think the fact that I can make that many choices and that's what I think the younger generation also needs to understand today that if you are blessed enough and you can make choices that's a massive plus so at that stage if you start getting into depression or if you're starting to feel mentally challenged on certain situations just remember the choices that you can make 99% of the people can't make the choice right so that's a massive massive massive kakuzu or add-on that you have so to me I think in the last five years I've been blessed enough to make the choices I want to do something in the not-for-profit space but it's not like I started only seven years back after I didn't cashed or I had enough we started doing that but I was 23 hmm so what I'm doing with upgrade I just feel really good about it because a it turns me on incredibly because I'm starting from scratch and building something really and it's got impact you're a pilot


something really and it's got impact you're a pilot again you're not the control room yeah yeah yeah well I do get in the control what do you like you like taking that plane out sometime yeah and then if you look at sports and what I'm doing there it's just it's it's phenomenal positive energy because you're working with young people you working with teams you're there to inspire they inspire you you cross sky you know and then winning losing up down great fun phenomenal fun I once heard you say in a podcast that you should be super non emotional about all your businesses I could run them but don't get emotional among them honestly I feel like my emotions are what drive me in life like I'm very emotional about my team family culture all that if you're not emotion about your business what kind of relation so you mixing up emotion with passion okay I got my answer yeah yeah and I think you should you should be extremely passionate about it but you don't need to be an


about it but you don't need to be an emotional and once you figure out that there's a huge difference between those two words which there is and I think you can get it from that point of course you need to be extremely passionate but the minute you get emotional then you can't take the sensible decisions in life and everything is about you know it's like when you're working with people in a thought if they take it personally it's an emotional decision in a workplace if one person is giving feedback to the other he takes it personally it's emotional if he takes it in a positive manner it's very different yeah what gets you super angry at the workplace or in life I think I suffer fools very badly as lies this was not fast enough yeah it could be it could be about speed it could be about clarity sometimes I think communication is a very important tool in this new generation and just this place if you want to move fast so then I don't think we communicate the


fast so then I don't think we communicate the level at which we could communicate sometimes in a tight manner so I think that sometimes can get me like it to the point kind of situation right so why are we seeing more mental health issues with this generation than with yours yeah I agree I think it's a question of expectations it's a question of entitlement it's those things that I think I'm driving a lot of people okay and then they don't open up and a lot of that younger generation feels they can solve them things on their own if they've built their own world around themselves and if you don't have that feedback then it's very very difficult no but like do you think it's social media do you think so growing up in the world of social media you know it's like saying technology is changing I think consumers are changing so in the same way here no I don't think so I mean everyone had their own tools to be highly depressed twenty years back thirty years back ten


highly depressed twenty years back thirty years back ten years back there were enough tools if we wanted excuses for why you are getting depressed you know there could be I mean you know there were long Wars where the whole world was at war by that time everyone should have been depressed for ten years after that you know where half your family was not there so they've been cathartic situations in the past and people haven't got depressing I think it's more to do with individuals and how they want to cope with that right have you suffered from heartbreak at any point and I'm not about breakups only I'm talking about like just general heartbreaking life in my life yeah am i today is my life not really later days began at the age of yeah I won't tell 25 30 okay so in your 20s yeah twenties are all about like discovering yourself yeah covering the world yeah getting real slapped around yeah yeah what were your slaps back in the day if I was actually we had more than


the day if I was actually we had more than one girlfriend at I mean a big slap but was all very nice and transparent about it but I think yeah heartbreaks happen but I think at that stage you know you feel that's not like the worst thing that happened to you and then you move on I think today again when we talked about mental illness and depress just that whole feedback I think the seriousness with which the young people actually today feel that it's very personal again like if somebody's let you down right then you feel oh God and then there's something wrong with you and then you internalize that and then everything becomes a spiral they take themselves too seriously do you think that's also the case I guess if you are in a stage of mental this thing you would have taken yourself a little too seriously okay and it's your advice to just chill out a little bit yeah and it's but it's very difficult I've also seen it I've seen it live and one


also seen it I've seen it live and one has tried that it's almost to get them out of the bedroom and get them into the living room sometimes so to have a conversation in a nice relaxed manner it's almost impossible so it's scary it is very scary coming back to your marriage so no how did you find a co-founder that you could marry or how did you figure that your wife could be your co-founder because a lot of people what they do is you know I've heard people say this and I'm not married yet so I have no perspective but I've heard people say that it's fantastic to have two people from different industries get married to each other because they can escape into each yeah Serena and I have actually worked together first we did a lot of theater together and then we got close again in terms of working with your wife does have does that have its own like challenges but I think we don't take a walk home at most cases when we worked in media


walk home at most cases when we worked in media together you know we were working in different responsibilities all together right and today when we are working together it's more in the social space so it's just there's so much passion the agenda is less it's not a competitive thing between two of us we've come to do it because we're really deeply involved with what we want to do and frankly if you don't have arguments and difference of opinion then how are we going to get the best out of each other right I represent so it's a marriage built on growth I'm assuming on growth yes yeah I think all relationships have to grow do you do you have to put effort into any relationship to make it grow and I would put a lot of effort into a lot of relationships other than hopefully with my wife because I guess that's just from from me I'm as I said it takes a little bit of effort to get into a personal relationship with people right so tough question for you now


relationship with people right so tough question for you now mm-hmm if you only had to choose between a life of business versus a life of family what would you choose no I don't think that'd be a choice like that I wouldn't allow myself to be put in a position like that but because I'll be damned if I do and I'm never bound to both I mean there's no question about that it just comes together and I I don't there are no such situations which are whatevs which are never couldn't be boroff's so if there's a balance that's what it is but if it had to be one of the two I don't see why I would need to pick either of them what's your last thought when you're going to sleep meditate actually so actually my last thought is my breathing when you're lying down after the meditation various things sometimes it could be just random thoughts sometimes I think it is to do with work and you're winding up the most horrible thing is if you're


winding up the most horrible thing is if you're watching something on television or on a digital platform that's the worst thing I possibly do so now I've switched to actually reading for half an hour before and that ten minutes of meditation because actually that's your best leap and I think sleep is important 100 percent I think sleep is the biggest yeah if you will of my life as well yeah also in terms of what I read I read a lot of spiritual books no do you find yourself reading spirituality as well not that much I've got a lot of that impact both with Tricia talking about that from time there's a lot of business lessons in spirituality oh yeah yes yes yes oh yes yes yes absolutely and this I think there's a lot of business lessons in war books I read a lot of books on war for example because that strategy right it's always smart strategy and it's always black and white right so five books that I've had like the deepest impact on your life yeah I'm not


the deepest impact on your life yeah I'm not good at recommending those however give that a little bit of a thought I can only talk about my recent books from wherever it is different books at different times it'll definitely turn me on God and so like do you yourself use upgrade for anything like to learn anything really like what yes I think but I'm involved in the entire process of what we're doing in terms of content because I think at the core of learning and at the core of teaching in the core of education is storytelling right one of us and I think that that's the most important part so and I think that's what I also bring to the table so to that extent yes how we how we create how we do what we do is an integral part of what I want to do what are jobs going to look like in 15 years because I know some way you've developed upgrade with that thought bubble in your mind that wait we're preparing people for like that's gonna go through three


preparing people for like that's gonna go through three different turns in my opinion in the first place I think people should be only concerned about jobs you're gonna be there for the next five years because that's gonna determine you know I think people used to make five-year plans now they make one year plan and through your plans and that's pretty much long term I'm not saying one month and two months is there so I think it's about every four or five years now when we get to the theoretical part of it of saying yeah the careers of tomorrow or artificial intelligence and machine learning those are all the conventional ones are also there but I think the core of the jobs of tomorrow is going to require a lot of resilience and a lot of common sense with which you want to do that and that's why goes back to your question you asked me earlier about an MBA degree and I'm saying yes you need a little bit of that knowledge but how are you gonna put


bit of that knowledge but how are you gonna put it into practice so the jobs of tomorrow will require people to be good communicators okay in some form of the other good storytellers okay because that's how you're gonna get the attention right a lot of self confidence in yourself and then domain knowledge will come from time to time okay and of course there'll be the careers of tomorrow that you're looking at which is we know all what we're talking about here how that will impact people over a period of time will be step-by-step so but why wasn't it important to be a good communicator in 2004 compared to 2025 because the world has changed a lot because I think to be heard today just focus attention and concentration and again going back to youngsters I think the other part of the mental illness is this continued form of distraction okay an attention span right so if you ask me today what's our distraction level versus 15 years back big difference right so then I need to be a communicator to


