India?

Ritesh introduces the Brewed Journey group to a first glimpse of India.

Transcript

Ritesh “Yeah, like I was thinking, like, what should I talk about?

Igor No pressure, no pressure.

Frank Okay, just let me start my, we are live, gentlemen. Okay, so this is a co-hosting, so I’m just going to delegate everything to Ritesh. The pressure is not there, Ritesh. Los Angeles has already mentioned high expectations. I’m just happy with whatever happens, no pressure. Ritesh, tonight you’re going to tell us things we don’t know about India and, given that before we went live, Igor asked, ‘What does India look like and where are places in India?’ I think you have an easy, easy task this evening to inform us everything about India that we didn’t know, and, in true spirit, I think, Ismar, you are going psychedelic here. You are moving into the psychedelic realm, the guru realm. You’ve changed your background to something ultra.

Ismar It’s another planet, yeah.

Igor You mentioned it, you mentioned the word narcotics and it triggered something in Isma.

Ismar It’s not my cup of tea.

Frank I think deep down at 62, you are a hippie at heart, aren’t you? You were when the flower power generation came out and we were all chanting and clapping for love and going to India for spiritual guruism and whatever else there is. Ritesh, fire away. We wish you luck. You have 48 minutes plus minus a few seconds.

Ritesh Okay, so first of all, I wanted to ask, like, when you send us a banner for this conversation, you came to our pictures. So, do you guys know what it is and where you got this one? Anyone noticed?

Igor Well, I don’t know.

Frank I got it from Unsplash, which is a stock photo source for the creator users. You just have to type in a magic word and then they throw you lots of pictures. They are going a little bit not in the direction I want because they have Unsplash Plus, which means you still got to start paying for these things, which I suppose is fair. But anyway, yes, so that’s where it came from, but I also know where it is, but let the others think.

Ritesh So, what it looks like, what you can imagine, like what it is.

Igor Well, for me, it looks like affordable housing. I don’t know, something like that.

Ismar Sorry, I didn’t understand the question.

Ritesh No, so when Frank gave us a banner for this talk, like this is going to host, there was a picture in the banner.

Frank Let me share the screen and then we can have a look at that because it is actually a very interesting picture. And there we have the image, but let’s go again. You can see that now.

All It’s not yet. Not yet. Okay, it’s loading, it’s loading.

Frank Okay, stop share and share screen and screen there. Now you should be able to see it, yeah?

Ismar Yes. Okay, I suppose it could be like a palace, a castle, or maybe a religious temple.

Ritesh Okay, so no, this is not a temple. So, you know, in India, we have a third desert, like 5% of our total land, it is a desert. And it is part of India, Pakistan, and some, some, mainly in Rajasthan. So, for storing water, you need a well, so they wanted a very deep well. So, they created a very deep well, but if you want to take water from the well, how can you take that? That’s how they have created this wall. And there’s a step. So actually, it is a well and step is created to take water from the well.

Yeah. So if you can search on Google and find out that step wells in India, you can get a picture. And you can see the big well and people generally, it is used for the community purposes. And they can take water from that.

Igor And it is still being used? Or it’s like?

Ritesh Yeah, people use like, you can say that 20 years before, there was no water, still there’s no water. But now there’s water availability. And there was a big canal inside the desert. So they have created a canal and now it is getting green and people can get water from other sources. But in Rajasthan, okay, so I wanted to mention that Rajasthan is we call it the state of palaces. So you find all the good palaces in Rajasthan, what people, they do in Western people they come to in India, they will hire a palace, they will do marriages in their palaces. And if you can hire for your stay also. So before independence, it was a small, small kingdom type of thing. So during independence, they told that to merge in India and some people they wanted to still continue as a kingdom. Some are merged forcefully; some are merged because people wanted to merge in India. The government wanted to make all the rulers come. So they decided to give all the palaces to them. And after certain years of time, they used to give what we call it BBC Plus. Do you know, Frank, about this?

