body and that's when we can move on to the next point point number six the lesser the pawn the better the sex because the sex that's shown in porn is violent it's not natural it's too fast it's too almost sexist man that's not how the real version of sex is real sex is slow and romantic and subjective it's based on the equation that the two people sheds based on the two people's personalities and porn is almost never a good representation of great sex we promote a lot of no fap on this channel trust me as a guy nofap will improve your sex life heavily nofap means no masturbation especially if you're in a relationship practice nofap see it affect your sex life well i know guys in college especially who used to have sex with their partners they would not come during the act of sex they would not orgasm during the act of sex and they would eventually ask their partners to give them a hand job because they were that addicted to masturbation that's not a very


were that addicted to masturbation that's not a very good scenario in a relationship right we're enjoying someone's hand more than you're enjoying the reproductive organs and trust me the kind of erections you get when you practice nofap are way stronger than erections when you're constantly jacking off every day when you're watching porn just out of a habit and not watching pawn for pleasure pawn once in a while is okay on addiction is terrible i knew guys in college who would have sex and when they wanted to orgasm rather than enjoying the partner's body enjoying how the body was feeling on the penis they would visualize themselves having sex with a partner from a third person perspective as if they leave their body kind of visualize oh this is how i'll be looking with my part and then ejaculate because they were that addicted upon and i know that's a lot of you and don't worry it's normal as you grow up you can come out of it just leave your own


you can come out of it just leave your own frequency leave it behind let go watching that much pawn you'll be okay try practicing no fab it improves your sex life heavily right the reason we're doing this video is like a big brother just giving younger brothers advice and if there's any women watching until this point thank you share it with your friends i guess but this is for everybody not just men or women or people of the lgbtq community this is for the human race because i feel like conversations about sex need to be more normalized which brings me to the next point something else that normalized in the modern day spawn that's why the next point is called erotica over pawn if you are to watch porn once in a while preferably try watching erotica which is porn for women you'll actually learn as a guy you'll learn what sex is from a fantasizing perspective for a woman why is the pawn for women in the first place watch it and understand for yourself what's


first place watch it and understand for yourself what's the difference between normal porn which is violent where people are screaming where it's like going crazy the speed is intense versus erotica where it's slower where the partners explore each other's bodies where it's more gentle it's more aesthetic the pond looks hygienic learn from erotica you can use some of those tricks in the bedroom because that's a realistic sex if you have to watch one i'd still say avoid it because i think by this point all of us have watched porn at least a few times in our lives right that's just the nature of our times when you kind of move your mind away from porn entirely you start appreciating real sex more why don't we even begin watching porn when we were teenagers because of the mystery attached to sex then eventually it became an addiction somewhere but you've watched enough porn you masturbated enough to it by this point get into the real thing you don't need to keep


get into the real thing you don't need to keep putting sex on a pedestal it's just a part of life point number eight perfumes and the environment as a grown man one of the great gifts of being a grown man is that you're earning money so you get to spend on the way you dress the way you groom yourself and the way you smell if you get into perfumes colognes in a deep way you'll see that it actually affects your mood because it changes your perception of things in the same way that if i change the music now right makes you look at this video in a certain way how about now makes you view it in a certain way right perfumes do the same thing for your mind invest in perfumes invest in candles which you can use in your bedroom keep your bedroom hygienic keep the environment nice romantic hygienic use flowers smells are important hygiene is important the vibe is important get into candles it's one of those grown man things i've discovered


it's one of those grown man things i've discovered recently in my life it's incredible i started using them for yoga but i just light a candle in my room all the time now i'm not having sex all the time i'm just really into candles just saying but candles are incredible perfumes are incredible you'd be surprised at how beautiful an effect perfumes and candles have on your sex life ensure you spray some cologne on yourself before sex ensure you spray some on your bed it's a slightly alternative trick works like magic it'll make your partner feel like she's a queen or he's a king just ensure you're kind of presenting the best possible environment for your partner environments matter point number nine once again this is one of those points that just overshadows every single other point if you don't follow any of those rules but you just follow this one rule your sex life is going to skyrocket in terms of quality three words which are the most important pieces of sex advice you'll ever get


most important pieces of sex advice you'll ever get be a giver there's too many people in the world who are takers they go about life taking things from other human beings oh that's mine i want to ensure i get this opportunity oh i want to know that this is for myself and that attitude that selfish attitude makes its way to the bedroom some people just haven't explored their own body sexually they've not masturbated in life they've not spoken about sex to their friends or people in the inner circle the social circle that's why they end up being takers in bed they just lie down in bed they don't know all these things they've not watched videos like this they don't know anything about sex for them sex is just about the orgasm just for being naked with their partners those are the two reasons that people become takers the first is that's just their nature bad sex partners by the way you should convey that to your partner if they're just a taker because it can affect


if they're just a taker because it can affect your relationship and your sex life badly in the long term if they're a taker in bed secondly they just get confused and the body kind of gets stiff and frozen up they don't know what to do in bed and communication breaks these boundaries breaks that sense of discomfort brings the beautiful wild side of sex into the bedroom communicate if your partners are taker communicate with them but you yourself if you want to have great sex you be the giver of great sex by being a giver give in bed whether that's oral sex whether that's kisses whether that's love whether that's expiration of the other person's body whether that's hugs from behind whether it's caressing someone whether it's hugging someone so tightly that they can't move whether it's saying those beautiful little loving sentences to them that make them feel better be a giver in bed in your relationship in love being a giver will improve your sex life but ensure it's not a


improve your sex life but ensure it's not a one-way relationship the other person has to reciprocate a little bit the best sex is had between two givers so if your partner is a taker communicate a little bit with them say that you want a little more in bed great sex sometimes doesn't happen from the start we develop that equation over time through intense levels of communication which brings me to the last and final point of this special podcast which i hope you enjoyed which i hope you share with your friends which i hope you comment under which i hope you like point number 10 normalize conversations about sex the big reason that people are facing so many problems in their sex life is primarily because we've put sex on this pedestal in modern day society india the land of the kama sutra used to view sex as just a part of life in the same way that marriage is just a part of life or exercise is just a part of life or careers are just a part of life


of life or careers are just a part of life there's nothing in your life that should govern it entirely not in life not in your mind don't put something on a pedestal so much that it takes over your mind and your life that's what sex is for so many of us right it's a stable topic for some of us it's a larger than life topic for some of us why can't we just perceive it like it's a part of life why can't we normalize conversation about sex it begins in restaurants in friend groups in conversations with people of the opposite sex where when someone speaks about sex you don't go oh oh oh you don't do all that [ __ ] you just say oh okay this is what you think this is what i think normalize it in the same way you would normalize a conversation about a tv show normalize it that much and if you want to improve at sex further have more conversations about it with older people with younger people with people your age and witness your


younger people with people your age and witness your life and your perspectives change constantly that was a sex special of the runway show i hope you enjoyed it make sure you comment down below what other topics would you guys like me to cover in the domains of relationships or love or sex do check out all other solo episodes all this heartfelt and if you enjoyed this one make sure you share it with your friends we're going to grow to all the shares that you guys give us share it on whatsapp share it over the internet and help the trs family grow further thank you guys so that was the quite hot key quite alternative episode of the runway show for today i enjoy creating solo podcast especially when they're in english because english is my thinking language so i'd love to know what other topics you guys would like to see when it comes to the english solo podcast please tell us in the comments section remember to follow trs on spotify every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's


every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world make sure you like this content piece make sure you share it with your friends and make sure you drop a comment down below namaste see you soon [Music] you


on this episode of the ranvi show my co-founder hashil karya and myself hosted our hero our idol the founder of mariko harsh mariwala the genius behind the brand called parachute the genius behind the product of parachute hair oil and so many other countless businesses that have done well as i mentioned along the course of this episode i feel like harsha is like a samurai warrior his mentality is extremely strong extremely by the book and he has a set set of rules in his own head which helped him kind of grow in life which helped him grow businesses in life this was a slightly experimental episode for me because i tried co-hosting it after the longest time and i enjoyed the vibe of co-hosting so enjoy this particular episode with hashil karya myself and harsh mariowala so remember to follow other nvidia on spotify we're a spotify exclusive now which means that every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this


