are something you absorb yeah science is something like this could be a sign a flash what does that mean like from an archaeological perspective uh it means that there's a message there's a there's a message that the ancients are trying to tell you no but is it is it like symbols etched on walls it could be the language that they're trying to say you know you couldn't have books on stone walls you know so as much as even whether it's hymns or whether it's mantras you don't get oh i am a boy i am 16 years old i am this is not what you write what you know what you would write is basically something which you want the people of beyond to know what is legacy what is history what is power what is you remembering you what is you so if it is a if it is you like let's say if someone is famous it means that the person is known but for how much time what if a person wanted to be famous beyond time like 210 carmen maybe


be famous beyond time like 210 carmen maybe or you know ramses or anyone the high priest for that matter what if the high priest wanted to send you a message that look we face this be careful you know what so there are different signs which are available but when you say science what do you practically mean in like the real world what would count as a sign what would count as a symbol i'm assuming that a symbol is etched on like the walls of a pyramid for example yes what would be an example of a sign a sign could be um you know something which leads which could be very flat which could be very fractional in the sense like it could be something as you enter in you know and a puff of smoke comes out what that's a part of it could be sending a message yeah it could be sending a message now this puff of smoke could be when they had sealed it they put in something there which was supposed to repel people you know it could be just


to repel people you know it could be just a fragrance and you are repel which has stayed alive for thousands yes because it's sealed when you talk about the woolly mammoth the only reasons why they stay is because they were sealed they were cut away from time time has been like you know severed if you could call it that you know and on your archaeological adventures you've come across signs we've had we have had signs wherein like which would say that you know do not venture ahead where was this uh well we've had this in one of the uh you know we we did this in africa in nigeria to be very specific cameroon nigeria border we have we also had something which is called as the mountain of spirits in cameroon you know so when we were doing sites there we have had like certain certain things which would say you know we shouldn't be doing it like there are stories to to give you an idea there are stories about the mountain of spirits that


there are stories about the mountain of spirits that would count as a sign yes because it's it's supposed to yes carried its way into human culture beyond it it's just like a red light gotcha yeah it's not something which will dwell over like you don't dwell on the traffic light like a parking symbol would be something oh you cannot pack it it doesn't say you cannot park here it says no parking just pee slash you know it's it's like the equivalent of the indian way of saying uh on ekadashi you should fast that could be a sign which is carried away into you right so the symbol could be something more like the om or could be something more like the swastika which has significance which people don't understand but it has a lot to give the question is as a seeker are you ready for it and are you going to do it sign could be on your face you know like you have to do it like your red yellow so it could be a oral story which


red yellow so it could be a oral story which is uh like which is supposed to keep you at bay maybe there are so many messages there so many messages so it would be like each verse i mean has been carefully etched and put in place so it has multiple messages even in the placement of things you know whether it i mean the way you say it the words you use to say it there are so many things which are there so i would say like it is more than a simple yeah maybe maybe signs and symbols are basically encapsulated information that serve different purposes yeah that serve different purposes that the past wanted the future to know the past people wanted their yes descendants to know right um in terms of symbols i'm sure there's like a wide variety with different messages would you say that the overarching theme of most symbols that you find from ancient cultures are related to sustainability being one with nature because that's kind of a gist of what i've got from this conversation absolutely is it different things uh


got from this conversation absolutely is it different things uh most or more of it is around human life it also talks about flora and fauna okay like birds just an example birds there are certain birds which are the phoenix going there now yeah phoenix is a bird which is associated with death and rebirth it's like coming back you know you a person dies and comes back with renewed vigor to do things which would have never been possible with the old knife so it's something which is a source of inspiration so when you see a auto team like that you remember that this is a this is a story or this is a spirit which our ancients are saying through this uh you know symbol that you cannot give up you have to keep going like it's a motivational video which they packed into time yes true because they used to never have like a person who would say this what if you're uh now just to take this uh step ahead what if your podcast were to be like you know made into a


podcast were to be like you know made into a a one image video and you have to deliver it like a time capsule like you know you leave it and later people come in and say oh wow these thoughts you know were so vibrant and are so very essential even today like yeah it's it's probably why this element of shiva has been present across so many cultures you must have been some great human being way back maybe three lakh years ago absolutely who did some great stuff went beyond human life that's why you find elements of it from in the indus valley in egypt in africa absolutely more on that in the next episode though yes there's something very interesting yeah which i would love to share but probably yeah we will hold back for this one we'll start the next episode with it because this one's more from a world history kind of perspective like we've got an international audience now right um loving this whole science and symbols angle you've like kind of opened up a new topic for


you've like kind of opened up a new topic for me to dive into and i'm not educated enough to ask you the right questions about it oh you've done great in fact and there's also another thing which before we wrap up also the part of you know the kinds of science you asked about that and that lingers i'm just holding myself back because it is a whole new book also sayings sayings sayings like you know mohammed like rome was not built in a day like you know it needs uh it needs more than a village to raise a child one uh tree is not a forest so these are you know packed things which are just given a bang and you think tweets of the past that's amazing like we have to address this whole psychedelic angle uh that's one aspect i mean we'll get to that eventually but you brought up the felix sir this is another hot topic yes i've been reading a lot about are you ready for this yes please dragons so dragons are present across


this yes please dragons so dragons are present across every single culture and i actually got into a few podcasts about dragons what i figured is what were dragons they were reptiles which could fly they used to be a dinosaur called the pterodactyl which was exactly that it was a reptile which could fly right they also say that modern day birds have evolved from dinosaurs yes uh because if you study the trajectory of megafauna which is the study of ancient animals they were huge before and over time those huge animals died out possibly more efficient yeah they become more efficient by being smaller yes uh so when you're smaller you need lesser food you can move fast you can save yourself more easily absolutely they also i believe it's not a theory i believe it's proven now that now they've come to realize that the ancient t-rex which is the villain in jurassic park actually had feathers it looks very much so it's not proven i uh we've not concluded i'm not


proven i uh we've not concluded i'm not sure we have conclusive evidence okay i'm not sure like i've seen these images of like a t-rex with feathers etc but i know that the raptor definitely has like raptor raptor which was there if you remember that scene when like it is pursuing the child and it goes back and they are in the fridge if i'm not wrong like the raptor is on the kitchen shelf and it tries to move around and see so that definitely had feathers or you know that definitely had it's a it also has a cousin but yeah more or less they had or they had more elements than what was shown in jurassic park yes dx i'm not sure really gotcha yeah but there were dinosaurs with feathers yes um now maybe they evolved and survived as birds right possibly when those asteroids hit only the pterodactyls and the flying dinosaurs could have survived maybe that could have happened yeah it's just a possibility yes i believe


yeah it's just a possibility yes i believe the purpose of feathers is to capture like kind of make your body more airy and like help you with flight if i'm not mistaken multiple things possibly again one is uh camouflage camouflage okay second is also probably uh the wings also give you uh you know as you readily said if it's depending on the season or where it is from it could be a wool and blanket according well you know across you third is also aviation the design is absolutely like helpful when you flap hold the air so here's what i have found fascinating about this whole angle if you eat chicken you know you'll chew say a like piece i'm vegetarian now but i've eaten a lot of chicken and partridge and all that in my life you chew the leg piece finally you reach the bone which is also chewable because the bones of birds are hollow and hollow bones deteriorate a lot over time so even if there have been dragons in the past


so even if there have been dragons in the past it's very likely that for the sake of flight they had hollow bones because i think that's what they figured about pterodactyls which were the flying dinosaurs that they all had hollow bones which are in very bad condition now of course they died out they went extinct yes but i think most birds have hollow bones including ostriches and emos yes they're not meant to survive over the course of time why do so many cultures talk about dragons all over the world could they have actually been there in different forms these flying reptiles because we also know and zoologist acknowledges that 99 of all animals that the earth is ever known have now gone extinct what we know about all the animals that exist around with us only one percent of all the animals that have ever existed the lions the tigers bears cheetahs emus ostriches you name it piranhas it's a very small fraction of what has existed in the past i


small fraction of what has existed in the past i don't think it's a coincidence that so many cultures all over the world from european to african to chinese to the americas there has to have been some truth about dragons again our folklores you know whether it's from china whether it's from uh british you know the british folklores that we have whether even in africa even indian uh you know we would see some temples having you know a dragon like you know representation again it's open to interpretation you know but more or less they have a similar kind of build they emit or you know breathe out fire and you know so this fire could be anything it could be like you know just warm breath it could be like you know the exhaust you know hot air going out it could be so many things but even looking at it i'm trying to look at it scientifically uh uh it's it is again a possibility like but you uh to support such a big body you would also need


