor. I guess I accidentally got into it.
#
Initially, I used to think that people are going to come and they're going to be like,
#
okay, I've tried so and so things, and I'm really confused because nothing's working.
#
What is your advice? But it wasn't like that. So I've had clients who have come to me and said that
#
I cannot speak to my parents about my desires, about my future. They're pushing me to be a CA.
#
I want to be a filmmaker. And this is like 22, 21 year olds. And that friction in the house is
#
causing a lot of pain in that relationship. And then the kid spends a lot of time outside.
#
He's obviously depressed. He's also consuming a lot of food as a, like we said, sugar is a
#
addictive drug in that sense. And so it's not surprising that people turn to food when they're
#
low. And then the parents at some point say that, okay, now I'm going to spend a lot of money and
#
take you to this nutritionist because you need to get fitter. And then you slowly start listening
#
to them and you start realizing that these people's problems are something else. The whole
#
exercise plan and all that they will follow. But the source of their pain, whatever is showing up
#
on their body is something else. And how do you sort of get through that person, tell them that,
#
hey, I understand, but let's focus on the fitness at this moment, and then try and build trust with
#
them. And I've also had, for example, a mother brought her son to me two, three years ago, and
#
he was 24 years old and he was some 101 kilos or something like that. He didn't look very large,
#
but he could do with losing some 10, 20 kilos. With most people that come to me, I first say
#
that I want to see your lipid profile and I want to prescribe them a few blood tests and I want to
#
see what's going on inside. Outside, I can see. And then when they came back with the blood tests,
#
I realized he's pre-diabetic and he's only 24. And so I started explaining to the mother that,
#
hey, you know, this is what it is. I mean, you know, he really has to take care of his health
#
now so that it doesn't turn into a full-fledged type two diabetes. And it's too early for this
#
to happen and it's lifestyle thing. It can be reversed, all this, all that. And after listening
#
to me say all of this, this lady says to me, listen, he needs to lose 20 kilos. How can I
#
register his profile on this matrimonial site? Because I cannot put 101 kilos there. And I
#
want to register him. And for a moment, I didn't know what to say to her because I was like, you
#
know, honestly, this should be the least of your worries. But then the guy was, I sort of became
#
good friends with the guy and he followed my diet plan. He lost weight and all of that. And he was
#
quite excited about it. But that's what I'm telling you that there's such a disconnect between what
#
the children want, what the parents want. The communication between parents and children
#
is broken right now and how. I had another person who came to me. He was 16 years old.
#
And casually while talking to me, he was like, oh, I take sleeping pills. And casually. And I said,
#
how do you have access to sleeping pills? And oh, no, no, I was, I was depressed when I was in
#
eighth standard. And then my parents are doctors. So they said, no, no, take this. This is mild. And
#
you know, you'll get good sleep. And then I sometimes keep it. And then sometimes I take it.
#
And I was shocked because he was, he was just making it sound like it's normal. And then
#
sometimes you have to stop yourself as well, because somebody strikes such connection with
#
you because they're not able to talk to their parents, that they think that their most, their
#
biggest problems or deepest desires can be shared with their nutritionist. So this person comes and
#
tells me at some point, he's like, no, no, I really want to talk to you. And I was like, okay, fine.
#
And then he was like, I'm addicted to porn. And I'm just sitting there and looking like what did I
#
mean? I'm a sports nutritionist. And then of course, at that, by that, by then you're experienced
#
enough to say, Hey, you know, I will refer you to somebody. And of course, I knew some people that
#
I referred him to, but it reveals what's the problem with people. And a lot of it is communication.
#
It's to do with the fact that we are so intolerant. We are so isolated in the society today that
#
nobody has the time, not even your parents to really sit and understand from you what's
#
happening in your life. What is it that you're happy about? What is it that you're unhappy
#
about? Is there something they can do to help? But instead, a lot of parents would come at their
#
children with their desires. You know, the child's expectations or experiences of their life are
#
going in a different direction. And parents have absolutely no appetite to understand their
#
children anymore. And they have a lot of money to pay nutritionists. I will go pay them. I will take
#
you to a psychologist. I will take you to a nutritionist. All that is wonderful. And it's
#
needed. I don't, I don't say that parents should take things in their own hands, but
#
in terms of understanding your own children, it's just, it's a non-negotiable thing, I think.
#
This is such a great insight about sometimes matters that seem to do with nutrition
#
go much deeper than that. And I'm just thinking of that.
#
They almost always do. The people who have just, you know, just recently gained 8-10 kilos or
#
generally are active, they are not the ones who will come and pay you. They'll be, they'll find
#
some diet plan online and they'll be fine with it. But the ones that come to you have a lot,
#
No, and I just think of that kid whose mother wanted him to lose 20 kgs so she can put his
#
picture on a matrimonial profile. And I'm just thinking that, my God, if I was a young man and
#
my mother was like that, of course I would eat pizza all day, aur kya hai? So here's a question.
