this particular one yeah but i know that you had this whole evolution after you know you you got established professionally you got into drag and like there was this whole kind of evolution that happened yeah so run us through that like what do you have to say about the evolution of the hair that has happened this is the problem with people who have curly hair they'll get me because you come looking like all nice soft like nice intense like this curls and now it looks like a you know what it looks like it looks like a tree no no i'm a shrub yeah well well i think it would just be part of your furniture no no i think i think you've you've got people you can put me in this glass i think it's all your words and the vibe that's already gripped to people they'll think that is no no it's looking good it's looking good it's it's again like i love how you're just like laying out everything yeah i mean it's better to be honest


everything yeah i mean it's better to be honest um this is a natural phenomenon yeah it you laid out so much that you know i've laid out two intense parts of my life one is the durgama story and one is scratching out an a only [Laughter] how you now be a tricep oh man oh my god i still it was stupid but you know it got me the attention of that girl so oh you now that then you it's a win-win man okay let's let's talk about that evolution because um i've heard so much of your about your career from our common friend nandini who's going to co-host this show very soon yeah she is she's too cute she's been like you know behind me to kind of you know do this and do that and you know she's she i used to look at her like a baby yeah so therefore you're also like for me baby okay for me anybody who's my my friend's younger sibling and their friends are like children like i


sibling and their friends are like children like i even if you're a year younger than i am i feel very motherly i feel like i have to take care of you i have to protect you from the evils in you know out there so for me i think nothing is a baby i remember her being like this very playful very and her older brother and i were friends so when we used to go to her house to play and you know he used to be don't touch my toys like i used to feel so bad i used to give her like this like you play with him like that by him being so mean to her so but yeah no but i think that you know i think we all have that one friend that uh i know that you know you spoke about this that you know your uh source of information for a lot of things for this conversation was her because she's so evolved i'm so proud of you know uh you and her and you know people who are young and have that fire


you know people who are young and have that fire to know and to learn and to understand another person's journey and i think that that takes a lot of it's i mean for me it's it's having friends like her right like choosing to listen to her and i've known her since i was a child and me and her have only dark conversations with stupid conversations but once in a while we'll have intense conversations also also i feel for a guy it's so important to have female friends like we hear this whole narrative your best perspectives in life will come from from yeah and this is why a lot of my male friends that i take as brothers and you know i can do anything for them is that you know they they're like you know so sean like anything happens like they'll come to me and talk to me about things that they would not even talk to another heterosexual man friend they will come to me and because again that perspective is there yeah and i think that even when


perspective is there yeah and i think that even when i have to talk to somebody i will go to somebody if you know that regardless of gender for me so if i have an issue which is like to do with a guy i will speak to my guy friends if it's something that is to do with uh you know about me finding my non-binary self basically to through drag even through drag my inspirations were all strong women how did that switch happen that switch happened because i was tired of being type casted as uh and and you know sort of underplaying my self hold on for someone who doesn't have any perspective on what drag is just explain everything explain the abcs and even explain abc's on what was happening in your head so drag is a performance art drag is basically uh a performance art when you kind of usually tilt a certain uh till a couple of years back they used to believe that if uh you are performing as the opposite gender and and kind of


performing as the opposite gender and and kind of inculcating the characteristics the look the personality of the opposite gender then that's right now so if you were a man and drag is for everyone a drag as a performance that is not only for the gays or the lgbt community it is for everybody so even if a straight man can do drag you can also perform as a woman but that doesn't make you any less of a man if you know what i mean it's just for stage so drag is performance out when you go up on stage away going in front of the camera and you know you're performing you're singing dancing i have to interrupt you i know this one trivial piece of information about you that you have a crazy vocal range so just on the podcast could you like just demonstrate that a little bit so people get perspective about why you've made it so big and what do you have rights to songs or whatever um not that maybe maybe just give us a tune or something


that maybe maybe just give us a tune or something without the lyrics i have my originals let's let's promote it let's now promote sure i'm still you know i still have the middle class values if i didn't sing my own songs my mother would have been like [Music] it's like that so i want to have good dinner and i think you know not get a pay string so no i'll sing i actually have multiple octave range um and before going into that before going breaking into a song um i would just like to say that you know when you spoke of drag drag is a very it's a multi-disciplinary art form like anyone can do it everyone can do it and it doesn't restrict itself to gender i think art is very pure when we attach labels inanimate objects performance in call sub labels there so i don't think you should label art you can the artist can be gay straight art is not gay straight black white art is art and art is very pure so i perform whether it is in


is very pure so i perform whether it is in drag as rani kohinoor as i perform or if i perform as sushant my art is the winner my art is what needs to be put for forth before me also i am just the medium i believe artists such as mediums to carry forward the art and to project it to other people that's the that's the essence of being an artist that's why you get so much joy when you have the power to change people's minds through your art so when i for me what is empowering and what is milestone yes being on the cover of vogue magazine being in forbes being recognized by forbes being one of the cultural ambassadors from india multiple times be winning all these awards and all yes but my biggest achievement is when i was on television as rani kohinoor and i turned on my first audition round when i sang and first my mother's reaction because she cried and whenever i see my mother crying i get emotional and the


see my mother crying i get emotional and the fact that i knew that through this song and through this journey on that show i will be touching so many lives of people in smaller towns that don't have this opportunity for me i was thinking of them i was singing for them again content and culture like content and culture narrative yeah i was singing for them because i said y'all need a voice and if god has or if the almighty or if the powers have chosen me as a messenger then so be it so be it why not i'm not going to deny you or myself that so a lot of people will be like art is the winner here not you and me art is the winner and the fact that the messaging that the art has to send you know so whenever i've gone on so many platforms i've been judged before i go on stage and before i start singing i've been judged till i go on the mic and i take that mic i close my eyes


mic and i take that mic i close my eyes and i imagine this kid that probably is going through all this and doesn't have a voice to speak about all these things i think about that child and i sing and all of these people that have said nasty things to me shut up or to those kids yeah or to those kids because they'll now never say that they'll think before saying it they also have the right to dream you know and i think that that for me is yeah for me very empowering that's your gift yeah that's your gift yeah and i have to use it so on that note [Music] um [Music] is oh wow so that that was that was all the energies inside using that yeah yeah you know and then and and and when you asked me about my work workplace experience and stuff i had gone for um i went to lend my voice as a playback singer to a very very two famous composers they were they were rivals for that song to be picked up for


were rivals for that song to be picked up for the film and uh if i said yesterday because it was not condescending lyrics i sometimes don't feel that i should take up songs which demean women objectify women [Music] this these lyrics just people might enjoy it i don't so for me because i if i'm standing for something that i really believe in then this is going against that for me i'm not saying everybody has to feel like i do that i personally feel so i've walked out on a lot of opportunities but i also realized that i'm doing that so i can sleep well at night i know for a fact that i'm not disrespecting someone tomorrow someone can just not like point a finger at me and say first they will point a finger at my orientation then they'll point a finger at me for doing this than that but so for me i'm just like the first time i went into a for a for an audition the music composer was like that first i felt nice


the music composer was like that first i felt nice and that kiss killing argument i can i'm saving you money i can sing for both the actor and the actress he's like name the audience will not accept it i said have you tried it you are underestimating the common man common person you are saying the person the people of this country will not accept something when you have not tried only so how can you say and how can you undermine the sensibilities of your people that means how are you changing i said but that's the reason why i'm not in front of the camera no i am playback what is the meaning of playback singing is that i'm behind the camera and all that but they are singing see the discrepancy death because if you're imagining that singer you're not imagining the singer that is that is the crux of the matter so if you don't give me an opportunity to showcase my talent i'm not losing anything because i'll still connect with my people i'll


anything because i'll still connect with my people i'll still connect with people you are losing so a lot of people have lost sass as much as i want to deep dive into the whole drag perspective i feel like that's its own world yeah that's for another episode i think this one's just like a nice intro you know to the trs audience and we have this thing called trs all-stars so we keep bringing back people to share now you know i have already this seat this is my seat also all stars also for the hindi podcast definitely hindi podcast is where you know definitely these episodes are gonna make it international right it's gonna be viewed for like 20 years hindi episodes will make that cultural impact and take india to the next level yes i always believe that regional and and why why do we feel ashamed there's so i know a lot of people hindi mini thing yeah interview hindi hindi my why not because of the british effect yeah no no that i'm very see my


