all around now when we were doing this activity because of exertion i was getting breathless and i i felt that it was just me happening to just me but then i was i was looking people around and everyone was it was happening to everyone and then what we did we couldn't we were not able to stand up so we came together three of us we started beating the snow together again and while we were beating it like okay what's happening something's wrong so now we have already handled cases before this we have handled cases who the people who were suffering from higher cerebral edema had pulmonary edema and we knew this this is not cerebral edema because if it's getting onto that zone you by the time you'll go down you're gone your body is gone so we know this is some sort of mountain sickness uh the primary stage is acute mountain sickness now it was not only happening to me it was happening to others as well and we rested on a rock


to others as well and we rested on a rock i sat down i had water i looked up and i was close to the clouds it was blue sky and then white clouds were there these white claws were moving i could see a dragon right there in front of me who was coming close to me like what and i was like okay i know this is not true i know what what you're doing with me don't stop doing this because i have studied all these things and i know how my brain is you know acting against me playing against me all these games then just settles down after somebody yeah you just spend time there you let your heart rate come down so it slowly settles down there's a burning question in my head about those immortal yogis so i want to talk a little bit about have you heard stories of you know yogis who are deep in the himalayas or just completely away from civilization yeah who are meditating and they have left their bodies so their bodies are still


have left their bodies so their bodies are still there but the soul is traveling so they can travel but the body is in some cave someplace like astral travel it's called yes there is there is actually meditation science behind spiritual sciences that say that you're supposed to slow down your heartbeat to such a point where your entire heartbeat stops your blood circulation stops but at the same time you're not see what what do we get life from we get life from air and food so when your heart stops you lose your requirement of it and for food you're able to get it from solar energy sort of like photosynthesis so you know like how fireflies work so fireflies have um photoluminescent parts of their body that's why they put out light even human beings have a part of your brain i think that is photoluminescent okay inside your head uh i read an article about this i forgot what the exact part is but there is something that's photoluminescent inside your body and there's also along with


inside your body and there's also along with photoluminescence there's an ability to uh i think it's like a very small version of photosynthesis in the same way that plants use sunlight to create sugars in the plant the human body is capable of that so there have been records of where we met auroville there is someone who is a veterinarian and he is living on that he's never eaten in like years now for years nowadays yeah so uh and there's also something called stigmatists all over the world who uh bleed on uh i think just before easter on good friday they start bleeding uh like look it up stigmata it's called um but even a lot of stigmatas actually breatharians at least they have been traditionally uh you read about all this in spiritual books man this is the science that science has to discover there are processes in the body that are still being discovered like my cousin i'm from a family of doctors and my first cousin was like my real brother


and my first cousin was like my real brother he has told me how much medicine has just advanced in 20 25 years compared to the thing his dad was studying he's studying some other stuff so even in 20 25 years we've had so many new discoveries so many advancements medicines are like rapidly advancing yeah so science is yet to discover the mysteries of the human body and my sister like my sibling is a doctor i ask her the same question that do you think you're still going to discover a lot about the body she's like the body is so complex we probably don't even know what we don't know about the body there's so much left to discover which is why i talk about those immortal yogis who probably are creating food in their own bodies through photosynthesis who probably are breathitarians like that guy in auroville who i hope to get on the podcast at some point i'd love that conversation yeah have you met that girl no no no okay maybe me the next time


girl no no no okay maybe me the next time we're in auroville together we'll go meet him but have you heard anything else about these immortal yogis i once had a teammate in my team i was leading to brahmatal and he was mentioning about it that there are a lot of centers where these yogis would stay in the tv malya's instance and i have been hunting around but i haven't seen one the chances are for these yogis to be around uttarakhand and himachal himalayas because i know it's very unexplored very very unexplored and why specifically these two states because there are a lot of temples around there like i would just go in the wilderness and there's nothing that you would see for kilometers and kilometers but there'll be a temple somewhere how did that temple get there or how was that stone structure made so that is a click yeah no and then the same goes for imagine pradesh i haven't seen much of these in the states of jammu


seen much of these in the states of jammu and kashmir uh i haven't seen it in rancho pradesh uh neither sikkim but maybe nepal is there i haven't explored nepal as much as i have explored the himalayan ranges of india but uh you know tarakhan and in manchester they are always i don't know how there'll be a peak and there'll be a you know a man-made structure which probably looks like a temple erected there so yeah that remains mystery for me for sure i mean i've not really gone on deep treks probably the longest trek i've gone on is a six hour trek okay but what i've heard um is that when you go into the wilderness there are certain spots where you feel a huge amount of energy so even even recently we didn't go in the wilderness we went to a place called jibby upwards from jibby there's a small kind of touristy peak again not too many people there but it is a peak sort of you have


there but it is a peak sort of you have to trek up to it very very it's a very commercial but even at the top of that mountain i meditated for like maybe 30 seconds and i felt some very different kind of energy right from time you kind of reach near the summit of that mountain you're like oh where am i so i can't imagine the massive pockets of energy you feel in the wilderness do you do you actually feel some very overwhelming energy i at times a lot of times actually i just detach myself from everything i think i still have to figure out what's the definition of meditation but for me as as whatever i have witnessed is that state of mind where i am free from everything most of the time it happens to me when i'm on a run on a long run and after certain kilometers there arrives a state of trance where i am detached from everything everything it's just blank and i'm enjoying what i'm doing i'm so much indulged in


what i'm doing i'm so much indulged in it it also happens when i'm doing rock climbing so one move and if you are not taking that move properly you will just have a fall so i'm so much inside of it that i can feel the rock and my breath and how deep breath i'm taking and i'm just at the moment right there and yeah this has happened quite a lot in the while i'm trekking as well at a lot of places some places which are just hard to describe most of the time it's the summit of any peak to be at that point where you can see a good 360 degree angle eagle's eye view of the entire uh region and then there are times it's valleys where there's influence like lord shiva has a lot of influence around the himalayas that's one thing because explain this explain this for someone who doesn't know what lord shiva is so lord shiva has according to the texts or the stories that we have heard there are a lot


the stories that we have heard there are a lot of temples of lord shiva in the himalayas also the feminine aspect of lordship which is the mata yes and all the like all the versions of parvati i would say so there are peaks which are named after his trident there's a speak that i have on my the tattoo that i have it's called the trident and just beside it there's another peak known as which resembles ma parvati because uh like they have to stick together but that's how people have named it and then there are temples a lot of temples where they consider the dhams kedarnath being one of them then they are madame you know there are a lot of these temples five temples which are aligned one by one one by one into the deep wilderness and people do go and trek there like these treks they do in two days because of their how devoted they are and how much they worship lord shiva so yes that there is this vibe of


shiva so yes that there is this vibe of lord shiva around and how marijuana has been treated it's been looked up as like it's the you know the prasad and yeah this is different energy of a valley where it's grown and not commercialized i that's the part i like the most where it's not commercialized or been made just to be sold and let the income flow and no it's not like that it's it's mostly been used in local cuisine uh but yes it's definitely been taken as the other forms of drugs like uh smoking it like smoking marijuana so yeah it's there but then it's just not commercialized so in these valleys where you'll just see one marijuana tree like plants all in the valley and you just feel sort of different like it's just a different vibe you know and then this temple of shiva there's a waterfall around there and there's not just waterfall you look at one and then instantly you can see like 10 others around the valley wow


you can see like 10 others around the valley wow so yeah but then this is deep in the wilderness and i've heard stories that people who live there they have been seen once and then they are seen after five years seven years so why is that what do you think i am sure they just get inside the wilderness and they live by themselves meditate or do something i haven't encountered anyone yet but i've heard these things coming from the people and then there's this massive thing about nanda devi nanda devi being one of the you know it's a mountain which is again a goddess to the people of uttarakhand and all around like the people from the north and it stands isolated like it's standing alone now why i'm talking about that is because it's so much unexplored uh because of a lot of political reasons as well and the things that have happened around in there so in order to go to the base you have to just check for like maybe 10-12 days and there'd


just check for like maybe 10-12 days and there'd be a lot of valleys interconnecting so in those valleys i'm sure there'll be a lot of things like these which are happening if one has to go on yes yes like political thing is definitely there and the thing that the chaos that happened around the time of 1965 like all this is all those nuclear testing apparently yeah exactly so basically there's like modern day secrets like the so-called nuclear testing that happens and then there's ancient secrets of the himalayas which we may not even ever discover uh it's just so vast i've heard stories about like treasure being hidden you know by kings who've like ruled in the northern states they've hidden treasure in like the caves and valleys of the himalayas do you believe that can be possible uh so this is lake called roopkund let me tell you this and it will answer your question so this lake is famous because they are skeletons there and still there at that


