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One of the problems with the world, and really it's a problem with language, is that once
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you apply a label or category to something, it hardens into a particular image in the
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In this episode, for example, my guest asked me to describe her.
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And every term I use, as I use it, I realize it's inadequate.
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Yes, she's a filmmaker, but not in any conventional sense.
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Yes, she's a feminist, but again, that is not a fixed point in space or meaning.
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Yes, she's an artist and a thinker and a columnist, but in a fluid way, different from
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anyone else you could ascribe those terms to.
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She is not of any tribe with a set of dogmas, but someone who's always thinking for herself,
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questioning everything, recognizing no-ans.
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And in that sense, she's a great role model.
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We should all aim to be many things, to not be fixed into one image of ourselves, to always
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be curious, to always search, and most importantly, to be fearless enough to express ourselves
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in whatever form we want to, no matter how unconventional it seems.
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We can only be ourselves when we are more than ourselves.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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My guest today is the wonderful Parumita Vohra, a filmmaker, an artist, a feminist, a creator
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who needs no introduction, especially if you've heard my last episode with her.
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Episode 155 of The Scene and the Unseen, called Films Feminism Parumita, has taken on a sort
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of legendary status among my listeners.
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So you can imagine my joy when she agreed to appear in another episode.
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This time, our conversation lasted almost five hours.
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I made it a point to not repeat anything from the last episode, and we flowed freely over
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many subjects like her experiences during COVID, what it means to have relationships,
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the nature of friendships, the garden of consent and the valley of consent, how being a misfit
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can be a great way to find your true self, and this lovely term she has coined, poetic
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We actually forgot to speak about poetic feminism during the recording.
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So after it was over, we thought, okay, let's record a 10-minute section about it, and we'll
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put it somewhere in the conversation, but then we thought it's not fitting organically.
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So it's right at the end, after the conversation is over.
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So when it seems to end and we say thank you to each other, please don't leave the episode.
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There's a superbly stimulating section after that.
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And now let's get to the conversation.
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But first, let's take a quick commercial break, and it's not really a commercial because I
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This is about my new YouTube show.
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Hey, the music started and this sounds like a commercial, but it isn't.
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It's a plea from me to check out my latest Labour of Love, a YouTube show I am co-hosting
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with my good friend, the brilliant Ajay Shah.
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We've called it Everything is Everything.
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Every week, we'll speak for about an hour on things we care about, from the profound
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to the profane, from the exalted to the everyday.
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We range widely across subjects and we bring multiple frames with which we try to understand
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Please join us on our journey and please support us by subscribing to our YouTube channel
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at youtube.com slash Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A.
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The show is called Everything is Everything.
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Please do check it out.
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Parvatha, welcome back to The Scene in the Unseen.
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We last recorded this at the start of 2020, just before COVID.
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And I want to ask you about how things have been since then.
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But you just pointed out that when we last recorded, we took a selfie and sent it to
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a mutual friend of ours when I've actually met her, but close friends online.
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Surekha Pillay, who sadly, you know, died during COVID.
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Almost everyone I know has, in a sense, known loss during this time and known different
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kinds of difficulty and all of that.
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How have these three years been?
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Well, I think the three years, they already seem to be very far behind in a weird way,
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wrapped up in some kind of a bubble of another time.
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But I think maybe COVID was a little bit easier for me than for other people.
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I know that the work that I do could be done online.
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It was not deeply impacted.
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I live alone, so I think the first few months were a combination of
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deep bliss at just being disconnected from the craziness of life.
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I mean, before COVID happened, I had written an essay about it during that time,
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about how I had two strollies because I never had time to unpack one before having to pack
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to go again someplace, right?
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And there was that kind of continuous travel, continuously working, doing things.
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And in a way, there was a sudden stop.
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And it wasn't just that it was a stop for me, it was a stop for everybody.
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So even at that moment, you understand all your latent anxieties that you should be
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doing more, producing more, be seen more, all of that kind of calmed down.
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And there was something quite beautiful about that.
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There was something very intense about the intensity of the silence and the heat,
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which had, of course, ominous meanings, like the idea of living in Andheri East and
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going down to the gate and the sunnata and the heat, right?
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Because the heat is also like a blanket.
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And we are scared, we don't know anything.
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There is something unreal, yet there is something a bit urgent.
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And you're feeling everything very sharply at that moment.
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So I think it was unprecedented in that way, that time.
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I definitely got a lot out of being on my own for many months.
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But at the same time, you became so deeply aware, like the silence, for example,
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in a city like Bombay, and there's a busty behind my house.
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So the thought that there are kids who normally would have been making a racket
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playing cricket, but now are having to stay indoors in a tiny house was also very
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sharply felt, or that you go down to get your groceries from the gate,
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and the watchmen are still coming to work and having to be there in this
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vulnerable kind of a state.
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So I think you felt all of those things.
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At the beginning, you felt like, at least I felt like, well, we don't know where the
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end of this is and what this is going to mean.
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So there was definitely a moment when I used to get that fear of,
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I'll never see my family again, like, will we live like this forever?
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So I think it was mixed in that way.
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Many connections happened, many connections were lost, actually.
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So yes, overall, an intense time that I don't think any of us really sat and processed.
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There was clearly deaths.
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We all lost people we knew, or we knew people who had terrible losses.
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So there was so much of that, that you were, in some senses, feeling it a lot
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and not feeling it at all at the same time.
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So I think its meaning will only come to be known in coming times, actually.
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You know, you mentioned the silence and you mentioned those kids not playing
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cricket in the bus seat outside.
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And I'm reminded of this powerful scene.
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I was a kid when I first saw it, but I still remember the impact it had on me.
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It's from Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.
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And it's, you know, this family is moving out and the kid is sitting at the table,
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I think, and everything is being unpacked and there's total silence.
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And then suddenly you realized that the silence became more silent
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and the camera turns to a guy taking the clock from the wall
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and that tick-tock which was normalized, which was part of that earlier silence
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is no longer there and there's a new silence in its place.
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And that just came back to me when you said what you said.
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You spoke of the impact of being with yourself for so long, had over this period in time.
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And, you know, and I'm sure you've thought about this even
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otherwise outside of the context of COVID.
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You know, the differences between aloneness and loneliness, for example.
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And what were sort of your thoughts during this time?
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I think, you know, I mean, I have lived alone since I was 22 years old.
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I'm one of those people who doesn't like to talk to people on planes and trains.
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So I actually really love that time of being between things,
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like I'm nowhere on a long plane ride or train ride.
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And then it would be just read one book after the other.
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Now the bad habit of watching one movie after the other.
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So that thing of being alone and with myself
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is something I've always actually liked and wanted.
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And I think this was different, obviously.
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I think it gave me a lot of time to process a lot of things
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that I was not sufficiently getting to think about.
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It gave me time to feel hurts, angers, even think about the past in good ways.
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You know, so not only the hurtful ways.
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Like, for example, if there was something that had hurt me in the previous months,
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there is a way in which hurt stays with you,
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but then you're continuing with life and, you know,
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you become callous towards yourself in that time.
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It was good to be able to just be quiet and cry if you needed to cry,
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feel all the feelings that you felt and to find that you can come out of it.
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So I think in that sense, solitude as something very healing.
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Definitely made itself felt to me.
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I think I felt that I have a life that I kind of chose, right?
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I mean, I wanted to live on my own.
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I wanted to have a lot of books.
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I wanted to buy cheap, pretty things wherever I went.
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And I wanted to cook for myself and drink colorful drinks.
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I mean, that's the life I wanted.
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That is the life I have.
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But I wasn't fully living it because I was always so busy doing things and working
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and doing the things I ought to do.
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So actually I got to inhabit my life, the life I had dreamt about properly in those months.
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There were a lot of beautiful kinds of ways in which people connected online as well, I think.
#
So one thing which you would know about, of course,
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was Peter Griffin started this Simple Recipes for Complicated Times.
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And I loved how it began because Peter just posted saying,
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I'm not a very good cook.
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Are there any simple recipes?
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You know, not only do I love to cook,
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but I'm also like one of those officious people who wants to order when we go out.
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And people give in to that.
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Like, should I just order for everybody thing that I do?
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I also just love to tell people what menus to make for parties.
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So I have a lot of things collected that I like to give to people who don't cook.
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Like 101 easy soups, 100 easy salads.
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I have all these documents and folders.
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Definitely one of those people who always participates in those,
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you know, chain mails, like send a recipe to 15 people.
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So I remember sending Peter one of those simple soup documents.
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And I guess a few other people did the same.
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And then he said, I'm going to make this group.
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And can I put that list you send me on the group?
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And I'm like, okay, go ahead.
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And I didn't join the group because I don't like joining groups.
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But then he said, join, join, join.
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So I joined and what I saw there was kind of awesome,
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which was that, yes, there was a whole generation of people
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who, unlike my generation, not too many people lived on their own, right?
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When I started living on my own.
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So when we muddled through, we had to muddle through on our own.
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Now there's this whole generation of people that lives alone,
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but they also have more money than we used to have.
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So they have a cook or something.
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And now suddenly there were people writing,
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I don't even know how to stock the kitchen.
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Like, what am I supposed to do?
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So I thought it was nice the way people helped people
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to figure that out in the beginning.
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Okay, I have managed to score one lucky.
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What should I make with it?
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There was a sweetness to that.
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Like I feel for me, that's an ideal
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where older people can help younger people figure out life.
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I really am very sentimental about that.
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So I liked it that that was happening.
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And so then I kind of got into it
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and also was participating for a while until I dropped off.
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Then a friend of mine, Matangi, she started this writing challenge
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and she wrote to me and two other people.
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None of whom, I had met Matangi,
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but I had not met those other two people until today.
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She would, so Matangi would post a prompt at 9 a.m.
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And we had to write 500 words by 5 p.m.
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And we did it for 30 days with the promise
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that if you did all 30 days, you would get a prize at the end.
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Not a prize, like a present at the end and stuff, right?
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And it was something really special
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that you did this for no purpose but to do it.
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And every evening you came and you read
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everybody else's writing and responded to it
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and you just posted it on Facebook.
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And it didn't matter if people were reading it or not.
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I mean, people might have been reading it,
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but you were just playing this game together with each other.
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So I think I valued those simple things a lot.
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I think I did spend a bit of time
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thinking about things I had done in the past.
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I was cleaning up my house
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and I found so many newspapers and magazines
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in which I had written pieces.
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and with all the magazines and newspapers
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spread out on the ground,
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some of those newspapers don't exist.
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And basically like writing from early 90s to now,
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I felt kind of good about it.
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I felt like, well, I mean, that's not a bad life to have led.
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So I think there were some of these beautiful things.
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Then there was the helplessness of, you know,
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like my mum was in Delhi at that time.
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So that feeling anxious
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that you can't control anything.
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What if something happens?
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I think once thinking about family,
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all of that also underwent a change.
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when things started going back to normal,
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they went back to normal a bit, so-called normal,
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rather too soon, maybe.
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We thought that we would be different
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and we are and we aren't.
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I think that we do understand
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that we are leading very lonely lives.
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We do understand that people aren't so connected.
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I understood that I have been so lucky
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to have had a full life before online life happened
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because those are really the things
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that have been my kind of fixed deposit emotionally
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that they really that can connect with that part of my life.
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And the people that I spend a lot of time
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with doing nothing much at all,
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that I felt emotionally connected
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and there was a lot more tenuousness
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in the relationships that have emerged subsequently.
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I think that is something to think about.
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But I don't know that we are really thinking
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about it all that much right now.
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Of course, inequality, horrible structural issues,
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they were so stark during the pandemic
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and it's so quick how, I mean, it was beautiful
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the way that people got together to help each other.
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That was the most like gorgeous thing.
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The way, I mean, I remember there was one group in Hanzabad
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that decided to make paratha and anda for migrant workers
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and that was their goal.
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So, you know, this is how many dozens of eggs
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do you want to contribute for?
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How many parathas will you contribute for?
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And that way in which everybody began helping
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and these communities formed,
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I think some of it has continued,
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that sense of crowdfunding and supporting each other.
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But I think like a lot of it went away also
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after having happened then.
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So, yeah, I wonder about all of those things
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But for me, solitude was rich, definitely rich.
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I don't think I felt lonely,
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but there were times when I felt very unprotected.
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I felt like if I get COVID, like especially in the beginning,
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what is going to happen to me?
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And I think that did make me feel
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like it was painful to think, yeah.
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One of my friends was all alone during that time in COVID
#
and she actually got COVID and it was pretty bad
#
and she thought she was going to die.
#
So she wrote out a letter that would be found
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after she died if she died.
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Thankfully, she didn't.
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And just put it on the desktop.
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So whenever she was discovered, they'd find that letter.
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That writing exercise strikes a chord
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because I teach this online writing course now,
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which I in fact started during COVID itself.
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And last year, we had this exercise that,
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you know, NaNoWriMo in November,
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people try to write a novel.
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So I just announced that since many of us,
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including me, are having such trouble with discipline,
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what I'll do is at 6 a.m. on November,
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for one, I'll start a Zoom session
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and the Zoom session will go on for the entire month.
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It ends on November 30th.
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And the idea being anyone who's writing,
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You don't have to show yourself.
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Audio video can be off, but you're there
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and you're writing and you can see
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if others are writing together.
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And that really worked for a while, you know?
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Nareen Shanoi, who's been on the show,
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listeners would know him,
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wrote a few chapters of his book,
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but nothing else since.
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So maybe we need to revive something.
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There's something else that a larger issue
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I sort of want to explore
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and Peter Griffin, a dear friend of mine.
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And I remember back in the day,
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he was always like in times of trouble,
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the first person to show up is gonna be Peter, right?
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And he's always been using the internet
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in creative ways to help people.
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So during the tsunami when it happened in 2003
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and later during the cloud burst in Mumbai
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when it rained and everything got stuck,
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what Peter did was he started a site online,
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I think on Blockspot the first time,
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Cloudburst Mumbai, Cloudburst India,
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something for the tsunami.
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And the idea was that since connectivity is so bad,
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anybody from any part of the affected area
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sends an SMS to Peter or to any of the volunteers
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and they put it up on the website
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and you can go on the website
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and somebody's dropping an SMS,
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I'm safe, somebody's saying I'm stuck here
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And then eventually it just grew into this thing
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where you're coordinating relief efforts,
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feeding people, all of that stuff, right?
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And similarly during COVID,
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Ruben Mascarenas and a bunch of other people
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and Ruben's been on my show of course talking about it,
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went out and fed a lot of people
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that go to the railway stations,
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catch trains where migrant workers
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who haven't eaten for two days
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would be passing by in these crowded trains
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and feeding them and doing all of that.
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And it struck me that a lot of this stuff
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is stuff that technology has almost automated
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in the sense that today what Peter did back in the day
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during the cloudburst or tsunami would be relevant
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because everybody's got Twitter now,
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broadband is ubiquitous,
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people can send their own messages,
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there are different ways of coordinating that.
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And equally, if you're really looking for recipes,
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you can actually go on YouTube
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and find simple recipes with three ingredients
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and I love the line, I've scored a lucky,
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But yeah, but I'm sure you can find
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scored a lucky recipes as well on YouTube.
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And the thing there is that in the first instance
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when someone like Peter is using the internet
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to fulfill this function of getting people together,
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like another thing he did was he would find a good cause
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and then he would ask people to donate for it
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and say, okay, whoever donates,
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you know, Amit will write a limerick for you
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or so and so will make a drawing for you
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and we did a bunch of those things also.
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And initially, therefore you have technology
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bringing people together and it's beautiful.
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All my friends I have are from communities of choice
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that I've managed to join.
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But then it kind of sets him apart.
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But you don't actually need them anymore.
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I can find my recipes on YouTube, you know,
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I can send out tweets and get tweets back
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and everything is disembodied.
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And I find that what is precious
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and perhaps what we are reminded of
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in times of natural disaster
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when times where one normal breaks enough
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for other normals also to, you know,
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show the reveal the cracks
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and the light to shine through them.
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Is that person to person connected?
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and that can be so valuable and so enriching
#
I mean, I think that, you know,
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of course there is Twitter
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and there are many other things.
#
But eventually it's Peter who's suggesting
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that people should do this thing, right?
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Twitter may facilitate that
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but your desire to do it
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and your thinking of using something
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in that way is always dependent
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on people's capacity to be loving
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and compassionate and inventive.
#
I think that what was special about,
#
or even the writing challenge was that
#
it was a way of making people feel held, right?
#
but we are there with you
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if not the sense that you are held
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and that you will hold others.
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I think we definitely live in a time
#
where people don't have that trust
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in themselves or in each other
#
that you can weather the bad times together.
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when there's an external bad time
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and you come together to survive is one thing.
#
But when that so-called bad time is gone
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But why is it that we feel in that time
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that we can be so transactional
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and that we don't have to
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weather the bad times in between us?
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But I think we've definitely come
#
there's a very swift feeling
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that something doesn't work for me
#
Or if there's a little bit
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of disaffection between people
#
it can become a very big schism
#
or it can become a hard divide very quickly.
#
When I say that the friends
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that I had spent a lot of time
#
doing nothing much with
#
there's a kind of sentimentalization
#
of the idea of friendship
#
which kind of irritates me.
#
Anyway, I was born irritated.
#
Everybody's born irritated
#
But I stayed that way let's say.
#
But I'm just saying that
#
friendship is no easy relationship either.
#
It's not always so glorious
#
and so equal and so sustaining
#
as conversations about friendship
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nowadays make it sound.
#
there's a lot of bloodbath
#
and a lot of anger, envy,
#
distance, coldness, hurt,
#
acceptance that things have changed.
#
I think there's a lot of ebb and flow in short
#
and your ability to go with it
#
for the moment of place of connection
#
it is really so important
#
and it is so difficult.
#
you can't do it with everybody.
#
That's why friendship is not
#
It's not an emotional accessory
#
and then that means your life
#
is going to be full of such positivity.
#
I think a lot of these ideas
#
and a lot of the people who are online are young.
#
So they have yet to have
#
of up and down connection
#
So I think what does it mean
#
to have relationships with others?
#
This is really a question of our times
#
we are really addressing it so much
#
and COVID gave a brief moment
#
when we said that we're addressing it
#
but there seems to be something
#
a little instrumental about that
#
we needed those relationships.
#
So now that that context doesn't exist
#
will we not think about those things?
#
I think people are thinking
#
but it's like we're not doing very much about it.
#
That's actually a great deep question.
#
What does it mean to have a relationship
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with someone in the sense that
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the default condition is
#
you're the main character in a play.
#
You're the only character in a play.
#
Everyone else is a prop.
#
All relationships are instrumental
#
and sometimes if you're self-reflective
#
you can snap out of that
#
and treat people as people.
#
But otherwise they are in some role to you.
#
Even friends are fulfilling
#
whether it is to be entertained
#
or comforted or whatever
#
and things can appear transactional.
#
this is possibly a default mode for us
#
where we are the central character
#
The main character syndrome.
#
But there is so much value
#
in actually kind of stepping out of that
#
treating people as people
#
and then trying to be intentional
#
about building those relationships.
#
accepting of what other people are
#
and not foisting your expectations on them
#
that this is what I expect a friend to be
#
just seeing them for what they are
#
And I find that I try to
#
sort of bring that intentionality
#
It's easier said than done.
#
And I want to ask you a little bit about that
#
when I think of friendships
#
I think I've possibly been guilty
#
and relationships just drift
#
and not making an effort
#
to kind of keep going, you know.