effect yeah no no that i'm very see my thing is that there are so many now now hindi or english is not the national language there are so many languages under our under india that are recognized as you know you can use this language that language in parliament you can speak whatever language you want according to where you come from so i don't feel that we should be putting in any up english i'd love to hindi me why not yeah that's that's and the flavor of the hindi you know okay the flavor of hindi as a language is just different it is this is i i transitioned from just doing english content to doing hindi content as well speaking hindi and creating content hindi are two different games you have to write in hindi as well it opened me up to how poetic and romantic both hindi and urdu urdu is the best i i would like to say that urdu is very pure as a language it's so soft it's so beautiful it's so nuanced the nuances are


so beautiful it's so nuanced the nuances are so oh my god and the intersectionality between hindi and urdu is also beautiful hindi i think is a little more curt what do you mean a little bit more direct like it's a little more like functional it's functional but at the same time no way who can be functional it's just that we don't try hard we're lazy yeah i think i think that's the that's the big so while gen z especially urban gen z is discovering so much about the world yeah look within india as well and see of course you know like i don't keep saying you know when when people think that they they say that you have an accent okay accent is called clarity of speech in one place where you think you could not understand the word i said yeah and i will stop my career only i will stop but it's not an accent yeah i have a very strong concrete accent okay i have a very strong marathi konkani south indian accent that i that is an accent


south indian accent that i that is an accent that is an accident this is an accent that's an accent but not this this is clarity of speech isn't get there so there is you know like culture is like you know very it's it's uh well i'd say that it's some it's a it's a pot that everything that's there's been everything in it and i think people take what they want to take they leave back what they want to leave back but i just want to tell people to think that if you if this is just completely nonsense you can speak whatever language you want now someone is comfortable speaking in kannada or tamil now for me you i might not be able to speak tamil but just because you can't speak in hindi just because of south indian that doesn't make you less indian or that doesn't make you less distinct so my thing is that is hindi is not even a second language yeah so for them now that depends on state to say and i think that


that depends on state to say and i think that if they've given been given the right to to speak in whatever language suddenly then they'll be you know like i shouldn't say this but certain sections of metropolitan cities they suddenly develop an accent terminal [Music] i'm like come back you know just calm down all all insecurity i mean look let me take that again all masks are kind of created because of insecurity in different forms i agree again i think that that's going to be the next big change over the next 10 years you're going to see a lot of top top performers in media also who can't you see regional cinema you see on whether it's netflix ott platforms in films you see so many fantastic scripts coming from regional cinema not um you know particularly english or hindi it comes from regional salem cinema yeah it's change we're going through yes let's let's get to the section that's love the most i'm very competitive huh am i winning anything can i take something


huh am i winning anything can i take something from here you know you know for this episode feel free to take anything you wish just kidding yeah uh but let's let's get to the section i think one of these monks yeah please please you know how in school used to be like you should lick it in your mirror this is mine you don't know what kind of an impact uh this had on me not not just about the stuff you've spoken again as i said earlier your confidence and just your grit rubbed off so i was just you know you were you we were supposed to shoot at three and then you got held up somewhere so i decided that's so that's fine that's nice i'm the same but i worked out i worked out with uh sanjit and i was nervous about something business related and that the nervousness was kind of just boiling [Laughter] yeah just um so okay the honest answer i mean the honest thing that i was kind of nervous about was there is


i was kind of nervous about was there is this one project we're working on that's getting launched soon project right now is fantastic we're not too sure about where the long term vision of the project is uh and sometimes for some situations in your life you don't necessarily need to have a long-term vision you need to do your job really well yeah and i'm confident and i'm also confident that i don't even know what it is you've not shared but i don't but it's it's a new it's whatever it is i'm sure you'll do well like before you started this did you did you realize that dude today we'll be sitting together having this conversation no so then don't think about it and do your best every day and leave the rest it's just yeah it's uh so have you heard of this word called providence yes it's something luke coutinho taught me on this show okay it was it the energy of that episode was very similar to this and i highly recommend that listeners


very similar to this and i highly recommend that listeners like but i'm a big fan of luke oh my god what a man what a man he's some people and i feel the same word you after speaking to others some people are just born with blessings in their voice box they just know what luke's voice yeah okay yeah no it's not just the voice it's also the also the no the i think it comes from again this journey yeah his journey and that's so beautiful like you know to kind of learn from somebody else's journey i think every day we learn something new today i learned something new from you you know tomorrow i'm you might learn something from me i might learn something from him i might learn something from people watching on a personal i've picked up so much from this episode yeah yeah that whole self-actualization conversation see i i didn't even expect to see it like i don't expect this to become a lecture you know i i mean not just the meaning of it but it


i mean not just the meaning of it but it helped my process of self-actualization yeah the one um i had a i'll tell you this after the after the twitter section we're never going to start yeah we'll [Laughter] so these are like i mean feel free to answer them fast or kind of again make it conversational manish pandya joined to manish asks what are things that indian workplaces must learn for better inclusion i think first they must include queer people in policy making they need to make better policies 360 degree perspective yes uh also because i'm an industrial psychologist so if my specialization was in industry work workplace behavior organizational psychology that's me so so for i'm speaking from that angle right now i think we need to make better policies which are inclusive and first you have to start being inclusive and then diversify okay first you have to be accepting of people when somebody sits across the table giving you an interview for the first interview don't judge them about what


for the first interview don't judge them about what they're wearing or what see their qualifications first i might be the most qualified i might be more qualified than my boss for that job but i really need it and i'm willing to work hard for it that for me that for the selector has to be the only parameter to be to judge the person not what hashtag is he or she they what are they genderqueer all that first of all second when you have queer employees have gender neutral toilets start there okay don't assign gender to work spaces wow yeah because your work in an organization the end goal for every employee is the same if you put all these roadblocks what you're doing is you are blocking not only them but yourself and the entire organization from attaining that goal so it's very important to realize that we have to have gender neutrality there has to be an equal playing ground as i mentioned earlier for every employee regardless because at the end of the day it's a group your end goal


end of the day it's a group your end goal is the same always remember you might have personal grudges leave it outside and then enter yeah yeah wow okay the next one is from a dear friend of mine he's one of the top ceos in the country ashok ramachandran so ceo of shindler um he asks what's the one thing we all do but we shouldn't be doing when we're trying to help the lgbtq community i think uh don't feel bad for us we don't need sympathy we need empathy explain this little deeper sympathy is when you feel bad for someone empathy is when you kind of put yourself in somebody else's shoes and understand that if i was in their place would i have liked this so if i look down on you and say poor thing poor thing all the time you'll be like what poor thing [Music] why poor thing why you're feeling expensive today also yeah of course absolutely so that whole idea of putting yourself on a


so that whole idea of putting yourself on a pedestal and saying we'll accept you is already you putting yourself on a pedestal and saying we'll accept you we'll respect you accept and respect are two very different things respect people yeah you know we spoke about that whole uh ardhan aareshwar story yeah um the actual basis of that isn't that oh you respect genders or whatever the base of that is you see humans in the same way yes everyone's the same ball of light exactly and i'm not saying paint everybody with the same brush but i'm saying what you're what i'm just adding to what you're saying is that some people might misconstrue it as you know no no but you don't know our struggles are different no everyone has struggles i'm not saying my struggles are bigger than yours or their struggles are bigger than my struggles or struggles struggles are struggles for everyone yeah but when somebody like who's privileged today i can speak


when somebody like who's privileged today i can speak this fluently it's not because i could have chosen to be like i could have been on the street you never know if my parents were not accepting i had to leave my house i don't know where i would have been i would have been in the trains i would have been on the you know the platforms i would have been on the signals i might have been wherever and all of this talent would have gone for a waste so i want people to understand that if when when people go through this take a chance on them yeah give them a chance and you take a chance on them yeah because they might be the next lakshmi naranja party they might be the next durga gowdy they might be the next sushante geeker they might be the next them they might be the they might be themselves that you will never be able to tap into so don't feel bad for them but actually like you know walk the talk and when people


actually like you know walk the talk and when people say diversity and when people say you know equality and equity i don't see it happening as much so i think as allies what ally means is basically when you are not lgbt when you are heterosexual cisgendered heterosexual and you support lgbt rights that makes you an ally so now in the in you know past couple of years lgbtqia that a stands for asexual but a also stands for ally so when we say lgbtqia plus community it also includes you you everyone me you everyone because it is a very humane approach to inclusivity and i think that that's the way forward yeah i see it changing again yeah i also see it changing at a very slow pace but i think there is at least some change yeah i can't deny that we need it in films we need it and we need it everywhere yeah everywhere vavo digital asks what's your response if someone cracks a homophobic joke around you i don't laugh


