got its own high points and low points every profession goes on risk what is what is the risk for you what is the risk for the people who work in a company or a multinational startup there is factors are different there's obvious what risk factor which people in the armed forces do so while what you say i totally agree and second it also but i must also give due to the people who are working everybody's working to build a country so this is my personal views yeah now since you mentioned about marine commando i thought i must just tell you how marine commando is different from other special forces in india sure we are actually uh based on the u.s navy seal pattern so training patterns like them so our training is the most elaborate and the longest training everybody has to be a clearance driver or a diver who is a combat diver everybody has to handle you know ieds and other things then everybody has to be a landlubber miss a commando on land then everybody has to be


a commando on land then everybody has to be trained in airborne insertion so this elaborate training doesn't happen in any special force in our country so that's the and why this kind of high high intensity training is because of the simple fact that you are working in three mediums largely two medium the land and the c and the c is very unforgiving so you have to be that you have to train that much more so that's that's sort of thing which and and because of this and the multi-phase tasking which can come because of the kind of training and skills sets you have actually developed and consolidated over a period of time and been given to you by able instructors uh your domain operation is far and wider and that's why the equipment level which you've got is far more superior than the equipment level which any other special force has in the country to my knowledge and my knowledge is very current because i i left my last seat as principal director special operation after eight years in november 2020


director special operation after eight years in november 2020 you know while while i want to dig 10 more tangents just out of this one paragraph that you've given us i have to save content for the hindi episode that's the honest answer i would also like to say it's easily one of the best podcasts i've ever had in my life and you have that much to share that's how wide your experience is awesome thanks a lot do you think like that yeah no no and collectively as a team we're like deeply grateful uh thank you for your service on behalf of like the entire country and the youth i know i can speak for them so but uh one thing i would definitely like to say is the internet needs more of the armed forces and this is this just this episode is one huge step in that direction people need to know what kind of badasses the indian armed forces really are and it's just the beginning thanks a lot and it's my pleasure being in this show and through this


my pleasure being in this show and through this medium a lot of people can be educated and obviously the awareness you know the u.s had the same problem there is something called a sea blindness the u.s people don't know what the u.s may be doing with the they're deployed around the world so they had a serial called the the patriot which is shot on board nimitz the entire uh tv crew came on board nimitz or not nemesis some one of the aircraft carriers nuclear power aircraft carriers and they stayed on board for six months and shot what actually operations happened and how a daily life is on board aircraft carrier just to make people realize that don't know what navy is all about and if the u.s navy that people don't know about u.s navy in their own country you can imagine what happens in other countries so this your effort is a very honest and sincere effort towards educating the people about a lot of aspects and there are wide


people about a lot of aspects and there are wide aspects in the armed forces and of course the marine commandos are not only marine commandos other special forces are the best i would say yeah and i'll continue to say that so pardon me for not standing but i salute you like from the bottom of my heart thanks a lot just thank you for opening up so much on uh this episode lots more episodes to create with you that's what i'll say okay thank you sir we can do this yes of course honor speaking with you thank you my pleasure my honor too that was the episode for today the thing i love about special forces podcasts are that when i speak to special forces veterans i realize that this is the true meaning of life exploration perspectives coming this close to danger coming this close to death coming this close to people and situations that are built to kill you and surviving through it and growing after your survival and changing your own perspectives after that growth that survival


changing your own perspectives after that growth that survival i hope that we're able to capture the essence of being a special forces veteran through these episodes commodore vijay rawat is a legend from the world of the special forces i hope that the indian youth especially gets to know the amount of badassery that we have within the armed forces even today people need to know how capable the indian armed forces are people need to know the greatness of the indian armed forces it begins with these special forces conversations that we do on the podcast but i promise you there's a whole world left to discover make sure you follow our hindi podcast as well where we actually created a hindi episode with vijay sir right after this one both the highlights channels are live on youtube they contain only the best bits of both the episodes we're going to be linking them down below and make sure you keep following trs on spotify for spotify exclusive which means that every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's


every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world vireso will be back on drs and this is just the beginning of all these special forces podcasts that we'll be bringing your way [Music] you


there is only one state called india which is there to protect this spiritual infrastructure and yes if it is reached its 75th year then as indians it is our responsibility to use the direction that the scriptures give us did you know that ganesha was the person who was the first stenographer of the mahabharata when vedivas bhagavan vedvyas conceived of the mahabharat he needed a stenographer someone who would write it down who had the capacity to write down such a great epic he's like who am i going to find he went to brahmaji and ramaji said the only person who is going to be able to do this is ganesha it's easy to have mind-bending conversations at parties it's not easy to have mind-bending conversations which are backed by the scriptures of the ancients that's what today's guest will bring to the ranvi show that's what today's guest will bring to the internet i've had this argument with manish pandey very often where i've told him that you know


very often where i've told him that you know maybe india just doesn't have the right kind of communicators and the right kind of podcast guests and his response has always been that the right podcast guests who are full of knowledge or full of communication skills they're out there and you just need to search for them ladies and gentlemen this is me introducing you to om dhumatkar on this episode of trs he's one of the most successful bankers in the uk seen an insane amount of material success which began from very very humble beginnings back in mumbai he himself attributes his success to the things he's learned throughout his life from the world of spiritualism from the world of ancient indian scriptures lots of fantastic spiritual mind-bending conversations about time about the nature of life the nature of reality maya all these kind of concepts are coming your way on this very heavy conversation of the ranvi show for more heavy conversations just like this make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is


make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world because trs is a spotify exclusive so without further ado this is only our first episode with om dawadkar and he's on the renville show [Music] mr omdu matkar while we've had a ton of spiritualism oriented shows indian culture oriented shows we've never had one with someone who's found as much material success as you have on an international scale you're one of i mean you're gonna play it cool but you are one of the most reputed bankers in all of the uk um i've known you for a very long time in life and uh i know that when people talk about the word self-made uh there's very few other people that come to my head other than you you're truly like a self-made individual and it's a great use case for where culture spiritualism and all these things come to the forefront you begin to apply it in your material life and then therefore find both


it in your material life and then therefore find both material success and mental peace in many ways welcome to the runway show home the mudkar and we're so i'm so happy to be here thank you so much for having me and i see someone who represents a lot of the things that you just described in you so someone who has been able to achieve a great amount of success and also be on a spiritual journey and share that authentically with everyone so you know in the same way that you sort of felicitated me with those beautiful words i want to do the same for you thank you thank you mr dumat um you know i'll be very transparent and honest with you here it's very rare that we bring on someone um and you know they have to have some sort of online presence before yeah and the stark reality is we've broken that rule for you okay and that's primarily because i know you and i know the impact you've had on my life just through conversation and i wanted to


on my life just through conversation and i wanted to take that to out to the audiences yeah so maybe before we actually get into spiritualism aspect of things quickly if you could explain what you do from a professional basis just so the audience understands who they're listening to well i head up strategy for one of the largest banks in europe in fact very specifically it's the largest bank in the uk and within that i head up strategy for their business banking division uh what that means is we bank you know any business from a window cleaner through to a multi-million pound agency and my job is figuring out how can we deliver better customer experience and more value for shareholders so the sorts of things that i've just done before i came back to bombay was uh thinking you know what's how can we deliver 100 million 200 million 500 million pounds of value and what's the amount of investment we need to put in there so if you were putting it in indian terms you know thousand crores two thousand


indian terms you know thousand crores two thousand crores three thousand crores and what do we as a bank need to invest to make that happen when you're playing with money of that scale how does it change your opinion of money especially when you know your source of your thoughts is spiritual like what is money anyway yeah i mean that's a really amazing question because you know when you work in an industry like banking you see big sums all the time you know and i think sometimes you can lose perspective so when i say 100 million 200 million for me those are numbers but if it's 100 million 200 million pounds of my money then i would think about it differently so when i'm doing what i'm doing it's very important for me to think of that as if it was my money as if i was putting my money on the line and i had to get a return for it but of course spirituality and my indian upbringing and hindu background comes into it in a big way even


hindu background comes into it in a big way even though i don't talk about it that much so for example in hinduism we uh personify wealth as sri lakshmi right and my teacher i think it must have been about 15 16 years ago my spiritual teacher said one thing to me that really struck with me lakshmi and a higher spiritual perspective what do you think time is like in terms of what i'm sure this is something you've thought about i once heard someone say that uh vishnu represents space and shiva represents time would you agree that's a very deep question and it's a very deep question and the person whom i regard as my guru swami chinmaranda he had said that objectively time is defined as the space between two events i woke up i had a cup of tea the space between the two of them is time could be five minutes 15 minutes could be 20 minutes could be an hour right but what might be an objective event to you might not be an objective event


