#
During this episode, I was moved by something that my guest said. He spoke about how awkward
#
he felt when his father tried to hug him. And that reminded me of my own father. In
#
his last years before he died, I felt that he was opening up in ways that neither of
#
us were used to. Once when I visited him in Chandigarh as I was leaving, about to get
#
into my taxi outside the house, he opened his arms for a hug. It was an awkward moment.
#
I was both happy and moved, but I hid the emotion. On one trip home, he even thanked
#
me for coming, which was also out of character because he was always so blase about it. When
#
episode 200 of this show came out, which is basically a long interview of me by my guest,
#
he actually said he was proud of me, which was stunningly expressive given his past record
#
of reticence of being a hard man. It's a regret I have that I didn't peel back past
#
all those layers, both his layers and mine, while he was still here. Maybe if I had heard
#
this episode, I would have. Here's the thing, I have done many episodes where I have discussed
#
feminism and the lives that women lead. Indeed, the title of this episode follows on from
#
episode 259, The Loneliness of the Indian Woman. At this point in time, in 2022, anyone listening
#
to this show understands the many layers of oppression that women live with and normalise
#
and that we must fight against. We have language for what happens to them, phrases like mansplaining
#
and gaslighting and so on and on. We have frames to explain it. But the thing is, it
#
isn't just women who are victims of patriarchy. Men are also diminished by it. They are trapped
#
in roles, in grooves laid out for them. Here's what it means to be a man, to be a provider,
#
to be a father, to be a son. You play that role, you get the job done, you don't cry
#
at movies, don't show emotion, don't be a wuss. And many of us often get with the program
#
and don't question what being male does to us. We have no language to describe this.
#
We keep our emotions bottled up inside us, not expressing them to others, not even expressing
#
them to ourselves. So what my guest speaks at length about in this episode should not
#
be a surprise. The loneliness of the Indian man, the mental health problems that young
#
people throughout this country are having to confront and what this does to our society.
#
This is all unseen. And there's a big lesson here. Men who call themselves feminists like
#
me need to not only think about how they look at women, but also how they look at themselves.
#
Their kindness has to go in that direction as well. Only kindness can save us.
#
Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral
#
science. Please welcome your host, Amit Verma.
#
Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen. My guest today is Nikhil Taneja, who trained as an
#
engineer, began working life as a journalist at Hindustan Times, went on to MTV and to
#
Yash Raj Films, where he was a general manager at the age of 30. Then he was crippled by
#
anxiety and decided to confront his mental health issues. And he realized that many of
#
the problems he faced came straight out of his being a man. He quit his job, did therapy
#
and later started Yuva, an organization that makes content, builds communities and carries
#
out research that's meant to understand and empower young Indians everywhere.
#
Now I think of my episodes as being stimulating conversations, deep dives akin to oral histories.
#
And this episode is all of them. But it's also an episode that can change lives, something
#
I felt about my episode with Shreyaana as well. We discuss a growing loneliness in our
#
connected world. We discuss anxiety and mental health. We discuss the immense power of storytelling.
#
What Nikhil has done with it is so unique and inspiring. We talk about the kindness
#
project and initiative of Nikhil's and why most of all, we need to be kind to ourselves.
#
So do listen and do share it with anyone you think may be interested. I know it's a long
#
episode, but it contains multitudes. Before we get there though, let's take a quick commercial
#
break even though what the commercials are me only, that's how it is.
#
Have you always wanted to be a writer, but never quite gotten down to it? Well, I'd love
#
to help you. Since April 2020, I've taught 20 cohorts of my online course, The Art of
#
Clear Writing. An online community has now sprung up of all my past students. We have
#
workshops, a newsletter to showcase a work of students and vibrant community interaction.
#
In the course itself, through four webinars spread over four weekends, I share all I know
#
about the craft and practice of clear writing. There are many exercises, much interaction,
#
a lovely and lively community at the end of it. The course costs rupees 10,000 per GST
#
or about $150 and is a monthly thing. So if you're interested, head on over to register
#
at indiancut.com slash clear writing. That's indiancut.com slash clear writing. Being a
#
good writer doesn't require God given talent, just the willingness to work hard and a clear
#
idea of what you need to do to refine your skills. I can help you. Nikhil, welcome to
#
The Scene in the Unseen. Thank you for having me, Amit. Yeah, I've been thinking of inviting
#
you for a long time, though got down to it fairly recently. But I'm actually glad that
#
I didn't invite you say two years ago, because the show was much shorter than and I just
#
feel that you're a guest who's tailor made for this longer format where one can kind
#
of go deep into oneself and introspect about the world. And that's one thing I've also
#
really enjoyed about the talks you've given and your columns with H.T. where, you know,
#
there are various places where it feels like you're almost sinking allowed in the same
#
way that I do about the same things I care about. So I really enjoyed that. One of the
#
interesting things you mentioned in your column is that you are the last generation to grow
#
up before the internet and also the first generation to actually grow up with the internet
#
in the sense that a transitional point. And this is actually a question I've asked guests
#
of my own age. I'm 48 now at the time of recording. And what I have noticed in my life is that
#
I became an adult before the internet was there. So I was well into my 20s before the
#
internet came. And it was interesting because I had to kind of learn about the world again,
#
learn about myself again, you know, you just do that whole process from scratch, even something.
#
And it's a very clear demarcation in my generation. And also, you know, just in terms of earlier
#
before the internet, you are restricted by communities of circumstance, whereas now we
#
can form communities of choice. And in just so many ways, life is completely different.
#
I want to hear from you what it was like, you know, growing up before the internet,
#
because you can contrast it in a much better with in a sense growing up with it because
#
it came when you were young enough. And, you know, earlier, when we were having lunch before
#
this, you were speaking about the importance of finding that quietitude or terror where
#
you can just sit and, you know, not let sensations knock you from thing to thing. Tell me a
#
bit about your growing up years before the internet, like wherever you were born, where
#
First, I want to again, I know I've said this to you outside of the podcast, but I think
#
like this is a milestone. I think one of the markers of, you know, making it for me was
#
when I get called to this podcast.
#
You're too kind. You've been on very good podcasts like Varun Duggirala, Kartik Nagarajan.
#
Amazing. No, but thank you for having me. Honestly, I'm really look, as I said, I think
#
another thing that I'm really looking forward to over here is, you know, learning something
#
about myself also, which I think like that's the, every time I hear your podcast, as you
#
yourself said, I think you learn not just about the person, but something about yourself.
#
So where do I begin? So I was born in Karnal, in Haryana. And my family, we were living
#
in Lucknow at that time. My father was a banker. My mother tells me about the time when we
#
were, you know, in Lucknow, we were not very well off. So she would always, she has these,
#
you know, when you see three idiots and you have that scene of black and white scene where
#
you show people being, you know, not very well off. She kind of always talks about it
#
in that way that, you know, Papa ke ka coat phat jata tha. So then there was a choice.
#
Should we get you an ice cream or should we get you, should we get his coat repaired?
#
So that's, that's the context that I have, you know, of, of growing up at that time,
#
and we were, there was a lot my father was doing to try and break out of his circumstance.
#
And that was visible to everybody in the family. But he was constantly, I don't think I spent
#
time with my father, you know, growing up at all, you know, because he was constantly
#
just trying to make it. He was just constantly trying to get more money, get a better house,
#
get a better life. And so yeah, I don't, unfortunately, have too many memories of spending
#
any time with my father. So I was very much raised by my mother in that sense. And two
#
things started happening. A, of course, I started, you know, finding a lot of love and
#
empathy for my mother for the sacrifices that she's done. And kind of always wanting to
#
grow up to be the kind of the opposite kind of a man as my father, because I was like,
#
I would see my mother doing it all alone, right. And my, with my father, just, just
#
so much, you know, I just wish I knew him more, which I still do right now. But yeah,
#
there was a lot of my early years, you know, we, from Lucknow, we went to Delhi, my father
#
moved up, he was in Bangalore. From there, we were there for about a year and a half.
#
And then we went to the Middle East and Dubai. In Delhi, you know, my memories of, I feel
#
Amit, I've always somewhere been like this outsider looking in. I was talking to Hitesh
#
Kevalya, who's, you know, his writer and director is done, Shiv Mangal Saavdaan, Zada Saavdaan.
#
He used this fantastic term called border wale log. He said that, you know, kuch log
#
hota hai, border wale log hota hai, jo, jo, they're always on the borders, they're never
#
like inside or outside. I feel like as someone who, you know, grew up in a manner where I
#
was definitely not, I won't say we were, you know, quote unquote, poor, but we're definitely
#
not very well off. And, and suddenly in Delhi, when lifestyle started improving, I was put
#
into for example, Ryan International. And I remember my memories of that time has been
#
just me feeling really like, where am I fitting in here, you know, as somebody who was not,
#
you know, as, as rich as any of the other people over there, the way they spoke, the
#
English that they had, the clothes that they wore, the chocolates they would bring every
#
day. And those are my early memories of like growing up. And then we went to Dubai where,
#
you know, my, again, upwardly mobile, so, you know, got a slightly better lifestyle
#
again. I felt at home when I was in a school over there called our own English high school,
#
where, which was basically the one place where I think every middle-class Indian kid over
#
there was put in. But there was a better school there, which called modern high school, where,
#
which was for the upper class, so to speak, where my parents ultimately put me. So my
#
parents had made this choice when I was in, when I was in Delhi, my younger brother was
#
put in a place, put in not a very good school or a rich school in that sense. And he was
#
put in a government school and I was put in Ryan International. And so when we went to
#
Dubai, they switched it and said, you know what, and now our younger son gets to go to
#
a better school and, you know, Nikhil goes to, gets to go to our own. No offence to anybody
#
from our own. But eventually when I went into modern high, again, the same, I feel like
#
so much of my life was just trying to kind of figure out how, who, what are these people
#
and you know, what is this, where am I stand? Where do I stand with these people? Right.
#
And for me again, I think I just took it in with my mother also constantly telling me
#
as his mother was raising me pretty much on her own, constantly telling me things like,
#
you know, you need to obviously do better. You need to get a certain amount of marks
#
and you need to make me proud. You need to go with every young boy is told, you know,
#
you have to be an engineer and do an MBA. All of those things were always there. You
#
know, I was constantly being told. So my ambition initially just became that I have to make
#
my mother proud. That is all I want to do in my life. And no matter what place I was
#
in, no matter what role I was in, I was always just overworking, you know, putting my everything
#
into it just to make sure that when I go back, my mother is just like seeing all the work
#
that she's done in raising me and my brother. She's proud of us. And in that, I think I
#
just imbibed a mindset of like, you know, work is everything, you know, making it is
#
everything. Aspiration is everything, which somehow started conflicting with I think who
#
I was as a person, which I've now realized many, many, many years later, which was a
#
person who used to really like writing, who used to really like art, who used to really
#
like watching movies growing up. And, you know, stories were my comfort zone. As someone
#
again, as I said, someone who didn't really fit in or did not know where to fit in. I
#
would always watch movies as, you know, a way for me to feel less alone. I remember
#
one of the, you know, many years ago, I was just trying to teach and I'm sure we'll
#
come to that. When I was teaching my students, I used to always ask them, you know, tell
#
me your story. And then one day when they asked me what's my story, and I would always
#
tell them to go deeper, deeper, deeper. And then I said something very superficial. And
#
then I kept started thinking, like, you know, everyone I asked them to go deep, but what
#
is my and then one of the and why do I do what I do? And I was in Yash Raj films at
#
that time, I was, you know, filmmaker. And the deeper that I went, I kind of recognized
#
this one thing, which came to me as an epiphany that, you know, one of the reasons why I even
#
interested in stories was because so my father was a big Devanand fan. And the only time
#
that my father would ever call me was when he put on would come home and put on a Devanand
#
movie. And then he'd be like, do you want to watch it? And then I would sit with him
#
and I would watch these movies. That's what I remember growing up. And I suppose in that
#
moments with my father, I started recognizing the power of stories and storytelling and
#
the fact that, you know, they actually bring you together in some way or the other. And
#
and that's my connection that I made with stories. You know, the only time I would ever
#
have with my father was because of movies, because, you know, we got to sit together
#
and spend three hours while we didn't may not have spoken. My father would be very excited
#
about the facts of that film. And that's all I know. He would never talk about me about
#
feelings and emotions. But like, Devanand has done these many films and Adi Varman has
#
done this and Kishore Kumar has done this and you know, but I was getting to spend time
#
with my father, which meant a lot to me. But and that was my life. And and I started really
#
falling in love with the written word with stories started writing when I was very young
#
when I was about 14. And, and that's where the internet came into my life. So from Dubai
#
we went to Bahrain. And there was a magazine in the Middle East called Young Times, which
#
was a part of the Khalish Times group over there. And Young Times was for young writers.
#
And they used to have an arts column in it where people used to make paintings and drawings
#
and send them. So my brother was a natural artist, you know, so he would draw these beautiful,
#
you know, drawings and whatnot and send them and they'd get published. And I would constantly
#
also try to do the same. But they would never publish my story. And I mean, my drawings
#
are so irritated, you know, like, and I was very bad at it. And I would also then, you
#
know, use like a transparent paper and copy, you know, a drawing and I clearly they found
#
out that I'm actually it's a plagiarism, which I now understand. But, but, you know,
#
I was just getting so frustrated that my brother keeps getting published. I don't keep getting
#
published. I've sent far more entries than my brother. So one day I wrote a letter to
#
them, you know, saying that, you know, like, I have a grievance with you all, you know,
#
as a 13, 14 year old, you know, I've sent so many different, you know, entries and you
#
never publish it. And they publish that letter. And then I was like, well, clearly there's
#
something in my writings that they wanted to publish. So, so I started writing more
#
letters to them and they started publishing those letters. And eventually, because it
#
was a youth magazine, I kind of, and because we had access to the internet, they just had
#
like this email ID, we had got our first computer at that time, this is when I was 13. And,
#
and we just got an internet dial up internet connection. So I just, I don't know why,
#
but again, sense of ambition, constantly wanting to do better. I was like, what if I asked
#
these folks that, what if I could do something in Bahrain as a young writer? Can I be their
#
correspondent? Can I, you know, because there's a lot of Indian celebrities to come to Bahrain.
#
I was like, what if I interview them? And I don't even know where these ideas, sorry,
#
I didn't even know where these ideas came from. But I was just, I gave it a shot because
#
of the internet and they wrote back saying, yes, go for it. And I said, what? And that's
#
when my writing career pretty much began at 13, 14. I got published. I've, I interviewed
#
like from Junoon to, you know, Shankar Mahadevan to, you know, to Michael Schumacher. I have
#
interviewed all of them before I was 18 during school years. And actually like spending time
#
with those folks, Mohanlal, I've sat with him where Mohanlal is like, and the internet
#
was the way for me to get to know them as well. I'd just do intense research on everybody.
#
And when I'd go there, you know, because I was like ages against me in that sense,
#
they'd be like, who's this 13, 14 year old coming? But like my, I need to make sure that
#
when I ask questions, nobody looks down on me. So I just researched the hell out of everybody
#
and then go into that and start asking these questions. So before the internet, I feel
#
like I kind of did not, as I think, did not know where to fit in. And when the internet
#
happened, I suddenly kind of found my voice, you know, as somebody who just in the offline
#
world, because of a certain, I don't know, class hierarchy, a social hierarchy, I was
#
just always lost, always trying to find, you know, companionship or true friendship or
#
authentic relationships, which I was just not able to as a young boy, and which is where
#
movies became important to me. I think because of the internet, then I started finding like
#
a reason or an entire world on the internet that was meant for me, that was like, this
#
is my community, this is going to be my world. This is where I fit in.
#
Wow, that's very resonant and many things I want to double click on. But first, I was,
#
just before you told me that you were born in Karnal, I thought of Karnal during lunch.
#
And the reason is that I was born in Chandigarh, but so I kind of know Karnal from a distance.
#
But the reason is that you were talking about the film you were kind of working on, you're
#
talking about one of your projects and a project that I once abandoned came to mind, which
#
was about 12-13 years ago, I decided that I'm going to write the series of three really
#
bad pulpy novels, much like Roger Common films, you know, that kind of feel. And I'm going
#
to write each of them in one week. So it's going to be really hurried and bad. And one
#
of those was whole Karnal in Karnal. And it was about this bunch of boys, bunch of guys
#
who want to have a party in this farmhouse in Karnal. And they get a bunch of sex workers
#
there or a bunch of girls to have it with. And then it quickly becomes a horror film,
#
as these women turn on them and eventually murder all of them. And you know, so it was
#
very gory and very whatever. I never ended up doing this because, you know, one thinks
#
of a million projects and all that. But you know, now when you mentioned Karnal, for some
#
reason I thought of that. And it's again women striking back against a patriarchy, right?
#
There's a certain kind of oppression you're hitting at, which is also the theme of so
#
much of your work. The first of the things I want to double click on is what you told
#
me, the memories you shared with your mother and even your father. Like I did this recent
#
episode with Samarth Bansal, you know, very beautiful deep conversation and where he spoke
#
about the expectations he had from his mother. And you know, he spoke about how the day he
#
got his first job, she said that I feel like I have become independent because, you know,
#
and it was very interesting. I'm interested in not just that aspect of it, but that aspect
#
that in the sense, when we grow up, we often don't think of our parents the way we would
#
do later, right? They are playing roles. We are also playing a role. They are playing
#
roles. They are stuck in that role. We take them for granted. For us, a mother is a particular
#
role that is being played by someone, a father is a particular role. We don't even think
#
of them as real people. You know, recently my father passed last year, so I was looking
#
through old photographs. And I came across a photograph of my parents when they were
#
in their early 40s, right? And it's like a huge sort of mental shift you have to make
#
because in that photograph, they're younger than I am now, and they look like actual real
#
people. And at the same time, I have a memory of them as that little boy in the picture,
#
you know, looking at them as people who are in these roles. You never really see them
#
as people. And later on, when you go through life, you look back, you kind of understand
#
a little bit more. I think some people may go through their whole lives just playing
#
out roles, never understanding that my mother is someone who might have felt restrained
#
by her circumstances, that God knows what kind of quiet grief she hid within her as
#
she played her roles. And dicto for fathers, as you've pointed out, both men and women
#
in different ways are victims of patriarchy. But I want to ask about sort of this memory
#
aspect that, you know, were you clear as a kid at what was happening? Or is this stuff
#
you're beginning to figure out in hindsight? And how do you look back on them and post
#
all of that? You know, how did your relationship with them evolve? Like, is this stuff that
#
you can talk about now at a distance?
#
When I was much younger, I obviously did not have an understanding or perspective of the
#
roles my parents were playing. I just had a lot of love for my mother, because I would
#
see how hard she tries. And not just because of me. And I don't want to dive too deeply
#
into this part of my life, because it's about my brother. And I don't think I'm the right
#
person to talk about his life. But my brother went through a really long phase of mental
#
health issues. And younger brother, so just really like a 10 year period where he was
#
depressed. And my mother's worked day and night to, you know, help him. You know, even
#
when you were in Dubai, Bahrain, you know, again, we were not now I think we're in a
#
place where we can easily say that we are privileged. But, you know, we were, we didn't
#
have enough money to travel through taxis. So, my mother would enroll us in every, you
#
know, extracurricular activity possible. And then just walk us there, you know, like so
#
we like 40 45 minutes in the 4550 degree heat, we would be walking from after school, from
#
our home to like, you know, tuition that she wanted us to be at a karate class, a tennis
#
class, a swimming lesson, which most of which we gave up on you're like terrible kids in
#
that sense, you know, but I was very aware that there was an effort going into, you know,
#
raising us and and and that became even more apparent when my brother started going through
#
his issues. And my mother really like just her entire life became about making sure my
#
brother is, you know, able to get out of it. We did not know at that time was depression,
#
you know, at that time, we thought that there was it was just, I mean, he's some problem
#
as a child is not problematic child in some way. And much later, we found out that this
#
is mental health related, because those terms do not exist in you know, so, so, so yeah,
#
I think growing up and then my I was also very close to my Masi, you know, who was like
#
this ray of light who would come like again, she's a teacher, she has had a very hard life,
#
she lost her husband lost her parents, single handedly like took care of her parents after
#
losing her husband very early lost her brother, both my mother, they've lost his elder brother.
#
And she would just come in and you know, give us like this. So, these gifts she'll bring
#
in you know, just a lot of love, a lot of you know, care every time she'd come in to
#
meet us. And these two women I would and my Masi was someone who would, you know, teach
#
at a school. So, she was a teacher, English teacher at a convent school in Karnal. And
#
one of the most respected women in Karnal even today, like sometimes you go for holidays
#
and you meet a student of hers who comes in ma'am, you've, you've changed my life and
#
whatnot. It's so beautiful to see. So, these two strong women, you know, who are doing
#
everything that was that was my understanding like, you know, of my parents in that sense
#
or my elders. On the other hand, with my father, it was mostly resentment. I was just really
#
angry with him that he was not there for me. I'd see some of my other friends, you know,
#
playing cricket with their fathers, etc, etc, or hanging out with them, you know, my father
#
had no time for us. And, and my father also went through his own issues, used to be very
#
angry, which I feel like most fathers are I suppose, now that I found or now that I've
#
spoken to hundreds of thousands of kids in India, I think that's the pattern, father
#
is equal to angry. But what he would also go through something which I much later realised
#
was anxiety. So, he was, his, he would, his, again, I feel, he would, there's a sense
#
of violence, but that was to himself versus, that anger was taken out on us as well, but
#
never as much as on himself, you know, if I can put it as nicely as possible. So, I just
#
did not really like, I was just angry with my father, you know, like I think all young
#
men in our country are. And I wanted to be the kind of husband, I mean, everything, my
#
father's, like, I was always like, here's my profile of my father, I'm going to be
#
absolute opposite of him in every possible way. I'm going to be the best husband, I'm
#
going to be the best son, I'm going to be the best, you know, brother, I'm going to
#
be the best, you know, caretaker of our home, I'm going to, you know, I mean, I'm never
#
going to go into banking, which he was saying, absolute opposite of everything.
#
Banking, where did it come from?
#
Because he was doing banking, I was like, I'm not going to be a banker. So, if he's
#
outside of India, I'll go back to India. You know, I'm, everything for me was just like,
#
I'm not going to be him. And, and, and again, let me, let me point out this, that he was
#
never, in fact, he was never unkind to me. You know, in that sense, like, he was, he
#
was not, again, with my mother, he was, I think he was just as patriarchal as every
#
Indian man is, let me put it that way, you know, which used to get me even angrier because
#
I'd be like, why are you, you raise us, you do all this work in home, why do you still
#
have to, like, work for him? You're not, you don't have to work for him, you can,
#
you work for the, you're working for your home, I get it, but you have to work for him
#
as well. But, but he was, you know, while and, and for, for whatever it's worth, he's
#
never like, while he's been angry at us, and he's might have raised his hands at me and
#
my brother, but he's never like, you know, with my mother, he's never really been violent
#
in a domestic violence way, you know, and, but he, as I said, he just had a lot of, you
#
know, anxiety issues, which I much later found out, and, and seeing him, I had a sense of,
#
you know, and I feel very, now that I look back, I feel really bad about that, I used
#
to have a sense of, he's a weak man, he's not a very strong man, you know, whereas I
#
feel like it does take a lot of strength for him to break out of the family that he came
#
from, you know, and go on to his whole family, you know, nobody else has been, so to speak,
#
successful in his family, you know, he was from Panipat and his parents, and I mean,
#
both our parents are from, you know, what is now Pakistan, Punjab in Pakistan, you
#
know, crossed over, grandparents crossed over, one settled in, you know, Karnal eventually
#
and one settled in Panipat eventually, and, but he broke out of his, you know, he, and,
#
and he did it on his own, there was no support system, he did like the, you know, the clerk
#
exam, you know, whichever the banking exam is, and then rose his ranks, and now he is,
#
you know, chairman at ICC in Bahrain and, you know, he's spoken at United Nations
#
on him, he's one of the biggest names in trade finance, even though he still like,
#
thinks he's nothing, you know, but it has, it's been very, I mean, much later, I've
#
looked back and thought that, you know, I mean, he was much stronger man without the
#
support system, you know, my mother was the biggest support system, but he'd grown up
#
without a system which, which then made him so angry at his own life, that all the things
#
that he would do or, you know, he just didn't have the emotional quotient that my mother
#
had, and I, earlier I used to blame him for him, for it, and then after a lot of therapy,
#
I realized that, you know, it's not his fault, either is it.
#
So growing up, I had very, you know, clear rules of, you know, what my mother is supposed
#
to, my mother is what my father is, but much later in life, I have, I was very angry with
#
my father for many, many, many, many years, now I'm not, now I empathize, now I understand,
#
now I feel bad for the way that I have treated him as a son, even though, you know, I'm still
#
angry at the way he treated my mother, but at the same time, I recognize it's not, it's,
#
it's conditioning and it's, you know, he had anxiety, he had conditioning, he tried so
#
hard to, he's the reason why I have whatever privilege I have today, he's the reason why
#
our family has whatever privilege we have today, that, you know, and we were good children
#
in that sense, let me be honest, like my brother and I, we never, you know, we'd recognize
#
that our parents have worked hard to get their money, we've never spent up, like, never,
#
we didn't even ask for a gift on our birthday, both of us, you know, that if we get it, we'll
#
get it, if we don't, there's no tension, we were just happy, like, being with each other,
#
you know, and, and it's only like in my thirties, my father has started gifting me things, which
#
has been like, like, okay, what do I do with this now, I have an iPad, thank you, but,
#
but, you know, so, yeah, I just, I just, and on the other hand, when I, my anger with my
#
father also translated to anger with my mother during my twenties, because, because she wanted
#
me to again break out of our circumstances in some way, she just put a lot of pressure
#
on me, which again, I don't begrudge her for any more, but at that time, it just, it
#
dove me into a certain kind of, again, depression, if I can say so, where I was trying after
#
my, I mean, I'm sure we'll get into that, but I did after, even though I was someone
#
who was writing at such an early age, you know, I remember this very distinct conversation,
#
which is not even a conversation that my parents would remember, but we were at our first ever
#
family holiday in life, you know, so after I finished 12th, my father took us for this
#
SOTC Europe tour, you know, and there was, and my father is always this person, which
#
I'm saying he's always also been like, anytime I had interviews, he'd drive me to those
#
interviews, so he's also been like, I always looked at him in such, such a sharply negative
#
point of view that I could never see the efforts he made in different ways, but I remember
#
like, again, my father showing off to everyone and saying, my son has written in these magazines,
#
he's interviewed these people, look at this, look at that, he was 17 at that time, and
#
there's this old couple that he was talking to, and the couple said, that sounds so fantastic,
#
so is he going to now, I was in 12th, right, is he going to an arts college, is he, are
#
you putting him in like Delhi in like something interesting, and my mother immediately said,
#
no, no, that's a hobby, you know, that's not what he will do, he will, you know, be
#
an engineer, and, and he's going to, you know, then do MBA and you know, and I was,
#
it wasn't like, it's such a distinct memory for me, and much later I remember that it's
#
still something that hits me that I just never had an opinion or a, or a, or a decision in
#
what I was ever going to do, it was just decided for me, right, ki ye hi karega, aur maine
#
bhi uss time soocha nahi mein kaha, main bhi maan gaya tha, ye hi karna hai, I am going
#
to be an engineer, you know, but I mean, I was this, whatever, bright kid who used to
#
love writing, and I wish somebody had pointed me in that direction and said, you know what,
#
do this, but I had to find a different path, I had to finish engineering, then I had to
#
leave, I mean, like after that, I got jobs, told my parents, dekhon mein, I am capable
#
of getting jobs, after that, I came to Bombay, and then started working with Hindustan Times,
#
at a very, you know, like a terrible, terrible salary for like two to one half years, even
#
during that time, my mother would keep telling me, and she would say it in the, again, from
#
a place of, you know, you are not earning money, you should really like do something
#
where you are going to be comfortable, but for me, it was always like, you know, have
#
some faith in me, I know there is no money right now, but I am trying to do something
#
of my own, you are the one person who has always given me love, why can't you today
#
show me that love and that trust and that support and just let me be, and that just
#
drove like a wedge into our relationship, so for a very long time, you know, I kind
#
of have this thing where I feel like when you are younger, your parents are always forgiving
#
you for like being an idiot, you know, in the middle, there is a time when you grew
#
up and your parents stop forgiving you, because you are like, now you can't be an idiot because
#
you are, you know, not young anymore, but because your parents have always had a certain
#
way of behaving with you, you start, you know, also getting angry, you have always like,
#
why not now, I am, so what, I am still your child or whatever, you still say I am a child,
#
but why are you getting angry, so you also get angry back, right, and then you kind of
#
get older and then you become the opposite, you become a parent in that sense to your
#
parents where you are just like, okay, they are old and they don't get it as much as
#
we do, now we need to start forgiving, right, and that's what I think happened after in
#
my thirties where I have just like let it all go and I have really, you know, tried
#
to listen to my parents, tried to understand them, as you very nicely said, I have tried
#
to look at them not as parents, but as human beings and just really felt bad for the way
#
that I was just so angry in my twenties with them, I mean, we still, my mother is still
#
very hurt about the way that I talk about these years because she obviously has done
#
her best to be a fantastic mother, even though it ended up pressurizing me and driving me
#
into a sense of like real despair that my mother doesn't believe in me, you know,
#
but I now keep telling her that it's okay, you know, it's not your fault as well and
#
you need to be comfortable with that, you know, that there was a period that maybe both
#
of us, I mean, all of us are victims of patriarchy and none of us knows any better, you know,
#
you can get angry with your parents as much as you want, but they have been conditioned
#
to behave in the same way from their parents and so on and so forth, you know, everybody
#
has come from the societal conditioning and if you are aware today, you need to have the
#
empathy and its empathy is not easy, it is a responsibility, it's tough, it's a burden
#
sometimes, but if you don't have it, then, you know, you're never going to have, you're
#
never going to go beyond anger into love, into compassion, into togetherness, you know,
#
so I'm just, I'm really glad that now I see my parents differently and I'm just a lot
#
more grateful for what they have given me, my father for the long hours, you know, where
#
he just, when I think about it right now, I mean, he never got to hang with his son,
#
I've always felt like he didn't, my father didn't hang with me, but now I also feel like,
#
well, he as a person, as a human being, as a man did not get to hang out with his son,
#
you know, my mother, I would always be like, she always wanted me to be this way and now
#
I'm looking at it in a different way that she wanted some, she expected something from
#
her son, which her son was pushing back on. So, even their anger was valid or, you know,
#
their efforts were valid, you know, in whatever they were doing. So, yeah, I feel a little,
#
I feel like a tinge of regret in the way that I was my twenties, but I recognize that, you
#
know, obviously this is just the way life is and we got to do better now.
#
There's a lovely anecdote in one of your columns about when you're getting married and you're
#
having this destination wedding in Simla and your mother is, you know, arguing with you
#
about some little thing and you're like, come on, it's my marriage, why are you arguing
#
now? And tell me about that. And what I'm also interested in is that you were able to,
#
after a period of time, shrug off that layer where, you know, they're human beings for
#
you, they're not playing a role anymore. So, you can see them in that new light and can
#
evaluate them in that new light. Were they able to shrug off those layers, not just with
#
regard to you, but perhaps with regard to yourself, like Adi's conversation, like everything
#
that we've been talking about. Is this a conversation you could have with both of them
#
sitting there, sitting across? Great question. With my father, not so much,
#
because with my father, he's still, you know, I don't know if he'll ever hear this, he
#
totally hears most of the things that I do. So, I'm also now a little worried that he's
#
going to hear this. But, you know, I'd love to have a conversation with my father someday,
#
you know, and I want to, I want to just have an honest conversation with him. Just get
#
to know him better. Now, the thing about him, he also talks a lot. Okay, so he's also someone
#
who's very absent minded in how much he speaks. So, he speaks a lot about his life anyway,
#
but not in a meaningful way, right? So, I may know, I know every story of his life a
#
hundred times over, because that's any time he meets anybody at any party, he will repeat
#
those stories. At the same time, I just feel like, like, there's nothing I know beyond
#
the surface of these stories, right? So, I'd love to have like a meaningful conversation
#
with my father someday, where, you know, we can be friends and we can talk about each
#
other. But, you know, I just feel like he never matured into the EQ that you should
#
have to be able to have a compassionate conversation with someone you love or someone who loves
#
you. So, he just has just been, distance has been his, and I feel like that's true for
#
all fathers, right? Distance becomes their thing, I don't know what to say. But, but
#
that's what they're, that's their way of life, you know, being distant from each other.
#
You work, I have to work on my thing, you work on your thing, and every once in a while,
#
we will call each other and then I will hand the phone to your mother, which is, you know,
#
like, every time my father calls me, the first reaction is, I get scared, like, why is my
#
father calling me? Kuch ho toh nahi hai, you know, darr le jata ho mujhe. And if he calls
#
me and he's just like, how are you? I'm like, why, why? Like, what happened? That's my
#
question. I don't like, I'm fine. What, I'm like, what happened? You know, the thing
#
he might sometimes just, so I, I'm still at that place where my father now, after retirement,
#
has also wanted to, like, give me a hug. And I'm just like, what? What, when do you want
#
hugs? When he, when, when, when he gives me a hug, when I give him a hug, even with somebody
#
who kind of now talks a lot about things like empathy, I get so uncomfortable. I don't
#
know, you know, when my father gives me a hug, I'm still like, I don't know what to
#
do about it. I'm just like, closed. I'm like, this is weird. This is not natural. Even though
#
it should be the most natural thing ever, right, for a child to be hugged by their parent.
#
So I feel bad about that. I want, I would love to change that. I don't know how to.
#
I'm still struggling with it. On the other hand, with my mother, I am really fortunate
#
that, you know, we have gone through every cycle of our relationship where we've gotten
#
really angry with each other. I stopped talking to her almost for a year in between. And I
#
was so angry with her not supporting me and not seeing me go down a path where I was very
#
in despair that she wanted me to do an MBA. I remember, like, this one time when I was
#
at MTV, my show was announced at 25. I had become the creator and producer, the youngest
#
creator and producer at MTV to create a fiction show. I was going to be given those credits,
#
you know, and for anybody who's 25 to get that was just an insane thing in India. You
#
know, and I called my mother and I said, you know what, they've announced my show. I'm
#
going to be producing it. I'm also going to be credited as created by, you know, and she
#
heard me out and she's just like, I can't forget that. She's just like, that's so good
#
to hear. That's so great to hear. Does that, but does that mean you will not do an MBA?
#
And I'm like, I just told you that at 25, I am going to be making a show of my own on
#
national television. And your thing is still stuck on. But I mean, that's parents, right?
#
Because that's the only way that she knows that people become successful. Because that's
#
the only she's she just didn't have, you know, she didn't have the internet to begin with.
#
And she did not have, you know, enough resources who would tell her that, you know, there are
#
possibilities outside of engineering and MBA for young man to be able to still find and
#
his voice and his career and, and make it. And until I joined Yash Raj, I remember like
#
the, for me, the, my greatest moment in life, so to speak, is when my mother came to Bombay
#
and I started working in Yash Raj and I had done pretty well over there. So I had got
#
in a cabin and I had been promoted to GM. So I'd got a double promotion, got became
#
GM at YRF. And my mother had come down to Bombay. So I just asked her to come to the
#
Yash Raj office. I took her through, I showed her around the whole Yash Raj campus, took
#
her then to my floor, you know, got her to come to my cabin. I said, this is my cabin.
#
And then she entered and I got her to sit down, took a picture with it. I'm like, are
#
you feeling happy now? And she said, yes, I'm feeling very happy. And then I was like,
#
okay, now it's like achieved tick mark, you know, just the fact that my mother is now
#
finally like happy with where I am in life. But at that time, it was tough, you know,
#
but we went through a lot, you know, we, we, you know, and, and I mean, that was, that
#
happened in the marriage, which is a whole other thing that has happened, you know, we,
#
there was a lot of misunderstanding between me and my mother and I, you know, and, but
#
eventually I just started. And again, I think anxiety and therapy have been like, God given
#
gifts to me where I could tap into, you know, a lot more of my, you know, empathy and my
#
emotions to be able to look at my family in different lights, you know, and go beyond
#
the anger, you know, and over the last six, seven years, I have had such a beautiful,
#
friendly relationship with my mother. She's my closest, one of my closest friends, I would
#
say, if not my closest friend, my wife is my closest friend. If she hears that I said
#
something, otherwise she'll get angry.
#
You're getting into trouble with both people.
#
Tough, tough line, but she's, you know, and to her credit, she has tried so hard to kind
#
of be a friend to us. And I have not seen other people of her age or of her generation
#
try that hard. She has tried so hard. I am so inspired and I look up to her so much.
#
She has done everything possible. She realized that her relationship with both her children
#
was getting stuck at a place. We were not going beyond that. And she did everything.
#
She said, tell me what I have to do. And she did it. She's like, you know, I mean, all
#
parents, I feel after a certain point, you know, because of the patriarchal conditioning
#
and everything, they have these certain, you know, whether they're homophobic, isomophobic,
#
all of these, you know, issues just conditioned into them. She's gone beyond them. She's
#
like tried when you would tell her that this is wrong, she would hear it. We'll say that,
#
you know, this is misogynist. She will fight back a little bit. But then she would be like,
#
okay, explain why. And she's heard it. And she's been, she's, I mean, it's incredible,
#
the way she has carried herself, the grace, the, she's the light of my life. I'll be
#
very honest. She's like, you know, I'm my biggest fear in life, honestly, is that I
#
don't know who I'll be when she's gone. I just don't know. I don't know. Like, she's
#
really carried the family. She's carried, you know, yeah, she's even with all the pressure
#
she put on me, I can't, you know, I can't, I'm just far more grateful about the kind
#
of values she's inculcated in me. There are still a lot of things in me that I, I do get
#
angry that, you know, it came from my mother, but like, it's, you know, she's done everything
#
to, you know, compensate for any time she has not been, you know, kind to us or not
#
been like understanding or a good friend and just a parent in that sense. So, yeah, I'm,
#
I'm, you know, as I said in that, during my wedding, like, it was one of those things
#
where, you know, we had many things happen, but like, long story short, we had reached
#
that place where my parents and my wife's parents were just at loggerheads, so to speak,
#
because they are from Assam, we are from the Punjabis, ridiculous things started coming
#
up, you know, like, why are we having this in the, they wanted to do it in the daytime,
#
because that's how they do it and we want to do it in the night time, because that's
#
how we do it. You know, they wanted non-veg, my parents were like, suddenly my mother who's
#
been, while my family is now vegetarian and whatnot, but my mother who would encourage
#
my younger brother that, you know, if you eat chicken, it gives you strength, even though
#
I'm not going to eat it, suddenly I was like, no, we will never have non-veg on our wedding,
#
I'm like, what is this, like ridiculous thing, so, you know, and, and I remember like things
#
came through such a head that I was just again getting really like, I was very frustrated
#
with my wedding, because I feel like I was, I was getting myself married, like, because
#
my parents anyway live, they don't live in the country, so I was just very, again, just
#
my father is just, doesn't know what to do, he's just like a tourist to my marriage, he's
#
come as a guest, no idea, kya raha hai, kya nahi ho raha hai, poori shaadi maine, poora
#
location, sab maine kar vaya, my mother's tried her best, but she also doesn't live
#
in India, we are at a point, what can she do, so I was also very, I was like, I'm getting
#
married now, you need to just, you know, I know that you have more sense and more love
#
than this, you've been a good mother to me, why are you making such a big thing out of
#
such a small stupid thing, and then she said during that time, the first time, I think
#
we've had an honest conversation, where we, she told me that, you know, you've always
#
done what you wanted, you've always, and I didn't say anything, which is lies, she told
#
me lots of things, but she's like, you finish engineering and then you decide to go Hindustan
#
Nimes, you said that you're not going to, you're going to marry a Punjabi girl and then
#
you went and married an Assamese girl, you said you'll not do media, you did that, everything
#
has been against what we wanted, but we didn't say anything, but like, this is the, and then
#
she said this thing that, you know, again, just remained in my head, where she said that,
#
you know, but when it comes to the marriage, right, that's the last time your parents
#
get to have a say in your life, uske hain toh teri zindhi hai, uske hain hum log ka hainge,
#
you know, but this is the thing that we get to do, and this is the last thing we get to
#
do, so, you know, if you are not letting us do this, then like, you know, I just feel
#
like I don't have a stake in your life, and I don't know what to do as a mother, and I
#
just, that honest thing that happened, and I was just like, man, agar aap ye pehle bol
#
dete, ye sab hota hi nahi, so I just said, we will do what you want, and then we did
#
everything, I mean, we did, we said like, what functions do you want, saare karenge,
#
I convinced her parents, I convinced, I just made sure, we did like three, three versions
#
of the shaadi, we went to Assam to kind of, you know, to be with Daisy's parents and appease
#
her family, went to Bahrain again, did a whole function for my family, in the wedding, yaha
#
mei said, kya kya karana, bata hoon, ye sab karenge aap, you just, you know, you want
#
to do this, we'll do it your way, you know, don't feel like, it means so much to me, everything
#
that you have done for me, so, and that is the moment, I think, where I started looking
#
at her, not as my mother, but like as a human being, and I feel like that was one of the
#
first times that I realised that, you know, where I have been, you know, meri shaadi pe
#
meri maa mei kyu tang kar rahi hai, I just realised that, you know, ki this person's
#
son ki shaadi hai, you know, my mother's son is getting married and she should also have
#
a stake in that, right, why am I making such a big deal out of it, so yeah, I think it's
#
been a, it's been a journey to understanding my parents, but I'm, yeah, I'm more grateful
#
than, you know, regretful of the things that have happened so far.
#
Yeah, I was very struck by that, that beautiful story of that conversation and similar, because
#
it is a rare moment of honesty, you know, people can't often see themselves so well
#
as she saw herself in that moment and was able to express, you know, one of my favourite
#
phrases in literature, which I think expresses a human condition so well is Thoreau's phrase,
#
lives of quiet desperation, right, and I think most people, definitely so in all the generations
#
before us, lived lives of quiet desperation and I think part of that desperation doesn't
#
necessarily come from things like monetary circumstances or all those other things.
#
It comes from just being trapped in a groove, that this is a groove that has been laid out
#
for you, ki aapko ye karna hai, that, you know, the man has to be the earner, he has
#
to be the stern man, he cannot show emotion, you know, all of that and the mother's got
#
a different role and everything you said about your parents was so resonant with me, I can,
#
you know, recognise all of that.
#
And in general, the great human tragedy has been that the illusion never lifts, the layers
#
never go, which is why I was interested if you, you know, manage to speak about them
#
later about all of this, because I think most of us who get on these grooves and live out
#
that quiet desperation, we can't express it, we can't acknowledge it even to ourselves
#
and we are passing it on.
