# Episode 081 - Vibing, Vexillology & Vaudeville ft. Aishwarya

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 1 Sep 2024, 57 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/91136308/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-8-1%2F89834341-e805-5f93-2421-e2b494ef6397.mp3

Do you know which iconic snack was popularised by an Indian political party? Do you know which country has infamously committed multiple political faux pas when it comes to the flags of other countries? Do you know which present day tribe is famously polygamous and chooses their chief through a specific display of physical and athletic prowess? Tune in to find out!! You can reach us atInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingmeEmail: areyouquizzingme@gmail.comSubreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/areyouquizzingme Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@areyouquizzingme/podcasts

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to Are You Quizzing Me? I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
[0:04] Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
[0:07] podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
[0:10] history, science, pop culture and so much more.
[0:14] Let's get quizzing and we're back for episode #81 of Are You
[0:21] Quizzing Me? Your favorite quizzing and
[0:23] trivia podcast show. Today's is a very, very special
[0:28] episode. But before we get to what so
[0:31] special about today's episode, there is the small matter of the
[0:35] audience question which I will ask now and answer at the end of
[0:38] today's episode. It's a very short question and
[0:41] hopefully you guys will be able to guess the answer by the end
[0:44] of today's episode. So the question goes as follows.
[0:47] Americo Vespucci has two continents named after him,
[0:51] making him the person with the most area on earth named after a
[0:55] person, right? So you have North America, you
[0:58] have South America. That's a huge swathe of land.
[1:01] So he is the person with the most area on Earth named after
[1:05] him. My question to you, my dear
[1:07] audience, is which is the person who has the second most amount
[1:11] of area on earth named after them?
[1:13] I will answer this question at the end of the episode.
[1:15] So as I mentioned, today is a very, very, very, very special
[1:19] episode, and we have a very, very special guest.
[1:22] And I'm going to hand the baton over to Aditya to introduce our
[1:26] guest Quizmaster for today. All right, Vineet, wow.
[1:30] That is a question that has me stumped, so I'll be thinking
[1:32] about it for the rest of the episode.
[1:34] That's a very interesting question.
[1:35] But Speaking of very interesting things, I have to tap down on my
[1:41] excitement because I'm really excited.
[1:42] Our guest today is Aishwarya, and Aishwarya is joining us for
[1:46] this episode. Oof.
[1:47] This is as exciting as it gets. This is how probably other
[1:50] podcasters feel when they get some of their dream guests to
[1:53] come on. And this has become one of that
[1:55] for us because both Vineet and I have been huge fans of
[1:58] Aishwarya's work. So for anybody who's
[2:00] uninitiated, Aishwarya is one of the founders of Reading Room
[2:04] India channel on Instagram that both Vineet and I love and so do
[2:08] like 130,000 other people. I don't know how it's the
[2:11] current count, I'm not sure. I've not checked in a while.
[2:14] But it is a big deal and I have to tell the listeners this.
[2:17] That was such a mind blowing experience for me because I was
[2:20] hanging out with Aishwarya. I think it was more than a year
[2:22] ago. And she told me, hey, this is a
[2:24] little channel that I've started and, you know, you probably are
[2:26] the kind of person would be interested in it.
[2:28] And I followed it and I was like, oh, this is interesting.
[2:30] And then I started seeing it popping up on my friends
[2:32] stories, like they would reshare that post many months later.
[2:36] I pinged her and I was like, did I mess up that?
[2:38] Like, are you the person who does this or is it somebody
[2:41] else? She's like, yeah, it's the
[2:42] channel that I have been working on for a while.
[2:45] So I was like, wow, I, I guess I was there at one of the initial
[2:49] stages of something that is so big and so important for my
[2:52] daily fixture on my daily dose of Instagram.
[2:55] Like I go onto Instagram and that's one of the things that I
[2:57] look forward to reading or catching up on.
[3:00] We also randomly happened to meet when I was living in
[3:02] Singapore. She's also a phenomenal dancer.
[3:05] She loves running. She goes to new cities and
[3:08] she'll explore the cities on foot.