to support such a big body you would also need huge uh wingspan like as in huge feathers everything would be huge like it so it would appear to be a very huge uh animal there are even today like there are birds which are huge and when we look at it like we are terrified so for imagine a human being who's like 1 000 1 500 years back looks like a i mean looks at a bird like that that big of course imagination is also you know it plays and you you try to magnify what's in your mind so giving it that fury monstrous or even it could be a very soft bird doing its chores you know it could be that the most important thing is uh it's also associated with the the people who are past it's also associated with people even uh dragons like uh there are different kinds of dragons also that's also another thing there is there are varieties of dragons so that's also very interesting because it gives you uh it is not just one specie you


you uh it is not just one specie you know so or species like of dragons so what i'm trying to draw it is it's uh it's a possibility that it could be a giant bunch of birds wisdom is also another thing which is now uh we talked about uh sim symbols and you know science uh the tortoise you know all these are elements like the dragon you know dragon is also associated with wisdom you know ancient wisdom because it the life span now for a person or for a folklore or for a tradition or for a culture to have that at the centerpiece and to associate it with wisdom or knowledge or deep depth you know it there needs to be some element to it you know it couldn't be or it cannot be or maybe it's it's more than fiction i feel like so there could be a possibility that you know this also brings us to again a very important juncture did the ancients know how to fuse beings together what yes i mean what stops i mean uh


together what yes i mean what stops i mean uh there are scientists there are researchers who are fusing you know elements of like you could borrow the glowing of the frog to you know borrow the glowing of the firefly to the frog the scene of the frog any any organism on this planet is made up of that same unicellular organism which is an animal cell the animal cell contains a nucleus which contains a dna strand so you can pull out a piece of the genetics of mix and match yes yeah mix and match so you're saying that they knew genetic engineering i don't know but is it a possibility because we have like so many instances we discussed this earlier in like the head of another animal it could be purely symbolic then i want to say oh i want the wisdom of the elephant to to you know to the to the richness of uh you know the different tools to also being a defender and an offender when it comes to need you know it could be symbolic


it comes to need you know it could be symbolic purely symbolic or it could be like a totem to inspire a group of people to say look get up our job here is not done we need to do more are there are there a lot of hidden spots all over the planet which contain treasures even today yes they do yes they do so this is also like something which uh we've just scraped the the top so what you're saying is there's a lot of hidden treasure out there yes be a treasure also means that a treasure is also different for different people pleasure in terms of knowledge uh like to learn that's also treasure a treasure trove could also be like material wealth i'm talking about material well because that's what the audience is interested we're interested in the knowledge aspect of it but are there other places on this globe which contain like hoards of gold like billions of dollars of gold there's a possibility there's a possibility of you know places which have gone underground which


of you know places which have gone underground which are you know still being scraped there are many sites which come up during construction road work you know many things come up like that even in india there are so many places like wow uh dinosaur eggs which came out of the south of india so i mean we never knew like we had some history with dinosaurs here so we've had some mystery there so things keep propping up uh even idols which keep coming out here and there again like when we're talking about signs and symbols are any of them maps for treasure like treasure maps it could also be have you come across any like this i wouldn't know like at least the the ones which i see it's a lot about what they have done or what they were doing or what is their history or what is their voice but a treasure map maybe we have not looked at it from that perspective what do you think was the perspective of the ancients to hold treasure and keep it like


the ancients to hold treasure and keep it like for example even all these pharaohs tombs uh i believe that tutankhamun is the most mainstream that's where they found uh a lot of gold and artifacts which were worth a lot of money what happened to all that gold and artifacts it's still with yeah of course uh the egyptian government um his name so he is i mean he has been categorically like uh he's been spearheading the whole movement and you know preserving them of course we have had our own follies of the egyptian uh different things have happened over the course of time but most important is that uh they have had fire they have a house now where they can be you know kept stored yes they have been documented yeah so how much money is that house worth collecting billions of dollars yes i mean why go so far even our temples here like we had one in kerala which are like loaded you know which has so much of well material wealth when you


which has so much of well material wealth when you talk about it so much of gold which i mean if you have to calculate that's something the gold is lying inside the temple yes even today yes and there's a case which is going on i mean i'm sure like uh you know to open the third there are different rooms the third room is uh i'm not sure whether it's opened or it's yet to be opened so i mean where that one is so the government and the people who have been you know protecting or overseeing let me see let me not use the word protecting overseeing the uh the temple and the temple activities like so the thing still is we're still looking at how we can do it the correct way because even there it's said that the third door is nev is never to be opened a sign a sign it could be a sign like so what i'm also trying to say is material wealth uh yes you asked about the holding like how they believed that they had power like things the


how they believed that they had power like things the kings had material wealth as in well they had power over a whole you know whole generation of people and more what they were looking is something beyond the afterlife the afterlife something beyond which will take them and they can have the same kind of status you know the status quo the status like in the afterlife so something which would aid them there which would have the same kind of same taste there you know and which would also prove to the gods that they are worthy yeah i mean speaking about chemistry a little bit isn't gold and silver i believe two of the metals that can't be eroded because of oxygen it has some sorry yeah gold yam yes it is that's also the reason why like noble metals you know yeah that's that's yeah that's also the reason why like they are given prime or supreme importance yeah like someone studied metallurgy way back and figured that oh these are valuable metals and they look great they're shiny


valuable metals and they look great they're shiny probably arrived on the earth on a comet uh probably not from this world therefore they have so much value but who knows about the more mystical aspects of gold why are they around these spiritual places why is it in a temple why is it in a pyramid absolutely these are wonderful questions as well why so much around that shiny metal why doesn't the egyptian government just sell off that gold and make a lot of money it's more about history it's more about i mean wealth bread butter like you know human being you know it's the cycle of human beings you know legacy again yes first you you know as a child you're trying to understand as you're born like you know and i'm sure you know about it but just for so that we share it as a child you even when you show the child the child in the mirror the child won't identify with the the person in the mirror yeah but as the child grows the child starts


mirror yeah but as the child grows the child starts identifying with that form then the next step is as a child grows again is to identify with the society what is my place in the society then you know as the cycle goes on the child becomes a man or a woman and the the person starts accumulating then the term of fragility comes in how do i hold on whether it's a whether it's a a jacket or a purse a louis vuitton person i'm not promoting it but anything which is of value how do you hold on to it how can i have replicas how can i have too many backups like how can i hold on to it for life whether it's even a baby you know the fragility element comes in when like you are so worried about how not to lose so that's the same kind of uh thought process that are king or a pharaoh are they active treasure hunting missions yes because the heads of governments or whether it is governments many places many people have


whether it is governments many places many people have hoarded i won't take names but there are active you know people who are in this domain who are kind of just offloading or just trying to get off the treasures from there and reach it to its rightful places what like as in what do you mean reach it too so they want to make money of the treasure or they want to probably preserve the ancient treasure they want to put it back in the pyramids no not really now what i mean to say is there have been people who have been buying with power it could be rulers it could be billionaires it could be rulers it could be dictators i'm being very careful when i so they have been accumulating the the problem is they they hold and they keep it somewhere then that is exploited it's taken away it's pillaged so what happens in all of this is it might be a stone for you but it might be a very important stone for someone else so this the value of such


stone for someone else so this the value of such is more than billions of dollars so there are bodies which you know go to such places maybe after the passing away of such a person or to negotiate with the family of such people to get it back to where it really belongs there's a museum underground treasure community that's what i'm understanding well you could call it any name i think we all need our trips in life you know and when you have that much money and you're done buying cars and private jets you're like oh i learned some piece of human history yes it's basically that right absolutely i mean and look look all around what do human beings really do like after a point of time you have the best of everything everything that you thought of the next is our history is that buying history um past but are there like teams of treasure hunters which actually have maps or you know et cetera et cetera they're trying to find things at the bottom of the ocean they


to find things at the bottom of the ocean they might be like unofficially many such groups speculations uh right flick you know okay many things possible like there are also like as i said official uh uh you know government bodies which are doing like the thing that we discussed before but we also have people like that who who have got maybe a map from their grandfather really yes it's a possibility it's it's i mean that's something which is open okay but to find it is another thing altogether ships which have gone underground carrying a lot of gold absolutely these are my real i mean people are on excavations like this so whether they exist they don't exist that's a different story to tell and are they protected by dragons and monsters i'm kidding it's a possibility all right sir at the end of this episode one last question to kind of just encapsulate this entire episode the question was going to be about psychedelics but i feel we're going to club that with our south american special episode