before it's available anywhere else in the world this is harsh mariwala who returns on the ranvi show once again enjoy [Music] welcome to a very special episode of the ranvi show after the longest time we're co-hosting it with hashil karya and on the show today we are actually hosting harshal karya and my idol so mr harsh mariola so thank you so much for coming down to the space uh being ready to do this candid conversation with us we really appreciate it my pleasure when i was asked by you that when you visited my studio i said happily i will come there and i'll see what you set up because i have a lot of respect for you i have done one show with you earlier which has had very good viewership so i said why not and i that's why i'm here i am happy to be here i'm i'm humbled i'm your husband congratulations on the book it's been a month or so now that you've been everybody's raving


or so now that you've been everybody's raving about the book so uh how was the reception that been yes hershel i i didn't expect the kind of reception i've got for the book it uh the day it was launched it hit the best seller in the business day one wow i think day one or day two and i've had many appearances in television channels podcasts uh in press interviews i have got phenomenal feedback from the readers yeah so i'm very happy the way it's turned out my objective of writing the book was not to make any money i mean i'm going to lose money i can tell you a lot of money but it's the whole objective is to share my learnings to others because if i can make a difference to others through my own learnings to me i will get much more satisfaction so right before the conversation i was telling you about another book that i read recently called the way and the power it's about the samurai culture and how they have this sort of


the samurai culture and how they have this sort of detached warrior mentality you know like where they will take their job seriously but also view it by taking a step back yeah and when i began reading your book i saw a lot of parallels in the style of writing and the energy of the book because i feel any book kind of is an inlet into the person's mind especially if it's based on someone's life you get to know the energy of the internal world of the person yeah so i'm sure that this is something you have figured out later in life so because to be able to build a brand like parachute to be able to build maricopa you must have needed some amount of aggression when you were younger and i feel that aggression has turned into the samurai mentality later so my my question to you is about that transition phase what how did you go from being aggressive and going for it into this calm warrior kind of so when you grow old you start becoming mature they


when you grow old you start becoming mature they say when you're young you are like a you want to win every time you don't want to lose also but when you start winning every time and then you say what what the hell i mean this winning is beyond that we have to lead good lives you know we have to have a purpose in life you know so as you age you start becoming mature and then you have this kind of thinking that i think your transition transition should be towards this root but as far as the book is concerned i would say that my wife played a very very important role my book was initially when it was written it was dry it was more business-like and what happened in the pandemic was that we were sitting at home every day she writes very well though she has never written a book and she we said okay let's she started reading the book and as she went on reading the book she went on adding value to the book lots of anecdotes which i


value to the book lots of anecdotes which i had not thought of she got it out of me a lot of stories better language more emotional and i think a lot of that credit goes to her and the book is very very simple very easy to read you can read it just before you go to sleep and at the end of every chapter i have professor ram charan who is a management guru he's written something like 30 books and he sold more than four million copies he gives his insight in just half a page one page so there is a lot of take home value for all the readers because of the story format converting into a conceptual framework uh so so i have to actually brief you and hershel about something i observed after our last conversation right so it was under your house it was in the auditorium under your house and right after the conversation i saw you taking your grandson away for a snack okay and it it hot chocolate yeah i look up to you as my business idol


yeah i look up to you as my business idol and then i just observed you doing that like you know you were wearing shorts you're wearing this shirt you're taking your grandson really cute kid by the way yes uh and i was like that is the goal that is that should be the goal you know this this amazing family life and at the same time you have this business legacy so you spoke about your wife being a part of the book sir harshal and we have a lot of conversations about love family with co-founders also we're trying to build a mammoth organization called level but um so what's your opinion on this whole aspect of family and work-life balance and your love life in the journey of business in the journey of taking on competition the journey of going to war what's what's their role so when you start when you're young like both of you are so young you know initially when you have that burning desire to succeed i want to succeed i want to grow


succeed i want to succeed i want to grow faster i want to grow faster then to some extent you have to sacrifice a little bit of family you know and that's what my children tell me that my son tells me that the time you spend with his son and his daughter my grandchildren is much much more than what i spent with them because now i have the time and i have maybe the mindset also is to to enjoy them so maybe at that time i i was a little bit more involved in my business and building that business so it it must have suffered my time spent with them though i used to take holidays every year with them but uh because of that desire to build fast then one has to sacrifice somewhere but i think my grandchildren are my biggest source of joy if you ask me because the kind of closeness i have with them spending time with them every day one hour or so it just gives me immense joy so to me that's that's a very


immense joy so to me that's that's a very very important part of my life and i truly enjoy them being with them and you know just learn from them that curiosity that childlike curiosity which is kind of like in your whole career also i i mean you'd never stop because you know you open chapter after chapter it's like parachute then sephola then there's a nihar story then you're acquiring brands and you're going to africa then you're listing in bangladesh and it's fantastic so like where does this energy and this curiosity you come from ah that's a difficult question to answer because you know i think there is something genetic in every person gifts the god-given gift i think the key thing is many of us don't know what is our god-given gift and we have to identify what is that god-given gift you know and one of my god-given gift is that okay i have a burning desire to succeed i have to succeed and for making that happen and especially on the background


and for making that happen and especially on the background of the fact that i nobody has taught me anything in business i have just completed my graduation i have not even done post graduation so i have to learn the business on my own so that desire to succeed in life makes you go into all directions whether it's rural india or whether it's learning or whether it is you're just talking to people yeah you're reading talking interacting with others because at the bottom of it is that burning desire to succeed and it's okay to fail you know if you fail also you'll try again you'll learn from that failure and then you'll try they say passion is important but passion has to be combined with determination and perseverance because every person has failures in life and sometimes you win you never lose but you always learn so you know these are like mentalities that i think every young entrepreneur needs to know and you said how you didn't have business guidance uh you know just after graduation you


business guidance uh you know just after graduation you began business yeah i feel like in your generation and i'm talking about the 70s yeah this was sort of a trend even my own energy he kind of took off his own business career in a parallel way finished engineering and then got into business directly and we see the 80s 90s and 2000s where people are all about higher education at least this is a very kind of generalized statement but this is what i have observed talking about urban india and now in the 2010s and 20s we're seeing a resurgence of like entrepreneurship right out of college true okay coming to college students of today they're called generation z gen z are you familiar with this yes yes okay so gen z uh basically what they were born in say 2003 2004 matlab they were born into the era of social media the era of information the era of google searches correct so they grew up with this heavy amount of information in their heads which has kind of molded them


in their heads which has kind of molded them into very absorptive uh kind of human beings now like they're ready to learn a lot it's also given rise to a lot of like mental health issues because you know you said uh how when you were younger you had that aggression to win you you had to go to rural india because you had to do something you know you had that much energy so in your era i think that was a positive kind of gift to have nowadays often with the amount of information out there it can turn into something dark and negative so did you have ever faced with this uh you know urge to succeed did it ever work against you because it's working against a lot of gen z's today they're putting too much pressure on themselves as 18 year olds 19 year olds so have you gone through a phase like that where you realize i'm putting too much pressure on myself let's dial it back a bit no never because i think ultimately growth comes in out of


never because i think ultimately growth comes in out of proper shall i say i don't want to grow for the sake of growing and take some rash steps without being sure so deliberative has always been my strategy so i deliberate a lot you know i just don't do something and you know put in some big investment or right go on deliberating with us analyze talk to people because every person has a blind spot and if i talk to you or if i talk to him you will give me some other uh suggestion which i have not thought of so it's very important that you discuss your business idea especially if you are starting a new business with other colleagues friends family to overcome your blind spots and also get some new insights which you may not have had and i've always been very deliberative and i think that really helps you in terms of and also another thing is you know you dream they say you have to dream big but you have to dream big with feet on the ground you can't


dream big with feet on the ground you can't just dream big people just go on talking some nonsensical figures without really having a road map of how they will reach there that does not work you have to have your feet on the ground is it can i achieve it do i have the resources to achieve it does it make get traction from the consumer do you have a right to win do you have something truly unique pioneering which will which will get you that business so i think you have to if you have follow that policy then you will not be in uh in your own dream world you know you can't be in a dream world i think one of the themes of the podcast lately and which i learned from him actually uh he's six years my senior from school and now because we're building a business together you get to learn your co-founder's mind a lot and i've seen how patient herschel is and that's you know again i know you're also into sport a bit so i


i know you're also into sport a bit so i mean i think business is a lot like sport for me it's team sports i'm a big football cricket basketball person and uh if you have experienced players on your team your learning becomes very accelerated so the accelerated learning for me from him has been patience just kind of consistently do your thing and only probably in the last one year since i've started working with him in my own separate individual business journey have i seen the effect of compounding so compounding and patience are two key factors that gen z needs to learn so but uh again i want to ask you the question so everyone knows the power compounding would you like to add any lesson from the world of compounding or would you like to say something you know almost ethereal ethereal that you've learned from i can talk about power compounding in terms of growth for example sure let's take one theme otherwise it becomes too general you know like you can see power compounding in stock market