#
There's a friend of mine
#
we've been friends for maybe 12 years
#
we'll hang out for three hours together
#
and then he'll go off generally
#
he kind of comes to my place
#
and we don't even say much
#
and he defined it beautifully
#
a friend is someone with whom you can
#
sort of spend a lot of time
#
without needing to say anything
#
and that's one way of looking at it
#
but my sense is that one
#
I won't have had any friends
#
because my communities of circumstance
#
meant that I always felt different
#
and I always felt alone
#
and the internet allows you to
#
form those communities of choice
#
and you can make your friends
#
so there are some like me
#
who've got friends later in life
#
and even today I can make new friends
#
although I have very few close ones
#
who came on the show and said
#
man all my friends are before 25
#
no new friends right now
#
is it that like initially
#
you're just hanging out with people
#
at college or workplace or whatever
#
you're used to hanging out with them
#
you're friends with them
#
is that kind of how it forms
#
and then those bonds remain or
#
do you feel you have to make
#
I didn't have too many friends
#
partly because of my dad's
#
but mostly because I was like
#
really very socially awkward
#
I didn't feel people like me
#
and like I just did not know
#
how to be normal so to speak
#
and I think even back then
#
a little bit of violence
#
like I'm scared of violence
#
that's why I've never really loved twitter
#
because I feel it's like
#
where the cool kids congregate
#
and I'm not one of the cool kids
#
so I'm not full of like
#
smart short pithy sentences
#
it's very much about the relationality
#
like I might be very funny
#
in relationship to something
#
I was not one of those people
#
who went to college fests
#
and participated in jam
#
will know the reference I think
#
I didn't make some friends over time
#
and it's very hard to say
#
I believe in a little bit
#
of friend chemistry also
#
love at first sight friendships
#
that I've met somebody once
#
and we've just liked each other
#
and what does that mean
#
when you're in your teens
#
it's like you want to exchange books
#
like one of my best friends
#
it's a very funny story
#
both went to the same college
#
and when we were moving to Delhi
#
I went to cottage emporium
#
and I ran into my college friend Rihanna
#
who's also starting college
#
maths on a St Stephen's college
#
so I didn't go in the U special
#
out of deep self-consciousness
#
the U special is a university special DTC bus
#
so only college students can
#
it's like a school bus for college
#
and it ends in the university
#
so I never took the morning special
#
because I was so self-conscious
#
and only a Delhiite knows
#
that I subjected myself
#
how painful was my self-consciousness then
#
but I still take the U special back home
#
I don't know what my logic was
#
I think the idea of waiting
#
and being looked at by other people
#
was too difficult for me
#
but getting into the bus
#
and sitting in the back was okay
#
who's doing maths on a St Stephen's college
#
but never finding this person
#
after being like this mousy person
#
I came first in the college
#
because I wasn't like really
#
I used to do well in class
#
I used to stand out academically
#
but I was like a pretty
#
nobody's like social partner in anything
#
so I came back late from
#
came back late from my summer holidays
#
and there used to be a senior
#
I still remember her name
#
I don't know if she listens to this podcast
#
but then my name was Debusmita Haldar
#
you are the apple of the department side
#
because we got a first div
#
and this very beautiful girl
#
who was standing at the bus stop said
#
are you in the Miranda house
#
and do you know so and so
#
and you know tell her hi
#
and I told my classmate
#
that I met this girl at the bus stop
#
but actually I don't know what her name is
#
I said but she's very pretty
#
and she has like green eyes
#
oh it must be so and so
#
and when I heard the name
#
this is maths honors boy
#
actually a history honors girl
#
so next time I went to the bus stop
#
are you auntie Shikha's daughter
#
and we became best friends
#
why did your mother think
#
must have heard the pet name
#
but it was like that vague kind of
#
but I just think it's so odd
#
that you know for a year
#
I didn't find this person
#
then I found this person
#
and we became best friends instantly
#
and we are still friends
#
so and we're close friends
#
and we're important friends
#
for me friendship has been
#
about certain transparency
#
where if you like each other
#
there's not too many complications
#
and dynamics that emerge
#
that you don't have complexities
#
but I think that the starting point
#
I think the other thing
#
that has made my friendship survive
#
is definitely a lot of shared pleasure
#
is very important to me
#
it's a particular type of person
#
that the things that you have
#
signify something very important
#
that the times of pleasure
#
actually add up to something
#
and there are many people
#
who don't think that we are alas
#
like they make a division in their minds
#
but what can matter more
#
than you can spend hours
#
I think this is an extraordinary
#
also to speak about your pain
#
to speak about your difficulties
#
I think the third thing
#
that really matters to me
#
to be able to say things
#
whatever even bad things
#
without fear of judgment
#
I think that if we hold back
#
for fear of what they will think of us
#
then that friendship needs work
#
or may not be the deep friendship
#
because I think friends exist
#
you know this is who I am
#
and to be to be understood
#
that you shouldn't have done this
#
I mean I was just scolding
#
my friend on the way here
#
that you shouldn't have done this way
#
you should have done that
#
and she was like okay now
#
enough it's already done now
#
but you're not judging the person
#
interact with the person
#
they may be vulnerable with you
#
they may expose themselves to you
#
without feeling it's a danger
#
so if you feel endangered
#
or maybe it's not meant to be
#
that extremely close friendship
#
I think another thing is that
#
I have found the friendships
#
are able to absorb times
#
when you're not as connected
#
when you get big headed
#
there are all sorts of things
#
so even if you're irritated
#
that you're able to absorb
#
even if you don't talk a lot
#
you're going through this phase
#
and you'll work through it
#
in some way or the other
#
I don't think that matters
#
and I think I've grown from that
#
I would say my friendships
#
have made me the person I am
#
they gave me the possibility
#
maybe I am worth loving
#
these people do love me
#
somebody does want to seek me out
#
somebody is having fun with me
#
friendships are all of those things
#
and they make you a grown up
#
Deva Smita Haldar played
#
you know listeners will feel
#
this is like Shikof's gun
#
she has to pop back in later on
#
and something must happen
#
in the course of this conversation
#
since I'm from your generation
#
more or less a little younger
#
I should inform my listeners
#
and basically it was a competition
#
where they would give you a topic
#
and you would have to speak
#
and you know without stopping
#
and actually coming to think of it
#
it's a little bit like twitter
#
in the sense it's made for shallowness
#
immediacy and shallowness
#
we didn't talk about so much
#
because I'm keen for both
#
I mean that's a lovely episode
#
and you spoke a little bit
#
about your dad over there
#
you were all over the place
#
your dad was in the army
#
and you were all over the place
#
about what your childhood was like
#
what your parents were like
#
so that's a complex question
#
and we might have to call
#
is eight and a half hours
#
I have been to therapists so
#
there's no fear now of that
#
I don't know if I spoke
#
and her parents were in the movies
#
so my grandfather was a film composer
#
my grandmother was an actress
#
so my grandmother was not as famous
#
kind of an important thing
#
my grandparents were separated
#
my mother was nine years old
#
my grandmother for somebody else
#
and obviously that was traumatic
#
I suppose those years 1950s
#
it's not the kind of thing
#
and I do know that my mom
#
of the fancy boarding school
#
she was in in Panchgani
#
I think she didn't go to school
#
of course when she went back to school
#
she went to Bombay Scottish
#
like things were obviously not bad bad
#
but they were tough for some time
#
my mom is very beautiful
#
you'll be totally charmed by her
#
he was quite a bit older than her
#
who was also in the Air Force
#
and this person had been
#
actually my uncle's roommate
#
so he had kept in touch
#
who was now tying him Rakhi
#
my roommate is in hospital
#
my mother was studying in LSR
#
so why don't you go and visit him
#
so my mother is like very dramatic
#
oh this wounded soldier
#
and she went to the hospital to
#
tend to this wounded soldier
#
but my dad was from Delhi
#
so his family was there
#
but my mother was very unfazed
#
and as my aunts told me later
#
my parents became friends
#
and then they got married
#
very very different people
#
that has its own complexities
#
and it's not always easy
#
we came to Bombay for holidays
#
because my mom missed that life
#
my father was a more disciplined person
#
when my father's family
#
what you would call modern
#
like they were conventional
#
in the sense that everybody
#
you know was doing engineering
#
but they were not old-fashioned
#
some amount of intermarrying
#
I don't remember growing up
#
with a lot of feeling of
#
and intemperate conversations
#
I remember when I was a kid
#
bought a second-hand Mercedes
#
like now that second-hand
#
might have been fifth-hand also
#
was like always in the garage
#
one was a Cadillac convertible
#
and one was I think a blue
#
it was an ice blue color
#
I think it was a Chevrolet
#
it was some like foreign car
#
so my grandmother had her good times
#
these fancy cars and all
#
and now she was not in good times
#
so those cars were just sitting
#
and then we used to play in them
#
I liked going to my grandmom's house
#
and with my mom for holidays
#
because there was no discipline
#
as many comics as you wanted
#
from my grandmother's cupboard
#
she had a big tray full of change
#
yes I think there is a Chavanni thief in the house
#
because they used to steal the foranas
#
from Bharat lending library
#
and later Sarvodya lending library
#
and there is this kind of
#
my dad was much more like
#
and I opened his cupboard
#
all his shirts were neatly stacked
#
like he was a very neat person
#
there was a kind of meticulousness about him
#
which was also a kind of caring
#
it was not that it was a fussiness
#
but it showed in everything he did
#
he was a very very caring person
#
I would say in contrast
#
there was a lot of like fun
#
but there could also be a lot of carelessness
#
as happens in such spaces
#
I guess I'm telling you
#
all of this to say that
#
like not very deeply connected
#
but deeply affected by them
#
so it's not my parents didn't
#
I don't think I've ever gone to a movie
#
like we didn't do family type things
#
that was not my parents seen
#
they would go out with their friends
#
on our own in whatever random way
#
obviously we tell these stories
#
to also contextualize a sense of pain
#
and feeling not taken care of
#
as much as might have been nice
#
but what I think is like the other day
#
so my mom does these like shows
#
with old Hindi film songs
#
and very vivacious person
#
she shared a video clip
#
where she was comparing this show
#
and then she burst into song
#
my mom has just recently moved to Bombay
#
the things that like we've
#
a very conflicted relationship
#
and we've disagreed and fought
#
and it's never been very simple
#
there has been a lot of anger also
#
and my dad's sense of fun both
#
these are things that stood me
#
so when I saw the video clip
#
I think it was one of my first times
#
I'm little kharus with my mother
#
and little kanjus also with praise
#
for the first time in my life
#
sent the video to my friends
#
and I said my mom being cool
#
oh my god it's too much
#
it's like zabardas and all that
#
it's really quite amazing
#
and so you know on balance
#
like actually the things
#
that your parents trying
#
didn't allow them to be
#
does have some influence
#
and what your emotional makeup
#
that apparently people are
#
that actually gave me the means
#
to understand them as people
#
to understand them as people
#
it helped me to get over my own shit
#
that are not easy for others
#
because this is the parents you had
#
working on essays about Pathan
#
and for me it was very difficult
#
like one of my colleagues said
#
I had to come out as a fan
#
whatever does that mean
#
like I do it very easily
#
for actually being the people
#
who liked exchanging poems
#
and didn't take us to movies
#
but went out with their friends
#
I once said to my mom as a kid
#
are home in the evening
#
but you all are never at home
#
yeah right now we are young
#
that has not exactly happened
#
used to come and stay with me
#
before she moved to Bombay
#
my friends used to laugh
#
my mother has not come home
#
I don't know what is going on
#
and when is she going to come home
#
didn't change drastically
#
but I'm just saying that
#
yeah there is a way in which
#
it helps you to become a grown up
#
and I think many people
#
are hobbled some permanently
#
by the notion of parents
#
ossified when they were kids
#
like you see your mother
#
your father in a particular way
#
and they're always in that role
#
and one of my favorite anecdotes
#
when I recorded with Natasha Badwar
#
and she told me about how
#
she and her then boyfriend
#
introduced each other's parents
#
to each other for the first time
#
and she found his parents
#
were completely different
#
were completely different
#
from what she described
#
and obviously the reason for that
#
is that in our mental frame
#
your mother is your mother
#
she's a particular thing
#
and most people stick in that frame
#
some people come out of it
#
perhaps when their parents
#
and the relationships are reversed
#
where you begin to see them
#
these are flesh and blood people
#
are fucked up human beings
#
they have their own traumas
#
and to see them as human beings
#
and what was that process for you
#
like is there a point in time
#
you can suddenly see all of this
#
then deal with whatever?
#
because I didn't really grow up
#
from either of my parents
#
my father was more disciplining
#
I was a bit scared of him
#
so it was only much later
#
deep love and affection
#
you know used to be a lot of fun
#
but not a reliable person
#
I don't know if she'll lose her temper
#
I got an early start on that
#
the process of having to
#
cope with my own emotions
#
vis-a-vis that instability
#
are the things that helped me
#
to also contextualize her
#
that it happens automatically
#
I think it takes a very very long time
#
I think it's very important
#
to learn how to heal your own wounds
#
and not wait for others
#
and it's almost impossible
#
you always want that somebody else
#
will come and solve the wound right
#
and I think it is important
#
do acknowledge that they have hurt you
#
when they acknowledge you're hurt
#
and when they give you love
#
that's very very healing thing
#
and I believe in it deeply
#
I'm not always able to do it
#
and I think when I do it
#
and when it happens to me
#
but I think the process
#
of individuating from your parents
#
is quite important for you
#
you individuate from the need
#
to see them in a certain way
#
right like the expectation of a parent
#
is a kind of conditioning
#
those people who had parents
#
who praised everything they did
#
and parents day and whatever
#
and if my parents didn't exactly do that
#
but I also didn't feel it
#
is sometimes what I think
#
it taught me to be very self-reliant
#
make sense of my feelings
#
well when I was in my mid-20s
#
because I didn't want to be unhappy
#
it was a very rare thing
#
one of my friends was going
#
and she had told me about it
#
some real tough stuff happen to her
#
but you know I just think like
#
a lot of brownie points
#
I don't really want to suffer
#
as much as I'm suffering
#
so maybe this thing will help me
#
like I wanted to help myself
#
I did learn that skill early on
#
because I wasn't relying
#
of course there's a flip side to it
#
that you don't always know
#
you don't know how to ask for help
#
you have all those learnings
#
you know if she had been born
#
or in a different context
#
my mom signed a few movies to act in
#
and then ended up not doing it
#
like whether she got cold feet
#
I think people in the movies
#
didn't really respect women
#
of different things about it
#
and they were like big movies
#
like Padosan and Kashmir Ki Kali
#
so like life could have been
#
completely different for her
#
you know there's also a sense of
#
I could have done those things
#
and they're not doing those things
#
so I think it was complicated
#
she would have been a good performer
#
she's a very intelligent person
#
a thing that people were so driven
#
you know and from a regular
#
then also coming from a film family
#
very different back then
#
where you always feel like
#
you're not part of like
#
your parents are separated
#
you're from a film family
#
and so there's a kind of
#
ideal middle class respectability
#
and it keeps you feeling
#
so I mean those are the journeys
#
that in a way a young person
#
she had as a young person
#
I'm sure I mean my dad was
#
but he was conventional
#
and I think he didn't expect
#
because there were kids
#
that also didn't happen for her
#
that she took up a career
#
and she followed that path
#
but she wanted a public life
#
and she had it in other ways
#
that she'd like to perform
#
and there would be these
#
little entertainment things
#
you do in the Air Force
#
and she always wanted to do that
#
and she is doing that now
#
so I think you recognize
#
the desire of the person
#
I would argue with my dad about it
#
I mean you have to confront
#
the things that you're letting us do
#
and of course he didn't
#
used to like to talk about it
#
so I think you become empathetic
#
being empathetic to both
#
your parents is quite tough
#
because sometimes they're
#
in conflict with each other
#
maybe if you had to put a time to it
#
I would say it was in my early 20s
#
actually that I began to
#
and I think it helped me
#
work through a lot of things
#
a lot of emotional resources
#
and to live on your own
#
and do things on your own
#
being able to understand
#
some of those resources
#
answering your questions
#
No that's a beautiful answer
#
it's the conversation is
#
but now I have jinxed it
#
and it's all going to go to hell
#
in my episode with Shanta Gokhale
#
eight and a half hour oral history
#
where she was so so generous
#
and just a beautiful episode
#
it was an autobiography
#
when she went to college
#
that you must never get married
#
and that seems to me to be
#
and in our last episode today
#
you spoke about being in a taxi
#
you want to be like your cousins
#
and also the same question
#
which I think I've discussed
#
with someone I don't know
#
on the show or off the show
#
apologies whoever it is
#
can appear to be feminists
#
but not with their wives
#
and my sort of thinking
#
including up to the point
#
and they are playing a role
#
and the wife is playing a role
#
and it goes on like that
#
and why break out of it
#
whom they love so dearly
#
start consciously thinking
#
about them and their lives
#
they can then think differently
#
you know that old saying
#
about how paradigms change
#
where I don't think that
#
you can actually change
#
you know you are a product
#
and how you've grown up
#
but with generational change
#
perhaps a son of that man
#
is not going to be like that
#
his daughters will certainly
#
take no shit from any men
#
so it's slow and it's painful
#
because then it means that
#
or any man in that generation
#
is essentially stuck in a role
#
that isn't really who they are
#
they could be something else
#
born in a different time
#
they could think differently
#
and not about folding shirts
#
because that is of course
#
intrinsic to one's nature
#
but about everything else
#
but you're forced to play that role
#
is also forced to play that role
#
maybe she didn't play the lead role
#
but she's playing a lifelong role
#
and rebelling in different ways
#
within his parameters perhaps
#
and they're both prisoners
#
and I think for a lot of men
#
and women of that generation
#
and a lot of men and women today
#
and you often don't even realize it
#
that you went to therapy
#
because you wanted to be happy
#
there are so many people
#
that they are not happy
#
what you're saying is very true
#
I think it's not a full truth
#
a certain gendered equation
#
who aren't as conditioned
#
sometimes find ourselves
#
playing those roles out
#
to the earlier thing we discussed
#
of what is a relationship really
#
that you define a relationship
#
and the test of a relationship is
#
we have some idealizations
#
and then when we confront
#
is actually not so simple
#
are we going to abandon it
#
are we going to become fixed
#
for it to be a certain way
#
are we going to be able
#
and of all of us as people
#
not married anybody before
#
in his family was married
#
but I also remember that
#
who famously met some 51 men
#
and had problem with all of them
#
so obviously it was a family
#
they didn't impose marriage
#
not at all the kind of background
#
that would have normally been
#
that would have been chosen
#
to my mom's vivaciousness
#
and the sense of effervescence
#
in terms of having fun together
#
there is also an imagination
#
we all have of what life
#
or when you have a family
#
gendered and conditioned
#
all those complexities existed
#
in their relationship as well
#
there are also difficulties
#
people have in abandoning
#
in abandoning their notion of
#
their gender plays some role
#
in them imagining themselves
#
so we had this discussion
#
two friends of mine and I
#
because somebody she knew
#
was facing this horrible
#
and why is it that our dads
#
for all their conventionalities
#
and then beaten up his wife
#
so my other friend said
#
the wife of the abusive person
#
that boy will not grow up
#
because he had his mother
#
there is a different way
#
maybe our fathers had that
#
were not that very macho
#
one day I remember my dad
#
your mom looks very nice
#
I mean I was quite young
#
I thought was a beautiful thing
#
much much later in life
#
when they were quite conflicted
#
very different social lives
#
he said to me one day that
#
your mother is very good
#
she is able to make new friends
#
admirable quality in her
#
I found very remarkable
#
your parents talk about
#
and your family I guess
#
so all of it is to say that
#
yes maybe having daughters
#
who were not being conventional
#
our dad was also trying
#
to make us conventional
#
we were just not listening
#
if my mother had thrown
#
and said I'm going to work
#
like he wasn't that person
#
and then you would be like
#
and they are not always able
#
to get out of the dynamic
#
individually and collectively
#
with a parent-child relationship
#
I mean there is something
#
as much as they help us
#
and somehow other relationships
#
can be more free-flowing
#
there isn't this much depth
#
and perhaps even worse now
#
in that I feel more and more
#
are fundamentally different
#
or often the case rather
#
really want different things
#
and they're just trying
#
but even for love marriages
#
you make it work somehow
#
it's a different kind of time
#
your thoughts about that
#
like there used to be a book
#
when the both of us were young
#
and it's a cliched title
#
cringeworthy men are from Mars
#
for social conditioning reasons
#
or even from genetic ones
#
called What Makes Women Happy
#
because we've all evolved in caves
#
and the rules are so different
#
as all human beings are
#
just trying to figure out
#
what the hell is going on
#
I mean I'm not sure exactly
#
that I mean women also feel
#
conversations with friends
#
that we have about these things
#
like there is something
#
that they are very rarely
#
saying what they actually think
#
is what I feel about men
#
the complaint I hear is that
#
is that we are so straightforward
#
we say what we are feeling
#
I mean I don't think that's true
#
what they feel quite directly
#
so I'll give you an abstract example
#
you know on Agents of Ishq
#
and there are a lot more men
#
but I feel very bad for men
#
why are you saying such
#
to enter into a conversation openly
#
I mean you really notice it
#
so many personal narratives
#
from women and queer people
#
but we were not getting
#
and there have been some men
#
that oh I want to write
#
on such and such experience
#
and then after two months
#
and even in the comments
#
the kind of things they say
#
and always making a joke
#
and it's all very kind of
#
kind of conversation right
#
that makes it difficult
#
whether it was always so
#
like I'm trying to think about
#
I've had interactions with
#
in the course of my life
#
was just a regular interaction
#
to each other about something
#
they've become fewer now
#
than they used to be before
#
so which is to say that
#
a very small number of men
#
that has taken hold more
#
the performative set of behaviors
#
have become more aware of it
#
maybe maybe when we were younger
#
we were not able to pinpoint
#
to explain what's irritating me
#
right like so at one point
#
if that boy likes Pink Floyd
#
then I don't want to go out with him
#
that it was this kind of
#
significant of an entire mindset
#
and it's a very templated
#
but I'm not able to talk to people
#
who are so templated right
#
there are different ways
#
in which we might have identified
#
for ourselves over the years
#
that seems to have overtaken men
#
if men want very different things
#
and women want very different things
#
it's again a question of
#
how you arrive at a relationality
#
which allows enough space
#
separate and together right
#
which I think that sometimes
#
when people who had arranged marriages
#
they were not expecting
#
so maybe they arrived at the equation
#
with fewer romantic expectations
#
I think like a lot of what we call romance
#
is really in the service of coupledom right
#
it's a constricting concept
#
that you have to be everything to each other
#
and there has to be a kind of ideal relationship
#
like any other relationship
#
obviously needs to be worked out
#
I think I never got married
#
on this kind of a long engagement with men
#
many of my friends of my age
#
who I think very few have remained peacefully
#
or coupled up situations
#
I think that what I find common
#
who are not in those situations
#
are very deeply committed
#
and this is very very difficult
#
somehow for Indian men at least
#
maybe I don't know men in other parts of the world
#
to somehow go with that
#
that this is something you notice
#
that in talking to women
#
in the midpoint of their lives
#
to see them grapple with their questions
#
it's interesting to see them
#
confront their limitations
#
and transcend those limitations
#
I mean they are also very caring
#
they have done a lot of things
#
their relationship with their friends
#
their relationship with their work
#
is very important to them
#
their desire to be themselves
#
and I think this is somehow
#
to know how to cope with
#
I know it's unfashionable to say this
#
but I think it is the case
#
I think before you can build
#
a successful relationship
#
called The Loneliness of the Indian Man
#
this of course followed an episode
#
called The Loneliness of the Indian Women
#
with Shriyana Bhattacharya
#
your fandom of Shah Rukh Khan
#
what is wrong with these incredible women
#
just one flaw they have
#
a lot of really moving stories in this
#
you know he used to teach a class
#
at one point started this practice
#
where everyone had to tell their story
#
in terms of chronologically
#
this happened that happened
#
and the first one was banal
#
but the second one was vulnerable
#
and got everyone to open up
#
problem with India is that
#
because they have to have
#
this extra layer of sight
#
where they have to account
#
for how the men in their lives
#
and how the world will treat them
#
and that automatically means
#
and perhaps seeing themselves better
#
but today women have the frames
#
to put everything into context
#
and read Parumita Vohra
#
or Shayana Bhattacharya
#
read everything about feminism
#
women are asserting themselves
#
how badly they are trapped
#
again you know victims of patriarchy
#
these notions that come down
#
that the providers are macho
#
they can't show feelings
#
let the woman get away with too much shit
#
a lack of self-examination
#
lack of self-examination
#
where you cannot even see yourself clearly
#
how do you then even be
#
you know only after that
#
can you begin to relate
#
and have healthy conversations
#
if you're performative to yourself
#
you will be performative
#
have been discussed a lot
#
on the subject of masculinity
#
to hear a conversation with a man
#
that is deeply interesting
#
yes there are many ways
#
think about their lives
#
in terms of a lot of externalities
#
so you're not getting that
#
when we say vulnerability
#
that talking about your emotions
#
do I want to make myself
#
vulnerable at all times
#
but I think vulnerability
#
is simply a place of uncertainty
#
so one of the things that I
#
which is quite traditional
#
there's a lot of social cost
#
to abandoning those roles
#
yes that was the conditioning
#
but really I want to ask
#
what is the excuse for people
#
our social cultural background
#
which is you're working
#
you're meeting a number
#
of different types of people
#
you are reading about caste
#
you are reading about gender
#
but you are not able to
#
but I feel like you know
#
the unwillingness to be fun
#
actually that is the other thing
#
Boramath Kariyar thing for me
#
really emerges from the idea that
#
to have fun with somebody
#
because then you'll have to be
#
equal to that other person
#
and you're somehow always
#
like what can anybody else do
#
only you can do it for yourself
#
I mean there is that song
#
my sisters are doing it
#
and actually women have done that
#
they have remade their lives
#
conditioned by patriarchy
#
I've spent the majority
#
that voice in my head comes back
#
for me to think differently
#
it's been scary at times
#
it is very difficult to think
#
it's much easier to think
#
you know being dystopic
#
and nothing's going to be good
#
this position is very easy
#
maybe life can be better
#
maybe I can take a chance
#
and something wonderful
#
I think we are doing that
#
so I think the question to men is
#
and you really can't keep saying
#
I wasn't making an excuse
#
I agree with you 100 percent
#
I don't know why you kept saying
#
sort of an added question
#
because it kind of befuddles me
#
they'll be bloody fucking boring
#
why do you want to be friends with them
#
so therefore I'm not saying I am
#
I'm just generally saying
#
you'll have the same kind of topics
#
you'll like one of my friends
#
he's a very senior person
#
with my fellow CXO level people
#
everybody's just talking
#
nobody can talk culture
#
and that perhaps is a problem
#
but what I do tend to find is
#
that female friendships
#
and much more vulnerable
#
I'm reading by Fay Weldon
#
how even in a progressive place
#
she'll go to restaurants
#
you know they'll hardly be any women
#
and just not saying anything
#
and I think part of that
#
you see much more with men
#
that everything is about
#
if somebody is confessing
#
let's make a decision tree
#
let's you know think of the
#
that's just a male instinct
#
you know I have to stop myself
#
when I start thinking like that
#
why do you think that is
#
is this something intrinsic or what
#
I mean one doesn't know
#
whether it's intrinsic or not
#
but I'll say one thing that
#
I mean the reason I'm saying
#
because I feel that you're frequent
#
one is frequently confronted
#
about masculinity right
#
masculinity is a conditioning
#
yes men are emotionally locked
#
I'm not going to be amazing
#
like I have this thing that
#
I scold a lot of people
#
like I'm a big dart master right
#
and at five minutes to ten
#
when I was supposed to reach
#
that I got a call from the
#
person who had been put in charge
#
I'm just reaching in one minute
#
this is just a general call
#
so I was like general call
#
it's time for me to reach
#
what does that even mean
#
I was supposed to go to
#
so I was in a very irritated mood
#
when I reached the gate
#
you should have called me up
#
when I'm supposed to come
#
instead of telling me now
#
anyway then I proceeded
#
I'm telling you all this
#
you have to expect yourself to excel
#
so you should do things properly
#
but I think that's true
#
nobody asks women to excel
#
you wouldn't have scolded him
#
I would have scolded him
#
up to a certain standard
#
is something you very often
#
have to do for yourself
#
or you have to do for each other
#
that men I can't speak up
#
oh I'm not sure that I matter
#
yeah so we are fighting
#
we're not winning every day
#
but we're fighting it every day
#
so actually that's my question to men
#
are you fighting that feeling
#
like I have some friends
#
who I feel that when I talk to them
#
like they'll say one thing
#
and everything will be like
#
one of those special effects
#
that suddenly I see something else
#
to think my thoughts better right
#
and these are definitely
#
people who have a lot of latitude
#
in the way that they think about life
#
they're able to join the emotional
#
in a much more beautiful way
#
to develop what you're thinking
#
who I think are awesome
#
that they think I'm awesome
#
but I'm just saying that
#
what I want to say is that
#
but to enjoy the company
#
to show that you're enjoying
#
which I think is the biggest
#
you can show anyone right
#
as children we want to be told that
#
what you're doing is special
#
and many of us don't hear it
#
as much as we would have wanted to
#
because you say something
#
I love to have birthday parties
#
the year that I don't have
#
but I was looking forward
#
all these different friends
#
Paro's birthday party right
#
the idea that we look forward
#
because she'll open and say
#
oh you're looking so good
#
magical thing about life
#
there are some men who are not
#
like there are some men
#
who are really delightful
#
to take pleasure in others
#
can give them something
#
who are the locus of everything
#
but they're too few you know
#
that's why we love Shah Ruk
#
because he's so much fun
#
and he takes delight in others
#
okay so he is not performative
#
the rest of us are performing
#
it's his job to be performative
#
all the men listening to this
#
not much to say about it
#
no but I'm curious to know
#
about the kind of stuff
#
you mentioned how your dream job
#
obviously because you're surrounded
#
the pleasures they gave you
#
also what were you like
#
because your parents seem to be
#
I don't know if progressive
#
your parents seem to be pretty
#
freestyling at parenthood
#
by now we are both old enough
#
who pretends to be an adult
#
so tell me about the child
#
what did you want to be
#
how did you look at yourself
#
I was a child so long ago
#
that I almost don't rely
#
on my own memories of it
#
and now I hardly read at all
#
which were for grown-ups
#
because they were just in the house
#
when I was seven or eight
#
but I don't remember the book at all
#
so I read a lot of things
#
that I didn't exactly understand
#
because I was just desperate to read
#
and it wasn't very easy
#
and I used to read very fast
#
love the fun of Asterix
#
so my father had pet names for us
#
which were like Asterix type names
#
and she was also very like
#
doing these convolutions
#
Nicholas Skinnerless Acrobatics
#
were very much into word play
#
so we also like those things
#
what was your nickname?