Frank Yeah, BBC Plus is sort of the international version of the British Broadcasting Service. So anything that isn’t under local rights or European rights can get broadcast on the BBC. It’s a television network and they have a special international service just like the BBC World Service for Radio. BBC Plus shows the best of British Television program of which there is not much left, but that’s my own opinion.

Ritesh So, what the country decided, they will give money to their, like, suppose you are a king, you had a big kingdom, you had a lot of money, and suddenly the government took over all your kingdom. So, but you wanted to live in the same condition. So, the government decided to give money to those people. After 10 years, they abolished all the things. Still, they fought a case in the court and they said that this is my personal property and I have the right. So, still those are the palaces which belong to the personal kings. And what they do right now, they use that as a tourism place. You can rent them, you can go rent for marriages, you can live there, and you can pay some money. That’s how it becomes a big tourism place in Rajasthan.

Igor So, now if I’m understanding it correctly, nowadays the palaces, they are owned by the family of the owners, right? Like the individual owners, okay.

Frank Just a quick question. Yeah, sorry, Igor. No, please go ahead. No, no, no, no. I’m just co-host. You’re being terrible.

Igor  Because when you talk about palaces in India, of course, the image that comes to mind is the Taj Mahal.

Ritesh Yeah, so I want to talk about this one also. Taj Mahal is not a palace. Okay, this is what you call Makabara. When the Muslim, they die, they will, what you call?

Frank It’s a mausoleum. It’s a mausoleum. Yes, mausoleum.

Ritesh So, it is like in Turkey, there is a half year and same thing, Taj Mahal is like that. So, it is not a palace and…

Igor So, I didn’t understand what it is. It’s like a religious place then?

Ritesh No, so when the person who made this Taj Mahal, his first wife died. Okay, so in her memory, he built that Taj Mahal.

Igor So, it’s just a monument. What is inside Taj Mahal? Do you know?

Ritesh Yeah, so inside her body was, what we can call it. I’m not getting the word. See, in Hindu, they will burn your body, but in Muslim and Christian, they put inside the, they bury the body. Yeah, on her burial, there is a mosque, a mosque kind of thing or mausoleum. So, it is Taj Mahal.

Frank So, imagine, Igor, it’s like in a cemetery, it’s a really, really big tombstone. It’s three-dimensional and the body is inside this building and the technical name for this building is called a mausoleum. That’s what it’s called.

Igor Okay, cool. It’s like the version of the pyramids, right?

Frank Yeah, that is a good comparison. Yeah, an Indian version of the pyramids.

Ritesh Yeah, yeah. So, when he died also, he was buried inside that Taj Mahal. So, you can find some part of the Taj Mahal, which is locked by Archaeological Survey of India, will take control of all the old buildings, which are historical places and Taj Mahal is one of them because it is recognized by UNESCO.

Frank It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We only see pictures of this one iconic shot where even Lady Dai sat in front of it and you see this one picture of the Taj Mahal and the bench in front of it and either there are thousands of people or millions of people or there are no people. Is it actually possible to enter the building or is that forbidden?

Ritesh Yeah, you can go inside the building also. So, certain parts are very, like it is a very, there is a small place inside the Taj Mahal. If you go inside, so those are locked because what they do, the lovebirds, they will go with their girlfriends and they will start doing kisses and everything inside. So, for that purpose, the government has, yeah, people they do, if you see most of the places, what they do, they will go and write their name on walls. Like, I was here with my girlfriend or something like that. So, you know, like a lot of people, they don’t understand the value of this monument. So, but because of that, the government has banned, you can’t go inside. You need a special permission from the court to enter all those places. Otherwise, you can go like big halls and everything.