know like you can see power compounding in stock market also but the let's talk of growth so for growth to happen you need to do multiple things one is to be in a category which is growing because the environment helps you so that automatically with growth number two you should have something unique either pioneering or something which is innovative on a perpetual basis so you have to go on innovating so that your market share increases and if you're a market leader your market size increases and then most importantly you need to have very good talent or growth hungary so the growth mindset normally starts at the top i want to grow but my challenge is how do i put the growth mindset all the way to the bottom at my sales reps level at my distributor sales rep level to me that's a big challenge which the top management has to realize and how do you do that you know you have to ensure that you give the right signal if somebody comes out with an opportunity i'm not saying


comes out with an opportunity i'm not saying that you blindly follow but you have to encourage them if there is an opportunity in a localized marketplace where the distributor of your competitor is having problems the reps should on their own say okay let me capitalize on that so you have to go on instilling that growth mindset down the line when it comes to pricing decisions when it comes to payback in terms of new product launches or new country launches you can't say i want to make profits within one year then people will be more profit century you have to say that growth is more important as long as we see visibility of profit over a period of time and growth has to be sustainable i don't want to have one year where the growth will be high second year will dip third year again so i don't want zigzag i want like that growth and also profits also has to be sustainable you can't have profits where one year make profits next year you make a loss so i think that's what


year you make a loss so i think that's what goes into making a very strong business and growth is very important because growth is something which is like an oxygen you know if i am growing then i am as a shareholder i am doing well i'm earning more money i'm creating wealth employees are also getting more opportunities they get more emoluments associates your society your customer so i think growth is very very important growth mindset and for growth mindset and for compounding to occur you need to have a very strong right to win through innovation through pioneering moves it could be depending on the kind of business you are it could be some patent you're getting getting or service standards or some business model or it or whatever else and the most important thing is talent you know you need to have very good talent you know talent who are self-driven you know i like to have when i recruit a person do you have it within them i don't want people to say guide me doing this guide me you


people to say guide me doing this guide me you have to we will empower you you take risks we'll back you we'll back you i'm not blind risk something which you will have to discuss with your boss but you know a lot of work you will do on your own rather than saying that please guide me in doing this please guide you please nurture me i want people who are self-starters so um i have to ask you one question you know what you said about giving your mentality to the team you yourself have an aggressive mentality you want to win it's easy to do that with 10 20 30 people how do you do it when there's thousand people working with you how do you enjoy like penetrates through the whole organization so i think ultimately if you do it directly or through indirectly like you can do it through your own team if they buy into your story they in turn will do it in their team and it'll cascade down so there is one way of cascading it down


so there is one way of cascading it down you know wherein every level will talk about a similar mindset is it culture because culture is very very important in the organization culture is very important and the top drives the culture in any organization so top two three layers if i have three layers then i have 1500 people then they all they have to do is be themselves yeah and have that thing i'm not saying be aggressive i'm saying that create that growth mindset create that empowerment some degree of risk taking experimentation innovation and i think that's what you do and then you have town hall meetings where you do it once in six months and now with all the internet and all you have virtual meetings so you get an opportunity to interact and tell about stories at those events you talk about those individuals who have done innovation ask them to speak to others so you go on reinforcing it from different angles you can write articles share it with people so there are multiple ways of doing it directly


people so there are multiple ways of doing it directly through your team through town hall meetings through writing uh through so so many options are there you know and you have to create the right policies you know uh if i have if i go on asking what is the profit rather than asking what is the sales then i'm giving a signal that profit is more important so i think people have to realize that sales growth is more important and profits is the result of sales increasing so this is a burning business question that i've always wanted to ask you uh which is that you know when we see like the tata group say where they've sustained for like more than 200 years yes forget them keep them on the side let's look at some of these japanese companies which they say have sustained themselves for more than 1 000 years yes so what is your blueprint of how organizations can do that especially indian organizations we with what we are building we're trying to uh keep it in india to the globe we're


uh keep it in india to the globe we're trying to sell to the west with level so uh our main aim as co-founders is how do we create something that's there 2 millennia millennia after us you know two thousand years after us how do we create something like that what is your blueprint of that sure sure so i think there are different types of entrepreneurs there are some entrepreneurs especially young entrepreneurs who say okay i'll build a business i'll sell it off i'll monetize it i'll make money i'll enjoy my life i am not in that mode i'm in the mode of perpetuity so tomorrow if something happens to me the business should continue on a perpetual basis and how does that happen first of all you need to have a very strong business in our case very strong brands market leaders and whatever we do so it's relatively not that shall i say disruptive compared to some other businesses which are getting disrupted by technologies like you've seen the likes of nokia


by technologies like you've seen the likes of nokia and many others you know blueberry and all that yeah sorry blackberry um so luckily in our business the disruptions are there like d2c brands and you know e-commerce and all that but not so bad that we can get disrupted having said that even if the disruption was happening organizations can become can go through a perpetual route by doing a few things you know one is what is the purpose of organization everybody should know number two what is the strategy of the organization what where will you play and why will you win so it has to be very focused strategy and we are very clear that we will be in beauty and wellness and not beyond that we are very clear that we'll be in the emerging markets and not develop markets we are clear that we have to have a right to win if we launch a new product we have to have something unique or pioneering and no me to launch a product and we are also clear in the strategy where we


and we are also clear in the strategy where we will not operate so it's a two-page strategy document which is captured very very precisely what we will do and why will we win and what we will not do now that is shared with the board the board will play a very very important role in driving perpetuity of the organization the board of directors it's an independent body and what comprises of very good quality of talent uh experts in different diverse fields which are relevant for the organization so in our board we have an fmcg expert we have a retail expert we have a digital expert we have an hr expert we have a finance expert in them so they will i mean all these issues get discussed at the board and the third thing is so they will create the strategy every year in the strategy retreat and the third thing is culture and values for which we have a defined set of values and we will measure that values amongst all our members every year and the results of that again will get


every year and the results of that again will get shared with the bot so the board is aware of purpose strategy culture on a perpetual basis every year they will they will get a chance if they need to change the culture or strategy then the role of the board is to select the right leadership team because ultimately it's the people who drive perpetuity so selecting the right leadership team which comprises of the managing director and his immediate team cxos is the board's responsibility so the board will select and not only select the bot will make the management team perform better whatever is required whether it's coaching or if somebody is not able to cope up then they will decide okay i have to change that person leader but talent has to be top class so combines purpose strategy culture with top quality talent and all that the board has to own and if that happens i reckon that the organization will continue hopefully for a long long period of time i also wanted to ask you you know like when we are


wanted to ask you you know like when we are talking about mindset you know let's say a company goes to a thousand crore size and when they are now then starting to list what are some of the lessons that they should keep in mind you're saying what are the lessons of going public is that the question yeah so i think it's very important that going public and being private is is very different your life is going to change if you become a public company i think most important thing you need to ask why am i going public there has to be some reason and not just for the sake of going public or be in the news you know in my case i had a reason because i had i had paid my uncles uh and uh you know take out taken over their shares so i taken debts and i had to retire those debts you know and i couldn't have done it through any other route so that forced me to go public and once you are public then it's a different ballgame because


you are public then it's a different ballgame because then you are much more under scrutiny from regulators from shareholders from advisories you get reported much more in the in the press so you are far more in the press also so called you have quarterly pressures you have to perform uh then the choice check the share prices if they don't do it people go on asking when will it improve so i mean it's a different ball game and luckily we have managed it well you have to manage the short term as well as long term you have to create shareholder value so you have to be sensitive to all these facts and then you have to have a very strong board of directors and if you plan it proactively there is i have not repented going public at all in fact i have been i'm quite happy that you the circumstances forced us to go public otherwise i would never have gone public and because there are so many people watching you from outside to that extent there is higher pressure within the system that


that extent there is higher pressure within the system that okay we have to perform if we don't do it i mean what will be the reaction amongst the markets but you have to do it in the right manner you can't then cook up the books and you can't do something which will impact you in the next quarter you know you can't you can't create a story if there's no story you have to have fundamental building blocks to succeed so so one thing i've just figured in all businesses is everyone's going to face failure and the logic always has to be go back to the failure analyze it take your learnings move forward aggressively uh is that actually the core of consistency because you guys have kind of sustained yourselves at the top for so long is it is it is this a huge part of it i would say failures and risk taking and experimentation is a huge part of driving that because out of that comes in some successes wherein you become market leaders so in each and every product