right so then I need to be a communicator to hold your attention because after one minute of a conversation if I'm giving a talk for half an hour I refuse to give a talk for half an hour I used to give a talk long time back but today I'd say I'm gonna talk about five minutes and then I'm gonna do Q&A because otherwise everyone certainly gonna have their phones because whatever and how ever deep I want to say something attention focus now is just not there have you used this power of communication skills to forward your career you yourself yes so I've used it I've leveraged it I think it's important I've updated it I've need to improve on it that's what I keep doing what are your top three tips when it comes to communication skills I think keep it simple of clarity yeah really keep it simple now clarity is your own internal thinking but really keep it simple iContact is another very important part of it because otherwise and that's why to me that distraction comes in because you


why to me that distraction comes in because you can't contact people just because there's when you're communicating half of it is body language it's not what you say it's how you say it so much is about how you say do you pick up on other people's body language as well yeah but not in any I mean it's you shouldn't be aware of it it's just comes with right the vocabulary that's how it should come vibe as Millennials Colin sure yeah and your third tip yeah it's a well keep it simple I'd say eye contact I think John maybe the third one that I would add to that right you could break down charm a little more yeah just charm you know make it unassuming make people feel relaxed around you so that they really feel this is a nice conversation it's gonna be had there's nothing that formal about it this job I mean your various people could be very boring but they could be also very charming and then that's it so when you say turn on your charm


that's it so when you say turn on your charm doesn't mean you have to do this right it's you just got were coming Bo Bice's video that's what we that's a reteach these people so voice modulation can bring about charm you caught me so that's that's one aspect of what I'm going to ask you but again you mentioned artificial intelligence you mentioned machine learning and things like that are these things really going to steal people's jobs especially in I think if they'll create jobs then they'll steal jobs obviously now every single technological update did that I think the key challenge for most people today is how they're gonna keep up with it right and what's the good I think in India our main challenge has been that we've been a we've been an arbitrage economy right what does that mean I mean today the middle class really got formed with IT and the IT industry which I think today is changing for the younger generation they can't relate to that what's the new IT industry so the new I


that what's the new IT industry so the new I know I'm saying that's how we created the middle class now today India needs to step out of this cost leverage point of view I mean China's done that a lot India needs to step out of this cost leverage arbitrage point you gotta break that down a lot I've got to simplify that so I'm seeing cost leverage meaning today we're but we're body shopping as a country right I mean we're a country where people come to us and if you can do something at a cheaper price got it that has to stop which means that we need to create originality we need to be creators and not just job handlers right and I think that's the good part that I'm excited about the younger generation because they're not they're not learn more necessary to go out and just execute I think the younger generations are lot more rebellious than the previous yeah and that'll lead to creativity that'll lead to innovation that'll need to doing something new in a


innovation that'll need to doing something new in a new manner that'll need to say normal to a lot of things not take you know and I think that's that's the kind of road we need to all go on is there a serious possibility of India becoming one of the world's richest nations by the year 2040 look I think we have complex situations and we should set good goals and the fact is that 1.3 billion if we can get our consumption up yes but we weren't lots of challenge what do you mean get our consumption of no meaning if everyone gets more money in their pocket and if they consume just 1.3 billion people consuming even's fraction more can get us technically to being a good economy but I think we've got many problems because the haves and the have-nots is huge in this country and I know that because you work in rural India a lot and that's 600 million people and more yeah so you're surrounded by business leaders people who have again been become


by business leaders people who have again been become accomplished in life so what can these changemakers do in order to make that twenty two thousand forty dream a possibility right now how can you set up in there for the future right I think inspire is one of them the reason I'm sitting here having this conversation with you is I'm happy to be in whatever small way I can see whether I can inspire or talk about a story or talk about an anecdote or talk about something which makes you feel human and it says really if he could do it so can I so I think inspire is a very very important one I think we need leaders and leading from the front for what we want to do and I think this whole context of even when you're giving back and understanding the ecosystem around you what is the impact because I think in a country like India impact is important so what you know what you're doing in whichever field you're doing it in what's the impact you're making okay you're


it in what's the impact you're making okay you're changing some people's lives in a different manner yes fashion may not be as impactful as we would look at it but if that brings about level of confidence in people who are you're doing something right thank you that some getting validation from but so cc do you feel that inspiration is the motivation for your career even now is that what's important yeah a lot of things get me out of bed but inspiration inspiration is one of them other days where like I don't want to work today oh no okay did that happen earlier no I you know as I said no I think unless it was a flu I would say no okay so you're always charged not enough not I wouldn't say that in a sweeping statement but I've never had a problem jumping out of bed and have you ever had blue notes in your life yeah I tip but not burn out but burns burn down burn downs maybe like have you had knock downs yeah but I


like have you had knock downs yeah but I think I'm also someone who recharges quite well I have recharged quite well what do you do but sleep frankly to be honest and I don't take it I don't take it asleep I think that's very fortunate that I don't I like taking good short breaks which actually recharge you in many ways right and if there's something that's really bothering me then I'd rather drop it and figure out how I want to come back to it after two-three days and do whatever I need to do I asked your Protege said Roy covered this question I'm going to ask you the same question have there been moments in your career where in private behind closed doors have you ever broken down as a guy have you cried about your something related to your career to a career yeah absolutely absolutely yeah yeah for sure I mean and that's that's because sometimes when you are an entrepreneur especially a first-generation entrepreneur I think the there are a lot of moments that


I think the there are a lot of moments that can pull you down but you need to keep your shoulders up now that has to have a reaction outside of when you're some stage you need to drop those shoulders in a moment of being so stoic so bravado out in front of people and then you feel wow and then you break down it's the pressure of leadership yeah yeah I I know what you mean so so I think I'm at that stage at home 27 I'm go down 27 this year it's a weird hack but this is my life hack I watch a lot of Nike advertisements like to pull me back up my motivational Nike ads pull you back I have like a whole collection i key an interview energy like 100% and and there'll be more so I'll be watching their added pull out the tears from Mia but yeah I'm gonna be all the Ron James so I wanna talk good sports with sports is actually a huge factor of motivation in my life as well a lot


factor of motivation in my life as well a lot of basketball a lot of cricket bit of football and I'm sure for you kabbadi but have you had these sportsmen who pulled you out of dark emotional places like stories of them or stories from no they've been very fun and liberating I don't think they've taken me out of a dark place without got into those dark spaces but I've got into it because I enjoyed listen if somebody asks me why you in sports which of these sports did you play back in school of college that's a nun literally none of them so to that extent why have I done that I think it's a that's the beauty of the transition of what you want to do right I mean you've gotta be counterintuitive many things you do today I think that's quite important and I see that a lot with a younger generation also where it's like okay this is what I want to do and that's it follow follow follow what you want to do when you scan


follow follow what you want to do when you scan your entire career could you have done something to make everything grow faster I'm I'm just not a believer in hindsight okay I just don't think it's I think it's a waste of time because if you have to say but five years back if I could have done yeah but there are so many other things at that moment that would have changed around you that I think it's theoretical it's completely theoretical what is the 60 year old running school well I have that a 40 year old running school well I didn't I'll know when I turn 60 am right now 40 ha ha ha I like that okay so my question is what is the 40 year old Ronnie well I think when I'll get to be 60 how do you hoping to be 40 but what what has the last 10 years of your business career given you in terms of weapons other than money our choice choices I think in the last 10 years I've been liberated enough to feel I can


