world of crypto so yeah i would say that uh um you know like right now in the world we exist right where you are looking at this podcast for example you would be watching it on youtube or whatever channel right you are essentially what we call is you are in web 2 right f2 means that where this in this is slightly computer science related thing but you know it's basically a client server technology where there's a server you you are you when you say youtube.com you go to the youtube and then youtube server serves you something with this content web3 means that you know like and first of all why web3 why web3 is because in our you know date and age i think right now the institutional trust is on all-time low or if you go into the history of humanity right so this whole like nation-state concept the concept of institutions is very new very new means like it will be hardly 150 200 years which is nothing in our evolution cycle right nothing not even a second basically right so uh in


nothing not even a second basically right so uh in that in this particular last 200 years what has happened is that everything that we do as human beings the way we collaborate with each other it's always like uh you know especially in the public discourse it's about an entity versus entity like you know you you interact with the bank you interact with the government you interact with a company like youtube google whatever right now web 3 this is basically and then when information technology came in then you started interacting with government servers you started interacting with youtube servers right this is web 2. now web 3 is where uh you know like you instead of you interacting with one single party owned you know system or you know network you basically interact with the with a network which is owned by everyone which is owned by community you can also be an owner of of that network and that is where this web three things comes in and ethereum is basically a platform where you build these web three applications right so instead of


you build these web three applications right so instead of like you have a icic bank here you have compound or away which is a bank use deposit money another so yeah so let me just summarize everything you said and i'm going to reference my brother sumit gupta from coin dcx we had him on the show and it was one of the most loved episodes and i highly recommend that all the listeners also listen to that episode so sumit gupta runs coin dcx he founded it it's one of the cleanest crypto exchanges out there to be able to run a crypto exchange he also went very deep into crypto right from 2013 or 14. and everything i know about crypto is because of him as of now and i hope that this will be the second conversation i know it'll be the second conversation where i'll learn even more so mrs gupta said web one was a bunch of wires where you go to cartoonnetwork.com or espn.com or whatever and you're just consuming data you're taking the internet


and you're just consuming data you're taking the internet and putting it in your mind web 2 was maybe facebook or high five or good where the user goes and says okay i want to be a part of this world also so you put up your photos you put up your status etc but the issue with web 2 is that a lot of your data goes away like facebook will come to know what you're trying to put up or could will come to know what you're trying but they'll get to know you which is the whole social dilemma movie vegeta and web web 3 is basically just web 2 but with sort of a mask on uh where maybe those websites or those entities as you spoke about they don't exactly come to know okay who is sandeep who is ranveer they don't come know everything about sandeep ranvi like ranvi loves football and cricket sandeep loves crypto and tech they don't know these things uh is it something like this am i right to say that [Music] in


this am i right to say that [Music] in some way like you know instead of you having a user id sandeep nalwal at the radar but then that address is also trackable like the first phase of this web 3 is not exactly about um you know it's not exactly about privacy like privacy technologies we are in the very early stage of those privacy technology this stage is about not trusting uh the not trusting the uh any any third party so this let me so what sumit told you is basically the the the web ultimate web 3 so right now we are not there right now what you discuss is basically it's web 3.0 let me call it that and that web 3.0 is talks about especially about our financial institutions and some of the other spheres like you know supply chains and whatnot uh we can basically have uh you know systems where as a user you don't interact with any entity you interact with the open network which is owned by everyone you can also own it i would


owned by everyone you can also own it i would say that god got it as in probably in web 2 that one central entity is facebook or one central entity is youtube or joby like there are entities owned by other human beings here there is no central entity owned by a particular human being the central entity exists within itself like it's imagine it as just a mountain like a non-living yes yes you can think of like it it lives uh and not controlled by any single party it can be controlled by everyone around it everyone like you know who can vote and whatnot and you know the whole community does something but it is not controlled by one single entity that is the web 3.0 and here i will not even say that you know don't think about even facebook and youtube think about your banks think about sci think about like you know all these kind of government issuing notes and all that like you know suddenly you can't have a this thing that okay all 500 and 2000 nodes are banned right those kind


500 and 2000 nodes are banned right those kind of things cannot happen in this space so but that's the first like so what sumit said is right but that's the web 3.10 right we are at 3.0 right now got it uh why so what is where does ethereum lie in this web 3.0 and what is ethereum like why was it built in the first place how is polygon related to ethereum and thirdly how do you figure all this but you know let's start with the basics let's get back to ethereum yes yes so um let's let's first like we understood about web3 right you interact with and then right now also don't think about apps think about your financial application like fintech and all that right when you interact with paytm you drive with all this all this like you know think about paytm google pay they are managing your application they know your data and whatnot right now once we know about this web 3.0 let's talk about more specifics like uh you know let in finance also


more specifics like uh you know let in finance also for example let's talk about the logic because we are talking about we interacting with a network which is doing something right doing something means executing some logic now there are two kinds of there can be two kinds of logic at this stage one can be a simple logic which is a simple currency and that's why like you know when we say cryptocurrency like everybody starts thinking about currency but that's one particular part and i'll explain more about that okay so uh you know the first logic is the simple payment logic like where you are using uh uh where you you know a wants to pay to be so my a minus 50 my balance minus 50 and your balance plus 50. this is simple logic right this is bitcoin again like a web 30 decentralized network but it does only this thing plus minus two small small things but don't get in there largely only this thing a plus 50 a minus b minus 50 that's it now somebody like vitali bhutan who's


it now somebody like vitali bhutan who's the founder of ethereum he said that okay like you know bitcoin is really great but then it executes only one logic can i have a network like bitcoin but which can execute this logic that okay sandeep promises to uh ranveer that at the end of three months i will pay you 200 bucks right and if you do this thing then i'll pay you 500 bucks like if you publish or whatever right if you publish 10 podcast in this one month i will give you 500 bucks right this is a complicated logic right this is ethereum so on ethereum you can execute complicated logic on bitcoin you can execute only this currency plus minus a plus b minus right with ethereum you can execute this complex logic now when you say complex logic imagine like now immediately you'll think okay what all is possible but one thing that is becoming really really big and you all have heard about d5 right or nfts right so d5 what is d5 simplest of the money legos that we


is d5 simplest of the money legos that we call for example for uh compound or away like these projects what you do is that you simply go as a bank you deposit your money over there they lend it out to other people like other people can come and borrow from it and then they get the interest and you as a party because you were a lender you get the interest this is exactly what banks does but on ethereum somebody replicated this entire logic in his decentralized way and now you have a online bank which is not controlled by anyone and people can use it so got it um so okay again let me just bring a real world analogy to it bitcoin was built on the logic of i have a wallet i'm taking 10 rupees out giving it to you and that's the tech version of transferring money from ranvi to sandeep yeah ethereum was the other stuff in the finance world your wallet and the money within it is also a small part of the finance world but also banks exist in


part of the finance world but also banks exist in a financial also big things like loans exist also insurance exists now these are complicated financial techniques and ethereum is uh can can you say it's a coding language can you say it's a system which allows you to replicate real world big financial structures in the tech world in the world of the internet yes yes so ethereum is that is that platform where there is a programming language coding language which is called solidity you write this logic and put it on this platform and then this platform in a decentralized way executes it so compared to traditional coding languages like your java or c plus plus this one has the advantage of working based on blockchain and working based on web 3.0 rather than web 2.0 yes and you can understand it even more simply that you know in the web 2 word when you create javascript and whatnot it runs on somebody's server it runs on youtube server it runs on facebook server here it runs on a publicly owned platform which is ethereum got


runs on a publicly owned platform which is ethereum got it got it so it's taking power away from a few men in one room and giving power like just kind of dispersing power yeah so some people who understand slights some bit of computer technology you can now generalize it that web 2 was a centralized execution environment where you are executing the code is actually logically like centralized execution environment web 3 is decentralized execution environment code logic or business logic execution environment that's it got it uh why are forbes and business insider and these people writing articles about you and what you have done uh just introduce your own story a little bit bro because now i feel given context about the theory how did you figure all this you weren't born with a silver spoon you also have a humble beginning uh and you've kind of grown and taken indian crypto to the world in many ways uh again i'm referencing sumit from coin dcx he's also got a beautiful story and i feel all you crypto guys now


beautiful story and i feel all you crypto guys now y'all are very hot guys in terms of you'll look at the life in a very different way after studying a little bit so bro what's your story so yeah uh i mean uh i was born in a you know small town uh in nanital district of ram nagar which is the base city for corbett national park and uh my dadaji and my nanaji actually met you know they were because they were house servants at uh a person named sp jain who's like a very big guy uh he has a big mba college in his name also and uh so um and then you know they were house servants and they met because you know one was preparing chapatis another one was serving it and all that so you know from there that's where like you know my uh you know the my families my mom and dad met and all that so i got born in a very humble uh you know beginnings and then my uh you know like just like almost