objective event to you might not be an objective event to me i might not experience it you wake up and have a cup of tea i'm still sleeping so who am i to say was that 15 minutes for me five minutes for me no so ultimately and this is going to be a mind bender i'm warning you ultimately time is a subjective experience and swami chinmananda said that it is a space between two thoughts so when we are in a flow state a state of focus objectively time may go by but our subjective experience of it is very limited in the same way when we are very bored and time is dragging time may go at its usual space but you you're like when is this going to end so time is a subjective experience yeah and i think subjectivity is the starting point of again of spiritual discovery there are many different starting points even in this conversation but we start with our own experience yeah and then we say okay if my experience is this then there must be something greater then we


is this then there must be something greater then we start to explore then we see that this beautiful universe has been created on the basis of certain laws and actually it's not just a universe because we are now seeing more and more we have theorized and we are starting to see evidence of our multiverse there are multi dimensions to this and things are happening in parallel and time bends over and folds over and obviously you mentioned in the interstellar movie that gives a glimpse into that as a bit of a concept but if there are rules and if there are laws for this entire arrangement where i am having a subjective experience but that there's a sense of continuity then there must be something that is ruling that there must be some intelligence that has created it that is sustaining it and at some stage the experience will fold into that i it'll end even when you look at like a simple plant like behind me behind you there is intelligence and design even in those things absolutely what is


intelligence and design even in those things absolutely what is in charge of those designs and that intelligence is it the same energies we speak about and if yes how many energies are there is it just one is it multiple yeah um like i said yes as men approach me so do i reveal uh myself to them my belief and my understanding from my scriptural study of a specific school of philosophy i'm not saying that this is the absolute truth i'm very clearly as a trained historian which is what i studied at university as a trained historian i'm giving you my sources sure on the basis of those sources there is one truth and it is said in the rigveda which means the truth is one the wise call it by different names and based on our understanding and our own individual constitution we will connect to a um representation of that truth yeah so in my heart i am a i am a bhakta of sri ganesh she ganesha is everything for me but of course i recognize that


is everything for me but of course i recognize that sri ganesha is the ultimate power then he also has relationships with shiva and with vishnu and so on and actually these might well be different facets of the ultimate truth and depending on my understanding and capability at that point in time i might say okay sri ganesh is the entry point but then once you've got gone past the entry point the other portals as well that you have to go through um so yes the truth is one but the beauty of the truth and the beauty of bhagavan as we use the phrase in hinduism the beauty of the truth is that it can make itself accessible to us based on our inner conditioning and our requirement in that point of time i've been told that you've conducted a lot of ganbathi pujas and in in some ways it's fair to say that ganesha is your uh ishtadev like you know when we use though it's your version of god that you see when you've closed your


version of god that you see when you've closed your eyes and it could just be a light it could be a character from a hindu culture it could be a character from some other culture yeah but everyone has this version of god that they draw yes firstly why why do we divide god so much of god is like this one all-encompassing i don't know paragram kind of like why do we draw it into these different forms where it represents different things is it because for your subjective reality and your childhood traumas and your childhood problems that particular god sorts you out yeah and your potential so it's beautiful because you asked the question as you answered as well i like your style if you look into the scriptures uh in the srimad-bhagavatam the concept of god is explained in three ways brahman paramatma and bhagavan okay brahman is the underlying reality for everything yeah you see a bulb the underlying reality for the bulb is electricity if the electricity didn't exist the bulb


electricity if the electricity didn't exist the bulb wouldn't be able to give light it would not be a bulb and that same underlying reality connects the bulb and the fan because the underlying reality of the fan also is electricity so in the same way underlying reality of everything that's manifest is divine and that is known as that aspect of the divine is known as brahman it is in and through everything paramatma is the spark of the divine that sits in our heart yeah that is in a heart that enlivens the world for us it is that cause inside me that allows my eyes to open for light to enter and for my brain to compute and understand what is going on it's a life spark in our heart that's known as paramatma and bhagavan is the personalized accessible entity uh or manifestation of the lord okay yeah we don't divide the lord into different it's impossible to divide the lord into different uh parts the lord is so merciful and kind that they take the


lord is so merciful and kind that they take the form that is most accessible to us according to our subjective reality according to our subjective realities and actually even though we might not be um conditioned in that way that aspect of the divine leads us to different aspects of the divine so for example in my life in this recent chapter over the last year or two i have been drawn more and more towards krishna and i firmly believe that ganesha was taking me over there to say that this is something that you have to learn and you have to understand it and you have to deeply respect it and you have to go into depth to understand the meaning in your life because if we are saying the purpose of life as we were saying is to attain uninterrupted happiness then somewhere there is a subjective block that i've put on that and sri ganesha takes me to shri krishna you through that gateway allows me to go past that block okay two questions when you say


go past that block okay two questions when you say shri ganesha is taking you to shri krishna it's the same energy saying hold on now instead of this mask check out this mask access it through a different uh gateway the same energy it's the same one god which is showing your different aspects the truth is one the y is called by different names when you say that shri ganesha is taking you to shri krishna that's a very interesting concept why i never thought i'd bring this up on the floor i had done ayahuasca when i was 22 and my shaman had once told me um you know like that if you um if you really scan your own life from a slightly spiritual perspective you'll notice that your own life is like you being an actor on a stage now you enter the stage through the you know entry doors on the right or the left when god wants to give you a prop or taking a certain direction it's like one hand sticks out of those doors on the


like one hand sticks out of those doors on the right or left and points in a direction saying hey listen go there it's kind of like your director now what this actually means in day-to-day life is for example maybe you'll have a dream of like one other deity maybe it'll come up a lot in conversation constantly maybe you'll just be on like social media you'll be scrolling on instagram or twitter and some big essay on a particular deity will pop up yes and it will direct you in a certain way by answering one question that you've had for your own material existence yeah so is that what you mean that you're being nudged in like a particular direction to learn more about krishna 100 and when you learn more about krishna is probably going to answer your own material stress-based questions 100 okay and one of the biggest impacts in my life has been through the study of the bhagavad-gita which i started a long time ago and i studied it in i think in a one-dimensional way


studied it in i think in a one-dimensional way in the sense that i only worshiped krishna through the bhagavad-gita when i saw i used to think of krishna as you know that guide on the battlefield and his friend is like fallen and he's saying no i'm going to help you and give him the wisdom and he gives him the vision of himself as a great you know as the universe um and as the multiverse in fact yeah i never saw krishna as radha krishna you know in a field and this and that that was my limitation that was my conditioning i think what's really beautiful is my is my estradiol arranged my life in such a way that i end up in kyoto and over there we are chanting and chanting and chanting about krishna and chanting about hanuman and all of these other deities and through that chanting it creates a beautiful experience in my heart that i want to say okay i i've had a blissful experience i want


okay i i've had a blissful experience i want to learn more about it and so what have you learned i have learned that in and through all of our experiences in life the one thing that's motivating us and guiding us is love that you've learned through krishna through my engagement with yeah krishna through my engagement with the srimad-bhagavatam through the company of the many hare krishnas whom i have encountered whom i deeply respect whose devotion is an inspiration to me and whose worldview and ability to navigate the world also as an inspiration to me and whose respect for my differing opinion on some very subtle matters of philosophy is also an inspiration to me okay does indian culture talk about the significance of dreams very much so in which book or in many purans it's spoken about um see it's important when we say indian culture and hindu culture that we know the hierarchy or at least the classification even if you don't call it hierarchy the classification


even if you don't call it hierarchy the classification of our different scriptures and what different scriptures speak about and you can say dreams also appear in buddhist and giant scriptures which are in some way different from hindu scriptures because hindu scriptures come from the vedas buddhist and scriptures do not but even in those scriptures there are very detailed accounts of dreams and meanings of dreams but if we were to say hindu scriptures or vedic sanatana dharma scriptures the source of all are the vedas there are four vedas as you know uh there are four vedas each of the four vedas are divided into three sections there is uh opasuna khand which is pure invocation pure invocation of divine reality manifested as oh agni you are so great you are so lustrous i bow down to you you know oh surya you are so this oh why you and so on then you have a karma khan karma khan is then accessing those energies through the act of


is then accessing those energies through the act of yagya and sacrifice yeah and sacrifice yeah as in um sacrifice is often interpreted as you know i'm sacrificing an animal it's not that kind of sacrifice i am sacrificing my identity at a divine altar so when you have a hoven that's blazing and you pour something into it whether you pour ghee or you pour some grains the thing that you say swaha i offer and then you say it and then you release it from your hand it's kind of like erasing your own personality and ego yeah it's dissolving your sp your own egotistical identity in front of a divine identity so that's karma khan and the third one is gyan khand so gyan khan are philosophical texts on higher reality they are also known as upanishads higher reality what is the ultimate reality what is the nature of ultimate reality all these questions we are talking about exactly exactly and there are brief exchanges between the student and the