But you see, you see all the pictures on Taj Mahal that it is one person sitting in front of Taj Mahal taking pictures, but it is not like that. If you go, you see thousands of people, it is very dusty. And once you go there, I’ve never been there. My friends, it is because it is near to my place where I am from. But people say that it is very stressful because you have to be in the queue and go inside. But it is such a place like you might find everything.

Igor Like, I can’t imagine going to the pyramids. It might be similar, right? There are so many people trying to sell all your things, trying to scam you that you don’t enjoy in the end of the day.

Ritesh Yeah. So here, the Taj Mahal, you will not find people who are scamming you. You find that sometimes they are charged more because they are charged because you are from the other country and… but there’s a lot of competition because 10 people are selling the same thing. So you can bargain with them. They can give you a low price also. So it’s like that.

Yeah. So see, if you want to see all those places, there’s a lot of place like Taj Mahal in Delhi, because it was a kingdom like for the thousands of years or 500 years. So you can find a lot of monuments in Delhi. But those are not taken care of. Those are not that much hated as Taj Mahal because it is recognized by seven wonders of the world. Okay, so before, yeah, any questions?

Frank You’ve covered the most important monument. Let’s go off the beaten track.

Ritesh So before that, like when Frank started saying hippies. So, you know, the hippies like thing, they started in America, they started coming to India and all the things. And you find a lot of, still you can find people in Goa. They are living in a kind of community. They are living in, you can find they are tasked with the local population and find that they are from India and they know all the languages and they live it. So you can find in Goa, they are in abundance. And sometimes what happens, the government has to find them. Some cases or some situation comes like that, that their country is demanding them or something like that. So they have to spend a lot of resources to get them and send back them to home.

Igor Oh, because they don’t have money to go back?

Ritesh Generally, what happens now, I have people say that they earn some money for five years, ten years. They start roaming all over the world. When the money is at the end, like they can’t go anywhere, they will come to Goa and they will start. Because you can compare to other places in the world, India is cheaper. So, you can live in a very localized place. And you become a part of the community and they started doing things and they started playing drums and all the things. They started going in pubs and have music systems. They started creating things.

Igor That makes sense. I remember talking to some people when I was traveling in Europe and in South America. And they would always say, like, because I would ask, okay, what are you going to do when you don’t have more savings? And they would say, like, oh, probably I’m going to move to Asia because it’s cheap to live there. So, it’s exactly what you mean.

Ritesh The reverse is in India. See, if a person who started earning some, some money, but he can’t go, you know, can live there. So, what they will do, they will start going in the African country like Tanzania, Uganda, and those places, they will roam around for, they will take a break from their job for one year, two years, they will roam around and come back. Most of the people, they go to Thailand also. You know that there’s a different kind of environment in those places, but it is limited to the big cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, or Delhi. A certain number of people go for months, two months, three months, and they will come back one day.

But why I was talking about this hippies and all the things, you know, maybe Frank knows, he lives in France. There is a commune system and there was some communes in France. So, what they have developed in Pondicherry, it is not in Pondicherry, but it is part of two states, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. There is a place called Auroville. Anyone knows that place?

Frank No, I know Pondicherry, but certainly not Auroville, no. I think it is a French word only.

Frank ville at the end is town. So, there was a French colony or a French protectorate or something in Pondicherry many moons ago and there is still a French school because I think it is, if you do your finals in high school, I think that is one of the first schools that gets to do it in the whole French education system. I think it is one of the first schools that start each year with the finals exams. A little bit of technical detail.

Ritesh I am not aware of that school, but this place, you know, during the independence days, Goa was ruled by Dutch people and Pondicherry was from French. So, whenever the person who is part of this mainland and part of, they got some kind of prison or something like that, they will move to those places because there was no control of the British in this area. So, one of the same kind of people, he was very involved in freedom fighting. And then when he was in jail, he got some kind of different kind of a spiritual thing. And after coming out of the jail, he moved back to Pondicherry and he started an ashram.