#
I'm not going to tell you
#
and then there was like
#
of course because we read Tintin's
#
and 10,000 thundering typhoons
#
that kind of Maza and Masti in it
#
I read all the Phantom comics
#
all the Mandrake comics
#
one of my favorite phrases
#
Mandrake just as hypnotically
#
and I read all the Chanda Mamas
#
I read all the Amar Chitra Katha
#
so that stuff along with
#
where I read some very obscure books
#
by some strange Europeans
#
I remember is the 37th of May
#
I have never found that book
#
I've looked online for it many times
#
but I strongly remember
#
it was like some very arcane book actually
#
so I read a bit of this random stuff
#
I had a phase where I became
#
I have no explanation for why
#
but we were posted in Iraq
#
there were no bookshops in Iraq
#
in Baghdad where we lived
#
we could take a few with us
#
and so there was this one shop
#
where sometimes you'd get books
#
and many things was crossed out
#
because we're not allowed
#
which looked like the star of Zion
#
then it would be blacked out
#
so it was like very slim pickings
#
and there was a British council library
#
which had a lot of books
#
so you know I memorized
#
all the names of the pharaohs
#
now I don't remember all that
#
I definitely had a little bit of that
#
fantasy way of reading as a kid
#
and I was never very completist
#
like whatever I got obsessed with
#
I would read it for a long time
#
and then I would leave it
#
and then later I don't even remember
#
so that I had that Agatha Christie phase
#
and I only read Agatha Christie's
#
subsequently I read a lot of Mills and Boons
#
my reading career is very unimpressive
#
basically I read a lot of Mills and Boons
#
I remembered all their stories
#
I became famous in hostel
#
everyone wanted to sit in my table
#
because I would tell them
#
the story of Mills and Boons
#
and of course when you tell the story
#
it sounds like a movie story
#
I think I was also obviously reading
#
none of which I can remember now
#
I mean I had my full phase of
#
I read Midnight's Children
#
so I must have been 13 or 14
#
yeah but I remember reading it
#
and then finding shame somehow
#
so I read all the early Rashtis
#
around the ground beneath her feet
#
time I think I stopped reading
#
all that contemporary fiction
#
I read all of Amitav Ghosh
#
the Indian writers in English
#
happened when I was young
#
and I really like clung to that
#
American fiction later on
#
many of the writers whom
#
I can't remember anymore
#
but I used to work in New York
#
so I used to buy books on the street
#
I would just buy anything and read it
#
I can't even name all the writers
#
but I read a lot of things in my 20s
#
by the world of books at that time
#
I used to read whatever was famous
#
and many obscure things also
#
so I think yeah that's really it
#
later on I think I began to read
#
like I have begun to read
#
a lot more academic books now
#
like especially history of marriage law
#
I've been very interested
#
so I have a friend Anjali Arundekar
#
and Ishita Pandey's book
#
and there's a great book called
#
Indian Sex Life by Durba Mitra
#
South Asian academic writings
#
I think that they tell us
#
fascinating stories about our history
#
and they recontextualize actually
#
and therefore our present for us
#
so I'm reading a lot of
#
I read a lot of poetry so yeah
#
Did you daydream when you were a kid?
#
all my time daydreaming
#
like it was my primary activity
#
I would settle into daydreaming
#
it's not that I drifted
#
but there would be like
#
that now I will daydream
#
like some of my daydreams
#
and all the romantic things
#
that would happen to me
#
some of my daydreams were about
#
especially I had a lot of daydreams
#
about going to mysterious places
#
which today you can say
#
like the Andaman forest
#
this beautiful mysterious places
#
when I did hypnotherapy
#
and in that they ask you
#
not to go into a beautiful place
#
in your mind and whatever
#
so then also my imagination
#
would be to be underwater
#
I like the idea of being in
#
intensely forested island a lot
#
so I had a lot of this kind of
#
wandering type of a daydream
#
I'll meet people in that dream
#
or I'll see amazing things
#
so there was a lot of that
#
there were a lot of daydreams
#
about of course magical
#
once I had an actual dream
#
that I was in a cafeteria
#
and a man came and sat down
#
next to me with his tray
#
what are the filmmakers
#
I've been looking for you everywhere
#
I want to give you money
#
these kind of actual dreams
#
or even sometimes I would dream
#
that I have gone to a place
#
made a new life over there
#
this is how my house is
#
so there was a lot of this kind of
#
but not completely gone right
#
since you say not as much
#
I have a very vivid dream life
#
like actually when I dream
#
I hardly have any time to do it
#
and what was hypnotherapy like
#
like when you properly hypnotized
#
hypnotized the way it used to be back
#
in the Agatha Christie books
#
well I think that's not how
#
hypnotherapy works right
#
when you go for therapy
#
the first time you think
#
you're going to lie down on a couch
#
and the therapist will sit behind
#
but that's not how it works
#
you just sit on a chair
#
in front of somebody and talk
#
so similarly like the first time
#
so I had an interesting experience
#
had first suggested it to me
#
go into trance as they call it
#
but I did it during the pandemic on zoom
#
and I think it was because
#
I felt more able to let go or something
#
and I think like one of the things
#
helped my back pain a lot
#
that tells you about the relationship
#
between your mind and your body but
#
that's what it feels like
#
are aware of everything around you
#
but you're so deeply inside yourself
#
and when you come out of it
#
when I think of myself in
#
or when I was in college
#
there was practically no intellect
#
any talent that there was
#
was haphazard and not directed
#
in any particular direction
#
the best way to think of myself
#
is as a basket of anxieties
#
so I want to ask you about
#
that we have to grapple with
#
of what are other people
#
you go to college somewhere
#
you go to school somewhere
#
you want to be the cool one
#
you want to be respected
#
for something or whatever you are
#
so I want to ask you about
#
two processes of discovery
#
that process of dealing with
#
that particular anxiety
#
of what other people think of you
#
which some people carry
#
that I managed to actually
#
and say hey no one gives a shit
#
about anything you know
#
what difference does it make
#
people aren't thinking of me
#
where you begin to kind of
#
get comfortable in your own skin
#
one phrase that I learned recently
#
is the looking last self
#
on the reflection of yourself
#
that you see in the eyes of others
#
and everyone around you
#
you got to learn to cook
#
you got to take the tea out
#
you shape yourself into that
#
because that's getting you approval
#
you shape yourself into that
#
because you want approval
#
which is why your earlier point
#
about the sort of friends you have
#
and the friendships that you have
#
depends on who we hang out with
#
or who we choose to spend time with
#
and I don't think that's
#
really properly understood
#
so tell me a little bit
#
about these two processes
#
one of becoming comfortable
#
and not really caring that much
#
about what others think
#
being able to define yourself
#
and I am going to be this
#
and obviously these anxieties
#
are at their most intense
#
I'm guessing in teenagers
#
and college and all of that
#
it can last all their lives
#
I mean I think I was definitely
#
I didn't have too many friends
#
go and pay your school fees
#
and I had to be very scared
#
but nobody was really like saying
#
okay I'll come with you
#
so you had to just kind of do it
#
I'm sure that some people
#
made fun of me in school
#
and I don't remember that much
#
but definitely I feel that
#
people found me strange
#
has its own meaning also
#
of course if you're fat
#
if you're not good looking
#
in a conventional sense
#
and they do it till you're dead
#
you know this question of
#
it happens in such a lucid fashion
#
when people play back to me
#
I don't recognize that person
#
so as I experienced myself
#
don't know how to fit in
#
not really anybody's choice
#
didn't go to too many parties
#
didn't get invited to too many parties
#
didn't have that normal life
#
not until I was in college
#
and then also just a little bit
#
very bookish all the time reading
#
all the important books I read
#
like when I was improving my brain
#
which now I really feel
#
like if I don't remember them
#
what does it say about me
#
I met a friend from school
#
she used to sit behind me
#
and she used to bring bread poha for lunch
#
and I had never experienced
#
I had never known this item
#
like what is this bread upma thing
#
so I used to always eat up her tiffin
#
I used to get horrible tiffin
#
so that thing of eating up her tiffin
#
because she was very sweet
#
and I didn't feel scared of her
#
I felt scared of all the other girls in my class
#
and then over the years
#
and suddenly she reconnected with me
#
like five six years ago
#
you really helped me a lot in my later life
#
you taught me a very important lesson
#
so I simply cannot imagine
#
anybody learning any lessons from me
#
no you were sitting by yourself
#
like a basketball court
#
and all beach in the school
#
and there were these stadium steps
#
so I was sitting there in the break
#
and I came and sat next to you
#
isn't it strange to sit on your own
#
I just wanted to come and sit with you
#
I don't mind being on my own
#
like I think it's pretty okay
#
to enjoy your own company
#
now first of all I don't think
#
I don't remember saying anything
#
halfway so intelligent in my life
#
but clearly I said it then
#
and she said it was like
#
it changed the lens for me
#
you can do things on your own
#
you don't always have to be with other people
#
so this had a profound impact on me
#
did certain things later in life
#
I didn't know that she saw me that way
#
because that is not how I saw myself
#
or when I meet people who said
#
we always knew you would do something different
#
that is not how I saw myself
#
I saw myself as totally lost
#
I just never wanted to be around other people
#
when can I get out of people's line of sight
#
and not be seen as weird and strange
#
and not know what to say
#
I don't want to be around others
#
and then people tell you this thing about them
#
which tells you that everybody was experiencing
#
some similar anxieties essentially
#
but I did have an extreme thing like
#
I remember in my 13th year
#
feeling acutely self-conscious
#
while even crossing the quad
#
outside our house to go to the bus stop
#
feeling that everybody is looking at me
#
so I had some little exacerbated feelings like that
#
this is who I am and owning it
#
without really knowing it
#
I still was doing things which I liked
#
even though I found life so tough
#
but because I was never trying to fit in
#
I don't have any chance in normal life
#
didn't submit myself to the normal world
#
which meant that I was essentially always
#
so that I did get an early start on that
#
but that's something you understand retrospectively
#
oh actually the fact that I just read the books
#
okay I was this smart girl
#
everybody knew I'm a smart girl
#
there's a clear division
#
and there are smart girls
#
I am definitely a smart girl
#
which means I read books
#
this is who I'm supposed to be
#
and I'm inhabiting that self
#
but still I was reading Mills and Boons
#
still I was reading Asterix comics
#
I was reading the things that I enjoyed
#
and I didn't have a problem saying that actually
#
like I never hid that I loved Hindi film songs
#
I was still being myself
#
it's only later that I understood
#
I only understood that actually
#
by other people telling me
#
that other people didn't do this
#
it's only when people start saying that
#
I don't know how you do this
#
I find it very like how openly you say you
#
when I used to say I like Shah Rukh Khan
#
people would like roll their eyes
#
you're still in that place Amit
#
but you know that thing
#
that how are you admitting to this thing
#
or oh you just you just wear whatever you want
#
and then you realize that
#
oh people are holding themselves back a lot
#
the people that I think I should be like
#
are actually not being like themselves
#
actually I am being like myself
#
so I don't think you have an epiphany
#
is what I'm trying to say
#
and I'm only going to be this way
#
but I do remember that once a friend of mine
#
said to me that every story you tell
#
is always a story about
#
you not wanting your essence to be corrupted
#
it's like there's one thing which comes
#
I won't this is a non-negotiable for me
#
and I guess that's true
#
I had a very strong idea of that obviously
#
but I didn't experience that way
#
I think now I do a lot more
#
I'm fascinated that maybe
#
you know being so much of a misfit
#
that you gave up on the hope of fitting in
#
actually helped you find yourself sooner
#
because otherwise if you're in a halfway place
#
where you are kind of accepted
#
if you behave in a particular way
#
you can go a little bit in that direction
#
but feeling like you were so much of a misfit
#
ki nahi I'm just giving up
#
I'm just going to be myself
#
is in a sense it kind of
#
and I'm thinking aloud here
#
your friends remember you for certain things
#
and you don't remember them at all
#
you see yourself differently
#
and I'm just wondering if that is because
#
when you like when I look back at my younger self
#
I'm painting really broad strokes
#
and those are the broad strokes I remember now
#
and perhaps I remember because
#
I don't like to see myself like that
#
but others will remember little different things
#
and I think the broad strokes may
#
describe an overall macro way of feeling
#
about a particular situation
#
but maybe in macro you could be
#
in your everyday behavior
#
and the things you are doing
#
you could be perfectly charming
#
and helpful and all of those other things
#
whereas you now feel that
#
you know something completely
#
different I mean I'm just thinking aloud
#
I mean I think that one thing is that you know
#
when you don't fit in very well
#
and you just do whatever you want to do
#
one of the things that we could say
#
is that it leads to a kind of liberation of self
#
the process of liberation of self
#
starts happening a little earlier
#
but the other thing that it does
#
which does make it difficult to see yourself in that way
#
is that you become uncategorizable
#
right when you say I'm not in any category
#
so then then who are you what are you
#
to actually gauge yourself therefore
#
so that's what I mean when I say
#
that there isn't a lucid moment
#
where you say like yeah this is who I am
#
and this is what I'm going to do right
#
that's something it's cumulative
#
and even then it may not happen
#
and there are many many times
#
when you disconnect from that self
#
which I'll explain in a minute
#
but I think that even the world does not know
#
and that can be very difficult
#
these stories where your friends
#
are reading back to you
#
how they experienced you
#
are also things that they are looking at in retrospect
#
and we're not experiencing in that moment
#
I think when somebody is uncategorizable
#
people who are fitting themselves into categories
#
don't want to be around that person too much
#
you want a little bit of it
#
there's a glamour to being uncategorizable right
#
as somebody who is always the new girl
#
there's a glamour like who is this person
#
you come you are a matter of interest for people
#
so there is glamour in that actually
#
when you look back on it
#
but the fact that you are able to say certain things
#
be certain ways all that is glamorous
#
but there is also people are not going to choose you
#
people are not going to throw in their lot with you
#
they are not easily going to openly admit
#
to being your best friend
#
or that's why my those who became my best friends
#
or good friends or my companions in different ways
#
work or otherwise are very special to me
#
because they are people who had the confidence
#
in themselves to say hey I like this girl
#
it's fun to hang out with her
#
I trust my own sense of fun
#
those are the people with whom I people who trusted themselves
#
and did not have so many masks to from their own selves
#
were the ones I think who in a sense validated me
#
but I don't think that the world validates you
#
and that is why it's very difficult to see yourself in that way
#
people tell you that we always knew you would do something cool
#
after you have done the thing that is cool
#
they don't tell you before
#
Paramita don't feel like shit
#
because you are going to do something cool later
#
I mean I had one or two teachers who were like
#
why are you becoming frivolous you know
#
like you're a girl who it's nice to be friends
#
and have friends and be popular
#
but you shouldn't forget what it is
#
that you really want to do with your life
#
so they are actually saying to you
#
I mean I have this very
#
I don't know I'm sure I spoke about it the last time
#
Zakia Pathak who was my teacher in my first year of college
#
I had a terrible crush on her
#
because she used to wear like bad nylon sarees
#
so this combination of Zakia Pathak was really stunning
#
she has short gray hair
#
and she teaches Greek classics
#
I mean she was really a very strong person
#
and something very compelling about her
#
because actually the classics paper was that
#
highly intellectual type of paper
#
which I totally took to
#
all those myths and metaphors
#
and I think like generally Miranda House
#
like it had had a bit of a long fallow period
#
where people were not coming
#
it was not one of the best colleges and all of that
#
so suddenly to have a student like me was so invested
#
was nice for the teachers also
#
after a couple of years
#
and then I came first in the university and all that
#
and then I became a little bit like confident
#
and started making friends
#
and going here and there
#
and by the time I reached my third year
#
I started doing not so well
#
and we had very boring papers also
#
dried and shied and I didn't like it
#
so one day I got caught by Mrs Pathak in the corridor saying
#
Parvitha I'm very concerned about you
#
that you know your grades have been dropping
#
and it's nice to be popular
#
but you also have to be serious about your career
#
what are you planning to do after college?
#
so I looked totally like bewildered at the thought
#
so I said I don't know ma'am
#
I guess I'll do my MA or something you know
#
I don't think you should do that
#
you should go out there and see what's in the world for you
#
you should try out things
#
and if you don't like anything else
#
you can always come back into your MA
#
but you must go out into the world
#
now why did she say that to me?
#
it's because she was invested in me
#
and she felt I can do more than just
#
go through life doing what is easy
#
which is what I was basically saying
#
so I think once in a while somebody
#
but in the movies somebody always tells you
#
that you are going to do great things
#
nobody was telling me any such thing
#
and it's just that once in a while
#
it was only in my 20s that I made a few friends
#
that no you may think that you're not smart
#
because the people around
#
like I would have people saying things to me like this
#
and people still say horrible things to me
#
so we are talking like 92 or 93
#
this globalization has just happened
#
and there are all these things that are changing around us
#
I remember saying to this one guy that
#
and this like television is changing
#
and I think I want to make a movie about how
#
we don't talk about the concept of poverty anymore
#
like we don't really talk about poor people anymore right
#
actually now when I think back at age 23
#
this was extremely perceptive of me to say
#
during globalization start
#
and he said nothing very original in that thought
#
like some boy who's 24 years old
#
who of course is trained to as a boy
#
talk to me that way right
#
so I was always encountering people telling me
#
because it didn't fit into what you're supposed to say
#
and I remember meeting this one friend
#
who was a filmmaker who would come from abroad
#
and we used to chat a lot
#
and have a lot of fun together
#
and I said something about I don't know
#
like I don't know what I'm going to do next
#
you have an extraordinary mind
#
and whatever you do is going to be very interesting
#
so you know sometimes somebody says that to you
#
and you get a little like bubble of joy inside
#
it really that bubble helps you float to the next place
#
and fantasize for a little bit
#
and your fantasy takes you someplace
#
all the people who are reading back this reality
#
which they themselves are oppressed by
#
and therefore you are told that you are nothing
#
and I had it for most of my life
#
I still have it actually so yeah
#
Yeah I mean we were just surrounded by this
#
or what Paul Graham calls the aggressively conventional minded
#
who are always sort of clamping down on you
#
and again I forget which of my friends it is
#
but someone once mentioned
#
that whenever they think of something good to say about someone
#
they tell that person immediately
#
and it actually does mean a lot
#
you know the fact that you can remember this one thing that was said
#
Yeah I think we all don't do that enough
#
I feel I have phases when I do it more
#
and phases when I do it less
#
and actually it's so cliched
#
but the moment that you do it for somebody else
#
you feel something fall away from you
#
in terms of your own pettiness and self-doubt
#
when you're able to just tell somebody like
#
wow I loved what you wrote
#
or I really enjoyed your column this week
#
or you know when you say that
#
you also reconnect to the best in you
#
and to the things that give you pleasure
#
but I don't think we do it enough for each other
#
but I'm also saying that
#
to be an uncategorizable person can become a bad habit
#
if you think that I'm not going to fit in anywhere
#
so you can continuously be doing things like me
#
that I keep moving from one obscure activity
#
to the next obscure activity
#
and I sort of resolutely don't exist in the mainstream
#
and I have my own reasons for that I suppose
#
but I truly feel that I'm fully able to be myself
#
only when I'm in a space that is outside of normal normalcy
#
so I guess it's a continuation of my life in that sense
#
I choose spaces where I feel I can articulate myself best
#
because there isn't a lot of noise
#
and too many other people are not doing that thing
#
and the moment more people begin doing that thing
#
I start to feel disenchanted
#
and I want to shift to a new space
#
people continuously feel that feeling
#
that people felt with me in school
#
but exactly what this is going to amount to
#
we can't say and we don't want to put a lot in
#
like we want to validate this in any strong way
#
because we are not able to predict what it's going to be
#
so I think how it translates in the contemporary moment
#
for some character like me is that
#
there'll be a lot of people who will think you're cool
#
and what you do is remarkable maybe
#
but they'll not really endorse it in certain ways
#
like it will always feel like
#
they don't know what list to put you on
#
and so you'll never be on any list
#
I'm just thinking that you might have been born
#
or maybe I mean you could still have
#
decades of productive work ahead of you
#
you're sounding so hopeless about it
#
no because we are practically the same age
#
I'm just about to hit 50
#
what you're saying ties in
#
the huge fault of mainstream media
#
mainstream entertainment
#
you have yourself spoken about
#
how you have worked with organizations
#
which seemed set up in such a way
#
that they're only going to promote mediocrity
#
there's a certain kind of thinking
#
you have to think along certain rails
#
there are always gatekeepers
#
and you can't think in different ways
#
and if you are someone who thinks different
#
you know you are condemned to losing basically
#
because it's mediocrity
#
and is thinking along those expected guardrails
#
now some different thinkers make it
#
but that's you know survivorship bias
#
otherwise it's really difficult to not conform
#
and I think in modern times
#
that is finally changing
#
where the mainstream is crumbling
#
gatekeepers are becoming
#
you can at the very least
#
get your work out there
#
without having to go through a gatekeeper
#
you know my biggest sort of
#
my favorite example of this is Miss Excel
#
have you heard of Miss Excel?