going to club that with our south american special episode that we'll do at a later point let's talk about cataclysmic events uh we haven't touched upon it really on this episode like we've just kind of covered the yeah brushed upon it uh let's do a deep dive into it a little bit uh is it an area of history and archaeology that fascinates you uh is it an area of history that more people should get to know about because when i'm thinking of history as a subject it's great to study what happened in the last 100 years but that's literally a microsecond on the earth's timeline why aren't we spoken to more about meteor showers why aren't we spoken to more about earthquakes you know tidal waves uh these kind of cataclysmic events noah's ark manu uh gilgamesh gilgamesh like all all these big cataclysmic events that cultures speak about when you're talking about ancient cultures passing on messages cataclysm is one of the big messages constantly passed


is one of the big messages constantly passed on that listen be aware of nature's fury don't be a bad person nature will fight back uh plagues etc etc what do you make of all this sir what do you make of the apocalypse or the repeated apocalypse that you the human race has constantly seen so i believe like it has always been their other cycle again the spiral i get back the cycle has always been there so it's like someone who's making a movie you know who who says okay you played your part it's time to go the dinosaur is gone you know uh human you know semi-humans come in okay your parts done time to go you know come enter human beings so you know now how much we live is also up to us because we are also the catalyst in that cataclysmic event yes because we contribute the way we are abusing it's also a message to the future yeah so whether a glorious period existed before he won't be able to say and this will be


he won't be able to say and this will be the same like maybe maybe thousand five thousand whenever we are done you know someone would sit probably in a podcast you know like this and would say did they have did they even know what is a podcast so it's a possibility that it doesn't need to come from outside we could be the authors are of our own destinies of our own you know going into this of our own demise yes we are fantastic at that in fact we're doing a great job in fact now so one thing is there like so such events whether it's a volcanic we we could see we can't go or do away with nature's fury or it's not really in fury it's just adjustments i would call it like you know just adjustments you know you're moving mountains like you're just piling on things here so i just move a muscle and get it in its rightful place what are you polluting let me just you know so it's just nature saying stop


just you know so it's just nature saying stop it please like you know you don't get it stop it you know so what we need to do is first of all take note of the the message which she's trying to give us and also focus on the bigger picture of what happened like if you can do something in that area like asteroids probably elements coming from we're doing so much research on elements or planets outside what are we doing about our shield to protect the earth absolutely why am i not thinking about a element which could repel at least some of these why we why are we not talking about technologies like that we talk about levitation we talk about you know so many other technologies you know but why are we not talking about you know studying these elements which are so close to us and having at least a barrier a wall we don't have a wall today yeah and also keep in mind that our ancestors have constantly given us messages about comets and how it's not uh it may


about comets and how it's not uh it may not be a positive sign right so it it doesn't need to be a volcanic eruption or a gas wave from volcanoes or a volcanic shower it doesn't need to be uh you know any anything from me what are we doing about such things you know so from the end we should really think about really scientific not political bodies scientific bodies which really like think about such things and do something one talk conferences high tea is okay but i think we need to go beyond that and do something about such things and this is the need of the art because one a multi-pronged approach really if you're asking me about the message like what we can a multi-pronged approach wherein like at least we we stop the abuse abuse of nature natural resources everything nature in fact we align ourselves to her uh goals we align ourselves to her rules and you know recommendations we have that in mind we start with that apart from that we have a study of


with that apart from that we have a study of what can be our wall our first level or first layer of defense which is very possible technologically speaking like which is which is if we can build a sun i i wouldn't like to name our country but we can supply sources of energy why can't we do this i highly recommend that the listeners check out randall carlson's episodes with joe rogan he's again science-backed research-backed guy he's i think his field of interest when it comes to history is ancient humanity and cataclysmic events and he knows about it like no other human being that i have come across at least and he's done a bunch of episodes with joerg and it's incredible to listen to them he says that technologically speaking we're about 10 years away from creating a technology that can even go on asteroids and mine elements because asteroids also contain a lot of minerals that can be mined and some of them are huge some of them are as wide as like 100


huge some of them are as wide as like 100 kilometers which is massive absolutely imagine a 100 kilometer asteroid hitting the earth people underestimate what that can do to the human race if it could wipe out dinosaurs which are so tough so durable what are we yeah and we also had a very priceless uh asteroid full of uh you know priceless platinum gold we just passed so apart from other things so i'm saying utilize this for our own level of defense layer of defense i would say yeah otherwise you know we'll be one of those civilizations just ended yeah and all our uh remains including internet wires including plastic everything's going to go away yes the only thing that we'll be left with are the pyramids and the strings and somewhere in the year 5500 someone will be saying what do you think the pyramids mean what do you think those things mean [Music] that's a great note that's a great no yes any last messages for the viewers sir a lot of messages i would say


viewers sir a lot of messages i would say like you know going with with what we discussed today signs and symbols it's high time we wake up it's morning already i mean it's rather post noon already it's high time we stop abusing nature we stop uh doing things which are not in favor of us we don't understand i mean i mean they're the kind of things which we do really it's not really good for us so we stop abusing or we'll have very soon like we'll have some things which you won't like on the table you know so that that apart you know we we also this is one thing which i keep emphasizing and highlighting we also do more of research you know we we study more you know that's something which we are going away from we we love being served on the table and we eat that we're becoming end consumers but there's need if afar and being an indian being uh india is so proud i would encourage each one of us to take up


i would encourage each one of us to take up research in smaller elements maybe it is cooking maybe it is like you know how to make a thing better is good great but we also need to go beyond jugaad you know how to make things better like take the lead it works a different part of your brain absolutely absolutely which which actually molds the way you see the world as well absolutely so so beautifully said really so it's it's we need to be creators because essentially that's what human beings are at our core like we are all creators and we are so beautiful if you create i mean some of the most beautiful things that we have created i mean everything i mean look at this set you know look at look at us like very very beautiful in our you know in our existence so we need to create more things which which on the basis of what has been said by the ancients you need to build on it and take it from there really then just leave it you know a glass which


really then just leave it you know a glass which as you're driving you know a glass which shows you the back if it is removed well you won't know with whom or what you will go and hit you know yeah so we need to have that it's an intense thought thank god dr prabhakar i'm gonna say something which i mean all uh genuineness this was one of the best podcasts of my life okay thank you so much thank you so much i think the indian internet has just started to discover your life's work thank you so much so just thank you for being on the show next two episodes also going to be epic i've already thought of the third one as well we're gonna do africa we're gonna do india we're gonna do south america so surely thank you so much so this is fun thank you so much again thank you all for being part of this wonderful journey thank you enjoy thank you so we'll be back soon that was the super heavy super


we'll be back soon that was the super heavy super in-depth episode with dr prabhakar as i said earlier he's got 10 more podcasts in him so if you're consuming this on youtube comment down below tell us what you loved about this particular episode tell us what more you'd like to hear from him and of course if you have more suggestions when it comes to archaeologists historians people who are rewriting the things that were taught in our textbooks while we were growing up the people are changing our culture we want recommendations all the time history is one of my favorite themes for this podcast then we show will be back until then follow us on spotify every episode's available spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this is the history special and history episodes will only grow when you share them with your friends and family share it as much as possible on whatsapp ranveer and the entire team at the runway show will be back soon thank you [Music] you


judael and a diane they have a very similar overlapping kind of origin uh theory it is believed that when a woman dies at childbirth or when she is pregnant and if she is not cremated properly with all the rituals and all then because of what the latent desire in her mind she turns into a student and what happens in that reality she will be on this earth unsatisfied and she will not be able to see the happiness of other women yakshinis are these demi goddesses they are believed to also be on earth and when they come here they are mostly in their evil forms beautiful to look at but then there is this one form of them which you know once the seduction has worn off then they come into this evil form and they will of course their victims are usually men so this is one of the most interesting guests that we've had on the show we've also edited the podcast slightly we've brought in a little bit of music because i feel like stories


a little bit of music because i feel like stories about ghosts horror stories stories that scare you are best enjoyed when it's slightly edited through the power of filmmaking i hope you enjoyed this slightly hey episode this one's with neil de silva he's a horror writer he's worked with paranormal investigators and he's here to share everything that his research has brought to his own mind he's on the runway show today lots of talk about ghosts lots of talk about spirits lots of talk about the astral world this is not a podcast for everyone because it's scary it's definitely not a podcast for skeptics it's a podcast for believers more podcasts like this make sure you follow us on spotify for spotify exclusive which means that every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this is nila silva on the randy show speaking about horror [Music] [Music] i'm super pumped about this episode nina silva welcome to trs so thank you