and there are brief exchanges between the student and the teacher where the children goes and asks and the teacher answers yeah of which there are 108 principal upanishads that they say in previous times there were many many more what remains 108 of the 108 the top three i shall punish and then there are rest 105 more upanishads beyond that right so you have vedas for vedas with three sections uh the last section being gyan khan which is talk speaks about a higher reality yeah and you have six schools of philosophy that take that higher reality and uh interpret it so uh that includes you know yoga yoga which is a school of philosophy as well and not just a physical practice it's just basically saying what is the nature of reality and different interpretations of it so the principle again the principal interpretation of the upanishads is vedanta school of philosophy which is a phrase that all hindus are familiar with yeah and then there are different types of vedantic schools which is not the


are different types of vedantic schools which is not the question that you asked but if you say this is the scriptural progression what ends up happening at some point we can't access the divine reality purely through those philosophical conversations we both high level you know sometimes we're having a conversation and we are really connected into it and we say wow this is an amazing philosophy we go and they can't recount it to our friends anything i kind of don't get it this is too high level so in order to make that higher philosophy accessible are rishis recounted what had happened in the past and used those recounts and retellings to explain the higher reality and make it accessible to us as in they took stories which actually happened amongst human beings correct they took events that happened in this manifest universe of ours in different planes including different beings and they wrote them down for us and for that category of scripture there are two types there are the puranas and they are the


two types there are the puranas and they are the ithasas rama and mahabharata puranas as you know is bhagavata puran garud puran there's a ganesh puran there's a shivpuran vishnu many many different types of puranas in the puranas there are many recounting of dreams of intuitive understanding and like i said in buddhism and jainism in buddhism for example before the buddha was even conceived his mother had a dream and in that dream she understood that a great being is coming into her womb and that that person could change the world so yes there is a space for intuitive understanding that we sometimes access through open eyes sometimes access to meditation and sometimes come to us in the form of dreams um okay uh let's talk about the gyan gun okay you spoke about essays on higher realities yes what does that mean so um upanishads firstly let me just explain what the phrase upanishad means upanishad comes from three sanskrit words means near ni


comes from three sanskrit words means near ni means below and shut means sat so the phrase upanishad itself implies that there is a discourse between a teacher at a higher level and a student at a lower level and the knowledge is flowing from the higher level to a lower level just like this yeah and typically the structure of an upanishad is there's a question that the student asks at the beginning and the teacher answers now what ends up what is true of the upanishads is that they're typically quite brief so the student in an upanishadic sense is actually quite an evolved student he's done all the meditation he has done service he has cleaned his heart but in the ultimate reality may not doubt her so he'll go to the teacher and say mira yay doubt i can you help me clear it and the teacher will clear it so for example i said you know the 1982 punishers has only 10 verses in it the whole upanishad the whole text is only 10


the whole upanishad the whole text is only 10 verses by comparison bhagavad gita is 700 verses and although 700 verses we have multiple commentaries and we have to discuss to understand but uh manduka punishes only ten verses in the ten verses the explanation is what is the meaning of ohm that's the subject yeah that is purely the subject what is the meaning of om so um what's the meaning of form so om firstly let me clear two uh misunderstandings of what om is we in casual conversation say om is a symbol home is not a symbol is a mantra mantra in sanskrit that which helps you transcend the mind is a mantra like a pole from a pole vaulting exactly event yeah so you take the pole run with it get to the top leave it and go to the other side that function is performed by a mantra so the mantra om consists of three sounds [Music] and even if we look at the writing of it in sanskrit the two you


the writing of it in sanskrit the two you know uh curves that is the start of uh oh that's just the start of oh join to that is the matra which we normally associate with ooh the sound ooh and then on top the chandra and bindu is um so the correct way to pronounce home is oh [Laughter] and that is the mantra that's the mantra that we are chanting the meaning of om and then as explained in the uh mandoki operation is a stands for waking state who stands for dream state and stands for deep sleep so it's a discussion on consciousness that is observing all these three states and then it says that these three states of wakefulness dream and deep sleep rise from somewhere and dissolve into something that underlying reality from which they rise and into which they dissolve is the fourth state known as turiya and this is the complete sort of discussion within the mando what is durya with the t is the underlying reality from which everything manifests so if


the underlying reality from which everything manifests so if we say ranveer wakes up and we does everything and we then goes to sleep and ranveer has a dream ranveer has a period of deep sleep as well and then the next day ranveer wakes up there's one constant in all of this that is observing ranveer from the point of waking up to the point of falling asleep to the point of dreaming to the point of waking up without that one underlying consciousness what we might call atman ranveer doesn't exist so that turiya state is this underlying reality from which all states of waking all states of dreaming all states of deep sleep arise and into which they ultimately emerge so we might say in a very deep philosophical sense turiya is the ultimate reality it might be bhagavan it could be shiva it could be whoever would it be fair to say a way of looking at this is we are like a video game character and there's a controller controlling us


video game character and there's a controller controlling us you can see the thing is these are very deep philosophical concepts that difficult to understand but the reason i am talking about them um is because as young hindus and this is something that i've taken with myself to the uk and i've lived there for 17 years now it's almost going to be half my life next year that i have lived these concepts is that when we grow up as a hindu in our heart we feel a draw towards this culture in our heart as children we feel that we want to bow our head we feel that there's a connect we feel that this is real but then as we grow up it looks kind of weird and it looks like people ask you questions also what is this you know there's a tree and you have put some sindhu on that tree and you're saying that is your bhagavan and you're boing the bowing down there what is this yo bhagwan is on the road people will ask you


bhagwan is on the road people will ask you this people say why are you kawa worshipers they say why why are you worshiping monkeys and elephants and all of that through the study of the scriptures we realize just how deep a philosophy has gone it has gone into the depths of what is it to be human it has gone into the depths of you know where does my waking state come from what do i emerge into what is life what is death and in order to make that accessible it has given it various forms that are basically created for my individual conditioning this is the greatness of hinduism and that's why i talk about these concepts so that young hindus can understand that they are not just part of a random religion with a random set of stories but all of these stories are connected to an individual reality and that individual reality is accessible in our hearts and we should be proud of being part of this religion not because we are necessarily greater than anyone else


not because we are necessarily greater than anyone else no but because it is something with which we can break any and every limitation let's speak a little bit more though what's down there oh what's up there or is it directionless is it everywhere any experience comes from something and merges into something underlying any experience is a reality any plant is born in soil grows in soil seeds the soil with its fruits and flowers ultimately dies into the soil that state that soil is the state of turia from which everything emerges and everything then dissolves into one way we can call turya in english is consciousness god yes of course ultimately it is god but god is a loaded word people have one like aspect of god yeah see when i say god firstly god is not a sanskrit word it is not a word that is indigenous to vedic when we say god it creates lots of different images in different people's minds and the reality is it creates trauma in some people's minds


is it creates trauma in some people's minds because they have had traumatic experiences associated with the word god so if we are saying turya am i saying that there's an underlying reality to everything that is a divine reality that divine reality manifests itself as bhagavan in the unmanifest state it is brahman in our hearts it's paramatma so when you perform an home chanting based meditation you just sit in one place and you just go oh yeah that's the first kind of meditation i ever encountered in life and it was incredible to begin there you know like oh and this is not this is when i ate lots of meat drank lots of alcohol smoked lots of weed you know like everything was on in my life at 22. and just introducing home chanting into my life was a great first meditation experience and every time i'd do it for 20 minutes or half an hour it would put me definitely into a higher stage of consciousness like when i opened my eyes colors


stage of consciousness like when i opened my eyes colors were more saturated yeah life was slower yeah um you know my mind was happier et cetera everything was nicer what was actually happening on a metaphysical level was my consciousness connecting to the puria yeah that's what was happening what ended up happening firstly so you are connecting with a live wire okay yeah so you are energized by it it's like it's like touching a spoon too yeah you are energized by you are going close to a fire you are going to experience heat but actually when we look at it there is the surya status in all of our is inside all of us as paramatma it's around all of us as brahman what is preventing us experiencing it what is preventing is that i believe that i am home as in this body this person who works in banking in the uk you believe that you are what ends up happening is in those moments of chanting my identity as my identity


