Ep 343： We Are All Amits From Africa

#

0

We are all omits from Africa. We must beware of revenue Brahmins. Our statues must eat ice

#

12

cream. Our cities must be designed by cardiovascular surgeons. Our women must migrate to rice eating

#

17

cultures. We must all go to the 5th temple. We must all drink panipuri water, gallons

#

22

and gallons of it to wash away our sins. What am I talking about? Keep listening.

#

30

Welcome to the scene and the unseen, our weekly podcast on economics,

#

35

politics and behavioral science. Please welcome your host Amit Barma.

#

39

Welcome to the scene and the unseen. A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to Chennai for a couple

#

47

of back-to-back conferences and I suddenly remembered that Krish Ashok lives there. I

#

51

messaged Ashok to ask if he'd record an episode with me to add to the one we've already done

#

55

and he agreed. I then mentioned to my friend Narin Shanoi here in Mumbai that I was going

#

60

to record with Ashok in Chennai and I said how nice would it be if Narin was also there.

#

65

I will fly down said Narin and so he did and so we have this great three-way episode. Please note

#

71

that I've already got epic episodes with these two gents which will be linked from the show notes.

#

75

For this episode, there was no agenda. Just meet up and shoot the breeze. Still,

#

79

there was no more breeze left. We had a blast. You will love it.

#

82

Hey, the music started and this sounds like a commercial but it isn't. It's a plea for me

#

91

to check out my latest labor of love, a YouTube show I am co-hosting with my good friend the

#

96

brilliant Ajay Shah. We've called it Everything is Everything. Every week, we'll speak for about an

#

101

hour on things we care about, from the profound to the profane, from the exalted to the everyday.

#

106

We range widely across subjects and we bring multiple frames with which we try to understand

#

111

the world. Please join us on our journey and please support us by subscribing to our YouTube

#

116

channel at youtube.com slash Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A. The show is called Everything is Everything.

#

123

Please do check it out.

#

124

Ashok and Narin, welcome to The Scene in the Unseen.

#

131

Yeah, great to be here. Unbelievable.

#

133

Absolute pleasure. In a while, I have of course recorded with both of you before. With Narin,

#

138

we have discussed your entire life, so there is nothing left. We can't talk about your life.

#

141

Why are you even here? And Ashok, we've spoken a lot about not food, but food science, which is

#

146

your wonderful book Masala Lab was about and etc, etc. And what happened today was I've been at

#

152

this conference where I've been really busy and we fixed this time and I thought,

#

155

okay, I'll wake up at 5 a.m. and do the research. Sorry for the Hindi. I'll avoid it for the rest of this episode.

#

161

Yeah, it's okay. It's legal to speak Hindi once you cross the 13 degrees south.

#

164

So legal, but is it ethical? It is inappropriate.

#

169

It is inappropriate. I will simply avoid it. And yeah, so I woke up at 5 in the morning and then I

#

173

realized that my video show with Ajay Shah, episode 7 of that is being edited today and I have to send

#

179

a list of inserts, which were like about 70 inserts or something. The morning went, I haven't prepared.

#

184

I have no idea what to talk to you guys about. My Rome research today feels like a little bit of a waste of money.

#

190

But we will freewheel our way across it because we are all kind of good talkers.

#

195

And in fact, when I asked you guys to suggest subjects, we could talk to each other about a show.

#

200

Suggestion for Naren, dear listeners, was turn the mic on and he will be magic.

#

205

But let me let me start by asking you about an observation you made on WhatsApp, Naren,

#

209

which is you spoke about how city planning and city planners and cardiovascular surgeons

#

215

should receive the same training in Chennai. Kindly explain.

#

218

So I am not a frequent visitor to Chennai.

#

222

So this morning when I stayed at a friend's place and I took a cab and it was it showed I should have

#

233

reached this place by about 9.15 or 9.30. I eventually reached a 10.

#

237

And that was because it had the most insane traffic situation.

#

240

I come from Bombay, which has pretty bad traffic.

#

243

And there was one place where everything was absolutely jammed and there was a trickle.

#

250

And when our car finally made it through the trickle, it was wide open.

#

255

And so this reminded me of my when my dad had a stent put in.

#

261

I was there and you could see the, you know, this the heart surgeon was telling me how, you know,

#

268

this this thing, it was a little trickle and I had no reference points.

#

271

I didn't know. And then he puts the stent and it becomes like the Amazon River.

#

275

Right. So then I thought that an interesting cross disciplinary course would be town planner

#

282

and cardiovascular surgeon, because then you can put stents and bypasses and whatever for Chennai.

#

287

I would still think that I don't want a town planner to do my surgery.

#

291

Yeah. Although I would be OK with cardiovascular surgeons doing town planning, given the current

#

298

state of town planning, I don't really think, you know, they could do any worse.

#

301

But you'll have a lot of nice shops and whatever inside your aorta.

#

306

Inside your aorta. Yes, yes.

#

307

Yeah, I'd love to have a main road that says, you know, Anna Veena Kava or something like that.

#

312

But there would be like zones in your heart then that there'd be zoning, right?

#

315

So one zone can produce provide blood only to the liver, another only to the kidney,

#

320

nothing else allowed. And you're going to get jammed.

#

322

Actually, a good question that arises from this and a perfect question for someone like Ashok,

#

326

you would agree with that, Naren, is that our basic insights, you know, universalize,

#

331

what word would be appropriate? Universalize.

#

335

Universalizable. So, you know, and you are so cross-disciplinary and go to first principles

#

341

for everything. And in fact, my show with Ajay Everything is Everything is kind of this is one

#

346

of the reasons for the name that, you know, you can apply certain frameworks to kind of everything

#

351

as long as that's not the only framework you're applying.

#

353

So is this a case that a basic insight about any subject at its core will also give you a lot of

#

358

Gyan on other subjects?

#

359

Oh, absolutely. So it is, see, for me personally, just to take a personal example, for me, I think

#

366

the basic principles of software engineering probably for me has been the single most

#

373

universalizable skill. And let me maybe generalize it and say computational thinking, right?

#

379

The idea that any set of decisions, any workflows, any processes, you can break them down

#

386

into a set of smaller, easily computable parts. And some of those computation steps are best done

#

392

with a computer or a calculator and some best done in the brain, right?

#

395

And then you'll know it once you break things down.

#

398

So I kind of realized that the same thing applies to music, for example, right?

#

402

A lot of my music, often the people will ask me when I did that Sanskrit heavy metal album,

#

407

and basically I'm singing, I'm playing the guitar, the violin, the bass, the keyboard,

#

412

and doing the mixing and mastering. How did you learn to do all of that?

#

416

I said, no, I didn't, right?

#

417

If you really ask me individually, am I a master at any of those instruments?

#

421

Probably not. Violin probably gets closest in terms of competency.

#

424

But all the others, I know just enough to play that part.

#

429

And in some sense, the meta model there is more to do with thinking about learning to learn.

#

436

So meaning that you don't just jump into learning the bass guitar, right?

#

440

So I first would say for this song, this is the part that I need to play.

#

444

And then I first then find out what is the absolute bare minimum skills I need to play that part, right?

#

450

And the second thing I'm also thinking is that if I make the following mistakes,

#

454

what software tools can I use to correct them and improve them?

#

458

Because software is continuously improving, right?

#

460

And there's autotune, you can fix mistakes, you can fix timing errors and so on.

#

464

So I think for the most part, for me, computational thinking is constantly thinking about being strategically lazy,

#

471

meaning that what is it that I'm best placed to do?

#

475

But what are things that I can outsource to tools, to AI, to other people and so on?

#

480

And so in that sense, that skill has actually helped tremendously even when you think about food, right?

#

485

A dal, for instance, is a series of steps, right?

#

487

So there is a dal and there's like 20 or 30 varieties of dal.

#

490

They all need to be soaked for different periods of time based on their size and density

#

494

and nutritional content, and then they need to be cooked for different periods of time.

#

499

And then you need to layer flavors.

#

501

And you could make a Middle Eastern one, a Moroccan one, an Indian style, it doesn't really matter.

#

505

So in that sense, I think, for example, you could also think about generative recipe ideas.

#

509

Like, for example, a chutney is basically a combination of nutty ingredients, sour ingredients, hot ingredients, salty ingredients and sweet.

#

516

And so if you take like seven or eight of these things, you can combine them, whatever you have in your fridge, it's a chutney, right?

#

522

So I think computational thinking is, I really think is, at least for me, it's been a deeply fundamental skill that you can apply to anything, right?

#

530

So the music making process, therefore, devolves to me sometimes recording literally a two second loop,

#

537

which is about as much as I can sustain on an instrument I'm new to,

#

541

but then use looping, using software modification to extend it into something that sounds like it's like three or four minutes.

#

547

And that's what goes behind in the song.

#

549

So it's also like in that sense, I think computational thinking is really also about learning to learn in this new world.

#

556

And I really now think that with GPT and all of these AI assistants, this skill, I think, is now democratized, right?

#

563

It's now going to be available to everyone, right?

#

565

Everybody can now pick up any skill they want.

#

568

You can understand anything from first principles, right?

#

571

I mean, for example, I would use GPT to regularly understand the basic biophysics and the bio sort of chemistry

#

579

of what happens once food goes in, right?

#

581

And you can really dig as deep as you want and go down to as first principles as you want with an assistant.

#

586

Of course, you have to cross verify if it's like making stuff up.

#

589

But 90% of the time, it's actually pretty useful and it's a fantastic thinking tool.

#

593

So I really think computational X, right?

#

596

I really think everyone in the future can be a computational historian, a computational whatever.

#

601

What that means is that now all the tools of computation and analytics are now democratized

#

606

and you don't have to become a statistician to be good at it.

#

610

I love this answer at multiple levels.

#

612

Like at one level, I remember I did an episode with a guest back in the day.

#

615

And he said that, oh, you know, and this is a standard leftist worry about any new technology,

#

621

that it will create new inequalities.

#

622

And I'm like, are you kidding me?

#

623

What it will do is it will actually make the playing field much more even because now everyone has access to these great tools.

#

630

Anybody can use these incredible tools.

#

632

I want to sort of double click on a couple of things there.

#

635

And one is that it's also become fashionable recently to make fun of code.

#

639

And of course, some companies, you know, talk about it in ways of, you know, teaching children to code.

#

645

If your son can't code, he's finished, you know, which is which is wrong and which puts too much pressure on parents.

#

650

But I do think that coding is a fundamental skill purely because it aids you in that kind of logical, rational, computational thinking,

#

658

which is why I'm planning to kind of teach myself programming also, not because I want to program anything.

#

663

But it's just it sharpens your thinking about the world.

#

666

And what I'd like you to do, either of you to do, is, you know, you spoke about a meta model.

#

672

I want you to make it concrete to help me understand that, for example, like A, by meta model, do you mean just learning to learn?

#

680

And I'm guessing not. There are other ways, other things that are involved.

#

683

I want you to make it concrete by taking an example of something that you learned from the first principles of one field, which you managed to apply to something else.

#

692

Yeah, so for example, I think your first point about people worrying about technology creating inequalities for the entirety of mankind's history,

#

702

every new disruptive technology has always created temporary inequalities.

#

707

That's just the nature of technological disruption.

#

709

The printing press did. I mean, it puts scribes out of work.

#

711

The clearly the the steam engine and things put a ton of manual labor out of work.

#

717

The conveyor belt essentially essentially converted what was artisanal skill into a composable skill,

#

724

where an individual worker with no training could just come and turn a knob.

#

728

But at the end of the entire conveyor belt, you actually get a car.

#

732

Amazing thing is that the funny thing is on a side tangent that people think, you know, Henry Ford pioneered it.

#

737

No, Venetians pioneered this idea of conveyor belt manufacturing in like the when they were the reason they dominated the seas

#

744

when there were so many other places in the Mediterranean was because they figured out this idea that a ship is best built,

#

750

not in a single place where I have tons of guys, guys building the hull, guys building the painting, all of them clashing with each other.

#

756

No, if I do it because a ship can float and move, if I do it in a way by which it starts here, the basic stuff is built.

#

763

It moves to the next stage and a bunch of other guys come and they do their stuff.

#

766

And they but the only difference is that they didn't have the mechanization to to essentially maybe, you know, start the industrial revolution.

#

773

But the whole idea of conveyor belt actually goes back to the Venetians.

#

776

So in that sense, I think every technology has always done that.

#

780

I mean, I'm sure in your podcast, you've spoken about, I think, all the artists in the 20th century complaining to the US Congress that the radio was destroying live music.

#

789

And it did not. I mean, yes, it did destroy some live musicians jobs.

#

793

But in a generation, people figured out other ways to do it.

#

796

And I have a photo of myself.

#

798

My mother used to work for Kendra Bank. And this is a photo from 1984.

#

801

It's a very ironic photo, given that I know where I work and what I do.

#

805

It's a photo of me standing in front of a protest poster that says ban computers.

#

809

Computers will destroy jobs in banks.

#

812

This is in 1984. And this was a real thing. People were genuinely worried.

#

815

Now, nobody was worried that you should be banning computers.

#

818

Right. So it's just the natural progression.

#

820

But clearly, it is evident that AI in this current generation of technology has a nonlinear effect on individual productivity.

#

827

It will democratize access to knowledge.

#

829

It will democratize access to tools.

#

832

Like, for example, I mean, to produce a high quality podcast, you needed a sound engineer.

#

836

You needed people who could do all these things.

#

838

And now software will do it for you. Right.

#

839

And there are AI tools that automatically edit.

#

842

Like, for example, I use a tool that automatically breaks, takes all my takes, chooses the best ones,

#

848

fixes all the gaps and generates the reel that I want to post on Instagram.

#

852

My editor, Gaurav, is in his mind saying, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

#

857

You cannot replace him.

#

858

It's, look, honestly speaking, the general idea is that we live in times where you have to wake up every day with a continuous creative dissatisfaction with a status quo.

#

868

You have to wake up assuming that your skills may not be relevant.

#

872

I know it's hard. I mean, there are, it is going to be hard for a lot of people.

#

875

But that goes to a deeper issue about universal basic income and welfare and others, which is, you know, entirely separate.

#

881

But you can't stop the progress of technology.

#

883

And in the sense that the good it will do on the longer run is almost always going to outweigh the short term harms, if you will.

#

890

Right. So to the point about, see, computational first principles thinking, let me, let me give you one interesting example of how I applied it in the context of actually making a a Dal recipe generator.

#

903

Right. I'll take this one example.

#

904

And maybe another example is actually how I make my Instagram reels itself and how my workflow has actually changed.

#

909

Right. So the meta model, let me start with the reel first. It's more interesting.

#

912

So the meta model for me for a reel is is essentially comes from years of being inspired and learning from people like my grandmother, who was a fantastic storyteller.

#

922

And I've thought long and hard about what is it that makes people watch some reels and some YouTube content more than others.

#

928

Right. And what so it really goes back to a skill that human beings have had for the longest amount of time, which is storytelling.

#

934

Right. And good storytelling and you and you do a course on the art of clear writing and good storytelling.

#

941

I would actually think is a is a skill on top of that.

#

943

Right. It's a slightly more creative skill, slightly harder to quantify.

#

946

But again, for me, the moment people say it cannot be quantified, I'm always skeptical about that.

#

951

Right. So I can still say that, look, this is 230 words.

#

954

It's not a 60,000 page book.

#

956

I can still come up with a formula.

#

958

And the formula for that is that it needs to start with a provocation.

#

962

Right. A provocation that basically means that the person is intrigued enough to want to listen to it.

#

967

And the person is only committing 90 seconds.

#

969

But in today's world, getting the person to commit to 90 seconds is hard.

#

972

So your provocation has to be pretty strong.

#

974

Right. It has to be something non-intuitive.

#

976

The person wants to wait, then find out whether he agrees or disagrees person.

#

980

Both of them want to find out what you're about to say.

#

982

Right. And then the idea is that you also storytelling, you cannot look down on your audience, but your audience has to be with you.

#

989

You're taking them on a journey.

#

990

Right. So especially with science communication, more science communication is speaking down to people that you should have paid attention when you were in school.

#

997

This is basic science. How can you be so superstitious?

#

1000

That basically fails to understand that people are superstitious for good reasons.

#

1005

And if you can't appreciate that, then you're not a communicator.

#

1007

Right. So this is again part of the problem.

#

1009

There's a difference between, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who does not speak down to people.

#

1013

And there are other science communicators who just sound like they're lecturers, who sort of, you know, a strict lecturer, teacher, who's like, you don't even know this.

#

1019

Right. So that tone is important.

#

1021

Right. And then so if you're explaining the science, you then have to come up with day to day metaphors and things that people can observe.

#

1028

You can't give lab examples.

#

1029

Right. So if I say something like, by the way, you don't have to wash your rice and rinse all of that starch.

#

1036

You're not. People believe that they are actually losing calories when they actually do that.

#

1040

And then I just give a simple example that if you literally soak all of that rice, the amount of rice that is getting dissolved in that, the starch that is getting dissolved in that water in a hundred gram is less than point five grams.

#

1052

So think about how many calories you're actually saving.

#

1055

So that way you have to give practical examples in a way that they can actually identify.

#

1059

And then eventually you also need a closing punch.

#

1062

Right. So that sort of makes it memorable.

#

1065

And this is where you have to think hard about the closing punch is what people will proximately remember.

#

1069

And that's what will make them share it to others.

#

1072

So it has to be something punchy.

#

1073

Right. So in that sense, while it's it sort of seems so it's possible to create a meta model for this.

#

1079

So, for example, a sambar, people think take a sambar very seriously, but a sambar is a dal.

#

1085

Right. So in South India, they will say pulisheri and more kuzhambu.

#

1089

It's all basically kadhi as a template.

#

1092

Like if I take a pan India sort of term, it's a yogurt gravy.

#

1094

Right. Like with this is a legume gravy.

#

1096

Right. And so in that sense, if I then break it down to the fact that there is a fat plus spices, then I have your main ingredient, then I have other kinds of powdered spices, and then I have a tadka.

#

1106

That describes basically 90 percent of most categories of dishes.

#

1110

And then so in that sense, that then allows you to be far more creative.

#

1113

Right. So you don't like look at a recipe and then say, let me go and buy all every single ingredient.

#

1117

Right. I'm just going to use what I have in my house that fits that template.

#

1121

And going to the next level, like, for example, people in the West who do not have access to curry leaves, which is a very central ingredient.

#

1129

Again, very hard to replace.

#

1130

But if you understand what flavor molecules curry leaf has, you know that you can find 80 percent of them by a combination of lime zest and basil, Italian basil together.

#

1141

Not quite curry leaf, but you will get similar notes.

#

1144

Right. So in that sense, I think, you know, the application of many of these things essentially comes down to really focusing on what you want to get done and then figuring out what are all the basic Lego bricks.

#

1157

The problem is that either people assume that they want to build everything at atomic level or they are the Lego bricks are too big, so they can't do very many sophisticated things.

#

1167

The entire key seems to be almost figuring out what's the right size Lego brick that makes my life easier and which Lego bricks can I borrow from others.

#

1175

And surprisingly enough, you can borrow Lego bricks from software.

#

1178

Even when you're cooking, you can borrow Lego bricks from software when you're doing music.

#

1184

And so for me, at least, that's how this whole thing is sort of worked out.

#

1188

It's just fascinating, this system thinking.

#

1191

The one thing that I really liked, you mentioned a little earlier, it liberates you from having a grand strategical overview, which people would have to have before someone wanted to build a ship.

#

1205

But here you have all the building blocks.

#

1207

So it's a very bottom up approach rather than a top down.

#

1211

Software innately is also, like have you been in software for 23 years now, it is very much a, let's build something first and then let's continuously improve it.

#

1220

I understand, I mean, to be respectful to architects and doctors.

#

1224

There used to be a poster in an office, I think Cadbury office, which says, ready, fire, aim.

#

1229

So it's pretty much what we're doing here.

#

1233

To be fair, the iterative freedom to fail approach of software, again, doesn't work in, say, when somebody is building a dam or a doctor and so on.

#

1244

Yes, I can appreciate that there are different ways of thinking about that, which is why I almost always like, I don't want to get into those areas where the stakes are that high.

#

1254

And that where you genuinely do need institutional training and practice and years of honing before you put a scalpel to someone's body.

#

1262

On the other hand, there are millions of things that you can truly be interdisciplinary across areas where the stakes are a lot lower.

#

1268

I think that is also a useful way to think about it.

#

1270

And as you said, a great way, in fact, you can count on your fingertips, like Raucho Marx said, I'm an amateur brain surgeon.

#

1279

You can't be an amateur brain surgeon.

#

1281

But many other things you can.

#

1283

Yeah, you can.

#

1284

And increasingly, I think the sheer number of things, because of all the AI assistance and knowledge that you now have access to, the number of things you can now be is like, order of magnitude more.

#

1296

I have a couple of observations and then a question.

#

1297

And the observation is, you know, what you said about storytelling is great about the meta model, and there'll be screenplay books, which will give a three act structure.

#

1303

So in this conference I was at, I was actually at a couple of two conferences in a row.

#

1307

And in one of them, Roshan Abbas and Prem Panikkal were there, excellent duo to have around to talk about storytelling.

#

1312

So Prem did a workshop on storytelling, Roshan did a workshop on storytelling on day one, then Prem did.

#

1317

And Roshan was kind of giving the same kind of structure that you did, that there's a hook and you have to get people on.

#

1322

And there's an excellent economist in the room called Aditi Dimri, who's working on women's health.

#

1327

And he asked everyone to write one line that would hook people onto the project.

#

1331

And her line was so memorable.

#

1332

Her line was that there is a 50% chance that I will get breast cancer.

#

1337

And powerful line.

#

1338

And then, you know, and then to, you know, to give a sense of the concrete over the abstract.

#

1343

One woman gave this abstract line that as a woman entrepreneur, people often tell me that I can't succeed.

#

1349

And Prem and I felt that's too abstract, let's make it concrete.

#

1352

And Prem's line about himself was when I was eight years old, my father told me that one day I would be begging at the traffic signal outside the house,

#

1359

which is a mind blowing example of concrete over abstract and also kind of heartbreaking.

#

1363

Now, my sort of question, and this is something that I've, you know, my writing students asked me about AI, that we are creative people, you know,

#

1371

on the one, and they often hold these simultaneous positions that are contradictory.

#

1375

One is AI can never be creative like us, and the other is AI is going to take away our jobs, right?

#

1380

And both of them obviously can't be true.

#

1382

And I do believe that one day AI will write, you know, monkeys will produce Shakespeare.

#

1386

It will. I do believe that.

#

1388

To me, that is not a worry for a couple of reasons.

#

1390

Reason number one is that, look, even if it does that, your thin desire of getting validation is under threat because AI will be churning out great books.

#

1401

How do you compete with that?

#

1402

Right. But your thick desire, I want to tell a story, I want to write.

#

1406

No one can take that away from you.

#

1408

That is point one. But point two is more important than what you alluded to is that AI can help you become a better storyteller.

#

1416

It will give you these structures within which you can express your creativity.

#

1421

Like often when people talk about, you know, writing a novel, people talk about two kinds of approaches.

#

1427

There is the architect who is designing everything in advance, 40 rooms, each room has this many square feet, everything is immaculate, right?

#

1434

And people who are doing like plot driven crime novels will have a post-it for every chapter, bullet points for each dot.

#

1440

And then there are gardeners and gardeners don't know what the fuck they're doing.

#

1443

They're just pottering around and hoping something happens.

#

1446

And the great novelist, Dr. O, once said that, you know, it is OK to drive just by the light of the headlights.

#

1452

You can make the whole journey that way.

#

1454

So, you know, Delhi fog in winter, all you can see is your headlights.

#

1457

And I am thinking that what AI can do, what technology can, forget AI, what even computational thinking can do is do the default architecture within which you can garden,

#

1469

do your gardening with great creativity and kind of still, you know, get it right.

#

1474

Is that how you?

#

1475

Exactly. I think you nailed it.

#

1476

I always see this as computational creativity is about architecting multiple small gardens and every single one of those gardens, some of them you're going to outsource that you're going to ask somebody else to take care of it.

#

1494

Could be AI, could be something that you outsource, something that you use open source.

#

1497

You built on somebody else, right?

#

1498

I think, you know, people, creative people sometimes very casually forget that nothing happens on a blank slate, right?

#

1506

The inspiration for every song is somewhere.

#

1508

It's a novel. It's a life situation.

#

1511

It's a similar structure from somewhere.

#

1513

So people are forever inspired.

#

1514

It's just that they often don't recognise, implicitly recognise the fact that they were inspired in the same way that I gave Chad GPT a really smart prompt and then it gave me something.

#

1526

And I took that, I edited a bit.

#

1528

Some more creative people think that that seems like cheating, but no, not really.

#

1532

All it did is is make that entire process that you are anyway doing more creative, more productive.

#

1538

Exactly. Earlier you had to spend time, you had to go to visit places.

#

1543

Somebody like a ward house had to literally visit Lake District to get inspired by the flowers.

#

1547

Who knows, a poem can strap on an oculus and visit that place virtually and get the same inspiration.

#

1552

Or for that matter, maybe ask Chad GPT to give descriptive or botanical information about flowers that he can then turn into a poem.

#

1559

The point is that there's now a million ways in which you can use AI into the workflow of creativity.

#

1566

And that's not really cheating.

#

1567

It's just that being more productive than in the world where you have to be extraordinarily privileged to have access to all of the things that can inspire you.

#

1575

And then you never actually credit those inspirations.

#

1578

So that's really what's happening.

#

1580

So here's this thing, where did the transition into art happen?

#

1584

So now there's this age old argument about craft and art.

#

1588

And a lot of artists have this withering contempt for craftsmen.

#

1593

So he's just a craftsman.

#

1595

But like this is so evident in cooking.

#

1598

I, when I started cooking, much inspiration from you, I was a stumbling beginner.

#

1606

And then eventually once you mastered the craft of it, once you got the skill, you become audacious enough to apply your templates, modify your templates every once in a while.

#

1617

Often by accident, you come up with something which is amazing.

#

1620

You've never eaten something like that.

#

1621

We were, you know, fiddling around the other day and we came up, we did some pork thing and it was out of this world.

#

1628

Yeah.

#

1628

I have a story about this, but finish.

#

1630

Yeah.

#

1631

So my thing is, do you think that AI will, you know, really lead to a mushrooming of art rather than sort of dumbing it down as people?

#

1643

Yeah, absolutely.

#

1644

I, it will also expand our definition of what art is, right?

#

1649

And in a weird way, I think there is also this, and I think definitely you did discuss this in your episode with TM Krishna, right?

#

1655

All too often, the distinction between art and craft may purely be down to class and completely subjective need for richer people or the richer, powerful people in society to wall off and create things that are exclusive to them, right?

#

1670

I mean, you can see, you can actually see this in, in across history.

#

1675

Right now, sourdough bread is like considered the posh hipster thing for you to eat.

#

1680

That was actually what the peasants ate back in the middle ages.

#

1683

Yes.

#

1684

Because only the rich could afford the flawless factory made white bread.

#

1689

And today white bread is considered the poorest of the poor, you know, non nutritious, poisonous sort of stuff, right?

#

1698

And that people have a problem with.

#

1699

So in that sense, almost always, even if you look at luxury goods now, right?

#

1703

Even if you look at the travel industry, this is very curious.

#

1706

So as wealth grows, people then start flocking to the places that you would consider to be premium tourist destinations.

#

1713

And the first thing that happens is that the millionaires and the billionaires stop considering those tourist destinations anymore.

#

1719

Right now we've reached a point where billionaires basically now buy their own islands and go chill out there.

#

1723

They're not, they're not coming to the Monaco's or the, the usual, the Switzerland and all that.

#

1728

The Switzerland is now largely just people with Shah Rukh Khan and Yash Chopra nostalgia, right?

#

1733

They're basically going to Switzerland.

#

1734

The millionaires are not going there, right?

#

1736

So in that, likewise, I think, you know, as TM Krishna speaks about classical music itself, what is classical music?

#

1741

Classical music is a bunch of rich people saying this is classical.

#

1744

That's what it is.

#

1745

There is nothing more to it, right?

#

1747

There is nothing about a folk art form or a popular pop art form or Illayaraja's music or Rehman's music that does not make it classical.

#

1754

There is no intrinsic value judgment.

#

1756

I would actually argue that there are Illayaraja compositions that have a hundred times more sophistication than the most advanced

#

1762

Carnatic compositions purely from a music theoretical standpoint.

#

1766

But what makes it classical is because a bunch of rich people say, yeah, this is classical.

#

1770

And I get to build a posh auditorium and I get to keep the plebs out.

#

1775

Yeah.

#

1775

That's when it is.

#

1777

The moment it then it's weird because what's happening now is that my generation was the first generation of people who learnt music, who were

#

1783

comfortable with Carnatic artists singing in films.

#

1787

So my parents' generation, the biggest scandal of their time was Yesudas going away from the Carnatic world and starting to sing in Hindi and Malayalam films.

#

1795

It was considered to be a betrayal of songs.

#

1796

Yeah, demeaning the status.

#

1798

But then my generation is like Unnikrishnan and you name everyone.

#

1801

Everybody's doing both.

#

1802

And now those people are on TV judging people singing film songs, right?

#

1807

And then telling them this raga is wrong and that raga.

#

1809

So it's now it's just that I think at any generation, you're almost always going to see that art, for instance, almost always has a

#

1817

certain subjective class judgment.

#

1819

We say it's art because we say it is, right?

#

1822

I mean, we saw a very curious demonstration of it during the during the entire crypto bubble, if you will.

#

1829

The board ape and all those sorts of NFTs and so on.

#

1833

Why is that so valuable?

#

1834

It's because a bunch of Internet people thought it was valuable.

#

1837

It's the same phenomenon at hand when somebody says that John Cage is four minutes, 33 seconds, which is basically four minutes and 33 seconds of

#

1845

silence as one of the great musical pieces.

#

1848

The point of that entire four minutes, 33 seconds was essentially that the orchestra would come sit and not play.

#

1855

What the audience experiences is any other fidgeting sounds, people coughing, audience coughing.

#

1859

That's the symphony. That was his definition of the symphony.

#

1862

Now, again, is this art, right?

#

1864

So our Sheldon Pollock basically looks like people took a bunch of buckets of paint and then splashed it on a large canvas worth millions of dollars.

#

1873

So in some sense, I think, you know, I've always felt that craft is the more important thing because there is no art without craft.

#

1881

Picasso had to learn to really do photorealistic stuff before he started doing the Guernica and the other things, the abstract stuff.

#

1888

And likewise, so I think, you know, but most people then undervalue and disrespect crafts and we use the term craftsman.

#

1895

You know, I think we were briefly speaking about how the distinction between a mechanic and an engineer is basically a mechanic is the craftsman.

#

1902

And the engineer is the artist.

#

1904

The problem now is that there are places in India where in an ideal world, an engineer would have been a mechanic at some point of time and then became an engineer with years of experience and the meta knowledge of understanding how these systems work.

#

1915

So he's able to visualize what the system will do without actually touching it.

#

1919

That's what an engineer was, right?

#

1920

But not anymore. Now we have basically people who've never touched or, you know, crude a nut or a bolt in their lives.

#

1926

But they're engineers earning like 10 times more, but the craftsman is not.

#

1930

And it's very, very curious because I'm, I think, Professor Andrew McAfee from MIT, he once asked a question about how, which of these jobs do you think is more easily automatable by AI?

#

1941

And he asked this 10 years back, an investment banker in Wall Street or a plumber.

#

1946

We know the answer now.

#

1947

The investment banker, what he does is basically data analytics, which machine learning algorithms are really, really good at.

#

1954

Like much better than you.

#

1955

Most trades are now actually done by algorithms, you know, that shouting on the stock floor exchange is an image that we all have in mind, rarely happens, right?

#

1964

But it was awesome. I have a good story about that.

#

1967

Yeah, so this point is that what he says is that maybe now because of the rise of this kinds of AI, we may hopefully, again, depends on a lot of other factors, get to the point where we are genuinely able to appreciate the genuine complexity of certain things.

#

1984

Like, for example, why is a nurse paid less than a doctor?

#

1988

Why is a kindergarten teacher paid less than a university professor?

#

1993

It is impossible to automate what, what they do because they are, have tremendous human complexity where every scenario is unique and you have to react uniquely.

#

2004

And those are classic examples of, sorry, boss, can't build a better model.

#

2008

Every house plumbing works differently.

#

2009

Yes.

#

2010

The plumber deals, when he walks into a house, you're not going to see a plumbing robot anytime soon because, well, every house will have a different species of dog, different species of cat and kids and other environments, other changes, different food, blocking the pipes and so on.

#

2023

That you literally have to rely on the classic human sense of, can I make sense of the world with minimal knowledge?

#

2032

People keep asking me, what is this whole, is this going to replace this artificial general intelligence?

#

2037

Boss, it takes $10 billion and the entire contents of the internet to train that GPT chatbot, right?

#

2043

A human being basically gets a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of that training.

#

2050

We seem to be good at simply just taking that, making some, taking some risks, learning from that and moving on.

#

2057

And so that seems to be, that is where jobs like plumber, nurses, kindergarten teachers are all jobs that involve every day is different.

#

2066

There is an investment now that's like literally, software guys are literally doing the same thing every day.

#

2070

So I have a story and a question.

#

2072

The story is about what young Narain was talking about cooking.

#

2075

Okay.

#

2076

Which is that one day, and this was, I was in my, I reversed my type two diabetes by, you know, going on keto plus one meal a day.

#

2083

And that one meal a day I'd cook between six and eight.

#

2085

And during that process of experimenting three course meals, I came up with an entirely new dish, which I will now christen stranger in prawns.

#

2093

It involves basically you marinate, you know, jumbo prawns in olive oil, gochugaru, which is a Korean spice and stranger and son's gin, that specific gin.

#

2104

Let me tell you, don't have blind taste.

#

2105

I couldn't tell you otherwise, but that specific gin.

#

2107

And then eventually you cook it in bird's eye chili, olive oil and butter.

#

2112

And it is incredible.

#

2113

So it blew my mind when I first made it because I thought two things.

#

2117

One, I thought this is the best prawn I've ever had.

#

2119

And two, I thought fucking hell I made it.

#

2122

Right?

#

2123

Complete accident.

#

2124

But then my good friend Narayan Shanoi came over, right?

#

2127

So I made it for him.

#

2128

And he said fucking, he was blown by the same two things that fucking hell best prawn I've ever had and fucking hell Amit made it.

#

2134

And then he said, I will make this for Sheila, who as everyone knows, the most loved wife in India.

#

2141

So, so the next day he calls me, he says, I made your prawns gochugaru for Sheila.

#

2146

She loved it.

#

2147

I said, okay, okay, really?

#

2148

You made the same thing.

#

2149

He said, well, I went to the store, they didn't have gochugaru, so I use gochujang.

#

2153

Now gochujang is like completely fucking different from gochugaru.

#

2156

Completely.

#

2157

It's on the other end.

#

2158

Right?

#

2158

It's a sweet kind of pasty kind of thing.

#

2160

I don't like it very much.

#

2161

So I said, okay, so you made prawns gochujang.

#

2164

He said, well, actually there wasn't prawns, so I used chicken.

#

2168

So, you know, everything kind of completely turned around.

#

2171

So that is our good friend.

#

2172

And then the next time I met Sheila, she's like, Amit, thank you for teaching him that.

#

2176

And I didn't have the heart to say that I had nothing to do with teaching him whatever the fuck he made.

#

2180

Yes.

#

2181

Right.

#

2181

But my point about art and craft is actually one I keep coming back to.

#

2184

And while Krishna, of course, is, that's an extremely important insight.

#

2188

Yeah.

#

2188

I'll add something to that where, or I'll rather make a different point I keep making about art and craft.

#

2195

It's that we call something art only when we, only when the process of making it is not explicit.

#

2201

Right?

#

2201

So if craft is something that you can replicate and teach someone to do, yes, this is craft.

#

2205

But if it seems mystical, you call it art.

#

2208

But actually it is craft only, except that you don't understand how the brain is doing what it is doing.

#

2214

But it is only craft and nothing else.

#

2216

Now, you know, turning to LLMs, like my whole argument is the three of us sitting here have been trained on LLMs,

#

2222

which are much smaller than what GPT is trained on.

#

2225

And our ability to process is far less than GPT, right?

#

2231

So these are like completely obviously going to do everything better than us.

#

2236

And we make the mistake of thinking that, oh, we are creative.

#

2239

They can't be because we don't realize that there's, you know, creativity is just something that we haven't understood,

#

2246

but it doesn't mean that it can't be crocked.

#

2248

And I want to ask you there for a question about music.

#

2250

Yes.

#

2250

That music is always the example I use that it's going to be super easy for AI to do the best music ever.

#

2256

Yeah, simply because it is ultimately a matter of computational thinking.

#

2260

Certain combinations of notes hit certain neurons in the brain and make you feel a certain way,

#

2266

whether it's melancholic or excited or horny or what can music make you feel horny?

#

2270

I guess very much, very much.

#

2271

Yes, very much.

#

2272

OK, I will ask you for concrete examples of what makes you feel horny.

#

2275

But so what do you kind of then think of that?

#

2278

Because I think all the great art can easily come from AI because we are being showing extreme hubris

#

2284

when we behave as if there is something special about us.

#

2287

On the contrary, what we are doing is pretty routine for AI.

#

2290

But we are so fucking stupid, we don't understand it.

#

2292

And we call it creativity and art when it's just craft and computational thinking.

#

2296

True. So I think, for example, so before we jump into music,

#

2299

let's maybe briefly talk about, say, Mid Journey, Stable Diffusion and so on.

#

2303

Right there, it's fun.

#

2305

Like if you basically take the net sum of all visual images that you have on the internet

#

2311

and then have this algorithm spending millions of dollars on GPU costs,

#

2316

really doing matrix multiplication at every pixel level.

#

2319

You're going to end up with something that can generate some stunning art.

#

2322

That is just that's just going to be natural.

#

2324

Right. Yes, of course, notwithstanding the finger problem and all that.

#

2327

That, again, is a training data problem.

#

2329

Right. So the reason why these AI regularly distort fingers

#

2333

is because the problem is that finger is at different angles in all the photos we have.

#

2337

So the AI finds it hard to generalize the fact that if basically we had 10 million images

#

2343

of just people holding their hands like this, then it would actually do better.

#

2347

But even then, the problem is it has a hard time imagining

#

2350

what would this look like because our hands are insanely flexible in that sense.

#

2354

Right. So so there is we kind of understand those limitations.

#

2358

Music is actually, in my experience, it's always been a very weird art in the first place.

#

2363

So we know that when you watch a movie, right, when you watch a movie,

#

2367

there are different parts of your brain being engaged.

#

2369

So you're listening to the voice.

#

2371

There's the visual cortex because you're seeing the colors, the images.

#

2374

So all of these things.

#

2375

And then you are interpreting that in that sense. Right.

#

2378

So that's when you play a video game or a movie, you know, that's that's what it is.