episode nina silva welcome to trs so thank you so much for having me on the show looking forward to our chat i don't even know where to start considering the number of books you've written on subjects related to the paranormal uh indian culture and so many of your books um you know i i genuinely don't know where to begin this conversation i do want to begin with excitement but at the same time i want to make it atmospheric and scary for our viewers so how are you sir so i'm good i am feeling well i have just had a long drive so that's the only problem but otherwise fine now it's a chilled chat okay uh i write a lot of horror as well like it's fiction that i haven't published and i write it because there's so many experiences i have had in my own life as well and i feel like anyone who writes horror beat yourself be it stephen king we either we're believers or we've had some sort of childhood experiences with the


we've had some sort of childhood experiences with the paranormal in order to even think and i'm sure as is the case with every author you're also a big reader and i'm sure you're into reading horror reading about the paranormal understanding these subjects better so let me tell you how it started for me the inclination towards horror that was through reading so even as a child you know when i was in my grades seven and eight i read edgar vallenpo and dracula and frankenstein so those were the books that attracted me those were the that was the area where i weird towards i read a lot of this gothic stuff and coming from western authors so those castles and the dark brooding environment characters who had this kind of some kind of problem in their lives they were facing going to it so yeah that stayed with me somewhere i think even as a when you are reading these this kind of stuff as a child there was no censorship in my home for reading so when you are


in my home for reading so when you are eating this kind of stuff i was not afraid of the stories but somewhere i connected with them and i felt like uh like i wanted to create these kinds of worlds myself so that is where it all began fear of the darkness i think a lot yeah that's very common that's very common and and what's weird is i had the same and i'm also creating a lot of dark ghost based content so that strong fear of the dark has turned into art later on in life but i think that's a catharsis you know somewhere we face those fears that's what i do so okay so i was quite afraid of the so afraid that i would not even go in another room even though the whole family was sitting here i would not go in the next same so i was terrified now i would have this recurrent kind of i would not say a dream but a kind of vision that in the next room where it is completely dark from the


the next room where it is completely dark from the ceiling a man would come down and whoever goes there he would he would you know grab that person that was my phobia i would think that some something will drop from the ceiling and grab me so this was the experience that haunted me for two years or so my own fears my own phobias that i had growing up they have landed in my books but in a different form you're scaring other people now with what you were scared of growing i'm just passing it on what do you think the nature of being a host is i've just heard that that realm is full of suffering that reality is full of suffering and uh i mean where do you even turn in order to get educated about ghosts you can turn the philosophical books into spiritual books the only thing i've learned is that when you have an unnatural death before your time has actually come to that you spend the remainder of that time in this realm as a


the remainder of that time in this realm as a ghost and this is from books like the garud puran autobiography of yogi all these books talk about these occult realities but what do you think so yeah there is a strong spiritual connect to all this uh when i started out as uh when i was writing horror my initial works were all fiction make believe words make believe monsters of course i wrote about agorys in my first book but that is again based on research when i started writing about ghosts that was the time when i also started studying more about the whole world i met paranormal investigators people who are actually working day in and day out to find the truth behind this and the surprising thing is no two paranormal investigators also will have the same theory for ghosts they will think some they will have some nuance that is different so what i have come to the conclusion is after writing you know books like vijayalani have written haunted with serbajeet mohanty i've


written haunted with serbajeet mohanty i've written the spirits talk to me both very different in their mindset in their way of thinking like you can explain the differences jay is more of a rationalist jayalani he's a more of a rationalist so he's he believes that there is a lot of blind faith and superstition worked into the paranormal world a part of it is real a part of it really is the occult is really the paranormal what we say but the major part of it at least in india is uh you know just a commercial commercially propagated thing so like people who are believing in black magic and all using it to make a quick buck so that is jai's belief so jai is trying to find out where the real paranormal lies and what part of it is fake so i'll come to that sarbajit on the other hand he believes that paranormal energies are all around us which is also part of jai's belief but cyberjet believes that these


of jai's belief but cyberjet believes that these energies are a kind of a other dimension which is here right now in this room as well they can see us we cannot interact with them do you think your chase for writing horror has attracted horror into your life it has that's that's what people do tell me that's what people do tell me that when you try to write about their world they come to know that you are writing about their voice yeah i'm because i've been writing a lot of horror lately and i have been feeling creeped out i don't know how else to explain it but anyways i'll go on and what i mean by creeped out is very weird dreams yeah so that happens a lot not just the dreams the dreams are yeah okay dreams do happen because your mind is still working when you are asleep but i have had real experiences uh this one time i was in goa i was i had booked a cottage on the other side of


had booked a cottage on the other side of kalangguk which is a very lonely kind of place desolate place i like that place because of its vibe so i was writing a book there a horror novel i was in the middle of this particularly horrifying scene which required all my attention so my eye was only on that 13-inch mac and i was just looking there nowhere else and i felt something cold past my from behind i just felt it and it was so material you know usually ghosts are just like an illusion in your peripheral sight but this was very material i could feel that something happened and then i just looked around and light started flickering the lights were flickering quite bad you know it was not like a normal fluctuation i went out of the room to see the other places everyone was asleep but the other lobby lights and everything was quite okay only my room was the one flickering so these kinds of things do happen i think it comes in you somewhere what do


i think it comes in you somewhere what do paranormal investigators say about the presence of ghosts first of all are all ghosts evil or good no no some ghosts are good no i think the majority of them are good okay but then which are the ghosts which are the evil ghosts i think from what i have heard from all these experiences from the paranormal investigators uh the ghosts that have something left in their lives in their current life something that they wanted to do or those who those who had an unjust kind of death and murder murders because they are mostly dead by some violence some kind of violence there has been violence either throughout their lives or in their death so there is this concept of peshach the ghoul that we have our hindu mythology so the pischach is believed to be created when a man dies a very violent death in a surge of anger so if suppose you kill me and i'm very angry that you killed me but i can't do


angry that you killed me but i can't do anything and you just have to die i will probably become a bishop so this is where the ghosts turn evil and once poltergeist older guys suggest noisy ghosts they are they are not evil so the experiences of poltergeists that i have chronicled uh i have seen that they are not evil they are mischievous they are naughty they try to disorient you and they try to somehow uh sap your energies but they will not kill you poltergeist they hardly kill but bishaj can pishaj can have you heard firsthand accounts of bisharch hauntings not of pishach but there are certain other creatures i could say entities that i have worked with one of my books is yakshini so yakshinis are very prevalent in the south of india kind of demi-goddesses and they are believed to reside in a realm somewhere between earth and heaven so they are in alka-puri that is a realm governed by kuber what is what


is a realm governed by kuber what is what is what are these words kuber is uh in fact rahman's brother the brother of lord raven and he is supposed uh to protect all the wealth of this world in this on this earth so he has a big hood and uh he's like indra but in a demigod version for international listeners raven is the mega villain of ramayana yeah the ramayana which is an indian epic who you're supposed to be the king of the rakshasas or the demons yakshinis are these demi goddesses they are believed to also be on earth so sometimes they just meander and they come to earth and when they come here they are mostly in their evil forms so they would like they are very voluptuous they are very beautiful to look at but then there is this one form of them which you know once the seduction has worn off then they come into this evil form and they will of course their victims are usually men and that


of course their victims are usually men and that is how you actually function but there were so many folklore uh folklore tales of people having sighted yakshinis and judaels and ions so these are all our supernatural creatures that we talk about judael is witch trudel is a kind of a witch but basically a judael and a diane they have a very similar overlapping kind of origin theory it is believed that when a woman dies at childbirth or when she is pregnant and if she is not cremated properly with all the rituals and all then because of the latent desire in her mind she turns into a judeh and what happens in that reality so once that person becomes a child then she will be on this earth unsatisfied and she will not be able to see the happiness of other women so it's a kind of a vengeful host not a ghost i would say an entity okay and dying almost similar lines okay so this is based on the you know like the


so this is based on the you know like the region where we are coming from but they are very similar lots of parallels um um what's the scariest ghost story you've heard in someone else's life maybe someone near you has there been an account that just freaked the [ __ ] out of you okay so this uh really happened when i was writing the spirits talk to me so it's a co-authored book sir bhajit panti he was my co-author and he's a paranormal investigator so the concept of the book was 10 stories of his real life explorations what he had done so he sent me the first story which was his real story is a real account so in bhubaneshwar outskirts of it was a small village and in that village there was a very strange phenomenon happening which was young guys very eligible young boys they would just wake up in the middle of the night walk out of their houses cross the main highway there was a forest on the other side they would


there was a forest on the other side they would go to the forest wherein there was a tree a huge tree they would just hang themselves on the tree and this happened multiple times with a lot of boys in that same village nobody knew why it happened why the same tree but it was kind of an expected thing that every few days you are going to find a boy hanging from it sarvajit went to explore it with his team he got all this he has got a lot of paranormal stuff that he uses so equipment i would say so he took that he went he explored and he found this huge mass of black energy dark energy he could sense it because he has psychics on his team so this is something that normal people do have a sense of but to a very small extent like when you get creeped out in a particular we get creeped out we would just describe it as i got creeped out i do not know what happened i would just say a shadow