#
so Miss Excel is this woman
#
who was extremely good at Microsoft Excel
#
and she had two passions
#
which were electronic dance music
#
that these are the three things I love
#
so she started an Instagram channel
#
where she would dance to EDM
#
there would be captions
#
which would give you Excel shortcuts
#
no fucking gatekeeper would allow this to pass
#
but she was just being herself
#
massive hit to the extent
#
and she would sell courses
#
that's how she would make money
#
and I think there was a month
#
I'll link the article from the show notes
#
where she made like a hundred thousand dollars a day
#
I want to be Miss Excel
#
I want to be Miss Excel
#
join the Miss Excel fan club
#
and I just think that a story like this
#
is absolutely impossible
#
in any time in human history except now
#
this woman therefore doesn't fit into anything
#
and she loves all three of these
#
and she's bloody good at all three of these
#
and they don't make sense together
#
no no I agree that you know
#
definitely I think that
#
you can do more things on your own
#
and certainly though I'm telling you
#
all these things my own life
#
is testimony to the fact that
#
even before internet anyway
#
I did lots of odd things
#
it didn't happen for me
#
I think what I'm saying is that you know
#
when it's not very discernible to you
#
what is it that this person does?
#
like if you tell somebody
#
and they say no what does she do?
#
how will you describe it?
#
in fact the title of my last episode with you
#
Paramita so I'm sorry if I'm making the
#
but I think of you as a filmmaker
#
but also as someone with a quirky sense of fun
#
who's engaging with popular entertainment
#
like all the videos you do for agent of Ishq
#
which will have you know
#
your lounges and your traditional dances and all
#
but you're saying really funky things
#
and also has someone who is happy to talk about
#
things like sex and lust
#
and all of that really openly
#
so this is a short potted
#
elevator description I would give
#
but it's not like as soon as you've said it
#
the other person like okay I get it
#
but exactly what does she do?
#
right and you're saying she does this
#
but actually it's not what she does
#
but it's something else
#
but that is how you're describing me
#
and therefore it's very difficult to categorize
#
how would you categorize yourself?
#
I would categorize myself as a person who loves to think
#
how but that is so general
#
every man thinks of himself like that
#
though it is not true for 99 percent
#
I think thinking is my main skill
#
and that I use not a lot of different forms to think with
#
right so if you really ask me
#
actually I don't mind doing any form
#
so I'm very promiscuous with form
#
and I really enjoy form
#
so for me it's like every form becomes an opportunity to think with
#
so that's really what I do
#
but that is a hopeless description of yourself also
#
so what I'm really trying to say is that
#
when you don't categorize
#
and it's not very specific
#
like people recognize that it matters in some way
#
but they can't pinpoint it
#
and in order to say that this matters
#
you have to just love it
#
so I have an audience that really loves me
#
but they just like totally
#
there's a total love and acceptance from that audience
#
whereas from a lot of other people
#
there is a sense of confusion
#
and the sense of confusion has not
#
has been great and not been great
#
if you know what I mean right yeah
#
one of the things I've realized is
#
how depth of engagement can be such a hugely important metric
#
like I often say I'd rather have say
#
a hundred thousand people listen to an episode
#
than 10 million people watch a YouTube video
#
because there on YouTube
#
the engagement tends to be very shallow
#
it might be average view time of 15 seconds
#
here the engagement is way way deeper
#
the kind of love that I get from
#
whatever relatively small group of people there is
#
beyond moving because it is so deep
#
and similarly I'm guessing for you
#
the absolute numbers may not be such
#
that Shah Rukh Khan would view you as competition
#
she really don't understand why Shah Rukh
#
really don't understand why Shah Rukh yeah
#
SRK of course would not view you as competition
#
but I would imagine that
#
what is priceless about your following
#
is that the engagement is way greater
#
the sense of intimacy and belonging to the content
#
so tell me a little bit about that
#
and again that is not something
#
you could have done I think 20 years ago
#
it is no I mean I think that's true
#
but I think one of the great learnings for me
#
from my own career has been that
#
see you need you there is
#
you know there's that Hindi film song
#
agar saaz chhera tarane banenge
#
saaz chherne wala koi hona chahiye
#
mujhe ye cheez achi lagti hai
#
like when Tina asked me to write column in midday
#
I was like well I don't think I can write a column
#
and I don't have the time like I can't do it
#
just do it for three months
#
well I mean 13 and a half years have passed
#
and I'm still doing it right
#
now the thing is I had no brief on that column
#
it was just write a column
#
and I thought like what should it be about
#
so actually I just wrote about anything
#
and over time I got into stride
#
and now like I know what kind of things
#
I want to write about and all
#
so for me the biggest surprise was
#
the number of people who responded to the column
#
I didn't think that would happen
#
and it shows you that basically
#
they have seen something
#
that you have not yet started to see in yourself
#
that there are many other people
#
you just need that focal point right
#
and so that audience grows
#
and yes I think I am continuously astonished
#
by the kind I feel I grow a lot
#
from the responses of people
#
who follow my work and like it
#
their engagement with it
#
so there is definitely a deep engagement
#
a very strange thing that happens to me
#
with people who follow my work
#
is many of them have dreams about me
#
which I find really intriguing
#
like I very often get a message from someone
#
sometimes an unknown person
#
or sometimes the person
#
I might have met once or something
#
that I had a dream about you
#
and then they'll describe the dream
#
and of course every dream is a dream
#
so that's always interesting for me to listen to
#
but I think it's interesting
#
that they are engaging with me
#
at a very core imaginative level
#
because imagination is the primary location
#
and the desire to free the imagination
#
what is my political purpose
#
it is to free people's imaginations
#
to imagine many new things
#
and many new ways of being
#
I don't want to tell people to be like me
#
I want them to tell me something else I could be
#
like I want their imagination to liberate me
#
as much as the other way around right
#
so I think that I definitely get
#
from many of the people who follow me
#
I feel like ah like even in my own work
#
I understand something new
#
so there is a lot of that beautiful warmth
#
that I feel very very lucky to have
#
there are some people I think who like my work
#
because I wrote a column about love for some time
#
so that has people love to read about it
#
and they feel very happy
#
maybe even a little flattered
#
because they feel their emotions are being written
#
sometimes somebody will write something really sweet
#
like a few weeks ago someone wrote
#
only I know how much you have written this column for me
#
so I love it when that happens
#
because I feel that the capacity for intimacy
#
that those readers are showing
#
or those viewers are showing
#
and I want there to be a lot more of that in the world
#
so I think definitely I see that in the people
#
who are following my work
#
it means that the thing that I care about
#
and want to communicate through my work
#
and there are people who understand that
#
and they're not such a small number
#
You know you mentioned earlier that the friend
#
from your youth who's Tiffin you used to eat up
#
you know you had this impact on me
#
you said this that being alone can be good
#
and that meant so much to me
#
and then you realized that something
#
that would have seemed so normal to me to say
#
it can be a TIL for someone
#
and what I found as a columnist is often I will
#
like I don't write columns anymore
#
because I decided not to write
#
for any other platform just to do my own thing
#
but you know in between
#
I became really jaded about writing anything
#
because I was like what's the point
#
one nothing is going to change
#
and two I've written everything I had to write
#
so what you know everything felt like stating the obvious
#
and then sometimes I'll realize that
#
you know whether it's in my episodes or whatever
#
that I'll say something
#
which to me sounds completely unremarkable
#
fuck man that really changed me
#
you know or somebody sent me a column
#
and they said that man this changed my life
#
it stayed with me for a long time
#
and I was like that was a throwaway column
#
you know I have written like hundreds of columns
#
and that was a throwaway thing
#
and that then reminds me that at some level
#
it also becomes a responsibility
#
of writers and creators
#
that don't take what you do for granted
#
it can make a difference
#
even if you've normalized everything
#
so everything seems obvious to you
#
but you still want to put it out there
#
because it can make a difference
#
I mean certainly that does happen
#
that you know people feel deeply impacted
#
by something you have said or done
#
which you didn't pay that much attention to
#
or at other times for example
#
when I was writing my column on love
#
I once got an email from a young man
#
about a terrible like he's like
#
it's a strange email to write to
#
but I don't know who else to write to
#
and basically it was not an uncommon story
#
about falling in love with a young woman
#
they were from different communities
#
and so now there's no way
#
and you're not like they had to break up
#
and he's like I'm not even very sure
#
what I'm writing to you for
#
how can I deal with this
#
and I didn't have a solution
#
to offer to this person right
#
so then I simply just wrote back
#
saying that I mean you can't do anything
#
actually that's the honest fact that
#
unless your girlfriend herself
#
there's nothing you can do
#
you can just let her know
#
that you'll be there to help her
#
if she wants to do something
#
but otherwise I'm sorry
#
and I hope that you feel better
#
and I'm sure that you'll meet somebody else
#
he wrote to me saying that actually
#
his girlfriend did get back in touch with him
#
and that they're now together
#
and they explained it to her parents
#
and it's like I can't explain to you
#
but reading your column
#
gave me a lot of solace and courage
#
like I felt I had somebody with me
#
when I was feeling completely alone
#
that is actually a very profound thing
#
that you know of course
#
the person wrote to you because they could
#
but in essence the fact that
#
they would read and feel
#
this other voice as a companion to them
#
and a sense of empathy for their situation
#
like it's going to be tough
#
but well one day you will get over it
#
and one day you'll fall in love again
#
that is seems to make a huge impact
#
it may not make any impact on another
#
I mean it's also so random right
#
one has to trust in those moments of course
#
I believe in those moments very deeply
#
and if when those moments happen
#
it makes me feel like myself very deeply
#
I don't know how else to put it
#
but the other night while on a panel discussion
#
and somebody who's younger
#
I said that you know that
#
when I would start to say
#
that I really love this actor or whatever
#
it was for me like in your film
#
and fearless is the name of the character
#
like I felt like all of my
#
fragmented parts reconnected right
#
that is exactly what I wanted to say
#
so to the person who said
#
you have written this for me
#
only I know how much I have written it for me
#
like most of my writing
#
is also to give solace to myself
#
and in a way that is also why
#
it gives solace to someone else if it does right
#
so when I made Unlimited Girls
#
what it meant to be a fearless person
#
not in a traditional sense
#
but in wanting to become yourself
#
at a destination of who you are
#
and to have another person
#
as something that had been a journey for them
#
So you know the final question
#
not the final final question
#
I was reading Noah Smith's newsletter
#
where he his latest newsletter
#
is about how Tokyo is the best city in the world
#
and he has I mean that was his
#
everybody has a different view on this
#
I feel Bombay is the best city in the world
#
but and he had this great sentence
#
many great cities become museums of themselves
#
their lack of new development
#
and homage to their glory days
#
and his contentionist Tokyo refuses to do this
#
but I am struck by how much this phrase
#
can also apply to individuals
#
that we can become museums of ourselves
#
and we can become ossified
#
and you know like people often complain
#
old people repeat the same stories all the time
#
it's like you become autocomplete
#
and it's a nice way to put it
#
one way to get out of this
#
that artists or creators
#
are in less of a danger of this
#
because every time you write something
#
or every time you create something
#
if you're not just an autopilot as it were
#
you are in a sense expanding yourself
#
and expanding your sense of self
#
you're changing all the time
#
Do you feel that's the case with you
#
once you have the kind of career you've had
#
where you've created all the things you have
#
it is true that while you cannot be categorized
#
you can be seen in a particular kind of way
#
and it is dangerous for you also
#
to see yourself in a particular way
#
and just become that person
#
Would you ever feel looking back in hindsight
#
that oh I could have been a museum of myself
#
or like I look at myself maybe five or six years ago
#
and I think there was that danger
#
and I think I'm broken out of it
#
because I'm doing enough work
#
that helps me stay fresh
#
but in your case what was that journey like
#
and as a creative person
#
I mean is this something you've thought about?
#
I mean I think I do think about it
#
either consciously or not so consciously sometimes
#
because I have a deep fear of becoming ossified
#
of becoming unaware of what I am
#
right like I have a great fear of it
#
and I also have that accompanying thing
#
I don't like to stay in a space
#
that I think is becoming an industry
#
so for example when I started working on Bombay
#
I am going to work on Bombay as a theme
#
that the things I was interested in
#
were about the life around me
#
and the life I was making for myself
#
so I had a good like eight or nine years
#
of working on those themes
#
Q2P, Cosmopolis, West Sandra
#
I wrote a lot about Bombay
#
and then it was like this whole thing
#
called the urban turn was happening in academia
#
and writing about Bombay
#
and talking about Bombay became a thing
#
and Maximum City came out
#
and it all started to get a kind of
#
the template starts to emerge
#
and I always become very uncomfortable
#
now you can read that as being
#
you know a little moralistic or judgmental
#
well just because something is settling
#
into an institutionalized format
#
and there are rewards for doing that
#
now you want to like go off and do something else
#
but I think so part of my feeling that yes
#
there is a great danger of automatedness
#
there will be opportunities
#
you will take them just because they are coming
#
and what will you then be
#
this is a very big fear
#
so I kind of started to ease away from that space
#
and I'm not really praising myself for this
#
because I said two things happen
#
that one is that maybe you're just making things
#
maybe you have more work to do in that field
#
which you could do with less hardship than before
#
but now you have decided
#
but on the other hand it is also that
#
it's a survival need for me
#
because since I'm not used to belonging
#
that when there's a space
#
where you might get very belonged
#
I start to feel like I'm losing myself
#
because I'm only used to being outside the category
#
I only experience myself
#
when I'm outside the category
#
sometimes inside the category
#
I start feeling drowned
#
so also it's a survival need for me to do something else
#
so I think that also happened
#
when I made Unlimited Girls
#
and it was a certain kind of a film
#
which were inventive and mixed and all of that
#
it's not that that work became meaningless for me
#
I think from Unlimited Girls to Partners in Crime
#
there was a growth in the way
#
that I was looking at the medium
#
but documentary itself began to become that space
#
where European funding is coming in
#
there is a push to make a certain kind of film
#
and that is professionalizing the space
#
in a way that I felt that my work doesn't get enough
#
like when it was an unmoderated space
#
and audiences would come and they would love it
#
and they would love many other people's films
#
so it was a kind of a space of love
#
and the stakes were not so industrialized
#
so I feel like maybe I also recognize
#
that when the space is going to become industrialized
#
a person like me cannot easily exist in that space
#
because I will be judged by a yardstick
#
that doesn't apply to me
#
and I don't want to be judged by that yardstick
#
so I would often then move away from that
#
but I also think that it comes from
#
a desire to be actually communicating
#
to actually be responding to the world around me
#
and that I think you can't do that
#
if you keep sticking with
#
like sometimes to say new things you need new forms
#
so even making an Agents of Ish kind of a space
#
it came from the desire to say certain things
#
which I don't think would be said in documentary
#
Agents of Ish create years, people's narratives
#
the variety of themes which emerge
#
in relationship to the audience cannot be done in a film
#
there are many things I learned in filmmaking
#
that I'm applying to what work I do right now
#
but they generate another a new thing
#
so I think certainly it's very important for artists
#
that they could be anywhere doing anything
#
but I think it's about recognizing
#
what kind of an artist you are
#
there are some artists who are great exponents of one thing
#
and they can use that one form to do myriad things
#
so as long as you are being very truthful
#
to the things you want to say via your form
#
I think it's fine it's absolutely okay
#
for me I'm not able to be fully truthful
#
without always finding that new form to speak in
#
why that is you know like I said it's biographical
#
some of it is because I want to speak about the now
#
I'm very interested in speaking about
#
what is happening right now
#
but not speaking about it in a trends kind of way
#
I want to understand the meaning of what is happening
#
so for that sometimes you need a new form
#
and that is why I go towards it
#
but yeah I think whatever it's good for artists
#
get to know themselves as they work
#
you can't know yourself beforehand
#
the more you work the more you know yourself
#
and I think that you should try to be true to yourself
#
and not think that you already know everything about yourself
#
you will always find something new in yourself as an artist
#
I would say at this point in my life
#
I'm very curious about myself
#
in terms of what I'll do next
#
I think I want to do something that may not
#
that may be a little bit more classical in nature
#
because that's not my way
#
and I'm curious that how will I do it
#
and I think one should feel curious
#
then I think it's it's fun
#
and it's alive your work you know
#
I was very struck by something you said in this
#
superb interview of yours
#
which came out a couple of days before we are recording this
#
where you spoke about how Agents of Ishq is actually like a film only
#
except it's running for many years
#
and you know when you think of it with that lens
#
suddenly you just see it differently
#
and obviously you know it's so true that as an artist
#
you have to just the only way to keep growing
#
is to try new things and all of that
#
and at the same time as an artist
#
there is also that temptation
#
which you're saying you reflexively fought
#
to allow yourself to get ossified
#
that if an industry opens up fine
#
you get the foreign funding
#
for the cliched documentary made in a cliched way
#
or you kind of allow that to happen
#
and you won't even know it
#
it's very easy to then rationalize all of that
#
and say oh I've been you know
#
I've done so much work on Bombay
#
and yeah now I'm finally getting rewarded
#
and I've got now a fancy apartment
#
and I travel all the time
#
so you should start daydreaming again
#
but and yeah so that resistance to being ossified
#
how do you fight those temptations
#
and even those resentments
#
like you mentioned Maximum City
#
and I'm guessing when Maximum City came out
#
like if I was in your place
#
there's a small petty part of me
#
I have been working on Bombay for 10 years
#
I've done such great work
#
why is it getting so much acclaim
#
you know how does one fight that
#
because you find that people with you know
#
I mean one doesn't want to do comparative scales
#
but men do this kind of thing
#
somebody with one fifth of your talent
#
would suddenly be very successful
#
and you know getting opportunities
#
that perhaps could have been yours
#
but you've chosen to kind of stick out
#
and not get into that groove
#
so have you had these kind of self-doubts
#
how do you deal with it
#
I'm very like complaining kind of a character
#
so you know I mean you feel it
#
of course you feel like
#
if you've done something for a long time
#
and the fact that you are working
#
in what are relatively more ephemeral forms
#
that you are not going to write a book
#
or you're not going to make
#
that one particular type of a film
#
that is a point of desire also
#
that you I don't let that sense seriousness
#
but at the same time you know like you feel that
#
I think the resentment that you feel is fair
#
because in an ideal world
#
there should be space for that thing and you
#
and the fact that the world is binary
#
and says oh that's the real thing
#
and now you are no longer the real thing
#
maybe that pisses me off
#
like somewhere that my abandoning of those spaces
#
like now are you telling me
#
that after I made this space happen
#
because I do feel I have done that
#
like I've made those spaces happen
#
not alone along with others
#
like a cohort always happens right
#
who is doing something first
#
without too much pomposity seriousness
#
and then it opens up a field right
#
and then somebody comes and does some
#
I don't want to call it seminal
#
but like they'll do some kind of
#
more conventional piece of work
#
but you know one also has to accept
#
I think whenever I feel that feeling now
#
I just say to myself that
#
but you know that person has done
#
and that is why that person's work is reaching a certain
#
you should be understandable
#
what people have understood of you
#
they should stay with that love
#
and not just go chasing after the
#
and they are Rani Mukherjee
#
I have completely missed this
#
my listeners will get it
#
but I have completely missed it
#
on purpose you have missed it
#
but I'm just saying that feeling
#
so I think you have to contextualize for yourself
#
this is how the world is structured
#
it is okay to feel pissed off
#
resentful and bitchy for a little while
#
but you really can't stay in that place
#
some people are very good at acts of translation like that
#
how to take what is going on
#
and convert it into a blockbuster item
#
and you cannot begrudge them that
#
can you give other examples of such translation as you put it
#
I love the way you're using this term here
#
well I mean even if you think about
#
you know actually I would say like
#
Superman of Malegaon as a film
#
I feel it's an act of translation
#
where it takes a kind of impulse of documentary
#
that is happening independently at that moment
#
where documentary is slightly transitioning
#
from its very activist kind of mode
#
into these very this variety of films that
#
whether it's Amar Kanwar making these
#
you know like very Drupad type documentaries
#
or me making this popular kind of culture
#
there are a number of different impulses
#
and I think Superman of Malegaon
#
very excellently takes all those energies
#
and converts it into a very translatable
#
which a large number of people can enter
#
and I think that such moments
#
do end up like making that
#
the way that people want everything to be
#
that is not the fault of that person
#
that's just the way the world works
#
so you have to understand that
#
once when I was complaining about something else
#
even though it would be a very good example
#
so my friend said to me
#
I said like I'm such a bad person
#
like why am I saying these things about that work
#
because I actually think that thing is good
#
that like I have been doing it for so long
#
and I'm not getting the same amount of
#
and that person is not attributing what they have done
#
and she said you know actually it's not that you're a bad person
#
and actually you do want it
#
you do want everybody to do the things that you do
#
actually you want the world to be more like the way
#
you're just feeling upset
#
because you're not getting credited
#
and it's as if what you have done has been cancelled
#
I think that's a real issue for independent artists
#
I think those of us who have done things in ways
#
that were not conventional
#
I think the world needs to learn to acknowledge that much better
#
I think that if you look at
#
let me say for instance
#
that I have found it extremely
#
what is the word for it
#
found it like kind of so
#
suddenly people are writing about documentaries
#
because all that breeds got nominated for an Oscar
#
or writing with fire got nominated for an Oscar
#
there are so many documentary filmmakers
#
there is so much work that has happened in documentary
#
but you'll never write about it
#
until a film gets nominated
#
and then you'll use that to define what a documentary should be
#
so I'm saying like this is the internet
#
upon Instagram accounts about cinema
#
but see how narrow is the
#
breadth of what they are talking about
#
instead of there being more space
#
for more types of things
#
to be accommodated at an equal level
#
I'm not sure that is happening
#
I think there is a certain homogeneity
#
of what matters and doesn't matter that is happening now
#
which I don't feel used to be there before
#
because what you also said earlier
#
that more types of things can exist
#
but the way in which we are able to value and celebrate them
#
is I don't think really expanding
#
I think it is contracting actually
#
and I think maybe it's something we can talk about after the break
#
but I think there is something about how we listen
#
how we listen to the world
#
that is really altering
#
and that is creating this feeling
#
that many people feel unheard
#
We'll get to that after the break as you said
#
but before the break just like a couple of observations
#
and one observation is that
#
you know independent artists like you
#
and the others you mentioned are doing
#
is you are expanding the boundaries of the possible
#
and then somebody else happens to come into that space
#
and do something that is closer to the mainstream
#
and they become successful
#
but they manage to do it in the first place
#
because you had already expanded the boundaries of the space
#
because you had already expanded the boundaries of the possible
#
and expanded the imagination
#
something like the overton window in politics
#
where you know some people may be extreme
#
only so that others less extreme
#
can sound more reasonable than they otherwise would
#
and that's thought number one
#
and thought number two is about homogenization
#
in the sense that my understanding
#
of the way the world worked
#
and it was a bit of a lament
#
is that everything is becoming a Cavendish banana
#
I learned about the Cavendish banana
#
from my episode with Vikram doctor
#
and for those of my listeners who haven't heard
#
that basically the Cavendish banana
#
was a particular kind of banana
#
it was taken from India to the west
#
there somehow because it is suitable for many things
#
like economies of scale
#
and it lasts long and all of that
#
it became the dominant banana
#
and then it was exported from there back to India
#
where it is now destroying all indigenous kinds of banana
#
so your banana diversity has gone down
#
and the Cavendish banana is not so tasty
#
and it's a great metaphor for a homogenization