#
Like one of my favourite poems by Philip Larkin has these great lines, man hands on misery
#
to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf.
#
And that's such a lovely poetic image, it deepens like a coastal shelf, right?
#
And of course, the poem is trying to convince people not to have children for just this
#
reason, man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf.
#
And one of the things that you've written eloquently about is firstly, these straps
#
of getting trapped in these roles, and also the fact that this might be the one generation,
#
you know, especially Gen Z, digital natives exposed to the world growing up on the internet,
#
who have access to other truths, who don't have to, you know, follow these lanes that
#
are laid out for them by patriarchy or by conservative Indian society or any of that.
#
And you've spoken about this a lot, and I'll put all those links in the show notes also.
#
But I'd also like you to talk about how your realization of this evolved about these strict
#
roles, these lanes that are laid out, tell me a little bit about how your realization
#
of this evolved and then going through time, you know, like, because once you realize it,
#
you can't unsee it, you know, it's never unseen again.
#
And you will see it in every face that you look into, you will see it, right?
#
You will, you will hear it in their stories.
#
Tell me a little bit about that journey for you and what?
#
Yeah, you know, so I think again, you know, I saw all of it at home without registering,
#
you know, that this is, I just knew that this is wrong.
#
My mother shouldn't be constantly, you know, in the service of my father.
#
My mother used to be a professor of economics, even she had an MA in economics from Kurukshetra
#
University and then she had taught it to students over there when she was 23, 24.
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She's a wonderful painter.
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She's, I mean, she's one of the smartest.
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I'm telling you, she's like, it's insane how multifaceted she is.
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Okay, you tell her anything and she'll do it, you know, I remember this one moment,
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you know, where we were at this really random place called the workshop called Born to Excel,
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where these folks had come to kind of give young people how to the methods of excelling
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It was a summer course that you were getting enrolled in.
#
And you know, the first time he asked the question, the man over the workshop, and he
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was like, well, I have a question that if there is a let's see which young person answers,
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you know, and there is a bucket and in that bucket, there is, you know, a ball, how do
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you take it out without your hand, you know, and, and, and then everybody was like giving
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Nobody's like, you know, you can't turn it over or you have to keep it in etc.
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And then a mother was the one who's like, when you pour water into it, and then it'll
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And, you know, and he's like, yes, that's the right answer, I've never got this answer.
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Just like my mother's so sharp, you know, so she's, she's very creative.
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She writes poems that now also she's like, 66 now, and she has these wonderful points
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on my birthday, she will write a poem and narrated my wife birthday.
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So beautiful, you know, and so yeah, I kind of knew always that, you know, there is, it's
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But, you know, and I just wanted to be the opposite of that didn't realize that gender
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If anybody would ask me, what is your identity?
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You know, it's a question that now, I think a lot about, especially in the world we live
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in right now, how identity has become so, you know, become such a big issue.
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And how we have now reframed every, you know, our identities into our nationalism, right.
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But when you ask, you know, when we were growing up and you ask, what's your identity, you
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know, you wouldn't, I mean, I don't know, Indian was maybe one thing you would say,
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you know, I would say engineer, because all the boys are the same, I'm an engineer.
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You know, B.Tech and computer engineering, that's my identity.
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You know, somebody would say a writer, somebody say artist, you know, those were the ways
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that you would define yourself, right.
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I would never think of gender as an identity that like, like when you ask a woman this,
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what's your identity, she will say woman, because every day of her life, she's reminded
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that you're a woman through the way the way our systems are structured, but men are not,
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they never say, although now they are saying because of I think in a post-medeworld, every
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man suddenly has become more aware of their identity, which is a whole thing.
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But before that, it was never the thing that, you know, I'm a man, that was never it was
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Well, I'm a CEO, or I'm a, you know, again, engineer, I'm the owner of these houses, or,
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you know, I have this much property, your numbers would define your identity.
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As a young as a man, and you think about it, it all comes down to your reduced, your worth
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It's about how many marks you got, how many trophies you won, how many extra curriculars
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you participated in, you know, everything, everything is monetizable.
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Everything is, you know, has to have a worth attached to it.
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You can't even have a hobby.
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I remember like when you're going up, and I'd read like a lot and you know, and then
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sometimes we like instead of reading this, why don't you read your school textbooks,
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because that's the way you will get more marks.
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You know, you'd play something, you know, if you're if instead of doing this, why don't
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you do this thing and take part in this competition.
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So even a hobby needed to be something that is a is in service of a victory or an achievement
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you needed to have, you know, and then how many of these achievements did you have was
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what would define you as a man, then salaries became a thing, then you know, then packages
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CTCs, then the number of houses that you have the number of cars you have everything, everything
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it's all been like a, you know, we've just been reduced to numbers as identities, right?
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And we don't think about that, that's just how it is, that's just normalized.
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And but somewhere I kind of subconsciously or unconsciously started recognizing or started
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feeling that, you know, everything that I'm going through, as somebody who was fighting
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this idea that after engineering, I don't want to do this, I had gotten jobs in, you
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know, I was in NID Gurukshetra, like Mahima, and, you know, I was also taking part in all
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So I had realized in the first six months that I can't do this.
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And that's a very big thing for someone who used to be a really like, I was a good student
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in school, like I cared about computer science, I used to code, I used to enjoy coding.
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And then six months of NID Gurukshetra and while it is somewhat also a reflection of
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the college, while I don't think it's entirely that, I just feel it's just engineering as
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a setup, you know, and you go in there in six months, you're just like, what the hell
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And when you realize that you can't do this, then you have three and a half years to figure
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You know, I feel like that's like a, I always joke and say this that, you know, in the US,
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you'd have, people would give after 1200, you know, to their children, a gap year.
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You go and have a gap year, travel the world, find out who you are.
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In India, boys have a gap year in engineering college.
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Go for four years in engineering, then you do what you want to do in life, right?
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So it was that only, I went there six, and then I was like, okay, now I have this time
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and I don't want to quit because again, I'm a man, so I can't just quit.
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So I will go through this.
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I will somehow, I'll do what it needs to pass and I'll do what it needs to get exams.
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I know that I'm not interested in this anymore, but what can I do with my time over here?
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So I started, you know, again, doing more writing work.
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I start, you know, there's a magazine that I got to be a part of.
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And I created a magazine, a college magazine out of the last entity and last version of
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It used to be a paper, you know, like two papers on a wall stuck as that was the college
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I created a whole, you know, 30-40-pager proper magazine.
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I got into Vishwanathan Anand with Ranbir Kapoor and said like, this is your magazine
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Like, here's what it can be.
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I used to, I mean, again, with the official college magazine became the editor, like Mahima
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So you know, and all of, and at college, I kind of just did everything I could, I took
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part in every extracurricular thing.
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Now it's reverse because I talk about identity also, as I said earlier, you know, I used
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to be someone who used to always be the outside looking in.
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Suddenly, as somebody who had a little bit of, I mean, I became aware of my privilege
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I'll go back into your question, but NIT Gurshetra is when I immediately, instantly
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became aware of my privilege.
#
It is, anybody who knows the way NITs function, you have 50% quota from the same state and
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50% from the rest of the country.
#
So there was everybody from every place and most people, you know, were not, so to speak,
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that privileged or, you know, that came from a certain kind of, and I recognise this on
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the very first conversation I had in a mess, which, you know, I had no idea what is caste,
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you know, and as they say that, you know, if you're upper caste, you don't know what
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And, and I remember the first conversation I had with, you know, someone in the mess
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and the boy said, I asked him, like, what do you do?
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I mean, which, which, you know, where are you from?
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He said, Panipat, oh, great.
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Then like, what are you doing over here?
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I'm doing engine, computers, he's doing whatever, electronics, mechanical, you know,
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not the same thing, not the same course, but whatever.
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And then I'd ask him, and this is always my regular, normal follow up question.
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What does your father do?
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That's just the question that everybody asks, you know, or at least I assumed that, because
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I was always asked to me.
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And you know, when I was in Dubai and Bahrain, and that's how we kind of, like, what does
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You know, my father is working here, my father is working there, whatever it is.
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And here the answer was that, well, he works, works in a garage.
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In my, you know, my upper caste mind, I was just like, oh, he owns the garage.
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He's like, no, no, works in it.
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And then I was like, in my, again, I can't fathom, I'm just like, so, like, does he have
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like this car, big cars, and he works with big cars, something, because he's like, no,
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And I was, suddenly, I was like, wait, what, like, you know, I mean, it was such a big
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Like, everything I used to feel about class, you know, before I came, because I was the
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one outsider looking into these rich folks, in these rich schools, where everybody, where
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they would talk about, like, what do you do after class?
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I have like a, you know, I have an instructor who comes in to play the, you know, piano
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and teach me the piano.
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Whereas I had like this one keyboard, where I used to sit on my own and play all the songs,
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I was like, this is a different world, I'm not with them.
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I play basketball with my friends, at that time, whatever, we didn't have that many
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We used to play cricket, who plays basketball, you know, it was like a, you know.
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And even the reference points they would have of English films, I started watching English
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films much later, I was always Bollywood, I was like, what are these reference points,
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And suddenly I realized, now, my reference points were suddenly, like, not the same as
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the ones, most people in India, in Kurukshetra.
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And that privilege, that sense of, that understanding immediately, you know, it was now like, suddenly
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I was the guy in NID Kurukshetra, who was from the outside, whereas, and people would
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look at it and again, that's, I mean, it's sad or I don't know what it is, but a lot
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of kids would just kind of, you know, give me respect, purely because I knew English
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But they would talk to me with a certain sense of, like, I didn't get bullied as much.
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I mean, when I say bullied, I didn't get ragged as much, you know, in college, well,
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I got bullied in school, it's a different story, but in college, I didn't get ragged.
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Because people were just like, this guy is an NRI, he's well-spoken, and I would dance
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and I would take part in cultural activities.
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And suddenly I was like, oh, he's a cool kid.
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And because I was nice and just amenable to talk to, people were just like, you know,
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okay, let him go, let him go, whatever.
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So my privilege also saved me from where all the other kids from my batch would get beaten
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They'd have, you know, half their faces, you know, with blue marks and whatnot.
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So I just started recognizing, so I've had this really bizarre incident in NID Kurukshetra
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where, you know, I'll tell you a funny one, and it'll also give context to some of the
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conversations that we're having on gender.
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The first, and this is a true story, okay.
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The first day, I was in a classroom in NID Kurukshetra, and people were asking, all teachers
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would ask, tell your roll numbers, where you're from, etc., etc.
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So I said, like, you know, whatever, roll number 20, 25, and I was from Bahrain.
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And somebody said, little later, a girl said, they're from Dubai.
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So after the class, I went to the girl, I said, you're from Dubai, I'm from Bahrain,
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we should like, you know, exchange numbers or whatnot, right.
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She was sitting next to a girl, you know, who was from Faridabad.
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And I was waiting for her, she said, I'm from Faridabad.
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I said, great, so can we have like, can I have your number also, we'll just keep in
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So I gave her my number, but I thought that she was a little hesitant.
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In my head, you know, like, in Bahrain, all the boys and girls were squared, we all used
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to talk, there was never like a whole thing, which I never realised NID is like a big thing
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for a guy to ask a girl a number and like, take it and whatnot.
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I didn't realise it, okay.
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At night, I had to go to my room, and there's a knock, we used to live it to, first year
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live it to roommates, there's a knock on my door, I opened the door, and there's this
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big Haryanveer Jaat guy, you know, with his four or five other, all well-built, strong,
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And then he just aggressively asked me, what do you think?
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I'm like, who are you, what happened?
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I had never seen him before, maybe I've seen him before, but I don't know his context.
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He's like, you think I'm Bond.
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I'm just like Bond, I'm thinking about chemistry, covalent Bond, which Bond, you know, I'm
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like Bond, and he's like, do you think you're James Bond?
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I was like, no bro, what are you talking about?
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He's like, will you take a girl's number?
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And I'm just like, first of all, I didn't even recognise, he's like, how did you take
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How did you take the number of the girl?
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I was like, okay, what happened?
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He's like, do you know that the girl from Faridabad, one of the guys said, the girl
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from Faridabad is his girlfriend.
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I was like, I had no clue.
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You know, how would I know?
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And I'm okay, delete the number, man, I was just being friendly, I'm not like pursuing
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So he's like, delete the number, delete the number, delete it, you know, he's like, don't
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mess with the girl from Faridabad, I'll come and beat you up.
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That was his whole thing.
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And all these guys gave me like, this is your last first and last warning, you know, and
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I was like, dude, sorry, and I was like, no, I'm from Bahrain, I've been in Bahrain my
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whole cushioned life, suddenly in Bahrain, etc, etc, I was a big fat kid, you know, who
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also wore these loose clothes, I was like, fully like, what's happening to me?
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So I said, sorry, sorry, please delete the number, I'm not a hero, please go away.
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And then sometime when I was just like, and my roommates were like, my roommates were
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also from the Middle East, so we kind of had figured out that okay, let's live together.
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And they were also looking at me like, you know, do you not realize that, you know, in
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this place, etc, etc, you can't be so open with girls, you know, people like, you have
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to be really smart about it, I was like, okay, I'll try and be like really smart about it.
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And then sometime later, this guy comes back.
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And this time he's alone.
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So I was like, brother, forgive me, I didn't know, I did not realize that.
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He's like, you tell me, how did you get your number?
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And I'm like, how did you get it?
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He's like, no, no, I'm asking, how did you get it?
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How do you get a girl's number?
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I said, why, what do you want to do, you know, he's like, I want her number.
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I said, but she's your girlfriend.
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And this is actual words, but she doesn't know that she's my girlfriend.
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I'm like, what is going on in this college?
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So I said, well, I just asked her, man, you have to just be like polite and like, she
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He's like, no, you explain it to me.
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And somehow during then, I mean, this was the first such incident.
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And from that point, for whatever reasons, the Haryani kids who would not very well fit
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in with all the other kids from different states.
#
And there was a lot of rivalry and I mean, you know, a lot of anger, a lot of fights
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that have happened in our college, etc.
#
For whatever reasons, I started getting a bit of respect because I, again, maybe polished
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or whatever in polish when I say, again, not in a, in just a way that I would speak a certain
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I was like, which was, which was this understanding of what, what it meant to be, what, what
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your Indian society needs you to be after a certain point of time.
#
So I was a prototype of like, this is what happens after four years of engineering college.
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And somebody who already knows English, already has quote unquote self-confidence, already
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can talk to girls, already can like write, you know, so, and, and for whatever's worth,
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I was not an asshole, you know, and that was something that, you know, everybody found
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like a very unique thing about me, whereas other NRI kids typically were seem to be as
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assholes, I mean, no offence, but that's just how it was.
#
And, and so suddenly all the boys, Haryani boys, kind of also gave me the liberty and
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the respect to kind of talk to them whenever there was something that they were doing wrong,
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they would come to me to ask me about like, you know, ase kya se karte hain, ase kya
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se karte hain, very generously.
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And I really like respect that, that, you know, there were people who would ask, ki
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jana, aap mujhe ladki saath, I need to ask her out, how do I do it?
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And you know, and I'm just like, I've had one girlfriend before this, I'm not like,
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I'm not hitch, you know, toh mujhe ithra bhi nahi bata, I'm right, I was koi indro heartbreak,
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like, theek hai, but whatever, I'm helping.
#
On the other hand, whenever there was somebody who would be rude, obnoxious, inappropriate,
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which I saw a lot of, I saw so many young boys, just be filthy with girls and in their
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heads, that's just how they thought, you know, you flirt, unko lagta tha flirt karna
#
ki ladki attitude rakhte hain, toh as a boy, what you need to do is, you need to call and
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Toh gali dekhe nahi, apne aap jo boli ki usko samajh raha hai ki ladka bhi nahi uske
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andat the se zyada attitude hai.
#
Aur jab paachal jaega ki, you have more attitude, wo pighal jaegi and then she'll be like, okay,
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this is the guy I want, because this is the guy who'll protect me, because he has more
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This is the way they used to think, girls would change their phone numbers, they would
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find a new phone number, leak it and then everybody would have, everybody would be calling,
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everybody would be sending these insanely dirty messages and I would watch this with horror.
#
I'm like, how are you doing this, right?
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And again, none of this right now coming from a place where I didn't know what feminism
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is or whatever it is, just, I thought this is just human decency, right?
#
Like, don't be such an asshole and I'd go up to like these kids and again, I'm not
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just saying that they are only from Haryana, there are all kinds of places, but people
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would become, who would give me that respect of like, ki theke, tum mujhe bol sakte hain.
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I remember this one time where like this guy said, in a truth or dare game, among a classroom,
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in a canteen, asked a girl to say, what is your bra size?
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And I just got so, I was so irritated, I was like, shut up, that's not what you say.
#
And then it became awkward and like, whatever, you know, and then later also, he didn't say
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anything to me at that time.
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Raat ka again, he came to me, he was a different guy, came to me in the night, he says, dekh
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main teri yehzad karta hu, tu jo bolega main sununga, tu me samjhaega na ki yeh nahi
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karna jay, main nahi karunga.
#
But agliye bar tu ne kiske samne mujhe sharda bola na, to wohi dhar doga tujhe.
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I was like, okay, chalo, sun toh liya na, aur kuch maara nahi.
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So I've come very close to getting beaten up by these guys, but just somehow just been
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But I understood like, there is, you know, and in that college is where I got the first
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sense of like, the deep, deep patriarchal conditioning that happens.
#
And you know, again, they were not, these were not evil people, right?
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They were not, it's not that they were bad human beings.
#
It's just that that's how they were conditioned.
#
Most young boys that I've met at that time, from whichever part of the country, unfortunately
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had a certain idea of what women are and what women should be, and you know, what we should
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be doing with them and how we should be thinking of them.
#
And again, I'm not saying that I was not, as a, you know, young horny teenager, even
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I used to objectify girls as a teenager, etc., but at the same time, I was not like, I just
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felt like this was way too extreme, that okay, you are thinking about them and talking about
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them with your best friend, like, oh, I like this girl and whatever, that's one thing.
#
But like, you know, getting as part of a community, people used to watch porn together, it was
#
the weirdest for me, like, the whole community is 6 people, 10 people came together, watching
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porn together, came inside a room, I just be like, how are you doing, what's going on?
#
So I was just, I was an alien in that world.
#
I would just be like, this is, this is weird.
#
But I realized that there are certain gender dynamics, you know, and again, the understanding
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of privilege that I had, that clearly there is, you know, something that I seem to have
#
an understanding of that others don't, and maybe, you know, I can try in whatever manner
#
to help, you know, without looking down, without having judgment, without shaming anybody who
#
thinks like this, just try to talk them, talk to them and help them understand what, why,
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what they are doing and why they are doing it is wrong.
#
I again did not know what this is conditioning this society, yeh sab mujhe nahi bata tha.
#
Just as a, you know, again, just as a, I would say a decent person, a decent human being
#
who later when I realized was, had that, like, empathy is also a privilege, you know, I genuinely
#
I feel like, you know, having that awareness of, of, you are not born quote unquote, you
#
know, with, again, I am using this word again and I, and I want to use it in those setting
#
of those quotes sophisticated, you know, that there is an idea that every, you know, parent
#
has for their young Indian child that, you know, if you wear a certain kind of clothes,
#
if you have a certain kind of way of speaking, if you know English in a certain way, if you,
#
you know, your hair is done in a certain way, if you, if the, that's what a sophisticated
#
young Indian boy should be like, you know, and it was, and I started recognizing that
#
this is where earlier I used to look at maybe other kids like that, ki wo me se zyada sophisticated
#
Ab mujhe samay lag gaya ki log mujhe dekh kar yeh bol rahe hain ki mai unse zyada hoon.
#
To jaha waha mujhe misfit feel raha tha, yaha bhi mujhe misfit feel raha tha, but in a very
#
different way, where I was fully aware of the class and caste privilege that I had without
#
knowing these terms at that time.
#
And that's where I think in many ways my, you know, understanding of gender really started
#
from and then, I mean, I started dating a girl over there and the kind of shit that,
#
you know, we've gone through in college, I can't get too much into it beyond a point
#
again because it is my wife's story, I don't want to, but we went through some really horrible
#
times in college where, you know, there were rumors spread about us and whatever it is,
#
really nasty stuff and I was just, I just couldn't understand why would, you know,
#
why would society behave in this manner?
#
You know, what have we done to any of you?
#
Like, where is this coming from?
#
Why would you say something so shameful and so hurtful about other people, you know, when
#
it comes and break it down into, well, this is what a man does, this is what a woman does,
#
so clearly there is something here.
#
Culture only, I just kind of, so where I was fitting in from a lens of, you know, where
#
I was finding myself at ease in a bunch of people who are definitely who I seem closer
#
to in terms of, like, if I would have never gone to the Middle East, these are the kind
#
of kids I would have exactly been like, right, so I was a little bit more comfortable and
#
at ease with my friends over there than I've ever been with anybody in the Middle East.
#
At the same time, after a point of time, because of the cultural differences, you know, that
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because I spent that time there, I started realising there's a big, vast difference
#
in the way everybody's been conditioned, where my conditioning allowed me to have the
#
privilege of looking at, you know, people beyond the lenses of gender and as human beings
#
and as stories and verses as like, you know, this is a boy, this is a girl, this is what
#
they do, you know, I just, everybody else, there was a very clear divide and in that
#
divide boys behaved in a certain way and girls behaved in a certain way and it was a divide.
#
So I went through some really tough times, again, there's just some stuff that I'd
#
rather not get into, but, you know, in college and then when I got into Bombay, again, it
#
was like a whole shift, Bombay now, I was in Kurukshetra for 4 years, it was like, if
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a girl is sitting at a place where a boy comes and sits with her, they'd be like, oh, that
#
boy likes that girl, like literally, you like her, you've sat in the same seat as she's
#
sat, what are you talking about, Mahima spoke about the hostile times, I used to feel so
#
terrible about the fact that, you know, like I get to be in that college and at the very
#
minimum, I mean, I didn't go to the library much, let me be honest, but, you know, the
#
fact that there are people who had access to the library throughout the night, you know,
#
till 12 o'clock and girls had to go back to the, never had the liberty or the freedom
#
to explore, you know, outside of just the X number of hours, they were, you know, in
#
college and it was just so unfair, you know, the whole system, I had to drop and I was
#
also coming from a place, I like this girl, I do have to drop her at 6 o'clock, I'm
#
going to spend more time with her, but yeah, but, and then I came to Bombay and then suddenly
#
like my, I was in an HD where I was one of two guys and in a team where everybody else
#
was a woman and suddenly like where I had been fighting a certain kind of patriarchal
#
conditioning and misogyny and in the way that things were structured in Kurukshetra, it
#
was the absolute opposite over here and then I had to again rewire and kind of be like
#
okay, now I can't think like that, I need to think in a different way, again, I need
#
to like, you know, be more comfortable, I was not comfortable, for the longest time
#
I couldn't hug girls, it was such a, it became such a big issue for me, like it became, I
#
was so awkward, I just did not, I don't, I just don't know, like people, girls would
#
come and hug, you know, everyone in like in Bombay, this is very cool and you're friends
#
and it doesn't matter, right, but I was just, you know, I'd freeze, I'd be like wait,
#
you know, if someone's, if someone gives me a kiss, I'd just be like what the hell happened
#
because four years of Kurukshetra conditioned me that deeply to like look at it as like
#
a problem, you know, and if you have your own girlfriend, you have your own partner,
#
that's one thing, but the moment you are in a, you know, system of people, you have to
#
have boundaries, so all of this really ultimately came down to two things, it was a long-winded
#
answer, but two things have happened, one is, as I said, and again, I think we might
#
get deeper into it was mental health, you know, which is at 30, I got, I was diagnosed
#
with clinical anxiety and a lot of my therapy ultimately ended up being about gender, you
#
know, my, till that point, I had never thought of my identity as a man, ever, you should
#
ask me what I said, I could have given you X number of answers, but the answer would
#
never be a man and in my therapy sessions, I realized that everything that had happened
#
in my life, every decision that I had made was because I was a man, every decision I
#
had made was for no other reason, the reason that I had to go to engineering college was
#
because I was a man, the reason that I had to, you know, it was such a big fight with
#
me and my parents when I had to, you know, be, when I had to take up something else outside
#
of engineering, when I had to take up Hindustan Times, MTV, you know, my parents wouldn't
#
understand because I was a man, because they had a certain, I had to do MBA, I have studied,
#
I have given CAT, I have given GMATs, you know, I used to get up at 4 o'clock every
#
morning after point of time, while I was studying, I was working at Hindustan Times to go to
#
and to do mock tests and whatnot, because I was just like, I don't know, I was in despair,
#
I didn't know what else to do, I was like, okay, I'll do my work and in that work for
#
that matter, just to tell you, again, at 22-23, I've interviewed everyone, Shah Rukh Khan,
#
Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, A.R. Rahman, you name it, all the big folks
#
at 22-23, I've done it, so I was outperforming everywhere, but there was never enough, it
#
was never enough, it was always about the fact that I, but to MBA karega to terko na
#
itne baise milenge, so I realised that so much, even though now I was, I had come to Yashraj
#
and I had got a bunch of, you know, touch wood success at YRF, where I was in a very
#
comfortable position, I had gotten everything that, you know, ek middle class ki checklist
#
hoti hai, ki jana yeh karna, yeh karna, designation honi chahiye, cabin honi chahiye, you know,
#
itne baise honi chahiye bank mein, kaadi honi chahiye, etc., I had got all of that and that
#
was by 30, and then when I reached there, the question then came to be like, now I've
#
done it, now what? And I couldn't, I didn't have an answer, because what happens when
#
you hit those milestones that you've been trying to hit all your life, there is no answer,
#
there are, there are just more milestones to go to, and then I was just like, is that
#
it? There's this quote, I think, I don't know who it is by, right, like, I hope, say
#
it's by Jim Carrey that, I don't know if it's by him, but that, I hope everyone gets
#
the fame and money, all the fame and money that they want, so that they know it's not
#
the answer, you know, so I did get whatever, you know, level of what I wanted, the middle
#
class checklist, and then I realised that I'm unhappy still, I'm not happy, in fact,
#
my unhappiness, after all the legitimate success that I was seeing with my work at Yash Raj,
#
I was just, I felt like I was in a machine, in a simulation, where I'm every morning
#
getting up, going to work, you know, in this traffic, you know, sitting in my desk, working
#
on something that somebody else, a corporation, even if it was Yash Raj films, and I had the
#
best time working there, I was still working on something that somebody else might want
#
from me, there is, I was doing it in the service of getting somebody else a certain amount
#
of money, for an ambition that somebody else may have had somewhere, what was I doing for
#
myself, what was I doing, you know, did I even know what myself is, you know, do I even
#
know, like, if I didn't have, if I didn't just run from one milestone to another, if
#
I didn't just go from one day to the next without ever having, I don't think, Amit,
#
in my entire life, I have quote-unquote chilled on a weekend, in my entire life so far, I
#
used to fill my Sundays and Saturdays up, I would go teach on the weekends, you know,
#
in Jai Hind, in Churchgate, you know, because I was like, weekends are for, you know, I
#
mean, I have time, what am I going to do with this time, I need to fill it up with more
#
work, I was, at one point, when I was working at Yasha, I was writing on Open Magazine,
#
I was writing at Sunday Guardian, I was teaching at Jai Hind, I was hosting a show from Film
#
Companion, I was programming from Mumbai Film Festival, I was writing something for Scholastic
#
every year, 80 things I was doing, and still I continue doing, even though now I have a
#
better sense of it, but it's so hard, I'm scaling back now, Sundays I don't work at
#
all, but it's so hard, I still get anxiety on Sundays, because I don't know, you know,
#
I feel like, am I, what am I doing in that time, I need to make it productive, productivity
#
has to be the most important thing for me, you know, why, why can't I just relax?
#
I realised every one of these things came down to being a man, you know, every one of
#
these things came down to gender, and that just really frustrated me, because I was like,
#
I just, because the one thing that I didn't want to be was a man, because of my father,
#
and you know, again, I had grown up all these years angry at him, because he was quote unquote
#
a man, who was, you know, not a good, who's not a father, who's not a husband, who's
#
not a, who's just a man, just earning for his, and just constantly, and I was doing
#
When I was making my first show, I remember like, I, for two years, I did not speak to
#
my friends, I did not spend time with my family, you know, my brother and I stopped talking,
#
because I was just so, it was like, if the show fails, where will I land?
#
It had become such a big thing that this cannot fail, and it failed very spectacularly, which
#
was, again, and I realised much later that what I went through after that, a year after
#
that was also anxiety, I just didn't have the terms for it.
#
But at 30, when I started going through anxiety, when I was doing well, which was the next
#
new thing, right, like I, my understanding of mental health was that when you're going
#
through, it happens when you're going through a low phase, I was going through the best,
#
the best phase of my entire life, and I was unhappy, and I was empty, and I was sad, and
#
I just, and I was anxious, I used to have panic attacks, I used to, you know, I got
#
the opportunity, like the, to go for, I mean, started then, there was, there's an event
#
called Gold Keepers that the Billy and Melinda Gates Foundation hosts in New York.
#
In 2017, I got the opportunity to go as an India delegate, they call 300 emerging leaders
#
from across the world, in that first year, Barack Obama was the keynote speaker, Justin
#
Trudeau was there, Malala was there, it was insane.
#
I was invited as a gathering of that people, I was, as far as you and I are sitting, I
#
was that far, you know, just a little further from Barack Obama, and I had so much anxiety,
#
I was, I was shaking every day, I couldn't wake up in the mornings, because I was like,
#
they will find out that I don't know shit, they will find out that, you know, I'm an,
#
you know, I'm not as, I don't deserve to be here.
#
I had, I had to go to, I had to go to therapy like three times a week in the week that I
#
was going to, I would have anxiety about everything, I remember the day this event was happening,
#
I was in New York for the second, I mean, first time I had done it with my brother,
#
for the second time ever, and I was, I was in a hotel, and I was, and I couldn't get
#
up in the morning, I just, I had such a massive, the first time I realised that this is what
#
a panic attack, I mean, later much later I realised, I thought I was having a heart attack,
#
I was in the bed, I couldn't get up, my heart was, it, it was all over, I just, I thought
#
this is it, this is, I'm, this is it for me, like, it was so bad, and my first thoughts
#
always just come down to, I wish I'd told my mother my e-banking passwords, as if there
#
was a lot of money there, there's nothing there, but those were the thoughts that used
#
to come to my head, but it was just, I was like, this is it for me, I'm gonna die in
#
a hotel room in New York, you know, it's a nice room, but like, I'm gonna die here,
#
and then somehow, after like 15-20 minutes of trying to deal with it, I got up, and then
#
it's like, okay, I'm still alive somehow, went there, but like the questions that started
#
at that time was just like, what is the point of this? Why am I doing this? Why does any
#
of this matter? And these are larger existential questions that I think everyone at some point
#
goes through, but for me, it really came down to the fact that my entire life was just me
#
leading a story that was given to me by somebody else, that was given to me by my society,
#
not even my parents and society, and parents were given to my society, right? So, I was
#
just following the society's narrative of what a life should be like, and every fight
#
that I had, every, every time I was angry, my relationship with my father, my relationship
#
with my work, my relationship with my mother, my relationship with my wife, everything,
#
every single thing was, you know, coloured with patriarchy, and I tried my best to be
#
the best possible husband to my wife. I was like, you know, so if the only time I started
#
having weekends or caring was in Yash Raj, in Yash Raj, people were like, you're the
#
only person in film, in Bollywood who doesn't pick phones on Saturdays, Sundays. I was like,
#
main shaadi ho gaya hai, main my wife ke tato, mujhe nahi karna, because I wanted to be the
#
opposite of my father. So, I was just like, I am not going to be him. So, I am going to
#
constantly just give myself that, you know, that space to be a good husband, but in trying
#
to balance being a great person at work and being a good husband, again, it was just,
#
I was giving anxiety to myself, because I was just trying to fight the narrative throughout
#
without realising I am fighting it, and then therapy and clinical anxiety, and I broke,
#
so to speak, and it got really bad. And again, it was so much stigma, because again, in 2015-16,
#
who knows, who was talking about mental health, you know, especially among men. So, I just
#
didn't have, I had so much stigma, but finally my brother, because he had gone through his
#
own mental health issues, recommended and said like, you should try a therapist, it's
#
okay, it's not a big deal, give it a shot, what's the worst that can happen. And I did
#
it, and then yeah, my life changed after that, because after that, every session, I mean,
#
it took me a few sessions, but like the defining session for me happened when one day after
#
three to four months of therapy, my therapist said, I figured your problem. I said, what
#
is wrong? As I figured it out, finally, and my head was like, fine, this much money, something
#
like that, that's how you're thinking always, money, money, number, number. So I said, okay,
#
tell me what's my problem? She's like, you're not very emotional. And I got so offended
#
in that sense, I was like, I am not emotional, in my head, I was like, what a waste of money
#
the last three months has been. Do you not know who I am? I write long posts, you know,
#
on empathy, and I'm like, I cry when I watch movies, you know, and the most emotional person
#
that I know, how could you say this, I was so offended, and she's like, I knew you were
#
going to react like this, you know, but let me explain what I mean. And she gave me this
#
example, she's like, what happens when your wife has a bad day at work, and she comes
#
home after that? I said, she comes and rants about it, talks to me about it, and then we
#
might just, you know, go and unwind by watching a movie or whatever. She says, what happens
#
when you have a bad day at work and you go home? I said, I'm different from my wife.
#
I don't like talking about I want to keep my work life and my home life separate. I don't
#
like talking about or ranting about, I don't want to burden her with all of this. And she
#
looked at me and smiled, and she's like, you and every man in India. I said, huh? And she's
#
just like, every man does this. Every man thinks that, you know, emotions are for a
#
woman to express, but a man should just take that burden on himself and keep his work and
#
private life separately. And because burdening someone, the burdens are only for us to take.
#
By telling, giving it to somebody else would be burdening them, and we just keep it inside.
#
And one day, you know, we burst, whether it's through panic attacks and anxiety or through
#
heart attacks and, you know, just death, right? And he's like, that's what I said, what I
#
meant, you know, you can write about emotion, you can intellectualize emotion, which I still
#
do, but you don't allow yourself to feel it, you don't allow yourself to express it. And
#
I was like, oh shit, what has she said? And she's just, and in that moment when she said,
#
this is what men do, I was like, I'm a man. Oh shit, I thought, till this point, I just
#
didn't know. And from that time, every single thing that I have done, you know, I have seen
#
gender in it. I have not been able to unsee gender after that. It's been my whole life
#
after that. You know, every space I'm in, I'm so aware of gender, every space I'm in.
#
I can't be in a room where there are too many men and not see that there is no woman here.
#
Or there's only one woman here. I can't see it. And which is why also in my company, for
#
example, in Yuba right now, there are 26 people, about 16 are women. So it is, it was my most,
#
I mean, first I wanted to make sure that let's have like equality and let's have equal gender.
#
And then after that, honestly, like the most talented people, he found for the first time
#
were women only, which is great. But you know, but it was, but I can't like, now I just,
#
I know like how, how badly, there's this beautiful line that I read. There was a Angelina, Angelica
#
Abraham, I forget her name, I'm so sorry. She's a, she's, she's, I mean, she's a politician
#
now, but she's also, she writes about gender and she works on gender and she's Angelica,
#
I think her name is. And she hosted a workshop on gender and, and I just joined it. I wanted
#
to, and again, I was one of two men out of 50 women over there. And in that, there's
#
this wonderful thing that, you know, it's a great course. If you guys find it, please,
#
you know, go and be part of it. It was gender and leadership and gender. So there's a great
#
code that, that I found there and that I cannot ever forget now, which is that patriarchy
#
oppresses every gender, but benefits and benefits the men, but it also oppresses the boys that
#
they once were. And this learning that when you were a boy, you've never ever thought
#
that you could be oppressed, right? I don't think like it's wrong as someone who claims
#
to be a feminist. I can't, I would never say that boys have been oppressed as, as, you
#
know, when they were younger. How are you oppressed? We have benefited from gender,
#
right? We've benefited from beta, except the fact that was it right for me to not go into
#
arts and go into engineering? Isn't that also a certain kind of oppression? When you put
#
this idea that, you know, it is benefiting them later, but in their minds, the toxicity
#
that comes from thinking that there is, you know, that's the only way to be, the narcissism
#
is the only way to be, being the king is the only way to be, every man should be the man
#
of the house is the only way to be, you know, I think that's also, and it's fairly, it's
#
correct, right? Like that's also patriarchal. It is, it is, it is a patriarchal oppression
#
where, where every boy has to be a certain version of a man as, as early as possible.
#
Otherwise, their life is pointless. You know, because I work so much with education also
#
and with, you know, I was shocked to learn and find and this happened in my roadshow,
#
which I'll also talk about at some point, I'm sure. But it, I was shocked to find that
#
the students who said rates among boys in our country is like three times the rate of
#
girls. And, and it's earlier, it was shocking to me. Now, it's not surprising after I've
#
been on the roadshow, met all the young people across, you know, because every boy seems
#
to be just lonely because they don't know the one big, and again, it's been a very
#
long answer, but I'll try and end it here. But one of the biggest things that I've learned
#
over the last few years about gender is that here's what has happened, right? For a certain
#
kind of a young urban woman, and I'm not saying across, you know, I know, intersectionally,
#
it's not been that case, but for a certain kind of a young urban woman, or an upper-class
#
woman or an upper-class woman, feminism has been introduced into their lives, whether
#
it is through the internet, whether it is through friends, whether it is through communities
#
online, whether it is through mentors, whatever, which has created these wonderful positive
#
spaces that they have, where they get encouraged. This is also what I learned on the roadshow,
#
right? On the roadshow, every young woman would come and talk about gender, you know,
#
what they were going through because of the gender, but at the end of it, they would always
#
point out, look at that, because of that girl, I've survived. Look at my friend over there,
#
I just want to give her a shout out because of her, today I'm here. Every young woman,
#
you know, because of, sorry, because of feminism, because of like, the girl tribes that they
#
have, have found these safe spaces, where they are not alone anymore. They are learning
#
from each other. It's not easy to be a woman in any way, but there is a community today
#
that is helping any woman who wants to beat the patriarchal system and break out of it.
#
You know, there is lots of resources, feminism overall, and it's again very difficult. I'm
#
in no way saying that it's easy, but there is support. While this is happening, and while
#
suddenly women have started recognising that, you know, they don't need to be, and again,
#
no offence to anybody who still chooses to be a homemaker, but they don't need to be
#
homemakers. They have a choice now. They can go and work. They can go and, you know, they
#
can choose not to have children. They can choose to do whatever they want for their
#
bodies, which is obviously the, which should have always been the case. But now they realise
#
that it's a choice. It's not a necessity. It's not, this is the story they were given.
#
The story that every young woman in our country has been given is, the mission of your life
#
is to get married. You have to get married, and because you get married, you are, all
#
your life has to be in the service of that goal. That when you don't find a good boy,
#
you don't even care about your life. Marriage is your life's purpose. And having a kid
#
is your life's purpose. Cooking food is your life's purpose, because the mission statement
#
is only about getting settled, and Kanyadaan happens, one man hands you over to another
#
man, and that's your life. It's in the service of men. You are never a woman. You are always
#
a daughter, a wife, a sister, but you are never a woman or an identity or a human being.
#
On the other hand, but now that feminism has happened, and women have kind of found out
#
about this, they are supporting each other and getting, and recognising these set-ups
#
and these traps. On the other hand, during the same time, where girls are now saying,
#
I don't want to get married at an early age, I don't want to sit at home and cook and
#
just have children, which is, again, for those who choose to do it, sure, but it's a choice,
#
as I said. They are choosing to go against every patriarchal conditioning, etc., but
#
at the same time, no boy has been told that what you have been doing all your life is
#
also patriarchal. There is no tribe for boys. There is no positive community for boys. Every
#
avenue that exists for men is toxic. Every community on the internet for boys, 99% of
#
them, I would say, are toxic communities. They are not about empathy for men having
#
empathy for themselves or having empathy for others, but about, oh, why women is your enemy,
#
because today women is more quote unquote, vogue, so the power is going away from men.
#
So it's all toxic communities that are conditioning into men that women are the problem or feminism
#
is the problem, when it's not the problem. Feminism is actually for everyone, but unfortunately,
#
again, it's been weaponized by a lot of online communities to say that it is only for women
#
and men don't benefit from it. But actually, if women are choosing to work, what that means
#
for men is that you don't have to earn as much. You don't have to work that hard.
#
You can also spend your life and have an actual work-life balance. You can spend time with
#
your son. You can spend time with your parents. You can have hobbies, which you were probably
#
not allowed to have when you were younger because you were told your entire life has
#
to be just about work. But in every way that a woman benefits, a man also benefits, you
#
know, by the burden becoming lesser. But men don't know this because no one's talking
#
about it and no community is there to support men, to a positive safe space community saying
#
that you know what, it's okay if you wanted to be a writer or an artist or a guitar player
#
or a chef or a stand-up comedian or an Instagram model, whatever. It's okay. Even if that doesn't
#
lead to the same amount of money you get after engineering an MBA, because guess what? You
#
will have now a partner who will and both of you will equally contribute in your household.
#
You need to learn cooking, not because it's a woman's duty or not a man's, but it's
#
a great skill to have, life skill to have for anybody. Everyone should learn to cook.
#
What is, it's a great thing when you go to host, when boys go to hostels, they are completely
#
like I don't know what to do in my life, you know, because mothers think that boys don't
#
need to be, and again, unfortunately it is mothers because fathers are never at home.
#
So again, that's so much patriarchy, so much gender conditioning and all the largest problem
#
now is that girls have understood and have found a community and they are, you know,
#
getting smarter, evolving into better versions of, you know, what they could be, whereas
#
boys have not been told this and nobody's creating any positive spaces for boys, nobody
#
is having empathetic conversations with boys, so boys are getting angrier because they are
#
just thinking that okay, because of feminism, girls have gone the other side, but what about
#
us? I have done everything. You said do engineering, I did. You said do MBA, I did. But now that
#
I want a girl who will marry and sit at home, she is saying I won't. Why not? Why did I
#
do all of this? Then I could have just at 14 decided to be a writer and not having to
#
do all of this. So that resentment and anger now unfortunately is being taken out on women
#
and that is why there is so much toxicity on the internet, that is why you have so much
#
anger in the streets, that is why you have so much, I mean, everything that women go
#
to a country, which seems to be even more right now, is actually happening because,
#
you know, boys are just absolutely clueless. They have been lonely and now that loneliness
#
has turned into anger and resentment because nobody is trying to have sensitive conversations
#
about gender with them, saying that now we live in a world where it is also okay for
#
you not to be the version of a boy or a man that Petra Ki tells you to be. It is okay
#
to not hustle as hard, it is okay not to work as hard, it is okay to have hobbies, it is
#
okay to have a work-life balance, it is okay to cry, it is okay to just spend time without
#
being productive, it is okay to not want to harm yourself because you are failing in an
#
exam, it is okay to fail in exams and do something else apart from engineering and MBA. Every
#
one of these things is okay, it is absolutely okay, you don't have to try so hard, you
#
don't have to be so hard on yourself and that anger is also the anger historically
#
we see with all our parents. Why are most of our fathers angry or violent or alcoholic?
