What is the difference between ch*tiya and dusht? Why are vegetarians evil? Why do Indians do the best bench pressing? Krish Ashok and Naren Shenoy join Amit Varma in episode 362 of The Seen and the Unseen for the most fun conversation ever. Really, ever. We got it certified.
Also check out:
1. Krish Ashok on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, his own website and Spotify/Apple Music/Soundcloud.
2. Naren Shenoy on Twitter, Instagram and Blogspot.
3. We Are All Amits From Africa — Episode 343 of The Seen and the Unseen.
4. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok).
5. Narendra Shenoy and Mr Narendra Shenoy — Episode 250 of The Seen and the Unseen.
6. Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking — Krish Ashok.
7. We want Narendra Shenoy to write a book.
8. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
9. Kashmir and Article 370 — Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan).
10. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai).
11. The Life and Times of Shanta Gokhale — Episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen.
12. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen.
13. The Life and Times of KP Krishnan — Episode 355 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Natasha Badhwar Lives the Examined Life — Episode 301 of The Seen and the Unseen.
15. The Adda at the End of the Universe — Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas).
16. Dance Dance For the Halva Waala — Episode 294 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jai Arjun Singh and Subrat Mohanty).
17. Narendra Modi on climate change.
18. Yes Minister — Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay.
19. Yes Prime Minister — Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay.
20. The Overview Effect.
21. The Day Ryan Started Masturbating — Amit Varma.
22. Security Check — Varun Grover.
23. Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian! — Episode 12 of Everything is Everything.
24. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe — Douglas Adams.
25. Arrival — Denis Villeneuve.
26. The Hidden Life of Trees — Peter Wohlleben.
27. Self-Esteem (and a Puddle) — Amit Varma’s post with Douglas Adams’s puddle quote.
28. Bittu Sahgal on Wikipedia, Instagram, Twitter and Amazon.
29. I Contain Multitudes — Ed Yong.
30. Song of Myself — Walt Whitman.
31. How I Reversed My Type 2 Diabetes — Episode 9 of Everything is Everything.
32. Fat Chance — Robert Lustig on Fructose 2.0.
33. How Sugar & Processed Foods Impact Your Health — Robert Lustig on The Huberman Lab Podcast.
34. Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol — Episode 360 of The Seen and the Unseen.
35. Privacy 3.0 — Rahul Matthan.
36. Abby Philips Fights for Science and Medicine — Episode 310 of The Seen and the Unseen.
37. Shruti Jahagirdar’s Twitter thread on Bournvita.
38. Shruti Jahagirdar is the Sporty One — Episode 289 of The Seen and the Unseen.
39. The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee — Episode 276 of The Seen and the Unseen.
40. Seven Stories That Should Be Films — Episode 23 of Everything is Everything.
41. What’s Wrong With Indian Agriculture? — Episode 18 of Everything is Everything.
42. The Walrus and the Carpenter — Lewis Carroll.
43. There is no Frigate like a Book — Emily Dickinson.
44. Why I’m Hopeful About Twitter — Amit Varma.
45. A decontextualized reel of Dr Pal on The Ranveer Show.
46. The Liver Doctor’s feisty response to the reel above.
47. The full interview of Dr Pal on The Ranveer Show.
48. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen.
49. Aakash Singh Rathore, the Ironman Philosopher — Episode 340 of The Seen and the Unseen.
50. Dunbar’s number.
51. Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson.
52. Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
53. The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins.
54. GianChand Whisky.
55. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health — Amit Varma.
56. Homeopathic Faith — Amit Varma.
57. Homeopathy, quackery and fraud — James Randi.
58. Fallacy of Composition.
59. The Secret to a Happy Marriage — Mike and Joelle.
60. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud — William Wordsworth.
