History Bias Narrative Who Controls The Truth Ft Ashwin Sanghi

TITLE: History, Bias & Narrative: Who Controls the Truth? ft. Ashwin Sanghi | Before I Became Me CHANNEL: IIMUN DATE: 2026-04-22 ---TRANSCRIPT--- For 70 years from 1947 up to 2014, you fed me one narrative in the school textbooks.

Duara, is this a figment of our imagination? For the longest time, we’ve come to accept the fact that it is part of our mythology and we didn’t really bother to explore whether it was part of our mythology or was it part of our belief system or was it actually part of our history? the rigor that should be applied to many of the subjects in our country. We have not given them the sort of resources and time and attention that we should have. There are people who will say that Ashwin Sani has lived up to his name Sani. The relationship between Lakshmi Saraswati always remember it that Lakshmi is interested in going wherever Saraswati goes. So if Saraswati is in this room right now, Lakshmi wants to be in this room. Are gods also factual or are they just an interpretation of something that we want to believe? Hello and welcome to yet another episode of Before I Became Me, a series where we actually explore what people were before they became famous. And today I am joined by somebody very special. I started reading much of Indian history because of the way he used to talk about Indian history and how he’s narrated it in the sort of kahanis that he has whether it’s Krishna’s ski whether it is the vault of Vishnu whether it is the roabible line which speaks about of course a very different issue he is the reason why a lot of people have started paying more attention to India per se it gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome on the none other than Ashmin Sange. Thank you Rishab that is so sweet of you and what a lovely introduction I hope that I can do justice to the introduction you’ve given me. No thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time and like I said this is in order to capture your journey before you became the Ashwin Sangi that we know today. Tell me what was your life like as a 16 year old. as a 16-year-old probably it was very unlike what most people would imagine. Uh I’m a South Bombay boy. Uh my father is from uh Jodpur. Uh my mother is from Kpur. Uh both of them after marriage shifted to Bombay probably sometime around 1961 or something. Okay. Uh I was born 1969. Uh and uh uh growing up years were basically cathedral school. Uh uh very very cosmopolitan uh upbringing uh and education. Uh my we we were well off but we weren’t rich but we never lacked for anything. Right. Uh you know I still remember for example uh that we would all sit and have breakfast together before we left for school. uh my brother and my sister and myself all of us uh used to go in the same uh car uh to uh the school. uh there would be a one crisp one rupee note on the on the breakfast table uh which was our tuck money as it were uh which could get you probably a cold drink and a packet of chips uh uh you know so those were simpler times uh in that sense right uh and of course the focus was on not uh not just uh education but also on our extracurriculars uh so for example all of us were encouraged to take up an instrument Right. In my case, I took up the tabla. My brother learned the sitad. My sister uh took up Hindustani classical singing. So all of that was there. We were encouraged to read. Uh that comes particularly from my mother’s side of the family and mom and her uh you know herself uh always loved reading and she would pass on whatever book she had read. uh we will talk a little later about the influence of my grandfather. Okay. From my maternal side uh which was where my love for books comes from. So the voracious reader in you is because of him is because of him. But so it was a very very normal upbringing in that sense. But the one thing that was always constant was that uh you are from a marwari banya background and you will be going into the world of business uh and so it’s very important to prepare yourself uh for that world. Uh so for example I don’t recall having summer vacations. uh summer vacations basically implied that okay uh you know what is the project that you can take up. Uh so uh sometimes for example a father would say okay so and so factory uh now you go and be an apprentice for the next 2 months there or he would say there is one of our automobile workshops uh so you go there and you work on a restoration project along with this particular gentleman for the next 6 weeks or uh go to the office and learn under soand so uh the fundamentals of bookkeeping. So it was uh where any holiday extended period of time was an internship was basically an internship and I think uh he was coming from the place where uh you know I think he had seen very very tough times very difficult times and he wanted that his kids should be capable uh of holding their own. So was the internship like I’m sorry to say this but you know uh now Nepo children as as they are called was the internship where it used to be something where you were given a position of uh you know leadership or was it right at the bottom of the pyramid? No, no. And you know the the question didn’t arise because uh we were at ages in in I mean for example I remember walking into my father’s office when I was probably about maybe 13 12 or 13 uh and being taught how to uh how to you know do ledger posting uh or how to do billing. Uh so it was very very junior level stuff uh that one was doing right you know uh for example we had one munim in my father’s office he was the oldest accountant okay and he himself was from uh I think jthpur or jaur uh he used to wear a kala coat and topi uh and he would you know get very upset with me in case I did the ledger posting without underlining the account head. Uh because those were the non-computer days as they were, right? Correct. Uh or for example, how to uh how to ensure that you can check a trial balance without having to check every entry. Uh so in that sense, the the grounding was very solid. Um and in parallel to all of this confusion that was going on was dear old Nanagi who uh lived in Kpur and uh he was not my real Nana. He was my real Nanag’s elder brother. Okay. So uh we used to call him Majle Nanagi. Okay. He was the middle brother amongst three. And uh he used to run a very flourishing textile uh business uh in Uttar Pradesh. Uh but what was uh remarkable about uh him was that he never let go about uh let go of his passion for uh reading, writing and the rest of it. So uh he was multilingual used uh he besides the usual uh Hindi and English he could speak and write in Persian uh and udu and uh I think uh Latin uh and you know probably a couple of other languages. Uh he had a massive collection of books. Uh his library I think was had thousands of books. uh as a result of which uh he was not just one of those who did casual reading, right? He genuinely knew uh about the world. Um and you talked to him on any subject whether it was uh history or geography or uh economics or politics and he always had a view that was a very seasoned view based on on his own understanding of multiple sources. So that’s where you got your reading gene from. Yeah. So he uh would always uh uh he there was a very very intimate connection between him and me and uh he had this wonderful habit of sending me a book every week almost every week sometimes two weeks. Uh but the idea was basically that he would lovingly actually not just send any book but pick up a book based upon what I had already read and say because I think this will add to your uh to to your understanding of the world in some ways right so I mean if we really think about it uh uh for example it was Nana who exposed me to autobiography of a yogi probably I must have received it when I was 15 or 16, but it it was several years before I could actually fully appreciate the title. uh or for example uh at a younger age uh the Mahabharat retold by Raja Gopalari uh or for example freedom at midnight by Dominic Laapierre um or uh for example war and peace uh by Leo Toltoy uh Midnight’s children by Salman Rashi so there there were multiple titles and uh uh he was not ashamed of exposing me to all So uh Lolita by Noikov came to me probably before I turned 18. Okay. So so the it it was a wide range of uh books during his lifetime. I think he has definitely shared probably more than 300 uh books. What was what was the impression of Lolita to a young adolescent boy growing up in South Bombay in cathedral? uh probably not uh uh not uh too much given the fact that uh it came after lady shatterly’s lover. So that had already happened. Uh so you know there there was an innate playfulness about the old man where he said listen you don’t need to straight jacketed and just just allow the exposure to happen uh in a natural way. The thing about this was that in parallel of course my my father was still trying to train me for business for business and when I would go to the office would see that I’m holding one of books that Nana Gi has given me because whatever was the latest book I would be keen to be uh sort of devouring it as it were and Nana G not only required me to read it but he needed me to send him a letter And did you did you like it or dislike it? If you liked it, why did you like it? If you disliked it, why did you dislike it? You know, he wanted actually the earliest form of a big book review. Uh probably in in an A4 uh format. uh and he required that letter to come for the supply of books to keep coming. You know, it was like tell me growing up in an environment where before you turned 18, you’ve read everything from to you know to Lolita to all of these kind of books and then that would have been very different from even people who are in cathedral because not everybody. So, so how did that shape you in your But but you know in terms of what it did did in terms of my output at cathedral uh it was not very remarkable. I didn’t realize that there was any rewiring going on. My life was I was an average student at Cathedral. It wasn’t as if because of Nana G’s books I suddenly became above average. Uh I there were some subjects that I still struggled in. uh and uh not only that but even in terms of my writing I remember we had uh our professor uh professor Elisha in the 10th standard and he called me in front of the class and he he said this last essay of yours Mr. Sani, do you realize that you use commas and periods like you’re sprinkling salt and pepper? And he said, “Don’t you dare ever do that again.” And so, so it wasn’t as if my writing quality was great. Uh, but it opened up, but it I think it was opening he was rewiring me and he was rewiring me at a pace where I didn’t even realize it. It was like the frog in the water uh where he doesn’t realize the subtle change of temperature that is happening because reading an autobiography of a yogi at the age of 15 and then reading some of Yeah. But you know a lot of that reading was not necessarily understanding or appreciating. Sure. Of course not. So I mean and there were titles which he sent me where I would go back to him and say look I’ve tried but I can’t. War and peace was one of those. uh but uh you know uh uh in parallel as I mentioned when I would be going to the office uh and G would say why are you wasting your time and Ashin Babu focus on the bookkeeping not on the book reading uh and and uh then you know uh that was a conflict and how did you deal with this conflict given the fact that your father wanted all you to always join the family business? On the one hand there was my mom. My mom was unlike my matern unlike my maj where she loved reading but she only wanted to read paperbacks. Ah so whatever happened to be the latest uh uh Jeffrey Archer or Irving Wallace or Frederick Forsith or Ken Foley of those times uh or later probably you know the John Gishams and Dan Browns and what have you uh she would read them and she would pass them on. So on the one hand it wasn’t as if I was only doing meaningful reading. Uh I was also utterly exposed to the world of entertaining reading which probably explains the sort of writing that I do which is that it has to be mass market. It has to be in some ways entertaining before it can be in any way enriching or educating you know but a lot of people including me have found your entertaining books then leading us deeper into academic subjects which we normally would not have touched upon had entertainment not been there not been there. So, so for me uh things like for example uh uh you know when when I would go back to Nana G and say Nana G okay you know this is now what G is saying. So he would say that beta look you know you are from a business family. So it is taken for granted that uh your objective in life your ultimate objective will be in some ways ara uh because that that that is in your DNA but should serve your dharma but he said that you know so puja that is part of your culture and what have you. He said but Laxshmi G what is the process by which you attain Laxshmi? He said I have seen so many families which had lots of wealth but they went down the tube because they didn’t have wisdom. So he said the the relationship between Lakshmi Saraswati always remember it that Laxshmi is interested in going wherever Saraswati goes. So if Saraswati is in this room right now, Laxshmi wants to be in this room and if Saraswati gets up then Laxshmi is curious key why has Saraswati got up. So he said ultimately if you go after Saraswati Lakshmi will come to you as a byproduct. And that was a wonderful way of being able to explain that to me that uh how to how to in some ways conflict uh to resolve that conflict that mental conflict in my mind. And of course uh uh you know uh the the joke that I uh narrate to a lot of students when I go for all these sessions is I said that if you really look at our Hindu pantheon then the only god that can sit between Lakshmi Saraswati is Ganesh which probably explains why I look the way I do. But but a Ganesh in that form is what everybody wants to do. everyone wants to. So but actually Nalaji used to say that better live your life like Ganesh. M uh so in in that sense I think if you ask me what sort of a childhood I would say a very very unusual childhood because all the education background everything was very ordinary very not ordinary but you studied at cathedral and schools like that. So I mean ordinary in the sense that yes ordinary by South Mumbai standards and uh but at the same time very unusual because I was reading stuff that no one else was reading and I was getting exposed to business and uh uh at at an age where no one else was getting that sort of exposure and you know I’m so glad that you mentioned that you were given books such as the Mahabharat or autobiography for yogi at a very nent age. The thing is that most of our curriculum being a South Bombay boy myself most of our curriculum and books essentially lead us to reading about Toltoy more and Shakespeare more. So automatically the normal progression of thought is that you will go to Makia you will go to all of that. Absolutely. You you won’t necessarily tread the Indian path. That’s right. Therefore the if there is not not too many Micious readers at home then you may not get the exposure of the east per se. Yes. And therefore tao physics is a book that I chanced upon very much later in life. Yes. Which so this definitely has its advantages. Oh yes. But you came from we come from South Bombay and I fully understand the privilege that we come from and therefore we have the opportunity to do these kind of readings at such a nent. Correct. Otherwise most are