#
Because for the same reason, they have just buried it all inside without having any avenues
#
to express, anytime they were expressed, anytime they would express, they would be looked down
#
upon. I told you that, I thought my father was weak because he used to, I thought he
#
was weak because he was going through anxiety and I used to look at it as whenever he would
#
talk about it, complain about it or go through something, I would look what kind of a man
#
is he because that was what was conditioned into me that boys, every time I would have
#
a scrape, somebody would come and tell me, you know, if girls cry and boys don't cry
#
and now I can't cry and I can't have an outburst of emotion and I'm always going
#
to be looked down upon as a sensitive boy just because I'm crying, then I'd much
#
rather not cry and that becomes toxic and that turns into anger and that turns into,
#
you know, whatever you see in the world right now. So, it is, we need to have these conversations.
#
I'm so grateful to therapy, I'm so grateful to anxiety, I'm so grateful to my own mental
#
health issues for leading me to a place where today I can, I recognize these patterns in
#
my own life, I'm trying as hard as possible to overcome any of the toxicity inside of
#
me that still remains as a product of patriarchy and I'm dedicating a lot of my life to having
#
these conversations about gender with all genders, you know, with women, men and other
#
genders to kind of tell them that you don't have to be defined by a single story that
#
patriarchy gives you. You can have any story you want, you know, you need to fight back
#
against patriarchy, you need to fight back against it.
#
These are such incredibly insightful and inspiring points and I want to read out this lovely
#
para from one of your pieces where you wrote, quote, it is tragic that we live in a world
#
where even as patriarchy benefits men, it first oppresses the boys they once were, the
#
boys who could have grown up not necessarily to be engineers or doctors or MBAs but perhaps
#
poets and artists and dancers if they were allowed to be, the boys who could have grown
#
up not necessarily to constantly and continually work for money but perhaps be present fathers
#
and husbands, the boys who could have grown up without a stigma against feeling vulnerable,
#
punishing any perceived weakness through violence but perhaps be kinder and gentler to the world
#
around and to themselves, stop quote. And the story from your engineering college about,
#
you know, you're asking for that girl's number and all of that, that reminded me of a story
#
a friend of mine told me in Hyderabad recently which ends in a great line so I've always
#
remembered it which is that basically he was in an athletic delegation so he had gone for
#
some sports event to Haryana, one of these Haryana towns, perhaps even Karnal. So there
#
was also a local girls team or whatever, he got talking to one of the girls and they were
#
friendly and they hung out and all. And that evening in the place where they were staying
#
a bunch of Haryanvi boys came and they beat him up because one of those guys had been
#
trying to pataw the girl and the girl wasn't giving him line of days so they beat him up
#
and they beat him up and they go and then like in your case that boy comes back and
#
this guy is like what you've already beaten me up and the guy just looks very sad and
#
you know and then he looks at him and he brings his face close to him and whispers, daggi
#
to lele. Right and just the way it was said daggi to lele, I remember it for that reason
#
but it's also very poignant because the boys who beat up this boy like you pointed out
#
they are also trapped, they are also victims but the thing is that like you so wisely said
#
women now have the tools and the language and the frames to understand this. You know
#
they may not always have the privilege or the circumstances to act upon it but the language
#
is there, the frames are there, they can understand it, they can understand what's happening to
#
them and they can you know even if they can't always fight it effectively it's there out
#
there but for men it is not there, for men have no clue. I did an episode with Sringda
#
Poonam many years back when this was a shorter show on her lovely book Dreamers. I love that
#
book yeah. Yeah and there she spoke about how while girls throughout small town India
#
are asserting themselves, the boys are just confused boss. Yeah. Kus samajhme nahi aara
#
hai. Yeah. Kus samajhme nahi aara hai and you know what role, you know when we look at why
#
society is the way it is, you know one of the really interesting points you made which
#
I want to ask you about is the role of popular culture because typically one looks at popular
#
culture as a reflection of society and the point you made ki boss here it works as much
#
the other way that popular culture can actually shape society and our popular culture is really
#
all about toxic masculinity like Bollywood kya hai yaar, Bollywood is basically about
#
you know to romance a girl there is basically to stalk her and harass her and so on and
#
so forth you know the men are entitled and the women eventually given so is the kind
#
of change happening because very clearly in terms of women, in terms of the material available
#
to them, the frames available to them, the language available to them at least the change
#
is out there but in terms of men it's still the great unseen. Yeah. Most men can live
#
their entire lives without thinking of themselves in any way as victims of this like earlier
#
you mentioned about how on day one you know when you had that conversation with that friend
#
of yours whose dad worked in a garage that a layer fell from your eyes that you see your
#
privilege class ka similarly you spoke about how women always have the awareness that they
#
are women right and that's true most men don't realize that women are walking around with
#
an extra layer of awareness ki raat ko walk ke liye jaana hai so you have to think you
#
enter a lift you are looking at everybody else you always have that extra layer of awareness
#
in your head which men don't right and the one conclusion from that which is true is
#
that it's a better world for men obviously that you don't need that layer right but
#
the other conclusion is that there is another layer about what being a man is doing to us
#
and we don't see that so you know do you feel that through all your travelling and your
#
work and we'll talk about all of that in detail of course later but just as a broader question
#
do you feel that this is changing in any way what is the role popular culture is playing
#
is popular culture letting our society down what is your sense of this so I again talk
#
a lot about this in my talks you know I have for a very long time I wondered why does India
#
not have like superhero universes right super hero kyuni india gandhar you had one krish
#
and you had like one you know drunan you know you had two three like raavan but like you've
#
never had that culture which is so prevalent in hollywood right why is that the case and
#
I've been you know kyuni manthi dini kyuni manthi dini and then at some point it struck
#
to me it struck me that the reason we don't have superheroes in India is because every
#
man in every film plays a superhero because he's an Indian man you don't need superheroes
#
in India you have Salman Khan you don't need superheroes in India you have Rajnikanth you
#
don't need superheroes in India you have Tiger Shroff what do you need they are what super
#
what RRR why is the world flipping over it because you know where you have to put a you
#
know X amount of VFX logic into why Captain America can take a you know has a super strength
#
and has a backstory where he's become so strong that he can now you know hold a you know or
#
spider-man has to go through a spider like a whole thing of becoming strong and then
#
can stop a train here you know in RRR you just have to be an Indian man and you can
#
take a tank and throw it to somebody you can take a motorcycle and throw in someone's
#
head and that's just something where people are flipping out but that's with the narrative
#
always Indian men don't need to be you know you don't need to have a spider biting you
#
or a secret serum that turns you into a super soldier or like having gadgets like iron man
#
to become you know strong and you know inhumanly powerful you are inhumanly powerful anyway
#
because you have an Indian man and the problem in front of you is that somebody has taken
#
the girl that you like away you know and that's what an Indian woman is supposed to do she's
#
the damsel in distress where an Indian man has to Indian man has to save the girl save
#
the day save the world the Indian woman has to be saved and during this entire time her
#
you know her trajectory is just waiting to be saved and then in the middle for some reason
#
dancing like that's the ways that you know Hindi films have been constructed for the
#
longest time so you know and we are the only society again can you imagine like we call
#
hero like the lead actor in a movie a hero right it's nowhere in the world do you call
#
the lead actor the hero of the film he's the hero of the film because he's the hero
#
and and and he's a superhero that is why you're calling him a hero and then and you know why do
#
you have you know films which are called as female led films in our country now Kiye film
#
is a female led film Taapsee leads this film Bhoomi Pernekar leads this film Anushka Sharma
#
leads the film it's a female led film because the premise of Indian films is that there will be a
#
hero and the moment you don't have a hero you have to warn the audience that there is no hero in this
#
film in this film a woman is leading it and women are not heroes in the minds of like filmmakers or
#
the Bollywood or the industry at large right a woman who's fighting a circumstance but a man is a hero
#
so heroine means someone who's going to dance and be saved but otherwise you are a woman led
#
film so can you imagine like the even the nomenclature of how we talk about you know the
#
vocabulary we use when we talk about you know cinema and we talk about are the people who act
#
in films item numbers as an example even now man can you imagine that you have you you call it that
#
you call a dance number with a girl in a skimpy dress as first of all that is the number one way
#
to promote any film just now another film has come out which is about you know a man turning into a
#
wolf what does that have to do with an actress you know dressing in you know and again nothing
#
but that's the way to promote that you need to have quote unquote as you know a item number
#
where a girl is quote unquote an item imagine the derogatory language you're using to even refer
#
to a woman over here and she's performing a number and and while of course some people you know
#
actresses were smart and you know filmmakers were smart turn it into art form as an example
#
BD Jalailay in you know in Omkara which is Vishal Bhardwaj's way of like so there are
#
actresses and there are filmmakers who try to reclaim that idea that if we have to do it then
#
we will do it smartly if the producer is saying or the studio is saying we have to do it this is
#
the only way to promote we will we will do our own thing from it etc right but at the same it's but
#
you can think whatever you want for the most widest audiences in our country it is still like
#
a provocative number for for men to lust after right and and you know to see women in less
#
clothing so that's been historically the way we look at it now when you and again there's
#
no something else that I speak in my talks also with young people like when you look at the history
#
of the way Bollywood has you know gone in terms of heroes and if I just go back not you know
#
there's a Delhi Bhooma Dev Anand but if I start from Amitabh Bachchan for as an example
#
70s kandar there was one one character that everybody knew what is the name of the character
#
Amitabh Bachchan used to play it Vijay Vijay everyone knows that right Vijay is the angry
#
young man why is he angry because society is not fair society is is uh you know oppressing
#
you know poor and and and uh the people from underbelly sections and
#
and fight for the rights or you're going to be a don or you're going to be a
#
you know as in a mafia in in zanjeet and whatever it takes you will fight back as an angry young man
#
you are Vijay and it is and and and because society is oppressive you are going to you know
#
get angry and fight back once the economic boom came after you know Amitabh Bachchan playing this
#
till Agni Bhat in the late 80s you know still Vijay Dhirana Chauhan you know a whole 10-15
#
year period of him playing that in the 90s the economic boom happened and so now people were
#
not as angry because you're just like they're still entitled themselves yeah exactly you know
#
but you get you know it's not as difficult right now to fight for a roti kapda makhan because there's
#
far more jobs being introduced into the economy right Manmohan Singh uh you know and uh and now
#
you what happens then then you find once you have roti kapda makhan then what do you need in life
#
you need love so then you have another kind of a hero that comes up and that hero is Shah Rukh Khan
#
and his he also has a name what is the name Shah Rukh Khan film what is the name Rahul right Rahul
#
he's Rahul he's Rahul and he's in every film and he's you know spreading his arms and he's
#
looking for the love of his life and and because that's what he needs right now and then Rahul went
#
on for again another 10-15 years K3G, late 2000s till late 2000s Rahul Chaltara, Raj Chaltara, Rahul
#
Chaltara, Shah Rukh Khan's romance period after that got over you had a third kind of a hero
#
you know that that now that you found love also and you had dating apps coming in you had like
#
all kinds of different ways of people became more uh uh you know brave and courageous to talk about
#
love with their families you don't really need to kind of fight for love you didn't need to like
#
it was an open conversation Shah Rukh Khan normalized it so now when you have all of this
#
you have roti kapda makhan and you have love what do you now need then the answer gives you like
#
you know you need to find who you are you need to now go internal avita sab kuch external tha
#
apna hone wala gaya and then there came a new kind of hero Ranbir Kapoor who is your man child
#
who is who's got everything he's got tons of girls after him he's he might be going after one girl
#
but ultimately his every film is a coming of age film where he's trying to come to terms with who
#
he is and trying to find out who he is at the end of the film whether it is through a girl whether
#
it is through a you know a job whether it is through any other thing whether tamasha ho kuch bhi ho
#
he he has a revelation at the end of it and then he realizes this is who i am i i'm not you know
#
i i'm not a child anymore i'm a man and you know and that process through that process whether it's
#
a yeh jawani yeh diwani kahin bhi dekh lo ultimately usko mai girna nahi chaat mai udhna chaata ho
#
mai udhna chaata hoon chalna chaata hoon daurna chaata hoon girna nahi chaata
#
that's the whole generation of young men where Ranbir Kapoor came in and you had another hero
#
he was called Sid and Sid is now Ranbir Kapoor right this is that for three decades of cinema
#
literally as a character and it's a man that character is a man and he represents what men
#
at that time are going through immediately after that came like the Ayushwara era and that Ayushwara
#
era is basically abhi jo na yeh bhi hai abhi sabhi samajh aage ki internal jaana hai waghara waghara
#
now what happens now you start caring about society around you because now you have found
#
all of these four things you've also realized like thinking about yourself is important
#
self-introspection is important you know being quote unquote with Ranbir Kapoor
#
speaking of agba is also important then what really happens in life then you maybe start
#
looking at society so Rajkumar, Ayushman they have started like their own you know journeys of like
#
showing the world a prism of you know here's the issues with society maybe you should care about
#
it etc etc here at this point also the female led film as i said started coming in as well
#
and you know why it really happened when you kind of go into the history as someone who's again
#
worked in bollywood for a bit the history of female led films in india is that these are the
#
these were the films that men reviews should do most of these films were written for men
#
and then men were like yeh toh bahut choti hai i'm not looking like a hero in this i'm not a big
#
you know i don't have much of an action scene i don't think my arc is great so then the directors
#
and producers would be like okay kya garein yeh toh aadmi gana hi jata so then you have to
#
you rewrite it and say what if it was a woman examples examples i mean nh7 as an example you
#
know again i'm not i'm not referring to this film as a very specific film about which would
#
have happened here but the general trend you know i mean there are so many films yaar that you know
#
i also know india that have changed from being and i can't look at that i can't name them
#
bollywood malhe nahi sunenge so so okay as an example you know and again no disrespect to
#
you know the to my alma mater you know again one of the best times i've ever had i must say it and
#
i'm not saying it for any other reason because i genuinely loved working there um hitchkey which
#
was which rani mukherjee ultimately uh you know did was written for a man he was written and
#
then they took it to different men and different men like just weren't you know like i don't know
#
if i want to be a teacher or whatever it is and ultimately then they rethought it and said what
#
if we attach a bigger actor but it's a female and suddenly the film became monetizable because
#
when it's a female you also pay her lab because of the gender parity in our country and in our
#
in all industries so you the budget of the wind doesn't exceed a certain amount so it's easy to
#
recover the money also so everything then became business wise it became you're putting low cost
#
but low investment and then the return can be in certain cases can be a lot more right so it's
#
this is the way that you know female women in our country have gotten their own it's only happened
#
after men refused to do those films and women when you look at any female-led film in our country
#
now again i'm using that term because that's the easiest way of identifying them right if you look
#
at any of these films led by women actors you will have a film which Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan
#
anybody no matter who it is will lead and you will have any actor between a Deepika to an Anushka
#
all the big actors of our times who are female will act in them opposite even if their role is
#
like five scenes and in fact and it's like a it's a trial by fire it's almost a coming of age for
#
every Akshay Kumar film ke andar Kiara Advani aagi for five scenes then you know that's when you get
#
noticed and then you can maybe someday lead your own film that's the way people get to know you
#
when you are an oppositor this is the way unfortunately things are structured right but
#
when you see a female a film which has a big female star you have a Deepika you know in Chapak
#
you have a you name it you name it you have Anushka in NH7 in NH 40 I forget what the title was
#
you have Bhoomi's films Taapsee's films you know Rocket Rashmi any of these films the male actors
#
are always going to be folks who are either from a different industry because they're not as big in
#
Bollywood cinema so they're okay with coming and like okay I work in Punjabi cinema or I work in
#
South so I'm happy Dulukar Salman will come and he's comfortable while of course I think South
#
films and South actors have their own mind and they're really smart about taking good scripts
#
versus actually some of them at least some of them today don't fall into that trap but but you have
#
you know you will see that you know otherwise it is supporting actors or indie actors or web series
#
actors who start playing opposite them and no one you will never see like in America as an example
#
you will have a Ghostbusters a female Ghostbusters which has four women playing Ghostbusters and a
#
Chris Hemsworth who's Thor will come and play a cameo for like you know and play a secretary and
#
have 10 jokes on him and it's crazy you will have you know Brad Pitt make doing in Lost City doing
#
like a small role because Sandra Bullock said to me said you know will you come and you know
#
do Channing Tatum and I are doing a film and will you come and do a five minute cameo and he said
#
sure I will do it so you have all of these big Hollywood blockbusters and you have all of these
#
big actors okay with doing smaller roles if it's like a female that they love etc etc but in it's
#
not the case in India in India it's almost seen as you know I can't I remember again without wanting
#
to name the actor because I really respect them I remember one of the you know actually
#
so I was having a conversation with Rajkumar Rao this was I was interviewing him at a film festival
#
in in IIT and Queen had just come and I said like you know your work in Queen was just incredible
#
it's so great to see you in like that role where you are going you know you're not really playing
#
like you're okay with playing a comfortable with playing a negative character etc and he was very
#
honest and he said it publicly only which is why I think I guess I can quote it where he said that
#
I'm never going to play a character like that again not because it's negative but because it
#
was Queen it was Kangana's film and why am I you know playing such a lesser part in that film I
#
want to be seen as a lead hero and if I continue playing those films I will never be seen as a hero
#
I will always be seen as a actor who is I will never see a hero again quote unquote I will always
#
be seen as like this actor who's playing opposite a female in a female-led film so and now Rajkumar
#
is never going to be seen in a film like if Kangana does a film you'll never have a Rajkumar in a
#
film like that you'll always have somebody who is who's from an indie scene or a web series scene so
#
it is Bollywood may it the issues and even with people who have good intentions these issues
#
because now they've created a vicious cycle of this and a vicious cycle that gives the people
#
the same thing over and over again after which people start thinking this is what they want
#
which is not true because when you have like because Aamir Khan until recently has been a
#
very successful example of showing that you can give them a good script and they will take it
#
a three idiots has nothing to do with like Dungal for that matter even with all of its problems
#
when it came to its feminism Dungal was a film where Aamir Khan played a 40, 50 year old father
#
and you had two new actresses there were no songs you know which were quote unquote again
#
item numbers there was no female there was no romantic there was one of the rare films
#
without a romantic angle and made 350 crores it was the highest grossing film Hindi film outside
#
of Bahu Bali of all time you know so it's if you and Rajkumar Hirani again you know while
#
with everything that's happened with him like he was a great example of showcasing that you
#
can have a film about any subject and if you do it right Sanjay Leela Bhansali now he's done
#
period of films for whatever it's worth Anand right until again while his again films have some
#
of them have been very problematic most of these film when you do something if you have a good
#
script and you have a good narrative and you have good actors in it Ayushman's first few films which
#
were just absolutely fresh did nobody could have thought that Ayushman and Rajkumar will become
#
you know 100 150 crore actors but they just started choosing subjects over everything else
#
and the subjects were so good that people just started being like you know this is a
#
we want to see this film not because of who's in it but which also became his style then but
#
because of what's in it the film was Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta's film and Ayushman was one of
#
the I mean I really respect him for being brave enough to do a role where he's not the hero in
#
that film and Sanjay Malhotra is actually not the quote unquote heroine in that film both of them are
#
are are the supporting cast of a Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta but they were okay with doing
#
something like that because it's a great script and you know when you do a script and you do it
#
with a director that they respect the film ends up becoming a hit but again now we have pandemic has
#
happened now again we have gone back to the space where now a certain kind of south film which has
#
certain kind of misogyny a certain kind of same angry young man the 70s are back in in you know
#
in some somehow in the 2020s and now we are seeing I mean I saw Kantara and everyone's been hyping
#
it up and I full respect to the you know the acting of Rishabh Shetty and you know there was
#
something very interesting there but like I just couldn't there was a point point in the film where
#
the girl he likes he goes and gives you know touches her waist in this really inappropriate
#
manner gives her a I don't know twists her belly and and laughs about it and his friends say why
#
did you do that array that's romance or whatever it is it's one of the biggest hits and nobody is
#
even talking I mean reviewers are but I didn't see any of the reviews or any of the general
#
people opinion that okay I like Kantara but this scene I couldn't the movie for me after that
#
just after I saw that scene I was just like you know how can I be comfortable with anything else
#
that happens in the movie that if there's such a rampant misogynistic you know idea over here
#
right then and there and the way the woman's character has been treated in the whole film
#
again is just like a woman who's a in service of a man so gender is a is a I don't think enough
#
people recognize it you know if filmmakers in our country are now making films about which show
#
gender in a new light or show for that matter sexuality in a new light or anything I think
#
they're also coming from a sense of business now that a story like this because nothing else
#
is working this might work so let's give it a shot I don't think there's enough people who are
#
passionate about it or or who care about it or who and anytime you know like as somebody who's also
#
tried very hard to have these conversations you if you pitch it that this is about gender people are
#
just going to be like I don't care but if you pitch it as entertainment and then they like oh
#
but I like what you're telling gender they themselves will say interesting but if I say that I'll tell you a story
#
but the story I'll tell you that it's a great story then you might be interested in it but the
#
moment I start by saying you know I think we're trying to reverse uh we're looking at misogyny in
#
this way people are like I don't want to care I don't care about message or whatever it is because
#
they think that there is a stench that comes with social issues that the moment you talk about social
#
issues you know uh there is your your film and your idea and your thought and your story has a
#
stink to it that uh that people try to rub off like it cannot be seen uh as an example Aamir Khan
#
again no disrespect to anybody over here I'm just trying to like when when Thugs of Hindustan came
#
and this is just something I noticed right again I really respect him I just talked about how Dangal
#
was you know whatever but when Thugs of Hindustan came he went on coffee with Karan and Karan Johar
#
said that you know you've been you know you have been such an impactful person you know you've done
#
what do you say Satyamev Jayate all your films have social issues at the core of it it's so
#
incredible etc and Aamir Khan's Aishwarya was like no no no I don't make films for social issues
#
I make good films if there's a social message it's a good thing but he was so terrified
#
as one of India's biggest actors to be seen as somebody who's supporting a film with a social
#
cause he's just like no no no no no please don't he you have to look at the immediate fear on his
#
face that please don't bracket me as a socially responsible actor I'm not one sorry I am a I'm a
#
hero and I'm an actor I'm doing violence I've done Ghajini also look I do everything so don't
#
bracket me in that I'm just doing good good cinema if they resonate and great if not they don't
#
they don't and anybody who tries to do talk about social issue Indira Kashyap you won't have a
#
separate fan base but no one go for his films beyond a point of time you know you will have
#
people just it's it's sad and I just I don't think that you know when you look at international
#
cinema and you look at foreign cinema you know you know when I say foreign cinema non-english
#
cinema you have something like Parasite which is about class and that's why it won the oscars
#
now and there the people there are aware they're all coming together to make that commentary
#
you have most of the incredible films that are made internationally have that theme you know
#
Asghar Farhadi any of these people there you have internationally and they're proud of the
#
fact that they're exploring an insight or a theme into a social socially and all art is political
#
all art is about social issues only you may realize it or you may not realize it if you
#
realize it then you are then you're making it consciously if you don't realize it you're just
#
you know perpetuating stereotypes of a certain social understanding of the world you have and
#
of certain political understanding you have the world you may not know that you have done
#
misogyny but you have done misogyny and that is your point of view I'm not even talking about
#
Kabir Singh right now I'm talking about like most of Indian Bollywood like history which is
#
had casual misogyny as you very well said most Akshay Kumar films have had like you know just
#
the hero liking a girl by constantly stalking her by constantly like you know and that is the way
#
that most men think I know friends of mine you know who are women who have gotten into relationships
#
after men followed them because they were just like okay and this is I'm talking about maybe 10
#
15 years ago because Imran Hashmi made it cool and they thought that this is romantic that if he saw
#
me on this place and then he followed me to somewhere you know maybe he really likes me
#
and because again and there is a class element to that also he seems like a person and a caste
#
element to this also it seems like he's from upper class upper caste so I don't mind like going out
#
on a date for them I don't feel unsafe so there is I mean so many so many issues that have been
#
perpetuated consciously unconsciously subconsciously by Bollywood will it change I don't know
#
I think the web world is trying some very interesting things you have a Delhi you're
#
seeing folks like Shaif Ali Shah who was an iconic actor you know being able to now have
#
you know lead her own shows like a Delhi crime and you know and kick ass at it you know you
#
have like now now a little bit of the internet fortunately is giving the web space is giving
#
a little bit more respect to actors beyond age beyond genders you know and just good
#
storytelling you know but again I mean it's a clutter after a point of time you know this
#
when there's too much ultimately when everybody wants to make 20,000 of one thing then you look
#
at the formula and then you don't look at what is the out you don't look at what is that biggest
#
success because that's always going to be difficult to make no not everybody can make a family man not
#
everybody can make a Delhi crime but everybody can make a true crime show where a girl gets kidnapped
#
and there's a man who's trying to you know whatever who's at the helm of it another man who's
#
trying to save that's the easiest thing to do you get any director get any writer get any kind of
#
actor and you know people will watch it because that's what they've always been watching so I
#
know I still I feel like I hope I have hope I always have hope that's just unfortunately the
#
kind of person I have but at this point I don't see where I don't I don't know where Bollywood is
#
leading or where Indian cinema at large is leading especially with the rise of these hyper masculine
#
south films. So a couple of things I want to double click on and ask further questions about
#
but first boss Nikhil I have to say that every time you say no disrespect intended when language
#
like that is used basically what you're saying is full disrespect intended yeah it's like you know
#
yeah I don't mean to burst your bubble whenever you say I don't mean to burst your bubble you're
#
bursting the bubble I am with you yeah so never mind that no I all of this is extremely insightful
#
in terms of you know little things like how we normalize all of this either term like item number
#
term like female led film at one on one hand it's a description accurate to her but on another hand
#
the fact that the description is necessary is telling you something you know just calling
#
someone a hero in a film sort of telling you something and just the fact that you know Khera
#
Advani can act in a film led by Akshay Kumar but Akshay Kumar will never act in a film led by any
#
woman obviously so you know earlier at lunch we were both raving about TikTok and I'll you know
#
I'll sort of talk about that to get to my next question and I had even for a month I had taught
#
one course called TikTok and Indian society I had in fact taught it on WhatsApp so it was like
#
WhatsApp University and the reason I taught it on WhatsApp was to support my chapters I had like
#
hundreds of TikTok videos I wanted to send so if you think of the vertical format WhatsApp was
#
actually the best place to send it sequentially with my comments and all that but that was a
#
time TikTok was banned so I just did it once now what I loved about TikTok is that TikTok
#
broke through all the structures that existed and obviously that happened at the same time as you
#
know Jio was making broadband almost ubiquitous so you know a person in a village who might otherwise
#
have felt that no one was making entertainment for them that no one was speaking to them could
#
turn on their mobile phone and no matter what they were maybe alternate sexuality or whatever
#
they might have felt that they are all alone and you can suddenly see people like yourself
#
creating art and entertainment for you and then there is that magic moment where you can turn the
#
camera around and you can make something yourself and initially obviously you would find TikTokers
#
initially doing you know those standard memes where they're lip syncing to something or whatever
#
but then going beyond that I just saw such an outpouring of great original art coming out of
#
that and it blew my mind and it was bottom up which I just loved and that unfortunately TikTok
#
was banned and my sense has been over the last few years whenever I look around me across domains
#
you know whether it is in the media or just across domains that the mainstream is scrambling
#
right that the mainstream is scrambling everything is getting decentralized and
#
while there is a lag in the transition mainstream players have no clue of what's happening out there
#
right would you say that that's also the case with Bollywood in the sense that the way the
#
industry works and things is really a bit of an artifact they have a notion of what works
#
right and then what you beautifully called a vicious circle kicks into play where they'll
#
produce more and more of that and some of that will work and then they'll double down on that
#
and they'll say how this works but they cannot think outside that particular box like TikTokers
#
were thinking outside all boxes and so do you feel that that's a problem with mainstream
#
industry in the sense that in another place you spoke about how you did not want to be a
#
filmmaker sitting in a glass cabin and saying this is what the youth wants this is what the country
#
wants and we'll talk about that phase of your life also but do you think that we are stuck in that
#
space where we are probably ready for a kind of content and a kind of art which people aren't
#
producing because of this lag because entertainment is still so top-down lots to say on this honestly
#
where do i begin so you know i feel like fundamentally now we as an audience don't understand
#
the film industry it's called an industry to begin with right the industry bollywood at in one hand
#
even hollywood most film industries right let's let's just leave some of the european you know
#
kind of cinema out of it for now but it's a business and it's like it's worse than gambling
#
gambling because there's no science to it right when you think about it every other industry in
#
the world has a structure of what works if i am a computer engineer if i would have gone into the
#
same line i would be given a certain kind of code i would have a certain problem statement
#
there are ideas innovations you have and obviously still you don't know whether it'll
#
work or not but there is a structure you can follow to reach there and a lot of people have
#
reached there there's a lot of technological innovation that happens because of structure
#
there is nothing that can guarantee a hit film nothing in the world because if that was true
#
that every film would be a hit nothing so there are sometimes films like you know suddenly there
#
are films that come out like an ayushman film as i said can come out and make 150 crores because
#
it was just a fresh topic wikiduner came out of nowhere then from till badaido everything kind
#
of worked like that you will have a suddenly you will have an rrr that will come out and blow
#
hollywood away it is 100% going to be nominated to the oscars because every american filmmaker
#
has gone nuts watching it like what is happening over you right but i mean and not everybody can
#
be raja molly not everybody can be ayushman no but not anybody can be like javed salim javed at
#
that time at the height of their you know success so there is no formula and yet when it when you
#
crack something that works the kind of return on investment you can have it's pretty crazy and you
#
can have it instantly right when you have a business you have to build a business for
#
10 years and then you get a valuation then you whatever you know you put a lot of hard work for
#
a very long time and something happens you have one and a half years that you put a film in if you
#
kind of put it together in a smart way if it works you know you you have 300 400 crores that
#
you make you know in like over a period of two months or three months so the return on investment
#
is so great that people are happy to do this gamble but it is gambling like you're a as a
#
as a poker player you said luck plays a chance so often right and you know you can have skill
#
but the same thing with bollywood you can have some skill but a lot of it is just pure luck
#
right and and and that's bollywood but fundamentally people think and misunderstand that you know
#
it is it is it is a place that is out to make things that the audience would love or enjoy
#
that is the secondary you know object is never the primary objective on the other hand there are
#
fools the fools like me there are fools like many other writers directors filmmakers who
#
watch some of these movies that could have been made for any reason possible you know and in
#
some way somewhere these films made them feel less alone i have grown i came to india this is a true
#
story because of ddlj i grew up you know i had got i did my gmat so i did my sats and i got a
#
great score and all my friends in my circle of friends in bahrain went to america i was the one
#
who said no i want to go to india for two reasons one i wanted to go to i wanted to go to bombay
#
and beer and and make it in bombay i was very clear and all of it started with ddlj
#
i saw ddlj in the theatre in dubai and i was like what is this i am like i have it's my favorite
#
thing ever and and the funniest part of this is that it's not the thing that worked for me
#
ddlj is not charo khan not kajol but amrish buri amrish buri repeatedly saying my country's soil
#
and you know my soil's fragrance and and and i was like inspired by him to say that yes
#
my country my soil's fragrance Punjab i want to go there i want to do something there but like the
#
film also in itself aditya chopra i ended up working at yashraj got to work with aditya chopra
#
and it's just insane like you know but as a young boy i've saw those films and i was like
#
it's crazy and when rithik roshan came kahuna pyare i was just like i was obsessed with rithik
#
obsessed i was i have i bought like some 30 000 posters of rithik roshan i i'd created a website
#
embarrassing but i'd created a geocities website a fan website for rithik roshan i was like 13
#
you know so there was something in films you know that spoke to young people who did not and
#
especially i feel like young boys who just did not know way to fit in you know i would see a
#
bollywood film and you would speak to any writer any filmmaker in lokhandwala andheri and they will
#
have a story about like the film that corrupted them the film that made them realize that this
#
is what they want to do and it really comes down to an insight ki jaana kahin na kahin i felt a
#
little less alone as an nri kid growing up outside of india films were my connect with my country
#
it was my connect with my language while of course you know middle east beyond a point of time has
#
tons and tons of indians anyway so it's not like i was in a very foreign place still you know there
#
was something that i would see punjabi culture in particular is like super resonant in like you
#
know yrf and dharma films and whatnot i'd watch those films and i was like you know as somebody
#
who still struggles to build punjabi and well is very embarrassed by it because it's the language
#
of my you know parents and my grandparents uh you know i would hear punjabi music and i would see
#
films you know ddlj and all these malhotras and khannas and kapoor's and whatnot like
#
you know this is these are my people right but when you enter bombay and you come to bollywood
#
so to speak you realize that these are all of this is these are power centers there are
#
art is elitist you know and it's always been when people look down and say okay you've not seen
#
gone with the wind you're not seeing classics you're not seeing european cinema you're not
#
seeing like you know ingrid bergman you've not seen any of these like big filmmakers big names
#
you know and people look down on you and say that you know what you because it is it was a language
#
of first a language of intellectuals then a language of rich people then a language of
#
rich people then a language of business it was never something that anybody can it was not a
#
democratic system why is there this whole anger about demotism but you fundamentally misunderstood
#
what this industry is if you are angry about nepotism it's i can't even now say no offense but
#
because you know this suspected intended you've called me out on it but when people get angry
#
about nepotism i'm just like do you not recognize you think that this is an industry that was made
#
on merit it wasn't it was made on it was business deals everybody is the same family eighty percent
#
of bollywood is one family yes aditya chopra and karan Johar are cousins you know and like
#
most people don't know that they're literal cousins you know and and so and there were four or five
#
families you know in the 50s 60s that started it and they've been like they've grown their empires
#
and businesses few new people have definitely come in and whatnot tried to create Anurag Kashyap as an
#
example who tried to create an alternate culture and alternate industry along with it but still it
#
is it is about people who have money and they will do with the money whatever the hell they want
#
and why would they give them you know money to a outsider quote unquote because if i give it
#
to my son or my daughter at least if i fail you know i'm putting it i'm failing because i pointed
#
on my children but if i put it on an outsider and that feels i'm just like i'm an idiot or what
#
because it's a gamble there is no structure there's no formula you can have the best actors
#
you know from outside of bollywood but ultimately you know it's a risk and why would someone take a
#
30 crore 20 crore 10 crore 5 crore risk on somebody else when you can take that 5 crore risk on your
#
family right and it's the same so everybody is in cohort with each other it's a incestuous industry
#
everybody is like you know you work with each other that's those have been the power centers
#
for the longest time the internet broke it youtube broke it we'll come to tiktok but that's what
#
happened in the and i was fortunate as being someone who was started off as a you know culture
#
writer in hindustan times you know and was writing about quote unquote the scene you know i was i
#
was seeing stand-up comedy happen i've also done open mics at the beginning i've seen the independent
#
music culture i was reporting on it i was seeing channel b and mtv transforming into something
#
interesting you know what were they doing for culture at that point of time this alternate
#
scenes and anurag kashyap and that became my entry in devdhi i saw in 2008-9 ki baat thi
#
pagal ho gaya tha mai kya ye what is this what i've seen that film in theaters like four times i was
#
like how is this like what is happening udhaan i saw vikram aditya motwani oye lucky lucky wise i
#
think it's one of the greatest films ever made of all time debakar bhanji i went and met them
#
you know because i was i had the you know i was in a place i was in the sun times and you know
#
after a point i realized paise to milne re so i made a list of people i wanted to meet
#
i was like i'm just going to go and interview these people so i met all of the people i used
#
to love and you know i'm like i love this guy i want to meet him i want to love this
#
you know uh uh woman and you know as a director or whatever and i just have these you know
#
lists and just go after these people and they're not just indialists internationally i i interviewed
#
richard link later i interviewed aaron salkin all the people that i considered my heroes i just go
#
after them and interview them right and and and i would be inspired by how these people are not
#
your they are not from these power centers and and it's not been easy for them they have struggled
#
epically they have struggled publicly but they have done it they have broken this system and
#
that was always something that i kind of always had the back of my hand so even when i got into
#
mtv i was i joined the digital team at that time i was the editor of the mtv website as the editor
#
of the mtv website there was there was one website nobody gave a shit about it i was suddenly this
#
24 year old who's like you're free say you gave a little bit of a budget and i just i wrote all
#
kinds of articles on it and suddenly those articles started going viral started and then
#
there was a team that i was given and a team that i was part of suddenly and and coke studio the
#
first time was coming and then they gave it to me and said you know you are the whatever digital
#
in charge of making it happen and i was just trying all kinds of things we did like a at that
#
time like a video interview pod we didn't even have the terms podcast but we did like a video
#
with all the shankar all the people who were performing at coke studio we did like this video
#
gathering we did a tweet tweet meetup so all the coke studio fans and got them to go to the sets
#
and watch it live and this was all experiment nobody was doing this was just fun i was there
#
when the internet was you know making things happen and and that's where i made the series
#
on on on air after that then i made six films at mtv actually and that's where i got to get into
#
bollywood i made six films with anrak kashyap anrak basu shujit sarkar nikhil adhani rohan sippi
#
abhinay deo and i was producing all of them i mean there's a whole again other story around that
#
but when i got into it was at that time in 2014 2015 where tvf ka that video roadies video went
#
viral and i was at mtv at that time and this video and everybody in mtv was talking about how
#
this internet video is like what is this you know dvf was the first you know in that sense to
#
break through you know and and one of the first viral viral videos because they made fun of roadies
#
right the show that i was making the disaster of a show that i made was called reality stars
#
which was a fiction show about reality shows it was it was we had a is my whole idea of making
#
a parody or like a satirical show a comedy about these bunch of people who want to be part of a
#
show called mtv rejects so i was like if he can do cutie i am doing it on a big level so
#
but i saw that there was you know a scene a literal counterculture happening alongside
#
where the power centers did not matter anymore if you were earlier and again i'll go a little bit
#
into like kyan but earlier to become famous you know fame the idea of fame has always been associated
#
you know being in front of the camera being in front of the screen at one point to become famous
#
and you see these old volupt films and you see this in films of yore where you see like somebody
#
coming to vt station and that's where city of dreams and you know you will you come to
#
bombay you stand in a line somewhere and like you know you do an audition and maybe you become an
#
actor and namita bachchani kahaani kichori kahaani wo hai sab log aaye hain station pe wahan gaye hain
#
line mein khad hu hain aur ek din wo superstar ban gaya hai then they go to bandstand and talk
#
about the fact that i am now the king of the world right that that's your story but you had to come
#
to bombay you had to struggle in those lines and many many many did not make it right and then
#
reality tv happened when reality tv whether it was indian idol sare gama pa and then of course
#
you know roadies and all of these other shows they said that you don't have to come to bombay
#
we will come to you so we will come to your city you still have to stand in line but there'll be
#
judges and immediately they'll look at you and say this person has the potential to be a star
#
and then you can be in front of the television and suddenly you'll be a star one day so suddenly
#
like it became closer home i had that opportunity of becoming a star and when the internet happened
#
even that that you didn't have to stand in line you didn't have to even go to a city somewhere
#
you you could be sitting in any part of the country the world if you had a internet connection
#
which after you know joe and after you know 4g happened in our country everybody kind of
#
got one if you have a phone this is a new generation which is there is no generation before
#
the present gen z generation that have anything in common no two indians are the same everybody
#
has a different circumstance different story there's nothing unites us nothing not one thing
#
color cast creed religion everything is different right and but for a new generation the gen z
#
of young people everybody no matter what social hierarchy you were in also had like a mobile
#
phone because of 4g and because of like just that became your life right like you everybody
#
had to have a mobile phone if you wanted to do anything any kind of work any kind of like
#
so even the poorest of the poor would have like some sort of a cell phone with which they would
#
operate right and that phone in your hand became democracy in your hand it became freedom in your
#
hand it became you know freedom of speech freedom of expression in your hand you know youtube
#
happened youtube still required a little bit of youtube is where you saw the first you know
#
batch of folks who broke through and said i don't have to worry about whether it was tvf you know
#
whether it was aib we did wife films we of course had a little bit of we have a lot of money i mean
#
a lot of money and privilege in that sense and access in that sense but we made our first web
#
shows at that point of time there was all the bunch of comedians who came from different places
#
and then you also had individual youtubers you had your bhawan bhaams of the world you have your
#
prajakta coolies of the world these people who are who not really from any of the power centers
#
historically they have not come from the richest of backgrounds they're not from like a quote unquote