And he was so influential that many people from the Western countries like France, England, all those places came and started living with him. One of them was a lady, Maria, and when he died, after that, she took control of his ashram, and she developed a place called Auroville. It is near Pondicherry, like 12 to 15 kilometres from Pondicherry. And they decided to make it like a commune. And in ’67, I think, this place is right now, they have planned to make it for as a habitat of 50,000 people. Right now, 5,000 or 3,000 people are living from 60 countries.

So, what they do, they will earn some money, or they don’t want to do, they don’t have money, then they will come to this place, they start living there, they will start growing things naturally. Their life is like they have become part of the society, they live, and they are enjoying. But what happened, you know, such communes is a threat to the establishment. Like the Indian government got so afraid of this commune that these people are powerful, they have money, they don’t want to live anywhere, they wanted to come here, and they were creating their own rules, regulations and everything. So, they passed a law that this is part of the whole commune is governed by Indian laws, but they still confront people living there. And here in front that their motto is, there’s no nationality, there is no race, there’s no nothing like that. They have a different kind of view on that level. So, you find a lot of grace about Auroville, whenever you want to travel in India, you can, all the travellers, they have to live to live there and go spend time. You can’t get that place for two days, three days, no. You have to live for two, three months or six months, then you can understand the place.

Frank Okay, how do they actually survive economically?

Ritesh Economically, so when we went there, they are self-sufficient. So what they do, they generally create their things. Like, living things are simple because they don’t want to live in luxury, you can’t afford luxury there. So, you have to create, you can cultivate your vegetables by yourself, on your own. Then what happens, a lot of, there is a, what do you call, there is a something like that. So people from like tourists, they go for a visit and you can’t go inside. See, we had also planned to go inside, but they will not allow you. They will say that you have to book for two, three days before and in advance. You have to come sharp eight o’clock in the morning, mostly people who go for the tourism, they are lazy, they can’t go in the morning. So, half of the people will be disqualified. The rest of the people when they reach, sometimes just on the bandwidth, how many people they can accommodate.

Frank Okay, so if you go there for two or three months.

Ritesh Let them go inside and there is a, they have created an economy. Okay, so if they go in for two or three months. Suppose you want to go for two months. Can you get out again, or is it sort of like a one-way street and then you’re sort of like snared and you, it’s very difficult to get out.

Frank So, there was a lag, there was a lack. Yeah, we are, you have a lag, Frank. Yeah, I think Frank has been here. Yeah, your connection is failing a little bit. Yeah, it is. I just got a message. Your internet connection is unstable, and I have fibre optics here everywhere. Okay, Ritesh, we’ll come back to that question later. Do you want to continue on your journey, on your magical journey? So, we’ve been in the southeastern corner of the sub-peninsula in Pondicherry. Where are you taking us now?

Ritesh Yeah, so see this is that. So, I think you are asking like how if you want to go for two months. So, those people who are living in the commune, they have created some places, and you can go and pay for them, pay to them for the place to live, and then you have to do something like go and do some work with them to grow things. How you can enjoy the place and they will get some money from you, and they can live if they want to do something from that money. They have created a very big commune, and they are living happy. I see that many of the people who are living with their child, they have children, they have bikes, and everything and they’re living happily. So, it is also a good place.

Igor Okay, talking about community, how do Indians interact with immigrants? And I’m asking that because I have heard that in some places in Asia, especially Japan but other places in Asia, it’s hard to connect because the culture is so different, right? So, how is it in India? Let’s say you, your friends, do you guys interact at all with immigrants or it’s each one in your own community?