fending for themselves perhaps and their families. So this definitely led to um you becoming Ganes in a way. But at the same point in time you did an MBA from Yale University. Was this was this your father’s dream or was this something that you know you did out of choice? And is the business part of you something that you have to do because it comes naturally? Of course I come from a business family. So so yeah I’m also told the same thing. So is it because our families is it because the family is telling you or is it something that drives you in a way as well? See what happened actually was that uh we as a family and as a business were going through very very challenging times uh when I uh when I completed uh my cathedral school stint in in the 10th standard that was I think 1985 or something then I was in St. Xavier’s college jun through my junior college and senior college years. So 5 years I was at Xavier’s uh and those were very challenging times and uh what my father and mother said at that time was that you know even if for some reason uh the business doesn’t work and for some reason you need to be employed uh you need to be able to do that and in those days an MBA from an IV league was treated very differently. to now today everyone and his cousin has an MBA. Uh in those days it wasn’t that common. It there was still a a sort of a uniqueness uh to it. Uh so uh father’s view at that time was very clear. He said okay beta listen you you finished your graduation. Now once you start getting into work uh I’m not too sure as to then whether I will be able to provide you with a year or two to be able to take a course of any sort. Uh so you do it immediately after college. Uh now in those days one is the American university system was not used to the 15-year correct uh routine. So they in any case felt that your education is incomplete by having done a 10 + 2 + 3. Uh and the second part of it was that most of the if you looked at most of the top institutions there the average age uh of the class typically was around late 20s early 30s which meant that you’d already spent a few years before you got before you actually came in for an MBA. Correct. Uh so uh I was fighting those two uh real issues. Uh so what happened was I said okay let me just focus myself on cracking the GMAT because sort out. So during my final year at Xavier’s besides sort of I was doing a major in economics. So, uh, besides studying for my for my economics major, I I devoted a lot of my time to just sort of attempting to crack the GMAT. And I was lucky because I landed up with the 750 uh, which was in the top 1 percentile of uh, the GMAT scores. Uh, so I thought to myself, I said, “Okay, fine.” You know, I mean, uh, this hopefully makes it easier. uh but the sort of uh sort of colleges that I was applying to I didn’t realize that their view was you know yeah this is one part of it but so at that time then my father told me he said you know if there are a few institutions which have given you a deferred admission then why don’t you go for a week and request them for a personal personal interview so that they are able to understand that even though you may be very young and emerging as a fresh graduate but they cannot understand the concept that you’ve been exposed to the world of business from the time that you were 12 or 13 uh so why don’t you try and do that and so I went for a week to the US and I interviewed with a few of the universities and then finally Yale which was one of those that had given me a deferred accept accepted me in. How lovely. So it I I think I think it worked out. But honestly Rishab now I feel that I had my family and I attached too much value to it because now at age 57 58 and the way my life took a turn I realized that you know hey you know was it necessary was it really necessary uh at that time it was life and death correct it felt like life and death you know and all of All of us young kids, we’ve all been through, of course, those moments where we considered that this is life-changing moment. If this doesn’t happen, my life is pretty much screwed. But you realize much later that the options were all there in front of you. So do you think we we focus too much on the degree and the university whilst we are in school and also you know in the the young adult age per se and the fact that when we see it eventually it’s not a well educated mind as much as a well-formed mind that essentially one should work towards. Is that something that is your conclusion on the subject area or do you think that I guess it’s easier for me to say that having gone through Cathedral and Xavier’s and Yale? So it’s easier for me to sit here and expound that it was so unnecessary. M m uh I do believe that a certain modicum of education is necessary in order to teach you how to think but beyond that does formal education I use the word advisedly under quotes does it actually educate you I’m not so sure I believe that the vast majority of my education happened outside the classroom It happened outside school to from the books that Nana gi gave me from the experiences I had at work from the failures I had in life all of those were far greater points of education than than the years that I spent in the classrooms. And you know this is something that I’ve heard from so very many people that you know the formal education system sometimes does not teach you as much as life experiences do. Perhaps failures teach you much more than success does because you’ve been um you know regular attendee at in terms of motivating the children and speaking to them over the years. So I feel it comfortable to ask you saying would you mind narrating a few failures especially as a young adult that you had that uh you know you think would benefit viewers. I’ve had not one many uh and I have no I have no shame in terms of talking about them but uh to give you an example when I came back after completing my MBA uh I was deputed to one of our industrial gas plants uh and that was an old plant that had been imported from Europe some 15 odd years ago and the fundamental economics of the plant itself self were flawed because uh when when you’re talking about things like industrial gases, the greatest raw material is power uh power consumption. And if your power consumption is off, you can you can kill yourself, but you’re not going to be able to compete effectively in the market. But at that time, I had all sorts of, you know, brighteyed bush, you you you’ve got a bushy tail and you you think, “No, no, I can fix it.” you know, you want to take that challenge. Uh, as a result of which I I think maybe uh sort of was banging my head against a stone wall for almost about 2 years trying to turn it around. Uh whereas later on I realized that maybe I just needed to understand the basic economics of that particular operation and say listen this is not going to work no matter what I do. uh or for example many years later uh you know I uh one part of our family’s business has also been automobiles if you consider the name Sanangi it’s always been associated with automobiles uh so I remember 989 that was the sort of turning point of the dotcom era uh the dotcoms were coming into the business and I thought that we could have a a great opportunity to start uh looking at multibrand retail of automobiles using the internet but it was an idea which was far ahead of its time. She’s going to say you know uh so uh I thought that it it should be possible to have a virtual showroom and do this and do that. Uh I also brought in the investors who were equally happy to go along but it eventually resulted in God.com to dogone which was about 2 years later where I realized it’s not working. Even if I think in terms of my writing career uh the Rosabal line is a book that has been loved by you. Yes. And there are many people who swear by that book. uh they say that the only reason that we uh appreciate Ashwin’s writing is because of that book. Uh but that book I mean it I com I started writing it around 2002 2003 uh but uh it was completed in 2005 but it could not get published till 2008 and between those two or three years uh almost around 47 literary agents and publishers said no to me that you know uh thank you but no thank you and many of them actually came back with some productive advice. advice saying that you know if you want to make this publishable this is what you need to do and I said no I’m not going to do it I’m I’m happy to keep the manuscript the way it is so again now in hindsight probably I could have accelerated the process of going to publication by taking on some of their suggestions but I was simply too stubborn and now looking back I feel that I was Right? Because that book is appreciated primarily because it did not get changed and it was written the way it was written. And therefore sometimes to hold your ground is the most important thing. But but there isn’t a formula but a again in your case because it you know rishab is does it mean that you should simply stand your ground every time? Does it mean that you should take other people’s advice? Should you take advice every time? So what is the formula here? There is no one. There isn’t. But even in in your case, it would have been perhaps easier in order to say look it’s fine if my book doesn’t get published in the immediate year or two years but I will hold my own and I will wait for the right time. But for a person who say for example starting off writing and does not have any other secondary source of income at that juncture they may be compelled to take in some of these suggestions for the lack of other opportunities that they have at diso at their disposal. So like you said that there is no one set formula. There isn’t a one set formula. But in any case for all all those who go into the world of writing my advice is that you should not write when you are hungry. It’s damn difficult you know those those ideas those notions that all poets were miserable and all poets were hungry. Uh frankly today try and implement that and you’ll realize what the implications are. So family comes first income comes along with it. Uh security financial security comes along with it. So writing is something that you can do at any time. The Roosevel line was written when I was working full-time and I was dealing with many many crisis situations at work. But I would still come home, I would uh have my dinner and typically by around 10:00 I would retreat into my study and then I would spend maybe an hour and a half to two hours between 10 and 12 to work on my research and my writing. And so the same applied even with chant. The only difference was that that second book I wrote in the mornings typically getting up at 5, working from 5:00 to 7:00 7:30 and then putting in a full day of work. So our common mutual friend Amish wrote immortals of Meluha in the Gari. Correct? So it doesn’t matter you you know this is something that you can do any time of the day. uh you don’t need to compromise on your primary income source uh in order to so the way at least I would approach it that first see whether it’s like almost sort of sitting at the pool and putting your feet in and once you you feel a little comfortable then go waste deep and then eventually lug out the dupki you don’t need to jump in and enter from the shallow side of the pool and then go to the deep one exactly Don’t don’t be the miserable poet necessarily. Absolutely. Because the primary source of income as I kind of realized after writing books you get 8% royalty and things like that and even if you sell how many of a number of books that you have if you have to look after a family take responsibility it’s impossible. See today for example okay uh the largest publisher in this country uh last year published 400 titles. M that’s a little more than a title a day. What would be the average print run of those titles? Probably anywhere between 2,000 to 5,000 copies. Correct. Right. Even if you consider that the average cover price was let us say hypothetically 500 rupees which is also on the higher side which is on the higher side. Correct. But even then the top line of that title is only 10 lakhs or 20 lakhs. So how much royalty are you going to get out of that if you are at a 10% slab? So the reality of publishing in India is that unless and until you can a start getting to the higher price points and with that higher price point you can get into the print runs which run into lacks. Then at that point of time your royalties begin to look interesting and then hopefully along the way also allied income from things like for example audio adaptations and uh OTT and uh film and web and whatever then the entire pie begins to look interesting at that point of time correct but it’s going to take you a long time to get there. So I mean you know the old joke is that writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks. So why not wait it out? Why not wait it out? Do do your writing? Don’t don’t don’t stop that but keep your income flowing. Keep your income flowing and like you said Lakshmi and Saraswati and the example of that and therefore keep the academic pursuit there but at the same point in time focus on the Ara also otherwise your swadharma will be in one area and your then you won’t have any ara to support the swadharma that you absolutely so no what you said is very true and but the other gremlin that young authors face and I face this personally because I’m one to perhaps it’s the baggage of being born in South Bombay saying I don’t want to take help from anybody in terms of uh connecting and reaching out to people. So as a as a firsttime debut author I wrote to all the publishers without any safari so to say and of course having gone through the process yourself you know how difficult and tedious it can be and nobody wrote back. So then I decided saying look you know what we have I am on we have the the nonprofit it’s it’s in different schools let me publish by myself and let me you know do the distribution then of course subsequently the other books have then gotten picked up and so on so forth but when I reflect back on that decision and when you were narrating your story you know a lot of people would think saying should you wait for a few more years and get a Harper or a Penguin to publish or one of the more prominent publishers to publish or is it okay to self-publish. What is what is your thought of? See, at the time when I started out, which was I finished writing the book in 2005, uh went into the market in 2005 and then couldn’t get published up to 2007. Two two and a half years had already gone by. At that time, self-publishing didn’t as a as a platform. It was not robust. Uh in fact, in India, no one was talking about self-publishing. uh the Amazon Kindle as we know it did not exist. It was 2000 late 2008 by the time the Kindle became available and that too it was a clunky model of the Kindle. Uh so what did exist uh in 2007 was EPUB uh ebooks uh which uh then you could possibly read on your computer. uh but in 2007 the first few self-publishing ventures uh got kicked off in the US. Okay. Uh and uh what they allowed you to do was to access uh retail and distribution uh without having to make an upfront investment the way vanity publishing required you to do. See the way you have to think about this is uh three possible arms. Uh there’s the traditional publishing route uh which is let’s say Penguin, Harper, Westland, uh Rupa, what have you uh where you sign a contract uh they take on the financial risk of it. Uh they probably pay you a advance and then they also share a certain royalty with you. Marketing costs are to be born by them. Correct? uh so as such all that you