I've been liberated enough to feel I can do things I think what's it's given me is the power of know being able to say no to things which is quite important in life okay and I think have had that experience to be able to now say no to more things than not right that makes a big difference thank you for saying yes to this interview so but coming back to the future of the education system in India yeah I think our generation was a first generation that had the platform of social media a lot of my content also has been centered around the Indian education system because while I was in it while I was in engineering college and I into an engineering college because I enjoyed physics when I read about physics I'm like wow this is this information is entering into my head directly I want to be able to design robots and planes yeah and I enter engineering with that intention once I got into engineering college they showed me 10 circuits they told me you're gonna be asked one of these


me you're gonna be asked one of these 10 in the exam people better learn how to draw these yeah no explanation of the circuit nothing and you have to just wreck tomorrow the circuit throw it out on your paper so it becomes very frustrating for young kids first generation who had social media once I got big on switch me I'm like okay I'm going to tell this story you know on my channel it's correct what is the future of the Indian education system well it needs to change a lot and I think that's what we focused on an upgrade and that doesn't mean everything's bad yeah but I think it's and it's not broken but it needs to get to the next level and that's because the expectations of what you need to do in your life are so so so different that what you're learning and getting educated for is no real connect and those fundamentals and foundations are two fundamental and two foundation oriented from them and I remember I when I walked into I think I was a very


when I walked into I think I was a very focused student in school right and then the first 15 days I walked into college and I kind of lost interest because I suddenly foresaw a drop in the level of teaching and its relevance to what I wanted to do in life and I walked in and I think I was in a management class in commerce and the first professor thought he was cracking a joke and he says what is management he says what is management management and to use the tea break and he laughs at his own joke nobody laughter and that was the day I felt well maybe I'm not I have to figure out how to buy my attendance in college but I'm not coming to too many more of these lectures here especially if I want to do something on my own so if I take that as the best example today if you're looking at education firstly it's a very highfalutin word because it sounds like it's a calendar event it sounds like you have to go through it in


it sounds like you have to go through it in school in this College and then it's over but actually it's never over yeah and I think that's pretty much what excites me about what we're doing it up Brad that it's really lifelong and I don't mean it in any hyperbole it's just that it is a process and therefore it's not an event anymore it's about an ongoing process do you sometimes look at young kids off today and you're like okay these kids are kind of ahead of my generation already yeah I think they are faster just smarter faster aware open yet it and in a good manner mostly in a good manner and even if it's opinion madman it's good because their level of confidence when your opinion it is is big so yeah absolutely I'd love to live in this generation you're working with a lot of young people yeah so I'm sure you have like some superstars in your office like some young superstars yeah how do you bracket them as superstars in your own


do you bracket them as superstars in your own mind how do you worry okay this guy I think he's gonna do something with his life what what is that basically it's attitude okay I think the first thing is attitude if you can see their attitude then you know where it's gonna go what is it what is it whatever their attitude is if it's the attitude of I'm gonna get it done come what may or it's a very confident attitude or it's just that level of clarity but it's attitude jugaad you gotta know no no yo god is not a good thing as far as I'm ooh girl in India means shortcuts and most people look at jacquard is not like this frugal innovation they look at it as shortcuts like Jaguar kardea and that's actually not good I think we miss miss use this word jugaad a lot when it comes to indian connotation but i think its attitude people who execute on their thoughts yeah oh is that like something it


on their thoughts yeah oh is that like something it would be but execution is a verb attitude is a noun in that sense if you know what I'm saying so I still think if you've got that attitude you can do a lot in life and when you spot a superstar with attitude what you are rise to him I just take them under my arm and then I say we're gonna work together we're gonna do things from that point of view actually they're not even looking for advice I think if I had to go back in my life there were not that many moments in which my best mentoring came from people giving me advice I think the best inputs I got when people ask me very hard questions so if I'm really looking at somebody who's got a good attitude I think it's about asking the right hard questions or her the right ask hard questions so like you have an idea of what my team and myself like what we do we build this I want to ask you for a bit


build this I want to ask you for a bit of advice for us like mentors live on the podcast right and honestly a lot of the mentoring we've got until now I won't say a lot but a few people have always told us that you're not doing too many things but honestly we believe that we're going at the correct pace with all those many things that we have the right people in place so one would you say the same thing and if not then what would your advice be yeah if I had to do as much as I've said that I'm not good at hindsight but if I had to do something a little bit differently the one thing I would do is focus Wow that is for sure so that kind of half answers your question I'd right now still do multitasking but I've chosen to do multitasking because I'm not doing any one thing because I've got phenomenal teams and colleagues around me when I'm part of the process and not the only one from that point of


process and not the only one from that point of view right so the simple answer is yes if you can figure out what that focus is you should actually it'll get more valuable as you go forward okay but there's a timing for it in my opinion and I think sometimes you need to be in things to that you figure what's the outbreak so just to focus on one single situation may not be the best thing in a manner whatever you're doing is all under one roof in terms of the activities just diverse activities of the same one as long as you understand these are diverse activities but the core is the same you get somewhere but if you look at each of these and then you start and I heard you earlier on when we were talking in private saying and then I from this company and I formed that company I would say for those things you need to watch out for keep it under an umbrella and then look at them as diverse activities that come to the similar goal but I would


activities that come to the similar goal but I would not undermine focus today for real success yeah because I think today more than ever we have more options than any other generation yeah though yeah age but any other piece of advice so like I just wild while I have access to you I really want to just really pick your brains on the only advice I would give you is actually it's very difficult for anybody to give you advice so don't stand around and start taking it because then it'll start playing on your mind got it so as I said to me the best advice is somebody can ask you strong questions I wouldn't tell you whether you're right or wrong and ask you so what is it that you wanna do and ask you five more questions and then you might feel what the hell just asked Ronnie a question and he asked me five more questions yeah but day after tomorrow those five questions will stick around in your mind and you'll say well I didn't quite answer that right actually what I


well I didn't quite answer that right actually what I meant to say was this and then you got your answer people who are dealing with failure right now what's your biggest piece of advice it can be okay let's talk specifically about career failures like someone started to launch a business completely bombed and so what is your next piece of advice no but so what I mean it is going to be some definitely things are gonna bomb what's the problem you're not gonna feel once you know I'm gonna feel times going to 100 times you fail even today of course I mean literally I mean I'm saying of course you would now depends on what you call failure if you keep and I think when I wrote my book if you call failure a full-stop then you're dead if you look at failure as a comma you're fine move on to the next one with learning it may be therapeutic it may be whatever it needs to be but it's not the end of the world and people ask me so


the end of the world and people ask me so what's your biggest failure I'm saying is he have to come don't person and so in the 2020s what do you think of possible business opportunities for people as in like how I'd probably say in the 2010s it was social media related business I capitalized on it because I saw that okay Facebook's coming out so there will obviously be a requirement of influencers 2020s what's it gonna be no I mean I think if you look at India versus some of the global markets and I think Asia is a separate one I think we're so underwhelmed and when it comes to health okay and wellness okay and this whole evolution of people and it's you know and you can be young and at eighteen people are thinking of it in a very different manner so I just think the whole element of health wellness is a massive sector disrupting the whole ed tech sector which we are doing in education because there's no longer education right so


in education because there's no longer education right so that's like a massive opportunity from that right those I think are your core when you're looking at some of the incredible opportunities and then I think for a country like India the impact elements of what we do in some of the business opportunities are huge because I think the kind of most people thing is about social media but I'm saying there are 40 people who've done phenomenal thing in waste in waste management you haven't heard their stories because it's just I mean doesn't sound sexy and nobody funded it and so it doesn't get to the front page but incredible stories incredible stories good hardships good struggle lots of failure and actually doing phenomenal business do you have any business tips right now for those people are gonna start their businesses in the 20s anything they need to keep in mind that's specific to this decade no I think to all decades if you figure out why you need to be very clear about why you're doing what


need to be very clear about why you're doing what you're doing that's a very important purpose yeah I think you need to have that very clear I have no choice and positive attitude if you're thinking I'm saying I'll give this one year and see what happens don't because the chances are it won't happen in the year you can't time it and then you get screwed so don't do that so don't put some of those preconditions whatever that may be you want to start you want to be a profession you wanna be a lawyer or you want to start your business or you want to take a job right you ever won it maybe it just be clear on those so with upgrade specifically I heard you say that this is your biggest project till date but as in this case Yale up the most what is like your you know maximum potential scenario for up grad like do you want to be able to make sure that every kid in India every human in India snow I think I I want him


human in India snow I think I I want him I did say very clearly I think India's capable of being the teaching capital of the world okay I think technology wise enough of us being the cost arbitrage guys will come to us for being the low-cost model we can innovate and I think in this fields of health and education the whole world is at power it's not like any nation is five years ahead fifteen years there and 20 years here which it is in many other aspects and I think that's why it's a phenomenal mob you're you know mimicking the idea of Nalanda and tequila the ancient universities where people were flogged but yeah yeah but why you know we work in rural India with we work with 1200 schools and 800 hangul bodies and they're in our infrastructure with the schools I think the best learning they've had is when they come out sit under a tree in a circle right and I think that is what the Indian philosophy was an education then the


what the Indian philosophy was an education then the British came here and screwed it up and now we need to go back to yeah hundred percent so so bit of big reason I went into regional corners because I want to talk to the rural population yeah do you feel that there's gonna be a wave of entrepreneurs are gonna come out of rural India no see look at so this we create about 100 mm entrepreneurs every year okay in cashew in cotry in poultry and many aspects the challenge we find there is not about is about the level of confidence and their level of ambition I think in in rural India people haven't really figured out what it is to have money in your pocket what can do for you because for 70 years if you only lived on grants then it's very difficult for you understand what what life can be which is very different so I think at the core of what we do there is to also work on aspiration levers and ambition levels okay so again