[3:10] She just goes around running and she also loves her whiskey.
[3:14] So the first time we hung out, and I don't drink myself, but it
[3:19] was me and a couple of friends. So we are like, hey, this person
[3:22] is new to our city. So we took her to a nice whiskey
[3:25] bar. And these are the few things
[3:27] that I think the world should know about this wonderful person
[3:30] and my friend Aishwarya. So Aishwarya, thank you for
[3:32] joining us. Thank you for coming on to our
[3:34] podcast. How does it feel?
[3:37] Hi, thank you. Thank you so much for that
[3:41] introduction. I don't know what to say, but
[3:44] yeah, thank you. Thank you for introducing me as
[3:47] Reading Room India's Co founder. That's that's a heavy
[3:51] heavyweight. But yeah, like you mentioned
[3:55] earlier, one of the Co founders, the amazing work is
[3:58] predominantly done by my lead and all due credits to that one
[4:03] and my partner as well, who has been consistently putting all
[4:08] the effort day in and out to ensure all the epic stories and
[4:14] different perspectives on your everyday news or how we put it
[4:18] as helping and equipping people to become a little smarter today
[4:23] than yesterday comes across. And we enjoy, absolutely enjoy
[4:29] giving your daily dose of wit, wisdom and what the fuck, right?
[4:35] Apart from that, it was not a whiskey bar you took me to.
[4:38] It was a whiskey library. I'm sorry, it was a whiskey
[4:42] library. I've been off alcohol for like
[4:46] good two years now just trying to cleanse or whatever it is.
[4:50] No, no other reason. And yes, yes, Vineet, I also
[4:56] dance. That's how we actually met in
[4:59] Singapore and it feels amazing to do this.
[5:02] I was not aware that you guys are on to something so great.
[5:06] Like when I heard your episodes, wow.
[5:09] Like I know I know someone who is doing this.
[5:13] Like it was just crazy and the enthusiasm just sparked.
[5:17] So as much as I may, I thank you for saying that you'll be your
[5:21] dream guest. You guys are like probably my
[5:23] dream podcasters now. So I want to be called again.
[5:27] So please give me easy questions so that you you really want me
[5:31] back. So yeah.
[5:33] So great to have you on the podcast, Aishwarya.
[5:36] So let's get cracking with our quizzing for today.
[5:39] As our guest quiz master, the honor of asking the first
[5:42] question goes to Aishwarya. So Aishwarya hit us.
[5:46] OK, before I do and before it's my turn to answer also, I'd like
[5:51] a very friendly disclaimer. I also rely on Reading Room
[5:54] India for all the smartphone. In case I don't, In case I don't
[5:59] get answers today, do not judge my brand.
[6:02] Oh yeah, no, I do not. OK, so it's a very simple short
[6:08] question. An Indian political party was
[6:13] behind the invention of this particular tea time or go to
[6:21] snack food. And if I could just attach like
[6:26] the first layer of hint into the question itself, it was also to
[6:34] resolve the ongoing issue of unemployment in the city it is
[6:41] from or it got popular from, not originally origin from, yeah.
[6:46] So when you're saying a tea time snack, I'm going with the law of
[6:50] averages, right? So I'm going to guess, again,
[6:52] this is a guess that it might have to do something with the
[6:55] Congress party, given the law of averages and the history of
[6:58] India and parties which have. Oh, so it's not the Congress
[7:01] party? She had a little shake in her
[7:03] head. I was going to go with something
[7:05] along the lines of unemployment and tea time snacks and I
[7:09] thought Lijit Papad came to mind.
[7:11] This brand that does Papa, but it's a bunch of women who do it
[7:14] from. But OK.
[7:15] Aishwarya's indicating a no. It's a no from Aishwarya, so
[7:20] yes. Yes.
[7:22] More local, think where we are and it's very easy breezy.
[7:26] Like very easy breezy, very on the go.
[7:30] Don't restrict yourself to just the tea time like now.
[7:34] It's popularized and it's eaten like anytime.
[7:38] So I'm guessing then it's the Shiv Sena and the Vada puff.