#
that happens across fields
#
and I would have thought that for example
#
it happens in languages also
#
that you know you have languages in the cities
#
and dialects outside cities as it were
#
so when you have people who speak in Bhojpuri, Maithili
#
and so on when they come to a big city
#
the incentive is to conform
#
and to be able to communicate
#
with as many people as possible
#
so you embrace the Hindi
#
and you leave your dialect behind
#
and dialects die and that's how they've been dying
#
now I did a recent episode with
#
not recent I mean almost a year back
#
with Vinay Singhal of stage.in
#
which turned this around on its head for me
#
because what he's done with stage.in
#
as a central premise was Netflix for India
#
but not in languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali
#
but in dialects like Bhojpuri, Haryanvi and so on
#
and conventional wisdom would tell you
#
no we are in the age of the Cavendish banana
#
but he said no I will charge Netflix prices
#
and I will build audiences
#
and he's managed to do exactly that
#
you know it's a hugely successful company now
#
and there's been what he calls a reverse migration
#
where kids from Haryana went to Bombay
#
to join the film industry
#
and now they've gone back
#
and they're making Haryanvi content
#
and Bhojpuri content and all of that
#
and that like I've seen some of it
#
and it's mainstreamish kind of content
#
but the fact is that it's an anti-homogenization thing
#
and even in the creator economy
#
even what I see with a Miss Excel
#
or even what I've done with long-form podcasting
#
where nobody would know
#
that they were listeners for this kind of thing
#
the fact that there is a niche
#
no one would even call it a niche or use that term
#
because you would not know it exists
#
a default assumption would be
#
but abroad Lex Friedman and the likes have shown
#
and over here what I see every day with my own
#
and so there are these spaces
#
now I agree with you that
#
that doesn't mean that every independent filmmaker
#
is immediately going to be able to put food on the table
#
it is still a labor of love for most of us
#
you know me and my co-host Rajay
#
we've decided we're not going to make money for two years
#
we are not even going to think about it
#
it's okay we're just going to do it
#
because we want to do it
#
and we are privileged enough to be able to do a labor of love
#
most artists frankly aren't
#
it is still a step in a direction
#
where audiences are one
#
and two there is a means to find this audience
#
you know if I was to do a long-form interview every week
#
there wouldn't be 10 people who would show up
#
but when I do it through the internet
#
I find these dispersed audiences
#
and all of this really makes me hopeful about the future of the
#
No no I absolutely agree with that
#
I mean I'm reiterating that
#
like I don't consider my life not to be a successful life
#
because look at the kind of things I'm doing
#
when we started Agents of Ish people were like
#
you can't do it, no one will come
#
but that is not how it is
#
and you know we have gotten to be even more like
#
now we do something called Tharki Tuesday
#
in which we are actually talking about language of Tharak
#
but actually all the things that have been called vulgar
#
which is like a deep colonial amount of baggage
#
which it's very difficult to make people shift that mindset
#
because we have all internalized it
#
so I think like in that we are able to do it
#
and that there's an audience that gets it
#
like you can if you tell somebody this they'll say no
#
so you can only demonstrate it
#
you have to demonstrate you have to make it possible
#
and I think that there are some people
#
who are always vanguardist in that way
#
they want to do the thing that nobody has done
#
not because of anything else
#
but I feel like in myself
#
it's a deep love of solving a puzzle
#
that how can they do this
#
if they do this then what will happen
#
so actually the person who does our website
#
he is frustrated with us
#
because we do play with so many forms
#
and he told me that if you can reduce it
#
your reach will really grow
#
you can play with any form
#
and once you've solved it
#
then you want to do another form
#
and he is right about that
#
if you stay with the same thing for a long time
#
doing agents of ish for eight years
#
the longest I've ever done anything in my life
#
that if you keep doing something for a long time
#
the audience keeps growing
#
and you can have a kind of definition of success
#
which otherwise evades you
#
but you know like what about the puzzle
#
like what about the new puzzle
#
is always a question that is in your mind
#
you cannot gauge your success
#
in the conventional way
#
oh how many new things was I able to do
#
how many new creative puzzles
#
did I get the chance to solve
#
and have some other people participating in that
#
will have to be your gauge for your success
#
so it's not about your self-image
#
sometimes we feel that feeling
#
because we feel the world does not
#
I'm less important than Shah Rukh Khan
#
like say I don't identify
#
with so much of the conversation
#
about fans of Shah Rukh Khan
#
and people don't understand
#
why I've never met Shah Rukh Khan
#
and why I don't try to meet Shah Rukh Khan
#
I think you're more important
#
I have no objection to your thinking that of course
#
but I'm thinking like you know
#
when people ask me like
#
how why don't you want to meet Shah Rukh Khan
#
and I say because I want Shah Rukh Khan to meet me
#
what's the fun in me wanting to meet Shah Rukh Khan
#
only if Shah Rukh Khan wants to meet me
#
will the daydream become real right
#
but the other thing is also that as a fan
#
what I really feel is like
#
it's the Shah Rukh Khan-ness in me
#
that I am interested in exploring
#
that I loved Shah Rukh Khan
#
because I saw a bit of myself
#
so actually it's really about that
#
that person can be very valuable to the culture
#
and I can also be very valuable
#
and the culture has to see us both as valuable
#
the culture doesn't always see both of us as valuable
#
they will only see this person valuable
#
when they are like Shah Rukh Khan
#
and I think that is what we all feel a little frustrated about
#
like if you are a writer of poetry
#
you should be as beloved
#
as the writer of pulp fiction
#
and I'm saying the writer of pulp fiction
#
should also be as beloved as the writer of poetry
#
they have their own meaning in a culture
#
it's a daydream and a nightdream both
#
this conversation was going really well
#
till you used the phrase Shah Rukh Khan-ness in me
#
you know you're triggering me with that
#
I meant it very seriously
#
when I spoke about you being bigger than SRQ
#
or any other comparative star in a particular way
#
most people's engagement with SRK
#
would be at a very shallow level
#
and would be with a fictional version of himself
#
that they've built in their heads
#
whereas people's engagement with you
#
and would be with the real you
#
and would be because you connect with them
#
like I don't think Shah Rukh would have brought couples together
#
like you did in that particular case
#
Shah Rukh has brought so many couples together
#
I said the wrong thing there
#
but you get what I'm saying
#
I'm just saying that like
#
I think different figures in the world
#
have different meanings
#
and if one thinks in terms of a biodiverse
#
existence for the culture
#
then everything has its own beauty and meaning right
#
when I say homogenization
#
that rather like nature
#
which we want to synthesize
#
and homogenize in a certain way
#
rather than accept its slightly untamable diversity
#
I think that is what you long for in a culture
#
you long to love many things
#
and have each love recognized as meaningful
#
let's take a quick commercial break
#
though I don't have any commercials
#
have you always wanted to be a writer
#
but never quite gotten down to it
#
well I'd love to help you
#
I've enjoyed teaching 27 cohorts of my online course
#
the art of clear writing
#
and an online community has now sprung up
#
of all my past students
#
a newsletter to showcase the work of students
#
and vibrant community interaction
#
spread over four weekends
#
I share all I know about the craft
#
and practice of clear writing
#
there are many exercises
#
and a lovely and lively community
#
the course costs rupees 10,000 plus GST
#
head on over to register
#
doesn't require God-given talent
#
just a willingness to work hard
#
welcome back to the scene
#
I'm chatting with Paramita Vora
#
about her fascinating life
#
and as we went into the break
#
you said okay after the break
#
we are going to talk about
#
so let's talk about how we listen
#
by which I presume you mean
#
how people take in mainstream
#
how people take in entertainment
#
well everything actually
#
what does it mean to make art
#
it means to listen deeply
#
what is underneath the thing
#
or if I think about how
#
we make work on agents of ishq
#
we don't work by curriculum
#
from what the audience is saying
#
but it's not as facile as
#
hey guys what would you like us
#
to talk about and then six topics
#
yeah once in a while that too
#
but mostly it's like a deep
#
listening to the comments
#
when we started agents of ishq
#
it's like sex education
#
sexuality sexual culture
#
but I think we started talking
#
within a year and a half or so
#
in that whole discussion
#
there is this underneath
#
what people ask us and say
#
I think some conversation
#
and instagram has this cool feature
#
where you can ask a question
#
and like a sticky question
#
and then when people respond to it
#
but you can repost it anonymously
#
it's a really great feature actually
#
so a lot of people seem
#
to use it if they trust the handle
#
and I think because of the questions
#
I think it was something
#
and when seeing the answers
#
people are almost too scared
#
to say they want to be loved
#
so we asked the question
#
and the answers were really
#
very astonishing very raw
#
that people have loneliness
#
they have anxiety about hurt
#
nobody wants to make themselves known
#
we ended up doing two months
#
of two themes in the following months
#
one of them was the theme
#
which we didn't understand
#
simply as emotional vulnerability
#
but rather as political
#
social relational vulnerabilities
#
the phase we have to go through
#
in order to reach a place
#
not simply permanently stuck
#
right that almost vulnerabilities
#
I want to hold your hand
#
which was about the idea of touch
#
want affectionate touch
#
because touch is so hyper sexualized
#
and it has become very contentious
#
bad touch type of a conversation
#
but actually the simple thing
#
or holding hands with a friend
#
and sexual relationships
#
the simplicity of touch
#
not always being a hyper sexual meaning
#
and the warmth of touch
#
that people have these needs
#
people responded to it deeply right
#
allows you to do a deep relationship
#
that is why like sometimes you
#
which was themed inflection
#
talked about how you know
#
you need gigantic amounts of data
#
this is an inflection point
#
but when you think about
#
it can have a massive effect on you
#
it can change your life
#
but it's a very small piece of data
#
and how does one really like size
#
which speaks to your earlier conversation
#
about depth of engagement right
#
but they're not very easy
#
social media is a place
#
where everybody wants to speak
#
but very few want to listen
#
or very few feel really heard sometimes
#
listen to others is decreasing
#
a feeling of loneliness
#
is not only about having friends
#
but it is about feeling
#
like you live in a community
#
and the world is your home
#
to be at home in the world
#
you have to be able to feel
#
that you are listened to
#
and you can listen without threat
#
I think that a lot of people do feel
#
then that will drown them out
#
so they must say what they think
#
and I think that is resulting
#
in us continuously having
#
forms that are not committed
#
like when you do a lengthy podcast
#
and even my anxiety in the break
#
it's come from this thinking
#
if you can't tell me right away
#
I really don't have the time
#
to sort of figure you out
#
give you that much time
#
and therefore what's your worth
#
your worth should be known
#
this is what I really mean
#
simply by paying attention
#
I think there is a difficulty with that
#
you know me and a friend of mine
#
we just launched a YouTube show
#
which gives you great metrics
#
now our sort of way of thinking about
#
this is that philosophically
#
we decided we are not going to look at
#
metrics for the first couple of years
#
I don't give a damn about analytics
#
but Ajay looked at the metrics
#
and he said do you know what
#
within the first 30 seconds
#
we are losing almost half the people
#
because these are the people
#
who haven't clicked on a link
#
they've just seen us pop up
#
I can't give immediate gratification
#
so they're out they're gone
#
but there's you know 15 to 20 percent
#
of the people who are watching
#
all the way through the full hour
#
you know and they're engaged
#
and I value that so much
#
that I don't really care about the
#
what the absolute numbers might be
#
I have two or three questions
#
arising out of what you just said
#
and for the first of them
#
I am going to sort of quote you
#
and in one case disagree with you
#
so I'm going to quote you twice
#
I'm going to disagree with the first quote
#
which is like the data of experience
#
is as amazing as stories
#
and you said this in the context
#
and you're right in that context
#
but I feel that language
#
is incredibly inadequate
#
you've got a beautiful quote
#
about how love comes in many forms
#
and I want to quote that as well
#
in truth attached or detached
#
we find love many times in our lives
#
just that often it appears
#
in unconventional places and shapes
#
experience within friendship
#
in relationships that are entirely virtual
#
in the inexplicable attachment
#
to someone we've just met once or twice
#
the commitment we feel to someone
#
we have long parted from
#
but remember with an abiding flame
#
the almost painful empathy for a colleague
#
a romantic love across orientation
#
the yearning and joy of someone else's media
#
the simultaneous love for two or three people
#
that person we barely know
#
but inexplicably keep seeing in our dreams
#
all kinds of love we rarely recognize as such
#
even when we give in to these loves
#
most of them remain in a shadowy
#
half acknowledged place
#
creating the grounds for much hurt and violence
#
are constantly undercut and soured
#
by judgment of ourselves
#
the complete inadequacy of language itself
#
and to describe ourselves
#
you know it's like that
#
with Wittgensteinian sort of skepticism
#
about what language can do
#
and I'm reminded of what you know
#
Borges once wrote a short story about
#
has to be as big as a world itself
#
and it's immediately out of date
#
because the world is changing
#
and similarly with language
#
I find that there is so much we can't express
#
there are so many shades to it
#
and I feel that when you speak
#
about the importance of listening
#
one has to wonder about language
#
so many of these things
#
we perhaps don't have the language for it
#
one way of getting past
#
the problem of language
#
is a solution that artists know
#
which is show don't tell
#
you don't need language
#
you know you show a love story
#
I think poets mainly show don't tell
#
you know stuff resonates with you
#
and then you don't need language anymore
#
you're listening in a different way
#
don't engage with art deeply
#
most people don't have the patience
#
or the privilege to be able to
#
you know listen to a long-form podcast
#
or listen to conversations
#
so I'm not I'm not really
#
but it's just an observation
#
in tackling the very difficult subject
#
through all these lovely songs
#
and through using tropes
#
of popular entertainment
#
you've managed to find a way
#
which I think previously was unsaid
#
and even perhaps unsayable
#
so take me a little bit
#
through your thinking on of all of this
#
I mean I agree with you
#
then it will never be sufficient
#
because I don't think words
#
are the only language we use right
#
many languages together
#
and relating to what we said earlier
#
gathers many different energies
#
makes them into a very simple
#
by that I don't mean simplistic
#
but a simply understandable idea
#
I think pizza is such an idea right
#
that's actually quite myriad
#
when you eat it in its own place
#
which had like mascarpone
#
the pizza we know and love
#
I know you were feeling horrified
#
when I was describing it
#
is that kind of simple translation
#
and everybody understands
#
that that particular thing right
#
there is no verbal language
#
or where the verbal language
#
and we are able to recuperate
#
and put them into a form
#
I think what is very valuable
#
because they are not fixing
#
and what the words mean
#
so that place of connection
#
between the said and the unsaid
#
what art brings together for us
#
and it allows us privacy
#
to just feel that feeling
#
and leave a bit changed
#
but we don't all have to be the same
#
even while we are watching
#
so it liberates our spirit
#
I mean one of my favorite lines
#
is from this folklorist
#
when we talk about copyright
#
art with copyright right
#
and I find that beautiful
#
but words are also beautiful
#
I think that my question
#
about different relationships
#
that there is no one sexual liberation
#
is understanding who you are
#
and being able to actualize it
#
combined with the idea that
#
in fact we are starting
#
next path from Agents of Ishq
#
about the idea of safe spaces
#
and this excessive anxiety
#
without always being safe
#
rather than safe for something
#
so actually what does art do
#
I think it creates a safety
#
to take to be adventurous
#
to go into an imaginary place
#
which filled me with ideas
#
and somehow that's keeping me company
#
that is keeping you company
#
it's a certain feeling you had
#
when you heard that song
#
so I think like with Agents of Ishq
#
of finding multiple languages
#
verbal languages actually
#
it's not only about other languages
#
people express themselves
#
about normalcy and normalization
#
often means homogenization
#
going to exclude somebody
#
what are the frames we can find
#
that are as inclusive as possible
#
which can infinitely grow
#
and infinitely generate
#
more and more understandings
#
by using popular culture
#
so I would like to think about
#
because people have made a hierarchy
#
but actually the term vernacular
#
the language that people speak
#
that's something that gets
#
so slang is a vernacular
#
and popular culture is a vernacular
#
a vernacular of sexuality
#
I think that has been the journey
#
the learnings along the way
#
is that you have to co-create language
#
sometimes there isn't words
#
there are words that are not used
#
in the way like an English word
#
for talking about sexuality
#
lesbian will be the word
#
that everybody wants to use
#
so sometimes we do that
#
what do you like to call yourself
#
dyke has got a negative connotation
#
I want to use for myself
#
so people's own reclamations
#
everything becomes encapsulated
#
nothing is prescriptive
#
I think by having songs
#
you definitely create a space
#
where you don't prescribe a meaning
#
you allow meanings to be made
#
so yes I think that certainly arts
#
the arts allow this inclusion
#
they allow a co-creation with people
#
allowing people to join their meanings
#
and create third and fourth meanings
#
that is what makes Agents of Ishq
#
a project about sexuality
#
which is really a project
#
and about life itself right
#
started sending in their stories
#
one is that we ourselves learned a lot
#
sometimes we coined terms
#
or we would make up words
#
we were making a post about
#
but feeling kind of thinky
#
like karu ke nahi karu right
#
so actually the joyfulness of play
#
which allows you to make up words
#
you know so not being extractive
#
even of slang is important
#
or say like wow that was cool
#
like either of these things can happen
#
so when you're using the arts
#
you're making yourself vulnerable
#
and let's take that risk together
#
then something new comes about
#
similarly like we didn't know
#
what to say for queer in Hindi
#
so we began to use the term atranga
#
because we just felt like
#
we are getting to queer
#
now a lot of people say
#
but I think what started to happen
#
is that like people's own stories
#
actually generate a new language
#
which is neither verbal
#
but it's a language of life
#
right like with the stories
#
or intimate experiences
#
they are actually inscribing
#
a vernacular experience
#
have these extremely diverse
#
or anthropologist is telling you that
#
the people are telling you
#
why they're telling you that
#
we are taking their stories
#
to dignify that human experience
#
we are editing the stories
#
we are illustrating them beautifully
#
we are translating them beautifully
#
being a work of art in a sense
#
I think that is also kind of language
#
that people are able to
#
and that I think is the best
#
yeah and a great example of
#
these unusual intimacies
#
which create a language of their own
#
who married the same guy
#
and that is again a lovely example
#
now that people are arguing
#
about the uniform civil code
#
in an ideal utopian world
#
and we are nowhere close to that
#
but in an ideal utopian world
#
there would be no civil code at all
#
you know enforce upon you
#
everybody would come to their own
#
and whether it is two people
#
should not make a difference
#
that is a utopian construction
#
never going to be the case
#
but sort of leaving that aside
#
the distinction you mentioned
#
and even in our last episode
#
not in opposition to something
#
but in favor of something
#
so can you elaborate on
#
it's interesting that you brought up
#
the idea of the uniform civil code
#
because you know this morning
#
in order for the uniform
#
then only uniform civil code makes
#
and I don't know that I
#
with such linear causal
#
kind of ideas of anything
#
what do we really mean by
#
when we say uniform civil code
#
whose civility do we mean
#
and there I think language is powerful
#
of the origins of the word
#
and Mr. Devi is a master
#
and so the way that language
#
as opposed to use prosaically
#
suddenly opens up something
#
in your mind about ideas
#
but actually I was also thinking
#
I was when I saw the word polygamy
#
who are talking so much
#
that people want to talk about kink
#
and they want to talk about polyamory
#
almost a new kind of template
#
people want to explore things
#
but I do have that question
#
about whether it's becoming
#
of progressive intimacy or what
#
like to the polyamory thing
#
there should not be any polygamy
#
is one thing being used
#
to complicate the other or not
#
so it was vaguely in my mind
#
and so you brought this up now
#
that law is also kind of a language
#
and the language of law
#
like when you sign contracts
#
and they're always so horrible
#
like the act of signing a contract
#
because it always makes you
#
but everybody will always say to you
#
man, why are you taking it so seriously
#
this is only if something bad happens
#
how many bad things are you imagining
#
as we are writing this contract
#
that the more legalistic
#
actually happen in those relationships
#
I have signed very simple contracts
#
have mostly gone pretty okay
#
yeah the more time the contract takes
#
you'll have to make something else
#
like it's not about Kala Safed anymore
#
I think that people use too much
#
so consent is an example of that
#
people can get viciously angry with you
#
if you say consent is a spectrum
#
they are not informing themselves
#
with the complexities of
#
they're taking this legalistic example
#
so that is why it's also causing
#
so much anguish and difficulty
#
and similarly when we are
#
obsessive about terminology
#
it's a very legalistic approach
#
that this is a term you must use
#
you are politically appropriate
#
obviously terms are very important
#
I'm not going to stop calling myself
#
because somebody thinks
#
and I use it to make myself
#
understood to the world
#
it's also a language for me
#
as an example of whether you can be
#
upstanding political citizen or not
#
and law is very much engaged
#
is a beautiful story at times
#
and can understand life
#
but taking that language
#
that's life a disservice
#
now what is a safe space right
#
I met somebody for a coffee
#
that I think past lives
#
and I'm not able to understand
#
why people are praising it so much
#
and I must have written
#
and not posted a million
#
because I felt like if I say it
#
I don't think I'll get attacked
#
but people who have praised it
#
and then people will think
#
I didn't find social media
#
and then this person I met
#
said at least three times
#
well since this is a safe space
#
I'll say this is this thing
#
that we are so hesitant
#
for fear of being misunderstood
#
because to be misunderstood
#
actually is my question
#
and I've even lost track
#
in this whole elaborate thing
#
no you've actually come
#
because it was about safe from
#
I think is a question of you know
#
a feminist group in Kerala
#
what do women do in gardens
#
because there's this whole idea
#
of the garden as the place
#
and you make out with lovers
#
and then I had made a film about it
#
morality TV or loving jihad
#
unnecessarily persecuting
#
so the idea that you have to say
#
but if they were making out
#
they still should have that right
#
that you are arguing for right
#
images of women in gardens
#
where women are of course
#
all these movie songs in gardens
#
which are full of clutching embraces
#
and all kinds of things
#
a feminist who I deeply
#
if we thought about life
#
that is about adventure
#
and when there's an adventure
#
there are some missteps
#
are we going to make ourselves
#
and then only enter the space
#
the possibility of moving forward
#
for us to start a conversation
#
because it's too easy to say
#
not to criticize people for
#
and say it doesn't go anywhere
#
actually it wasn't a new conversation
#
so if it's so simple as saying
#
what do you want the space
#
what should you be able to do
#
you should be able to make a mistake
#
you should be able to make a mistake
#
and actually even when we started
#
there was one thing I wanted to do
#
which we are still not done
#
which is I wanted to interview people
#
about the one sex mistake
#
because you make a mistake
#
you make so many mistakes
#
you have so many misgivings
#
you wouldn't be who you are today
#
so I think that's really
#
I think for Agents of Ishk
#
our next exploration is
#
to be at the deeper level of this
#
that yes we want rights
#
but rights does not sufficiently cover
#
everything that intimacy is
#
how are we going to create
#
to be together as people
#
and how are all these different relationships
#
in that quote that you spoke about
#
how are we going to honor
#
each one of them in their own way
#
without making a hierarchy
#
of what matters and doesn't matter
#
without making a false equality also
#
nobody is saying that everything is the same
#
but that doesn't mean everything
#
is not deserving of regard
#
and so I think like a life of adventure
#
would be a life in which we feel
#
and what does that really mean
#
what are the safeties and non-safeties
#
we are willing to negotiate with
#
what are the safeties we want for all people
#
not just for some kinds of people
#
I think that larger question of citizenry
#
what should the citizenry be safe to say
#
and do if we talk about freedom of expression
#
actually we're saying what am I say
#
what am I allowed to say
#
not allowed to say in public
#
that actually applies across the board
#
if you're going to do it partially
#
then life will never be safe for anybody
#
or expression won't be safe for anybody
#
these are some of the questions
#
and they are questions of language
#
but they're also questions of meaning
#
obviously in our last episode
#
we spoke about the garden of consent
#
you know just in the morning
#
saw a great video about the valley of consent
#
and these are such beautiful phrases
#
now I'm going to ask you about
#
sort of something that you've touched upon
#
in both what you just said now and earlier
#
which is about the sort of the incentives
#
and the imperatives of being on social media
#
like typically what happens
#
is you go on social media
#
you want to feel like you have a tribe
#
one of the ideological tribes
#
that is available to you
#
on the far left or the far right mostly
#
and then you want validation within the tribe
#
and the easiest way to get validation
#
is attack people and not arguments
#
but people on the other side
#
or attack people on your own side