#
What you've pointed to is both something that's forever been there, that is parents imposing
#
their desires on their children and putting that pressure and so on and, you know, not allowing
#
their kids enough agency and that's always been a problem in India. And also something that might
#
be something that is exacerbated in modern times, which is that level of disconnect where
#
a young person may feel that she has no one to talk to, that there's no connection with the
#
parents and perhaps I can understand this friend could be with, this young person could be with
#
her friends in a cafe and they're all looking into their smartphones and not into each other's eyes
#
and actually having a human conversation. So do you think that that specific kind of disconnect
#
is a greater problem today than it used to be once? Oh, I absolutely think so because,
#
I mean, this happened, I was in a class of some 30-40 people recently and in some lecture they
#
said that, okay, list down a few people that you are closest to and we would imagine that a lot
#
of people will come up with five people that are like really, really valuable to them, but not a
#
lot of people have so many people in their life that they completely trust with, trust, and some
#
of them have nobody. And I definitely think that with youngsters of today, I think the fact that
#
they have nobody to talk to is one thing, but also I think they're bombarded with so much,
#
so early in terms of any topic that they don't know how to process anymore. And that I think
#
is a fundamental problem. I think it was, to some extent, I find it good if you have sort of a
#
military type thinking where you're like, okay, I do this, I do this, I do this, and at some point
#
life works out. But today, if you have a mobile phone at the age of 10 and 12 and 13 and you're
#
being exposed to so much information that perhaps you don't even need. I mean, think about adults
#
as well. People are finding it difficult to keep up with the information overload on Twitter,
#
and these are adults. And if you have given a phone to children, teenage people who are on
#
Instagram, what is their self-image going to turn out to be? And then because you have Netflix,
#
and they have on average more money than I think most of us had, at least the city goers.
#
So they know how to spend it to get instant gratification. They are not having to turn to
#
each other to, like I said, we were climbing up the Take-D and then going and skating and all of
#
that. I don't think these folks are doing that anymore. And so, right from childhood, what are
#
the quality of relations you're carrying with you through your life? And the opportunities to build
#
those strong relations are going to only keep sort of going down because your own effort is going to
#
be less sometimes, opportunities are going to be less, or just because you are not around as many
#
people as you would like to connect with. So yeah, I definitely feel they are disconnected
#
because not only because of social media or so, but also I think the quality of conversations,
#
what's happening in the country, the fact that there's like this random mix of you're all going
#
to good schools, but also schools are trying to put in like a variety of ideas in people's minds.
#
I was just speaking to a friend of mine whose young daughter started going to school. And
#
apparently the school has said that we want equality. So we have the same shirt and pants,
#
dresses for guys and girls. And now here I'm thinking that is this an expression of equality,
#
that, okay, the girls will not have a pinafore and sash anymore. Is that an expression of,
#
and then how is a pant and shirt for a girl and a boy an expression of equality if you're taking
#
it from what men wear? Why not a pinafore for both? For both. So I feel like there's a mix of schools
#
trying to try different things and also sometimes going overboard, I think. Because I remember when
#
we were growing up, we used to, I mean, I've gone to all these random places for my sport tournaments
#
and stuff, and not once were our parents really bothered about what's going on. They would trust
#
the school teacher that's going with us and then let things happen. And they would just be like,
#
okay, this is your 2000 rupees for your three, four days trip and go have fun. And there was also,
#
there's also, you're not constantly in touch with them. You come back and you have things to talk
#
about. Nowadays, there's nothing like that. What do you connect with? You're constantly connected.
#
What do you update them with? If you're going to talk to your parents or your friends. So, so yeah,
#
so yeah, that's my general thought process. The Japanese have this lovely word called
#
hikikomori, which is hikikomori are those people who, those young people who don't see the outside
#
world. So they live in their rooms and they might do whatever they do in their rooms,
#
but they never come out and their parents will often just leave food outside their door and they
#
won't interact and they just live this completely solitary existence. The Japanese have a special
#
term for it because those people are outliers, different from everyone else. And I wonder if
#
you're all turning into hikikomori in modern times and just thinking aloud the danger there is this
#
that, you know, we can discuss two kinds of addiction and one is the addiction of sugar
#
and the other is the addiction of say social media, right? And the addiction of sugar has
#
outward signs. You know, when things are going wrong, first you get fat, then you'll get
#
pre-diabetes, heart trouble, blah, blah, blah. Everything goes wrong. Then you go to a nutritionist
#
like yourself and tell them not just what your weight loss problems are, but all problems about
#
your life because, hey, what are nutritionists for? But there are outward signs of that addiction and
#
you can figure out that, yeah, okay, this is because of sugar. This is how we fix it. But this
#
other addiction, I don't know what outward signs there are of it. These outward signs are things
#
that we observe in people like Jonathan Haidt famously said that, you know, even though you
#
have all the knowledge in the world available to you through the internet, everybody's consuming
#
what was produced in the last three days. It's one sensation after another, after another,
#
after another. All day, I might read 800 tweets and forget them all by the time tomorrow comes
#
around, right? And the dangerous ways in which this harms us as people, which will also show
#
up physically, of course, as you pointed out, there are those outward signs and those direct
#
connections aren't there anymore. So I'm just kind of thinking aloud. But, you know, is this
#
something that sort of worries you? Because at least in terms of social media addiction,
#
you've sort of stayed away. You are on Twitter. You know, many of the people you might read or
#
see around you are like that, but you've kind of stayed away. So what are your thoughts?