[7:41] Yeah, it is. That is cool.
[7:45] You do follow the page. It is, It is.
[7:51] So the fact behind that is Shabsena initially was looking
[7:56] to really, really build Mumbai, Maharashtra, so on and so forth.
[8:00] They started to look into the daily aspects of it.
[8:04] A lot of South Indians had migrated to Bombay.
[8:07] They had started to open a lot of these Udpi restaurants.
[8:11] So when Balasaib Thakre saw this and he wanted to promote and
[8:16] empower and equip the local Maharashtrians as well, he asked
[8:20] them to cook their cuisines and like promote.
[8:23] And one of the first slatings that came out was the
[8:27] Batatavada, and it became the vada Bao, the Ashok vada Bao,
[8:31] the first pieces. So yeah, you got it.
[8:35] I'm so happy. See, it was not that hard.
[8:38] I mean, the clue that gave it away was when you said look at
[8:40] where we are. Yeah.
[8:43] That was the clue. That was the clue.
[8:45] Yeah, yeah, even though you're not sitting in Bombay.
[8:48] Right now, yeah, might have pointed out that all the three
[8:50] of us we need, this is the only one not in Bombay.
[8:53] That's doubly embarrassing for me because I'm sitting in Bombay
[8:56] and he's the one who got the local clue.
[9:00] Vineet, the smarts. I love it.
[9:03] OK, wow, phenomenal. I'll take it up next.
[9:07] So because I have known Aishwarya for a while, I try to
[9:10] cater my questions to something that she might enjoy, regardless
[9:14] of whether she knows it or not, because it's obviously trivia,
[9:17] but hopefully she'll enjoy it. My question has to do with this
[9:20] individual called Robert Pope. Robert Pope is a British
[9:25] veterinarian, athlete, author and charity fundraiser.
[9:30] In 2017, he managed to achieve a particular milestone significant
[9:37] event that he managed to achieve, which also resulted in
[9:41] raising nearly £38,000 for the charity's Peace Direct and the
[9:46] World Wildlife Fund. In recognition of his efforts,
[9:50] Pope also attended Prince Charles's 70th birthday
[9:53] celebrations. He ended up penning a book about
[9:58] this achievement as well. What achievement that involved
[10:03] going to the cities of Boston, Manchester, Brighton and London
[10:08] did Robert Pope achieve in 2017? As in, what is the recognition
[10:14] that he got? What did he do?
[10:16] The recognition was a couple of things.
[10:17] One of the recognitions was also being invited to then Prince
[10:20] Charles's 70th birthday, stuff like that.
[10:23] But no, I'm not talking about any recognition.
[10:25] What did he manage to achieve in 2017?
[10:28] What was his record? Yeah.
[10:29] What was the record? Oh, what was the record?
[10:33] Can I can I ask for it into #1? Sure, of course this achievement
[10:39] took more than a year to finish, in fact a 422 day feat that he
[10:47] finished in 2017. So he started it in 2016.
[10:50] Did he walk a dog along all these routes?
[10:52] Sorry. In fact, he started in late
[10:54] 2016. He finished it in 2018.
[10:56] My bad. The timeline was slightly off.
[10:57] He finished it in 2018. Is it busting the myth that you
[11:03] can't feed your dogs certain food?
[11:05] Because that was the longest record as well. 422 days of not
[11:10] feeding, I mean a certain food, OK.
[11:12] Certain foods because no, there was like a Japanese experiment
[11:16] that they did and they found out that garlics don't harm dogs.
[11:20] So something similar. No, no.
[11:23] And I understand why both of you have talked about dogs so far,
[11:25] because the first thing I mentioned was that he's a pet.
[11:28] That is his profession. But I would suggest looking at
[11:31] the other part of his life, which is him being an athlete.
[11:34] Eddie Izzard had done like 7 marathons in seven days or
[11:37] something, right? Was it something similar to
[11:39] that? So this has to do with running,
[11:41] but I would say, and this is perhaps a giveaway of a clue.