61. WD 40 on Amazon.
62. Dog Songs — Mary Oliver.
63. The Evolution of Cooperation — Robert Axelrod.
64. The Interpreter — Amit Varma (on Michael Gazzaniga’s split-brain experiments).
65. Human — Michael Gazzaniga.
66. The Blank Slate — Steven Pinker.
67. Minority Report — Steven Spielberg.
68. Free Will — Sam Harris.
69. Determined: Life Without Free Will — Robert Sapolsky.
70. Behave — Robert Sapolsky.
71. Noise — Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein.
72. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley.
73. Cicada — Shaun Tan.
74. Don’t think too much of yourself. You’re an accident — Amit Varma’s column on Chris Cornell’s death.
75. Are You Just One Version of Yourself? — Episode 3 of Everything is Everything.
76. Lat Uljhi Suljha Ja Balam — Bade Ghulam Ali Khan performs Raag Bihag.
77. Danish Husain and the Multiverse of Culture — Episode 359 of The Seen and the Unseen.
78. Danish Husain’s anecdote about Mahatma Gandhi and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
79. Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life — Episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen.
80. Arijit Singh on Autotune.
81. How Music Works — David Byrne.
82. Raga Lalita Gauri — Mallikarjun Mansur.
83. Raag Lalita Gauri (1947) — Kesarbai Kerkar.
84. Raga Vibhas — Mallikarjun Mansur.
85. Mohe Rang Do Laal — Song from Bajirao Mastani.
86. Raag Basanti Kedar — Mallikarjun Mansur.
87. Travelling through Pakistan; from Karachi to K2 — Salman Rashid on The Pakistan Experience, hosted by Shehzad Ghias Shaikh.
88. A rare video of Balasaraswathi dancing while singing Krishna Nee Begane.
89. Krishna Nee Begane Baro — Madras String Quartet.
90. Albela Sajan — Hard rock adaptation by Krish Ashok and Vijay Kannan.
91. [Don’t Fear] The Reaper — Blue Oyster Cult.
92. Krish Ashok’s Sanskrit version of the song above.
93. Purple Haze — Jimi Hendrix.
94. All That She Wants — Ace of Base.
95. Caste, Gender, Karnatik Music — Episode 162 of The Seen and the Unseen (w TM Krishna).
96. Brown Eyed Girl — Van Morrison.
97. Astral Weeks — Van Morrison.
98. Moondance — Van Morrison.
99. Episode on Astral Weeks in the podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.
100. In a Silent Way — Episode 316 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gaurav Chintamani).
101. Advaita on YouTube Music, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter.
102. Raman Negi on YouTube Music, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter.
103. Greta Van Fleet and The Mars Volta on Spotify.
104. Shakti and Indian Ocean on Spotify.
105. Pink Floyd and Kendrick Lamar on Spotify.
106. Analysis of Food Pairing in Regional Cuisines of India — Anupam Jain, Rakhi NK and Ganesh Bagler.
107. Krish Ashok’s reel explaining the above paper.
108. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen.
109. How to Show, Not Tell: The Complete Writing Guide — Diane Callahan.
110. We Love Vaccines! We Love Freedom! — Episode 27 of Everything is Everything.
111. Math Is Better Than the Brigadier’s Girlfriend — Episode 15 of Everything is Everything.
112. Chintaman and I — Durgabai Deshmukh.
113. Kavitha Rao and Our Lady Doctors — Episode 235 of The Seen and the Unseen.
114. Lady Doctors — Kavitha Rao.
115. Jeff Bezos on The Lex Fridman Podcast talking about one-way doors and two-way doors.
116. It is immoral to have children. Here’s why — Amit Varma.
117. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
118. Our Population Is Our Greatest Asset — Episode 20 of Everything is Everything.
119. ChuChuTV.
120. A Deep Dive Into Ukraine vs Russia — Episode 335 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah).
121. The State of the Ukraine War — Episode 14 of Everything is Everything.
122. King Lear — William Shakespeare.
123. Churchill: Walking with Destiny — Andrew Roberts.
124. Churchill and the genocide myth — Zareer Masani.
125. Perplexity.
1. Krish Ashok on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, his own website and Spotify/Apple Music/Soundcloud.