a homophobic joke around you i don't laugh i'm like not funny not okay to appropriate not okay to uh you know because it's then showing your lack of knowledge and lack of empathy but also lack of willing to change i'm not going to demean you i'm not going to you know degrade you or whatever i can i can choose to do that but then that makes me no less shallow than you yeah then we are on the same level it's like that so i give you the benefit of doubt that maybe you learn one day you'll educate yourself if i again go and abuse them my thing is now i have come to an earlier i used to when i was younger i was a very tempestuous very fiery fight kid feisty teenager feisty early twenties everything mi tilt mid twenties after that it just changed i said you have to understand that their journey is not your journey i have probably lived many moons under many moons think just worrying about


moons under many moons think just worrying about what will people say when i wake up tomorrow they have not heard they've not lived that journey ill they kind of understand that you know that they empathize still someone around them it will happen you are not going to make it happen it's not your job that's not your job your job is to empathize now if you want empathy you must give it also that for me is i think now i've kind of risen to that yeah i'm like not funny and you know uh when someone rises to the consciousness that you've risen to that's when you can make an even stronger point yeah so i think like like while people are fiery i've also gone through a parallel phase of being fired and then calming down i've just seen that when you let go of the fire you stop burning yourself as well true and from a calmer place you're able to make a clearer point exactly why are you homophobic first of all homophobia


exactly why are you homophobic first of all homophobia it's not a phobia it's you being in yeah it's you being disrespectful ignorant and you have not studied anything about people human beings it's not homophobia what is phobia is a fear it's an irrational fear phobia means irrational fear until you kind of actually sit across the table and face it or you can choose to not face it and say that okay fine you know i have a preconceived set of notions about a community like this what is homophobia it's not homophobia you're not being phobic you're being [Music] my thing is that if i had to sit here and generalize all men saying that all men are rapists does it that fair is that fair me saying that you're a rapist this one's a rapist that one then how you can think that all gay men are like going to pounce on you or how trans people are going to just clap on your face and this you know do all this be


your face and this you know do all this be disrespectful what are you thinking in your head why can't you put yourself in that position and if i had to judge you for being a man how would you feel now my father is a man my brother is a man my friends are men my cousins are men uncles are men neighbors are men should i say that all men are rapists does that make sense so all gay people are not the same all transgender people are not the same and even if they are how you can generalize and say that you know till you see a white crow you will believe that all crows are black right so when you've not seen enough how can you come to a conclusion and say all gay people are like this yeah yeah you know again what do you do in the present you just you put words out there you put context out there um [Music] okay ashish kumar asks so his question is how do you feel when others can't feel you but my question


you feel when others can't feel you but my question to you is do you feel that stuff do you feel a certain sense of being not understood even now yeah yeah and i think that that's not my battle to fight anymore can you try explaining just some sort of perspective where you've not felt understood yeah like i think that a lot of people don't understand uh gen there is a difference between gender and orientation first of all orientation is your sexual orientation or your affectionate orientation where you are attracted to either the same gender a same sex or the opposite sex gender is what you're born with or what you identify as in the journey of your life okay so i might be male assigned at birth that might be my gender at birth that doesn't mean it cannot change because i will realize later that i am transgender people are not all the time born transgender that's another thing okay as you grow and as experiences exactly experiences is what experience is what kind of teaches you that you have been


is what kind of teaches you that you have been boxed just because there are heteronormative boxes you don't have to be in that box therefore there is trans people there are non-binary people they are like but we are not male we are not female or we are both or we are neither what about us are we not humans but we are still existing we are still breathing the same air we are not drinking transgender coffee we are drinking the same coffee as you so it's just a very it's a matter of this is also reality you don't have to sensationalize it normalize it um he's gay do you walk into the room and say hi i'm ranveer and i'm straight have you ever introduced yourself as that why why are we looked at like that when we enter a room he's gay or what maybe maybe not who cares yeah is that the only characteristic that you notice about me then that's your lens that needs to change not me i'm fabulous yeah honey that's your


not me i'm fabulous yeah honey that's your perspective that's your ignorance that's talking and you'll change i hope and pray no bulls becoming a better place yeah that's becoming a better yes okay and the final question of our twitter final question has come it's an endearing question though okay uh and this this should be out there for sure how can one support friends family members or anybody who comes to us for help or to convince confess something about how they're feeling on the inside what is the best way to be a super friend and a great support system the question is from yadav joy44 that's a very sweet question i just like to say that if somebody confides in you that means they respect you they mean that they think that you mean something to them in their life so the fact that they're coming to confide in you is a very big thing about something so monumental about their life about their being imagine how much power you have as a friend or as an ally or as


have as a friend or as an ally or as somebody who's close to that person to just give them a hug and say it's fine it's okay it doesn't change anything yeah your orientation your gender your sexuality your caste color creed does it doesn't matter to me i love the person you are i love the person you have become i love the fact that you confided in me that's the best way of just accepting yourself at a place where you can say that there are no conditions in this friendship there are no conditions in this love there's no condition in this relationship and i think that is the epitome of being a great ally when you don't judge anybody for anything oh my god this is a heavy episode in such a beautiful way though it was heavy with beauty ah you know something that you didn't highlight that i would love to highlight about you something you told me in the other room which is that you you are trying to do work for the queer community in general especially those who


work for the queer community in general especially those who are not as fortunate those who do not have the access to the privilege you do of course we'll be linking all your handles down below and i'm sure you're gonna get a lot of people writing into you after this episode um you know maybe through your lifetime you'll be able to help a thousand people and there'll be that one person you may not be able to reach out to yes and for that one person i've got to ask you one last question please i know that your parents were a massive support system in your life and your family was a massive support system in your life and everything that you're doing right now is a reflection of them in the society you're like i had this let me give this forward to like someone else yeah so can you take me back to some one moment that just kind of protected you was an armor for you from childhood growing up or whatever that you'd like to pass on to that one person will never get


to pass on to that one person will never get a chance to talk to you i just want to say that my mother very beautifully put it the other day you know she was like um my niece is i believe that she's the reincarnation of my grandmother okay she also talks like that but she's nine and she's like the the love of my life she's like the joy in my life and my mother says see how beautifully um the universe works you always wanted a daughter and here she is so for me because my mother says that motherhood is not uh biological it's not the act of giving birth motherhood is an emotion motherhood is a behavior and anyone can be a mother anybody anyone holds mama yeah and i i have that only because i received it from my mother and i received that beautiful message from my mother she received it from hers and if i didn't have my mother by my side i won't have been able to give the love to my cousins my you know my


the love to my cousins my you know my my juniors you know younger queer people younger people uh and and i'm not like you know sound i don't want i don't mean to sound uh patronizing i just want to say that all of us has you know that that mamta there is in some in some hair you know in some okay tk the the dimension is like it's it's like a complete like the smart dimension so you might have this much or that much to give but everybody i believe that that has something to give to the next person you have to find out how much you can give how much you can expend and how much you can keep for yourself also to protect yourself it's very important but you're not being selfish but i just believe that because i've got so much love to give then i have to do that and that's why i have so many queer children i have because they don't receive the love from their parents they look up to me for that love


their parents they look up to me for that love and i'd be damned if i don't give it to them because i have so much of it so what am i going to do yeah and what is there to just like hold somebody's hand and say you're not alone you're not alone you're not alone in this fight don't ever think like that you've been given given this beautiful gift of life just live it feel it forget everybody that's like you know think all these nasty things about you yes that good things might not have happened to you but that's a journey and that's your journey you write it if see if you can just say this to someone and change their life why not paying it forward is the purpose of you for me though absolutely like and that's why i'm like coming out with house of kohinoor also um house of kohinoor basically for right now has my queer child my drag children durga is there there's glorious luna there's luna there's 17 and they're


luna there's luna there's 17 and they're from all parts of the country and now we're kind of trying to um build this sort of a you know a vertical where we train other queer kids that don't have the support of their families and um once that's up then i'm going to tell you about it and then we can kind of work together because i see such lovely work you're doing for people for kids from all over that want to come and you know explore themselves and i think that's what i want to do like just because you're thrown from away from your house you doesn't mean you don't deserve a home [Music] and a house is a house but you know you and i make it a home so if i can do that for somebody why not you're a special soul and i don't do this on every episode but you know i'm gonna pay it forward just thank you for everything that you did on this episode thank you you know you know you're gonna be back