[11:45] So if you directly get the answer, maybe you want to give
[11:47] the other person a chance. Find the crossover with pop
[11:51] culture. Where would this crossover with
[11:54] something iconic in pop? Culture run.
[11:57] Forest run. Please tell me exactly.
[12:01] Yes, yes, Vineet, you got the answer.
[12:02] You got the answer. Great.
[12:04] Thank you. Is at the edge of the seat.
[12:07] Vineet. Can't wait to confirm.
[12:10] Yeah, I know. I'm so, so embarrassed.
[12:13] No, no, it's OK. This is a very obscure piece of
[12:16] trivia. I only know Vineet would get
[12:17] this because of the pop culture reference.
[12:19] This is the first person in history, first person in the
[12:23] world, who managed to run the entire route that Forrest Gump
[12:26] in the movie for his. And the book.
[12:29] And the book, the people who have watched the movie or read
[12:31] the book or seen Lal Singh Chadda, I guess they know that
[12:35] the titular character in that ends up running a fair amount of
[12:39] distance in the American version, obviously runs across
[12:41] the US. So Robert Pope actually did
[12:44] that, ran across the US and covered a distance of
[12:48] approximately 15,607 miles. Only.
[12:55] Wow. Which is for those of us who who
[12:58] don't like the stupid American system and like our metrics.
[13:01] It's 25,000 kilometers. It is 25 freaking 1000
[13:05] kilometers. How insane is that?
[13:07] Good Lord. This man ran 25,000 kilometers.
[13:11] This included by the way, the cities I mentioned, it included
[13:14] the marathons that happened in the city.
[13:15] So he ran the Boston Marathon as part of the run.
[13:18] Manchester, London, Britain as well.
[13:21] I did enjoy that question. There were like three things in
[13:23] there. He's a wet.
[13:25] Also like got British connections and I'm definitely
[13:29] running. Love it, love it, absolutely
[13:32] love it. So, Aishwarya, back to you.
[13:34] You can ask us our next question.
[13:36] Cool. So this one's also something
[13:39] that I've been excited about. Let's see if Adi gets it.
[13:43] This is more like, I have expectations that he might just
[13:46] get it. When this particular art form
[13:51] emerged first, it was known as the Music of Bitterness because
[14:02] it was predominantly curated by a certain set of immigrants who
[14:09] moved to New York. It was meant for Buffer when
[14:14] they would be really, really sad.
[14:16] It was meant for a buffer when they were going through extreme
[14:21] tough times. And it was also a piece of
[14:26] celebration eventually. Yeah, it's an art form that came
[14:30] into existence because of this particular set of immigrants.
[14:34] I'm going to leave the question here 1st and then I'm going to
[14:37] start dropping hits. Since you targeted this question
[14:40] at Aditya, I'm guessing it's a dance form.
[14:43] That's where I was inclined to as well.
[14:46] I once told Aditya a decade ago, don't play the question, play
[14:50] the quiz master. So now because you said that
[14:52] it's something to do with Aditya, the first thought that
[14:54] came to my head is, did bachata arise from immigrants in the US?
[15:00] It is bachata, yeah. It's bachata, Yes, he just.
[15:05] Thought it in fluke. My God, Vineet is doing a job of
[15:09] embarrassing me in today's episode.
[15:11] Just getting things I should be getting.
[15:15] So, so OK, so you guys totally like inducted me in the
[15:20] structure very incorrectly, right?
[15:21] You just basically had to tell me Vineet gets all the answers.
[15:27] Yes, that is true. Yeah, yeah, but bachata is
[15:29] correct. In the early days, bachata was
[15:33] once referred to as the song or music of bitterness.
[15:37] It was when the Dominican Republic immigrants moved to New
[15:41] York and they wanted to create a buffer.
[15:44] It was a light piece. One more trivia around it.
[15:47] It was supremely male dominated, so men would dance pachata with
[15:52] men. Oh, OK.
[15:54] Yeah, the origins are only locally known, and female came
[15:59] into it when more sensual movements were added to it.
[16:03] More feminine movements were added to it.
[16:05] But the music, the inception of it and everything was more male
[16:09] dominated because more male immigrants and they had to be
[16:12] calmed down in like tough days and so on and so forth.