2. Naren Shenoy on Twitter, Instagram and Blogspot.
3. We Are All Amits From Africa — Episode 343 of The Seen and the Unseen.
4. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok).
5. Narendra Shenoy and Mr Narendra Shenoy — Episode 250 of The Seen and the Unseen.
6. Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking — Krish Ashok.
7. We want Narendra Shenoy to write a book.
8. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
9. Kashmir and Article 370 — Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan).
10. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai).
11. The Life and Times of Shanta Gokhale — Episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen.
12. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen.
13. The Life and Times of KP Krishnan — Episode 355 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Natasha Badhwar Lives the Examined Life — Episode 301 of The Seen and the Unseen.
15. The Adda at the End of the Universe — Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas).
16. Dance Dance For the Halva Waala — Episode 294 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jai Arjun Singh and Subrat Mohanty).
17. Narendra Modi on climate change.
18. Yes Minister — Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay.
19. Yes Prime Minister — Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay.
20. The Overview Effect.
21. The Day Ryan Started Masturbating — Amit Varma.
22. Security Check — Varun Grover.
23. Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian! — Episode 12 of Everything is Everything.
24. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe — Douglas Adams.
25. Arrival — Denis Villeneuve.
26. The Hidden Life of Trees — Peter Wohlleben.
27. Self-Esteem (and a Puddle) — Amit Varma’s post with Douglas Adams’s puddle quote.
28. Bittu Sahgal on Wikipedia, Instagram, Twitter and Amazon.
29. I Contain Multitudes — Ed Yong.
30. Song of Myself — Walt Whitman.
31. How I Reversed My Type 2 Diabetes — Episode 9 of Everything is Everything.
32. Fat Chance — Robert Lustig on Fructose 2.0.
33. How Sugar & Processed Foods Impact Your Health — Robert Lustig on The Huberman Lab Podcast.
34. Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol — Episode 360 of The Seen and the Unseen.
35. Privacy 3.0 — Rahul Matthan.
36. Abby Philips Fights for Science and Medicine — Episode 310 of The Seen and the Unseen.
37. Shruti Jahagirdar’s Twitter thread on Bournvita.
38. Shruti Jahagirdar is the Sporty One — Episode 289 of The Seen and the Unseen.
39. The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee — Episode 276 of The Seen and the Unseen.
40. Seven Stories That Should Be Films — Episode 23 of Everything is Everything.
41. What’s Wrong With Indian Agriculture? — Episode 18 of Everything is Everything.
42. The Walrus and the Carpenter — Lewis Carroll.
43. There is no Frigate like a Book — Emily Dickinson.
44. Why I’m Hopeful About Twitter — Amit Varma.
45. A decontextualized reel of Dr Pal on The Ranveer Show.
46. The Liver Doctor’s feisty response to the reel above.
47. The full interview of Dr Pal on The Ranveer Show.
48. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen.
49. Aakash Singh Rathore, the Ironman Philosopher — Episode 340 of The Seen and the Unseen.
50. Dunbar’s number.
51. Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson.
52. Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
53. The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins.
54. GianChand Whisky.
55. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health — Amit Varma.
56. Homeopathic Faith — Amit Varma.
57. Homeopathy, quackery and fraud — James Randi.
58. Fallacy of Composition.
59. The Secret to a Happy Marriage — Mike and Joelle.
60. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud — William Wordsworth.
61. WD 40 on Amazon.
62. Dog Songs — Mary Oliver.
63. The Evolution of Cooperation — Robert Axelrod.
64. The Interpreter — Amit Varma (on Michael Gazzaniga’s split-brain experiments).
65. Human — Michael Gazzaniga.
66. The Blank Slate — Steven Pinker.
67. Minority Report — Steven Spielberg.
68. Free Will — Sam Harris.
69. Determined: Life Without Free Will — Robert Sapolsky.
70. Behave — Robert Sapolsky.
71. Noise — Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein.
72. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley.