#
elite you know upbringing they have broken through just because their talent and they
#
had consistently and they had passion and they wanted to do it they would not wait for they
#
won't knock on a door wait for someone to open it they'd create you know doors they would create
#
their own opportunities that stormed through it because they in youtube equalized everybody
#
at the same time youtube still required you to have like at least a certain sense of editing
#
you would still need to have editing you'd still need to have you know either a camera or a phone
#
or you know a phone with like a a good camera so there was still a little bit of privilege required
#
still a little bit of like class certain kind of class for you to belong to to be able to make
#
something for youtube which was long form which was which required a certain kind of skill that
#
not and not everyone with privilege had right and then tick tock came and tick tock even broke
#
through that you did not need anything apart from like a any kind of a phone with a basic camera
#
nothing else nothing nothing nothing else one 5g connection one phone with a camera
#
and you can be you can do whatever the hell you want you can you can record yourself doing anything
#
you can instantly become famous you can instantly go viral you know it it it was the most democratic
#
of any mediums of any art form we've ever had in india no one before that and you know people would
#
look down on it and say cringy and you know whatever that's a very classist way of looking
#
at it you know key oh look at these people you people would look at it to laugh at it on the
#
other hand you look at it to see the the talent the the ambition the aspiration the passion the
#
excitement enthusiasm that no matter which background and circumstance you have from india
#
and and it had people from marginalized communities speaking up you were seeing videos of like you
#
know trans kids from like smaller towns in india you know expressing themselves you had most of
#
tiktok and some of the biggest early stars of tiktok were muslim young kids you know and and
#
you can judge them for you know the content they were making but before that no one they were not
#
allowed to express because they would they do it you would require a certain amount of power and
#
money and that's the only way expression was always always always they were gatekeepers to
#
expression in our country and in the world and that's why i'm saying art has always been you
#
people film snobs people who call them the film snobs it's snobbish because you have a certain
#
privilege and access to art in the first place and if you look down on people who don't have that
#
access or who did not have that access that's nothing but classism you know so tiktok broke
#
through that classism and of course invited a certain kind of judgment which also came from
#
classism but it was the first and only democratic medium and when tiktok happened and you know when
#
youtube happened and when you know people started coming on the internet and expressing themselves
#
as authentically as possible you see the correlation because i was there i can tell you the correlation
#
at that time was that and i've been i've been on those panels i've had those conversations in 2014
#
15 with filmmakers saying that you know looking at what is working on the internet and saying
#
that you know maybe we should start talking about the things that they're talking about
#
you know and and suddenly you had those stories that were suddenly socially conscious they didn't
#
just come out of the blue every filmmaker and producer who punted on those things they punted
#
on it because they realized that the internet is making making those you know conversations
#
happened and they were happening very actively and it was engaging conversations people were
#
watching youtube videos on body positivity so let we can do them like aisha when you're watching
#
films on you know a web show on man's world that i had done which was which had which as i said has
#
like some 90 million views right now across all its episodes it is on gender inequality and it's a
#
and and and people watch that and you see the comments on that people are thanking for the
#
first time we are having this conversation so when you do that a key and car becomes possible
#
and i'm not saying there's a direct it's not like our balki saw that and said okay i'll make a car
#
but it would not have happened arjun kapoor would not have you know five years ago someone who's
#
launched himself with ishaq zadeh would not have done a key and car where you know he's the house
#
home house husband so to speak and homemaker and the woman is going and earning but those
#
conversations are happening because of the internet and because of youtube and because of tiktok
#
if tiktok weren't banned i feel like we would have seen a different and you saw you saw a different
#
kind of a young superstar that was rising you know who like the idea of vijay and avitav bachchan and
#
and and the angry young man you had a different kind of a actual young boy with an identity who
#
would you would not associate with a certain class or a certain community or a certain idea
#
what should be a success successful name maybe those names were not people think names that you
#
would know how to pronounce because they would come from any different part of the country
#
you know but the ban unfortunately like stopped it in its tracks and today again you have all
#
these kind of platforms and it's still still there are still people who go viral they're still stars
#
that kind of have overnight successes you know so to speak but it's not you still it still comes
#
from a certain class background you you kind of see that very obviously you know you you
#
people who get internet culture people who have the wherewithal the the access again the privilege
#
the the education the in jokes you know to understand that this is what is going to work
#
on the internet and doing it you still have people you know and amit bhadana kind of you know in
#
haryani will do something you have like this really interesting platform by the folks who are
#
actually you know started i forget the name of the organization but who are in dreamers as well who
#
started then started witty feed and now they don't stage i had i had vinay singhal on my show right
#
exactly vinay singhal you know again they're doing such interesting work now you know so
#
what is the future of this i don't know you know the power structures are still very much
#
based out of bombay delhi you know the money flows through there so but there is you know money that
#
is also coming and i'm sure that at some point they will notice i saw that when i think either
#
praveen or vinay were having conversation online i saw that they had come to bombay too and they
#
went to the sets of nikhil adwani's show mumbai diaries so clearly like filmmakers also taking
#
note and saying like who are these interesting you know young people who are doing something
#
in regional using the internet and ultimately they have access to communities and and audiences
#
that we may not have so in the in the need to find those audiences which they can obviously
#
monetize maybe our films will change but my big worry is that they're only going to change because
#
how the south films are the biggest hits right now so our films will also start again replicating
#
the success formula of south films and south films and big blockbusters are unfortunately have never
#
you know gotten have have never had a evolved understanding of gender that's my worry that
#
again that will make a big comeback again in bollywood because that's what's working that's the
#
formula if you want to try it and then we're going to go backward so in the very fascinating
#
episode i did with uh vinay he pointed out one interesting thing he said that uh stage is doing
#
so well that there's now a reverse migration because they can make it in their language
#
yeah and not just a language their dialect like i'd encourage all listeners who haven't already
#
heard it to listen to my episode with vinay because the profound point there was about how
#
was of a kind of localization like i was always worried about homogenization happening in our
#
society one point that vinay made really well was that there is language in the city and outside the
#
city you know a city will have a language and outside a city you'll have dialects and the
#
typical pressure used to be that a small kid will like vinay born in a haryanvi village he'll speak
#
a particular dialect but he'll go to the city and he'll feel inferior because you know everybody
#
else seems more sophisticated outside or looking in border like that beautiful term and the
#
incentive will be to speak to hindi and so all the dialects die out and that these main languages
#
hindi bengali and all of those remain but what is happening here is kind of the opposite which is
#
incredibly inspiring that you know so many people tell him that they they feel so empowered you know
#
people will go and tell him all my life i spoke in haryanvi but i was embarrassed about it but
#
now i'm feeling i can take pride in my culture and it's an incredibly inspiring story and i
#
completely agree so much with what you said about snobs like no disrespect to snobs intended but
#
you know one thing one thing i tell my writing students also is that read whatever you enjoy
#
reading you know there is no hierarchy that this book won this prize somehow you got to struggle
#
through it no everything that captures your attention is doing something right you will
#
learn from it you will internalize that stuff by osmosis you'll pick up those tricks and all that
#
i want to ask you a question about structure in the context of actual filmmaking right now
#
now to take a step back in the creator economy one of the really heartening things that i've
#
seen happening over the last decade or so is what kevin kelly wrote about in his famous essay thousand
#
true fans has kind of happened like kevin coley kelly wrote this cult essay around 2009 2010
#
called a thousand true fans and his point was that creators will not have to scale anymore
#
in the past your model always has been that you have to scale right so your top one percent of
#
people make a lot of money everybody else is struggling and you know having cutting chai in
#
the tapris or whatsoever but his point was that now you don't have to scale a creator if you can
#
find a thousand fans who pay you a hundred dollars a year that's a hundred thousand dollars right
#
and when he wrote that it wasn't happening but he was very prescient because it is happening today
#
it is definitely happening today like on substack for example that hundred dollars a year is your
#
standards this thing and all kinds of people who haven't been heard of before are literally
#
making millions doing that so it has completely become possible and in the audio visual medium
#
the tools of production have become superbly democratized really anybody i think today if
#
they have the will can actually make a film right like one great example is a japanese film one cut
#
of the dead amazing film which was made for the equivalent of 20 lakhs and made the equivalent of
#
200 crores something like that and you know no film has really filled me with the joy of cinema
#
as that did so the thing is key you know if you have the will know
#
but the bottleneck is a distribution and part of the problem there is the model through which we
#
consume cinema is this very weird model where a lot of people congregate in a big hall and
#
watch your film together right and if you think about it in isolation we've normalized that model
#
but if you think about it in isolation or if an alien had to come to this planet and think about
#
how do we entertain people this would seem like a very stupid model because this requires you to
#
scale right now what we have seen creators doing in the audio visual medium is you don't have to
#
scale you had tiktok which you still have elsewhere you have youtube youtube creators don't need to
#
scale anymore you know but in terms of actual cinematic storytelling this seal still seems
#
like a fundamental bottleneck maybe there's there are intermediate models like you have small halls
#
which people can just book online 50 people want to see something 20 people want to see something
#
you have a room somewhere what is also another trend that seems to be happening is that the kind
#
of films which succeed in big theaters are now the spectacle films which require the big theaters
#
so your marvel cinematic universe and rrr and all that and the intimate cinema you expect that to
#
move to ott and all of that so ingmar bergman ott pay up the code or you know steven swielberg
#
hall you know so what is your thought of this structurally because again it seems that you know
#
i feel like 15 years later everything will be different but we can't imagine how because it's
#
unknown unknowns but right now what we have is an artifact of the past that we are somehow kind of
#
you know still struggling with so my question is structurally how do you think we can get past
#
this the fact that the means of production are in everybody's hand in very little money you know
#
but it will not find a thousand true fans even if they exist the bottleneck is there see you are
#
talking about structure purely because you're talking about film in the long-form medium right
#
but that is not the only way of making film absolutely and so what people are doing with
#
one and a half minutes right now is also filmmaking you know and and you can consume for one hour
#
for you know 30 of those 40 of those videos or you can spend that one hour in watching one episode
#
of a web show or you can spend you know james gunn said this this uh brilliant thing where he said
#
that you know i mean some of it i'm going to add to it but because i want to indianize it but like
#
when you watch a film in india let's say let's say in his example you have to spend half a day
#
of your time to go and watch that film there's half a day of your life that you have to take away
#
it's a it's a community experience because india may films again to go into the history logic etc
#
the highest crossing film in india at a 500 700 crores which is rrr bahu valley has been watched
#
by fourth percent of indians in theaters that's how many people it takes to watch the highest
#
crossing four percent of film people going to theaters some of them are going for the second
#
time people families in india go for films at a on a diwali or an eid or one of those because
#
it's an expensive medium so it is community viewing because of that it isn't family outing
#
you go to the park every day which is free and then when you have a little bit of money for the
#
middle class or you know upwardly mobile you know then you go and kind of uh uh go and watch a film
#
take your whole family and say which is why the stars also happen because you go and watch the
#
film of that one person that you kind of know historically you will not go and watch the film
#
of a young person and when nationalistic or patriotic films happened they kind of uh you
#
know said you don't need to know who's in it as because it is about your country or the issue
#
that you care about you're going as a community to watch that and say okay i want to know what
#
happened to my community you know kashmir files is an example so so theaters in india and films
#
that many people anyway don't watch very very very few people watch films but because they're so big
#
and there's so much money that is thrown at them and they are so visible you have this the reason
#
in india that people are supersized because of satellite and now because of the internet but
#
before it was satellite when the film would come to tv tv rights for films go up to 50 60 70 crores
#
because that is because tv was in every home theater is not everybody cannot afford the theater
#
because and when i say half a day think about it right you know you are going from one place to
#
another place in traffic you are signing you know i mean okay you buy a ticket online but you if
#
you have to buy popcorn that's another this money also gone thousand rupees for just popcorn but
#
dk if you're not buying it you go sit inside the theater you have to wait for 15 minutes while
#
there are ads you know and then finally after like one and a half hours of you just waiting
#
or two hours maybe sometimes you just kind of get to watch the film then you see you know the first
#
hour and then you're like oh my god i've just wasted my entire day because i've spent this money
#
and this is a bad film so you lose and you don't just lose time and money yes you don't just lose
#
money you lose this almost a half a day of your life after which you have to go finish it because
#
you're paid for it you don't even leave midway because like at the end of it you go back and
#
then six hours of your life gone you know on the other hand on the internet you have that privilege
#
and the power that if you you sample something on netflix on amazon on any of these platforms
#
if you lose it's okay you're watching three four minutes i like i don't like this i'll go to watch
#
something else so you're not really losing that much time just three to four minutes but if you
#
win which is like if you see something that you love then you suddenly win 10 hours of it
#
you have like 10 episodes you're like oh great now my whole weekend is sorted now i can watch this
#
and binge it and do like one two three four so it's a victory or defeat that people psychologically
#
feel when you know and why right now people are much more comfortable with watching films
#
uh you know at home versus in theater so as an idea also i just i think i i don't i don't think
#
that it's a i don't believe that films have ever been structurally the long form has been that
#
important it has been a means of entertainment for people you know and entertainment today is
#
people are competing for time they are not competing for you know uh entertainment as
#
an example right a theater is competing with facebook which is competing with tiktok which
#
is competing with i mean i'm talking about off-street mediums now but which is completely
#
insta reels which is competing with a stand-up show which is competing with a with a you know
#
music live performance which is competing with a spoken word which is competing with cat videos
#
on youtube that you're just scrolling through mindlessly or insta stories that you're going
#
through your time is the commodity that everybody is after right and and and the idea of entertainment
#
also for most people now has been because especially after the pandemic is now this
#
we are so conditioned to need and consume and inhale this entertainment that us you if you get
#
up right now and walk out i will immediately have my phone not just to see like maybe i'll see my
#
messages and what then that's the first 30 seconds after that i'm immediately going into insta
#
stories or going through twitter why i should get up and walk out with your phone yeah that's
#
what i'm saying like otherwise i don't know what to do with myself immediate reaction anybody's
#
instant reaction the moment like you're in a deep conversation and somebody has weighed i have you
#
know i have one second of work the phone comes out and the phone you're not as i said you're
#
not just checking it for information or somebody's reaching or am i reachable or not reachable
#
that might be the first instance the second instance what can i see in like
#
nibbles of entertainment so we do a lot of research at uo also we do a we have a whole
#
research vertical so we kind of divided into you know food into so we divided the entertainment
#
you know categories for young people into how they consume so this is nibble content nibble
#
content is the kind of content that you are mindlessly consuming in between conversations
#
sometimes i might be talking to you and i might just kind of open the while you have said something
#
and i'm just like okay i might open a phone just see three stories and keep that's nibble content
#
then you have you have your you know snacks snacky content where you have where you go to
#
instead of insta story you might go to youtube because you have a 10 minute window somewhere
#
in between you might be traveling you might be you know in a college in a class etc and then
#
you have 15 minutes or 10 minutes five minutes you might see a youtube video you might see five
#
six insta reels today you might have any other form of entertainment then you have your full
#
meal content which is the time you actually with your at the time when you are having food when
#
you are with your family you see you decide to say that or like a long form uh you know piece
#
of fiction or whatever it is and every bit of our life now is filled with entertainment
#
structures don't matter anymore and and and to your point about why we why there is this stupid
#
idea of you know going to theaters i mean i already told you that it was a community experience
#
because that's how you you know families would go and families have historically gone and you
#
know it's an outing for the whole family when you go and watch a film but outside of that
#
it is one of the last few places now so i think it's become even more important one of the last
#
few places where you have a collective experience where else are you having collective human
#
experiences and when you are watching a film in theater why is it so important i still feel i
#
feel it's important i don't think it is i don't think it is necessary i don't think that i think
#
it is it is becoming obsolete and and i hope it doesn't die but i think it is very important
#
because that collective experience of laughing crying the thrill of a horror film everybody
#
collectively gasping when you're watching something it makes you again feel less alone
#
you're kind of you realize that you're part of a human race you are you are part of it's beautiful
#
i think it's just so beautiful when you are you know when there's an emotional scene and you have
#
tears in your eyes and you hear another person sniffing and you're like okay i'm not alone in
#
like feeling sad or you know emotional at this point i think that's a very important part of a
#
human experience that we can only get while watching live either either watching a music
#
performance or watching a you know sports match or you know in the theater but there's no other
#
place where you can have a collective human experience like that so it is important only
#
for that reason no other reason necessary no i don't think anymore the structure doesn't
#
matter anymore you know even of 30 second instagram reel is a is film and if anybody
#
says it's not film again i think it's coming from placeability so if you're saying that oh
#
it's too easy it's not easy i i tried making it very difficult it is and young people are
#
inherently recognizing the power and potential of these 30 seconders to and saying such interesting
#
things they're doing it in such interesting ways they're i mean the the talent on like
#
these short form mediums is incredible who are we to say this is not a film it is a film it is
#
very much a film so i mean yeah i feel like i feel like you know we the future of overall film is is
#
is these broken down things you know i feel which is and while we need those larger experiences
#
when it comes to i think i think in the the internet and particularly now places like stage
#
as you said you know are going to fill those knees where again you're talking about indie films
#
you know coming on or or the the bergman films you know are coming on the internet that's actually
#
stopped happening already so you don't have more indie films anymore on on these mediums you
#
actually have far more masala films because because and this is another thing that i've kind of
#
realized that people watch people don't go to people don't watch these films because they're
#
great content on youtube on by paying subscription they watch these films because they're bad films
#
and you don't when you have and you watch it because they're mindless you watch it because
#
you don't you know you're you're not wasting money it's almost free and you're watching free
#
mindless stupid content you don't it's very rare now to have intimate and experiences with cinema
#
again those are those are art and i would love i would love for us to have more of those experiences
#
i miss those experiences i grew up in the 90s on indie films and indie expression and clerks
#
you know to stephen stodberg to kevin smith and all the folks you know sophia cabola all the
#
folks and their beautiful beautiful films as in the richard linklater of course one of my heroes
#
you know but but those films now you know may need to be self-distributed platforms are not
#
going to pick those films anymore because platforms are going to offer the thing that
#
is going to make you stay there and what makes you stay on most of these platforms after your
#
tired day where you've worked your ass off you're sitting with your family and you're not trying to
#
just have a good time is mindless stupid films you're throwing so many insight bombs that i am
#
already feeling nostalgic for this conversation even though we haven't even reached the break yet
#
so couple of things that what you just said reminded me of you pivoted fully from like
#
you know gender empathy into like no no skill passion that we will very much get back to that
#
no but i'm just saying i i this is the other aspect and facet i just love i just love
#
storytelling and filmmaking it's just something that i that drives me a lot so and what you just
#
said about uh you know the mindless films and uh you know reminded me of something the economist
#
rashwini deshpande said on my show where she said that her father once taught her that there are
#
four kinds of films there are good good films good bad films bad good films and bad bad films
#
and the good good film is a film that is trying to do something worthy and it succeeds so that is
#
your bergman films felini films so on and so forth and i'm big fans of those guys uh the
#
the bad good film is a film that is trying to do something like that but is basically boring the
#
pants out of you which i would say is like money call and you know that wow no disrespect no
#
disrespect yes then a good bad film is a film that technically you're not supposed to watch guilty
#
pleasure but it's mind-blowing you just love it like you have spoken i think in the past of
#
andaz apna apna is one of your you know that's a good good film that's a good high art i agree
#
the moment i said it i yeah but like a gunda perhaps you know disco dancer yeah could be
#
uh good bad films and a bad bad film is just bad in every way so i think the good bad films
#
are the kind of mindless time pass which people would really enjoy and i also agree about not
#
thinking in the boxes that we are used to thinking in like we tend to think in an hierarchy of forms
#
that if you're a writer your book is at the top you know blog post will be at the bottom and like
#
you know when um one of the points i made while i was talking to a mutual friend mahi maha before
#
she started a great newsletter was why does it have to be a book you know newsletter
#
and and she's made so much out of it and so that is uh something where i completely uh sort of
#
agree with you i'm really fascinated by nibble snack full meal i'll you know double click on
#
that uh some other time but before we go into a break you know that point you made about
#
collective experience in theater is a beautiful point right because anywhere else like you go
#
to a cafe and there are groups of people sitting together but a lot of the time you'll have a group
#
of four looking into their phones absolutely not into each other's eyes it's not collective anymore
#
well in a cinema hall everyone else is feeling the same thing so i often i cry easily at movies
#
right and i'm always embarrassed and trying to cover it up because hey men aren't supposed to
#
cry right does that happen to you too is that something absolutely do you pay attention to
#
that do you try to hide it i i'm very conscious of it and my wife is daisy her name is and she's
#
she knows that i cry in movies every time i'm crying she she i feel she feels for me so she
#
just looks at me as if like it should be okay and i'm just like let me have this experience
#
don't stare at me when i'm crying i just want to cry i don't want to like have someone look at me
#
when i'm crying you know and and and i mean there's to tie everything you know so far that you've
#
been speaking together i can't cry otherwise i mean i can't cry if i want to cry right now i
#
will try my best when i can't cry and when i feel really and this is just i mean so sad when i even
#
say it out loud but when i feel really like sad and i want to cry i then go and watch an emotional
#
film so that i will have tears so i'm like at least this is the way that i'm able to that is the
#
level of toxic that masculinity is in me conditioned in me that i am unable to cry
#
otherwise when my grandfather passed away and i was as close to him i and in fact the reason
#
that i came to NIT Kurukshetra was because it's next to Karnal and my grandfather my maasi lived
#
in Karnal and i wanted to spend i'd never i loved my grandfather but never spent any time with him
#
so i wanted to live close to him and then weekends i would spend with him so i very fortunate to have
#
gotten some time with him when he died for two days i couldn't cry just could not cry why because
#
i was my maasi was crying non-stop just consoling her i was just like suddenly i fell into the
#
duty of my man okay my manly duty is that i have to take care of all the guests my maasi is in no
#
condition so i will take care of all the arrangements i'll tell you tell me what she's
#
it's not that she wasn't doing she was doing a lot of stuff herself but she was broken
#
and her my uncle hadn't reached yet my mother from Bahrain hadn't reached yet nobody had been
#
able to reach at that time so whole day day and a half i was just taking care of all the duties
#
of the of of a household where someone's passed away without when my friends came to be like
#
we're sorry from kurukshetra you know how are you feeling etc i was like sad didn't have tears it's
#
only when one and a half days later when my mother and i got a quiet moment and my mother just asked
#
me how are you feeling that i burst into tears i was and then i was inconsolable because just
#
that moment of her reaching out and actually caring about my own emotion and being like how
#
are you feeling i was just like that's it i just had tears but i can't cry otherwise it's very
#
difficult for me to cry i i yeah and and and films have and that is also why i am i i love
#
film so much because as a man i'm able to feel things and feel emotions or give space to those
#
emotions that i'm otherwise hiding away or i'm otherwise suppressing so so films have been
#
the most important friend that i've had growing up it has it has it has been yeah films and shows and
#
you know art cinema whatever you want to call it have been like a lifesaver for me it made me
#
in a world where i was struggling to fit in it helped me like find a space for a man who was
#
trying to cry but not able to and then Shah Rukh Khan films happened okay wrong reason to cry i
#
guess you know he's acting is so bad that would make me cry Shah Rukh Khan is the love language
#
of india you've spoken to me absolutely and a book is just such a great book it's a great book and
#
that's also my most popular episode so far and that's a great metaphor you know a cinema hall
#
a cinema you know men crying in the dark together that's such a great metaphor on that note let's
#
go for a break long before i was a podcaster i was a writer in fact chances are that many of
#
you first heard of me because of my blog india uncut which was active between 2003 and 2009 and
#
became somewhat popular at the time i love the freedom the form gave me and i feel i was shaped
#
by it in many ways i exercise my writing muscle every day and was forced to think about many
#
different things because i wrote about many different things well that phase in my life
#
ended for various reasons and now it is time to revive it only now i'm doing it through a
#
newsletter i have started the india uncut newsletter at india uncut dot subtract dot com
#
where i will write regularly about whatever catches my fancy i'll write about some of the
#
themes i cover in this podcast and about much else so please do head on over to india uncut dot
#
subtract dot com and subscribe it is free once you sign up each new installment that i write
#
will land up in your email inbox you don't need to go anywhere so subscribe now for free the india
#
uncut newsletter at india uncut dot subtract dot com thank you
#
welcome back to the scene on the unseen i'm chatting with nikhil taneja about his fascinating
#
life and work and so on and let's now come back to sort of the chronological narrative you pointed
#
out key engineering was basically your gap years where where you were figuring out what to do with
#
your life tell me a little bit about this process because you know when i look back on my college
#
years and when i speak to others as well who've come on the show what i find is that there are
#
two kinds of pulls and pressures happening and one is you want to fit in with your peers or you want
#
to fit in with the cool boys or you want to you know so you're molding yourself to kind of fit in
#
or to whatever you know similar to the pressure of being a man in a sense and the other is you're
#
trying to figure yourself out find yourself and very often you're constructing for yourself a
#
self-image of what you want to be seen as rather than trying to actually understand who you really
#
are now i'm guessing that since you landed up there as the nri cool boy i guess that pressure
#
would not have been so intense the first pressure of fitting in and so on but through your life how
#
has that process been of getting to understand yourself a little better you've already spoken
#
about how the therapy you did later on in dealing with anxiety kind of helped with an aspect of that
#
but in general take me through this process of understanding who you are and what you are
#
and coming to terms with it i don't think that i had the self-awareness of
#
any kind of self-awareness about myself when i was younger
#
so when i was in college
#
you know as i said i think the three and a half years for me were
#
again once i found out that i don't want to do this it was all about like now what can i do
#
with my time and as i said i started writing i started furiously you know there's this incident
#
that happened much later which was actually quite like sweet when i met a college friend many years
#
later and you know i was in hindustan three four years after college still in hindustan days earning
#
a lot of not earning too much again you know 14 and a half thousand for two and a half years
#
in bombay you know it's just tough i met like a friend who had gone to u.s after that and he came
#
back from the u.s and just came for a visit or something and i just met him and i was just he's
#
like how is life i was like i'm not really happy right now because he's like because i'm not
#
earning the money you know i don't know if i'll be successful or not and he's not someone i kind of
#
was very close with you know he's just someone like i was friends with but not very close friends
#
with so he just said he's like are you mad you're good you know it's like why what happened he's
#
like he's like i have you were the only person in our college where all of us were you know
#
you were turning out issues of your magazine you know you were the only one who was
#
who was late till three o'clock in the in the night trying to make something out of your life
#
while the rest of us were you know just doing bakchodi and there is even if you're not successful
#
right now there's no chance you won't be in the future and really like i said i still have some
#
you know until like someone else tells me i never look at myself as like
#
you know i'm doing enough for whatever reasons and it just hit me that yeah that's that's been
#
my college you know i actually so i don't drink i don't smoke i don't do drugs i don't have
#
i've never had any of these you know you take phone numbers of girls
#
which is clearly the vice you know for a lot of people there but but yeah like you know i just
#
beyond a point i didn't have enough things you know times or reasons to hang out within
#
you know you hang out with your friends until they start drinking because after they're drinking then
#
it's just a drunken conversation where you are the sober person you're like what am i doing here
#
so you don't have those conversations i did although at the other hand i think while i
#
didn't learn much about myself i learned a lot about india you know because again fortunately
#
unfortunately there was no LAN in our this is 2004 to 2008 that's where i studied
#
and there was only like one computer center where you had internet
#
so in your hostel and because haryana and north india and there's always power cuts
#
so every night for one and a half hours the the electricity would just go off and then what do
#
you do your phone at that time again was expensive so you can't call people until i think my third
#
year things became inexpensive where you had free calling and free messaging or whatever and that's
#
the year i made a girlfriend so clearly thank you Airtel but before that it didn't even happen
#
you didn't even know enough i mean you had that one number after that incident i was like i'm
#
never calling a woman in my life now but so what did you do and and i kind of started after like
#
getting really bored and you know talking to my roommates and my roommates i didn't really get
#
along with in the first couple of i mean decent people just didn't have much in common
#
i started recognizing that you know well i am in this campus where there are these people from
#
all over the country from every state of india i have every day there's a power cut i have nothing
#
to do nobody can do anything you're in first year so maybe i'll just go and like find the stories of
#
others right and it wasn't like a conscious like i'm going to find the stories of others
#
it was more like let me just go and chat with other people right so i just go up to somebody's
#
room and like i've never met and just knock on the door and be like you know we stayed the same
#
you know yeah same hostel or the same floor or whatever it is and we've never spoken so yeah
#
i'm Nikhil and this is i would love to know a little bit about you and then suddenly like some
#
of those conversations would know nowhere people were just also not very open and then some of
#
them would just turn into like really deep conversations and and sometimes i would have
#
it only once in like i've spoken to some people during power cuts once and never spoken to them
#
again beyond hi hello for the rest of my college life but that one conversation was deep enough
#
for me to kind of you know like if i if we ever see each other in public we hug the hell out of
#
each other just be like oh my god like so great to see you after all these years so because of
#
that i kind of got a sense and understanding of you know the stories of others and i think that
#
helped me recognize a little bit of my own story as well i didn't know what stories were i didn't
#
know that you know like again self-awareness you didn't have the internet i've i you didn't as
#
even though i was writing for a newspaper and you know or a magazine at that time even at that time
#
i did not have like chetan bhagat did not exist at that time even at that time there was no example
#
a public example of you know people who could have stories like mine and most of the stories
#
i would hear of people who kind of did the other thing right so you kind of also connected with
#
that somebody who's a lovely singer i would find out you know who's come from this but the reason
#
that why don't you go into one of these reality shows and like you know try singing just be like
#
yeah i'm the only child of my family and or i'm the you know elder son of my family and my aim is
#
to make it to microsoft because uh that's the way i mean i need to my parents have put so much money
#
you know i need to be the return on investment for them and for whatever it was that boy is
#
in microsoft now and you know he's made it but he's a beautiful singing voice which i don't
#
know if anybody will ever get to listen to beyond like the close circle of friends that he may have
#
which is also okay you know i mean sure but i'm just saying like so many stories that i would
#
hear from so many people from all these different parts of india there's a boy from like jammu and
#
kashmir that i was it just helped me recognize that you know and every story kind of has a
#
you know starts with you know i mean nobody really knows where it's leading nobody is aware that
#
you know uh which act of our stories are we are in but there is something there you know that
#
that somewhere makes you recognize that you are also a story you know where i feel like all of us
#
look at each i mean so nid gurushedra also how we call each other after a point of time
#
the boy from bareta you know is called bareta the boy from jammu is called jammu you know
#
the name jammu is bareta so what was yours? baren for a long time it was baren nido karnal
#
but after as i said like for me first for whatever reason i was always seen as like this
#
so i was typically seen as taneja or karnal but i was always seen as karnal
#
but i started looking at realizing that every one of them with whatever names or whatever labels
#
they were given there was a story about them that nobody would know that you know if you
#
just didn't ask them everyone had a stereotype there's a backbencher there's a frontbencher
#
there's a gissu kid there's a frustu kid all these terms that we used to give each other
#
you know but beyond that they all had like this really deep stories that even they wouldn't
#
ever think about but i that's all i could think about i can't get out of my mind that there is
#
a boy who has such a beautiful singing voice but who's you know because he's the eldest son
#
of the family has to only you know study and do engineering because he has to get into a certain
#
you know place and he has to make his family circumstance better now that's because i have
#
the privilege to not think at that time i had found myself having the privilege to not think about
#
and and yet i was not living my own story i was also doing engineering even though i liked writing
#
and i was writing in newspapers and magazines and i created my own magazine i've i've done everything
#
but i was not doing and you know funnily what happened and such a funny random thing sometimes
#
that happens to you that like puts you on a different path one of my first roommates in my
#
second year over some actually first year only afterwards second the second roommate i ever had
#
who i became very good friends with in year one i had met him i mean we had not spoken for a bit
#
we'd become decent friends but never for a we just kind of lost touch in in the middle we were in
#
different sections and different batches one one day again power cut happened fourth year final year
#
of college i've already got two jobs i've got accenture csc but i sort ho gaya in that sense
#
and you know i'm like okay now i'm chilling as a senior nothing to do two jobs okay you can't get
#
more you like to cap it too this guy meets in a power cut like how's your life going kaise chal rai
#
zindagi hai na i'm just like yaar achcha chal raha hai god two jobs etc he's like achcha tu fir ye
#
kare gaya ke tu ne toh bola tha ki jana i mean tere uska kya hua writing writing ga tu bahut
#
likhta tha us time par bhi young times young times wakara pe you know four years ago i was like haan
#
mai soj raha hu ki and this was my plan at that time you know one of the jobs csc will give
#
give me bombay as the which is the place you want to be located they give you the option
#
so i'll go to bombay and you know main din mein ye karunga side mein main you know writing karunga
#
and that's how like it's my plan right now and jab wo chalne laga jaga then i will leave it and do
#
this and this guy just very non-chalantly in the complete non-chalance said like he's like haan
#
sahi idea hai tu aisa karna tu pehle bombay jana side mein ye karna fir tu MBA karna side mein writing karna
#
fir shadi karna side mein writing karna side by writing karna bache karna side by writing karna
#
fir tu ek din mar jaga na then writing side pe rahegi you know aur bolte-balte bol gaya
#
you just like suddenly my life flashed in my entire in front of my eyes and i was like
#
that is so true i could just be doing this and and that's what i've been doing till then since
#
14 to now i was 20 at that time six years all of this were these were side pursuits for me they
#
were never the because again arts nahi kar sakte hai to hobby hai this cannot be your
#
extreme and then i realized like i have and now already had two jobs and one of them was in you
#
know july i had to join in july and one i have to join in august my college finished in april
#
so then i was like from the time this conversation happened which i think would have been in the end
#
of first semester beginning of second semester i said i have now six to eight months he's
#
absolutely right let me give it a shot let me try why am i saying that ke side mein karenge
#
if i get a job i will go for it if i get a good job i already have like a safety net now
#
i need to give it a shot i did everything possible i reached out to like anybody you know i used to
#
blog a lot at that time on a website call on a forum called zanga so zanga pe no loko ki jana
#
do you know anybody like who you know in bombay who would want to you know hire me and here's my
#
resume whatever and my resume was like a lot of writing of course engineering college student but
#
a lot of writing that i'd done i'd also i started writing for jam which i think again is a rite of
#
passage for most people at that time uh you know so and and kahi na kahi after like hundreds of
#
attempts and hundreds of people do you know do you have a cousin in bombay do you have somebody
#
who knows somebody etc etc itni emails bhejhe maine puri list way i remember like sabko jitni
#
logon janata ki bombay ke jante ho media ke andar i tried in indi tv tried in mtv tried everywhere
#
and then some one of my junior sister was working in hindustan times she passed on my resume to
#
Khalid mohammad who was the editor at hd cafe and yeah i got a call and said you know very
#
interesting cv you guys want you want to come over to bombay can you come tomorrow for an interview
#
i was like i'm in karnal so sure immediately shyam ko mene sabhe agliya flight pakdi bombay
#
mahacha i'd add a folder of all the articles that i'd done says like what all have you done i was
#
like yeh lo mera folder so it was young times you know this that etc so he's like okay great you
#
seem to be like young and smart etc this is what we can pay you yeah you want to join i said okay
#
again so easily and yeah i never had to intern for for whatever it's worth and uh next day i joined
#
hd and i mean they told me literally they'd given me some you know one week time the other one week
#
i'd taken next i went back came back a week later 2008 july and i joined hd but it is it is it is
#
through somebody else that i realized that this should be this is what i should be doing but and
#
i had asked my mother for that i mean i didn't tell my mother or you know at that time that i'm
#
going to be applying to other places i said job milivi and then when i got this job then i said
#
listen so i have these two jobs but i also have hindustan times now and it since it's hd you know
#
and i'd also gotten jobs in two other i'd got a job in oml i'd got a job in uh a pr agency called
#
pink relations i remember and so i'd got three jobs and then i had to choose now oml was paying
#
me a little bit more than hd pink relations were also paying me a little bit more but hd was hd so
#
i was like i mean i can't now khalid nohamad was somebody again i read his newspaper i you know
#
reviews i was like if he's going to be a boss i mean i want to do this yeah i came to bombay and
#
you know it's and it's taken me until from that time onwards i think that's the first thing where
#
again an external circumstance and the second part would be my teaching
#
hearing the stories of my students you know made me recognize that i need to
#
introspect deeper into what is my own of course anxiety and therapy were the big ultimate
#
points of transition in me recognizing became like a imtiaz ali movie character i took a
#
sabbatical after you know so one of the things in therapy that after this whole conversation
#
where i had where she told me like i had to figure out what do i want to do after i came back from
#
goalkeepers from after i had that panic attack i just came back and i decided that i realized
#
what i want to do in life uh i first want to quit i don't think i can do my job you know and i need
#
to give myself time i need to take time to find out what is my story and uh and i and i and i
#
decided to uh just and i told this i remember i told this my therapist i was like i decided i
#
could have quit yrf and she's like that's not what i told you i told you to introspect i didn't tell
#
you to quit your job i was like no no i'm quitting he's like how can you quit yrf she was like shocked
#
my parents everybody in my like you are doing really well at wire don't quit and and i was just
#
but i was sure that i needed to give myself some time to figure out what is my story and in those
#
six and i took and i quit and i ultimately they were very kind i have a super kind they've always
#
been so kind to me they said like you know uh you take to you instead of like quitting just take
#
three months and after three months you tell us do you want to continue don't want to continue
#
that's fine so after two months only i knew that i didn't want to continue but i so i kind of
#
scrubbed off everything left everything left my teaching left film companion left wiref left
#
everything switched off my phone went to bahrain you know with my parents for a few months and
#
to just and then i traveled a little bit i kind of put a post online and that's where i think even
#
the uh yuva's idea really started i put a post online where i just told you know that i want to
#
uh i have quit my job i have some time i would love to meet students across the country if you
#
are in a college in somewhere please call me i'd love to come over so college in indore called me
#
a college in banglore called me a college in uh bhubaneshwar called me and i just went in
#
different all these different places and just met students for two to three three days and speaking
#
to them and after all the work i mean all my teaching and i know i've not spoken much about
#
it but teaching was the most transformative thing that has uh happened to me you know it is uh yeah
#
because i think i entered teaching i entered teaching with this idea with like that i am going
#
to change people's lives you know and the reason for that was also because of my time at nid
#
kurukshetra after a point of time when i had a full sense of my privilege i just wanted to for
#
whatever it's worth i just wanted to do whatever i can to give back when i got a job again i'll tell
#
you privileged realization when i got my job in csc csc is a big company right like you know when
#
for computer and computer students it's a big deal and i got it very easily like in you know how
#
these first whatever i was technically proficient enough to clear technical i was not like the best
#
student i was like seven point something i'd gotten uh seven pointer but but it was technically
#
decent enough and smart enough to crack their test or whatever it is and then the big challenge
#
would come in the hr round for most people because you have to be comfortable with comfortable in
#
speaking to english and you have to comfortable in the corporate structure and english and i can
#
talk to people so the hr round was never an issue so i'd go into hr and immediately i'd get a job
#
so two places i applied to two places i got a job in right and csc so i got a job and i was like oh
#
no big deal and i remember that i'd come to my room after getting the csc job and i was like what
#
you know i told my parents that i got a job and i remember there's this other guy who'd also got
#
you know this job in csc who had never really interacted with much behind he was in different
#
section a different course also and he just came to my room and he's like you got csc?