on aspiration levers and ambition levels okay so again the key is inspire them yeah you like pick up where inspire aware inspire how beautiful sir and just last question of this podcast what are your three greatest learnings of life that have had the deepest impact in you it doesn't have to be business it can just be about life in general so I have a strong philosophy that all glory is fleeting and it's better for me and I started very early in my life don't get attached to victories and people actually accuse me therefore of not celebrating small successes and big successes and and move on because I just feel ok even if something was fantastic that day move on because the next day could be something completely different it's good and bad for the people who work around me it's not the best thing but for I come it charges me up so I think that is one thing that's there the second one is this whole context of not having a choice I think that's driven me


not having a choice I think that's driven me to a lot of my failures where if I go on anything else and I said well what choice do I have if I have a plan B then it becomes a problem so I think that's pretty much what's also driven me that I'm you know yeah I don't have a choice let's get on with it otherwise you start looking for an exit door very easily so then I think is also driven me and the third learning um nothing that comes off but I think these two are the whole mean good state have like one last question for you I recently interviewed someone called mr. Jimmy mystery from Della and he spoke a lot about s Q which is a spiritual quotient so there's IQ your intelligence quotient your emotional quotient EQ yeah and s Q which is a spiritual quotient and that encapsulate everything from have you heard this quote from the Bible called Philippians 4:13 so it says that I can do all things through him who gives


that I can do all things through him who gives me strength where anything that you accomplish is actually the universe working through you yeah because all this was upgraders meant to happen yeah sois this was meant to happen yeah you were just the medium yeah so are you a believer in that absolutely I think if there's one word in my vocabulary today it's surrender piteously in that for though it's serendipity means a lot of people think it's being in the right place the right time but there's no such thing like that because you need to know because you need to work at it destiny sounds like you're gonna sit and something's gonna hit you from above it doesn't work that way for you to be in the right place the right time means you're to work very hard to be in multiple places and multiple times for that one or two opportunities where you'll be in the right place the right time so I think everything that's happened for me in the last seven eight years


happened for me in the last seven eight years has been completely surrender pishers do you think about God yeah I believe in God and I think of that always believe in God always good policies we always believe why are there so many theists in the modern young generation I don't have an answer as to why I think maybe they've sometimes it comes from personal experience sometimes it's flows in from your beliefs I think today people feel that a lot more in control of themselves where actually they're not and that gives you the power to believe that actually that's what it is and I think people change you know people grow up with asthma and then as you grow up you lose ask them and so sometimes you can change what role has got played in your career being around being around like you point up when you score a century no I haven't pointed up I'm not sure whether up down whatever else but just been around got it it could be the flick of an eye in my mind it


be the flick of an eye in my mind it could be a thought it could be pulling my ear whatever I'm gonna take this as your third lesson of life and thank you thank you that's good fun I did yeah lovely of course guys I'll be linking all of up grads links down below I think Ronnie so you're gonna say something no no that's good and just keep learning I think what I'm looking at and I'm excited about here is making a change in a difference my good part today I can say it I met Doris 31 and you know she finished her education and then one fine day decided whatever she had learnt and study she didn't wanna do and started a not-for-profit and I'm so excited and proud about it because I think today I'm finding that even with her friends cause whatever else people are a lot more aware and they just more rounded so if we can stay round it fantastic beautiful lovely thank you very much your signing off Nord I hope you guys


much your signing off Nord I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast thank you and bye


there's so much comfort in our relationship you know i mean just having this steady person who looks out for you and you love and you want them around all the time it's a beautiful thing like you know and i love being in that space but at the same time i feel like it should not be a crutch i feel like i've seen people who are in relationships because you know they'd rather not be alone you need to be like a really strong secure okay with yourself to be able to give yourself fully to another person because you also have that responsibility right you're not like if you're in a relationship it goes works both ways i mean you're getting something you're getting this support and emotion because you are also giving that back and that's how it is and that's the you know beautiful thing about it so uh it's it's important that you are really really like strong [Music] mr pratik kuhard thank you for all the memories you've created in my head and also thank you for making my heart break


head and also thank you for making my heart break first a little more intense and then a lot more healed up how's it going cheers man good how are you thanks for having me here it's crazy having you here dude and uh i i feel like every time i speak to you we kind of have an equation i don't know whether that's because you've seen a few beer biceps videos or whatever but uh that's why i'm not going to kind of increase the emotion level of this podcast gradually i'm gonna dive straight in okay uh dude so could you describe like the most painful heartbreak of your life in as much detail as possible because i know that that kind of played a role maybe not even creating cold mess directly but any kind of song that contains any pain some of those remnants of that pain of that heartbreak are present in that song so what had happened i mean you know honestly man it's not i i don't know if i can say that any one particular


know if i can say that any one particular heartbreak was the worst or better they and i think the more you kind of grow up and see you know different aspects of life and have more diverse experiences you kind of realize that it's it's like not that simple you know every breakup i've had has been different and they've been harder in different ways and some have taken longer some have taken lesser to get over and you have like you know i think everybody has a bad breakup almost i mean you know almost everybody and even if it's not a breakup in this traditional sense you know it could be a fight it could be a you know a temporary split between two people could be between two friends even you know it's just it is actually all the same sentiment to some uh degree so yeah it's kind of how i how i feel about it dude so uh my mom primarily hates my choice in music because there's a lot of rap a lot of ac dc style rock okay


of rap a lot of ac dc style rock okay but in the lockdown i spent a lot of time with her um you know whatever getting the house cleaned up cooking with her and we'd always end up listening to some pratikuhara music and i remember the first time i made her listen to it she's like yeah see this is the one kind of song that i like from your entire playlist and then i made her hear more of your stuff and that kind of got me wondering that dude i feel like you've got this very peculiar element in your music and i'm not a dude who knows his music very well but you've got something very different in you and that's why i also feel that there aren't that many pratik cohorts out there so do you kind of uh perceive your music like that if there's something different that you're doing i don't know whether it's most soul in it or you really really write from the depths of your heart i don't know what it is dude


your heart i don't know what it is dude so you tell me like what do you do that captive captivates so many people i don't know man i i think like i mean if i was to be completely honest i think that you know uh it's a combination of things i mean you know you write a good song and you you really work that song and you play a bunch of live shows and you slowly build a fan base and it's a whole process right i mean being a professional musician it's not just about like a lot of people have this idea of artists and creators in general even like such as yourself that it's you know you just make the content piece or whatever you're making in your case it's a video in my case it's a song and you just and it just happens but there's a lot of you know stuff that goes behind it which is everything from like you know putting yourself out there and uh distributing it properly and really you know like i


distributing it properly and really you know like i don't even making like a good music video with it or uh just playing a bunch of shows with it it's slowly built so i think there's definitely a bit of that which i have been good with and i've like put in a lot of work which you know creates that like perception that like you know that uh this is this is such a great song and if it really is a great song or i don't know but i hope it is but but also it is also a bit of the fact that i do i do write quite honestly and uh i don't know about the depths of my heart and that's that's really hard to say but i definitely like write very subconsciously in the sense that uh i don't really have a plan when i'm writing and a lot of the songs uh is not something that i decide okay today i'm gonna write about heartbreak or today i'm gonna write about this aspect of a relationship but today's


write about this aspect of a relationship but today's gonna i'm gonna write about friends i mean i don't pick a topic and write about it i usually just write and then something comes up and sometimes and it could be anything you know so i think that the the because of that process it just kind of lends a bit of uh like honesty to the the the writing that i'm doing maybe um you know how they go like oh music is what feelings sound like so the words that you choose to use in your songs and the instruments you choose to use is that kind of a reflection of how you view relationships because if that is the case dude there's a reason there's so many people who crazy about your music from a love perspective because i feel for a lot of people your songs kind of are a very good audio version of the feeling called love do you look at it that way at all and i don't i mean i've never thought about it like that's what i'm saying it's


about it like that's what i'm saying it's it's i mean a lot of these things is just people who come up with it and that's how they feel and i'm really grateful people feel that and so strongly about it i mean that's really like one of the best compliments you can get being a songwriter is that somebody gets and it still baffles me sometimes because i feel like i barely have artists who do that to me you know i mean i've definitely had artists and songs which have been such an integral part of my life but there's just there's so few out of like you know the thousands of like songs and people you've listened to so the fact that i am that person to you know a bunch of people out there is really really cool uh but uh yeah i i don't know how that how how it happened really i mean it's just uh again i think it's just like it's it's not it's not um intentional that i pick up a certain word because