[16:15] Like imagine, right? If our audience don't know and
[16:20] if you don't follow Aditya on Instagram, Aditya is quite an
[16:23] accomplished bachata dancer. And if you've ever seen bachata,
[16:26] it's quite a quite essential dance form, which is why I'm all
[16:30] the most surprised that given the kind of Latino, Latinx, you
[16:33] know, macho culture, that something with this kind of
[16:37] intimacy in the dance was between two men, which is also
[16:41] quite progressive, but at the same time surprising for the
[16:43] culture it comes from. Yeah, yeah.
[16:45] And imagine the kind of dance form it is in today's date.
[16:48] It makes so many people really, really happy.
[16:51] And it came out of a situation that was so, so distressed.
[16:55] And it came out of immigrants who did not live the most
[16:59] privileged life. And today, bachata happens in,
[17:01] like, closed doors, in, like, extremely fancy getaways.
[17:05] And like there are specific bachata dance festivals.
[17:10] Yeah, that's so cool. I love that question because it
[17:13] also reminds you of this wonderful quote, or I don't know
[17:15] where I read it, but the idea of how jazz music also came to be.
[17:19] And it was just these African American immigrants and they all
[17:22] came from different parts of the continent.
[17:24] So they did not speak the same languages, and it became like
[17:27] music was the way to sort of communicate in those cramped
[17:30] quarters that they would unfortunately be living in and
[17:33] not the best circumstances. And the beauty that we
[17:36] experienced today in the form of jazz music came from troubled
[17:39] times. So yeah, art, music, dance, It
[17:42] truly, truly liberates the soul. I love it.
[17:45] Wow, what a great question. I agree with that point because
[17:48] I think we've also mentioned this as I at least rented about
[17:51] this on the podcast before that A lot of the great art and
[17:55] culture comes from pain or suffering or just being coked up
[17:59] out of your head. I've also specifically mentioned
[18:03] Stephen King, where there was a portion of Stephen King's life
[18:07] where he was so coked up and on drugs that he could not.
[18:11] He can't even remember writing certain novels.
[18:13] Interesting SO. Now that we've established that
[18:16] great art comes from suffering and pain, I think it's my turn
[18:19] to inflict some pain. That was a great segue.
[18:23] I'm not that I'm not letting it go.
[18:25] It's that was a great segue. OK, so this is a kind of
[18:28] geography based question. It's got four parts to it, but
[18:31] it's easily work outable. Put your heads together and you
[18:34] should be able to work it out. In 2015, a group of
[18:37] demonstrators in country A mistakenly protested in front of
[18:43] the embassy of a country. Why?
[18:46] Because of airstrikes which were conducted by a country X.
[18:51] So they mistakenly protested in front of the embassy of country.
[18:55] Why? Because of airstrikes conducted
[18:58] by a country X. So there's AY and X.
[19:03] OK, exactly. So the people of A mistakenly
[19:06] protested in front of the embassy of country.
[19:08] Why? Because of airstrikes conducted
[19:10] by the country X, Now a few months later, actually many
[19:14] months later, a politician from country A tried to fly to
[19:18] country Y. Now he was going there to
[19:21] campaign to citizens of A living in the country Y about a
[19:27] referendum that was about to happen in the country.
[19:30] A OK. So there was a referendum that
[19:32] was about to happen in country A and this fellow wanted to fly to
[19:36] the country Y in order to campaign to the citizens of ASS
[19:40] who are living there. OK, the government of Y
[19:43] obviously refused to allow him to do so.
[19:46] OK. They do not allow him to
[19:48] campaign there now in protest, some misguided individuals from
[19:54] A ended up burning the flag of Country Z.
[20:00] So I want you to try and identify the countries involved.
[20:03] Country X conducted some air strikes.
[20:06] Country A protested in front of Y.
[20:09] In front of the Embassy of Country.
[20:10] Why yes. Yes.
[20:12] Yeah, a politician of A tried to go to Y, but he was stopped.
[20:15] So in protest, the people of Country A burnt the flag of
[20:19] country Z. OK.