Ritesh Yeah, so, you know, mainly this disconnect is because of the language problem and people don’t speak that language, especially in Japan, this is a problem because people can’t understand their language and they are not willing to learn English at all. But in India, this is not a problem and because of this British influence and people know this, especially in the places where you can find tourists or people from other places who are visiting India. So, there is no problem, but you know, India has all places you can find racist people, they can treat you differently, and all the difference and all, it happens. But in India, you can find very different type of people, because it is not, it is like a continent. So, if you look before 1992, when we had this economic reform, what we used to do after independence, we used to follow the Soviet rule, Soviet kind of system. It was not like that. But what the government used to do, they will give quotas, for those months, you go can produce cars, but he can produce only cars, 1000 cars every year. It was like that. So, in 1992, the government poll, they decided new government that we are not going to, we let free market economy, you can decide yourself like how many cars you want to build, you want to build many cars and you don’t want to sell, it’s fine.

And that’s how all the Indians, like, if you look before 1992, you can find a person, he’s from the North, he’s from the South, and he’s from Maharashtra, he’s from Rajasthan, because their way they dress, speak, they eat was different. But after 1992, it is a little hard to find a person when you can say that he’s from the South or the North. It has become a little more combined, the culture is mixing, but still you find very different cultures in South and North.

Frank I read a book, and then saw a movie to the book about two people who met at university, boy and girl. And she was from Delhi, and he was from, I think from Bangalore, actually.

Ritesh This is opposite, the boy was from the North and the girl is from the South.

Frank That’s right, yeah, that’s right. And they fell in love, and they wanted to get married, which was like a big no-no. Maybe, Ritesh, you can remind me, because I’ve forgotten what the name of the film is, and the book. But it sort of seemed to portray, because it seemed to be based on fact, it seemed to portray the North-South differences between the North Indians and the, if I’m going to use this word correctly, the Tamil South, or the Tamil South. And if I understand this correctly, you are actually from the North yourself.

Ritesh Yes, yes. So it’s like two states, we have different states. So the movie name was “Two States,” and the author of that book, based on this book, this movie was made, his author, and he writes English novels for people like us who started in college, started reading novels. So you’ll find a little Indian drama, there is some romance and everything and love.

So this guy Chetan Bhagat actually, and I remember that when I was in Bangalore in college, first time I went to Singapore, to watch this movie. It was really nice. And see, actually, that their love was successful because they were in the Indian Institute of Management. It is a very big prestigious institute in India, like IITs. IIT is for engineering, IIM is for business.

And this girl was from Tamil Nadu, they have different culture. This guy is from Punjab. And their culture is different. And, but for love, they fall in love. And they see the girl didn’t want to hurt his parents, go and marry. It happens generally, if your parent is not getting agree, and you have to marry by denouncing them. Finally, they will come but for a certain period of time, you are going to hurt your parents.

So they didn’t want to do and this guy has to convince. Generally, why parents are doing this one, they feel they are very connected to their, I know, I don’t know how it works in the West, but they are very connected to their children. And they want everything to be perfect for their children. And why they worried about them because they want, suppose it is if you have a girl, then you want your girl to be in a place in a family, where the husband is earning enough that he can survive, she can survive, he has enough money, and he has a family background and everything. It was like that.

And why is like the boys’ families will see that the girls will be like this one. There is a lot of things, but now it is going down because of this. This a lot of equality is coming between boys and girls. So, what you can’t claim that the boy is going to spend a lot of money and he has to earn, the girl can also earn and seek and support. So now it does, you can see that all the boys were looking for a girl who is earning and a specialist is educated in all, especially in the Bangalore or other places.

So, it is happening. And this movie was very romantic, and the first half was college. So all the boys will love the college and everything. And the second half is family drama. When you started to, when the girl says that my parents are not accepting, okay, because you are from the North, or you are not from our caste and everything. So, this guy went into depression, he started not talking with his father, mother, or his, he was very good, but he was not talking to them. Then they started worrying that why he’s not talking. Then the same happens with the girl also. And then the boy had to show some courage and tell her parents that, no, I can do that. I have this much, and we love and all that. It was really, it happens today also. You don’t find, see the things comes into movie because of the person is very famous or he has money to produce a movie or there is some interest. Otherwise, this happens every day and you can find it in your classmates and friends also. Most of the breakups happens in Bangalore because of this. The girl at the end says that my parents are not accepting, and they find a good girl, especially the girls I’m saying about because of my boy, it happens differently for the girls also. I don’t know their opinion. So, they say that they have a little bit correction with, because they don’t want to go with this guy because that might be, they might have found a good boy who is earning more and everything. It happens everywhere. I don’t know. This is especially in India, but it is like that.