#
for not being pure enough
#
and get a thousand retweets
#
and this then has a chilling effect on everybody
#
because now everything is open
#
because people are looking to be outraged
#
so they can show their own virtue
#
and their own knowledge by outraging
#
and that is you know one kind of incentive
#
which removes the nuances from many discussion
#
and you know you might want to engage
#
but the discourse is incredibly simplistic
#
on every side and that becomes dangerous
#
and that is sort of one kind of incentive out there
#
and the other kind of incentive out there
#
is something that in fact
#
leads to mental health issues
#
Jonathan Haidt has spoken about
#
the mental health epidemic
#
among young teenage girls
#
where you know 15 years ago
#
you know people used to say
#
hey boys will become violent
#
they'll play all these video games and all that
#
but actually nothing happened to the boys
#
they played video games
#
video games showed them problem solving
#
that is anyway what boys are like
#
they're taking out their violent impulses there
#
and it's but the issue with the girls
#
and earlier you are in what I would say
#
are genuine safe spaces
#
you're hanging around with your girlfriends
#
you are all messy imperfect beings
#
everybody else has an Instagram account
#
you are comparing your real messy life
#
with their projected ideal lives
#
and this leads to a race to the bottom
#
this leads to anxieties
#
and mental health issues
#
and suicide among teenage girls in America
#
have gone up in the last few years
#
I think Facebook suppressed
#
they themselves had done
#
if I remember correctly
#
and so what is your feeling
#
because on the one hand
#
because now everybody has a voice
#
I don't need a gatekeeper
#
I can make myself heard
#
there are these sort of toxic impulses
#
which affect all the good causes
#
because I might believe in a particular good cause
#
but everybody who claims to speak for it online
#
for them projecting virtue
#
and you know pretending to be an activist
#
you don't need to do anything in the real world
#
you just have to go and rant on Twitter
#
and that becomes a big problem
#
and again this is a problem
#
both on the far left and the far right
#
and I've been mobbed by people on both sides
#
and it just gets incredibly unpleasant
#
and it has a chilling effect on everybody else
#
you have a silent majority
#
which need not be in step with them
#
the world is complicated
#
and it isn't all black and white
#
but it affects a discourse
#
and I would say in a distorting way
#
in the discourse everybody is shrill
#
a minority of people are shrill
#
but they are the only one speaking
#
I think that the really important thing
#
about social media is that
#
it's essentially capitalist owned space
#
that exists in order to deliver scale
#
and the great promise of social media
#
is that it will get you scale
#
and that's why I would go back
#
to my biodiversity arguments
#
that is very very difficult to
#
accept small scaleness on social media
#
people feel it very acutely
#
that oh I don't have that many likes
#
this is the simplest rendition of that feeling
#
but yes we judge the value of things by the scale
#
and that is I think very dangerous
#
because we obliterate the meaning
#
of something that does not have scale
#
and I have seen people who started out
#
being quite reflective and nuanced
#
because they feel like it's plateauing
#
once something starts to work
#
you want it to work some more
#
so now the latest thing is
#
that people will post a selfie
#
and say posting a selfie
#
to jog the algorithm right
#
like because you get rewarded
#
like because if you post a picture of yourself
#
you're more likely to get
#
like somehow people respond to that more
#
so it jogs the algorithm in a way
#
that maybe it brings more traction
#
to your account I don't know
#
I mean that's what they say
#
so sometimes people will do that
#
like you will see influencers doing that
#
and then you just think like
#
how is all of this meaningful
#
at the same time it's also true
#
that there's a huge amount of traffic
#
there's a huge amount of content
#
and not that many users
#
so also that's terrific
#
like it's like being in a mall
#
like there's a lot of crowding
#
actually that is the thing about social media
#
for those of us who are observing it
#
I think it's too easy to be catastrophic
#
in this abstract way is causing these things
#
I think capitalism is causing it
#
I heard speaking at a conference
#
we can imagine the end of the world
#
but we can't imagine the end of capitalism
#
and so much of climate change dystopia
#
is about oh my god the world is going to end
#
but we are not going to change the way
#
that we think about what matters doesn't matter
#
how we build our markets
#
so I feel the same way about social media
#
I do think it has some really
#
like I personally really enjoy social media
#
I have no feeling like oh I want
#
I'm very curious about those people
#
and I want to understand
#
but I'm never clearly understanding it
#
and I guess that means people are all very different
#
that's all it tells you
#
I have not left any social media
#
in that minimal way that I'm on Twitter
#
but I have not joined threads
#
because I feel like a fatigue has set in
#
like all of this is more
#
and there is not even any wine left to put in them
#
I think like people are also tiring of that
#
automatedness of the outrage thing right
#
like I don't feel it's there as much as it used to be
#
yeah I think it probably peaked at one point
#
like I think it's a huge net positive obviously
#
and I use it to curate my feed
#
and you know you get every morning
#
you get to listen to the best minds in the world
#
thinking aloud for your benefit
#
who would have thunk this in the 80s or 90s right
#
this is absolutely magical
#
as far as what is causing all this
#
I'd go one step further upstream
#
and say not capitalism but human nature
#
what is really like for me
#
for me capitalism is equal to consent
#
it's a voluntary actions of people
#
who are serving each other's need
#
whether you do it on scale or not
#
and what is simply having is that
#
we now have a machine which is better
#
at giving us what we want
#
and because it so happens
#
that some of the things we want
#
and the feeling of tribal belonging
#
are also being amplified
#
and that leads to these consequences
#
we have these dangerous instincts
#
and we also have better instincts
#
which compete with those instincts
#
so I think the key part of the puzzle is
#
how to unleash the better angels of our nature as well
#
but I would say that markets are a mechanism
#
to give people what they want
#
no but heterogeneous markets are
#
I'm using the term definitely describe
#
the current version of capitalism we live in
#
I am not an anti-markets person
#
I think the market is a beautiful thing
#
because it is about desire
#
and this is about a meeting point
#
but the market which is like the bazaar
#
where I bring different goods to please you
#
and we bargain and we arrive at things
#
not the kind of global capitalism
#
that we currently live with
#
which pushes for only one definition of value
#
like when you look at mainstream content
#
why shouldn't we have a number of awesome
#
pieces of content out in the world
#
but why do we have fewer of those
#
you know I recently ended up
#
watching a bunch of films
#
I mean one of the things
#
that I became involved with
#
during the pandemic was Korean drama
#
and I could speak about it forever
#
but in between I thought
#
okay I'm watching a lot of K-drama
#
and now I really want to watch some films
#
so I you know went and watched
#
everything people were talking about
#
and A Decision to Leave
#
and a bunch of good films
#
and then I went and re-watched
#
and it's based on a piece of
#
like a novella by a writer I love
#
I mean I think quite a great film
#
and one can have some critiques of it
#
but I just thought like today
#
we cannot have a film like this
#
not even in the art circuit
#
and it's not because it's
#
because there'll be a political challenge to it
#
because it depicts a lot of very
#
violent sex or difficult sex right
#
going into that difficult place
#
is no longer something people
#
even in the most arty kind of spaces
#
the reason that people can say a film
#
which is really so pica
#
which is by no definition of cinema
#
okay sorry to everybody
#
who's listening and thinks I'm being
#
all those things you think I am
#
if we have totally lost the habit
#
of entering a zone of the unknown
#
and I think that if we're always
#
in the zone of the predictable
#
then we are merely robotic
#
right and I think that is very difficult
#
but there's not really a place
#
so I'm going to use a totally different analogy
#
and I'm going to talk about
#
and how interesting a thing it is
#
because the Bharat Jodo Yatra
#
just stepped out of a binary
#
it's the binary that the current moment
#
you're either for something
#
you're either online or you're offline
#
very hard to find right
#
and I think like for the longest time
#
you have this binary conversation
#
and the right wing is always
#
and then you're reacting to it
#
I'm not in this game anymore
#
now I'm going to go off
#
and do one Bharat Jodo Yatra
#
it's totally unfashionable idea
#
and it may or may not have any outcome
#
and it may or may not gather
#
but I'm going off to do that thing
#
whether you like the Bharat Jodo Yatra
#
whether you like Raoul Gandhi
#
really that's not the point
#
the point is that somebody just said
#
okay I'm out of the binary
#
and I'm going elsewhere
#
this is a very powerful thing
#
it creates a certain feeling
#
I don't know if it necessarily
#
gives you a feeling of hope
#
I really can't say right now
#
politically looking at it
#
but you just feel kind of relieved
#
bind of the binary right
#
and I think social media
#
is imposing that bind a lot
#
and that makes it very suffocating for us
#
or not against then who am I
#
and how do I define myself
#
I will go to manifest that self
#
I think that is the real thing
#
whether it's this podcast
#
whether it's the other arts
#
who run poetry accounts on Instagram
#
which I just love those people so much
#
whether it's people who
#
because it's pleasurable
#
continuously provide us
#
that space to be ourselves
#
which currently social media allows
#
so it requires a huge act of choice
#
you'll have to consciously
#
go on your own self jodo yatra
#
towards those things right
#
whose judgment is both like mine
#
and whom I trust implicitly
#
have been raving about past lives
#
so now I have to watch it
#
you've also written wonderful columns
#
about some of the things
#
like bazaars versus malls
#
and of course you like me
#
you've written a recent column
#
so I'll link all of those
#
what I would say is that
#
are sitting here together
#
it enables somebody like me
#
I am hugely into poetry twitter
#
the amazing work that's happening
#
people like Joseph Asano
#
really popularizing poetry
#
it's enabling all of that
#
someone like me 30 years ago
#
would not have had a voice
#
I would have not had friends
#
I would not have had a voice
#
I would have lived a life
#
which is equal to consent
#
and voluntary actions of people
#
which to me is beautiful
#
I understand the corporatized
#
that you are speaking of
#
and those structures exist
#
and analogues of the Bharat Joro Yatra
#
are actually ubiquitous
#
I mean what you are doing
#
is also enabled by this
#
and I think it's beautiful
#
so that's why I'm saying that
#
for and against feeling
#
capitalist control of social media
#
and it aids the political crisis
#
that we find ourselves in
#
simultaneously in a number of ways
#
if you can't as a person
#
be many things at the same time
#
don't feel like you're surviving
#
because we are not one thing
#
I mean now the argument is
#
there is no such thing as the self
#
there is no such thing as the self
#
then our self is being made
#
daily through relationality
#
because I feel understood by you
#
because I'm not feeling understood
#
because I sang perfectly
#
to a tree whatever it is
#
whatever rendition I use
#
the possibility to do that
#
and to be a number of people
#
is really what helps us
#
actually we become less alone
#
when we are many selves
#
that is when we start to feel alone
#
like all the things that you said
#
in a very flattened idea
#
of what it is to be a person
#
flattened down only to your gender
#
that is what renders them alone
#
when you're saying that
#
women are not the same way
#
what they are really saying is that
#
they unlocked themselves
#
from only being defined by gender
#
to being defined by personhood
#
and that is what renders you
#
and able to find the resources
#
continuously move forward
#
at the end of the universe
#
so there's nothing else
#
now is it a big mountain
#
is it a mountain at all
#
there's nothing to relate to
#
there's no relationality
#
I think is the term you used
#
is there an essential paromita
#
regardless of everything else
#
I mean I think about that
#
that sometimes there is a moment
#
when I feel so reconnected
#
what we had in the old computers
#
to watch the little things
#
the little boxes used to come
#
but I should love watching it
#
whether there is an essential self
#
or not is really hard to answer
#
but we do try to ask ourselves
#
that question often right
#
that we our biographies
#
in a way that is liberating
#
in a way that feels confined
#
it's easier to think about the self
#
in terms of confinement
#
and if liberation is the way
#
then really what does that mean
#
like a moment of lightness
#
where you didn't feel tethered at all
#
is actually when you felt
#
so then is there a self
#
that is tethered to the ground
#
this becomes a kind of question
#
to this question for me
#
like confirm for myself
#
one does come into form
#
through other people's gaze
#
I think there is some truth to that
#
that's why we search all the time
#
for the gaze that will tell us
#
like the idea of darshan
#
this is something that is
#
I'm trying to think about myself
#
in the pandemic completely
#
on my own in that house
#
and how I reached back to the past
#
and that there was somebody
#
who did an Instagram live
#
by how people wanted to make
#
meaning of the pandemic
#
like within two or three weeks
#
I got asked to write an essay about it
#
and you know all of that
#
but we also were full of thoughts
#
like now I won't be so quick
#
to think those thoughts
#
but I remember that she said
#
like do we have a future
#
and I also thought about
#
but I know we have a past right
#
and think about right now
#
there's something to be said
#
I kept looking to the past
#
my need to understand who I am
#
manifested in so many ways
#
cleaning out my CD collection
#
and then I had all these CDs
#
and then I made all these
#
you know at one particular moment
#
I would listen to these five CDs
#
so it was like a portrait of my time
#
so actually look at the way
#
in which I am trying to
#
through all of these things
#
and how elusive the self seems to me
#
and I always need a translation for it
#
answers your question precisely
#
makes it an unanswerable question
#
to which there are endless
#
renditions as a response right
#
so and which also makes me think
#
that actually what do we long for
#
I think there's somebody to ask us
#
a question that unlocks
#
I would say it's not so much
#
that a particular question
#
somebody asks questions right
#
to my thought about listening
#
in the last couple of years
#
because I should be able to
#
when somebody calls me up
#
and asks a very kind of
#
if they irritate you so much
#
what I find very remarkable
#
journalistic interviews
#
end up speaking to somebody
#
to have them say at the end
#
like oh I never thought
#
why didn't you find out
#
or you'll have somebody
#
anything much about your work
#
and then you're just like
#
why have you rung me up
#
and you understand that
#
generically as feminist
#
feminist, sex, something
#
denotes a very hazy idea of you
#
so the precise question
#
like when somebody asks
#
and you feel immediately
#
took you to a new place
#
that curiosity in a sense
#
and that's also what I mean
#
what are they listening to
#
actually I want to know
#
who was on your show once
#
I had done a two-hour episode
#
can you tell us about him
#
this full life story per se
#
and it goes quite deep into that
#
so why don't you listen
#
there is some kind of code there
#
and these guys were trying
#
to do a head job basically
#
and the piece never came out
#
of that particular magazine
#
by progressives in India
#
about your CD collection
#
I thought it is not C and D
#
there's lots of that also
#
you mentioned about pornography
#
talk about that a little bit
#
that in India especially
#
we do a great disservice
#
on some kind of higher plane
#
that we look at scans at
#
is actually alien to us
#
like those Buddhist women
#
you know there's a great collection
#
I'll link it from the show notes
#
incredible erotic poetry
#
a lot of the strictures
#
and the way we look at the erotic
#
it is of course Victorian morality
#
all the episodes I've done
#
that genetic evidence now shows
#
something strange happened
#
for a thousand years or so
#
all the different peoples
#
into the Indian subcontinent
#
they were mingling with each other
#
you have strict caste endogamy
#
David Reich refers to India
#
not as one large population
#
of many small populations
#
caste endogamy only works
#
towards women's seclusion
#
and lust as something that
#
it's not to be not spoken about
#
it should be the other way around
#
because a lot of what we call
#
and we can't really define it
#
through the erotic perhaps
#
until these recent developments
#
so I'm kind of just thinking
#
and written about it so
#
I don't think that you know
#
it's a lust versus love
#
and that will be necessarily better
#
because a lust versus love binary
#
is itself a false binary
#
like I think there's a continuum
#
the idea that lust is base
#
so by putting lust on the top
#
I think also we would do
#
a disservice to relationships
#
I didn't imply that either
#
is very important thing to do
#
remember having a conversation
#
who is a union organizer
#
and she asked this question
#
right like does every relationship
#
or like sometimes it's just lust
#
I mean people need to satisfy their lust
#
and I would fully agree with that
#
my contention is only that
#
you can have a lustful relationship
#
and not look at it as lesser than
#
or not worthy of being treated
#
because when you do that
#
essentially you're disrespecting yourself
#
and I despise myself as well
#
as opposed to like I felt lust
#
a hookup or paid sex or whatever
#
so there's a lot of work
#
in order to reinstate it
#
it is intimately tied up
#
to the idea of gender and caste
#
the idea of controlling
#
the idea of controlling women
#
and as you rightly said
#
these tropical cultures
#
and feels like what the hell
#
and I want to control it all
#
so I think there's all of that
#
yet I would make a distinction
#
between the idea of eros and lust
#
because lust is a part of eros
#
but it's not all of eros
#
and I think the idea of eros
#
very necessary to recapture
#
because reinstating lust
#
there's a part of ourselves
#
but when you think of people
#
who say that they're asexual
#
they complicate that question
#
an interesting complication
#
because they're saying that
#
I have to enact the urge
#
a philosophical question
#
to this idea of lust and love
#
which I enjoy thinking about
#
and that's why I said eros
#
the whole world of erotica
#
that is very expressive
#
and it's very expressive
#
non-hierarchical space actually
#
that if one can recover it
#
a possibility of community
#
I think that older Hindi films
#
as being crude, vulgar etc
#
crudeness and vulgarity
#
may not all be all bad things
#
like even now when people recover
#
what they call crude and vulgar
#
pelvic thrust of mitunda
#
you know like it always
#
be recovered with irony
#
but actually it should not
#
be recovered with irony
#
and I think that's the distinction
#
the people who are recovering
#
upper caste backgrounds
#
self-conscious acceptance of lust
#
without recovering eroticism
#
and I think that dating apps show you
#
what goes on when you do that
#
when I went on dating apps
#
I understood very quickly
#
are not having a lot of sex
#
when I ask people now like
#
are you having good sex
#
that's great to have confirmed
#
but not great to hear right
#
but they haven't actually
#
with a certain kind of buoyancy
#
tied up to hierarchies of taste
#
good taste a little bit to do it
#
I'm just thinking aloud
#
is tied up with anticipation
#
that go into the whole process
#
I'll hook up with someone
#
then that is lust alone
#
there's no erotica in that
#
that it's about anticipation
#
versus non-anticipation
#
talking to somebody online
#
that by the time they meet
#
to live up to the anticipation
#
so it's very deflating for them
#
that's also a hierarchy of taste
#
and pornography are separated
#
because one person's pornography
#
is another person's erotica
#
is made on the basis of
#
just hierarchy of taste
#
star we love or whatever
#
what are they really saying
#
and it went right to my groin
#
that's what is really being said
#
so that instantaneous lust
#
that you felt for the idol
#
which you can also feel
#
or somebody that you meet
#
and makes you feel like
#
we often acted on that frisson
#
and I wonder why we don't always
#
so that's a whole question to explore
#
so I think it can be immediate
#
it's like anything else
#
there are many tastes in it
#
and for us to make that a part of
#
is really what we are saying
#
like reclaiming pleasure
#
pleasures of many kinds
#
you don't have one fixed type of pleasure
#
you may actually enjoy sampling
#
many different pleasures
#
or you may be the kind of person
#
who only likes one pleasure
#
and then you'll only do that
#
making pleasure into a very
#
how do you say vistrit in English
#
it includes many things in it
#
what makes me feel good
#
what makes me feel naughty
#
what makes me feel transgressive
#
what makes me feel dirty
#
all of it to be allowed
#
being unkind to somebody else
#
or violent to somebody else
#
like all of it to be like
#
I think it's very difficult
#
to do it in the current
#
you know that is so hung up
#
that it becomes difficult to
#
because as soon as you start
#
talking about something
#
which doesn't neatly fit into
#
a sexually progressive mode
#
people start getting a lot of
#
progressive moral panic
#
I need to categorize it right away
#
rather than wait to see
#
what this thing might be
#
to see it on its own terms
#
so I think that work is very hard
#
than say five years ago
#
can you give concrete examples
#
of what you mean by this thing
#
that thing just to illustrate
#
where the high court said
#
that POCSO cases are really piling up
#
and I think a woman of 17
#
now the judges have heard the case
#
they have decided on some merits
#
that it's not a POCSO case right
#
in which people are able to see it
#
a very big power differential
#
but there is no possibility of that
#
there's so much anxiety
#
comes from a real place right
#
because the law has done so little
#
and the system does so little
#
cannot go to the police station easily
#
and make a domestic abuse complaint
#
so because the system doesn't address
#
that we become very anxious
#
and so actually even if you use
#
like when we do our turkey Tuesday stuff
#
and if we are going to use like these
#
sometimes even I get a little anxious
#
that guys should our drawings
#
because people will feel like
#
oh you people are vulgar
#
it'll derail the discussion
#
that the moment that you step outside
#
the prescribed sex positive discourse
#
there was a piece on Mill and Soman
#
somebody wanted to do in the team
#
and then finally they came up
#
with a kind of visual treatment
#
and then they interview different people
#
about Mill and Soman's beauty
#
okay and my favorite line
#
in that article is that
#
because the person who wrote
#
Mill and Soman was not only made
#
but also the female gaze
#
I started laughing when I read it
#
right because I just felt like
#
and the idea that you know
#
my sexual orientation doesn't limit
#
where I might find a kind of sizzle
#
because of looking at somebody
#
one or two people saying like
#
A-Y you're being really creepy now
#
Mill and Soman's cancelled
#
because he wrote something
#
about being in a shakha or something
#
there are some problematic things
#
so now you're not supposed to
#
praise his beauty so much
#
so I am quite impressed
#
who insist nevertheless
#
all those things about him
#
and still say that he's sexy
#
I feel this is actually the space
#
it should not be made too much of
#
it should not be given too much meaning
#
and not too little meaning either
#
like it's just that thing right
#
about your young colleagues
#
and before I go to my next question
#
again a beautiful couple of sentences
#
you've written about lust
#
Lust is a mirror to our
#
undomesticated inner being
#
carnal intimacy throbs with risk
#
and the breathtaking tension
#
of exposing our naked selves
#
Lust becomes an equalizer of sorts
#
even as class dynamics ebb and flow
#
mirroring the intimacies
#
of domestic work itself
#
since you mentioned Poxo
#
in another eloquent column
#
and people getting imprisoned
#
for 20 years and so on and so forth
#
and at one point you write quote
#
is rendering poor families helpless
#
pushing them into greater poverty
#
and misery a social evil
#
elite stigmatize the poor
#
how often have you heard someone say
#
these uneducated people
#
are a disgrace to society
#
as if it is a fault of the poor
#
that they are not educated
#
rather than of a disgraceful system
#
and you were of course referring to
#
how people would retrospectively
#
would income would kind of go poor
#
it was an assam especially
#
it was an assam that you kind of
#
and I remember I once wrote
#
a column about child labor
#
you know everybody was talking
#
and look at these sweatshops
#
and the studies actually show
#
Oxfam spoke about a situation
#
where because of international outrage
#
you know factories had to lay off
#
many of them starved to death
#
many of them became prostitutes
#
in 1995 UNICEF did a study
#
where an international boycott
#
of carpets made in Nepal
#
which was because it was using
#
led to between 5,000 and 7,000
#
Nepali girls turning to prostitution
#
the children were laboring
#
and that was the only option
#
you actually force them
#
and we often see progressive elites
#
in this very shallow way
#
again seen in the unseen
#
what happens after the fact
#
in the posco cases that
#
you know you're putting
#
if you imprison a 25 year old man
#
for marrying someone who's 17 years old
#
and perhaps they fell in love
#
turn it from your elite gaze
#
and suddenly a breadwinner is gone
#
and you know this sort of
#
posturing virtue signaling
#
I think really poisons the discourse
#
at least a couple of people
#
talk about how you know
#
a lot of the feminist movements
#
people actually going out
#
and engaging with complexity
#
and trying to solve real world problems
#
and simplistic social media posturing
#
just muddies the discourse
#
this is a very important thing
#
and it's not only a social media thing
#
that there have also been
#
around the question of obscenity
#
there were a lot of feminist initiatives
#
that attacked obscenity right
#
but today feminists will say
#
that obscenity is not a category
#
that you can really use
#
because all it ends up doing
#
is actually overriding consent
#
they went through a bunch of
#
and they found that the 66a
#
under that of sexual violations
#
were always filed under obscenity
#
and not under violation of consent
#
it becomes about outraging modesty
#
rather than the violation of consent
#
it doesn't address the harm
#
expand this idea of a moral universe
#
justice should be handed out
#
so I think that similarly
#
there are too many times
#
to serve our moral desires
#
over the needs of people
#
should children be laboring
#
they absolutely should not be
#
that cannot be addressed
#
by rescuing the children
#
the same thing has happened right
#
that sex work is very bad
#
but there is such a thing
#
or sex work in which women
#
from which women do not wish
#
to which many women are saying
#
we want to have workers rights
#
we want to be protected
#
you continuously keep it shadowy
#
due to your moral universe right
#
but instead you will rescue
#
into what will you rescue people
#
out of the safe space argument right
#
that safe space for what
#
you never asked those people
#
because it is only about you
#
and not about the so-called rescued
#
I think the difference between