intentional that i pick up a certain word because of you know it's just it's very it's very instinctive like writing is very instinctive for me and it comes from like listening to a bunch of songs and learning a bunch of songs and like just the ears of like you know the the stuff you do to get to a point where you can write and construct a song and you instinctively kind of get it it's a skill so i put in things which i feel are nice that's it i mean it's like if if a word feels nice somewhere i put it in there if like the when it comes to the music and the production is the same it just goes by what feels right for the song you know crazy uh dude because you have like some spiritual practices in your life i know that you have some kind of spiritual base to your thought process so we recently had amish triparti the writer on the podcast and he spoke about how his art he strongly considers


he spoke about how his art he strongly considers himself to just be a channel through which the universe expresses uh its own art and a lot of artists across different like genres so be it writing youtubing even i i second his thought uh singing also a lot of people consider their art that they create to not be their own and uh you know they kind of look at themselves as some kind of a channel just for say spirituality or art or inspiration to express itself do you look at your stuff that way like do you kind of sometimes just consider yourself a channel you're like yo i don't know where this is coming from it just landed up in my head i'm just gonna throw it out for the world for sure i mean there's definitely uh so many things that i've written and sometimes every now and then you just sit back and you're like how did i like actually write that song because it's not it's hard to like it's not a very like i said and i i


it's not a very like i said and i i feel really stupid answering these questions a lot of times because you know the kind of question you asked me right before this which was like you know how do you write i get this a lot and then i have this idiotic answer which is like i just cannot do it like i don't have a process i feel like i'm like scamming people almost but it really like it really is like that i don't know and maybe it is that maybe it is just like i mean uh i definitely do have a side that believes in spirituality and like energy flows and you know it could be i don't know i mean my mom says that actually sometimes you know which is i feel like you'd expect like an indian mom to say that like just you know this is just god's gift and blah blah and a lot of times she's like how do you and i because you know it's weird like my language skills were actually always pretty bad both in english and


skills were actually always pretty bad both in english and in hindi i mean just in terms of just academically it's not like i was a avid reader or i've never read that much poetry in my life i've never like uh you know as a kid especially i used to hate reading literally i would my parents would be like you know like stop watching tv like read some books and i would never do that and it just suddenly uh i was really inspired at a point of my life with some films some music and that kind of spurred this like bout of songwriting and the first time i wrote in hindi also just kind of happened like like that very spontaneously and since then it has become a lot more skill based because once that happened and i felt like encouraged is when i feel like i actually started working on it consciously so today i feel like a lot of the stuff i do is uh is kind of planned you know in the sense that i write a song and i


in the sense that i write a song and i construct it with a lot of the skills and the craft that i've developed over the past so many years versus i feel like a lot of my earlier songwriting was very spontaneous i had no idea what i was doing but it was just kind of happening and the writing was happening and uh yeah so i think it's a mix of both i feel like there are moments you get when definitely just kind of like flows really nicely and there's other days which when sometimes weeks or months pass and you just don't feel like anything's coming naturally but you still push yourself and you write a song and sometimes it's good you know so it's just i don't know dude considering the fact that we have such a massive population why aren't there more pratik kohards in india like you know people who came up independently and like kind of had their own identity so i remember for example and this is a very amateur perspective because i


and this is a very amateur perspective because i don't understand the music industry well but back in the 90s you know how there was this whole wave of indian pop coming up like individual people were making their own kind of music lucky ali had a few like crazy songs back then and then it that just kind of died out in the 2000s where they started doing those remixes of old songs and then there was no pop for a while now suddenly with the rise of youtube there's like a lot of independent people coming up releasing their own music we have a friend called abhilasha sinai listen to a lot of her stuff as well but you know you guys like yourself abhilashan a few other people are the only kind of independent people who have like heard of on social media and all that so what's what's going wrong in the system man uh this is again this is just completely personally my theory my opinion to answer your question uh which i and and i've thought about this


question uh which i and and i've thought about this before because we definitely had a wave of independent music in india within the 90s like you said and i'm a massive lucky fan as well by the way i mean just like all his uh work from back then uh silk route was amazing you know euphoria some of this stuff is amazing i mean there were like some cool like bands back then but i don't know the audience the audience yeah oh yeah i forgot about that completely bunch of people man uh and i don't know maybe it was not sustainable for some reason i don't know how the back end of that uh the the business model they were following worked me i feel like they were all i might be wrong but i feel like a lot of them were backed by the same producers and music companies which are part of like you know the commercial music industry even today and and there's nothing wrong with that but i just feel like you know it wasn't maybe it wasn't


like you know it wasn't maybe it wasn't truly independent whereas i feel like today the shift that has happened and this is not just happening in india it's happened across the world is truly is independent for the first time you know i mean in the sense that like i can sit and write a song today and produce it in my this studio right here and put it out on spotify like next month you know and uh that's it and it's just it's as simple as that i go to a distribution service online and i put it out and i can do my own marketing and of course it's at a much smaller scale so i might not be able to do a phenomenal job of it but i can do it and that was not a reality and that's everything that basically internet has made possible so so today i feel like a lot of artists are truly independent in the sense that their livelihood is not dependent on you know anybody but themselves you know they are


you know anybody but themselves you know they are able to like earn uh their incomes directly through their fans you know do a show and get that like literally have that direct channel which truly does make you independent so i feel like this time it is a lot more sustainable and this time and you know i mean hopefully that's what actually happens is truly an independent way which will continue to be independent dude so considering the position you've kind of created for yourself in your career right now when you came back from college when you came back to india like did you uh you studied abroad right yeah yeah so when you came back to india uh did you have these kind of ambitions that okay that's the guy i wanna be i wanna be once in a while creating some bollywood music as well plus i wanna have a really strong independent presence plus i wanna do this i wanna you know be the voice of basically the independent scene in india now did you plan


the independent scene in india now did you plan all this out and was there some game you played like from the career perspective or did all of it just happen and you kept working at it yeah yeah it was definitely like i would say it was like kind of organic in steps in the sense that like i definitely didn't know seven years ago when i pretty much started from scratch in india that i would be here today and it's not like today was the day i was planning for but uh you know you kind of like plan for the next one year or like year and a half and be like okay you know like by next year if i can i remember like my one of my first goals when i started doing this was like and back then uh especially the weekenders were a pretty big deal like uh have you heard of like you know the music festivals that used to happen uh and so that was one of my goals that like you know i i need to play like a really good weekender


i i need to play like a really good weekender slot you know and then that happened one year later so you know it was like cool and then it was like okay now what so then you like plan for something else which is bigger and you try to challenge yourself more i feel like that's how it happened for me uh it just like i wasn't even sure that it would be uh you know i mean when i started doing what i do i kind of gave myself an ear and i was like let's see how it goes because if things are not worked out i would have probably like stopped doing it and like moved on to something else because i was fully prepared what would you be doing what would you be doing what would i have been doing i mean i don't know i'd probably be like i don't know i feel like i would have like eventually got into some form of like entrepreneurship i've probably like worked somewhere for a bit and then gone done something of my own because


bit and then gone done something of my own because i think that's the kind of person i am i like being like not answerable to anybody so i feel like i would have eventually gravitated towards that but it could have most most likely would have been not music for sure you know i see you applying a lot of your personal branding and entrepreneurship vibes into the brand pratik kuhart as well dude like these little things you do on your social media and all i think that's something you're actively thinking of and that's also why i want to ask you dude like as a 40 year old how do you see yourself like what would be a good scenario for you and i'm not i'm not talking about just career i'm talking about you as a person what do you want i don't know man i feel like it's just i mean i feel like in the past like 10 years almost i've done so many shifts in what i want it has changed so often and that it's really hard


it has changed so often and that it's really hard to say i mean i definitely know that like i hope i'm still doing what i'm doing for sure i mean i love songwriting and i wanna i hope i'm putting out like you know really great music even ten years down the line and uh other than that i really don't know you know okay so speaking about uh this thing about i hope i'm creating good enough music uh again i'm asking you an a rookie question why do like certain music directors and all not sustain the levels they once created like what happens does a musician run out of creativity uh does he run out of inspiration does he just get like kind of bored of the process like what do you think happens man i don't know and you know that's one of the questions that actually scares me because i've seen that happen to a lot of like uh just artists and like of all kinds actually not just like musicians but even like filmmakers and you