do is really do the job of writing and then eventually also play the role of an ambassador for the title correct uh in those days in India particularly if you didn’t get that first route then your only other route was vanity publishing vanity publishing meant that you went to an outfit and then the outfit said okay fine we will print it and also put it into the stores but you will be picking up the first print run. Mhm. Which meant, in other words, you were paying for the first 2,000 or 5,000 copies, uh, which was a large investment, correct? Uh, that you were making up front. Now, self-publishing emerged as an alternative to that in 2007 and 8 where some companies said, “Okay, fine. You know what? Uh, the web has now taken off. uh if you write a a document uh you can simply upload that document to us. Uh at that time they didn’t have the ability to deliver it electronically to Kindle because Kindle didn’t exist. But what they could do was uh transform that into a printed copy of a book. Uh so one of the first few companies was a company called Lulu in the US. uh where you simply uploaded your PDF and they would type set it for you. Uh and you could upload your own cover and uh then your book by paying $99 uh you could buy the ISBN number for the book uh and take your copyright for the title. uh in addition they would make sure that it got listed on all the electronic platforms like Barnes & Nobles, WHSmith, Amazon, uh all all of the places where books were normally available electronically. Right? And if you noticed in the listing, it would say one in stock, more on the way now. The idea of that was basically that at any given point of time, they would actually genuinely only be printing one book at a time. So if Rishab went on Amazon and clicked on buy, basically an order would get triggered and it would land up in Lulu’s place. Lulu would print a copy and dispatch it to you. So effectively, it implied that there was no need to actually have the vanity press run. Correct. Correct. You didn’t need to print 2,000 or 5,000 copies. you could print one copy at a time. Correct? So that is how the Rosabal line was originally published by me in 2007. Okay. Now after publishing it in 2007 I realized that okay fine I’ve done this. But at that time there were no platforms available in India. So Amazon hadn’t come to India. So if my book was listed on Amazon, it was only Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada and what have you. So I said how do I sell this book in India? So that’s the time when I started knocking on the doors of bookstores and saying will you keep my book? I’ve already published it. Now what the bookstores told me was something very interesting. They said see you are an unknown author unknown title and in any case as business model we don’t deal with authors we deal with distributors right so you need a distributor so one of my friends who was in the textbook business uh and had known me for a few years I reached out to him and I said listen you know can you distribute this I’ll I’ll buy 50 or 100 copies from Lulu, bring them in and then I’ll give them to you. And he said, “Look, this is not my space, but I will share with you a list of some 50 70 distributors who work in the space of fiction and trade trade paperbacks and all of that. What I would suggest is you send them a cop a copy of your book along with a letter and see whether one of them clicks. So by then I had already tried the traditional publishing route in India. It had not worked. So I said okay let me try the distribution route. So I sent them all a copy of the book along with a letter. None of them replied to me because it was irrelevant. No I’m sure they must be receiving 20 a day. One of them got back to me and that was a small company based out of Chennai called East West. Okay. And East West was one of the largest distributors for imported books in South. East West had at that time just entered into an arrangement along with the Tatas to set up a chain of retail stores called Landmark. and Landmark in turn had entered into an arrangement of sorts to set up a small publishing outfit called Westland. Okay, I’m talking now 2008. Correct. M so the founder of landmark a lady called him Raaya she reached out to me and she said ashwin story is interesting but you know you have priced this book at $16.99 in the US on Amazon if you bring this book into India and then we have to add 100% margins for retail and distribution no one’s going to buy this title so she said why Have you not published it in India? And frankly, Rishab, I wanted to I wanted to get up and I wanted to punch the wall that do you realize the agony I’ve been through in the last 3 four years trying to get this published. Right. So she said listen uh what I can do is I will pass it on to the CEO of our new outfit called Westland. That’s how you and his name is Goautam Padma. So she sent the copy to Gotham. Goautam got back to me about a week later and he said Ashwin I am not sure whether this will work or not. He said I can you source 10 more copies for me so that I can give it to a target group for reading to read and then to come back with their feedback. I said sure. I got the copies. I sent it to him. And now see this is how life plays games. One of those 10 readers was his own father who was senior Padma was known as being like the doin of this industry because he had creat you know he was genuinely passionate about books. So he went back to his son a couple of days later and said, “Don’t waste your time trying to get feedback from the other eight or nine. I’m telling you, you need to publish this.” And that’s how Gotham then came back to me and said that listen, I’m willing to sign an agreement with you. And my first uh royalty was 25,000 rupees. Wow. So uh in 2008. In 2008. Oh, that’s that’s really an accomplishment for a first- time author to get that much amount when the total royalty right now comes up to for very many that much. You know, this is quite an interesting story that you just narrated about your first experience and the Rosar line when it came out in India in 2008 October it was published and by then of course I had already for the last 18 months been trying to market it in the US. So I had been doing what is known as Indian jar uh you know sending it out to magazines reviewers uh you know saying listen I’ll send you a free copy please post your review on Amazon right I had created on I had created my own trailer for the book I was pushing the YouTube and I was doing everything I was hitting out uh across the board to try and see that it works and then the title came out in 200 2008 and uh uh the for the first time mainstream media was actually sort of going to be interested in reviewing it. Uh and the very first review that had to come out uh fortunately or unfortunately was the Hind the Hindus literary review. uh and uh I remember being so nervous because by then I had received such blowback u you know one reviewer in the US had said that uh Ashwin Sanangi has written a good book but it could have been a little shorter maybe he should have considered stopping on page 10. So I mean you know this is the nature of what you do creatively right uh Rishab there is always going to be someone who likes what you do but there are going to be also an adequate number of people who will pull you down. Absolutely. So I was nervous as hell and you know the Hindu literary review uh is one of those in those days at least uh 70 or 80% of the reviews were basically uh to to say hey listen this doesn’t cut it. Um so I was waiting and uh here I am based in Bombay. This paper is published out of Chennai. So I told Gotham I said you are in Chennai. So the moment it comes please fax me a copy. You know those were the good old days where we still had fax machines. I said fax me a copy of of of the the review. And so at by around 9:00 or so, he he sent it to me. And uh I was keeping my fingers and my arms and my legs and everything crossed while I was looking at the machine. And um it was almost a quarter page review and uh written by someone called Praep Sebastian was one of their very wellestablished reviewers and he said that we do a great disservice to Ashwin Sanangi by comparing him to Dan Brown because Ashwin Sangi is so much more and then he went on to write I don’t know how many paragraphs explaining why the Roosevel line had broken all boundaries and was sort something worth your time. Absolutely. And I said there is someone who’s actually saying something nice about this title. Of course it is. There are so very many nice things about the title. But but you know as a writer you are always going to be skeptical in the mind. You’re always skeptical. But then again learning part of it Rishab is that very often you think oh now this great review has appeared so my book is made. M that don’t and then you realized that book reviews don’t sell books. He’s not at all. So after a month was over or a couple of months were over uh Gotham was looking rather uh worried as to whether we’ll have a second print run or not. We had published about I think 3,000 copies. That’s the time that I told him I said would it work in case I started doing the rounds of the stores. M and so I went out on a bat yatra of sorts and whether it was Bombay and Delhi and Kolkata and Bangalore and Hyderabad and Punea all and in every city I would visit 10 15 stores try and either meet the owner or otherwise meet the manager and you know in my head I only had one formula. So the book should be in front. So I I would I would say listen how many copies do you have? Then I would talk about the story why it is important that that story should work. And you know the mere fact that I would take out that 10 minutes to talk to the guy who was actually doing the selling on the floor. It would make a made such a huge difference because now he had a personal connect with the writer of that book. So what would have normally been in one corner of the bookstore came out onto the main shelves. And that’s the time when again momentum picked up and we went into a second print run. And then by the way after that we never stopped printing. We I mean we went it was I think 3,000 then the next one was 5,000 then the next one was 8,000. Wow. Then after that we started almost it became like clockwork you know pasaral pazaru and before we realized it we we crossed a couple of lakhs already but the marketing of a book is so very important. I have observed this and you know you spoke about Amish as well and he keeps mentioning this saying it’s not just writing a great book but it’s how you market the book that is more important than perhaps the literature sometimes in the book. Of course the content has to be good but there are so many books whose content is great but they’re sitting on the shelf. There are many and there are many great stories rishab which have been written and have not moved from manuscript yes to published because someone gave up you know and therefore so it’s very important in order to remain committed to the process like you were committed to the process till you met westland and you know the whole thing happened and there are so many people who give up halfway saying but now it’s that the self-publishing route is something that you think for people who are not getting an answer from the traditional publishers Is that a route that they should explore? So the way to think about this is that now of course self-publishing has has established itself. Correct. Uh and you have so many different ways of being able to consume that story whether it’s in print or whether it is in an ebook form or whether it’s on your Kindle or whether it’s audible and so many other uh uh methodologies are available in terms of getting the story out. I would say that probably if you are uh going the traditional route, your chances of getting the manuscript read are higher when you work through an agent rather than reaching out on your own. Uh because the publishing houses get bombarded with manuscripts and they have a huge what they call a slush pile of unread manuscripts. So now the point is you may have a great manuscript but when will it get read? It could be a couple of years by the time it gets read. So that is where in traditional publishing if you have an agent and an agent who believes in you and your story then the chances of him being able him or her being able to pick up the phone and speak to the commissioning editor of that particular genre and say listen I think you really need to read Rishab’s story that becomes highly probable. and it improves your chances of getting read. Does it improve your chances of getting published? I’m not so sure. But at least that foot in the door happens as a result of the agent. So that is number one that if you are going to go down the tra traditional route, I feel you have a better shot at it with an agent even though it implies that out of your royalty check the agent will be taking some 10 20% off the top. The second part of it is vanity in any case is an out. Why would you go down that road unless you happen to be let’s say a corporate and we’re taking out a book which is 100 years of XY Z company and you already knew that I’m in any case my own internal consumption is going to be 5,000 copies. So then that’s a different matter. Self-publishing is a little little bit like being on Indian Idol. Mhm. Uh so you have a great voice, you sing very well, you’ve knocked the doors, but those doors are not opening. So you need a platform so that you can The biggest issue in all industries is what I call discoverability. How do you get discovered? In the old days, we had very few opportunities to get discovered. Now it’s the world. Now self-publishing allows you that opportunity to put it out there. But remember one thing, self-publishing sells a lot of books. Mhm. Okay. So, uh probably several million every year, but the tail is very long. It’s a long tail. So in other words, the self-publishing industry makes its money by having lots of titles but not having great throughput per title. Uh a few years ago, the uh the statistic was that the average self-published title will sell 57 copies during its lifetime. The number may have changed now, but at that point of time it was about roughly 57 or 58. And I can bet you the vast majority of that 57 would be the author himself or maybe the author’s family or immediate circle or what have you. So what self-publishing allows you to do is get the title out there and be discovered. So now in the event that let’s say you’re a 50 shades of gray uh and it takes on a viral effect boom then the traditional guys will come back to you and say listen next title don’t go through this route I’m there for you or even your existing title take it off the self-publishing rack and bring it to me. M so and there are many of course like for example let’s say hypothetically the Tim Ferrrises of the world uh who who did not who did not go out of that self-publishing model at all because the model itself was so uh paying paying so well uh but remember that those percentages are very few are very few very very interesting anecdotes that you were sharing on literature and you spoke about finding being an agent and having a friend and an ally in an agent. But let me take you back to friends and allies that you had when you were in school. And um friends have a very calming effect but at the same point in time can also be very disruptive especially in your teenage years and growing up. Were books your closest friends or were there? No. No. I I I I had a a circle of friends which you were yet in touch with. Oh yes. Okay. In fact, my closest friends are actually a group of maybe around six or eight friends who have been with me through my cathedral and Xavier’s years. Oh, okay. Okay. Absolutely. I’m not a very social uh person. Uh Rishab, I think probably that’s the reason I went into the world of storytelling, right? Uh as a world of writer, you can you’re at you’re at peace with yourself. Sorry. Okay. Uh so uh in any case even during those years I was not into uh you know going to parties and in case someone didn’t invite me for a party I never felt bad. You were happy. I was happy you know all of that. Uh even when I went into parties uh let me tell you uh uh for me it didn’t feel like enjoyment. It felt like work. M uh there was always that fear in my mind that I will be the odd one out standing in a corner with no one talking to me and then I’ll have to work the room. M now of course in the last I would say after I went for my masters and all of that uh I’m no longer worried you know I mean even if I go to a a particular event I’m quite happy to stand in a corner and nurse my drink uh and I I know that I will uh still have 10 15 people coming up and eventually making a circle around me and there will be enough conversation and what have you But at in those formative years you were very worried of being considered the odd one out. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. You know correct. Uh so but but I would say books were and my close circle of friends and probably Amaritra Kata comics besides books. ACK comics. Of course, in those days we we besides Amar Chetra Kata, it was also uh Tintin, correct? And Asterisk and uh uh Archie’s all of those in addition to the books that Nana G was giving me, the books that mom was giving me. Uh but that was your solace. That was solace. But I I was never a I was never one of those who had no friends. I had a very tight circle of friends. Correct. And therefore, you yet come across as a person who is not necessarily, you know, who’s an introvert, not necessarily an extrovert as such. Yeah. I’m not an extrovert. Correct. I’m not an ext for for me. For me, when people say you are so easy to talk to and you are so comfortable delivering a lecture to 2,000 people, they don’t understand that I’m actually working it. Correct. I’m working at it to be that way. Correct. You’re much more comfortable and happier with your by yourself and with your close people. The only the small difference yet is I am yet to grow up into the space where I’m yet comfortable standing on the side in a party. I’m yet very socially awkward and rather not go to the party uh and find that you know it difficult sometimes in order to make conversation per se. Yeah. But uh I’m I’m very bad at small talk. Like for example, this conversation is coming easily because it’s natural because it’s not feeling it’s not feeling uh uh that I have to work at it. Whereas uh typically for example if I go to an event which is let’s say someone’s shadi uh I I come across someone who I know. So how are you? Okay. Tell what’s happening these days now. What’s new in your life? It’s the same question asked five different ways. The answers are the same. The answers are the same. Uh because now I’m an established writer. They feel obligated to ask me what are you now working on? What’s your next? And very of most often more often than not I don’t really even want to share because I know that they are genuinely not interested. Correct. Uh and even if I try and explain they will probably not understand. Correct. So you know this this is a common dilemma that I face as well. But another thing that I must ask you because you spoke about insecurities in a way you know when that the necessity of fitting in. Yeah, especially when you’re growing up. Absolutely. And uh you know, was there any other sort of insecurity as a young adult that you my weight? Okay. I was always fat. Uh and u I was always insecure about the way I looked. M uh in some ways probably the the fact my working hard at my grades getting into Yale uh all of those were to compensate in some ways for the other insecurities that I was dealing with. Um I think uh uh to a certain extent I used to feel that I was not as social as many other people. I used to feel that my my relationships and contact circle was much more limited than what many of my friends had. Um not only that but in later years when I got into the world of business uh I felt that I was I felt I was running a race against others actually I was running a race in my own mind. Uh so there was that insecurity you know that uh uh you know I want to be talked about and I want my business to be talked about and I want the fact that I’ve been very successful to be talked about and then later on but in retrospect you you are being spoken about and therefore perhaps you have the you know you come from a position where after having seen it all you are saying that look you know this is not necessarily the best thing that I mean the most important thing at that juncture. You’re right. The only difference is that you see if you are if you are if you are getting your royalty check the question is are you getting it as a byproduct or are you working towards it? M for me the way I see it is that if I don’t have a jo if I if the intrinsic joy of researching and reading and developing a story is not there then that royalty check is meaningless. The same applies with fame that if it comes as a byproduct to your enjoyment to the sense of satisfaction of telling the story. Don’t get me wrong, I think they are important. Uh I’m not going to sit here and tell you that money is not important or that uh you know uh getting a sense of achievement from being spoken about is not important. But it can it cannot be your primary driver. And that is what happens at an earlier age that you feel that is the primary driver. That is the primary driver. And I think it requires it requires many failures and many false starts before you begin to realize as you go along that uh that you you know I mean that that there are many you if I may slightly divert. Sure please. I remember after co uh when the first wave or the second wave had got over I think must be around 20 or 21 and I told my wife I said you know we’ve been locked up for so long I want now travel is open let’s go away for four five days and we went away to Jaipur it was the first trip we were taking in a very very long time and uh I was uh I was at the Rambag M and uh it was a winter day around New Year’s. Uh I told uh my wife I said listen you know uh during the day you get through your stuff and I want to just go and I want to sit under a tree in the garden which is what I did. I sat on a bench and I had my didn’t have my computer or anything and I began to just feel such an immense sense of joy that I can be here that I can enjoy this weather that my wife is with me that I have friends that I have relationships that I’m established in the world all the small small things which never used used to cross my mind began to cross my mind. So I ended up using my phone uh to put down what is truly important to me, what drives me in terms of happiness and what drives you in terms of happiness. Now you know I I I only made a note of five points and I hope I can remember them all but I I will try. I realized that number one and this is not in any pecking order. Sure. Sure. But these are five criteria as it were. One that you need financial security. You need you need a certain amount of money to be able to run your life. M uh it doesn’t have to be a large amount of money but it has to be that much which allows you to live with respectability in your own mind. It has to be that much that you can take a holiday once in a while. It has to be that much where in case one of your family members is ill then you’re not running pillar to post. It has to be that much that can ensure that you can sleep at night you know. uh and uh this is uh something my nanagi used to say that you know uh that uh money uh is is important to the extent that you don’t have to worry about it. Correct. So that is very important to have that much money that you don’t need to worry about it. It also gives you the freedom of being able to pursue what you want to do in life. But on the flip side, which leads me to two, there are people who have tons of money, but their health is gone. And so with with that money, with wealth comes the health bit. And it’s not only your own health, but also the health of the near and dear ones around you. Correct? Because all you need is one family member to be diagnosed with a very very serious condition. And for the next 5 years your life is only going to revolve around that. So it’s very important to have some amount of wealth and some amount. Health hiccups are going to occur for everyone. But you need to be grateful to life in case it is able to give you 80 or 90%. I would say the third is having a purpose. that is there something that that you wake up for in the morning and you say this is what I want to do it’s like you you know saying hey listen you know there are these 20 things that I also want to make real uh I have seen uh I have seen your organization uh I iman uh from the I think maybe the over the last 15 or 20 odd years yeah 15 years now 15 Yes. Yes. Uh the earliest event I came for was the one at retreat in 2013 and see where you’ve gone. It comes from a purpose and it doesn’t feel like work. You know u they say that uh they say that uh you know people who are lucky in life get to do what they love. If you are a little luckier then you get to do what you love and you’re also good at it. M and if you’re really lucky, you get to do what you love, you’re good at it and someone pays you for it, you know. So to to my mind having for me for example it is telling my stories correct. Uh so I know that when I’m working on a story if I have completed a chapter yesterday I want to be up by 5:00 in the morning in order to start telling the next chapter. Correct? So having a purpose is exceptionally important. I would say the fourth is the relationships in your life. Uh you know at the end of the day even if you’ve got a bestseller on your hands there is someone who needs to express that they are happy for you. Correct? Uh so whether it is your wife, whether it’s your kids, whether it’s your siblings, your parents, it could be even your dog or cat, it could be your closest family relationships or friendships, school friendships, but and it doesn’t need to be a ton of people. It could be five, but those relationships make your life worth living. M um I don’t uh I’m only a social drinker. I I normally do not end up pouring myself a whiskey on my own. But that makes it all the more necessary that I need someone to share that whiskey with. So having those relationships makes it makes it worthwhile. And finally I would say is belief. uh sometimes it’s very easy to say I did that I did that I did that but having belief in a greater power it doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean being religious what it means is believing that there is a reason why you were put here believing that there is a greater greater power which is making certain things happen the way at least I like to navigate my life is that I like to think that I’m sitting in a in a very very fancy sports car. Uh and uh that sports car is the type that I could accelerate to any uh speed that I want. Uh it has all the maneuverability uh that is required, beautiful suspension uh and so on and so forth. And of course, it’s also going to turn heads on the on the road. But I have to keep in mind that what is the road and the road condition and the weather that is not in my hands. So I may be the best driver and I may have the best car but at the end of the day it is the universe which conspires to give me a road or to provide a fork in the road or to provide a very very steep slope. All of that is is where destiny comes in. Uh so having that understanding that there are some things that I are in my hand and that there are some things which are beyond me. I think that’s very important. M that understanding I think is the most important understanding that one can reach in life is what I personally think that you know we are just a speck in the dust in in the in the cosmos of the universe and uh everybody is playing a part and we should not get too happy if the part leads us to be king or to be otherwise. Absolutely. And therefore that what you said is very important. But before I touch upon that something very important that you mentioned which is very applicable to young people is relationships. And you know in your formative years when it came to relationships with your family members first that is your mom and dad did you have a very um you know was was there a rebellious ashwin sangi uh growing up in your teenage years or were you always calm and dignified like how you are today? I think growing up years uh whether it was me or whether it was my brother or sister and I was the youngest amongst the three siblings uh but u I don’t think any of us were rebellious kids okay uh we we may not have been at the top of our class but we were also not at the bottom of the class uh we weren’t failing in any subject uh you know uh uh as long as you were you were average, it was fine. Uh it wasn’t as if we were necessarily uh you know the most prominent kids in terms of debates or elections or sports or what have you. But it equally we weren’t the kids who were being pulled out for detention or being given pink cards or yellow cards or whatever you know disciplinary action where our parents are having to go and beg with the principal that listen please keep him in. So you’re not a notorious child. Not at all. Not at all. Uh I think the rebellion in me began to show up much later when I got into work. uh and that was primarily because of the fact that I was always a creative person and unfortunately in uh that creativity sometimes ends up causing a conflict uh in uh straight jacketed traditional business households. Uh so uh I found myself at loggerheads uh with my you know my dad and my brother and the the the older generation of executives uh who were there and that is the time I began to realize that or I began to question myself that is this really your path. Uh so probably had it not been for those conflicts that happened in my work life in my 30s probably I may never have taken the decision to start to try and write that novel. So is it is it correct in understanding that the friction led you to think saying let’s focus on soal line started the writing started in 2002 got completed in 2005 got published in 2008 self-published in 2007 traditionally published in 2008 I was working full-time all along through this process even When I went into the second book, Chanakya’s chant, which came out early 2011, I was still working full-time. The the Krishna key came out 20134, I was still working full-time. M it was only after the Krishna key that you stopped that I I said look this is what is giving me joy and I’m happy to be involved to the extent where it you know so I I would say the way you could divide uh my the phases in my life that 20134 before that I was a businessman who was also a writer now I am a writer who’s also a businessman. So that’s the change. The little bit of friction between you and the family and your elder brother and your father gave you the thought saying chu because I’m a creative person and this is not necessarily something that maybe well accepted is that and correct along with that parallel to that were failuresh parallel to that were failures in the business within the business space itself. Uh so I think uh to a certain extent I began to question