you you know you know you're gonna be back i am all stars now this is where you zoom in thank you for being on trs once again thank you appreciate it from the bottom of my heart and just happy to be a part of your story and your energy and i'm so happy to be part of your journey small part but no yeah taking the manga yeah it's yours whatever you should not feel it's rob no no this is like camera also you're paying it forward to us by doing thank you thank you if you've listened to this episode till this point you'll know what a power packed conversation that was it left me feeling more confident more positive of course more empathetic towards all human beings that's the core of this episode that we're all the same on the inside we've all got battles that we're fighting and sometimes some of your greatest fires can be derived from hearing other people's stories i feel like i'm a confident positive person but there's days where i feel low


positive person but there's days where i feel low and that's why meeting people like sushant can really take your mindset to that next level definitely share this episode with your friends remember as sushant said mindsets will change through culture and content and you folks the consumers of this kind of content thank you for listening to trs till this point follow us on spotify we're a spotify exclusive every episode of trs is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else and we'll be back on trs soon power back conversations and honestly on a personal note i always think that how we gonna top this conversation and another huge conversation like the one we had with sushant walk straight into my life it's all a matter of providence it's a blessed team it's a blessed team it's a blessed team follow us on spotify the runway show spotify exclusive [Music] you


on today's episode of the ranvi show we have another all-star that returns it's abhijit chavra and today we're talking about geopolitics in his own words geopolitics is a sport that contains no rules but the objective is world domination you know when you read about world news and you see what the world is reporting the underlying layers of the world that are being affected are the geopolitical layers and that's what this video is about basically if you're someone who's sort of missed out in the last 20 to 50 years of what's happened on a world stage i feel like this podcast will help you to stay updated it'll help open your eyes about what's happening out there how does india view the world how does the world view india and who are the real superpowers of this world the nvi show is now a spotify exclusive remember to follow trs on spotify for stimulating conversations just like this every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world but for now


available anywhere else in the world but for now we've got aviji chavda on the runway show once again today's topic is one of the most stimulating topics in the world [Music] geopolitics you know when abhiji chavra is on any version of the runway show we got an explosion of information thank you for being here again thank you for having me sir i don't even know where to start this particular topic but what i will start with is context lots of people follow national news get engulfed in politics and engulfed in their own political opinions and kind of overlook what's happening in the world what's happening on a worldwide scale where is the world wing where's the world of world economics going uh what's happening in terms of business what's happening in terms of how one country is looking at other countries what's happening in terms of the future of mankind for anyone who's missed out on the last 10 years of the world and want to know what's going to


of the world and want to know what's going to happen in the next 10 years this episode is for you lots of learnings of course we're going to talk from a historical context java welcome to the runway show again thank you for having me thank you very much uh the third recording out of many many that we will end up doing so i don't even know where to start this conversation because i feel you're the expert on geopolitics so i i mean i remember calling you a few days ago and i asked you so what do you want to specifically talk about and the first topic you said is let's do geopolitics yes but instead i said no can we also try astrophysics can we also try ancient india and you said cool and you gave me possibly two of my best episodes ever recorded so i'm excited about this one so let's begin by defining what geopolitics is yeah so geopolitics is a sport okay okay and you make up the rules as you go it's a competition


make up the rules as you go it's a competition for the resources that are available to humanity on our planet or maybe beyond that if we can reach there so the actors are the major powers on the world stage and the tools are diplomacy economics lawfare warfare hard power soft power everything you can imagine espionage sabotage terrorism guerrilla warfare anything you can imagine everything you can imagine is a part of your toolkit in geopolitics it's about realism it's about real politic there is no place for idealism in this you have to know what your national interest is you need to have a clearly defined set of objectives and a clearly defined doctrine about how you want to achieve those objectives and may the best may the strongest power win so it's all about power various forms of power what is your comprehensive national power how do you increase that and often it becomes a zero-sum game so you gain at the expense of somebody else there are economic uh tools that you use mercantilism


there are economic uh tools that you use mercantilism for example what is that mercantilism is essentially you grow your economic uh stature at the expense of everybody else beggar thy neighbor using lawful economic means for example you import raw materials from a country from all the countries around you and you export finished goods so you get raw materials very cheap because that's just uh resources right but the thing you export finished goods they're gonna be of higher value so over time your gtp grows everybody else's goes down like what china is doing this is precisely what china has been doing for the past 20 30 years aided and abetted by the us unwittingly but you know it's good business at its core absolutely yeah like there's some businessman sitting here i know thought of this and cool if it helps geopolitics great it's warfare by any means possible by non-military non-kinetic means and that's how you can take over the world without firing a single shot china is an extremely risk-averse country


a single shot china is an extremely risk-averse country which is something we don't get because they act so aggressive they behave very aggressively china has been historically an extraordinarily risk-averse country like they don't want to take risks they do not want to take risks this is something you will see perceive only if you study history so let me go into that if you look at the past two thousand years two and a half thousand years of chinese history you must have heard of sun tzu right the great chinese strategist was the uh military strategist he wrote a little booklet called the art of war so he was a chinese general he fought many wars and battles and military campaigns who were his enemies his opponents were 100 chinese the chinese have always fought each other okay see we play all these video games and all china is shown as this nation of great warriors but whom are they fighting they're fighting each other it's always been warring states periods you know


other it's always been warring states periods you know one kingdom against another song dynasty against another dynasty this dynastic is that dynasty it's always been like that and whenever china has expanded beyond its borders militarily it's always been when its neighbors have been extremely weak and disunited and divided in 1962 india was a hopelessly weak country india india did not bother to have a proper professional military i would not say not it was unprofessional but it was very badly underfunded and very badly run by the politicians so they will attack you when you're weak they will never dare to attack a powerful country ever in the past 2500 years of chinese history they have never attacked a powerful neighboring country ever and whenever a powerful country has invaded china it's always ended in disaster for china the mongols took over china like a hurricane in the 7th or 8th century ce the tibetans captured beijing tibet took over the chinese empire nobody remembers that


took over the chinese empire nobody remembers that because china doesn't want you to remember this recently the japanese a little island took over the whole of china in world war ii in world war ii in 1975 i believe the chinese tried to invade vietnam they suffered a crushing defeat so china historically has been an extremely risk-averse country they will only try to fight you if you are weak and whenever a strong country invades china it's always been a loss for china and this is something that the the the propaganda out there will not let you see but this is the truth about china and the other thing about china is that historically over the past 2000 years china has been a buddhist country but its emperors have never been buddhist the governance has never been dharmic or buddhist in nature it's always been a a combination of legalism and confucianism so confucianism is a chinese philosopher which is an atheistic policy and legalism is essentially ruled by


atheistic policy and legalism is essentially ruled by whatever law you write whatever laws you frame so essentially the emperor of china is seen as the son of god and whatever laws he writes down are the basically the world of the word of god and every citizen of china is expected to follow these rules these laws as if they are the word of god that is the doctrine of legalism confucianism is slightly softer so over the past 2000 years china has been ruled by a combination mix and match of legalism and confucianism china has never been ruled in a buddhist manner in a dharmic manner that's why china is administratively and politically a very very different country from india its entire political doctrine is very different so communism essentially is not that alien to china because china has always been an authoritarian country for its own people and for the others so communism is essentially nothing but a continuation of that so the chinese communist party is essentially a new imperial dynasty in china


party is essentially a new imperial dynasty in china the the current emperor is xi jinping he is now emperor for life he has proclaimed himself president for life eventually he will be overthrown by some political coup or whatever whenever it happens a new emperor will come in place so that is the true nature of china none of the experts will tell you this but this is what we're dealing with what i've read i mean this is my little understanding of geopolitics from a historical perspective so basically culture evolves over a thousand years or two thousand years or whatever but there is this little underlying thing that every country will always turn to and that underlying thing is a sense of identity personality basically every country the way they govern things the way they run things has its own personality which they will invariably always go back to for example russia has the tsars okay the tsar's got taken away oh wait then you have stalin oh wait now you have putin similarly america


oh wait now you have putin similarly america is a country now america's formation of as a country happened what 200 300 years back that's it so it's run by business people basically risk-taking business people very insightful so and that's why it's it uh it is where it is because they're the entrepreneurs they're like yeah whatever we'll build everything is a is a business everything that's a business that's in the genetics it is and and that's what and india i have some perception of india i'd love to hear yours mine is that um we're a collection of different cultures but we're tied together by again what you said dharm like that all of us are somewhat following the same thing indians in the court are very good homely people and i feel that that's what ties india together just before i let you highlight something let's compare that to china china china from ancient times has dealt with things like civil war they fight amongst each other there's one dude at the top