they are skeletons there and still there at that particular altitude so there's that when this lake it melts you can easily spot human skeletons there but the bone size is much larger than the humans around this era so definitely they are way old uh the time hasn't been justified yet people who have taken all these specimens and they have tested it out some would say some somewhere around the 13th century some would say it's way beyond than that so what the locals have told me that okay there was this king who was on a move and he had some sort of a argument with his wife and all and some wife said okay you are not supposed to go please stay back but he was stubborn about it that he has to go hunt for this treasure or something that was beyond the passes that were about to come and then he got stuck in this hail storm and the entire button the entire troop died and as they died they died in this valley which was around


died they died in this valley which was around in shape and then the snow came snow melts no came snow melts with this constant process happening over the year the bodies have kind of come down to the lake and still it's still there at that particular altitude so i would not just deny the fact that it's not there it's just that uh the snowfall is so constant that if anything is there it just goes down and down and down as like this uh the device that was being supposed to be installed at nanda devi and nandikode so they did install one at nun code the other one at nanda devi didn't get installed that's another story but the one that got installed installed at nun code that device later on after one year when the team went to see how the house the device doing that they couldn't find the device how was the walking dead the device not there they were shocked again but they found out that the device has penetrated down it has it went down so


has penetrated down it has it went down so the same sort of thing must have happened in the himalayas as well i don't know how deep inside it is because there's so much of snow which turns later turns into crevasses and there are tunnels inside of it and yeah things like that no one even knows what's hidden there yeah yeah because it's just hidden in one if there's only way in way out cannot be justified in your hindi episode which i loved and you all should check it out if you think this is crazy you should hear the intensity of that episode um we spoke about death so much and how death selects some people and it just doesn't select some people um and death has constantly not selected you you know um it's probably for a reason and the same way there are certain things that are always meant to be hidden it's not meant to be found maybe certain animals that are not meant to be found maybe there's a yeti out there maybe out


found maybe there's a yeti out there maybe out there for sure yeah uh that's not meant to be found yeah um or is that what have you heard any local stories of the year i i have been doing my own research about your teeth like it has given me an environment that i am fortunate enough to work in himalayas go to penetrate down to the regions where not many get to witness the beauty the charm and the things that come along with it i'm talking about the things which are not comfortable zone so being fortunate enough to explore all this in and out and i haven't ever encountered a yati myself i have never seen any but the himalayas are so unexplored not just the lower himalayas they are unexplored anyway but then there's civilization there so in order to go from one civilization to the other people might just penetrate but they'll find a lot of wildlife and all and all and all and still it's very unexplored but the greater himalayas where


it's very unexplored but the greater himalayas where after one time the death zone starts you cannot live there you can go up and come down as if the altitude is so high that you can you'll die there yes you either have to have supplement oxygen and that oxygen should live should be there for you to explore that entire territory for like 10 years or maybe more that amount of oxygen you have to carry to scale the entire region which is not possible in any of the ways and with that the territory in itself let's say let's just draw a circle okay and and i tell you okay you have to get to the center of the circle what you do will draw a straight line or maybe a zigzag zigzag line and you'll get to the circle so you draw that black colored line to get to the center now if i turn this circle this entire sheet of paper into a cone that root that will look like a root for you to go from the bottom to the top think about the


go from the bottom to the top think about the entire region that is just one peak now and now in such ways there are many peaks when these massive peaks come together they make valleys there's one peak over here there's one peak over here now this is a valley and this valley can get penetrated to know how many kilometers down the line so they are it's very unexplored even if you take a chopper fly flying it at that lower levels it's going to be tough for anyone you know so i will not deny the possibility of yati being there and safeguarding as you mentioned safeguarding the entire island ranges but safeguarding from what safeguarding form the destruction in a way which is coming as a construction like dams or roads yes because lot of nature gets harmed when dam's roads are created yes yes quite a lot because these all things himalayas are the youngest mountain range they're so young that they're still growing and if you make any sort of


still growing and if you make any sort of construction in these particular places it has to sustain if it's not sustaining it's going to come down and it's going to bring down a lot of things along with it just giving you an example just recently i was at this peak called pangarchula and from there along whenever you were hiking up to that peak we could see the damage done to a dam far away in order to get there it will take us two days from the point we were watching it now and that too when we are walking at a very good speed like considering all of us to be really good hikers or else it will take even longer now when you're watching the dam the damn probably looked like a small tiny thing just like my finger as this much in that particular distance and the we could also see the glacier that was there so that glacier got busted it came down and when it came down it bought a lot of water a lot of everything that came


a lot of water a lot of everything that came along with it it just got washed away trees mud everything and it hit that dam in such a way that the dam got washed away and you know the water that came along with it it was like this is a valley just consider it in certain point that this is the valley v-shaped valley and there's this river flowing okay on that point where v these two lines are matching now the water at that particular time was this much that this was not a v it was a u the water was flowing up till this level so that was the amount of water flowing and how much of life it would have taken the people who were working across you know along the lines of the shores of the river so the construction is coming up i don't know people would deny global warming but the temperature is going up and the glacier are not sustaining i was shocked to be at one of the places where the glaciers so in order to go


places where the glaciers so in order to go from one mountain to the other there's this glacier in between which means like this is a valley but then there's this a huge amount of ice snow which is there turned into ice and we can easily cross traverse from one point to the other now i was shocked i was at this particular point there was a glacier here these glaciers receded up till here so what we have to do we have to go all the way down cross the river and then come up which took us like two days more to do this entire thing go down the mountain entirely cross and then come up when in my year when i first did it 2016 17 and this is what like three years with us so that's the amount of how glaciers have receded going back back back and back and that's the amount of water which will be required gun guy feeding people across india just want to highlight one thing about these constructions that happen in uttarakhand


thing about these constructions that happen in uttarakhand everyone knows that i think these two states produce the most electricity for india and they supply to other states so we actually talk to the locals that they hate the fact that there's so many dams so many hydro power plants because to get hydro power which is power you get from reverse power you get from falling water bodies you have to construct dams when you construct them so much of the environment gets damaged and we're living in an age where other countries are using solar power yes but india and they are still stuck on hydropower and the logic behind that is um there's a lot of black money that's converted to white when constructions happen i'm sure and there's a lot of people not just the government officials there's a lot of maybe officers maybe capitalists businessmen construction people builders who make a lot of that money along the way yes so uh i remember being with a beautiful driver in himachal pradesh his name was saleem he was


himachal pradesh his name was saleem he was telling us locals just don't want another dam there because they've seen all the damages done they've seen how nature has been affected they've seen most of our natural calamities floods changes in temperature all these problems like you're damaging nature so much obviously nature is gonna lash back it's how physics works forest fire yeah yeah recently there was a lot of forest fire in entire and it was i was having a heartache to see all of that happen yeah and it was not a pleasant sight at all i was crying within why is this happening it's it's uh you know greed and agreed for money that's making all this happen i mean the himalayas because they're so massive they also must be getting so much sunlight you can easily construct solar power plants even though it's expensive it's so much more expensive yeah because to carry all the equipment up to that particular altitude rather than putting it somewhere across the south line but


than putting it somewhere across the south line but in the himalayas it will definitely be much harder much stronger we have this thing like in the mountains once we go high up the altitude we are feeling cold but at the same time the sun is so hard it's so harsh on your body because you've already gained altitude so that's heat is coming straight away the uv rays are much stronger and burns you like anything i mean the world has to move to using solar power rather than hydropower there's too much damage that hydropower causes it's not that it's pollution free or something a lot of happens to the land to the little animals little big animals and therefore also the human beings living their houses their homes are all gone yeah and when it's getting constructed that's the time where most of the chaos happens it was a very horrible sight i remember coming down from sankri and recently i visited so now the work is almost done but i saw more than 1000


is almost done but i saw more than 1000 trees chopped down like anything like just chop down like anything they we don't talk about it but they they are living beings and they i've always been taught in my school that humans animals and trees they are living beings yeah and you know that's my hope that this generation that's running the world right now they're going to die out in like 10 20 years and the world is going to be run by our generation 80s born kids 90s born kids 2 000 born kids who much more environmentally conscious who love this planet and rather than thinking about going and uh occupying mars we'll first take care of what we are given let's move on to the twitterverse section okay which is just quick questions from the fans are you ready for the twitter section of the runway show okay before i start i just want to tell the fans to be active on twitter to be a part of these podcasts and if you've enjoyed it till this point make sure you share