just like musicians but even like filmmakers and you see both kinds you see some who actually just get better with age and they just keep like knocking it out and every time they you know and they might have a dip and like make like i mean if i'm talking about musicians it might be like one bad album and then they bounce back with the next one again and it's just you know and nothing is ever that bad actually everything is great it's just that one is like you know maybe their fifth album is not as good as their extremely insane third album but you know and then there's other people who definitely feel like uh you know something has happened you know that they're not putting enough uh of themselves in it maybe maybe they get bored maybe they get lazy maybe it's complacency it's hard to say i if i had to venture a guess it would be one of these things i don't think you run out of creativity at least i don't like to believe so


creativity at least i don't like to believe so i really hope that you know because that's the one thing you can't control if i run out of creativity then i'm like yeah i mean i i it you know because everything else if it's like laziness or complacency or anything i can control i can push myself to be a better person but if i just run out of creativity for some whack reason then uh that's that's that's a scary thing so you know i feel like it's it's just people having different goals i feel like you know there's certain artists who probably reach a certain age and they're like this is all i have i want to do i don't want to do this anymore so they move on to doing other things maybe maybe they're like you know focusing on their personal life more on like something else and another other interest more could be anything it's hard to say but uh i feel like it's more of it it's a conscious decision more often than not yeah


it it's a conscious decision more often than not yeah dude about creativity um i'm gonna exchange some youtuber versus musician notes okay so i feel there's this whole wave of tension kind of taking over most of the youtubers and the social media creators in the country where just people are kind of having the same concerns that you're having but you're talking about that much older age bracket you're like okay maybe when i'm 35 40 i hope that i'm all right a lot of the social media people generally kind of look at that in the context of one month key i hope next month i'm able to like sustain like what i'm doing here because the world of social media helps you rise really fast but you can also fall like that fast so uh on social media the hack to sustain creativity is reinvention that's what we tell everyone like all the talents managed by monkey all my friends i'll always tell them that to consciously think of reinvention in some aspect that could be as


of reinvention in some aspect that could be as simple as using a new camera for your videos or whatever uh but the other the other thing that i feel isn't spoken about enough is that while i think creativity is one of those things that doesn't voluntarily leave you there are things you can do in your real life that kind of dull out your creativity like just being surrounded by the wrong people being surrounded by yes men or you know just probably even having the wrong habits not having kind of structure professionalism in your life all that also kind of helps your creativity fade away so i'm sure dude if you've been doing this for seven years you've spotted like positive patterns for you things that help your creativity and probably things that don't you know affect your creativity well uh and knowing you have seen some of the interviews you've done you stress a lot on your professionalism like how you kind of do bring that athlete mentality even to what you do in terms of music like no


to what you do in terms of music like no dude if someone's paying me to do this i'll do a good job so what are your positive daily habits which affect your creativity well versus the negative ones so uh let me let me first talk about the whole professional thing which you know i think i'm not sure if it affects the creativity or not to be completely honest uh that's not the reason i do it the reason i do it is because you know i think that's the right thing to do you know i mean if somebody is paying me if i and i i'm the kind of person who likes doing things well so even if i'm like making my coffee or like you know cleaning up my room or you know cooking something anything or you know writing a song i want to do it like really really well so if like things are not happening well i'll go online and i'll research and be like okay how do i make a better coffee and i'll do that so i'm


a better coffee and i'll do that so i'm i'm constantly trying to do that and that's it's a very personal thing i just like i get a kick out of it if i do something something really really nicely then i'm like nice i feel good about it so it's just yeah i i find it like just it really motivates me so that's that's why i do how why i function like that when it comes to creativity man i gotta be honest i think it's uh it's it's a question i've been trying to figure out myself like it's really weird because and a lot of the things you said were absolutely on point i think that like surrounding yourself with the right people is really really important and uh for everything though you know not just creativity and and uh you know being having healthy habits or like being consistent with things all of these things have a role to play but uh i i don't know but you know another like and this is this is a bad example and


like and this is this is a bad example and you know i'm not saying everybody should do this all the time but like for example like i've had you know really like bad late drunken nights with random people you know like six new people and it's been a very enriching experience and you could say that that's a really bad thing to do in the sense that you know i'm definitely like binge drinking is bad for you and like maybe like sting you know i mean it's these are not like the it's not something you should do every day because you're definitely like damaging not just your physical health but your mental health and your emotional health in the long run but i've had some very like uh you know rich experiences through that i've had rich experiences traveling but i've also had like really really rich experiences just being with once by myself you know just being locked up in a room for like two weeks sometimes when i'm you know in a new city where i'm trying to like


know in a new city where i'm trying to like you know just like do more work and uh or just even in delhi when i've not had work and i'm just in you you learn new things just by kind of like looking within more sometimes or just like reading a really good book or just like watching like binge watching like 20 movies a day which i've done sometimes i find it like this overload of in information that like suddenly a week later like spurs some like new thing so i i feel i'm but i'm still trying to like i think it's one of the hardest question to answer what you've asked you know that how do you like keep yourself creative i mean if if i knew that i would do that every single day but i've realized that this anything could trigger at all sometimes just like i mean you know i don't know i mean like a lot of people have this idea about like you know for me that uh a lot of my songs came from a breakup so i


lot of my songs came from a breakup so i need to stay in that zone all the time but it's like i'm in a very touch word i mean a really happy relationship right now but i'm still writing and i'm writing about other stuff and you know we'll find out if it's good or bad or what and you know whenever it comes out but it's not like it's it's a different thing but i wouldn't say i'm a better or a songwriter for that so these things have a role to play in your life but at the same time it's it's you know i don't know i feel like i've given a really confusing answer to this because i'm like really confused about it myself dude it's it's honestly one of those questions that i think about a lot and probably have been thinking about for years that how do you maximize your creativity how do you make your own systems the most efficient it's the golden version yeah here's my version of it from speaking to entrepreneurs to


my version of it from speaking to entrepreneurs to singers to actors to directors i feel that everyone has this pool inside them like think of it like just a puddle of creativity that kind of gets a little bit diminished every time you put out some creative work like i said you're taking some water from that pool and putting it out for the world okay and rest plus absorbing information kind of refills that pool so when you sleep really well or when you binge watch 20 movies in a go that same what you said about inputting information it adds in like refilling that pool now while meditation doesn't directly affect the uh quantity of water in your creative pool what i do feel meditation does is that it allows you like some other worldly level of focus so even uh when your pool is like almost empty with a little water left inside in normal circumstances if you were stressed you'd be like no no i don't have that much water in my creative pool anymore but if you have a


my creative pool anymore but if you have a meditation habit you're able to exactly take out the amount of water needed from the clear pool and still put it out so meditation helps you move your stamina your endurance it's like exercise maybe for your mind but pure creativity is something that is only replenished with time sleep and all that and and then obviously like all when we talk about spiritual habits like eating cleaner all that uh the speed of water increasing in that pool changes that's that's my answer to the question but again that's just a hypothesis so i don't know if it's like if it's a valid uh theory but uh coming coming back to what you said i mean yeah man i was just saying that you know i the uh i've never thought about it the way you're thinking about it but uh i think it's just another way of basically saying that like if you are and and i mean meditation is like a way for you and even for me to a certain


way for you and even for me to a certain degree to stay really focused and uh on top of my like just like centered so i can function better as a human and uh i think it's just like you're just basically talking about discipline you know the harder you work on your craft the better you'll be so even if you have like that really tiny amount of water left inside you like i said you can still make something out of it if you really are centered overall and how you stay centered is how different people do it different ways you know i used to find running really centering at a point of time you know i feel like just staying fit makes me helps me keep a little balanced eating right like so everybody has their own ways of doing that but for sure man like i think there is no there is no and this is something that i actually uh feel like is really important and it's like it's a it's a perspective that i found uh very uh useful for me that


that i found uh very uh useful for me that even if i have even if i have this inner reservoir of this this puddle inside me full completely like you said and uh if i don't have the requisite skills to convert that into you know something that is like good like in my case a song you know a song if i if if i don't know how to like write a song at all then it doesn't matter how much creativity i have it's just it's never gonna get converted but even if i have very little of that creativity left if i have uh you know put in the work and i am a good songwriter i can still write a pretty decent song with nothing in it at all so it's like you know and when you have both that's when like the magic happens and that will not always happen to you because that's not something you can control but we what you can control is like the discipline behind it so you know i feel like all we should all you