#
i said yes he's like mine too and he burst into tears he was so emotional he's like
#
i was dreaming of getting a job in csc and he was like a nine-pointer and he's like it was so
#
difficult for me to go i was scared in jd in pi what will happen what won't happen and i was like
#
what is a cakewalk for me this boy's like gotten so emotional and i just felt like man you know
#
this shouldn't be that easy for me like or whatever you know you kind of have this and i was also you
#
know just so you also know right now i'd come from nri quota okay so i'm not like so i was also i
#
constantly aware that you know i am here on a seat where i'm paying and all of these people have
#
worked much harder than me to be here whether i deserve it or not is is i was always thinking
#
do i deserve it or not deserve it and what am i doing to make use of this seat and then i was
#
just like i need to give back so i started a club in my in my college called aspire where i was
#
like now i'm going to dedicate the rest of my after i've gotten this job i'm going to dedicate
#
the rest of my time at nid kurukshetra to teaching public speaking to you know or gdpi again there to
#
get you know my juniors to clear them so that's and i for i think for six months i just did that
#
like in fact it was so sweet like then professors started coming to me saying can you also involve
#
me i would also learn to love like to learn and i had done post-masters in bahrain and whatnot
#
so i kind of created a structure basis that but i i that's really also where i kind of
#
realized that the joy of of sharing or teaching or or or you know uh helping out in whatever
#
way possible using a privilege in a in a manner where it's where someone else is benefiting off
#
of what you got so easily and even though as i've said it wasn't like my whole life has been a piece
#
of cake with my parents and whatnot and bahrain and i said a lot of bullying had also happened so
#
but at the same time after that it just stuck to me that you know this is something that i
#
want to continue doing so when i joined ht i used to have interns like nobody in vmm
#
so i just asked one of my friends who was also professor jayan who had become a professor jayan
#
okay i also want to teach because i want to teach like journalism to you know these young people
#
because they clearly like don't know the structure of writing or whatever they come and you know i
#
don't want people to i can help them so i came with this this this messiah savior complex that
#
mehna jesse mehne logon ko nid kurukshetra ke andar help kiya tha now it become like now i'm
#
going to change the lives of the kids and because bahan par na anybody like you when you got a job
#
you will get emotional calls from people sir meri job lag gayi sir because you used to call senior
#
sir you know all like thank you for like that course and that it changed my life i'm gonna
#
yeh package mela yeh package mela i was hearing this and i was my heart was getting full and i was
#
like man i made a difference and then i went to nid in a college in jahind college in mumbai
#
and no one gives a shit about the professors over there no one cares you can have like these
#
notions and narcissistic notions of like giving back they don't want to receive they are like
#
screw you are you you're anyway three years older than us and you want to change our lives please
#
bro think about yourself i used to have students come to me after my first batch it was such a big
#
disaster my first batch students would like message me on facebook messages saying like
#
this is maybe how you should go about teaching my students are advising me how to be a better
#
teacher i was like this is and i was so like disappointed with the way the first batch went
#
because i'd come with these really wrong notions that i want to give back that in the second batch
#
i wanted to teach one more batch even the teacher was you know the coordinator recognized
#
i failed a little bit in the first batch although i taught a lot of you know which nobody cared
#
about also because like in a bmm batch of 30 40 students only three want to be journalists the
#
rest of them anyway want to do other things so make you think around news reporting to look
#
people can select the other structure so second time i just wanted to kind of as like i'm a little
#
bit more humility and go into it with the intent of not just teaching but also learning not just
#
talking but also listening and that i did not recognize at that time but it became a
#
it was a radical thing i ended up doing without recognizing or realizing it because what started
#
happening is because i was so curious and eager to listen to them and kind of non-judgmentally
#
learn from them i've came off my high horse and being like i'm you know i'm not a teacher here
#
i mean while i'm a teacher but i'm really here to listen to you i want to hear your thoughts
#
your opinions on i mean from journalism topics or what's happening in the world but like let's chat
#
let's talk here's a topic i want everyone to have their voice and i reach out to people and say you
#
know this is your voice tell me tell me tell me and then slowly students outside of class hours
#
would start coming to me and saying you know thank you for just like asking me to speak up or it was
#
tough for me but like you made it really comfortable and then would tell me other problems of their
#
life you know i have this issue with my parents what do i do and i'm just like i don't know like
#
you know so i would still give them whatever little bit of advice that i could you know in
#
whatever more experience i had in life but i also started recognizing that every one of these kids
#
would come in and talk about these things that they cared about and somehow they were not talking to
#
each other i'm like this person sits you know i mean again there's an ecosystem of like
#
hierarchies we've spoken about right there's a hierarchy of how people sit in a bombay classroom
#
so there is a there is a bandra club of people who sit in in one bunch you know who were who
#
would always sit in a and again you know this is this is this is just what i saw in my classroom
#
most of the kids from bandra was just not interested in like you know journalism or news
#
reporting you know they were always like in fact i've had one of the bandra students come to me and
#
again i'm not stereotyping this is just how it was in my class no disrespect yeah no disrespect
#
but bandra kids have come to me and said would you like to smoke weed i'm like i'm your professor
#
please can you not ask me that question bro do you want to smoke i'm like what are you saying first
#
of all you shouldn't be smoking second you should not be telling me to smoke up like if you want to
#
smoke outside the class please don't come in the middle of the class during college school time but
#
they were they were they were kids from for example Navi Mumbai who'd all sit on the
#
all further benches you know Navi Mumbai and beyond and and one of the reasons i started
#
realizing why do they why because they would always be late because their trains miss
#
and they would form their own little community which was a community of people who would miss
#
trains and then be late together yeah let's become friends because we are from the same they could
#
be one could be a behinder one could be a Vashi but one couldn't be from Thane but they would just be
#
like yeah we are from the back and beyond of Bombay so now this is one community there was a South
#
community always you know and these were the richest kids from like really rich families
#
they would have a language only that i wouldn't understand you know i was like
#
they talk in in in ways that i would just be like confused like what did you just say what is that
#
word mean please explain like for example like internet language now that has happened right
#
they were like the originate OGs of that language these languages have started from these sub-cultures
#
of like you know kids who you know baby i don't know man when you see whatever you're seeing in
#
like all of these Bollywood young Bollywood actresses talking the language there was a
#
language that they would communicate and then you would have the kids from there was always the kids
#
from Delhi who would hit everyone from Bombay and then you would have the kids of rest of India
#
who would hit everyone from Delhi and Bombay and they all had their own batches and i would see it
#
i would see it you know that there is which are the front benchers who were just kind of like
#
you know the first people to try and like fit in and be like i want to move forward in life
#
so i don't know if i will move forward or not but i can sit forward you know so that is their intent
#
whether they're topping or not topping is beyond the point at least they're first somewhere then
#
you had your back benches were there only for attendance you know or like give attendance then
#
i go to sleep and like just the my favorite people because they were at least they were so
#
you know casual about what they wanted their ambition was i want to just please give me attendance
#
and don't disturb me and then the middle benches would always be people with existential crisis
#
like you know like people who just did not know where to fit like i don't know which group i am
#
in so i'm going to sit on the middle bench and you know they're always they're doing like four
#
individuals sitting on the middle bench who are always like just don't know which group so i'd see
#
all these groups i'll see all these communities i'll see all these labors and i'm like what is
#
going on here and and and individual come to me and you'll talk about like this is what i'm going
#
like this is what i'm going through this is what i'm going through but you're not talking to each
#
other so one day randomly absolutely i remember it was it was it was zining on that it was a sunday
#
and i used to teach on saturday sundays because i was the weekend weekend
#
so i saw that nobody is like what 75 percent of the class was there but i realized that not anybody
#
is in the mood to study so i was trying to talk and then they were all talking to each other and
#
then you know what i was like you know what today let's not pretend you know to study or whatever
#
i actually just wanted to and it came out of curiosity also i said i just want to
#
kind of know because and let's just have an honest chat i want to know that i speak to so many of you
#
individually and then you are able to tell me all the things that you're going through
#
but for whatever reason i found out that you guys really judge each other right like you don't you
#
all sit in your own subgroups and your own sub you know sections and just mingle with each other as
#
if that's the only world that you can ever be in i'm like you have the like what i was doing in
#
nid kurukshetra i was also like you have the you have the possibility and the opportunity to
#
interact with people from all kinds of parts of like bombay and the rest of india why you're not
#
getting to know each other why you're not why you're creating these cliques and like talking
#
to each other you know people give you labels you don't have to believe them you know and again
#
i at this time again i don't have that understanding of gender i don't have that understanding i just
#
have a little bit of experience from nid kurukshetra but i just found it very irritating that you know
#
that and and and sad that you know that there are all of these human made ideas of who should be
#
talking to whom people in the same class circles should stay with each other same like interest
#
should stay with each other in fact all my learning and all the i mean my favorite my
#
closest friend my wife is from asam i would never have till i was in bahrain i did not know i'll be
#
as honest in saying i did not even know where asam was on the map of india and now i'm married to
#
a warm girl from asam because i'm nid kurukshetra my closest friend is from you know a small village
#
in near chennai in tamil nadu and he's now in the u.s and working in amazon and and i mean just all
#
kinds of friends that i've had from that time have come from all kinds of different places of
#
you know the country just like it's made me richer as a person and but i just feel like you know you
#
guys are not using this opportunity so i just said like you know for today let's just for one minute
#
i want you to just stop talking to each other and for some reason they stopped which is just like
#
wait what is happening why i just stopped talking i just said and i want you to think for a second
#
who are you beyond these labels that you have given yourself and what the society has given you
#
and then come and like talk about it what is your story beyond these labels i mean
#
a very casually i didn't even think that this is a big thing and then the and then after this
#
one minute they all looked up i was like first they're quiet for one minute clearly they were
#
introspective so i said who wants to talk so one person first came up and like said something very
#
like well i want to be a you know even things like i just chill over here but i want to
#
i'm very i want to i used to be a cricketer but then i had some injury couldn't play but i want
#
to now get into sports broadcasting you know that's my ambition i was like well sure that's not what
#
i went by slow vision stories but thank you for coming and speaking up for whatever is worth that
#
boy is a sports broadcaster today so you know full marks for him the second boy who came
#
man he's he changed my life man like he came and he's this is this lovely lovely boy
#
and and he happened to be gay so he came and spoke to everyone and said he was very openly gay he was
#
like someone who would you know be very open and comfortable with his identity in college
#
so he came and said to everyone he's like well you know me as someone who's like open about his
#
sexuality and you're all like i'm very comfortable but what you don't know about me and the story
#
that i have beyond this label is that every evening after college on the way to home
#
i stop at a petrol pump he has a bike i used to go on the bike and stop at a petrol pump
#
and then i take out different clothes that i had changed into so that when i go home i have to
#
hide who i am in front of my parents because when my one truth is that i'm gay the second truth is
#
my parents and i belong to a very religious family and in my family it is not okay for
#
homosexuality is not okay and in my religion homosexuality is not okay so while here i get to
#
be who i am in front of the people i love the most i have to hide a part of me and
#
and then he just burst into tears when he said this and then suddenly that moment that day that
#
boy changed the trajectory of my life i think i wouldn't be overstating that because immediately
#
after that a wave of empathy happened in the classroom when somebody becomes vulnerable and
#
this is the thing about stories right stories lead to other stories vulnerability is actually
#
strength if you are if you are sharing something it allows people to to also let their guards down
#
and share back you know human connection human bonding human friendships all happen because of
#
this beautiful thing called empathy that comes after you share your stories and this boy shared
#
his story and everyone was like you know maybe i should do it too so then there is a girl who
#
came up and she's like she's already crying she's like everyone thinks of me as a topper
#
and i've topped i've topped everywhere you all know me but i've topped in the college i've topped in
#
this district i've been a school topper but you don't know why i top and her story is heartbreaking
#
she's like when i was born i very soon found out that my parents wanted a boy and but they got a
#
girl so for some reason my parents and especially my father has never really given me love she's
#
like i grew up not knowing what love is but then kind of started recognizing that with other
#
students in school they would get a lot of love from their parents when they would do well in
#
their exams so i was like what if i start doing well in my exams and my i'll get love for my
#
parents she's like from that time onwards in primary school i've been topping everywhere
#
i've topped school i've topped district i've topped college and every time i take my report card or
#
my marks back to my father in the hope that he says i love you to me but he still hasn't
#
and she is just in tears and as all of us are listening and you're like man what is going on
#
and just really beautiful powerful stories started coming out everybody emotionally speaking about
#
what the world thinks of them as and who they really are and i realize at this point man there
#
is there is something here that you know something happened that that day and that evening that kind
#
of totally it started as like a 12 o'clock session and then it went on to like six o'clock like six
#
hours we were just talking everybody and everybody heard everybody else everybody gave everybody the
#
respect of like time and and and emotion and empathy and hugs there were so many hugs that
#
day and i was like man what has happened and then you know like your whatsapp i mean i think the
#
whatsapp group after that gets lit and there's so many like emojis and like hearts and whatnot and
#
hugs and i was like there's something here you know and all the people who missed it then suddenly
#
were like man you know something happened yesterday like everybody's talking about
#
and i realized that maybe there's something that i need to do with every batch you know this
#
happened by mistake but it just made me so it made me realize the power stories power empathy
#
and i started i then called it started calling it the kindness project and i said like this is a
#
project the next batch i gave from the very beginning but here it happened by you know
#
accident i said that at the end of the semester i'm going to give you a project
#
and it's called the kindness project where i will ask you to do this exercise you have the whole
#
semester to think about it you can start thinking from now but i want you to tell me the story you
#
have beyond the label that you have and i people i'd start my class by asking how many of you want
#
to be journalists and like actually four of them would be like i was like great now all of the
#
rest of you also have a story why are you here and i want to know that story but i will talk
#
about it in the last class and and i said i'd say that it's a marked project but i give everybody
#
full marks and then every year year on year on year i mean the kind of stories that came out it
#
is it became i mean at that time i did not know the terms for it but became a safe space it became
#
a space where i'm so proud to stay a student of mine decided that he's going to come out to the
#
world in that space because he didn't have an opportunity and he just came i remember he's
#
just the sweetest boy and he came and he's like said a few lines about himself and what he likes
#
and how he is as a human being what he likes what he doesn't like and he ended by saying so i just
#
want to say that i'm a boy who has brown hair black eyes uh crooked tooth and i have uh you know
#
and i like boys and he just said something so beautiful everybody was like wait what did he
#
just come out and it was just hugs hugs hugs after the other it was so beautiful one of the most
#
powerful and i'll i'll because i want to is just some one of my most inspiring i think stories
#
that's happened the most powerful stories happened with this boy who uh who came to me and said sir
#
i don't know what to say in this you know uh class because i don't have a story everybody has a story
#
so now this boy i didn't tell you about this one he's like the brightest one of the brightest
#
smartest kids i'd met he was so bright he would correct me in class he'd just be like that's
#
wrong this is the right thing and i was just like after a point i realized
#
so he would ask me questions and say you know
#
i have not i have not done you know not studied history or or or even for that matter journalism
#
on engineering student but i work in ht that's why i'm teaching you you know so but if you have
#
something i want you to talk about it so why don't you come and tell like what happened so be my co
#
professor once he's like asking me because i'm very comfortable with saying i don't know
#
so he started and so i just told him i said the only thing i know about you is that you're very
#
well read you're crazily well read it is insane how i 2021 you know so many things about like
#
the world maybe there's a reason behind it maybe there's a story that i don't know what is the
#
story and then his eyes just widened and he's like oh shit i think i know what my story is
#
i said great then come and tell it in that class so and i'd workshop with most of the kids i would
#
workshop these stories then i would be like tell me what it is and then we'll try to get you to
#
dig deep and say something authentic so he said i said he said can i tell you now i was like to
#
whatever you prefer he's like can i say it in the class directly i said sure came to the class he's
#
like so his story was he's like that i have grown up in a very misogynistic setup very patriarchal
#
setup he's like my father is a patriarch of the house and he's so patriarchal that when there is
#
that i have a sister and my mother even when he's watching tv and the remote control is on the
#
table in front of him he will not pick it up himself he will call my mother or my sister to
#
come and pick it up for him he's like it used to be so irritating to me to see and so and i used
#
to get so angry at the way he treats me and the way he treats my mother and there were different
#
rules for all of us my sister would not get to god i'd get to god my sister would not get so
#
and kind of money i'd get so and kind of money if there's some work to be done my sister and my
#
mother were the ones who were being asked to do the work whereas i wouldn't be asked to do it at
#
all and he's like my anger turned into resentment and when sometimes my father would hit me or hit
#
any of us there was a day where i almost hit him back and then i realized that what am i doing
#
how can i do this i'm turning into him he's like that realization happened and i just got very
#
scared and i was like there has to be a better way of of you know giving back to my father without
#
getting angry like him because that's his thing i don't want to be that boy so he's like every time
#
he would i would fight with him and say that you know you can't do this he would say but this is
#
the way the world works so he started he just he had google so he went online and he's just like is
#
this the way the world works and then he discovered feminism and then he discovered feminist movements
#
then he discovered communities in different parts of the world which did not have patriarchy but
#
matriarchy so the next time his father would get angry he would say that you know you can't do this
#
part of the world which did not have patriarchy but matriarchy so the next time his father would get
#
angry and say this is the way the world works he would hit back with a fact and say you know
#
what in northeast india the kids take the names of their mothers you know because it's not
#
patriarchy it's matriarchy so it is not the way the world works it might work in this household
#
but not everywhere and his father would suddenly be stumped he'd be like wait what the next time
#
it says like this is the way the world works he's like do you know what the feminist movement over
#
here and this is what happened here in africa there's a tribe there is and he would always
#
come back with facts and the father would just be like i don't know what to say to this because he
#
was not you know getting angry back at him but talking in like facts and he's like he's like
#
i started doing this so much that my father instead of getting angry would just like
#
go away because he didn't know how to respond and he's like now it's reached a place where it's not
#
that my father has suddenly become like a feminist or you know he's not patriarchal anymore but when
#
he wants the remote he picks it himself he's like he doesn't ask my mother and my sister to
#
you know get it and i was like man he's like that's my story i'm like insane like just the
#
fact that this boy has so many facts in him can you imagine the deep story behind that and
#
then through these stories of these young people i started recognising
#
but i unlocked like why care about films i told you it's my father and stuff you know a lot of it
#
really yeah i just struggled i knew there was something there but i just did not know what it
#
was and then it was anxiety and then it was therapy and actually when i how i also realised
#
it is anxiety is where my students by the way like one of my students had spoken about anxiety
#
in her session so i called her one day and said can i meet you know and you're very close we're
#
very thick so i met her you know for lunch or something and i said that so you said spoke
#
about anxiety just tell me like what all happens what are the symptoms because she was taking
#
therapy at that time and then she told me like this happens this happens this happens this happens
#
this happens and i was like shit all of this happens to me so is this is what i have also anxiety
#
and she said maybe it is you should get it checked and maybe you should go to therapist and that's
#
where i was like oh shit i can't go to therapist i'm a man but yeah i mean it's in my students it's
#
in the conversations that i had it's in the stories of others that i found my own you know so
#
oh and then of course in clinical anxiety it's such a powerful thought and such a powerful frame
#
just you know just thinking about what your story is like what your roommate in fact said to you
#
that you will be writing on the side writing on the side writing on the side and just taking
#
that step back and forcing you to think of it in terms of stories can you know at least make
#
you know at least make yourself reflect and i was struck by this talk that you gave where there's
#
this lovely line where you say stories unite us labels divide us right and i'll link it from
#
the show notes of course but this is you know so particularly pertinent today because uh you know
#
i keep saying it's almost a cliche on my show where i quote witman and talk about how we contain
#
multitudes but the thing is that a lot of the way a lot of the discourse around us is so reductive
#
where we'll reduce people down to labels and to narratives that so and so is liberal anti-national
#
everywhere you're putting narratives of victimhood or narratives of oppression looking at people only
#
through that lens and that is just offensive to reduce people to one particular thing over which
#
they had no control because it's often just an identity of birth another theme i often talk
#
about on the show is the difference between the abstract and the concrete i did an episode with
#
anchal malhotra and she wrote a book on memories of partition yeah and and uh in her episode she
#
spoke about how while collecting material for the book she was sitting with a family in pakistan who
#
had come over after partition and they had suffered a lot and obviously they were just full of rage
#
when those memories came and they were saying oh hindus are like this hindus are like that hindus
#
are like this and those are like that but then they suddenly noticed that they're talking to a
#
hindu and they said lekin tum nahi beti tum achiyo right and that's the difference between an abstract
#
notion in the head and a concrete person with a story who's actually sitting in front of you
#
and when i think about what divides us today it is abstract things like all these labels we pin on
#
people and it is abstract notions like nationalism and purity and culture and all of this crap
#
and but what can unite us is in the concrete once you know somebody's story as you've pointed out
#
it is difficult to hate them yeah it is difficult because you and that's one of the things that
#
where literature and reading literature really helps because when you live the lives of others
#
through you know getting inside their heads it just gives you so much more empathy where and it
#
and it gives you so much more insight into yourself where you say ki mera bhi toh story hai you know
#
the strength that i am showing yeh bhi kisi majboori se aayi hai kisi frustration se aayi hai
#
you know tum itna kyu muskura rahe ho you know exactly that kind of thing so and i'll dive into
#
the anxiety later also because i want to do a little bit of a dive into that with you as well
#
but on the point of stories your kindness project seems to me to be so powerful because suddenly
#
everybody in the classroom is a real person to every other person in the classroom and that is
#
mind-blowing and that is what our society needs because today even when we talk with friends
#
we are looking inside our smartphones and we are lost in the abstractions on the on the in the
#
black mirror but we are not actually you know looking into each other's eyes and making that
#
real human connection and you found a device to unlock that in a particular setting which is a
#
particular setting of a classroom and since then with you you are you've you know found other sort
#
of devices like that tell me a little bit about your thinking on this because the world needs more
#
of this you know it's only in hindsight that i started recognizing why this idea of storytelling
#
and narrative became so important so again one of the first things was my mother only right like i
#
i told you i joked with you and i mean not it wasn't a joke but i told you about the fact that
#
when you know when i had my first show my mother said like you won't do an MBA and one day you
#
know remember like i had a very big fight with my mother you know where i where i asked her i said
#
okay if i do an MBA then what will happen and she's like then you will be successful i said
#
okay because i was trying to see where what is this idea in her head like
#
I said what will happen next?
#
Will kids go to college?
#
I will have to retire to be happy
#
very honestly and earnestly
#
I said what if I want to be happy now?
#
and she is like this doesn't happen
#
I am like this doesn't happen means what?
#
I want to be happy right now
#
she is like no this doesn't happen, we have duties
#
and it just again in that moment
#
not in that moment much later
#
I think in retrospective
#
I kind of recognized but this is what
#
our parents were given duties
#
and that's what they thought all of us have to
#
perform duties you are not living
#
for yourself you are living for the
#
birth you are living for the partner you will have
#
anyone even find their story
#
when you are constantly told
#
that you have to live your entire
#
story is about somebody else
#
and you know it's another
#
when I had gone on this SOTC
#
tour with my family there is a lot of
#
17 year old I was like where are the
#
young people in this tour why are there so many
#
old people etc and one of them we became
#
close to a couple that's the couple that I
#
actually even asked my parents so I asked them
#
you are well in your 60s or whatever
#
how are you why are you
#
doing this tour it's just a curious question
#
ki kya kar rahe ho he is like bethe
#
humare bachon ki shadiyan
#
ho gayi hai you know to humne
#
ka chalo enjoy kar de thoda
#
and I was like and it's the same thing my
#
ab shadiyan ho gayi hai duty khatam ho gayi hai
#
settle kar di hai ab hum
#
enjoy kar sakte hain so
#
till then till your 60s you can't
#
enjoy life that is the idea
#
that we are given to people your
#
story is not your own you are not
#
allowed to think that you have you know
#
it's selfish it's considered selfish
#
if you are not sacrificing
#
for your family then you
#
are selfish you are self centered
#
egoistic to abne baare nahi sojta
#
sabke baare nahi sojta sebe abne baare nahi sojta
#
people who wanted to be other things
#
now this is across gender who
#
wanted to break out of their circumstance or break
#
out of their narratives were just constantly
#
told shamed in society and shamed in
#
family structures saying that you know you are
#
you don't care about us
#
you only care about yourself you know
#
whereas this idea of a shravan kumar
#
parents on you know in a pilgrimage
#
and you know did it on his own that's
#
the ideal son that everybody should have
#
you know and the ideal daughter is the one
#
that who finds that best
#
shravan kumar kind of a boy and then
#
serves him he will serve the parents she
#
will serve him who is living for themselves
#
everybody is living for somebody else
#
the parents will live for these kids
#
parents live for the kids the boy has to live for
#
the parents the wife has to live for the husband then
#
they have to live for the children it's
#
chakar view yaar this means nobody is living
#
for themselves and that is half of society's problem
#
why is everybody angry in the society
#
because nobody does anything for themselves everyone
#
tries to do something for others you do something for yourself
#
stop worrying about what everybody
#
else wants work on yourself work on your life
#
and it's ok it's not selfish I am
#
realising that right now I am saying it to you but
#
it took me therapy to recognise this I was also
#
living my entire life trying to work from
#
I told you what was I leading my life for to make
#
my mother proud there was no other reason
#
for the kind of madness
#
with which I have worked in my life
#
thirty six and I have not even thought of
#
fitness as an important thing until now
#
when I am just like ok now maybe I should think about
#
it because my only focus in
#
life was work it was just
#
work because I needed to make my mother
#
proud because she raised me I need to be
#
pay her back or you know and
#
you know in some way and that
#
paying her back in my case was not money
#
because of privilege but it was in terms of
#
you know pride in terms of like
#
where she could go and tell somebody else that
#
look what my son is doing look how successful
#
my son is so she gets in
#
a community to call herself like my
#
it's just all of us are
#
living these narratives for others
#
living for themselves and I
#
I have just found this so
#
thing such a tragic thing
#
way in which we look at our culture
#
you know let's I am not
#
saying we need to push each other
#
away and you know not care about our families
#
and communities of course we must but
#
it's okay to also care about yourself
#
exist in Indian society
#
care today are called influencers
#
it's not a thing that you practice
#
you care about even the idea of
#
self care right now Amit when you think about it
#
is right now it comes down to
#
getting a manicure pedicure
#
or going having a pool day
#
or whatever you know even
#
and capitalist ideas of what self
#
care is self care is you know
#
actually being able to spend a Sunday without
#
having to worry about productivity
#
self care is actually having a day
#
only for yourself without worrying like
#
what will my you know partner
#
so tough for me to plan a solo trip
#
because I have my brother
#
parents live in Bahrain my wife
#
obviously lives with me but anytime
#
I have free time I need
#
to find a way of dividing it with the three people
#
my Masi lives in Karnal I am
#
whatever free time I have I am always like
#
you know I have to divide
#
out of these four my therapist tells me like
#
where is the time that you are
#
living for yourself I don't know
#
I still don't know but you solve the problem because
#
now they will all listen to this and your Masi from
#
Karnal will call you and say no
#
you don't need to come you go alone
#
they are very sweet and they say this you know it's not
#
even about them they are so sweet they are all now
#
parents and my mother and my Masi in particular
#
my father he doesn't even
#
like when he comes and meets me also he is on
#
his laptop the whole time he doesn't even know
#
although again as I said he is trying now
#
but like my mom and Masi have been super supportive
#
and you know and been of course
#
they also sacrifice in sending their children away
#
right they say one day like you go
#
away you know they want
#
you to get out of and go to a different
#
place and study and work there etc
#
they don't ask their children now to because sacrifices
#
become the whole thing you are doing it for others
#
so there is just tons and tons of
#
the way we think of all of this you know
#
comes from again two other things sorry over here
#
is this idea of like you know
#
how we have constantly been
#
your life is a shadow of
#
that cousin that you are competing with
#
it is always about that neighbour's
#
son or daughter that you need to beat
#
it is always about you know
#
in the group of people your
#
parents in a group of circle of people
#
you have to be so when you have these
#
when you are constantly
#
where is the empathy lacking right now
#
in our society because we have been
#
to think about our better
#
into individual narratives
#
make our families proud
#
so we can make our systems
#
proud but in the pursuit
#
of that we are supposed to not care
#
about the community you know and
#
that's just the paradox and irony
#
of it all you are constantly
#
told that you have to if you have
#
to go ahead you have to go on your own
#
you have to beat it you have to
#
defeat it you have to go ahead
#
and someone is left behind
#
you can't go back the fools go
#
back fools are the one who stop
#
or who kind of you have to constantly
#
hustle every bit of your
#
time has to be commodified you have to
#
constantly you know go to the next
#
milestone in life and that's just the
#
middle class overall thinking
#
right and I am not saying that right now I am
#
middle class at all but I am just saying that that's the
#
culture that has become
#
middle class culture and in that culture
#
if you and you are doing all of this or someday
#
you can also pay back to your parents
#
so for the idea of but you are resenting
#
everybody and you are only after
#
point of time you become so conditioned in just moving
#
forward moving forward moving forward that you are not even looking left
#
and right and most people ultimately
#
also stop talking to their parents or stop like caring
#
for their parents because they have pushed them into these
#
they have become so individual they are like
#
why should I care about you now while
#
it's not true for most of the country they still
#
again sacrifices the large word which
#
is also given as a word to burden
#
us and burden everybody with this idea
#
that you can't do something for yourself
#
do for the family you know
#
but in a society you have to do it for yourself
#
that's where you chip away every sense of
#
empathy you have for anybody else
#
or for that matter for yourself
#
and that's the largest thing while you don't
#
have empathy for others you also don't have any empathy for yourself
#
you are not compassionate to yourself you are not
#
kind to yourself you don't slow down you don't think
#
why are we where is the question
#
about why we are doing what we are doing
#
that question is not asked in education
#
systems we ask questions over all
#
in our country no one can ask questions
#
if someone asks a question you get shocked
#
how are you asking a question
#
don't ask questions keep your head down
#
respect elders one other thing that
#
I have like always had this massive
#
and not respect everyone
#
I am not saying don't respect the elders
#
I am just saying why is the saying not that respect everyone
#
of patriarchal system where you have
#
to respect those in power who are older
#
is to be with the people in power
#
anybody who is not in power you can call them anything
#
you can call them anything which is what we are saying right now
#
anybody who is marginalized
#
is not respected is not
#
kind of given any bit of love and
#
empathy because they are not elders
#
and elders is not just about older
#
in terms of experience it's just
#
respect everyone we would have said
#
if that was a society we would be living in
#
not polarized kind society
#
love everyone what is respect
#
reducing all the emotion we need to have
#
as a society to respect
#
talk about love love everyone
#
respect and particularly for young
#
people why is it so difficult for people to find
#
their stories because you are constantly told that you are
#
look at the stories of success
#
Amit that are out there in the world right
#
centers you top you get hooded
#
and that's how people identify look at
#
these four faces and those faces
#
will look like they are there they have been
#
life has been you know taken
#
out of their faces it's just miserable
#
faces of these young people who have
#
topped in coaching centers and that's how you become famous
#
the TEDx's I have gone and given all these TEDx's
#
and after every TEDx I ask a question
#
that I have come to your
#
how many people in your campus have been on this stage
#
they will be like nobody I am
#
saying are you saying that there is not
#
a single person in your campus
#
whose story is worthy of being told
#
because that's not true every person
#
had a battle that they have fight to reach
#
where they are no matter what age it is
#
you can be 12 you can be 15
#
and you will be fighting battles in your life
#
and sometimes you know especially with your family
#
and especially with your community and society
#
there are much bigger battle the Gen Z
#
and young people in India fighting like
#
of identity where they are not where
#
they know what their identity is but they are not allowed
#
to live it because we live in a conservative society
#
which tells them how dare you have an identity
#
and not follow the identity we have for you
#
because that's the narrative as parents we have
#
that's the narrative as society we have for you
#
and every young person thinks
#
maybe if that is I am sorry I am moving
#
from like one thing to another
#
but this idea of settle
#
this idea of settle for me
#
I mean settle is also a word we are using for stable
#
but it is also a word we use for compromise
#
and when people say settle karlo
#
about stability it is about compromise
#
that you have completed your mission statement
#
after a point of time you need to
#
you can have whatever idea you have of independence
#
but after a point of time you have to give in
#
you have to compromise and you have to be one in society
#
and that's called settling
#
I am one of society and now my life
#
is the same life that society
#
and culture and patriarchy has asked me to live
#
and that's the story of everybody
#
you ultimately become a
#
versus having like an identity of your own
#
and why is there so much anger
#
why has there been so much
#
toxicity against you know on the internet
#
all of this it is coming from
#
a place where most of these people were always told
#
that your identity is like you
#
know a part of a collective
#
so whenever a marginalized community wants to
#
assert their identity as an individual
#
you are like you can't have that
#
you don't get to have an identity today
#
you are not going to be able to
#
assert your individuality
#
you are a feminist you can't be a feminist
#
how can you say you are a woman when we are all supposed to be
#
part of a collective and a collective
#
which has to settle and which has to follow the rules
#
how can you say as a Muslim
#
well you can't have that right
#
because you know as a society we have decided
#
this is the way things are going to work
#
so any right in our country
#
was over a long time ago
#
being compassionate to ourselves
#
and recognizing that every one of us
#
also had a story of an obstacle we have overcome
#
that leeway, that love, that compassion
#
we don't have to be angry about this
#
in fact we can lean into some of these things
#
who said that even if you are 35
#
you can't start your life or do something
#
that you have always wanted to do, who said
#
you will be happier right now, do it now
#
if you have never done it do it now
#
I have never exercised, I can get angry about
#
the system that forced me to do this
#
but I am trying now, failing at it but trying
#
I have never cared about, I mean
#
so many different things, I have so many different things
#
at this age that I am now trying
#
incorporate or inculcate and just see
#
so what if I lost or I won't even say
#
lost, so what if there is a whole time
#
of mine that I didn't do any of these things, life is very long
#
you can still have that Sunday that you want only for yourself
#
you can still do whatever
#
version of self care you call it
#
you know, whatever it is
#
you call self care, you can still go for it
#
you don't have to constantly
#
by society for what your life
#
should be like and what your story should be like
#
it is your story, no matter what age you are
#
I say this to young people but I am also now
#
saying this to anybody who is listening right now
#
it is your story, it is your narrative
#
see that control that you may have
#
for all your life right now
#
and you are going to be happier for it, you are going to be less toxic
#
you are going to be less angry, you are going to hate
#
the world a little less if you start being compassionate
#
really wise words and I totally agree with you
#
and thinking in collectives instead of thinking
#
as individuals and so on and so forth
#
and what you also say about
#
everybody having a story is so true
#
the problem is that everybody has a story
#
but not everybody tells it
#
and maybe just telling yourself
#
your story, maybe nobody else
#
you don't have to share it but just telling yourself
#
your story can give you clarity
#
about whether you are just leaving out a template
#
is this really what you wanted to do
#
are these the parts you really wanted to
#
go down along and I also
#
the last thing you said that it is never too late
#
to start all of this, you know I read an episode
#
with Kavita Rao who has written a brilliant
#
book on lady doctors and I think she
#
mentioned in that that her mother has started learning
#
the sitar at 76 and in a couple
#
of years she has really nailed it
#
I think of authors like one of my favourite novelists
#
Penelope Fitzgerald who started
#
writing novels in her 60s and won the
#
Booker Prize and just wrote great books
#
me and enlightening me on how
#
people in our generation will live to 120
#
and healthy lives till 120
#
so you know he suddenly made me
#
feel like a young buck again
#
you know the mention of Roshan is
#
a good way to segue into
#
the next thing I want to talk about
#
because earlier we were talking about
#
Roshan and Varun and how kind
#
they both are and kindness
#
a theme that you have spoken about
#
not just kindness to others but kindness
#
to yourself and kindness perhaps as a
#
habit that you intentionally
#
inculcate but you know so tell
#
me a little bit about your
#
thinking in this because
#
we think of many qualities
#
ye hona hai, wo hona hai
#
we don't often think of kindness or if we do
#
we think of kindness in a context
#
you know you can feel virtuous because you are
#
helping someone by being kind that kind of
#
a self-centred kindness
#
much more deeply about it so
#
tell me a little bit about
#
when you started thinking about it
#
what the spurs were and what
#
other directions it took you into
#
work has been with young people
#
kind to young people in some way
#
or offering safe spaces
#
to them and a lot of that
#
is because I didn't get it
#
bullied a lot when I was in school
#
write I told you you know in
#
local magazines and newspapers and people just
#
for some reason associated
#
had this idea that I am some kind of
#
an asshole who gives opinions
#
has opinions and gets them published
#
you know I have said it in one of my talks
#
but like it used to get so
#
bad to me that you know
#
I remember that I would be in a
#
a class school assembly and
#
I would be standing at the back and I used
#
to take part in a lot of extracurricular activities
#
so if I win something and my name is called
#
the whole school would boo
#
I would just go from the back to the front
#
and there is like booing boo and I am like
#
a 14 year old kid at that time
#
just hearing all of this and just being like what is
#
people need to be so unkind
#
sounds like twitter your school assembly
#
man it was twitter before
#
twitter like I used to have
#
physical trolls forget like
#
people used to put in I used to write
#
there was a newspaper called
#
GDN called Daily News that used to
#
print letters to the editor
#
and after young times I was also
#
I used to feel that I am getting published in young times
#
which is a young magazine I should also do it in a newspaper
#
and I started writing these
#
newspapers inside letters
#
and very quickly like everybody in Bahrain came
#
to know me as like this
#
14 year old who writes newspapers
#
letters for newspapers because they
#
started publishing my age
#
it's worth the first ID that
#
is cool is what I used to obviously
#
think of myself back then but 1986
#
was something that the publishers then
#
kind of reached out and said are you 14 and I said
#
yeah and you know and it just
#
kind of they put two and two together and they started publishing the age
#
which they have not published by anybody else
#
like so it was just a weird thing
#
that you know they decided that they are going to publish
#
made me a target of like
#
all kinds of people who would have other
#
opinions to me right who would
#
just be and my opinion at that time also
#
in 14-15 I was writing about world politics
#
in my head I was like oh I know everything
#
and I do admit there were stupid opinions
#
it is yeah it's a 14 year old writing
#
which is also what I see right now it's young people writing
#
it's okay allow us to be stupid
#
even if my opinion wasn't fully formed at least
#
I had an opinion and I was trying to form one
#
you know instead of encouraging you are
#
you know and as I said people were
#
purpose you know like trolling in the
#
sense and as I said like you know at that time imagine
#
the effort not everybody had email
#
computers were a privilege
#
people were writing actual letters letters
#
were being written and envelopes they
#
were put in and people would go to post
#
offices to post them and then somewhere
#
a publisher would receive it and there it
#
would be written Nikhil is an idiot how dare
#
Nikhil say this Nikhil is so stupid why is a
#
14 year old writing opinions and I'm like itna tumhare
#
paise kyaan hai every time that's very committed
#
yeah I mean exactly so I'm saying I've seen that
#
when I was so young you know and I
#
and and and then because of me
#
brother started getting bullied people started coming
#
my younger brother people started hitting him in school
#
Nikhil ka bhai ye thappat yeah I was like
#
I remember one day I was playing cricket and somebody came
#
and threw a ball on me when I was balling
#
I was like who's thrown this ball and turns out it was not a ball
#
it was a stone there suddenly more rocks
#
came and thrown on me and they were screaming
#
Nikhil taya hai age 14 you're an asshole
#
I'm like aisa maine kar kya diye hai
#
mujhe toh pata bhi nahi aisa maine kya kiya jo jo
#
opinion likhe hai why is that such a
#
and whatever that opinion maybe
#
whatever you may think of me
#
beyond that you know as
#
a pompous narcissist was writing this opinion
#
why would you hate me so much
#
I just didn't get it why is there
#
so much unkindness and I ran I mean I
#
didn't I mean I decided after 10th
#
this happened in 9th and 10th and 10th
#
at the end of 10th I decided that I'm going to
#
leave Bahrain I'm going to go
#
to India and I'm going to do my further studies
#
what was your answer to
#
that rhetorical question why do they hate me
#
I'll tell you that I'll come to that so
#
so I decided to leave India
#
so I leave Bahrain and came to
#
India try to get into DPS
#
DPS rejected me saying your marks not
#
enough and then I got admission
#
and they were really like they had seen my work
#
that I done young times immediately in the interview
#
round only said you're going to be the editor of our you know
#
I was like cool this is a place that gives me
#
respect yaan toh mujhe aisa malega
#
sab aacha ho gaya next morning my
#
parents are going back from Ajmer
#
this is one of those things you know that kind of happens
#
I just prayed to God the first day I was like I don't know
#
I know I've got an admission but I started
#
really feeling like as if I'm
#
you know I was like is this going to be my story
#
is my story going to be of the boy who ran away
#
because he was hated upon
#
that cannot be my story and I don't
#
mother with my family with my
#
brother because of getting
#
bullied I was like and then it was
#
too late because I just got an admission my parents
#
had paid the advance and what not
#
I prayed to God I don't know
#
what happens but tomorrow I just want to go back
#
in my parents I didn't have the courage to
#
to God kuch kar do and next
#
morning I don't know this is I don't
#
know this is one of the places where you believe the universe
#
actually listens or whatever because next morning
#
conversation with the dean and the dean
#
for whatever reason I don't know if there's
#
anyone from Mayo College that may listen to this
#
just scared the shit out of my parents
#
as if like this is going to be jail they said like
#
he said things like you know
#
kid is overweight he's going to get bullied
#
a lot and you know a lot
#
of kids have also tried to like harm themselves
#
just tell him not to harm himself because that's
#
okay it happens you know it's a boys school you're going to
#
he's going to get used to it it's like what
#
obviously he has a mobile phone he has good shoes
#
you know it might also get stolen but that's also
#
okay don't worry about it he will get to call
#
sometimes when you know
#
boys also to play pranks they
#
make sure that you're not able to call for the
#
30 minutes in a week not in a day
#
you know so if you don't hear from him in 2-3
#
weeks that's okay my mother was scared
#
what are you is this jail is this our school
#
he's like no at the end of it you'll be disciplined and he'll
#
be a gentleman but like this is how his life is
#
going to be here you get used to it
#
he'll get beaten up he'll get bullied people will steal his things
#
you know the PT instructors will make him thin
#
you know so don't worry about that but
#
yeah you're putting in the commitment is 2 years later
#
he's going to be a gentleman and my parents
#
are like bro yeh kya chal raha hai and they
#
they just hired like they talked to each other immediately
#
afterwards and they looked at me
#
and I was like acting innocent as if
#
like oh cool I have no problem
#
and my mother just told my father I don't think we should
#
make him stay and then they asked me what do you think
#
will you be comfortable going back I said yeah actually
#
I don't mind you know and I said
#
sure and then my parents just
#
like just that day we were I was like
#
dude what is this miracle that has happened
#
6 months I had to home school
#
and at the end of 6 months
#
I went back for my second semester
#
11th standard I had taken science at that time
#
so I went back and I remember the first
#
day back in the bus I was very nervous after
#
I had gone with all the hate and so many people
#
hated me and I went and
#
the school was fine everything nobody
#
like even remembered or bothered
#
whatever it is everybody was being nice to me
#
and then I kind of like one of my
#
first FFP news at that time was
#
I get it you know I am in science
#
and the thing about science
#
students is they hate themselves so much
#
they don't have the time to hate anybody else
#
and all the people who used to hate me have
#
gone to commerce so I was like
#
I am in science now I am like no one
#
cares everyone is sad in their own life I didn't even
#
have any thoughts until one
#
who had just made friends with recently
#
just kind of spoke to me
#
you were here and in 6 months you are not here
#
like what happened where did you go
#
you are waiting for someone to ask you a question
#
took 1-1.5 hours to get 1 hour
#
it would take from our school to our home I said
#
one hour let me tell you
#
so I offloaded fully I said
#
this is what happened I got bullied
#
threw stones at me this that
#
and now then I decided to come back and now
#
I am here now he heard the
#
whole thing and then this boy is just like I am so
#
sorry I am like why are you sorry
#
it's not like you have done something and laughed out loud
#
and then this guy just looks at me
#
and says actually I have
#
I am like what have you done
#
well out of the many letters that were written
#
against you I had written
#
and I am really confused I am like
#
first of all I was like
#
you are from science how could you do this
#
he is a science student how can he do this
#
but my second thing was like you didn't know me
#
I have just come to know you
#
why would you hate me when you didn't know me
#
and then his answer was
#
well I hated you because
#
I didn't know you and I am like
#
and again the thoughts in my head
#
at this point I am trying to process what has happened
#
I am like I have lost 6 months of my life
#
I home schooled in Karnal
#
I stayed away from my parents
#
because in Bahrain there was no home schooling
#
so for 6 months I gave coaching in Karnal
#
I stayed away from my parents for 6 months
#
we spent all of this money
#
going to India Ajmer coming back
#
my brother got bullied I got bullied
#
mental health I didn't know what mental health was
#
but I know that I was obviously hurting
#
this boy is just saying
#
I hated you because I didn't know you
#
and he was saying I am sorry
#
so in my head I wanted to punch him
#
that was the first thing I wanted to do
#
I was like fuck you for saying that
#
you think sorry you just want to cut it
#
the other again this is just an incident
#
just stayed with me so much
#
I had the greatest epiphany
#
of my life which is what I have also said
#
to those dogs that I realised
#
after he came to know my story
#
and just somewhere I connected
#
so if you know someone's story
#
if you know someone's story you can't
#
misunderstand them if you know
#
someone's story you can't be angry at them
#
if you know someone's story you can't
#
this is what this boy had done to me
#
and I asked him further
#
then why did you do it you didn't know me
#
I just had an assumption
#
after I read your articles I thought you were
#
this narcissist this pompous asshole
#
used to write 14 years old
#
why do you need to tell your age why do you need to tell everybody
#
show off that you are 14
#
I was like he had published it himself
#
and on the basis of that you thought that I deserved hate
#
I am sorry man I have come to know you
#
you are a nice guy now that I know you
#
I really wanted to say sorry
#
so just the fact that time that this boy
#
actually decided he could have never told me
#
but the fact that he decided
#
and apologize to me just
#
kind of I think my understanding
#
of kindness happened that you know
#
bring empathy stories make you
#
with each other there is no chance
#
that you can hate each other
#
you know and that kindness
#
it was again I said for whatever
#
reasons from childhood I was always like I am
#
going to be the opposite of what
#
to be the opposite of what has pained me
#
so if I did not if I got bullied
#
I am going to be kinder to everybody around me
#
if I got hate I am going
#
to give as much love as possible
#
if there are people who have looked down on me
#
I am not going to judge anybody
#
in my early years in my job
#
even when I was at MTV there was
#
I was the youngest person in almost every team
#
at that time you know and
#
it was very hard you know
#
I told you I was making a show
#
me the title of producer
#
said that you make it now you do it on your own
#
I had never done this I said like
#
I need help and then they got help
#
were people who were just like if I would