amongst each other there's one dude at the top who said listen to me because i'm the most powerful guy now what a lot of modern day historians also believe is that every country is going to go back to the original format of ruling things invariably now i'd love to hear what you have to say about india and i'd love to hear if i was correct in saying india has always been an extremely diverse place with a lot of localized cultures and localized languages and localized many ethnic groups and yet it has had one characteristic is that it has always been unified by a single overarching culture in a single overarching language which historically was sanskrit sanskrit is has been wiped out only in the past 100 years 100 that's it until the 19th century san francisco was taught in every single indian educational uh institution it's only in the past 100 years that it has been artificially banned essentially and it's likely that hindi will take its place now maybe but hindi is


will take its place now maybe but hindi is not is nothing compared to sanskrit okay sanskrit is a very high language it is possibly the most perfect language there is something called a context-free grammar if i if i take an english sentence and i jumble the words around it makes no sense whatsoever if i take a sentence in panini sanskrit when i jumble the words around it will not change its meaning it will only have one single unambiguous meaning okay the the placing of the words may not be entirely correct but the meaning will never change you will still know what it means so this is the sort of thing that makes sanskrit perfect for programming coding logic mathematics enhancing your mind and all those things so there is something that has bound together always for the past ten thousand years almost and the other thing is the culture i mean you may be in bengal you may be in gujarat bengali has durga puja 9 days gujarat has navratri 9 days it's the same goddess different


navratri 9 days it's the same goddess different ways of celebrating her and same goes for every other part of india the manifestations are very localized and very different but it is still the same concepts the same divinity the same religion the same culture so that is what unifies india that is what makes india a civilization and not a nation state there are certain characteristics of civilization one is that it has a single overarching culture a single overarching language its institutions are rooted in its own cultural values and it has a powerful economy good prosperity good standard of living and it has a military sphere of influence that extends beyond its stated borders so this is what india has been historically in 1947 india ceased to be a civilization india was reduced to a mere nation state in 1947 today china is trying to become a civilization again under the ages of the chinese communist party india is still governed by western laws western constitution we still speak english we are


western laws western constitution we still speak english we are more comfortable speaking english than hindi me as well as you at least i would speak for myself no for sure so i am just as mentally colonized as everybody else and this is an enormous barrier we are facing you learn best in your mother tongue you learn anything best in your mother tongue and yet we are forced to first learn a foreign language and then learn things through that can you imagine the mental trauma that we go through unknowingly so these are some of the obstacles that we have placed upon ourselves that's why india is still far behind china because china understands what it means to be a civilization it is trying to regain that civilization status india is not even aspiring to that we are aspiring to be a satellite of the western world and for 70 years india did not even know or or pursue its national interest for 70 years indians indian rulers did not want to pursue a national interest


rulers did not want to pursue a national interest they were interested in something else so india has a lot of catching up to do in the world of geopolitics today over the past seven years or so it has changed a lot policies have changed and things have changed it is now becoming a more powerful country it is now understanding what power is but still i would say that indians on a personal level we don't understand what power is let me give you an example american indians indian americans or indian americans indian expatriates who have become american citizens etc are demographically the most prosperous group and most successful group in america they have the highest median income they have the highest levels of education they have the highest success and yet it's a community they're invisible if you watch hollywood movies do you see indians there you see chinese everywhere if you see asians everywhere politically they have zero power the asian americans have a certain political power the let's say the islamic


a certain political power the let's say the islamic americans have very strong political base in america indians have been in america for the past 50 60 70 years they are a very strong large community and yet they have zero political power or any power of any kind they cannot make get laws to be passed they cannot affect influence policy they influence nothing they have zero influence so indians don't understand what power is and unless you understand power you will not be a major player on the geopolitical scene you know i hope that there's some bad mofo out there listening to this conversation and thinking i'm gonna be the pm who'll bring in sanskrit again i'm gonna be the pm who will bring in the old school education system again i'm gonna pm will bring back indian civilization on a world stage and if there isn't anyone like they're watching i'm gonna be the bad mother who'll bring it back no but i really hope that one of the listeners of yours brings it back so


of the listeners of yours brings it back so but i gotta bring you back to that world stage the international stage what's happening in the world right now and let's begin with how the world is perceiving india i know that economically from a business perspective everyone's like yo big population starting to earn money the rest of the world is outsourcing a lot of the services to india now whether that is it services or even creative services which have begun to be outsourced like our editors our photoshop professionals all these guys are now creating and exporting it to europe and america and hopefully eventually the rest will so we're earning money the populations are coming richer spending power is increasing is the world looking at india and saying now i want to sell my stuff there and what else essentially the world is looking at at india as a great big country full of digital coolies we exchange our time and labor for a little bit of money and the intellectual property the ownership stage of the west


and the intellectual property the ownership stage of the west let's say you have a studio which which is good in graphics design and all that we are making special effects for hollywood but they are making the money out of it we are just getting a small small piece of it we are getting a salary they are making the the big profits we are exchanging our time energy labor etc for a little bit of money and we are building the west we are building it so the climate in india is not right as of now for entrepreneurship for people to create their own ideas don't you think there are hundreds of elon musks potential elon musks bill gates etc in india india has the best brains in the world but they aren't allowed to to they're not unshackled and set free because let's say i have a great idea and i want to create some some the next google or next facebook where will i get the resources for that where will i get the capital for that and even if i do something it


capital for that and even if i do something it it's more likely that people will come and stop me than then let me achieve my full potential and that goes for any industry especially the digital industries and anything else so india needs to create the climate and the environment and the ecosystem which will completely unshackle and free its people and let them achieve their full potential hopefully it will happen it's maybe it's in process but we have still not reached there it will happen when entrepreneurs enter politics maybe hopefully yes that's what i strongly believe because i feel like america's core is entrepreneurial and that's why they are where they are yeah they perceive everything from an entrepreneurial spirit if someone succeeds in america the narrative is never why is that person succeeding oh no but these are the flaws in that person why are you all liking that person i want to pull that person down those are the narratives in india that whole theory about you know um have you heard of


whole theory about you know um have you heard of the theory of the crab shop basically uh the theory says that there were crabs brought from different countries and each country's crabs were put into different baskets okay and one of the baskets was left open so customer enters the shop and asked the shopkeeper why you left that box open you know won't you see crab like won't summer crabs escape and he says oh that box no don't worry about that box yeah that's the indian crab box if one guy tries going out the other ones pull it down oh okay that's a badmind type probably of the last 100 years i'm not saying it's cultural it's just of the last 100 years it's because of the circumstances of the past 70 years because there it's always been over the past 70 years the government and the bureaucrats etc have imposed an artificial culture of scarcity so you just stand in line for hours for a simple thing yeah so then you have to do some


simple thing yeah so then you have to do some jugaad and get over get ahead of the others yeah so that's why it has become like this indians are culturally very different indians who live in other countries never behave like this it's only in india so it's not a cultural trait it's it's uh it's because of this social manipulation yeah social engineering contrary to the american crab basket america the culture is if someone does well if there's a michael jordan if there is a jeff bezos you say that guy killed it we're gonna take inspiration from him yes even if jeff bezos is your closest competitor you'll never look at him as i'm gonna bring him down that happens on india happens so much on youtube if someone's doing well other youtubers want to pull them down really but it never happens in america yeah like where they look at other youtubers nobody makes this videos nobody makes oh this one's doing this wrong people make things like


oh this one's doing this wrong people make things like okay that's what we can learn from them people take inspiration in america i think that's a highlight of american culture and you know there's a lot of narratives about america haters lots of people want america to kind of drown because they everyone wants to see the top dog losing you know when you were a kid and you were watching wwe wwf you saw the champion if the champions the champion were too long you get bored seeing that person true yes same with sports you don't want to see maintenance win every ipl season so people want america to lose without understanding that yo all these futuristic technologies we speak of artificial intelligence biohacking are all being developed in silicon valley in san francisco in california in america so even the next wave of money is going to go there because that's the entrepreneurial part of the world and unless india changes you know have you heard of this that many startups when they incorporate


heard of this that many startups when they incorporate in india they choose to singapore yeah they choose singapore precisely what is this logic explain this logic and then like well in india there are lots of unspoken taxes and things like that so once you become successful once you come in the public i you will have to shell out more underhand etc i'm just speculating i'm not naming anybody but these are some of the problems which make it impossible for you to run a successful profitable business in this country and that's why it's always safer if you incorporate your company in singapore or somewhere else offshore and then do business here yeah i believe flipkart's also incorporated in singapore yes and many of the big ones you hear many of them are incorporated in singapore for the big isn't that a crying shame yeah so these are the things that are holding this country back it's all artificial we need to unchain this country and unleash the full potential of these people look