enjoyed it till this point make sure you share it with all your friends we will only grow through the listeners episodes like this don't get that many views don't get that much interest but it will once you start sharing once you check out trs clips of all the highlights of this episode let's get into the twitter verse section okay um okay divyang chandbar asks of any ghost experience you've had in the himalayas oh okay uh this cannot be a short answer go for it let me go for it so most of the times the ghost is what our mind is not able to recognize as a human or an animal and if it's not falling into that category it becomes something supernatural and that supernatural has been termed as ghost so i've had experience not to myself but i've heard stories from villages and villages around which which was not justified so i told myself okay i'm not gonna sleep inside i'm gonna sleep outside so at that particular night i saw i heard uh


at that particular night i saw i heard uh utensils falling and my justification was okay it's because of the wind so i left i dropped the message to the other person okay just be cautious around that area and they already knew about it so he my the person who was behind me leading a team he was sleeping out in the wilderness like in the on the balcony it was still wilderness uh and he had this experience that someone came and slapped him and i could not stop laughing and i know this person really well in and out and i know he wouldn't be joking so yeah that was one that didn't happen to me but it happened to him the other one was in snow when you are you're camping at snow you can easily spot out someone who walked in and walked out because of the impression that you're gonna make on the snow now this was another guy who was telling me the same story around the same area where he could see one


story around the same area where he could see one footsteps coming in and he was having a tent mate uh beside him his guide and in the middle of the night the guide asked him okay i need to go out and do this and that and he was like okay you do what you want to do so he went out never came back later in the morning he asked him okay what happened to like i was never in your tent wow so yeah that sort of thing have you you know on any of your expeditions have you felt like there's another presence walking with your troop it gives me goosebumps when i think about it and i mostly think about it along the lines that it was an energy that was keeping us all motivated and not have any sort of fear there was a hand that was safe guarding us shiva energy i don't know i don't know whether it was shiva energy or any other energy or because the land of the gods uh but there was definitely something that i


gods uh but there was definitely something that i felt and yeah there was something that was walking along with us just not seen i couldn't see it but could feel it and it was just taking us along the lines okay everything's gonna be all right there was this good amount of uh you know motivation that the entire trope had okay okay nothing's gonna happen and this is only for good whatever it is it is only for good and you were in a dangerous situation or something we were not in a dangerous situation we were just moving uh around the time when the sunset has happened so it's not recommended to move around the time but we were supposed to be at some place and yeah every sound that the jungle will make is gonna be you know intensified magnified so this was this along with the team the last one was when i was covering 10 kilometers stretch after the sunset by myself i was i could constantly feel like there's someone following me and i looked back there


there's someone following me and i looked back there was no one around i just kept moving forward later i found out there was a lot of uh you know j calls so there are a lot of them and they have this red eyes and then wolves around like they look like wolves but they're not so yeah they were following me and yeah are wolves dangerous in the himalayas uh yes have you seen any like no no i have seen like the wolves that i've seen they have been not as huge as the one that we've seen in the movies they are because of the latitude they are much higher in the latitude not in at the altitude but can they also attack human beings if they wish to they will harshavi asks share one incident which brought a significant change in the way you look at the world from your adventures yeah that's what like every day above the ground is a good day after coming close to like there's a constant debate about sensibility and desire because of the woman i was


sensibility and desire because of the woman i was saving who was in my team who had a fall and because of the gears that i had with all those gates i just jumped without giving a second thought you were climbing on the side yes we were climbing on a ridge of a mountain so if this is the mountain we are climbing on this particular ridge and we are tiny dots so imagine us climbing and one person just fell down and i just jumped without giving it a second thought trusting my abilities my training and everything and with the i6 i was able to hold her and then the other person from this bottom point came ran and stopped both of us so that was one of the experience and uh yeah all these experiences taught me this one thing that every day of the ground is a good day pedant kulkarni asks what's the best thing that the himalayas have taught you from all your adventures yeah it has taught me three things to be fit in


it has taught me three things to be fit in my body that is important if i am not fit then to carry all all the tasks that i'm doing it's gonna be a huge problem uh a little bit on the journey of being wise day by day where you don't want to you have to do what you have to do you're not doing thing for pleasing someone you're doing things to keep people safe and to justify your professionalism and yeah that is there and being more alive appreciating life more a lot sanjit keswani from our team asks how does one become a mountain here in india what's the process like okay i'm sure there are a lot of people who are listening to this get a pen and paper you have to repeat this video over and over again so the look indian monitoring federation indian monitoring foundation is the authority that works in india and and within indian monitoring foundation there are a lot of institutes that are working under the central government of india uh these institutes


under the central government of india uh these institutes are nehru institute of mountain based at uttarkashi there is jawahar institute of mountaineering based at palgam there is himalayan institute of hmi himalayan mountaineering institute which is based close to darjeeling and this is national institute of monitoring and allied sports which is based in dhirang or rancho pradesh now these four they are centrally instituted they come under the central government of india there is one fifth one which is called atal watch by monitoring institute a abhi mass avi ms it is in located in manali master pradesh which comes under the state and the central authority both now in order to be into mountaineering you have to understand what is the basics of mountaineering and given that you have to earn an alpha which is grade a in all of these courses so you go for a course which is known as basic monitoring course in any of these four institutes these courses are very very expensive but uh the


these courses are very very expensive but uh the subsidy has been provided by the government of india and you can get these courses done for like a very minimal amount at the time how much the time when i did it it was for 5000 but right now it has gone up till it's gone high up till 16 000. and the waiting time is way too much so if you want to get this course done irrespective you will have time or not just plan your year in such a way maybe you have to plan like three years ahead and just go and book the course if you are not able to do it maybe you'll get the refund but go ahead and book the course if you are really interested in it once you go to the basic monitoring course a lot of doubts will get cleared uh it's also important to know why you're doing these courses just to have an idea about it so that's how you can choose which institute you wanna do this course with because every institute provides its own


this course with because every institute provides its own specialization so i did that from kashmir i really wanted to do it from there and to understand the dynamics as well i was being asked to do it from kashmir i went there and vape i did basic you have to score grade a only then you're out to do an advanced monitoring course once you do an advanced mode training course your altitude is gonna go step up the game you're gonna live at high altitude much longer than your basic monitoring course and between the time frame of basic monitoring course and advanced monitoring course make sure that you feel you're filling up your time by doing some adventure in the outdoors by being in the mountain mountains again and there's a lot of endurance involved uh so basic what's done then you do something fill up your time with some adventure the advanced groups come in an advanced course a lot of breed is gonna get out their basic course most of the time there are people from all walks


most of the time there are people from all walks of life we have no clue what it like and they just come and roll and they are the part of the hood but in one school there'll be more serious professionals people would have climbed peaks would have done things and you would be along with these people and you'll go through this advanced monitoring course where you'll spend significant amount of time up high in the altitude once this is done you'll go to search and rescue which is again more streamlined now basic modern codes will happen like four four batches in a year this will happen two batches in a year certain risk will happen once in two years or once in one year so that's how it just keeps getting uh narrowed down the funnel yeah and then your actual experiences after that make you this whole mentality you will go through a lot in all the between these courses a lot in terms of uh just building up your career and yourself most of all yeah i think i think


and yourself most of all yeah i think i think that's the joy of certain careers that definitely say entrepreneurship is one i'd say a career like yours is another army is another uh even acting is another where the joy of it is truly finding yourself that's the joy it's not the money the fame the recognition it's always what's inside going deeper within finding your own questions you don't even know you want to ask those questions you'll find those through your work yes very much you kind of become work magnet and money magnet so it will follow you don't have to look for it yeah and uh you know that's what people a lot of people will be listening to this podcast at this point asking them is why have you chosen a career like this without understanding that the amount of self-discovery that daewong has had that other entrepreneurs have had just there's nothing that parallels that level of self-discovery that you can get through a job like this and then therefore that self-discovery


a job like this and then therefore that self-discovery trickles out little bits of happiness and make your overall existence much happier yeah so self-discovery gives you joy and careers like this give you self-discovery um not everyone's chasing that capitalistic career in life not everyone's chasing fame in life uh you know we sent on this this is going on some other tangent because it was sent on this planet to do things but i will just move on to the next question keshav jindal asks can you discuss something related to mythological exploration or anything related to ramayana mahabharata in the himalayas that you've seen heard whatever do you have any stories like that yeah so there's a speak known as sarga rohini they say when pandavas were half were to take the walk to swark they had to go across that peak and go to the this is ahead of rishikesh no yes yes like because i have a friend yes who has a story about the speak yes so i'll tell