#
tell them that you know this is what I want to do
#
you are 24 what do you know
#
we have spent 15 years in the industry you do not tell us what to do
#
I would see the show that I had written
#
that they had asked me to produce or
#
I am supposed to be the boss of that show
#
the creator of that show the showrunner of that show
#
between the ages of 24 to 26 it took 2 years
#
for the show to kind of be back and forth
#
back and forth we made and at the end of it I would become
#
version of myself because any time
#
point of view people would just say shut up
#
you are too young to have a say
#
and again like you know I mean
#
again at that time without realising what it is I was really
#
angry I was really unhappy and then
#
of it again I got the opportunity to make these
#
that you know now if I am going to be with
#
work in any situation I am only
#
going to work with good people if I can
#
and I am only going to be kind whatever anybody
#
has given to me I am going to be the opposite of that
#
and every time I tried that
#
it was just absolutely amazing
#
as an experience I am like we are making a film
#
we are making a content we have
#
come away we have already fought
#
all of these battles to kind of
#
get here and now why are we making
#
this medium also toxic yaar
#
just be nice to each other how difficult is that
#
it just became like one of
#
the most important tenets for me that you know
#
buy into this idea that you have to be an asshole
#
to be successful and I was always like I am going to prove
#
it no matter what happens I am going
#
to be kind I am going to be empathetic
#
and I am going to be successful now you tell me what you are going to do
#
you know you say that I
#
can't and you guys are for profit it's not non profit
#
we work on like social impact
#
but I wanted to say I was like I am going to
#
make us make something on social
#
impact you tell that you know social impact
#
talking about it we will look down as if
#
angios are bad things angios are saving the world out
#
there you know but are you guys
#
starting angios you know there is nothing
#
we can do with you I am like
#
first of all angios are not bad second of all
#
why are you looking down on anything that has to do with
#
social impact who says that it is going to be
#
the most boring we have the most vibrant
#
average of 25 the most vibrant office
#
weekends we have off Saturday Sunday
#
we don't work we have work
#
life balance and we are a team of 26
#
people and we are hitting like X number of
#
crores of revenues every year now
#
you even take weekdays off like you have been here all day
#
exactly it's a Wednesday I am able
#
to do this you know and it is
#
you know you can be kind you can
#
have a culture of like people
#
supporting each other and in fact it is going
#
to work a lot better for you than any other
#
culture you know people always
#
like we are all here to
#
make social bonds then why
#
the unkindness why do we
#
have to be so hateful and so negative
#
and try the other thing
#
and it is hard I am not saying kindness is not hard
#
in many situations it is hard but I have
#
found that when you persevere through those
#
hard situations now on the other side is
#
just enormous amount of love
#
when you persevere through the
#
struggle through the anger
#
through the hate there is nothing but
#
love compassion happiness hugs
#
empathy all kinds of good things
#
absolutely but if not us then who
#
if not now then when it's as simple as that
#
in a beautiful talk you gave on
#
the subject you also spoke
#
about how the internet can have the opposite
#
effect like you have got this great line the more
#
connected we get the more disconnected we get
#
and you also pointed out
#
how the meanest person on the internet gets
#
the most retweets the snarkiest
#
person on the internet gets the most likes
#
exactly what happens because
#
typically what we see on social media is
#
you want a sense of community and belonging
#
the easiest place to get it is you join
#
an ideological tribe incentives
#
are you want to raise your status within that
#
tribe easiest way to do so is attack
#
people on the other side never engage with
#
argument just attack attack people
#
on your own side for not being pure enough
#
ugly and toxic and the opposite
#
their fault like sometimes I think that
#
the internet empowers the worst people
#
but other times I think that
#
there is no one called the worst people everybody
#
contains multitudes these are
#
incentives towards bad behavior
#
you know so just thinking aloud like
#
what incentives could be there towards
#
well of course I have held this opinion for a while
#
so the UR Roadshow just for context is I
#
and you mentioned this right so
#
when I started UR and this is after
#
my sabbatical my six month thing that
#
I took off after YRF and I was just like
#
okay I need to find out what my story is
#
and at that point of time I
#
that you know I wanted to work with young
#
people because I really that was my safe
#
space honestly working with students
#
beautiful and my skill set and my understanding
#
is over my passion is storytelling and
#
skill skill is also that
#
how do I bring together
#
you know for young people my
#
storytelling and empathy
#
and my skill set of you know media
#
and entertainment and bring it all together
#
and UR really was born out of that
#
with the two intents one was
#
can we make important things interesting for
#
young people that's like our core
#
you know goal and the second thing is how can
#
how can we make young people
#
feel less alone which is my hypothesis
#
after my you know after my
#
kindness project I realized every young person
#
has a lot to say but there's very few people
#
willing to listen every young
#
person has so much inside of that
#
the kind of stories I've heard during the kindness
#
I mean about attempted suicide
#
about domestic violence about
#
and not just negative like
#
you know the really positive story is someone
#
who's you know overcome drug addiction
#
you know someone who's and every story
#
in fact would end up with hope you know so
#
I saw that there is a young generation
#
of young people a generation of young
#
people that's lonely and I want to go
#
a little bit deeper into the loneliness actually
#
just for a second before I go into the roadshow
#
know Amit all of us you know every generation
#
I think before this current generation
#
grew up in a time where we
#
were told as I said we've discussed that you know there's stories
#
that were given to us structures that were given to us and we
#
believe these structures because
#
would we do how would we what is the reason
#
for us to not believe even if we had an inkling
#
that these structures don't work for us
#
we just didn't know better right
#
there was you you were a certain
#
community your identity was
#
it is and you know just structures that you were told
#
there is only straight as a sexuality
#
religion as a religion that's important
#
and then means everything to you
#
there is you can only marry this
#
kind of a person you know
#
study in a certain kind of a
#
you know certain kind of a course you have
#
to and certain milestones that you have
#
to achieve after which you settle in whatever right
#
those were the communities that
#
everyone without having
#
a choice and found themselves now the good
#
part about that was this communities were
#
always unhappy in some ways purely
#
because you know not everybody
#
was leading a narrative that was given to them
#
but at the same time they were
#
communities so you still had
#
and that you know where you can
#
if soft landing was there even if
#
you fell there was people to catch you
#
now what the internet did
#
was first and foremost and for
#
this generation let me come to this generation first and foremost
#
for me as a millennial growing up I did
#
not know what my I'm trying to find
#
my identity in a world before the internet and a world
#
post the internet before the internet
#
I've told that this is life and after
#
the internet I just go and google and I've just been told
#
that life is not like that many
#
ways can be lived first I have to believe
#
I have to choose what do I believe
#
more do I believe what my parents told me and my society
#
told me or do I have to believe the internet and then
#
lots of people have made different choices
#
I chose to believe that the internet you know
#
I chose to be somewhere in the middle that my parents also
#
half right and the internet also has the other half
#
pre-internet Karan Johar
#
you know in kuch kuch hota hai hum ek baar jeethe hain, ek baar
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marta hai, shaadi bhi ek baar hoti hai, pyaar bhi ek baar hota hai
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maine maan liya tha, meri zingima ye hi tha
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ek baar jeenge, ek baar marenge, ek baar shaadi karenge, ek baar
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pyaar karenge, I had one
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girlfriend in college if she wouldn't have left me
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I would have married her then in
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college I made another girlfriend and
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she's now with me for 16 years
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together since 16 years because I
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genuinely believed that now at some
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point in time Tinder happened
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and then like a lot of people who
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may be married I mean I must
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have I already got married when dating happens happened
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but I'm saying for a lot of people it would have been just become a choice
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I could have been with a partner for 8 years
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not married and suddenly I get
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this plethora of options and all these
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choices that I have and now with these choices
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I have to choose now do I want to ek baar jee, ek baar
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marta or do you want to now since all of these options
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are available do I want to swipe right constantly
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I choose and say ke yaar
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this is my life I understand
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why these options exist I understand they can be helpful
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but I have made my decision I love this
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person and I'm going to stay with this person
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you know and I don't want to look out or do
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anything my choice that I've made
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Gen Z there are multitudes of
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choices that you get at a very early age
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so what that also means is
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good thing wise you can choose
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an identity immediately there are 20
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entities and you're just like you know what
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my parents say straight but I have
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googled and there's LGBTQ and I think I
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belong there and that's a community for me and
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I'm going to belong to that community you might
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parents might say that you have to only become an
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engineer and then you say you know what I've seen
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a YouTuber becoming very successful so
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okay let them say what they want to maybe I
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negotiate a little bit and I will on the side start
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becoming a YouTuber putting
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up vlogs etc and suddenly if I hit 1 million
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go and tell look at the money I'm making that's
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100 times more an engineer will get in their first job
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so then my parents won't say anything
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so suddenly all of these choices given
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power suddenly all of these choices given like
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you know a lot of but at the same time on the other
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end of it these choices have also been very
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it's become a paralysis when you have too much choice
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person with a dating app
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swipe right you matched suddenly
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you have another choice of another
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while the first sign of a
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problem in your relationship in that person
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in your back of your head you are like
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but I have more choices I have
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I can swipe right again so
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where I have in 16 years had
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thousands of ups and downs in my own
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relationship with the one person that I've been in
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there are thousands of relationships
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two day whatever I'm just as an example
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exaggerating but thousands of options
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of relationships that you have you can have
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different bad days with different people
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but you are not going to stick to anyone because
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it's always another option and then
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it has to be it's a choice that you maybe make after
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like 20 failures and you are just like you have to
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choose somebody and whatever and then maybe again you
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settle for a different reason now so it's a
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choice has been a very tough thing
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identity finding an identity
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and finding communities
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for that identity has been a little bit of an obstacle
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because again internet gives you
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identity but in your offline what your parents are telling
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you this identity doesn't work you
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if you want to be whatever you
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even let's talk about feminism only let's
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has now who now knows that when
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her mother says that I don't want
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to I want you to cook and the girl says
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well I'm not going to cook for
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and as I said I think everyone
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should learn to cook but
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if she says I don't want to cook because you cook
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and I don't want to be the
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idea of stereotype of a woman and I don't want to cook
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because I have to feed it to my husband
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so I don't want to learn right now you can't say this
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so the mother will get angry
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but when I tell you to cook
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you are not doing it what is feminism
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why do I have to be in the kitchen and make food for you
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then and the kid has to be like
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you don't be in the kitchen but she's like now I don't have an option
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who's going to feed you so now
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it is now it's become those things where the parents
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are also getting angry at all of this so
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you can be whatever you
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you can have a sense of your identity but your families
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and parents will not allow you to have that
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not allow you to exercise that identity
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the story of that boy that I told you
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who is gay in public but in private
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he has to be you know straight
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because his family doesn't
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looks on upon that judges him for that
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so what do these kids do they find safe
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spaces on the internet they try to find
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communities on the internet because they are lonely
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eating everybody where there was a generation
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gap that always existed in every
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generation and this generation has become a communication
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gap because of the different vocabularies
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parents and I for whatever
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language of communication even anger
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is the same language the language of communication
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for this entire generation is emojis
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internet lingo which is
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and you can say that you know that's just word
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and that's just internet culture but that is their life
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that's how they communicate with each other
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when you are sad right now
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and again I am not saying this as like a
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I am not making fun of this
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but when a young person today is sad
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it's more likely that they will take a picture of
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themselves with tears and send it to a
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friend and say I am sad like this versus
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earlier when I would you know
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either call my friend and I don't know
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I mean I have cries too much I had not done
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that as a man but I would call my friend and just
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talk for some time or I meet someone else
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I am feeling bad let's go for a walk there was my way
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in Bahrain to kind of if I
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was stressed let's go for a walk
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and we would go and walk across the streets of Bahrain
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you know and that is how we would reconnect
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I am not saying it doesn't happen right now but it doesn't happen as much
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and the way that most people communicate
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darkest emotions or the toughest emotions
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they have is through this internet
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language so you don't even
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they don't have a vocabulary to express how they are feeling
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because of the internet today
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and that is and but anytime
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they would express themselves why am I
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sad because my mother is
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you know my parents are patriarchal and I am not
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live the life that I want to your parents will not understand
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that language that's another
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language you are talking the language of labels which is
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important for you to understand
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and be aware of but your parents will not
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understand that you are talking to them in a very
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when this divide keeps getting bigger
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you are not able to talk
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to the people who are closest to you
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who mean the most to you who have
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raised you and given you love
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and that's not the primary community
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which was your parents is
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getting more and more distant because of
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this because of the internet in good and
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bad ways you look for this community
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online and when you go online
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you either find positive community sometimes
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or you find other communities
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and when you are lonely you just want
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anyone who will accept you and that's what's
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happening right now there are people out
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there who recognize this or people out
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there who are channelizing the loneliness
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where I feel less lonely
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again now coming to the Yuva Roadshow
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when I started one of the most important things I wanted
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to do was create a platform that listens to young
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people and when you were listening
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this before and I'll say this again that you know I didn't want
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to be a company that sits in
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Bombay and says we listen to young people because
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I have taught 8 people in
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100 people in Jai Hind College
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I want to I can't say I represent India I'm calling
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it Yuva I'm calling it a Hindi name I'm calling it
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like I when Yuva was named
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because you know Yuva has pretty
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much been co-opted as an angry
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word by most political parties
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Yuva Sena and you know FIST and what not
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and I wanted to say that Yuva can also be heart
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you know and that is what I saw in my students
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and so we thought that we are
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going to sit in Bombay and decide like
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and say that we know young people we are going to go across
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I went to over 120 colleges I went to
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IIMs, AIMs, NIFTs, NITs
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you know all kinds of colleges
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government colleges you know English speaking
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Hindi speaking regional speaking colleges
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about gender, mental health and
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just created these spaces where I ask people now
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vulnerable with them I said this is what I
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this is my story now I want to hear yours
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and here's what happens
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I mean it was the same kindness project except
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that when kindness project I had 6 months to
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earn the trust of my students for
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them to open up in the safe space that I have
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whereas over here I had like 1 hour
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you know and in 1 hour I had to
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say certain things for them to want to
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open up in front of me and again I was doing
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it you know now when I look back also
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sometimes I just feel like
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I know as a teacher that I have
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I have an understanding of young people
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I think I have the empathy to be able to hear them
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but I am not a trained professional
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and maybe the next time I do it I would want
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to train professional with me and
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I just feel like maybe I should
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I should have I didn't think of it at that time
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my intent was always to kind of just
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have these people open up because I felt like
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not everyone has even therapy
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is a privilege you don't have access
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to everybody doesn't have access to therapy
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you tell a young person go and take therapy where will they get
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you know the at the very least
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250,000 rupees for a session
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and if you are doing 4 sessions
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you know 1000 rupees that's not affordable for
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in a month not affordable for most Indian
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students so in that situation
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what do they where do they if they have
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to express what do they do and my
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was well talk to each other and listen to
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each other lead with listening
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care about the stories of the people
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around you but like let's create that safe space
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first and then you guys created among yourselves
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which has happened and I will come to that
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but when you give young people a safe space so same kind
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of kindness project stories some beautiful
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stories I will love to kind of tell you
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with girls it was when given a safe
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space to talk about anything they choose to talk about sexual
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harassment because that's the most pervasive
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thing in their life unfortunately that's
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a tragedy of a country at the same time
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as I said before they would immediately
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after that story they would talk about
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well that's the girl because
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of which you know I am here
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today and I've survived and who's been my comfort
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it's a tribe it's a sisterhood
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that girls have formed with each other they would
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talk about harassment they would talk about body issues
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they would talk about everything like you know girls have been
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shamed into being a certain way you
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have to be fair you have to be thin you have to whatever
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fit into an ideal for a boy that you will
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ultimately marry but there are other
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girls who are helping them cope with this and
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that's how they survive right with
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boys which I initially found
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shocking but now unsurprising
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the biggest thing they would talk
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about when given a free space and a
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safe space was loneliness
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boys in engineering colleges non
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engineering colleges coming up to me coming up
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students and talking about how depressed
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they are. Ames ke andar
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doctors boys coming up which
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is scared the hell out of me
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young boys coming up and saying ki mujhe
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doctor nahi manna tha but
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meri family ne mujhe force kiya and ma yeha
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aa gaya hoon but every day I'm depressed
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I don't want to do this
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but I will have to because my parents are doctors
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their parents are doctors so now I have to
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be one you know and I'm hearing
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this across I don't know
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who to talk to I feel sad
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but when I tell it to my friends they judge me they make
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fun of me they say tu ladki hai kya
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and you know or if I told there's a boy
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who said you know in one of the cities
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said that well I had a girlfriend who dumped me
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because I used to cry and she said I want
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a man I don't want like
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someone like you who's cry baby
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there's a boy who spoke about the fact
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that you know well I you know
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I don't want to objectify
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women but I have a group where they all
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do it and then the moment I speak
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about this they say that
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then you fuck off from this group
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and then I ultimately did fuck off and I lost
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my friends and I don't know now
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you know how do I what do
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my moral is intact but I
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have lost my friends so there is
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and so many boys you know
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in 2019 especially in the
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second roadshow I did too in the
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the thing that just kind of took
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me by surprise was the number of young people
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and young boys would come up to me
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so many boys would come up to me and just say
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and when I'd ask them sure I'd say sure
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and give them a hug and then say why did you ask
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their answer was well I have
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my parents have never given
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no one has said I love you to me in my life
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I don't know where to find
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you know love or acceptance
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these were the answers that I was getting
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now these same people and this is where
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I will tell you over the next two years when I followed
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I followed back a lot of these kids
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I saw that a bunch of the boys that I spoke to
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who were lonely were moving
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especially with all the protests that happened etc
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etc they started commenting on
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like I remember this one really like
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I wrote a post about like this
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fake news organisation on Instagram
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and this one boy who used to follow me
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and who I met in I think Gujarat or somewhere
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Maharashtra only I think somewhere very sweet
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kid you know we had a really heart to heart
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gave a hug etc at the end of this
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the group so the fake news
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against me and said like this guy is an idiot or whatever
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it is and this guy who I was
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still following wrote on that post
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saying that well this guy Nikhil
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is a snake and when he came to my
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college I thought as much
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at that time I'm like you
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you were in front of me like
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crying and asking me for
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again this is what you are saying
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on the internet now I of course did not
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you know say screw you or like I don't
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but I was just this is what's happening
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there is no way to address their loneliness
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there is no safe space created for them
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you know especially when they
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don't have anywhere to go to and anywhere to fit in
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they are finding these identities
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and that's what's happening to the world
#
you've been constantly asked
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you know you are so lonely
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because there are narratives that you have to
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follow when you try to fight those narratives
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you are pushed back against a wall
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at least you don't have to worry about finding
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someone offline because you are like okay
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offline I don't get community I don't want your community
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but online I'm going to find
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who give me the respect of being heard
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may say and a lot of these
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communities are just angry communities
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someone who is very close to me
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very very close to me who I have lost
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in fact I made a film called Tasalli Se
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who I think I've lost to you know someone
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who I was very close to because who's blocked me
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on all platforms because he said you've become too liberal
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he's my age but he's gone
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he's just constantly sharing hateful
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posts and when I kind of
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commented and said you know why are you doing this
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day he blocked me he said like
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stop your liberal bullshit you know and I'm
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like man I was just asking you why you are being so hateful
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but I know his background
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and I know he's been lonely all his life
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he's been a single child he's never
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fit in he had a lot of problems growing up
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in different ways lot of issues you
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know which I don't want to get into but
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I know that this guy never fit
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in anywhere and now he's found
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a community he's friends
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with the lot of the right-wing
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you know influencer people he's
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in a very big position right now
#
and he's friends with a lot of these people I see
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him following them they're following him back
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but he's found a community that now gives him
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which is what everybody in our country
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is ultimately looking for
#
and there's this book that I was telling you about
#
Chaos Machine that I'm reading right now
#
fascinating fascinating fascinating
#
it's like the movie Social Dilemma but
#
like a book but much much worse and much much more
#
detailed and he's given like a report
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algorithms AI algorithms
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that ultimately started
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pushing people to extremes
#
I have stopped being very active I stopped giving my opinions
#
to give a lot of opinions a lot of threads
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a lot of people on Twitter know me through my thread
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I don't do it anymore because I realized
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just honestly only saying negativity
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I stopped doing that you know the
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and I started like retweeting like
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wholesome stuff started retweeting
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movie stuff the only suggestions that I
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get now are all related to stuff
#
which is fun and passion but the moment
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I was talking about opinion my opinion would be about empathy
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but the suggested post suggested
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people are all angry angry
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because that is the thing that emotional
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people to retweet or share or
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stay there for the longest time
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and the algorithms have now
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pulled our world in different directions
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where even if there was this
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incredible one of the big
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parts of the book which is just incredible as
#
these researchers did this
#
whole study bunch of researchers
#
on YouTube where they did this study
#
where they said like if I just
#
trending video click and then just
#
much how many videos before I
#
get a conspiracy video or an extremist
#
video and the answer was five
#
autoplay videos even if you are
#
if you have scrubbed clean you are on a
#
new YouTube channel you have just seen a trending
#
YouTube video it's the sixth video as an
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extremist or conspiracy video and after that
#
every video is a which you
#
dive deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into
#
conspiracy and when when you've created
#
AIs and you've created you know
#
and people have figured this
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you know Amit you will you
#
know this having spent so much of your time
#
online all the people who
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are who are you know opinion
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generators and you know
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on the internet they figured it
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how is giving an opinion your
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how is that every opinion you have an opinion
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every topic in the world and every
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time you have something nasty to say about it
#
because that is how you get engagement
#
that is how you get more views that is
#
how you stay relevant and that becomes your identity
#
such a random thing I had gone to
#
it was it's a it's a deeply
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like emotional place and again
#
as someone whose family's shifted
#
in the partition I was always like
#
what are my roots and that's also maybe one of
#
the reasons my misfit thing
#
has always been there but
#
that two or three of the
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on Twitter I am not going to
#
everyone knows them and
#
the moment you go there you are just like
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it's almost two and two together
#
it's almost like oh now I get why
#
she's so I've said it's a
#
woman but now you get why it's
#
this person is so angry
#
all the time especially against
#
marginalized folks because there is clearly
#
a there's a letter there there is
#
all the things that were robbed of this person
#
during the partition from their grandparents and that's
#
generational hate that she's carried
#
through it now so you see
#
that starting point and now you see
#
what is what it has become
#
but earlier where for the longest time this person
#
wasn't speaking about it the moment the internet
#
started incentivizing this
#
we were always like this we were always all hateful
#
I disagree very strongly
#
realizing how we are being gamed by
#
online system when you go offline
#
and you meet the same people in offline
#
settings you could have the
#
absolute and this happened in the
#
second road show for me a lot of kids who later
#
would troll me I've met them offline
#
they are the sweetest kids who
#
have genuine problems and I don't hold it
#
against them they're what their online identities
#
have become right now but and I know when
#
I go back and meet them the next time they were still going
#
to be nice and kind to me but on the internet
#
they're incentivized to be
#
because you know the moment
#
you do that there are many other
#
people who laugh who say ha ha ha
#
who might retweet and then suddenly you realize
#
this is my identity I can through
#
this I can get more clout
#
but ultimately it comes down to loneliness
#
we are all extremely lonely
#
because of everything that's happening
#
in our society our country
#
our gender our you know
#
the narratives that we have been told
#
and we are all trying to find ways
#
the internet and social media
#
that and find it communities of anger
#
that help you feel less alone
#
is now turning threatening
#
and you know dividing countries dividing
#
people apart but I don't I
#
because I have a little bit of
#
self-awareness I'm still going to try
#
and not judge the person
#
who's hating me I'm not saying
#
that I'm going to take that hit
#
because now after a lot of times I mean for a very
#
long time I was also trying to talk back
#
but you realize the conditioning now has gone so
#
this talking doesn't help at all so
#
now I restrict people I don't want to block them
#
because again that gives them a certain satisfaction they might
#
come back again because that's also incentivization
#
I got to this person so
#
instead of blocking I might just restrict the people might just
#
constantly keep commenting I don't
#
mute people I may not you know bother on that
#
but I don't judge them and I don't look
#
down on them I just feel sad
#
for you know what is what
#
what our communities and what our society
#
So a few points I want to
#
comment on before my next question and one
#
is one thing that strikes me that you've
#
said that many feminist thinkers
#
have said on the show before
#
is the fact that women have the
#
sisterhood and men have nothing equivalent
#
you know so women can show solidarity
#
in different ways and find
#
men are essentially atomized and
#
all alone and you know so
#
what do you do and as far as
#
as rudeness is concerned like one of
#
the things that astonishes me and I wonder
#
how people don't think about it a little bit
#
more is that you are behaving
#
constantly in ways that you would
#
you and I could be at a party
#
and I could say something stupid
#
right but you are not going to call five
#
other people and then point
#
to me and say that Amit just
#
said and quote unquote and Amit is a
#
and that's a quote tweet
#
the freaking time and it just
#
boggles my mind I mean I block for
#
rudeness to matlab if you've been rude to
#
me or my friend or even a stranger I see
#
any rudeness I just block
#
but for the grace of the flying spaghetti monster
#
the incentives are like that right
#
there's a silent majority out there which
#
is not like that we just
#
stay silent because why do you want to get into
#
trouble but which kind of stays
#
chill and that kind of gives me hope
#
but my other question to you is about
#
something that you said in your talks and
#
that I want to explore one particular
#
nuance of which is you've pointed
#
out that what people in Gen Z
#
have in common all of them pretty much
#
the one thing they have in common is
#
that they're digital natives
#
but within that there's a further nuance
#
that they're digital natives
#
divided into various tribes
#
that you imagine a 16 year old
#
someone sends him a video
#
conspiracy theory thing
#
recommendations will be based on that
#
until he enters that and that is
#
his world and he knows no other
#
world and he thinks that everyone
#
who is like too liberal like you and me
#
everyone who disagrees is either
#
ignorant or they're plotting
#
and you for no real fault
#
of your own you get trapped
#
into these bubbles into these echo
#
the point it is not as if
#
social media intended this
#
you are putting algorithms out
#
there to maximize engagement which is
#
rational for them and somehow it has
#
your sense of this because
#
with so many young people like you just mentioned
#
you've interacted with people who
#
were perfectly decent and
#
perfectly good and good human beings with
#
proper stories when you meet them
#
months later they're part of this crazy
#
tribe and then that makes you wonder that
#
are we forever going to inhabit
#
this world full of narrative battles
#
where we are always looking into
#
our phone and fighting with someone and giving
#
have you also seen signs
#
of movement the other way
#
that talking can help that interacting in the
#
concrete can help. This is
#
a great question for me
#
to talk about a few stories from the road show
#
and I'll tell you how stories have
#
and I'm sure that he's also going to listen to this podcast
#
because he listens to everything
#
there's this kid I met in a college
#
day one of this is the day one
#
of the road show because we've not had anything
#
I spoke about storytelling
#
it was it was one of those times where you know
#
so it was the first college and like
#
just things had gone amiss in the
#
communication first ever road show
#
on Instagram at this point our idea was
#
on the road show we will start Instagram
#
and get people to follow us so
#
this is people don't have that context of me
#
also but whatever I go and
#
because of one miscommunication no one
#
turns up in the first college it's just like five
#
or six kids who stay back to be like
#
the committee that was supposed to have
#
other people so they're like
#
they left but we will listen to you
#
I said okay there are six people so I will talk to them
#
I talked to them for an hour
#
then I said now I want to hear you and one of
#
one of the boys and this boy is like this tall
#
kid wearing a biker jacket
#
crying now there is everybody
#
they're staring in almost like
#
disbelief it's not like
#
and I'm like you're his
#
at least like give him a hug or support
#
I can see that they're a bit wary
#
of doing that so then I
#
crying you know would you like to share
#
you know you are right about
#
labels there is a label that
#
I have that I've given myself
#
and the world has given me
#
but I want to tell I'm not that label
#
I must I'm beyond that so what is
#
this label it's like it's a label
#
he's like well I bully people
#
I've bullied my friends that's
#
why they're not coming to me because they know I bully
#
you know I bully my juniors
#
but I want you to know that I'm not a
#
you know I understand I get it
#
you know and you don't have to tell me but
#
if you know this why do you bully
#
and then he said his story
#
just a bit of a trigger warning here
#
something that everyone
#
it will be tough for some people to listen so he tells
#
me his story and he tells me that
#
when he was younger as a kid
#
he was molested by one of his father's
#
and because he was a boy
#
tell anybody about this
#
is a man who was close to his father
#
and he just didn't want
#
his father or let him down
#
so he just kept it inside he didn't say
#
thing kept building in me
#
of what I went through and what
#
allowed to happen to me that
#
I realised that before anybody
#
can hurt me now I will hurt them
#
that if you can't touch
#
me because much before that I will
#
and I constructed an identity around that
#
and now that when you have told me your story I just
#
I have ever told this to anybody
#
and this is something I have heard a lot in the road show
#
this is the first time I am
#
saying this to you or anybody
#
so I mean I don't know what
#
I think first of all professional help
#
I talk about therapies professional help
#
counselling etc etc but I said you should
#
also at some point tell your parents whenever you are ready
#
because it clearly seems like
#
you have this inside of you
#
well I am ready now I think I have said
#
this now so I feel better I said okay great
#
whenever you want to go and tell your parents so tell it
#
he's like yeah that makes sense he's like
#
you want to go and tell now he said yeah can I go now
#
I said yeah man go for it you know
#
can I give you a hug he says yeah of course
#
you know and I gave him a hug and I said
#
best of luck and just tell me you know
#
what happens at the end of this
#
in the night I got this message from him
#
day one of the road trip and that's when we know that what
#
you are doing was worth it
#
he sent me this beautiful message
#
thanks Nikhil I finally told
#
my parents what I have inside for the last
#
me the words that I have been waiting to hear from them
#
all my life I think and the
#
words were it's not your fault
#
and just hearing his parents
#
tell him that it's not his fault
#
send you message another one day later
#
and said I also want to tell
#
you that when you gave me a hug the other
#
day that's the first time anyone has ever hugged me
#
no one has ever hugged me before
#
thank you for that you know
#
and I had also said in a post after that