those moments of chanting my identity as my identity as ranveer becomes less it does not dissolve it becomes less and when it becomes less i am able to experience the live wire energy of the underlying curiosity or underlying divine reality in a more uninterrupted way and that's why i come out of that meditation more energized okay um was it also the sound of the big bang see in the new testament in the bible it is said in the beginning there was the word and the word was with god and the word was god the word was with god and the word was god so yes there are multiple different philosophies completely separate from hinduism also believe that there was a sound and there was a vibration and you know there was a uh there was only the sound and vibration at the point of creation so yes in our scripture the sound that first created from a potential energetic state to a kinetic and manifest energetic state that blow out the sound that that process created was


that blow out the sound that that process created was home and at that time because there was nothing else apart from that sound and that process that was the entirety and still today as the universe expands its own home the concept the sound the energy the vibration whatever you want to call it that alone is expanding they say that any soul born in india actually the last page of autobiography yogis speaks about that any soul which is born in india or that visits india for a prolonged amount of time is experiencing this material life from a spiritual perspective and the um conditions in india favorable to a spiritual inclination in life india is a truly blessed land why india is a truly blessed learn is because for millennia there has been an uninterrupted process of self-realization that has been taking place in this land as well as been supported by society in this land the full scale infrastructure for self-realization has been created right from scripture to places of experience which


been created right from scripture to places of experience which you may call temples the doors of the to open the mind um ashrams where we can go and get ashrae which you can get dressed and shelter um from the worldly experience this entire infrastructure has been created and sustained in india yogis from all over the world have come to india and pursued this now it's worth saying that there might have been other parts of the world where this happened undoubtedly they have spiritual places all over the world but a sustained uninterrupted land where this has happened over thousands of years there's only one and as a slight digression but i want to make this point because it's the 75th year of indian independence and sometimes people ask me like yes yes you're but you're all about spirituality why care about india isn't just the 75th year of indian independence a political thing uh and yes of course it is a political thing because it's you know the state of india is


because it's you know the state of india is now celebrating its 75th year but without getting into the politics of the day we have to recognize that there is only one state called india which is there to protect this spiritual infrastructure there are other states to protect other spiritual infrastructures i'm not reigning on anyone else i'm just saying that there is a entity in law that is built and that has been built around this culture and that is the only thing that's protecting it and yes if it's reached its 75th year then as indians it is our responsibility to use the direction that the scriptures give us to advance not just what a great country india can become materially and bring the light that we can bring to the rest of the world materially but also spiritually and to keep this as a space where people from other lands can also come and feel the touch of divinity mr matkar this is just going to go on deeper and deeper spirals about the meaning of life yeah


and deeper spirals about the meaning of life yeah which is why i'll do exactly what i believe ancient indians did yeah when you want to capture philosophies and concepts within ideas that are easily understandable for the human mind you do it through characters and that's actually my inclination to doing this particular episode with you for a better understanding of everything from shiva to krishna to ganesh to mata energy yes and maybe i'll put hanuman there okay like i've given you five names yeah and let's go over maybe let's begin with krishna yeah like why do these characters and these concepts exist in sanadandaram when we know that the actual goal within sanadandaram is getting past the maya or the bulok that we're in what are these characters are they like flag posts are they pools of energy are they actual beings that existed in history before us uh how do you look at these things i see them as different uh doorways to the divine that's how i see them based on my


divine that's how i see them based on my scriptural study and there's different schools of philosophy or rather the specific school of philosophy that i have studied but we have to ask ourselves who is krishna and who is ganesha and who is shiva and what do these images and who is devi and what do these images convey to us yeah the beautiful thing is without even intellectualizing it each of these beings means something to us and we have a associated experience of them and we can take inspiration from them for what they stood for for what they've stood for and what they've done in their lives what they've been able to manifest ganesha was the did you know that ganesha was the person who was the first stenographer of the mahabharata when veda bhagavan vedhyas conceived of the mahabharat he needed a stenographer someone who would write it down who had the capacity to write down such a great epic such a great story that had such amazing characters and such great development


story that had such amazing characters and such great development but also such spiritual depth he's like who am i going to find he went to brahmaji and brahmaji said the only person who's going to be able to do this is ganesha so ganesha he then meditated on ganesha and ganesh appeared in front of him and he said okay you know um i've got this composition in my head i need someone to write it down so ganesha said okay i'll write it down for you but only one condition the one condition is that you shouldn't stop the moment you stop and i put my pen down that's it i'm not gonna start again you shouldn't stop reciting yeah so you make sure that you have conceived it fully in your head before you open your mouth so vedia she was fine i'll do it but i have one counter condition that you ganesha can only write down that which you have fully understood if you have not fully understood the depth of philosophical meaning to its final final


the depth of philosophical meaning to its final final final degree you can't write it down so then she was like deal then the recitation of the mahabharata started and ganesha was writing writing writing writing broke off his tusk and started to use that that's why he's called you know and he started writing it then what used to happen is that when vedivas used to talk about it ganesha was understanding and writing it down immediately so we just didn't have time to breathe so he was running out of breath so then vedra started to introduce deeper philosophical context that would allow a concepts rather that would allow ganeshi to pause and think about and give him a moment to breathe so in and through the mahabharat which is a story there are great deep philosophical texts embedded in that yeah so if you were to say who was the first student of the bhagavad-gita after it was written who understood the entire deep meaning it was recited by shri krishna on the


it was recited by shri krishna on the battlefield but it was first understood by ganesha he's the first student and then you are saying okay well what is the difference then between the lord who recited and the one who understood it and understood it fully in the heart well how can we say that there's that much of a difference um we spoke about ganesha we spoke about hanumanji and i think this is a whole podcast in itself which is why i'm not probing too much i'm not taking it on deeper tangents but um the question is i think the question remaining now is uh shiva and devi energy right what is this and this is you know like shiva and deviante both are energies i encountered later on in life i was never drawn to them when i was a kid i was always drawn to hanumanji krishna ganpathi and as i grew up i started getting dreams of shiva i started having experiences at mata temples it just forced


started having experiences at mata temples it just forced its way into my life yeah why shiva the word shiva itself means pure and anything in its pure state has no attributes has no conditioning to it so in the same way we say consciousness without any conditioning is pure consciousness that is a representation of shiva shivji is variously believed to be some people say they have used the phrase an alien i.e not of this planet inter-dimensional being correct those are phrases that have been used they have said uh you know there's and they are these are credible things i'm not denying them i am saying it this is from perspective from someone who doesn't know everything that i am just recounting what i have read he's known as adiogi the first yogi all all experienced or the entire science of self-realization has been first expounded by shiva so various various people have said many many things about shiva but in its ultimate sense the word shiva means pure yeah now shiva is in my understanding in


pure yeah now shiva is in my understanding in my intellectual understanding having had some experience of shiva and having studied a little bit shiva's in my understanding is pure energy but in the potential state to activate the kinetic state you need devi energy that's why they are seen together and in some forms like ardha nareshwar they are seen as one so to go from potential to kinetic to go from shiva you need shakthi that's why they come together um it is said that shiva deposited his knowledge in centers across the country one major one is kailash it is said that shiva manifested as a pillow of light that was visible in 12 places across the country that's known as jyotirlinga jyoti means flame linga means form so uh shiva has a deep history with india deep association with india and [Music] we are fortunate as people who are born in this country even though some of us might not live in this country anymore to be touched by a land


this country anymore to be touched by a land where shiva has set foot why should you pray to shiva versus praying to krishna does it have different effects in your life do the mantras bring varied effects yeah i think see the thing is we have to pursue a path of authentic evolution yeah if you're on the spiritual path we can do it for two or three different reasons i want to influence i want to sit in front of you on me and influence you and get you to do what what i want you can use the knowledge for that purpose but how long will it serve us how long will it serve us and are we making good use of this opportunity or we can say i've come into this world i have experienced happiness from point to point now i want to experience uninterrupted happiness what must start finish both over here but i am at this point here at this point the representation of the lord that most appeals to me is krishna and i will authentically


to me is krishna and i will authentically start worshiping krishna it's just based on your subjective reality depends on where you are in the process and many people have been led from one deity to another and your issue changes as your life progresses it can happen it has happened is it fair to think that when you want to move from [Music] material success or you know fame and these kind of things to detachment you shift from krishna to shiva energy no shiva so krishna his whole life demonstrates detachment why why do you pray to krishna krishna appeared in a cell in a jail cell in mathura at the point of birth or not birth appearance at the point of appearance he was taken and carted away to some other place yeah and in um [Music] gokuldham he stayed for a period of time then everyone then for various reasons they had to move to gundam for vindha when he stayed over a period of time there with all his