you become market leaders so in each and every product we are in we are market leaders each and every product and i think ultimately you have to select those niches where you can become marketeers you i can't launch a me to product with against a multinationals a very strong brand and aim to become market leader so i have to occupy certain niches where i can be very strong and i have to offer something unique innovative pioneering which will make me stand out and not only when you launch but on a perpetual basis so you have to create a culture which is which is geared towards innovation what about when you see younger harsh marijuanas with younger marikos coming at you for your market and you know because you've built such a big organization the outlook from the startup world is okay let's build a new fmcg product that will kind of take on the older fmcg brands yes and i'm sure you've seen this repeatedly lots of young people must have come with more


lots of young people must have come with more agile teams maybe just because of their size uh you know some kind of new funders with their product so what should your mentality be as a seasoned veteran like what are your strengths in that fight see the biggest disrupter which has happened and i'm not going to the earlier days but these days the last three four years is what is known as d2c brands direct to consumer brands because of the immersions of e-buying because of digital marketing some of the entry barriers which were there among smaller entrepreneurs have vanished in the past if you didn't have a good distribution network if you didn't have big budgets in terms of marketing your products through television channel you would never have been able to succeed but all that is gone now you need limited budget to launch a product you just need to be present in amazon wherever and whatever other sites you know where you can like up and you can launch the product you can experiment it so we have seen


the product you can experiment it so we have seen emergence of new brands catering to new segments and i think fmcg industry has to has to be aware that these are the new age competitors which are coming in and they could also be opportunities for you to acquire these brands we acquired two of their brands we acquired beardo which was again a brand built through e-commerce and i think last year or this year we should be able to do hundred crore town over in that brand so there may be acquisition opportunities for fmcg industry but this is something which you have to learn from these new age entrepreneurs these d2c brands because the way they work is very very different than the way we work so what we've done is we've not even combined it with our traditional marketing it's a separate office the speed at which they move agility new product launches is something else so so speaking about the d to c space of course we got to make this a little bit about the digital space


to make this a little bit about the digital space because that's what hershel and myself are from also i know that you consume a lot of content you know you watch your netflix and all do you consume youtube content as well um more music okay okay how do you now little bit more of their nvidia show of course how how do you keep yourself up with you know what's happening in the modern day because i'm sure as a business person yes you are trying to stay in touch with how's the millennials thinking how is gen z thinking in some format so i think you have to look at trends especially looking at trends which are happening in the international market it's a matter of time those trends will come to india so you have to do a lot of reading you have to do a lot of internet search you have to visit also two years or three years three years back before pandemic i visited new york and we invested in a company which invests in these new age businesses and


company which invests in these new age businesses and i picked up lots and lots of trend whether it's a vegan trend or sustainability trend i mean so many trends which which are happening it's a matter of time they'll come and we've seen them coming all of them so you have to look at what are the new trends which are emerging and ultimately you have to interact a lot with the millennials yeah because that's where they will drive you know and their drive for sustainability veganism my son is a vegan is amazing because they feel that okay in their life they will suffer and for us it may be we will just right through that wave but all this negative impact of this environment and all that is going to hit us much later so you also i think one of the questions has come in of you know how you see india in 2050 yeah i i'd like to reframe the question of it maybe 2050 is one part of the question i'd also want to know 2030


of the question i'd also want to know 2030 or post pandemic uh so what what about these two points in the timeline so according to you so i think uh i always look at the positive pandemic of course there are huge negatives and all of us have suffered through that and many of us have suffered through some loss of our dear and near ones but on the positive side it has accelerated trends the digital is the biggest trend i would say number two agility and and cycle times you know vaccines were developed within one and a half two years normally they would have taken 10 years so the whole agility is now getting applied to all the pharma research all the fmcg whatever new product development and then the overall awareness for health dramatic increase we ourselves increased three or four healthy products and they've had very good traction because people are far more health conscious and not only health in terms of eating but in terms of mental health in terms of physical health exercising yoga


mental health in terms of physical health exercising yoga meditation and i think these are very good trends which are likely to succeed so all in all i am saying that and then the leadership the leadership realized that we have to be far more empathy we have to show more empathy because people have suffered and you have to be far more authentic in terms of how we deal with people so i think these are very very important trends which will not go down because we have experienced that not for one month 15 days but for almost one and a half years now and housewives are very easy to buy through e-channels kids are learning through e-root you do doctor consultation through your route so even meeting zoom meetings why should i call you to my office for one hour meeting i will say okay let's do a zoom call so would you like to hear a cute kind of tech input that i have been studying uh recently have you heard of the meta verse i have read i the name is


the meta verse i have read i the name is familiar but i don't uh i'm not able to recollect yeah so you've heard of steven spielberg right so yes jurassic park and jaws yeah so he directed a movie called ready player one okay which is sort of an essay on the metaverse so i think it's set in like 2050 the movie where people put on like virtual reality goggles and they enter a new world yes now that new world is legitimately a new world okay so the human being is sitting in one place and probably a pod he's put on uh goggles and the human enters like a whole new world where he gets to look a certain way where he has his own wardrobe in that world where he has his own house in that world where he has his own job in that room so that's what the world of the tech startups believes that we are slowly moving towards the metaverse okay where there are a lot of fashion startups now that are uh kind of being


fashion startups now that are uh kind of being built purely for the metals like uh maybe sneaker companies are now building metals based shoes uh that's how we also hear about nfts and all that lately you know these are basically art pieces that you will decorate your home yes yeah um so my take on that is definitely that's a possibility but the metaphors is going to happen you know uh and a lot of the subunits we're doing we're kind of building towards that with level but there's also this whole offline world which will be extremely health-centric because that word might drive you a little bit crazy it's going to affect your mental health it's definitely going to affect your physical health because what you'll just be like controlling a bot in that world right so i feel the offline world is going to be very health-centric and the online world is going to be extremely creatively charged so we're going to see ui designers ux designers uh artists kind of flourish in that world


designers uh artists kind of flourish in that world creativity is going to come to the forefront a lot of our offline world by that point maybe might be governed by ai like all the menial jobs will be taken up and maybe these the matters will give rise to a lot of new jobs enjoy cunning on fathom right now but in the offline world health is going to come to a forefront like to the forefront again so uh what do you have to say sir have you are you fascinated i don't think it's either or you know we make the biggest mistake we make is either or you take you online offline we are veering towards omni channel where you need both off and on similarly you talk of digital and physical it's coming to fidget physics so even the media so everything is moving towards the combination it's not either or you will have combined you'll have this plus you'll have this also you know this is where i'm coming from i'm taking two examples are given about


coming from i'm taking two examples are given about omni-channel and physical but i think that's all because i don't think we can make choices we need both again when you're looking back at your life and say there's a page written about you after you're gone what would you like that page too it should reflect on what i am you know i don't want anything to be written which is it should be a true and fair account of what i am that's to me is what were you important what would you like to leave for the world so i would say that what difference have i made to others lives to me that is the most important thing as an individual whether it's my employees or somebody who's come to me for advice and a lot of people come to me especially entrepreneurs have i been able to help them you know i have to in my giving initiatives which is in the area of mental health and entrepreneurs it's just not donating money i go into actually how do i i give my


i go into actually how do i i give my own time what is known as active giving and then finally okay what is the legacy i built will it sustain over a period of time it's very important you know i can't build an organization and if i'm not there tomorrow it'll fall flat then that means i have not built a very strong organization it is highly dependent on me and as an individual i mean one has followed very high standards of governance and also i think governance plays a very very important role and governance is relevant irrespective of the size of the organization many entrepreneurs think that i will look at governance when i grow and now the whole subject of governance is shift to shifted to what is known as esg you know environmental society and governance so i think that's also very very important at the heart of it i'm a very simple man that's so cool it's actually coming through it was such a very transparent person so i think that's what i reckon


transparent person so i think that's what i reckon people to talk so it's like an honor to have your story put out on our platform more than once you know and uh i i i i'm honestly just humbled that you came to a little studio you know you spoke this openly yes i got to do it with like a brother co-founder to me so that's even more special we're at a very important part of our own journeys you know we've been near launch of that product and it's just you even just a conversation with your blessings so my i've thoroughly enjoyed this from the bottom of our hearts thank you sir thank you thank you so much means a lot thank you so that was a special episode with harsh mariwala a part of the podcast was consciously cut out from the episode because a part of this conversation was about harsha actually mentoring hershel and me fall level whenever you're trying to go into a battle whenever you're trying to go into a war you