#
like you know love him love you it's like
#
no one has even said that to me it's like I have just never had
#
any of this so thank you etc etc
#
and I was just like man this is insane
#
you know so I kept in touch with this kid you know
#
just I was curious about his life etc
#
now this boy at this time was doing engineering
#
and after this incident
#
curious about why he behaved the way he
#
behaved and I spoke about gender he is like
#
he would keep in touch with me he is like
#
I don't think I want to you know now
#
do engineering anymore I want to
#
like I want to find out why I was the way I
#
was and he is like I want to
#
get into sociology I was like
#
okay you know so he is like what do you think I should do
#
I was like you should do what your heart says
#
and this boy after that after finishing engineering
#
on this college you know in the pandemic
#
studied for you know and
#
has gone the other way and he is studying
#
gender studies over there because he
#
wants to now you know figure
#
why did he go through everything
#
he went through and there was a whole story
#
about his mother and his relationship and
#
how it changed after that you know
#
and it's and I kept in touch with him
#
I am still in touch with him very very dear to me now
#
who so on the same night
#
you know this was in a college we
#
did these open mics so at you are
#
at the road show so we would go to colleges and do this and then
#
we would also say if somebody is afraid of
#
in front of our student crowd
#
talk about your feelings we are also doing these open
#
mics these open mics are storytelling
#
open mics they are not talent open mics
#
so if you have a story and there is nobody
#
who has heard it come and share it it was as simple
#
as that so he came to our
#
open mic that day I am going to tell the
#
second story in a bit but there is a second
#
story of a young boy who spoke about
#
and bisexual and you know
#
what he went through because of that this is Mohit
#
this is Mohit yeah you have seen that video
#
up to Mohit and tells him
#
and I heard this and I was not
#
even like just happened like in my vicinity
#
and I was just like what is happening so sweet
#
he is like Mohit I just want to say that
#
I have been homophobic before this
#
but after hearing your story today
#
I just want to have a chat with you
#
like over a cup of tea you know I just want
#
to hear more about your life and
#
everything is it okay if we chat and he is like
#
yeah I take your number thank you for saying that etc
#
one conversation Namit has led into
#
you know turning into empathy
#
it's not that it's been easy he has been very angry
#
in the middle about what has happened and I have
#
chatted with him through this etc etc
#
his first Instagram post on
#
that day ever where he wrote a
#
poem and he wrote a poem about the fact
#
that you know like today
#
this is a beautiful day and today
#
you know go beyond my label and find out
#
and that's the potential
#
of storytelling I will tell you
#
Mohit's story because for the people
#
which is a story which has also again
#
happened over 2-3 years you know and because
#
I have kept in touch with these kids Mohit came
#
on the you know and I can take
#
his name because his story is also out there so we would record
#
these stories ask in the open mics you know
#
we would say that if you are comfortable we will put
#
it up and we take their consent again just for everyone to
#
know not only on that day but on the day
#
we were uploading it before we uploaded it we
#
take their consent and say can you put the story up
#
are you comfortable with that until they give a go ahead
#
we would not put it up and
#
only two people overall in our entire
#
road trip said no everybody has said yes
#
because that's also power I think to be
#
able to express and it's a catharsis and it's a
#
owning your story is a very
#
Mohit's story was he came and said
#
really sweet boy 18 year old
#
came to the open mic and he was
#
trembling you know and he first started
#
and the poem was about bisexuality
#
so in the middle of the poem he just stops and says
#
I don't know if anybody caught that but I'm bisexual
#
and that's the poem so we cheered
#
for him he immediately like said
#
was suddenly very surprised he's like wait
#
and he's like nobody has ever cheered for me
#
before it's only been one friend
#
and now second time this can I please
#
tell you all my story and he's like yeah that's what we have for
#
you in this story book I was
#
the fact that you know at
#
15 or 16 his friends had found out
#
that he's bisexual they had
#
told everybody else he got flashed
#
in school people made fun of him
#
word of mouth reached his parents
#
his father thought that there's something you know
#
doctor and get it checked the mother also was
#
not completely understanding of what has happened
#
I just had one friend who was there for me
#
and that's enough sometimes
#
so I'm just glad that today I
#
found a safe space where somebody else is
#
rooted for me thank you for doing that
#
he was staying away from his parents at this time he's like
#
I can't stay with them anymore because
#
you know they think I'm abnormal
#
days later we put his story on the internet
#
story online and we checked with him he said yeah please
#
go for it there was a lot
#
of love and affection that he started
#
receiving in his DMs it was one of our first
#
viral stories that you are he started
#
lot of people that are reaching out
#
saying to him that listen
#
you know you don't have to feel alone
#
you don't have to have a friend you know we have a
#
LGBTQ Gujarat community why don't you
#
join that and he's like wow
#
and then there are people who reached out saying like listen I don't understand
#
what LGBTQ is but you're a very
#
sweet boy he showed me those messages like you're
#
such a sweet kid I want to I'm here if I ever
#
want to talk there are the
#
he spoke about the boys who had bullied him they reached
#
out to him saying I'm sorry you know
#
that this has happened now what he did
#
next is just incredible
#
after that Amit because
#
his parents had kicked him out of his house
#
and he spoke about this my parents
#
so they kicked him out for that
#
reason that you stay alone somewhere
#
he took a print out of all
#
the screenshots that all the DMs that he got
#
put them in a scrapbook and
#
he went back home to his parents
#
showed it to his mother
#
and said look people are saying this
#
what the entire world is saying
#
they are supporting me why don't
#
like at that moment he's like
#
page of the scrapbook and then
#
said I want to try and then I met
#
him later and he said you know what
#
she's now moved in with me she's supporting
#
like my father is still not there yet
#
the wonders that this one
#
story has done to his life
#
you know and he's come by the way came
#
with a cake to Bombay to give it to us
#
and he wrote this beautiful letter for us saying that
#
because of that story my mother today is
#
like my friend again you know
#
that's the power there is
#
one last there's this one again
#
Sahil who's become like
#
a really dear friend now sweetest
#
triple ID Chennai you know
#
I had done a storytelling so triple ID Chennai
#
became like somehow like one of those
#
you know you have those dream sessions with
#
150 kids we sat from 7pm
#
in the night to 3am in the morning
#
every person spoke I'm not joking
#
every one of those 150 kids spoke that
#
like a scene in the on scene recording
#
it was insane and at the end
#
one year later I went back
#
now this kid came to me Sahil
#
who said that after that class you know there was
#
and after every of these classes there's a lot of
#
empathy all these people you know start
#
beautiful he's like between the time that
#
had happened in this time you know
#
you know he's from Maharashtra
#
and one of the other kids from Maharashtra
#
had passed away because he drowned
#
in I think that's what it was we drowned
#
of us just knew how to process this
#
Maharashtra we used to have our own group
#
and then just we stopped talking
#
because we were just sad
#
and we didn't know how to process
#
he's like and then I remembered what happened
#
in the day that we did that storytelling
#
and he's like I realised that maybe we need to create
#
a safe space so he said
#
and he's like I would just tell everybody
#
that we are part of the Marathi Mitra Mandal
#
and we'll meet every night
#
just like we had done on the Yuvarosh
#
and he's like when I did it in that way
#
suddenly every night all these
#
kids who are telling them let's talk and let's
#
talk about what we are going through in express
#
all of these boys came and
#
started expressing and started
#
crying and started speaking
#
like about what happened and he's like
#
we were all able to process because of that one
#
little thing that happened you know
#
many more stories like this so
#
so so many stories like this that I've
#
heard across this and it's not just the stories
#
of what has happened on the road show
#
but the stories of what has happened beyond
#
and the stories of like when I would go
#
back or when I would hear from these kids again
#
about all the wonderful wonderful
#
things in the way in which they have
#
in the way that they become more empathetic
#
in the way that they have created
#
safe spaces for others who
#
have passed it on you know if
#
anger begets anger kindness begets
#
toxicity can grow so can kindness
#
start by listening you start by
#
creating a safe space for someone else
#
and someone will do the same for you
#
I can promise that because that's really
#
what I've seen not just from the road show but
#
from everywhere else the amount of
#
you know when the when I spoke about
#
my story of anxiety you know on online
#
I could not have it was I was
#
so nervous I remember like I never
#
I got strength from my students because my students
#
would always talk about their stories
#
I was like man maybe I should also share
#
mine because I've been going through
#
10 to 11 months at that time
#
and all my social media posts
#
show me as like this like I'm happy
#
I'm enjoying my life is great
#
I think I owe it to my students
#
to talk about my truth as well
#
so I wrote this long post
#
closed my eyes published it
#
and then I came back I think about 2-3 hours
#
that I received from all kinds of people
#
who I knew who I didn't know on the
#
thank you for sharing you know
#
I wish I could one of my closest friends
#
you know the funniest thing that happened one of my
#
closest friends who I used
#
to meet every day during almost
#
every week we were working together on something at Yashar
#
who's now become one of my
#
dearest dearest friends every week we
#
two men same age same kind
#
almost like very similar to each other in many different
#
this thing he just came to me he called me
#
and he's like I didn't know you had anxiety
#
I also have anxiety I'm like what
#
he's like yeah you've been going to a therapist
#
I've also been going to a therapist he's like
#
I didn't know that I could share with you
#
I was like can you imagine we've been
#
like meeting every week for
#
eight months as two men
#
who become friends with each other
#
and we have not been able to say to each other
#
that we have anxiety because that's
#
the kind of stigma but when you share
#
the kind of love and empathy that happens
#
after that and now we have now become
#
that person and we become these people like
#
he just like every randomly
#
once in a while just this I get a I love you
#
from him that's it nothing
#
else no context I love you
#
I love you too that's it
#
and why can't men do that I
#
just find it like you know one of the things
#
on the internet that just kind of paid thieves
#
of mine is like always see look at
#
look at the way girls champion each other on
#
Instagram comments you put
#
anything you can put a picture of a sandwich
#
and you know there are other girls would be like
#
yes queen eat this sandwich go
#
for it what a beautiful beautiful thing
#
do anything they can have
#
beautiful pictures they can have
#
like they can literally change the world and there are still
#
some other guy one of his best friend in the comments
#
kya samajta aapne aapko kis type ka
#
gada hai you know that's the
#
so to speak love language
#
so few people even right
#
now as somebody who really talks a lot about
#
again mental health empathy etc
#
followers at this point are
#
women and I might be talking
#
about masculinity let me tell you that I might
#
write a post about masculinity and there is like
#
90% women talking about it you know
#
thank you for saying this etc where are the men
#
why are you so afraid of talking and it's not like they are
#
not seen I know that they
#
are seen I know that you know
#
because they comment on some other random
#
things I might do but a few of them who
#
are comfortable with their masculinity
#
would probably even now send
#
hearts or whatever but they would fit into
#
a poet hai isliye wo kar raha hai
#
there is a writer who might be doing this
#
you know but otherwise traditionally
#
you just don't do it but why
#
go online and share love
#
put hearts you know let people
#
know that you love them
#
let boys know you love them
#
give them hugs it's okay the world
#
will become far more non-toxic
#
if we are able to put our stories
#
out there and we are able to share
#
that's what stories do they just bring
#
this kind of incredible wave of empathy
#
and love that all of us
#
need in our lives but we need to
#
need to have that courage and one last
#
point writer which is that
#
this is also the power of the internet right
#
where you have where it can be used in
#
all these terrible and negative ways
#
incredible power of it is
#
that you can also use it in incredibly
#
use this if you don't have a community
#
start one if you don't have
#
if you've never heard a story like
#
yours tell yours if you've
#
put that on the internet and I'm sure
#
that there will be people out there who are also
#
feeling the same thing and
#
that has happened so often with me and I've
#
seen it happen so often with others I just
#
use it to the incredible
#
potential it has you know
#
put your story out there and you'll see that
#
you know more often than not there are people who
#
will cheer for you then
#
like you know shut you down
#
so if there are any male listeners
#
listening to this who are stimulated or moved
#
by this please express it
#
this has been a pet peeve of mine and something that I've
#
realized that I've been guilty of as well
#
that men just don't express
#
the way they feel especially to other men I
#
recorded an episode a while back with
#
a few months back with an old friend of mine
#
it was very open and all of that
#
and later when my wife heard it she was
#
like I didn't know you guys were so close
#
and my reply was we didn't
#
realized that in so many ways
#
you hold back and the holding back
#
anxiety you know one of the
#
themes that you've spoken a lot about
#
and your journey towards understanding
#
that like you said started with
#
your own issues at a point
#
incredibly successful right
#
you are at Yashraj you've made
#
four of the first ten web series in India
#
as it were and everything's
#
and then this happens and then you
#
kind of figure it out and the thing is for an earlier
#
generation there wouldn't even have been
#
a way to make sense of it
#
right because people would say
#
you know why are you depressed
#
or you know cheer up or why are you feeling
#
this way everything is fine do yoga
#
rubbish tell me a little bit about
#
your journey specifically you mentioned that when
#
you spoke to that friend of
#
yours you met her and she told you
#
you know one two three four these are the things that
#
have happened what were those things
#
and what was it like so
#
so the way that I've now
#
you know to explain anxiety
#
to someone and now also realise it's a little
#
privileged so to speak but
#
the easiest difference point for me was that
#
if you've ever been on a plane
#
you know and you've had turbulence
#
and then your heart sinks for a second
#
anxiety is like that sinking
#
feeling but all the time
#
it's your heart not stopping
#
Hindi sometimes you know we kind of
#
but you know because we don't have
#
vocabulary for what is anxiety
#
so ghavrat boltein which can also be nervousness
#
but a lot of the times when people
#
say it I think it is coming from a sense
#
because you are not able
#
the emotions you want to
#
it is you feel too much because
#
you feel too little it is
#
reaction to your body also
#
to give you you know examples
#
had turned into a way where
#
had turned so bad for me that
#
if I would get up let's assume
#
out of my house by 8.30
#
to get to my office and I was living in
#
Kandavalli at that time my office was like what an hour away
#
or something in Andheri
#
so at 9.30 I have to get there
#
but for that my Uber needs to arrive
#
at a certain point and then I will get to office at 9.30
#
and from 9.30 to 10 I had
#
time for myself before the office
#
hours started and that was a very important time
#
for me I will organise myself and then the
#
office work will start so this was the routine
#
that I had when anxiety
#
took over me if my Uber
#
instead of coming at 8.30 sometimes
#
go to work that day because
#
where I think one of the green brothers has
#
called it thought spirals
#
you know that your thoughts start
#
spiralling in such a huge way
#
where I am now in my head
#
I am like okay now the Uber before the Uber
#
has come I just see that okay it's going to be late
#
by 5 minutes in my head I am like
#
okay so 5 minutes it's going to be late
#
I am going to not be able to reach my office because the
#
traffic will increase I will reach only by 9.45
#
and you know before I can even
#
you know get organised or whatever it is the
#
meetings will start so I would actually not get
#
time to prep for those meetings and once the
#
meetings start then you know I am
#
anyway going to be unprepared and people
#
will find out that I am not good at what I do
#
at the end of it you know they will come and tell
#
me because I have also been happening for
#
so long and I am you know
#
and maybe it will turn into
#
a conversation about whether I deserve this job or
#
not and I will probably get fired
#
how big you think when it comes to literally
#
Uber getting it and if it's going to get
#
fired what is the point of going
#
what is the point of going on this job right now you know
#
there is no point I would much rather stay home
#
and just like instead of facing the world
#
I would much rather just sleep in my
#
bed today and just avoid
#
putting myself in a situation where I will
#
and it could start with just as simple as
#
Uber may be late ok. Anxiety is when
#
you have when somebody sends
#
but doesn't say anything more than that
#
and you start panicking
#
this person has said hi before
#
but not hi before is this does this mean
#
that there is some bad news
#
does this mean that I have offended this
#
person does this mean that
#
there is something they want to say to me that
#
they can't say and until I say it back
#
you start there is just so many
#
filled with scenarios of all
#
the terrible things that
#
can happen to you because of
#
because of this one little thing
#
that might go wrong and you
#
not something that I mean I went the
#
one year the first year I still have anxiety
#
but I don't I mean it's not clinical now
#
so there's a of course it's a spectrum also
#
when you have an exam the night
#
before you get very that's also anxiety
#
but that's you know that will happen
#
on you know you have a tough day at work you have an
#
appraisal coming up you are tense about
#
it those are all also anxieties
#
but then when it becomes persistent
#
when it becomes you know
#
relentless in many ways
#
and it goes on for months and days
#
and end that can sometimes
#
and it's called generalized anxiety
#
diagnosed with that at some point
#
that it was just for me like my
#
just overthinking that's what I would
#
think of it why am I overthinking you know but
#
it wasn't overthinking it was just my brain like
#
just I would have to I was telling
#
you what I was going to US for that for that event
#
tense because I was just like
#
bag will not reach it just
#
became a thing in me that you know and I've gone
#
to you know I've travelled internationally a lot
#
I've grown up in of course in Bahrain so
#
but I just said that my I'm going to
#
you know I'll take a lot of my
#
clothes I've you know bought
#
new clothes for this but my bag
#
will get misplaced and if it gets misplaced
#
then I will not have anything to wear
#
and because I'm overweight I will not find the right fit
#
so when I go to the event I will not have clothes
#
to wear so people maybe they won't
#
let me enter because it's a black tie event or
#
whatever it is etc etc so that is
#
my I would have these conversations with my
#
therapist and she'd just be like you
#
know of course she'd get me to do breathing
#
exercises and then say you know
#
what is so one of the things
#
then the exercises she'd give me was like
#
think of the worst that could
#
happen and I'd say okay this is
#
the worst that could happen I'll be
#
it won't come and I'll have to fly back
#
the worst that could happen is it really that bad
#
and then when you start thinking okay
#
maybe it's not that bad
#
then you start getting a little calmer you know
#
so I mean there's so many different things
#
that would work for different people but it was
#
I would have trouble breathing I'd have trouble getting
#
off my bed you know on certain days
#
I'd have what I realized
#
later were panic attacks where
#
for like 20 minutes you feel like you're having a heart
#
attack and it's just your body
#
refusing to like give you
#
the your brain refusing
#
to give signals to your body that it's okay to get
#
up and you know because you're just like what is
#
the point everything sucks and everything is
#
terrible terrible terrible
#
so it was it was I would sweat
#
a lot I would constantly be sweating
#
I was constantly be like you
#
know I am not able to things
#
are going to go wrong so yeah
#
even now I know when when I know
#
I'm getting anxious I know because when sweat happens
#
you know my body my heart would start
#
so these were the symbols
#
and you know which I again a lot of
#
that again it might have something to do with my heart
#
because again you know she's like
#
you get it checked or whatever it is maybe it's a
#
cholesterol issue whatever it is you
#
she noticed it I wasn't even able to
#
notice it you know when you're in it you're not able
#
to have that perspective
#
she was the first person to notice and say I think something
#
going on with you why are you so like
#
tense all the time why are you sweating so much
#
and sweating was the thing you should go to a doctor
#
when I went to a doctor about this
#
and he's like you don't have your heart is fine
#
okay what does that mean
#
you know so first they gave pills but I was
#
like okay let me just you know I also
#
wanted to figure before I take
#
pills is there another alternate
#
or whatever it is you know
#
pills work for a lot of people I just I'm
#
someone who's wants to first see that
#
if there's an either way and then kind of okay with
#
pills also so that's when therapy
#
was suggested to me and then it took me
#
I think two more months after that point to actually
#
go to therapy because I was like
#
if I go to therapy that means I have to admit
#
that something is broken in me
#
I'm not comfortable with the idea
#
that I'm broken and need to be
#
so many you know people go through all
#
kinds of shit what is this I can't
#
overcome like this little things but it wasn't little
#
it was unbearable it was
#
unbearable I literally had to quit my job
#
take a sabbatical in my life before
#
know better and it's only when I started
#
working on something I cared about newer
#
working on like mental health
#
and you know that I got a little bit of
#
strength back but it was
#
it was it's hard it's very
#
very hard and there's not enough resources that
#
unfortunately we don't even have
#
again as I said we don't have vocabulary of
#
mental health in our country right
#
in regional languages or even in
#
Hindi what when you have
#
depression or anxiety what do you say
#
there is no colloquial terms for it
#
Swast which is mental health
#
says how is your mental health
#
that's not something you talk about right
#
there is no word for it in that sense
#
there are clinical terms maybe
#
but no colloquial terms so when you
#
way of communicating how
#
heartbreak and you can also be
#
depressed for six months but
#
and because of that it's been so
#
difficult to have conversations about mental health
#
in our homes in our families
#
because your parents don't have terms for it
#
and they think of it as a foreign thing
#
the moment you hear mental first thing people think
#
is like psycho the second thing
#
is like mental hospital
#
it's so tragic that you know
#
last to last year when Sushant Singh
#
Rajput passed away you know
#
narrative of a conspiracy
#
death because we were unwilling to
#
accept that he could have
#
because how can someone
#
successful want to do that
#
there has to be something nasty behind it
#
has also done that unfortunately
#
there is a lot of other folks
#
who have spoken about it or have
#
and attempted it and done it
#
because it's mental health can happen
#
issues can happen to anybody
#
it does not discriminate
#
it doesn't matter if you are
#
at a low in your life it doesn't matter
#
in your high in your life you can
#
have depression you can have anxiety
#
and you can go and get it treated
#
it's the same thing that you know you go
#
to a doctor when you have a cold
#
to find out whether it's a cold or it's a covid
#
spectrum right in the same
#
way when you are having trouble
#
with your mind sometimes you
#
just have to get a checkup to see that is it
#
just you know a little tension
#
you know clinical depression
#
clinical anxiety and there
#
are ways of overcoming it
#
but you need to be comfortable with having
#
the conversation first which in our country
#
in our society in our families
#
anybody sees it and it's
#
seen as like a again in the road
#
show so many kids have said that you know I
#
I harm myself because my
#
I told my parents I want therapy but
#
they are saying you are not mental
#
so then I need my pain to go away so I
#
harm myself these are the kind of things you are hearing
#
in this country yeah it's
#
it's tough but as I said
#
you know I mean the more we talk
#
about it the more normal it will be the more
#
normal it will be the more the more
#
unafraid we will be there are
#
statistics that say that mental health issues
#
have increased I don't think that
#
they have increased I think we are just
#
talking about them more I think they are
#
it's just that it's also how there are
#
statistics that say that there are more
#
you know LGBTQ people in the world right
#
now no they have always been there they just started
#
coming out more right because
#
now it's a little bit normal to do that and in
#
the same way it's a little bit normal to talk about mental health
#
we have always been struggling mental health
#
our parents have struggled from mental health I have seen my
#
parents go through it as I said my father
#
used to go through something which I
#
realised my father had anxiety when I got it
#
growing up I used to get so angry
#
at the way he would behave
#
and then I had emotional breakdowns and I had
#
cry I had breakdowns where I was crying
#
I was crying there were times where I couldn't stop
#
I would want to stop but I
#
just couldn't it was so bad
#
then I kind of recognised that well my
#
father has gone through things
#
and I did not know and none of us
#
resented him for the way he was behaving
#
talk about what our parents have gone through
#
people today are going through it
#
in my family again there are people
#
who are because they are lonely in
#
their old age they are going
#
don't talk about it and there are
#
very few support systems
#
the mental health professionals
#
that we have per person is just
#
it is such an abysmal number
#
and again it is so still
#
the point of entry is so expensive
#
I don't know I mean again so
#
I still have hope I still again
#
I feel like this generation is making
#
it normal to talk about these issues
#
they are putting it out there
#
they are making it conversation
#
and through that I think like even
#
families now you know are
#
comfortable with I know
#
now some people who are older who are in
#
the parents age group who
#
have now expressed to the children saying that
#
okay I am okay with trying it
#
more parents are joining it and I think
#
like we need to look out for the not only
#
our mental health or the mental health of younger folks
#
but also the mental health of our older
#
you know of older folks you know
#
they are probably going through the toughest
#
transition since the pandemic imagine
#
alone without your children not
#
being able to have that
#
not being able to touch them because of
#
the danger that they might give you
#
something how tough it must have been
#
you know one of the common misconceptions
#
is that the mind is something different
#
from the body there is a ghost in the machine
#
and the thing is no the mind is part
#
of the you know the brain is part of the
#
body you know shit happens like one of
#
my favorite musicians Chris Cornell
#
went because he started taking
#
unrelated medication for
#
something which caused him to be more suicidal
#
the chemical imbalance shift
#
so you would have asked
#
yourself at some point what is causing this
#
you know what were the kind of
#
answers that you looked at
#
so there are two aspects to this and you know
#
again let me again start by
#
saying that I am not a trained professional I
#
only know I only have lived experience
#
and I can only speak from that
#
but there is of course this
#
you know medical thinking that says
#
it is chemical imbalance only
#
and then you take pills and you get better
#
and then there is the psychotherapy
#
you know line of thought
#
which sometimes you do with medicines
#
and say you know it's both
#
but the second one is more about
#
well it is societal it is coming from
#
issues that could even have started in childhood
#
so sometimes it is one or the other
#
sometimes it is both again
#
and that's what I have been told and that's what
#
mental health issues today
#
just because of chemical imbalance
#
you know which is one in the spectrum
#
there is that but that is
#
when you it's really you know and sometimes it
#
borders then on mental illness
#
you know where you do need medication
#
help and that's completely okay right
#
depression and anxiety in lot of people today
#
and these words are being thrown around a lot
#
without full context to them
#
this whole conversation that we have had has been
#
about that only I found out
#
as I said in my therapy that
#
it happened because I am a man
#
because I was I had burdened
#
told to me by society to such
#
I started getting anxiety
#
where do I even go from here
#
I have nothing left to do
#
I have ticked off all the
#
boxes that I was given as a young
#
fulfill by a certain age and I fulfilled it
#
where do I go from here I am already at
#
Yashrach I am 30 I have
#
maybe I become ABB maybe I become
#
I make more films I make more shows
#
and that's it I just keep doing
#
that over and over again and sometimes that's enough
#
for lot of people that's enough
#
I had this idea that again
#
you get happy after retirement
#
once you accomplish milestones there will be some
#
like joy at the end of it but
#
there was no particular
#
joy after making those web
#
shows or making those things it was
#
but I had put all the burden
#
because as a man that is what I was
#
told you hit these milestones
#
and that is success and that success
#
but I found out that to be patently false
#
happiness have nothing to do with each other
#
this idea of success is flawed
#
it's the stupidest idea in the world
#
that we have put we have
#
you achieve if you do one two three
#
any person who becomes successful
#
is unhappy because there is always
#
another more successful person out there
#
he or she then compares themselves
#
and that's what it is once you hit
#
a milestone there are more milestones
#
once you hit your goals there are more
#
goals once you hit a certain kind of success
#
many flops and he is Shah Rukh Khan
#
Amitabh Bachchan went through this
#
entire phase where he was
#
he didn't have money and he was Amitabh Bachchan
#
you know and I am giving you two
#
references from Bollywood but I am saying that
#
tell me one person who has always been successful
#
and that's it he has made it
#
there is no such thing once you make it
#
it's not over you still have to do
#
continue staying relevant have to do more
#
to continue being in that position
#
so it's a never ending cycle
#
of success is a trap and the
#
more you chase that idea the more you chase
#
this thought that you know once I hit
#
then I can be happy then you are
#
never going to be happy I am so sorry to
#
say that but that's just how it is because
#
you are always something else
#
it happened with me when I was in
#
that you know well I mean everybody is
#
told right 10th karoge to
#
phir phir set ho jao ge 12 karoge set ho jao ge
#
when you you know if you are over
#
achiever or whatever it is acha school se
#
top kar liye very good first your parents tell you choose
#
class me top karo very good
#
and then class me top kar liye acha school se top karo
#
then school me top kar liye acha
#
tome district me top kar liye
#
waha top kar liye arre but tum india me toh na top kiya
#
india me top kar liye arre but
#
where are you when it comes to Harvard and international students
#
always going to be someone
#
you will either compare yourself with
#
or others people will compare you with
#
and it will never be enough
#
it will never ever ever be enough
#
of the issues because of which we have mental
#
health issues in our country because we have this
#
idea of what success should look like
#
yeh designation hoga itne baise
#
hone chahiye whatever it is
#
but none of that is success in my
#
opinion and in my belief system
#
you know live a day in which
#
when you wake up in the morning you are happy to do
#
whatever the hell you are doing that success
#
call it Monday morning Monday blues or whatever
#
it is I am not saying that you can't have them you can have
#
them but you dislike your life
#
because you have broken it into
#
like you know okay I go
#
to work and then I come to home and work
#
is bad and home is good
#
and work ke end mein agar mujhe paise mil rahe hain tab
#
theek hai agar appraisal acha raha hai tab theek hai
#
everybody is on auto-pilot
#
just living this hoping that
#
someday when I get this appraisal when I get
#
this when I unlock this level
#
of my career that's when happiness will come
#
but that's none of that is
#
how it is going to work out
#
be at peace with the idea
#
success is a is a notion
#
that has been again put by a system
#
capitalist system that wants
#
that is what success is
#
family that you love and
#
loves about you that loves you back that success
#
something that you love doing that you
#
find joy in that success also
#
if you you know and it could be
#
but you are happy in that one lakh rupees
#
one lakh rupees that success
#
other thing and that's also happiness
#
I feel again in my personal
#
opinion I just feel like you know we look
#
for happiness in the big things but happiness always in the
#
smaller things it is in the
#
in the joy of the present versus
#
so hard for us to find it and some of this
#
again coming back to how internet
#
you know the internet today is all about
#
consuming things in a way
#
that victory what James Gunn said right
#
it's like I am now watching one reel
#
I like it but I have to go to the next one because
#
that can be better then I have to go to the
#
next one that's better so you have also been conditioned
#
to think that whatever is coming next is going to be much better
#
than the one how do you
#
obviously everybody has anxiety
#
and depression everybody is going through it without even
#
recognising it because this is a system
#
you know screw with your mental health where
#
you are not allowed to live in the present
#
imagine you are on twitter right now and you see
#
that ok there is you know unfortunately
#
a tragedy that has happened in
#
a state and you are seeing
#
that video of that tragedy and you are just feeling
#
really bad about it and
#
before you can think a process
#
the next tweet is about
#
a film you love and a really funny
#
visual from that film and you are like oh
#
haha and before you can
#
think about that or stay on
#
that there is someone that
#
you know who has said something which has offended
#
you and you are just like I am angry now
#
and then again you are you see a cat
#
video and you are like oh so cute what
#
same time you are constantly
#
that you are now conditioned
#
now where society conditioned in a larger
#
way that it is about you know after
#
one year of hard work there is going
#
to be appraisal where you will get the money
#
and that's when if you are successful you will
#
be happy if you are unsuccessful you will be
#
unhappy that was society telling
#
us now social media apps are telling
#
us well in the same moment
#
you know until you go to the
#
next video you will not be happy because the next video has
#
unlocked the happiness for you
#
this is one of those areas that I get very worried
#
about because I feel like there is
#
problems that a country
#
and the world at this point is going through
#
talking about it enough
#
we are not even recognizing that
#
our attention spans have gone
#
we are constantly chasing the
#
next high you know love
#
and relationships have been reduced to swipe
#
right swipe left you know
#
victory and defeat has been you know victory
#
and like whatever you know and
#
dopamine is about scrolling up
#
and scrolling down how do you
#
deal with this system and where are the support
#
for this who is talking about it enough
#
for us to kind of be like okay
#
I am also going through this
#
avoid the Monday morning blues
#
you drink so much that you wake up on Tuesday
#
so there is no question of Monday
#
there is this writer called Arthur Brooks
#
he has also written a book on happiness
#
but there is this essay of
#
his that you know with a particular
#
insight that made an impact on me where he
#
which traced the happiness of American
#
men through their lives and his
#
thing was that their happiness is at its
#
lowest point when they are
#
in their mid to late 40s
#
and then it starts going up
#
and the reason it starts going up is that
#
is around the time where you know all their
#
lives have been conditioned ki paisa aega
#
success aega happy honge
#
that is around the point ki paisa aagaya
#
success aagaya and then they realize
#
that this is not happiness and then
#
they turn to whatever makes them happy
#
and then they reach their peaks later
#
and what you said about small joys is what I
#
keep saying to people like
#
in a sense that reaching middle
#
age kind of taught me that
#
happiness doesn't come from
#
happiness comes from just seeing what is around
#
you and finding joy in that
#
something as mundane as air conditioning
#
and yeah so I would say that
#
at least mentally I have sorted
#
that little bit out I feel frustrated
#
and angry with myself because I haven't had the
#
discipline to do many things I want to do
#
but at the same time I am like thankful
#
every day ki achha khaana mil raha hai
#
ki achha music sun raha ho
#
I grew up in the 80s and 90s yaar bucket baat
#
kabi soch hi nahi sakte the ki zaman aega ki
#
4 years in a hostel I am very like totally
#
know this I know I probably take small joys
#
to an extreme because I was hanging out with a couple of
#
this awesome coffee body wash
#
which I will link from the show notes
#
and I said it is the best shower gel I have ever used
#
so amused why could you
#
you know so that's probably taking
#
small joys to an extreme
#
Amit like I think that even the air
#
conditioning as you said right
#
most of us are not present for these
#
movements because our minds are always
#
attuned to be in the future
#
how many of us are really living
#
and I say this about myself also
#
I am not some saint or whatever it is
#
I have struggled with the same thing
#
and I have to catch myself and be like
#
no I am going to be in the present now
#
you know especially when there are
#
when I am with people I love
#
when I am watching something that I really enjoy
#
when I am having an experience that I have
#
as soon as my mind starts moving
#
to the next thing I have to hold it back
#
I have waited for this and I am going to enjoy
#
the hell out of it and it could be a
#
you know great bath I love like
#
whenever I travel and I get to
#
stay in a hotel when there is a bath tub
#
it was and this is one of the things
#
again you know you start recognising as self care
#
because earlier there were
#
and I would just be like I don't have time
#
I am too tired lots of work has happened
#
so I will do it in the morning before going from the hotel
#
and then in the morning you get late and you are like
#
ok I can't do it now, reddit etc etc and then you just
#
if I get to a hotel there is a bath tub
#
I leave everything and go there
#
I am not missing this opportunity
#
I am going to you know have
#
this warm lovely luxurious bath
#
whatever you know bath tub
#
it makes me happy and I know it
#
and that is happiness also
#
you know the happiness can be as
#
beautiful and lovely as you know
#
spending time with the people you love
#
nothing makes me happier than being in a writers room and like
#
jamming on stories happiest
#
happiest high that I have on in my work
#
days you know at the same time
#
I have started recognising that even on like
#
you know tough days at work
#
sometimes you know happiness can be
#
just the fact that you have someone to share it with
#
right and that's also happiness
#
it's not about having the
#
best day ever but it's also
#
something you know lovely in
#
in even the tough times
#
and I am not talking about toxic positivity
#
over here I am just talking about the fact that we
#
just need to be more present to be
#
that we are all leading especially
#
we have so much privilege I mean so much
#
privilege constantly we should
#
be feeling gratitude oh my god thank
#
god we are we have this privilege
#
in a country where you know
#
maximum number of people don't have this
#
not only should we be feeling gratitude we should
#
be feeling gratitude at the fact that we are
#
you are right I am telling you this is
#
there are levels to this of course you know
#
nuances to this but I mean you are absolutely right
#
you know we don't have the self awareness
#
most of the times right now
#
so much of that really comes down to the fact that we
#
don't we don't question things
#
we are just following like
#
that 30 and then anxiety
#
happened and 30 also by the way it's a marker
#
was one of the reasons for the anxiety
#
that I have hit 30 you know
#
and what have I done with my life
#
yeah so it is it was it was
#
and that those markers and then the last
#
5-6 years it's only now that my
#
self awareness started I am telling you like
#
I don't know I mean I will
#
tell you something off the record I want to say it on the record
#
but I will say something after this
#
to hear that no no my like I you are
#
vegetarian of course but non-veg listeners
#
may appreciate my feeling
#
that sometimes I will order a non-veg dish
#
and I will be eating it and halfway through the dish
#
if you ask me am I eating chicken or mutton
#
I will then have to look down
#
and focus to figure that out because
#
I am so absent minded right
#
might go to a really good restaurant
#
your mind is somewhere else no
#
it's on that hedonistic treadmill
#
here is my next question
#
about mental health that you pointed out
#
that to a certain extent it could be
#
physiological in terms of chemical imbalance
#
and all to a certain extent it's not
#
that there are these roles that
#
we are trapped in and all the pressures
#
we feel for that so now you
#
about if you have mental health
#
issues what should you do is seek help
#
see a therapist all that
#
if some of it is caused
#
by these social pressures
#
by these situations by these circumstances
#
give to people listening to
#
this to be able to mitigate that aspect
#
you know I think acknowledgement is the first step
#
it's a very important step
#
discomfort is the first step
#
getting better you know
#
you have to stay in that discomfort
#
it's not easy when your whole life
#
you believed in one truth
#
okay actually there is something else
#
even therapy or whatever
#
you know you take any of these things
#
that you learn it's not easy for you to process
#
you are talking about things that you
#
really like buried deep
#
inside and then you just
#
hidden them inside and repressed them
#
inside this is not you know I am not
#
like it's not a big deal it might not be a
#
big deal for a lot of people but to me
#
to be told that my entire identity
#
the reason that I have so much issues in my
#
life is because I am a man
#
because all my life I have tried not to be
#
to be a man I am talking about gender roles right
#
now I was like I am not
#
going to fit into the idea
#
of what a man's roles in society
#
and I realized that I was
#
even trying consciously
#
what I thought a man was supposed to be
#
because of what I saw my father be
#
the narrative of a man only and it was
#
such a difficult thing for me to grapple
#
with so difficult so it
#
comfortable with discomfort you
#
pain you have to acknowledge
#
it you have to process it you have
#
only after that can change begin
#
until you are in until you
#
to be told that I know it's difficult
#
the pain is very very hard sometimes
#
if you find something about yourself
#
that you may not necessarily like
#
ashamed of yourself you don't have
#
to look down on yourself you don't have to judge
#
yourself we judge others
#
most of all we judge ourselves the most
#
I mean there is a thing called
#
in therapy terms negative
#
self talk right they are constantly
#
I didn't realize I do it so many
#
times my therapist has said
#
stop saying that about yourself
#
I did this so stupid of me
#
why are you saying that
#
I didn't even realize I said that
#
because in my head I am just like
#
you made a mistake and it's okay
#
telling yourself that you are an idiot
#
because you did something you think
#
is wrong that's the human
#
it's okay that's what I would say
#
you know I don't have advice I don't
#
believe in like the idea of like
#
giving advice I can share my stories
#
if that resonate with you
#
that's amazing you know
#
but yeah I just feel like
#
everybody has to find what works for them that's what
#
mental health is there is no one
#
to mental health right like for me
#
when I was going through anxiety the things that
#
started helping me was you know
#
so anxiety also happens where you feel
#
like you are losing control
#
so there is no like the pandemic
#
why did the pandemic make so many
#
people anxious because suddenly
#
you had lost control of the
#
a way the you lost control
#
that you were leading till then just was
#
taken away from you and you were said you don't have any control
#
anymore the control is now
#
given the government has control and you have to just stay
#
in your you know etc because
#
that's just how it is now for a
#
we don't even know how long and you have
#
very tough to kind of when you constantly
#
trying to control every truth of your life
#
to kind of to have that taken away
#
what my therapist would tell me and what I started
#
kind of doing was how do you find
#
little things in your routine that you can
#
becomes your thing that you know that I have
#
this I don't everything
#
else might be out of my control but this I have
#
so reading for me became like a really
#
big I really picked up reading again and I'm
#
so grateful to the books that
#
I have read over the last two two and a half years
#
in the pandemic particularly you know
#
started waking up really early and looking
#
at I have a fortunate view of
#
the sunrise live opposite RA
#
so I can see the sun come up from
#
just started waking up in the morning and every morning
#
I just see the sunrise because it was just
#
like no matter what happens
#
with the pandemic this is going to happen every day
#
this is the truth that will
#
you know it will continue
#
I did not speak I used to speak to
#
my mother once in a week or twice in a week at that time
#
I used to think of myself as that busy
#
in the pandemic I have spoken
#
since the pandemic I have spoken to my mother
#
on video call every single day
#
in the last three years because I
#
was so anxious about the fact that you know
#
they live in Bahrain and suddenly
#
didn't know when your air travel was gone
#
and my parents were staying separately in
#
Bahrain and I am staying in Bombay
#
such a bad place I was in
#
such a bad place that I couldn't
#
like for the first month
#
of the pandemic I am not joking I couldn't get off my
#
so badly because I was like what is going to happen
#
to my parents they are in
#
Bahrain I am not there to help them I am not
#
there to you know quote unquote protect them
#
what choices have I made
#
in my life that led to this moment where
#
the world has stopped and I am away from my parents
#
for me so tough for me and then I just
#
you know thought that maybe I should
#
just talk to my parents every day
#
and then I started having like these video calls with her
#
which I had never done video calls before and then
#
just seeing my mother's face every day my father
#
father and I also became closer actually during the
#
pandemic just looked at each other
#
and my brother was in the US all four
#
of us would get on these video calls and then just
#
I don't know just felt peaceful
#
and calm just looking at each other's faces
#
doing that you know we are okay
#
and that's something we could
#
control we could call each other every day look at
#
each other's faces and feel
#
was something that I told you actually
#
that should I want to say this on
#
record also your episodes really
#
I am not joking about this
#
episodes really helped me during some
#
tough days on the pandemic because
#
even go for that walk because I was so in
#
such bad shape and then you
#
know I found out that I restarted
#
when Prem Banikkar came on your podcast
#
and I was like well here's a man I admire
#
here's another man I admire and they are going to be talking and it's a long
#
conversation maybe this is the reason for me to
#
get out of bed and I remember that day I
#
went for this really long walk
#
and then I came back and I sat in the garden
#
of my building where I had never done before even though
#
like my building had a garden and just never sat there
#
and I said they have a jhula and then
#
I just sat for the jhula and till like
#
episode had ended I just sat there
#
and I was just breathed a little
#
more and I was like okay there's
#
something to do something to look forward
#
to something to break the monotony of the
#
pandemic during that time so you have
#
to find what works for you you know and
#
and everybody like my wife
#
she also got very anxious during the pandemic
#
and I can say this because she is so comfortable
#
but she took to a painting
#
she's become a master painter
#
she started an Instagram page and she put a painting
#
people are like please sell this to us and she's like I don't want to sell this
#
I'm just doing it for you know it's
#
we're just saying anxiety journaling she was anxiety
#
painting and it was just
#
gorgeous paintings of flowers and what not
#
I'm like how are you what I'm like
#
me just trying to reach four pages
#
your pandemic is you making this you've
#
turned your passion into this high art what is
#
that was also like little tough to see
#
how great you are dealing with your
#
anxiety and look like how tough
#
it is for me but as I said everybody has different ways
#
of dealing with it and we just need to
#
allow ourselves to find what it is that
#
Tell me a little bit about
#
this subject that you've spoken about elsewhere also
#
about creativity as therapy
#
you know you mentioned that
#
Daisy took to painting and that really helped her
#
you know and I've heard other people talk about
#
how writing can be like therapy especially
#
people who are kind of journaling every day
#
would not just be actual creativity
#
alone that would be therapeutic
#
books or watching the stories of
#
others could also help what is
#
your sort of experience
#
I've watched so many sitcoms I finished
#
like Schitt's Creek I think everybody
#
has watched Schitt's Creek during the pandemic
#
you know Kim's Convenience I went back to
#
the office saw Parks and Rec
#
I'd finished I had not seen Parks
#
and Rec end to end I had seen a lot of episodes
#
in between I saw all of it for
#
the first six months every
#
I was just finishing sitcoms
#
because I just needed to
#
and it was the opposite in the beginning you know in the beginning
#
I had to make sense of what was happening
#
mind to make sense of like
#
what is happening and I'm somebody who needed
#
so I'm someone who was very
#
active on Twitter and then when
#
the China thing happened I had
#
my anxiety now works in a way where it
#
is a warning to me the moment I start getting anxious
#
I'm just like okay there is
#
why why am I getting anxious what's going to happen
#
and it's almost like a prediction for me that there's something
#
whether in my life and in this
#
case the world that there's something so I started
#
getting anxiety after reading like I was like
#
and I started going deep into like
#
okay what is this going to mean and I knew
#
at that time that COVID is
#
so I'm actually making my anxiety work for me it's
#
very like become very smart with it like
#
I knew that COVID is going to come to
#
India also I realised that the way it is shaping
#
up it is it's not far away people
#
were like still not okay whatever whatever
#
10 people at that time now we're 26 but at that time
#
just 10 young people but most of them
#
were from different parts of the country so
#
because of my anxiety because of what I was going
#
through you know I kind of told
#
my team to go from work from home
#
and that also happened because the
#
parents of one those kids were also getting
#
very anxious I said okay let's just start work from home
#
when at a time where nobody
#
was at that time kind of doing it but
#
most my the decision I'm really
#
proud of is the fact that I just asked
#
the kids who were from different parts of the country to
#
go back to their homes I was just like
#
I think the flights I don't know when this will
#
us and we get into lockdowns in India also
#
flights will stop and you will not be able to
#
go to your homes so I didn't go to my
#
own home which I which I then later
#
you know sent my kids to
#
you know their homes and I'm so glad
#
that you know the anxiety worked for me in that sense
#
but but but yeah so I feel
#
I have found you know again as
#
you said reading for me was
#
I would get lost in the and
#
and I was not reading fiction I was
#
reading a lot of non-fiction for a very long term
#
I also made a really stupid tweet about that once you
#
start reading fiction you can never read non-fiction I got really
#
trolled for it during the pandemic
#
Shiv Ramdas was the first one who said
#
you're an idiot remember that very clearly
#
I picked a fiction and it just helped me get lost
#
I also you know sorry I also
#
said I forgot to tell about that when the pandemic
#
started because I needed to make sense of it
#
event has happened in the world that
#
was unprecedented and my head was world war
#
you know there is there were people
#
who also lived through the world war
#
world war one and world war two and while
#
I had seen I mean of course everybody knows about
#
it in whatever way I knew
#
there was a documentary on Netflix and I was like let me
#
just go watch this whole documentary so I saw
#
10 hour documentary on the world wars
#
so much context in feeling better
#
later because what it did was it helped
#
me understand well so you think
#
of the world war as this one event right
#
year to X year it was a
#
period of five to six years
#
where people were living
#
time and I was just thinking that
#
you know because I need to make sense I immediately
#
realised that there is going to be a
#
this pandemic is not getting over in three weeks or three
#
months it is going to go on
#
so a lot of people had anxiety later when
#
it didn't stop I had anxiety initial to
#
prepare for the fact ki do teen saal chalne wala
#
hai and I was reading some
#
of the top science writers
#
writer I forgot his name fantastic
#
writer from New Yorker who was also
#
writing a book just incredible incredible
#
writer so just reading their things
#
and preparing myself and then just needed to make
#
sense of the world that you know people have
#
in the past also gone through
#
historically these really troubled
#
times and they made it to the other side
#
we are also going through these troubled times I am sure
#
we are going to make it that was my way of dealing
#
with it content storytelling film making
#
always becomes my go to
#
you know reading became again
#
stories just getting lost in those stories
#
became a whole thing journalism
#
sorry journaling for me
#
I when I started journaling it
#
just a lot of you know negative emotion that I
#
put out so while it's cathartic
#
for a lot of people to be able to let it all out
#
I see for me it just becomes a little
#
I feel like I go deeper
#
into it so I just you know I did
#
this another one lovely thing which
#
really helped me I my mother
#
I would tell my mother to
#
my mother would also from
#
the Guru Granth Sahib she kind of
#
I just say that you know why don't you send me every morning
#
a voice note because I really needed help I
#
didn't know what to do I was like can you send me a voice
#
note every morning from something from the Guru Granth Sahib
#
and just explain it in your own words because
#
she does that quite a lot you know
#
so then yeah I have this bunch of
#
voice notes from my mother during the pandemic for like
#
2 weeks 3 weeks 3 weeks when a very
#
tough time every morning I wake up I see
#
the sun I would hear my mother's voice note
#
I would read a book and then
#
I would feel a little bit more prepared about the day
#
creative I mean again I think that
#
I wouldn't want to say as
#
you know creativity can help everyone because honestly
#
it is it is said that it helps everyone
#
I have seen it help me in
#
my own life I have seen it help
#
my wife but at the same time not
#
everybody needs to have that pressure
#
of kind of being creative
#
cooking is such a thing that
#
you know lot of people took to
#
during the pandemic to really get
#
over the anxieties and I am not talking about like
#
banana bread and you know or whatever
#
friends that I know so many
#
men that I know were like you know washing utensils
#
activity for so many of us you know
#
so many people I was for me
#
also I just I just started enjoying
#
washing dishes as I just like the
#
routine of doing it the thing that you can control
#
that there is a stain you finish it and
#
you go away it just helps you the anxiety
#
so it could be different
#
things you have to you know find what works
#
for you but of course you know take that
#
advice from a trained professional
#
when it comes to lived experience it's you
#
will always have a different experience from somebody
#
else. So my next question
#
is about comes from this lovely piece you wrote
#
how you know there is a certain
#
it's almost as if we are role playing
#
for the world and for ourselves and
#
it's a constant act and
#
we are not even aware of it ourselves
#
and you speak about it you know
#
you bring up the Will Smith
#
incident you know the slap of the
#
you quoted the writer Heidi Moore
#
about how what that actually did was
#
it broke that fourth wall where suddenly