and then my uh you know like just like almost all of the uttarakhand does they like most of the people migrate to delhi and all that to find these clerical and label jobs and all that and my dad was also doing a clerical job uh you know at some company and then after that he was a travel agent he was the guy like you know who you go when you don't have your uh ticket you know if you don't get booked you go to some guy and he stands in the line for you and then you know that kind of stuff so but luckily i was good in uh you know studies and where we used to live in that it was like a small kutra khan community somewhere so you know we had some like some people who lived just across the road to us and there uh you know my like i can call him my cha-cha or whatnot right in in a very distant sense but he was the you know i think 1987 1988 all india topper


know i think 1987 1988 all india topper or something in cbsc so you know like that was a kind of uh you know my son my mom always like promoted me that you have to be the rank one in the class and whatnot so i think that's where it started and although i till eighth class also like i was in a school which is like uh you know that was kind of this thing and i think my like eighth class when i was graduate i graduated from that class i think out of 33 people maybe you know maybe four or five made it till 11th or 12th class so that kind of school you can say and uh it was very difficult like you know that in english and all those things like it was scary but i was good so my family like loaned some money and you know put me in a uh you know private school at least like it's still like not high fancy private school but you know ninth and tenth i was in a private school so it


and tenth i was in a private school so it was very scary and all that so you know somehow survived and you know did well in that school also and then you know didn't get into engineering so i did not also have like all these coaching and whatnot like in fact i was taking tuition since my ninth class and all that so uh but and i was i think that i was not that brilliant enough and iit's going into iit was my biggest goal and you know my charger what i was saying he was a id and then he went to i am then what not so but then somehow i did my engineering uh uh from delhi and all that and then i did a software engineering job for you know one or two years and i was good at that back in like in the third year of my engineering only i we were building some project for our university like you know their result used to come in pdf so we kind of converted into a database where you can worry


kind of converted into a database where you can worry about it and all that so that uh you know i was seen by our chairman of the college and he was uh like a bjp guy or something so he realized that he wanted something to do with it like the voters data of all the delhi and you know kind of so we did some really cool work over there that's a long story but then you know that was the first flare of entrepreneurship i got from there and i realized that you know like that i want to do something like this and even like uh you know even with all those things like uh i actually had a wait list uh in kind of iit's and i was getting that ts chanakya like marine engineering or yeah it's called marine engineering i think the this thing but i was like no i that time i i think it was 2004-5 and then facebook was going big right so i wanted to like i have to build my own facebook like someday like that stupid


build my own facebook like someday like that stupid kind of thought but the idea was this so i left that that was that would have been a very high-paying uh you know environment and then i you know joined this normal college in delhi because i wanted to do computer engineering and you know do something so i was good i was decent in computer engineering and then i did my you know small mba and whatnot from uh niti mumbai after my uh you know like two years of work and then i joined deloitte and then in seven eight months i realized this is not cut out for me and that was the time for of maximum stress for me because you know i had to take like huge risks because i have to take care of my family my sister you know banking and all that stuff so uh but then you know many people knew me that uh you know that this guy is good and all that so uh and a good thing that happened with me is that my wife uh you know


with me is that my wife uh you know now my wife that time used to be my girlfriend so she helped me a lot like she was like you know it's fine like we can live in the rented apartment it's fine like you know and i have some because he she is also from my college so she had decent salary and she was like you take your risk and i think i won't be here if it was not for her like you know i still remember that day like we were walking and she said that do this and all that and i said okay now i need to take this risk and make sure that i i am worth it so then i started this scope weaver which is a b2b marketplace and raised some small seed money uh it was it did well like i did like that that much hard work like i don't know you know but i'm generally hard working but that was like i remember that distinctly i used to do a lot of hard work and i said it set that


lot of hard work and i said it set that up as a business it was making good money and that is this is one part where i think that i did well is that i did not settle for that small this thing i was start i started making like two three lakh rupees a month and all that in india it's a fairly good salary three four lakh rupees is not bad and then i was like no but this is not growing as i as i would have liked so i then i started looking out for these high-tech technologies and this is the point where i first started ready reading about artificial intelligence what year is this bro like when did you build 2015 2015 okay yeah so i then started reading about artificial intelligence a bit and then realized it's too much of mathematics for me and not i'm not cut out for it then i started reading like i thought blockchain was getting really popular like bitcoin was in boom cycle at that point and then i started reading mastering bitcoin nice i


point and then i started reading mastering bitcoin nice i absolutely recommend everyone to read that because that's when you know the history of this how this whole thing started right so i started reading it and then fourth or fifth chapter and i realized that this is something really really big like this is going and then uh you know i i immediately decided i told my uh girlfriend also that you know i want to stop this startup and then you know want to take some time off and then you know understand and then go back to programming because i had stopped programming for like five five years by that time so i then went back to programming again went back to like twenty five thousand dollars or twenty five thousand rupees a month kind of salary and uh you know just kind of loaned stuff and all that but three months i was able to boot myself up and then i started i thought that best way for me is to earn some money by doing some consulting and uh you know learning uh blockchain on a


and uh you know learning uh blockchain on a more productionized level at the same time i became very much active in the communities and i used to solve like some technical queries of people and whatnot and that's where i you know met my other co-founder jayanti like who's the phenomenal guy like he's a very good like programmer and whatnot and he has good business sense also so he was he is like a hardcore programmer so he was working on this research uh group like an open research group like he started contributing over there which is uh basically was acting on or working on scaling ethereum right and i was building some consulting d-apps applications for the clients and i was very aware that ethereum can't handle it because you know we'll maybe go more into that why polygon is required on top of helium uh but then the bigger issue scalability issue that you know it can't scale these applications hold on bro i got i got to again dumb it down a little bit uh just to get it straight


down a little bit uh just to get it straight so but i'll come back to that i'll come back like in a specific right now i'm just saying that simply understand that polygon solves scaling issue for ethereum and we'll be company i mean but still still i think the the listeners are like complete amateurs uh let's just assume that so considering that you already explained ethereum um ethereum is a technology it's sort of a coding language the world of ethereum condenses coding language called solidarity you read about bitcoin you you read about crypto you understood it's the next big boom and then you found loopholes in solidarity or you found loopholes and ethereum which you realize can be like um yeah not good for limitations like that was inherently very unscalable because go back to my original statement i was saying that here you are running a logic where it is run by multiple people right so single let's say you had to execute three lines of code instead of one person executing it which is right now in web 2


person executing it which is right now in web 2 that's that's what happened like youtube or facebook executes it right here hundreds and hundreds of people are executing that same three lines so imagine where you had to consume three computer cycles cpu cycles here you are consuming three thousand cpu so definitely this will be less scalable right so how do you and then this can only take hardly hundred thousand users beyond that and hundred thousand is nothing like if you talk about games for example a very mildly successful game has like few million users right here we are saying the whole ethereum computer which is going to change the world and bring this three pi it is going to have only 100 000 users it will be able to support so that's why the scalability is required and polygon is basically a layer two scaling platform around ethereum so think of it ethereum at the core but around it we create a layer two network which is like cell native by the name so instead of you running application directly on ethereum


name so instead of you running application directly on ethereum you run applications on polygon and then polygon in a decentralized way again commits or kind of creates cryptographic proofs of whatever you are doing and puts it back on ethereum in one transaction so you can do thousand transactions and then but any on ethereum it goes at one transaction in a cryptographic proof that's the core idea about polygon and then there are a lot of other nuances but yeah got it firstly bro inspirational story i loved your story uh about your past secondly i love the fact that you self-taught yourself uh crypto like you knew you're a good student you knew you're a good learner and then it was just effort and thirdly you again you use the basic business logic of how can we improve this how can we kind of level it up a little bit created a product now correct me if i'm wrong anyone tomorrow some kid sitting in the next building can create their own cryptocurrency it's easy to create a cryptocurrency it's


cryptocurrency it's easy to create a cryptocurrency it's difficult to create value within that cryptocurrency and here's another thing i keep bringing up sumit gupta is a brother to me but he told me that any cryptocurrency needs to be based on a particular product if it's based on a good product then the cryptocurrency the value goes up because that product gets more users yes so is that was that the plan with polygon always that okay you have created this new product in the world of ethereum and now there's a cryptocurrency associated with the product you've built because it's in the world of web 3.0 or blockchain or crypto yeah yeah yeah so yeah i mean largely that's that's the right statement that uh you know so actually we are not even creating the currency so when you are using ethereum right we are talking about this multiple parties running this network right there has to be a way between them to coordinate in a in a way which goes in the direction of progressing the network that means pro calculate