#

2381

And in a video game, there's one more layer because you are literally in it

#

2384

far more than you are in a movie. Right. It's one more thing.

#

2387

And likewise, I think the spoken word is, again, different.

#

2390

It's because, you know, humans have been speaking for the longest amount of time.

#

2393

It's a very uniquely human skill.

#

2395

And that's a part of the brain specially evolved for that.

#

2397

Music is weird because one, there is music that has no words

#

2402

and it still seems to work.

#

2403

A Mozart symphony or a Beethoven's symphony and so on.

#

2407

There is instrumental music. So it's a weird thing.

#

2409

So there is no specific part of the brain that clearly says,

#

2412

yeah, I'm going to understand these specific ratios of strings

#

2416

that then Pythagoras spoke about, saying that if you divide a string by two,

#

2418

you get the octave and then you divide it by.

#

2420

And there is no evolutionary reason for it also.

#

2423

Exactly. It's just it's an absolute freak of geometry

#

2427

and probably your geometry for the most part. Right.

#

2429

So it's saying that the way those sound frequencies resonate

#

2433

and the way they resonate inside your your chamber and your cochlea,

#

2436

there seems to be some connection to, oh, this is that note.

#

2438

And the weird thing is that every society has independently

#

2441

come up with the same 12 notes,

#

2444

because these are all the same based on the same physics,

#

2446

the same sort of ratio of where you pluck a string.

#

2448

Right. So the same thing. Right.

#

2449

And everybody every time there would be a hole in a bamboo tree

#

2452

and wind would go through and they would hear what the flute,

#

2455

the origin of the flute.

#

2456

And then you would recognize that, huh, you know what,

#

2458

I can create different resonance frequencies

#

2460

by adding holes at specific distances.

#

2462

And it's just a classic thing.

#

2463

Every society independently has invented the flute and string instruments

#

2466

and the same and the same set of notes, right,

#

2468

because of the ratios involved.

#

2470

So therefore, compared to, say, films and others,

#

2474

music is a has been a remarkably fertile piece of creative output

#

2480

from a very small set of rules.

#

2483

So there are very, very limited set of phrases

#

2485

that you can actually make that work.

#

2486

There are limited set of harmonies that actually work.

#

2488

Right. A tonal jazz apart, right.

#

2492

John Cage apart, John Cage apart.

#

2495

That's why when people say criticize pop music

#

2497

is that the same four chords can describe literally 70 percent of songs.

#

2502

That's it. If you try another chord structure, that song,

#

2506

unfortunately, will not go viral.

#

2508

So I think the particular thing with music, the way I see it, is that

#

2512

like the Max Max, what's the Swedish guy,

#

2514

the guy who cracked the algorithm of virality of music, right,

#

2517

who basically produced all of the top hits like in the last decade.

#

2521

I've spoken about him, linked him from the show notes,

#

2523

but I'm an old man. I've forgotten the name.

#

2525

Yeah, Max Martin. That sounds like it.

#

2526

So he's they've nailed down essentially what sort of sonic pattern,

#

2531

the choral styles, the right down to the frequencies, nailed down that formula.

#

2535

Right. Now, what is going to be able to do pretty shortly

#

2540

is to basically do large scale parallelized A-B testing.

#

2543

And it can generate thousand variations of a pop song

#

2547

and then A-B tested and see which one actually works

#

2550

and then learn from that and then make more of that.

#

2552

So in the short term, what will happen is that

#

2556

musicians will start to use these tools as a way of generating content faster.

#

2561

They can get artists, musicians used to famously like do drugs,

#

2565

go to some random places one year, two years.

#

2568

Pink Floyd would take like five years to come out of an album.

#

2570

That's not going to work. Right.

#

2571

So people are going to be able to turn out stuff over a weekend.

#

2574

And then by AI itself, you're going to more people

#

2577

are going to be generating more music.

#

2578

So in that sense, in a weird way, it reminds me of how photography

#

2582

largely kind of disappeared as like some fancy art.

#

2586

The moment the smartphone camera became decent enough.

#

2589

Right. You know, there was a point of time.

#

2591

We all remember pre iPhone era, internet era, the guys slugging the slugging

#

2595

the SLR, right.

#

2597

And sitting around in weird angles and taking photos was a special person.

#

2600

There's a Japanese saying from the 1980s.

#

2603

If you want to make a man a pauper, gift him a camera.

#

2606

It was just all the film and all that.

#

2608

Yeah, film and then lenses.

#

2609

And it's like an interesting right.

#

2610

And then all of a sudden now you can make you can make movies

#

2613

on on your iPhone or Android phone. Right.

#

2615

So in that sense, I think music is particularly vulnerable

#

2619

to this because it is genuinely an art form built on an edifice

#

2623

of a very tiny set of rules.

#

2627

So all the rest of the thing that we consider art in music

#

2631

has to do with the personality of the artist and sometimes the words

#

2636

and the context and the the context of blues coming from slavery.

#

2640

It's all of that.

#

2641

The underlying music of blues.

#

2644

Every song is the same.

#

2645

Musically speaking, they're all the same.

#

2647

Right. So then it becomes about the words.

#

2649

It becomes about the poetry and so on.

#

2651

And even there, when it comes to words, more people can now

#

2655

write decent poetry if they know how to use these tools.

#

2658

So the whole point is that, as you rightly said,

#

2661

a musician plus AI will make a better musician.

#

2665

A poet plus AI will make a better poet, a far, far better poet.

#

2669

And it will also obviously increase the number of mediocre poets

#

2672

and the mediocre musicians, obviously.

#

2674

There's just going to be more content out there.

#

2676

And that's good. I mean, you know, it is it is now, for example,

#

2679

it is the industry has made it so hard.

#

2681

Like, for example, if I wanted to teach science

#

2684

and I just randomly wanted, felt like using a piece of music somewhere.

#

2687

Now, I can't write without paying royalty, expensive royalty to someone.

#

2691

I can't. There are many artists who I cannot make a cover version

#

2694

because they simply denied the right to make a cover version and so on.

#

2698

So it's just that those kinds of things will largely disappear. Yeah.

#

2702

And yeah, so also fewer and fewer people

#

2706

now need to know the entirety of a body of, you know, craft.

#

2712

In order to produce art, that eye pencil thing that you mentioned, really.

#

2717

Nobody knows soon.

#

2720

No one will really know how to make music, but everyone will be making.

#

2724

Everyone will be making music.

#

2725

And in a weird way, I think people, every generation,

#

2727

they get worried about what basic skills people are losing. Right.

#

2730

My parents generation was clock stables.

#

2733

You don't know how to do logarithms.

#

2735

Boss, we have scientific calculator.

#

2736

We don't. I don't need to use that.

#

2737

And it was a it was a tool designed for a time

#

2740

when we did not have scientific calculators.

#

2742

So you wanted to multiply.

#

2743

I'm the last generation that used a lot of tables.

#

2746

Yeah. So you wanted to do this large arithmetic calculations.

#

2749

It's a shortcut. It's an engineering shortcut, which you don't need,

#

2752

which you can just completely give up the moment you have calculators.

#

2755

Same thing with maps and navigation and and all of that. Right.

#

2759

Who's people needed to have the skill east, west?

#

2761

How is the city laid out? How do I read this map?

#

2764

I used to have a city map of Delhi when I was living there. Right.

#

2767

And you have to know which quadrant to look at, turn to that page

#

2770

and then find out where it is, which road.

#

2772

So it needed a special skill, like people knowing how to operate a VCR

#

2775

back in the day. Right.

#

2776

And now nobody just cares.

#

2778

You just plug in your address and nobody would argue

#

2780

that navigation is a skill you need to have. Right.

#

2783

The onus now is on making sure that maps doesn't, you know, take you

#

2787

make you fall off a cliff and so on.

#

2789

Right. So that's basically the you're putting the onus like

#

2791

how cloud computing takes the onus of dealing with computer

#

2795

hardware and servers from every software guy and says, no, no, it's

#

2798

the problem of only three companies, which is Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

#

2802

And that's it. All the rest of you, you focus on the software.

#

2804

Let them focus on that problem.

#

2805

One of my friends with the great observation that the generation

#

2808

that is, you know, born 10 years ago will never know what it is to get lost.

#

2812

Speaking to the maps again, another useless skill none of us have.

#

2815

Right. We and we are actually the last generation that remembered phone numbers.

#

2818

Today, I only remember two phone numbers, which is like by inertia from the past.

#

2822

But unless you're some kind of crazy geek, you will simply not know.

#

2825

And, you know, a great thing that this also points out.

#

2828

Is how we are slaves to our brains.

#

2830

We speak of free will and all of that, but we are slaves to our brains.

#

2833

In the sense, certain notes will make us feel a certain way.

#

2836

And there is really nothing we can do.

#

2837

And there's no value judgment to that.

#

2839

And this also resonates with, you know, you made a video on dairy milk,

#

2843

how they change the shape of the little chocolate from a square thing

#

2846

to a rounder thing. And everyone thought they've added sugar

#

2849

when they hadn't only because round things taste sweeter.

#

2852

And you had made a point about, you know, Booboo and Kiki.

#

2854

Can you explain Booboo?

#

2856

Booboo and Kiki actually sort of like this famous.

#

2858

So as we are understanding the brain better and better, right.

#

2861

The one thing that's becoming painfully obvious

#

2863

is that our brain is riddled with cognitive fallacies,

#

2867

shall we say, predisposition to fall for these fallacies.

#

2871

Right. And particularly optical illusions are some of the craziest things.

#

2875

You know it and you still fall for it.

#

2877

And you will still fall for it. Right.

#

2878

And again, as I said, you know, the most mind blowing fact about that

#

2882

is that the latency between your retina receiving a photon

#

2885

and it sending the message, that latency is too slow

#

2889

for you to process the world in real time.

#

2891

And so the brain is actually, therefore, uses a model

#

2896

to try and create an image of what it's likely to be.

#

2899

It's like a neural network, right.

#

2900

So it's based on past information.

#

2902

Can I predict what the next blind spot will drive?

#

2904

So literally everything you see is basically your mind projecting

#

2908

what you're seeing and not the real, not actual reality.

#

2911

So we regularly get into blind spots because of that.

#

2914

So the fascinating thing here is that in the last 20, 30 years,

#

2918

particularly in this area of food, there is this new interdisciplinary

#

2922

field called gastrophysics.

#

2925

There's idea of how the combination of brain visual, these things,

#

2929

the presentation of the food and how your brain reacts to certain things

#

2932

and in terms of flavors, aroma, textures and all of that.

#

2935

Most famous user of gastrophysics is Heston Blumenthal, right.

#

2939

And in fact, the person who came up with the paper

#

2941

about the whole round shapes and straight shapes is Charles Spence,

#

2945

who was the advisor of Heston Blumenthal.

#

2947

He used to be the science consultant for creating those Heston Blumenthal

#

2951

experiences, like he'll come and give you like oysters.

#

2954

And there will be the small thing that will generate a bunch of molecules

#

2958

that are redolent of the seacoast of some place.

#

2960

Right. So he's creating that sort of experience, right.

#

2963

And there'll be sounds also.

#

2964

There'll be sounds and gentle sounds of waves and water and all of that.

#

2967

High quality speakers.

#

2968

So they're creating these synesthetic experiences

#

2970

because we've recognized that flavor is actually a very multidimensional,

#

2973

very hard to model sense.

#

2975

It's not a single sense.

#

2976

That is a combination of taste and aroma and sight.

#

2980

And even even the sound. Right.

#

2982

So, like, for example, you will like it as a mechanical engineer, right.

#

2986

When you eat a panipuri, right.

#

2988

The the crunch of a crispy panipuri

#

2992

is bulk of that sound is actually in the non audible range.

#

2996

So it's well above 20,000 hertz, the high frequency ones. Right.

#

2999

And so we can't actually hear it.

#

3001

We hear the ones below that.

#

3002

And the difference between a soggy potato chip

#

3005

and a crisp potato chip or a crisp panipuri is chemically not much,

#

3010

except that that there is slightly less water.

#

3012

And so you get that crunch.

#

3013

And your brain processes crunch as a sign of freshness,

#

3017

because historically, evolutionarily, a crunchy fruit is likely to be healthy.

#

3022

Mushy fruit is likely to be rotten and kill you. Right.

#

3025

And so even people who are hard of hearing, who cannot hear,

#

3029

can sense crispness because the higher frequencies travel through the bone.

#

3035

So you can literally feel the crunch of a panipuri,

#

3038

regardless of whether you can hear or not.

#

3039

Betavan famously used to listen to his music through his teeth.

#

3042

Through his teeth.

#

3043

And you can sort of hear those vibrations and so on. Right.

#

3046

So in that sense, I think there are another example is the boo boo kiki thing. Right.

#

3050

So like we also look at certain sounds

#

3054

and we associate them with certain shapes in our head. Right.

#

3057

A bar sounds generally sounds rounder than a car sound, which sounds sharper. Right.

#

3064

Hard to hard to sorry.

#

3065

It is impossible to sort of really explain why, but it's just the way it is.

#

3069

Very similarly, Charles Spence found out that for the same amount of sugar,

#

3075

a rounder shape tastes sweeter than an angular jagged shape,

#

3079

because angular jagged shapes tend to evoke sourness more than than than sweetness.

#

3086

And so when Cadbury changed, basically their dairy milk was slightly rounded,

#

3090

despite not changing the the entire recipe.

#

3093

People were like outraising that you guys made it too sweet.

#

3096

You guys are adding needlessly more amount of sugar.

#

3098

And they had to come and clarify that, no, that was not true.

#

3101

And then this paper came out explaining that, well, this is why our brains

#

3104

tend to process it this way.

#

3105

And it's very hard to explain why, but that's just the way it is.

#

3108

So Booboo versus Kiki would

#

3111

you would imagine Booboo to be a nice roly poly person.

#

3115

Right. So people, the moment you hear a name with a bar sound,

#

3119

you automatically think this is a yeah, this is a rounder person.

#

3122

This is very sad.

#

3123

And it's also about how nomenclature could be destiny,

#

3125

because I would normally never reveal this.

#

3127

But one of my childhood nicknames, which my mother gave me, was Booboon.

#

3131

So Booboo comes in there and look at my weight now.

#

3134

I'm losing.

#

3134

Yeah, she named me like Kiki or something.

#

3137

It could have worked.

#

3138

And, you know, what do you said about food?

#

3139

Also, there's that thing about tomato juice.

#

3141

The tomato juice tastes much better in flights,

#

3143

which is why it is consumed so much than on the ground,

#

3145

because your taste buds experience them differently

#

3148

because of the different air pressure.

#

3149

Yeah. Or whatever the case might be.

#

3150

Low moisture and the lower air pressure in a flight

#

3154

actually makes your taste buds about 30, 40 percent less sensitive.

#

3157

And so what happens is that the dryness basically makes them a lot less sensitive.

#

3161

And so normally cooked food will taste bland in an airplane.

#

3165

So normally now chefs have adjusted to that,

#

3168

to add more salt, more sugar, more sour so that the food tastes good.

#

3172

So normally when you like, like, oh, I like this airlines,

#

3174

the good chance that they're probably adding like an unhealthy amount of salt

#

3178

to make it taste palatable.

#

3180

So tomato juice is unique because it is a weird kind of sour,

#

3183

especially more specifically, the Bloody Mary mix, which is salty.

#

3187

So the most widely consumed cocktail in a plane is Bloody Mary.

#

3190

That's a weird thing, right?

#

3191

Again, because it's tomato juice and the add on effect

#

3194

of the hard alcohol also mutes taste buds even more.

#

3197

So that drink particularly needs even more salt.

#

3200

And so what happens is that almost all of the tomato juice consumed

#

3203

is consumed in flight because that sourness is comes down

#

3207

to just the point where you're able to tolerate it.

#

3209

And here's the other interesting thing.

#

3210

So sometimes when things have two different flavors,

#

3215

they'll be a dominant flavor and a less dominant flavor.

#

3217

Our brains cannot usually sometimes cannot parallel process.

#

3220

So they'll only pick up the dominant one and ignore and.

#

3223

So classic childhood example, all of you would have gone through.

#

3226

You've eaten Amla, right?

#

3228

And then you drink water.

#

3229

It tastes sweet. Why does it taste sweet?

#

3232

Interesting thing is that Amla sourness comes from citric acid

#

3235

and all the acids it has.

#

3236

So acids are sour, right?

#

3238

That is a dominant taste.

#

3240

But citric acid specifically also has another trick up its sleeve.

#

3244

It fits into the sweet taste receptors.

#

3247

So it tricks your brain into thinking it is sweet.

#

3248

Also, what happens when you drink water

#

3251

is that you're increasing the pH.

#

3253

So now your brain is like, I'm not saying so.

#

3255

It's not really focusing on the sourness.

#

3258

It's like not the sweetness now comes through.

#

3261

What happens with tomato is that tomato has two predominant sour.

#

3265

Second is, again, everybody's favorite demon, glutamate.

#

3269

Yeah. Of MSG fame, right?

#

3271

Tomato has a ton of free glutamates,

#

3273

but not enough to dominate the sour taste.

#

3276

So once you can't taste sour, umami comes through.

#

3279

So people find tomato drinks to be very savory.

#

3282

It's like almost drinking like sort of like a meat gravy.

#

3284

So but the same thing when they drink on the ground,

#

3287

it will just taste quite terrible.

#

3289

And just to sort of double click on the sound thing also,

#

3291

like one of the webinars in my writing course is about sound.

#

3294

And the interesting thing is that hard sounds and soft sounds

#

3298

play out in a certain way in the real world.

#

3300

For example, words that end with vowels are soft sounds, right?

#

3303

So Aditi, Mohini, Narendra, Modi, you cannot those two.

#

3306

But generally, you will notice that girls' names in South Asia

#

3311

will often end with a vowel, right?

#

3314

Because it's a soft sound and softness is associated

#

3317

for right or wrong, whatever.

#

3318

That's a different argument with femininity.

#

3320

And boys' names will often end with harder sounds like Amit, Ashok,

#

3324

you know, Narendar and so on and so forth,

#

3329

which is one interesting observation.

#

3331

And in this great book called The Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver,

#

3334

she gives an example of how it plays out in the real world.

#

3337

Now, imagine you are watching a movie, right?

#

3339

You go to a cinema theater, you're about the movies about to start.

#

3342

It starts. But two people are all behind you are talking, talking, talking.

#

3345

Right. How do you handle this?

#

3347

Your first gambit could be to turn around and say, hush.

#

3351

Now, this is such a soft sound.

#

3353

Hush. That is too gentle.

#

3355

If you say this to a stranger, it'll seem like you're hitting on them.

#

3358

Right. Is what you say to a little baby is being by your knee.

#

3360

And you say, you know, uncle is cooking a stranger and prawns.

#

3364

Hush. Now, what I would typically do is I'll turn around and I'll say, please be quiet.

#

3369

Now, the quiet ends in a hard sound, the ter, it's emphatic.

#

3372

But please be a soft sounds.

#

3374

So it's getting a message across, but in a polite way.

#

3376

So please be quiet. It's fine.

#

3378

Unless you're in a cinema theater in Noida or Gurugram,

#

3381

you're not going to get stabbed for this.

#

3383

Apologies for my stereotypes.

#

3385

I think Amit's stereotypes are acceptable in Chennai.

#

3388

So I'll go with it.

#

3389

And typically, if they don't listen, I'll have to turn around

#

3391

and say something like, shut up.

#

3393

And it's just hard sounds, the ter and the per.

#

3395

Shut up. Right.

#

3397

And writers know this.

#

3398

See computational thinking that writers know soft sounds and hard sounds.

#

3403

So when Shakespeare wants to make an impact, he will say,

#

3405

now is the winter of our discontent. Yes.

#

3408

You know, this is why Bob Dylan will say the answer,

#

3411

my friend is blowing in the wind, not blowing in the breeze,

#

3414

which doesn't have that same impact.

#

3416

You know, you want to end with something emphatic, hard sound.

#

3420

You want something flowy and gentle, softer sounds.

#

3423

And even if writers are not always planning this

#

3426

because of internalizes, it becomes intuition.

#

3429

The computational thinking is working in the background.

#

3432

And foolish people who don't know anything will call it art.

#

3436

Exactly. And you know, the whole sound thing also reminds me of how,

#

3439

like, for example, particularly Sanskrit is phenomenally flexible

#

3443

when it comes to the interplay of sound. Right.

#

3445

And because you can say the same thing in many ways,

#

3448

it allows you to compose poetry that that there are some remarkable

#

3453

examples of how you can follow some of the most crazy sound rules.

#

3456

Like, for example, I need an alternate hard and sound. Right.

#

3460

And I need I also need every fourth syllable.

#

3462

I need a erotic sound. You can you can do those kinds of things. Right.

#

3466

You know, the most common example that I did, you just say erotic sound.

#

3469

What do you call it? Erotic. Right.

#

3471

R. Fine. But you got that horny question is pending.

#

3474

You got to tell me what makes you horny.

#

3475

So so so so so for example, you know, Adi Shankara is the the whole

#

3479

Aigiri Nandini. Right.

#

3481

So if you so Aigiri Nandini, Nandita Me, Dini Vishwa, we know Dini.

#

3485

So so the the the cadence of that, right, is just remarkable.

#

3489

And if you look at the whole thing, you'll find that the exact the way

#

3492

where the stress comes will keep varying based on what he wants to do.

#

3495

And so there are some remarkable examples of this kind of stuff

#

3498

that sometimes even harder in English to replicate,

#

3501

because this is designed primarily around this sort of thing.

#

3504

And because the word order doesn't matter. Right.

#

3507

Because it's all tensors are inbuilt into the words and so

#

3509

so you can actually play around with it.

#

3511

So it's quite a lot of remarkable stuff.

#

3513

Tell me about your experience with Sanskrit metal.

#

3516

You know, how did it was it a great form in a great language

#

3519

for the rhythms of metal?

#

3520

No. So the way it worked was that

#

3523

it was in a sense that I was I always enjoyed learning.

#

3526

I did learn Sanskrit in school and obviously sort of lost touch with it

#

3529

as I was getting out and out of college and so on.

#

3532

It felt to me that one way of keeping in touch with the language,

#

3537

many people try.

#

3538

The problem is that sometimes the only way to keep in touch

#

3540

with that language is to go down the religious path, right?

#

3542

I mean, you read the Vedas and read, you know, all that sort of stuff

#

3545

that I was not interested in.

#

3546

It didn't appeal to me.

#

3548

And so I was like, you know, is there well out there, you know,

#

3551

to use a particularly negative word, secular ways of appreciating

#

3555

the language, if you will,

#

3556

because it's such a strong liturgical language that sometimes there is

#

3560

there is like little pop culture in that language.

#

3563

Of course, you could you could like read Kalidasa and all that.

#

3565

But it also required you to be reasonably good at it

#

3568

before you could do that. Right.

#

3569

And so it struck me that for me.

#

3571

So one of the things I often do is I use a personal

#

3575

what I call it's a nice aside the the creation consumption ratio.

#

3580

So for me, if I'm spending half an hour watching something,

#

3584

I need to spend half an hour creating something. Right.

#

3586

So it's how I keep that balance

#

3588

so that I'm not endlessly doom scrolling and just consuming content

#

3591

and watching more YouTube and watching Netflix,

#

3593

but not actually creating anything. Right.

#

3595

Listening to music, but not making music.

#

3597

So so in that sense, for me, I almost always naturally,

#

3600

rather than consuming stuff to learn,

#

3603

I always prefer making stuff to learn.

#

3606

And in this case, it's like, OK, fine.

#

3607

Let me let me take a simple song, a heavy metal song that I enjoy.

#

3612

And in this case, it turned out to be Rammstein's Do Hast. Right.

#

3617

Again, the lyrics are quite straightforward.

#

3618

And thankfully, I'd learned German before it wasn't too hard.

#

3621

And essentially, the lyrics themselves are a parody of the wedding vows.

#

3626

So do hast, do hast mich, do hast mich gefracht.

#

3628

You have asked me and I have said no. Right.

#

3632

And will you take me to be your whatever? Nine. Right.

#

3635

Will you till death do us part nine?

#

3637

So it's basically a parody of the wedding vows.

#

3639

That's what the song is. Right.

#

3641

And so it seemed like very straightforward.

#

3643

And high school Sanskrit was enough to get that translated.

#

3647

I had to use the help of Internet dictionaries and so on.

#

3649

But I eventually got it translated, got it reviewed by a friend of mine

#

3652

who was much better at Sanskrit and so on.

#

3655

And then I just said, fine, now let me make a slightly Carnatic,

#

3658

heavy metal adaptation.

#

3659

But it shouldn't sound very Carnatic, like the cheesy Internet stuff.

#

3662

It still should sound like that Rammstein song.

#

3664

But it will have instead of the keyboard solo,

#

3667

I played a violin solo, like, for example. Right.

#

3669

And then so that's how the whole thing began.

#

3671

And the interesting funny story with that song was

#

3673

once that sort of mildly went viral,

#

3676

a wedding planner in Bhopal contacted me

#

3680

and he said, sir, I really loved this song.

#

3683

I would like to play it at the I want permission

#

3687

for our DJ to play the song at the weddings he's doing in Bhopal.

#

3691

Right. And I was like, sure.

#

3693

I mean, you know, you know, like we can figure out what your, you know, IP,

#

3696

you know, rates are, etc.

#

3698

And then he's like, no, no, no, I will give you free promotion.

#

3701

Right. You don't I don't have to pay you.

#

3703

I'll give you free promotion because, you know, you will get a lot of people

#

3705

will hear it, etc, etc. He wanted to use that logic.

#

3708

So so in generally, then I said, it's fine.

#

3711

But do you also realize that this is a song that is literally

#

3717

basically making fun of the wedding vows, the wedding vows,

#

3720

and it's faithfully translated into Sanskrit.

#

3722

And you want to play that at a wedding.

#

3725

His answer was nobody understands Sanskrit.

#

3727

They would just like the sound of it.

#

3730

So anyway, that was that interesting aside.

#

3732

So that people just like hearing Sanskrit and they think it's holy.

#

3736

Can we play a bit of that song now?

#

3737

You'll get exposure. We can play it.

#

3739

Absolutely. Absolutely.

#

3741

All my music is there on SoundCloud anyway.

#

3742

It's there on iTunes as well.

#

3743

I'll give you absolute rights have been cleared for you to play.

#

3747

Marvelous. So guys, listen to this.

#

3748

Yes. OK, fine. So this is how it began.

#

3751

And then with that song, then obviously I got a little bit more bold

#

3755

than I permanently said, look, I probably need to find a collaborator

#

3757

who's a little bit better.

#

3758

And then we would jointly sit and translate more and more harder songs.

#

3761

Still, we reached Pink Floyd's High Hopes.

#

3764

I was like, oh, no, the imagery and all of that.

#

3767

There's any literal translation will just seem silly.

#

3770

Yeah. Right.

#

3771

Again, not that people understand Sanskrit,

#

3773

but at least, you know, for personal satisfaction. Right.

#

3775

So for that alone, I had to reach out to a professor of Sanskrit

#

3779

who actually, strangely enough, has a pet project.

#

3782

She gladly did it for free.

#

3784

And she said, this is lovely. I wanted to do this.

#

3786

And she then would ask me and say, what did he mean by this

#

3790

random vague reference to some Oxford meadow somewhere in some Pink Floyd song?

#

3794

What did he actually mean?

#

3795

And then I had to go through blogs that explained Pink Floyd imagery

#

3798

and said, no, this is actually a drug reference.

#

3800

And this is OK.

#

3801

So then I will convert it appropriately to some Sanskrit

#

3804

Soma, some drug reference.

#

3806

And a lot of these things had to be adapted.

#

3808

And it was just a great fun exercise. Right.

#

3810

I mean, I just enjoyed that entire process.

#

3811

I didn't really care about how well it would do.

#

3813

It was a great fun. And in the sense, I

#

3816

by the time I finished that album, I recognized that I had

#

3819

effectively learned more Sanskrit than I had during my entire school life.

#

3823

Because school life was basically memorizing a bunch of things to crack an exam.

#

3826

And Sanskrit is famously very logical.

#

3830

And you've got to gamify it.

#

3831

If you're good at memorizing stuff, I think, you know, there's nothing to it.

#

3834

There's no creativity. You're not actually writing essays.

#

3837

You know, that's it. I wish somehow I feel that in retrospect,

#

3840

I wish I'd actually maybe study Tamil or Hindi as a as a as a second language,

#

3844

because in those languages, you at least you have to think you have to write.

#

3848

You have to describe. You have to make your own stuff.

#

3850

No such thing. In Sanskrit, you're just basically parroting what is already done.

#

3854

You're doing some very basic translations.

#

3855

You're not really doing anything advanced at all.

#

3857

So we'll play the Ramstein song now and we'll play the Pink Floyd cover

#

3861

at the end of the episode and have the time codes in my show notes.

#

3908

I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3910

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3912

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3914

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3916

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3918

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3920

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3922

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3924

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3926

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3928

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3930

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3932

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3934

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3938

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3940

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3942

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3944

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3946

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3948

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3950

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3952

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3954

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3956

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3958

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3960

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3962

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3966

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3968

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3970

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3972

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3974

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3976

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3978

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3980

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3982

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3984

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3986

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3988

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3990

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3994

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3996

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

3998

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4000

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4002

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4004

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4006

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4008

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4010

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4012

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4014

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4016

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4018

I'm not sure if you can hear me or hear any cameo.

#

4022

Your drain is at the bottom of the screen.

#

4026

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4028

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4030

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4032

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4034

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4036

I'm not sure if you can hear me.

#

4038

or hear any cameo.

#

4042

I'm not sure if you can hear any cameo.

#

4044

Say what ever you want.

#

4046

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4076

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4106

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4136

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4166

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4196

Vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4226

Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

#

4256

And as good mates go, she went.

#

4286

She went.

#

4316

I think which AI will be the last to crack is humor.

#

4320

A certain kind of humor.

#

4322

A certain category of humor.

#

4324

Yeah, and a great point about adjectives and verbs.

#

4326

How do you know I say that in my writing course?

#

4328

Have you ever done my writing course?

#

4330

I have heard every single one of your podcast episodes and what you don't realize is that the net sum of all the advice in your course,

#

4336

you have given it away for free if people have listened to your podcast.

#

4339

I'm flattered.

#

4341

So here's a way to save money, guys.

#

4344

No, but that's advice I'd really give to everyone because people misunderstand sure don't tell.

#

4348

People think sure don't tell means you have to describe something, which means adjectives.

#

4352

And that's completely wrong.

#

4354

Sure don't tell means you show a character doing something.

#

4357

And with that, you indicate a state of mind or you indicate something about him.

#

4361

Like as for this corpulent lady, I love this phrase.

#

4364

I forget who it's from, but that person said, nouns name the world, verbs activate them.

#

4369

And these are the two key things.

#

4371

So whenever you want to bring life into something that you're writing, go for the concrete and use verbs.

#

4377

Absolutely.

#

4378

Even that Anglo-Saxon example you gave, even in food, right?

#

4382

It's interesting how the word cow, sheep, goat, all of these are Anglo-Saxon words, simple Anglo-Saxon words.

#

4391

Beef, mutton, pork, these are all French words.

#

4394

Fascinating.

#

4395

So because after the Norman conquest, people don't realize that the English upper class was French speaking.

#

4401

It took them 200 years to eventually decide to deign to speak the local language.

#

4406

And so the terms they used ended up being, they were never really anywhere close to the animal at all.

#

4413

That was poor farmers and peasants doing that.

#

4415

They experienced the cow only as beef.

#

4418

They experienced the goat only as mutton.

#

4420

So those are all of the French origin words in the new CD.

#

4423

So basically, Hinduism got it right by favoring the Anglo-Saxon.

#

4427

We like cows, but we don't like beef.

#

4431

Yes, we're for the...

#

4433

Naren, I want to ask you about, you know, we mentioned the upper class only seeing the beef and the whatever.

#

4441

The upper class over here would be exactly the opposite way around.

#

4444

No beef, cow is all fine and good.

#

4446

And you made an observation earlier before we began this recording, which I want to double click on,

#

4450

where you said that humanity has contempt for what others eat.

#

4454

And you pointed out, you know, just elaborate more on it.

#

4457

Yeah, so I just, you know, I've seen, like I've felt the contempt of vegetarian people for when I eat something like pork or beef.

#

4468

They're, you know, then they're okay with chicken and they're somewhat okay with goat.

#

4474

But if I'm eating a pig or a cow, they, you know, they have a great contempt for me and it seems to wash away whatever else I might have said.

#

4485

So then I saw, you know, we have all of us Indians have this little seat of contempt for Chinese people because they eat lizards and snakes and cockroaches.

#

4497

So it's so natural.

#

4500

I mean, it's there, it's very deep.

#

4502

And it's interesting because one of the most provocative things I usually say in my food related presentations is that food doesn't unite Indians.

#

4512

Food actually divides Indians.

#

4514

Brilliant.

#

4515

But we're just not willing to think about it.

#

4517

Sure.

#

4518

Just saying we all like butter chicken, we all like, you know, paneer butter masala is one thing, right?

#

4522

That's not really, that's just restaurant food.

#

4524

It represents a tiny fraction of what we eat on a daily basis.

#

4528

And, you know, even if you, and I'm sure you've had, you know, Tony Joseph and others in your podcast as well.

#

4533

We Indians are basically a large number of basically largely inbred genetic groups, right?

#

4542

Because we marry within our caste, right?

#

4544

And for the last 2000 years.

#

4545

So even now, even medical professionals now regularly struggle because every one of these groups has unique problems.

#

4552

They all react uniquely to medicines.

#

4554

They react uniquely to foods.

#

4556

We have different allergies.

#

4557

And so I remember, I think a friend of mine, we went to the hospital in somewhere in Coimbatore.

#

4562

And he was slightly taken aback when the doctor asked, are you this caste?

#

4566

He was like, why is caste relevant?

#

4568

He says, no, this is not a social thing.

#

4570

It's a medical thing.

#

4571

We know that if you're Chettiar, this is how diabetes works for you.

#

4575

Right.

#

4576

And so, so this essentially means that what we've ended up doing is that we've sort of created these small, small, small tiny tribes.

#

4584

And it is at least my hypothesis that a big part of keeping tribal loyalty and that caste loyalty would place a big role.

#

4592

Because one of the hardest things for people to do is to eat food that is different from what they grew up eating.

#

4599

Because that's how the part of the brain that deals with flavor is the same part of the brain that makes memories and nostalgia.

#

4604

Because we have visual cortex, smell and all that.

#

4607

But flavor is all combinational.

#

4609

So it is basically the part of the brain that deals with it is the nostalgia part.

#

4613

And so when we say I enjoy my mother's sambar, the sourness, the dal choice, the amount of heat, the salt is a very tiny part of that.

#

4622

The aromas are a part of that.

#

4624

But the physical presence of your mother, your kitchen, that surrounding, that is a part of that flavor memory.

#

4629

So that's why you can't really, it's very hard to enjoy food that you did not grow up eating.

#

4634

Exactly.

#

4635

And the common example I give is that there is one molecule called trimethylamine,

#

4640

which essentially is produced by bacteria on the skin of fishes.

#

4644

The moment the fish dies, that bacteria multiplies and the fish starts.

#

4649

So the quintessential smell of fish is basically trimethylamine.

#

4654

Fishy smell essentially.

#

4656

If you're from a seafood eating family, it's the warm and comforting smell of your mother's kitchen.

#

4662

If you're not, it's the nasty smell of a fish market.

#

4665

Exact same molecule having these two diametrically opposite effects.

#

4670

So what this means is that the moment you bring people up and say this is what is good, this is what you will eat.

#

4677

And on top of that, Indians are famously will not allow you to eat in other people's houses.

#

4681

Yes.

#

4682

Even as a child, even when you might be okay to experiment, that's when they will make sure you can go to your friend's house, no eating.

#

4688

Non-veg friend, no eating there.

#

4690

Muslim friend, no eating there.

#

4691

Christian friend, no eating there.

#

4692

And likewise, both ways.

#

4694

So the problem here is that we've ended up creating people with insanely strong flavor memories

#

4700

that they believe are actually universal, but actually only practically only applies to them and what they grew up eating.

#

4706

Which is why people on social media end up fighting over

#

4709

sambar is not supposed to have fennel is a fight.

#

4712

It just so turns out that tamburams don't use fennel as a spice.

#

4715

That's all. If you did not grow up eating it, you're going to find that odd.

#

4718

And so it's not just to do with fish or non-veg.

#

4721

People are literally divided at the level of, I will eat stuff with onion.

#

4725

I will not eat stuff with garlic.

#

4727

Things underground, I will not eat.

#

4729

This particular community will not eat brinjal.

#

4731

This particular community will not eat a specific vegetable on certain days.

#

4735

So the more food rules you have, the easier it is for you to maintain castor oil.

#

4739

I never thought of it like that, but this is so profound.

#

4742

We've ended up creating people who are some of the most intolerant to any other kind of food.

#

4750

Indians are far more likely to go to the US and then seek out Indian restaurants.

#

4754

And not only that, it has to be vegetarian or it has to be Jane, it has to be whatever.

#

4760

There is maybe 15% of the population that generally is considered,

#

4766

if you look at the Gaussian distribution, of people who are novelty seekers in food.

#

4772

They are a minority.

#

4774

The vast majority of people seek comfort.

#

4776

Comfort only comes from eating what you've always eaten.

#

4779

Which means that, forget if the Toor Dal becomes some other Dal, Moong Dal, it's not acceptable.

#

4785

So if the sambar contains Moong Dal instead of Toor Dal, it's a deal breaker.

#

4789

If no curry leaves were used, it's a deal breaker.

#

4792

In a sense, I think food actually crazily divides us.

#

4796

For example, I would sometimes tell some of my relatives that,

#

4799

look, just think about all your friends and think about why they are your friends all the way.

#

4804

You're now 60 years old, you still have some friends.

#

4807

Why are all of them vegetarian and why are all of them of that same community?

#

4812

Did you not have people from other communities and other religions when you were in school?

#

4816

Why did you not end up, in a sense that I would actually argue,

#

4819

have you ever eaten at that person's place?

#

4821

Have you ever, you know, have you actually dined, communed with someone and eaten their food?

#

4825

If you can't do that, then how is it that you build these kinds of relationships?

#

4829

So food actually really divides people and we don't recognize it.

#

4832

The incredible nuance here is that, you know, it's like it is not, one would imagine,

#

4838

at a very basic level that a particular chemical will hit everybody's brain the same way.

#

4842

But what you're saying is that there is a combination of tricks involved here.

#

4846

As neuroscientists say, neurons that fire together, wire together.

#

4849

That shapes the way how you respond to food.

#

4851

And looking at an example of this, and I'm going to sort of turn to caste in a moment,

#

4855

and looking at the example of this, I did an episode with Chandrabhan Prasadji on caste.

#

4859

And a number of great TILs, but one of them was that when he goes back to his village

#

4864

and he sees an elder in the family with diabetes, he celebrates.