you know i feel like all we should all you can do is do that if you just focus on that and not worry about that in a reservoir too much then like you'll be fine i think you know yeah also also the key word you put out is centering um so in spiritual uh practice it's called grounding it's the same concept as centering so grounding is basically uh something that prevents you from overthinking so how how familiar you with chakras like have you heard of just how chakras work so grounding again without getting into too many details about chakras grounding is something related to your lowest chakra and uh the curse of being an extremely creative person is that your lower chakra is always shaken up so one way to fix it is again living a clean life all those like spiritual practices we speak of but there are specific meditations which kind of help ground you much more and when you have the grounding i'm guessing like you know that increases your focus your discipline levels


you know that increases your focus your discipline levels and therefore you're able to pull out things from that pool uh which is also why you'll see like really talented creative professionals not really kill it in their career even though they have all the skills you know in the playbook they can't really convert that into something because they lack that certain amount of grounding and this is also uh what i see wrong with a lot of young college kids especially many of them who are taking up music fantastic musicians but just lack that little edge in terms of grounding they either overthink they they draw out a lot of negative scenarios a lot of them i mean while i understand that you can get away with having a not so on point lifestyle i feel if you're trying to get somewhere in life and things aren't working out for you for a while you need to kind of question the patterns you're living out in your daily life too i'm only saying that because that's what happened with me like i


that because that's what happened with me like i didn't reach where i wanted to in my first two years of doing youtube and i changed up things in me which eventually led to a kabul there like catapulted me into like a newer dimension so would you say that there's been some kind of a switch at any point i'm not talking about just your daily habits but in terms of was there anything you did differently that just like elevated you like maybe one instance or one thought process change i i always want to be a better person the next day you know i mean i'm i i and i think it comes from like uh i think a very interesting that thing that you said right now which uh which is very true and which i see in a lot of people is that i mean to kind of fundamentally really break it down to simple terms i think a lot of people have a very strong victim con complex like a lot of people consider themselves victims constantly and that i think


consider themselves victims constantly and that i think is a big barrier to you know uh because then you don't blame yourself or anything and you just blame the surroundings for everything so if you're not doing well if things are not going away instead of trying to like introspect within and see that okay what are the things that i might have done wrong you're constantly putting the blame on either people around you or circumstances around you and i i used to have that you know basically the kind of like like and i still do i think everybody does we have days when we really feel like the world is against us and you know you're just like really negative and you're believing everything around you as the source of all your problems but what i realized and uh you know this is something actually like my uh sister and my brother-in-law who are uh you know i'm very close to them and uh this is something that like they brought to my notice like some years ago and not particularly


to my notice like some years ago and not particularly towards me but just as a very like overlooked uh human trait that like we all tend to be the protagonists of our own story and you know a lot of times we consider that protagonist to be the kind of victim of you know all the world's problems and and it's it's not always the case and of course there are times when the world will actually be against you but the thing is that what i realized was there's no point thinking about that because i can't change the world i can't actually be on a point change the larger circumstances and you know things around me all i can do is like learn to fight back and become a better person so that's like you've got to focus on that and i it still happens to me i still have days when i just feel like about myself and i feel like everything is so unfair but then you like have to like kind of pull yourself out of the hole and be like


of pull yourself out of the hole and be like okay what can i do to fix this you know so i think that's a very important thing you said for sure and i think that is uh that is a big reason why a lot of people you know uh don't end up getting where they want to because it becomes a vicious cycle the more you think that you're the victim you actually do end up becoming you know one hundred dude uh do you feel that your spiritual practices have kind of helped heal these wounds from the past because i certainly feel that dude again you said how you're a perfectionist about making your coffee also i think that to be a good creative professional somewhere you gotta have that perfectionist element in you and the curse of that is self-doubt the curse of that is a lot of for lack of a better word self-mutilation where you're just like you know i hate me dude why am i not doing this well or whatever so do you


i not doing this well or whatever so do you feel that somewhere spirituality has like fixed that for you yeah i mean i think man uh to me like spirituality is also just i mean it boils down to certain practices right and it's it's again it's very personal like for me at a point of my life life uh running really worked really really well and that point i didn't really know what any of these like when he was and and i've been introduced to you know concepts of spirituality more in the past couple of years i started doing yoga a couple of years ago for the first time properly and actually last year for the first time probably and a lot of the things that i was really kind of completely against like astrology for example or like just things that people you know consider as part of like spirituality i have become more open-minded towards them because you know uh it has helped me to a certain degree but but that's only recently like for uh earlier it was something


only recently like for uh earlier it was something else you know like i used to like run a lot i used to run like 10 kilometers like five times a week for months and that really helped me like you know just uh feel really central that one hour of running every day was kind of like meditative for me and i felt like i used to come back and just like feel less anxious and you know less uh critical of myself and a little like you know tired but in a good way and more productive the next day so you know that was one way of doing it i think you have to everybody has to find their own personal ways for doing it but for sure like you know i mean it boils down to like doing things that definitely like make you feel better about yourself it sounds really simple you know that you just do something that makes you feel good but it's actually not because you know uh i don't know to discover that thing that works for you that you can put into practice


that works for you that you can put into practice on a consistent basis that you can stick to and that truly does good things to you because a lot of times like what you define as good in the moment might not be good for you in the long term so you know dude like um again while i have been uh advising people that they should find uh happiness first within themselves and stability first within themselves and then go out chasing relationships i feel like the correct romantic relationships also add a certain level of stability and balance to people's lives so dude again considering the fact that you're in a stable relationship right now how much of a role does that play in your professional life like to just balance out to kind of you know tell you that yo you're not you're not actually as bad as you think you were or to just tell you know to just calm down your head does that play any kind of role yeah yeah of course man and i think like uh not just me for


man and i think like uh not just me for anybody whether you have professional goals or not and you know it's it's just uh a stable relationship just makes you happier i think i mean from what i've seen and i've been in a couple in my lifetime and like uh it's definitely a phase which is you know has a lot of like uh personal comfort and there's a lot of like positive reinforcement from the other side which like you said makes you feel better about yourself so a lot of the toxic ways you could be looking for validation out you know from the outside world gets replaced by a more healthier form of validation from your partner can you explain this like this is a very cool thing you said but i just want you to break it down a little more this toxic versus uh it's like man uh i think almost everybody out there is a bit insecure you know we're all insecure actually we all have certain insecurities in different aspects and i think that like we're all


different aspects and i think that like we're all and because of that we're seeking validation and you know and there's so many forms of seeking validation and it could be like just a night out with your friends and getting really drunk or like you know like excessive use of social media or in today's world or just um indulging in activities that feel like uh give you joy in the moment but actually are not healthy in the long term i mean there's so many examples right versus like i think and we need that actually to a certain degree and uh i think if you have the right partner it just uh they will not like you will not need those toxic forms of validation anymore you'll get a much healthier form because that's the point right i mean of family and friends and loved ones around you one of the points at least is to like uh somebody there telling you that like look you are a really good person like you don't like don't be hard on yourself and i do that


don't be hard on yourself and i do that for my friends and my family sometimes and like they do that for back for me sometimes and i have my low moment you know when i have a low moment and i'm being really self-hateful like my girlfriend was telling me that like dude chill out you know like things are not that bad and she'll show me the right side and show me like you know why am i why i am a good person and that gives me perspective so i think it's a really like it's a very it's another like uh another way of kind of like really centering and grounding yourself i feel like it just makes you like it it takes off all those other pressures so you can focus on what really matters which in my case is like you know writing a really good song so i can actually like focus on that and do that so yeah dude good and bad are subjective words like when you say that something's good it's in your head you've already compared


good it's in your head you've already compared it to probably a so-called bad moment from your past or you know from your reference points so dude like why do you say that your current relationship is good like what constitutes a happy positive relationship in the now other than what you just said about you know that that person fills up that one uh insecurity void or whatever you want to call it uh what else like constitutes a positive happy relationship yeah and that definitely that's just one of the things uh again man really personal question in the sense that like hard to answer you know like i think it's a very it's a personal choice it differs from person to person uh i think you need to kind of look at that there's not a simple answer for this you need to kind of look within yourself to uh to know what you want you know from your partner i think for me uh it's definitely the i mean there's there's one aspect which is just kind of like instinctive where you feel comfortable


just kind of like instinctive where you feel comfortable with the other person you kind of trust them instinctively that's really really important if i can't trust the other person then you know i cannot like be in a serious relationship with somebody i can't trust like and that is like you know a straight up like because and i feel like that's probably like for everybody i mean obviously that's such an important thing uh and uh and i think like somebody who kind of helps you grow who you see yourself like growing with and who pushes and that's and that i think is a personal thing like i'm the kind of person like who wants to be a better person tomorrow in every way and i want to be with somebody who pushes that versus you know like and and that and that has nothing to do with the other person being a good person or a bad person it's just like i think it's how like your energies interact and how you like kind of like the dynamic between the two people