the direction of progressing the network that means pro calculate correctly do right things right right so on that ethereum or any of these platforms there needs to be a native token which is ethereum in in case of ethereum for bitcoin it's actually bitcoin that token is actually especially in the case of ethereum that token is not built to be a cryptocurrency that token is basically a token to use amongst the players in order to coordinate with each other it's called consensus right similarly with polygon we actually say that this is not a currency like please don't use it as a currency this is basically our token which is like the matic token is basically a way it's basically a security deposit so you put your security deposit and you become a validator in this polygon network right and when you become a validator then you get to earn the fees from the people who are doing the transactions on the network right so how the value of the polygon grows because if a large number of people are doing value transactions on this network and there


people are doing value transactions on this network and there is a fees being generated a lot of people would want to become validators in this and they have to stay magnetic token right as a security deposit and that that's what gives the demand for the token like right now for example i can create a sandeep token but what is the demand for it where is it going to be used here what sumit is trying to explain you he explained it on a very high level but in the deeper level it is basically that token needs to be used somewhere in the product which creates it gets the demand now currency has been a very very in fact like almost impossible kind of use case for any crypto to accrue value only bitcoin is the currency which is which acts as a currency in some form although even now it is also not acting as a currency it's a store of value it's like gold it's not your money but then it's very hard for any currency anybody who's saying that okay i have a platform


anybody who's saying that okay i have a platform and my currency my token is used as a currency in playing games or whatever platform i have never use that currency never buy that currency because that currency will never have enough value right unless somebody some token is being used in a way where people need to hold that token in order to participate in the network right or in order to you know govern the network or whatever right these kind of scenarios are there then that currency will not have without these kind of actual uses of that currency that token that token will not have any value in the longer run uh it's a little rude and direct question but why is polygon you know why is there that billion dollar word associated with it like what is the use case yeah what is the actual value of it can you just explain to an average consumer correct correct correct so i'll exp so for example ethereum if you take ethereum [Music] around 300 right and uh polygon already in its nascent stage is helping ethereum by


already in its nascent stage is helping ethereum by doing like people are now doing one uh total seven million transactions a day compared to ethereum's 1.7 [Music] six seven years now right so why why the valuation of polygon is going up is that people know that okay there is activity here right why the vcs have let's say why vc started giving value to facebook right and facebook started raising money in like multiple chunks multiple billion dollar evaluations the reason for that is that people saw that okay there are users right and then these users are going to convert into some sort of business models and whatnot in our scenario the business model is very clear that these users are going to do these transactions over here and those transactions will can generate gas fees we call it gas fees and that will be used like that will be used to incentivize the people who are running the network so more and more people the more and more transactions keep going up it means the network as a whole is generating more revenue and the


as a whole is generating more revenue and the people who are the shareholders of the token it's not shareholders but the token holders who participate in running the network they get to make larger amount of fees right that is exactly how a normal company also works like even when their revenues keep growing up you know their overall equity the cost of the price of their equity goes up here it's basically a governance token the the number goes up so that's why because in the last six eight months we have been working for last two three years and then uh you know in the last six months that that that kind of adoption has kind of exploded heavily into the space got it so uh you've built out a product in the world of coding the more the users the more the people who are using your product the higher the valuation of it therefore the value of matic also goes up the value of uh your company also goes up and that's that's what like basically the narrative


and that's that's what like basically the narrative is actually also yeah this is also something which many people don't understand but then there is like there is no company asthmatic right there is basically once we build the network and now it's out there in the open even we don't control it as as people right like we are now out of 100 nodes we have three nodes now three or four nodes 96 nodes are run by the people and they can any time like i can't go and say that hey let's improve this parameter or increase this parameter to or the gas limit let's say 200 this thing like nobody will accept that because other people have also that is the power of decentralization even if we created it i can't go and impose any decision on the network that's the strength of this so there is no company as such this network as a whole has value and yeah like we also own those tokens so those tokens value is going up so you know our value is also like going up there it's


know our value is also like going up there it's like it's like mark zuckerberg owning seven to ten percent stake in facebook as the value of facebook keeps going up his value as a person keeps going up you own uh pieces of the network you've created most of network is owned in the public domain but because there's a demand for your work each uh price of each of those tokens is also going up therefore your value keeps going up everyone whatever well we hold like that value values going up like as co-founders right so could you just like elaborate a little bit on your own crypto portfolio yeah so uh the crypto portfolio i mean if first of all if you don't understand the industry that much don't go beyond the uh blue chip uh cryptos right i mean otherwise for the short run you will see your money growing you because you got into some sort of dogecoin or whatnot and you are you made a lot of money but then eventually it is going to come down and you will


eventually it is going to come down and you will never know when it is going to come down right you are just gambling but if you if you are going via the uh like if you actually want to create a investment portfolio in this industry which i believe is very very important your ten percent five ten percent and again no financial advice but i believe as per what i have read from the uh you know bigger financial uh which is in the in the world that you know some percentage of your portfolio should can be in crypto it's a very high growing asset class and there i would say that if you are not very deep into the industry and you don't understand the new coins that are coming up and what not don't go beyond let's say the top uh five six coins like where i can say that bitcoin uh you know ethereum maybe now polygon is also a blue chip i would say rv is a very good project compound is a good project and chain link is a good project um who was like there


link is a good project um who was like there are there are many like good project maybe 510 i will have to maybe open the list for you like 0x protocol is good they are doing good stuff and all that like maybe i should like you know if you want to give me to give like neutrally five six names or ten names then let me open the you know polka dot is a decent project people feel then uni swap again one of the best projects in the space then you know again all these are ethereum competitors i don't endorse them and i i don't believe in them at all but then you know people believe that they are doing good work but mainly mainly you're saying park your portfolio in bitcoin ethereum yes polygon in bigger broader in bigger projects which are very well known and you know have decent teams with them otherwise this industry is full of scams like assume that ninety percent of the token names that you are hearing are scams right and polygon also six months back or eight


scams right and polygon also six months back or eight months back if somebody in their well intention would be recommended to you he will also say that consider polygon also as a scam right till the time a project proves the usage in terms of the users consider it scam right whatever it was what was that moment for polygon like or what kind like in labor terms can you explain the moment when we crossed so again this is a platform right when we cross 100 applications which were built on top of polygon right okay now today we are like 400 500 applications are built on polygon right so that was the time where you can actually see people using pelican polygon like where you can use polygon for doing something some you know for example when you use unisop to actually swap your tokens between something it's an exchange right decentralized exchange then you mean know that okay there is some use of this token and then you know do more research we call it dyor do your own research so do your own research and then but


own research so do your own research and then but if you can't do it don't go beyond these six seven tokens that we spoke about just now so bro there's two burning questions that every crypto enthusiast in india has right now one we're seeing this current kind of fall in the valuation of bitcoin ethereum people's portfolio values have gone down uh why has it happened when can we expect a sort of bounce back what do you have to say to the indian crypto community yes so you know why you go you all guys are having this problem is that because you all you know you you went you you came into the market when the market was going like just like vertical right and you all of you guys entered somewhere here right maybe those kind of smaller scenarios you made 20 30 percent profits but then eventually that this is like you know parabolic uptick right so always also like when you are trying to time the market always see that are you chasing green green candles right somebody oh no


you chasing green green candles right somebody oh no this is going up this one this will go like there is a limit to anything everything right now polygon cannot also become like a one trillion dollar and keep going up and all that right there is some level of fundamentals in this and when the fundamentals versus the fundamental value versus the market value is too much incoherent uh you know with each other then there is going to be this kind of crash and i think anybody who is experienced in this market uh doesn't believe that we are in a beer market right now and we all all believe that this is a healthy correction in the market because otherwise like you know if you keep going up and then you know it becomes like a whole scam industry it falls out like this and governments manage because it's some sort of casino or whatever right this is a very healthy correction and right now i would say in the next two to three months if you are now entering into the market


three months if you are now entering into the market like and you break down your entry into the market you you call it staggered entry or staggered exit like you know buy 10 10 maybe every week five five percent of you and plan your entry in over the next 20 weeks or not 20 weeks sorry the next like you know maybe 12 weeks or something right so and you'll be able to get in at a good price last time the people who joined in they chased you know richness like oh i got rich and you know this and that right that you were simply playing a casino game and somebody who was smart who simply cashed out at right time he got saved nobody who didn't cash out all but so now is the time to get into this industry where like btc is around 30 000 maybe it will go to 25 000 don't really worry about it like keep getting smart small thing into the entry because we have product market fit like bitcoin is being accepted as companies are buying bitcoin as their