whenever you're trying to go into a war you should speak to the generals and the colonels who've been in those kind of battles those kind of wars before you that's what this episode was for hershel and myself it was a dream come true for both of us for me to have harsha visit my office for hershel to have this kind of a deep conversation with his idol and i hope you guys felt that inspiration that we felt through the course of this podcast hashert will definitely return on the ranvi show this is special for me do share it amongst your entrepreneurial circles i know that if you've watched it or listened to it till this point you're probably an entrepreneur yourself or you have entrepreneurial ambitions in life this was a masterclass in business and entrepreneurship thank you for listening remember to follow the runway show on spotify every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world we grow through your support keep supporting us thank you


we grow through your support keep supporting us thank you guys [Music]


cargill war one of the greatest wars in all of indian history today's episode is a first-hand account of the cargill war thanks to colonel krishnan srinivasan without elaborating much on this particular episode what i will say is that army episodes are the most exciting trs episodes and this is one of the most exciting army episodes that we've recorded remember to follow the nba show on spotify we're spotify exclusive now which means that every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world and without further ado this is colonel krishnan srinivasan's story enjoy yourselves [Music] honor having you on the show sir uh pleasure i think entirely my pleasure too you know having uh a chat up with you been seeing you on um the screen so often so i guess now it's live for the first time for an army veteran to say that to me really ticks some of my egoistic personal career boxes but so with this podcast these


personal career boxes but so with this podcast these army conversations are the ones i look forward to the most and i'm dead sure it's the conversations that the audience looks forward to the most i i'm looking forward to it too and let's see how it goes and uh how far does it reach yeah uh sir so i'm sure um you'd be familiar that in pop culture we don't see too many movies about the indian army we see a lot more movies about the american army yes um and i think captain raghu actually told me that i know you worked with captain raghu yeah i did uh he said that maybe the one thing the indian army is trying to work on nowadays is the branding of it in the public eye okay that's that's the kind of uh that's right that's the box that people are trying to take lately and i'm glad that you know through youtube and through this podcasting platform we're kind of aiding the army and yes in that with that uh


the army and yes in that with that uh situation so but specifically recently there was a movie called shairsha yeah which uh i'm sure you know you've heard of uh it's about one captain vikram batra and i'm getting goose pimples because it's just not heard uh let me say that i was there yeah so so this conversation specifically while we've done a lot of army conversations on the show we've never had one just about the cargill war and you know we've seen sheisha we've seen movies like elozy gargle yeah you only understand the reality about the army up to a certain point when when you're an amateur when you're a civilian you understand it through movies we've not had podcasts like this till 2020 2021 so so i want i want this episode to be kind of an inside look like what does an army man feel when when there's a you know war just around the corner when there's such a historic war just around the corner all right okay uh


historic war just around the corner all right okay uh let me just put this uh disclaimer i haven't seen any of these movies and [Music] i have just refused to see them because i felt this nothing more than actually having been in it live i i don't need somebody else to you know tell me what happened because i've been through it right from the beginning till the end you know so yeah this is the time when i was commanding my unit and we were deployed in the valley as close to a place called baramulla and uh the one fine day we were i just got a call from the headquarters saying krish how many vehicles do you need and that's how the whole thing you know sort of jolted me as it's for what so he says you still haven't got your orders he says i said no he says your commander will speak to you and then let me know and that's when things sort of you know just shook me up and we were all in the mess waiting


me up and we were all in the mess waiting to have a lunch and obviously with me with my team out there and this was in the early part of may 99 when the rest of the world really did not even know that something amiss had happened or was happening further up in cargill so yeah that's when things actually started for me and we were one of the uh initial units uh that got moved into the sector uh at that point in time uh basically as some kind of you know immediate reinforcements to go and then plug the you know loopholes that were there and uh you know beef up the deployment and we were still trying to gauge exactly what was uh happening out there and uh that's how i got sort of moved and that's a very uh you know unique story in itself by then so at this point what was your thought process versus what do you think the units thought process was as a whole okay uh let me put it this way uh my unit was


let me put it this way uh my unit was a rashtra rifles unit now uh the organization the structure the training the equipment of a russian rifles unit is basically for counter-insurgency and that kind of a thing so what is counter insurgency okay now basically i mean it is you're talking of uh elements uh who are uh you know picking up arms against the nation you know that's really what uh insurgency is all about am i allowed to say the word yeah yeah it's counter-terrorism uh okay yeah the the uh next level of insurgency would be uh terrorism where the mode of you know putting a message across uh you know is something more dramatic and that's how you know terrorism comes so initially in those days uh when we used to be uh talking about it it was more in the form of what they used to call as a a e you know anti-national elements okay so and there were insurgents and anes and what have you and the terrorism was a term that got coined a


and the terrorism was a term that got coined a little later uh as you know the enormity of it uh you know sort of sunk in so uh like i'm saying you know my unit was not really geared up for uh a move in this classical sense because when you are deployed in a counter incidency uh you know grid as you say you have these bases all over and where you have pockets which you are occupying and you dominate that area around so that's how it is uh i i don't think there was any time in the history of the russia rifles where a unit was asked to up stick overnight and then move to another sector so that itself was uh you know traumatic in that sense uh the second thing is we weren't too sure as what exactly was happening and what is it that we were uh expected to go and do out there uh all that they i was told is that uh there's there were some riffs you know in the air there's some problem


riffs you know in the air there's some problem uh up there and uh so that that's all we had and so i was told that you go there so i still remember asking my commander i said whom do i go and then report to i mean if i have to go there i got to then go and tell and announce my presence to somebody he says we ourselves don't know who's where so he says you just keep going along this road and moment you first i mean you come across the first headquarter out there you just go and then plonk yourself and then you know they will take it from there so that's literally what it happened and uh the uh so overnight we had to move and uh i had you know almost over a thousand uh men you know standard uh russian rifles battalion has about 1200 men uh and obviously there would have been people away on leave and other kind of commitments so it would be less than thousand odd guys whom i had to move


than thousand odd guys whom i had to move uh literally overnight and i was given 24 hours to move and uh you know our deployment is such we were spread into the interiors of the baramulla district and so to pull them down and then you know get them onto the road and then you know load up the vehicles and go it would have taken a little bit of time so i think this is what the arm gender doesn't understand about the army so much of it is logistics yeah it is it's a tremendous amount of logistics yeah and uh we had i don't i think captain drago actually mentioned on the podcast of that okay war is one or lost based on logistics i i would agree with that yeah because uh i mean ultimately uh a soldier can do what he can do but then if he doesn't have the ammunition to uh you know respond to a fire i mean he's sitting duck literally then i'm guessing all the food or the backup are the food okay


all the food or the backup are the food okay fine you can still survive for a couple of days without food you know at the heat of the moment when you are in battle uh nobody thinks of hunger or thirst or something of that sort and of course it will bring me to another you know very uh interesting anecdote when you're talking about the food when we went in out there i i hope i remember come to that part of the story so so i mean literally it was that uh you know which of the the company bases which are closer to the road i said okay you guys are the first plot to move um the others will move in 24 hours later and um i just uh told my senior most company commander i said you take the first half of the uh convoy and then i'll follow up with the second half of the convoy because we couldn't have gone in one whole group and uh yeah 24 hours later we just wound up and then the question then came as


just wound up and then the question then came as you know how do you sort of fill up the vacuum you know by us uh moving out from there there would have been a vacuum created in there so the neighboring units were told you know you just come in and then you know just try and spread out a little bit and then occupy as much of the area and look after it in whatever sense that it was so first for an absolute amateur listener uh we have a lot of gen z listeners you're born after the year 2000 who probably don't know much about the cargill war situation anyway so if you could very briefly explain the geopolitical scenario what had happened what had caused the cargill war in terms of what set off these events and what was the whole war about okay uh cargill actually was um yeah if i would uh see a little bit of uh mischief played by the uh then uh pakistani army chief general pervez musharraf uh because just before that uh


pervez musharraf uh because just before that uh you know we had the uh then prime minister of india mr vajpayee meet with the you know pakistani uh prime minister nawaz sharif and that was all bon homie uh around there and uh musharraf uh tried to take advantage of that you know slight possibly easing off and the friendliness that was prevalent at that time uh to basically prove a point and what came out uh much later was that even the pakistani prime minister was taken by surprise by all this uh scheme that general mushroom had worked out so his basic intention was to cut off you know this part of the north of zozilla and cut off the you know lay cargill sector entirely by interdicting the highway and then would probably you know find the solution for the kashmir problem in a different uh you know method that he was probably uh trying to kind of trying to snatch and then you know because you see all these areas are uh snowbound uh