#

4867

Because for them, it indicates that there is a certain kind of prosperity

#

4872

that has come together with diabetes and that prosperity is worth celebrating

#

4875

and the diabetes is fine, whatever, we're all going to die anyway.

#

4878

And just to sort of explain to listeners who might not be aware of that endogamy insight,

#

4883

you know, in the Tony Joseph episode, in his book, he quotes David Reich,

#

4888

who also does similar genetic studies, as saying that if you're looking for a large population,

#

4893

the Han Chinese is a large population, but in India, you get thousands of small populations.

#

4898

And this is because around 2000 years ago, and the date is important,

#

4901

because before that, all our migrants from everywhere else were basically having a party.

#

4906

Everybody, full-on party. 2000 years ago, you've got severe caste endogamy.

#

4912

And the ramifications of this, of course, are there on food and what Ashok described so well.

#

4918

It is also there on gender, because what happens when you have caste endogamy

#

4922

is that you have to control women's sexuality.

#

4925

And then that leads to a certain way of thinking and a certain controlling of norms

#

4929

and a drive towards, you know, female seclusion.

#

4932

It leads to what the economist Alice Evans calls the honor income trade-off.

#

4936

So today, when you look at women's participation in the workforce,

#

4940

one of the reasons for that is that when a family reaches a level that both people don't have to work,

#

4945

the woman will stop working for the sake of honor,

#

4948

because the family can now afford what they quote-unquote call honor.

#

4951

And it's all dating back to that particular Hindu-belt ideology of caste winning

#

4958

over circa 2000 years ago and it continuing down this way.

#

4962

And both of you have spoken about the differences in food.

#

4965

Naren, I remember you talking once to me about how different castes will have different things.

#

4970

So this is our hypothesis. And we put that down as a project.

#

4975

We never got anywhere with it.

#

4977

And the project was to go to a village and try and sample the food of different castes within that village.

#

4985

And it will be really interesting.

#

4988

Is your hypothesis from your experiences that they're very different?

#

4991

Yeah, I have really not. I've eaten. So I've eaten a meal at a cobbler's house.

#

4997

One of my friends, this cobbler is to work.

#

5000

I mean, he's from that cobbler caste, he used to work in his office and he was getting married.

#

5005

So we went there and they had, you know, kept.

#

5009

So just the two of us, me and my friend, we drew all the way up to Ratnagiri, some small village.

#

5014

And it's a little hamlet of just cobbler people.

#

5019

Really basic thing, wedding is happening.

#

5023

And there is food and they bring different plates for us.

#

5028

And there are things like paneer, paneer chili and things like that.

#

5032

Clearly they brought it from some far away place.

#

5035

They wouldn't eat that. It's just for the two of us.

#

5038

And my friend is a very strict vegetarian.

#

5042

The rest of these people are eating meat.

#

5045

So I went, I said, can I eat?

#

5048

There was chicken, there was beef and I remember chicken and beef.

#

5055

And the flavor profile was really different.

#

5059

I've eaten chicken curry in Maharashtra, in that part of Maharashtra.

#

5062

Flavor profile was really different.

#

5064

And unfortunately, I don't remember it. I didn't register it much.

#

5068

But it's something I would like to go and do it again.

#

5070

Even if you had tried to replicate it,

#

5072

you would have made something completely opposite from previous experience.

#

5075

This reminds me of this beautiful story.

#

5077

It really moves me every time I hear it and the first time I heard it.

#

5080

Mukulika Banerjee in her episode speaks about how for her book on Pathan,

#

5084

brilliant book called The Pathan Unarmed.

#

5086

This was like a PhD thesis turned into a book, took 10 years to write.

#

5090

But she spent a few months in Northwest Frontier province,

#

5093

trying to track down survivors of the Khudai Khidmatgarh.

#

5096

Now there was this great non-violent movement Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

#

5100

And they were basically shut down after a partition because they opposed partition.

#

5105

So they didn't exist and she was looking for surviving members.

#

5109

And her local guide was taking her from village to village in that province,

#

5114

trying to find old men who would remember.

#

5116

And typically if there was an old man who was a Khudai Khidmatgarh,

#

5118

he would say maybe in that particular village so many miles away,

#

5121

northeast of here there is one guy, Yusuf.

#

5124

But you know I last saw him 40 years ago and they were going like that.

#

5128

And what Mukulika noticed was that in all of these places beef was cheap,

#

5132

so beef was plentiful and chicken was very expensive.

#

5135

And every house would have one chicken for a special guest.

#

5139

And whenever she came they would give her that one chicken

#

5142

because A doesn't eat beef and B, a special guest, you know,

#

5145

Mehman Nawazi and all of that.

#

5147

And Mukulika felt bad about it that she is, you know,

#

5149

the most expensive thing she is eating.

#

5151

So she began eating beef just for that reason.

#

5153

And when she came back to India she told her mother about this,

#

5156

who was a staunch Hindu.

#

5157

And her mother thought for a while and said,

#

5159

son you have done right, this is humanity.

#

5161

And this moves me so much because to me this is, we are also this.

#

5165

And today we don't say enough of this but we are also this.

#

5168

See all food is, the very definition of food is one form of life,

#

5171

killing and eating another form of life.

#

5173

Yes.

#

5174

That's literally the, there are, it's really weird, right?

#

5178

So I think there is this interesting talk where someone said

#

5180

that there are only two things that can nourish us

#

5183

that do not involve the death of an organism.

#

5186

Only two things.

#

5187

Can you guys name the two things?

#

5189

Milk.

#

5190

Milk and honey.

#

5191

So in fact the biblical land of milk and honey and so on.

#

5194

So in a weird way it's like sort of like the only two things

#

5196

that do not involve the death of another animal.

#

5199

On a completely lighter note,

#

5201

the two things that vegans will not allow you to eat.

#

5204

So on that, yeah.

#

5206

So again, I love vegans but you know,

#

5208

I know they give me a lot of grief on Instagram

#

5210

but otherwise I do love them.

#

5212

But yeah, so it's interesting how food in general,

#

5217

all rules about food are effectively actually mostly just cultural.

#

5222

They're not actually based on science.

#

5224

They're just purely, they are cultural and they get into taboos

#

5229

because the taboos help you define your identity, right?

#

5233

And so the moment you say that you eat something else,

#

5234

you've lost that identity, right?

#

5236

And within India I think because of the fact that it's largely again a poor place,

#

5240

you will find that the cooking habits as you go down the economic ladder

#

5244

are not cultural choices but are purely economical choices.

#

5248

So you will often find, and interesting I've seen a ton of YouTube videos

#

5253

because the good thing about YouTube is that there's now content

#

5255

from every part of India, every social class as well, right?

#

5258

So you can sort of see what a specific rural community in Andhra Pradesh is cooking

#

5263

and how that, there's a hundred year old lady who had a channel,

#

5266

I think recently passed away and so on.

#

5268

She cooks these things in the village.

#

5270

I think I've seen that, yeah.

#

5272

And she would just pick up leaves and she would cook.

#

5274

You'd be surprised to find out that, you know, fancy spices

#

5278

because your cardamom and badi elaichi and that stuff is expensive.

#

5283

Pepper, all those things are expensive.

#

5285

So they use other alternatives.

#

5287

So they use, and also they use the poorer cuts of meat.

#

5292

They consume organs that we would not consume.

#

5296

And because they're consuming the poorer, harder, bonier organ meat,

#

5301

they're able to get a lot more flavor of those meaty.

#

5305

So when people sort of, when people love Japanese food and things,

#

5309

so much umami and all of that, it's because you haven't eaten that food.

#

5312

That's very similar. It has a very similar flavor profile

#

5315

because you're actually getting a lot of that flavor from the marrow

#

5318

and from all of that, which are like super flavorful fatty acids.

#

5321

And no spices, not mass by spices because those spices are expensive.

#

5325

So people think that India is just about spices.

#

5327

No, the lower down you go, they're not using expensive spices at all.

#

5331

Maximum they would use chili powder and turmeric, just sort of like universal.

#

5335

But you won't find cardamom, elaichi, cinnamon and all those.

#

5338

Yes, of course, where it's cheap in Kerala, where it grows,

#

5341

of course they're going to use it.

#

5343

But not somewhere where nutmeg is not available.

#

5345

Somewhere in Bihar, somewhere in UP, probably not.

#

5347

Not going to happen, yes.

#

5348

Here's a question, provocative question.

#

5350

Recently a friend of mine was having this vegetarian argument with me

#

5353

and I said, listen, if I eat goat meat, I've killed one goat.

#

5357

If you're having any vegetable, you've killed literally perhaps

#

5360

millions of animals in the whole ecosystem of farming.

#

5362

I'm not even going into that argument that plants have feelings.

#

5365

But, you know, your thoughts?

#

5367

No, so this has always been a, as someone, again,

#

5371

just as someone who's been on Instagram doing food content for a year and a half,

#

5375

this is a front and center thing, right?

#

5378

No matter what you do, you post something on egg,

#

5381

there's going to be someone saying, no, caged hens, cruelty.

#

5384

If you post something on chicken, it's going to be the same thing.

#

5386

It's going to be beef, it's going to be the same thing.

#

5388

Usually if it's beef, the argument will often be that it's bad for the planet and so on.

#

5393

So I've thought long and hard about it.

#

5395

So on the one hand, let's first address the medical and the health science about it.

#

5401

The honest reality is that you can be healthy on any kind of diet.

#

5405

How much you eat and the overall balance matters.

#

5407

Inuits actually just eat seal blubber and whale and no vegetables and they're fine, right?

#

5414

And there are people who eat a completely vegan diet and are fine.

#

5417

People who are on a keto diet and are fine.

#

5419

People who are low fat and are fine.

#

5421

So first and foremost is that you can be healthy on any kind of diet.

#

5424

That's number one.

#

5426

And not everyone responds the same way to food.

#

5428

There are some people who are allergic to soy, who may not be able to consume soy.

#

5431

There are people who are allergic to dairy, who may not be able to consume paneer as protein and so on.

#

5435

So everyone, and there are variations, everyone reacts to the same stuff differently.

#

5440

There are people who process saturated fats better than others.

#

5444

There are others who, the slightest amount of saturated fat, their heart is like blocked, right?

#

5448

And again, so there are variations, genetic variations and lifestyle and so many epigenetics and all of that.

#

5455

When you come to the question about, before morality, we'll get to, we'll first address sustainability

#

5460

because that's a more, more objective thing you can, morals are like very subjective, right?

#

5464

When it comes to sustainability, the biggest fallacy often find is that vegetarians and vegans in India

#

5473

will use data from the US to question Indians' choice of eating when it comes to sustainability.

#

5483

So the data they will use is 25% of greenhouse gases is from the American beef industry.

#

5489

Indians are not eating American beef for starters, okay?

#

5492

And we don't have giant cattle farms in India.

#

5494

What we have is a giant dairy industry, which therefore, which we have one third of the world's cattle.

#

5500

We become the, we export all the cattle that are not able to produce milk, namely the males, as beef.

#

5506

That's what we do, right?

#

5507

We are one of the first or the second largest exporter of beef in the world, right?

#

5511

So the second thing is the fact that Indian per capita consumption of meat is like 10 times smaller

#

5519

than the average Western European or American consumption of meat.

#

5522

Yes, of course, logical, the moment you eat something that's higher up the food chain, more carbon, right?

#

5528

I mean, it's a product, it's a sum of everything.

#

5531

That's fair enough, right?

#

5533

And in India, people do not consume meat like it's the center of the dish, right?

#

5540

I mean, you're a fish curry person.

#

5542

How many fishes are in a fish curry?

#

5544

You'd be hard pressed to go on two or three, right?

#

5546

A chicken curry is a way to make two small pieces of chicken go a long way, right?

#

5551

Everybody's not sitting and eating the leg piece day out like the famous guy, right?

#

5556

The leg piece guy, yeah.

#

5558

The leg piece guy, right?

#

5559

So that's not what's happening.

#

5560

So, and then the other thing I did is that you look at Niti Ayo's own data about where India's greenhouse gases come from.

#

5566

74% comes from fossil fuels and transportation, energy, electricity, production.

#

5571

That is 74%.

#

5573

14% comes from agriculture.

#

5575

That's it.

#

5577

Amidst that 14%, what do you think is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases?

#

5582

It's dairy cattle.

#

5584

It's basically cows farting, right?

#

5587

And here's the weird part.

#

5589

Since you can only get milk from the postpartum females,

#

5593

which therefore means you have a ton of that population that's just sitting around, unproductive, farting away, right?

#

5599

And contributing to greenhouse gas.

#

5601

Weirdly, a climate scientist once told me, up to a limit, if Indians actually start consuming beef,

#

5606

your carbon footprint would go down because you're going to consume them younger.

#

5609

I know this is a controversial thing to say, but yes, up to a point.

#

5612

Of course, if demand for beef goes up and you then have more cattle, of course, it's going to be a problem.

#

5616

But even the current scenario, if you just simply get out of the way of people who traditionally eat beef,

#

5622

your carbon footprint will go down, right?

#

5624

So that is number one.

#

5625

The second thing is that's half.

#

5627

Where do you think the other half comes from?

#

5629

30% of that, of the food part, is rice.

#

5634

People look at, when you look at a paddy field, what do you see?

#

5637

It's beautiful, it's green, it's food, it's generating oxygen is what you think, right?

#

5642

No, paddy fields are net carbon negative.

#

5645

Because there's a bacteria in the soil that bloody puts out a ton of carbon during that entire process.

#

5650

So as a climate scientist once said, that you look at a factory and smoking, you think that's bad for the planet.

#

5658

You look at a paddy field, you don't think the same thing.

#

5661

But he says, you put a bunch of paddy fields of a certain acres, that's as bad as a factory.

#

5668

So people don't realize this, right?

#

5670

And then animal husbandry and meat consumption as a fraction of India's greenhouse gases, not even a rounding error.

#

5679

You see, this is Niti Ayu's data, right?

#

5681

So I keep telling people that you're going after Indians who are just now starting to afford enough to be able to eat more protein.

#

5688

And we are famously protein nourished and our diet is like heavy on carbs.

#

5692

And like you guys are shaving people about using data from the West about sustainability.

#

5697

We will get to the moral argument separately, right?

#

5699

But this is, I've always found it quite silly that we are not even, we don't even consume as much meat per capita as China does.

#

5706

They consume three times more animal protein.

#

5709

Of course, nobody is doubting that as we get wealthier, this will become a problem.

#

5713

Boss, you know, cut before the horse, right?

#

5715

So the last element is obviously the moral argument is obviously very hard to convince people one way or another because it's very subjective.

#

5722

At the end of the day, as I said, if I take an absolutist view that all form of life is one form of life killing another, right?

#

5727

His point about saying that you're right.

#

5730

Actually, a rice field is as much a crime of nature if you argue in that sense that you have to kill every other species, kill every rat, kill every other plant and everything to basically grow that rice,

#

5744

which is the most unnatural thing you can imagine in nature.

#

5747

And on the other hand, you have a problem with a farmer raising a bunch of goats and chickens around the house.

#

5753

The reason humans basically domesticated animals is because we don't realize that when we did agriculture, human beings eventually figured out that we eat a tiny fraction of what we produce.

#

5766

The rice plant is huge. You eat the grain.

#

5768

Just the grain.

#

5769

All the rest is waste.

#

5770

Human beings figured out that I can tame a bunch of animals that will turn that agricultural waste and turn it into free protein for me.

#

5777

That is how animal husbandry was born.

#

5779

Of course, now we have caged chickens and large giant farms is a problem of industrial scale.

#

5784

But that's how animal husbandry was born.

#

5786

You can't go around and tell someone that you've got to become a vegetarian.

#

5789

When they've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, the idea of turning agricultural waste into basically protein for free and effectively the cost of protein for the poorest villager is free.

#

5801

Exactly.

#

5802

For a small family.

#

5803

It's just byproducts.

#

5804

They reproduce.

#

5805

They eat waste.

#

5806

You don't feed them.

#

5807

The goats go eat whatever they eat, agricultural waste.

#

5809

And it's free protein.

#

5810

They reproduce and you get milk.

#

5811

I mean, that is self-sufficient in that sense.

#

5814

Of course, city people are obviously buying from supermarkets.

#

5817

And that's a problem.

#

5818

Yes, we know that.

#

5819

But that's the fundamental moral problem is always that people have to be very choosy.

#

5824

It's saying that I will ignore the human suffering.

#

5827

There is no large scale rice plantation without human suffering.

#

5832

Rice plantations are not exactly automated like corn plantations in the US.

#

5835

It's backbreaking work.

#

5836

It requires brutal human labor.

#

5838

Highly, it used to be planted twice.

#

5840

It's brutal.

#

5841

Right?

#

5842

Yeah.

#

5843

So I want to make two points.

#

5844

And one is, you know, in my typical humble way, which I am proud of having cultivated over the years, I have to say that my keto diet is contributing to the environment because one, I'm not eating rice and two, I'm eating beef.

#

5854

So in all these ways that you describe, it's, you know, I'm...

#

5857

And you're eating Indian beef.

#

5858

I'm helping this.

#

5859

I also want to posit the great cow paradox.

#

5861

Right?

#

5862

But before that, I will turn to tigers in China.

#

5863

Our mutual friend, Barun Mitra, who has been on the show, had once written this great piece for New York Times saying that if you want to save tigers in China, which was a campaign, then save the tiger.

#

5872

Last tiger is dying out.

#

5873

You should actually allow tiger farming that if you breed tigers and you allow their open sale in the market, you create incentives by which people will actually start tiger farming and tigers will be plentiful.

#

5886

And if people start eating their meat, even more plentiful because the market grows.

#

5889

And the way to save the tiger is actually to allow their sale instead of the other way around, instead of black marketing it.

#

5896

And when you think of what it does to India and the consequences, the cow paradox comes up.

#

5902

And the cow paradox is that our cow belt has slowly turning into Buffalo Nation because your incentives for having cows is dropping quickly because milk becomes your only way of earning revenue from the cows.

#

5916

And because that is simply not enough, essentially cow belt is becoming Buffalo Nation.

#

5921

So while we want to do away with beef on the other hand, there is this rhetoric of protect the cow, cow is our mother.

#

5927

But if you take it to its logical conclusion that no one can eat beef, there will be no cows left.

#

5931

Yeah, of course.

#

5932

So the whole, not to mention the interesting sort of mythological biases towards the buffalo being the vehicle of Lord Yama, right?

#

5940

And therefore acceptable to eat, right?

#

5941

Cow, no, no, cow is healthy.

#

5943

Cow is fair skinned, right?

#

5944

So buffalo is dark skinned.

#

5945

And all of these are accidents of geography.

#

5948

The north and the west are the dairy belt because you have large flat open pastures where you can have cows grazed.

#

5955

The south and the east don't.

#

5956

And so these are seafood and you have the wetlands where you can grow rice.

#

5961

And these are therefore the rice and seafood places.

#

5963

And that's basically the paneer and milk part of India.

#

5966

These are accidents.

#

5968

And it's interesting how I think, I believe 70% of South Indians and East Indians are lactose intolerant as adults.

#

5977

It's the reverse.

#

5978

North and West Indians are 70% lactose tolerant.

#

5981

And people forget that lactose tolerance as an adult is the exception, not the rule.

#

5987

East Asians are famously completely lactose intolerant after being weaned from their consumption of dairy milk is very small.

#

5995

So the only form they eat it in is in situations where there's no lactose, high fat ice creams and things like that.

#

6003

So these are all just complete accidents of geography rather than anything else.

#

6008

So all this talk of food is making me damn hungry and it is almost lunchtime.

#

6011

But before we go, because when you said dairy belt, I remember that as a kid, I would get really, my pronunciations are bad, half Bengali and all that.

#

6020

I would get very confused between pronouncing dairy and diary.

#

6023

And therefore comes my next question for both of you.

#

6026

But first with a lot of, you know, emphatic violence almost towards Mr. Shanoi.

#

6031

And people on Twitter also have been asking this that Mr. Shanoi, where is the memoir?

#

6035

And I will turn to you after this because there are similar questions to be asked.

#

6038

But our friend Mr. Ashok has written a book and is writing more and is extremely productive.

#

6044

You on the other hand, you know, Ashok, there's a group on Facebook started I think in 2011 or 2010 by Chuck Gopal.

#

6051

We want Narendra Shanoi to write a book.

#

6053

Everybody, the nation wants to know where is the book?

#

6056

What is happening, sir?

#

6057

So actually I've, so Amit, you know, he spends his time between Bombay and a farm in Karjat.

#

6063

And he's been after me to come and spend a week or two weeks in Karjat and sit and write the farm.

#

6071

It's a farm in the middle of a forest.

#

6074

So daily, you know, what Japanese call forest bathing is happening.

#

6078

There are lakes there so that he won't have to do any farming.

#

6081

He will just enjoy himself in the middle of nature, continue.

#

6084

So there is, so we are putting up a new factory.

#

6088

So I've been sort of, what are those things?

#

6094

They put on horses, bridles, straps, saddles, saddles.

#

6098

And then I've been forced into sort of making that factory, creating that factory.

#

6103

But it should get done in like less than a month.

#

6107

Yes. So I have a completely contrary view to this.

#

6111

I believe the best way to get Narayan to write a book is not to make him sit alone in a farmhouse and all of that.

#

6118

His genius comes in making Vodossian Pratchett style observations in day to day mundane situations.

#

6127

So all we need is for him and his wife to keep traveling and keep having those experiences.

#

6132

And just for maybe someone to just keep recording his anecdotes as and when they happen, instead of waiting for him to put it on Twitter.

#

6141

And then just combine that and have someone go straight to a book.

#

6144

So let me tell you something. He's part of my clear writing WhatsApp group.

#

6147

Every day he relates one or two stories.

#

6149

He has gone through all WhatsApp groups he has been part of historically and collated all of those stories and gotten it ready.

#

6155

Also, what I did last November is there is a thing called NaNoWriMo where people write a novel in November.

#

6160

So I announced as a way of getting writing habits going that on November 1 at 6 a.m.

#

6166

I will start a Zoom call, which will go on for the rest of November.

#

6169

And people join whenever they feel like video audio can be off.

#

6173

But just seeing that there are other people there who are writing can really help.

#

6177

And our good friend here, Mr. Shenoy, actually wrote how many thousand words did you write?

#

6181

About 20,000.

#

6182

Oh, not bad. That's like a longish short story.

#

6188

But we need to get more of that.

#

6190

Novela at least.

#

6191

No, but what Ashok said.

#

6192

So I also I on that on that writing group, especially, you know, there is conversation.

#

6198

And then I remember something that I put it in.

#

6202

And oftentimes even I didn't know I had that experience.

#

6208

So it's awesome. It's very cathartic.

#

6212

I mean, I say like so my wife, there was a there was a point of time when I was actively blogging.

#

6219

She enjoyed your comments on my blog far more than she enjoyed my writing.

#

6224

So she would just wait to see why hasn't why hasn't Shenoy commented on this?

#

6228

Actually got me thinking. So my question for both of you is let us we of course want Narendra Shenoy to write a book.

#

6232

And now I'm realizing what you said is true.

#

6234

If you were alone in a room all day, you would have no contextual passing comments to remember stories out of.

#

6240

Those are happening because you're having interactions.

#

6243

How can we optimize?

#

6244

So the number of interactions is perfect to get a good number of stories out, but not overwhelming and tiring.

#

6250

I think he needs a he needs it like the equivalent of a tweet generator,

#

6254

except that someone who can nudge him as and when these things are happening to capture it in audio and then let the AI do the rest.

#

6261

So AI will not write any of what he is writing, but it will stimulate him with realistic conversation and he will remember stories.

#

6268

Maybe maybe maybe he just needs to chat with AI, which is just maybe just prompting him, right?

#

6274

Hey, you know, remember that time when you were in Dadar station and then that's enough, right?

#

6278

And then he'll come up with some I'm sure he can now come up with an insane story that happened in Dadar station, which will be worth publishing.

#

6284

You have a great Goregaon or Borivali which station is that?

#

6287

All stations are replaceable with each other.

#

6293

So this this happened.

#

6295

So I had an uncle who was sadly passed away early, but he's the most awesome person in my family by hands down.

#

6304

Completely, you know, lacking in any moral sort of fiber and entire being.

#

6311

That's your definition of awesome.

#

6313

I just love that guy.

#

6314

Complete Maida of humanity.

#

6316

So one time his mother who they used to live in Vadala, her brother used to live in Mulun.

#

6321

So Mulun is the one the best way of getting from Vadala to Mulun is you walk to Dadar station and you catch a train to Mulun.

#

6329

And my grand aunt, unfortunately, could speak only Konkri and Kannada.

#

6334

She didn't know any other language.

#

6336

So she knew how to get to Dadar station.

#

6339

She could walk there.

#

6340

But and she knew how to get from Mulun station to her brother's house.

#

6344

But she didn't know.

#

6345

She couldn't read the indicators and she didn't know which train was going in which direction.

#

6349

So she asked her son.

#

6351

So he says, no problem.

#

6352

You ask anyone.

#

6353

Yeh train Mulun kyun jata hai?

#

6355

So this lady goes there at Dadar station and she's freaking out everyone by asking a very existential question.

#

6363

Yeh train Mulun kyun jata hai?

#

6365

People are like, yeh jata hai toh jata hai.

#

6369

And she couldn't understand that.

#

6372

She was in tears.

#

6374

Even the trains engineer or the driver wouldn't be able to tell you.

#

6377

Why?

#

6378

Very existential question.

#

6380

You could change someone's life with a question like this.

#

6382

But I have a question for you too.

#

6383

Hum kyun lunch khaate hai?

#

6385

Time for a break.

#

6386

Anyway, time for a break.

#

6392

Have you always wanted to be a writer but never quite gotten down to it?

#

6395

Well, I'd love to help you.

#

6396

Since April 2020, I've enjoyed teaching 27 cohorts of my online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

#

6402

And an online community has now sprung up of all my past students.

#

6405

We have workshops, a newsletter to showcase the work of students and vibrant community interaction.

#

6410

In the course itself, through four webinars spread over four weekends, I share all I know about the craft and practice of clear writing.

#

6417

There are many exercises, much interaction and a lovely and lively community at the end of it.

#

6422

The course costs rupees 10,000 plus GST or about a hundred and fifty dollars.

#

6426

If you're interested, head on over to register at indiaankar.com slash clear writing.

#

6431

That's indiaankar.com slash clear writing.

#

6433

Being a good writer doesn't require God given talent, just a willingness to work hard and a clear idea of what you need to do to refine your skills.

#

6442

I can help you.

#

6447

Welcome back to The Scene and The On Scene.

#

6448

Welcome to The Scene and The On Scene.

#

6449

I'm chatting with Krish Ashok and Naren Shanoi.

#

6451

And I have been informed by Ashok during our walk towards biryani, which we had during lunch, that number of illuminations that I want to focus on.

#

6459

But the first of them, we are all Amits from Africa.

#

6462

Kindly explain. And you, by the way, are a North Indian. Your surname is Sharma.

#

6466

Right. That is Mr. Krish Ashok who keeps so coined the pejorative term Amit, which I have suffered from and self-deprecatingly referred to myself often.

#

6475

But kindly explain. We are all Amits from Africa.

#

6477

So one, you do realize that the origin of the Amit phrase actually kind of goes back to the 90s, late 90s era, Rediff.

#

6484

Where the general assumption was that, by the way, a good friend of mine, Harish, who's my musical collaborator, he, in one of my blog comments,

#

6494

essentially made this reference that, you know, these random Amit underscore one, two, threes who leave those comments on Rediff.

#

6499

And that is how, since then, we started referring to a certain typical stereotype of this angry internet North Indian as an Amit underscore one, two, three.

#

6508

It just got shortened to Amit. Right. And by the time, you know, Twitter came, it just became Amit. Right.

#

6513

Yeah. On the, on the, on the whole aspect of me being an Amit.

#

6516

Well, so apparently 10 generations ago is when my father's ancestors moved from Maharashtra to, to, to what is now Thirunalveli, right.

#

6525

You know, not too far away from Kanyakumari.

#

6527

And so, yeah. So technically you could say that I'm a 10 generations ago we were Amits.

#

6532

And, and the larger sense that as Tony Joseph says that, well, you know, two waves of migration that we populated the Indian subcontinent.

#

6539

One is obviously the land route and, you know, by the direct route.

#

6543

So became the first sort of ancestral South Indian population.

#

6546

And then obviously the one, the migration that happened like maybe 2000, 3000 years before common era and so on. Right.

#

6552

So, yeah, effectively. Yeah. So we're all Amits from Africa in that sense.

#

6556

At this point, since we're talking origins and all, I will turn to our good friend Mr. Shanoi.

#

6560

But before that, I will tell a story that in college, in Ferguson College, Pune, there used to be a friend of mine whose father was Maharashtrian and whose mother was German.

#

6570

So we used to call him, Dixit was his surname and we used to call him KGB, Konkan as a German Brahmin.

#

6576

But you are a different kind of a matter of great shame.

#

6580

But tell us more about. So, yeah, I belong to a community called Gaud Saraswat.

#

6585

And there is a Brahmin tacked on after that, which itself is a bit of a controversy because Gaud Saras Brahmins infamously eat fish.

#

6594

And why is that infamous? Because that apparently disqualifies you from Brahminhood.

#

6600

I see. But Bengali Brahmins do like Kashmiri pundits eat mutton.

#

6604

So it's down south here. So my wife's folks, they migrated to Mysore because her grandfather got a job in the palace.

#

6614

So he was a Shanoi, but his children wouldn't get admission into the local schools because everyone knew that Shanois were fish eating Brahmins.

#

6624

So they had to slightly change their name to Rao.

#

6629

I see. And by the time they were done with rowing, the independence and everything had come.

#

6637

So the next generation again became Shanoi.

#

6639

You know, there's another interesting sort of Mysore slash Udupi story about the origin of the Udupi restaurants, right?

#

6646

In general, apparently, basically one is that India historically never really had a restaurant culture because you wouldn't eat food cooked by another caste.

#

6657

There was no concept of communal dining of any kind.

#

6660

Well, there were obviously wayside places like Marwadis would often set up these places that served only Jain food and so on.

#

6667

But otherwise, there was no proper restaurant culture like you find in, say, China.

#

6671

And so the whole idea, there is also this other cultural idea that you must not charge money for food.

#

6677

There's also that deeper ingrained idea.

#

6679

And the idea was that the temple would essentially feed people who are hungry and for free.

#

6683

And so famously, the Udupi temple was famous for its amazing meal that even till today remains free and all of that.

#

6689

But the interesting thing is that they went through a period when the whole raja and the king patronage of these temples went down as those kings lost power and money.

#

6699

And the British weren't interested in patronizing temples, obviously.

#

6703

And so many of these cooks and others in the Udupi temple and so on, they had to look for other jobs.

#

6709

It was also that time when Brahmins in Madras had very neatly pivoted to working for the British.

#

6716

Became clerks and lawyers and early doctors.

#

6719

They had learned English and they sort of pivoted into this.

#

6722

And they had also formed a clique that made sure that they only bought in other tamarams.

#

6727

And so the Mysore and the Udupi Brahmins were left out.

#

6731

So, in fact, the pejorative term that they would use to describe tamarams from Chennai was revenue Brahmins.

#

6737

Because they were all working for the, that was the term they used, revenue Brahmins.

#

6740

They were all in the revenue department.

#

6742

And so they had no choice.

#

6744

So some of the people associated with the temple and cooking and so on, started to get into starting restaurants, the food business.

#

6751

And because at that point of time, the only acceptable restaurant where everyone would eat is a restaurant where the cooks were Brahmin.

#

6758

And so that was their selling point.

#

6760

And in the early days, the Udupi restaurants had a separate dining set up for Brahmins and the rest.

#

6766

And obviously post-independence that became unacceptable.

#

6769

And then, so it went away.

#

6771

And you, in fact, even till the 1960s, restaurants would signal the fact that their chef was a Brahmin by literally tagging the word Brahmin to their name.

#

6783

So you'd have some Gomati Vilas Brahmin's Cafe.

#

6787

It essentially hinted that, yeah, the chef is a Brahmin.

#

6790

So, you know, you're welcome to come and so on.

#

6793

So, yeah, so it's quite interesting that they pivoted to that.

#

6796

And another interesting story that I've read in Krishnendure's sort of academic works is that the Udupi folks,

#

6803

as they started these Darshini restaurants and all of that in Bangalore, many of these places,

#

6807

one of the pivotal moments that made the whole thing take off was apparently the plague of 1898.

#

6813

Yeah, there was a huge plague in Bombay.

#

6816

And then one of the things that people would do during the plague is to send their wives and kids to their hometowns, right?

#

6822

Because they didn't want to, right?

#

6824

And so basically leaving behind a bunch of men with no cooking skills in the city.

#

6828

And suddenly, therefore, you had these Darshini restaurants that became a place where you could go eat.

#

6833

And yeah, so just go stand and eat.

#

6835

My grandfather started a restaurant in Bombay and he benefited from this phenomenon during the World War.

#

6841

So when the World War started, there were rumors that the Japanese were going to come and occupy Bombay.

#

6847

So all, everybody, all the migrants sent their wives and children.

#

6851

My grandfather chose that time to start a little restaurant.

#

6855

He was like doing odd jobs here and there, somehow cobbled capital together.

#

6858

He did very well and he pulled an entire community,

#

6862

including my uncle who famously told his mother to find a train,

#

6868

ask people why trains want to go to Mulun.

#

6872

Our question for Ashok though, that fine, got it, Chennai is cool.

#

6876

You've got Brahman cafes.

#

6878

Is anything but cool from a temperature standpoint?

#

6880

Yeah, anything but cool.

#

6881

You've got Brahman cafes, revenue, cars, you had plagues and all that.

#

6884

Do you have sex mandals?

#

6886

Because our friend here, you got to tell that story, man.

#

6889

What is that?

#

6890

So this is why GSBs are superior to riffraff like you, right?

#

6896

Here's the reason.

#

6898

He's not even in the rankings, right?

#

6901

And here's the reason.

#

6902

So in Bombay, in Sion, there used to be this wedding hall still there

#

6907

called Guru Ganesh something, okay?

#

6911

And there's some problem within the community.

#

6913

I don't know exactly what, but there were two rival mandals.

#

6916

So the mandal that ran this was called GSB Seva Mandal.

#

6921

So it was very important.

#

6924

So GSB Seva Mandal was written in very large letters on the side of the building.

#

6930

And it had GSB Seva.

#

6932

The problem is when you write Seva vertically, the V and the A form an X.

#

6938

So from a distance, it looks like GSB sex mandal.

#

6941

So for a beautiful decade or so, I was in the classiest community in the country.

#

6950

Waiting to grow up so you would be allowed into the mandal and perhaps even the mandal commission.

#

6955

A colleague of mine again from Chennai, the first time he went to the US, this was Texas.

#

6960

He was driving his car and a woman sort of, I think her brake failed or something, he rammed into his car.

#

6968

And so they waited for the police to come so that they could do the insurance, do the needful and so on.

#

6973

And the police asked to describe what basically happened.

#

6976

And he said that, you know, she banged my Dickie.

#

6979

And she was like, excuse me.

#

6983

And then since then, you know, I think, you know, all these IT companies had to put out a manual to tell people that there are terms that Americans use differently.

#

6990

And you do not.

#

6992

So it was quite hilarious.

#

6993

Every time we would tell some of our customers who are insurance customers that this is what we call it.

#

6998

But the other word for Dickie is trunk, which can also be misinterpreted into something.

#

7003

Yeah, exactly.

#

7005

Don't have cars with backs, I guess.

#

7008

I'm finding the imagined consternation of the policeman.

#

7013

Excuse me?

#

7015

What is the complaint?

#

7018

I mean, I think the most hilarious of these episodes is a colleague of mine who carried very religious guy, also very large guy.

#

7025

So six, four or something.

#

7027

Corpulent, as you would say.

#

7029

Just larger, not just generally big bone.

#

7031

I mean, you know, like the obliques.

#

7032

I'm not fat.

#

7033

I'm big bone.

#

7034

And he obviously also and very ardent, but of Shiva.

#

7039

So as you might imagine, a lot of the ash, you know, Vibhuti, as they call it all over right on his forehead and his arms.

#

7046

I have a T-shirt line.

#

7048

Is that a religious symbol you're carrying or are you happy to see?

#

7052

So the funny thing is that this so this guy obviously being large.

#

7055

So as you can imagine the surface area that he had to cover and therefore the amount of Vibhuti that he needed to carry to the US where you don't get it back in the day.

#

7064

So he carried essentially 12, 250 gram packets of this ash, sacred ash.

#

7070

Essentially, effectively, imagine the scene in JFK airport when the customs guy opens his bag and he sees 12 whitish powdered bags with a large Hispanic looking guy.

#

7080

I mean, how does he know the difference, right?

#

7082

Curly hair looks like Hispanic.

#

7084

So what is this powder?

#

7085

And he says, he doesn't know what he says.

#

7087

He says, this is spiritual powder.

#

7088

He says, yeah, you bet.

#

7092

Because he doesn't know how to say it.

#

7093

And then he makes it worse by saying this is cow dung ash.

#

7096

And then, you know, and that that doesn't that's a dairy product.

#

7099

So ultimately they don't let him carry it because it's a dairy product.

#

7103

So they throw it.

#

7104

Yeah, poor guy.

#

7106

Very sad.

#

7107

Let's bust some more, not Chennai myths, but something Amit would be surprised by learning about Chennai.

#

7113

And one of them you pointed out earlier is that Chennai has a highest per capita protein consumption.

#

7118

Yes.

#

7119

So, you know, kindly tell us more about that.

#

7121

So in general, if you actually look at the map of India by, I know there's this fantastic, you should call them.

#

7125

I don't know if you've already spoken to them.

#

7127

Ashris Patel, who runs that India and Pixels Infographics.

#

7130

Fantastic.

#

7132

So one of the one of the charts that you put out is this map of India by say poultry production and consumption.

#

7137

And like literally Tamil Nadu is like red and every other place is like, you know, some shade of like mild pink.

#

7142

So in general, I think a common misconception is that people in the north think that people in South India are vegetarian.

#

7149

So the south and the east are actually the most non-veg.

#

7152

In fact, I'm increasing.

#

7153

I'm not even a fan of the term non-veg.

#

7155

Why should the eating preferences of the majority be described in terms of what the minority does not eat?

#

7160

So, by the way, there is a wedding I attended in Trivandrum.

#

7164

So they finally cracked this problem.

#

7166

They had two counters.

#

7167

They had vegetarian and they had regular.

#

7169

So I'm not going to use.

#

7171

So for them, it's like food and then there's vegetarian food.

#

7173

Right.

#

7174

So I think that should be the way we speak it.

#

7175

So 98% of typically anywhere from 95 to 98% of the Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra, Orissa, West Bengal, this region, right.

#

7185

The coastal rice eating region is predominantly meat eating.

#

7188

But I think because the first generation of people you might have ended up meeting in North India would have been disproportionately vegetarian back in the day.

#

7195

There is this sort of misconception about what these people eat.

#

7199

And the other thing is that poultry particularly is huge here.