a story about the speak yes so i'll tell you my friend so i'm answering the question for you yeah he's um you know an affluent person we'll probably have him on the podcast at some point um it's a long trek up to that place from rishikesh long i think it's like a time from rishikesh you have to go like 10 hours deep down to that village road and then you start at that final destination of the trek there is some sort of a lake where they say magical experiences happen and you see things that you're supposed to see and that you take back with you that's what he had told me yeah there's this lake called ruins our lake on that particular destined path just a little bit of deviation and yeah so that's one that's when he say there's a step walk to heaven go on like what's your yeah that is it is i haven't i i haven't climbed that peak yet so yeah i don't know whether it's going to be


yeah i don't know whether it's going to be heaven out there or hell but every mountain top is a heaven for me along the lines uh the mountains like uh there's a lot highest lord shiva temple in a place called chandrashila tuna so yeah being there at that particular altitude where shiva was meditating once and all these places are like they are there because there is a reason to it you know like lord shiva doing his prayers or pandavas having some sort of uh connect with them like one of these stories is the pandavas were lost and they had to find water so once they were finding water uh your dishes asked someone to go and look for water they found he found water but then the water god asked a few questions that he had to answer and if we wouldn't answer then he'll just faint on them so this was yamaraja [Music] you can see that peak very big huge enormous from there in that particular trek and along the same trails you


that particular trek and along the same trails you will go up to the mountains which is called which is again the highest lotsiva temple so they were lost and then they were the questions were being asked and there were questions like what is black more black than which is darker than black or something like that like it wasn't asked in hindi though he couldn't answer there were five questions like these which were being asked and they couldn't answer but then easter came or nakul came some one of them the story is that uh i think that sent bhim and arjun to look for water they went to the lake and before they could take water from the lake the deity of the lake yeah went and said no before you take my water answer question then i'll allow you to take it otherwise you drink it and you'll die so they were like who are you where the great warriors the pandavas they had it out of arrogance and one by one all fainted except for yudhisthira who was


one all fainted except for yudhisthira who was at the campsite and finally yudhisthira in search for them he came to the lake and he began to answer those riddles and questions and he answered it accurately yes and if you actually study the mahabharata they say that yudhisthira is yamaraja's son they say that kunti and madhuri had prayed to different gods for sons with different abilities okay so uh the first eldest son kundi had prayed to uh yamaraj for and [Music] met him as a deity of that lake and asked him your questions and asked him a question and you answered it yeah and got the water as well yeah as a boon take the water and you can have your brother's back yeah this lake is diritar lake it's in uttarakhand it's very close to the village called sari and this route leads it's also very famous for rhododendron what rhododendron is a flower it's the state flower and the juice being stuck extracted


the state flower and the juice being stuck extracted out of it which is very good for your heart so and this entire century it will have a lot of birds so if anyone is a bird watcher you can go around that century and look for birds have you seen that lake yes yes yes is there some different energy about it feels good to be there it's a very happy vibe yeah i took my brother first time he my brother is a nerd so he was studying quite a lot and i wanted really wanted him to have a hike with me we got lost at one point of time and then we found our way so he was very you know scared but we found out that water plays and we were like he was so happy after looking at that water okay water is that that means you can camp around the place we were lost around like 4 35 and we had no shelter nothing so i was like okay don't freak out like i was thinking he was along the same levels as


i was thinking he was along the same levels as mine but that me being stupid i was safeguarding you okay nothing's gonna go wrong i have a lot of food for you and all this and that but you're like okay but there's no one around there's no there are no people around they're like okay don't worry let's just go forward i know so we went forward forward and found that lake and they happened that hassan at his face was something that i'll never forget my life he saw that lake he saw water he saw people around there like wow okay we can camp over here yeah perfect you said that this place had a positive vibe have you ever seen places in the himalayas which had a very negative vibe most of the time it depends on the circumstances okay yeah what is actually going on what's the backstory of that place but nature by itself will never be negative no never yeah oh i hear you man so yeah there are a lot of stories i'm sorry to not


there are a lot of stories i'm sorry to not answer this question it's all good you know appropriately because i am not that much into um yeah that's that's fine man uh if you want any kind of his indian history indian mythology all that stuff you check out the podcast you've done with devdap if you want aliens and himalayan secrets this is the right podcast for you next question it's from ranveer because there's no more fun questions or we've answered all of them already okay uh in all your adventures what's the most beautiful place you've seen and describe it of all the places that i've been all the mountains that i've traversed all the peas that i've climbed uh no matter what kashmir great lakes also that that place is very close to my heart because of a lot of things that happened over the time when i was serving in kashmir kashmir great lakes is one of those places where it's beautiful world is not describing kashmir kashmir


beautiful world is not describing kashmir kashmir is describing the world beautiful it's that amazing those grasslands those meadows it's an amazing hike once you enter the territory all you can see is color green spread across as long as far as you can see these are grasslands which are huge and huge and then there are lakes now one of those lakes is gutzer lake i don't know what is there there are mixed sort of vibes and i like it when it makes sort of vibes because it was always good vibes only once i heard this story about that there's an octopus who lives inside of that lake and it comes up like one of the hands comes out and it grabs animals and goes down again i don't know why i was in that zone to even hear that story but yeah it's been told by one of the shepherds who lives around that valley he plays flute and i just go there during the kashmiri get like this entire trek on the fourth


get like this entire trek on the fourth day this lake will arrive uh sit there and just you know absorb sun while i'm looking at this lake which is pristine blue there's a mountain it's covered from three sides there's a mountain on one side there's this green meadow on the place that i'm sitting there rocks all of it so i'm sitting in one of the rocks and there's this lake which has a glacier which is hanging beyond behind it that when i say it's a hanging glacier it means that it looks like it's hanging but it's been there for years and year and stuck there like a very quick stuck there and in the middle of the lake there's this glacier which is there so it looks like there's a cake blueberry sort of and then there's this icing done on the top of it so it's that beautiful and then that glacier is moving because of the water is you know constantly moving so that lake that that glacier mass of ice is


so that lake that that glacier mass of ice is also moving so it's that beautiful and on a clear day when it's sunny you can see the blue sky and because the reflections the blue water the mountains around green and then the green meadow will also have flowers and that's my most beautiful place that i've ever seen i have i would never shy away from going kashmir over and over and over again doing that trek i will never get bored there have been a lot of incident and bring back a lot of memories but i cherish all those memories even they were even even if they were bad or good they're always good for me because of the valley uh yeah so kashmiri get licks and all whatever witness around it it's huge it's massive there are phenomenas where you will hear water but you will not see rivers because the water is flowing underneath and you're under the ground yes wow so yeah all of these incidents makes kashmir it looks just amazing i've met


makes kashmir it looks just amazing i've met amazing people out there bond made there are still there enact so yeah all in and out kashmir it is you have like 10 more podcasts in your mind but kashmir get likes i hear you yeah you've got 10 more podcasts in you for sure uh we'll have you back on the runway show at some point in the future maybe when you've had even more experiences and you have more to share with the world what i'd request of audiences is if you know someone like devang we on the search for people like this who have experiences beyond cities experiences in the outdoors adventurers um you know just these miscellaneous people they're the most fascinating stories they're the most fascinating conversations my brother my brother thank you for being on the run we showed for the second time yeah uh i highly recommend that the listeners check out the hindi podcast we did with the young and that's extremely intense but for now yeah before we wind this


intense but for now yeah before we wind this up just one request whenever you go to the mountains just make sure you only leave your footprints out there and no carbon waste this is something that the himalayas are dealing with there's a lot of plastic that's coming up and it's not going back because there is no management no services like that we have in cities like these so if you are taking any sort of plastic just one request bring it back beautiful that was the signing of note make sure you like make sure you share make sure i think you guys are subscribed and you are following us on spotify but thank you guys this is a lovely episode thank you brother thank you namaste so that was our episode with devang tapliyal we're actually releasing it two to three months after we've recorded the episode and there hasn't been a single day in these two to three months but i haven't thought of this particular episode and now that you've heard all of it you know why this


that you've heard all of it you know why this is a piece that i enjoyed creating since the first time i met devang thaplayal at the claw headquarters in oroville when i had gone to meet major vivek jacob and his team i looked at dewang and i thought to myself that this guy has to be on our podcast i'm looking forward to bringing him back on the show because i'm sure that even within the course of six months to a year he'd have seen so much more of life so many more adventures so much more storytelling that would have been formed within this man's mind i'm blessed to call this person a friend i'm blessed to hear his story and i'm blessed to bring it out to you guys whenever i hear joe rogan's podcast the joe rogan experience firstly he's a huge inspiration for me but secondly his best episodes are episodes with adventurers and i'm glad that indian audiences are gravitating towards these