#
Will Smith is not playing a role of being
#
himself but he's come out
#
of that and he's showing whatever so
#
even if you find it ugly and rude
#
or repulsive or whatever
#
he's broken that fourth wall and there is something
#
there and something had happened to a friend
#
of mine about which I wrote a newsletter post
#
he was at the stage where he was at
#
the stage of weight loss where his
#
pants weren't exactly fitting
#
right so you know they would
#
keep slipping and he would pull them up so
#
he was dancing with a girl
#
and he was damn embarrassed and the girl
#
said don't worry that's happened to me also
#
which is possibly just a way of making him feel
#
better and my friend was really embarrassed about
#
it and I was like you know what
#
this is actually a beautiful moment
#
a disco you know you have
#
that whole dance going on
#
everything is so performative
#
everybody is kind of playing a role
#
nobody is really being themselves unless they are too
#
drunk in which case they are being too themselves
#
and the dropping of the pant
#
is almost like a delightful
#
moment of kind of breaking
#
you know you're kind of embarrassed
#
you because of mirror neurons
#
because of suddenly they can empathize
#
you know every man is imagining fuck that could have
#
been me right for a moment that is
#
broken and there's a certain charm to that
#
do you think about this
#
sometimes that we are all
#
ourselves and for the people in our lives
#
and that there should be
#
sort of an intentional effort
#
it of just you know in whatever
#
way we can because on the one hand
#
break through which is a layer of oh I'm expected
#
to be a man I'm supposed to be this and it's a social
#
thing and it's all encompassing
#
but let's say we get past that but even
#
dilemma about what is the authentic self
#
you know you might think you know yourself but maybe
#
you're playing a role to yourself
#
given the kind of self reflection that you've done
#
and that your writing shows
#
you know what is what are your thoughts
#
I think it's a very existential question
#
everyone will have a different answer
#
about this purely because
#
know the most easy way for me to communicate
#
I've just never understood why
#
and I say hierarchies I don't
#
you know I don't begrudge experience
#
I think experience is great
#
I think we should give a certain kind of respect
#
into experience wherever possible
#
but why is the youngest employee
#
at an office treated differently
#
from the oldest employee at the office or the
#
person may not be the oldest
#
a position of a certain salary
#
a marker of the kind of respect that you give
#
people I've never understood that
#
the same person can speak to their
#
boss in a certain way and speak to their subordinate
#
in a certain way it's never
#
made sense to me it has just
#
in fact it's made me so
#
it's really made me angry
#
people from all over the country
#
we also have an office boy
#
that when you're taking a picture of the whole team
#
the team is not calling
#
he's also a young person like us and he's part of a
#
not calling him for the picture now again I don't
#
want to make this again
#
I don't want to make it sound like right now I'm
#
it's not about I mean right now I'm
#
not even talking about class or you know
#
caste I'm talking while of course that
#
is a part in it I'm just
#
talking about the roles
#
that we are conditioned
#
in all these systems as an example
#
accounts team you will not call for a picture
#
right so it's also the same thing
#
it's just like they work in accounts
#
they are not like as fun as we are or whatever
#
it is and it is in different ways
#
sometimes ageism is a thing that you know you kind of
#
have and you don't call
#
you know people who are actually older as
#
part of whatever it is right but
#
overall I just I just see these
#
and I don't want to be you know
#
I don't want to sound like a bleeding heart or
#
you know whatever I don't want to sound like I am
#
it just sounds like I don't know
#
what do I think of myself but
#
I just don't it's but it's true
#
I just don't like it when the
#
any of my societies calls me sir
#
I am like why are you calling me sir
#
I know your name you will call me by your name
#
you know they get awkward about
#
it and I feel so bad I feel
#
whatever bleeding heart savior
#
kind of a no that's not the narrative
#
situation just it to be
#
horrible that we have these social
#
structures these social
#
we believe in and that we
#
is it I mean of course these are
#
casteist things but you know
#
why do we have separate utensils for people
#
who come from outside and you know
#
same person in your family
#
can be the sweetest to everyone
#
but suddenly when there is a worker who comes from outside you
#
will you know be a certain
#
way with that person because you have the idea
#
just as I said casteism it is anything
#
it can be just power I think power dynamics
#
overall everywhere is just the reason
#
classism casteism you know different different things
#
that religion gender all of
#
these issues that kind of you know play
#
up but a lot of it is just power structures
#
everything comes down to power
#
and the roles we play come down to like
#
whose more power badu ki zyad karo always
#
bada hai har situation ke andar uske hisaab se
#
decide kiye jaati ki respect kaise denge
#
izzat kitni milniche kitni milniche
#
it will depend upon you know how
#
and that is why I think that's the
#
you think that you know having x amount
#
of money gives you power
#
there is a pandemic you are a home just like
#
where you have a helicopter to go wherever
#
the hell you want as an example but
#
there is no such thing as true power
#
this idea also of power
#
even if even if you say that
#
amount of power every day they have to
#
fight for it it's not is that really power
#
you know and we all going to die
#
and this world is like dying
#
you know climate change is happening what is power
#
what are you going to do with this idea
#
of power what do you get in a situation
#
when you feel yourself as the bigger
#
person and you have to get some
#
you show someone smaller than you
#
and just what is the joy that you get
#
there is no joy in that in fact you
#
it's just a stupid thing that you kind of do
#
because it's a role that you think you have to play
#
because somebody played that role with you
#
when you were in that place
#
on the other hand there are people who bully
#
when ragging used to happen in the college
#
even people who I used to really respect you know
#
suddenly would rag and hit
#
juniors I would be like why do you do this
#
we have to do the same I am like why
#
why doesn't it stop with you
#
and on the other hand I have a friend who is a very dear friend
#
had so much love and respect for
#
because he was the one who in his
#
so used to call it GT's
#
get togethers but whatever
#
Maharashtra GT, Bangalore GT
#
all the kids of Bangalore are in Bangalore GT
#
so seniors from the same GT
#
would hit juniors from the same GT
#
if somebody from another GT
#
comes and rags you then there is a
#
mess and a war that happens
#
these boys belong to us
#
I used to beat you know because they were like
#
first you need to learn subservience
#
first you need to learn
#
subservience you need to learn that
#
I am your senior so I need to be spoken to
#
in a certain respect and you will do whatever
#
the hell I want you to do and then I will be your best friend
#
but first you have to go through
#
torture for me to then come to
#
tough love what is this
#
so much respect for a friend who kind of fought with
#
his entire GT and said we are not
#
going to beat our juniors
#
so what if he got beaten up
#
and he became and finally he stopped the system
#
I mean I don't know if it continued after
#
he went and somebody in the third year said
#
no I am finally I want to continue it I hope not
#
but the fact that there was a
#
person who fought back and you know this whole
#
it was a close bunch of 5-6 people from
#
Bangalore GT who just decided they will not do it
#
Karnataka GT will not do it
#
the buck has to stop somewhere
#
the pretence has to stop somewhere
#
why are we pretending what are you getting out of it
#
what is this what will you get out of these
#
power structures which make you feel better
#
instead of that just spend your time
#
with people you love ya spend your
#
time doing things that you care about instead
#
of these false false senses
#
will give you make you feel
#
superior in some way or the other
#
so all of these places all of
#
these structures where there is
#
reject them and again I don't feel
#
like I don't say this I feel
#
designations in Yuba it's not like we don't have
#
that I also recognise that
#
everybody is so conditioned to believe that ok this
#
is how we are unlocking the next level
#
of our career if there is a designation shift
#
so great I told you like I mean
#
again I can't talk about it in the podcast but
#
the way I think of leadership
#
in terms of I don't want to stay you know
#
in Yuba as a leader for very long and I want
#
to pass it on to the next
#
young person why should I be
#
called Yuba for X amount of years
#
what is the power in calling yourself CEO
#
I am still going to be founder I am still going to it's still my company
#
young thought maybe much better than
#
I could and I need to pass the betanon
#
because if I have the privilege
#
what am I doing with it if not passing
#
and if I am stupid enough to think
#
that I am only here because of my own
#
actually just that's just
#
nothing but narcissism there is
#
you could have systems you can say
#
that have been against you but
#
at the same time there are also been places which have
#
been for you there have been that few people who
#
different ways I can't you know
#
people at different places in my life and could
#
be something really small I told you
#
what one of my friends told me just such a kind
#
thing that I needed at a at a tough
#
time that you know somebody just said
#
something and I just felt like okay thank you for saying
#
that you didn't need to say that to me but you have done
#
it and I feel so much gratitude that
#
there are people like that who could you know
#
there was a time where my
#
brother was in Bombay and he was looking for a job
#
Bahrain and he was going through a lot I told you he was not in a good
#
place you know mental health wise and
#
and I just didn't know because
#
he was wanted in a different industry
#
I didn't know how to get him a job I was in
#
just two or three years I put out like a post and
#
they are just people who
#
because of whatever they kind of thought about
#
I don't consider like even friends but just
#
some acquaintances that I have been polite
#
said give it to us and we will pass it on and they
#
just did it and someone
#
found him a job and I was like I don't even
#
know you that well but you have just really
#
and I would be like thank you for
#
being there just like no you are a decent person
#
so I have also seen it you know
#
decency or whatever and the very basic
#
and this is not something to
#
it's sad that this is the
#
bar the bar is that you are just
#
decent that there is so much gratitude
#
that people have you know
#
it's so sad there are so many times you know I have had
#
like on my sets or something you know people coming up
#
producers don't behave in
#
thank you for like being nice and I am like that's just
#
it is sad that these words
#
I am just being a decent
#
human being I am not doing anything extra
#
you know but I used to have so much gratitude
#
world which is so toxic
#
so kind in different ways that I used to
#
I mean I stopped it now and I wish I had
#
more time to do it but for about 7 years
#
in my life between 2000
#
19 I mean after you I had to stop everything
#
there was so much work that I was going and making
#
putting it together but I used to send this
#
annual letter of thank you
#
and I started with like
#
I started by thanking I think what 25
#
you know in that year where I was feeling grateful
#
you know I am in Bombay I think I am in a good place
#
and thank you for all the people who have like
#
been there so far and who have kind of been nice to me
#
life lessons or whatever
#
to people this is what I learnt in the year thank you and
#
end of it there were some you know like
#
who were there from 200 I had never
#
spoken to them since 2011 or something but every
#
year I would send my annual
#
thank you note you were kind to me once
#
I just need you to I need to tell you you are a
#
great person please continue being kind to
#
others you know and kindness
#
matters you know and it's just
#
something like sometimes a lot of people come to me
#
and say did you did I do something
#
bad if you removed me from your list I said no I don't have
#
I have not sent it out in the last 5 years
#
I am sorry it's not that I have removed you
#
I don't remove anyone once they are on the list
#
See all these people have been kind to you and now they are feeling
#
anxiety ki list me kyun hi hai
#
kya hua hai kya kya hua hai
#
So but yeah I just feel like
#
we need to acknowledge those people who are
#
you are saying it's tough to be authentic and I
#
completely agree Amit it is very tough to be authentic
#
you know the world wants
#
to fit you into boxes it will try everything
#
to ensure that you are in one
#
pressure every pressure from everywhere
#
but I can tell you that
#
if you have privilege if you have a little bit
#
of power and in my life I have seen that
#
the moment I have had these privileges and powers
#
use it to do something good
#
because what is the point otherwise
#
I have started Yuva as a company
#
and the kind of culture we have
#
the reason that we have this culture right now
#
is because I never got this culture
#
and while again Yashraj was
#
still a place which was really like kind
#
to me but culturally I just
#
feel like what we are trying to do at Yuva is
#
not something I have gotten anywhere
#
and today the kind of young people who work with us
#
people have been here from 3 plus years
#
started at 23-24 and they are now
#
26-27 and some of them are now in leadership positions
#
they are getting great money also
#
and they are just not leaving and touch wood
#
and the reason for that is they just
#
they have had different jobs and they are like we will never
#
as a culture like this right
#
and they have created that
#
they have bought into that idea that this culture is important
#
so it's not just me saying that
#
we have to keep this culture because
#
everybody else has to buy into that idea and be that kind
#
we don't touch wood again we don't have
#
why should we because we are very honest
#
and transparent in the systems that we have
#
there is no politics no one is bitching about anybody else
#
at least not that I know of right
#
but like I don't you know you see it
#
toxic teams you see what is toxic
#
in this team there is just a lot of love
#
and empathy for each other
#
I see that I see people stepping
#
up for each other I see people looking out
#
for each other there is this you know
#
just small little things that I see
#
it just makes me so happy like this boy who
#
I really you know adore
#
if he hears this who is
#
been with us now for two and half years and he is still
#
22 so he has been with us since college
#
he was part of the first roadshow then he
#
which was making a lot more we couldn't
#
afford that at that point of time now he has grown
#
and he has got more money now but he has trusted
#
us you know he is very smart very smart kid
#
and he is trusted I feel like his talent with us he feels
#
like I over sell his talent but he is
#
very talented and he had
#
his birthday you know and he
#
was first birthday away from home
#
you know and I was just
#
I wanted to and I was like
#
what are you doing he is like I am not doing anything and I wanted
#
to kind of that day I had to
#
I think I was travelling or something I wanted to be with
#
him but I couldn't I told my team I said like guys
#
first birthday you all have to
#
you know take him out etc and it was not
#
like meant to be like just over
#
in lunch and said it and that night all
#
the other young people took him out
#
whatever clans they had they all cancelled
#
and they were just they celebrated they went to
#
marine drive because he had said I had never seen marine drive
#
so they all went to marine drive with him and chilled
#
with him I saw in the stories and I was just like this is so
#
sweet you didn't have to do it
#
I just said it upar upar se but they
#
left everything said yes we will do it and that's
#
the you know touch wood like that's the culture
#
that we have at Yuba and I have not had that
#
culture you know and any of the organisation
#
people kind of looking out for each other in this way
#
you know but why can't that be a
#
culture so again these pretenses
#
are there because we have
#
lived in a world where people have
#
you know lauded these pretenses
#
it is not easy to break through these pretenses
#
it's really hard work I have not talked
#
enough about you know some of the
#
really tough times that I faced in
#
my work environments but
#
I have faced a lot of tough times
#
including my own company in year one at Yuba
#
I can acknowledge it now
#
of what empathy should look like at the
#
absolute wrong decision
#
I think empathy should come with
#
also professionalism and discipline
#
you know work and just said
#
like if as long as there is empathy
#
in the team it's a great team but obviously
#
it was a great team but it was not a team that
#
was working as hard as it should be
#
as like a leader or entrepreneur in the
#
first year year and a half but then I
#
have learnt from mistakes tried to
#
of Yuba you know and try to get
#
new people try to try and now it's
#
worked you know 3 and a half years
#
it's been now where we have a very
#
solid team and very solid work culture
#
no one says it's easy but when you hit
#
when you go to the other side
#
it's worth it it's worth it and such
#
I'm able to be here on a work day because
#
my team is kick ass I've told
#
them I'm on your podcast and I don't
#
even have to like and it's not like you know
#
anybody is like oh look at this he's the
#
CEO of the company and he's going and chilling in a
#
podcast we have to work nothing like that
#
because we look after them there is a
#
boy from our team in the last two weeks he's
#
we welcomed him back with flowers
#
and thank you for being alive like we've not
#
we were never going to question
#
and so many the same kid
#
okay I was talking about
#
he was feeling lonely Durga Pooja is
#
very important from Kolkata right so he was feeling
#
lonely he's like can I go home for a month
#
and work from home from there
#
now he's very important because he's
#
done lose a lot of good work
#
in among the younger kids there is he's
#
lot of responsibility that we put on him
#
we kind of spoke to each other and then
#
we were like you know we will miss him on these things or
#
whatever it is but then we also realized he's
#
been such an important part of Yuga
#
if he wants this one thing
#
let's make it happen for him
#
and then we said okay go ahead
#
what else are we here for if you're
#
not here to look after each other
#
there's a lot of pretence
#
so much to learn from all of this and I love the idea
#
of the annual thank you letter you know though
#
when you mentioned that I said my first thought
#
was I should do it too and my
#
second thought was no he'll get
#
we you know as we're on the closing
#
stretch and we've already spoken for
#
more than 6 hours and I haven't asked you about Yuva
#
yet so I want to ask you about that
#
the impetus behind starting
#
you know the kind of purpose driven content
#
that you wanted to make
#
you were already making it in a sense
#
you know in any case that purpose
#
driven content is not preachy
#
content or anything it is just content
#
which is on those themes
#
but otherwise there's great storytelling and
#
so on and so forth and you were already
#
doing that at Yashraj before this
#
so you know why did you feel
#
the need to do something separate
#
decision to make it a for profit by the way
#
which you know because if you
#
if one has a confidence that we are bringing
#
value to people then why not
#
so tell me a little bit about
#
the thoughts that went into your forming
#
what do you see your mission as how has that evolved
#
what's the journey been like
#
let me talk about a show that we made at Yashraj
#
called Mansworld it was a show
#
about gender equality it was
#
but we had this outrageous idea
#
Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral
#
runs this organisation called
#
Project Everyone which is the media
#
partner of the SDGs the global goals
#
the United Nations media partner
#
does all the content across
#
the world when it comes to SDGs
#
organisation fantastic people have worked with
#
them multiple times now that was the first
#
time we got an email from Richard Curtis in our
#
inbox saying like we want to make
#
something in India around gender equality
#
love to work with Yashraj Films and can we
#
I mean sorry I didn't say preachy he said can we do like
#
a two minute video around
#
gender equality and we came back and
#
like these two minute videos now even instead
#
let's get big stars we just said like they become very
#
preachy you can have the biggest stars
#
but they will never have the impact
#
you know if you want to especially you want to reach out
#
they wanted to reach out to young people
#
if you want to reach out to young people right now
#
the cool thing is you know
#
I mean YouTube has become really big in India
#
and we didn't have a YouTube channel at that time
#
so we didn't have like or an active YouTube channel let's say
#
thought where we said that what if
#
permanent roommates have come had just
#
come out I was very excited about the potential
#
I had been brought on to make
#
films at Y film which is the youth film of Yashraj
#
I had been told that I am
#
also going to be leading the digital efforts
#
I was very excited about that so I said like as part of
#
this what if we kind of did a web show around this
#
and then my boss and I at that
#
time kind of jammed and there was a story that had
#
come to a series of sketches about gender
#
but like with the world
#
inverted what if women were in the place
#
of men and men were in the place of women
#
and then we said what if this wasn't a series of sketches
#
but like a fiction show about
#
a man who is misogynistic
#
and you know dislikes women and thinks
#
that women have it too easy why do you
#
have you know why do you have
#
seats reserved for you in the buses why do you get
#
menstrual leaves why is it why is mother
#
India why is there no father India you know
#
so all kinds of stupid things right
#
and then he prays to the god and says
#
you know agar you know prays like one day getting
#
drunk and says you know what if like if the world
#
flipped and you know and men
#
were women and women I wouldn't complain this much
#
and cut to the world flips and he wakes
#
up and realize that now men are in the minority
#
and are the oppressed community
#
women are like now people in power
#
and the next three episodes
#
four episodes are about what happens there he
#
gets and every situation
#
that women are in we kind of put a man
#
in it and it's funny and it's also horrific
#
because he is going out in
#
you know in the night wearing
#
and there is a girl who is harassing him
#
and then when he goes to
#
the woman on the police station says what were you wearing
#
you laugh at it because it's
#
the man and it's funny right
#
but then it's also horrifying because this is what happens with him in India
#
you know which is so anyway
#
not to go too deep into it a lot of interesting
#
people are associated with Ayushman Bhoomi, Richa Charda
#
Pratish Nandi so many people
#
when this show came out
#
true story okay so they had asked
#
what do you think you will get
#
as views and this is now we are talking about
#
what views and you know what people
#
used to get views but it
#
wasn't like numbers and targets and what
#
and we said we think we will get
#
like over a period of five episodes
#
six episodes and we have got all of these
#
big people together in the show
#
including the trailer six episodes
#
next morning I remember we came to
#
office after the show had launched 24 hours
#
later and then all of us were staring at each other's
#
faces because we had crossed
#
paid marketing nothing, nothing was done
#
this show had gone viral
#
it was one of the first viral pieces of content
#
at that time and we were how
#
did this happen we had an
#
this funny email that we had gotten
#
saying you know you guys didn't have to
#
you don't have to under tell us the numbers
#
you know like it's you can tell
#
us like what your you know let's be honest in our
#
communication we were like dude we didn't expect
#
this to happen you know
#
and it just and then you knew what happened
#
because you see the comments the comments were
#
people girls saying thank you
#
something that you know
#
gets our voice across and what we are
#
going through and boys saying that man
#
and for whatever it's worth this is
#
helping me understand my sister better this is helping
#
me understand my mother better you know
#
of course there was also misogyny
#
but not at that scale that is there right now
#
you know the internet as I said we have
#
discussed empowered a certain kind of
#
and then what happened and this
#
is where I think somewhere also I realised why
#
what I needed and to do
#
Delhi for a during a festival they
#
invited for their media fest and you know it was
#
a big auditorium I was there Swara Bhaskar was there
#
you know few other people were there I remember
#
and I had to give a keynote
#
you know on media and whatnot I gave
#
a keynote pretty nice cool thing
#
and it was a big auditorium and then there
#
full you know even with all the people there
#
much bigger names than me it was not as
#
full and whatnot I was like okay whatever
#
I always do this whenever I go to colleges where I
#
say that you know after the whatever
#
prepared remarks or prepared stage
#
thing I would love to have an offline meeting
#
with like the people in the college just like chill
#
with a few people you can get your
#
same college committee I can you know
#
just I just want to meet you and spend some time
#
with like the folks behind the festival whatever
#
so I just said that love to meet
#
like some of the people who might want to spend like
#
few minutes extra with me I went
#
into a they took me into a different room after that
#
girls had come to that room
#
because somebody had told them
#
that the person behind man's world was
#
here they obviously didn't know my name
#
it was I didn't have place to we didn't have place
#
to I don't have that picture because like I feel
#
so bad I don't have the picture we didn't have place
#
to sit we just it was not expected
#
it was supposed to be a small thing about four
#
five people five hundred girls had
#
turned up literally it was full full
#
complete room and I'm standing there and I'm just
#
like what is happening and they're just like we everybody
#
was just like we want to tell you what your show
#
meant to us you know what it has helped
#
us you know it we've helped it
#
has helped us explain you know
#
inequality to people that we know
#
like man this is is this the power
#
of like I mean I had this idea
#
and hypothesis that you know this is what
#
I just realized that this is this is the
#
true potential you know we don't we can't just start
#
this conversation on the internet
#
and then like stop it there we need
#
to talk we need to do these things
#
and I tried doing that at Yashraj you know
#
I tried I had a big vision for what
#
WIFL could be all the shows we did were
#
about socially conscious issues
#
ladies room was about you know it was a
#
feminist show was India's first show
#
genuinely India's first
#
show featuring women in the lead
#
and it was English language and we
#
spoke about at that time about you know
#
abortions and about sexual harassment
#
and about all the you know issues that
#
now we are talking a lot more about
#
when it comes to women Shreya Dhanvantri and Zabha
#
Azadwar in that show that became again
#
a huge success to an extent that
#
IndieWire called it one of the best shows in the world at that
#
time organically picked it up
#
we didn't have a say in that so six pack
#
band we made which is an India's first trans
#
transgender pop group won the Khan Grand Prix class
#
of course became very popular
#
hard within the WIREF ecosystem
#
to go beyond what we are doing on
#
the internet I was like the potential for this is
#
to have these conversations offline
#
take them to because again I worked so
#
closely with young people across you know I was like
#
yeah man this they can genuinely have an
#
impact I wanted to at some
#
point turn what we were doing into like
#
an e-magazine an offline
#
e-magazine have people talking about
#
these issues in a larger way
#
how can we create impact was always the
#
thing that you know became
#
especially with young people but
#
of course that's not the business model of Yash Raj
#
why would they spend this kind of I felt like WIREF
#
had that kind of it could have been that
#
but it was not the priority
#
and I understand that I don't begrudge that but I
#
and then when I got anxiety
#
we were at a place where unfortunately Yash Raj
#
was looting a lot of money in the film business
#
a lot of the films had flopped and suddenly
#
the very kind Aditya Chopra
#
given us full creative freedom to
#
make whatever we wanted on the internet
#
and was so supportive and so sweet to us
#
genuinely one of the nicest I can't
#
believe there's someone at his level of like
#
so sweet and graceful too
#
just young people in his
#
organisation he's so sweet ya
#
who had been always so supportive
#
kind of just obviously was much busier
#
Y-Films was not the priority at that time and you know
#
just impatient because I realised that ya
#
kuch hai yahan par we can
#
we had hit 2-2.5 million subscribers again
#
everything we were doing it was
#
like the most successful
#
period of my life and career where
#
anything we were doing was turning into cool
#
felt like you know and then
#
I got anxiety which you know
#
and when I took that sabbatical
#
and then I went again to these colleges
#
in different parts of India
#
before even you I kind of went outside
#
and met a lot of young people in different colleges
#
in India I just knew that that's
#
where the kindness project had happened
#
and that had become a transformative experience for me
#
I knew the power of offline communities
#
and I wanted to say like there needs to be
#
every young platform in our country is a one way communication
#
it's like hum log online cheche dal rahein
#
and this is to people come and
#
comment on it but we don't interact with them
#
we needed to have a platform that actually
#
listens to young people we needed to have
#
two way communication that here's what we are
#
doing now we are going to go offline and talk about it
#
and now we are going to have conversations about it
#
you know and that's the
#
that's what I wanted to do when I started
#
you know and again this
#
was all an idea so just to also
#
tell you the small back story of
#
I had a friend called Amritpal
#
Bindra who was also the producer of
#
along you know I mean his production had made
#
and we had become really thick because of
#
the shows that we did together
#
Anand Tiwari who is the director of
#
you know Bang Baja Bharat again all three of us had
#
become very close and once
#
I was done with you know when I was
#
this is a true story like
#
therapist said that you are not emotional
#
at the end of it she also said that
#
you know what I am giving you an exercise
#
you have to find a male friend of yours
#
and you have to go and tell that person
#
what you are going through you know
#
and I chose Amrit Bindra
#
to be that person and that night I
#
went to his I said can I come over he said yeah please come
#
went to his home and for
#
it was much longer than I think the
#
Seen and Unseen podcast I just started
#
he was like how are you feeling I was like I just want to explain
#
how I am feeling and then for
#
7-8 hours I was just talking
#
what I am going through how anxious I am
#
and how I want to do all of these things
#
for young people and all these ideas that I had
#
but I was like how can I do it at Yashar I don't think
#
they get the potential I was really frustrated I was like
#
I want to do more things etc so
#
Amrit very patiently sweetly listened to me that night
#
and you know just was a good friend
#
to me he had other plans he cancelled them all so just come
#
and you know and the next morning he
#
said okay let me think over what you have said and I want
#
to kind of come to you with a solution
#
so I said I don't know what
#
solution we will have but 2 days later he called me and said
#
you know I have been thinking about it what if whatever
#
and I said that I don't know
#
how to do a company I am middle class
#
I don't know everything I am too scared to
#
you know do something like that he said
#
he is like you don't worry
#
we will raise the money what we needed to
#
initially started and you just
#
run it you know you are
#
all the things that you are saying
#
that should be the thing that you know
#
make it a movement do what you can with it
#
and I was so scared of it
#
and this is before the sabbatical and everything
#
and then I went I quit I went on sabbatical
#
and I think in the 2 months or 3 months I realised
#
I had in front of me the only
#
option that seemed like
#
you know something which
#
I decided to start Yuva
#
when in my head I made peace with the fact
#
that even if it fails it will be worth it
#
it was not because I thought that it would
#
succeed but because I thought that if it fails
#
it will still be worth it
#
and I said and I didn't we didn't have a name at that time
#
so I came back and met him and I said
#
I have a name I said what is the name I said Yuva
#
and they loved the name and said let's do it
#
and I had this vision that I made like this is what this
#
for the next 10 years this is
#
what Yuva will do and it's so
#
it's so I'm so grateful that you know
#
all the like out of all the things that we are doing
#
most of those things you know at this in 4 years
#
in and and the idea for Yuva
#
was as I said a platform that listens
#
as I said we wanted to be the intersection
#
of what is important what is interesting so what Yuva
#
really does now and the
#
multiple things that we do and again I'm
#
very proud of my team to be able to
#
you know do all of these things at one
#
end we are doing research you know so
#
we are talking to young people
#
listening to them we are doing listening sessions
#
you know with young people across the
#
country and working with the likes
#
of again from an Amazon and Netflix
#
where for example they have a show
#
which was a show which a movie about
#
you know the LGBT community
#
asked us to come on board to do a
#
research with young people from
#
you know take them through the script and take them through the idea
#
and ask them is this does this
#
work are we being responsible
#
and representative for the community
#
and we worked with you know
#
and couple of other NGOs we kind of
#
you know with the young bunch of young people over there we did
#
a bunch of research and gave back and said here is what
#
you know people young people think
#
about this and they made those changes so at
#
one end we are working with like
#
film production houses and studios like Dharma
#
Phone booth we have done research on
#
many more shows that crash course many
#
more shows that are coming and movies that are coming that we are
#
working on on the other hand we are working with
#
something I mean like a UNICEF Gujarat
#
put together this year a youth manifesto
#
for the government of Gujarat on what
#
should be the youth policy for Gujarat
#
brought us on board they were
#
obviously were supposed to present a youth
#
policy for the government
#
they brought us on board to do the research among young people
#
it was specifically on mental health
#
of different young people across
#
Gujarat and put it all together
#
and we have the I should have brought
#
it in fact and given it to you it's like
#
a booklet now that we kind of
#
but it's such so insightful so
#
incredible you know how honest these young people
#
are and then we presented it to the government
#
and you know now they have to figure out what
#
all they want to incorporate from it that's up to them
#
but that's the level of
#
research we are doing so lots we are working
#
with for profits non-profits but ultimately
#
again about impact on the other hand
#
we have a campaigns team
#
we are working with some of India's biggest non-profits
#
and also some of India's
#
policy teams so as an example
#
in the branded space we are working with Tinder
#
we have created a website with Tinder India called
#
letstalkconsent.com which is
#
a one stop resource for young people to go and
#
you know learn about consent so we have authored and
#
put together the whole website now what
#
we are doing is we are going we
#
have just finished we did this weekend last weekend
#
campus activation where we spoke about
#
consent and discussed consent in
#
a college VGTI in Mumbai and
#
now over the next few months we are going across
#
the country to have conversations around
#
consent with young people in different colleges
#
boys, girls, anybody from any
#
gender to come in and have
#
open and honest communication about
#
why is it so difficult for
#
so many of us to recognise what
#
consent is you know that's
#
with another as another example
#
of campaigns we are working with Dasra
#
and Belinda Gates foundation
#
over the next two years to put
#
together a community of
#
one million young people online
#
in accessible and talk about
#
in accessible ways how can we make
#
sexual and reproductive health the conversation
#
around that accessible for
#
young people and over the next two years
#
we have put together platforms called
#
Youth Ke Bol across Joshapp, Twitter
#
Instagram that we are going to be populating
#
and going to be making content around for
#
two years we will be doing offline events we will be doing
#
podcasts but for two years the
#
ideas at the end of these two years we should have a
#
community of young people
#
that is constantly talking
#
or talking about it in meaningful ways and then
#
of course being champions where they will talk about it offline
#
in their own families and lives etc
#
so that's campaigns as a separate
#
team that is working again offline
#
then you have our third team which is the events
#
team where we are now as an
#
example you know this year's
#
Spotify has something called IRL
#
that we are programming for them you know
#
and they wanted to reach out to
#
young people Gen Z so they have come to us
#
and said can you please program it for us
#
so we programmed it on the other hand you have
#
an event with YouTube India
#
during pride month where we did
#
called the pride class of 2022
#
where we got 10 queer creators
#
from different parts of India together to have a graduation
#
saying that your voices matter and you know
#
this year we want to kind of bring you
#
together as the class of 2022 for
#
being the most outspoken about queer
#
yeah and we had like Parmesh
#
Shahani and Sushant Divkikar coming and
#
giving them talks, YouTube coming
#
and kind of teaching them how can they
#
and just making a day out of it
#
and having a full graduation ceremony where they had a class
#
photo and they had you know
#
the whole jing bang that comes with it
#
content that we are making, in content
#
we are doing content on Instagram, YouTube
#
etc but we are also doing
#
branded content again on issues
#
but in interesting ways, how do we make all of these
#
things accessible, we are also doing
#
short films, we did two short films this year with
#
Mini TV, one was called Grey with Shreya Dhanvant
#
Yandhiya Mirza, one was called Tasalli Se
#
with Nakul Mehta and Naveen Kasturiya
#
now we are making a series for
#
I can't say the platform but we are making a series
#
for a platform that is going to come out next year
#
there is also a movie in the pipeline
#
we have done a podcast with Spotify called
#
Dear Teenage Me which has become one of the
#
we have been renewed for two more
#
and then yeah I think we have
#
covered it all and then yeah sorry finally there is
#
community and college activations where we go to colleges
#
we have a network in about
#
and we work with different
#
non-profits to do college activations
#
now whether the roadshow is also part of that
#
pandemic we did with UNICEF
#
again a creator intervention
#
it was called the content creator
#
over 6 months around misinformation
#
around vaccines because we needed
#
places like Ladakh, in places like
#
Shillong, in places like
#
all of these cities where we could have
#
conversations but with young people talking
#
so we helped them create this content
#
it got us like a 40 million reach
#
across multiple platforms and that's the
#
so offline also we do a lot of work
#
offline we are doing these open mics and these safe spaces
#
a lot so you know touchwood the team has
#
really now I mean they've worked
#
so hard on all of this such a
#
so grateful to have such an incredible team
#
yeah we are just getting started I think
#
your team is working hard
#
boss lekin tum Wednesday off leke podcast kar rahe ho
#
I mean everything you're doing
#
just sounds like absolutely
#
amazing work so to get back to
#
beyond you are beyond all of
#
this that you're doing what are
#
the things that you when you wake up in the morning
#
that you look forward to doing like do you
#
want to make more films you want to tell more stories
#
what do you want to do so at this point
#
you know I'm focusing a little bit on
#
your originals which is
#
the aim for you was always to have
#
you know way of reaching out
#
to young people we have now done
#
gotten into the offline and we have tried
#
to I think we're doing pretty well in that
#
we are on the internet we have a great
#
reach now which is another important aspect
#
of what you are doing but the highest
#
and the most reach you will always
#
get through the longest form
#
of and you know the most watched pieces
#
films and shows and what not
#
and podcasts and what not and that's really
#
going to be my focus right now that's also my passion
#
that's also my skill set it's
#
it's what I love most in the world
#
to be a producer to be to be a writer
#
to be able to tell stories I'm very
#
fortunate that I'm in the series
#
that's coming next year I'm show running that I'm producing
#
that the film that we'll be making
#
I've written that you know those
#
there's a lot of stories in me
#
that I just want to put out into the world right now and I
#
and I think I told you this during lunch is like
#
I don't know obsession in some
#
years down the line when we look back
#
the work that you were has done
#
you know this is what young people
#
were about at this time
#
if you want to have that understanding well
#
you are the place and maybe Nikhil is the person
#
you know and it's really
#
important for me because
#
I think that's what films did
#
for me growing up that's what stories
#
did for me growing up I think they
#
helped me find my place in the world
#
in whatever in the most humble
#
capture that for this generation
#
you know by working with them
#
by the way like so so as an example
#
Grey was directed by someone
#
I dearly love and fond of
#
you know 27 year old young
#
filmmaker called Sakshi Gurnani
#
who worked with me at Yashar she was my
#
student then she was my
#
assistant producer at Viref the first
#
employee that I hired over there and now
#
she's you know the first
#
my first short film that I made
#
she was the director on that I'm co-writing
#
it's always going to be about
#
even the work that we are doing it's never
#
going to be just me it's always going to be one young person
#
at least more young people associated with that work
#
their help and working with them
#
with my experience and their understanding
#
and insight of you know of
#
being part of the generation how can we capture
#
these stories in a way that
#
as I said again I'm repeating this
#
sounding like a broken record but like
#
make someone somewhere feel less alone
#
I mean you can't give a physical hug
#
to everybody but you know
#
virtually if you just fulfill that same
#
means a lot so I'll end the show by
#
asking you to recommend
#
for me and my listeners books films
#
music that you absolutely love and would
#
want everyone to. This is something
#
that I've also thought about a lot because I was like
#
I don't know what all I can say
#
in the book section there
#
is a book I'm sure you must have read
#
or if you haven't I'm going to gift it to you
#
by Rutger Bregman. Have you read it?
#
I just bought it on Kindle
#
after I saw your video on ChalChitra
#
I mean I want to meet Rutger Bregman
#
and I want to like thank
#
him I want to shake his hand although
#
I've had very weird experience
#
with people I look up to so
#
I hope this is a positive experience
#
but I really want to tell him that
#
fortunately I've been able to do that with a lot of
#
his book is essentially
#
from a lens of kindness saying that you know we've
#
historically kind of told
#
the narrative that we have built
#
is that the world is unkind
#
prove to you and he is an economist by the way
#
so he is a very well known economist
#
viral for like being at
#
shutting down billionaires so he is
#
not very old again I think
#
late 30s if I'm not wrong
#
and he is yeah his book is
#
basically he is just trying to prove
#
through a series of you know
#
real world incidents that we all
#
know of and then shining a different light
#
at them and saying I'll tell you why this was
#
more kindness than unkindness as an
#
example he's spoken about the Stanford prison experiment
#
which all of us know as one of the
#
you know event that has happened
#
an experiment that has happened and he's talked about
#
how like there was some kindness
#
going on there which I mean
#
incredible I can't even explain
#
so so great such a great book
#
but didn't they find out that that was shady and it was
#
partly faked I think something came
#
it talks about that also so there is a
#
real experiment actually you know what it
#
there is I mean I can't without
#
giving it we'll all read the book yeah super
#
absolutely incredible book
#
that has I think had the
#
biggest impact on my life I think of recent
#
times there is also a book that I've just
#
finished reading I mean just finished finishing
#
reading which I've just now incredibly
#
like and I'm going to just
#
recommend recent books because I feel like
#
that's the easiest thing to
#
do and you know then doesn't otherwise I
#
get too divided and I get sad get anxious
#
what y'all can I name but
#
I've mentioned before Chaos Machine
#
I think essential reading
#
and social media has is
#
ruining society and you know
#
division and polarization
#
incredible book incredibly
#
you've already spoken about Shyana's but I just
#
such a beautiful beautiful
#
there's another book in the same not in
#
the same lines but called Invisible Women
#
I'm sure it's been recommended earlier
#
and how you know from a lens
#
of the fact that every space
#
been created of and for
#
just things that I never thought
#
even as someone who looks at gender
#
always sees gender in different
#
of things like how when
#
is given to the male and female
#
I mean the question was why are there more
#
women have longer lines in clubs
#
than men do why do so many women
#
want to pee and men don't want to pee
#
but men because we have urinals there can be
#
five urinals at a club but for the
#
same type for the in the same
#
area which is also given
#
men women will have only
#
sit down toilets and because of
#
that the lines are longer
#
even think of architecture
#
in a capacity of gender
#
and there's just so much I mean
#
it's an incredible book I read it really
#
it is so sensitively written
#
gender the entire book is about like
#
you know what you've seen
#
literally his book starts with assault
#
first line of the book is how his father
#
and how that has impacted
#
him all his life the book is about violence
#
and trying to deal with that violence
#
it's so introspective so
#
personal so well written
#
I'm shocked that a celebrity at his level
#
and been so transparent
#
again his identity from
#
and it'll help you understand the
#
what has happened in the Oscar stage
#
the clickbaity reason why you should read it but otherwise
#
it's just an absolutely great book
#
the last book I would recommend again
#
Ayaa Dakhtar called Homeland
#
Elegies or Elegies I don't
#
know how to pronounce it and
#
about the Muslim identity
#
version of his own life you know
#
and what the Trump you know
#
being a Muslim in America pre and
#
post Trump and it is just
#
even know what is the way to describe how
#
well this man writes just
#
so thoughtful so nuanced
#
I've been like I've become
#
such a huge fan I'm waiting for
#
you know because I you know
#
I read a lot of film books and just
#
you know again recent book
#
year book and it's both available
#
I mean if you have to listen to an audio book
#
he's just got bunch of insane
#
stories from Seth Rogen's life and it's
#
so funny it's so funny you laugh out loud
#
these bizarre stories about you know
#
other celebrities like Nicholas Cage
#
his Jew identity and you
#
know what that meant growing
#
really funny book I'm still
#
trying you know I feel like I don't
#
Indian authors and I kind of actually
#
recommendations I try to go try
#
still need to do a lot more but yeah
#
these are my larger recommendations
#
music I am you know I'm not
#
or music buff so I mean not in the sense
#
have a diverse enough playlist
#
explored as much music as
#
one of my obsessions again
#
if I use that word again over the last
#
few two three years has been this
#
singer called Shamoon Ismail
#
singer and sings in Punjabi
#
and if you haven't heard him
#
I have just changed your life right now
#
because he is incredible
#
what a voice and what a
#
in the pandemic somehow just I don't know
#
listening to his songs I've listened I mean my Spotify
#
wrapped over the last three years has
#
been top is just Shamoon Ismail
#
I don't know there's just
#
the millennial experience
#
and trying to find your place is just
#
Vampire Weekend does such an incredible
#
I listen to Bollywood music a lot
#
and you know I mean Amit Trivedi
#
has been someone I've just always really
#
looked up to you know Devdi
#
is one of my all time favorite albums
#
but I also really love because of my
#
father and that's one of the
#
things that I really am grateful to him for
#
I listen to a lot of Dev Anand songs
#
so I constantly keep going on
#
my favorite songs of all time is
#
Hum Hai Rai Pyar Ke, Hum Se Khusna Boliye
#
Hum Usi Ke Holiye and I think that's
#
just a beautiful what a philosophy
#
Jo Bhi Pyar Se Mila Hum Usi Ke Holiye
#
Dhoop Thi Mili, Hum Hai Dhoop Me Liya Hai Dum
#
Chandni Mili, To Hum Chandni Me Soliye
#
What lyrics and music were there at that time?
#
Incredible, so it's my go to
#
it's my when I feel a little sad
#
or lost I go back to this song I just feel like
#
one of the most beautiful beautiful songs
#
ever made so I really love
#
because of my dad Dev Anand songs because he
#
was obsessed with Dev Anand and
#
because of him I kind of became one of my big
#
regrets is like when I was in HD
#
I once got a chance to interview
#
Dev Anand but it was with somebody else
#
I want to do it alone because I know
#
how much it would mean to my dad
#
for me to spend time with Dev Anand
#
and I just didn't go and I was
#
just like me tu ja, main alak se karu
#
my interview and then he passed away
#
and you know in my head he was like always this
#
evergreen he was like how he
#
can't die he will always live
#
regrets that you know I couldn't do that for my dad
#
I would have you know would have really
#
you know but yeah Dev Anand
#
and his songs were just classics
#
movies I don't even just
#
I don't even know what to
#
it's just the toughest thing you have a really nice video
#
on Chalchitra talks about a bunch of films
#
you really like so I will link that but
#
apart from that if there's yeah
#
you know I mean I'm a eternal
#
and romance that's been
#
I don't know happy place just
#
watching a film about people in love
#
the before series is something
#
that has just meant so much to me and I got
#
to speak to Richard Link later and I got to
#
I got an autographed poster from him
#
so it's been like I think
#
I got to have a 45 minute
#
interview on love with Richard
#
Link later it's out it's on open
#
kindest person to talk to so sweet
#
I just what the before series
#
has done was always something for me as
#
like he's managed to capture
#
which we kind of three act
#
structure in that sense all the
#
structures of what romances should be
#
what an incredible and I think
#
there's something about like
#
for me just something so
#
in a day or in a moment
#
grows you know there's obviously
#
love that happens over years and
#
decades and then I just feel like there's also something
#
special about connection that
#
happens with each other so I just love
#
that I love the series I keep going
#
you know I should have really like
#
brought my movie recommendation
#
I was actually more stuck up on
#
books and then I forgot about the movies
#
I mean ohi lucky lucky way as I've
#
said already is one of my favorite films of all time
#
again it's on I feel like such
#
a great conversation about
#
identity and loneliness you know in
#
the world we live in I feel like
#
that Abidul's character was
#
I just kind of so related to that I felt
#
like one of the greatest films ever made
#
scenes from that movie still haunt
#
me super chore from that film
#
from that film is one of my
#
favorite songs of all time I keep going back to it
#
so I watch a lot of tv shows
#
I'll recommend like you know
#
succession is one of my favorite
#
series shit's creak is an
#
absolutely incredible series that everyone should watch
#
kindness all the things that
#
mental health all the things I care about it's like
#
you know Jason Sudeikis
#
and all his partners in
#
the writing team just decided like
#
you know I will make a show
#
perfect for Nikhil Taneja and that was that show
#
you mentioned Bhojaya Khosman also
#
Bhojaya Khosman is one of my
#
so there's a book actually by
#
last name but the guy who's created
#
Bhojaya Khosman and it's a
#
and it's really just it's
#
everything it's just the weirdest book
#
but somehow it is going to make you
#
so happy to read so unique
#
so fresh and just can it can't
#
you know Bhojaya Khosman that can come up with
#
Bhojaya Khosman is one of my favourites
#
I just recently this year saw Lord of the Rings
#
Lord of the Rings has been my
#
Rings of Power Lord of the Rings has been
#
and I've seen it I think about
#
I own the special edition
#
I own the VCDs, the DVDs
#
I own it almost every different format
#
that you know there is somebody made
#
a three part series about
#
you know goodness and triumphant over
#
evil and you know the wine I mean like the books
#
of course were great but
#
the scale at which the series was
#
like there are two kinds of
#
you know shows about or shows
#
or movies about like good
#
shows or movies that where
#
you know that the director believes that
#
you know they are making what good but you kind of know
#
that you know they lean towards the evil
#
and kind of know that yeah you can't help it evil is
#
around and then just you know
#
stuff that makes you believe that you know there is goodness
#
always going to that is going to outlast and
#
this is just a film that
#
fills me with hope series that fills me with
#
hope and there is a great inspiring line in it
#
which young people everywhere should take out from
#
all those who wander are not lost
#
all those who wander are not lost absolutely
#
I mean of course just Sam as a
#
character is I think the greatest
#
or the greatest characters ever
#
the best friend the supporting
#
you know his character has lifted
#
this entire series you know because
#
you think that heroism is about
#
you know Aragon and Frodo you know going from
#
one place to another but true heroism
#
is also like just the courage to
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to the people who are you know
#
doing something tough isn't that like
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a bigger heroism where you are not even
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you are not getting the credit for it but you are just
#
there for the journey and you are such a lovely thought
#
yeah man it's just it's so beautiful you know
#
what is it's Frodo is the guy who
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took it to the ring but Sam without Sam he could
#
not have happened and Sam I think is
#
wow so Rings of Power a lot of people
#
have not have preferred House of the Dragon
#
over Rings of Power I would say that please if you have not
#
watched it watch it again there is so much
#
goodness in it there is a you know
#
really lovely line that I
#
saw in one of the last few episodes
#
living good if not living
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good and I was just like
#
and the optimism it fills me with there is
#
always evil lurking but as
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long as people have hope as long as people
#
you know care for love and as
#
long as they care for each other as long
#
as you are being kind that's
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the those are the films that speak to me
#
and the films and the shows that I
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I just I just I am so fond
#
of and there is a hundred other you know
#
I am just I will actually
#
you know what I will do and for the sake
#
of this episode because this so
#
I am going to just curate a
#
you know like a link of some of
#
recent ones again all time is too difficult
#
and then I am going to send it to you because
#
it's a responsibility to give
#
you know recommendations when it comes to films
#
give you like a link and I am going
#
to recommend some very recent
#
I was talking to someone the other day and I was talking about
#
how you know the earlier like
#
I was talking about identity of young people and I was
#
so funny I was talking about how you know earlier
#
you know for millennials it was very difficult
#
to find out our identities you know and then we
#
find something to kind of relate
#
to that will make our own identity so for some
#
people for example films became like their
#
identity and like you know they'd stick to like
#
I was talking about Star Wars fandom you know that being
#
Star Wars fan is something else etc etc
#
and then just struck me and I was just like
#
identity on the internet is Taneja
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I am the person who decided
#
that pop culture that's where I find comfort
#
you see I only wear like pop culture
#
of my home has like all of these action
#
and I just find a lot of joy and comfort
#
movies or stories that have moved
#
me and that have made me happy
#
and that's apna apna is just the thing
#
that has made me the happiest I might have watched it about a hundred
#
narrate I can narrate the whole
#
film line by line I think at
#
spoke a lot about many things
#
today including kindness so thank you
#
so much for your kindness and giving me
#
so much of your time today thanks Amit
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you know I speak too much
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you know when given the opportunity
#
but I think this is the first time where I am
#
not feeling guilty about it because of you
#
thank you thank you so much
#
of the show you can go over to
#
scene unseen dot IN slash support
#
and contribute any amount you
#
like to keep this podcast