is being accepted as companies are buying bitcoin as their treasuries uh you know ethereum has been used for nfts d5 like you know these game these banks are being created multi-billion dollar banks on this thing there is no way uh the industry is you know going anywhere like it's it's there's only one way which is positivity and positive direction so yeah be a long-term investment don't be a trader got it so you just gradually keep investing your money ideally when the price is low uh and hold on to it because that portfolio will swell up a lot over time over time yes yes and especially if you are invested in good coins let's say bitcoin ethereum polygon you know when they are going down right now don't like panic sell them like the worst scenario is you bought high and you sell low right right now if you have it you already are 20 30 loss hold it simply here right now this is very normal cycle in the market it happens all the time like markets crash 40 50 60


all the time like markets crash 40 50 60 all the time here because these are very immature markets got it what can a crypto official you know someone who has a good amount of money in their crypto portfolio what can they expect that portfolio to be in 10 20 years according to you i know that's a very raw question and you can't exactly pinpoint but if you can give sort of an outlook about how you look at your own portfolio and how it will perform in the next 10 20 years i mean uh is if you are if you are see 10 20 years nobody can say because it's a very like we always joke about that three months is like a year in crypto three months like three months back we were you know somewhere else like we were in the boom boom market and then you know today we are like oh where is going and all that three months so i can't say in three months but in 20 years but i can talk to talk to you about maybe in next one year right one


to you about maybe in next one year right one year my prediction would be that if we would be back to like before one year we we should be back to the previous highs where bitcoin and everything else was we should be back to the previous highs and then we have to see that what kind of larger triggers happen on the on the global scale like is the u.s government is going to allow a you know exchange today portfolio and what kind of decks like how ethereum grows and scales and things like that especially in mid of july there is a big upgrade that is going to go into the ethereum in eip1559 so watch out for that right that can be a big catalyst for the whole industry and can pull the whole industry into a different direction and uh yeah like we ethereum believers we believe that you know ethereum will eventually outpace bitcoin also because we have usage so you know we we strongly believe in you know ethereum and the cause of ethereum overall so yeah so i mean i would


of ethereum overall so yeah so i mean i would say that in one year like wherever these markets were and whatever whichever point you entered like the market will be back to uh back to their previous highs uh bro and how do you because now i feel you've become sort of one of the poster boys along with a sumit gupta from coin d6 you're also one of the poster boys of crypto in india so what do you think the indian government is going to do with respect to crypto going forward like are there going to be better regulations uh what should we watch out for what is happening i think for me uh you know the crypto has become too big to ban in india right right now and then the way the things are moving globally indian government also understands that you know they can't simply go and outright ban it right this is that is not sustainable at all so i feel that uh you know eventually uh you know government will come up with regulations which will be positive


government will come up with regulations which will be positive which will help the overall industry grow in the short term there can be some pains there can be some knee jerk reactions but eventually like you know we we have intelligent enough people who will understand that you know we'll simply lag behind this whole industry if we don't do if we act like rashly so hopefully like you know government will come up with positive regulation it they will make it harder but not ban it they'll make it harder for you to hold the reporting requirements will be very high and what not but which is fine right if you're getting into a new industry it's fine to go through those things so reporting requirement and all those will come up but i don't believe that there will be a ban and uh like yeah i mean uh like sumit for example is more on uh on the exchanges side right like getting people to come on board and you know kind of uh be able to get into the ecosystem so


uh be able to get into the ecosystem so basically sumit and coin disease they are the gateways of people to get into this market whereas we are more on the technical side like we want we are so far for us the customers are developers if they are able to build if they want like we promote them to build their applications in web 3 think about new design patterns and whatnot so i think like especially from our side like i know sumits and their journey is you know much more difficult than us because they're directly interfacing with the customers in india whereas we are more of a technology platform which is you know not even uh you know based in india to be honest it's our global platform and our focus is to build the technology workforce of india which i think government should be fine hopefully so basically they are the b2c crypto product you're a b2b crypto product in some ways in some form also before we move into the twitterverse section i have one historical analogy so


the twitterverse section i have one historical analogy so if you study the history of asian countries in the last 300 years uh two kind of big empires strike out okay so before the british actually took over india we used to kind of be responsible for 30 or 30 i think it was 31 of the global gdp it was just indian subcontinent india pakistan sri lanka bangladesh okay and then after the british left we had only three percent of global gdp as a unit so british looted us so the actual question is why how are they able to loot us they took advantage of two things one this divide and rule uh mentality divide and conquer mentality like all of us used to keep fighting with each other therefore foreigners came they took over uh we need to stick together as a unit and this is something that didn't happen in japan which was also a bunch of kingdoms but they got united as one country were able to prevent invasion okay the second thing i'd really


to prevent invasion okay the second thing i'd really like to highlight is that if you actually study the history of japanese samurai they started using guns as well they started using western technology which wasn't as quickly adopted in india that's why we lost a lot of the key battles the key wars uh crypto is a version of history again where the rest of the world is adopting guns and we can't be in our own i hate you you hate me i am against you you are against me we need to see the rest of the world is trying to use guns and start adopting it in india as well in order to prevent another drop in global gdp which people are understanding slowly i think especially urban youth in this country is starting to adopt crypto for that same reason do you agree is that a uh some analogy well good analogy this is a very good analogy [Music] you know it's very simple like if we don't uh catch this bus we'll be left behind and then we'll


this bus we'll be left behind and then we'll again act as like laggards that we do in most of the other you know avenues and china is like doing going absolutely crazy on this like you know they are now setting up their own digital yuan and whatnot right so yeah that's the uh purpose of history in many ways that you study it you understand what we did wrong and you try preventing that from happening again so just to the general indian audience i really feel people need to back crypto and at least some point even if you're skeptical just hold on to some crypto understand it at least when you begin understanding that's where you know things start changing don't be blocked out to it that's probably what i'd like to highlight uh okay so uh sandeep this is our twitter section you know that indian twitter is very big on crypto so think of this as rapid fire joby answered however you want i'll also ask you some follow-up questions if i find something interesting okay uh are


follow-up questions if i find something interesting okay uh are you ready bye yes okay asks will crypto replace centralized currencies or not um the crypto market seems to be too volatile do you think cryptocurrencies will become stable and non-volatile in the future yes definitely like you know it's about it's a question of when not if uh and if you go to any industry before that like you know whether it's the dot-com boom bubble of 2000s or a gold rush of 1950s and whatnot gold and these precious metals were also like this like their prices were like crazy but at one point in time they settled like we are in a very early market you are still very early if you are getting btc below 100 000 dollars you are very very early got it um so the answer is that long term it's a safe investment yes yes okay don't look at how much it's like going up and down right now okay but also keep in mind go with the blue chip tokens which are probably bitcoin what we call coins


chip tokens which are probably bitcoin what we call coins lovely um okay okay asks a question about uh bitcoin or crypto mining uh again sumit by of coin dcx spoke about bitcoin mining on that episode in detail uh but is there mining related to ethereum and polygon as well and what is the version of mining you guys have yeah so we are proof of stake so you know in in a way where uh you can actually become a validator or a miner by just using your laptop whereas bitcoins mining is very compute intensive so that's why you have to have like huge machines and you know like warehouses and warehouses and that's why like you know many countries are like against it but ethereum ethereum is right now also proof of work but then within six to eight months it is expected to go into proof of stake and when it goes to prostate that might also be the time when it will kind of surpass uh probably bitcoin um as the you know main convention that's also the big criticism


you know main convention that's also the big criticism with bitcoin right that the mining uh kind of creates a lot of carbon emission and it's not good for the environment so that that's the core logic behind why ethereum will surpass bitcoin that is also one of the reasons the other other part is bitcoin as i said that only does only a a minus b a minus 50 and b plus 50 right but ethereum does much more than that and ethereum can also do a plus 50 and a minus 50 right so that's why we believe that ethereum has bigger and larger use case at the end at the end got it um okay jay how will the polygon network work in 2030 according to you so polygon network will become the business layer where you run your businesses and then ethereum will be at the center as the execution layer and then by 2030 we believe like you know we we we want or we hope that there will be you know hundreds of millions or maybe billion users using polygon technology without knowing