#
So I think for me, Amit, the worst part of social media is seeking validation.
#
Yeah. That's literally the worst part. I mean, you could surf and you could see tweets and
#
endlessly. And yeah, I mean, you don't want to spend as much time on it. But I mean, that comes
#
that is secondary for me, as much as this validation, how many people liked my photo or
#
didn't like me, how many wished me birthday or didn't wish me birthday. And I can imagine that
#
if adults are also thinking about these things, then a teenager is really getting affected by it.
#
How many friends followed me, how many didn't. And then there may be young people's power dynamics
#
in it, whose boyfriend and girlfriend or ex-boyfriend, girlfriend follow each other.
#
And I guess then that discussion must be spilling into their class conversations,
#
in-person conversations. And then what is the depth of those conversations? How do you grow?
#
Like when we were growing up, in the evenings, we would go for walks with our friends. And that
#
would bring up a variety of topics. And today, I don't know what these guys must be talking about.
#
And if they already have access to phones and all kinds of apps, then where is the time to go?
#
Where is the time to talk about books? Where is the time to read poetry or discuss a film
#
that you've seen? So your worldview is not being shaped, you're just being bombarded with information
#
and you're having surface level conversations based on that. And then I guess at some point,
#
the realities of life just come at you. And then you feel like you've not thought about them at all,
#
or you are not slowly onboarded into what's coming. But that's my thoughts about it.
#
No, and one of the other themes that hate talks about and various people have spoken about
#
is there's been this growing rate of female teen suicides in the US. And hate and others link it
#
directly to social media in the sense that, you know, a decade and a half ago, people were
#
worried about what would happen to young boys because of video games. And as it turned out,
#
nothing at all. Video games were good for young boys because they learned problem solving and all
#
of those things. And it didn't harm them in any way, didn't make them more violent. But what
#
happened to young girls because of social media is that they became sort of slaves of this desire
#
to seek validation, as you put it. Like earlier, the girls would hang around outside school or go
#
for walks, like you said, and they would talk about this and they would talk about that and so
#
on and so forth. But now everyone's got an Instagram presence. And Instagram always,
#
you know, doesn't show the real you, it shows a you that you want to project out to the world.
#
And then everybody is making their real self compete with these projected selves of all their
#
peers. And it is in that sense, a race into the bottom, a race to a very dark place where you're
#
always posturing, posturing, signaling, signaling. And a lot of female depression and teen suicides
#
and all of that have been attributed to that. It's kind of an ongoing debate. I think there
#
was an internal Facebook survey, if I remember correctly, which actually backed this up, but they
#
suppressed the survey, which is quite what you would expect. And that's kind of tragic. And then
#
as you say that if it's going to show up in things like depression and suicide, it is also going to
#
show up in what they eat and how they eat and their bodies and so on and so forth. So, so good for
#
you. Your market is growing. Oh, my God. Trust me. It's not a pleasant thing, because if we weren't
#
dealing with such grave and fundamental health issues, we would probably be discussing about how
#
science can advance our abilities in general. I mean, look at athletics. Where has it gone?
#
I mean, how is Djokovic and how is Nadal able, how are they able to perform at the level that
#
they are at 34 and 35? I mean, we would probably be digging more into that or challenging Djokovic
#
on his water has power theories, if nothing else. But the other side of this, I mean,
#
this whole rising cases of depression are a grave worry, I guess, to the society and then addictions.
#
I mean, there's no end to addictions. Like, sometimes I think that when we think about
#
addictions, we are talking about smoking and drinking. And I'm like, you know what?
#
Those are the known ones. Those are the ones that you've heard about all the time. But sometimes
#
you have to be truthful to yourself. And if I ask you, can you go without your tea, morning tea and
#
coffee? Are you going to be able to do it? Are you going to be able to as a challenge? Forget if
#
you're doing keto diet or not, give up your roti and rice and dals for a week. We don't even know
#
we are addicted to so many things that we are. And we end up talking about alcohol and smoking,
#
which are sure. But sometimes it's better to know that these are addictions and get into it or get
#
off it knowing that they are addictions than the other ones that are the slow poison in that sense.
#
And which is why we are turning a lot of people are eating a lot of food when they are depressed,
#
which is also an addiction. Yeah, absolutely wise words. And I see different addictions in myself,
#
for example, social media, for example. And you absolutely write about validation in the sense
#
that the Facebook like button and the Twitter retweet, not so much the like, but more the
#
Twitter retweet, just incredibly toxic. So there was talk about how if Musk ends up buying Twitter,
#
he might get rid of the retweet button. And he's not buying it as we now know. And they won't get
#
rid of the retweet button because they want to maximize engagement. And that's what kind of does
#
that. But let's let's move on to talking about positive things, like you said. So tell me a bit
#
about your startup. How did you conceive of it when you started thinking about it? And what did
#
it evolve into as you eventually did your certification, did your course, went to Thailand
#
and had your experiences and, you know, beat up people, box them on the streets, you know,
#
demolish the big men with tattoos, get into street fight, you got into street fights.