know what happened i would just say a shadow past and i don't know what it is but if you are a psychic and after talking to psychics like puja sarvaji's partner puja she's a psychic so when i spoke to her she could actually visualize those things she could actually see a form so she felt that there were yes there was a lot of sadness that happened in the tree what that sadness was we don't know and that's not that's beyond the point because it must have happened 500 years ago 1000 years ago we don't know but now that latent energy that is around the tree and because sarbaji then puja they went there with the mission of finding out what's the truth about the tree they had to find a lot they had to face a lot of difficulties there like there was a kind of what how should i explain it a kind of a small mini tornado which engulfed the whole tree while they were there which was quite unheard of in those places they


there which was quite unheard of in those places they heard voices and they could actually see like people like how they show in hollywood movies the long black shadows the tall ones so they actually saw all that stuff so when the villagers would one would go to cut the tree the tree would not allow itself to be cut there would be kind of that person would fall sick the wood cutter or something and a tree cannot be cut in a single day so the day that he would try to cut it that evening he would fall sick and not so they they understood that the tree does not want to be cut the tree still stands [Music] we had dr radhakrishnan on the show yesterday where we spoke about uh the atharvaved and how it contains a lot of elements of black magic as well and you know occult sciences he spoke about uh these elements like trees lemon lemon chili lemon and chili that's one of my books again okay um you know in again india is


books again okay um you know in again india is one of those countries where there's so much spiritual wisdom everywhere there is a whole spiritual world in our country but then this is also this underbelly of spiritualism which is this whole awkward side of things where uh in when you're growing up in india often especially when you're traveling around the country they tell you not to urinate on a tree yeah have you heard this before yeah but i don't know about it they say that trees can house spirits trees are a sort of safe heaven right for spirits and that spirit can kind of possess you if you urinate on it i don't know how true that is i've not urinated on a tree yet so i don't know but uh what do you make of all this what i've heard is i have heard something similar to this not about urinating but not to walk under a tree especially a banyan tree at night yeah banyan that is the hanging kind of a ghost a ghost which


is the hanging kind of a ghost a ghost which hangs from a tree like a gargoyle it makes it looks like a gargoyle but would be very different because of vital usually does not have usually does not have a form again a vital is a man who has died and because of some unfulfilled wishes he stays attached to a tree because a tree is a very permanent kind of thing right so it stays there so that's what a beta is and uh vital is supposed to again haunt the people who pass by even travel with them to their homes and then jeopardize their entire lifestyle create havoc when the man is dead it returns back to the tree in one of the stories you spoke about um how you depossess a person or you cleanse an environment even in the movie exhaust where you know they hold a cross against a ghost uh in islam there's talk of jinns and how you know again there's a spiritual element that's what malwares do or in order to kind


that's what malwares do or in order to kind of cleanse a place uh even in hinduism there is an element of chanting and meditation which cleans environments is that how you counter these kind of dark energies according to you there's somewhere i think people have used those things and there has been a kind of a benefit like the people that i talk about joy aligning for instance when jai goes there what he usually does is he tries to find out what's the root cause of this entire thing now in many of the cases the root cause is a human being playing mischief because that also happens there's some blind faith somewhere or sometimes you just latch on to what that place is from which is the epicenter because there's always an epicenter of all these things if a haunting is happening in a particular area then there is one thing that is causing that haunting which i have seen a lot in jail stories so like in one of his stories there was a curio you know


one of his stories there was a curio you know kind of a souvenir which a person had bought from a foreign country and that had a spirit in it and because of that that guy had a terrible motorcycle accident he got disfigured he lost his wife because of that and uh later on it was found that the whole epicenter of it was that particular curio which was carrying that what was the souvenir it was a kind of a cup i suppose just a very harmless looking mug but it had been possessed by so there were these objects also that we talked about you since you spoke about conjuring so the people the warrens they have they had this whole museum which had all these uh artifacts i think we'll have to give the listener some context here so i think in the conjuring towards the end of the movie they call uh de-possession experts i don't know what to call them paranormal investigators who kind of helped clean up a place uh if you know


of helped clean up a place uh if you know it's it's deeply haunted yeah and that was the lawrences that was the warrens warrants ed and lorraine so oh the warrants okay so uh the warrens have a museum that contains all these artifacts they've just kept them there i would not want to enter that museum including including the very famous annabelle doll that's still there today that's still there okay the movie series we are also making ourselves vulnerable to the other world because they are listening to us they know that we are interested in them so therefore you have to be ready because the ghost possibly such entities might decide to show themselves to you that could happen because they know that you are trying to you know somewhere conjure them yeah and probably you need to be ready for it yourself also you need to be ready for it you know as i kept meditating in life like my meditations kept becoming deeper and i kept feeling more and more fearless towards these entities like


more and more fearless towards these entities like the same entities that created so much deeper i should not sleep alone until i was like 21 22. at the same time yes same same same yeah i i still i don't know i'm not comfortable when i hear that there is a death somewhere around me because i have this very morbid fear of dead bodies and i had that even when my dad expired and uh i was petrified when his body was to come home but not because of any other reason but somehow uh you know death plays on my mind in some ways and i feel that a person has gone to a world which is unknown so somewhere it's like this vortex that pulls me in yeah no i i hear you and you know over the course of this show and talking to people like yourself and doctor radhakrishnan just figured that there is a science behind this it's just that the world of science as we know it has not put in enough time effort research into these


not put in enough time effort research into these things like you can't just discount it as otherworldly i feel that's old school thinking i think the real reason here is because there is no evidence science it depends i'm a science person i'm a post graduate in organic chemistry so all of my life as a student was spent in formulas and you know wanting proof seeing proof but now i know that there is no way that you can prove these things how can you prove another world which is just energy the engineer in me wants to counter you with the question of electromagnetic fields like yes there are devices to uh measure the amount of electromagnetism uh in a particular meters that they are called as the k2 meters and what does that device specifically do like in terms of it just detects the emf around the space like if there were typically the very simple model of a k2 meter would have like five lights and one light would be always blinking because there is always an electromagnetic frequency field around


because there is always an electromagnetic frequency field around us so that would always be blinking but sometimes if suppose this is a live buyer now if i go near it it will be up to two lights or something like that but there are certain things certain places like somewhere in the deep of the jungle suddenly all five lights will come on now there's no reason why there should be an emf there but then they come on so this is how it works now again this is an observed proof but you do not know what is causing it yet you infer that it may be a ghostly entity but have you seen the ghostly entity no you are just making an inference so that is where i feel that still we have that disconnect and till the time we do not actually see ghosts see a ghost like with our eyes i normalize i experience a ghost or experience experiences are again individual so my experience the world may not believe it they will just debunk it i'm talking about the people who do not


it i'm talking about the people who do not believe in such kind of things but then you know technology is advancing by leaps and bounds like i just saw on twitter yesterday that uh in japan there was a tech to record our dreams and play back to play those back to us so there is a technology for that now so i'm sure that um you know something might happen but yeah as you also said we need to have that drive to do something in this field if you had any experiences with witchcraft at all no not really i would not say that okay and then that's a story for the next time i have a story i've actually been at the receiving end of witchcraft okay for a moment uh okay so i went on a date like it was off of a dating app this happened three four years ago maybe um first date it was fine i made it clear that i didn't want anything romantic but i was open to meeting again as in i didn't want a casual relationship also


as in i didn't want a casual relationship also lots of people use dating apps to just kind of get to know new people and that was my intention i met an older person i didn't pick up anything the first time i met her i was also kind of i'd just broken up so i was rebounding i think wasn't really looking for anything but i just felt a normal good conversation the second time i met her um she said that i had a lot of fun the last thing but i can't believe that you didn't observe something because the first time i met we spoke about spiritualism we spoke about these larger than life concepts you know intuition things like that she's like your intuition didn't pick up that i'm kind of into witchcraft so then i said um no not really but i also got interested in terms of what is going to happen you okay now let's dial back a year or two before this happened i have a friend who is a strong psychic he's a high level


who is a strong psychic he's a high level sidekick he's a good friend of mine uh when we were in a part of delhi once upon a time and he claims that delhi is one of the most haunted places because it's one of the oldest cities in the world technically and it's seen a lot of battles over centuries so he claims that there's a lot of angst and um pain in delhi because of the ghosts of the people and all that so sometimes when i'm just walking with this guy in delhi in the daytime he'll start doing this he'll rub his hands like and this he loudly clapped and he continued rubbing his hands and the first few times he had done that in front of me i looked at him and asked him why are you doing that and he said no nothing and he'd keep doing this at some other part of the road so then i bothered him i asked him why are you doing this and he said i'm sort of just creating a