because you see all these areas are uh snowbound uh during the winters and it's only around in may june that the uh roads uh kind of sort of open up you know and we are probably one of the first convoys to cross zozilla which is snowboard and so uh traditionally uh you know all the traffic in the winters come to a standstill and you know that's why you all these units which are in kargil and all they have what we call as a winter stocking you know they're stocked up for enough food and fuel and you know everything else that you need administratively so that you can take care of yourself during the winters there are no mobile phones in those days i mean they were non-existent so you were only on the you know radio sets and vhf communication and um you know moving in and uh the you know because uh where we had this std booths you know that that was a big thing in those days you know where you would uh go and then dial in and


where you would uh go and then dial in and then pay up your num you know whatever billing that used to come so those are the only means of communications you had and so we uh moved into uh zozilla uh we crossed ozil and we were probably one of the first few convoys that crossed zozilla in the summers and uh we came down uh zozilla and uh that is when that the first convoy of mine which we had at 24 hours lead time i wasn't be able to communicate with them and they had and i know whether to call it a horror story or something but then yeah i mean this is the first time that you know many of us actually experienced uh you know live artillery shelling on you now traditionally what happens is and along the line of control we've been always having these commissions with the pakistanis and they're mostly restricted to small arms exchanges you mean bullets we're bullets yeah you used to file rifles and machine guns and things like that those things that


and machine guns and things like that those things that we've been having even in the 80s when we were deployed out there we used to keep having these you know uh scopes with them and more of an exchange of fire that goes on you know uh rarely did it sort of escalate to you know the heavier weapons which is what the artillery is supposed to be so here we were actually at the receiving end of the artillery and uh you know in terms of training we have a process uh that you are put through you know what's known as a battle inoculation you know where the sound and feel of actually being under live fire you experience that but then you know for all the experience you may have had in terms of battle inoculation to be under live fire is a totally different kind of an experience so could you also just again follow the listeners explain what artillery fire is uh artillery fire is okay it's basically uh a very heavy shell of uh explosives like a modern day cannon uh


of uh explosives like a modern day cannon uh yeah of course yeah it's a much more upgraded version of a cannon and you have uh you know ranges that goes to about 40 kilometers or so and it is you know a weapon that fires on a high trajectory so it's able to go over the hills in the mountains and then you know reach its designated uh target area uh for the sake of bringing up the subject of one uh ajay he was a soldier who actually lost his life in um i think right before the cargill there's a scene in the movie where one of the bases is being attacked by artillery fire um and that's where i think the arm janda gets to know the power of something like artillery fire and i think he had lost his life while saving uh six other army men okay that's also shown in the movie okay um so but when you are at the receiving end of it how do you know it's begun what's what's the overall mood because


it's begun what's what's the overall mood because i'm sure the soldier inside each of you all gets turned on yeah training gets turned on so uh firstly okay so what happened was uh moment where we were this entire movement of ours across the zozilla was by day uh but the moment we went to the other side you know they crossed the hill and then came down from zozilla we were told that it was a sort of a holding kind of an area the open space that was there we told you just park out here here and after all moment is going to take place by night okay and for obvious reasons the place is already under shelling by the pakistanis and so when you move in a convoy at night the biggest challenge is there are no lights you are not allowed to use your headlights all right so you're literally feeling your way through darkness when you're going now uh the guns they also know that obviously by they are if they are watching you in whatever way


they are if they are watching you in whatever way they do they can pick you up as a target by night it's a little difficult so what they do in uh at night you know it's almost like a you know pre-planned kind of a predicted fire where they know that these are the spots that they would possibly be on so at you know at intervals they'll keep plonking some you know shells on those areas at that time a target area just hoping that they get somebody at that point in time you know because it's not a you know that you're viewing a target and tracking somebody and then targeting that person you're just you know plonking shells out there and then seeing you know if you might just get hit lucky so we have to reach that place and this is the welcome we got at night the only advantage i had was i was coming 24 hours later so my first group that went in the previous day they experienced it firsthand and they were able to sort of forewarn me


and they were able to sort of forewarn me and tell me that this is what it is and uh you'll have to do it so what does the instinct tell you the moment the shelling of that sort is uh we try to move out of that area as quickly as possible that's one and the uh other thing is you know this is all very very hilly terrain when a mountain is not even hilly after it's a mountainous terrain so what you do is uh you know when the shells come in there's a trajectory of the artillery shells so if you go and hug the mountain side literally it's very less chance of you getting hit by a direct shell unless it's going to drop vertically 90 degrees you know then it's going to be uh you know very unlucky or a lucky shot for the other guy but the point is that you tend to you know go and hug the mountain side and then you know tuck yourself in whatever little gaps and spaces that are available


in whatever little gaps and spaces that are available so that you can then you know protect yourself from a direct uh you know hit in that side how big is one explosion of that i mean okay i mean it'd take you about easily one of the heavier shells will 20 30 meters will you know everything will be neutralized there's nothing that's going to be left out there and of course then the shrapnel and you know all that will sort of spread over enough 100 meters and if you're on a vehicle and all these things you can get hit through and through that you know so those kind of things and that's what also causes the damage i reached dras and that is where the headquarters was that first headquarters that we went in and then we were then told you know deploy yourself here there and that whole areas to be covered and the specific area that was given to me to cover was a valley called the muscle valley which is emanating from drastic because there was nobody out


is emanating from drastic because there was nobody out there and there was a suspicion that the you know intrusion that is taking place is probably headed that way and moscow is running parallel to this highway from you know srinagar to lay and that's the target that they had and the ross comes on that way uh on that particular uh part of the highway and uh that is where they were targeting uh everything and it's of course now in hindsight we later on as things developed we got to know that they were sitting at tollowing which is just overlooking grass and that is where they were directing all the shelling from and that's how we sort of got inducted and you know we reached out there in the night and the amazing part of it is you know the was not geared up for a deployment of this kind we didn't have maps of that area i still remember that moving from baramulla to srinagar and onwards to the adras i picked up tourist maps jnk tourist


adras i picked up tourist maps jnk tourist maps and then used them to sort of find my way up because at that stage there were no maps of the area and then i reached the headquarters we literally had you know parts of the map photocopied and then given to us and then distributed around for people to use as references you know and uh like i just you know today i was reading and like anecdote where you know children today somebody commented you know i can't believe that you used paper maps to get guided by you know in the days gone by because today you're so used to seeing you know the google maps and all such kind of aids they were non-existent in those days i mean at the most you had uh gps trackers like the garmin and things of that sort which are there and there's nothing else to it so the point is you know we got inducted uh literally uh under fire and uh we were blind in that sense i still remember uh you know if you look


sense i still remember uh you know if you look at uh uh and we didn't know there was no guides i mean what do you see on a photocopy sheet of a map and you're told that you know this is the general direction you go and when you're traveling by night there's shelling going on there's no ambient light you can't switch on your headlights and how do you then identify that this is the route that i could need to take because there's no road that is marked out out there there's no no route markings or you know of anything of that sort so i still remember i had my medical officer who with me and then i had you know given him a few vehicles to command and then i said you move on and i'm just following up after the little bit of briefing and then we asked them as you know how they said the first nala that comes on the left you they get to it that is mushkornala and uh you know if you see the map today probably


uh you know if you see the map today probably you'll probably see it he had gone into another nylo and nala we which is the sandon allah i still remember and uh and this those are small little tracks actually you know they're not meant for heavy vehicle movement he took off into that one which is a totally different tangent realized after going some distance that that was not the way there was no no place for him to maneuver and then reverse his vehicles and come back it was you know a comedy of errors and at that point in time i mean you were totally flustered and you didn't know what was happening actually you know just cursing each other and then trying to find your way around down there i mean today of course i sit back and then i laugh at it but at that point in time i know you just uh you know almost helpless in that sense you know we're trying to find and gather everybody around and then so it's literally you know that you see on


so it's literally you know that you see on dark kind of a patch and then you say oh yeah that must be the nala and then that's the direction in nature and that's how you went in out there and uh it's only in the early morning when they you know the light you know ambient light improved that you then aligned yourself and found where you were well till the time you actually had no clue where you were and then the only thing is i guess the lord was kind to us we got inducted without a single casualty that helped and then of course my troops were spread out wherever you know the perceived gaps were that were there and then to fill up and protect the highway and so we were deployed out there and you know we pushed everybody up and lugging everything up and then doing all that it took a couple of days so then really you know we were obviously spread along the nalas you know because uh the initial information was that there were a lot