#
being somebody on the ground
#
is that even if you go in
#
with that moral approach
#
the ground will push back
#
from what you did wrong
#
and if you are any kind of
#
political being of commitment
#
and you'll become more complex
#
all your politics online
#
this is the demerit of it
#
of your political journey
#
maybe an Instagram account
#
about girls going out at night
#
or slut walk or whatever
#
that is the inauguration
#
of your political journey
#
has to go much further than that
#
if your political journey
#
and you're just jogging
#
eventually you're going
#
to conform to this reality
#
in the reality of other people
#
and I think that's the thing
#
for people to watch out for
#
and of course it's true
#
that it's elites who do that
#
because elites want the world
#
to serve their vision of the world
#
in which they can imagine
#
and pretend that they're not elite
#
No and I love that phrase
#
like you're such a seriously
#
and I have the perfect segue
#
to what we just spoke about
#
I was going to ask about
#
in one of your columns you wrote
#
it was a matter of luck
#
all these amazing people
#
black and white politics
#
performing a liberal self
#
and I also want to ask you
#
to talk about the mentors
#
you've had in your life
#
who've made an impression
#
you mentioned somewhere
#
you mentioned this teacher
#
who told you this beautiful thing
#
tell me a little bit about them
#
what you learned from them
#
I mean people talk about
#
who've guided their entire journeys
#
and I can't say I've had that
#
would have been like with that
#
but I think I've had numerous
#
that I'm very grateful for
#
in a different system of education
#
I went to many different
#
I also went to different
#
educational systems right
#
for two years in Bombay
#
but then I also went to
#
Baghdad for four places
#
I know but the thing is
#
all those different systems
#
I encountered numerous teachers
#
there was at least one teacher
#
maybe like their acknowledgement
#
that so I had a teacher
#
yeah and Shagufta Ahmed
#
and she's wearing full-sleeved
#
kurta with her churidars
#
so I was very admiring of her
#
I mean I also am thinking
#
as we are speaking about
#
that you remember the feeling
#
which makes you feel like
#
that's something I could be
#
right like that's something
#
so they're also your ideals
#
in a way that you gestured
#
and now when I look back
#
like Shagufta Ahmed symbolized
#
she seemed to be not very young
#
they give you a feeling of possibility
#
they do recognize in you
#
something that is like them
#
and they give you a little something
#
and that's a piece of mentorship
#
so I remember Shagufta Ahmed
#
gave me a copy of Alex Haley's Roots
#
and I was also against it
#
it's you're a little young
#
but I think you can read it
#
for me that's an act of mentorship
#
a little bit more challenge
#
than class is giving you
#
the system of education actually
#
like you're not able to
#
that there won't be other spaces
#
in which you learn right
#
conversely there was Mrs. Jain
#
like when I went to that school
#
I had been studying in Hyderabad before
#
I had Sanskrit in Kerala
#
I cannot study Sanskrit
#
like Hindi is bad enough
#
the Sanskrit teacher was like
#
I will teach her Sanskrit
#
and so she would give me
#
extra classes of Sanskrit
#
and everybody were playing
#
and I got very good marks
#
so of course I resented
#
Mrs. Jain for teaching me
#
but now I think back on it
#
but giving that attention
#
and say I will teach you
#
I think teachers are pretty awesome
#
in the things that they can do
#
they can be harmful to you
#
but there are many teachers
#
who really are amazing people
#
this teacher wasn't exactly
#
she was my teacher in school
#
and when I went to hostel
#
she was our hostel assistant matron
#
so that thing that you know
#
first we were very scared
#
of Ms. Kaliya in school
#
because she had a very glacial
#
when she would walk through
#
she had a very soft voice
#
so she would also turn her
#
and say something to you
#
and we used to feel intimidated
#
suddenly we saw wearing jeans
#
and also we got a very shocked
#
shockingly different aspect
#
of just normalcy in her
#
she had all these books
#
I remember she had all about
#
and like her book shelf
#
and I would keep peeking it
#
and one day she called me in
#
and we talked a little bit
#
like that attentiveness
#
which to me looked pretty good
#
that oh the spinster teacher
#
this is a very nice thing
#
like one can live like this
#
it was all of those things
#
they are kind of mentorship
#
like you see this person
#
mentoring existence right
#
by example they let you
#
think you can be this thing
#
Manju Kapoor taught me as well
#
that's her writing name right
#
her name was Mrs. Dalmia
#
so all of these teachers
#
college was a big mentoring time
#
blue stocking existence
#
ki kitabe par rahe hain
#
aur library ja rahe hain
#
lagge wahin lagge wahin
#
comparing two translations
#
without knowing a word of Greek
#
first year mein kar rahe hain
#
and teachers are letting you
#
like overreaching yourself
#
that I went to a girl's college
#
listening to other women
#
and having these teachers
#
there was a big duta strike
#
and the way they explain to us
#
why they're going on strike
#
in understanding what is happening
#
so they break the binary
#
of the teacher-student relationship also
#
with some of those teachers
#
I was in the department
#
I still call them ma'am
#
like I can't not call them ma'am
#
even if she didn't teach me
#
but she was in my department
#
how can she conceive of me
#
I guess that does happen
#
those teachers are not people
#
because they took the time
#
in a very very inimical system
#
in the university system in India
#
I see the way that teachers
#
to give things to their students
#
even when teachers ask me
#
to bring more for their students
#
but yes once I began working
#
you know I worked with Anand
#
for three and a half years
#
and we've had our disagreements
#
what an incredible exposure
#
and what an incredible learning
#
everything himself right
#
of first few months of work itself
#
I had like begun to sync up sound
#
and learn to record sound
#
and go here there and everywhere
#
and even just transcribing interviews
#
to the interview for long
#
and I was really good at it
#
so then it's also giving me
#
a place to show what I'm good at right
#
so if I'm translating like some
#
I'm showing that I'm good at it
#
and I'm showing it to Anand
#
he's like my god is damn good
#
what you're hearing in that
#
so actually taking you seriously
#
taking your opinion seriously
#
that's an act of mentorship
#
but the exposure to politics
#
that I got because of Anand
#
I met so many people from unions
#
like Asghar Ali engineer
#
I got exposed to whole world
#
it really I don't think
#
you're mentoring figures
#
even unconsciously mentoring you
#
if you disagree with each other
#
if later in life they didn't
#
that kind of caring envelope
#
but it's very important
#
that they were there at that moment
#
so I really value the time
#
that I had working with Anand
#
and editor in many films said
#
even if your films are very different
#
the methodology you use
#
like the way you transcribe everything
#
there is something I learned over then
#
it's an old-fashioned way
#
of working that I still do right
#
I think many of my friends
#
I think my friend Hansa
#
as a kind of friend mentoring
#
my friend Raul Shravasthav
#
my friend Richard Joshi
#
who takes so much pleasure
#
who takes pleasure in your work
#
that is an incredible act
#
to a very lindy SMS from Richard
#
after he had watched Partners in Crime
#
like you really try to do something
#
with non-fiction and something
#
it's not just as joyful
#
this is what you're doing
#
this is what you could do more of
#
I've had an ongoing mentorship
#
from friends and colleagues
#
you've mentioned earlier
#
about how when you were working
#
you're dealing with diverse people
#
you're doing things you wouldn't
#
you've I think written elsewhere
#
wouldn't otherwise have gone
#
get different facets of the city
#
through that organic experience
#
tell me a little bit about that
#
in your becoming who you are?
#
I think that the capacity
#
a pre-existing knowledge on it
#
is the most fantastic thing
#
I'm sure I say this many times
#
an ossified museum of myself
#
I think the greatest thing
#
about working in documentaries
#
it compels you to listen
#
it teaches you to listen
#
you have to listen very carefully
#
you listen and re-listen
#
and try to put together
#
an essence of the interview
#
which is two hours long
#
is like when it's an unknown reality
#
but I think that when you go into it
#
without wanting to make sense
#
when I entered these realities
#
I was not trying to make a film about it
#
that is what was so valuable about it
#
people enter different realities
#
sometimes in an instrumental way
#
in order to write a book
#
because that's where I was
#
and then it revealed itself to me
#
and as it revealed itself to me
#
it also revealed me to myself
#
nobody has told me about this
#
this is out of syllabus
#
but I want to go down this path
#
especially in the first few years
#
the first five years of the 90s
#
it's on the cusp of a very major shift
#
from being this industrial city
#
to being the city it has become now
#
huge changes in land use
#
are changing the terms of
#
how the central Bombay land
#
can be used where the mills stand
#
and actually I should go back
#
and look for this footage
#
I made this film Annapurna
#
that time all the mills were there
#
so I remember shooting all these
#
the lanes behind the mills
#
and I don't know if I have that footage
#
but none of that is there right now
#
so actually what you're doing
#
when you walk into that space is
#
you're encountering a reality
#
you take for granted therefore
#
so you have to learn it
#
you have to learn what it means
#
the way people are dressed
#
or I would see these men
#
with those in the white pajama
#
and I would just think like
#
they are another Marathi person
#
who does some work here
#
because I was a Delhi person
#
who didn't know anything
#
I learned later that they are
#
those people in that outfit
#
who got mill workers jobs right
#
the vernacular of that space in a way
#
and slowly then getting
#
personalized relationship with that
#
Ghashi than the other cafe
#
I think making friendship
#
is the most important thing
#
that can ever happen to you
#
and it's a pity that people
#
I think even when we went to school
#
different types of people
#
there would be many students
#
who were on scholarship
#
that you studied in such a
#
that everybody is not like you
#
with people who were very
#
and friendship is the thing
#
which allows you to enter
#
so Praveen Ghag was a mill worker
#
in the mill worker's union
#
and he was very fiery speaker
#
so it used to be always cool
#
to take to shoot that speech
#
and one day there was some
#
strike and the mill workers
#
were called the chief minister's
#
so I said maybe tell you
#
and nobody should take me
#
like they didn't understand
#
like some people understood
#
some people didn't understand
#
and also I don't speak Marathi
#
then also I didn't speak it
#
I was a very weird character
#
for them but I was young
#
and that easy acceptance
#
that all kinds of folks are there
#
and then I was sitting next
#
as we were waiting outside
#
Praveen Ghag said to me
#
Parvita you are going to
#
will you come and shoot?
#
so I got very affronted
#
wedding video camera person
#
so he tried to understand
#
that you also become something
#
you do something and show
#
that I am a bit of a wastrel
#
he feels that this person
#
she has nothing better to do
#
shoot his son's naamkan
#
he is trying to give me
#
because you are just not
#
the mill worker as a person
#
it's not that hierarchy
#
a sense of great equality
#
that Bombay definitely had
#
there is an egalitarianism
#
that is not easy to obtain
#
let me give her some purpose
#
this middle class person
#
must always think of others
#
and I will fulfil that lack
#
some amazing encounters
#
that help you to look at
#
of course Dutta Ishwalkar
#
once you were in that community
#
what are you doing tomorrow
#
then I would completely
#
Kyunke tum shuru se jode hona
#
actually what is he doing
#
with which he makes people
#
from watching such people
#
one time I got locked up
#
I was shooting in the mill
#
are happening in the mill
#
there was a protest inside
#
there should be one place
#
called the bowling company
#
which opened in Phoenix mills
#
so main abhi unke saath
#
karne ka chance mil gaya
#
then I got so carried away
#
whole and soul in the mill
#
and there was this moment
#
where I was taking a shot
#
and there was a very tall
#
okay once he exits frame
#
then I will cut the camera
#
and there he was standing
#
so he took away my camera
#
and they locked the mill gate
#
and started heckling me
#
so I got very terrorised
#
I had the most bizarre thought
#
how can I just give them my tape
#
how can I extract something
#
the tape is very expensive
#
you can't just take my tape away
#
and those were such innocent times
#
so he gave me 1800 rupees cash
#
and then I was like trembling
#
I showed a lot of destruction
#
and then I went looking
#
and had gone quite ahead
#
and then when they saw me
#
we were searching for you
#
so they all went back to the mill
#
and there was a very big fight
#
they took the money from me
#
then he returned the tape to me
#
then I was taken to the police station
#
like Nilayil road police station
#
and I had forgotten the inspector's name
#
you should stay with the group
#
the security person who caught me
#
I had forgotten his name
#
but it was the same as the name
#
of some very famous gangster
#
there must have been some journalist over there
#
so one news item came in the paper
#
I was a little arrogant
#
and all this was done to her
#
the security head was named
#
it was the name of a famous gangster
#
he had the exact same name
#
that this happened to your daughter
#
mommy it's not the same person
#
I got a call from Datta Ishwalkar
#
what are you doing tomorrow
#
and then he's chatting with me
#
Datta why have you come
#
I thought my daughter must have been scared
#
he just came to make me feel
#
I mean it was beautiful
#
we made the police complaint
#
suddenly after some 8 or 10 years
#
I was not even in the country
#
some person was sent to look for me
#
you have to come for the court hearing
#
we went to the court hearing
#
the court which is in Parel
#
I'm forgetting the name of that area
#
that courtroom is like a filmy courtroom
#
then your turn doesn't come
#
and Dutta is getting me one lawyer
#
who does stuff for the union
#
another day when they say
#
the case is not going to be heard today
#
and then I get very angry
#
you're keeping on making me come here
#
every time your client is not coming
#
and that's why I have to go back to Andheri
#
so then I saw the man who had
#
and locked me in the mill
#
you look very different
#
because obviously some 10 years had passed
#
you've also become a little fatter since then
#
when our case came for hearing
#
you don't remember anything
#
no it wasn't like some of the courts
#
and now you just stand and run
#
so I had to go into that stand
#
is this the man who apprehended you
#
pata nahi baat time ho gaya
#
I can't remember anything
#
I had to do this full performance
#
you do you want to pursue this case madam
#
no I don't want to pursue it
#
and they took a photo of us
#
the people were up there
#
and I'm just saying that
#
if I had just stayed in my own
#
neighborhood so to speak
#
so there's all this like
#
categorizable experiences
#
but they make you pretty
#
and it's also just very
#
the diversity of the world
#
very appealing and ordinary
#
I think that being able to
#
and also be without an agenda
#
to frames of looking at the world
#
like that beautiful story
#
I can think of people today
#
if that was said to them
#
and yet you can understand
#
where he is coming from
#
I mean I wasn't offended
#
that he thinks I'm useless
#
each other across difference
#
like how should we describe
#
that our inequalities vanished
#
that where our differences
#
our differences were acknowledged
#
but they were not overemphasized
#
they were not overburdened
#
there was no disingenuousness
#
in which we were people
#
another thing that happened
#
to those spaces was that
#
the women who were union leaders
#
whom you might have seen
#
you're a little bit like
#
what I don't want to wear
#
only once I got to know everybody
#
then I began to wear jeans
#
but everybody accepted it
#
because by then they knew me
#
they had to be in a certain
#
like they didn't falsely imagine
#
that I was someone else
#
so there's a sophistication
#
right in every human being
#
from very different backgrounds
#
as their sophisticated selves
#
so it changes how you look at people
#
so I'm going to ask now
#
though we did discuss it last time
#
but let's talk a bit again
#
and I'm struck by this paragraph
#
that you wrote about it
#
importantly Agents of Ishq
#
but rather looks at journeys
#
we are making as sexual people
#
to make these journeys possible
#
safe, pleasurable, meaningful
#
autonomous yet collective
#
are also rooted in Indian context
#
and they should not use jargon
#
a spirit and language of sharing
#
and yeah problematic is a word
#
that triggers me a little bit
#
but tell me about Agents of Ishq
#
that it's almost like this venture
#
it's done with you move on
#
it's like having a baby
#
you know what made you do this
#
and what has that journey been like
#
what are your learnings
#
this I might have said before
#
that Agents of Ishq started
#
of course as a response
#
there was a lot of language about
#
oh like young women saying
#
that I'm not safe to go out
#
like sense of external world
#
and that men would now protect women
#
from this external danger
#
so I found that language
#
obviously very casteist
#
while seeming to be progressive
#
it was too much about women's safety
#
not enough about women's freedoms
#
talk about these things
#
there was a rise of this kind of
#
a lot of that stuff is too broish
#
and it's all about mocking people
#
and not about helping people
#
so some of my annoyance
#
with all of that made me feel like
#
well I'm going to make something
#
that will like help people
#
and there was you know of course
#
I remember there was like
#
it was the women's thing
#
so there were all these online platforms
#
that have perhaps come and gone
#
but they're very Americanized
#
that they're talking about life
#
and I had wanted to try out
#
something on the internet for long
#
like I wanted to do an online project
#
like what will it be like
#
so it just sort of came together
#
and initially as you know
#
the project was very much
#
that would be diverse and funny
#
but it would be content
#
but because people started writing in
#
saying that they wanted to share
#
meeting Praveen Ghag and Dutta Ishwarkar
#
encountering the incredible sophistication
#
that they looked at that aesthetic
#
my story will belong here
#
they decided it themselves
#
and when the story started coming in
#
we were not geared for it
#
but it started growing in number
#
and now it is such a lot
#
so that we had to create
#
a whole section of the team
#
to just edit those narratives
#
and create those pieces of work
#
now I think what is really important
#
there are many many renditions
#
there's no one correct way
#
of being sexually liberated
#
as people have experiences
#
and they do come to a wisdom
#
that experience with a certain
#
or like the victim aggression mode
#
or the continuous reiterations
#
in which we wanted to receive stories
#
we did receive the stories
#
people would talk about
#
their tough experiences
#
how they worked through them
#
and what they have learned
#
people also spoke about
#
their joyful sexual experiences
#
and what that has taught them
#
discovering that they are kinky
#
really example of that life
#
Agents of Ishk would go on
#
and on for so many years
#
and I had always imagined
#
it as a two-year project
#
than what I think it is
#
actually I don't know everything
#
and there's a lot to discover
#
it has been a learning journey
#
of trying to understand
#
what it is people's lives are like
#
allowing myself to be vulnerable
#
and then put out what I think
#
and work with colleagues
#
to making sense of these things
#
resolved a discomfort I had
#
with the documentary form
#
of people just going in
#
and doing something with others
#
and it became a co-creation space
#
that has been beautiful
#
what I find remarkable is that
#
people's capacity to read aesthetic
#
I can be pleasure positive
#
I can speak about my resilience
#
and my trauma side by side
#
I don't have to be one or the other
#
that means it is knowable for people
#
no no you have to tell people
#
so that's a learning for us
#
there have been some remarkable pieces
#
like say even the piece
#
who was a sex worker for some time
#
and actually how she met this man
#
who said I want to be your savior
#
but she didn't like his saviorism
#
and you know this is such an incredible journey
#
it's not fitting in any box
#
I'll link it from the show notes
#
just read it this morning
#
in saying that you know
#
I retrospectively understood
#
I went on with some man I met online
#
I want to respond to it in
#
like I want to acknowledge
#
that this happened to me
#
a victim in the traditional sense
#
who needs a certain kind of redress
#
for my experience in the discourse
#
and I'm like how do we even
#
put like how do we put this out
#
without it creating a reaction
#
somehow we don't invalidate
#
the person who has gone
#
through a violent experience
#
but how do we give space
#
to this person's experience
#
it took very long for us
#
to edit that piece together
#
so our process is that we edit
#
the piece on email obviously
#
a mutually agreed upon draft
#
is when the piece comes out
#
it should not automatically
#
but make people open to listening
#
so it takes quite some time
#
with the more complex pieces
#
there was a great piece by a therapist
#
about the relationships
#
people celebrate in the therapy room
#
which they would never mention outside
#
you know maybe a relationship
#
like which traditionally
#
you might say the person is suffering
#
but they may feel I don't
#
with this thing that I have
#
we had a piece from a young woman saying
#
she wrote us actually just a fan letter
#
I want to say thank you to AOI
#
to be confused comfortably
#
and it tells me it's okay
#
to be confused and figure it out
#
especially because there are
#
so many conversations about
#
red flags in relationships
#
which make me feel like a bad feminist
#
so you know I am of course
#
the original dirty postcards person
#
do you want to write a piece
#
for Asian Sufisq about us
#
so as soon as I saw her email
#
we're so happy to get it
#
but would you like to write a piece
#
and she wrote this really good essay
#
of our relationship is different
#
red flags and green flags should be
#
but this is something somebody said to me
#
after hearing a podcast
#
and then they said that
#
who said to me that you know
#
since I listened to your podcast
#
I have been remembering a man
#
that I had a relationship with
#
and I have been longing for him
#
and this is very very conflicting for me
#
because I don't want to remember that self
#
but what do I do with like what
#
for even sharing this story with me
#
because it is experiential
#
and it accommodates all your realities
#
right you're saying that
#
I don't really want to think about that body
#
that body was not my home
#
this body is my home for me
#
but still that thing happened to me
#
but to remember that thing
#
I have to remember that body
#
so now how should I accommodate
#
so I think really the latitude
#
it is not knowable to you
#
what is going to come next
#
so hence I think that like a child
#
oh I'm dead third to this
#
I have to like look after this baby
#
and writing erotic fiction
#
but I have to be here and manage this thing
#
but I think it's because
#
one of the reasons I have been doing it
#
it has taught me so much
#
all that I didn't know is there right
#
I do feel that it gives people a lot of solace
#
I think agents of ishk does give people solace
#
it makes them feel it's okay to be themselves
#
that's very important to me right
#
like it's a solace I wanted for myself
#
and I didn't really get a lot of it
#
I got it from my friends and others
#
the world easily gave that solace
#
I found that solace in poetry
#
so I guess I'm just trying to put that back out
#
but people are making it even more than that
#
so I feel it's not just a simple relationship
#
in one of your recent columns
#
you spoke about the difference
#
between programming and curation
#
and I'm just thinking that
#
what you're doing here is
#
in a sense an act of curation
#
that you're bringing together people and pieces
#
where everything comes together
#
and I think curation is an incredibly
#
culturally important task in these times
#
because earlier what would happen is
#
when the mainstream dominated everything
#
your curation would really be
#
a collection of the mediocre
#
I remember in India in the 1980s
#
by seeing the annual Grammy Awards
#
oh these are the songs that have won and all
#
and luckily I had friends
#
so I could get my own mixtapes
#
and there were different kinds of curation happening
#
one, we are inundated by content
#
two, there is a recency bias to the content
#
again Jonathan Haidt once remarked that
#
most of what we consume
#
despite all of human knowledge
#
and creation being available to us
#
most of what we consume
#
was produced in the last three days
#
it's just scroll and scroll swipe
#
and that's just how it's kind of working
#
and I think a curator's role
#
is incredibly important in that regard
#
I mean I remember 15 years back
#
where I used to post five times a day
#
there were people who would write in
#
hey I've been living in New Zealand
#
and I don't read any of the Indian newspapers
#
I just read what you are posting
#
because that's all I need to stay in touch
#
and not trying a humble brag here
#
I of course stopped that
#
and there was a paucity of anyone
#
doing any kind of curation
#
No I used to also love going to your blog of course
#
Oh wow thank you so much
#
I should say the crossword I told you
#
I think what you are doing
#
in this particular space
#
there is absolutely nobody doing
#
this role of a curator per se
#
than the role of a creator
#
I mean the role of creation
#
because you are curating experience
#
curating a sense impression
#
but the act of curation in this way
#
I'll attribute value to something
#
it's the act of attributing value right
#
one of the many favourite things
#
that I often use as a phrase to explain is
#
that thing that you say
#
hey if you just look at it this way
#
you'll see something else
#
Which is from a song written by your grandfather
#
Composed by my grandfather
#
Composed by your grandfather
#
I think Raja Mehdi Hassan is the lyricist
#
but I think also you know
#
the tagline on my email is
#
Hum Hai Diwane Phir Kaisa Dar
#
which is from an Aadi Bhavan song
#
and I think like actually
#
because the educational system
#
didn't offer me what I needed
#
I got it from the Hindi film songs
#
it was around me all the time
#
so I see the Hindi film song
#
very differently than other people see it
#
because it gave me so much
#
so it created a relationship
#
the way that you remember names of books
#
I don't remember any book I've read
#
quote lines from songs freely
#
because actually they formed
#
they didn't form my world view
#
they give like tangibility
#
I find it so insightful right
#
I simply wanted to make more things
#
that would help people do that
#
because you only do that
#
you go into different forms
#
but you're always doing the thing
#
so that's what I learnt
#
and that's what I want to render
#
so I think just the way
#
that the Hindi film song archive
#
it is everything is happening right
#
so it is curating all of human experience
#
of the nation into a homogenous thing
#
and the song was coming
#
and disrupting that completely
#
and that's why we remember the song
#
and we don't remember the film mostly
#
so I feel also that when you curate
#
that curation can be badly done also
#
people do very bad curation
#
and curation is actually
#
like a love relationship
#
yes, hum hai diwane toh I don't care
#
mujhe tum ache lagte ho na
#
I am going to put this in my thing here
#
once I was curated into a show
#
and there was a dinner afterwards
#
and one of the people from the organization
#
that had supported the curation said to me
#
so how do you feel being in a show
#
you must be feeling good