Igor And you mentioned that the culture is different for people in the South, right? What do you mean exactly? What’s different? Like the religion roots, like the customs, what’s different?

Ritesh So everyone’s the same religion, but you know, India same religion, but they follow different methods and all. The religion is not a problem. There is a caste also.

Igor So it’s still a problem nowadays?

Ritesh It’s not a very big problem in educated people, but you still find the lower people in the economic condition. Some people also very too hard to let go of their culture and everything.

Igor So it’s more common, like in the lower economical class, right?

Ritesh Yeah. As you go higher in the economic ladder, you don’t care about the society because you have money. It happens when you don’t have enough and you have to be part of the society, then you have to follow rules and everything.

Igor Makes sense.

Ritesh So, the problem was because this guy is from the North and they have a different living style. What we eat in the North is different than what they eat in the South. Maybe, I don’t know if you know, there is an idli dosa. So, this is used in the South. If you want to eat breakfast, what you need, you can eat a dosa, idli dosa, all those things. Suppose you want to eat something, breakfast in the North, you are going to eat paratha or poori and all those things. The place he belongs to, they drink a lot. Like those people, Punjab, you know, Punjab is, like how I can say, Frank knows, those people are, mostly they are in the army, Indian army or they were in the British army also. So, they have a lot of, they drink a lot. The son and father will sit together and drink. Actually, drinking is very, very bad in Indian society. You can’t even drink, you can drink wine in our places, but in Punjab, they drink. Mother is also drinking with father and children are all drinking.

Igor So, like beer, because here like in Brazil as well, but here in the United States, it’s totally normal to drink a lot of beer on weekends. It’s not very well accepted in India, right?

Ritesh No, no, no. Beer, generally you can find big cities here and people start drinking, but other parts of the country, you can’t say, you can’t drink in front of your parents. You can’t even smoke. People are very afraid. As an Indian parent, I don’t know. This is very, very bad when you are raising your children. So, when, see in the West, what I see, the student is saving money for earning and saving money for his college, right? We see in movies, or we know that they have a lot of education debt. They are earning for 10 years; they are paying their education loan. But in India, the parents give money to their children and college fees are everything. Then he comes out of the college, he is free, and he can earn for himself and save for his children and all. But what happened at that time, you are dependent on your parents. You don’t do many things. What I noticed when we are in Bangalore, I see many people during their vacations or their holidays, they used to go and become part of events. They become part of an event management team. They volunteer something, they’ll get some money. But people like us who are raised by parents who give everything, if you want to go buy a chocolate, they will give money. So those people are, they are raising and where to communicate and meet with people are, that meeting with people is very different. I think that is required. But people, sometimes people say that if you have a kid, you have responsibility to give everything to him. You are not only father, but you are a provider for him. But other places they say that, yes, I’m giving at a certain age I can give, but after that you have to take care of all those things. So maybe the perspective may be different, but sometimes it feels that what you are doing, you are making your child to be dependent. When the parents die, they are not with them, they become, they become depressed, helpless and weak. If you are raised yourself, you have raised yourself and you have done everything for yourself, then you don’t have to be worried about, you don’t have to worry about your kids. But here you find very bad impact on your children. Because everything was given to him and parents, suddenly parents is not there, then they feel helpless. Yeah. So this is the culture, like Indian culture. There’s a lot of cultural difference.

Igor It’s a huge country.