#
No, how I wish I had a story for you. For a moment, I was hopeful, you know, something for a moment.
#
I've gotten into duels on during my multi classes, but nothing on the streets, thankfully.
#
So, okay. Yeah, so tell me about your startup. So yeah, the whole idea about that I have for
#
my startup actually came to me when I was living in Dubai. And this was around 2015 and 16. And
#
these fitness apps were really coming into the market, the online fitness system, the whole app
#
system, I had started following a trainer from the US called Jillian Michaels, because she was
#
from I think what you've heard from me so far, you can from that you can guess that I like trainers
#
that are quite hard on their subjects. And she was a trainer on the Biggest Loser, the program
#
from the US and I had watched it a few times and I was quite inspired by her style of training.
#
And then she had come out with an app, which did exercise videos, and some some diet guidelines
#
and stuff. And I started following it. And I had I was seeing a lot of progress, I was losing weight
#
and I was really becoming a lot fitter. But the only thing I used to constantly feel is that the
#
food that was suggested was not suitable to my Indian vegetarian preferences. And then I started
#
thinking about it. And I was like, Hey, I want to build something where the exercises that I'm
#
suggesting and the personalized food plans that I give with it are suited to the Indian audience.
#
Because there is no point exercising if you have no guidance on the food that you should be eating,
#
and you're not going to see results with that that approach that I will just follow the exercise
#
and I will eat what I feel like, or what I know about, I will follow whatever I know about fitness
#
and nutrition. So I decided that I wanted to build an online platform that has a variety of exercises
#
and a nutrition plan to go with it for the Indian folk. And so I built a platform called
#
AAP. And so I built a platform which now has over 140 exercise videos, and over 400 food items,
#
each of them broken down into proteins, fats and carbs and calories and further guidance on whether
#
we recommend that item or not. And so it's really a platform that I have built to educate, I think
#
more than just tell them that this is what you should do to lose weight or so or to achieve your
#
fitness goals. Because if you look at the exercise videos that we have, and it's called Halloumi
#
fitness, by the way, H-A-L-O-M-I. And that's because I thought of it when I was in Dubai,
#
and I was introduced to Halloumi cheese there. And cheese is a healthy protein item. And then
#
I wanted to bring it into my startup. So that's why it's called Halloumi. So my idea was to educate
#
people. And the videos that I have there talk about if you're doing this exercise, if you're
#
doing a squat, for example, which muscle is it exercising? It has a voiceover that talks to you
#
about the importance of that exercise. And they are only 30 second videos, but they still educate
#
you. And my whole idea was that the platform has a lot of tips on the questions that people have
#
about pre-workout and post-workout food, supplements, and all those things, including
#
the nutrition plan. And what I sort of tried to do with my platform was even when it comes
#
to the nutrition plan, what people struggle with with the apps is that if we suggest something to
#
you and you don't like it, then what happens? I ask you to eat something and you don't have it
#
at home or you don't like it. And so we provide a lot of replacement options as well. So that
#
nobody feels like, hey, I'm cornered. You're asking me to eat this and I don't have it.
#
So people have found that useful as well. And I launched it in 2018 and it's completely bootstrapped
#
at the moment. And at some point, hopefully I will raise funding for it. But what I have found with
#
people is the best thing that you can provide people is a plan to follow because a lot of people
#
have the motivation to exercise. But what's the most tiring part is to get out there and
#
start thinking, now, what should I do? And if you solve that problem for people that, hey,
#
don't think, just wear your fitness gear and you have a plan that you need to follow. So this is
#
really for people who understand that they have to be fit, who are willing to put in the work,
#
but who are like, hey, it matters to me that I know that I'm following something that is optimized
#
for me. And then I will fully trust it. And I will open the app and I don't mind looking at it and
#
following it. So this is really for those people who are aware, but who want to be guided. So that's
#
what my app, a web app, we have a web app. So you have to go through it. It's like a website,
#
basically. And that's what we're trying to do. Educate people and let them ask us questions
#
if they have any. And hopefully they carry forward all the learning that they've had at the end of
#
the program. Because if we have not taught them enough, then we've not won with them. For us,
#
winning is not that you have now lost weight or whatever, but you feel confident about what you've
#
learned. If I ask you later on, how does paneer help you or so, you should have an opinion about
#
it. If I ask you to tell me a little bit more about rice or so, you should have learned something in
#
those two, three months with us. And only then I can be sure that I've changed something
#
fundamentally in how you were leading your life. So that's the whole idea.