#

7202

The amount of egg consumption per capita is huge because you have poultry, you're also going to have eggs.

#

7207

And again, it is my completely anecdotal observation that Chennai has more KFCs than McDonald's.

#

7213

So one of the few cities where there are more KFCs than McDonald's.

#

7217

And not only there are actually like hundreds of KFC clones.

#

7220

Like, you know, even when you walk down, you would have seen two places that are for fried chicken.

#

7224

We saw one or two of them.

#

7225

So it's either biryani or fried chicken. That is like the default.

#

7227

Let me reassure our listeners that we did not eat chicken.

#

7230

We had, we went to a biryani place, a Tamil Muslim biryani.

#

7234

Yes, Tamil Muslim biryani.

#

7235

Pointed out and it was absolutely excellent.

#

7237

And Punjabis people would be surprised to hear are so vegetarian.

#

7240

Yes, significantly far more vegetarian.

#

7242

You know, this is neurons that fire together, wire together.

#

7244

Because every time I think of paneer, which, and we discussed it earlier, I'm thinking of Sidin Vadakut.

#

7249

And it's not even like, you know, I had paneer for years before.

#

7252

You know, whenever you see colour, think of us.

#

7254

It's like whenever you see paneer, think of us.

#

7257

Yeah, I'm wondering.

#

7258

I mean, I won't be surprised if Sidin is also lactose intolerant actually.

#

7261

So given that a lot of people in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and others are actually lactose intolerant as adults.

#

7267

Yeah, he's not even hairless.

#

7268

So we can freely speculate about it since he's not here.

#

7272

Another unusual food fact, what you mentioned again during lunch while we were consuming biryani.

#

7278

Yes.

#

7279

Is the Zomato map.

#

7280

Yes.

#

7281

So tell me about that.

#

7282

Yeah, so it's quite interesting how there are a bunch of these maps.

#

7286

One is what is the most commonly ordered food dish category on Zomato, right?

#

7292

In every state, right?

#

7294

You'll find that the south and east is all biryani.

#

7296

The north and the west is pizza, right?

#

7299

And in that, Maharashtra is sort of halfway.

#

7302

So he's actually done a sort of this thing to find out where the index is because people, of course, order both here.

#

7306

And is it heavily in favor of biryani is south and east.

#

7309

Maharashtra is sort of in the middle and the north is disproportionately in favor of pizza, right?

#

7314

And the interesting thing is that then you also overlay with a couple of other things like weird indicators like infant mortality,

#

7322

women's rights and female health related indices and all that.

#

7328

And you'll find that there is generally this correlation between the rice eating states and the same map.

#

7333

So in a strange sense, the Zomato map is also predictive of things like infant mortality and other things.

#

7339

And what I especially love is the Zomato map, the food map is indicative of women participation in the workforce.

#

7345

Because as you pointed out during lunch, more women work in South India because in North India, they are busy making fucking rotis.

#

7352

Yes, so this has been a historical observation that in general, when it comes to South Asia,

#

7359

rice eating cultures ended up liberating women ahead of wheat eating cultures.

#

7364

Wheat in general, especially if you're making bread, it's different because I think people largely don't bake bread at home.

#

7371

They buy it from a bakery. So that's actually super productive.

#

7374

But on the other hand, if you're sitting and making chapatis at home, that's a very linear, non-parallelizable process.

#

7380

And you can make rice for the entire family for morning and evening in one shot.

#

7384

Like making a biryani in the morning can feed you the entire day.

#

7387

And so therefore, I think this is a general historical correlation that these states, rice consuming states, generally did better on many of these indices.

#

7396

Stunning. And also you had a story about Upma.

#

7399

Oh, yes. So the rice story actually reminds me that in 1941 or 1942, when the peak of the World War II and Britain was severely stretched.

#

7409

I mean, the US hadn't really fully committed quite yet. They were like completely...

#

7414

And the last thing they wanted was the jewel in the crown, which is India, to be up and rebelling and rioting and so on, which was also happening.

#

7422

And famously, again, the Gandhi and others said they did not want India to participate, our soldiers to participate in World War II, as they did in World War I.

#

7430

I mean, we lost a lot of soldiers in World War I.

#

7433

And so, interestingly, what they would do is that in the north, when it came to wheat, it was always possible to procure wheat from many other places, the Europe and Russia and many other places where you could procure wheat.

#

7443

Rice, again, was hard. Rice is something that grew only in some very hot and wet parts of the world.

#

7448

And so whenever there would be a shortage of rice in the south, Britain would essentially get the rice from Burma, which was also a British territory.

#

7456

And rhymes with both Sharma and Burma.

#

7458

Amit Burma, yes.

#

7460

So the funny thing is that when the Japanese occupied Burma, that essentially put a stop to the ability of the British to bring rice to South India.

#

7472

And there was a bad monsoon, there was a bad harvest, and Chennai was on the verge of things like riots, right?

#

7478

And so many parts of Malabar and here, and so the Britain had to come up with ideas.

#

7482

So the first idea they came up with was we need to convince South Indians to eat wheat.

#

7486

But the only problem was that nobody wants to sit and roll chapatis all day because by then, you know, women are already going to school.

#

7493

They were working and so on.

#

7495

So nobody wanted to sit and waste two hours in the kitchen making food.

#

7498

So in general, the average amount of time South Indians spend in the kitchen is relatively much smaller because rice is very, very productive that way.

#

7505

And so they didn't want to do this.

#

7507

So then the additional then was, OK, let's be creative.

#

7510

Let's give them a form of wheat that cooks like rice.

#

7513

And that is how they really aggressively started to promote semolina in the South as that.

#

7518

It wasn't like India didn't know semolina.

#

7520

I mean, it was there and it was used in the North.

#

7522

But it was never a day to day thing.

#

7524

And then they really aggressively promoted it.

#

7526

The ration shop stopped giving rice and started giving semolina.

#

7529

They ran advertisements in the newspaper telling women of Chennai, we will teach you how to cook wheat.

#

7535

It is 10 times more nutritious than rice.

#

7537

They lied about these things.

#

7539

And then they said, you come to Spencer.

#

7541

Spencer was this sort of old shopping complex, which now has become a mall and all that.

#

7546

They say that we have a demonstration of how to cook these dishes.

#

7549

And they got these chefs and all these places to concoct new dishes to teach people how to make this.

#

7554

And so one is obviously in Bangalore, some of these restaurateurs, because they were not given rice, had to innovate.

#

7560

And the guy who went on to found MTR innovated and made popular the Rava Idli.

#

7565

So Idli requires rice. So now he made the Idli with Rava.

#

7568

So that's the Rava Idli.

#

7569

And likewise here, instead of the Pongal, which is usually had for breakfast, requires rice.

#

7573

Now you have it with Upma, which is basically a Pongal analog, except that it's made with wheat.

#

7577

And so it's interesting, even those advertisements used to say, there are actually these, you can check on my Instagram page,

#

7583

that there is a, the British government banned weddings from happening because you can't, there's shortage of rice.

#

7589

You can't feed people.

#

7590

So the person who was the then chief minister of Madras during the British time,

#

7596

whose grandson, by the way, was the finance minister of Tamil Nadu,

#

7600

Payanivel Tyagarajan.

#

7601

His grandfather P.T. Rajan was the chief minister of Madras during that time.

#

7605

He had to take out an ad saying that, sorry, I am not able to feed all of you because of the rice shortage.

#

7611

Please do not give any gifts. Please just send your best wishes to the couple here to take out an ad in the Hindu,

#

7616

because there was a shortage of rice and so on.

#

7618

So it's quite a fascinating time and people sort of think that many of these dishes are ancient and traditional.

#

7622

No, the upma is like literally traces its life back to World War II actually.

#

7627

That was absolutely incredible. I had absolutely no idea.

#

7631

Yeah.

#

7632

It reminds me of, you know, recently I found out that it was the Norwegians who introduced salmon to Japan in the 1980s.

#

7640

So we think of salmon sushi and a lot of the sashimi, you'll order the salmon.

#

7644

And we think, oh, it's one traditional thing.

#

7646

But 1980s, even ramen, which we think of as so quintessentially,

#

7650

Japanese was a relatively modern invention.

#

7652

So we think of and it makes me wonder what is culture, right?

#

7656

Because so many, when we think of culture, we think again in terms of, you know, purity and sort of modern day conveyor belt culture and all that.

#

7665

But a lot of what we think is how this is pure Indian culture is actually not.

#

7669

Stitch clothing did not exist in India till, you know, a relatively short time ago.

#

7674

Our prime minister's elegant churidar kurtas are of Islamic origin, essentially.

#

7679

This is a recent find of a tunic in Norway.

#

7685

I forget what it's called. It's something.

#

7688

And the thing is this, the tundra is melting.

#

7691

So somewhere in the far reaches of Norway, someone finds what looks like a discarded t-shirt.

#

7699

He pulls it out and realizes it's really old.

#

7701

Hands it over to the museum.

#

7704

And they find that it's the oldest garment in existence.

#

7708

Wow.

#

7709

Yeah. And that's because it was preserved.

#

7712

And then they worked out how much labor would have gone into it.

#

7716

And they estimated some 38,000 man hours or some crazy number.

#

7722

So, yeah, that's why clothing is really not, you know, not common.

#

7728

For example, I think there was this survey or interview of old Swedish grandmothers and so on

#

7736

about their views on women's liberation and what truly...

#

7740

Normally, you know, people would credit it to things like, say, the pill.

#

7744

The contraceptive pill played a big role in women's lib.

#

7747

Many of these Swedish grandmothers said, no, it's a washing machine.

#

7750

How's old tech?

#

7751

In that part of the world, washing just took three days and things wouldn't dry.

#

7756

And it's, you know, it's a cold and wet place and it's a nightmare.

#

7758

Thick clothing.

#

7759

Yeah, it's quite, you know, the other thing you mentioned about what is culture.

#

7763

The pad thai, for example.

#

7764

It's not a thai dish.

#

7765

It's an American...

#

7766

It was invented by a thai chef in America.

#

7769

Chop suey as well.

#

7770

It's again invented in America, right?

#

7772

And now you can get pad thai in Thailand, right?

#

7775

And I remember seeing this video where a thai chef is schooling Gordon Ramsey on what a proper pad thai is.

#

7782

And it kind of seems cool, right?

#

7784

I mean, always an Asian guy schooling a white guy.

#

7786

It's always fun to watch.

#

7788

But the fact is the pad thai is not a thai dish.

#

7790

It really, in that sense, it was actually invented by...

#

7792

It was invented in America, right?

#

7794

And so it is quite...

#

7795

There are so many such examples.

#

7797

My favorite example is the Panchatantra.

#

7799

The Panchatantra...

#

7800

You ask anybody who wrote the Panchatantra?

#

7802

Vishnu Sharma.

#

7803

Vishnu Sharma wrote the Panchatantra.

#

7804

All of us didn't quite read the Sanskrit.

#

7806

We all learned the Amarsitra Katha version.

#

7809

Or one of those Chandramama simplified versions of that, right?

#

7814

Everybody would assume that, yeah.

#

7816

So we translated from the Sanskrit to the English.

#

7819

How many people realize that Sanskrit was translated from the Persian?

#

7824

Was it?

#

7825

Yes.

#

7826

Because we never wrote things down.

#

7828

We don't actually have the original.

#

7830

Fortunately, at some point of time in the past, it was translated to Persian.

#

7835

And then it was re-translated back into Hindi and Sanskrit and so on.

#

7838

So the Panchatantra that we have now

#

7840

is a Sanskrit translation of a Persian translation of the original Sanskrit.

#

7845

And I have an example of a similar loop

#

7847

because now I will cite a musical example of this

#

7850

which I got from you, which is of course a violin

#

7853

when you were told off for playing Iliya Raja.

#

7856

Tell me about that.

#

7857

So when I was learning to play the violin when I was like seven years old,

#

7861

not my choice really.

#

7864

One of the things I wrote in my blog back in the day is that

#

7866

as instruments go, there's a metric called mean time to sonic palatability,

#

7870

which is the amount of time you need to play an instrument

#

7872

before you like the sound of what you're playing.

#

7874

You just made it sound really cool.

#

7876

M-T-T-S-P.

#

7877

I had written a post about it.

#

7879

And then I kind of compared the M-T-T-S-P of piano, which is five minutes.

#

7884

You kind of roughly know what to play.

#

7886

It's going to sound pretty decent.

#

7887

A guitar is like less than 10-20 minutes if it's in tune.

#

7890

A flute is like 10-20 minutes if you don't know how to make the sound.

#

7893

Violin is like seven years.

#

7896

You're basically sounding like some form of industrial chainsaw equipment till that point.

#

7902

There may be geniuses who pick it up in a year,

#

7904

but average people like me, it took me like seven years

#

7906

before I liked the sound of what I was playing.

#

7908

So it's a frustrating thing for a child to keep doing something that's completely nasty sounding.

#

7914

So the moment I kind of had a sense of, oh, you know what?

#

7917

I can actually mimic other sounds.

#

7921

So immediately you want to mimic the songs of the time.

#

7924

At that point of time, there were these insanely popular,

#

7927

it was the Ilayaraja's golden decade, the 80s.

#

7931

So I would start playing his songs.

#

7933

And then once I demonstrated it to my teacher

#

7935

and immediately said that I will throw you out of the class

#

7938

if you play any Ilayaraja music on the violin.

#

7940

You cannot sully the purity and the sanctity of this instrument by playing film music on it.

#

7947

At that point of time, and I didn't know, the older me now knows

#

7950

that the violin itself is less than like 150 years old.

#

7953

It was introduced by the British.

#

7955

And it was some of the first people who ended up learning

#

7958

Western classical violin under British teachers

#

7961

who ended up adapting it to the Carnatic classical format.

#

7965

Right? So, you know, it's quite funny how people have a weird sense of

#

7968

what is Indian, what is not Indian, right?

#

7970

I have to tell you this, my favorite violin thing

#

7973

because you talked about not being...

#

7975

First of all, Gandhi ji kindly shared, you inflicted a very horrible burden on me.

#

7980

It's an old joke. I was very shocked to know that Amit hadn't heard about it.

#

7984

But I was just observing during lunch

#

7987

that while Krishnashok is a great, good violinist,

#

7991

I don't know if he is a great violinist, good violinist,

#

7994

unlike Mahatma Gandhi who was a non-violinist.

#

7999

Of course, yes, your story.

#

8000

Yeah, so Woodhouse is one of those, you know,

#

8003

Bertie Wooster attends a concert, a village concert.

#

8006

And he's narrating the sort of proceedings to Jeeves.

#

8010

And there was one of the items is a violin solo by Poppy Kegley-Bassington.

#

8017

And he says, as violins, it was as most violins...

#

8022

What was it? Oh, sorry.

#

8024

It was loud in spots, less loud in other spots.

#

8027

And like most violin solos seem to last much longer than it actually did.

#

8032

Yes, the line between being decent sounding

#

8037

and just atrocious sounding, very, very, very, very thin in a violin, yeah.

#

8042

I have a question for both of you and for you, Ashok,

#

8044

in the context of music and in the context of food for both of you.

#

8046

Wait a minute, there's another violin joke I have to get off.

#

8049

Kindly, kindly.

#

8050

So there's this violin maestro who's playing in America.

#

8055

And one pushy Jewish lady comes with her son

#

8059

and she says, you have to teach my maestro, you have to teach my son.

#

8062

And this guy has been, you know, inundated with such respects,

#

8066

requests all over the country.

#

8068

So he's like trying to get rid of her.

#

8070

He says, no, no, my son is really a great violinist.

#

8073

You have to listen, you have to teach him.

#

8075

And she has, she's carrying one of those cassette players

#

8077

and she has a cassette.

#

8078

She pops the cassette into it and plays it.

#

8080

And the maestro is shocked.

#

8082

He says, such technique, such delicate fingering,

#

8087

such bowing, it's, how can I teach this?

#

8091

This is like Yitzhak Perlman.

#

8093

How can I teach this boy?

#

8095

So the mother says, actually, that is Yitzhak Perlman.

#

8098

My son plays exactly like that.

#

8101

This is like your fucking prawn gochugaru that you made.

#

8105

Nicely done.

#

8106

I know where you're getting that from.

#

8107

Yeah.

#

8108

So my question is this, that, you know,

#

8110

you learned the violin for a long time.

#

8112

And like you said, it's a hard slog.

#

8114

Sounds horrible.

#

8115

Last longer than it actually does.

#

8117

And eventually you reach a stage where it is so natural

#

8120

and intuitive to you that you're playing every other instrument.

#

8123

You're doing funky things.

#

8124

You're doing Sanskrit heavy metal, et cetera, et cetera.

#

8126

Your kind of stuff you've done in music is mind blowing.

#

8129

What is it, you know, how do you get to that stage

#

8132

where through constant repetition,

#

8134

you've internalized everything so much

#

8136

that you're then able to reach that creative space

#

8139

where you can do whatever the hell you want.

#

8141

And it's the same with food.

#

8142

In fact, the same question to both of you.

#

8144

The same question to both of you about food.

#

8146

That when do you reach that space

#

8148

that Amit gives you a recipe for prawn gochugaru?

#

8151

You'll find chicken and gochujang.

#

8153

And you still make something kick ass.

#

8155

Exactly.

#

8156

You know, Vishila likes.

#

8157

So, you know, and I'm thinking about

#

8159

whether there's a generalizable lesson in this

#

8162

about the period of time it takes.

#

8164

I'll go first.

#

8165

Yeah.

#

8166

So I'll go first.

#

8167

So in my case, like a huge part of the transformation

#

8170

is thanks to Ashok,

#

8172

who, even before he wrote the book,

#

8174

was busily engaged in demystifying.

#

8177

At that time, he was just in the process of discovery

#

8179

and he used to share that things.

#

8182

And he did two things.

#

8184

First, so I come from a pretty patriarchal family.

#

8187

My mother even now is very, you know, unhappy

#

8190

that I have to work in the kitchen.

#

8192

For me, it's like fun.

#

8193

I'm just playing, you know.

#

8194

Why do you say you have to work in the kitchen?

#

8196

She, you know, she's saying that why does my, you know,

#

8199

it's the Raja beta syndrome.

#

8201

Raja beta, yeah.

#

8202

As a good friend, Mahima.

#

8204

Sheela's absolutely happy to,

#

8206

she keeps putting butter must go,

#

8208

you're such a good cook, please cook something.

#

8210

I'll go ahead and cook.

#

8212

So one was, I lost my, the fear of cooking.

#

8217

And so you suddenly, you know, sort of get a framework

#

8221

of how things work.

#

8223

And the second thing is, at some level,

#

8226

after some time, after you get a hang of,

#

8228

you know, you start off with eggs and things like that.

#

8230

And then you get a little more hands-on

#

8233

with other slightly more difficult things.

#

8237

It's, you realize how satisfying

#

8240

the occasional successes are.

#

8242

So I get this feeling that food appeals to us,

#

8248

culturally, artistically, or aesthetically,

#

8251

whatever, at a much deeper level than many other things.

#

8254

Absolutely.

#

8255

Because I think food is, first and foremost,

#

8257

it's very multi-sensory.

#

8259

And beyond just being multi-sensory,

#

8261

there's a very strong, like the human element

#

8264

of you're making food for someone.

#

8266

There is this sort of deeper connection that you have,

#

8268

and then you're feeding someone,

#

8270

that act of feeding someone and all of that, right?

#

8272

I love what Warren Grover said in his episode with me,

#

8274

where he said it's like rangoli,

#

8276

that the festival comes, you make the rangoli,

#

8278

it's art, art, you put major effort into it,

#

8280

and then the next day it's gone,

#

8281

and people are stamping all over it.

#

8283

And every act of cooking is really nothing

#

8286

but an act of love.

#

8287

It's not even art.

#

8288

Because it's there, and it's gone,

#

8290

and there is a purity in that that I really love.

#

8294

That impermanence.

#

8295

It is not scalable.

#

8296

A million people aren't going to see it.

#

8298

You might get the, if you're a man,

#

8300

you'll get the applause of your elders.

#

8302

Raja betta neka aaj khaana banaya.

#

8304

But in general, it's, and it's a similar act of love.

#

8308

I mean, I wonder what you think about this, right?

#

8310

I just think that in the act of letter writing,

#

8313

as we used to back in the day,

#

8315

1980s, 90s, we would write long letters,

#

8317

inland postcards, whatever.

#

8319

There is something in that that we have lost forever

#

8321

because the act of sitting down

#

8323

and writing a letter to someone,

#

8325

regardless of what you write,

#

8327

it sends a message that I care about you.

#

8329

So I'm sitting down and spending that time

#

8331

writing something by hand,

#

8333

which is remarkable and not just I care about,

#

8335

and obviously the writing of a long letter also.

#

8337

And the least performative thing,

#

8339

because you have an audience of exactly one person.

#

8341

Exactly one. And of course,

#

8343

it's a different matter that it also,

#

8345

it's a separate issue that it also helps

#

8347

you become a different person.

#

8349

Because every time you write,

#

8351

it's an examination of the self and of the world.

#

8353

And that makes you better.

#

8355

And today all our messages are transactional

#

8357

and crisp.

#

8359

And you can't edit and you can't delete.

#

8361

It's one shot.

#

8363

If you make a mistake, you make a mistake.

#

8365

Nobody wants to erase stuff.

#

8367

Do you find cooking meditative?

#

8369

Very much. So actually I would

#

8371

actually go on to say to your deeper question

#

8373

about, the deeper question

#

8375

about how do you think

#

8377

about freely being creative and mixing

#

8379

things, right? I think you said something

#

8381

that I think is very close to

#

8383

how I feel about that, which is the whole idea

#

8385

of impermanence, which is that

#

8387

yes, it is true

#

8389

that many things like food

#

8391

by nature is impermanent. You make it.

#

8393

You can't just forever just keep looking at it, because it

#

8395

is, it is a perishable thing.

#

8397

It is becoming colder. It is,

#

8399

it will spoil with time.

#

8401

You do need to consume it, right? I mean, and then it's

#

8403

demolished. Once it goes inside,

#

8405

no matter how beautifully it's plated, it's all the same

#

8407

goo once it's inside.

#

8409

And like that, I think

#

8411

in general,

#

8413

any creative act,

#

8415

I feel that if

#

8417

you are vested in the process

#

8419

of that immediate goal of creating

#

8421

that and nothing more,

#

8423

you have a far greater chance

#

8425

of being able to experiment and be,

#

8427

because the moment you

#

8429

have the illusion that

#

8431

you are vested in its permanence,

#

8433

I care about what people think.

#

8435

I care about how much reaction

#

8437

will it get on social media? How much, how many,

#

8439

how much sales will this do, et cetera,

#

8441

right? At that point,

#

8443

it's very hard actually to be creative,

#

8445

because you are now thinking

#

8447

of those consequences. You're not really

#

8449

truly, you are not well

#

8451

and truly being experimental. You're not,

#

8453

you're then afraid of failure, right?

#

8455

In that sense, I think, so for me, for example,

#

8457

some of the music

#

8459

stuff that I've done,

#

8461

I went in it with absolutely zero

#

8463

expectation that anyone would listen to it,

#

8465

right? It's, you know, why would somebody

#

8467

want to listen to a Sanskrit translation

#

8469

of Johnny Cash version

#

8471

of a Nine Inch Nails

#

8473

song, like for example, right?

#

8475

It was just a,

#

8477

the act of creating it and the act of

#

8479

doing all of that gave so much joy,

#

8481

et cetera. For me, I have reaped the

#

8483

benefits of what I've created.

#

8485

After that, anything else is a bonus.

#

8487

So in that sense, I think

#

8489

it is sometimes, I understand

#

8491

it's very hard, like for example, if you're a movie

#

8493

maker, I know it's very hard. I mean, you've

#

8495

sunk in hundreds of crores.

#

8497

You obviously want it. It's also the nature of

#

8499

the art. It's the nature of the art, I understand that.

#

8501

But I think from a purely, if you're cooking,

#

8503

especially in the context of, especially

#

8505

if you're thinking about hobbies in general,

#

8507

right? That you cannot be

#

8509

vested in the outcomes of your hobbies.

#

8511

That it has to be purely just the creative process.

#

8513

If you don't enjoy

#

8515

the process of doing that hobby, that's not a hobby.

#

8517

Then it's a chore, right? If you're

#

8519

only vested in the outcome, then it essentially

#

8521

means then you have to do things like feed the algorithm,

#

8523

I have to make post every day,

#

8525

I have to make this, I have to dance to a

#

8527

trending reel. So then that's just

#

8529

a chore. You're not actually enjoying the creative process.

#

8531

This reminds me of something the

#

8533

Marathi literator and humorist

#

8535

Puladesh Pandey said. He was speaking

#

8537

at some function. It was

#

8539

I think the

#

8541

musician Srinivas Kalei.

#

8543

And they're talking on

#

8545

whatever. And he

#

8547

says one thing, which sort

#

8549

of just resonated with me and

#

8551

it's very similar to what you're saying.

#

8553

He says about Srinivas Kalei that

#

8555

he, Srinivas Kalei

#

8557

loved the art more

#

8559

than he loved himself. So, which is why

#

8561

he did what. So, you know,

#

8563

he's really not invested in the outcome

#

8565

of it. He's just, like, he

#

8567

did it because he felt like knowing it.

#

8569

And I think there is also this sense of

#

8571

like in many cases

#

8573

not being in the moment.

#

8575

If you're thinking about the

#

8577

outcomes, then you're not actually in the moment at all.

#

8579

And sometimes a lot of art just simply

#

8581

doesn't work if you're not in

#

8583

the moment at all. It shows through.

#

8585

And I feel like it sort of

#

8587

it also reminds me of Dave Chappelle.

#

8589

And he regularly

#

8591

he does shows where he's

#

8593

very, very strict about no phones.

#

8595

Saying that, see

#

8597

if I know you guys are recording it

#

8599

you're going to put it on

#

8601

Instagram or YouTube.

#

8603

I'm not going to say some of the jokes

#

8605

because I use this

#

8607

as ways of really just

#

8609

being free with my craft because I

#

8611

know this is a private space.

#

8613

And that you're not going to

#

8615

judge me for a poorly crafted

#

8617

joke or a politically incorrect

#

8619

joke because I'm just playing around with my

#

8621

art to see what I might then

#

8623

say in a Netflix special. I can understand

#

8625

he has to think differently when he does the

#

8627

Netflix special, right? But this is

#

8629

my, this is my, this is you

#

8631

in my space where I'm actually like

#

8633

practicing my craft. And so

#

8635

no phones. So don't make

#

8637

an impermanent thing permanent.

#

8639

It is a very common theme that you often

#

8641

sort of actually find. I can tie this back to

#

8643

that argument we were having a little earlier

#

8645

about artificial intelligence

#

8647

and its impact on art.

#

8649

When you have this frame of reference

#

8651

it really makes no difference. You're just

#

8653

looking at the art and a better

#

8655

sort of outcome. That's it.

#

8657

And what you said Narayan earlier reminds me of this great

#

8659

story by Prem Panikkar which I have told on the show

#

8661

so people must have heard it. Ashok

#

8663

certainly has because he claims to have heard every episode.

#

8665

But it's a beautiful story.

#

8667

It's about a poet who was

#

8669

interviewed in the 1950s and asked

#

8671

about his writing process. A writer, poet, whatever.

#

8673

And he said okay so I

#

8675

go into my house and then I go

#

8677

into a room and I'm the only person there and I lock myself

#

8679

in and I sit down at the typewriter.

#

8681

So the interviewer asks so that is when you start

#

8683

writing. And he says no because I'm not alone.

#

8685

With me there are all the

#

8687

people who have expectations of me.

#

8689

All the people I want to impress. All the people I

#

8691

care about. All my enemies. I wait for

#

8693

them to leave the room. So then the interviewer asks

#

8695

that is when you start to write. And he says

#

8697

no because one person is still there.

#

8699

I am there. I wait for that person to leave

#

8701

the room and then the story tells itself.

#

8703

So it to me is such a beautiful parable about

#

8705

what writing is like. And I also tell my

#

8707

writing students that whenever

#

8709

you do something there is

#

8711

a trade off between getting it done

#

8713

and getting it right. And the mentality

#

8715

we as creators should have is get

#

8717

it done. You know because getting

#

8719

it right when you, getting it

#

8721

right is actually a function of getting it done

#

8723

again and again and again because only iteration

#

8725

makes you good. And whenever we

#

8727

begin something we suck at it. Like your first seven

#

8729

years with the violin. So you

#

8731

know if you're going to go for validation in that phase

#

8733

you will not get it and you will give up.

#

8735

You will give up.

#

8737

Only if you do it

#

8739

for the love of it which is to me a necessary

#

8741

condition not sufficient but necessary

#

8743

only then can you achieve excellence.

#

8745

I think in a weird sense I think probably we

#

8747

might sound like uncle

#

8749

G's who are sort of glorifying the

#

8751

first generation of the social media and internet

#

8753

if you will. We are all uncle G's in Teenagar.

#

8755

Uncle G's in Teenagar if you will.

#

8757

That somehow not

#

8759

having real time

#

8761

analytics, dopamine

#

8763

hitting you on a daily basis.

#

8765

I really think produced

#

8767

a certain free kind of art

#

8769

in the blogging era that

#

8771

the Instagram and YouTube era

#

8773

somehow does not allow. Because

#

8775

you're staring at analytics, you're staring

#

8777

at likes. The platform is like

#

8779

really constantly nudging you.

#

8781

This is doing better than previous. This is that.

#

8783

So forever escaping feedback

#

8785

seems to be impossible actually. No but I

#

8787

would say it does allow that because look at

#

8789

Miss Excel. You've heard of Miss Excel.

#

8791

Just for the sake of

#

8793

the listeners, just for the sake of the three

#

8795

listeners who are listening to this episode and haven't heard

#

8797

this story from me before. For those

#

8799

three people, hello there.

#

8801

Miss Excel is this awesome person

#

8803

who had three passions.

#

8805

Microsoft Excel which she used to

#

8807

teach also, EDM and

#

8809

dancing. And she started putting out these

#

8811

Instagram videos where she was dancing

#

8813

to EDM while

#

8815

also teaching Excel through captions at the same

#

8817

time and became a superstar. Any gatekeeper

#

8819

of the past would have said fuck off, what

#

8821

nonsense is this. But the reason

#

8823

it worked is all three of these

#

8825

were authentic to her.

#

8827

And I'm guessing that at no point before starting

#

8829

did she think will this be popular because the obvious

#

8831

answer is are you crazy. But you do

#

8833

what you do. Like Ajay Shah and I for our new

#

8835

show Everything is Everything, we have decided

#

8837

we will not see the analytics. We will do

#

8839

it for two years. We won't see the analytics.

#

8841

We'll do it for him and me. We'll talk the way we

#

8843

talk. Of course Ajay is a complete geek

#

8845

and he's getting all kinds of insights from the data

#

8847

but it's not affecting the content.

#

8849

I have a deeper question for you

#

8851

now and it takes off from what you said about

#

8853

food. That one of the things

#

8855

I've realized with great guilt is

#

8857

that very often whoever is cooking for

#

8859

us we take it for granted. And too

#

8861

often is it the case that in too many

#

8863

Indian households the woman is cooking the

#

8865

food, the man is eating it while looking

#

8867

into his phone or whatever and not

#

8869

for a moment saying thank you or not for a moment

#

8871

even considering the food and

#

8873

that gratitude for all the good things in our life

#

8875

is so important and that is

#

8877

therefore something that

#

8879

we should be intentional about

#

8881

of recognizing what everyone

#

8883

is saying. And the question I want to ask

#

8885

you guys about is what are

#

8887

you intentional about in your lives?

#

8889

Like in my case one of the things I have come

#

8891

to be intentional about is friendship where I would

#

8893

take people for granted, not stay in touch

#

8895

not reply to emails and all of that.

#

8897

And recently I have realized

#

8899

that people are all there is.

#

8901

Nothing else matters. The things you have

#

8903

your achievements, nothing matters.

#

8905

It's the people, that's all that matters.

#

8907

So I try to be more intentional about this.

#

8909

And I try to be more intentional about

#

8911

being mindful while I'm eating of the food

#

8913

though my mind just keeps drifting

#

8915

off the monkey brain so this is harder.

#

8917

So you know in your

#

8919

journeys through life and I'm guessing parenthood

#

8921

must also have changed

#

8923

you in certain ways so consider this

#

8925

a question about how that changed you as well.

#

8927

What are the things that you have

#

8929

learned to be intentional about today that you

#

8931

weren't before?

#

8933

I think there's one specific

#

8935

immediate thing that comes to mind about food

#

8937

and then I'll tell you another deeper story

#

8939

and then connect back to this. One is that

#

8941

when I started cooking

#

8943

I think I came at it

#

8945

with a typical masculine attitude of

#

8947

here I am, a rare Indian man

#

8949

in the kitchen, you know, doing things

#

8951

that other Indian men do not. So

#

8953

behold my great cuisine

#

8955

you shall enjoy and eat whatever

#

8957

I choose to make. Today I

#

8959

have done YouTube research

#

8961

on a Mexican dish and all of you shall enjoy

#

8963

whatever Mexican dish I

#

8965

cook up. I think over

#

8967

the last decade or so it kind of

#

8969

struck me that one of the things that are the people

#

8971

we've always taken for granted, our mothers and

#

8973

grandmothers and so on

#

8975

is the fact that for them

#

8977

cooking was not this sort of show that they

#

8979

had to every day that they made something and people

#

8981

said amazing, right? For them

#

8983

they had to balance it amidst things like career

#

8985

and other things

#

8987

and not only that

#

8989

they also had to cater to

#

8991

the fact that children don't eat spicy

#

8993

food, this older gentleman

#

8995

has a heart disease so he needs less salt

#

8997

this person does not like

#

8999

bengan so I have to make something else for him

#

9001

so those micro

#

9003

preferences, so the act of cooking

#

9005

was an optimization problem

#

9007

that they had to solve across all of these variables

#

9009

and here I was like generally saying

#

9011

I want to make this completely feta cheese

#

9013

something Mexican thing and I'm expecting

#

9015

everybody will enjoy it without recognizing

#

9017

that they may not like the flavor

#

9019

my wife does not like very spicy food

#

9021

and Mexican food is like super spicy

#

9023

and somebody else in the house has diabetes

#

9025

so they may not eat something that is very

#

9027

sweet. So in effect now I've

#

9029

deliberately started to think

#

9031

carefully about if I can make

#

9033

a meal, can I make sure that

#

9035

there is something in it that everyone

#

9037

can enjoy. So

#

9039

my son can enjoy the roasted potato

#

9041

the chicken, my wife can enjoy the less spicy

#

9043

dish and somebody who likes spicy food can enjoy

#

9045

something else rather than think of it as

#

9047

this performance where you should eat my

#

9049

I watched that famous recent

#

9051

movie, the menu I think

#

9053

so that

#

9055

is one. The second wider thing

#

9057

that I wanted to share is this

#

9059

beautiful insight that somebody told me many

#

9061

years ago, almost 20-25 years ago and this person

#

9063

is a very widely read somebody who

#

9065

used to read Sanskrit and Tamil

#

9067

and one of the things as I keep telling people

#

9069

that Tamil is one of those languages where you can

#

9071

read something from 3000 years ago

#

9073

and if you know the language it will still make

#

9075

sense. No other language

#

9077

has that, Sanskrit apart but

#

9079

Sanskrit is not a spoken language today

#

9081

it's not a living language. So you can

#

9083

watch Tamil films now but then read

#

9085

a 2500 year old poem and

#

9087

it will still make sense.