glad that indian audiences are gravitating towards these episodes with adventurers with outdoorsmen because the joy of podcasting isn't just about how to make money how to self-improve the joy is diving into someone else's experiences and if the experiences are this rich that joy becomes 10x if you enjoyed this episode make sure you hit that thumbs up button make sure you share this episode with your friends tell people that indian content creators are now creating content like this spread the word about the ranvier show and make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world do tell us on our social media handles about all the other adventurers that you know of that you would like to see featured on the runway show if you can help us get in touch with some of these adventures write in to us comment on our instagram send us mails and keep following the ranvir show [Music] you


kavita gupta is on the ranvi show today to inspire every single young girl in the country but more importantly to inspire every single youngster in the country every single youngster wants to make it big on the world stage this woman's story is incredible imagine the order being stacked against you people are discouraging you from chasing higher education people are discouraging you from chasing your goals and you fight the odds you go abroad you establish yourself as one of the world's top vcs you establish yourself as one of the world's top fintech founders and this is only kavita gupta's beginning there's a long way to go for this legend but today she's on the runway show telling us her story till this point an extremely inspirational episode and if you guys want even more inspiration and remember to follow trs on spotify where is spotify exclusive now which means that every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world enjoy this inspirational mentorship


else in the world enjoy this inspirational mentorship session from kavita gupta [Music] she's queen k for me because of her queen like story thank you for being on the runway show thank you ranveer and thank you for not sharing me with a thousand other female fans of yours you are my queen you're not you're not just a fan or a listener and how big is your no harem universe contains just one queen and that's you for today guys he you you can have him for today and also just you know for the rest of my life because your energy in my life is like a tattoo in my heart whenever i'm finding a guy i'm sending him to you please train him [Laughter] i'd i think i think you you have the kind of energy that'll just attract whatever you want in your life because that's how your life has been also so i feel like you're one of those people who just plays it cool when it comes to their life but also one of those


it comes to their life but also one of those people who has had a life which can be turned into a movie so at least you should watch it if it ever happens you know you're you're one of my big gifts from twitter spaces like we discovered you should get paid for it though at twitter spaces yeah i think they're starting something like that oh really yeah but how's your last two years been you're based in the u.s yes and uh you're also working in the indian startup space a little bit yeah yeah but how's the last two years been i think 2020 is something everybody wants to somehow want to forget or something but i actually had a very good 2020. i have to be very thankful um i discovered a lot of podcasts including yours right before actually end of 2019 but 2020 i got to really go deeper into a lot of different things you do 2020 also made me less on the plane because i used to be on the plane every week so being at one place


on the plane every week so being at one place finding your anchoring more meditation more healthy lifestyle spending time with just yourself which could be uncomfortable in the starting how long have you been in the us totally since 2003 yeah it's been a long long time so was this like your first sort of break because i know that the u.s can be a very capitalistic energy in a very good way there's a lot of things i've learned from the us but it seems like this was like your first sort of full stop and mumbai has very similar energy oh yeah yeah yeah i feel like when i come to bombay and i talk about my like any travel or something people don't even bling their eyes so they're like yeah um i think my life has been all about being like a gypsy and maybe i liked it that way so i resisted i went into a little little depression like february march last year the idea of not being on the plane the idea like i you're talking to somebody


plane the idea like i you're talking to somebody who actually sleeps best on the flight because i somehow feels like no internet i can just sleep and then i'll wake up and i have to run for a meeting and i know my best restaurants and my best shopping place and every terminal at every airport across the globe so then staying in the place without your friends you can't socialize you're just there you don't know what's happening and with indian flights getting completely cancelled was the first time i couldn't do anything what i want to do there's no choice um so i even be i had to go deeper into meditation i had to go comfortable with myself everything which i've been putting as my new year wish list for last four five years finally happened without putting one on wow so i'm very grateful i'm very thankful actually i was telling you before this podcast started that you have very nice energy like you're very like like you radiate a lot of positivity and uh


like you radiate a lot of positivity and uh you know just i feel a lot of empathy like honestly the team was a little late to the shoot but you're very relaxed about it and uh it happens yeah it is it is the nature of mumbai like uh you know all these little things happen but my point of saying that is you just had such a nice calming energy on everyone and i feel people with this kind of energy have usually gone through moments of distress themselves and from what i understand about you i feel your moments of distress weren't so much in the us as they were probably before and i always i feel like humans have their life divided into two sort of innings because that's how my life has also been like i feel like for me till age 21 22 was very difficult and 22 is where i really started finding my feet and just things started falling into place and the life that i kind of wanted to have started becoming a reality but


of wanted to have started becoming a reality but did you always know that this is the life you wanted i knew that i wanted to be my own boss i knew that i wanted to do something which doesn't feel like work i knew i wanted to work with my own team you know with a certain kind of energy i didn't know what i'll be doing but isn't it very exciting interesting that when you say all this stuff and you're 12 year 15 year 16 year old people just say you're lazy yeah the perception of all these things is you are lazy you are like above yeah the great thing you are thinking you're arrogant yeah you're arrogant everything everything negative and when you actually do this and people are like intelligent yeah no if i think visionary right yeah someone had told me very early on that if you have a vision for yourself and if you're you know under the age of 50 okay but if you have a vision for yourself uh often people will kind of laugh at


yourself uh often people will kind of laugh at that vision because people don't understand visions that are larger than society or larger than what is the societal norm but if you can really see something for yourself then you should try your best to manifest that and make it a reality but people our culture also tells you be humble yeah and their definition of humble is like uh just don't say anything aloud yeah something don't express yourself which is not normal yeah because i had the same problem i always i have no clue why and maybe it was wrong i don't know i always thought i was special yeah like you feel like you're in a film yeah this is all just happening i am the actor of my own i'm sorry this just reminds me of kareena kapoor's character yeah i was already in us i didn't see the movie but i got 22 messages from my cousins and friends and like somebody made a movie on your life [Laughter] so i think very early on someone


life [Laughter] so i think very early on someone had told me that if you scan the world of business there's three kinds of business people one is the energy execution you know hustle based person one is the strategist who can think a lot and the third is the visionary and uh it's difficult being all three all three of their own challenges and all that but with the visionary specifically i think you're talking about a lot of the challenges that i have also encountered and i have heard people say that okay visionaries have these kind of challenges where people don't understand you at every stage now imagine now we being here if a 12 year old kid comes and says i am visionary you are not getting me what would be your reaction though [Music] because my knees tried to do that on me and i'm like you're not getting high school do finish your homework maybe your niece is the next kg who knows yeah your genetics have like gone into her as well this kind of


have like gone into her as well this kind of thought process this kind of vision but i actually wanna ask you about your childhood also you've had a very typical indian childhood where i think a lot of at least i'm not sure about this but i assume a lot of people have told you that you wouldn't be where you actually have reached today or people tried blocking your path and i also know that your dad played a huge role in in like pushing you along this path so today you're this like startup investor and you're flying from one country to another but at the beginning sometime in the eighties sometime in the nineties there were a lot of times you didn't go to seventies yeah thank you i'm an 80 child let me just accept it but but uh that if you could go back to the 80s to your mind then because there's a lot of young listeners listening to this who will find themselves in your story also and for me the main reason for bringing you on


and for me the main reason for bringing you on this show is uh this concept of hope which has become a theme of the show recently so i'd love for you to just share things about your mind from back then um i think i think the everyone as this every successful man has a very strong woman i would say opposite is also true yeah equality is not about man bashing yeah you know i've been very fortunate to be born in fact i'm an adopted child and my parents had the guts in 80s to say we don't necessarily have to adopt a boy child right we can also adopt a girl child so even though my adoption happened within the family from my cha-cha to my dad which i think i'm a god's child because thank god i got the dad i got uh they had the guts to be to break the norm very early right and uh and then i don't remember a single day when my dad told me you cannot get this because you're a girl from day zero i remember


this because you're a girl from day zero i remember he told me if you work hard and convince me you can do whatever you want to do and as he started seeing me growing up i remember as a very marvadi dad i grew up in a big joint family at 26 27 people 30 people did you i'm i'm i'm just gonna ask you straight up did you live with your biological parents also yeah they were like they are my cha-cha chatty till today they have three kids uh we we had like different floors with one kitchen every one so my cha-cha charger was a floor above like you kevin hart is your friend yeah and kevin i won't call him a friend but yeah i like know him he's he's had a difficult childhood but with a lot of positivity like we actually see his documentaries his mom his dad had a good effect especially his mom yeah and that's what you see today the hard work the goodness all that and i'd say the same about you oh


all that and i'd say the same about you oh thank you i think i should give that award to mom and dad who has the guts but i agree with you because i had this joke actually anurag kashyap uh once uh i've actually worked with him he's a dear dear dear friend uh anurag was one saying i was trying to watch some uh karan johar's new movie and i'm a big rom-com czech person and he's like why do you like these movies what is this there's like a watch black and this and all that stuff and i'm like sir i never got raped i never got abused my childhood was very happy like you know um nobody did anything so i don't connect with this they are i'm sure it has its market but let's not look down upon like just a chick flick or something like that i remember like i think uh um i also feel there is a big impression which is left on your brain based on your childhood uh but i