myself that uh that is it that because of the fact that I grew up in this home and I grew up in this business environment I took it for granted that this is what I this is the environment in which I will flourish. uh is it possible there is that that there is another environment in which I may do even better am I correct in understanding this that sometimes especially when it comes to people who come from lineage and privilege and so on so forth we’re always given or we’re raised in environments which are essentially putting us in direction A or B but there may be a direction C that we may be good at and your early exposure thanks to your nana etc. That’s right. Shaped you in a very different manner. Today we see thanks to the failures that you had in your A and B that you said that chalu let’s explore C. See absolutely is that is that a correct understanding? I see too many people in life who are not living. They simply exist. There’s a difference between living and existing. Mhm. Hm. And I see so many people who are doing very well in life. Uh and they’ve got flourishing businesses and they’ve got very comfortable homes and they’ve got a very stable life. Uh their family life is also stable. Mhm. Mhm. But that spark is not there. Because probably they were never they were never given the opportunity to be able to explore another dimension. So it’s not always A and B. Look for the C. Perhaps perhaps perhaps the C will lead you to the A plus. Absolutely. But I must also touch upon love. Um in the beginning my understanding of love was infatuation as a teenager and then it evolves over a period of time and then it goes on eventually to love everyone equally and so on so forth if you reach that level. Yes. But how how was your understanding of love uh when you were a teenager and how has it if evolved over a period of time? Well, um to a certain extent I think uh after I came back from my uh master’s program uh that was around 93 and uh for the longest time I told my parents I said I I I don’t think I want to right now get married uh I want to establish myself I want to be standing on my own two feet and whatever. So by Marvari standards you were late. I was actually late because uh by the time I got married it was 98. Yeah. 98 or 99. So I was 30 or 31. Wow. Uh by the time I got married 93. Yeah. So, so but what I can tell you is by then I had had some relationships which had some of which had lasted for more than a few years. Wow. Uh but by the time that I reached 1998 I realized that hey listen now either I settle myself or otherwise I don’t know what is going to be there in store. And that’s the time I told my parents I said listen do you have someone in mind and of course they were they were happy as hell that the time I went through the arranged route I must have met a few potential matches but with my wife Anushika uh it would surprise you to note that on the third meeting with her, I asked her to marry me. Wow. So that was those three meetings happened over a space of two weeks. Oh, that’s amazing. And you were sure in the third meeting that Anushika is the one. Yes. And that is what And now we’ve been married by the way 27 years, which in today’s day and age is gold, right? Yeah. So, but what led you to believe that she’s the one if I may? Uh the first couple of meetings were actually relatively inconsequential. Uh and you know this is something which probably the youngsters can pick up on. Uh I think what I was wanting was not answers from her but questions and on the third meeting uh she came prepared with questions uh that okay where do you see our lives going and you know how are you going to provide and stuff which was was in some ways very very important to me I just got a sense that this is a person who’s very well grounded and is asking me stuff that is actually relevant and we sat for two or three hours and at the end of those 2 three hours I said listen you know I I think I from my side I I’ve made up my mind what about you uh and this is what leads me to believe that some of these These things cannot be formulaic. Sometimes you can have everything going for you in a relationship. You may be getting that sense of comfort and intimacy and uh uh there could also be the infatuation element and all of that butterflies in the stomach. Butterflies in the stomach and all of that. And there could be another one where uh there are the the signals are all mixed up. And there could be a third where the signals are all wrong. But what is it that allows a third meeting to give you such a strong instinct and you know one of the books that I wrote 13 steps to bloody good luck okay I’ve talked about okay uh u the fact that what we call instinct uh is actually not a sixth sense uh our brain is moving at a pace where We can’t even understand uh the number of calculations that are going on in our heads. And very often what we attribute to a sixth sense is simply the brain having already uh figured out a bunch of data points which at our conscious level we don’t realize that it’s figured out. So somehow or the other uh you you see it all the time. You see it with business deals. You see it with relationships. You see it with even examinations. You may have done all the prep in the world. And you sit down for that exam paper and on question three, you don’t know do I go right or do I go left and then it’s at that point of time that six sense which kicks in. So there’s a lot of that which happens in life. And I think I think uh today now when I’m sort of on the eve of entering into my 60s I genuinely now understand the proverb which says that true wisdom lies in knowing that you don’t know everything. Of course or maybe true wisdom lies in knowing that you’re not really wise. But whichever way you want to say it, but the point is that understanding that there are many many things that you don’t know. Of course. Of course. But love sometimes and especially for young people and you mentioned this is is something where compatibility to has to happen where there is we’re looking for green flags. Now it’s the world of green flags and red flags and so on so forth and every everything is a checklist for me. And sometimes like you said that you know it is um more than the more than the green flags or the butterflies in the stomach per se. It is compatibility in a way where two people come together as a partnership and it’s not necessarily the infatuation that is going to keep it lasting for a period of time but it is much more than that. Is that something I I think the way at least I see it is that when you get when you start on a on a road trip where you’re planning to drive from let’s say Bombay to Delhi, right? Uh what do you need? You need the GI. Correct. Uh you need probably Google Maps. Uh you probably need the highway signs. You also need to figure out any stretches where you may run out of fuel and so on and so forth. Uh so essentially there is an element of planning. Uh so the initial initial hours will go by like a breeze. Uh you know the music is on, the AC is on. Ar we are now out on an adventure, right? But that then begins to wear off after the first few hours are gone. How do you keep it going? Yes. How do you keep it going? And it’s the same question that I have to ask myself when I start on a story. Rishad how do you any any story in the Bhat series will take me 2 years or 2 and 1/2 years to actually from start to finish. So the thought that is always there in my mind is that okay Ashwin story looks damn good quote unquote sexy right and you will also do the research but what happens if you get bored with that particular idea after you’ve done the research then all of it is down the drain or you’ve you’ve written the plot outline or started writing the plot outline and then you say no no this is not it. Has that happened with you? It’s happened before and that’s the reason why I spend so much of time figuring out what that next story is. M um I think I’ve discussed this with you before that I capture every idea that hits me all the time that when I’m starting on a new novel, I will always review what are the ideas and then figure out okay what are the top three that I could work on and then I will again juggle them around in my mind till the time that I figure out okay this is a story that I can see that I will write it and I will not get bored of it. after 2 years and that’s that’s what you need in a spouse. No, that’s in your relationship with Anushka. the same exactly that how do you make sure that it’s going to be it’s going to be interesting going forward because the it’s it’s not going to feel the same way correct as it did in the initial uh stages and I think uh I think over a period of time what what I mean like for example I would say that with with Anu my greatest advantage was that when I decided to make for example the transition into writing Not once did she ask me that you know Ashwin it’s all very well but how is this going to work uh what about our living is is is this going to change uh when when I was not sure about uh my work situation and I said when I took that trip to Kashmir and I came across the Rosabal tomb and I was spending you know 18 months or 20 months researching that story and the first person who put a laptop in front of me and said why don’t you write it up was Anushika u so someone who is not only there with you in the joyous moments but also in the moments when you are down in fact those are far more important don’t attend a birthday party but attend the funeral I think uh the other part of it also rishab is that over a period of time what you want out of your spouse also under goes a change. During the early years, it’s far more about feeling like you’re dating. It’s more about the physical element. Uh it’s more about the external signs like flowers and candy and Valentine’s Day and what have you. Over a period of time it moves into a more steady rhythm where you both are also facing certain obstacles, challenges and you feel that sense of partnership in terms of that we are both there together in this partnership. Then it moves beyond that also into the what I call the comfort of silence that can you both be there in the same room without feeling the need to talk. I mean the amount of space that she has given me uh you know it’s not possible to be a writer’s wife uh without giving up a lot uh because you’re you’re either holed up uh you know you’re either traveling to do some research or you’ve gone away to some litfest or you are uh holed up reading a book because that needs to form a part of the next chapter or you know you’ve you’ve got up at 5 so you feel the necessity of going to sleep by 9:00 uh whereas the other person would ideally love to be going for a party or something. So over a period of time you begin to realize that that having a spouse who understands you is so important. She must have given a lot of space I’m sure as an as an author to to pin things. But let me let me ask you a couple of questions about the author that is Ashin Sani because uh considering we have you and I know that um you’re always doing one thing after the other so I’m mindful of the time as well but today in today’s day and age you know you are a celebrated author now a voice in um you know literature across not just in India but overseas as well but today we live in a world where there is rampant polarization There is complete misinformation. You’ve got WhatsApp forwards and WhatsApp universities now. And therefore there is a lot of blurring between fact and fiction. And as somebody who marries in a way fact and fiction, you could almost call me the perpetrator of a lot of conspiracy theories. So I’m I’m scared about where this question is going, but I’ll allow you to complete it. No, but but that’s that’s what I’m trying to say that you know what what you are doing of course is very different from what is happening where you people are using propaganda in order to uh divide people more than unite them. Uh yours in is in order to spark interest in a way uh like you sparked interest in a generation about the country. So my question is how can a young person tell what is fact and what is fiction in a world where there are deep fakes and where AI is almost able to replicate this conversation in a way better than what we’ve convers you know um uh Rishab I would say that probably uh the way at least I like to think about it is that ideologies and the polarization between ideologies has always been there. Correct. It’s not something new. Correct. Uh probably every generation uh before us has also felt that the degree of polarization is highest. Now uh the way at least I see it is that um you know if if you look at the spaces that I operate in which is the world world of legend and myth and the world of history and then I take inspiration from both of these sectors and then spin my stories around that. M uh my favorite definition of myth comes from Lewis CS Lewis who said that a myth is a lie that reveals a truth. Mhm. Right. U in other words what he was alluding to was the fact that you could have a fanciful story but rather than worrying about the superficial facts around it try and understand what was the deeper purpose of narrating that story in the first place. M uh on the other hand you have a work a body of work which is called history and the way at least I see it one of my favorite definitions within the space of history uh is George Santana who said that history is a pack of lies about events that never happened written by people who were never there. Now instantly whenever I use this definition there are 100 people waiting to jump on me that how can you say that uh what I’m trying to say is that we believe that history is a set of facts but that set of facts has to be narrated by someone and it is impossible to remove the the narrator’s bias from that narration not possible. Anyone who says that this is a perfectly impartial recounting of events is wrong. It cannot be. Which means in other words that there is an element of bias. There is an element of a viewpoint which comes into every historical narrative. M so the way I see it is that don’t believe that I at least don’t believe that everything that is written in the world of myth or in the world of legend is purely fictional. I believe that some of it must have been based on some truth which caused it to if if I may sort of I’m sorry I’m I’m I know that you’re ur you’re you have that urgency to jump in. I’m going to hold you back right now that if a story like the Ramayan was narrated 300 different ways, then there must have been some great event or person which caused those 300 narratives to happen over the years over the generations. We would have applied Milch Masala through those generations to those narratives. We would have adapted those narratives to the sensibilities of the geography of the generation that was consuming the story. But the that core core idea of the story of some great king who went to fight some great war must have been there. That is part one. But the corollery to that is that everything that is in history cannot be factual because after all there’s an ele just as in myth and legend everything is not fanciful everything is not fictional there is some fact similarly in history there is some fiction now the problem is how do you distinguish and the way at least I see it is that the only way to have an independent viewpoint and an independent opinion is by exposing yourself to the maximum number of opinions that there are. Uh take an event in Indian history which we call the first war of Indian independence

uh we are also taught in our history books that it could be the great rebellion of 1857.