#

9089

So one of the things he told me about is

#

9091

is this sort of like a side

#

9093

story in this Tamil epic

#

9095

called the Selappathigaram which is one of the

#

9097

very old, it's supposed to be 2500 years old at least

#

9099

fascinatingly enough

#

9101

written by a Jain

#

9103

prince by the name of Ilango Adigal

#

9105

people forget that Jainism was

#

9107

very dominant in the south

#

9109

and so the

#

9111

story initially is sort of set in Madurai

#

9113

and it's about a woman whose husband is wrong

#

9115

and she burns the city of Madurai down in revenge

#

9117

and so on. So that's like the overarching story but

#

9119

there are obviously multiple side stories

#

9121

and one of those side stories

#

9123

is about the city of Madurai itself

#

9125

and the fact that obviously you know the Meenakshi

#

9127

Amman temple is sort of like the centerpiece

#

9129

but there are many temples right

#

9131

and so he speaks of this idea that there are

#

9133

five temples in Madurai

#

9135

and then people would go

#

9137

to each of these

#

9139

temples for different reasons

#

9141

so there was one temple that people would

#

9143

go when they had a physical ailment

#

9145

I'm in pain, I need help

#

9147

so that's the temple you go to

#

9149

that's the temple you pray to when you have a physical ailment

#

9151

there was another temple

#

9153

where you went when you had

#

9155

basic problem with money

#

9157

finance, you know I'm

#

9159

broke, I need money, that's the

#

9161

temple you went to to pray for money

#

9163

the third temple was the one that you

#

9165

prayed to for

#

9167

family kind of issues

#

9169

my wife, my son is not listening to me

#

9171

I'm having these issues, inter family

#

9173

civic issues, my business

#

9175

partner is cheating me kind of stuff is

#

9177

the third category of this thing

#

9179

the fourth temple is the one that you went to when you had

#

9181

depression, anxiety and

#

9183

mental health issues

#

9185

so it was the fourth temple

#

9187

and he says that guess what the fifth temple was for

#

9189

he says that the fifth temple

#

9191

was for people

#

9193

who felt, had none of these other

#

9195

problems but who felt the pain

#

9197

of others

#

9199

so in a weird sense what he said is that

#

9201

and he said that that temple would be

#

9203

filled with artists and creative people

#

9205

and people who are poets and people who are

#

9207

musicians and so on because in general

#

9209

good art comes from you

#

9211

feeling the pain of others

#

9213

not feeling your own pain

#

9215

so when a blues musician is writing

#

9217

so I think a lot of good art

#

9219

comes from you empathizing with others pain

#

9221

not just channeling your pain

#

9223

people think blues musician is channeling his pain, no

#

9225

he's channeling the pain of all of his

#

9227

black forefathers who went through

#

9229

what they did and so I think

#

9231

in that sense it was such a deep insight

#

9233

in terms of, one in a wider sense

#

9235

it gave me a better

#

9237

understanding of why people are

#

9239

religious

#

9241

life is hard, life is unpredictable

#

9243

so you can't really look down on people for being

#

9245

religious, right, of course you can look down

#

9247

on religious establishments that exploit

#

9249

this, that's fine, but you

#

9251

simply cannot take away from the fact that people have

#

9253

these kinds of problems and that's how we are

#

9255

we are this sort of complex species

#

9257

that are not living in small tribes

#

9259

in Africa but really in large

#

9261

complexities, worried about whether AI is

#

9263

going to take our jobs next week

#

9265

so yeah, people will believe in astrology

#

9267

people will believe in all of these quack

#

9269

remedies and all these other kinds of things

#

9271

so in a sense I think that what that really taught me

#

9273

is that

#

9275

the skill of being able to

#

9277

experience or understand somebody else's

#

9279

pain is very central to

#

9281

you being

#

9283

a truly creative person from the point of view

#

9285

of solving problems

#

9287

right, I mean, right down to even in software

#

9289

if you're designing a system

#

9291

unless you feel the

#

9293

pain of the user, you will design

#

9295

websites like the government of India does

#

9297

clearly nobody designing these websites

#

9299

is experiencing the pain of the actual

#

9301

end user, right, so they end up designing these

#

9303

things in the way they are and so that's why

#

9305

in a weird sense that has played

#

9307

into the way I think about music, the way

#

9309

I think about food, more importantly the way

#

9311

I think about even software and all the stuff that I do

#

9315

Mind blowing and I'm thinking the fifth temple could be called

#

9317

the mirror neuron temple because mirror neurons

#

9319

of course being how we kind of imagine

#

9321

the pain of others and my friend Ajay Shah

#

9323

is this fantastic theory about

#

9325

religion that he shared with us a couple of days ago

#

9327

and I want him to say it on everything is everything

#

9329

because I think we'll go madly viral and

#

9331

possibly get lynched

#

9333

you know Naren has been complaining all through lunch

#

9335

that Amit is certainly going to get lynched one day

#

9337

Patani left se ya right se but he's going to get lynched

#

9339

my worry actually is that I'm going to

#

9341

get lynched along with them

#

9343

because I'm standing next to them

#

9345

there is actually this fallacy where

#

9347

on another note there is this fallacy where

#

9349

you believe others are paying attention to them all the time

#

9351

yeah

#

9353

there is a main character syndrome

#

9355

the worst thing that can happen to Amit is that

#

9357

no one will want to lynch him

#

9359

nobody listens to his poor jokes and lynch him

#

9361

that's the best thing so every time I say all of you must have heard it before

#

9363

like the three people listening to this are saying

#

9365

humne toh nahi suna, pala baar sun rahe, abhi kabhi nahi sunenge

#

9367

but Ajay's theory is

#

9369

that no one

#

9371

in the world is religious

#

9373

or believes in religion that they pretend

#

9375

to believe in religion but religion

#

9377

and his theory is not even god of the gaps

#

9379

his theory is that

#

9381

in society you need something

#

9383

that makes you social that can help you

#

9385

go out and meet people

#

9387

hang with people etc etc

#

9389

and these are really

#

9391

religion is

#

9393

enable social instruments people are going to

#

9395

church on a Sunday and they are meeting the whole community

#

9397

why do we go to temples because the boys

#

9399

want to check out the girls and vice versa and that is

#

9401

the whole theory he had a great line about

#

9403

I think his exact quote and I'm not

#

9405

supposed to say this in public but I'll say it sorry Ajay

#

9407

his great line was

#

9409

Tinder is a dagger to the heart

#

9411

of Hindutva

#

9413

and the whole thing being that as time has

#

9415

gone by we have found other ways

#

9417

of socializing other ways of meeting

#

9419

the opposite sex other ways of finding

#

9421

community other ways of finding purpose

#

9423

and we never actually

#

9425

believed all along anyway and to the

#

9427

extent that religion can play a part in

#

9429

all of these vacuums it is

#

9431

useful I do partially agree

#

9433

in the sense that an older relative

#

9435

of mine someone who is in the family

#

9437

WhatsApp and that we almost

#

9439

always I end up debunking

#

9441

nutrition food related myths that

#

9443

people end up sharing often times

#

9445

by sharing one of my videos and saying please watch

#

9447

this and you know I just was

#

9449

speaking to her and

#

9451

sort of I just wanted

#

9453

to ask saying that you know

#

9455

you're a school you've been a school

#

9457

teacher you clearly you understand science so

#

9459

why is it that you continue to believe in

#

9461

some of these you know superstitions

#

9463

and myths and she

#

9465

what she basically said is that no you don't

#

9467

understand right it is for

#

9469

me the belief in all of these other things

#

9471

has nothing to do with whether I believe it or not

#

9473

it has to do with the fact

#

9475

that it's a shared belief

#

9477

that people around me my community my family

#

9479

they all believe and it's something that

#

9481

holds us together right that belief

#

9483

etc this religious particular religious belief

#

9485

and yes so on

#

9487

the one hand I can say yeah

#

9489

I'm going to be rational I'm going to be atheist

#

9491

I'm going to be all of this I can understand all of the

#

9493

science etc if I do

#

9495

all of that that doesn't mean

#

9497

my children and the younger people in my family

#

9499

will now suddenly be friends with me

#

9501

he says that

#

9503

I have this community I don't want to lose that

#

9505

so clearly I think for the

#

9507

older generation who

#

9509

for whom Tinder is not an option

#

9511

right basically religion is just

#

9513

the way you hold on to those ties

#

9515

and they're afraid of losing that

#

9517

they're like yeah I'm willing to

#

9519

say that this particular

#

9521

ayurvedic or this

#

9523

religious belief is helpful etc

#

9525

if I believe that it's wrong

#

9527

I'm immediately persona

#

9529

non grata from that group

#

9531

but I don't have another group

#

9533

to go to because you guys

#

9535

are not exactly close

#

9537

knit like the way that my generation

#

9539

and the irony is that you could be in

#

9541

this terrible equilibrium in a game theory

#

9543

problem when nobody in a group

#

9545

believes but everybody pretends to believe

#

9547

because they think everybody else does

#

9549

I'm pretty sure that

#

9551

some of the people there particularly the men

#

9553

genuinely believe but there are

#

9555

enough people who are flexible about this and

#

9557

largely believe it because it's

#

9559

just part of their identity and they feel that

#

9561

if they don't publicly express

#

9563

their belief that they will not

#

9565

be part of that community

#

9567

so I think you've touched upon this in many

#

9569

other things even in other podcasts where

#

9571

a lot of the incel communities

#

9573

and so on it's not like

#

9575

many of those men hate women

#

9577

is that they found a community now

#

9579

their fear of ostracism from that incel community

#

9581

is a far bigger problem

#

9583

so it's not like they genuinely hate women

#

9585

but they have to performatively do it

#

9587

for what is worth it sounds exactly like vokes on twitter

#

9589

as well

#

9591

every form of extreme belief is exactly the same

#

9593

it's all cult forming and it's the same thing

#

9595

it's really just the same thing

#

9597

we've just now broken into multiple

#

9599

layers of digital

#

9601

groups and digital gods and so on

#

9603

yeah so that tribalism is

#

9605

very deep

#

9607

I think we are wired to it

#

9609

I think also we are the only species that

#

9611

coordinates at this scale

#

9613

correct

#

9615

at numbers

#

9617

the largest chimpanzee tribe is

#

9619

very very small

#

9621

not even 100 some 60 individuals

#

9623

so even humans I think there is something called

#

9625

Dunbar number

#

9627

140, 150 or something

#

9629

but we've gone past that right

#

9631

because you know

#

9633

I've been on Microsoft teams meetings

#

9635

with more than 150 people

#

9637

I used to think

#

9639

that social media with the perverse incentives

#

9641

towards tribalization

#

9643

and polarization and all

#

9645

amplify our worst instincts

#

9647

but I have since modified my view

#

9649

to think that it also empowers the worst

#

9651

among us

#

9653

the most unpleasant people who in the real world

#

9655

would not have that many friends can go out there

#

9657

can castigate other people

#

9659

join online mobs etc etc

#

9661

and they are part of a community, they are part of a group

#

9663

fantastic for virtue signaling

#

9665

which is also what I was thinking that had that

#

9667

fifth temple existed today

#

9669

it would be social media where everyone is showing

#

9671

how much they care for anyone else

#

9673

while really not giving the smallest damn

#

9675

but I want to turn to you Narayan Shanoi

#

9677

because I do give a damn

#

9679

I do give a damn because I asked you a question

#

9681

both of you a question and only Narayan answered

#

9683

so I will now turn to you and ask what are you intentional about

#

9685

yeah, so I

#

9687

over the course, so I went through all of it

#

9689

right, so first for the

#

9691

longest part, longest period in my life

#

9693

nobody cared a hoot about me

#

9695

then for a brief while

#

9697

on social media, on blogging

#

9699

on twitter or something, I found out there

#

9701

good number of people who would

#

9703

you know listen to me and

#

9705

sort of laugh at things that

#

9707

I would say which like

#

9709

literally no one has ever laughed at before

#

9711

so getting diverse people

#

9713

finding my own tribe, I did that

#

9715

and then

#

9717

you know as the whole social media

#

9719

thing exploded

#

9721

all these things started crawling out of the

#

9723

woodwork and you find people

#

9725

with the most bizarre and

#

9727

you know sort of

#

9729

despicable thoughts

#

9731

also getting followings of their own

#

9733

and then

#

9735

I come down to a full circle

#

9737

as you did

#

9739

and I find people

#

9741

to be like individual

#

9743

people to connect with being the most

#

9745

like the most satisfying

#

9747

and

#

9749

it's satisfying on a level

#

9751

I didn't realize, I've been to it

#

9753

I had friends before, I've had conversations

#

9755

now it's the flavor

#

9757

is different, of course the one

#

9759

person that I connect best with now

#

9761

after all these years is my wife

#

9763

because she is

#

9765

the awesomest in the world

#

9767

tell me a bit about that because that's also

#

9769

an interesting journey where

#

9771

when you first fall in love and the relationship is taking

#

9773

off you're like you're just full of that person

#

9775

you can't get enough of that person

#

9777

but at the same time what you're in love with

#

9779

is really an imagined version

#

9781

of that person in your own head

#

9783

and later on everything kind of gets

#

9785

normalized as a danger of drift and

#

9787

inertia and all of those things

#

9789

and you seem to either have bypassed that second

#

9791

stage or gone past it

#

9793

and arrived at a new awakening

#

9795

where you see this person as a person

#

9797

again except not the idealized version

#

9799

but the real person you love just as much

#

9801

is that a fair way?

#

9803

I often think of do we actually

#

9805

know what is real so we can't

#

9807

we really can't, it's all

#

9809

everything is playing out in your head

#

9811

and you're imagining versions of people

#

9813

and that is a version that you

#

9815

love, what changes

#

9817

is that you

#

9819

your love for that person becomes

#

9821

far more unconditional than it

#

9823

was before

#

9825

it's incredible

#

9827

when you start off

#

9829

like when we got

#

9831

married and everything was physical

#

9833

and you hold hands and look at the stars

#

9835

and do whatever other things that

#

9837

young people do

#

9839

I've forgotten a lot of it

#

9841

but later

#

9843

it's just being close

#

9845

to a person just sort of

#

9847

so it is very very difficult

#

9849

there's a danger

#

9851

that when I finally write that book

#

9853

a lot of it is going to

#

9855

sort of turn out as

#

9857

absolute sentimental garbage

#

9859

but who cares right

#

9861

so we shall write that book

#

9863

You know it's interesting how I think

#

9865

the functioning

#

9867

happy couples are not

#

9869

people who

#

9871

discovered and appreciate each other's

#

9873

strengths but actually people who

#

9875

are deeply aware

#

9877

and tolerate the worst

#

9879

of the other person that you've actually

#

9881

fundamentally made a compromise of

#

9883

yeah I can live with this

#

9885

I mean it's in a sense all the way from

#

9887

body odour to literally everything

#

9889

else

#

9891

living with another human being

#

9893

it's fundamental about saying that

#

9895

you've reached a point where you're like

#

9897

this is less important

#

9899

the fact that this person choose to stick around

#

9901

and compromise their careers

#

9903

all that other things

#

9905

then you put their strengths

#

9907

in the context of their tolerance of your

#

9909

is what makes the whole thing special

#

9911

what is the worst of you

#

9913

the worst of me I think is

#

9915

I mean over time I would like to

#

9917

think I've changed but largely being

#

9919

sometimes lost in my own

#

9921

head and forever

#

9923

and when I get a creative spark I can just be completely

#

9925

unavailable

#

9927

like lock myself in a room

#

9929

not be available and just assume things will happen

#

9931

clothes will get washed, food will get

#

9933

cooked and all of that right

#

9935

over time I think once the

#

9937

sun arrived I think you do have to

#

9939

change otherwise it's just brutally unfair

#

9941

how did you change?

#

9943

definitely

#

9945

deliberately spending more time

#

9947

and also recognising that sometimes

#

9949

giving that

#

9951

one or two hours of

#

9953

free time just to do whatever you want

#

9955

sun is not your problem

#

9957

despite the fact that you know that mothers will

#

9959

they are forever thinking of that

#

9961

they're like worried about

#

9963

what crazy stunt is the father going to do

#

9965

with the child that is going to actively harm them

#

9967

but you still want to keep doing that till you

#

9969

reach that point where they're like I'm going for a

#

9971

two hour shopping the sun is your responsibility

#

9973

and if you can get to that point I think that's

#

9975

great I think it's amazing

#

9977

how men in India simply

#

9979

don't recognise that giving your

#

9981

spouses like a 15 minute breather

#

9983

from just childcare

#

9985

is such a huge thing

#

9987

right I think those are things

#

9989

that have tried to be a lot more but yeah I mean

#

9991

it's almost as if every year

#

9993

you kind of realise that you think you're doing

#

9995

like amazing but I think the bar is

#

9997

like you know I still think

#

9999

even in the most equal couples

#

10001

women still end up doing much more

#

10003

it's just somehow just the nature of

#

10005

I guess how we're built but it just seems to be the case

#

10007

I was just at a conference and I hope it's

#

10009

okay to say this I haven't asked her but she won't

#

10011

mind where Mahima Vashish

#

10013

who writes women in India was there and you know she's

#

10015

got a kid she's got a lovely feminist

#

10017

husband Salil who's just an absolutely

#

10019

lovely guy

#

10021

you know and she was like look my

#

10023

husband is in the top 1%

#

10025

of supportive this thing

#

10027

that you can possibly imagine

#

10029

but motherhood is so

#

10031

fucking demanding

#

10033

no matter how much the father helps out

#

10035

it is so fucking demanding and she said

#

10037

my being at this conference without my kid

#

10039

this is like a fucking vacation

#

10041

you know the rest of you are working

#

10043

you're networking you're doing this

#

10045

I am just so free my mind is

#

10047

you know it's

#

10049

and we don't

#

10051

I have sort of another

#

10053

sort of question then to ask

#

10055

and we can come back to this and that question

#

10057

is that I am increasingly thinking that

#

10059

men and women just fundamentally

#

10061

want different things

#

10063

now how much is nature how much is culture

#

10065

and nurture and all that we can

#

10067

you know is a separate question but men and women

#

10069

want fundamentally different things

#

10071

and among the many different equilibria

#

10073

that could exist

#

10075

that allows them to coexist

#

10077

manage time together

#

10079

the worst or

#

10081

deeply unsatisfying one seems to be marriage

#

10083

because especially in India

#

10085

it leaves both people unhappy

#

10087

trapped in their roles

#

10089

and often unable to understand

#

10091

each other in any respect whatsoever

#

10093

so what are your thoughts on this

#

10097

generally the Indian system is to condition

#

10099

girls to assume

#

10101

that your life is going to be

#

10103

bad and tough you better put up with it

#

10105

there is no alternative

#

10107

this is the way

#

10109

the best we can do is to

#

10111

make sure that find a guy who won't beat

#

10113

you up

#

10115

pretty much the low bar

#

10117

it's like the bar you are setting

#

10119

and I find that

#

10121

so I am also thinking hard about your question

#

10123

about whether men and women want different things

#

10125

sometimes I think even if they may

#

10127

want similar things it's pretty evident

#

10129

that the way to get

#

10131

there I think

#

10133

differs very differently

#

10135

it's sort of like how

#

10137

even right down to

#

10139

the situation where sometimes my wife will tell me

#

10141

describe something that's happening

#

10143

some problem that she is having at work

#

10145

or something like that and I am immediately

#

10147

in software engineering solution

#

10149

mode architecture okay this is the problem

#

10151

let me solve this oh you do one thing

#

10153

so that hashtag you do one thing

#

10155

is a very typical engineering mindset

#

10157

no that's not what she is looking for

#

10159

she is basically getting it off her chest

#

10161

she is not looking for a solution from you because

#

10163

one your solution is probably not a solution

#

10165

at all you think it's a solution

#

10167

because you haven't heard the full thing

#

10169

she may not even be expressing all the multiple

#

10171

variables that are going on inside her head around

#

10173

that problem she just wants you to listen

#

10175

and help her process right and sometimes

#

10177

I think you know we go about

#

10179

at trying to solve problems

#

10181

in fundamentally different ways as well

#

10183

to get to the same goal sometimes

#

10185

even career growth or

#

10187

whatever it is or a vacation

#

10189

the definition of what is a good vacation

#

10191

you'd be surprised men and women think very fundamentally

#

10193

differently right I mean

#

10195

I will sometimes plan a okay

#

10197

I want to maximize five days

#

10199

in Japan morning we will walk to this

#

10201

place and then afternoon we will eat in this

#

10203

place and then we will take a train and go

#

10205

there I want they'll be like okay

#

10207

do you think we have a ten year old son

#

10209

he will get tired by the afternoon

#

10211

how far is that is that kid friendly

#

10213

so the number of questions they are obviously asking

#

10215

themselves in when they solve a problem

#

10217

is much much higher

#

10219

I mean I regularly find

#

10221

that like even in my software this

#

10223

thing design teams

#

10225

which have good diversity

#

10227

end up asking question

#

10229

greater set of questions

#

10231

from the perspective of the end user

#

10233

and eventually end up building better software

#

10235

so this isn't about

#

10237

this nonsensical idea of meritocracy and all

#

10239

that nonsense at all

#

10241

actually speaking diverse teams just

#

10243

generally do better

#

10245

he cited a study

#

10247

which shows that the biggest

#

10249

predictive factor for good decision making in teams

#

10251

is not intelligence or education

#

10253

or any of those things it's just a diversity

#

10255

of the team

#

10257

you're coming at the same problem from the more

#

10259

different angles are better I think Paul Graham

#

10261

sort of speaks about this

#

10263

allied problem was called the brilliant

#

10265

jerk problem where he basically says

#

10267

that I think people think that having the smartest

#

10269

people in your team is what you need to do

#

10271

to do great work he says that no

#

10273

beyond a point having brilliant jerks

#

10275

actually prevents your ability to actually do

#

10277

great things so in that sense

#

10279

you cannot be optimizing only for

#

10281

what your narrow definition of intelligence

#

10283

have either of you been a brilliant jerk?

#

10285

I'm almost all through my life

#

10287

yeah pretty much all through my life

#

10289

yeah I thought I was the only one

#

10291

jerk for sure brilliant I think is

#

10293

probably a self assigned

#

10295

this is the other thing right and this is general

#

10297

observation I'm sure all three

#

10299

of us are like that we've always been

#

10301

quick on the update and that

#

10303

you know that gives you the

#

10305

earns you the sobriquet of brilliant

#

10307

but you'll realize

#

10309

later there are a lot of people

#

10311

who are not so quick

#

10313

but who are no less thorough and deep

#

10315

and the system doesn't

#

10317

really so you know often times

#

10319

you will find quiet people

#

10321

who take a while

#

10323

to come out with what

#

10325

they really think but who have some

#

10327

really good insights and the system

#

10329

I'm now sort of

#

10331

sensing that I've been

#

10333

really rude and dismissive about

#

10335

a lot of people going through

#

10337

just because they are not quick

#

10339

not just that to go back to religion

#

10341

and come back to this I think it was

#

10343

Christopher Hitchens one of the

#

10345

four horsemen basically who pointed out

#

10347

that most believers are actually

#

10349

atheists of all other religions

#

10351

because there are so many religions if there are 500

#

10353

religions you believe in one of them

#

10355

you are an atheist in the other 499

#

10357

similarly I think all 3 of us and every

#

10359

brilliant jerk ever is incredibly

#

10361

stupid in most things we might

#

10363

be fortunate that we know one thing well

#

10365

and even if that is like a meta model

#

10367

even if it's a computational thinking and

#

10369

we think oh I'll grok any new thing

#

10371

the point is you are still a moron in most things

#

10373

and therefore you have to

#

10375

have some kind of humility when you're

#

10377

dealing with people who may not be so good

#

10379

in your thing because those people

#

10381

will kick your ass in some things

#

10383

and it also goes back to the

#

10385

point about many people

#

10387

are actually fantastic at

#

10389

systems 2 your Kahneman's

#

10391

systems 2 thinking which is

#

10393

take your time I don't want to immediately react

#

10395

it may come out of things like

#

10397

shyness, inability with

#

10399

communication in English or whatever language

#

10401

it could be all of that but

#

10403

they turn that weakness into a

#

10405

strength that allows them to think slightly more

#

10407

long term take your time and actually come out with a more

#

10409

sensible thing as opposed to

#

10411

the quick brilliant hot take

#

10413

I think which society tends to

#

10415

see the other point about

#

10417

which is inevitably going to be system 1

#

10419

definitionally is going to be system 1

#

10421

and we Indians have also glorified engineers

#

10423

and MBAs and medicine

#

10425

and given that

#

10427

every metric you know it rewards you

#

10429

can you sort of sum up 2 numbers

#

10431

or whatever find out the root

#

10433

whatever it is and you have all of your little

#

10435

algorithms going you are proficient

#

10437

at that is really not a metric of

#

10439

your overall intelligence

#

10441

yeah it is actually it reminds me

#

10443

of this fascinating anecdote I heard

#

10445

strangely enough on Trevor Noah's

#

10447

video recently

#

10449

by the way he is one of the

#

10451

guys who speaks spectacularly

#

10453

sharply about AI, stand up comedian

#

10455

all of that super sharp he is more

#

10457

insightful about AI than many actual techies

#

10459

and he gives this example of how

#

10461

Microsoft designed

#

10463

this AI model

#

10465

to do one good thing

#

10467

they fed it millions

#

10469

of pictures and it had one job

#

10471

to do distinguish between

#

10473

whether a photograph of a face is male

#

10475

or female that was its only job

#

10477

and it performed

#

10479

stellarly well on Caucasian faces

#

10481

on a wide range of faces

#

10483

it even performed

#

10485

well on Asian faces and things like that

#

10487

but performed very very poorly

#

10489

on black African American African

#

10491

faces and they didn't

#

10493

know why they had mostly

#

10495

done everything right they had a diverse team

#

10497

they had black developers

#

10499

they had testing data

#

10501

biases they ensured that all

#

10503

photos that they had were enough of both

#

10505

they said we've done everything

#

10507

right why are we not able to crack this

#

10509

eventually they had to send the

#

10511

they sent it to their Kenya research center

#

10513

and the researchers there

#

10515

eventually cracked the problem

#

10517

apparently

#

10519

all these neural networks

#

10521

what people don't realize is that

#

10523

you don't know how it's doing what it's doing

#

10525

you don't quite know what feature it's extracting

#

10527

in order to make that binary

#

10529

prediction you're asking for because it's just too impossible

#

10531

to debug and they never

#

10533

bother to really dig deep into that right

#

10535

the Kenyan folks apparently

#

10537

found out that oh by the way

#

10539

you've asked it to distinguish between male

#

10541

and female faces the neural net

#

10543

based on the training data you've given it

#

10545

has arrived at one feature that distinguishes

#

10547

male and female faces which is not

#

10549

no shape I know it's presence

#

10551

of makeup

#

10553

so it was literally marking anything with

#

10555

makeup as female and anything without

#

10557

makeup as male and

#

10559

that was good enough for every

#

10561

other situation but historically

#

10563

black people the cosmetics companies don't often

#

10565

make cosmetics that are suitable to their

#

10567

wider range of brown colors so they often don't

#

10569

wear cosmetics and so it was failing

#

10571

so it was marking all of them

#

10573

as male

#

10575

so then they had to retrain

#

10577

and make sure that this is not the variable

#

10579

that it is eventually so the point is that sometimes

#

10581

we all need to have this sort of

#

10583

epistemic humility that

#

10585

not only do you not

#

10587

know many other things you don't even

#

10589

know why or how you don't know

#

10591

I've got to say I'm just

#

10593

feeling so proud of the collective

#

10595

humility the three of us are showing

#

10597

it's a very man thing right

#

10601

I'm more humble than both of you

#

10603

hands down

#

10605

oh my god who has the biggest

#

10607

humility in our size matters

#

10609

let's now talk about

#

10611

one of the pet subjects of Ashok

#

10613

but something that I'm sure even Narayan you have a lot to

#

10615

contribute on which is misinformation

#

10617

around food and we will begin

#

10619

by talking about Ashok's

#

10621

controversial contention which will no doubt

#

10623

make this episode viral that Nithyananda

#

10625

is better than Sadguru

#

10627

kindly give full

#

10629

context and explain

#

10631

so this is one of the

#

10633

one of my daily things that I end up

#

10635

having to do is to

#

10637

hundreds of people send me messages

#

10639

posting a link to a viral

#

10641

video saying is this true

#

10643

and most of those videos are

#

10645

very random things like for example

#

10647

you must not drink water

#

10649

standing up like apparently

#

10651

this is a thing right

#

10653

and that if you cook

#

10655

dal in a pressure cooker you will get cancer

#

10657

right or that if you use a microwave

#

10659

you will get cancer because none of it

#

10661

is true obviously right so I have to end up

#

10663

so I usually point them to the videos etc etc

#

10665

and I obviously looked and saw that a very

#

10667

regular purveyor

#

10669

of food and diet related

#

10671

misinformation is our

#

10673

Sadguru

#

10675

and allied handles there's an

#

10677

entire ecosystem of

#

10679

Instagram handles that spread this stuff

#

10681

and he sounds very confident

#

10683

he uses scientific terms and so on

#

10685

and it clearly appeals to a lot of people

#

10687

and the people are truly worried right

#

10689

there's one video where he's like there's one vegetable that you're

#

10691

eating everyday that's a poison and you should stop

#

10693

eating it one apparently that we enjoyed

#

10695

in great amounts today a bengal

#

10697

so apparently eggplant has a poison

#

10699

you must not eat it

#

10701

one day it's okay but over

#

10703

if you eat it over a lifetime it will make you dumb

#

10705

apparently that's the crux of the video

#

10707

he must have eaten a lot of it

#

10709

do you respect I mean I was like you know

#

10711

the Mediterranean people eat a

#

10713

lot of bengal and they produce a fair number of

#

10715

noble laureates last I checked

#

10717

and they live 20 years longer than us so it didn't seem

#

10719

like a common sense thing and I ask people to think for themselves

#

10721

rather than one of my common

#

10723

things is to also I've realized

#

10725

that when it comes to communicating science

#

10727

it is actually better to

#

10729

try and make the person think using

#

10731

scientific ideas that they may be

#

10733

familiar with as opposed to me saying boss

#

10735

then otherwise I'm doing the same

#

10737

argument by authority that the other people

#

10739

are doing right so I told him that did you

#

10741

think about the fact that everybody's been eating this and

#

10743

you know they don't seem to be falling sick and so on

#

10745

so this is a comma so I keep

#

10747

getting this and regularly I have to keep debunking and once

#

10749

in a while deal with very angry fans of

#

10751

his who will often just

#

10753

say that you don't understand

#

10755

his wise beyond words and

#

10757

you are looking at it tactically

#

10759

the funny thing is that

#

10761

many of these people actually don't agree with what he says

#

10763

with regard to non-veg food

#

10765

but they find everything

#

10767

else he says to be knowledgeable

#

10769

but they are asking me to

#

10771

you cannot be nitpicking he's a yogi

#

10773

you must not nitpick these small small

#

10775

things so they genuinely say he's

#

10777

wrong but I'm not supposed to nitpick

#

10779

so the point is that one day

#

10781

somebody sent me this video of

#

10783

Nithyananda where somebody in the audience

#

10785

was asking him what is the

#

10787

best diet to be spiritually

#

10789

wise etc and he said

#

10791

the best diet is to eat as little food

#

10793

as possible and

#

10795

I was like oh man

#

10797

this is the first god man who's

#

10799

actually said anything remotely correct about food

#

10801

about diet and so

#

10803

I just remarked saying that well

#

10805

it's a weird world when he makes more sense than

#

10807

the guy who's loved by all of the IT

#

10809

and MBA crowd

#

10811

it's a weird world where he makes sense I would

#

10813

expect both of them to be equally nonsensical

#

10815

to be fair he's probably nonsensical

#

10817

in many other areas but it just seemed like

#

10819

an odd comparison

#

10821

the first time I encountered

#

10823

Sadhguru was at the TED India conference

#

10825

in Mysore in 2009

#

10827

where Sadhguru gave a

#

10829

TED talk and at one point he said

#

10831

something to the effect of I broke my arm

#

10833

and then I just mentally focused on it

#

10835

and my arm became okay

#

10837

and at this point the thought that went through my head

#

10839

was you charlatan give me a chance to

#

10841

break your arm right now and demonstrate it

#

10843

for us but anyway I mean

#

10845

I think so to be fair see I've also

#

10847

as I said I think in full

#

10849

you know epistemic

#

10851

humility right I

#

10853

don't particularly care about the individual

#

10855

the Sadhguru himself right I mean I really

#

10857

want to if there are ideas of his

#

10859

that I find scientifically inaccurate

#

10861

in the context of food where I have some expertise

#

10863

I would like to correct it right but at the same

#

10865

time I keep telling

#

10867

people that I have no problems

#

10869

with you finding

#

10871

some spiritual sucker

#

10873

in something that he says right because there's

#

10875

people say lots of things right people broadly

#

10877

say they will say things

#

10879

to be mindful

#

10881

so in the sense that I

#

10883

can't judge what people find useful

#

10885

and take and

#

10887

improve their lives I'm willing to accept

#

10889

that yes of course when you come

#

10891

you then want to defend him and then come and fight

#

10893

me it's a different problem but I suspect

#

10895

the vast majority of people they

#

10897

flock to Godman largely again

#

10899

because the world is complicated life is complicated

#

10901

and you don't always get

#

10903

answers that easily

#

10905

tragedies happen and in

#

10907

the past obviously you had a more institutional

#

10909

religious system the temple and the

#

10911

ecosystem and the family there's more tightly

#

10913

bound so there was that sort of place

#

10915

that you could go to for support but

#

10917

increasingly those ties don't exist and these people

#

10919

kind of fill in the gaps if you will

#

10921

I kind of agree about the point of epistemic

#

10923

humility obviously I've actually used that

#

10925

phrase horror to my shock and horror in

#

10927

the past because I read a word jargon

#

10929

but it is such a precise

#

10931

phrase but I will also

#

10933

add here that yeah fine

#

10935

that you debunk what he says

#

10937

wrong and you don't mess with the rest of it

#

10939

and people who want to believe can believe

#

10941

but at the same time the point is that there are

#

10943

some people with vast followings

#

10945

who cause great harm and people

#

10947

get suckered into following them

#

10949

so I also feel it is important

#

10951

for people like me with whatever limited reach

#

10953

I have to continuously say

#

10955

this man is a charlatan he talks bullshit

#

10957

he is dangerous beware of him

#

10959

which I do I haven't got lynched yet Naren but that is

#

10961

because no one listens to podcasts

#

10963

I think you need

#

10965

a bit of both in the sense that

#

10967

like for example

#

10969

if I want a large number of people

#

10971

who are generally deeply spiritual

#

10973

for whatever reasons etc etc

#

10975

and if I want them to

#

10977

if I believe that

#

10979

there is greater good in the world if all of those

#

10981

people use the pressure cooker

#

10983

because it will literally save LPG

#

10985

usage by a massive

#

10987

amount if people stop believing in the misinformation

#

10989

about pressure cookers

#

10991

I can go after that narrow goal

#

10993

and to that effect which means

#

10995

that I am not going to sit and waste time

#

10997

trying to berate you for your

#

10999

faith in Satguru

#

11001

so in that sense I think this is always going to be a very

#

11003

for me I think science communication

#

11005

what I have learnt in the last 4 or 5 years and I used to

#

11007

be exactly like you in the sense that

#

11009

if it is bullshit

#

11011

call out the bullshit was essentially the thought

#

11013

process but then you sort of realise that

#

11015

I think there is a certain

#

11017

preaching to the choir when you do that

#

11019

so the people who react

#

11021

positively to you calling a godman

#

11023

a bullshit are people who believe he is

#

11025

bullshit anyway the number of people

#

11027

who are going to change their minds in a social

#

11029

media world near zero

#

11031

very very hard

#

11033

here is the thing you are never going to

#

11035

change the mind of anyone who actually

#

11037

believes but the point is

#

11039

that paradigms change one funeral

#

11041

at a time change is generational

#

11043

so there might be people who never heard of the guy

#

11045

and for them it might make a difference

#

11047

for all 14 of them

#

11049

yes the fact that

#

11051

there are counter views

#

11053

meaning that there is just not wholesale worship

#

11055

hopefully the youtube algorithm

#

11057

like oh you saw this

#

11059

here is a counter view

#

11061

in an ideal world yes

#

11063

Shakespeare said this actually

#

11065

so he said to paint

#

11067

the violet

#

11069

to gild gold

#

11071

to perfume the lily

#

11073

and to call

#

11075

Sadguru a charlatan is a pointless

#

11077

and wasteful exercise

#

11079

brilliant I think you

#

11081

cited it wrong it was George Bernard Shaw

#

11083

who said this

#

11085

thank you Shakespeare I will take your word for it

#

11087

I have a question for you

#

11089

if there is a chicken which is studying

#

11091

for an exam and is under

#

11093

enormous stress what would

#

11095

you call it

#

11101

pressure cooker

#

11103

pressure cooker

#

11105

cooker is Punjabi for chicken folks

#

11107

kindly

#

11109

that is actually

#

11111

also Konkani for

#

11113

chicken

#

11115

is it ok

#

11117

this joke is about 2800 km

#

11119

away

#

11121

an interesting

#

11123

myth that you busted shows that

#

11125

Bangalore is less likely to get this joke

#

11127

than Chennai because Bangalore is south of Chennai

#

11131

yes

#

11133

whole latitude point

#

11135

like two weird geography things for some

#

11137

reason which I learnt much later

#

11139

one is Amsterdam is north of London

#

11141

ok

#

11143

now go to the map and you will realise

#

11145

England is

#

11147

actually north

#

11149

Amsterdam is north of London

#

11151

Chennai is north of Bangalore

#

11153

Chennai is north of Bangalore

#

11155

Chennai is more Amit than Bangalore

#

11157

brilliant

#

11159

I will ask you to bust some more

#

11161

quick misinformation

#

11163

one panipuri water will it give you diarrhea

#

11165

or not

#

11167

I think it goes back to

#

11169

what Anthony Bourdain

#

11171

once told Anderson Cooper

#

11173

no matter what place you go to

#

11175

you are far safer eating street food

#

11177

than a buffet

#

11179

in a five star hotel

#

11181

because the breakfast buffet is probably

#

11183

leftover food recycled for you

#

11185

on the other hand

#

11187

street food is almost always freshly prepared

#

11189

now I think also again

#

11191

if you just apply high school science

#

11193

in general microbes, bacteria and so on

#

11195

require certain conditions

#

11197

to live

#

11199

first is obviously I think there are aerobics

#

11201

so let's keep that aside, this is going to be anaerobic

#

11203

but there are anaerobic bacteria in any case

#

11205

so that's aside

#

11207

the second thing is that they don't do well

#

11209

in salty solutions

#

11211

because salt actually by osmosis

#

11213

removes the water from a cell

#

11215

so the bacteria will die

#

11217

so they do not do well above a certain salt concentration

#

11219

the second thing is that on top of that

#

11221

they do not do well in acidic solutions

#

11223

and what's there in panipuri water

#

11225

and tamarind, all of which are strongly acidic

#

11227

the pH of panipuri water is like

#

11229

3 or 4, it's like super acidic

#

11231

if anything actually

#

11233

sloshing around the panipuri water

#

11235

is going to damage your enamel

#

11237

so if you want to drink panipuri

#

11239

use a straw like you do with lemonade

#

11241

so there is that, so the pH

#

11243

alone is going to kill all the bacteria

#

11245

then

#

11247

just to be safe, there are a few more layers

#

11249

of protection we add

#

11251

we add spices like chilli powder

#

11253

and cumin powder

#

11255

all of which are strongly antibacterial

#

11257

see spices are basically plant

#

11259

defense chemicals

#

11261

they produce those chemicals

#

11263

to prevent microbes from attacking them

#

11265

and insects from attacking them

#

11267

because they are good at killing those things

#

11269

they tend to be volatile and aromatic

#

11271

so we like the smell

#

11273

so all spices above a certain concentration

#

11275

are toxic for us also

#

11277

famous example is nutmeg

#

11279

5 grams of nutmeg is poisonous

#

11281

it will actually kill you

#

11283

and little bit less actually makes you high

#

11285

there is a molecule in nutmeg called myristocin

#

11287

which turns into

#

11289

basically in your brain turns into ecstasy

#

11291

MDMA

#

11293

so it's a precursor molecule for MDMA

#

11295

so basically the reason why

#

11297

mothers in India give a little bit of nutmeg in milk

#

11299

to put kids to sleep

#

11301

is because it makes them mildly high

#

11303

Naren and I are going to go after this

#

11305

to procure some nutmeg

#

11307

the line between high and sick is very small

#

11309

public service announcement

#

11311

please do not try this at home

#

11313

kindly recommend good nutmeg dealer

#

11315

in Chennai

#

11317

garam masala is there

#

11319

biryani masala famously

#

11321

has nutmeg

#

11323

so the point is that

#

11325

the spices themselves

#

11327

are very strongly antibacterial

#

11329

chili is strongly antibacterial

#

11331

that is another layer of defense

#

11333

and if that wasn't enough

#

11335

we use mint

#

11337

famously

#

11339

human beings are the only animals

#

11341

that can tolerate mint

#

11343

every other animal cannot tolerate

#

11345

the smell and this thing

#

11347

the reason in fact we grow mint

#

11349

and the borders of many of these fields

#

11351

to prevent pests from coming in

#

11353

they cannot stand the smell of mint

#

11355

no animal can stand the smell of mint

#

11357

so therefore

#

11359

we have like 4 layers of defense

#

11361

far far safer

#

11363

than any random

#

11365

5 star buffet

#

11367

5 star buffet

#

11369

don't talk to me about 5 star buffet

#

11371

6-7 days in a 5 star I am kind of dying

#

11373

the other thing that irritates me

#

11375

is I will look at a menu often of a Chinese restaurant

#

11377

and there will be that ridiculous obnoxious line

#

11379

no MLG added

#

11381

and I am fucking sick of it

#

11383

because in the 1980s

#

11385

there was this canard spread that MLG is bad for you

#

11387

it is not

#

11389

MLG is incredible

#

11391

everyone listening to this

#

11393

has tons of MLG every fucking day

#

11395

kindly elaborate Ashok

#

11397

add your voice

#

11399

so let's start with a very basic

#

11401

monosodium glutamate

#

11403

so leave aside the sodium

#

11405

you get it in salt, sodium chloride

#

11407

glutamate is basically the

#

11409

glutamic acid

#

11411

which is an amino acid

#

11413

so all life on the planet

#

11415

is made from the same 20 amino acids

#

11417

the entire structure of every living form

#

11419

from bacteria to human beings

#

11421

20 amino acids which is remarkable when you think about it

#

11423

because these 20 amino acids

#

11425

can combine to form the most spectacular

#

11427

larger protein structures

#

11429

from muscles to blood tissue

#

11431

to brain cells to heart cells to everything

#

11435

and one of that 20 is glutamic acid

#

11437

if you generally assume

#

11439

you are a 70 kg person

#

11441

you have 2 kgs of that glutamic acid in your body

#

11443

for starters

#

11445

therefore a quarter teaspoon of that glutamic acid

#

11447

not going to kill you

#

11449

second thing is that why do we have a taste bud for it

#

11451

we have a taste bud for it

#

11453

because it is now believed

#

11455

that it is a mechanism for indicating

#

11457

to your brain that what you are eating is high protein

#

11459

see we have an indicator for

#

11461

carbs which is sweetness

#

11463

we have an indicator for sourness

#

11465

this is how you get vitamin C and many other things

#

11467

so you have sourness

#

11469

how you indicate

#

11471

salt, again because body needs certain amount of sodium

#

11473

so that's salt

#

11475

and then bitterness is to prevent you from eating poisons

#

11477

and most of the bitter taste buds

#

11479

are at the back of your tongue

#

11481

that's why we use expressions like bitter after taste

#

11483

bitter is the last taste you will experience

#

11485

and needs to prevent you before

#

11487

swallowing is what it is

#

11489

and then umami is basically

#

11491

to detect glutamates

#

11493

so anything that is high protein

#

11495

means it has a lot of glutamates

#

11497

fun fact, why do you think it is called gluten

#

11499

wheat, wheat protein

#

11501

is mostly glutamic acid

#

11503

now obviously people

#

11505

will then point out that no no no that is glutamic acid

#

11507

in a protein structure

#

11509

this is free amino acid and that is

#

11511

harmful, so which is where we then talk about

#

11513

tomatoes, parmesan cheese

#

11515

and a ton of other things like

#

11517

any fermented food, literally any

#

11519

fermented food from idli to yogurt

#

11521

anytime you introduce a bacteria to ferment

#

11523

something it's going to break down those proteins

#

11525

and glutamic acid will be formed

#

11527

so that's what makes fermented food savory

#

11529

like kombucha or for that matter

#

11531

kimchi or any of those things, gochujang

#

11533

for that matter, again lots of MSG

#

11535

and soy sauce

#

11537

lots of MSG, again fermented

#

11539

so the point is that there is actually

#

11541

no difference between the MSG

#

11543

that is literally in your tomato

#

11545

and the parmesan cheese

#

11547

and the powder that you add, the powder is just simply

#

11549

the pure 100% essence of that

#

11551

and you don't need much

#

11553

so there is a

#

11555

tiny tiny tiny number of people who are

#

11557

allergic to MSG

#

11559

far far more people are allergic to

#

11561

gluten and peanuts and dairy

#

11563

and soy and eggs and all that, this is really

#

11565

a non-issue, many people tend to

#

11567

self-diagnose things like allergies, they usually are not

#

11569

and many people won't even know

#

11571

when you are eating a tomato juice

#

11573

in an airplane and you are loving it

#

11575

you are literally loving the MSG

#

11577

yeah and I love that t-shirt line

#

11579

of yours, parmesan is white person's MSG

#

11581

yeah white people MSG

#

11583

and Naren

#

11585

another question for you, let me see if you get this one

#

11587

you came close to the last one

#

11589

an overweight man has a lot of tomato

#

11591

MSG, let's say he has a lot of

#

11593

MSG and he hits on a pretty

#

11595

woman at a bar and she turns him

#

11597

down saying what?