on your brain based on your childhood uh but i also don't like when people love to blame their parents for everything they are they're human they are not perfect neither are we right so take the best thing and the things which you don't like make sure you don't do it but like all everything about therapy is to just say my parents messed it up that's why i'm like this i don't think that's fair yeah yeah yeah i think uh very few parents don't give it their best shot honestly this is at least in india i can talk for india for sure indian parents just when they see a child their automatic intention is now i want to do the best for them most indian parents for sure and the best can be relative now yeah comparatively yeah but intentions you're right yeah so what did you study in college i'd love to know this and i was a good indian girl yeah i had a crush on the guy who was in non-medical in school that's how i discovered


in non-medical in school that's how i discovered non-medical and my parents were like vera do arts commerce there's nobody who's doing engineering in our family like we have no way to help you or support you little did they know like i was looking for support somewhere else so only so that i can be on tuitions with that guy i decided my whole career which is to go into non-medical wow i should thank him somewhere i don't even know where he is in this life not in touch with him no no no we never talked oh okay that way but but so you went into engineering college i did i i my i grew up in a big joint family and uh in a marwadi a lot of people would connect with it in a typical marwadi delhi jaipur family it's a very simple thing for a grandmother to say a girl only leaves house after getting married right and i used to laugh about this never realizing how serious this thing is at what age do they expect you


this thing is at what age do they expect you to get mad 21 wow that's what happened with all my cousins like 21 22. you are over by 23 by the way you're not gonna get good rishtas by then okay even now that's the case 24 maximum now okay okay but like i uh yeah my i am still a black ship of the family for my grandmother yeah which is a cool thing guys be one yeah that's okay i think again that visionary mold always contains this black sheep tag attack yeah i was like so i got into mit and my grand first of all nobody knew what mit was in my house they knew howard because they have heard about this in like movies they knew water and and the reason they knew what in stanford because mr ambani's kids have gone there so they've heard about this on tv so they knew three colleges and mit is not one of those three colleges so i was crying because i could not believe that i got through


because i could not believe that i got through and my mom and dad were saying peter it's fine next year you'll get into good college it's okay don't cry my god but how did you even get into mit it's not because that guy was preparing now he was preparing for okay he went he was preparing for engineering then he was taking sct classes so i took sat classes then he was applying for all this and i was like i'll also apply and you actually got it i got through he didn't we never talked wow so that was my first case of saying somebody can inspire you to do things which you don't even realize the value but they don't become the end goal nobody is an end goal no individual can be your end goal it was not easy to accept at that time and uh but i think when i look back i know one or two friends of mine who dropped out of really really good jobs to be with the guy they wanted to and their families didn't


the guy they wanted to and their families didn't want a working daughter-in-laws and i think i could have made the same mistake with respect to even my college at that point because everyone around the society finds it acceptable for things like this you know they give you terminology you are uh more amenable you are more uh there is this hindi terminology or sushi you know and i don't know how letting go of your own career your own choices for somebody else who probably not gonna do the same for you has become a quality in our life and we teach that very early to girls early on in our life as a good benchmark you know you should be ready to sacrifice your own happiness oh you have to compromise is a very normal terminology here everywhere but i don't understand without caveats how does you have to compromise become an acceptable terminology no i don't want to compromise or what is the cost opportunity of that compromise at that stage um were you were you sure about


at that stage um were you were you sure about what you wanted to do in life no yeah did you know you'll go down this path at all no what i didn't know what vc was you're talking about a girl who was going to vendra one every sunday with her dad what are you talking about who is going to tell me what is vc that's why i tell a lot of kids like go with the flow do things which you really really enjoy but you're sure you're really good at it you know we can have 10 hobbies in life right i love dancing i'm a certified kathak dancer but i knew very early on i can never make money out of dancing do you still practice yeah i do i teach also in us wow yeah that's like one of the things on the weekend it's like a guru thing they tell you that just keep on teaching so i for free i teach in a temple out there once i'm sure it's also therapeutic for you it is yeah


sure it's also therapeutic for you it is yeah wearing those uh things back like gongu's back and then just be on the floor is very very makes you feel rooted and like yeah free so it basically teaches you the power of technique uh at least that's what i remember even my parallel was with judo it's all about like where's your hand where's your leg uh where's your back yeah uh but i feel with indian classical dance you have to also think of where's your mind where's your facial expression so it's facial expressions i remember i used to get like a lot of those stick things like your eyebrow didn't go up wow okay wow it's that level of technique um and again the obvious application of it in the real world is not just dance it is it is mindset uh exactly what you said that just prepares you for life but we are using those facial expression everywhere right when you are sitting like in my life today the idea that facial expression actually conveys


life today the idea that facial expression actually conveys your sorrow your joy your devotion to someone your romance a same eyebrow one up one down is more about bewilderment versus both at some point is about happiness uh what are we doing we're also playing a role in our today's business life when i'm sitting in front of a founder i really like versus a founder really like i'm not gonna invest versus a founder i don't know what i want to invest or to the investor i always think through like somewhere in my mind is going through what are my facial expressions going also making them comfortable does does indian classical dance also help you read people better because you become a master of expressions yourself yeah so you can tell what people are thinking body language body language so like uh i was i think it was one of your podcasts you guys were talking about sitting like this versus sitting like this somebody was talking about it i was laughing watching it i


about it i was laughing watching it i was cooking something i was and the city was going on the cooker and i was laughing because in classical dancing they tell you how to sit you're you're like whether uh your torso is more towards the person back towards the person mid-level all these things are used and we practice it to convey a particular message without speaking wow so when we are naturally in the flow now i don't even realize how my torso is but at the end of 10 minutes of that conversation i say oh my torso moved from here to here i got comfortable with this thing and you were speaking about founders you don't like versus founders you like um what what makes you like versus not like the person because i'm sure you're not talking about just business here you're talking about the person's energy what they bring to a room so you're able to sense that also that what are this person's intentions really or is it a confused person or a


really or is it a confused person or a straightforward person so it's i think it comes with the ears of investing and talking to people a lot of vc's i talked to they're like oh you do three four deals we go deep into the data we look at the product we look at the market adoption i feel this is all to be honest when a company is new they just have a deck what data do you have yeah they're gonna say we're gonna make 50 billion dollar in next one year it's an excel sheet i can create on a white paper that i'll make 50 billion dollars like what's a guarantee right you are actually investing in a person and to invest in a person it used to be the date of iit im ivy league uh or something or which school which uh companies have you work for they don't matter anymore right because all the three founders of twitter are dropouts so is facebook like the famous story and so so many companies right the dropbox


story and so so many companies right the dropbox founder is from mit he almost skipped an ear he was the laziest guy on the campus do you still did so well with dropbox yeah right i think it is about whether that person is agile enough to take your feedback and actually either have a very strong powerful answer to say thank you so much for your feedback i agree or i don't or i disagree because of these reasons i only look for that because if the founder is gonna take everything and change that means he's not sure about what he's building there's no you know strength in it conviction but at the same time if it is too rooted strong that there is no agility then he also he or she also has the tendency to take the company down because of the ego and you've seen this oh yeah yeah i've invested in founders who have pivoted three times and have written it off in my internal review that this company is never going to make money and they became


company is never going to make money and they became one of our most successful company in the portfolio wow yeah then there was a guy i invested in who's like everything was perfect like you know iit delhi hbs google five years exactly in the same thing which he was trying to do outside we were the first investor but three months into it i actually took him out for a long trek and i said are you sure your heart is in this because building a company is a very lonely depressing job you know when you're working in a multinational every the whole infrastructure is taken care of you have to just show up building a company means also you are sweeping the flow you're making the coffee and there's no shame in it whatsoever you know not everyone can do it even if you're capable of doing it yeah have you always been so observant about life i mean i'm sure you're giving me your professional observations but even for those professional observations to come up in your head there has to


observations to come up in your head there has to be years of learning years of being able to learn fast so going back to 2003 when you went to usa uh first of all how did you convince the rest of your family did you have to convince the rest of your family two years you convinced them yeah i my rebel was like i'm not gonna eat because i was like what i couldn't believe i felt like i'm in a movie i'm in some tv series and i'm the victim here you know and i'm like this is not happening to me i was so sure this is not happening to me so um so the first one and a half month was like what just happened then it was like okay i can't just stay at home i have to do something but i have not really applied anywhere so where do i go now what do i do with my life uh then once i i started my engineering at ip college ip university mit in india and then i actually met a