this and he said i'm sort of just creating a protective field i'm like sending things away that's all he told me i don't even know what that means okay now let's come back to this story um now this girl i was on sort of i won't call it a date but i was meeting with the second time and that shop was shutting so she said okay what do you want to do now so i said let's go somewhere so then she told me okay let's go to juhu beach or this particular part of bandstand or this particular part of carter road you know that part of cart road there now the weird thing is i've had a conversation with that same psychic friend about these three locations that she named and he said that he's had some kind of ghost encounters in those three locations so normal person would have said no i don't want to go with you and i'm going home i wanted content so i said okay uh let's let's do this okay uh so we decided to


let's do this okay uh so we decided to go to carter road now we got off on carter road and we decided to walk along the promenade and it was relatively empty as compared to what it is normally okay now we're walking and maybe 10 seconds 15 seconds into walking this woman does this and then i'm on high alert a little bit i don't know what she's doing so we keep walking and we sit down on this particular part of cartoon where there are people but it's still got a slight creepy vibe i don't want to name what part of carter it is because it might cause a lot of frenzy online but it's a populated part so we're sitting there i go into my spiritualism realm okay because i've had awkward experiences in my life which i've spoken about on the show as well i've had a very strong sleep paralysis experience which turned out to be something real eventually hasn't i someone else had some another psychic had come to my house and told


another psychic had come to my house and told me that yes the experience you had had was real so i i've dealt with these things before according to me and the way i'd come out of it was through mantra chanting when i was a kid someone taught me a mantra which had worked for me now i knew that i'm dealing with another occult experience here so when i sat down with her in my head i'm just doing a mantra job to sort of protect myself it was the same mantra job that had helped me as a kid now while i was sitting with her we were just having a very loose kind of conversation it was interesting but it wasn't really interesting it was small talk and she wasn't really talking much through this for some reason i was talking a lot in the same way that i'm doing now you know she'd ask me a small question and then whatever i'd give her something and then she'd always end it with like a yes or no uh kind of


it with like a yes or no uh kind of question where i would have to answer in a yes one and as i kept talking to her i must have sat there with her for like half an hour i just kept feeling more and more dizzy and i didn't know what the [ __ ] is going on [Music] i just felt a strong gut feeling to leave from there after half an hour because i was really just i was feeling tired or dizzy i don't know what it was so i told her okay i'm going i booked her and ola i booked myself an uber okay you're going in two separate directions when i sat in the uber i'm still feeling busy and i hadn't told anybody not my co-founders not my manager nobody not my teams now the psychic friend calls me homeless okay and he's like who are you with so i'm like why she said no just tell me who you with so i said um just i met someone he's like i strongly feel


just i met someone he's like i strongly feel someone's done something to you there's some kind of dark aura on you what have you done and then i told him that this happened so he said okay wait he gave me a mantra he texted me something and he told me wherever you are right now meditate in that vehicle and just focus on that mantra and i swear to god my head was spinning in that vehicle as i was meditating and i was doing that i didn't know what the [ __ ] happened when i went home he told me some more things he said have a salt water bath and yeah all that i don't have you heard of the salted water salt water is quite common it's supposed to wash off negative energy yeah i don't i don't know what it is but i am a meditator i'm married for an hour daily and i've been doing this for years now that night when i sat for meditation um now here's the kind of meditation i do


um now here's the kind of meditation i do right like it's deeply technical and i kind of intuitively know when to stop doing it because sometimes your body doesn't isn't ready to go to a deeper level of meditation so i get an intuition and i gently stop but on this day when i was meditating i didn't get out of it gently at the peak of my meditation i felt like someone took a long pin and just shoved it into my finger and i have no idea what that meant i asked him i think he knew that something was on but he refused to tell me what it was he's like if i tell you you may not want to meditate again and all but just forget it and keep meditating that was it i never spoke to that lady again but i also like kind of cut her off wrong it sounded like some voodoo stuff i don't know what it was and she knew who i was and um i think she was in the quest for fame


um i think she was in the quest for fame that's what i gauged from her uh and they say that black magic can be used to take something that someone else owns and bring it to yourself youth money kind of thing i don't know what it was so that's been my experience with witchcraft and saying that there is a whole positive angle of witchcraft there are positive which is uh in the modern day that's a whole other subject but yeah that's my experience yes we'll get into that positive thing because there is also a lot to speak uh i don't know if you have heard of the village of mayong in assam no so that's believed to be the birthplace of black magic it's in assam and uh where in assam is in neo-gohan so there it's believed that every one day is a practitioner of black magic and they use it for healing they use it for healing there's something in the land that makes things happen so people with all these kinds of ailments they


so people with all these kinds of ailments they go there and there are these tantrics and ojas and stuff we'll do some mantra on you and cleanse you spiritually a trip to assam has been a long-standing wish for the same reason i wish to explore this world it's there's a lot of mysticism even other indian says bengal also has a lot that's right is very popular in bengal horror literature i mean being an author i know that neil de silva this was a great episode uh i do think there's more to unpack and we hope to have you again on the show i hope it was a good experience for you thank you so much for having me on the show and we it was fun fun talking to you fun sharing my experiences and listening to yours i hope your audiences also enjoy this oh no i think we're too like-minded slightly messed up dudes that we all are uh just great getting to know you sir thank you thanks that's the episode for today


sir thank you thanks that's the episode for today the intention with trs from this point onwards is that we're going to bring you a lot more dark content i'd love recommendations from you folks the intention is to bring on paranormal investigators people who are interested in subjects like ghosts subjects like tantra i wanna know what you guys thought of today's episode i wanna know what you guys thought of our edit of today's episode with the music stapled in this is the kind of content that brings us the most joy as a team when we're involved in this process of creation when we're learning more about these dark topics and of course dark topics get all the views so we love it all the more for more dark topics make sure you follow us on spotify every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world hope you enjoyed this episode hope it didn't scare you all that much and if you're listening to this alone at night all i wanna say is that


this alone at night all i wanna say is that they're watching you as you listen to the ranvier show i'm kidding i just wanna say i love you see [Music] you


and again I saw after some time people came with very rude loaded machine gun with chains and everything and they're shouting you open the gate and get them outside the gate is not going to be open he said open the gate and no negative no gate will be open because I will see to this man I'm also here sitting here only to see you guys you try some stunt and then you see the music I landed up at the shinagar and I saw Indian army and dogs are not allowed is that statement acceptable to you imagine being an army and being uniform and you read something like this written around the world weapon equipment communication profile whatever it may be but the biggest brand and the best brand in the entire world is Indian army I'm damn clear on this we are the only Force history has been testimony our soldiers are the only potent and the capable soldiers who can actually fight a battle learner just surviving on water jaggery and motivational there's very few things in my professional


and motivational there's very few things in my professional life that I'm proud of and being a portal for military stories like this is one of them TRS has always aimed to bring you the kind of content that you will not be able to see on Ott platforms that you'll not be able to see through movies there's some kind of content which you'll only understand through extremely deep perspectives and extremely well told stories we've spoken a lot about the Special Forces on PRS Special Forces represent the highest amount of efficiency within the military most people know about the para SF which is the special forces of the army the Marcos which are the special forces of the Navy the Garuda which is the special forces of the Air Force but there are other special forces as well represents the Airborne forces what the Airborne forces are his extremely detailed perspectives on the things he's seen during his military tenure he served outside India as well he served in Africa in its peak of turmoil this podcast was