uh the initial information was that there were a lot of militants who had solved infiltrated and traditionally the roots of infiltration are along these you know little streams or nalas as we call them because that's the pathways that generally go around that so we'd sort of deployed ourselves to cover all those you know little nalas coming from the uh pakistani side and hopefully had got all the areas covered so after a couple of days you know then a little bit of helicopter reconnaissance and all sorts but the information started trickling in the enemies at these points ah that that's a different uh story yeah i mean that's okay so that's what it is so uh i uh along with uh one one um uh of the deputy commander of the brigade there uh we were then given a helicopter sorties as they go up in the air and try and see what is happening so uh we used to go to the dhras helipad and then this flying used to be done by day and


then this flying used to be done by day and the um the helicopters used to come in from cargill because that's where the base was they'd come to dras and pick us up and do a quick reconnaissance and then you know drop us back and then we used to give the reporters and uh that's when i uh use this analogy you know you have a map and you know you have this little marker pens that you were there and then you know on the map you just read see the ground and you know and there and then mark out whatever you could see and uh typically you used a red mark to indicate where the enemy is and then you know blue is your own site you know that's how traditional marking is done on the maps and uh literally every sortie that i went up in the air and then came down my red marks on the map used to keep increasing because i should keep spotting them on the hilltops everywhere wow and the analogy that i used you know to


wow and the analogy that i used you know to describe that was almost like chicken pox you know i mean you start seeing the red red red red spots spreading on on your body it is literally that way you know the map was uh almost getting filled by uh red you know spots uh indicating where he was it was almost like chicken box uh coming up out there on the map i think probably at this point you must have realized that it's not just a small problem and something is happening so we were um well fortunately unfortunately whatever the few guys who were you know inducted in the initial stages and or were already there and we were the guys who were actually then feeding back the information of the ground realities when then the picture became much much more clear about the headquarters it's something much more serious than what was uh initially estimated and so be more the brunt of that and that's when we you know suffered our first guide so then what did you move we were down


guide so then what did you move we were down in the nalas so then uh the next thing that we did is start climbing up the you know features like the spurs you know that come out from a feature and so yeah you're right in the nala and then you're not climbing up these spurs you know which are out there and try and engage wherever you went and then hit the other guy because you didn't know exactly where he was and wherever you went and made contact and that's literally the word we use you make contact with the enemy you then try to then you know bet yourself in in that area protect yourself and there's no protection there i mean there's no bunkers or there's no shelter out there there was just mountainous huge rocks you took shelter behind those rocks and protected yourself and that was your living area for the days to come months to come yeah and what did you have for protection you then carried sandbags with you filled up with whatever


then carried sandbags with you filled up with whatever little bit of sand that you could and you carried it up there and those were your protection and protection was basically from whatever you know firing that used to take place there's nothing in terms of overhead protection you just had a little you know canvas sheet or something like that to just you protect you from the elements but then those were the uh kind of uh situations that we went and then you know sort of positioned ourselves what did you do for food huh ford used to ah that comes with another one so uh and actually what we do then is um the guys who are there any supply to them of food and water is to take place only by night and it is food is you know one set of meal that is cooked which is breakfast lunch and dinner you know that it's one of the same thing and uh it's just you know packed up in little you know different boxes kind of thing and along with water and it's literally


of thing and along with water and it's literally you know other men ferry it to these guys up there so all this takes place by night and the point is that there's no privacy uh out there i mean you you want to uh you know have your daily ablutions also there is no real space out there i mean you you go and then then walk left and right you're then exposed to fire that's how bad uh the situation is so then uh you know you get into a routine you know a couple of guys go there you know then you couldn't put too many guys also on that little tiny ledge or whatever that you had in terms of space so you used to keep rotating these people after about two three days then you know the next team goes out there and those guys come down and then you know do this yeah coming to the food part of it you know normally when you move you know in this kind of uh situation you can't carry fresh vegetables you know so you get


can't carry fresh vegetables you know so you get what is in ami parlance called hard varieties you know things like pumpkin and potatoes and vegetables of that kind which don't get spoiled so easily and it'll take you so that's all we had in that 24 hours reaction time that we could get whatever a little bit of uh you know so-called of these hard varieties of vegetables and a little bit tinned vegetables that we carried and then we went and out there it's all vegetarian food uh yeah i guess they were also tinned meat and things like that i'm a vegetarian so you know what happened to me was what was there in terms of vegetables so uh what was uh the thing is again you know typical um i was a typical but then yeah the bureaucracy of the system then i mean nobody had uh those troops that we went under you know when drastic they had never handled an russian rifles unit now raster rifles units there's a historical story behind


raster rifles units there's a historical story behind it where you know it was raised with a particular purpose and so you know it's so-called accounting system you know for all the uh budgeting and billing and everything else is a different system compared to the rest of the army so they had never handled a unit like us so they were not even sure as to how that whole process is going to be so we never got any uh supplement of rations from them you know at least in initial days till all this paperwork was sort of resolved so i still remember the first week and after one or two days when we exhausted whatever little bit of fresh vegetables is carried and we had only pumpkin left you know so we had uh pumpkin uh as subji uh with puris in the morning for breakfast we had pumpkin uh with rice or chapatis for lunch and pumpkin for rice with rice and chapaties for dinner that was a standard meal for about a week add to it we


standard meal for about a week add to it we normally carried kerosene with us and we used to have this you know oil cookers and they're all that fuel based kerosene based uh stoves that we had we exhausted that also i know that it gets consumed and then in those kind of altitudes you need to cook stuff that much more longer and because the temperatures are such and more fuel got consumed we started running short of fuel and what we literally did now those areas are frequented under normal circumstances by these you know nomads bakker walls and all these people who take the cattle and go grazing in those areas in the summer months and then bring it down to the villages we have literally collected dung of animals from that area and brought that as fuel for our cooking wow this is how we survived initially till things of course you know got stabilized and you know and things sort of uh improved so uh this was the initial few days but i'm still


uh this was the initial few days but i'm still trying to gather what it was and it's only all our you know my little helicopter requirements and that also stopped one fine day when our helicopters got shot at and so uh we were then uh you know grounded literally in that sense because after that the helicopters went at such a high ceiling that you really couldn't see anything much on the ground and so it didn't make sense and so it was all our patrols that went up on these spurs and then you know wherever we when they hit with the guys we sort of then you know plonked ourselves and then you know built ourselves a little bit of protection and then stayed on out there till such time they got cleared by 13 jack ruff and two rajarif and the kind that came up much much later in the months of june july that it happened yeah so we were there till then and hanging on literally hanging on for our lives how were those


literally hanging on for our lives how were those guys getting refueled like the enemy uh what they had they had the advantage of terrain to them the bases from which they were being maintained were definitely more accessible than where we were one they were better prepared for this kind of a thing so they were well stocked in that sense and obviously they were better equipped uh because now history says uh they procured us so much of an arctic kind of equipment you know clothing and stuff like that which you know from switzerland and other scandinavian countries and things of that kind which gave them the wherewithal for doing whatever they had planned to do so they were better prepared and this is probably across as in at all the points obviously and these things we've it's come out in hindsight you know at that point in time when we were facing the actions in there hmm so i mean pardon me if this is a rude question but did you ever get hit by a bullet or not me


you ever get hit by a bullet or not me no no not me but then yeah we were targeted and um yeah i was lucky to escape the shelling yes definitely but in your whole army tenure have you have you you know taken an injury um no not in the classical sense no but yeah been very close to it but not in that sense have you ever pondered upon that yeah i did what was the outcome of the pondering pondering was well um the pondering happened um when after when all this got over and when but then when uh this all this finished and we got back to our bases and later on during we got back to the same old place where we were in and we had launched a couple of you know successful operations and so as the commanding officer probably i was one of the uh you know targets of these um you know militants who were there and you know they're too sort of hit back uh out there and so yeah they were you know attempts to get


and so yeah they were you know attempts to get back at me which i at that point in time never told people home and it was many many many years later that one of the bosses of mine at that point in time when we met my wife in a social function seven eight years later he uh asked her you know did chris tell you about this she says what so obviously till then i had kept it uh hidden from my family uh but yeah uh she got to know of it much much much later so those kind of times yes you think back but then uh what do you feel is uh look i mean as a commanding officer the you know the classical did says uh you know it's lonely at the top so i mean the unit is such that uh next to god it's the commanding officer really you know for the men so everybody is looking up to you and um you may be scared and you know and i have definitely uh you know you're also worried and all these