[20:22] You have not given us a time period for this, right?
[20:25] Events happened between 2015 and 2017.
[20:28] Just to caution, this is what causes world wars.
[20:32] Bunch of confused people doing oh.
[20:34] No, this is no, nobody's going to war over this.
[20:36] This is like when you finally realize the reason for this
[20:39] series of events. You'd be like, this is just dumb
[20:44] so. Getting confused between
[20:46] countries. I don't know why I'm tending
[20:48] towards Austria and Australia and then getting confused
[20:51] between flags. Then I go from Australia and New
[20:53] Zealand like those are very similar flags.
[20:55] So I think XYZ could be Austria, Australia and New Zealand.
[20:59] Which makes me think a who was Austria bombing?
[21:04] I can't imagine Austria was bombing anybody.
[21:07] No, they were not bombing. Airstrikes.
[21:09] There were airstrikes, right? XX was conducting airstrikes.
[21:14] So then what does that make? Z No Z would be New Zealand
[21:19] because that would be the confusing flag that means A is
[21:22] remaining Who did Austria bomb? Now all of this is is dependent
[21:25] on the fact that I even got the Austria, Australia, New Zealand
[21:28] part correct in the 1st place. So Vineet.
[21:30] You have to like, lead us somewhere.
[21:32] Like is it? Let me just say that you're in
[21:36] the right gear, but in the wrong car.
[21:40] Oh, that's not helping at all. Yeah, I know, I know.
[21:44] That's. Just of our game completely, I
[21:47] was like, at least we. I will give you a clue.
[21:50] Aditya's thing with flags is right.
[21:53] So is it Australia and New Zealand?
[21:55] No, no. Your idea that it was a
[21:57] confusion about flags that's. Very obvious, right?
[22:00] So now similar flags. OK.
[22:02] First is 2015 and airstrikes. That's the first clue, right?
[22:08] How many countries actually conduct airstrikes?
[22:11] Not that many, right? Then I'm now I'm going to go
[22:13] back to country Y. Now, as I said, there was a
[22:18] referendum that was supposed to happen in country A and when
[22:21] country Y refused to let that politician come and campaign
[22:24] over there, some people from A mistakenly burnt the flag of Z.
[22:29] Now there were some other supporters who were not
[22:33] misguided, who decided to protest by murdering a fruit.
[22:37] Murdering a fruit? Was this fruit guava by any
[22:41] chance? I heard rumors about this.
[22:43] No, no, this is not about a guava.
[22:44] This is actually more direct representation of that country.
[22:49] I'm trying to think of the countries that I know of with
[22:52] similar flags. That would be the approach I
[22:54] would go with. I'll give you the continent, its
[22:57] Europe. Are all these countries in
[22:59] Europe or are they all in different parts of the world?
[23:02] Europe and Asia put together, let's say, that way.
[23:05] So it could be like a France probably has done airstrikes.
[23:10] OK. I will also give an additional
[23:11] clue as to where the airstrikes happened.
[23:14] OK. The airstrikes happened in
[23:16] Syria. So a is Syria.
[23:18] No, a protested, but the airstrikes happened in Syria.
[23:23] So there was an airstrike in Syria.
[23:25] Country A citizens decided to protest, but they mistook
[23:28] country X for country Y and protested in front of that
[23:32] embassy. Later, when there was a
[23:34] diplomatic kerfuffle between A and Y, they mistook the country
[23:37] Z for Y and burnt its flag. I mentioned the fruit.
[23:42] I'll give you one more clue. Last clue, the fruit that they
[23:46] murdered as protest against country Y was an orange.
[23:52] So Netherlands. Yeah.
[23:56] OK great. So why is the Netherlands?
[23:59] What does a Netherlands flag look like?
[24:01] That should give you the. Netherlands.
[24:03] I think it's similar to another European country.
[24:05] I'm forgetting one of these smaller ones.
[24:07] Man, it is it. Another two European countries.
[24:10] I hate, I hate the fact that all of them have similar flags.