Africa in its peak of turmoil this podcast was so heavy for me that on the night of this particular conversation I actually just cried myself there's nothing going wrong in my life there's no drama that I'm undergoing but this particular piece was extremely heavy even for me I will let you slip into this particular episode because it's very close to my heart I hope you enjoy it make sure you follow us on Spotify as well but it's Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world podcast was so heavy that I had to cancel my military podcast that I had in the following week just because I needed some recovery time I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed creating it and Rajiv so if you're watching this it's only love for you thank you for opening up the way you did Jai Hind enjoy the episode thank you [Music] welcome to a very very special military themed episode of the runway


very very special military themed episode of the runway show honor having a video so thanks and we believe me happiness is all mine thanks you know uh there's a key word I use for certain podcasts and the key word here is unpacking as I feel military personnel have just so much to share so many experiences and uh you know I think when someone dies when they look back at their life it's all these experiences that are gonna Flash in their eyes and not necessarily what they achieved or didn't achieve according to societal standards of achievement there's so many things on your LinkedIn on your Instagram if say I Met You in Sweden and I was a firanga and I asked you what you do for a living what would you say I would have said give couple of months back I used to kill people for my leaving and these days I am on a break that would have been my answer honestly okay yeah yeah if I asked you to expand on that what would you say expensive


you to expand on that what would you say expensive and Military especially the kind of the job and our people in the special forces or when you have been in combat operations uh if I talk about couple of months back or most of my service I have been into counter Insurgency operation or counterterrorism operations I have been into Assam Manipur nagaland janki tutaneous and most of the time whether it was the unit or with the deputation I've been involved in action only and that suits me this is something which I always felt can best when it comes to combats the second best thing that I feel I'm good at is training just thereafter everything is secondary for me so being in that line of duty you know most of the time and a preference by choice and by default or design you say have been posted into these areas where I were involved into these kind of actions and it gives you tremendous amount of satisfaction because you know mentally and physically you know you're always at your threshold what


physically you know you're always at your threshold what do you mean you are into those combat situation whereas snap decision and in couple of seconds it can cost you a life it has a question of life and death especially for someone who is with you in the team so it matters a lot and there is a lot of responsibility on your head you always have to lead from the front and there are a couple of people and you ensure that the number of the troops those who go in the operation with you the same number comes back that threat is always lingering on your head um I mean it's a very kind of raw question for you uh feel free not to give an exact number but are you comfortable giving sort of a number on how many combat situations you've been in like above a certain number okay yeah more be maybe more than 100 more than 100 definitely 100 and I just tell you although you're not asked for it but specific I've been most of the time and maximum operation that we


been most of the time and maximum operation that we have undertaken was in February February is fighting in built up operation built up areas what does that mean built videos it's something like Mumbai you know all buildings it is not structured in organized you know where a lot of people are staying and you carry out operations Manipur is one example in that jnk is another so fighting in built up area in military terminology is one of the most difficult questions operations one can undertake why is it difficult it is difficult because there is no certain pattern you know every house that you enter it has got a different layout you know as for the Social Status your personal choices and preferences it is very difficult if it is a multi-story building the kind of the operation you want to take is very difficult you know the number of the rooms are there it is very difficult what kind of you know background the individual has some poor families staying in a juggage one is staying in a mediocre kind of a


one is staying in a mediocre kind of a setup somebody is staying in high starter every house has got a different design different layout different makeup demography is different very very difficult to conduct in fighting and built up operations um which year did you begin like you know your combat experience like this whole combat Journey like when has it started I started uh having first-hand experience in 99 the year I joined my unit the unit that time was in kapora so that time it was an amazing team of my seniors the great wonderful show a tiger so that was the year I got a hang of it in Kubota and thereafter actual the raw of it what I saw was in Manipur that was my first posting when I went to Apna deputation to awesome rifles that was amazing every day two to three Apna opportunities were there back to back we used to have follow-up operations why don't we talk about that a little bit so if you could give uh The Listener some kind of context on um


give uh The Listener some kind of context on um the situation in Manipur at that point in time okay like what was actually happening there and why we all required to carry out operations okay those days the situation as a youngster when I look back when I see the situation was something when I landed a Panasonic rifle I remember correctly I was told by Khan limits it is a kind of appointment who deals with a posting in those areas so I was told that I am the youngest officer posted in the Assam rifle those days how old were you I was just with three years of service and I was about 24 and a half 25. so when I landed up there I was told when I interacted with the civilian they asked me are you from India so there was a actually setback man I think I'm in India this is what does it mean you don't consider yourself to be a part of the India so situation was that bad believe you me I'm telling you there


that bad believe you me I'm telling you there was not even a single book there was not even a single newspaper there was no movie in Hindi it was absolutely banned it was a kind of an parallel government which was running there that was the kind of the whole the you know groups had what had caused that level of animosity was it like kind of feeling rejected from the Indian government no maybe not from the government I would say you know firstly the lack of awareness okay exploitation is damn very easy and when people are not aware and and as such life in mountains is very difficult people have their own wasted interest and by social anti-social elements whether it is you know anyone who has got political interest or the groups those who have been working there anti-national elements it is very easy to exploit the guy who is not aware what is right and what is wrong and you know the motivation at the top is almost always power or money yeah absolutely so I realized you know people don't


yeah absolutely so I realized you know people don't even consider themselves as a part of the India it was a shock as a youngster I never was aware of this brutal truth until unless I went on ground and then I realized young people most of them they just wanted to pick up a weapon and have a feel of it can I yes I'm powerful in this area I have got power with me so as a youngster you're dealing with a youngster you know you also have got a weapon I have also as a youngster has got a weapon so it's very difficult in a two people of the same age group one has been trained by the military and second and I totally disoriented he doesn't know he just have a weapon and he want to have that raw sense of you know Park yes I am powerful and it is very difficult sometimes when you face a situation like this the question uh I wish to ask you at this point is uh the first kind of dangerous combat experience where


is uh the first kind of dangerous combat experience where you felt like oh okay my life is in danger here okay only once in Northeast if you ask me initial combat days we entered into some uh house it was again fighting a built up area so we were aware there were people the input said key whether they are in possession of weapon or not we are not aware fine so we had assumed all kind of contingencies but we had never thought key it can happen this way also the moment you open the door and you will find someone and a pointing weapon at your head now this was something which you had never assumed but it happened Murphy's Law it had to have because of the lack of weapons in the Northeast because the guy was in a very tight situation and his neck was in the news there were no Outlet to go out of the house okay so he thought there is only one option at the moment when I take a first shot the moment and you take them by surprise I think


the moment and you take them by surprise I think probably that was the mindset you just enter it and you take it by surprise so we had never thought in wildest of dreams okay the moment we you know generally the tendency is you open the door and now you throw some grenade and I wait for some momentary reaction but no the moment we kicked the door and opened it the guy was Bloody stunning with his weapon in his head and he just put it on the head and when you face situation and you go black I went black at least that time for a moment Hannah and maybe luck wasn't by this thing and he pressed the trigger nothing worked maybe the weapon was faulty there was some technical snack but it never worked wow but it still took me in a couple of seconds to you know muster my senses it happens you know your nose goes black out because I never expected it is going to happen I know the guy will be in front of you what what


the guy will be in front of you what what was going on in your head nothing not just me it went blank because you know I was prepared once you enter and I'll go this side of that side this is what I'm going to do I was part of the room intervention drill you know I was in the leading party but the moment the guy he had put the weapon on your head I went blank only for a couple of seconds and then he also went black he was also surprised it didn't work then he cocked his weapon again meanwhile those seconds are now good enough to get back to your senses and then I had a butt I had given a solid hit on his blood or nose and her mouth then we were able to check on that guy I was able to catch him when you look back at this entire Manipur experience now and we're just at that part of your tenure uh at this point of the podcast when you look back at that entire Manipur experience uh what


look back at that entire Manipur experience uh what was your one like learning from it because it was an early part of your army tenure so uh what really stayed with you stayed with me one from the military perspective and one from the civilian perspective in fact I will tell you three and one from the Apna Milton or uh Milton point of view three things firstly about the military point of view I was serving in SM rifles I realized they are known as senatals of the Northeast and amazing Force you go to one company you will find people like it is a mini India you know you're commanding as a company Commander people speak multiple languages there are people from north east west south you name a state and the guy you will find within the company so this is one potent Force I realized which can operate with great smoothness in any part of the country any language interpreter it is at disposal and still the beauty was they all used to speak gorkhali now please


they all used to speak gorkhali now please hundred percent of them whether it was sick whether it was a Khalsa or a thumpy they spoke fluent Napoli's they had same eating habits this was something amazing and experience there is no substitute for experience and now some rifle even a Jawan he serves till the age of 60. there's no other Force where people serve till that yeah so guy imagine a carrying of 40 years of experience he might not be knowing English and he might be you know a little poor at the weapon handling whatever the age is not in the plus right but experience is something you know they can give you the best advice one of the most professional advice like in terms of um combat situations yeah in combat situation I give you one specific example there was some input we had to go to some place so I asked boys manager okay it's what are the root who knows map Reading in Special Forces infantry are you always open map you know when


infantry are you always open map you know when you're going to new area awesome rifle I get uh got over this I never used map I never use GPS why because I had you know walking encyclopedias with me all I had to ask them if we have to go to location XYZ now what are the routes people used to give me multiple options so four routes one route we go but only small Vehicles traveling time so much Potential Threat this much there have been two incidents on this road years won't show with specific details how many casualties which group everything this is the second routes a longer route it is going to take this much time and plus minus is this so third route no vehicle only by foot it is going to take shortest this much time and these are the advantages and disadvantages it was amazing they knew every no Corner Bridge they had every detail you know printed on their mind because they were static they used to stay you know at multi-air they used to stay at one location for many