#
not to be in such a big show
#
and I was just thinking like
#
how can you talk to me like that
#
like I said to her that
#
this was not the first time
#
I've been in a big show
#
and I also don't understand
#
and your gaze has made me something
#
the curator and the curated
#
give each other meaning right
#
that makes my world view known
#
now I can explain to you
#
this person has made this piece of work
#
and agar yeh dekhogi toh tum
#
samaj jaoge mein kya kehna chah rahi ho
#
actually for me curation
#
and I like the idea that
#
curation and cure are connected
#
a very Ganesh Devi kind of thought
#
I have a section in my notes here
#
because you have originated
#
of course is life is short
#
because you just remind yourself
#
I was reading Faye Weldon's book today
#
and her one of her mottoes is
#
and I want to now push back
#
have been trying to convince me
#
that life is no longer so short
#
there is now a lot of literature
#
making the credible argument
#
that not only can our life span
#
now expand to perhaps 120
#
argue that anyone who's 50
#
today will live till 120
#
I don't think I will but okay
#
my first thought is one of fear
#
because I have seen people
#
my dad the way he declined
#
and became a shadow of himself
#
I don't want to live 40 years like that
#
but what one is convinced
#
you can have healthy productive lives
#
it might seem outrageous today
#
but advances in medical science
#
are actually making it quite likely
#
and the more I read about it
#
the more I find that credible
#
the way you look at life
#
because if I think that
#
I have 20 productive years to go
#
or if I think I have 50 productive years
#
it completely changes the way
#
that I think about the world
#
and think about the things
#
it doesn't in most cases
#
but it might even change
#
how you define your goals
#
how you define happiness
#
you know use that as a spur
#
to kind of ask you about
#
your notion of happiness
#
and maybe looking ahead
#
50 productive years in front of you
#
and I really hope you do
#
how do you kind of think about that
#
it's almost a contradictory question
#
because I think one way
#
of thinking about happiness
#
and don't try to go too far ahead
#
doesn't make so much of a difference
#
but I think what I'm broadly kind of
#
about things like happiness
#
how has all of this changed
#
as you've entered your 50s
#
I think it's changed in many ways
#
I would say it's in the process
#
what is it that I really want
#
the life is short thing you know
#
why does life feel short
#
because you're having fun
#
so no need to see something
#
that will make life feel long
#
let life actually be long
#
you can have a short life
#
and people are always like
#
it can be as long as it needs to be
#
but not longer than it needs to be
#
that's the real thing right
#
like as long as it's interesting
#
it's the length it needs to be
#
I think like in terms of
#
when you're young you know
#
and you don't have that many
#
you try to do as much as you can
#
and wherever you get a chance
#
but I think two things happen
#
you're expressing yourself
#
whatever it is possible
#
at least I am that person you know
#
I will only make that one great film
#
like I convert almost any opportunity
#
into the thing that I want to do with it
#
there is a question in me about myself
#
and how able I am to directly say
#
which is what I think I do
#
I think like after a lifetime
#
of feeling that I won't really be
#
I'm often not understood in the beginning
#
I have had that experience
#
what the hell I'm talking about
#
because it's not quite been done
#
and sometimes I don't have the
#
glibber way of explaining it
#
I'm necessarily truthful
#
so then it becomes a habit
#
you stop saying out to yourself
#
is about saying to myself very clearly
#
the thing I fear to say
#
I mean and I can feel that I fear it
#
because it's trembling somewhere here
#
like when I sit with myself
#
if you could do one thing right now
#
what would that thing be
#
and the fact that I don't say anything
#
tells me that there's something
#
which I'm fearful to say to myself
#
so it's very important for me
#
to find out that answer actually
#
the thing is if I could say it to you
#
I could say it to me right
#
so I think that it must be something
#
I could be rejected for
#
or it's calling up my biggest fears
#
my fear that I won't be able to do it
#
my fear of boring people
#
my fear of not really being good
#
like it's the thing that is
#
stopping it from like coming out of me
#
but I want to find that thing
#
I feel like now is the time
#
but to express it seriously
#
jo haaste khelte kiya wo galat tha
#
I wanted to do those things
#
like if I think about unlimited girls
#
I recently watched it at a screening
#
like what possessed me to think
#
like I wasn't really thinking about it
#
even if I see Cosmopolis
#
which is a very tiny film
#
and roaming around in fountain
#
outside Mahesh Lanchom and all
#
but so I was doing the things
#
you have something to lose also
#
now after a certain point
#
what it is I wish to do
#
and I know some things about it
#
like I know that I want it
#
I know I want it to be very emotional
#
like everything I do is sincere
#
like like just very truthful thing
#
I want to make some one thing
#
I don't know what that thing
#
so I think that certainly
#
has changed in that way
#
but my relationship with happiness
#
I have become disconnected from that
#
that earlier I used to be
#
much more unthinkingly happy
#
and now there is some burdensomeness
#
and I feel that burdensomeness
#
has got something to do
#
being too much in my head
#
maybe you're being too thinky
#
maybe I'm being too thinky
#
but yeah I agree with you
#
you can become very surrounded by
#
and with social media especially
#
what other people think of you
#
it used to make me anxious
#
in a different way before
#
and today doesn't make me anxious
#
there's not enough dark spots
#
a safe space to be adventurous
#
it's that kind of a feeling right
#
it is partly that you feel
#
you have something to lose
#
there are so many responsibilities
#
so many things that happen
#
that I don't have enough fallow time
#
so I think my relationship
#
with happiness would be
#
like things with no purpose
#
my relationship with happiness
#
that how to be in a place
#
where you are not being purposeful
#
and I find that quite hard to find
#
I understand more than ever
#
but although I always felt that way
#
it's more like a coming back to something
#
than a going to a new place
#
that relationships with people
#
are very very important
#
have kind of fallen off that wagon
#
there's enough community spaces
#
I accept and I understand
#
that it's linked to that
#
and I feel I don't have it
#
and I'm trying very hard
#
to think about what I need to do
#
because I'll also have to do something
#
so these are some of the things
#
I think my idea of success
#
was so much more idealistic
#
like I and that idea holds
#
that there is some meaning to being
#
to having worldly success
#
I didn't used to find it
#
a little meaningful now
#
to whether it is possible for me or not
#
but I'm curious if it is
#
depends on how one defines
#
worldly success I guess
#
and what that constitutes
#
surprised that you should talk about
#
the fear of what you have to lose
#
because I think what you have
#
and what you could lose
#
you cannot possibly lose
#
or the affection people have
#
no matter what risk you take
#
I mean you will be appreciated
#
I guess what I'm really saying
#
in some ways that I need
#
I feel like what is missing
#
in continuous communication
#
but I feel that I'm a little bit
#
far away from me right now
#
so I'm searching for ways
#
without that fear right
#
I think you fear losing something
#
you don't have something
#
and what I don't have right now
#
like will take me somewhere
#
for instance I was telling you earlier
#
that before we recorded
#
about how I finally wrote
#
a long piece after a long time
#
and for me that was tough
#
because I never have had
#
that I couldn't bring myself
#
where I could just write
#
was very upsetting for me
#
I am very hard on myself
#
I hold myself to very high standards
#
actually I have to return
#
because I was so used to
#
or really thought about
#
I won't say it was unaccepted
#
but like I just didn't figure
#
in people's calculations
#
I used to do things on my own
#
is making it a little difficult
#
to find that place again
#
and to find that me again
#
how I can find that me again
#
where now whatever you have been
#
and you have pushed yourself
#
into people's line of sight
#
so in a way you wanted them
#
but now when they see you
#
oh I am feeling a little trapped
#
go into a dark place again
#
I think these are some of the conflicts
#
I do think that has changed in me
#
which is not part of the question
#
I am very surprised by it
#
and I do not know what it means
#
I have made a lot of friends
#
I have lost a lot of friends
#
my view of friendship is
#
it is a very serious relationship
#
in which many awful things happen
#
when I felt rejected by friends
#
and I used to feel cancelled
#
because some friend has
#
stopped being my friend
#
even if some time would go by
#
and I would contextualize it
#
okay it was not fair that my friend
#
stopped being friends with me
#
or they should have done this
#
not that easily devastated
#
recently I have had like
#
a silent friendship breakup
#
you know your friend breaks up with you
#
that they are breaking up with you
#
what I found most intriguing in myself
#
was that instead of being devastated
#
I was just very coldly angry
#
like what the fuck is this way of behaving
#
and I thought like fine
#
like I am not okay with this
#
I remember thinking that word
#
it is dishonorable behavior
#
to not have that friend in my life
#
but I didn't feel devastated
#
as I would have in the past
#
so I think it is interesting
#
it is like a kind of stronger sense of self
#
and also more detached sense of self
#
it is a more powerful sense of self
#
right like it is a more powerful you
#
that can accept rejection
#
like I am not saying that
#
I feel that my friend is bad
#
that they found unpalatable
#
but didn't feel they can tell me
#
but it would have destabilized me
#
now I find it quite okay
#
to accept that somebody may not like me
#
like that I think is quite unexpected for me
#
who has always felt so outside of everything
#
actually being liked by my friends
#
and being loved by people
#
has been very important for me
#
because it is not something that I had
#
and that is why it used to also devastate me
#
because I used to feel everything
#
now I finally became a bit normal
#
and now I am not going to be normal anymore
#
but now only I didn't feel it
#
like I found it curious about myself
#
I don't really know the new me properly
#
I have to get to know this person a bit
#
well I mean all fascinating
#
thank you for sharing so much
#
and you have plenty of time
#
to get the new you properly
#
now that we have established that
#
so my final question for the day
#
for all my guests these days
#
on the last time we recorded
#
because that was long long ago
#
for me and my listeners
#
I'd like you to recommend
#
which have meant a lot to you
#
and you just love them so much
#
you want to share them with everyone
#
this is a horrible thing to do to me
#
because I just told you
#
I never remember anything
#
but I'll tell you some films
#
this is a very favorite film of mine
#
but I think it may be on YouTube
#
and it's called Chronicle of a Summer
#
and it's by a documentary
#
and I really love this film
#
it is a film set in the summer
#
and it's just a few people
#
that the filmmaker follows
#
early anthropological type of films
#
and so actually the filmmaker
#
brings together all the people
#
and then he and his co-director
#
are actually discussing
#
so it's a very fantastic movie
#
and I couldn't find a copy
#
till I was like in my 40s
#
and then I told my friend
#
what if it's not as good
#
so if you can see this film
#
film I love is Chaal Baaz
#
see I have also seen Bollywood
#
I love a movie called Topsy Turvy
#
I don't know if you've seen it
#
it's an incredible film
#
I would love to be able
#
to make a film like that
#
I'm sorry I can't tell you
#
these are books that I love so much
#
because I really can't remember
#
but a poet whom I recently discovered
#
whom I really like a lot
#
is someone called Chen Chen
#
and their latest book is called
#
and the first poem I read
#
by Chen Chen was called
#
I Love You to the Moon and Back
#
and then I began following them
#
and I simply simply love this poet
#
and love their persona online
#
so I would heartily recommend
#
that people should read Chen Chen
#
I love the Hindi film lyricist
#
because he's so good-natured
#
and uses all these kind of
#
technological metaphors
#
and there's a great song by him
#
and every verse after that is
#
Pyaar ke sakool mein har koi fail hai
#
har koi pass hai type of thing
#
and then there's a beautiful line
#
that like pyaar ka post office
#
so that idea that you know
#
you're telegraphing things
#
so I think Rajendra Krishnan
#
everybody loves Sahil Udhyaanvi
#
but I think Rajendra Krishnan
#
is a very like cheerful
#
there is this that we should read
#
what you said just reminded me
#
of Baba Sehgal's immortal line
#
Dil ki gaddi pyaar da junction daba khaali re
#
so yeah I would want people
#
to go back and rediscover
#
some of like Rajendra Krishnan's songs
#
and you know what was so cool
#
about Rajendra Krishnan
#
was that he won the jackpot
#
and he became hugely rich
#
so he was kind of famous
#
and apparently he was also
#
who always served good whiskey
#
and didn't have the usual poetic angst
#
so I'm fascinated by this character
#
the happy artist exactly
#
I want to recommend a Hindi film
#
which is finally on YouTube
#
it took me many years to find it
#
it's one of the first comedies made
#
and it has a song that goes
#
Lara Lappa Lara Lappa Laya Rakta
#
which is a kind of war of the sexist song
#
and again I like one line in it
#
I mean my my list of things
#
is not going to edify you
#
but it will give you lots of fun
#
that's exactly what I want
#
I know that if I really think about it
#
I'll think of other things
#
but right now that's what I got
#
Parmita thank you so much
#
delightful conversation
#
I mean I think one of the things that I feel
#
and the way that feminism
#
has become such a kind of catch word now
#
and that I don't think that people
#
when they're talking about feminism online
#
they are not reading a lot
#
who's one of the feminists
#
I interviewed in Unlimited Girls
#
she says this thing right
#
any subject in the world
#
if you want to be speaking
#
about it authoritatively
#
you would have to learn about it
#
you feel that because you're a woman
#
and you have some feelings about things
#
therefore you can make statements about stuff
#
so I do find it a little bit dispiriting
#
that despite the internet
#
there will be the same five books
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in every feminist book list
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and a very narrow gauge
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through which we are understanding feminism
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so I think that more and more
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the way that I think about
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and would like to you know propagate
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the work around feminism
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is through the idea of a poetic feminism
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feminism's a deep journey with the self
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even the questions you're asking
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about how can men be different
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what are we really saying
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what is your relationship
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like who are you as a person
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and what kind of person
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if you had not grown up
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with these ideas of gender
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where's the space of reflection for that
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and I think feminism really gets
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to the heart of that to some extent
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when it says that the personal is political
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what it's really saying is the self
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and the world are in interplay
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and how can we reflect on this
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and that is why I think like
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whether it's agents of irshq
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whether it is even talking
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all of these different things
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I think what they combine
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is to think of feminism poetically
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and therefore my own life poetically
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right which allows its meanings
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to continuously change even for yourself
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and it also reminds me of something
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I discussed with Mukulika Banerjee
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in fact in the episode with her
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where she was talking about her mom
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and if you look at her mom
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through the lenses of today
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a fairly traditional woman
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but within the bounds of the times
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she did some pretty radical things
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I mean throughout history
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to negotiate the spaces around them
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whatever freedoms they can
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to the best that they can
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and there is a feminism in that
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under the stultifying impact
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of patriarchy as it were
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I think that the thing about feminism
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is that it is made in the doing right
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and so like all of politics
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there can't be a perfect feminism
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like politics is imperfect by definition
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trying to become something new
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and if it's going to be perfect
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that means it's often going to be static
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if I think back to my grandmother
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that was already pretty out of the box
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there may have been any number of reasons
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yes she had a love marriage
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but it isn't about that
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full of beautiful sarees
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and she had very good taste
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and she became a very good cook late in life
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and that's this extremely
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who's actually communicating to me
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that the way that you are in the world
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is itself feminist right
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like I don't have to categorize her
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she's in the feminist box
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it's not like being under
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Harry Potter's sorting hat
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that you are in this or you are in that
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that's why I think this idea of poetic feminism
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to think of your life itself
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in a sense would allow you to be many things
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and allow you to make many new directions
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and in fact I think that is why
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it's very important to have more
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narratives of women's lives
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like the memoirs of women
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because when I was talking to you
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about Dolly Thakur's memoir
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reading it regrets none
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or reading Pratima Bedi's memoir after that
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what actually astonishes me
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a of course very adventurous life
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they're going here there and everybody doing everything
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but the extreme emotional truthfulness
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at the end of Dolly Thakur's memoir
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where she says that you know
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I was a person who always longed for love
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and at this point in my life
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I have to say I never got it
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after reading this extremely exuberant account
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of living in other countries
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so the way that people say
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describe such women is to say
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but she also has this core of pain in her
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that I wanted to be loved in a certain way
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and I don't think I ever got it
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like when I read that line
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I started crying immediately
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but that doesn't cancel out her badassery
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and there should be space for both these people
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where your extreme pain
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coexists with all the things you made possible
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all the adventures you had
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all the other things you've made possible in the world
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for both of these to be there
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for in Pratima Pedi's memoir
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you think like what the hell
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this woman is completely amazing
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she's also very selfish
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she's also like oh my god is
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that I mean she's recognizing her own self
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vain and everything else
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like I think the complexity of that life
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that actually allows feminism
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to become powerful in the world
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and we have to do what we can
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because actually there's a liberation in that
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and I don't want to generalize by saying this
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but a lot of the best memoirs I've read
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whether it's the essays of Joan Didion
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when I recorded my episode with her
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I discovered Vivian Gonnick
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and it's like my god what writing right
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and here I would urge you
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because I love the phrase poetic feminisms
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that why don't you write a short book
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like a pamphlet or a booklet
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talking about just this
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because I think it sounds so radical
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and I'd love to read what you wrote about
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and something like you know
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Chimamanda Adichie had a very slim book on feminism
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Kavita Krishnan had Fearless Freedoms
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you know doesn't have to be a big tome
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written by man in beard
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but you know a short primer
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which I'm sure many people would find useful
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the form is up to you I guess
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No I mean I agree with you
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we render that through the memoirs of women
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or I have myself done a lot of memoir writing
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and I would like to be able to do that some more
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because I feel like sometimes
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it can't actually be quantified so easily
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but there is a lot of value
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to putting it in one place and saying that
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actually to lead a poetic life
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is what feminism is right?
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I'd love to read a memoir by you
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featuring some Bengali boys
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did you enjoy this episode of the scene in the unseen?
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would you like to support the production of the show?
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you can go over to sceneunseen.in slash support
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