[24:13] Thanks to this question every flag is like jumbled into my
[24:17] head. Is it by any chance Luxembourg
[24:20] that Netherlands is similar to the flag?
[24:22] No, no, no, no. OK, last and final clue.
[24:25] This is absolutely the last and final clue.
[24:28] The flag of the Netherlands has three horizontal stripes.
[24:31] It's red, white and blue. You don't talk about France,
[24:34] right? It's not like France.
[24:36] It can be France. Don't tell me, don't tell me
[24:37] it's France. So Z is France, Z is France.
[24:41] How did they get the vertical and the horizontal of?
[24:43] That is dumb as hell. Yeah.
[24:46] So now you've got in France, you've got into the Netherlands,
[24:48] which is the third country. Russia.
[24:52] Yes. X is Russia, Y is the
[24:55] Netherlands, Z is France. Nice.
[24:59] Can you guess which country is it that apparently whose
[25:02] citizens can't recognize flags? I was going to say Turkey is it.
[25:07] It is Turkey, so this entire diplomatic kerfafu happened
[25:11] because people in Turkey apparently can't recognize
[25:14] flags. They were protesting against
[25:15] Russia, but happened to do it front of the Dutch embassy.
[25:18] When they protested against the Dutch, they happened to do it by
[25:20] burning the French flag. Oh good Lord, the chaos.
[25:25] Now, if reading Room India has not covered this, this I think
[25:28] would be a great thing. Yes, Hint, hint, hint, hint.
[25:32] Taking notes. Why do you think I said yes to
[25:34] the episode? It's it's for me and my content
[25:37] team. Oh my God this is crazy and and
[25:40] you are saying that you followed this purely on Reddit?
[25:45] Yeah, so I saw a couple of posts on Reddit which kind of linked
[25:47] to each other. So there was a post about them
[25:49] burning the French flag. And one of the commenters had
[25:53] mentioned that these people are notorious for mistaking flags
[25:57] and had linked an article to another one where they had
[26:00] protested in front of the Dutch embassy when they were actually
[26:03] protesting the Russians. Interesting, very interesting.
[26:06] OK. And Aishwarya, it's your turn
[26:09] again. OK, since we're talking about
[26:13] like a lot of geographical scene, I'm gonna throw in a
[26:16] little bit of travel. You have to guess this
[26:19] particular tribe from this particular continent.
[26:23] You have to guess the tribe and the continent.
[26:25] And I'm gonna give you hints of what this tribe is popular for,
[26:30] what this tribe is still known for, and their cultural
[26:36] practices and so on and so forth.
[26:38] OK, so this particular tribe is one of the oldest tribes in this
[26:45] particular continent. They are known to be extremely
[26:52] polygamous. They celebrate that they choose
[26:58] the head of the tribe in a certain ritual that involves a
[27:05] certain athletic showcase. I will begin here.
[27:11] So you have to guess the tribe and you have to guess the
[27:14] continent. I was just thinking, I don't
[27:17] know why this association came to my head, but I was thinking
[27:19] of the Maasai from Africa. Oh my God, Vineet, just leave
[27:23] this chat right now. The audience and the listeners
[27:28] are going to be like, this is rigged for Vineet.
[27:32] You you got it from the polygamy that they practice, didn't.
[27:36] Yes, polygamy. I think I've also read about
[27:39] them on your channel. I thought, hey, I'll go like
[27:42] slow on these guys with all. You can't take Vineet lightly.
[27:46] This man is quite the juggernaut.
[27:49] This is how he just reigns over my effort.
[27:52] I was like, OK, I have to have a travel story, I have to have
[27:55] this, I have to have that, etc. But no, it is Masai Mara.
[28:00] It's one of the oldest tribes in Africa.
[28:04] And the beauty about this tribe is they practice polygamy and
[28:09] their women are absolutely OK with polygamy.
[28:14] And their women celebrate this in very, very respectful
[28:20] traditions, because the head of the house is also the woman, but
[28:26] head of the tribe is the man who can jump highest.
[28:30] Ah yeah, there are a lot of famous photographs of Masai men
[28:34] jumping and you get them and like in mid jump.