multi-air they used to stay at one location for many many years subsequently the rotation thing started so this is one experience from uh combat point of view Army from militants I realized those groups those who used to operate they had a very strong uh ethical and moral code of conduct it is amazing not even an iota of there is when I compare it to the giant gay mother I've seen any group guy doing any wrong thing in the public against the code of conduct there used to be the headline in the newspaper the individual so-and-so a quarter of this group had done something wrong apologies on behalf of the commander and organization so and so we apologize to the public to the Son and Daughters of the Manipur a code of inquiry has been constituted headed by Colonel schwansu and this is the board composition and the entire board proceedings along with the decision the taken against the individual will be published in the newspaper they had a strong ethical code they never did anything wrong to the


strong ethical code they never did anything wrong to the ladies to the children to the elderly people and even a 4G officer if he or Jawan if it was in any public place with his family they were your walking insurance policy give me one example in the world where people have got this kind of code of conduct you will not find I can bet my even pension a commission on this any Javan or officer any person whether it is BSA police or anyone you'll not find one single example in the history when people were with their family and anybody has caused any harm to them it demands a lot that is from them third example from the public again if you are being nice to the people you know I realized you respect age you respect gender you know children women and elderly people nothing will happen to you nothing against the organization you have to have a very solid reason you know to go against that pulse of the environment to get on the wrong side so that people go against you otherwise you respect


side so that people go against you otherwise you respect them I remember I had taken participation and dance there are local dancers people do on various occasions with boys and girls holding their hands as a gangster and doing dance on the road that was the Dance Festival they used to do I'd gone to the remotest areas to attend a marriage function in the night without even carrying a weapon just only on the gut field maybe I was wrong people say you were mad of course I'm okay with it but at attended marriages you know where I'd gone there alone only with the driver I knew if somebody had extended an invitation to me man they are my insurance policy they will ensure my safety and they proved me absolutely correct the situation in a area is as good or bad as you are highly applicable in Northeast that is the third thing what I learned from them so I've given you three examples one from the color point of view one from the military and one from the civilian whatever an


the military and one from the civilian whatever an army veteran like yourself want to say about jnk that the audiences don't know right now and these are international audiences and I feel International audiences have a very skewed perspective on the Kashmir situation but even when it comes to Indian audiences most of the perspectives are built because of traditional news media which may not be reporting the truth on ground you've served as a I feel if there's anyone who should have an opinion it's the folks who serve there so where would you even like to begin this conversation it is very easy to have an opinion okay but opinion changes and it changes really damn fast and when you're on ground so one thing people should be very clear about there is a hell lot of difference between the real life and the real life don't go by what media shows you what a documentary of the movie shows just go as a tourist spend some days get to know the location I'll suggest very good exotic locations to


the location I'll suggest very good exotic locations to them you should go there and spend some time and never go alone go with your family then also the opinion changes you know when you're going alone things are different when you go with a family that sense of security changes so don't go whether real life go into the real life even as a tourist you're going I am telling you you'll get a hang of it imagine in your own country you're going to place and uh but you see every 10 step there is a guy who's standing there to protect you know so that you can have a selfie you can have a comfortable stay there so everything seems to be Tiki boo but moment and I take out those guys from there how many guys are there who are going to volunteer okay I want to go to you know Srinagar no you will not even cross the tunnel there is a difference and the people who are staying and I always say okay if you want to bring the difference now it


okay if you want to bring the difference now it is not no man can play and act alone you know everyone you require a team man when I say team when we call it a country it is not only the boots on the ground or the man with the Garment it is the common man it matters a lot you know they are one of the most important stakeholders now things have changed those you know important sections have been revoked it had made a lot of difference in the environment and slowly and slowly things will change for betterment you think it's getting cleaned up yeah as a military person I am damn sure about it the moment you know it has been devoked it had made our task a lot of easier I have seen a time where actually I'm telling you this is a fact I I don't know how many people are aware of it I landed up at the shinagar and I saw Indian army and dogs are not allowed is that statement acceptable to you imagine being an army and


statement acceptable to you imagine being an army and being uniform and you read something like this written around the world what state of mind and I I was Furious but what you can do you don't even know who is written it and you find it places there have been instances when I get a call because I'm moving a dead body of a martyr and the people have blocked the route flight is after one hour what do I do I don't know what to do whatever commanding officer is telling you I can only tell you I had I been in your place my you know I would have gone to an extent to ensure that this body reaches home at the time things happen thereafter of course but this is the environment I've seen you know Indian army dogs are not allowed okay I've seen Pakistani flag Pakistani board and you dare not to go to places like Lal chop the perception changes those kind of stupid boats are not there and all those agencies you know which were actually creating a lot


those agencies you know which were actually creating a lot of Havoc they have been a nailed in the bath environment is getting clean it takes time of course to clean anything you start from one end you clean and you start from your home so I'm sure the start has been good and it is going to go a long way it might take some time but what I know definitely there is a difference and things are going to improve in days to come let's talk a little bit more about combat situation yeah that's how the podcast began yeah and I have many many many many more questions please ask many many more questions and I'll be answering all of them one by one talk about a grenade sir like what useless women you think usually a thing absolutely totally useless again Murphy's Law my experience is you know you use it 10 times it'll go you know only one or twice how raw question again rookie raw question how big is a grenade explosion okay it can be you can temper


grenade explosion okay it can be you can temper with this thing how kind of what kind of exclusion you want for example uh you throw a grenade it will have a certain impact you know there are certain fuses in terms of seconds you won't you need to explode in what a fraction of second three seconds five seconds what seconds so accordingly you take out the pin yeah take it that is one second it is very sensitive in nature and uh my experience seriously you throw it and it never goes off at the time okay and it is not something which you actually very much and I used in routine we used to always carry as per the second two you carry in this pouches you carry this pouches but very rarely you get a chance to use it actually and it doesn't go off then it is a blind and when you need to dispose of later on you need to dispose it off you can't leave it blind now it'll go and harm some you know animal or anyone who's passing


some you know animal or anyone who's passing okay you need to take care of that thing to rule out any possibility to avoid any first unforeseen contingency you need to dispose it off so what do you do and now you play some codex Detonator and so that it is blown off if there is a Detonator cortex and I uh do some digging and put it in the you know ground the impact will be double if I tie a knot in the Codex and a Two Notch impact will be even more so you can change certain things it is part of your training but you need I don't consider I'm not never been fascinated I'm sure 100 you ask any uh Army person now they say this is one weapon I can do away with it and not that you're not comfortable we don't find it very effective how big is the explosion or how strong is the explosion see for any weapon there is a template template means every weapon has been designed in a manner Kate has got


has been designed in a manner Kate has got a Killing Zone you know there is effect okay it will go only up to a meter or diameter or circumference of this area anything when you have thrown it the Splinter will go only up to this area and cause the damage beyond that area if you're stunning and it will not reach you also it's roughly about two meters it depends in terms of distance it also depends on the angle may not even be 2 meters or maybe three meters also um there are a lot of factors which comes into play but when you are training someone to be in a combat situation with a grenade what is the training given to that person like in what situation are they supposed to use it okay uh you can use it when somebody is hiding in a situation in an open ground but on the other side of the cliff or something okay where you know yes you can throw it and cause damage that is one second for the bunker clearance you know you


one second for the bunker clearance you know you are getting like in Cargill in other places you have seen you know when somebody is taking a pinpoint shot and causing a heavy damage to the drops and you see all you see is a loophole yeah that is one area you can you know actually cause damage to the enemy but I give you today we have got better options weapon like AGL pinpoint Precision what is that easily is automatic grenade launcher you know okay it has got a tripod so a lot of stability then it has got you know a lot of emanation is inside a box you set the target there are instruments you say the Target and you can send and up to even a distance of you know many meters you know 800 meters 900 meters you sit that alignment there it is so damn effective and precise I tell you even in small box of one feed by one feet or even lesser than that it'll go pinpoint short into that bunker from such a distance like a grenade


that bunker from such a distance like a grenade gun it's a great gun yeah you can see lemon language great gun but it is so very sophisticated even the mosquito comes in it between after it travel the prime distance and it gets primed and it'll go off but very effective so why to use grenade when you can use from a lot distance is it the same as like a bazooka in some ways uh no I'll show you the picture I'll explain it to you what it looks like and how it works okay you see this tripod of yours it is something it has got a tripod got it two licks in the front one on the back and then it is very simple you see a huge Muzzle you know and then certain instrument where you do the calculation do the settings and there is a chord you pull the lever and you all you need to do you don't even have to look at the Target now you just have a rough look once you've done the setting and you just press