#
No, that's great. And you asked that hypothetical question, how will paneer help you? And I
#
instantly thought of Sidin Vadukut. Those who know him will know what I mean. You know, what I
#
kind of like about that approach, like even when I teach my writing course, for example, the very
#
first thing I talk about is that I am not going to give you a dogmatic list of do's and don'ts,
#
like don't use adverbs, don't use cliches, all of that, the 10 commandments of bad writing,
#
according to Sri Sri Amit Verma, as it were. But instead just talk about first principles and
#
build from there. So ultimately you become your own mentor and you become your own coach. And
#
you know, you might still need other people to talk to and to drive you. But intellectually, at
#
least, you know, you're able to much in the same way as you know, a good chess coach won't make
#
you mug up moves, D4, D5, C4, Queens Gambit, but will instead teach you basic principles,
#
like space is important to occupy the center or initiative is important to develop your pieces.
#
And I kind of love that approach and try to build it in everything that I do. And with the help of
#
with the help of your site, maybe I'll learn a little bit more and become more of my own sort
#
of coach. So where did sort of the MBA then come about in your personal journey? Because like,
#
number one, I'm interested that you chose to do a bootstrap startup in an age where everyone is
#
raising funding and trying to be the next unicorn and blah, blah, blah, which is a route you could
#
have kind of taken. So why that sort of stripped down choice that no bootstrap, I'll spend my own
#
money, I'll do it on my own and you know. So first of all, Amit, I didn't come from a tech
#
background. I came from an engineering background, but that's petroleum engineering. And so when I
#
decided to do to go ahead and do the startup, I had to start bottoms up. And you know, I had to start
#
by becoming a certified personal trainer and a nutritionist so that I don't put out something
#
that I'm not confident about. And, and at the same time, I had to learn about what it is like to
#
build an app, a web app and interactive platform. I had apps, I don't come from a family where
#
anybody does, does a business or has done a business, forget startup. So I guess initially,
#
I said, Hey, I'm going to show people that I have skin in the game. I'm serious about what
#
I'm talking about. Because if you really think about startups, and if people end up telling you,
#
Oh, but I quit my job to do my startup. That's, that's enough proof of my seriousness.
#
I would say that's that's bullshit. Because tomorrow you might take up another job.
#
But when somebody has invested their hard earned money into starting something, regardless of
#
with how successful it is, that shows that they have skin in the game that they're very,
#
very serious that they're willing to bet their money on something that they feel passionate about.
#
And so that's that's the reason I said, Hey, I don't want anybody's interference. This is
#
my own learning. This is all my my journey. And when I was starting to work on my platform,
#
also, I was still doing my courses and certification and everything. And I really didn't
#
think I had enough to convince an investor to come on board. Of course, I would have had some
#
friends who would have invested and who may still but because I could at the time support myself,
#
myself, I went into it. And the reason later on, I decided to do an MBA was because
#
being an engineer, I'm crazy for optimizing things. And while it was a long and steep
#
and very, very fulfilling journey to to actually get something made and then launch it,
#
I was, I was very upset that I sometimes I was eating, you know, with my, you know, having my,
#
my arm wrapped around my head and bringing the food to my mouth on through the long pathways.
#
And it was starting to worry, worry me a little bit because I was thinking constantly when I was
#
trying to implement marketing strategies or do something or negotiate with somebody over some
#
service, I was constantly feeling like, hey, I really feel there is there is a there is a better
#
way of doing this. And I did not have any networks or connections in the startup world in India at
#
the time. And so I said, hey, I want to form a network. The next time I have a question,
#
I want to have a few people I can shoot emails to and say, hey, this is my problem. I want you
#
to spend time with me. Because I had only started I started the company by myself. I didn't start
#
with a co founder. So in that sense, there wasn't anybody to bounce off ideas with. Because you're
#
trying to be very meticulous when you're putting your money into building the platform, building
#
the product, everything is in your control. In that sense, you have set a goal on on the date
#
that you have you want to launch something. And I'm very, very particular about I see a lot of
#
people launching a lot of things now. And you they'll put it on Twitter, and then you click on
#
that platform. And then you see a spelling mistake. And then I'm like, Oh, my God, I would never be
#
able to take that. So I'm trying in that sense, I have a bit of an OCD. But you have that all is in
#
your control. But once you have launched your platform, and now when customers are starting to
#
interact with it, then in that sense, you have sort of given it in their hands now. And then
#
the predictability of everything reduces, you can try different things. And you're, you may not have
#
answers to how people are reacting not only to a product, but also your marketing strategies. I
#
decided that, hey, this is something that I want to learn, I want to learn how I can optimize how
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I'm working, before I put, put in much more money into it. And I want to sort of be in the right
#
circles. So that I don't constantly question myself. And while that is going to continue to happen,
#
I guess now I will come, I have a bit more of a network that I trust, and that knows that I can
#
contact them at any point and ask them these questions. So it wasn't really about raising
#
money in that sense, for me early on, but about me starting to become more and more comfortable
#
with running a business. I guess that's, that's how I decided to do an MBA.