and unleash the full potential of these people look at the chinese they are copying the american system they are creating silicon valleys in china lots of them why can't we have our own silicon valleys here it's not like we don't have enough people it's not like our people are stupid we have the best people who are working over there in silicon valley and they are building silicon valley there look at all the ceos all the tech ceos satya nadella sundar etc and there are so many small entrepreneurs also medium size and all that silicon valley is run by india it's staffed by indians and yet it's american so imagine all those brains if they were to come back to india or if the future brain dane brain drain prospects would not go there and instead do something here and create things over here this country would be changed overnight within 20 years within a single generation i also think indians have a very low sense of self-worth on an average um you know like


of self-worth on an average um you know like they think oh no our country is not good enough things like that but again that's social engineering that's happened because of british raj for like 200 years our textbooks were changed our systems were changed our systems were basically imagine that we were slaves the british put chains around our neck but when they removed the chain they also cut off some fingers they said that oh now just go do your thing that's what's happening and over the last hundred years we have to grow back those fingers absolutely through podcasting i hope but what do you have to say about that like so in terms of social engineering uh just to highlight some examples we just finished a great hindi podcast where you highlighted social engineering some examples of how social engineering has kind of affected this country so social engineering is changing how you perceive yourself as an individual and as a society so that is done using influential triggers your textbooks what you study it's in school the media and


what you study it's in school the media and the narrative that they they put forth and things like that so india essentially sees itself through british eyes only today even though the british have left 70 years ago their structures the structures they put in place the institutions they put in place the textbooks they put in place the bureaucracy the put in place everything is still in place nothing has changed even our constitution is a foreign constitution it is copy-pasted from various places in the west our laws are still the british laws with some little embellishments here and there which we have added later on so we are still run as a country as if the british were still ruling us and because of this indians have very low sense of self-worth they don't know their true history how great this civilization actually is and unless you have a sense of self-worth you will not have the confidence to take on the world and that's what you see in indians everywhere i've seen indians who go abroad and


everywhere i've seen indians who go abroad and they are like oh my goodness everybody's greater than me everybody is better etc and it takes time for you to overcome that and realize that hey no i mean i'm not different from them yeah i mean i may actually be better than them we see this in our families you know you see some relatives who says paradise you know statements i got thrown around very casually there's nothing here for your career there's nothing here for your future it's not true it's not true lots of opportunity here which you know your parents don't tell you your relatives don't tell you uh i've seen so much of that i think on a very personal level as a 22 year old i had to overcome all that you know like lots of relatives tell me not to stay or anyone like no wait there's something here i feel like you guys don't know and what's the correct call you un engineer yourself you unlearn a lot of i don't blame those two


unlearn a lot of i don't blame those two generations because they were no it's not their fault it's not their fault would you hear you born or 76 76 so you've seen the 80s i have seen the 80s i have seen the duration era and all that so i know how bad it was there was a time when india was like north korea we did not know anything that's happening outside the country now i had the advantage of growing up for a few years in europe so i saw a whole different world and when i came back to india i was appalled at the condition of this country so i was there during a few years of my formative time as a child so when i came to india i had a different perspective and i i was appalled to see the condition this country is in it it's all imposed artificially so now things are changing i think everything is changing you are a great sports fan you have seen cricket right so in the 90s indian cricketers


cricket right so in the 90s indian cricketers were so diffident they were they lacked self-confidence today's indian cricketers are a whole different breed they they stream role even the australians the attitude has changed even the physicality has changed indians could not bowl fast until the nine until the 2000's that was the best fast bowling and today we have a whole bunch of fastballs were tearing at the leash so india has changed beyond belief but it has still a long way to go and we need to empower the people of this country these people this country has unlimited energy and potential so i i see a great feature of for india provided the right policies are implemented do you see that happening it's happening a little slowly there are two kinds of modes of change in the country reforms or revolution reforms happen gradually step by step it's placed one thing at a time it's a phased deployment revolutions are overnight but revolutions are explosive they are violent and they often


revolutions are explosive they are violent and they often cause much more damage than the good they do so i don't want a revolution in the country i want good rapid focused changed and that will happen when you first reform the institutions like the bureaucracy etc who impede change at every cost yeah the bureaucracy is an institution that resists change at any cost at all it doesn't want change it wants inertia it wants things to stay the same and in this country today a bureaucrat has a job for life an educationist has a job for life once you're a government employee nobody can ever fire you that is ridiculous so they it leaves no space for performers there is no merit you are given promotions based on your seniority not based on your performance and india has one of the smallest diplomatic core in the world india has a sum total of 1700 diplomats singapore has more diplomats in india how will you engage with the world as a major power with


you engage with the world as a major power with this minuscule diplomatic core so india needs to start thinking differently it needs to start thinking big it needs to see itself as a major player on the world stage our economy is already it is a very significant stature we are among the top five economies in the world but we are obsessed with soft power and we ignore hard power to our peril what is the soft power hard power yeah that's a good question so let's say you have a million followers or million subscribers on youtube they like you they watch your content when you say something they take it seriously or they at least consider it seriously and then they decide whether they like it or not so when you say something you have some stature and you have some influence there is soft power what is hard power i have a hundred well-trained heavily armed soldiers they will obey me unquestioningly without a seconds delay that is hard power soft power is soft influence hard power is immediate


soft power is soft influence hard power is immediate decisive kinetic action missiles all that so us a significantly large country a global a player in the global stage needs to have a good combination of hard power and soft power india is obsessed with soft power soft power soft power india is not building up its hard power the way it should what is india's versions of soft power culture we talk about culture we will have cultural exchanges here and there in our cultural ministry we will do this or that our sangeet academy will do some small stage performance think of exporting food think of exporting minerals yoga let the west take over yoga and make it convert into dog dog yoga and goat yoga and drunk yoga and hot yoga and all that so all our culture is being expropriated and all but we are not developing the hard power that will truly earn us respect in the world's eyes china doesn't respect soft power china respects hard power after what happened in galwan china sees


power after what happened in galwan china sees india differently because we fought back we killed more than they killed ours so you need to have teeth you need to have your teeth and you need to show them and bite if required and i think maybe being the nice guy does up in the past we've been too nice for too long i'm not saying we should not be nice be nice to whoever is nice to you but when it comes to bullies you need to bully them ten times back do no harm take note absolutely that's the rule of life yes let's talk about america so what do you think america is thinking for the next 10 20 years or they just chilled out are they looking at china and saying who are you i fear that america may be in terminal decline i truly fear that expand on this america has changed a lot culturally its entire education system has gone to the left there is a lot of socialistic thinking now among the american people especially


lot of socialistic thinking now among the american people especially the younger generations who have come through the education system so they no longer think about capitalism they think capitalism is evil they think getting rich is evil just like indians used to think until now and they want to open up the borders they want to let immigrants in do you feel india's becoming more capitalistic india is at least shedding its socialistic thinking because until until the 1990s or 2000s india is indians used to think that being rich is is a sin if you are rich you must have done something bad something wrong there was a thinking the mentality the attitude of indians it's still there it's still there but it's less now i've seen it it's still there true very true like i mean i've had like business associates say no i don't want to earn money be honest good god i'm like dude earning a lot of money is not bad it's not a bad thing you're not stealing money you're making money you're


you're not stealing money you're making money you're creating jobs aren't you so it's a whole different mindset but at least indians some indians now are embracing that mindset in the united states the reverse is happening it's all anti-progress i mean it's it's it's terrible what i'm seeing the country is going to the dogs i get the feeling you look at downtown los angeles it's all boarded up the businesses are shut you have so many homeless people it's going from bad to worse they want to open up the borders and get in certain kinds of immigrants into the country to change the demographics and change the voting patterns and america no longer seems to aspire to be a superpower it's seeding so much space to the chinese for example the chinese are expanding mightily in asia there's fears of influence it is even possible that sometime in the next 10 years they will go up taiwan and if they do the americans won't fight back i get the


do the americans won't fight back i get the feeling so i see that the world go undergoing a significant realignment right now the chinese and the and the russians are teaming up temporarily okay i i have a colleague who calls this the dragon bear alliance so they want to essentially take over the space that the americans are seeding power abhors vacuum when there is a lack of leadership lack of power somebody else will come and take all the space and that's happening slowly steadily but very quickly in geopolitical terms in geopolitical terms 10 20 years is not a big deal but we are seeing a massive change in the past 10 years and it's going to accelerate in the next 10 years so it is possible that in the next 10 years china may be a formidable superpower and russia may also be somewhere in the league or at least in alliance with them and it is for india to decide now where its future is going to lie i am not suggesting