mit in india and then i actually met a lot of really intelligent people they ever changed my perception of like oh i am going to mit to like these are all intelligent people india's competitive scale is just completely different it is way more competitive to any college across the globe yeah so i made some really close friends who are still very close friends of mine and i just started realizing just live life something would happen but i made sure that even when i was doing that i was just working very hard um but at the same time at home i would just i knew my dad is the soft one so i kept on telling him you have to go and convince your mom i've done this but this is a life skill um especially in family dynamics and in india where we have so many up and down family dynamics you need to have the ability to communicate what you're feeling to the other person and kind of use your sales skills there also to get your work done um it's something that


also to get your work done um it's something that young indian kids should learn i feel because most of the young indian kids are in nuclear family they get whatever they ask for right i grew up in a huge joint family even getting a glass of water on time is a diplomatic skill there is one kitchen everybody has the requirements there is a hierarchy set up even before you're born so as a four-year-old kid you know where in hierarchy you have an importance which is dependent upon so many things honestly there's a whole different show you can do on joint family hierarchy so you have two ways to survive be observant and understand what can you get by like you can get through a nod second things things which are your break deals like you have to have to have it you can either go and rebel and like create a whole scene and like always have your parents be saying sorry for you in front of 20 other people or you develop your own skills together and that's where i came


your own skills together and that's where i came you know i i love my parents they gave me anything i asked for but i also knew their limitation so i can either put like put them down saying oh you can't get me this or i say i'm a part of the unit and let's figure out how to get it this is right i want it wow right and my dad was very clear i'll support you till you get things with your hard work but i'm not going to pay you to go to any school or college so i did that so observation which you were talking about was coming from there who is in a good mood today [Music] who who's gonna like if i share this extra ice cream with someone's kid will that mom let me do this you know the whole my own game of thrones was happening and i think that's what we see life is also on many levels exactly there's a very famous line i recently so funny i heard it on insta reels


so funny i heard it on insta reels and i'm like oh my god i've heard it before from somewhere uh it was something like kill them with your success and bury them with smile [Music] right and it just reminded me of those days because you can't fight now as first you're a kid nobody's gonna take you seriously they're gonna slap you and put you in the corner so you can't fight and you can't shout so smile is the only way and compromise as they say so you decide in your mind you negotiate in your own mind what you're ready to give to get what you want and is that a right trade or not so every founder even today i tell them day zero when we are funding them i said taking funding from us because we are early stage investors mostly when we are writing the first check now all your problem starts it hasn't it hasn't got solved it's actually started because now you're gonna make the season on every dollar you're


gonna make the season on every dollar you're gonna spend from this is having an assistant way more important for you or adding that assistant money to your engineer is more important for you having a support in your office to have coffee or tea is more important for you or having a better table when your clients are coming is more important for you i'm like now you just started on a journey this is why a lot of people are afraid of taking vc money especially in india they are unsure about what will happen after they take vc money but then on the flip side when you hear american entrepreneurs talk about these things they say that that money that i took was probably the best 10 or the best 20 of my startup that i've given away it was the best decision i made in my life indian we see the game has changed in last couple of years but before that it was never a real vc firm it was like family officers who are literally giving you loan 16 return 20 return they are


giving you loan 16 return 20 return they are not builders themselves they were not at least at that time even five six years back i remember see the difference with vcs are in us or the global what we say they come with the background of building companies or working with lot of companies with their product market fit or the problems which come over here it's like oh it's your idea you take all the risk you do all the hard work i'm giving you money but if you don't return it i'm gonna go to the whole world and say you are a loser why he is not a loser even if the company didn't work the amount of knowledge you pick up when you actually when the company doesn't work is way more valuable when everything works because you don't learn at that point of time you're just going with the flow and that's why y combinator i love this thing about y combinator all their partners are the people uh who have failed companies behind them with the funding from y combinator because


them with the funding from y combinator because what they can teach the entrepreneurs that don't do this is way more important than do this yeah yeah yeah i feel that i hope that culture kind of comes to india in a much more mainstream way because there are a lot of young indian entrepreneurs who are consciously nowadays thinking of bringing tech into their businesses in some form and we need that yeah there is this whole wave in it and just just watch out for this over the next 10 years there's gonna be a lot of india to the globe companies dude it's going to be biggest in blockchain sorry i had to come to my topic i mean which is already happening so um when we started with the web one world which i call like till google or at google uh india was nowhere even entrepreneur india was just all about let's send all our iits to abroad and they'll figure out something and so with starting from 20056 like with google facebook and all that stuff then


20056 like with google facebook and all that stuff then the indian engineer started going from engineering to top management sales position 8 9 10 11 is when they started transitioning into vc positioning because now they had all this very senior level experiences and then u.s started seeing indian entrepreneurs coming at that time but india was still like catching up then we saw ai then we saw ar vr then india started doing some companies in-house fintech of course has been one of the biggest cases for the country now what we are seeing in blockchain is the product coming out of india is what the whole world is following wow we are talking about polygon we're talking about insta a 21 and a 23 year old brothers creating 8.4 billion dollar company in two and a half years and every d5 protocol across the world none of them are from india are all on their platform you know and this is like kayak of ticketing and so that's what they are aggregator of every d5 project i


what they are aggregator of every d5 project i couldn't believe when i was reading about them and then i had a long conversation with samya jen the founder and the cto and i am just like and i've met him two years back at eat a hackathon and i remember even i didn't buy what he was selling at that day and two years only now now two and a half years now when i'm sitting with the guy i have a complete different pride in that founder you know and the whole world is talking about it same thing is even look at our exchanges right we will go through regulations whatever happened but the idea of creating a product for indian market not like taking coin bases of the world and let's customize it they're like no we'll create the product because we understand tier 2 tier 3 market and that is what we're going to create for this is completely like i am so impressed with coin switch could be like ashish the founder um and in his vision for next


the founder um and in his vision for next 10 years make me think like so many founders across the world we have invested a lot in israel argentina brazil egypt a lot in africa his two hour of conversation is still stuck in my head of how is thinking about the future instead of keep on telling me oh we have done this we have done this we are reaching these many people no he was just more excited about what's next um i have so many questions about the future for you but maybe maybe towards the end of this particular episode we'll tackle that yeah that's that's my favorite topic to speak about generally on the show um i feel the world needs more future risks in general uh people think consciously about what's coming our way because we're the brink of a lot of newness before the future can we please have a lot of more women we see do you see that changing not much it on the board of 18 companies not even a single woman on the board you


companies not even a single woman on the board you know i that's what i'm still struggling between the stories we present out to the world and what do you really see in the space but why is that like why does that happen in the first place you know it's very funny i'll tell you a story um there's this company we invested in i was a managing partner and i had two guys working with me as principal one principle one senior analyst uh i was a lead in the company and i was on the board of the company and that founder would host poker nights and would invite my principal and other vcs but would never invite me and of course i would get to know that there are like these poker parties happening in his office once every friday every month and all the other vc's who are on board with me and all these people are being invited i was never invited so i thought like i can either just keep on thinking like am i not being nice to them


on thinking like am i not being nice to them because every time we would have a monthly catcher he was super sweet to me um he would bring me chinese goods like a very very sweet guy so then one day i decided to make it as a joke and bring it up so i said oh am i going to be invited to your poker party and he's like oh it's all boys i don't know whether you'll be comfortable so i'm like what do you guys do do you guys watch porn no like what do you guys do that i will not be comfortable i'm a very good poker player i can also drink like what you guys do that i won't be comfortable he didn't have the answer but i still didn't get the invitation right so these are this is just one example which i knew and i had to live with it even at that position so i feel like there are still silos optically everybody has worked out what to say again but i think i think we


what to say again but i think i think we in your story specifically uh this all these dynamics these observations it took you some time 2003 to i'm assuming 2013 or 14 is where you began with your vc journey 15 15. yeah uh but i was i actually started investing from ifc and world bank starting from 2009 itself what what happened in 2003 to nine i did my college media lab then i five i graduated uh joined the world bank trading floor started doing my masters along with it trading flow was also very exciting because i had the super boss nina shapiro the only ever women preside or ifc and after that it was me an analyst who was women and then there was assistance that's it so very exciting like you and honestly speaking because coming from engineering college or anyways you have two three girls and even in my i went to xavier's for my high school junior school and high school even there in 11 12 and you take computer science we were four girls in