Ritesh Yeah, actually, we are talking south, not divide, but in the south also there’s a different divide because of the languages and everything. And they have also a little difference. And generally, south, if you could say that during when people started moving from Africa to this continent, if you are believing in the evolution of humankind, they started from Africa, they started coming to India in the south. And some people started from the Mongol and everything, Aryans, they come from Europe, and they started from the north, there was some divide, culture divide and all. But if you talk to Indian nationalist and all the things, they say that no, there’s no divide, we are the same people because we are living in different parts of the country. And because of that, there’s some skin colour differences because there’s a variety of other things.

Frank I was actually going to ask you, Ritesh, do you identify yourself first as an Indian national and then secondly from the region that you come from or is it vice versa that you identify yourself first as your birth region and then as an Indian national?

Ritesh Yeah. So people start from their birth region. If you want to say that I’m from here and I’m part of the country and yeah, I’m Indian. This is the other end. Everything comes at the end, but everyone has a local attachment. So people have a language attachment. They don’t want to give up their languages, customs and everything. So, yeah, it’s part of everything and you only can find this first answer when they are politicians and they have a big, they have to be accepted everywhere. But people have their attachment to their place where they belong to. Then it comes the country, right?

Frank Okay, wow. I’m sort of, we’ve only been talking for about what, 40 minutes and already it’s sort of the impression that I get is that India is a very complex, not complicated, or maybe it is complicated, but it is a very complex place to visit and to navigate from the outside. Yeah, it looks, it’s almost overwhelming.

Ritesh Yeah, definitely. There is some north, what is the northeast India. So, you remember like one of the posts I wrote about this northeast people. So, they were actually not part of this country. They were fighting with them because those people used to live in jungle. And during the, this World War II, when they had a lot of support, they needed for the fighting with other countries, they started recruiting people from our country. So, when we got independence anyhow, so this first leadership, when they started taking over the country, they decided to talk with them and their main concern was their culture, their way of living. And at that time, they didn’t give any demand that how people who were going to rule the country, they accepted everything. But at certain point of time, they wanted to see there is a two kind of dilemma. One you let, you are deciding factor, you are saying that you are living working, you’re not educated, you are not giving right to women. And so that I’m going to force some rule and you have to follow it. And other is like, no, you see, this is bad. You have to show that these people who are living in Delhi is far much better than what you are living in the Northeast. And you have to become like them. Then you have to change your way of living, the way you treat women that you are not getting them to go and participate in inductions. You know, we have a state called Nagaland.

And they have, until this 75th year of independence, they have never seen a woman as an MLA. Yeah. Yeah. So, as a part, it is a patriarchal society in that some part of, some state in the Northeast only, the women are doing everything. Man is nothing but he is getting money from his wife and sleeping all day, drinking, and working. Woman is the head of the house, in some state. But there’s a two kind of, you are not going to force, then you become like a dictator, and you say that you have to live like that. And that is not resistance. And you know, debate the religion or culture. It is so dipped inside in human that you can’t force those things out from them in a generation. You need multiple generations to bring all those things out. That’s why the government is trying to give a lot of scholarship to the children. They come to Delhi. One more thing, you know, the physique and everything is a little different than what you find in normal Indians. So those people, some people started calling them Chinese, some people started calling those people, they say some bad things, they look different. So they feel a lot of bad things also. And there’s a lot of education in Indian buses. There’s a lot of programs, government is helping them to say that he looks different. That means not, it doesn’t mean that he’s not from India. He might be from other parts of the country with whom you are not familiar with. Similarly, Anglo Indians who decided not to go to England after independence, they are still living in the country, in some good places like Nanny Thar and all the places. They were very rich at the time, and they don’t want to leave their property and all the things. Or maybe there was attachment, some people had a wife from India, some girls had a husband and so they started living and you find some, if that person is not educated enough or he’s not aware of those facts, then you find racist people also.