#

11601

no MSG

#

11603

no no, what is MSG called in India?

#

11605

Ajinomoto

#

11607

Ajinomoto

#

11609

overweight person I said, anyway let it pass

#

11611

these are clearly

#

11613

literally in Japanese means essence of taste

#

11615

and it is the essence of taste

#

11617

Uncle Roger Videos, earlier you spoke about

#

11619

Uncle Roger Videos is

#

11621

very much the man

#

11623

raw milk or processed milk

#

11625

oh man, I mean it's weird

#

11627

how we are trying to turn the clock back

#

11629

to literally the dark ages

#

11631

like most people

#

11633

before the last 50 or 60 years

#

11635

died from infectious diseases, food poisoning

#

11637

and things

#

11639

against which we had done

#

11641

a huge amount of work to come up

#

11643

with vaccines and antibiotics and food

#

11645

processing techniques to keep food safe

#

11647

and people now have a problem

#

11649

with like preservatives and all of that, would you rather

#

11651

eat rotten food? I don't quite understand, you need

#

11653

a very tiny amount of preservative

#

11655

like people are worried about preservatives in bread

#

11657

the bread without the

#

11659

preservative will start molding

#

11661

and by the way people think only when you

#

11663

see that green patch is when I should

#

11665

stop eating it, when you see that green patch it means

#

11667

days ago the spores are already inside

#

11669

that's already giving you

#

11671

pathogenic, so therefore

#

11673

people have a distorted sense of this

#

11675

raw milk is one of the most dangerous

#

11677

things you can consume

#

11679

and people will say no, no, no, my grandfather

#

11681

consumed and he was healthy

#

11683

classic anecdotal bias

#

11685

and the grandfathers probably did

#

11687

not only that

#

11689

the first and foremost hard mathematical thing

#

11691

for people to grasp their head is that

#

11693

all old people you see around you right now

#

11695

are all lucky

#

11697

survivors

#

11699

selection bias already happened

#

11701

because they were all part of

#

11703

families where there were 8 kids, 3 died

#

11705

from smallpox, 1 died from measles

#

11707

people used to have 8-9 kids

#

11709

because many used to die

#

11711

the very fact that they survived means there is already a selection bias

#

11713

the fittest they were already preselected

#

11715

then on top of that they survived

#

11717

all the other

#

11719

malnutrition and everything else so

#

11721

in the sense that any clinical test will

#

11723

tell you that boss this is not a good population

#

11725

for you to test your hypothesis at all

#

11727

because they are already going to be naturally healthy

#

11729

because all the unhealthy ones are already dead

#

11731

see the beauty of the modern world

#

11733

is its ability to give

#

11735

the person with the most mediocre

#

11737

health a fantastic chance

#

11739

at a life

#

11741

that is what people don't forget

#

11743

the very fact that

#

11745

you spoke about the Chandrabhan Prasad

#

11747

the fact that people have diabetes now

#

11749

unfortunately as there are lifestyle food

#

11751

related issues yes

#

11753

but boss you did not have

#

11755

diabetes and cancer in the past because

#

11757

these are diseases of age and wealth

#

11759

people died before they were 40

#

11761

when are you going to get cardiovascular or diabetes

#

11763

at all

#

11765

so the fact that so many people are now living up to their 70s

#

11767

you are now going to see all of that

#

11769

and not only that we now have diagnostic methods

#

11771

for that do you know how many people died

#

11773

of cancer in the past you have no idea because you never diagnosed it

#

11775

people just died of old age

#

11777

how do you know whether there was a tumor

#

11779

how do you know whether it was a prostate cancer or a uterine cancer

#

11781

nobody diagnosed that

#

11783

but some people are confident in saying

#

11785

that it was better in the past

#

11787

there is obviously there are

#

11789

there is evidence that says that

#

11791

vegetables 100 years ago

#

11793

had 30% more micronutrients

#

11795

soil

#

11797

there are deep issues and so on

#

11799

when you eat a balanced meal

#

11801

you don't need every single ingredient to have

#

11803

every nutrient

#

11805

you are going to look at where all you get everything

#

11807

on top of that you have

#

11809

supplements in any case

#

11811

Indians for the longest time believe that

#

11813

you get vitamin D again famously you get vitamin D from milk

#

11815

believe that oh

#

11817

we have so much sunshine

#

11819

we will get vitamin D from sun etc

#

11821

you don't realize

#

11823

that the way humans evolved

#

11825

the browner the skin the less vitamin D you produce

#

11827

but the browner the skin

#

11829

the better you are protected against UVB

#

11831

so the white person

#

11833

far far more susceptible

#

11835

to skin cancer

#

11837

but also generates lot more vitamin D from the sun

#

11839

that's the mutation that

#

11841

allowed Europeans and why Europeans

#

11843

became white is basically this

#

11845

because the browner people probably

#

11847

died out from lack of vitamin D

#

11849

even right now

#

11851

Indians who go to Nordics they have to take vitamin D

#

11853

tablets and so on

#

11855

so the point about milk is that before

#

11857

this milk naturally has a ton

#

11859

of bacteria

#

11861

by the way even human mother's milk has a lot of

#

11863

bacteria but those are the beneficial bacteria

#

11865

that then get into our gut and form the

#

11867

start of your gut microbiome

#

11869

so it's designed for the human this thing

#

11871

that bacteria is designed for baby cows

#

11873

not good for you at all

#

11875

many of them can kill you

#

11877

and cause food poisoning

#

11879

I have been told I look like a baby cow now I know why

#

11881

very sad

#

11883

so and the fact that we invented a method

#

11885

that simply uses a high temperature in a short

#

11887

amount of time and that's all you need to kill

#

11889

the bacteria in milk

#

11891

and does not do anything

#

11893

and so the common problem is

#

11895

people will say it

#

11897

destroys nutrients and my

#

11899

advice to everyone is always just ask

#

11901

the next question what nutrients

#

11903

does it destroy proteins does it destroy

#

11905

carbs does it destroy which

#

11907

vitamins right and you pointed out somebody

#

11909

perhaps Sadguru was saying that iron

#

11911

it destroys iron no no there's a bunch

#

11913

of belief in about raw milk

#

11915

that pasteurization destroys iron

#

11917

in

#

11919

raw milk I am like no iron

#

11921

has there is no iron in milk

#

11923

right and more basically even if you

#

11925

don't need that fancy bit of information

#

11927

if you remember your school chemistry lab

#

11929

iron is famously dark colored

#

11931

everything about iron is dark colored

#

11933

you cannot have something that's absolutely

#

11935

white and have iron

#

11937

if it has the slightest amount of iron

#

11939

it's going to be orange or red

#

11941

why is your blood red

#

11943

anything that has iron is going to be red orange brown

#

11945

there is just no other

#

11947

color that you can have iron salts in

#

11949

and so therefore anything that's white in color

#

11951

atta maida whatever it is

#

11953

it's not going to have zero iron

#

11955

it has to be darker colored

#

11957

and anyone who has milk running through his veins

#

11959

is basically dead because severe iron deficiency

#

11961

so what are we talking about

#

11963

and if you are taking me seriously severe irony

#

11965

deficiency so kindly control

#

11967

there is one more

#

11969

big misconception

#

11971

that nitrogenous

#

11973

fertilizers are destroying

#

11975

the world so

#

11977

apparently

#

11979

or not apparently indeed

#

11981

nitrogenous fertilizers what enables

#

11983

8 billion people to survive on

#

11985

the earth

#

11987

since you mentioned that

#

11989

nice sort of segway to fritz harbor

#

11991

harbor bosh process

#

11993

the one is that

#

11995

there is no way we would have had 8 billion people

#

11997

without

#

11999

our industrial ability

#

12001

to take atmospheric nitrogen and turn it

#

12003

into ammonia

#

12005

because just relying on dal and legumes

#

12007

is not enough that's very slow not enough

#

12009

crop rotation can only feed so much etc etc

#

12011

I don't think we would have had this

#

12013

most people would have starved actually

#

12015

so it's been the longest problem

#

12017

and then fritz harbor and bosh

#

12019

basically solved this

#

12021

it's a fascinating fact that chemist actually

#

12023

I heard it in a lecture

#

12025

half of the

#

12027

nitrogen atoms in your body

#

12029

in all our bodies

#

12031

came from the fertilizers used to

#

12033

grow the crops that we eat

#

12035

and eat the animals that eat those crops

#

12037

half of the atoms in your body

#

12039

came from that fertilizer you wouldn't exist

#

12041

without that

#

12043

so that is how dependent we become

#

12045

it's not like 10% half

#

12047

so it literally

#

12049

means that the agricultural productivity

#

12051

didn't just like mildly increase

#

12053

it just exponentially increased

#

12055

that's how the 20th century we had

#

12057

this explosion of a population

#

12059

and then obviously the green

#

12061

revolution then figured out hybrid varieties

#

12063

that was able to do many of these things but

#

12065

nitrogen fertilizers what the fuck

#

12067

we are not only what we eat

#

12069

we are what fertilizers what we eat

#

12071

and by the way I have a question

#

12073

for Mr. Shanoi he is failing on my questions

#

12075

today for both of you

#

12077

but Mr. Shanoi will appreciate it more

#

12079

harbors partner in this endeavor

#

12081

went to calcutta and was asked to sit

#

12083

and his response was

#

12085

how do you know

#

12087

what was he asked

#

12089

bosh brilliant

#

12091

sorry continue

#

12093

harbour story itself is actually super poignant

#

12095

yeah it has to be told

#

12097

it's a segue but it has to be told

#

12099

Jewish scientist makes

#

12101

critical discoveries the harbour

#

12103

bosh process nitrogen fixation

#

12105

single handedly responsible for saving

#

12107

more lives than any other person on the planet

#

12109

and yet his research

#

12111

is what results in the production

#

12113

of the gas and the other

#

12115

things that was used to kill

#

12117

Jewish people during World War II

#

12119

so much so his wife committed

#

12121

suicide very tragic life

#

12123

and he himself was thrown out of Germany

#

12125

he lost his position because he was a Jewish

#

12127

it's quite a tragic life

#

12129

wife was a lady named

#

12131

Claire Immerwar

#

12133

and there is a prize

#

12135

instituted in

#

12137

that was won by my

#

12139

friend's daughter

#

12141

she teaches

#

12143

in England

#

12145

what is the prize for

#

12147

it's for women who have done

#

12149

the most for science

#

12151

Claire Immerwar was someone who did

#

12153

a lot of work and then

#

12155

she was driven to suicide because

#

12157

of her husband

#

12159

her husband was a worthless bomb

#

12161

I don't know the details but

#

12163

I think in the sense that his

#

12165

the impact that his work had

#

12167

was something that was depleted

#

12169

I think the gas and that poison gas

#

12171

poison gas

#

12173

so he literally

#

12175

is responsible for hundreds of thousands

#

12177

of people dying in World War I

#

12179

the trench thing

#

12181

and then the Zyklon B

#

12183

that was then

#

12185

made to kill all the Jewish people

#

12187

in concentration camps

#

12189

and irony of irony is he ended up

#

12191

being the cause of

#

12193

saving billions of people

#

12195

he killed millions and saved billions

#

12197

it's quite mind blowing

#

12199

and I'm just thinking

#

12201

Rajma khao, gas banjayagi

#

12203

toxic poison gas

#

12205

so you know

#

12207

what are the other

#

12209

what are the most

#

12211

irritating misconceptions about food

#

12213

so

#

12215

the most the big picture one

#

12217

is fundamentally this idea that

#

12219

there are heroes and villains

#

12221

right that there are

#

12223

amazing things like turmeric and poisons

#

12225

like maida

#

12227

sugar is a villain though Claire

#

12229

sugar yes it is but at the end of the day

#

12231

in the larger context of it everything that you

#

12233

any carb you eat is getting turned into sugar actually

#

12235

by the way even your fat and

#

12237

everything else is also getting turned to sugar if your body needs it

#

12239

right ultimately glucose is the currency

#

12241

energy currency of the body but the point is

#

12243

I think people have a

#

12245

completely distorted sense that

#

12247

that they are

#

12249

moved to do silly things like drink turmeric water

#

12251

turmeric milk three times a day

#

12253

which our friend Abby Phillips the liver doctor has shown

#

12255

actually it's a myth turmeric

#

12257

does nothing for you it doesn't do anything

#

12259

the amount of curcumin and turmeric is

#

12261

like you like it is like some one

#

12263

milligram in some fifty grams of

#

12265

turmeric or something who is eating fifty grams of

#

12267

turmeric boss I mean it is just insane

#

12269

it is almost homeopathic so useless

#

12271

and also and not only that

#

12273

the the common

#

12275

so one of the common exercises I

#

12277

use with children when they teach them about just to make

#

12279

things fun is to say that imagine you are lost in a

#

12281

forest that you are abandoned

#

12283

and that you have to survive what would you

#

12285

what would you eat is

#

12287

an interesting sort of thought experiment

#

12289

and it's it's incredible how

#

12291

kids are immediately moved to say I'm going to pick

#

12293

berries I'm going to eat the fruits

#

12295

etc etc right and I tell them

#

12297

no every single thing in a forest

#

12299

that you eat from a plant will kill you

#

12301

right a tiny number

#

12303

of plant species have been domesticated

#

12305

by human beings to reduce

#

12307

the poisons reduce the alkaloids

#

12309

reduce all the other anti-nutrients

#

12311

to make things that are convenient for you

#

12313

everything else in the wild will kill you

#

12315

so on

#

12317

the other hand we are animals

#

12319

you can literally kill and eat any

#

12321

animal any fresh kill is

#

12323

absolutely safe you can eat insects

#

12325

you can eat any small animal you can eat

#

12327

hunt and eat any animal but you cannot

#

12329

touch any plant in a in any forest

#

12331

so in that sense I think

#

12333

a very common sense about people swigging

#

12335

all of these these remedies

#

12337

is that as Dr. Abhi points out they're all liver toxic

#

12339

your liver is your first

#

12341

and last point of defense

#

12343

it has to remove all of those toxins and when it can't

#

12345

it's going to get completely over well right

#

12347

so I think this idea that there is a hero

#

12349

and a villain actually forces people to

#

12351

not focus on the entire meal meaning that

#

12353

I know it's controversial

#

12355

but you can have a maida parotta

#

12357

but you can have it with a veg curry

#

12359

and a side salad and that's not

#

12361

a bad meal like this idea

#

12363

that somehow you must not you must eliminate

#

12365

maida from your diet is actually ridiculous

#

12367

because that results in people doing things like

#

12369

no I won't eat this biscuit because it's made

#

12371

from maida so we'll eat a millet biscuit

#

12373

millet tastes like cardboard

#

12375

so what do manufacturers do

#

12377

add a ton of fat

#

12379

and that millet biscuit is way more unhealthy

#

12381

than your marry biscuit that you originally

#

12383

and millet is basically carbs so

#

12385

I'll make three points

#

12387

one point is

#

12389

and this I get from my good friend Susan Thomas

#

12391

married to Ajay Shah

#

12393

and as wise and insightful as him

#

12395

and Susan once told me that you think fruits are healthy

#

12397

fruits today have

#

12399

30 eggs if I remember correctly

#

12401

30 eggs as much sugar as I used to once upon a time

#

12403

first insight

#

12405

the other thing is that

#

12407

now and a lot of the battles

#

12409

around food as you

#

12411

pointed out tend

#

12413

to almost be ideological

#

12415

and extremist and dogmatic

#

12417

and what I recommend for everyone

#

12419

is that today you can actually figure out

#

12421

for yourself what food does to your body

#

12423

like the reason I reversed

#

12425

my type 2 diabetes took my HbA1c

#

12427

from 7.7 to 5.7

#

12429

was I figured out my optimal diet

#

12431

by using a CGM a continuous glucose

#

12433

monitor which by the way Ajay had advised

#

12435

me to do and when you do

#

12437

that it's like I had a slice of toast

#

12439

284 I had eggs and bacon flat line

#

12441

I was arguing with a friend of mine

#

12443

about how oats are unhealthy

#

12445

and she was like are you crazy I have oats for breakfast

#

12447

it's healthy I said use

#

12449

a CGM she had oats

#

12451

once it went to 290

#

12453

next day she had again just eggs

#

12455

and it stayed flat and never had oats

#

12457

so therefore

#

12459

what I would say is that

#

12461

use a CGM see how your body

#

12463

reacts to things forget about the ideology

#

12465

the third important thing I would say

#

12467

is that yes what

#

12469

you said you can have maida parotta

#

12471

you can have vegetables you can have all of that

#

12473

the order matters one of the things I

#

12475

realized with a CGM is

#

12477

that the order matters because say you have

#

12479

the carbs first you will immediately

#

12481

get that glucose spike because

#

12483

your stomach immediately gets to work digesting

#

12485

but if you have either

#

12487

fiber or protein first

#

12489

and then you have carbs

#

12491

your stomach is already busy on the other

#

12493

stuff and the glucose spike is slower

#

12495

and much less so the order

#

12497

matters and this

#

12499

what is the most remarkable thing is that

#

12501

somehow the Europeans

#

12503

and you verified this yourself yes yes I verified it

#

12505

on me and it's well known by now

#

12507

I tested it with the CGM and

#

12509

the most incredible

#

12511

thing to me is that somehow

#

12513

without a CGM without any of this

#

12515

the Europeans arrived at

#

12517

just the right meal structure where you have

#

12519

salad first you have your protein

#

12521

second whatever the meat is and then you have

#

12523

your dessert last so I am not

#

12525

saying that you avoid any food I mean I

#

12527

jokingly say sugar is poison but

#

12529

what I would say is you want to have something sweet

#

12531

you want to have a dessert don't have it

#

12533

by isolation in the middle of the day

#

12535

have it at the end of a meal where you've had

#

12537

those other things and your body just

#

12539

treats it entirely differently

#

12541

it's a little bit like what we were earlier

#

12543

it's very contained to you yeah it is very much yeah

#

12545

and what he was earlier saying that you would imagine

#

12547

that a chemical will have the same reaction

#

12549

on every brain but it is contextual

#

12551

it depends on what memories you associate

#

12553

food with and similarly here

#

12555

you know you would imagine that sugar

#

12557

will provoke the

#

12559

same response but no it's context

#

12561

what are you having before it or after exactly which

#

12563

brings me to my second

#

12565

important myth right

#

12567

people vastly

#

12569

overestimate the impact

#

12571

of choice of food and vastly

#

12573

underestimate the amount of food you eat

#

12575

so to your point when I did the CGM

#

12577

the general prevailing

#

12579

myth was just switch from rice to quinoa

#

12581

and quinoa to millet and that and all of that

#

12583

makes little or no difference

#

12585

in your because they're still grains they're still

#

12587

carbohydrates quinoa and millet are also f*****g unhealthy

#

12589

so in that sense so the point here

#

12591

but here's what make a difference

#

12593

I used to have a cup of rice when I made it half

#

12595

a cup of rice the spike is much smaller

#

12597

so people really need to understand this

#

12599

that the amount of food you eat is a far far

#

12601

more important factor than

#

12603

what you eat what you eat is important

#

12605

yes in the balance meaning that

#

12607

it has to be a good balance it can't be like 100% carbs

#

12609

it can't be like very low on protein

#

12611

yes all that is fine but the amount of food

#

12613

you eat makes a huge difference and

#

12615

the thing is that to quote

#

12617

Nithyananda

#

12619

eat less food

#

12621

so in that sense this is a very

#

12623

common myth and the third thing is

#

12625

people waste an inordinate

#

12627

amount of time

#

12629

assuming that your cooking technique and

#

12631

appliances and these things make a

#

12633

difference they're statistically

#

12635

they make little or no difference

#

12637

basically first one is how much you eat

#

12639

second is what all you eat

#

12641

and it's not even in that

#

12643

list of things then there are other things like

#

12645

whether you're having alcohol whether processed

#

12647

meats are associated with certain

#

12649

risks and add one to this list of how

#

12651

much you eat and this thing is when

#

12653

you eat yes right and I

#

12655

I think by now the science is pretty clear

#

12657

intermittent fasting is actually

#

12659

great I would urge everyone to

#

12661

avoid breakfast to you know fast

#

12663

for 18 hours a day and eat in a 6 hour window

#

12665

the only thing I will say there

#

12667

is that what a nutritionist told me is that

#

12669

again there are deep individual

#

12671

variations in how people

#

12673

respond to the duration that

#

12675

they can fast and in their

#

12677

glucose insulin responses and so on

#

12679

so like for example

#

12681

18 hour fast may not work for a lot of women

#

12683

and so on so in the sense

#

12685

that almost always before you just

#

12687

jump to trying a fast do it gradually

#

12689

see what works for you speak

#

12691

to an actual specialist or doctor or this thing

#

12693

make sure your vitals you do get

#

12695

yourself tested regularly right suppose for example

#

12697

like you could go on a low sugar diet

#

12699

and that's absolutely great for you but if it

#

12701

internally means that you're going on a high fat diet

#

12703

you might also want to take a look at your triglycerides

#

12705

parallel so you don't want to get completely

#

12707

out of whack right so in general

#

12709

I think the as much as possible

#

12711

think in terms of entire meals

#

12713

don't think in terms of

#

12715

one magical ingredient one meal

#

12717

one this thing and it's such a

#

12719

tempting thing to do right you want that

#

12721

magic bullet solution I remember

#

12723

when my one point when my dad was alive

#

12725

I sent him this documentary on keto

#

12727

and it was praising coconut oil a lot

#

12729

so he said you know I'm going to get some coconut oil

#

12731

I'm going to have it everyday and I was like no

#

12733

no you can't just do that

#

12735

I can have coconut oil if I'm already

#

12737

on a keto diet and one meal a day and it's like

#

12739

a super food for me it's additional

#

12741

and I'm also having vitamins on the side

#

12743

and making sure I'm getting one but

#

12745

randomly if you add coconut oil to a normal

#

12747

diet you're just adding saturated fat

#

12749

and again it's and the science

#

12751

on that is like very still very hazy and

#

12753

is still emerging so remember that one the science

#

12755

is complicated and two every individual is unique

#

12757

yeah that is the confounding variable

#

12759

that's the confounding variable and by the way

#

12761

you don't just eat one thing so many

#

12763

of the studies are nearly impossible you can't

#

12765

force feed a person one thing to test something

#

12767

right you can only do that on rats and

#

12769

that really doesn't does not really indicate how

#

12771

a human might behave so the problem with this

#

12773

is that don't fall for fat diets and

#

12775

don't like don't overthink

#

12777

this at the same time just focus on reducing

#

12779

what you eat but you

#

12781

know it's good to fast but do it in a way

#

12783

that it works for you right if it's causing you tremendous

#

12785

amount of bloating and discomfort always

#

12787

talk to experts don't believe random

#

12789

people on social media yeah that I think is the

#

12791

common this thing right and I

#

12793

once posted a prioritization

#

12795

of risks food and

#

12797

diet related risks by

#

12799

analyzing all of the priorities

#

12801

of every major food safety

#

12803

and health agencies of FDA

#

12805

and European all of the big like

#

12807

some 20 countries right and I

#

12809

then counted all of them and found that

#

12811

like alcohol

#

12813

diet meaning the amount of food

#

12815

you eat and what you eat etc are

#

12817

the level one risks tobacco

#

12819

etc are like the top tier risk

#

12821

red risks right then you have like

#

12823

processed meats and a few

#

12825

other things then you have

#

12827

additives microplastics

#

12829

as they're not as

#

12831

bothered apparently but apparently but people

#

12833

seem to be very bothered by that but most

#

12835

experts are not bothered and

#

12837

literally everything else Instagram

#

12839

and YouTube is scaring you about not even

#

12841

on their radar at all nobody is

#

12843

worried about microwave nobody's worried about

#

12845

aluminium in pressure cooker

#

12847

nobody's worried about any of those things at all

#

12849

right I mean aluminium is the most abundant

#

12851

metal on the planet

#

12853

there's a canard about it causing

#

12855

Alzheimer's yeah no again

#

12857

the weird thing the Alzheimer's website literally says

#

12859

there is no connection between

#

12861

dietary consumption of aluminium and Alzheimer's

#

12863

they have found aluminium

#

12865

in the plaques that doesn't mean that

#

12867

it essentially because the problem is

#

12869

that the amount of aluminium you get from

#

12871

your vessels a tiny

#

12873

fraction of what you get from drinking

#

12875

water and medicines and

#

12877

your food aluminium is everywhere your

#

12879

vegetables are absorbing from the soil

#

12881

right so if your vegetables are growing in a soil

#

12883

that has a lot of super abundant

#

12885

it's always there and your kidney takes care of it

#

12887

there are people with renal failure

#

12889

etc for whom it's a danger they have to

#

12891

be wary of it you can't just randomly

#

12893

concord so I think the fundamental third myth

#

12895

is that all the things

#

12897

influencers want to scare you about

#

12899

experts are not worried about so

#

12901

you need to think about that

#

12903

it's also

#

12905

I have a tangential

#

12907

thought is I wonder what

#

12909

it is that makes people

#

12911

put these you know

#

12913

factoids out yeah what

#

12915

what possibly because everybody I think wants to

#

12917

seem like an expert right and this

#

12919

makes it easy I mean there was one

#

12921

influencer who was doing a havan at

#

12923

home YouTube influencer and then he

#

12925

said everyone in Bhopal who did this

#

12927

did not die during the gas tragedy

#

12929

that happened out there which is complete nonsense

#

12931

and when this fantastic reporter

#

12933

I won't name her but she listens to

#

12935

the show this fantastic reporter reported

#

12937

on this and said what the fuck is this why do advertisers

#

12939

fund this guy because this was hardly

#

12941

the least of the ridiculous things he said

#

12943

the guy sued her sent a mob

#

12945

after her sued her in multiple

#

12947

I mean it's just a complete mess which is why I'm not

#

12949

taking any names but it's

#

12951

a messed up environment and what

#

12953

really makes me mad about a lot of influencers

#

12955

is forget the food I mean you're saying

#

12957

any kind of foxy rubbish because it'll go viral

#

12959

it'll become popular but

#

12961

I am also pissed off about

#

12963

the brands that they endorse

#

12965

whether or not they acknowledge

#

12967

it because I think that you've got to be responsible

#

12969

because you know once upon a time I used to think

#

12971

celebrity endorsements not a big deal who cares

#

12973

it's a lazy strategy but reading Luke

#

12975

Burgess wanting having him on my show talking

#

12977

to him looking around thinking about this stuff

#

12979

I have realized that mimetic desire

#

12981

is ubiquitous in the sense that

#

12983

so many of us want what we want because

#

12985

other people want it especially when role models

#

12987

want it and unfortunately

#

12989

people like Krish Shok

#

12991

and Naren Shanoi are role models to small

#

12993

little tiny groups of geeky people

#

12995

these influencers

#

12997

influence in a huge way what people

#

12999

want so I think your basic minimum

#

13001

responsibility should be that

#

13003

if you think you're an influencer in any way

#

13005

you've got to have a

#

13007

you've got to understand what you are

#

13009

peddling so many of these influencers are like

#

13011

selling random crypto things and all that

#

13013

I've turned down an Ayurvedic advertiser

#

13015

because I'm like no Ayurveda for me

#

13017

I think

#

13019

if I think about

#

13021

as someone

#

13023

almost since 2007 my first

#

13025

one of my roles in TCS was

#

13027

to sit and research social media from the

#

13029

early days so sort of like

#

13031

over time I have this insight into how these

#

13033

algorithms are designed and how they are actually

#

13035

implemented and therefore

#

13037

in turn what kind of behaviors

#

13039

they incentivize you've spoken

#

13041

a lot about how they incentivize polarization

#

13043

and so on but on this particular

#

13045

food misinformation piece

#

13047

misinformation in general

#

13049

it's a classic Brandolini's

#

13051

law in the sense that

#

13053

it takes far far more effort to do

#

13055

fact checking than to generate bullshit

#

13057

the second thing is

#

13059

that these algorithms

#

13061

are essentially designed to maximize

#

13063

engagement now engagement

#

13065

is really literally defined as

#

13067

the amount of time people

#

13069

spend on the app that's

#

13071

the variable that they are optimizing for

#

13073

so the way it ends up

#

13075

so one way of thinking about it is the way these

#

13077

machine learning algorithms will work is that

#

13079

right let's find people who create engaging content

#

13081

right the more time they spend that's engagement

#

13083

over time

#

13085

they've also figured out

#

13087

that rather than just show

#

13089

content to people who agree with it

#

13091

let's show content to people who disagree

#

13093

with it because the engagement is hundred times more

#

13095

because they will sit and comment and fight

#

13097

and hate and you are

#

13099

getting engagement that's engagement

#

13101

and what are you doing you are selling all of that

#

13103

engagement and packaging it as advertising

#

13105

rates that keep going up so if your engagement

#

13107

goes down so hate and

#

13109

polarization and negativity is literally

#

13111

the only way to increase engagement

#

13113

I mean it's basically just a modern

#

13115

day data science way of saying

#

13117

dog bites man is not news

#

13119

man bites dog is

#

13121

except that now you can now basically say

#

13123

microwave causes cancer

#

13125

is information that

#

13127

will get hundred and fifty thousand likes and millions of views

#

13129

dog bites beer biceps

#

13131

could be news

#

13133

that could be that could be

#

13135

but my point is that I think the

#

13137

sense of how and now what you've done is

#

13139

you've created an ecosystem where

#

13141

a bunch of young people

#

13143

whose entire careers

#

13145

is to be an influencer their entire

#

13147

livelihood is this it's not like

#

13149

people like me who have a day job and I'm just doing

#

13151

this as a hobby on the side for them

#

13153

it is their ability to get an audience and then

#

13155

command a better rate from a product that they

#

13157

want to peddle and so you've created

#

13159

that ecosystem millions of people are dependent

#

13161

on it and you've created an ecosystem where

#

13163

the only thing that goes viral is

#

13165

negative only thing that goes viral is

#

13167

misinformation because it gets more engagement

#

13169

I keep telling people

#

13171

again that don't feed the trolls

#

13173

meaning that don't

#

13175

engage with misinformation

#

13177

in that direct sense that by giving the algorithm

#

13179

a signal that you're engaging with it

#

13181

put screenshots comment on it do

#

13183

those kinds of things the

#

13185

code tweet the

#

13187

repost on whatever the reshare

#

13189

the remix on Instagram these are

#

13191

all things that are completely counterproductive

#

13193

having said that I would say that the even

#

13195

the screenshot is incredibly toxic

#

13197

incredibly toxic

#

13199

it has different issues but yeah

#

13201

why is it toxic?

#

13203

it's incredibly toxic because you're shitting on them

#

13205

shitting on someone behind their back

#

13207

and true it's that whole negativity

#

13209

which we've spoken about by and large

#

13211

it's so easy because what happens every time

#

13213

you shit on someone you're saying I'm wiser

#

13215

than you I'm more virtuous than you

#

13217

and both of those are incredibly toxic and easy

#

13219

to do it's easy to go out there

#

13221

screenshot someone and do mockery

#

13223

it's much harder to have a reasoned argument

#

13225

and what I would say is that you can have

#

13227

a reasoned argument without engaging directly

#

13229

so if somebody is for example

#

13231

saying that raw milk is good

#

13233

you know you don't have to either

#

13235

screenshot them or code tweet them you can

#

13237

just talk about why that particular belief

#

13239

is rubbish and make a reasoned argument

#

13241

and that is part of the debate

#

13243

so in fact the way for example I've recently

#

13245

people keep sending me this

#

13247

these reels of food farmer

#

13249

and ask you know is he scaring me

#

13251

is it okay to eat

#

13253

food farmer is the sort of guy who

#

13255

is the guy who went after Bonvita

#

13257

wrote that whole Bonvita thing and then later

#

13259

went after every brand and so on right

#

13261

and I appreciate his drive

#

13263

to get people focused on labels and

#

13265

corporate malfeasance and people

#

13267

misleading you with labels I think that's great

#

13269

but it is also true that he regularly just

#

13271

wildly exaggerates the dangers

#

13273

and it's very misleading

#

13275

when like all bread in India is a scam

#

13277

and so on right so basically the way

#

13279

I decided people were asking me you need to put a

#

13281

reaction video I said no I don't like doing that

#

13283

right I'm instead

#

13285

going to make a video about

#

13287

why it's okay to eat a small amount of bread if you're

#

13289

eating it with cheese and with vegetables and with

#

13291

other things and do it moderately and

#

13293

maybe learn to bake and I'll do it

#

13295

in my own way and not really

#

13297

directly so I think the part of the

#

13299

problem is that in social media is not

#

13301

designed for

#

13303

ideas to engage with each other

#

13305

it's actually designed for people to fight with

#

13307

each other for individuals to fight with each other

#

13309

and that's the entire user experience

#

13311

design of that so if they

#

13313

in a sense they want you

#

13315

to completely they

#

13317

incentivize only you reacting to people

#

13319

to reply

#

13321

let me ask you guys a question as people

#

13323

who've been you know thinking about this for a long time

#

13325

in your case been in the business for a long time

#

13327

directly responsible for everything

#

13329

wrong that your company which we shall not

#

13331

name has done right directly responsible

#

13333

we are going to talk later about

#

13335

passports or actually we're not

#

13337

but here's the deal

#

13339

what has gone wrong is that

#

13341

it's not that social media companies are evil

#

13343

but in the obvious pursuit of

#

13345

maximizing engagement it so happens

#

13347

that they have amplified

#

13349

certain hard wirings of ours

#

13351

which just happened to take us in this toxic

#

13353

direction for example

#

13355

tribalism you know the Facebook

#

13357

like and the Twitter retweet you

#

13359

know end up pushing tribalism and

#

13361

polarization because they are rewarding

#

13363

that quest for validation and the easiest way

#

13365

to get validation is blah blah blah we know all of

#

13367

that my question is

#

13369

that what are

#

13371

and I'm sure even the social media companies don't

#

13373

like this they want the engagement

#

13375

but they also understand the

#

13377

impact of what is going on but

#

13379

at the same time the incentives are what they are

#

13381

so in your opinions what are the possible

#

13383

ways of you know

#

13385

getting what they want but

#

13387

at the same time amplifying the better

#

13389

angels of our nature as it were

#

13391

fascinating question so

#

13393

there are fairly obvious

#

13395

ways of doing that

#

13397

I mean eliminating the like button and

#

13399

eliminating no no but without harming the bottom

#

13401

line because you eliminate the like button and the retweet

#

13403

your engagement goes down

#

13405

it's almost impossible to do because

#

13407

that's entirely what engagement is

#

13409

what drives

#

13411

there's a structural thing in the sense that reddit

#

13413

is far less toxic than Twitter

#

13415

reddit is basically

#

13417

millions of individually deeply

#

13419

toxic sub communities rather than

#

13421

so in the sense that

#

13423

it varies right I'm sure there are

#

13425

there are actually very very

#

13427

focused productive highly well

#

13429

moderated communities but

#

13431

the incel communities the

#

13433

trump communities and all of that stuff also

#

13435

sort of end up starting out from there

#

13437

right I mean in that sense

#

13439

in a deeper sense actually

#

13441

I don't know man I just think

#

13443

less engagement is the only solution

#

13445

in just that I think these

#

13447

companies need to find other ways

#

13449

of making money in general it's almost as

#

13451

if large engagement is toxic

#

13453

for humanity here's a related

#

13455

question and I'll come back to this because I know

#

13457

you'll have other answers as well

#

13459

that then if you're talking about

#

13461

ways of making money if

#

13463

you look at the creator economy what's really happened

#

13465

is we've gotten a move

#

13467

away where the mainstream has ceased to matter

#

13469

and the way creators reach their audiences

#

13471

has changed so in the 1990s I

#

13473

sell a piece to Times of India for

#

13475

800 rupees or whatever it is

#

13477

they aggregate these pieces

#

13479

they aggregate eyeballs they sell the eyeballs

#

13481

to advertisers the creator gets a tiny chunk

#

13483

of it how that changed gradually

#

13485

was a creators got the means of production

#

13487

began reaching audiences directly and selling

#

13489

advertising directly through google adsense and

#

13491

whatever and today advertising

#

13493

has become irrelevant in the

#

13495

sense that you can get money directly from the

#

13497

consumers who are happy to pay and you

#

13499

don't need to scale anymore you get your 100

#

13501

1000 true fans whatever it is right all

#

13503

of those so therefore the model

#

13505

is changing where that whole model of aggregating

#

13507

eyeballs and getting

#

13509

money from advertisers is irrelevant

#

13511

in us in certain domains

#

13513

is there ever a possibility

#

13515

that the revenue

#

13517

options for large tech companies

#

13519

change

#

13521

in the sense that they are getting their money

#

13523

directly from the consumer

#

13525

and the consumer therefore doesn't

#

13527

have to be the product

#

13529

and there are other ways of making money

#

13531

or would network effects

#

13533

mitigate against that because network effects

#

13535

involve the largest

#

13537

number of users and the largest number of

#

13539

consumers and that's

#

13541

more likely in a free model that's an

#

13543

intuition but a lot of my intuitions

#

13545

in the past about whether people will pay directly

#

13547

or whatever are wrong and I am doing

#

13549

this today because they are wrong so

#

13551

what do you guys think?