and you take computer science we were four girls in the whole class um right you know we work with a lot of women like across our startups and they bring a very different kind of energy to product like it's more empathetic it's more um in many cases reliable like uh where if if someone has proven that they can like they'll work at a certain level then i just know how to just tell them that okay try getting this and it'll be done way better than what i'm expecting also so women do bring this kind of different energy to startups but i feel that we still have 10 years to go in terms of what you're saying about the gender equalizing the gender ratios equalizing there's some time for this world to discover and it's everywhere it's not like us has figured it out or uk has figured it out honestly it's everywhere i don't nordic countries are a different breed altogether but apart from scandinavian countries the rest of the world is catching up the problem is


rest of the world is catching up the problem is there are a lot more women in the workforce but at what level is where the question comes and then people and i have raised that question in a lot of women forum but i want to stop raising it in women for him i want to raise it in a big group you're saying that for some reason women do not get promoted or whatever as fast as men do or uh like you you'll basically see the higher positions occupied mostly by guys or there will be one women token for diversity in everything so i'll give you an example of my own life right uh i had amazing bosses when i was young and growing up in fact i have a lot of amazing uh male bosses to thank a lot in my life um i went to start raising my fund my first one which i'm like we're closing now um of billionaires in my space so i do i have been investing in blockchain very early in this ecosystem i've been mining


very early in this ecosystem i've been mining since 2013 very early adopter uh so i have one of the most extensive track record in the space right which people build up some are like really successful multi-billion dollar company like i invested 500k at 5 million valuation at in block fi it's a 5 billion company in 3 years right so things like that i'm a bunch of them like that so i'm like i have done well my track record is great my returns are great now i should do my own fun and a lot of billionaires multi-billionaires who are now getting into this space don't have deep understanding they were like why are you doing your fund i'll give you a billion dollar just work for me so they kept on trying to ask me to work for them but they were not ready to give me a million dollar but they trust me to take their billion dollars and so literally one guy a british guy i got so irritated i just asked him on his face


so irritated i just asked him on his face i'm like anyways i'm not gonna get to meet him after this so let me be as mean as possible what did you say i said so you trust me with billion dollar and you're gonna pay me like one two million dollar base to run this fund plus i'm gonna take 50 carry plus i'm gonna take a lot of bonus but when i'm doing when i'm asking you to pay give me five million dollar for my fund you don't trust me for that i'm like and and you have no technical skills or experience to be on the investment committee with me so it's basically my sole decision in either case so what changes and he's like no no no we want to promote women of color in our organization so the mindset is optic i women of color is running my fund but it's my fun like for him you know that's where you start seeing the gap so we have taken out a lot of nuances at the early stage when people


a lot of nuances at the early stage when people start their career we had taken out a lot of it at the mid level now from a senior level when you are a decision maker to be an owner oh my god we have added more new sense there [Music] um what what is your goal right now with everything you're trying to do because there's a lot of things going on like in your life so career wise like what are you aiming for i mean i honestly anything i've planned has never happened so i don't want to plan but i think i want to uh continue to work with amazing founders i think there is it's like you make one or two babies like these are all like your own babies especially when you go early stage you go through exactly the same process at sea after series b if you're an early investor you have to also let go of them it's like they're going to college now let go they're going to find new new friends now god you know so i


find new new friends now god you know so i want to do a lot of that uh and i don't know where life will take yeah my life has been crazy i also ended up creating a media company which i never thought in covet now it has become so big that we are now literally looking for the management team but fintech tv started with let's just do 10 episodes from new york stock exchange to teach people new technology to 850 million household access right i never thought i would have a media company i still don't know what to do with it uh i uh but i think my legacy if there is this terminology which is good is uh this dream since child i was i didn't know what do i want to become i always knew it's going to be like red carpet wherever i go that's how i used to imagine the manifest you're talking about is getting awards for something i've done like in ranui that's all i used to look for myself i had no idea what


used to look for myself i had no idea what did that mean but the legacy i want to do is i want to open a bunch of orphanages and old age home together on one property with the best education which is not based on charity i don't want to raise money i don't want to ask for money but with my own savings the best teachers the best educational service because i truly truly believe that access to education defines people's life and it's not like cbsc education of course that is there but giving that access equal access to kids coming out of orphanage [Music] what do you feel like i mean because you're highlighting education and i love your goal and i'm sure you'll achieve it like going by you know everything uh that you've already done but what do you think your education did for you like in uh you know your own career because okay the narrative lately has been okay it's all about edtech education is not good and i guess that i am a part of


good and i guess that i am a part of that narrative i have also spoken so much against the indian education system uh and over time as i've grown up i've realized oh okay the indian education system doesn't just apply to urban kids like myself yeah but it's applying to like the rest of the country the villages uh you know for them it's aspirational the same education system that we make fun of oh let me say is going to become outdated um but specifically for you what has your education given you for your career and i'm talking about your higher education going abroad or studying engineering you feel like it gave you weapons it definitely gives you a weapon on your resume for your first job right that's all i think it is i don't even remember the classes i took it's like a qualification key you can huh now you're you can logically think you can you have you're coming from a company of people who are intelligent you could so this is like more about le


intelligent you could so this is like more about le higher probability of this person coming from here to pick up what we're going to teach them and do it but it's not better or less than anybody who's not coming from that degree and it doesn't speak of her or his qualification to be very honest because i have not coded a single day to save my life yeah yes right i did my masters international affairs trade and economics while working full time at the world bank because i wanted to and i was passionate and i really wanted to understand economics yeah that's that's also something very nice you highlighted i've also not coded ever but and people associate big startups and tech and growth with coding they think that oh you need no coding to be able to do this and that was my mental blockers when i was in college oh i don't know how to code how am i ever going to become an entrepreneur it's not like that like there are other human skills your joint family skills i think observation


other human skills your joint family skills i think observation and travel yeah i tell everyone like my niece nephews lot of kids who come for mentoring i said travel but don't travel from your parents money earn the money yourself do backpack travel and do like safe jobs different places figure it out because then you actually understand how world works yeah otherwise you are like a frog in the well and you're the king or the queen of your own well your parents are like you did very well in school today and all that stuff this is something zakir khan told me zakir khan is a stand-up comic like i really love his stuff but he's actually an intellectual and a poet and he's a thinker uh and i i remember this one phase i was nervous about something that was going on in my life and he noticed that i was nervous through my tweets or something he called me he's like what happened why are you like doubting yourself so much so i explained my reasoning for doubting


so much so i explained my reasoning for doubting myself and he said that see there are two kinds of people in the world one are the performers and one other and the second is the non-performers and the performers will always do their best in the job that's given to them they'll do it to the best of their ability obviously they'll also choose jobs which they know they'll be able to do but as long as you're a performer it'll just protect you and knowing that you're a performer automatically kills off self doubt so then what is selled out it's usually thinking a little bit about the future yeah and saying that oh no i may not be relevant i may not be able to do it but you've done it till this point so of course you'll be able to do it going forward the real question to ask yourself is if today that task that's given to you are you performing to the best of your ability are you giving it to 200 and that's the only thing


giving it to 200 and that's the only thing in your hand right what else is in your hand yeah i i am looking at a company and i want to and i'm thinking from a very open mind i want to invest in it there is nobody in this world who can come and tell me no this company will be successful no one you think some of the biggest vc's in the a16z or sequoias of the world they never had failures did they invest thinking array this company will fail let's invest in it who does it right but not every bet not every work is gonna work out but because you did it with so much integrity and hard work the same people or the same work will speak somewhere else so that's the only thing in your hand and my dad is very spiritual very early on he told me this he said and i know in gita everybody loves to recite it but the thing is how many of us really practice it right so i always say uh if today i'm


it right so i always say uh if today i'm supposed to do something i've and i'm really excited about it i'll try to do it their situation and the other person comes back like sometimes you're really interested to invest in a founder you've got your whole team on board you've done your diligence etc etc by the time you have done it the founder comes back to and say our valuation has increased somebody else has given us a higher valuation either match it or we don't want your money and that maybe that valuation doesn't work for you so what do you do you have to decide and let it go and you will have an evening where you want to sit and like what the hell there was no respect but you know that shouldn't stop you from performing the next day yeah but it should also you should i what i've learned the hard way is you should also just wish the best to that founder yeah because he or she is doing what is best for them they are not personally


doing what is best for them they are not personally against you or something so i have also invested finally in a founder who passed on me twice in the past and then the third time just because even after him passing every time he would meet me in a social space in a vc dinner or something i was always nice to him and say hey what's going on oh you're doing this by the way i know this person if you want to connect with that could help your product that could help your marketing you know that's the job of a vc you're adopting a kid and you're like thinking about what else to add to it and i still did it so the third time he came he said whatever evaluation you want to do it i want to in friends and family wrong forget about vcera because he liked you um i want to highlight something uh this is a concept of thought of from the beginning of my career but only now have i kind of given it words okay so i feel with your work and