Frank Okay, all right. So, as I mentioned to Igor via WhatsApp, Ritesh, you’re going to join us in the Life Unboxed scenario and I think, Igor, we have a challenge somehow to build a bridge between the West and India. That should be an interesting thing.

Igor Of course.

Frank I do not shy away from conflict topics, but Ritesh, if I mention the word Kashmir, do I enter a dangerous territory with you or are we able to unpick this complex subject as well? Because what I’m trying to figure out is what the media in the West portray and what the reality on the ground is in your neck of the woods.

Igor What’s the word?

Frank Kashmir.

Igor What’s this?

Frank The clock’s ticking. Kashmir is a region in, help me here Ritesh, northeast or northwest of India?

Ritesh Northwest.

Frank Northwest of India, fiercely independent minded. Okay. And I think it actually wants to break away from the mainland, must become an independent state in its own right. Okay. And I don’t want to go too deep in the cliches, but you can tell a Kashmiri by their very strict looks and their very bushy beards. Is that or is that?

Ritesh Yeah, you can find like Igor is from Kashmir already a little bit of colour difference because you find all the people are from there. Okay. So, they are very if you look at normal Indians, you find the colour difference is a little bit dark. But Kashmir you find very white kind of people. Okay. And because they’re living in the Himalayas, right? So, the condition is different. And generally, you have to know that this place, Pakistan says that it belongs to them, and India says that it belongs to them. And during fight, some part of that Kashmir has gone to Pakistan and the rest of the part is in India. And some part of them is taken control by Chinese. So, we have three different things.

Frank Yeah, it gets really complicated there.

Ritesh Yeah. But one thing like I wanted to I had this point to we have post office. And there is a unique post office in Kashmir, it is inside inside a boat inside the lake. So you can give up, you can write a postcard to them, or you can deliver, there is a post office because a lot of the couples go to the honeymoon.

And after that, they take a ride in the boat. And they will go to that post office and drop their letters, or they write. So, suppose they are on honeymoon and doing things, they wanted to write something to their loved ones. It is a unique place. Cool. Yeah. Beautiful place. And people go on honeymoons if it is normal and everything. Sometimes you get in the water area, there’s a conflict, but Jammu and Ladakh is a very peaceful place.

Frank Okay. Okay. I think you’ve just given Igor an idea for his honeymoon later this year. There’s a lot of places when you and Mari get married. Yeah.

Igor Yeah. Who knows?

Ritesh There is some better place than Mauritius and we are having Maldives.

Frank Maldives and Mauritius. Yeah. Okay. Ritesh, you have opened a can of worms. I don’t think it was that difficult. You have left, at least you have left me with more questions at the end of this show than at the beginning. And for that, I thank you. I think you achieved the goal of telling us something we didn’t know.

Ritesh Yeah. I have a lot of things planned, but you know, while you are speaking, I go in different directions. It happens. That’s okay.

Frank Yes. We will learn to contain you and keep you back on track. And I look forward to somehow creating an East-West-West-East dialogue and to highlight the differences and find the common ground because India is a force to be reckoned with. And I look forward to these discussions. Gentlemen, you have the last word, Ritesh.

Ritish You know, I was saying that I’m looking forward to joining Life Unboxed and thank you for giving me this opportunity. And there’s a lot of things which will come in our next subsequent discussions and all the things about India, because people say that one life is not enough to know all about India.

Frank That explains a lot. Okay, gentlemen, see you next week, maybe with Mari to talk about this horrific accident of hers and the consequences. Your questions will be more than welcome. Whether we can answer them is another question. Have a great weekend and I will see you all at the respective times next week. Ismar, you need to speak a little more.

Ritesh I think Ismar is not understanding what I’m saying. Maybe there is some, but with time I think he can understand. I feel that.

Frank We will develop an ear for your accent, don’t worry. It will come. It will come quickly. Okay, take care gentlemen. See you next week.

Okay, bye-bye. Thank you, Ritesh.