stayed over a period of time there with all his gopas and gopis he played so many leelas but at some point he had to leave that and he had to go and then he went across and he had to perform the task of killing his uncle for the establishment of dharma he took he did what he needed to do then at one point he had to leave his entire kingdom and move his entire clan to the other side of the country which he did he then uh went and at one point he had to be the um catalyst in a war that was hugely destructive on earth at that point in time for the higher purpose and he did that then after 30 years after that war he had to witness his own clan destroying each other and then he exited his time on earth krishna did this whole thing with a smile on his face i don't know one person who will go through even one ounce of those challenges with a smile on their face and if this


with a smile on their face and if this is not detachment then i don't know what is in yogic philosophy they say that when you pray to a particular deity you start gaining character traits of that deity that's how my perception of these things is yeah so what are the character traits of krishna after you say all these things was your mentor was your warrior was he a king was he someone was detached like was he a recluse it was all of those things and more so anything you wish to become like he opens a possibility all possibilities are open to you versus shiva doing what also all possibilities but the thing is you know what see sometimes sometimes i am at a place where i want to go say from mumbai to pune right i want to go from mumbai to pune i might be right next to the airport in santa cruz in mumbai i might be right next to wherever the airport i want where i want to was right next to the airport and


i want to was right next to the airport and pulling now i'll take the flight and go then i'm maybe next to the train was most convenient take the train and then i'll take the train and go sometimes i might drive so this is the thing it's like wherever we are and where we want to get to that mean will take us to the destination yeah so we have to be authentic and true to our hearts and you say bye i am connected to to haruman and hanuman will uh take me and actually the deity that comes to us is the character traits that we want to manifest in that lifetime or that phase of or that phase of our lifetime and you know you end up having beautiful experiences through the pursuit and i have yes my devdas ganesha but i have with sincerity um worship all of these different forms all of these different divine energies or different manifestations of the divine and i've had beautiful experiences with them in hampi in south india and karnataka there


in hampi in south india and karnataka there is a hill anjanae drahil which is known as the birthplace of hanuman now there are some some people say it's in your nasty some people say it's that please i don't know all of that but um when i went there one day when i was going to hampi this is some nearly 10 years ago now you know we all that four of us school friends were there for a holiday and i saw i knew that this temple existed and i wanted to go and have darshan there my friends were asleep 4 30 in the morning i woke up reached around 5 5 15 and a half you know and um at that time there was no one there there were some stalls on the you know uh at the foot of the hill they were shut there were no vendors there were nothing there were two dogs there were two dogs in the darkness they saw me approaching and they started running towards the car and i thought okay boss there are


towards the car and i thought okay boss there are two dogs they're going to jump on the car they're going to be aggressive miranda i got around the car they were so happy this person has come and i'm i said okay well this is a sign and they started going ahead and looking back whether i'm there or not i started following them at that time this was like 5 5 15 pitch darkness before sunrise you go in there and these two dogs are guiding me and then you get to a point where they've painted the steps yeah this is literally steps cut into a rock taking you to the top of the hill one point the reach there the dogs diverged to the other side yeah away from the uh away from the path so i was like okay the dogs have got me to this point and let me follow them for a bit whether they took me there was a samadhi what does that mean samadhi is a memorial in this context is a memorial to a spiritual being typically what ends up


memorial to a spiritual being typically what ends up happening is whether spiritual being either was cremated or actually in hinduism if someone has attained self-realization we don't cremate we uh marry so that was i don't know what specifically had happened here but the samadhi was there so uh we have grown up in the concept of having a guru and being at a samadhi so i knew that there's some great being over here powered my hand did a parikrama i went around it once there was some dirt over there cleaned it up there was a bit on the side put it in the bin tied it up and thanked you know just thank them for bringing me to them for whatever reason i didn't know i went and by that time i turned around the two dogs are disappeared that and not they were not magical they were there why weren't they magic they had but they had left they had left the scene in that period of time and by that time sufficient light had risen


time and by that time sufficient light had risen that the path was illumined on its own when after after that experience went up the hill and you go up there anjali adrihill there are points where you have to literally crawl under the rock to get to the other side because again this is not a man-made temple with you know parking lot and arranged everything this is you are going through a process and you're going through a little bit of hardship to get to go get to the sauce went up there it was so beautiful like the temple hadn't even opened yet and i went and i was like yeah there was the deity wasn't visible so i sat there and i started meditating at that time one young priest was there he was clear he was he was going to say you you actually started because a lot of people go there as a sunrise point so they'll go and watch the sunrise and hump you over there i had gone there to do hanumanji darshan there there were then two


to do hanumanji darshan there there were then two sadhus not the pundits there were two sadhus they said to the partners i finished my meditation and then they offered me a cup of tea there was one samadhi who's this and this was the original sadhu used to be at this point i know happiness the cave in which he lived he used to come up here and used to offer worship here via his students you know so now it could be a tale of complete coincidence and this is not something that i recount too much because again these stories then become like oh it's a bit fantastical and this and that but this is a true occurrence and nothing supernatural has taken place one could say it was an entirely coincidence it was entirely coincidence that two dogs found me entirely took coincidence that they got very happy entirely coincidence that they led me up a hill in the darkness entirely coincidence that the um sadhu stopped the pandith from


that the um sadhu stopped the pandith from throwing me out of the place entirely coincidental from the goodness of the heart that they gave me some tea but somewhere you have to if your heart is full of love and you've gone there for a purpose you have to see the divine connection from all of these that hanumanji was there and he made all of this happen and he gave me a beautiful version for him so who is to say that harumanji doesn't exist yeah who is to say that we're not going to do ten more part cases you know ranveer i find this really funny because you you are someone i know someone who i've seen from a long time you are someone who might deeply respect you are someone whom i admire as well uh i think what you have been able to achieve is phenomenal and you have had some really great people in this seat and i am really blessed to be in the same space as so many great spiritual masters who have come


space as so many great spiritual masters who have come before me and said some amazing things i knew you from my childhood and i remember every conversation i had with you when i was a kid i've told you the story 100 times already but i'd say to the audience like i always wanted to i don't know whether i wanted to have elder brothers in life have elder teammates in life or learn from older people and you were always like one of those people ever since like the first time i saw you like in life so for me this particular episode is just a material tick mark also that i've done something with home so that's the honest perspective but in saying that there's not been a single conversation with you we've not given me data points that absolutely mess up my head in a positive way so i just wanted to mess up the audience with me today that's all good well i really hope that they have gained something and i really hope if anything else that they have gained a


really hope if anything else that they have gained a deeper understanding of the higher reality that our sarathan culture represents if they are sarathanis may they go deeper and deeper and if they are not may they at least use this as an entry point the so has to get to know you it's just started getting to know you through this episode but uh i'm waiting to create a lot more podcast with you so thank you brother thank you i hope you had fun i had a great time awesome so that was the episode for today everybody i hope you enjoyed it if you stuck around till this point it probably means that your mind is bent and that was our intention with this episode remember if episodes like this get too heavy for you you can always follow all the highlights of every single episode including content that doesn't make it to the final cut of the podcast on our youtube channel trs clips for highlights of the ranvi show lots more coming up with now i'd love to know in


more coming up with now i'd love to know in the comment section what you guys would like us to unpack with this man he's someone who's a lifelong learner he's someone who has hoards of knowledge just packed into his mind he's someone who i turn to when it comes to philosophical questions and i'm glad i could bring him and introduce him to our audience on trs this was only our first episode with om for more episodes just like this make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world lots more coming up on trs [Music] oh [Music]


i want to ask you when there's a whole stadium looking down to you this whole country kind of observing you and then you lose at the highest level what does that do to your human experience so you feel bad but then you have the opportunity to bounce back in two days time see the advantage of playing all the time is mandego you have to go through that cycle i believed in certain style of playing and that's how i picked players you know i had a great bunch of senior players also sachin rahul vbs champion plays what is next for the ipl we have increased two more teams this year it's 10 now what about the women's ipl it's happening next year okay yeah we are in the process of getting it ready i don't want to make this intro too long what i will say and this is primarily for regular listeners of our podcast this was an extremely emotional podcast for me and you will know why when you actually begin listening to the episode as a media professional i'm


begin listening to the episode as a media professional i'm trained not to fanboy over my guests but a part of me couldn't help it with today's guest because he's had that kind of an impact on my life lots to unpack with this legend of the indian cricket team i hope my questions were able to bring out a side of this man that the internet doesn't know about today he's one of my absolute idols in life he's taught me everything i know about leadership everything that i apply in my own startups comes from his autobiography which is called a century is not enough a book that i highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about leadership especially if you're a cricket fan for more episodes like this remember we've shot with glenn mcgrath brettly dwayne bravo already lots more qriket episodes coming up follow us on spotify versus spotify exclusive which means that every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this podcast was powered by