or maybe billion users using polygon technology without knowing that they are using technology without knowing that they are using polygon like for example right now you don't know that you are using a you know trans atlantic or you know trans-pacific optical fiber layer which is connecting india from mumbai to uh you know let's say los angeles right you don't know so that's why like this this is a infrastructure technology right now we are in a very early stage like where you know british telecom or atl in india was like you know those big things and whatnot but then now you don't talk about them you talk about what what is the application you're using you're using facebook youtube you know whatever whatever whatever right or instagram that we believe that in 2030 you should not know that you are using polygon polygon should become omnipresent but wow invisible as a back end like what java was in the 1980s or 90s sort of yeah yeah so as a as a user you don't know what is java and what not


user you don't know what is java and what not right or yeah i mean for example when you use your laptop you use apple you don't know like you don't although intel does a lot of marketing but you don't know that you are using intel in inside right i mean you know that okay i have a windows laptop or you know i have a hp laptop or whatever whatever right so yeah that's the goal got it this is the new kind of tech boom that's happening uh in the same way that many people wouldn't have understood what bill gates is doing in the 80s or 70s people may not understand what's happening now but by the 2030s or 40s people are going to be like oh okay this is the basic you are using cloud right now right so you are for many of the things we are using amazon web service google cloud microsoft azure and some you know uh proprietary data center you don't know that you are using amazon web service right similarly we want to become like


web service right similarly we want to become like that like you know you don't know you are using polygon got it brother um okay it's a hard question okay komal salgankar asks what is the better option for a student should they invest in cryptocurrencies or stocks at the beginner stage so assume they are 5000 rupees how would you divide it cryptocurrency wow it's an easy answer it's a very easy answer and as a student you should also learn to code like whatever like whether you're art student learn something about coding and start learning about uh decentralized world or web 3 right now because when it really becomes big then you will be illiterate in that world and start understanding more about it and web 3 is when i said that these networks are run by community right now the biggest aspect is you know get onto twitter be a part of those communities on discord on telegram and where not and you know see how the decisions are being made because those decisions are going to you know change how you


those decisions are going to you know change how you are going to use global financial system in five years from now so understand more learn more about this technology if you are computer science highly recommend uh you know venturing into this space very very very rewarding like especially for a student for your placements and jobs and whatnot i can tell you like you know i am like daily like the freshers the kind of salaries freshers ask from me because it's a global word right so the same fresher can get a job from a silicon valley san francisco based company it is in dollars right so the amount of salaries i am asked by the just guy who's not even you know graduated or we call it pass out password of the college is like insane insane like those kind of salaries actually make news when some iit and get it here it's like very common very very calm everybody yeah like yeah crazy bro um i mean when okay now someone like me who is a media person you know a


like me who is a media person you know a creator but i'm fascinated by crypto and i part of my portfolio is in crypto when you're saying get deeper into it now i personally don't have time to learn coding from scratch so would you advise to maybe just be informed about what's happening in the community member you should be a very strong community member in in polygon in uni swap you should be a voice and somebody was even somebody was even saying that although the figures can be off but somebody was there is that there's a there's something called protocol politician as i was telling you that these nations states and concepts are also like 200 years old who knows that you know in the coming days when the whole societies are being converted into cloud societies right where we all live on the cloud these communities are going to become big and people are like there are already like people who who are leaders in those communities they get paid in hundreds of thousands of dollars just


get paid in hundreds of thousands of dollars just because they are the community leaders over there right so protocol politician is a post and somebody actually made a very bullish statement that you know in 10 years we'll see a protocol politician salary of 1 billion dollars a year right that's how do i begin just you know you are on twitter right go to these projects that i talked about like these d5 projects away compound polygon you know polygon uni swap what not follow their twitter see where their their communities are and you know their discord channels are and all that and get involved there you will see that if you go to uni swap or sushi swap or anything you will see that community actually has a voice like if project is doing something you can say that hey this is this is bullcrap like you know i don't want to i don't agree with this and all that and people like start following you and you know if you have a logical statement some people will be against you and whatnot but overall you


people will be against you and whatnot but overall you will become a very important voice in the in the community and community is really cool here like you know you can even ping let's say uni swap founder if you have a legit point to make you can say that dude this is not good tag him on the group so become involved over there become a community leader you have like for people like you i think you have a big space and we don't have this is like a this thing we don't have a community leader from india right that way like nobody is like you know well known in the community who has like thousands of thousands of followers who's well known in the decentralized community just spend your time who would be the closest to that right now of all the people of potential people nobody okay no nobody few people from polygon team would be bit known but again nobody i don't see anybody from india you're saying a mainstream youtuber influencer can actually become that just


youtuber influencer can actually become that just by understanding and having opinions oh sure there are there are some people although like if as a youtuber you don't go back because many of these youtubers have become like a shill machines right so they take money from the project and then you know talk big about that project and that price shoots up at what part right because everybody starts buying it and that becomes a and eventually they lose repetition so right now nobody really you know this thing but if the way you are working if you don't you know make any price predictions on any project and maintain a very clean image for example cinematics is a guy uh you know it's a channel you should follow like very good to understand and all that so he make sure that he's credibly neutral right so if you contain credible neutrality then as a youtuber also you can you know become a big over there in fact it's much easier for you to become bigger over there but


easier for you to become bigger over there but you have to choose your side like you know maybe become one or two projects become closer in that and then maybe you are talking about that project only because then you are publicly stated that you know i am invested in this project and i am big follower of this project and i want to talk about it you know you can become a really big guy over there i mean i can tell you i know a lot of people who were like bartenders or uh you know like no like very menial kind of jobs and whatnot and they got involved into community invested in something became a bit bit got some money left their jobs and then eventually became very big people in the community and now they are like they have hundreds of uh thousands of uh dollars in their uh name sort of uh you know as as as community members in time project about them that okay this is a community follower he'll help us build the community they reward them that


he'll help us build the community they reward them that okay we are giving honorary tokens to you sandeep i met you first in our twitter spaces session with vijay shekhar sharma and i remember it was a bakchoti based session we were just talking rubbish everyone was talking rubbish what were you trying to tell vss like uh what was in your mind and what would you have liked to convey i would like to convey to him that you know get paytm into into crypto in some form in a positive manner he has a big multi-billion dollar company to run maybe a separate division of it but you know do something where you introduce crypto not crypto in the cryptocurrency like everybody's cryptocurrency that's the biggest unfortunate uh you know discourse in india that crypto is currency don't get into the currency part but as a fintech like fintech 3.0 right or fintech 2.0 kind of narrative and then yeah get into it arjun sharma underscore 20 what do you think about


arjun sharma underscore 20 what do you think about celebs and billionaires like elon musk influencing the prices of these coins is it a healthy price correction or done as a selfish motive no but it but elon see i'm a big fan of elon he's doing some really great great work but i think he went overboard like without understanding that much because you know crypto is not like you just understand the technology and you know we i generally keep saying that it is actually not not only a technology it's basically a paradigm how human beings interact and work with each other and i think that part he did not understand and went too deep into one particular thing like dogecoin and then you know with bitcoin and whatnot and uh you know kind of burnt is his reputation a bit i think right so it's not good it's not good the way he kind of yeah did but hopefully now he's understanding that part and you know like now off late he's like slightly aloof from it


now off late he's like slightly aloof from it so yeah sandeep thank you uh this was very enlightening for me on a personal level learned a lot about crypto even further i think the conversation i had with the coin dcx and so many groups was very base level b2c conversation and you exposed me to the whole b2b side of things how the world of software and coding is looking at blockchain crypto and just i wish you all the luck in the world uh more than anything because i'm also a patriotic person i love that you're taking india out to the world brother so keep going and uh i am definitely cheering for you as is the whole indian crypto community and i'm sure more indians will keep backing you as you keep going forward so keep going bro that's all i have to say thank you so much for having me here and then this taking india to the you know making a superpower in this space is like one question i asked when i really like when i


one question i asked when i really like when i started it was a really bad situation here like you know nobody was really you know believed in us and nobody was working on it government was against it i always thought that we are a software superpower and we have to become a blockchain superpower also and let's do whatever it needs to to reach there and that's my larger goal also so thanks a lot uh for having me here and yeah keep rocking now cheers brother looking forward to having you on the show again after you've accomplished even more probably in that 2030 till the 2030 time period and i'm hoping that 2030 happens to you in 2024 or 25 itself god bless you bro thank you so much so that was the highly informative episode all about polygon i hope you enjoyed it speaking of sandeep bhai kind of invigorated the engineer inside me i'm looking forward to learning a lot more about blockchain about the future of the technology world and of course


about the future of the technology world and of course about crypto lots more crypto conversations coming up lots more future tech conversations coming up tell us on our social media and in the comments section about which other tech personalities you would like to see featured on the show and make sure you follow the runway show on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world keep following trs for all these lovely episodes that i hope equip you for the next two or three decades thank you namaste everyone [Music] you