Now surprisingly that event is not taught at school level in the UK. Uh most of colonial history in fact is not taught uh at school level in the UK. It will probably be taught maybe for a mast’s or a specialization. Uh but out there it will not be called the great rebellion. It’ll be called the SEO mutiny of 1857. It’s the same event but narrated from two very very different viewpoints. Now I don’t want to trash one over the other but I want to be exposed to both and I want to glean from both where the possible east and west could meet. So India’s partition should be studied from both uh India’s textbooks and so also Pakistan’s. Well of course that’s not a very good example. No, I’m just I’m just asking you. The the perspective I have is that I the way at least I see it is that if there are five narratives of an event, I am better informed in case I have exposure to all five narratives rather than only one which was taught to me in my ICS textbook. That’s the point. The way I like to think of it is that you go for a you go for a movie, a 3D movie, watching Superman or Spider-Man and the figure almost leaps out at you uh from the screen. How does that work? You put on a pair of 3D glasses and instead of one beam of light, there are multiple beams of light coming to you and all of those multiple beams get aggregated in order to give you a holographic image, a 3D image. In other words, you are be able to you are able to almost get a 360 or a 180 view of that particular image. It’s not a perfect science. It’s not perfect. It’s imperfect. But you are better informed than you would have been with a 2D. That’s the way at least I’m and and I’m now not talking purely about history or legend or myth. I’m talking about any narrative that the more narratives that you are willing to absorb and expose yourself to the better the chances are that you are likely better informed and even when you come across a false narrative on social media which is very highly probable these days you will still have the ability to be able to say wait on does this ring true M but what happens with narratives unfortunately or fortunately is that then they turn into beliefs and what you rightly said about history also is that it is his story. The person who is the victor is writing his story in the way that he wants himself to be remembered of course and the mutiny the beautiful example that you gave in the revolt um whether it was the first freedom struggle or whether it is the mutiny. Now when these interpretations become beliefs, beliefs then turn into actions in one form or the other and then that leads to a very difficult world per se and that’s why we have wars in a way because it stems from that belief saying that the country or um our country is superior to every other country. Yes, India of course we are very lucky that we believe in vasu deva kutumba come as a tenant in therefore the world is one family but the idea that these beliefs become very strong and they these beliefs come in us at a very formative age some of these beliefs in our country are of course spoken about more than most. I would like your opinion on some of course if you feel comfortable only then um do they exist or is this a figment of our imagination or somebody’s imagination per sea? No. So now for example for the vast majority of people duara is simply a symbol of the fact that you know it is obviously re referred to uh uh in in all our scriptures including uh the the Bhagat Gita and the Mahabharat and we are talked we we are we are we are told that that was the the glorious city the swarn city as it were of Krishna uh and For the longest time, we’ve come to accept the fact that it is part of our mythology and we didn’t really bother to explore whether it was part of our mythology or was it part of our belief system or was it actually part of our history uh and this is where I somehow feel that the rigor that should be applied to many of the subjects in our country, we have not given them the sort of resource resources and time and attention that we should have. So for example, you will even though you have very little evidence to let’s say prove the existence of Atlantis, but that doesn’t mean that researchers will not invest substantial resources and hours and efforts in figuring out as to whether there could be an element of truth to it. Similarly, for example, with Duara, had it not been for Dr. Rao who undertook major uh oceanographic expeditions uh into Betwarka and the neighboring areas. Probably we might not have come across ruins under the ocean which indicate that something did exist. Whether that was Dhaka or not, we probably can’t tell even today. But where I’m coming from is that whether it is whether it is duara or whether it is tomorrow Ramander or whether it is the Taj Mahal, you could have multiple narratives around it. Uh if you read let’s say PN oak, you would say that no no this is not Taj Mahal, this is Tjo Mahalya, right? uh or for example tomorrow uh let’s say the long dispute that happened over the Ram Janma Bhumi site uh it was again what was it it was a clash of narratives but that clash of narratives is very important to happen within our own minds that’s what I’m talking about that it means that you’re willing to entertain two completely opposing ideas in parallel and give them the respect that they deserve in your mind before making up your mind. I find that that does not happen nowadays for most issues. So there will be one you know there was that old joke which said that on the on the right there is very little right and on the left there’s nothing left. Right? So you have these two cults on the left and the right and so you will have someone on the left saying that nothing of any significance whatsoever emerged from everything that was meaningful only came from outside India and then you’ll have the cult on the right saying nothing of significance happened anywhere but bhat what is the what is a chance that either of them are right where at least the way at least I look at it is that if I’m having a dish which requires three seasonings all those three seasonings need to be there in the right proportions for me to be able to enjoy that dish currently social media as well as commentaries as well as narratives they distill it down to a very black or white. There are 50 shades of gray is what you’re saying. There are so many shades involved in every narrative in every story. Now, please don’t get me wrong. I think uh I think at least where what has stood for me, what has worked for me is trying to read up as much as I can. But I genuinely worry about the coming generations because they are reading less. They are consuming more. And even what they are consuming uh you know at least when we were reading we knew that this is on the fiction shelf and that is on the uh that is the non-fiction shelf. Nowadays the fiction books come into the normal shelf. Yeah. And not only that, but when you’re consuming a documentary or you’re consuming a a 2-minute clip which has been generated by AI, what are the sources that have been used? You you will remember that with all my books in the Bhat series, there’s a gen uh a generous mixing of fact and fiction. Correct? But I would probably be amongst the only novelists of that type of fiction who will give you another 20 pages of resources at the back of the book. Why do I do it? Why do I invest the time in giving you a bibliography of sorts? The reason being because very often let’s say take the Krishna key the end of the Krishna key uh the last oneird of the book takes place at the Taj Mahal and that Taj Mahal lots of conspiracy theories are thrown at you that what does this mean what does this symbol mean right if you will look at the resources you will find that I have also provided you resources which are countering the very opinion that I have expressed in the book. But isn’t that what purva paka was supposed to be that where you understood the narrative from the other side before you expounded what you essentially are saying? Yes, absolutely. But the anglicization of debate of course uh in and if you go back to the very roots of sanatan what what defines sanatan not that when you say that listen I am willing to accept a plurality of views that there isn’t one truth that there are multiple truths and I think this was beautifully explained by Shashid Tarur who who said that look I’m Not at the end of the day with sanatan it is not about tolerance it is about acceptance which means in other words that I have a truth and that rishab has a truth and I am not just going to merely tolerate your truth because you say it’s your truth and I don’t believe it’s a truth I tolerate it that is very different to saying I accept it as a valid path and I say that Listen rishab you I will respect your path and you also respect my path. Now that is something which is very very unique to Sanatan and in that sense I believe that somewhere along the way somewhere along the way uh a reawakening of sorts needs to happen where uh we say that listen we are better off in case there is a multiplicity uh of views because then that indicates that we are not in some sort of echo chamber. uh you know and that should be the way it is and viveandanda the essentials of vive kanandanda and that’s what he’s taken from what tu borrowed from and there are people who are going to watch that part and they’ll say but you know what for 70 years when from 1947 up to 2014 you fed me one narrative in the school textbooks I agree we we’ve done tremendous harm and damage by not allowing multiple points to be expressed. But now we need to be equally cautious that we are not swinging the pendulum right to the other end. At some point of time you will need equilibrium. No where where when you are talking about a certain event like let us say for example Nak gi Sabhashchandra Bose by now we should have opened up all the files there is no greater disinfectant than sunlight bring it out into the open create digital archives of everything say listen guys we want a thousand different uh magnifications and lenses to be applied to this story and then let us have all the views out there. But instead what you do you keep certain things hidden and then that results eventually in conspiracy theories for for a country that is largely close to the equator. We are always deficient when it comes to our vitamins when of sunlight and so also in our history and so also in secrets that we keep we far away from the light. That’s right. But but what you said is is uh beautiful where you said that different perspectives should be accepted in history textbooks today and it should not swing the pendulum the other way and that’s the same thing I see of both India and the world and therefore it’s India’s international first model United Nations which later on became movement to United Nations in a way but studying both the east and the west and of course you were exposed to if I may say one more thing the the problem with the viewpoint point that Ashwin Sangi has expressed is that it doesn’t get eyeballs. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because unless you are extremely on this side or extremely on that side, that’s where all the noise happens. That’s where all the attention is. But guys like me who say listen I want to hear everything and then I want to use my common sense in terms of trying. It’s almost like s solving a murder mystery that when you’re when you are interviewing the witnesses, many of them are going to lie and then you have to figure out what is what is the lie? Where is the truth? What does the evidence tell you? What was the blood spatter? Like I’m sorry, this is the the crime writer and me coming out. But but you have to then solve the you have to solve the murder based on a variety of information that comes before you. Of course, we don’t apply those rigorous standards to events that are narrated. No, we’re quick to be both the judge, jury, and the executioner for anything that comes about. And so you look at these camps of Neu and Sabharo. So are you trying to tell me that that in his entire lifetime Saburka didn’t do five things that were great for this country and are you trying to tell me that Neu was only incompetence but if you read the normal narratives that emerge from the extreme right and extreme left that’s what it feels like but if you write read their own writings like with one of my favorite books the experiments of truth you realize that there are like you rightly said it’s not black and white but so many shades in which you can see the man and and that is with us also no yes of course of course I mean uh okay you call me this this uh doian of uh Indian writing as it were and you call me this great storyteller but when I go back to my home what are my weaknesses do I lose my temper do I drink too much do I do I overindulge which causes me to become fat. What are the things that are wrong with me? And can I really genuinely look at myself and say every decision I took Ashwin was the right one. There are so many decisions that I will have taken which are wrong. Which means in other words I am I am ultimately a product of multiple things. Some good, some great, some not so good, some terribly bad. But the sum total of all failed experiments then only can be slightly successful is what I believe. Otherwise if you’ve not failed as many