else in the world this podcast was powered by dreamsetco and without further ado this is my idol sword of gangoli on prs [Music] it is one of my life's biggest honors is talking to you thank you for being here thank you thank you for having me thank you to dream set go for making this happen before we begin i have a personal story uh i've not done my higher education in life i've just done my engineering and at an airport once my mom had called me she said why are you not doing your mba you know you got to do it what is this youtube career and i was in a bookstore and i picked up this book and this book gave me my higher education in life i read it oh wow in that flight is it are you serious yes sir like i was a two person team and we've expanded to like 180 people now and i swear to god i've reread this book thrice four times in my life that's what i wanted to tell you oh thank


life that's what i wanted to tell you oh thank you so uh picked up too much from this everything from visualization to aggression but most of all like leadership like you are my mba i'm not even making that up and that's this is this podcast is the most important for me in my whole career so just want to say thank you to you firstly thank you how are you sir good going along how's life how's it feeling life's good life's good life's busy but i think it's better to be busy than not to be okay why do you say that i know that's the way i feel you know you you work uh you know you get to do things which you which you want to do i think that's most important in life okay you know you get an opportunity to do things which you want to do actually so you've played cricket all my life sports is the most important thing and we are fortunate in india that you know this game gives you opportunities to be involved in different


gives you opportunities to be involved in different ways and still make a career so it's been good what's it like being at such a high level in the bcc where now you're like kind of i don't call puppet master but you're sort of you know behind the stadium now yeah i've seen both the both the sides player captain player and now somebody who looks after the administrative side of the game so i've seen the complete circle and it's great actually playing was more fun because it was a lot more challenging you know you wake up every morning to to to be become a good player and and get those runs and by evening you're either successful or not successful every other thing you get an opportunity to correct it but cricket is real time and game time so that was a lot more challenging a lot more satisfying a lot more skillful obviously this is different this has its own own way of you know giving back to the sport because i think administration in sport is very


the sport because i think administration in sport is very important and i think the reason why india is is so ahead of the other countries is because over the years the administrative part for the game has been very good um and we sense that you're taking it forward we're all cricket fans in the house and uh we're noticing everything you've done as well and you know when we kind of feel that it's in dada's hands we we know that the future is all set yeah we try and do through the best we can for the players and you know me being a player i understand the player psychology a lot and obviously i'm a bit weak towards players because because i've played this sport myself and but you know the players make the game different generations players make the game in football there's a club called bayern munich which is only run by former players and that club has won i think the bundesliga title for the last 10 12 years that's the reason that players know how to manage players the


the reason that players know how to manage players the best yeah and i think india is getting into a trend where players are involved in administration now and which is a good thing actually because administration involves both managing the office and also on the ground so i think experience is very important now i have to ask a very transparent question so i'm not trying to make this rude but it was something i always wondered especially after i read this book that uh i sense that you carried your career forward with a lot of aggression like aggression was a very active part of your career and i loved it it's actually something i gained from the book that you need to have that certain sense of bite you need to be like a tiger where does all that aggression go after i think you know i am i am what do you see now is the person i am okay what you saw on the ground was was a creation to be successful and get the team going i'm a very laid back person in


team going i'm a very laid back person in life quiet soft i hardly get angry i hardly shouted people so that that is the real me even when i was playing even when i was playing but when i went on to the field maybe pressure maybe expectations maybe the uh maybe knew though the the want to succeed want to get a team up and going [Music] probably saw that side of me but as a person i'm i'm not that at all burden of leadership did you ever feel no it wasn't a burden i don't think i don't see i don't see responsibilities put on you in life as a burden i see it as an opportunity how many get an opportunity to bat number three for india you know how many get an opportunity to captain india for 250 games you know every so many play so for me it's not a burden it's an opportunity and uh and and a great opportunity actually when some when i started playing at the age of 14 if somebody


i started playing at the age of 14 if somebody said yeah you'll be captain for 250 games at some stage of your career so it's an opportunity i see everything is an opportunity when you when you you know i played the best fast bowlers in the world the best spinners in the world so the two ways of looking at it you think it as a pressure why me or or you look at it it's me try me yeah and i'll stand up and it's it's for yourself not for anybody else yeah you know when you when you get into at 9 30 in the morning against an attack of mcgrath warren gillespie and lee and when you finish at 4 30 betting 100 there's no better satisfaction than that um i gotta keep going back to this book because i have so many personal questions from it uh at the start of your career i feel like you were this guy the person you are right now a little calm little quiet introverted and people were mean to you like there were


introverted and people were mean to you like there were people who kind of that will always happen early in your career and it was like you're seniors and what i gained is you corrected that in the dressing room you know to your juniors you were much nicer that had happened to me so much like in my life you know pre-reading this book there was lots of people who are mean but you and me are not the only one as it happens to everyone many majority but not everyone kind of takes it forward becomes the captain and changes things up yeah that's what that's where character comes in and i think that's where understanding of the game comes in understanding of the situation comes in okay yeah um you know what i strongly believe and this is coming as a media professional is that the cricket captain of the country actually sets the tone for an entire generation and it's not an exaggeration saying that yeah it does because this is such a huge spot and and and you


this is such a huge spot and and and you get an opportunity to do it there's a lot of pressure also a lot of expectations everybody everybody right from the person who cooks at your home till the chairman of selectors and and them and the topmost position in the media is evaluating you how good you were how bad you were catching up defense everybody has an opinion so it makes even more difficult but then you know it's professional jobs high pressure jobs it also depends on how you put aside the outside world away from you and and focus on your game you have to be you have to have this huge nature of walk in [Music] do your job if it works and you succeed nothing like it if it doesn't succeed you need to have the heart to just walk away that is very important all the heart to bounce back yeah you cannot just get affected by by what's happening around you how did you bounce back in that phase where you were dropped like it's there in the book but


were dropped like it's there in the book but i want to actually get to the core of it like at night i had too much faith on me you know and that's what got me going the best thing what this game has done is is is for myself is gave me enormous faith in my ability even even when you were at the peak of your saddle yeah you backed yourself keep put me in a position i'll find my way so that's what this that's what success does to everyone actually everyone won't be successful every time all the time you'll have failures but the best succeed more number of times yeah is that what separates like the top talent in the world like the mental side of the game that's why you succeed at the top level you know the mental side of life is most important game life work business is most important because you do what you think isn't it yeah it's not the other way around so and if you think good about yourself you do good you know speaking


good about yourself you do good you know speaking about dreams that go a little bit i've heard you're also a manchester united fan yeah i'm a football fanatic okay and i'm born in calcutta you know when i was young when i was 13 14 i used to study in since school which was right in the center of the city and the football grounds were very close man pagani bengal finish school at three take a bus and get to four o'clock start watch watch the game back home and i did that for a long period of time did you play i did what was your position i you know when i was in senzivia school and i don't know whether it happens in bombay but it happens in calcutta that they have these inter jesuit school tournaments so all the senzavias don bosco loyola saint augustines they have a tournament and it was on height so you started c division b division a division so as you grew taller you went from one division to the other


taller you went from one division to the other so i actually played from class 5 to class 10 all levels of football because calcutta was a football city till qriket took over so i knew how to kick a football where did you play on the pitch i started at the striker when i was young because the senior boys took the responsible position at the half line and the defense line and then they kept pushing me back when i then they realized that i had the skills to play so they kept pushing me back how does it feel watching manchester united bounce back i love it i actually go i actually go all the time and watch whenever i'm in england i remember in 2018 2018 it was two degrees in manchester and they were playing it was an important game for them and they were playing i think i think bournemouth bournemouth at home and i drove three hours to watch it i have not seen anything colder than that and anything windier than that but that didn't stop me from


windier than that but that didn't stop me from getting up to manchester and watch the game and i don't know whether you've been to a manchester game or not when you get to ultra and i used to live in old trafford when i played for lancashire i had a season of county cricket with lancashire so if this was my flat that that pole was the old trafford stadium so you could actually see old trafford written outside so every saturday sunday i used to just jump over and go because the clubs the cricket and the football had to tie up a lancashire account degree club at old trafford and i used to go so i remember that day in 2018 and and and when you when you enter old trafford you will not realize there's a game happening it's not like india the beast kilometers so there it was different in a stadium it had 80 000 people i think 70 000 that's the capacity and from outside you won't know there's a game happening


outside you won't know there's a game happening until you enter so i parked my car at selfish keys and walked up walked up watch the game and the moment the match finishes 15 minutes you will not know whether there is a game happening there you know that's the way it works and and if you watch a manchester game they're obsessed with the team and you'll have young boys and girls young of maybe your age the senior ones my age and they would sit at the back and it's a running commentary going on they're so involved and they're so knowledgeable it's a running commentary going on so you know i've seen games like from the penalty box if a manchester united player pushes the ball back towards the goal their half the people shouting at the back get it forward get it forward that's how they look their footballers you know it's there's somebody playing in the middle and there is 50 000 playing in the stands so i've been to enough cricket games i know