welcome to this independence day special of the ranvi show an aim of mine for this podcast has always been to celebrate our country celebrate our heroes celebrate the people who are fighting at the borders fighting outside of the borders to make this a safer more prosperous land for all the indians living within it on today's episode we have colonel subin balakrishnan of the special forces he's a former officer of the indian army incredible experiences incredible perspectives if you're someone who enjoys conversations about the army conversations about the special forces this one's for you enjoy this episode do share it with your friends make sure you follow the ranvi show on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world happy independence day everybody let's get to know some real life stories of some real-life heroes together enjoy this episode with colonel subin balakrishnan on the ranvir show [Music] honor having you on the ranvi show sir always a


having you on the ranvi show sir always a pleasure ranveer thank you thank you for having me here so uh right before this podcast started you asking me why we're bringing on so many army men on the show uh what's your answer to that well i really don't have an answer i mean i found it uh interesting for want of a better phrase that you actually are investing time and effort in in getting people from the army from the special forces background to come and speak uh because that's not something that happens usually in spite of the fairly good exposure and good interest out there it's not been happening very frequently or not as frequently as one would think uh it should be happening until the 2020s with the runway well that's one way to look at it so that's what we want to change i remember talking to captain raghu about this and he's as i told you earlier he said that uh the one place that the indian army kind of you know


place that the indian army kind of you know would like to improve is their front branding as in the branding that goes out to the audiences what do the audiences think of the army there's a lot of national pride when it comes to the army but they don't know much about it people don't know the inner workings of it especially younger folks we know more about the us marines than we know about the special forces it's absolutely right you know and and it's um you know just to carry the conversation that we were having earlier uh forward uh is that there is so much of so much of latent talent that's available with uh veterans and people from the armed forces with the background that they have and i'm it's always amazed me that it has not really been exploited in the manner that it should for for greater good and i think that's that's uh that's an area that there is so much of idle capacity that that we have within the country that we really don't


that we have within the country that we really don't need to look over our shoulder at what's happening beyond this that that's that's tremendous amount of potential that lies there so we had major vivek jacob on the show uh i'm sure you've checked out that episode so yes um you had also worked with him on the field is that true um well no we haven't uh interacted directly we make as much junior to me okay uh but you know the spoken reputation does carry and we have uh interacted but not not on a very regular basis or on an operation singularly got it um so the one thing i got from that conversation with him about the indian special forces is that your key word is efficiency it's all about doing your mission with a lot of efficiency and wherever efficiency is the requirement the sf is sent in to do the job uh actually i'd go one step further efficiency is great but uh the trick lies in converting that efficiency to effectiveness okay so e


in converting that efficiency to effectiveness okay so e to e uh you know you could be as efficient as you think you are uh but unless you are able to translate that efficiency to effectiveness on ground in a certain pool of a situation uh i think that that's the trick is in converting that efficiency which a lot of us have uh latent or efficiency within us right and we we are constantly in a manner trying to polish it or refine it and to bring it to a certain level but the trick is in my opinion is to convert that efficiency into effectiveness and that's that's that's what the special forces is actually all about got it uh probably i'd like to highlight one more thing about the special forces just as an observer you guys have a lot of friendliness in your demeanor you all have like gentleness in your eyes but i know you're absolute badasses like i'm actually killing you with my looks right now you know y'all and y'all have kind of gone through


know y'all and y'all have kind of gone through a very badass environment and it's probably something the aamjanta knows but they don't really know so through the medium of storytelling i would love for you to take us through what happened when you were 22 what was your 22 year old mindset and what was that journey from age say 22 to being uh all out special forces but why why 22 i'd like to know why are you starting with 22 is a key number on this particular podcast we talk a lot about uh 20 being 22 years old maybe it comes from a personal place because i had a whole tumultuous 22 year old phase in my own life a lot of people especially indian guys in particular but also indian women um have to shed off the inner child when they're 22. i'm sure that happens earlier for you guys slightly earlier absolutely absolutely so but let me let me rewind a little further because my story uh takes uh sustenance from from there uh


story uh takes uh sustenance from from there uh the the sprout happens there okay so uh in the period of probably 1617 or thereabouts uh is when the switch happened the switch from a fairly decent uh good bloke uh good quote unquote uh to the wild child uh probably uh you know testosterone and all the other chemical releases in the body but i just just went haywire and uh looking back at it now uh i can only feel for my folks and what they went through because i it was it was dramatic it was sudden uh and i just went completely berserk and then uh it went to an extent where i felt terribly in my 12 standard boats so you know the the drop off was was very sudden very dramatic and uh was not something that people could could take to very easily and that's when by a mixture of circumstances i took the nda exam in fact my dad is from the rimc i don't know if you heard of it the russian indian


know if you heard of it the russian indian military college would it used to be called the prince of wales military college it's established by the uh the britishers and uh one of these uh term breaks or i think it was an 11th standard break that he had to go to deradun on some official work and uh we just tagged along with him and uh and that's when my dad took us to his old school and then his records were pulled out and you know oh i'm sorry whole kind of stuff that happens in one of these uh visits and uh it so happened that the principal there knew my dad and uh old boy school uh affiliations and whatever uh they asked me why don't you leave your son here for a bit and so my dad turned to me and asked me do you want to stay back here i said wow this is one good way to get away from home right some independence so i said yeah hell yeah and so i stayed back there for


yeah hell yeah and so i stayed back there for about a week or so and i made some fantastic friends uh and i just loved the atmosphere loved the way that these guys were going about their business and uh these these are friendships that uh endured to to date and these guys were filling up their forms with the nd and i had no clue and uh whatever so i filled up the form and went through the written exam which i got through and then the ssb or the the selection services board the interview happened and whatever and when the results were published uh it came in the newspaper so i was seventh in uh all india merit and then suddenly from this guy who was uh uh you know had been given up for uh being a nobody it suddenly propels you in in an entirely different dimension and that that's when i think that first switch happened um and thereafter i went to the nda and everything i i was i was uh i was decently physically


i was i was uh i was decently physically fit but by nda standards an average guy what can you describe this further like why buy india standards in average uh well let's say about 60 to 70 percent and these figures i'm just giving uh uh it might not be very specific but uh in somewhere in that uh uh grouping of uh youngsters from the rimc or the russian indian military colleague the sanic schools and other feeder institutions to the nda so these are the kind of guys that are coming who are from there from the six standard seven standard or thereabouts and who've been trained in a certain manner to be fit for selection to the nda so they have the the grounding of of a disciplined life of certain amount of physical fitness and uh some amount of harampanti you know that qualifies very precisely to make it to the nba and the rest of us guys are coming you know from cv street um who have no idea about what we are signing


um who have no idea about what we are signing up for the majority of the 30 40 percent and some of them are you know foggy brats and stuff like that so they have a fair idea so from that point of view you you irrespective of whatever people tell you from the outside you are not really entirely prepared for the force with which it hits you on the day one at the academy and then the transition that happens within the academy from a blustering blundering fool to getting a little street smart so that you can make it through those two and a half three years of exposure at the nda it takes a little bit of effort i mean it's nothing extraordinary but it does take a little bit of effort um how is the nda training different from the special forces training that happens after i'm sure it's dead different like it's crazy different but again from an amgenta perspective sir well uh see one of the great fallacies that happens and i think it was


great fallacies that happens and i think it was reflected fairly in vivek's podcast as well is that uh there is a there is a uh a certain amount of belief out there that you need to be the stud right you need to be johnny rambo to make it to the special forces and and that was what i believed as well even through nda and through ima i just thought man this is something that is not for me right i i'm nobody to be getting in there because this is not what i am all about because uh the belief out there uh and a very mistaken belief is that you need to be super physically fit and you need to be uh john rambo uh and that's it so all brain no brain no all brawn no brain that's the uh typical stereotype that has been created over a period of time i i don't know if that's the stereotype in the public eye because okay the the kind of image that people have of special forces at least now is definitely


people have of special forces at least now is definitely it's changing yeah it's changing i i i think i got to acknowledge that it is changing uh but at least from my perspective or from that period of time it was completely that and a guy who was in the nda uh and you you can make out you know even within uh peer equivalence uh within the peer group you know that okay xyz these are the three seven ten guys who are going to volunteer for the special forces and it's purely uh that shortlisting in the mind and the lunger gup that goes around is purely based on physical attributes and nothing else okay right and those are typically the guys who kind of opt also because it's it's peer pressure it's it's the uh the need and the requirement to be living up to a certain stereotype which has been built over time and so on and so forth and uh so we we went through nda we went through ima and the typical set of guys who we knew that


the typical set of guys who we knew that would offer the special forces opted for the special forces went there and so on but we were not one of them we stayed absolutely clear and then uh so one thing i just got to cut you short there the guys who don't opt for the special forces what's going on in their head like why don't they want to opt for it like is there some kind of because it they believe yeah okay why so because uh it requires a certain mindset right and it requires a mindset uh well for want of a better term for a kinky mindset uh completely different right that's a kind of missing but predicated with a tremendous amount of physical uh fitness that that resides in the background so it's it's a combination of let's say i'm talking from the mind space of people like me uh you know the the our expectation or our understanding of the situation was a 80 20 uh proportion 80 percent brawn and 20 percent kinky mindset a