#
That's a fascinating journey from running to running a business. And you know, and you've
#
pointed out earlier about how you've taken up so many different kinds of challenges like running
#
92 floors and 100 push ups and all of that in just 40 minutes and all that. But you know,
#
in just 40 minutes and all that, but did anything prepare you for a marathon seen in the unseen
#
podcast recording? Oh my God, this is, this is going to be, this is going to be one of the
#
stories that I'm going to tell in some other podcast that this is, this is also me testing
#
my limits of talking about myself. I mean, I guess, I guess few people, honestly, I mean,
#
I think few people get a chance to talk about their story in this depth. And so, I mean,
#
I have to thank you for, for, for delving so deep into your guest stories and really uncovering
#
what sort of keeps them up at night in that sense, both in terms of what excites them,
#
but also what bothers them. No, we are not done yet. So,
#
but we are almost done. I don't want, you've been very kind with your time and I don't want to
#
push this too far, but my final bunch of questions deal around asking you to give advice. And you
#
said you don't like giving Gyan on Twitter. Well, now you can give Gyan on the seen in the unseen.
#
And we can begin with advice for women. Like one of the themes that concerns you and that you wrote
#
about in the note that you sent me earlier also is about the importance of sport in women's lives,
#
the common health issues that women face. And also what I was struck by, quote,
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women's general mentality with regards to age and the ability of their bodies,
#
stop quote. And I think in general, when you look at gender of women in India, especially seem to
#
just basically accept a role that is given to them and not exercise enough of their agency,
#
which in most cases they can't, but even when they can, they're kind of mentally suppressed
#
in a way that, no, this is what I am. This is my role. These are my limits and so on and so forth.
#
And I guess that through your journey, both with sport, both with nutrition,
#
you know, you've kind of not just gone beyond your own limits and all of that,
#
but also, you know, would you would have a lot of advice to women who are listening to this,
#
for example, about, you know, about all of these things. So what are your thoughts?
#
So, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. I do feel very strongly about women stopping themselves
#
from finding out more about themselves. So I think it's very easy for us to and valid,
#
all valid for us to say that we live in a patriarchal society and there's a lot of
#
gender bias and all of that. But if you start talking a little bit about solutions that are
#
more in your circle of influence and more about things, start talking about things that you can do,
#
I would say the first and foremost is I would start saying that forget what's your age
#
and try and do the things that you have wanted to do, whatever is on your bucket list. And
#
if you want to do anything at all where you have told yourself that I do, I think I'm too old for
#
it. I mean, I would say go and do that exact thing, whether it is lifting weights, whether it is
#
some trip that you want to take some solo travel, whatever it is, I would say that is so important
#
to your further growth. I would say that's stopping you then. If there is anything at all that you've
#
given yourself an excuse for and that excuses your age, then I would say that's the exact and
#
the first thing you should do tomorrow or as soon as you can. So that would be my advice. Yeah. And
#
think about it. If you look at women in the gym as well, right? I mean, there are many
#
there are men on the leg press in the gym where you're trying to push a plate basically and
#
working your quadriceps. There are men who will sit on top of the place where you add weights
#
because there's not enough plates in the gym. And then this gym dude who's being so very masculine
#
and everybody else who's pumping him up are trying to add weight and show him that, oh,
#
you can lift 200 kilos, 300 kilos. And he's basically doing all these half reps
#
that from a personal trainer and a science point of view are just stupid.
#
But they know all of this, but all of them gather together, pump each other's egos up.
#
And even though they're doing some shit reps, they all come off it, boasting about it. Oh, I did 200
#
kilos today. I did 300 kilos today. And nobody's really asking them if you really did the exercise
#
properly or not. It doesn't matter. And then on the other hand, you look at women who are able to
#
do things or who are not even asking anybody for help in the gym. These gym dudes have like groups
#
that are helping pump them up. And here's women who've already sort of told themselves that I'm
#
not going to go ask for help because sometimes you want somebody to sort of come pump you up a
#
little bit. And then you do an exercise properly or so and somebody says, oh my God, you are really
#
good. Oh, I think maybe accidentally or I don't know. So you'd give all kinds of excuses apart
#
from boasting about what you just did. So in general, I think on a different note,
#
I have to say I really, really, really admire women who can talk about themselves with pride
#
without making it look like they're boasting about themselves, because I think that's a skill.
#
And not a lot of women are able to do it. I am not able to do it myself as well as I would like to
#
do, because women just don't know how to promote themselves, how to be proud of their own
#
achievements. And on the other hand, men, even if they don't have a real achievement to boast
#
about, will just gang up and then prop each other up and say that, okay, you've done so well.
#
And sometimes it works. Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it. And women who are even
#
making it or even doing it are not boasting about it. So yeah, I do think that's my advice to women
#
that first of all, do the things that you have kept on the back burner for a very long time.
#
And now you feel you're too old to do. I know a number of women who started lifting weights
#
at the age of 37 and 38 and have won medals in the Commonwealth Games. But I also know a lot of
#
women who are way past their 50s and are much fitter than me, are doing much better than me,
#
who's much younger to them. And also if you really look at my experience, when I started running
#
that five kilometers that I did back in 2010, I used to look at some of my seniors who were
#
four or five years older than me. And I was maybe 22 that time and they were 27, 28. And I used to
#
think, oh my god, she's 27, 28. And she's still running 5k and doing so well. Then I turned 27,
#
28. And I was doing really well. And I was looking at people who were 32, 33. And oh my god,
#
she's 32, 33. She's doing so well. Then I turned 32, 33. And I was still able to do it. And now
#
I look at women who are maybe 40 and be like, oh my god, they're so fit. So what does that prove
#
that that just means that age is just a number so long as you are able to put in the work.