so i've been to enough cricket games i know that in cricket stadiums i don't know that because i don't for a long period of time i've never sat in the stands to to see what people think about cricket i will tell you because i've watched you live when you were playing anything with pune warriors um and it's i the only thought you have as a spectator is this is very high pressure for the players i want to ask you when there's a whole stadium looking around you this whole country kind of observing you and then you lose at the highest level what does that do to your human experience you get used to pressure but what does it do in the night of losing you feel bad but then you have the opportunity to bounce back in two days time see the advantage of playing all the time is monday you are your last result and and that's what professional sport is ghirar uttar jita hara you have to go through that cycle and that's what you go through but did


that cycle and that's what you go through but did you ever have any like kind of mental angles for a game to strengthen yourself mentally or did you have like really rough phases no i had yeah everybody has mentally like on the inside yeah sometimes when i wouldn't get runs and it's happened in careers you know you feel kia single i remember a tour of pakistan in pakistan and come to india in 2004. i didn't know where to get a run from i remember the day before the bangalore test we trained in the morning we practiced and we fin i was captain we finished the meeting and and i was sitting in my room i was just too nervous so john called me up and said let's have dinner at eight o'clock i confirmed at four o'clock that he was the coach he will have dinner so seven o'clock i was i just felt so nervous about the game i told him let's cancel dinner i'm going for a run he said run i said


i'm going for a run he said run i said yes i said i can't sit in my room i need to get out of this so i ran for 45 minutes so you have all this like that was your system no exercise no how i exercise you had to how did you have to stay fit to be at that level so exercise was a regular part but this is just out of nervousness how did you figure dealing with that nervousness on a regular basis you have to deal and it's a cycle if you play well the confidence takes care of it if you don't play well uh you know the negative thoughts keep coming and you have to handle it you know and the best way to do is is is you keep thinking about the good times you had what you did when you played well what you did when you got 100 i used to have a small note in my kit bag i used to stick it up at the top when i played well when i got a test match 100 what i did my


i got a test match 100 what i did my routines for the week before even what time i ate even what i ate when i went to the gym how many balls i hit in the nets so psychologically it get it made you feel that i've done everything what i did to be successful last time so is bar be successful over its routines so the way i look at hard work and preparation and dedication to any craft is that hard work is accounted for by the universe and it pays off in the long term in terms of even now the hard work is up to you yeah but it pays off even after your craft it will pay off sometimes even after working hard you will fail but that will not be for long i'm talking about even now so like it's been a while like since you know you stopped playing cricket actively and you're still so much in the public eye and i say this because in media the constant fight for relevance like actors media personalities have to always do things but we


actors media personalities have to always do things but we as athletes don't do don't look for it actually yeah man and we are fortunate that we played a very popular sport and played it successfully so i think it's not just me but even many of my generation sachin rahul bbs they're all they're all relevant and active and and because cricket has become so big in this country you get different ways to remain attached with the game it's the ipl you know it's the national team it's your state team and it keeps you relevant you know there's also a big fight for brands like with content creators and influencers there's always like this kind of hunt for brands and the thing is when you've put in so many years of hard when you're a legend of your own industry the brands come chasing um and i wanna actually ask you again about this collaboration but that is what you that is what you that is not what you play for yeah you know it's a it's a byproduct of being successful


know it's a it's a byproduct of being successful so the focus is is to be successful in what you do whether it's your job my job any job and the rest follows the the bigger job has to be the game the other is a byproduct why do you tie up with dreams that go you know because i have seen cricket very closely i've seen football very closely i've been to menu i've been to chelsea and i've actually been because i make sure i go me and my daughter are both obsessed with football so and even when i'm not in uk my daughter is traveling up to watch menu he did that she did that i did i remember it was an india pakistan game in the in the t20 world cup last time and manny were playing on that same day india lost here man you lost there and man you were i think given a four-nil four-nil drawing and my daughter was at the ground because she studies there and i was in dubai dubai watching the


and i was in dubai dubai watching the india pakistan game so painful day yeah my sports is never painful it's upsetting it's never painful because again monday you lose as i said thursday you have a time to get get back and beat them it's just how you recover so so i've seen i've seen how fans are looked after in that part of the world it's different you know i've been to football matches where i've seen evacuations at its best you know if 80 000 people walk into the ground 80 000 people are evacuated after the ground after the game and and it happens so smoothly so for me and we want to bring that to cricket as well we've managed to ipl has managed to bring their professionalism fan experience is most important you know i'll tell you a story even and in in 2000 i used to go and watch my new play and they had beckham they had school it was a great side they had ryan giggs they had alex ferguson they had


ryan giggs they had alex ferguson they had dwight york playing for them and and every saturday game if it's a three o'clock game they would come to the ground at 11 and there were people designated today three of them every time whether it's beckham scholes and uh i think rooney was also there or maybe rooney not dwight york or somebody else if other players were as good so they would come and interact with fans they had to get into the ground early get ready meet fans outside sign autographs take pictures for 45 minutes before a game come rest and get get on to a game you know england has this culture of having stalwarts in hospitality boxes it happens in cricket it happens in football you know you go to a menu box now you might see alex ferguson to come out to spend some time with fans and people because they actually make the game yes you know they actually make the game you see the thousands of supporters standing outside a menu stadium when you


of supporters standing outside a menu stadium when you lose and when they don't have a good season there with placards they actually influence who's the coach who's the player who's the captain they're so strong and and giving them the best experience for sport is very very important and i've seen that in football you know it's a day out for them you you go to a menu game the game starts at six o'clock in the evening but the fans are involved from 12 in the afternoon they are brought in they are put in hotels lunch is ready for them then they're driven to the ground put in their boxes with hospitality food with a stalwart speaking about the game and it's an experience for a day which is remarkable and i think that culture is also coming to india to indian sport and you found your heart in this product yeah and i know it's it's it's heart and and it's and i think it's the right way to treat fans yeah also sports is kind of the


to treat fans yeah also sports is kind of the craze generally is increasing more people are there's no better thing in life than sports it's been my biggest teacher in life and the older for everybody it's not just you there's no nothing bigger in the world than sports and it's not cricket it's football it's hockey it's swimming you look at australian sport you know it's not just cricket you go to england cricket is not the main sport football is the main sport you know you go to usa 10 teams or 15 teams play that baseball it's the richest sport in the world the nfl so there's nothing better than sports in life speaking about usa do you think what america is for the nba india is becoming for cricket because that's what bhashankar said he said that they're capable of creating four five high quality national teams yeah right now and uh it's kind of becoming it is the hub of cricket internationally the the angle here is so when like in


internationally the the angle here is so when like in 2003 2004 it wasn't really this we were very strong but i feel your team made it strong that's the narrative i think you also have to give to credit to the generation before i think cricket in india just boomed with the 1983 world cup win you know i was 10 year old then i remember that night in kolkata it was raining india won that world cup nobody will leave them to win it did you see 83 i saw did you like it i liked it and i can tell you every every event of that final because i was obsessed with cricket and that's what changed the sport uh brought people to the sport you know when i started in 96 not one stand would be empty in india and it's continued to be that and it'll continue to be look what ipl does yeah you know you just it's just all over feel free not to answer this again it's a personal question but uh what is next for the ipl because


question but uh what is next for the ipl because there's a lot of cricket fans who would love to see it in an nba style league you know with lots of teams etc we have increased two more teams this year it's 10 now do you think about the problem is the window okay you know there's the international cricket happening which is not the case with nba so there's an indian team as well which go which goes around the world playing cricket there are bilaterals their tests their international t20s so at the moment it cannot go beyond that period what would you like to see as a fact i think this is a good balance okay and there's no more better honor than playing for the country what about the women's ipl it's happening next year okay yeah we are in the process of getting it ready okay um i have to ask you a bunch of these kind of cricket fan questions uh which i've always dreamt of asking you firstly are you i mean you don't acknowledge this


firstly are you i mean you don't acknowledge this enough and there's actually these conversations that come up about you in cricket fan circles that's so much about 2007 and 2011 world cup wins were because of you and specifically you like the kind of mentoring you gave to all these people yuvraj yeah but you know during my tenure uh we played all the world cup finals in a 2001 final 2000 2002 final 2003 final all of them we were in the finals and we kept losing i remember you know new zealand first in 2001 i got 100 in that final in nairobi we were we got 270 and new zealand were 50 for five and we lost in 2002 that time we didn't have the t20 world cup so we used to have the champions trophy champions trophy final against sri lanka we beat everyone and the final got rained off sri lanka got 210 and we were in a great position the match got rained off 2003 we beat everyone and lost to australia