its future is going to lie i am not suggesting for a second that india should go into the chinese orbit absolutely not we are completely different from them what i want what i would like to see is that india should rise on its own in its own right as a as a independent power center one that will provide balance and something good with the world because the chinese essentially want to replace america as the global hegemon they want to eat up everything they want to take over all the fishing areas everything and they are destroying the environment they are extremely i mean the effect they are having on the environment is terrible there's enormous fishing fleets that go everywhere they suck up millions of tons of fish out of the ocean and it's it's creating an economic environmental catastrophe there is no sustainability built into this thinking so india i would say should provide a counterweight not just militarily and economically to china but also in the way of the way we think about the environment


the way of the way we think about the environment and essentially a good counterpoint something that is good for the world in the long run yeah um you know let's bring in history then china has had a history of civil war do you see civil war happening again in say the next 10 20 years in china do you think that maybe they could implode i do not see china imploding in the next 10 10 20 years the 100th anniversary of the coming to power of the communist party is in 2049. 2049 they came to power in 1949 so the chinese have plans they plan to become the global superpower by the time and they have processes in motion right now which are going to which they hope will lead them to that position so the single focus of the chinese communist party is that and it is all powerful within china it is becoming all powerful outside as well in its external sphere of influence so at this point of time i may i you know do not preclude the possibility of a


you know do not preclude the possibility of a coup or take over by a different leader within the chinese communist party but i do not see the chinese community communist party itself falling out of power that is extremely unlikely i may be wrong i'm not a fortune seer but statistically i think it's extremely unlikely you know they say that geopolitics has an application in your everyday life like you see countries doing and you learn how to control people as well you know what to do in social situations so what can the world learn from china well what you can learn from china is how to expand how to what the chinese did let's look at the past 100 years of history the chinese had a terrible civil war after the after the second world war or or even during that there was this uh this party led by chiang kai-shek which was essentially dominant in china and the communists under mao citung they fought them and eventually after a long protracted guerrilla warfare battle and


after a long protracted guerrilla warfare battle and all that the long march and all those things uh mao satong emerged victorious and the chinese took over the chinese communist party to go to china and step by step they they engineered the society to reflect their mindset their values and their attitudes so everybody had to compulsively become a member of the chinese communist party uh the so-called bourgeoisie was uh purged eliminated wiped out during mao zedong's tenure as the leader of china approximately explained the word bourgeoisie the bourgeoisie are the evil people the ones who are rich see in india we have this mindset that that being rich is a sin right there is a communist marxist mindset socialism is soft communism india is supposedly a secular socialist republic right socialism is a form of that mindset so the bourgeoisie are the rich the ones who have become rich by whatever means so if traditionally you had a good uh occupation or whatever and you were rich


a good uh occupation or whatever and you were rich then the when the communists take over they're gonna shoot you up they're gonna line you up against the one shoot you because you are the bourgeoisie you have earned money that's why you're evil so entire sections of society were wiped out by mao zedong there was the great leap forward there was a great cultural revolution and during mao's lifetime the total death toll within his own country of his own people was about 70 to 80 million minimum that is a ridiculous amount of deaths and the suffering was unimaginable so the chinese entirely changed the the culture of china the chinese communist party changed the culture of china the demographics of china do you know today in china every person take any individual in china he or she has no aunts no uncles no cousins nothing no siblings everybody is all alone because one child one child policy can you imagine that no cousins no siblings no aunts no uncles so that in terms of


no aunts no uncles so that in terms of culture and society that must be making you self-centered seriously it drops your entire thinking your entire mindset you become entirely selfish entirely self-centered and that's the attitude you see about the chinese just observe the behavior of chinese tourists outside china and see how they behave they are notorious for bad behavior and the entire policies of china today are self-centered they want to destroy the world take over the world and make china the middle kingdom the center of the world so that is what's going on i don't think there's anything good to learn from china unfortunately historically china has been a great civilization but right now it's ah frightening yeah when you when you read about lao tzu or even confucius there's so many applications of that in uh modern day life but that's not what this podcast is about coming back to china and even with code happening i think honestly layman's terms the whole world is pissed off with china what


the whole world is pissed off with china what did you do to the world so i mean uh going forward if there's a war do you think russia and china will become allies or do you think there will be a big war will we see a world war three i think if a world war three is fought it would be fought with non-kinetic weapons cyber warfare cyber warfare artificial intelligence all those things if china does go to war with some country and if it loses then the chinese communist party will implode that is the only one scenario in which i see the chinese communist party going out of power because the public will rise up against it if it loses let me give some um kind of examples of cyber warfare techniques and so i'm sure you know your own version of cyber warfare and this is something i picked up from reading recently basically cyber warfare would be that rather than sending soldiers to the battlefield and they were going to fight each other planes and tanks you


were going to fight each other planes and tanks you have hackers in say your country versus hackers in another country now your country's hackers can actually target that country's subway system and make trains crash against each other they can make power lines go off air traffic control systems disappear you can make their social media get affected so everyone thinks in a certain way uh this is what happens during cyber off and this is long run people say that many forms of cyborg are already happening absolutely you will not even know about it yeah today it's possible to take over a country's entire governance system without the public realizing anything has has even happened it's possible today it's possible to make entire cities go black black out it's possible to crash stock markets it's possible to jumble up your your army's communication systems it's possible to just have your satellites die in space steal money steal money yeah you can empty banks entire banks it's possible to do all kinds of things because the


possible to do all kinds of things because the entire world is moved online so online is where the next domain of warfare is and china has been investing in that heavily much of the technological progress they have done over the past 20 30 years has been through hacking they have stolen so many american state secrets military secrets the chinese fighter planes are essentially copies of american fighter planes they look very similar they fly similar so they have stolen a lot of technology from the americans and the americans have just let it happen so you know you spoke about this one child policy affecting mindset in the same way do you believe that excesses have affected the american mindset where excesses and putting inside your body maybe drives you crazy and you start looking at you start focusing on the negative things in life like i'll give you the example right i've taken a policy of on beer by itself media which is my parent organization not to hire as far as possible from tier one cities when


hire as far as possible from tier one cities when we hire from outside of tio your banaras is of the world mps of the world bengal places like that we get our best talent most dedicated talent at the most we'll be looking at an engineering college somewhere here and also then go inside and ask them okay where are you from ideally we don't want kids from urban centers it used to be ulta yes okay like early i only wanted my urban kids and i'm not saying all of them there's a lot of gems out there even in urban india especially urban india needs to turn away from the west look within a little bit i could not agree more about that the west has lost its bearings the west has lost its moorings there used to be a culture in the west today america has ruined that unfortunately today the americans think that emotions are just a bunch of chemical reactions if i'm feeling a certain way i should take a certain drug or certain chemical yes and it'll


a certain drug or certain chemical yes and it'll change me it'll it'll fix me yeah how long will that fix last you'll need a new fix in some time so they are all dependent on drugs unfortunately i mean look at the epidemic of drug abuse in the us good god the opioid epidemic they call it yeah and that's just one aspect of what's wrong with the american society so america is not the role model we should look at anymore anymore it was in the 1960s 70s 80s america was something to look up to when i was a kid it was a very different country today it has lost its bearing it has it has the wrong agendas it looks like the wrong preoccupations and the entire context of the american society is very different from our context so it is not right or it is not fruitful for us to try to emulate that and force fit those preoccupations into our society we need to find our own problems it's not like every single society has


own problems it's not like every single society has problems no doubt about it so we have to understand our own problems through our own intelligence and not trying to compare them with something else and of course we need to progress we need to evolve we need to get better so that needs to happen from within yeah not from without yeah like look within see what's wrong with you rather than complaining about the world around you because the world is always going to be full of and you when you change what's inside is where you can at least get that strength to begin changing things in the world but first look within then urban india is a lot of urban india uh the highly urbanized sections have lost that ability to look within they don't give a about physical health or mental health and you know kind of look outward no that issue is pertinent or how can you live in our country or this one's doing it back or the government is bad oh this is also bad this youtubers talking social media just