uh you know you're also worried and all these things but you cannot afford to show that to your men because after all he's looking up to you for all the uh you know guidance and the direction to move on in life and it will set the tone for the rest absolutely so whatever you had in your mind there was no way you could let it show on your face or in your actions yeah and that is where you know it's sort of uh i guess i mean it's always a challenge to once you reach the top but to face up to it these are things that you have to so uh yeah i mean so then what do you do sort of uh you know get over this kind of a thing is it's you know whenever you have this fear it's best thing to do is get into action do something physically active so it takes your mind off things it's how people can cope with anxiety as well that's it get into some physical activity yeah take your mind off things because it's only when


yeah take your mind off things because it's only when you are look you are scared okay yes that's but natural you can't even discuss with anybody and when i was in cargill i mean we had only that you know radio set for communications now if i had a you know concern there was nobody i could discuss it but also i mean if i discussed it within the offices the word would spread and there's no separate living accommodation for me out there i was sharing a tent with three other officers so any thought was with you yourself that's it there was no second person to share it with so that is where you know uh you sort of uh need to absorb that much more and that's where your resilience your inner strength your mental strength all these coming to fall so before we began rolling for this episode you mentioned that you had met captain vikram bhatra you know yeah before batra point okay yeah okay i mean uh i'm he was just one of the officers of 13


he was just one of the officers of 13 jakraf and that entire um operations of 13 jackriff i mean joe is a good friend of mine we've done a couple of courses together before that and he was the the two ic of 13 jack riff and uh i was with my unit and he's a he's about a year junior to be you know you mean by joe you mean i mean joshua joshi was the ceo of uh there so he was actually the two ic and you know and he was by default commanding the unit much like i i was by default commanding my unit and um yeah so uh we met we have met with the officers and um that particular operations of 13 jack ruth uh was supported by my unit because we were already in that area of uh mushko and like i told you know we were already deployed in all those areas preventing those guys from you know coming down further and we sort of pinned them down wherever they had reached and those


pinned them down wherever they had reached and those are the areas where like i said you know i was not trained i was not equipment i was not organized to launch a physical attack myself so i was in a supporting role and um we formed what is uh you know army parlance called as the firm base uh you know a place from where you launch the uh attack from so that god forbid if something you have to fall back you have a a foot on the ground literally you know that you can come back out there and then you know rework your plans uh so we were part of the firm base one and uh the other thing that we did uh obviously those uh altitudes were such that your ability to carry weights is very very minimal and there's very limited amount of ammunition that you can carry with you when you go in for an assault of this kind and especially in those altitudes so they needed help in terms of ammunition so i had provided a lot of troops from my unit


i had provided a lot of troops from my unit who were who had shed all their heavy baggage so to say and literally [Music] if uh i mean it's not a very uh right term to use they were actually uh acting like porters uh in terms of carrying the ammunition for 13 jacariff and their troops as they were going in for the attack so we were very much there as a part of uh the attack of uh 13 jakris and the troops who went in carrying all the ammunition it's a fact of life when they were coming down we were bringing down the casualties of the rejective so we were you know as much as a part of that story that was there but then you know behind the scenes kind of uh thing but then we were very much there uh as a part of uh the support for 13 jagraf and its attack which got portrayed in this movie and then like i said you know that's one of the things i did not see the movie was i


the things i did not see the movie was i said absolutely seen all that there was to be seen other than uh going into the physical assault which of course was what 13 jakarta did but i was very much there as a part of all that went on out there what goes on in your head when you see you know these many casualties in the middle of a war uh two feelings there's obviously a sorrow uh because i have my own troops also i've also lost as many as 12 of my um you know jawans out there due to the shelling and the firing that took place and a number of them had got injuries also because of their artillery shelling that took place out there so one is the sadness you know that sorrow that is there of somebody getting hit in that sense the second thing that sort of uh is a counter to this is that reassurance that there is an organization there is a system behind you who will take care of these guys who are injured or


take care of these guys who are injured or take care of their families in case they are not alive to get back to them that is what is the feelings that you have there's an assurance there is a solid system behind you that will ensure my family will get taken care of irrespective of whether i am there physically or not and that's what possibly you know drives people also to you know ultimately uh sacrificing their or making the supreme sacrifice so to say uh in battle you know they'll get taken care of i think this is something a lot of people don't understand that when there's so many casualties of war after the battle is over there have to be people who go and pick up the bodies of the casualties bring them down find them out so this response that the indian army gave the pakistani army during the war yeah i'm sure there are multiple factors you know yep be it the bravery of every soldier be it a strategy but do you think


every soldier be it a strategy but do you think that at its core the victory happened because of preparation even though the odds were sort of against us in every battle yeah i'm in a preparation at the later stages yes uh once we got the you know our the information right then of course the right plans were made and uh executed appropriately and so there was no way uh like i was just telling off ravanan telling me uh how to rajarov could not have uh you know failed in its yeah of course there were units which attempted and then uh did not make it the first way and then you know then the second wave went in and then that's what natural process because fighting in those heights those mountains you know has takes its own toll [Music] so i'm that's the reason why you had so many casualties because the fighting had to be done literally and waves you had to literally you know you were scrambling on all fours trying to reach on top now you


on all fours trying to reach on top now you either fire a weapon or your money scrambling on all fours yes or uh you know climbing up with the ropes that are you know laid out out there with an uh little team that has gone from behind and trying to cut them off and all those things so all that is there it's all part of the you know training and preparation that ultimately spoke for itself you know so this this whole conversation for me has been a fantastic sort of understanding because i remember i mean again my as a kid you're seven years old or eight years old your only understanding of war comes from movies yeah you're not even watching the news at that age so i watched llc cargill very fondly you know okay i enjoyed that movie when i was a kid uh i kept reading about the cargill war as i grew up but this is the first conversation i've had of this sort so so firstly from the bottom of my heart thank you


so firstly from the bottom of my heart thank you uh for this description i'd probably end this particular episode by asking you one last question yeah which is that at the end of the war when you know india's one when you know that the mission is accomplished and you've seen whatever you've seen what goes on in your head i literally it is what's my next task and when the next task came to me even before i was on my way down the government then to it was the end of july then this so-called ceasefire was there and that is when they said yeah look these guys are not meant to be the russian rifles unit is not meant to be out here let's relieve them and then pull them out to you know go back to the old grid that was there so we were replaced by uh you know a different set of troops who were then you know to be stationed out there on a more permanent basis we were pulled down and when i reached grass i was


pulled down and when i reached grass i was told your next task is ready for you so i said what he says the government has decided that as symbolic you know of all that has happened we will conduct the amarnath yatra which happens normally in the month of august traditionally up there you have to go and then provide security for the entire stretch of the amarnatya and that was my next task that i had so i never got back home anywhere i was there onto a totally nude situation trying to then do what was mandated to me you understand the mindset of a soldier only when you speak to a soldier sir really i salute you on behalf of uh you know the indian youth india in general oh okay it's just a little story i said it's not like the you know the story of glory and guts that you normally see in portrayed in movies or for that matter you know highlighted in books and narratives and things like that uh like


books and narratives and things like that uh like i said you know much like you know you are the front of all that in a podcast that you do you have so many others who are supporting you in it so my story is one of the supporting casts to all that happened out there and you know if i mean i don't think there's going to be a movie made on me or something of that sort but then uh yeah we have a story of our own uh to talk about so i'm 100 sure that every indians respect for the indian army officers isn't just for the stories it's for the moment that you'll sign up for the army so yeah because this is something i've been thinking a lot about uh lately that it takes a different kind of mindset to sign up for the army just as a person and that's why we salute you sir and that's thank you very much thank you i also appreciate you opening up this way on the podcast thanks thank you very


up this way on the podcast thanks thank you very much hoping to have you on the show again we'll continue our conversation sure otherwise yes thank you sir thank you so much thank you very much that was another indian army special of the ranveer show every time i speak to veterans of the indian army i realize the power of that group of men the power of that organization its history its pride its ideologies its mentalities i'm changed after every single army episode we create honestly and i promise you that we haven't even really begun this journey of bringing stories of the indian army the indian air force the indian navy out to the public you know your only reference point when it comes to the army is movies like shaysha llc cargill or bordeaux but i personally feel that if you really want to know what it's like living that army life you've got to hear it from the mouth of a veteran this was a very special episode of trs make sure you follow


a very special episode of trs make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world and remember to share this episode as far and as wide as as possible we need to spread the word about the indian army as much as we can that's our duty as indian citizens jai hind [Music] you