73. Cicada — Shaun Tan.
74. Don’t think too much of yourself. You’re an accident — Amit Varma’s column on Chris Cornell’s death.
75. Are You Just One Version of Yourself? — Episode 3 of Everything is Everything.
76. Lat Uljhi Suljha Ja Balam — Bade Ghulam Ali Khan performs Raag Bihag.
77. Danish Husain and the Multiverse of Culture — Episode 359 of The Seen and the Unseen.
78. Danish Husain’s anecdote about Mahatma Gandhi and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
79. Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life — Episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen.
80. Arijit Singh on Autotune.
81. How Music Works — David Byrne.
82. Raga Lalita Gauri — Mallikarjun Mansur.
83. Raag Lalita Gauri (1947) — Kesarbai Kerkar.
84. Raga Vibhas — Mallikarjun Mansur.
85. Mohe Rang Do Laal — Song from Bajirao Mastani.
86. Raag Basanti Kedar — Mallikarjun Mansur.
87. Travelling through Pakistan; from Karachi to K2 — Salman Rashid on The Pakistan Experience, hosted by Shehzad Ghias Shaikh.
88. A rare video of Balasaraswathi dancing while singing Krishna Nee Begane.
89. Krishna Nee Begane Baro — Madras String Quartet.
90. Albela Sajan — Hard rock adaptation by Krish Ashok and Vijay Kannan.
91. [Don’t Fear] The Reaper — Blue Oyster Cult.
92. Krish Ashok’s Sanskrit version of the song above.
93. Purple Haze — Jimi Hendrix.
94. All That She Wants — Ace of Base.
95. Caste, Gender, Karnatik Music — Episode 162 of The Seen and the Unseen (w TM Krishna).
96. Brown Eyed Girl — Van Morrison.
97. Astral Weeks — Van Morrison.
98. Moondance — Van Morrison.
99. Episode on Astral Weeks in the podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.
100. In a Silent Way — Episode 316 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gaurav Chintamani).
101. Advaita on YouTube Music, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter.
102. Raman Negi on YouTube Music, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter.
103. Greta Van Fleet and The Mars Volta on Spotify.
104. Shakti and Indian Ocean on Spotify.
105. Pink Floyd and Kendrick Lamar on Spotify.
106. Analysis of Food Pairing in Regional Cuisines of India — Anupam Jain, Rakhi NK and Ganesh Bagler.
107. Krish Ashok’s reel explaining the above paper.
108. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen.
109. How to Show, Not Tell: The Complete Writing Guide — Diane Callahan.
110. We Love Vaccines! We Love Freedom! — Episode 27 of Everything is Everything.
111. Math Is Better Than the Brigadier’s Girlfriend — Episode 15 of Everything is Everything.
112. Chintaman and I — Durgabai Deshmukh.
113. Kavitha Rao and Our Lady Doctors — Episode 235 of The Seen and the Unseen.
114. Lady Doctors — Kavitha Rao.
115. Jeff Bezos on The Lex Fridman Podcast talking about one-way doors and two-way doors.
116. It is immoral to have children. Here’s why — Amit Varma.
117. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
118. Our Population Is Our Greatest Asset — Episode 20 of Everything is Everything.
119. ChuChuTV.
120. A Deep Dive Into Ukraine vs Russia — Episode 335 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah).
121. The State of the Ukraine War — Episode 14 of Everything is Everything.
122. King Lear — William Shakespeare.
123. Churchill: Walking with Destiny — Andrew Roberts.
124. Churchill and the genocide myth — Zareer Masani.
125. Perplexity.
This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off.
Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new video podcast. Check out Everything is Everything on YouTube.
Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.
And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free!
Episode art: ‘’Let’s Dance” by Simahina.