off 2003 we beat everyone and lost to australia in the final so the only difference between 2003 and 2000 2001 2 3 and 7 and 11 was that we did not win the last game so the team was good yeah the team was good to go to the distance but just didn't get that final line which happened in seven and happened in 11 so the players were already in that mindset of getting to world cup finals getting to world cup finals and and when you keep going someday you will get past what do you think you did right as a captain in that dressing room with and what do you think you did right in mentoring also get the place right uh get the attitudes right get the attitudes right uh uh you know get the atmosphere right the work ethics right can you explain these things a little more attitude atmosphere you know you i believed in certain style of playing and that's every team loses there's not one team we'll keep winning but jizz you need


one team we'll keep winning but jizz you need to have that sort of place so maybe it was a bit of a gambling mindset so i believed in that mindset uv you know i had a great bunch of senior players also sachin rahul vbs champion plays anil harbhajan came in so i create created the team it wasn't it was the it was a reflection of my mindset so they got they kept getting better and better because of talent i'm a huge believer that talent is only good with opportunity yeah there's so many good people around half of them don't even get an opportunity so that's the way it is and and i allowed them to express allowed them to be a part of the team and that happens by creating leaders and all of them were leaders in my team it's not just ganguly's team it's your team so stand up and deliver and it has such a huge impact on the nation so they became better they became confident the youth changed and they


better they became confident the youth changed and they reflected uh in the future games so you have to create 11 leaders yeah the thing is not everyone is built to be an international level cricketer or even like you know an athlete in general there's a lot that people like us gain from sport in terms of learning about life learning about the correct kind of mindsets so you did affect like the nation also as a whole are you aware of this or was there things you even thought of like the cultural impact you were having yeah i got to know it later but cricket has a cultural impact and it's it's such such a big sport in india it's like football in england did you did you learn things from other sports or other sports people back then and then bring it to the indian team wimbledon or something yes i learned a lot from cricket i learned learned a lot from from the better teams i played against in those days all teams were more or less capable australia was just a


were more or less capable australia was just a step ahead of the others there are some software teams now but in those generations there were not anything soft pakistan was brilliant sri lanka and australia west indies england south africa so there was not an easy game and you learnt a lot from their culture i never got into football dressing room so i really didn't i did not know how it worked but i've been to cricket dressing rooms for too long so i understood the mindset how was the dressing room energy of that very good big four batting lineup very good everybody everybody has their own way but every and everybody succeeded their own way you know in life and in sport i don't believe that it's my way or highway a leader the biggest biggest characteristics of a leader is to work with everyone their way and i did that empathy just to understand that person and let him express the way you cannot make a draft play like me or me play like drawback


a draft play like me or me play like drawback you ask savak to defend he'll be half the player or you ask dravid to not leave deliveries outside the of stump he'll be zero and you created an environment where everybody expressed the way they wanted to i think that's important are you still as into sports as you were generally yeah i love it are you really busy right now like do you have time for yourself at all i mean myself yeah okay yeah i take time out myself so i don't have i don't party i don't go out and i don't go out for dinners because i'm traveling so much my dinners are happening in the best hotels in the world so when i am not doing that i don't need to go if you had to go for a live sports experience somewhere in the world right now a man human city man city and and dream set go better gives me the best seats or i'm not with them anymore you have any current favorite players like


them anymore you have any current favorite players like in football yes i am pretty much the same as a lot of messi and ronaldo but watch out for this new brazilian this world cup um you know while we're speaking about brazil i have to dial it back to cricket once again um i know you shouldn't be comparing players to either but having said that yes sir my greatest is diego maradona why do you say that nobody comes close he's killed i've seen his i i've gone to nepali to watch him really yes how old are you i was young very young and and an entire i think which you're 90 91 92 yeah yeah so i was how old 20 in 1920 and i was in england so jumped over an entire city was on maradona yeah did you bring any of maradona's game elements to your own game not at all mentality he was mad i think so i couldn't have that mentality because i didn't have the skill okay you can only be


i didn't have the skill okay you can only be that when you have that skill so and the skill he had nobody had can i say that with everyone with due respect and i've watched football closely i watch messi i watch ronaldo i've watched rooney i've watched ziko i've watched socrates i've i've watched maradona i've watched burucha guy i've watched belay i've watched beckham beckham i've watched schools i've watched gigs i've watched socrates but no one like maradona [Music] i can have a whole day discussion on football with you sure i would love to in calcutta sometimes so um but if you had to summarize maradona in one sentence for like the generation that's never seen him because our reference point is messi ronaldo and now there's erling harland and mbappe these people but no one knows really what maradona genius that's all you'd say yeah absolute genius who's a cricket eq because he got things so easily done he felt


eq because he got things so easily done he felt everything was easy hmm okay kind of like messy but a little more crazy messy is a gentleman skilled skillful gentleman right but this man was over skilled maverick hmm while we're comparing messi and maradona i know it's kind of a bad thing to compare cricket players to each other but there are comparisons between you and where are kohli for being aggressive like they keep saying that i don't think that should be the that should be the comparison the comparison should be in terms of skill as a player yeah there are those comparisons yeah i think he's more skillful than i am okay we played in different generations we played a lot of cricket i played in my generation and he's going to continue playing and probably play more games than i did at the present moment i think i have played more than he has but he'll he'll get past that he's tremendous is cricket now become more difficult because of this whole


cricket now become more difficult because of this whole social media element and the level of scrutiny yes it was i think it's become a bit more hectic more busy coveted for the last two seasons had made it even tougher because of quarantines and and all the nonsense that went on for two years but but the rewards are as good so you don't mind it isn't it i i have a feeling you might have already given him some advice but i'm also asking no i don't get to see him that much i may be the president of the board but the poor guy is always traveling he's on the road all the time so you don't get to see them when you're under that kind of media scrutiny the way he is right now what do you tell a player like that because you've been there everybody has been under media scrutiny just the names keep changing over a period of time but also sometimes players are targeted so i remember when i was a kid like


targeted so i remember when i was a kid like you were getting targeted and used to break my heart you were the reason i got into cricket so it was like you were like one of my favorite but half of it i wouldn't get to know because i wouldn't read so much yeah we used to get together i would enter hotels and the first thing i would say at the reception boss don't put the newspaper under my door in the morning but now it's obviously a lot more social media everything on his on is on the computer on your phone and i think cricketers find a way to just shut that off what's your advice to a younger human just going through some sort of trauma which is similar to the trauma you went through i didn't go through any trauma i just had good days and bad days okay i just had pressure bit more pressure less pressure too much pressure so i don't don't consider it as a trauma and i think young people should also can also look


and i think young people should also can also look at it that way obviously i can say it now because i'm a bit more experienced but a young person just look at it as an opportunity and move on would you change anything in your career would you go and tell yourself anything at this stage with the experience you have now it's hindsight which is always easier i had to take decisions that particular moment do you do you feel like the younger cricketers you know coming up in ipl and they're playing so aggressively against international bowlers are they very different from your generation yeah the game is different the game has got faster shorter faster more sixes more boundaries not many deliveries left outside the of stump so the game's changed what's your advice to them in the world of glitz and glam we've had young cricketers come on the show who say that that's the biggest piece of advice they seek for how to handle the glitz in the glam just focus on the game just play


in the glam just focus on the game just play the game give your time to the game everything will be looked after preparation yeah that's in everything what's the meaning of life at this stage at this day after seeing everything you've seen after seeing that level of pressure fame cricket fame is way above bollywood fame i've just seen these are the two top cultural impact elements in our country crickets way above and crickets immortal in our country you've hit the pinnacle of that what does that do to your meaning of life you know firstly i'm very grateful that i have been able to go through this had the opportunity to do this all those who have given me opportunities thankful to them and you know i handle things a lot better with experience and that that's only going to come with experience don't ask a 20 year old boy to do what i'll do at 50. let him do what he does at 20 when he gets to 50 he'll learn hmm okay fair how are you so like


learn hmm okay fair how are you so like chill and humble now sir like i'm lazy i'm lazy to be lazy to be not chilled and and because when you when you look beyond things you try to do things which is not required to be done yeah as a young cricket fan when i'm reading this book sometimes i wish i was a young harbhajan or young being mentored by you are you young so do your best in that do you have any advice for the team for me no just just do your best in everything you do sorry sir this was an absolute honor uh i can't thank you enough like no matter how many thank yous i give you it's not going to be enough i want to thank you i want to thank dreamset go for making this happen do you have anything and make sure they take you to football that's that's the plan and probably go for some training sessions as well because that's what i've been promised yeah yeah they take you i'll also go