80 percent brawn and 20 percent kinky mindset a guy who would do something completely different just for the heck of it right who does not uh who's a non-conformist hmm [Music] right and that that's the that's the kind of uh uh figurative uh creature that uh that one would draw much later i recognize how that's a completely incorrect uh characterization that stereotype doesn't really work at all and when you actually start looking at some of the data of people who make it to the special forces and for people who give up thereafter or who don't don't find uh uh that they fit into the scheme of things in the special forces and they drop out some of these guys who are all drawn and um you know but they don't they don't fit in so over a period of time as you started understanding the system in fact till the time i volunteered for the special forces i had no clarity at all even when i volunteered for the special forces um i was under the belief


for the special forces um i was under the belief that you know i'm nowhere in that frame but yet i'm going to try right and i but one thing that i was very clear in my mind at that stage is i'm not going to be coming back uh saying that i did not make it i would do whatever it takes and beyond to ensure that i make it although i in my mind in the core of my belief i felt that i am undercooked from this stereotype it's only when i went through probation uh the 90 day period that they ring you out completely that i realized that uh not during the time but once i cleared the probation i realized that there's a much larger construct here the next two obvious follow-up questions uh what was the larger construct and i'd also love for you to shed some light on what happens in that 90-day period okay in terms of what it does to your body your mind so so the uh the totality of the essence uh of the special


the totality of the essence uh of the special forces probation is about ringing the the living daylights out of the guy breaking his uh biological clock and putting him under extreme stress to see how he responds so the fundamental belief is when you are exposed to stress over and when i say stress i don't just mean physical stress physical stress is an important component of it because prolonged physical stress over extended periods of time starts playing tricks on your mind and when the physical stress elevates itself cumulatively over a period of time and it uh and it lowers the ability of your mind to instinctively respond to situations uh it's then that they're testing you so the test is not actually the 20 kilometer speed march or the 40 kilometer speed march or the 100 kilometer escape innovation but what happens beyond that that and that's that's the equation that doesn't seem to hit people and understandably so because the focus is all on the on the physical part of the stress


all on the on the physical part of the stress it's never on the mental part of the stress however the the filter that is applied is not about the physics not so much about the physical part but it's much more about the mental part so in terms of the physical stress that they apply what are some of you know the examples of what they put your body right let me let me try and uh uh paint to you a typical picture and this this can vary right uh uh okay how a probation is generally carried out is that when i as a volunteer i'm volunteering for the special forces and uh the the ms branch which is the hr equivalent of the indian army it sends out a signal saying that all rights so once a person reports owns so unit your probation starts and so on so date so when when that connection happens uh there is a probation officer a probation nco a non-commissioned officer who is earmarked to conduct the probation so they aggregate you know there may


conduct the probation so they aggregate you know there may be soldiers who are coming in there may be officers who are coming in uh you know from different units uh coming in and they aggregate them so that there is a certain mass that is there because you cannot run probation for one or two guys although that also is done but it's more um uh time and economics wise it works that you have let's say 18 20 50 30 40 people uh to conduct probation so it's this core group of one officer one non-commissioned officer and probably two three soldiers who conduct the probation for this group the sole aim of this group is to break the mental uh uh structure or you know the the biological clock to start the with the biological clock so you it's there is no certainty about uh when certain actions or activities are going to be conducted so typically what happens is there's going to be a lot of elements of physical uh fitness right there there's going to be a pt or physical training


there there's going to be a pt or physical training uh period there is going to be some amount of combat uh uh experiences there's going to be some amount of firing there's going to be some amount of classes that are going to be conducted uh so these classes could happen at two o'clock in the night it could happen at uh seven o'clock in the morning it the pt could be at 12 o'clock in the afternoon sometimes they will let you sleep for six hours sometimes there'll be no sleep for 48 hours at all uh you could have one meal and the next meal may come 24 hours later there could be three meals fit into four hours and then nothing thereafter so there is no pattern they break the pattern completely and you put under continuous increasing cumulative physical pressure right and then they inject these classes of technical subjects of demolition of communication of navigation of advanced weapons and stuff like that these are injected in in bits and pieces here and there and then over a period of time when the stress


and then over a period of time when the stress starts to build on you uh they conduct tests so firing for example you haven't slept for 48 hours straight 48 hours not even a wink they will not let you sleep for 48 hours there's someone on your case all the time and then you're exposed to firing so your mental faculties have have your responses your biological responses are slowed are dimmed how how are you able to fire at that point in time is what they're checking wow right so you classes have been conducted over a period of let's say two weeks on demolitions on advanced weapons and so on and so forth navigation uh and then there are no tests that are conducted so when you have been through a 20 kilometer speed march and then pt for two hours or whatever else and then in the night at about 11 o'clock suddenly he says he gives you only half an hour reaction time that you're going to have a class of this so you're going there and it's human nature


this so you're going there and it's human nature that you you fall asleep because your body is crying for rest right and that's the instructor doesn't care whether you're awake or you're sleeping or whatever else right and he's imparting instructions to you and that's going to be tested so how do you overcome cumulative stress both from a physical standpoint from a mental standpoint retain focus on the mission is the essence of how the probation is conducted and and that's what where it all leads to right so i don't get me wrong i'm not saying physical fitness is not important it's very important but is physical fitness the only thing absolutely not so you need there is a filter that is applied you need to have certain amount of basic physical fitness levels that you need to have but that's not what you're actually getting tested on but there are of course a 20 kilometer speed much test there's a 40 kilometer speed march test there are battle physical efficiency tests all these are tests but you could


physical efficiency tests all these are tests but you could be average in all of them and there could be another guy who's excellent at all of that but when the real tests are conducted the guy who's excellent on the physical might not be the guy who's excelling uh on these tests which are the mental which are the which are the mental calisthenics um like are you allowed to give an example of like the mental tests all of these these are stuff that you have been uh imparted instructions on okay uh there are classes there are technical classes on demolition for example right uh what kind of explosive in what mixture to be used for what target how do you get that what is the chemical composition of these structures so there are fairly technical in nature communication advanced communication what what kind of uh uh equipment works in what kind of manner stuff like that you have been imparted these these instructions so innovate sort of engineering subjects or serving based also what are the non-engineering based subjects in like


also what are the non-engineering based subjects in like the you know um the theoretical side of things uh well not really there there is no okay the other the other thing that uh i must uh um bring out here is that a special forces soldier whether it's a soldier a non-commissioned officer or an officer whoever a volunteer who opts to the special forces one of the base criterion is that he is reasonably well aware of his surroundings right his ability to to read material imbibe what's happening general awareness levels requires to be high and there is a there is a method behind this madness to the base observer or even to a more prolific person who understands the system it appears very chaotic these 90 days is just about physical hammering and you know but there is a there is a there is an excellent method behind the madness in fact i'd i'd like to uh when we bring out uh one typical example and and probably you might be able to correlate i wonder if


you might be able to correlate i wonder if you saw this uh little clip about uh a child who had fallen onto the railway track and one railway employee who had run on the track and gone and picked him up and brought him out right yeah it's a fabulous example really fabulous example because if you take a look at that clip and i think the the operative part of that clip is about 14-15 seconds right the child falls onto the track this guy is standing on the platform and he jumps onto the track and he runs three seconds into it he pauses you can see it actually in the video he pauses because he's seeing the train come at him right and that pause is for just about a fraction of a second you can see the the the body language should i shouldn't i and then he he says hell no i'm going he goes in picks up the child throws him onto the platform clambers on and the train passes right so in that 14 to 15 seconds of that clip