#
And that's pretty much my advice to women. Learn to sort of talk about your achievements
#
with a lot more pride and go do all the things that you put on the back burner.
#
That's fantastic advice even for men. And that also speaks to what you were saying before the
#
show started, that you've noticed so many women guests who come on the show will say that, oh,
#
what's interesting about my story or oh, Amit, please stop me if I digress too much. And even
#
you did that once or twice during this. And the men never do that. And you're right. And that sort
#
of lack of confidence is sort of infuriating. I think I've referred in a previous episode to
#
this study I'd read about confidence that a company apparently tried to stress with this
#
internal workers where it advertised job opening and said, these are the 10 qualities we need.
#
And the women simply would not apply unless they met nine or 10 of those.
#
While a man he meets four or five, he will apply Bindas, you know, and this is a problem.
#
And to an extent, I've noticed that I've been a victim of that myself. Sometimes women take
#
everything too seriously. And if somebody says, okay, you know, you need these 10 things to apply
#
and they are literally trying to match everything one to one. And then there's something that's not
#
matching. And then they're so worried about it. I guess that's how we are.
#
And we can change which is, I think these words of yours might be so inspiring that the Tiger
#
Academy in Phuket will suddenly find all kinds of Indian women are landing up. What is happening?
#
That would be so good. I would I would be the first one to go watch all these Indian women
#
really push themselves there against all the apparently stronger looking German and Canadian
#
and other women, Australian, because I'm very curious every every time I see women pushing
#
themselves because everybody's bodies look different. But that is not a reflection of what
#
their ability is. So as as somebody who's watching, it becomes a very interesting thing.
#
So yeah, I'd be the first one to go watch the spectacle.
#
Yeah, and I can imagine a potbellied Indian man also landing up at the Tiger Academy in Phuket
#
and refusing there are many and refusing to pay. And when they ask him, why are you refusing to
#
pay? He'll say, oh, you're in Phuket. Oh, I had to do one of those. It's sort of OK. So now the
#
second of three categories of advice. And this is advice for people like me who've never engaged
#
seriously with something like fitness or sport or whatever. And who in the abstract love the
#
idea of being fit and being sporty, but in the concrete have never done anything about it.
#
And and you know, people like me would then argue that, look, I mean, I have to sit in front of my
#
laptop all the time. And where is it? And actually, I can't argue that because I'm fortunate enough to
#
control a lot of my time. But most office going people would say that, you know, we have so many
#
responsibilities, khar dekhna hai, office dekhna hai, time ni milta exercise ke liye, kaise kare, kya kare,
#
sports matlab, what do you mean sports, kahan khele, kya khele. So what's your advice to these kind of
#
people? Not necessarily on what specific to do, because that obviously depends on circumstances
#
and all that. But just in terms of mindset, that how should we think about fitness? How should we
#
think about our bodies? So Amit, first and foremost, I think everybody who says ki,
#
arey main toh shaam ko badminton khelta hu, I would first like to tell people that doing sport
#
and doing fitness are two different things. And sport is where you're learning a certain skill,
#
and then you're participating in the sport itself, but you already need to be fit to perform in the
#
sport. So fitness and sport are different. If somebody, I mean, yeah, if you're active,
#
it's still better than nothing. But if you're trying to achieve a certain fitness goal, and then
#
do that through playing volleyball or basketball or whatever your sport is, that's not going to
#
happen. And so you cannot say that, okay, I've been playing badminton so regularly, and still
#
I don't see anything. So you need to find time for fitness. And I agree that sometimes it's not that
#
you don't have time in your day, but sometimes you don't have the mental space. And I would say that
#
even 15 minutes of really committed exercise, but every single day, and when you're really pushing
#
yourself, can do wonders for people. And I don't see why 15 minutes should be difficult for anybody
#
at all. So I would say start with 15 minutes if that's very, if going to the gym and lifting
#
weights and all that seems too much for you right now, start with 15 minutes, but then make those
#
15 minutes count. There are a number of programs that would challenge you in 15 minutes, and then
#
make them count. And then you may come to a point where they're not challenging enough, then that's
#
a good cue to ramp it up. Sounds good. I mean, for me, I guess maybe that would just be standing
#
for 15 minutes. Like this is actually a sit stand desk, which is right here, but I don't spend so
#
much time standing. It's just that, you know, depending on my degree of slump, I'll adjust the
#
height. But that's kind of what happens. But the final category of advice really goes back to
#
something we spoke about at the start of the episode, where you spoke about parents' attitude
#
to their children playing sports and so on. What advice would you have for parents when it comes
#
to their kids? Whether it is in the context of being serious about a sport, or whether it is
#
just in context of what their kids do in their free time, should parents really care about the
#
proportion of physical activity that is actually getting done? How does one look at this?