also bad this youtubers talking social media just complaining complaining yes whining look within and take action that's right i believe uh before we get to the twitter verse section where we'll take questions from twitter my final question is about uh i think the three places we haven't spoken about australia and the pacific i don't know if that's really important when you're talking about geopolitics because it's a small population what about europe and africa because i read a lot about business opportunities in both not just like you'd assume that the big business opportunity opportunities are in africa because you're saturated apparently even europe has its own big business opportunities but from a geopolitical standpoint what are their roles in this whole game and maybe even south america if you want to highlight it so geopolitically europe is essentially most of europe is essentially in the western orbit in the american orbit okay so uk is essentially an american satellite today okay and the so-called liberal democracies of europe


okay and the so-called liberal democracies of europe are also more or less american satellites germany is trying to push back they are trying to have some alliances with russia especially when it comes to trade with with respect to gas and all that so russia is constructing a pipeline right now through the black sea i believe it's called nord stream 2. the americans are really pissed off about that they don't want the germans to use russian gas so there's a tug of war happening over there the germans want russian gas and russian resources so putin is making his power plays so there's a lot of things going on over there right now as we speak there is a potential flashpoint of conflict brewing in ukraine between ukraine and russia ukraine obviously is propped up by the by the united states and other countries so it's a proxy for a u.s russia conflict which is happening right now like i believe in 2014 putin had russian forces invade crimea


in 2014 putin had russian forces invade crimea crimea right which is a part of ukraine and ukraine couldn't do anything about it well crimea was historically a russian region during the ussr days it was placed within the ukrainian administrative territory purely for administrative purposes after the soviet union broke up and all the republics declared independence crimea somehow stayed with ukraine so all putin did was take back what he believes in his opinion i'm not taking sides in his opinion is russian territory so that is his logic and his explanation of what he did who's right who's wrong i'm not i'm not judging i'm just telling you what happened so there's a lot going on over there in that region in the caucasus region turkey is emerging as a big geopolitical power they're playing both sides america and russia and there's a whole lot of bs going on in the middle east as always conflict on flight conflict like amongst each other amongst


on flight conflict like amongst each other amongst each other that's the perpetual story over there for the past hundred years at least again yeah you study history right like what's been happening for decades will keep happening cycles will repeat themselves i gotta bring this back to india as an indian podcast you know like whatever is happening in the world how are russia america china looking at india does everyone want us on their side and do you think india will emerge as that educative superpower again for lack of a better because that's what we were we were like the teachers of the world we like to use the word vishwaguru right um india is not really taken very seriously right now in the geopolitic geopolitical domain it's a big market it's a big economy but does it have the the ability or or rather the willingness to change things around to to impose its will outside its borders thus far we have not done much about that now in the geopolitical world


done much about that now in the geopolitical world it's all about hard power it's how much you can influence and affect the world it's how much risk you're willing to take and how far will you extend your reach so india has always been for the past 70 years isolated within its own boundaries we say that the indian ocean region is our strategic backyard but we haven't developed a navy that can take possession of the indian ocean region even today sri lankans sri lankan navy arrests our fishermen and sinks their boats so even a little country like sri lanka can kind of bully us around so india needs to develop its hard power until that it will not be taken seriously india is taken seriously as an economic power but not as a hard military power um wow and um you know by which year do you believe that it will be counted as a superpower because i assume that when you're using the word superpower you're taking in the facet of economic


word superpower you're taking in the facet of economic violating the facet of geopolitical military power comprehensive national power yeah comprehensive national i would say india has 10 years to get its act together otherwise china will swarm everything what's the worst case scenario for us as a country breakup fragmentation like gujarat will be its own country precisely that's what china's end game is china wants a dis united states of india china wants independent countries a bunch of independents which is also a historical possibility which is what went wrong which is why we couldn't defend ourselves against the invaders and this is also a possibility well today we are a single political entity but we are still at war with each other we are fighting and bickering amongst each other all the time north what's the southeast versus west this religion versus that exactly it's all just going on and on and it's it's being fermented by various forces from various places so we need to get our act together


places so we need to get our act together in a variety of ways and we've got about maximum 10 years to do that like in the 20s we'll know where life is going yeah so say that fragmentation happens or you know we're attacked with a war do you see a lot of upper class indians leaving the country yeah rats will uh leave the sinking ship right okay the first question is from yashwatwani at watwani world question is are governments thinking about universal basic income so i'd love for you to explain to the listeners what that even means and then you can talk about from a government's perspective so universal basic income is like a social security umbrella or or a parachute that if you fall upon hard times the government so so essentially the government gives everybody a monthly income irrespective of who you are how old you are whether you're working or not a certain amount of money per month so what that does is that if somebody falls upon hard times they still have the


if somebody falls upon hard times they still have the dignity of life and they have a place to stay and they can sustain themselves now this has pros and cons first of all your taxes live taxes to to raises money secondly it will disincentivize many people from working hard right so it's it's kind of a socialistic communistic policy if you look at historically what how india was india did not ever have universal basic income but it did have a very strong social security umbrella so only in case you fell upon hard times your community your extended family your village or town would take care of you you would never starve to death so i would say that instead of a ubi universal basic income we need to have a strong social security net only when somebody really needs it they should get social security nobody should have to beg on the streets there should be no homeless people everybody should have as indian citizens the right to a dignified life and the right to being taken care of


life and the right to being taken care of if in case they're not they are unable to take care of themselves another interesting question from fluky hermit how's the rise of bitcoin green effect world banks are we going to witness a ban on cryptocurrencies actually i'd love to hear your opinion on how crypto is going to affect governments because uh for anyone who doesn't know about crypto we've done some beautiful episodes about cryptocurrencies uh but the highlight from this that if crypto actually uh kind of goes mainstream it will change the way governments are functioning because tomorrow i can sit in bombay and earn money by outsourcing my services or my product to los angeles and the government won't come know how much i'm earning uh how i've earned uh all that so i mean that's just one small aspect of how crypto will affect governments basically right now what happens if i'm sitting here and trying to earn money from there then money goes through the government because government's able to track


goes through the government because government's able to track and that's the whole aspect of blockchain coming in and changing the world because no one can track exactly what you're doing on blockchain i also want to highlight one more thing about blockchain before i let you continue i was with some hnis recently who spoke about how they're converting a lot of black money and generally people with a lot of black money are converting their money to bitcoin to bitcoin yes um so i wish to ask you about this as well so bitcoin definitely has the potential to entirely completely change the way people do business the way people earn money the way financial transactions happens happen and it completely removes the government any government any state agency from the loop like you just said so it has the potential to to empower people to free people you won't have to pay taxes anymore unless you declare the income etc it also has the potential for a lot of criminal activity because you can charge for crimes etc and things like that


you can charge for crimes etc and things like that so it has pros and cons now i would say that india i've heard in the news that india is planning to ban bitcoin i would say it's a bad move india should regulate bitcoin maybe india should create its own digital currency a digital groupie and explore that as a as an option but you have to embrace the future the future is blockchain the future is bitcoin or in various forms of cryptocurrency this is exactly like north korea not embracing social media like it's the same thing same kind of thing that's how the world is progressing the world is embracing crypto india has got to embrace so india should not have this defensive mindset this is this reactive mindset we have to embrace the future and we have to proactively take step steps so that uh it is not using a bad way you know this is what makes me think a lot about when politicians are criticized uh i'm not defending or criticizing any politician


uh i'm not defending or criticizing any politician you but i feel that from that generation which was brought up with that socially engineered mentality of slightly inferiority complex therefore they want more therefore there's jealousy therefore there is like this whole concept of no i'll bring you down and you know everything is too outward my hope is that when the younger generation kind of takes so when people your age take over people born in the mid 70s take over things will change because i feel like your generation like i compared to my own parent's generation which is born in the 60s they're very different from you i don't know why but this is what i've observed for sure you guys are a little more modern and you're upbringing of your kids is also different yes the kids are obviously your kids or something else but you guys have also gone through something maybe you all were really young when the economy opened up in the early 90s yes true probably that was your big cultural shift you know


true probably that was your big cultural shift you know what my generation's big culture shift is what is that covered go video oh no yeah he started caring about the environment and almost yeah for at least that's the chatter people know the uh value of the environment now i see we always did in theory but now we know it in practical in practical in real life yeah like this whole thing about the uh you know what's it called like just the meat industry the fishing industry absolutely absolutely all these industries might actually kind of start i won't say vanishing but they'll definitely go down factory farming all these one hope so i am all for sustainable uh businesses sustainable agriculture but not exploitative things lots of questions about the kovit crisis so very quickly underscore 07 us what's your take on the origins of kovid well the origins of covet are clearly kept under wraps i think well there are different theories and i would tend to believe that either it was an accidental release or