so in that 14 to 15 seconds of that clip three seconds to reach the sink the point of decision and that a question mark that is that is so very clearly visible right on his mind i might get killed it not just a child i might get killed as well and in that fraction of a second he makes a decision it's a very decisive moment when he decides to go and full force he goes and picks up the child and this thing now this is a very stressful situation a humongously stressful situation because there cannot be a greater stress than when your own life is on the line and very clearly on the line so the ability of that person to transcend that decision point that very critical very deliberate decision point and he transcends that and he makes up his mind and he goes for it and completes the mission mission mission focus right so if you ask me this this is typifies what the selection process for uh saying subject to extreme pressure physical mental emotional all kinds


subject to extreme pressure physical mental emotional all kinds and then see your reactions this is the typical reaction so if you ask me this guy this gentleman who did that activity it's a classic sf hopeful [Music] right and this is exactly you you blow this up into 100 such different scenarios across a 90-day period where stress is induced and see delivery happening in multiple situations so could you take us through what happens when you actually go and begin work on the field like um in terms of when i spoke to uh major jacob he highlighted how you guys are trained to be in different terrains and that's also probably an edge that the indian army has over other armies that we have access to different terrains so could you take us through this statement a little further in terms of we have jungles beaches mountains so you know i'm sure that the whole indian army is trained to kind of uh traverse through those situations but i'm also sure that the special


those situations but i'm also sure that the special forces are sent possibly deeper into these terrains well you're right and and vivek is absolutely right so the the diversity in the the kind of terrain and the operating conditions that uh is offered in the indian context is phenomenal and there's a lot of uh and that's there's there's a reason why a lot of foreign armies continuously come and train with us because the kind of exposure that our guys have had uh uh in in different uh operating circumstances and the uh the terrain and the other situations is not really comparable from the from seating which ragu has spoken extensively about minus 45 minus 60 degrees centigrade operating in those kind of environments altitudes and temperatures to the deserts of rajasthan to the jungles of the northeast to andamans and luxury deep amphibious kind of operations there is a huge variety right and you once again you're absolutely right it's not just a special forces it's the entire


it's not just a special forces it's the entire indian army that operates in all of these uh so you you pick up any any unit of the indian army uh an infantry unit which is operating in seattle uh this year two years later it could be in the jungles of the northeast two years later it could be in in rajasthan so that kind of diversity is available across the indian army but i think the the difference the key difference is how these forces are employed so typically um the indian army or all armies of the world operates in masses in numbers right so you have a defined structure the organizational structure there is a chain of command there there is a a logistic chain that is trained and organized and maneuvered to keep you sustained right that's typically how it works in the special forces how it operates however is that they operate in very small teams teams of uh five-man six-man uh combinations and multiples thereof right and that's how they operate and and


thereof right and that's how they operate and and typically in a typical scenario uh the special forces teams are supposed to be dropped behind the enemy lines so it's not where the typically uh army to army contact takes place or the the uh where the action actually takes place but it's behind enemy lines where you have no sustenance for you you have no logistics makeup you have just what your set of five guys is carrying with them period you cannot be in communication because you are behind enemy lines you're bound to be picked up and then you know triangulated and your your identity established and your location established so you cannot do that so you're cut off from communication you're cut off from logistics sustenance here and that's where you need to ensure that every single member of that team is technically proficient is able to convert efficiency which they are over a period of time to effectiveness on ground that's why i mentioned that thing right up up front that the the ability to convert efficiency to


up front that the the ability to convert efficiency to effectiveness is what actually defines special forces so it's many of these things that the ability to work under very stressful very adverse conditions out in the field behind enemy lines where you could be picked up at any point in time that's the kind of uh thing that defines the special forces and that's where camaraderie comes in as well right because life and death these five guys against the entire army right and you're in their land yeah so that's where it i i'm in you know incidentally do you have you seen this movie called the lone survivor no but i do intend on it's mark wahlberg and yeah yeah no it's about afghanistan afghanistan i'm sorry it's uh about a sealed uh team that's similar it's a four-man team that's uh dropped behind enemy lines as a recon mission and they get into trouble and the the whole movie it's a real life story about how they're extracted back and this one guy survives


they're extracted back and this one guy survives so it's a beautiful movie i mean i could relate to that movie frame by frame because each frame of that movie reminds me of kashmir it's actually like you know it's not afghanistan it's actually kashmir this is so people who haven't seen the movie it's one movie on netflix uh very strongly recommended it's a real picture of what a special forces life absolutely absolutely i think uh i think there is a great amount of uh identity that i could establish uh with the terrain with with the technical proficiency in how the movie is actually captured uh in some amount of the tactical stuff that happens on the ground phenomenal um so in that five person team how do they actually construct the team and how do they choose a captain or whatever of that unit so there's a lot of democratization that happens within the team okay so once you're in that team actually uh there is a leader there is a hierarchy that's defined but it's


leader there is a hierarchy that's defined but it's flattened out okay right because as far as the team is concerned if there is going to be a vertical hierarchy that is going to be established that team cannot function in fact uh let me just step back and say one more very very interesting stuff about uh the manner in which the selection is actually carried out uh in the in the special forces probation so when the probation is carried out um like i said there is a probation officer there is a probation nco and there are probably two three soldiers and then the entire process of probation is carried out and each of these tests physical uh technical mental agility firing everything else everything is put on paper and his performance is kind of mapped and it's a very very scientific way of doing it it's everything is brought on paper and then it's put before a board that then sits and decides whether this guy is okay or not uh well technically the the commanding officer of the


uh well technically the the commanding officer of the unit has got a v2 that he can say yes or no irrespective of how the others feel but it's it's very very seldom used if that person if the probationer uh is found to be deficient by anyone on that to the sink so the junior soldier who can say saab mergoni so he could be the best fire he could be physically he could be john rambo uh he could be anything else right technically he could be proficient but if that guy feels and these are all very hardened soldiers combat experienced and solid guys who not say no just for the heck of it he doesn't like him it doesn't matter right for him what matters is is this guy capable of going into combat with if i go if i'm part of this guy's team will i come back alive that's the question that he applies and these 90 days that he sees him stripped bare is enough for him to make up his mind he


is enough for him to make up his mind he said again so usually everybody is in sync because they actually seen the guy through and through the guy you can wear the best clothes you can have an exterior that's primed and polished in this thing like in on social media right but when you go through probation it's all stripped clean you're stripped clean to your bones and the essence of your character the deep recess of your character is fully exposed and so the democratization that i was talking about the soldier the junior most soldier he's got the right to stand up and says and he's rejected so everything that is on paper could say that he is fantastic but yet there is a gut feel of that soldier who is not comfortable with this saab being with him on the team does that actually happen it does oh wow i've seen it in my own unit i've seen it in my own unit where a guy was phenomenal his records were just outstanding and if there was


his records were just outstanding and if there was not this and in that particular case it was not just one but two guys who said kidneys i don't think so you know in in in subsequent uh situations also people come up and it's it's not a very uh regular occurrence but the odd occurrence takes place where a guy will come up and say it means that he attracts fire for no reason he's not the guy i'm comfortable with going into combat with so it could be a technical deficiency it could be a character deficiency it could be a physical fitness deficiency it could be deficiency that's in different forms but there's that guy's not going to tell you any of that he's not going to get technical about it he just expresses to you i'm not too happy speaking about combat so um again a lot of people have saving uh private ryan as like a reference when it comes to army movies so other units also constructed with like people with different skill sets like one sniper someone


like people with different skill sets like one sniper someone who's great at like ambushing someone who's like a demolitions expert other teams constructed in a particular way depending on the mission like that absolutely absolutely in fact there are five what's called the primary skills like i mentioned it earlier in terms of demolitions communication navigation medical and advanced weapons so typically these are these five skills and when you call a team a five-man team the rational is that every single member of the team is is a master at one of these skills and a second guy is uh has got a working uh uh expertise in all these fights that's how this team is stitched together what is advanced weapons like is it like futuristic weapons what is it the ability to be uh improvising and utilizing weapons as and when they appear wherever so like i said you know it's most of it is it's constructed to be working behind enemy lines so you you you're carrying the weapons that you're carrying right but then you may have


that you're carrying right but then you may have the ability or the opportunity to be using an op a weapon that the enemy has got or the terrorist has got so this guy is expected to be proficient in all weapons across the world the rest of us are proficient in the weapons that we carry but this guy any weapon anywhere he can strip clean it and uh put it back in 45 seconds it's probably an intuitive skill right also also sometimes when i'm talking to special versus personal as a viewer as a part of the aam gender i have so many movie-like questions uh have you ever gotten injured yourself in an operation yeah so i'm one of the guys who who made it out of the uh out of my service without getting apple the odd injury here there but no no bullet injury but you've seen it obviously yes in your team very close quarters many of them are you allowed to describe sort of what happens like so i i had uh written about this colleague of mine