#
That's an interesting question. I would say, first of all, parents need to expose their children to
#
a variety of sport. And in general, try and keep an eye on what they show interest in. And I'm not
#
a very big fan of, hum shaam ko khelne bhishthe hain. I'm not a big fan of that, because I feel like
#
there's no goal to it. There is fun, there's mixing with other children and all of that. But
#
that would also happen in a sport. I definitely feel that, just like you talk about a musical
#
instrument, it's a discipline, it's a skill you're learning, and it's best started early.
#
If you see that your child is showing interest in a certain sport, then I would definitely
#
then I would definitely say that parents need to make that little extra effort to find the best
#
coach or at school support every single initiative the school is making to help your child
#
do better in that sport. Because somewhere I feel like our parents were very supportive,
#
but they were also very supportive because they were supportive for their children. It's
#
not like they knew a lot about the sport or anything like that. So whatever happened with us,
#
in a sense, happened accidentally. But it doesn't mean it'll happen accidentally for everybody.
#
And which is why I would say my advice for parents is, first of all, I think all children
#
should follow a certain sport and provide them with every facility to flourish in it. And if it
#
actually comes to a point where they actually show prodigal skills, then allow them to make it priority.
#
There's a book, I think it's by Amy Chua called Tiger Mom, and I'm getting the feeling that
#
you'd be a bit of a tiger trainer in the sense that you are so strict in terms of badminton,
#
badminton is not fitness, or I'm sending my kids out to play, kids out to play, that's not fitness,
#
you know, which I like, which is great. I wish I had a trainer like you when I was seven.
#
So my very final question. Brutal realities.
#
Brutal realities, yeah. And it's never too late to start, so you know, why not?
#
So my final question for you is, it's a traditional one, so you're obviously familiar with it,
#
that for my guests and for me, recommend some books, films, music that you like.
#
Does it have to do with the rousing sport, action or general? Is this a general question?
#
It's a general question, whatever is dear to you. So it could be something completely
#
that no one may associate with any of the things you do, but whatever it's
#
dear to you, whatever is a desert island book or a desert island disc, whatever.
#
Something that you feel so strongly about, you'd love to share it with everyone.
#
Okay, so if I just talk about some of the topics that we've touched on in the podcast,
#
then the books that we spoke about in terms of Gary Taubes and Nina Tisholson,
#
you said you would also provide links to them. I will, I will.
#
But apart from that, if you ask me about films, I would say I have a very mixed bag.
#
I would, I would watch something like Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Saffron Foyer.
#
I would watch, I mean, a childhood favorite movie has been The White Balloon,
#
which is an Iranian movie about a little girl and her, and her wish to get a goldfish.
#
I like a lot of Majid Majidi films as well. In terms of, in terms, I really enjoy
#
Tamilian music. I enjoy Arabic music. And so I would say, you know, just Google
#
some Tamilian and Arabic music and most of the tunes are lovely. I listen to a lot of
#
Indian classical music. That's books, films. I love, I love some series on OTT now. I mean,
#
I'm very predictable, Amit, in terms of loving, recently watched Panchayat 2,
#
because I didn't have access to it in Berlin. And so when I came to India, I watched it.
#
I really liked Schitt's Creek, for example, This Is Us. All the, all the, all the writing that talks
#
about mundane, everyday life and how it can be quite delightful really appeals to me.
#
I have watched a lot of the documentaries on Netflix that are about sport and fitness. And
#
I think I definitely recommend them, especially, I don't remember one, and if it's still on Netflix,
#
but there was one that interviewed Serena Williams' coach and some popular coaches
#
from football and, and basketball. And I would definitely recommend people to see, see them.
#
I'll link that from the show notes once you remember the name.
#
Yeah. And yeah, pretty much pretty, very predictable. I don't think I go very,
#
I'm not much of an explorer when it comes to books, I would say, and, and films.
#
Yeah. And especially having been in the, in the course in the last six or eight months,
#
I have really not explored much in terms of films. But yeah, a lot of podcasts, I would,
#
I would say, I mean, my way of listening to podcasts is also, apart from, for example,
#
knowing that your podcast is good, if I had to listen to something else, I would just,
#
you know, go for a walk or something and say, Hey, I'm going to listen to this today and see
#
for myself if I find it interesting or not. And I listened to a lot of Ted Talks as well.
#
I think it's like 15 minutes of quick wisdom on, on some things that sometimes you have these
#
last minute questions or something that's popped up in your head when you were like getting back
#
home from somewhere and you're just like, Hey, what are people saying about it? I guess Ted Talks
#
are a good way of getting, getting some quick knowledge.
#
Great. Thank you so much today for your time and your patience and, you know, you have passed
#
another endurance test. Congratulations.
#
I am, I am so glad. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me and for, for yeah,
#
really delving so deep into sport, but also health and, and in general lifestyle. But yeah,
#
glad to be here and, and thanks once again. Thank you.
#
and work out today. Test your limits.