like kind of like the dynamic between the two people some people who are just like symbiotic like this like they really push each other uh in a healthy way in the right direction and i would hope to be in you know a relationship of that sort i think that's that's the ideal thing yeah dude why do you think divorces happen like in general like my theory is that people grow into different versions of themselves as they grow older and also this whole thing about i think i think when you when you live with someone it kind of changes the dynamic dude it's like especially for guys that's why the concept of a man cave exists in a first place where guys just want to be isolated and i've seen i've seen some of the most successful marriages around me have an element of a man cave within the house and i'm not just saying man cave like i mean both the partners can kind of spend time in their own little zones away from themselves i i think that's the reason


away from themselves i i think that's the reason divorces are happening nowadays dude what do you think i mean i don't know about nowadays man i think like uh i think for a long time divorces and this is i mean this is a bit of a this is again it's like my theory i think for a long time divorces didn't happen in india because of just like sexism i mean it's just i think like the women of like our mothers generations and before took like the brunt of the issues and it was such a big social taboo for a divorce to happen that it just never happened today i think like it's in a way a good sign because like it just means that women are as imp i mean they're not as empowered unfortunately but they are definitely more empowered than they used to be which is like a really good sign you know it's a good thing that like society is moving forward where like both partners of either sex have like a voice which


both partners of either sex have like a voice which is important which is why there is also like more conflict i think uh that's that's kind of like you know one answer uh the other thing also which is just like purely from the perspective of like why a relationship breaks i mean a divorce is just like you know basically two people falling apart and i think uh one thing that you said is definitely a reason i think sometimes there are couples who don't give each other enough space and that just comes from a place of lack of communication i feel like i feel like a lot of times people don't actually express themselves like if you know the a guy wants to have one hour alone or like another person like in the i i whatever the guy or the girl like you know one person wants two hours alone every day they might be scared to say it sing thinking that like the other person will get offended and i feel like sometimes that goes on for ages and like you know


sometimes that goes on for ages and like you know ultimately you just end up having this massive like blow out because you have this repressed feeling of just needing some space from day to day so uh and it's it's there's nothing wrong with it you know like i mean i think we need space we need to have our own time as well and i think a successful relationship a lot of times you like you said will have that aspect where it's carved out you know where it's like we are here for each other and we love each other and we are each other's rocks but at the same time like you know i need to have two hours where i'm just like alone like listening to music or watching this movie or whatever you know and that's fine and it's again it's a very personal thing some people might like it some people might not but you should be able to express it and get it out of the way instead of repressing it so dude you spoke about trust right now okay


so dude you spoke about trust right now okay and again that's also a subjective term i'm sure that at some point in your past you had your trust broken or you know that's what's resulted in you saying that right now same year that that's happened with me as well you know uh gonna put it out there like i've been cheated on like more than once by like people you know who i invested a lot of time energy and all in um now in saying that i feel every human is born with certain intrinsic goals so you have like career goals or whatever that you kind of build as you grow up you're like okay that's where i want to be but then somewhere in your heart you have like these kind of goals for your life that have always been there and i feel like i've genuinely always had this goal of having a really good stable relationship you know like call it a marriage call it a long term thing and that's why i asked the question about why do


that's why i asked the question about why do these divorces happen why do breakups happen like what goes wrong uh which is also why people gravitate towards rom-coms and pratiku-hard songs because there's a lot of purity in that kind of music like that's that's what love sounds like to a lot of people like for example uh dilbay perra talks about that dude like uh you know like the lyrics the the whole feel of the song is the same concept that yo even if i have been mistreated or i've had my trust broken i'm still gonna go for it again so again that's coming from that intrinsic goal and that that same intrinsic goal of a stable relationship exists for a lot of indians i don't know whether it's a part of a culture and we are extremely romantic people or what it is but uh man do you think about this do you think about your long-term future do you think about like in fatherhood and like because that's something i've been like thinking about


like because that's something i've been like thinking about a lot for some random reason i'm like yo i'm this like weight lifting dude who thinks about protein shakes where are these fatherhood thoughts coming from but they're coming up from some deep place within my soul dude so how about you i don't know man i feel like i feel like i can barely you know take care of myself properly i am definitely not ready for fatherhood it definitely like scares me like i'm not i'm not there for sure uh and uh i'm quite like fluid man in the sense about like the this question about long-term relationships i think that like and i struggle with this like you know this thought that uh there's definitely a lot of comfort there's so much comfort in our relationship you know i mean just having this steady person who looks out for you and you love and you want them around all the time it's a beautiful thing like you know and i love being in that space but at the same time i


being in that space but at the same time i feel like it should not be a crutch you know it should not like there's a and thankfully i don't think i'm i'm in that situation but like i feel like i've seen people who are in relationships because you know they'd rather not be alone out of habit uh yeah yeah sometimes it's out of habit sometimes people who just always like dated people from an early age so they just are so petrified of being alone that they will just date anybody and then they make a lot of compromises and end up with really bad people sometimes and uh i'm a little like you know like i'm i'm a conscious of that so i'm all a lot of times worried that i'm you know i hope i'm not doing that like uh and i think that's an important thing because i think you need to be and and it kind of goes back to something that you said a little while ago right that you need to be strong yourself before kind of uh and


need to be strong yourself before kind of uh and maybe this is the wrong word to use but before kind of like deserving somebody else you know you need to be like a really strong secure okay with yourself uh to be able to give yourself fully to another person because you also have that responsibility right you're not like if you're in a relationship it goes works both ways i mean you're getting something you're getting this support and emotion because you are also giving that back and that's how it is and that's the you know beautiful thing about it so uh it's it's important that you are really really like strong and that's the only like question i think about which is i said that like it's kind of like fluid for me that like i don't want to be in a place where i want to be scared about not being in a long-term relationship because i want to feel like you know confident enough about myself in the sense that i can like handle any situation myself so i'm with


can like handle any situation myself so i'm with somebody because that just propels me even further and it makes my life better and there's better but not out of weakness out of like a choice to like you know exceed my own expectations in a way or like you know be an even better person yeah dude i'm trying to honestly decode these difficult questions through the podcast honestly so if i feel like a guest does give a certain subject a lot of thought time i'll always ask that guest about that subject and that's exactly why i wanted to ask you about relationships but the other kind of domain in pratikuhara which i feel isn't explored a lot by audiences is this depth of thought thing dude like i knew you were a deep guy just because of the lyrics and all that but i feel it's it doesn't just apply to your sense of love i feel you create love songs because somewhere that's also the businessman in you where you're like i know that this will


in you where you're like i know that this will like do well okay and there's nothing wrong in it dude like i know i make good fitness videos that's why i continue making physical fitness videos though i talk a lot more about ayurveda if i could anyway coming back to the point i feel uh there's a key question i want to ask you dude because uh you're in like a really good high point in your career like you know like a lot of women listening to your music in the lockdown i'm dead sure you've seen a lot of growth i actually attended one of your live concerts on instagram and people are just losing their people are like ah sing this sing that i was like dude this guy this guy's in a good kind of career zone now the question is that i feel there's four things primarily that reveal the character of a person so that one is like extremely deep questions which is what we try doing on the runway show the second is uh some kind of trauma for example


the second is uh some kind of trauma for example even this corona virus situation could be considered as a form of trauma for a lot of people even if they're not affected by it just that there's this infectious disease out there oh my god i'm either really scared or really brave or really positive or really negative uh the third would be long-term relationships that's something that reveals your character how do you react when you're stuck with the same person for like 10 years and uh the fourth one which is what i want to talk to you about is power which could be considered money slash fame but i feel fame reveals it even more than money so dude like how is like fame changed your life like what do you see like changing about your thought process and all that i still honestly and i'm gonna be really honest here like uh i don't feel that famous and i you know i've said this a few times before and i've got like criticism from people around you like


i've got like criticism from people around you like you know i'm trying to be like i don't know uh cocky or like and but it's really is like that and i don't know if it's because maybe this is not enough for me maybe i am like kind of immune to it and i don't think about it as much i'm not really sure why but it's it's a it's a it's it goes up and down you know actually actually the real thing is not like i don't feel famous but it goes up and down there are points in your life where you do feel like that and then it's followed up with like really humbling experiences so that's how i have seen which is why which is which invariably ends up kind of like you know putting me back into how i was anyway and i get back to focusing on you know doing what i do which is like writing a song um so that's one thing i mean you know and an example of that to explain that is like