#

13553

It's a weird scenario so on the one hand

#

13555

so today you could

#

13557

be a tech influencer on YouTube

#

13559

and

#

13561

once you've reached say

#

13563

1 million subscribers at that point

#

13565

you're almost an autopilot

#

13567

you've created an engine new

#

13569

product comes you unbox it you review

#

13571

it and it's just moving on and

#

13573

so there's categories of content where

#

13575

you relentlessly have to keep doing new things

#

13577

because nobody is going to check your review of a phone

#

13579

from one year ago

#

13581

and there's also content that has a long shelf

#

13583

life any political content

#

13585

tech review content is like very transient

#

13587

and

#

13589

I think that is really where the

#

13591

bulk of the problem lies because

#

13593

you've created a stressful

#

13595

setup where the guy

#

13597

has to feed the algorithm today

#

13599

and there is just no

#

13601

sort of incentive

#

13603

purely as someone who's

#

13605

been creating content on the platform

#

13607

over a long period of time I'm really thinking

#

13609

whether I think the

#

13611

it's almost as if it's weird so there's a guy

#

13613

who can get a million views on a phone review

#

13615

thing and get paid a hundred thousand

#

13617

dollars for that I'm really questioning

#

13619

whether the value of that

#

13621

thing that content is hundred thousand dollars

#

13623

right yes today Google or

#

13625

YouTube may be paying that guy hundred thousand dollars

#

13627

maybe I'm really asking an existential

#

13629

question is that worth hundred thousand dollars?

#

13631

there are guys who are doing far far more impactful

#

13633

work for a tiny fraction

#

13635

the definition of

#

13637

I mean prices are always determined

#

13639

by supply and demand as it should be so

#

13641

worth is a metaphysical question as a

#

13643

sacred matter I know that is true

#

13645

I absolutely agree with you

#

13647

in the context of the world where these are physical

#

13649

goods being exchanged

#

13651

this advertising attention and eyeballs

#

13653

is very abstract

#

13655

is not the same thing as

#

13657

the value of the price

#

13659

controls fail on a practical

#

13661

good because you should let the market decide

#

13663

what it wants and all that I'm not entirely certain

#

13665

how you can define what people want

#

13667

in the context of an advertisement

#

13669

but then the people who are putting their money

#

13671

who are advertisers the people

#

13673

who are putting their money they have

#

13675

skin in the game they are the best place to decide

#

13677

what they want and don't want and what they are willing to pay for it

#

13679

correct so the point here is that

#

13681

you have a monopoly here

#

13683

pretty much a monopoly of

#

13685

one or two companies

#

13687

that internally opaquely get to

#

13689

determine the ad rates

#

13691

it's not like the companies really have much of a choice here

#

13693

you don't have if you don't want to advertise on

#

13695

YouTube you really don't have a choice to go

#

13697

elsewhere to be honest right so it's not a perfect market

#

13699

either so in that sense I think there might

#

13701

be perhaps and there are probably people

#

13703

smarter than me in this to sit and

#

13705

design this

#

13707

design the incentive system slightly

#

13709

differently so that one

#

13711

you are maybe prioritizing

#

13713

certain categories of

#

13715

it's for example a few tactical things

#

13717

health and medical

#

13719

misinformation can

#

13721

easily with the right kind of AI

#

13723

and human you know

#

13725

moderation and so on you can make a big

#

13727

dent on that my question I have a question

#

13729

there though that who is to determine

#

13731

what is health misinformation for example

#

13733

for 50 years people believe sugar

#

13735

was fine and fat was evil the

#

13737

US health department's guidelines

#

13739

of 1977 directly led

#

13741

to the obesity epidemic of America

#

13743

and it was important for there to be

#

13745

free-daring voices like Gary

#

13747

and all to fight against

#

13749

the orthodox orthodox because now

#

13751

we know that what the sugar lobby did

#

13753

was far worse than what the tobacco lobby

#

13755

did far far worse so there is

#

13757

there are two things here there is

#

13759

there is content on YouTube

#

13761

and Instagram that says

#

13763

that you can reduce the power in your eyes if you stare

#

13765

straight at the sun there is

#

13767

and that has millions of views right

#

13769

I can very directly establish that

#

13771

people watching that measurably

#

13773

are going to harm themselves if they follow it

#

13775

so there is one the other

#

13777

extreme is the more nuanced

#

13779

sense of Joe Rogan platforming

#

13781

and anti-vax person

#

13783

is a far far more tricky thing

#

13785

and I am not aboard

#

13787

deplatforming or demonetizing that

#

13789

kind of content because the end of the day

#

13791

silencing voices is never a great idea

#

13793

but at the same time

#

13795

there needs to be a way in which I can say

#

13797

that there are direct consequences

#

13799

because you can equally argue

#

13801

that people watching this podcast if 10%

#

13803

of them don't vaccinate their children

#

13805

that by the way has other effects as well

#

13807

so it's a very very to be honest

#

13809

I've really not it's hard to wrap your mind

#

13811

around this this is the problem is that

#

13813

we have nothing in the past that we can learn from

#

13815

this is a completely new

#

13817

no never at any point of time in the past

#

13819

did one man command this much of

#

13821

an audience and millions of people hundreds of millions

#

13823

of people content going viral like

#

13825

one random individual sitting in

#

13827

Delhi like for example Mike Cadbury

#

13829

has had like seven and a half

#

13831

million views I would never have thought

#

13833

that any point of time that I

#

13835

would have that kind of an audience right and

#

13837

so this is there is nothing in the past to actually learn

#

13839

from so to be honest it's a I would

#

13841

generally err on the

#

13843

side of not controlling

#

13845

and moderating speech in general I don't

#

13847

want these companies to determine that

#

13849

whether the problem is

#

13851

that if I say it's going to be a third party neutral

#

13853

pool of doctors people will argue

#

13855

why does the allopathy doctor

#

13857

get to determine whether what I say in

#

13859

Ayurveda is right or not so it is

#

13861

not easy at all so I

#

13863

have two things to say and one is that as far

#

13865

as monopolies are concerned in a narrow sense

#

13867

they are monopolies you know

#

13869

Facebook is a monopoly at what it does Twitter

#

13871

is a monopoly at what it does but in a larger

#

13873

sense in a sense of how people spend their time

#

13875

they're not monopolies because to be

#

13877

on Twitter I'm not on Facebook for that long

#

13879

I'm not reading my book for that long

#

13881

everything is competing with everything else

#

13883

so in that larger sense there is still competition

#

13885

and it's not quite a monopoly

#

13887

secondly even if for a moment I say

#

13889

that is a semantic point and let's say that they are

#

13891

monopolies and people will spend their time on social

#

13893

media I would still say and I'm sure

#

13895

you both agree with me that

#

13897

the reflexive reaction many people have

#

13899

that the state should regulate this

#

13901

is completely wrong because that is

#

13903

the road to serfdom

#

13905

I'll give you a very interesting counterpoint

#

13907

that somebody told me once

#

13909

and that I honestly don't have an answer to that

#

13911

right so today yes

#

13913

notionally Twitter and Facebook

#

13915

and Instagram are competing with each other and competing

#

13917

with Doordarshan or whoever it is for your attention

#

13919

right and they all have

#

13921

the window into your life through your smartphone

#

13923

they can notify you they can

#

13925

hack into your dopamine reward system

#

13927

they can fine tune

#

13929

messages and nudges

#

13931

that can hack your brain wiring

#

13933

and get through to you right they have

#

13935

that your brain can't compete with their big

#

13937

data algorithm that is able to do that

#

13939

in a sense like

#

13941

it's like methamphetamine

#

13943

it's like crystal meth competing with heroin

#

13945

and some other

#

13947

drug or nicotine or something like that

#

13949

right how should a society

#

13951

deal with this versus that

#

13953

it is pretty evident that

#

13955

the current research basically says that the effect

#

13957

they have on your brain is not too dissimilar

#

13959

when you actually eat sugar the effect of

#

13961

being addicted to it is very similar the effect

#

13963

of getting a like on Instagram is not

#

13965

dissimilar from the high you get when you

#

13967

take some of these drugs but we do regulate and we do

#

13969

control drugs and now it's a separate issue whether

#

13971

it should be a free market that determines that

#

13973

but would you then allow it to be sold to children

#

13975

we do so in the sense that it's a

#

13977

weird system where I don't

#

13979

want necessarily an incompetent

#

13981

government to be the one at it

#

13983

but how

#

13985

do you get to a point where

#

13987

we're broadly okay with banning

#

13989

those dangerous drugs but we're not

#

13991

but social media has

#

13993

roughly the same effect so I would

#

13995

say this that firstly there are things

#

13997

like sugar which have worse impact than

#

13999

those dangerous drugs and it's

#

14001

still out there and some of those dangerous

#

14003

and some of those drugs should not be out there

#

14005

and some of those drugs should not be banned

#

14007

right

#

14009

exactly but the thing with

#

14011

social media is that broadly my feeling

#

14013

is that and I've made all these points

#

14015

about the dopamine rush of the Facebook

#

14017

like or the Twitter retweet before

#

14019

but they are a massive net benefit

#

14021

I strongly believe that in the way that they

#

14023

connect the world and the way that they globalise us

#

14025

in the way that they help people form communities

#

14027

of choice rather than communities

#

14029

of circumstance which were

#

14031

introverted geeks like me is a massive big deal

#

14033

because I won't have any friends or a career

#

14035

or a life without the internet

#

14037

so I think that and

#

14039

that's a utilitarian point and I don't even

#

14041

believe in utilitarianism because you cannot

#

14043

measure any of these things the greater

#

14045

question is a question of individual choice

#

14047

I keep saying sugar is poison do I believe

#

14049

it should be banned of course fucking not

#

14051

people have to make their own choices

#

14053

and epistemic humility is important

#

14055

I don't know

#

14057

therefore because I don't know enough

#

14059

I can't decide for others

#

14061

so my sense is that

#

14063

we are faced with what is currently a huge

#

14065

social problem

#

14067

in my reading of history

#

14069

social problems are never solved

#

14071

and always made worse by state coercion

#

14073

but social problems can only

#

14075

be solved internally from the bottoms

#

14077

up by society and I

#

14079

accept that in these times

#

14081

where dopamine

#

14083

manipulation can be weaponized at

#

14085

scale with AI especially

#

14087

my answer feels

#

14089

inadequate because I have seen this in the gambling

#

14091

industry I have written about gambling addiction

#

14093

I was a professional every society controls

#

14095

gambling to some degree from the 80s

#

14097

to the 90s in the 80s and 90s

#

14099

is a book by Natasha Dow show all about

#

14101

machine gambling which shows that you sit down

#

14103

at a slot machine you know 30

#

14105

years before social media they

#

14107

have weaponized the way

#

14109

the brain uses dopamine

#

14111

the way the lights and the music plays

#

14113

and you are paralyzed you just cannot get

#

14115

up never happened to me I have just seen this

#

14117

retail stores use a plan

#

14119

to make sure you buy something

#

14121

the way you go up an elevator and the next

#

14123

up thing is in besides you you got to go

#

14125

around so you pass the shops

#

14127

the lighting in the store is more pleasant

#

14129

than the harsh lighting outside so you naturally

#

14131

want to go inside the way what is placed

#

14133

at eye level of the kids

#

14135

and so I think this is

#

14137

the problem is that I think

#

14139

we live in a very different world and I

#

14141

somehow have this feeling that

#

14143

many of the other lessons that we

#

14145

may have learnt about economics about

#

14147

human behaviour I somehow feel

#

14149

that they may end up being inadequate

#

14151

in informing us

#

14153

yes there are

#

14155

maybe things that we know for sure

#

14157

are bad like state control etc

#

14159

there are things that we know we don't want to do yes

#

14161

but I am not quite certain we know what to do

#

14163

I agree with you my sense is that

#

14165

in terms of overarching principles

#

14167

I am quite clear

#

14169

I don't like coercions and

#

14171

I don't want the state to be

#

14173

autocratic and I value individual

#

14175

freedom and I am clear about these

#

14177

broad principles but having said that

#

14179

below these broad principles how

#

14181

the panoply of actions and policies

#

14183

and incentives play out is something

#

14185

that A is very hard for

#

14187

us to grok in this time maybe with

#

14189

retrospect it will be clear 50 years later

#

14191

and B boss in the next 10 years

#

14193

AI is going to change everything so fundamentally

#

14195

that we don't have a clue

#

14197

and actually lot of people are worried about

#

14199

the fact that AI

#

14201

is completely unpredictable as to its

#

14203

terminacles yes

#

14205

what I am saying is that see like even the coercion

#

14207

piece right let's think about this for a moment

#

14209

let's say you are an individual who you

#

14211

believe has individual liberty of

#

14213

choice of deciding where you want to spend your

#

14215

time or do you want to use twitter

#

14217

do you want to use your facebook you want to use

#

14219

I would actually argue I don't think you have a

#

14221

choice twitter yes

#

14223

you can choose not to use twitter it's like really a

#

14225

lightweight in this context

#

14227

there is no way you are escaping facebook

#

14229

because they own whatsapp facebook

#

14231

you can choose to skip facebook but you are

#

14233

on whatsapp if you are on whatsapp you are on facebook

#

14235

they have all your data you

#

14237

really don't have a you can as much as possible

#

14239

say I am not going to be part of a group but

#

14241

somebody is going to add you anyway you can choose not

#

14243

to use whatsapp but a ton of businesses in

#

14245

India today their only customer service channel is whatsapp

#

14247

you have no choice they don't like say no no

#

14249

I will use iMessage or I will use some signal

#

14251

and telegram not going to happen

#

14253

you have no so in this sense I really

#

14255

also think many of much of our

#

14257

digital architecture today

#

14259

it is sold under the garb

#

14261

of being a libertarian

#

14263

and a lot of choice user choice

#

14265

freedom your consent is all

#

14267

bullshit you really don't have a choice in many

#

14269

of these things in many cases

#

14271

there are apps that will functionally not

#

14273

work unless you turn on push notifications

#

14275

there are so many design choices they make

#

14277

many many companies

#

14279

learning material tutorial material

#

14281

you can say I don't want to go to youtube there is only

#

14283

place you can go to watch videos where else are you going to find

#

14285

it right and so

#

14287

in that sense this is not really a

#

14289

it's almost an implicit

#

14291

question so the problem

#

14293

is that I don't have a I don't know how as a

#

14295

society we should deal with that my watch

#

14297

give me a message I will read it out relax

#

14299

reminder your stress level is unusually

#

14301

high relax with a breathing activity

#

14303

question mark so I don't think my

#

14305

stress level is high why is it saying that

#

14307

my heartbeat is actually 102

#

14309

some tech bro on silicon valley decided that

#

14311

when these two variables increase this

#

14313

threshold please send notification

#

14315

please send notification or maybe they are listening in

#

14317

which is entirely possible

#

14319

no no no I agree like I was

#

14321

having an argument the other day with friends

#

14323

of mine and I was saying hey you know I might be libertarian

#

14325

and all but the fact is there is no free will

#

14327

we have to behave as if there is and fight

#

14329

for it but actually there isn't

#

14331

there isn't and here also I think that

#

14333

it's a question of your

#

14335

choice being explicitly taken away

#

14337

from you and you at least want to have

#

14339

the illusion of choice but these are

#

14341

I would actually see if you can

#

14343

get this guest on your show Tristan Harris

#

14345

center for humane technology

#

14347

ex google guy who designed the infinite

#

14349

scroll and he like you know since then

#

14351

he's been repenting

#

14353

and focused on tech ethics and so on but his

#

14355

but his thought processes and

#

14357

the guess he invites on his

#

14359

your undivided attention podcast

#

14361

are fantastic and I think you should

#

14363

really purely I think

#

14365

and his ideas about

#

14367

how to regulate technology

#

14369

very very fascinating you should listen to it

#

14371

I will and I'll check out his podcast

#

14373

and so should all my listeners if the recommendation

#

14375

is coming from you next question to both

#

14377

of you you know which is

#

14379

that in

#

14381

the way that you know

#

14383

my perhaps my favorite quote of all

#

14385

time is by Annie Dillard where she says

#

14387

how we live our days is how we live

#

14389

our lives right and I want to ask

#

14391

about that because it strikes me that the

#

14393

way I live my days in

#

14395

1995 is drastically different

#

14397

from how I live my day today

#

14399

and it has nothing to do with my age

#

14401

it has everything to do with technology and

#

14403

the way that we've allowed ourselves to be trapped

#

14405

whereas in that day there was a certain

#

14407

terror if you had to communicate with someone

#

14409

I'd have to sit and write a long letter and we

#

14411

already discussed that earlier you had a lot

#

14413

of free time I once asked a writer

#

14415

Sara Rai the brilliant Hindi writer

#

14417

when she grew up in the 60s and 70s

#

14419

that she would you know she was giving

#

14421

me such detailed descriptions of everything

#

14423

the flower bed in the garden and all that I said like

#

14425

how do you remember all of this

#

14427

and she said we have nothing else to do Amit

#

14429

poora den ye bad ke hum dekhte the aur achhe se dekhte the

#

14431

nothing else to do today

#

14433

is scrolling scrolling scrolling swiping

#

14435

swiping swiping you mentioned the infinite scroll

#

14437

we are in an infinite scroll

#

14439

where our attention span is broken up into

#

14441

little narrow bites and

#

14443

I actually cavilled against the

#

14445

canard that everyone has a short

#

14447

attention span no people listen to my podcast

#

14449

people crave depth all of us do that

#

14451

but a large part of our days

#

14453

is spent in these

#

14455

short chunks consuming content that was

#

14457

you know produced in the last three days

#

14459

instead of the infinite glorious wealth of

#

14461

knowledge we have available to us

#

14463

not doing deep work but going from shallow

#

14465

engagement to shallow engagement so

#

14467

A what are your thoughts on this

#

14469

what do you guys personally

#

14471

do to mitigate this

#

14473

do you feel that it has changed you in any

#

14475

way and so on and so forth

#

14477

so my hack for this is to learn

#

14479

new things and

#

14481

Sheera Sheela is

#

14483

very derisive about this

#

14485

did you just call her Sheera is it right

#

14487

she is very sweet

#

14489

Sheela is you know very dismissive

#

14491

and derisive she keeps

#

14493

actually I hope she doesn't listen in on this

#

14495

so she feels

#

14497

that you know it's

#

14499

a foolish exercise to try and

#

14501

learn new things

#

14503

at my age and it is difficult

#

14505

it's difficult I remember a time when

#

14507

I used to be very quick I would just

#

14509

you know pick up something and I would plot

#

14511

and plot and plot and

#

14513

but I find

#

14515

two benefits one is I am

#

14517

kind of liberated from having

#

14519

to consume a lot of content

#

14521

which I was doing

#

14523

so yeah so you

#

14525

don't need to do that and the

#

14527

second thing is you

#

14529

try and learn ten different things but

#

14531

the one or two things that

#

14533

you do learn they open

#

14535

a new dimension to you so it's

#

14537

personally very satisfying and

#

14539

after a point in time you really

#

14541

find yourself out

#

14543

of the out of the rat race

#

14545

I don't bother like

#

14547

my most of my WhatsApp feed I just

#

14549

don't it's just

#

14551

informational if somebody is trying to reach out

#

14553

to me very rarely it is mostly

#

14555

you know just come forwarded

#

14557

or composed messages

#

14559

yeah so I one thing

#

14561

I have to say here I'm

#

14563

I used to be fond of mathematics

#

14565

and engineering and I used to understand

#

14567

very little of it because a lot

#

14569

of it at least the way we were taught

#

14571

in engineering very technique based

#

14573

so you have a formula you plug stuff into the

#

14575

formula and something comes out and that's the answer

#

14577

and then you apply it to whatever you're up

#

14579

the curious thing

#

14581

is that nobody really

#

14583

understands why those things work

#

14585

and neither did I and

#

14587

off late you have

#

14589

these beautiful

#

14591

visualisation on YouTube

#

14593

which bring these things alive

#

14595

I'm thinking blue one brown

#

14597

it's incredible

#

14599

incredible one of the best YouTube

#

14601

channels of all time just satisfying

#

14603

deeply satisfying even his voice

#

14605

even if you're not paying

#

14607

attention to the insane amount

#

14609

of detail it's just yeah

#

14611

so strongly recommend that to

#

14613

every listener who's even

#

14615

tangentially interested

#

14617

in figuring out what

#

14619

the hell they studied in their school

#

14621

what new thing have you learnt in the last 10 years

#

14623

and what was the process of kind of learning

#

14625

so a lot of mathematics I figured out what

#

14627

Laplace transforms are, Fourier transforms are

#

14629

what integrals are or partial differential equations

#

14631

are those kind of things

#

14633

which were a big integral part of

#

14635

my education except that I didn't

#

14637

understand why any of those things worked

#

14639

there's a thing many

#

14641

Indians have the attitude that learning

#

14643

has to be goal directed

#

14645

I'll learn something because I want to do something

#

14647

I'll learn the guitar because I want to play the guitar

#

14649

and be in a band etc etc

#

14651

and what you are sort of talking about

#

14653

is learning just for the love of learning

#

14655

something interesting

#

14657

the same thing about impermanence

#

14659

you're not having any goal in mind you're not cracking an exam

#

14661

not worried about the rank you're not worried about

#

14663

getting a promotion

#

14665

just learning for learning sake it's just

#

14667

the creating for creating sake sort of thing

#

14669

what is the texture of your day

#

14671

so it has taken me and someone

#

14673

who's been very close to technology and

#

14675

all of its negative effects and positive effects

#

14677

if you will right

#

14679

I've forever been I think if anything

#

14681

I now spend a lot of time being deliberate

#

14683

about when I don't use technology

#

14685

so

#

14687

my phone notifications are

#

14689

always off

#

14691

I check

#

14693

messages once in 2-3 hours or something

#

14695

the phone does not get to

#

14697

interrupt me

#

14699

the phone is always on silent much to my wife's annoyance

#

14701

again to the earlier point about

#

14703

how sometimes the boss the restaurant guy

#

14705

is trying to reach you and not picking up

#

14707

so yeah I know there are those issues

#

14709

that we have but those issues are there but in general

#

14711

I don't want to let my

#

14713

smartphone interrupt me

#

14715

in the sense that I want to use it as a method of

#

14717

communication or sharing or creation

#

14719

but it doesn't get to interrupt me whenever it wants to

#

14721

and in a way I think you know

#

14723

in a way of creating the environment of the past

#

14725

where if I was

#

14727

in a house did not have a telephone

#

14729

there's actually no other way to reach me

#

14731

and yeah I have lived

#

14733

at least we got a telephone only when I was like

#

14735

13 or 14 years old

#

14737

so that entire childhood was spent without

#

14739

any way for people to interrupt

#

14741

unless by literally coming home to you

#

14743

so in that sense that's one

#

14745

the second thing is I also

#

14747

spend a fair amount

#

14749

of time trying to

#

14751

use pen and paper to write

#

14753

ideas and things to sort of consciously

#

14755

not use digital methods

#

14757

and I think part of my search

#

14759

has always been for a device

#

14761

that is at the intersection of convenience

#

14763

I'm still a strategically lazy engineer right

#

14765

so which means that yeah I won't use pen and paper and then scan

#

14767

and do OCR wrong

#

14769

obviously you know the Kindle scribe that I use allows me

#

14771

to just write in my handwriting and it automatically

#

14773

so I find that

#

14775

some of my writing and ideas are often

#

14777

better it might vary by

#

14779

people right but definitely for me writing

#

14781

on a pen and paper almost always

#

14783

sort of works better

#

14785

and so on the other this thing is that

#

14787

I have stopped consuming news

#

14789

I don't consume any kind of breaking news

#

14791

right it's like almost

#

14793

I don't think there is a need for me to know

#

14795

anything in real time the realization

#

14797

that I don't necessarily need to know I need

#

14799

to know all breaking news

#

14801

is just completely broken in the sense of

#

14803

like it's no context my favorite breaking

#

14805

day after tomorrow is Saturday

#

14807

yeah

#

14809

one of my favorite examples is

#

14811

so

#

14813

six months back there was a viral bunch of videos

#

14815

by a few like

#

14817

nutrition influencers

#

14819

that palak paneer is bad to eat

#

14821

because somebody somewhere apparently read

#

14823

a paper that actually the

#

14825

something in the spinach

#

14827

interferes with the absorption of calcium

#

14829

from milk so you must not

#

14831

combine dairy and

#

14833

this thing right

#

14835

and the goal for that person

#

14837

creating that was the

#

14839

to try and connect it to the ancient ayurvedic

#

14841

idea that you must not mix many of these things with milk

#

14843

so they said see now science

#

14845

has proven that and therefore now palak paneer

#

14847

is bad was the final conclusion

#

14849

and it really went viral

#

14851

and so what ended up happening is

#

14853

that if you now go today to google

#

14855

and search for is palak paneer

#

14857

healthy you will get two pages of

#

14859

palak paneer is bad for you and it's a

#

14861

weird scenario because this is just

#

14863

Instagram and this kind of content

#

14865

which all mainstream newspapers

#

14867

have blindly

#

14869

not fact checked

#

14871

oh this influencer said this

#

14873

twitter is reacting, instagram is

#

14875

reacting, here it is

#

14877

this is basically cheap content

#

14879

there is piggy backing on that

#

14881

virality so people will click on this

#

14883

and google has happily considered these

#

14885

sources to be trusted news sources

#

14887

so now effectively if anyone

#

14889

going and searching for palak paneer will only get

#

14891

this completely nonsensical thing

#

14893

because google has indexed all of that

#

14895

palak paneer is bad for you, it is not

#

14897

nothing is wrong with it, iron is also there

#

14899

the point is that

#

14901

the problem is that people are over thinking

#

14903

this interfering with

#

14905

absorption your body will figure it out

#

14907

as I keep telling people that your small intestine

#

14909

is smarter than all these influences

#

14911

you let it figure out, it has

#

14913

millions of years of evolution to

#

14915

figure out how to keep you alive and how to

#

14917

extract what it wants

#

14919

times when it breaks down are when in completely

#

14921

freaky scenarios like overdosing on

#

14923

alcohol and eating lots of sugar

#

14925

but for most part when you are just eating

#

14927

a regular meal your body is fantastically

#

14929

good at figuring out so don't worry about it

#

14931

small intestine versus toddy triceps

#

14933

small intestine always wins

#

14935

toddy triceps

#

14937

so the point is that I think

#

14939

I don't consume news because it is completely

#

14941

pointless

#

14943

the other thing generally is

#

14945

that I also don't check

#

14947

email till noon

#

14949

because I spend the morning

#

14951

since I am fasting

#

14953

I generally find myself very creative in the morning

#

14955

when I am generally hungry

#

14957

fasted, super sharp

#

14959

I want to use that more productively

#

14961

and I find that email is

#

14963

one of the worst ways

#

14965

in the context of work it is completely

#

14967

a waste of time and there is a fantastic

#

14969

term this behavior scientist

#

14971

coined, I forgot his name

#

14973

he said there was a point of time

#

14975

in the past when people just did work

#

14977

work essentially meant the thing that you need to do

#

14979

to make whatever that you needed to make

#

14981

that's work, he says that we've moved

#

14983

from only mostly doing work and then

#

14985

taking a break to now

#

14987

60% of your day is working for work

#

14989

this is email

#

14991

teams meetings

#

14993

searching for stuff, raising tickets

#

14995

dealing with IVRs

#

14997

reading documents, all this is all the

#

14999

excel sheets, that's not work

#

15001

it's working for work

#

15003

so this goes back to

#

15005

the Toyota founder

#

15007

you love it as a mechanical engineer

#

15009

so he apparently once assembled

#

15011

all of the executives in Toyota

#

15013

and he said

#

15015

he wrote a

#

15017

board and said value adding

#

15019

non-value adding

#

15021

and he asked all of his direct reports to say

#

15023

in all the activities that your units and

#

15025

departments do, please come and write

#

15027

whether it's value adding or non-value adding to Toyota

#

15029

obviously everybody added their stuff in

#

15031

non-value adding

#

15033

then he literally just flipped the whole thing

#

15035

and said no, whatever you guys have written

#

15037

all these are non-value adding

#

15039

because to make a car

#

15041

only three things have to be done

#

15043

you have to cut steel, bend steel and join steel

#

15045

these are the three things that result in

#

15047

making a car, everything else is

#

15049

non-value adding

#

15051

so he said that's the level of thinking

#

15053

so the point is that everything that we think is work

#

15055

is all not work

#

15057

browsing, watching, this, all of that stuff

#

15059

that we are convincing ourselves is work

#

15061

let me say, there was a time

#

15063

where I think Andy Warhol used the phrase

#

15065

famous for being famous

#

15067

and to me when people today

#

15069

say that I want to be an influencer

#

15071

it seems exactly like that, like what the fuck

#

15073

I can imagine I want to be a writer and I'll influence

#

15075

people etc etc but I want to be an

#

15077

influencer is what, however

#

15079

Naren, I must tell you, our friend Ashok

#

15081

sitting here, he's an influencer

#

15083

he has half a million followers on Instagram

#

15085

he has, despite

#

15087

you know berating the algorithm

#

15089

he has mastered the algorithm and all of that

#

15091

yes I berate the algorithm but I know how to

#

15093

I have two questions for you, the second question

#

15095

which I want you to get to later is

#

15097

what is your strategy towards Instagram and how did you

#

15099

get to half million and etc etc

#

15101

your philosophy towards, yes I should sell a course on that

#

15103

how to get to half million

#

15105

that could be a great revenue stream

#

15107

but the first one, in the context

#

15109

of what you were just saying is that

#

15111

let us imagine that your work is to be an Instagram

#

15113

influencer, imagine that for a moment

#

15115

what is actual work and what is

#

15117

working towards work and we should

#

15119

therefore be avoided. Unfortunately

#

15121

the way the platform

#

15123

dynamics and the revenue mechanics are

#

15125

designed, it is all

#

15127

designed for working for work

#

15129

it is all designed for you to

#

15131

be, spend as little

#

15133

time actually being as original

#

15135

as you possibly can and more time

#

15137

figuring out what's going to go viral

#

15139

what are people angry about, what

#

15141

what kind of polarization

#

15143

angle can I exploit, is what these

#

15145

platforms are essentially doing, what kind of

#

15147

misinformation can I create that will go viral

#

15149

today, what can I react to, what is

#

15151

the laziest amount of, least amount of effort

#

15153

that I can do to get the most amount of views

#

15155

is essentially how, so

#

15157

I would actually say that

#

15159

if you really, you know

#

15161

sort of goes back to one of my favorite

#

15163

interviews on your is Ali Abdal, right

#

15165

the sense that

#

15167

you hone your craft and don't forget

#

15169

to stop checking likes, audience and all of that

#

15171

think about whether

#

15173

what you create

#

15175

five years from now

#

15177

somebody completely new who's never heard of you

#

15179

who's joining Instagram for the first time

#

15181

who's joining YouTube for the first time

#

15183

just comes across your page

#

15185

think, put yourself in that person's

#

15187

shoes and find out whether what you say is

#

15189

going to be relevant and you'll find

#

15191

that's actually not Ali Abdal, that's an advice I gave

#

15193

Shruti when she started her

#

15195

podcast where I said I don't

#

15197

think of what people will discover on episode one

#

15199

think of what they will have to

#

15201

binge on at episode 100

#

15203

and that whether what you're actually saying is

#

15205

transient

#

15207

and very temporary or is it

#

15209

really knowledge that can be useful

#

15211

years from now is generally a more

#

15213

fulfilling way to think about it, but again at the end of the day

#

15215

I don't want to judge people who just want to

#

15217

make a living and a quick buck, I mean everybody has their own

#

15219

financial goals and so on

#

15221

if you want to be an influencer

#

15223

the marketing is work

#

15225

for someone like me where I just want to

#

15227

do my content, the research is work

#

15229

and this conversation is work though it feels like a lot

#

15231

of fun, I can't call it work

#

15233

but all the marketing shit I should be doing

#

15235

chapter banao, iska ek minute ka reels banao

#

15237

yeh banao, wo banao

#

15239

I would actually ignore all of that nonsense

#

15241

because the problem is that you're just feeding the algorithm

#

15243

and that it will chew you and throw you

#

15245

out the moment the trends change

#

15247

people

#

15249

worry that they have to listen to

#

15251

everything the platform tells you, you have to do

#

15253

I think that's complete bullshit, you have to be

#

15255

original, the platform

#

15257

so interesting thing, once you reach

#

15259

a certain number of subscribers, Meta will

#

15261

assign an advisor to you

#

15263

and it's funny they'll keep telling you

#

15265

you need to post more regularly, why don't you post twice daily

#

15267

that's what they tell you

#

15269

you simply cannot fall for that

#

15271

it's completely unsustainable, you have no

#

15273

business sitting and trying to create content every day at all

#

15275

do it once or twice

#

15277

it's weird, there are

#

15279

some people who do animation

#

15281

it takes months to do that, they cannot

#

15283

possibly do it daily

#

15285

it's weird, because of the YouTube algorithm

#

15287

all animators have disappeared off YouTube

#

15289

they're like, boss, the algorithm

#

15291

only rewards people who post

#

15293

weekly and weekly twice

#

15295

it takes me a month to make this animation

#

15297

so in a sense that I think

#

15299

you cannot be listening to social

#

15301

in general I think don't listen to this

#

15303

working for work jnana at all

#

15305

people who sell you hacks about how to get followers

#

15307

how to go viral

#

15309

all of that stuff is nonsense, stuff goes viral

#

15311

out of sheer luck

#

15313

just being in the right place at the right time

#

15315

there are some things you can do

#

15317

to maximize your chance, but what actually goes viral

#

15319

there's no way I could have predicted

#

15321

that something that I recorded in a Sydney hotel room

#

15323

as an afterthought

#

15325

about that Cadbury video

#

15327

is the one that will get 7 million views

#

15329

and then obviously

#

15331

but eventually when I did make the video

#

15333

about why the Calcutta biryani

#

15335

having potato is actually a culinary good choice

#

15337

I knew in the back of my mind

#

15339

that this is a 250 million audience

#

15341

of West Bengal plus Bangladesh

#

15343

that's going to cheer for this

#

15345

so that you know

#

15347

if you manage to do it the right way

#

15349

it did do very well

#

15351

because it also ended up polarizing

#

15353

and all the Hyderabadis are now fighting

#

15355

with all the Bengalis in the comments

#

15357

and Instagram went like

#

15359

we love this show engagement

#

15361

so it's weird

#

15363

I would really say that

#

15365

you really can't predict this stuff

#

15367

I would really say

#

15369

and it's terrible for your mental health

#

15371

if you're just sitting and feeding

#

15373

if you have a constant push

#

15375

and none of this stuff will be

#

15377

none of this stuff will be relevant two years from now

#

15379

when I used to teach my podcasting

#

15381

course in the very first one that I did

#

15383

I do it once or twice a year

#

15385

someone asked me where is the hole in the market

#

15387

I said no, that's not how you think about it

#

15389

everybody is chasing the hole in the market

#

15391

everybody is catering to algorithms

#

15393

what makes you unique

#

15395

is what makes

#

15397

every one of the 8 billion people on this planet

#

15399

unique and that's you

#

15401

only you are you

#

15403

so if you're authentic to yourself

#

15405

it will work and from this comes that related imposter syndrome

#

15407

thing that what is so special about me

#

15409

I'm not an expert and etc

#

15411

and there my answer always is that

#

15413

it is not about being an expert

#

15415

we are in the age of intimate media

#

15417

if you are on any kind of journey

#

15419

intellectual journey, life journey, emotional journey

#

15421

many other people are on the same journey

#

15423

you relate the moment you are yourself

#

15425

and that relating is everything

#

15427

the best compliment I got for the show

#

15429

I keep saying this again and again because it's so fantastic

#

15431

is for my episode with Abhinandan Sekri

#

15433

someone wrote in and said

#

15435

I felt so much that I was sitting in a room

#

15437

talking to two friends on a sofa

#

15439

that at one point I interrupted you

#

15441

and that is what I fucking want

#

15443

it's an intimate medium

#

15445

be yourself, you don't need nothing

#

15447

you don't need to do voice training

#

15449

you don't need to be a personality, you don't need to be an expert

#

15451

and by the way for you know

#

15453

all those who are wondering

#

15455

is Naren Shanoi really here or is he interrupting remotely

#

15457

we are all together in team Naren Shanoi

#

15459

at Jabz Studio

#

15461

which brings me to my next question

#

15463

why are bass guitarists the best?