times but when when we talk about failure or incompetencies and because you’ve brought that up as my second last question to ask you is how does one deal with certain emotions and whether you see Indian texts or whether you’ve read your fair share of western history and philosophy as well. um if you can give examples of your you know favorite anecdote so to say from these books as to how young people or people just generally should deal with say anger see the you know of course I give you different words anger being the first it depends on how you channelize it everyone experiences anger but the point is rishab that you take for example let’s say the you know we have the arasha Shastra and in the Ara shastra we have this person who wrote it whether you call him Chanakya or Vishnu Gupt or you call him Koutia uh and of course the ara shastra he doesn’t have uh we we we know a lot about what this person thought but we don’t know that much about him through the ara shastra for that we have to then again look at work of fiction 700 years later which is the mudra raas by uh which is a play it’s a mudraas is not written as a historical uh historical narrative it’s written as a play to be performed uh and then in that the life of chanaka gets described uh and in that we come across the event where uh he has gone for the banquet uh uh and which has been hosted by Dhanand and Dhanand does not treat him well uh does not give him the respect of a learned person that he is and uh by then of course the cruelty of uh the Nandanda is well known and at which point of time uh Chanatya unties his shikha which becomes a very important and dramatic point within in the TV series also uh and where he says that I will not tie my shikha till the time that I have not uprooted your entire lineage and that your lineage will not survive. uh and then after that of course how he recruits Chundra Gupta Moria and then eventually ends up working towards make making him uh the the the king and establishing the Morian empire. So if it is channeled correctly anger is something that can drive people to do great things. But if it is if anger is simply not it’s almost like having a a vast glacier and a vast river but not creating the required irrigation canals. So there’s no point of it then. But I think channeling anger is something which and people don’t even realize that they they are actually that the what they are experiencing is anger. When I say jealousy is there something that comes to mind some anecdote? Probably from the Mahabharat. Uh I mean on honestly speaking if you think about it Indrat was considered to be the most fabulous city that could have been created by the Pandavs and Indra from my perspective was the reason for the downfall also that so sometimes I genuinely feel like for example there are very many times when I want to push myself even harder um there There are times when I’ll be working on a book and I will say uh yeah you know if this could have two more rewrites it will be perfection and you realize at a certain point of time that no this is the time to stop because the vast majority of your readers have already got what you are trying to say. that further 10% or 15% refinement is only going to consume productive time but it’s not going to necessarily help. Even when you know my my my grandfather used to tell me he would say that it’s very easy in some ways to deal with failure because you’re used to being kicked around. You’re already on the ground. He said more difficult to deal with success because that’s the time that your feet are not on the ground. That’s the time you begin to float. So I always tell those who are getting into the world of writing also that if you do make it in the world of writing or storytelling or what have you, make sure you keep your feet on the ground. Make sure that you understand that when you you know when you look at the page which you have just written M take a moment to fold your hands and do pranam to ma haraswati because everything that came on that page was not yours. It was her inspiration. You were merely a medium. That being grounded makes you show m makes it easier for you not to show off because chances are that when you are floating someone else is getting affected by it. Pride is the next one which is very much connected to what you just said. anything that comes to mind as to how people should deal with pride like you said that you know you should be uh your feet should always be on the ground and you can remember that it’s difficult uh when you’re experiencing but again we we have this beautiful example within the Ramayan of Bat who despite having been entirely offered the kingdom on a platter his brother is exiled and he still says in I will leave them on the throne and uh I will rule in his name. So I mean the the point is somewhere along the way I feel that we attach we attach the the outcomes so closely with ourselves. you know when I mean I’m I’m sorry I’m going to each time go back to my own personal personal uh understanding that today when I take out a book in the Bharat series uh you know I don’t I don’t uh understand Sanskrit I mean I can understand it but I can’t read it or write it which means that anything that involves some of the original texts I need to depend on at least three or four different scholars and what I’ll do is I’ll normally raise the same question with multiple people same same concept of trying to get multiple views in order to figure out as to what is how does this actually work out but if I think about it whether it is whether it is ground level research whether it is Sanskrit whether it is the first or second or third edits whether it is the cover design whether it’s the marketing of the book. There are multiple people who form a part of that whole process. Of course, it is so easy for me to say I am Ashin Sangi and I am a bestseller. No, you needed so many people to hold your hand. You needed so many people to prop you up. That’s very important to have an understanding of the ecosystem that supports you. Uh I would say that there probably Rishab there are multiple passages in all of our texts which deal with these issues of pride and lust and jealousy. The last one I was going to ask you was lust. But the no I mean honestly the the greatest example of that is someone like Raada where at the end of the day the the greatest of wisdom someone who could compose the shiftand stro was so learned in his ways was was so multifaceted and talented someone who could keep Shani right at the base of his uh throne uh someone who could completely who could who could uh be under the under the uh under the control of Shiv Gi and yet get Shiv G to relent and give him the greatest of powers. Someone like that also could not control as basic an emotion as as lust. So all of this is only an indication for us. You as you started out this by by asking me what is a myth and what is history and I said a myth is a lie that reveals a deeper truth. So even if the Ramayan has 80% made up stuff, it’s revealing to you that deeper truth that what happens, it’s it’s years and generations of collective wisdom being narrated through those stories. And the one thing that our ancients understood better than us is that the shortest distance between two people is a story. Of course. So they understood that but instead put it down into a story and but the thing with stories is also this it’s a game of Chinese whispers and now it’s gone through not one generation but tens of generations that have passed on the same story. Absolutely. And therefore um as the 100th year passes on Harry Potter on JK Rowling’s Harry Potter perhaps the first copy would be very different from what is published in year 150. Absolutely. And not only that you also have the you also have the possibility that a lot of things which were considered as fictional in our times may be considered as factual. Very true. 100 years down the line. very very true or but the converse also applies correct that a lot of things that we are today talking about in the realm of myth could also be real so is this true sorry I’m going digressing before the last question but uh which is a small rapid fire but because I must ask you so is god also or are gods also factual in your opinion or are they just an interpretation of something that we want to believe in. So first of all, okay, let’s let’s understand what do we consider to be God? And this was a this was an interesting question that actually came up in an interaction that I had with Dan Brown. Okay. Uh he was here at I think 2014 or 15. and the way you are sitting across from me and asking me questions. Uh I was given the job to uh interview him at NCPA. So we did it in we we are doing it in a studio. We there we were in front of a couple of,500 people. Um then but the this interesting question did not come up at that interview but it came up later because after the interview was over he said Ashwin what are you doing at dinner time so I said let’s go we went to the Oberoy and we sat down uh and uh at the business club we sat down there and uh they kept it open for us almost till around 2:30 in the morning by which time honestly both he and I and a few of the people around us we were for lack of a better term well lubricated and uh uh he was I think at that point of time doing the doing the work on origin probably I’m I’m not sure which was the next novel that was coming up and he said the discussion occurred where he said what is God and u uh I was also in a little bit of a that sort of a mood. So there there was a pen and paper on the table. I wrote G is equal to infinity minus K and I gave it to him. So he said he didn’t say but he said what is this? So I said G is what we consider to be divine. Uh and uh so uh infinity is the entire Brahman. Um the universes that have already existed, the universes that exist, the universes that will exist, the dimensions, all the dimensions of that universe, whatever is already known, whatever is yet to be known, all of that is in the eggshaped universe. Brahand and Brahmand and K is the extent of human knowledge. So the Egyptians saw the sun rise in the east. They saw it set in the west. They didn’t know what it was. They called it Rah. He’s the sun god. And he travels across the sky in his chariot. And then later on he gets tired and when he goes to sleep then darkness arrives. So they explained day and night through the metaphor of Rah and his chariot. Later on of course we had Galileo and Copernicus and Aryabhatt and various others who eventually told us that it’s a ball of energy and that there is a movement of the planets around it and so on and so forth. as a result of which Rah in some ways lost his divine status because now we could explain it. So in that sense G is what cannot be explained the universe minus human knowledge right u but then he so so he he said that ashwin I’m also in agreement with you because but I my terminology is a little different because I call it god of the gaps that the gaps in human understanding is what is called god So I said yes Dan but there is a proviso to this. I said mathematically any equation which has infinity on one side is indeterminate. So no matter what you do it’s indeterminate and in some ways that is what divinity is that what is indeterminate. Mhm. Because if you take the equation g is equal to infinity minus k u this is an indeterminate equation because of the presence of infinity and probably that’s the way I would like god to be left indeterminate that there are some things that I don’t know some things that I don’t understand and they should be beyond my understanding um so that is where that conversation left off so in that sense when you say plural gods uh the way at least I see it from a sanatani perspective is that we were trying to understand the one through multi-dimensionality so uh for for us uh it wasn’t it wasn’t Di G but there were manifestations Lakshmi sarasati kali and even within those manifestations we went into multiple subdimensions so therefore You have the nine forms of mata and navatri. So we split down each of those dimensions or qualities or traits into more so that we could try and understand when I was writing the roabal line and I looked at the trinities. Mhm. Laxshmi saraswati kali uh and I noted it down on my pad as a triangle with the apex pointing down. Then I looked at Brahma Brahma Vishnu Mahesh which is a triangle with pointing up. Then I overlapped them and I said boss isn’t this the star of David? And that’s that came across in the Rosabal line that that could there be a connection between the two. But if you really think of it holistically, if either the connection didn’t exist and it was only Ashwin’s imagination or there was something to it, if there was something to it, wouldn’t it give you a reason to say maybe this was talking about oneness and each of those points was talking about a dimension or a facet. So that is the way I like to think about it that all the various figures that we have within our pantheon are basically attempting to understand different traits of a single hole. And that is perhaps what Advanta speaks about also in a way. But I particularly enjoy what Walter said about God. He said if God did not exist then man would perhaps have to invent him. Invent him. Exactly. So the that eternal question of course voltater has not has not explained