#

15465

oh man yes

#

15467

so I think they are the most

#

15469

underappreciated musicians

#

15471

in general

#

15475

the critical element of

#

15477

literally any band is the bass

#

15479

guitarist but although they will usually be the least

#

15481

known people

#

15483

some of the greatest bands even if you take something like a Deep Purple

#

15485

and so on, the bass guitarist is the guy

#

15487

who wrote the songs

#

15489

and the reason for that is that

#

15491

the vocalist is the diva

#

15493

the front and center is the human voice

#

15495

we have a bias towards the human voice

#

15497

we like hearing people's voices

#

15499

and in the rock music

#

15501

they are also the most spectacular

#

15503

visually the most spectacular

#

15505

and then the next is the lead guitarist

#

15507

the rock is all about that guitar

#

15511

so the basic idea of

#

15513

the lead singer is that he

#

15515

is telling you the words

#

15517

and then the guitarist

#

15519

is basically setting the melodic

#

15521

the structure of that song

#

15523

and the drummer

#

15525

is doing the percussion

#

15527

the bass guitarist

#

15529

is basically bridging the percussion

#

15531

and the melody and this is

#

15533

something unique that I regularly

#

15535

explained try to struggle to explain

#

15537

this to sometimes people who

#

15539

say things like Hindustani and Carnatic

#

15541

classical music are the greatest forms of music in the world

#

15543

and all the other stuff is trash

#

15545

for starters

#

15547

there is no harmony

#

15549

in Indian classical music

#

15551

it does amazing things with melody

#

15553

and harmony is its own universe

#

15555

you can appreciate that independently

#

15557

you don't have to trash that in order to say this is a great

#

15559

form of music

#

15561

and the beauty of harmony especially

#

15563

the reason I am just so obsessed with people like say

#

15565

Elayaraja is that

#

15567

he is able to take Indian classical

#

15569

folk melodies

#

15571

but then tie them to

#

15573

western style percussion

#

15575

with a harmonic structure that is

#

15577

realizable only through bass guitar

#

15579

so if you really ask the hardcore Elayaraja

#

15581

fans what they love about Elayaraja's music

#

15583

it will be the bass guitar

#

15585

the true fans of Elayaraja's music are not

#

15587

the ones who like SPB's voice

#

15589

that's like the most shallow appreciation

#

15591

then it's like I like the interludes

#

15593

that's again a deep yeah because he is very creative

#

15595

with his interludes but the hardcore fans

#

15597

are the ones he says is bass lines

#

15599

because a bass line

#

15601

is both percussive

#

15603

melodic and harmonic

#

15605

so a bass guitar is well and truly

#

15607

has to really

#

15609

it's harmonic because

#

15611

the bass guitar has to play a note

#

15613

at a lower octave that is

#

15615

in harmony with what the guitar is displaying

#

15617

he cannot just play any random thing

#

15619

right but he has to play it

#

15621

with a cadence and a syncopation

#

15623

that combines it along with

#

15625

the drum but he can't play just play

#

15627

along with the drum because then you won't hear it

#

15629

because the drum is loud so he has to play in between

#

15631

so he has to fill in between so that makes

#

15633

the percussion a very simple percussion

#

15635

think about Ringo Starr's

#

15637

ultra basic drums

#

15639

but Paul McCartney's

#

15641

bass lines in between is what

#

15643

makes that experience you take Paul McCartney's

#

15645

bass out of Beatles and Ringo Starr

#

15647

Ringo Starr will sound like a high school drummer

#

15649

but if you listen to Ringo Starr's

#

15651

drumming along with Paul McCartney's bass

#

15653

then you kind of realize oh

#

15655

this is what the Beatles were about because they were like

#

15657

insanely creative so a bass guitarist

#

15659

has to do a lot of things so in that

#

15661

sense a guitarist is just

#

15663

a showman right and a lead singer is again a

#

15665

showman a drummer again a different kind of showman

#

15667

but in a rock band the bass

#

15669

guitarist is literally the guy who really

#

15671

brings it all together if you don't have a good bass guitar

#

15673

right I mean you look at Led Zeppelin

#

15675

you look at all of these guys they'll all have

#

15677

underrated amazing bass guitarists

#

15679

John Paul Jones for the win and I'm just

#

15681

sinking in this room right now you know

#

15683

Ashok you're like the lead singer

#

15685

you're like the drummer Narayan

#

15687

I'm the bass guitarist

#

15689

the bass guitarist is

#

15691

out there recording our podcast

#

15693

the bass guitarist is actually Arvind Murli

#

15695

known as one job a brilliant

#

15697

musician composer of the famous

#

15699

CSK Visil Podu

#

15701

composer of that as well I mean multifaceted

#

15703

there is talent in the south who would I thunk

#

15707

there is talent in India

#

15709

that's only because Amits have come all the way

#

15711

in the 1980s my mother

#

15713

was a classical musician used to

#

15715

run something called the Chandigarh choir

#

15717

and she used to boast at that time that it's the only

#

15719

choir in the country that does harmonies

#

15721

and I was like what are you talking about and they did

#

15723

Indian music and all of that

#

15725

and today I kind of get a sense of that

#

15727

there's only one surviving video of the choir

#

15729

performing which she also sings I'll put that on YouTube

#

15731

and our bassist

#

15733

Gaurav Chintamani who is

#

15735

not our bassist my editor Gaurav Chintamani

#

15737

is a bassist of Advaita

#

15739

who's been on the show and he's a big fan of Ashok

#

15741

but for his food but I think

#

15743

he will now appreciate him even more

#

15745

for the glorification of the bass guitarist

#

15747

I wouldn't call it glorification

#

15749

for the rightful importance given to

#

15751

the bass guitar

#

15753

Narayan I want to ask you

#

15755

that tell me about

#

15757

your relationship

#

15759

with music because at one level

#

15761

you are a listener you have

#

15763

even been caught searching for nude pics of

#

15765

Malik Arjun Mansur which takes it to another level

#

15767

have you heard that story?

#

15769

yes I have

#

15771

but at the same time

#

15773

we are on a whatsapp group where we talk about

#

15775

music you are deeply knowledgeable you are always

#

15777

introducing us to just some

#

15779

most mind blowing mind bending things educating

#

15781

us on them and you sing you once

#

15783

you were driving to Nasik and you sang a raga

#

15785

for us while driving which was quite

#

15787

beautiful tell me about your relationship

#

15789

with music and what it means to you

#

15791

yeah so I grew up listening to Hindustani classical music

#

15793

and so a lot of my

#

15795

the formative years I grew

#

15797

so I was born in 1965 and I grew up

#

15799

effectively between

#

15801

75 and 80

#

15803

the only source of entertainment was

#

15805

the radio and there was a lot of

#

15807

there were these little

#

15809

music programs

#

15811

which would explain raga

#

15813

they would start off with a bollywood movie

#

15815

a bollywood song and then they would

#

15817

sort of pattern out the raga

#

15819

and then they would introduce styles and things like that

#

15821

at that age you are like a sponge

#

15823

you are absorbing everything and then

#

15825

you start

#

15827

sort of listening I was lucky enough to have

#

15829

intelligent parents who bought me a record

#

15831

player and I started

#

15833

listening to

#

15835

a lot of music and

#

15837

it caught my

#

15839

imagination

#

15841

to such an extent that I was

#

15843

partly there after I went for engineering

#

15845

and there

#

15847

for the first time I encountered

#

15849

rock music which frankly

#

15851

sounded just like cacophony for me it was

#

15853

I was too much

#

15855

into the

#

15857

and I was

#

15859

the world was not very friendly

#

15861

towards people who listened to

#

15863

it was for some reason

#

15865

considered very infradic so

#

15867

is it true that you used to bully Sathya Nadella

#

15869

who was your junior in college?

#

15871

Sathya Nadella and this is the truth

#

15873

I told him go work for Microsoft

#

15875

you will do very well and he did and she

#

15877

nicely done

#

15885

for the longest

#

15887

time it didn't affect me I used to

#

15889

sort of I used to tag along people used

#

15891

to go all my friends

#

15893

were into rock music required

#

15895

copious amounts of weed in

#

15897

order to experience rock

#

15899

so that was the first

#

15901

what's this music if you need to have

#

15903

industrial quantities of weed just to

#

15905

understand what it's all about that kind of thing

#

15907

it's only recently my son

#

15909

is really into a lot of

#

15911

western music jazz and all and he was

#

15913

one day I saw I keep going off into

#

15915

this ranch so I have

#

15917

I have ranch against Deep Purple

#

15919

Eagles, Eagles is my favorite

#

15921

thing apart from Hotel California

#

15923

they have no other song that kind of thing

#

15925

it's all very rooted in ignorance right

#

15927

so basically my little universe I'll go off

#

15929

on Deep Purple there's smoke on the water

#

15931

what else did they have kind of thing

#

15933

and one day I said something

#

15935

against Pink Floyd and that

#

15937

boy made his life mission

#

15939

to set the sort of

#

15941

record straight so he caught me by the

#

15943

scruff of my neck made me

#

15945

listen to really large

#

15947

quantities of Pink Floyd and then I

#

15949

I think I started

#

15951

it's incredible I mean whatever little

#

15953

I've listened to I still don't get the doors

#

15955

I think it's just the most rubbish

#

15957

overrated band but

#

15959

that leads to fights

#

15961

at home if I say that but

#

15963

yeah it's

#

15965

just now I'm

#

15967

sort of getting what it's all about

#

15969

I think in general it's sort of like the metaphor is

#

15971

beautiful classical

#

15973

Indian classical music

#

15975

is basically this

#

15977

single sinusoidal line

#

15979

going through time is how you experience

#

15981

you experience it one note at a time

#

15983

and in general I think

#

15985

harmonic music is basically

#

15987

where there's like it's like a sheet

#

15989

it's more like if you just say

#

15991

time this is more like space time if you will

#

15993

and you're experiencing

#

15995

many things at the same time

#

15997

it's just one extra dimension

#

15999

it's another extra dimension and

#

16001

because it's

#

16003

many dimensions

#

16005

the melody cannot be

#

16007

overtly complicated

#

16009

because then you cannot achieve the coordination

#

16011

with all of the others right it's a weird thing

#

16013

so it's like how I think the

#

16015

somehow there's a deeper metaphor here of how

#

16017

like how in India

#

16019

we value

#

16021

individuals over institutions

#

16023

we trust individuals no institutions

#

16025

we only trust individuals right

#

16027

neighbor there's godman there's no

#

16029

institution we trust and

#

16031

that sort of

#

16033

shows in the metaphor of music as well

#

16035

our Indian classical music as someone who

#

16037

grew up as a violinist mean that I had to play

#

16039

second fiddle to the

#

16041

diva who's like the lead singer

#

16043

lead singer gets all the attention

#

16045

violin is just supposed to sort of just accompany

#

16047

and play the same thing I can't like play harmony

#

16049

and do my own stuff and all that right

#

16051

whereas

#

16053

in a western classical orchestra

#

16055

you can be the greatest violinist or not

#

16057

but if you do not play the notes

#

16059

that have been written down

#

16061

then the whole thing sounds off

#

16063

so collaboration and you

#

16065

giving up so that collectively it sounds

#

16067

the same thing is implicit in the design

#

16069

and it's almost as a metaphor for generally

#

16071

I think there they trust institutions

#

16073

and collaboration a lot more than

#

16075

the greatness of individuals

#

16077

that's a very different way of looking at it

#

16079

so it's always

#

16081

as someone who grew up learning

#

16083

Carnatic classical I mean it's

#

16085

again especially being a violinist

#

16087

that you almost always have to deal with

#

16089

the random tantrums and the

#

16091

limitations of the

#

16093

now you kind of play every instrument

#

16095

though you did clarify that

#

16097

you are much more competent at the violin

#

16099

than any of them

#

16101

do you still think of yourself primarily as a violinist

#

16103

yes so primarily as a

#

16105

string instrument person

#

16107

so I am now in the sense that your mental model

#

16109

of how you think about the violin and cello

#

16111

are very similar except it's physically

#

16113

a different dimension so the muscle memory is

#

16115

different but structurally it's still

#

16117

a similar thing right

#

16119

a guitar forces you to think slightly

#

16121

differently because at this point you're actually

#

16123

playing multiple notes at the same time

#

16125

and a piano you're playing six notes at the same time

#

16127

and a guitar maybe three at the same time

#

16129

but of course you can play six depending on how you place your fingers

#

16131

so a piano and a guitar

#

16133

force you to

#

16135

it's a completely different

#

16137

muscle that you have to build and it's a

#

16139

muscle that you almost have to

#

16141

unlearn some of the original assumptions

#

16143

that you learnt only by learning classical

#

16145

you have to unlearn them

#

16147

and then think of it fundamentally this way

#

16149

because that is how

#

16151

like for example when you think

#

16153

in terms of guitar and piano

#

16155

you naturally immediately think

#

16157

of not just

#

16159

do whatever melody you want no no no

#

16161

your melody has to be subservient to the rest

#

16163

of the things so a raga

#

16165

you can just improvise do whatever you want and that

#

16167

improvisation is because it's linear

#

16169

it's one shot and it's one person you can

#

16171

absolutely appreciate that you can

#

16173

just go crazy with it right you can't do that

#

16175

so what makes jazz particularly

#

16177

amazing is that somehow

#

16179

they've created this art form

#

16181

that allows insane improvisational

#

16183

skills for each instrument

#

16185

despite having the harmonic

#

16187

structure which is therefore insane

#

16189

for me that is the most

#

16191

advanced musical art form not western

#

16193

classical music not Indian classical music

#

16195

not pop music jazz

#

16197

good jazz is just something else

#

16199

it's almost the same thing that my son says

#

16201

he dragged me this time to

#

16203

something called Mahindra blues festival

#

16205

and it was just

#

16207

a subset of jazz the blues

#

16209

but it was amazing nevertheless

#

16211

I have a question for you

#

16213

man is playing a string instrument

#

16215

this admiring woman who likes the instrument he's

#

16217

playing goes up to him and says what instrument are you playing

#

16219

he smiles and he tells her she

#

16221

slaps him why what did he say

#

16223

sitar

#

16225

cello

#

16227

cello

#

16229

nice

#

16231

cello

#

16233

so I would then wonder

#

16235

if different kinds of artists

#

16237

get drawn to different kinds of forms

#

16239

because the forms automatically force you in

#

16241

different directions like Indian classical

#

16243

would you know privilege the individual

#

16245

you know person who takes flights of fancy

#

16247

other forms will have really rigid structures

#

16249

western classical you're reading off a sheet

#

16251

jazz you can really improvise

#

16253

equally

#

16255

rock is about very tight

#

16257

collaboration

#

16259

jazz is like you need such

#

16261

an advanced level of

#

16263

inspiratory skill that

#

16265

collaboration is just taken for granted

#

16267

because of the way the song the standard is structured

#

16269

then you're just free to improvise

#

16271

at that point you need a very advanced level

#

16273

skill to become a jazz player in the

#

16275

first place what are you most drawn to

#

16277

I find myself it's very hard

#

16279

I listen to every single genre

#

16281

and I consciously force

#

16283

myself to listen to genres

#

16285

that in the past I might have

#

16287

found nah not for me

#

16289

I've started to learn to

#

16291

appreciate hip hop a lot more

#

16293

because the way a

#

16295

Kendrick Lamar is able

#

16297

to choose and pick words

#

16299

in the way he's able

#

16301

to tell that story and the metaphors and

#

16303

the other layers of meaning while it being

#

16305

percussive and poetic is

#

16307

just insane it's just a complete separate skill

#

16309

and so when people say silly

#

16311

things like you know that guy is just doing some

#

16313

they're just playing a sample and he's

#

16315

just rapping speaking on top of it why is

#

16317

that an art I said boss

#

16319

that background music is the least important

#

16321

part of the hip hop they use samples

#

16323

of course it takes tremendous creativity

#

16325

to construct a sample from 20 songs

#

16327

into something that is like catchy

#

16329

and all of that that's not the important part of that

#

16331

it's how you construct the verse

#

16333

right I think there's a fascinating YouTube video

#

16335

where I think Eminem

#

16337

basically says that one of the silly

#

16339

things people say is that there is no word that rhymes

#

16341

with orange and then he rattles off

#

16343

a rap this thing where he

#

16345

finds like 20 ways to rhyme with orange you say that

#

16347

you just have to be creative with how you pronounce

#

16349

and you can create rhymes in between words who says you

#

16351

can't and I'll tell you what you know

#

16353

I you know when I speak about sound and language

#

16355

I am always

#

16357

struck by how good

#

16359

singer songwriters are because they

#

16361

are really combining two different kinds of music

#

16363

and one is the music in the words

#

16365

because words have a music of their own and the

#

16367

other is whatever

#

16369

music music there is so to say

#

16371

and they do it so damn well

#

16373

you know the answer my friend is blowing in the wind

#

16375

one all the words are simple

#

16377

words that we use in everyday language

#

16379

it is not the response comrade is wafting in the breeze

#

16381

no it's simple and musical the

#

16383

answer my friend is blowing in the wind ending with a

#

16385

mute sound all the

#

16387

inflections and everything is just in the right

#

16389

place the soft sounds and the hard sounds

#

16391

and for rap you know

#

16393

rap gives you so much as

#

16395

a musical form gives

#

16397

you so much flexibility and scope to

#

16399

do so much like there is a video

#

16401

by this guy called Akala where he

#

16403

is talking about

#

16405

the power of rap and at one

#

16407

point he takes Shakespeare's sonnet 18

#

16409

and turns that into rap

#

16411

and it works and for my students

#

16413

it is the shall I compare the

#

16415

shall I compare the to a summer's day and

#

16417

for my students in one webinar I

#

16419

play them an actor I think Harriet Walter

#

16421

performing it I play them

#

16423

Dave Gilmer of Pink Floyd singing it

#

16425

and then I point them to Akala as well

#

16427

and it shows you and it's iambic

#

16429

pentameter it mimics rhythms and

#

16431

patterns of everyday speech and

#

16433

it tells you the beautiful musicality

#

16435

in language itself exactly

#

16437

exactly and I think you know I remember

#

16439

I think the first time I

#

16441

heard tamil hip hop

#

16443

it wasn't actually from India it was actually

#

16445

malaysian tamil wow right and

#

16447

there is a very very strong hip

#

16449

hop culture and community there

#

16451

and interestingly hip hop

#

16453

at the intersection of ilayaraja

#

16455

why because these are people

#

16457

for whom they are still frozen in the ilayaraja

#

16459

generation of music they haven't really moved on to

#

16461

raiman and other things yet and so it is like

#

16463

oh some insane they use they use

#

16465

samples from his music and it's just stunning

#

16467

quite stunning to listen to yeah

#

16469

fabulous so

#

16471

some sort of final questions

#

16473

as we are kind of

#

16475

getting on so Narin

#

16477

for me and my listeners

#

16479

recommend books films music that

#

16481

you really love and it means a lot to you but before

#

16483

I had a question what was the last time

#

16485

a piece of heart made you cry

#

16487

ah book film music whatever

#

16489

anything anything any of these so there

#

16491

is this ahir bhai rao by

#

16493

gangubai hangal

#

16495

it'll make me cry every time

#

16497

I'll share

#

16499

the link in the show note

#

16501

I've shared it on our group as well

#

16503

there are some so yeah

#

16505

I mean music is one of those things which

#

16507

appeals for different

#

16509

reasons like just like food right

#

16511

it's not it's not just the music

#

16513

it's also the memories associated

#

16515

with it what memories do you have associated with

#

16517

not so much memories as the entire

#

16519

story of gangubai struggle so

#

16521

long long story or the short

#

16523

story short question is this she came

#

16525

from a you know

#

16527

kalawant family which is

#

16529

like code for you know

#

16531

courtesan and

#

16533

she was it was a respectable family

#

16535

she I think her mother from

#

16537

that community father wasn't he was

#

16539

a farmer and she

#

16541

mother was actually

#

16543

trained in karnataka classical

#

16545

music but she wanted her daughter

#

16547

it was probably

#

16549

also gangubai probably liked it more

#

16551

and it was commercially

#

16553

viable she wanted her to learn

#

16555

hindustani classical music so this

#

16557

girl learns it and

#

16559

she gets a good guru sawai gandharva

#

16561

I think or abdulkarim khan

#

16563

sawai gandharva she she

#

16565

gets good guru she learns

#

16567

well she's a hardworking singer

#

16569

then she falls in love with this

#

16571

man upper caste man who

#

16573

marries her

#

16575

and they have a daughter and

#

16577

unfortunately because she's from

#

16579

a lower caste that man's

#

16581

family disowns him but he is

#

16583

you know he doesn't mind he's

#

16585

sort of living with this with gangubai

#

16587

uncle he dies

#

16589

and then all of a sudden this

#

16591

young lady with a daughter

#

16593

has nowhere to go nothing to do but she

#

16595

does have her art so she

#

16597

starts you know she gets invitations

#

16599

to concerts to sings and somehow

#

16601

makes ends meet

#

16603

then she has a

#

16605

tonsillitis

#

16607

really bad case of tonsillitis so they

#

16609

say that you need to have a tonsillectomy

#

16611

and that operation

#

16613

is botched somehow

#

16615

and when she

#

16617

recovers she finds that her voice

#

16619

has become very manly

#

16621

it was gruff and manly

#

16623

so even that is gone so the literally

#

16625

the only thing she has

#

16627

is her voice and even that is gone

#

16629

and she

#

16631

by dint of hard work

#

16633

practices so much

#

16635

cultures that voice

#

16637

continues to be manly

#

16639

but she becomes a really good

#

16641

singer she's so moving when

#

16643

she sings that she becomes

#

16645

famous once again

#

16647

and that is

#

16649

the background of gangubai

#

16651

uncle

#

16653

it's you know just

#

16655

bravery just

#

16657

indefatigable just

#

16659

fighter spirit fantastic

#

16661

I'm reminded of the story of

#

16663

Hemavati Sen which I've you know

#

16665

related a number of times on the show and that

#

16667

moves me greatly I learnt it from Kavita Rao's

#

16669

book Lady Doctors and she

#

16671

was born I think in Barisal or some

#

16673

village in what is today East Bengal

#

16675

Bangladesh and

#

16677

in the 1850s

#

16679

when she was 10 years old she was married

#

16681

off to a man who was over 40

#

16683

during the day she would play with his little children

#

16685

because they were the same age at night

#

16687

she would forget what happened but she would wake up naked

#

16689

and bleeding so it's kinda obvious

#

16691

when she is 12 her

#

16693

husband dies her parents

#

16695

die her in laws die

#

16697

she's left with absolutely nothing the nobody

#

16699

in the village wants anything to do with her she has no

#

16701

money she has nothing she's 12 you'd

#

16703

think her life is over but she somehow

#

16705

makes her way to Benaras and becomes a fully

#

16707

qualified doctor in the 19th

#

16709

century in India which is

#

16711

like absolutely fucking remarkable it's unimaginable

#

16713

and then through her

#

16715

life she writes a diary

#

16717

and when she dies eventually and she dies

#

16719

as a prominent person she's head of

#

16721

guilds and all of that she's transformed

#

16723

the ecosystem and lives of other women

#

16725

and when she dies her diaries

#

16727

are locked in her trunk for 80 years

#

16729

and they're opened sometime near the end

#

16731

of the 20th century and published as her memoirs

#

16733

which are you know the thing

#

16735

and I'm just thinking that

#

16737

you know the three of us we've lived like fucking

#

16739

easy lives we've never had to

#

16741

do anything our character has never been tested

#

16743

and I feel that at least

#

16745

in my case if my character was tested in

#

16747

that way there is no way

#

16749

there is absolutely no way

#

16751

I mean I don't even know what question I'm

#

16753

getting at but your story about Gangubai

#

16755

like if I was in Gangubai's

#

16757

place I would just sink into a spiral

#

16759

of self pity

#

16761

self pity and just end it all right

#

16763

the fifth temple is like

#

16765

basically

#

16767

humanity's ability to

#

16769

to kind of appreciate

#

16771

the pain of

#

16773

experiences like this right

#

16775

will ultimately make it a better

#

16777

place right I'm reminded of

#

16779

the one that strangely enough it

#

16781

is not the when I originally read about

#

16783

the life story of this particular blues

#

16785

musician right I think I think

#

16787

it's blind Willie Johnson I think

#

16789

1920s or 30s

#

16791

again at a time when black musicians

#

16793

I mean couldn't even like record in the mainstream

#

16795

studios and traveling

#

16797

musicians and so on

#

16799

they wouldn't be even played in the regular radios

#

16801

the other white musicians would copy their

#

16803

music and play the same thing and sort of make

#

16805

money and so on

#

16807

this so I there was

#

16809

a there's a song called dark

#

16811

was the night right it's just

#

16813

it's just incredible you can listen to it on YouTube

#

16815

it's like scratchy like 1920s 30s

#

16817

right and it's just one guy

#

16819

playing a slight blue acoustic blues guitar

#

16821

and just singing that's it just one

#

16823

voice and him playing the guitar

#

16825

blind Willie Johnson right

#

16827

and

#

16829

and you hear it and

#

16831

after a couple of times you sort of

#

16833

you start to see how beautifully it is

#

16835

done that you see that pain and so on right

#

16837

then when you read his life story

#

16839

is that he was

#

16841

beaten by his father

#

16843

and he threw some light in his

#

16845

face and that's what made him blind so his own father

#

16847

blinded him right and then he died

#

16849

penniless and all that right and he made

#

16851

this bit of music

#

16853

even then what ultimately

#

16855

really moved me was not even that

#

16857

it is in Aaron

#

16859

Sorkin's West Wing

#

16861

they are basically discussing

#

16863

how to how to convince

#

16865

the public and the senators and everyone else the public

#

16867

to to to fund NASA

#

16869

more right and this

#

16871

is around the time when the Voyager

#

16873

was leaving the solar system right

#

16875

at that point of time and

#

16877

like billions of miles away right

#

16879

and one of the things the Voyager was carrying

#

16881

was music from

#

16883

every part of the world

#

16885

I forget which Hindustani classical piece

#

16887

yes correct so it had

#

16889

representative music and one of the

#

16891

one of the songs was Dark Was the Night by

#

16893

Blind Willie Johnson right

#

16895

and Aaron Sorkin's storytelling

#

16897

right where he says that

#

16899

that this is this life story

#

16901

this boy was beaten he became blind

#

16903

he became this insanely brilliant

#

16905

musician and so on and he died

#

16907

penniless right from tuberculosis or some

#

16909

such thing homeless right

#

16911

and so on and today

#

16913

his music just left the solar system

#

16915

that's how you sell that

#

16917

so it's like oh every time you listen to that dialogue you're like oh

#

16919

man that's when it hits you that oh man right

#

16921

you've created something that's timeless

#

16923

right it's now in out there in space

#

16925

it's like cross the solar system

#

16927

billions of years from now maybe it

#

16929

reaches somewhere it's it's it's a golden

#

16931

record so it's not going to really go anywhere

#

16933

and it's the

#

16935

that audio technology

#

16937

is well and truly the only universal medium

#

16939

because it's purely mechanical

#

16941

completely analog it's completely analog

#

16943

so anybody smart enough any engineer

#

16945

can figure out how to figure out

#

16947

and reverse engineer and play that

#

16949

music on it so I think it's quite remarkable

#

16951

but do they have IITs in outer space

#

16953

no but you know this

#

16955

is and I'm just thinking the thing

#

16957

about both of these works and I'm sure

#

16959

they're going to move me as well now that I know

#

16961

the stories the thing about both of them is

#

16963

context and this is something

#

16965

AI can't do right

#

16967

ultimately we are like you know

#

16969

you were chatting earlier about

#

16971

AI that artists plus

#

16973

machine will create better art than artists

#

16975

alone use to etc etc there was

#

16977

a myth about 20 years ago

#

16979

22 years ago when

#

16981

computers in chess were just becoming

#

16983

dominant that player plus

#

16985

computer is better than computer on its

#

16987

own or player on its own and we

#

16989

actually know that that is that was absolute

#

16991

nonsense that the computers were

#

16993

kind of far better

#

16995

but what happened was two things happened one

#

16997

is that computers becoming

#

16999

better than humans did not destroy chess

#

17001

it took it in the opposite direction

#

17003

because in fact it made players more

#

17005

individualistic because earlier

#

17007

people would follow the computational

#

17009

logic taught to them by the

#

17011

Soviet chess school that you know these

#

17013

are the heuristics you use and computers

#

17015

gave concrete exceptions to

#

17017

those generalizable principles

#

17019

and allowed players to go in different

#

17021

directions and that was the first

#

17023

wave stockfish etc and when alpha zero

#

17025

came about it showed you that

#

17027

those heuristics were also wrong and it fine tuned

#

17029

them and it helped you do things like

#

17031

play down the flanks you know the A and the

#

17033

H files which even Magnus Carlsen

#

17035

learned from alpha zero without knowing

#

17037

why without exactly

#

17039

being able to say why and

#

17041

today you know the strongest computers

#

17043

are so far ahead of the strongest humans I mean

#

17045

it seems silly to even say it

#

17047

but we still tune into what chess

#

17049

and there is a chess boom going on

#

17051

so I think what is what

#

17053

nothing can take away

#

17055

is that human drama and that drama comes

#

17057

from our frailties and our flaws

#

17059

and in the case of so many

#

17061

of these people their character

#

17063

yeah exactly right I mean I think we

#

17065

we've always we've always under

#

17067

valued context and that actually

#

17069

probably the central thing to art is

#

17071

that it's the story it's the struggle

#

17073

it's the artist it's all that you can't

#

17075

take them away from but then there's another danger

#

17077

that that context can be

#

17079

manufactured that influencers

#

17081

can build back stories around themselves

#

17083

I was going to invite a prominent lawyer

#

17085

on the show who's you know she's

#

17087

been a part of big cases till I

#

17089

found out she's she has a PR firm

#

17091

and I straight away said fuck it no

#

17093

you know not not gonna do that

#

17095

but so you don't even

#

17097

know what context is correct or the person really

#

17099

exists so what are we going to do yeah

#

17101

no but in a sense I don't

#

17103

it almost seems like it's a deeply

#

17105

human dilemma to

#

17107

that end that

#

17109

some of the most beautiful

#

17111

things about art and all of that

#

17113

is probably built from the same raw

#

17115

material that makes the worst

#

17117

the manipulative all the rest

#

17119

of that I think it's sort of I think the good

#

17121

comes with the bad to be honest so it's I don't

#

17123

know it's very hard a lot of the art which

#

17125

you mentioned earlier one when your story of

#

17127

the five temples is the human

#

17129

ability to empathize

#

17131

and that's what somehow so

#

17133

Gangubai Hangal zero connect with either

#

17135

of you but the story touches because

#

17137

it touches on a very human level

#

17139

you don't even need to know Hindustani

#

17141

classical music or nothing or

#

17143

blind Billy Johnson

#

17145

Billy Johnson yeah so

#

17147

is that human experience

#

17149

is something that

#

17151

will probably be the last bastion to fall

#

17153

to yeah although I mean to be

#

17155

to be absolutely bluntly honest

#

17157

I won't put it past

#

17159

a chat bot

#

17161

to randomly arrive at

#

17163

something that ends up moving you yeah

#

17165

very hard to predict right

#

17167

it might just move you it may not

#

17169

move someone else but it might move you

#

17171

and I think where people should

#

17173

not underestimate AI is that

#

17175

it has all the resources to

#

17177

do this to every individual

#

17179

I mean you can it can run any number

#

17181

of simulations possible to find out what's

#

17183

your weak point and that I think is where

#

17185

we need to be I don't know wary

#

17187

but I honestly don't know what we can do

#

17189

about it but yeah yeah definitely not

#

17191

because it's seen in the unseen definitely

#

17193

not state control yeah

#

17195

yeah and one thing that always moves me

#

17197

even though I don't know a back story is Lucinda

#

17199

Williams you know I heard her album

#

17201

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in the late 90s

#

17203

Blown Away looked at her earlier stuff and she

#

17205

wrote a song once called Sweet Old World

#

17207

because one of her friends I think killed herself

#

17209

and it was like you know this

#

17211

and it's a song that would move me regardless

#

17213

of context so that is also exactly

#

17215

possible that sometimes just words and

#

17217

I can totally see AI

#

17219

that is such a good definition of art

#

17221

when it can move you

#

17223

without you knowing context

#

17225

it has distilled things

#

17227

into itself that

#

17229

are beyond the pale of

#

17231

you know emotion, word, expression

#

17233

I'll tell you a very

#

17235

great example of that

#

17237

many years back somebody in

#

17239

the family had sort of

#

17241

some pregnancy complications and lost

#

17243

a baby right but had to carry it to term

#

17245

but then the baby was had

#

17247

to be born and then died soon after

#

17249

they had to bury it's a painful

#

17251

exercise right and

#

17253

it was around the time and that person

#

17255

strangely enough

#

17257

found solace in a song

#

17259

by Ace of Base Call All That She Wants

#

17261

Is Another Baby

#

17263

Context of that song had really

#

17265

nothing to do with actually pregnancy or anything

#

17267

but in some sense that's

#

17269

when you literally interpret it

#

17271

All That She Wants Is Another Baby is exactly what you want

#

17273

so sometimes it's very hard to

#

17275

you know these kinds of things happen

#

17277

and you're like oh

#

17279

makes sense in a weird way but yeah

#

17281

that's how it is, we're all weird like that

#

17283

again back to different chemicals hitting different brains

#

17285

in different ways over a song

#

17287

and what a cheesy song

#

17289

and you just gave it a dimension

#

17291

exactly, anyone who hears a song

#

17293

it's like one of those cheesy

#

17295

EDM techno type of songs

#

17297

nothing serious etc

#

17299

but then of course

#

17301

I think there's an innate human ability

#

17303

to somehow find profoundest

#

17305

of meanings

#

17307

what else has moved you guys like fuck it, this time we're not going to recommend

#

17309

things that we like or we enjoy

#

17311

I just want to know what moved you guys

#

17313

what else has moved you

#

17315

the last time I

#

17317

like it just

#

17319

I just wept

#

17321

we leave the factory

#

17323

and we are just crossing

#

17325

it's a crowded thing

#

17327

homeless types

#

17329

living there under the bridge

#

17331

and

#

17333

there is water

#

17335

and very evidently

#

17337

this is what my brain is processing

#

17339

that water comes for a

#

17341

very short time

#

17343

after a very long

#

17345

while so excitedly

#

17347

a mother is heading towards

#

17349

her to fill up whatever she can

#

17351

she has like one or two

#

17353

utensils and

#

17355

she has several little children

#

17357

and one kid

#

17359

maybe six, five or six

#

17361

goes, he has

#

17363

three little

#

17365

things, matkas, okay

#

17367

or two things which is filled up with water

#

17369

he's carrying it in his hand

#

17371

and there's a third one

#

17373

and he doesn't know how to carry it so he puts it in his mouth

#

17375

and he crosses

#

17377

the road

#

17379

that shite I tell you, it just cracked me up

#

17381

it just broke me up

#

17383

it was

#

17385

I was like, I didn't know how to parse it

#

17387

the whole

#

17389

some of it

#

17391

just an image

#

17393

and then moves right, the signal

#

17395

opens, we are gone

#

17397

I'm not going to see that kid again probably

#

17399

you know on a

#

17401

slightly lighter note

#

17403

I was just doing some

#

17405

Lego

#

17407

architecture with my son

#

17409

it was New York City

#

17411

and then so it involved

#

17413

the One World Trade Center

#

17415

and so on

#

17417

and then he basically just said

#

17419

where is the Statue of Liberty that seems to be

#

17421

missing in this thing

#

17423

and then he

#

17425

interestingly enough he just said

#

17427

Statue of Liberty, you know that green statue

#

17429

she's holding an ice cream in her hand

#

17431

and

#

17433

once he said that

#

17435

I've now never been able to go back to

#

17437

thinking of that thing as anything other than ice cream

#

17439

now I trust you

#

17441

anyone listening to this and you guys

#

17443

next time you see the Statue of Liberty

#

17445

you're going to picture Lady Liberty holding ice cream

#

17447

you cannot unsee the ice cream

#

17449

you cannot unsee the ice cream now

#

17451

I mean in that sense

#

17453

it's also a moment where you realize that

#

17455

kids then essentially are able to be

#

17457

well and truly creative without any filters

#

17459

but there would have been another

#

17461

situation where maybe somebody would have said

#

17463

no that's wrong, that's actually a flame, that's a torch

#

17465

and I was like

#

17467

correct, I think the ice cream is absolutely

#

17469

perfect

#

17471

and it wouldn't have been a correction

#

17473

it's not an improvement, I think ice cream

#

17475

is better than the torch

#

17477

and you know what

#

17479

just as that Kashi Nath Singh phrase goes

#

17481

I would say

#

17483

that

#

17485

I've fought a lot for Flame of Liberty

#

17487

ice cream is fine

#

17489

but keto ice cream

#

17491

sugar is poison

#

17493

guys you know I would have wanted to

#

17495

go on for longer, one Naren and I have a flight to catch

#

17497

two, Ashok has told us

#

17499

you know the remarkable bit of news

#

17501

that he keeps coming to Bombay and we will do

#

17503

a part two to this three way episode at some point

#

17505

in time, so I don't feel so

#

17507

guilty about letting my listeners down with an

#

17509

episode that is merely five hours long

#

17511

forgive me for the miniature

#

17513

Ashok, Naren, thanks so much

#

17515

lovely, absolute pleasure

#

17517

it was such a joy

#

17525

Thanks for watching

#

17555

Thank you

#

17585

Thank you

#

17615

Tavat Pravudatvam Asmana Karshate

#

17622

Shanei Shanei Jar Jar Jeevitam Pratiputale

#

17628

Tatrinam Haritataram

#

17634

Tatteja Prakashataram

#

17641

Mitraihi Avratah

#

17647

Rathrika Adgutah

#

17657

Atitam Pashyamah Tatapigantum Na Shatnumah

#

17663

Ahoshai Shavam Atisundaram Chavishuddham

#

17670

Agre Vrajama Parantu Pashchad Swapanto Vrajama

#

17677

Cheto Na Pashchad Ghamane Prerayati

#

17684

Nisham Khyamananam Yadiyatema

#

17691

Nishchayena Shikharam Prapsyamaha

#

17700

Rishikesh

#

17705

Rishikesh

#

17710

Rishikesh

#

17715

Rishikesh

#

17720

Rishikesh

#

17725

Rishikesh

#

17730

Rishikesh

#

17735

Rishikesh

#

17740

Rishikesh

#

17745

Rishikesh

#

17750

Rishikesh

#

17755

Rishikesh

#

17760

Rishikesh

#

17765

Rishikesh

#

17770

Rishikesh

#

17775

Rishikesh

#

17780

Rishikesh

#

17785

Rishikesh

#

17790

Rishikesh

#

17795

Rishikesh

#

17800

Rishikesh

#

17805

Rishikesh

#

17810

Rishikesh

#

17815

Rishikesh

#

17820

Rishikesh

#

17825

Rishikesh

#

17830

Rishikesh

#

17835

Rishikesh

#

17840

Rishikesh

#

17845

Rishikesh

#

17850

Rishikesh

#

17855

Rishikesh

#

17860

Rishikesh

#

17865

Rishikesh

#

17870

Rishikesh

#

17875

Rishikesh

#

17880

Rishikesh

#

17885

Rishikesh

#

17890

Rishikesh

#

17895

Rishikesh

#

17900

Rishikesh

#

17905

Rishikesh

#

17910

Rishikesh

#

17915

Rishikesh

#

17920

Rishikesh

#

17925

Rishikesh

#

17930

Rishikesh

#

17935

Rishikesh

#

17945

Rishikesh

#

17950

Rishikesh

Ep 343： We Are All Amits From Africa | The Seen and the Unseen