to us right nobody that did god invent man or did man invent god and I think we are going to be asking ourselves that for multiple generations very true very very true but you know we do this small rapid fire to end the conversation rapid fires very simple okay and but you’re trying to trip me up no no no not at all I think we’ve already got some parts like that Hope I would normally ask a book that changed you but in your case three books that have profoundly impacted you growing up as a young adult. Top of the list autobiography by Paramahans Yoganandanda. uh that was a that was a book which uh till the time that I didn’t read it again and again and and then even even now if I go back to it I’ll I’ll still probably learn something yeah I’ll probably understand something which I didn’t understand uh earlier uh I would say probably that was a title which made me understand that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence that just because you can’t understand it doesn’t make it less real. Correct. So that was one book that really affected me. I would say the second book that really uh enchanted me and now the series is coming on uh Netflix which is Freedom at Midnight. Uh and that was not because of the content. I have some huge issues with uh the narrative again. I have some huge issues with the narrative, but I loved the fact that history could be conveyed where I actually wanted to read it. History is so boring, so dry. Can you actually uh take it back to its roots of telling a story? And so that was a book that I appreciated tremendously because of the fact that it felt like a story, not like history. Um and I would say a third book that played a very important role was probably Midnight’s Children. U because not because of any other reason Rishab but because um I feel completely inadequate when I when I read that book. Uh and I felt inadequate then and I still feel inadequate. I know that I can never be that. It’s it’s something to sort of almost hold up to and almost like sort of you know say that okay this sort of writing uh how you know how can you ever be there it’s it’s initial days it used to it used to provoke profound jealousy we were talking about elements profound jealousy that I wish I could write like this you know do you think then rash these other books uh that have been subsequently banned should not have been I don’t I’m against banning anything frankly in some ways I’m you could say almost like an anandatan in terms of absolutist in terms of that look there will be certain things which are which are palatable some things which are unpalatable there are some things which will meet your sensibilities there are things which are going to run contrary to your sensibilities but the fact of the matter is that if I have sat in your interview and propounded the importance of having multiple narratives. How can I then with a straight face tell you that something should be banned or not banned? Nothing should be banned. And then the it it should be decided what you want to consume and what you don’t want to consume. I don’t want someone telling me what I can or cannot consume. The favorite book your your favorite book from your work from my work. from your work uh from your literary work from my oh uh your own favorite book. Yes. So I I would say probably the most underappreciated novel within the Bhat series is probably Keepers of the Kal Chakra. Mhm. And uh that was a title that I had so much fun writing because uh you mentioned future of capra during the early part of our interview and that tower physics was you know like uh it it was it was almost like baton moment. Correct. Correct. Byon moment so I wanted to I wanted to take elements of that and spin a story around the possibility that if you could if you believed that there were overlaps between quantum theory and spirituality then could you affect real world changes not taking the quantum route but taking the spirituality route effectively uh because after all both will get you to the same place correct uh and I had so much fun because It it took me 6 8 months understanding uh quantum theory. Correct. Uh being a non-scientist uh you know I had to uh engage the help of a a friend of mine who was an IIT engineer to sort of you know sit with me on multiple occasions to uh do that. So it was a terrific experience writing it and I think it’s probably my most profound writing till date but underappreciated. I personally enjoyed the book and I can see elements of what um where you borrowed tower physics and the meeting points of uh eastern spirituality and western science. Absolutely. And uh and I I keep saying that pseudocience sometimes is just the science that has not been proven as yet. Exactly. And therefore it’s people are quick to dismiss it just like they were quick to dismiss Ayurved or they were quick to dismiss Galileo. Galileo. Correct. So I mean at the end of the day it’s I I agree with you that there’s there’s a lot of and it brings me back to that stuff which is the idea that my my wisdom lies in knowing that I don’t know enough yes absolutely and that is the fundamental truth uh by which you one must lead their life per se. But India when I say the word India what comes to mind India or bharat? Yeah. So honestly the word bat resonates and uh for me bharat does not resonate as a as a geography. It resonates as a melting pot of ideas and some of those ideas may have taken root here or some of those ideas may have even spread uh beyond the borders of bhat. Uh so uh for example for me uh the the notion that uh I can visit the Shaolin monastery and see a a statue of Bodhi Dharma and under it is a plaque which says that this was a king a Brahman prince who came uh from India uh in order to teach at Shaolin. Uh so so for me the idea that there was a palva prince who traveled through Cambodia uh and took kalari pyatu and silumbam uh added on his own yogic breathing and zen meditation and it eventually contributed to the evolution of martial arts as we know it today. For me that is Bat or the fact that your largest Vishnu temple in the world is not here but in Ankorvat. Uh that for me is Bhat or uh the idea that uh you had a group of people who uh the two groups of waring tribes uh the Hites and the Mitani. and uh in what is present day Syria and Turkey and then they are signing a peace accord in which they are invoking Indra and Vun and Mitra uh and that fascinates me as as Bharat or the fact that Daras calls himself uh Shhatria in chaitri meaning shahena what the word the chhatria of chhatrias uh in his plaque. Uh that tells me uh you know so where does that word shana sha come from? That’s where it comes from. uh or for example the the the idea that you have a figure within a Mahabharat uh who is uh Dropati uh not Dropati Gandhari and then you have uh Afghanistan modern day Afghanistan and then you have the playing out of war in Kandahar and then you realize that oh my god this was the same region and we take we refer to her so casually as Gandhari but the fact that this was very much part of the entire civilization that we are talking about um for me for for me it’s it’s all about finding those sort of uh uh those connections when I look at when I was writing magicians of Mazda the fact that the word Iran comes from aranm or the land of the arian Or the fact that when you put the gatas together and you put the rigid or in fact more particularly the aturvid you find so many overlaps between the two uh uh you know or the fact that uh you right now you have the straight of hormus being discussed every day but where does that straight of hormas get its name from hormas meaning a short form for aura mazda And where does that Ahura Mazda come from? Well, Ahura Mazda again, there’s a long there’s a long logical ethmological explanation of sorts because Ahura Mazda actually is another flip term for Varuna and the fact that Vuna has a great friend and that’s why he begins to be called Mitra and Mitra is eventually adopted by the Romans which results in the cults of Mitra or the fact that uh you have uh the the star in the sky uh which we call the twin stars of Yama and Yammoni and that gets adopted by the Greeks as Gemini. For me, all of this is Bharat. You’ve beautifully expounded what Bharat stands for. the civilization that um that combines cultures across the world and perhaps is uh is the unifying thought in a way um that everywhere you can see everywhere that you see you can find Bharat and Bhat is also within you in a way. Absolutely. And uh and of course mind you there are people who look at my exposition that I just give and will say that Ashwin Sanangi has lived up to his name Sanghi. But I but again it brings us back to that same view that by saying that there were some things which were very very meaningful in our civilization doesn’t imply that I disregard the other the other correct that what happened elsewhere that was of meaning isn’t it possible to entertain both those ideas simultaneously in my head and if that is the definition of a sangi then I think all of us are one and if that isn’t then none of us are but but uh on that note the final word when I say I mu n or India’s international movement to United Nations this is another extension of leadership development that we’re trying to do what is your first thought when somebody says I’m on to you rishab that’s kind no but it’s genu genuinely true you’ve you’ve poured your blood and sweat and time and effort and energy into this organization and I’ve seen the way it has grown over the years. I’ve seen you from the time that you were fledgling nent organization to today where I can truly say that I’m so proud of you and what the organization stands for and the number of children that you have impacted and the number of youngsters who have suddenly been given a platform on account of you. So uh uh I I I know this may uh I know this may sound at times uh almost uh you know a little too simplistic that what do you think of when you when I mention the organization frankly you are the face uh and uh but I know that there is a huge network behind you it’s like me saying that I’m this great writer but I forget everything around me. No, but I I think touchwood you’ve managed to keep your feet on the ground. Thank you. And you you you’ve built up a great team around you. Uh I think probably today when I’m sitting with you, I must have in the last 15 years had conversations with you at least 10 times easily. Uh either in real world events or in virtual events of this nature. Correct. What is really heartening is the fact that there is uh you know I I remember I was at another book event and a young man came up to me and uh uh he said that sir I need would you sign my book? So I signed it for him. Then he said, “May I have a selfie?” And then he showed me a selfie of himself with me at that very first event that we did some 10 or 12 years ago. Wow. At retreat when he was just just a kid. Wow. So I mean you know so that tells me the sort of we don’t realize the sort of impact that we are having on uh young minds and I hope that whether it is you whether it’s me whether it’s the entire organization I hope that we are in some ways contributing a little bit towards uh towards nurturing and more importantly rather than filling them with ideas and facts and narratives I hope that we are exposing them to the idea that they don’t know much and that they need to continuously keep exploring and how to fill the gaps and how to fill the gaps as Dan Brown was asking. That’s right. But on that note, you know, you’ve been far too kind both today and over the last decade and a half. whenever we’ve requested you, you’ve come and you’ve interacted with young people and it is one of my greatest treasures uh to be able to call you friend and part of the IM. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I’m I’m equally I’m equally gratified uh to know you Rishab and all that I can wish for is that this organization continues to grow from strength to strength and I hope that this team continues to do its wonderful work and I’m sure that there must be so many kids that you could reach out to now who are young men yes there and they would tell you that probably uh you know 10 years ago or 8 years ago there was something that happened at a at an event which was created by you which suddenly caused a bion moment. It is a very satisfying thing. Now it’s like a glorified school teacher and u and the idea that where children are coming and then we’re trying to create some sort of an impact but the but I keep saying that we can’t be counted as school teachers but only the conduit which is the school because you are we’re very lucky to have people like you and others who are a part of the family who are the school teachers who regularly come and teach. So I’m very grateful for all that you do for your time today and for weaving that beautiful web of Bharat that he did and then entrapping us in a way to want to know more and then always majority of his books like he said have those um the the index at the end um the the the places where you can go and get more information from the resources at the very end which then get you to think more about Bharat slightly more deeply as well. So for all that you do and for being the wonderful kahanikar that you are. Thank you Ash. Thank you Rishab. Thank you. God bless. Okay.