[28:37] Correct, correct. And in celebration, they always,
[28:40] always go around dancing and they have like pretty distinct
[28:44] sounds in there. What do you call it?
[28:47] Like. Like the lyrics?
[28:49] Vocalizations. Yeah, they have distinct sounds
[28:52] and they come up with all of that as collectively as a
[28:56] community. Yeah, these are some of the
[28:59] facts that I can recall, some of the trivia that I can recall
[29:02] collecting from the travels. Fascinating, yeah, fascinating
[29:06] facts about the Maasai tribe and moving from tall people to also
[29:11] somebody who's tall by Indian standards.
[29:13] Aditya, your question. Barely so.
[29:16] I'm full of great segues today. Yeah, and picking on my clothes
[29:19] so freaking easily. I'm hating that.
[29:23] This is the difference, right? Because my instinct was to say
[29:26] Wakanda, because they to establish who the chief is, you
[29:37] could be doing like a little bit of like a beat and switch like a
[29:40] fictional tribe like the Wakandan people, like they have
[29:42] a fight before they establish the chief.
[29:45] But yeah, I'm the idiot, I guess.
[29:50] OK, I'm going to talk about an art form that was in and around
[29:55] in various forms for many centuries, but gained a lot more
[29:58] prevalence during Great Depression.
[30:01] Travelling performers would perform this art form in it's
[30:05] very rudimentary state because this was the easiest and the
[30:09] cheapest way that they would provide entertainment to people
[30:12] in dire straits otherwise. So they would be going around
[30:15] performing these in their travelling entertainment,
[30:17] circuses I guess, or whatever it was called.
[30:20] Eventually these performers began to incorporate a physical
[30:25] structure into their performance which made the art form what it
[30:30] is today. What art form am I talking
[30:33] about? That during Great Depression
[30:35] gained prominence and became what it is today because of the
[30:39] fact that they were travelling around and they decided to
[30:42] incorporate a certain physical structure into the art form.
[30:45] I want to be a noob and guess my Ming first.
[30:51] Is that what it is? Mining is a great guess simply
[30:53] because of the vaudeville history of it, but no, I would
[30:56] say that it's probably a little before a Great Depression.
[30:59] OK, the other physical object has thrown me off my game a
[31:03] little. In this case, it was an actual
[31:05] physical structure that was around them that they decided to
[31:08] incorporate into their art form, giving rise to what that art
[31:12] form is currently recognized as or how we would recognize it
[31:15] today. Gone is this tangible and
[31:18] physical object, something that's light in weight and can
[31:22] be moved. Could be.
[31:25] I think for the most part it is still today.
[31:27] Yeah, yeah, back then it definitely was because it was
[31:29] part of the travelling performance.
[31:31] Magicians. Magic.
[31:33] No, no, not magic. Is it something to do with like
[31:36] gymnastics or something? No, not gymnastics.
[31:39] The reason why I asked the weight of the physical object is
[31:42] because I wanted to guess juggling.
[31:44] That's a great guess, but no, not what I'm talking about.
[31:46] I'll tell you the reason I came up with this question was
[31:49] because Aishwarya, I was trying to find questions that you and I
[31:52] probably have spoken about that I know of you and I know of your
[31:55] interests. So let me be more specific.
[31:57] It's a dance form that I'm talking about and I believe you
[32:00] and I have talked about this, this dance form specific.
[32:03] The ribbon dance. The hula hoop.
[32:05] Not the ribbon dance, not the hula hoop.
[32:06] No, no. I have spoken to you about South
[32:09] much. I'm a chatterbox, OK?
[32:13] So now that I know that I have no skin in this game.
[32:16] You don't get to say that, Vineet.
[32:18] You do not get to say that. And you'll still get it.
[32:21] I'm not Privy to your conversations.
[32:23] OK, so you said it's a dance form.
[32:25] Is it like something like Cirque du Soleil?
[32:28] No, not Cirque du Soleil. No, not at all.
[32:30] Oh wait, is it tap dance? No, not tap dance either.
[32:34] I would have guessed it, but there's no physical object as
[32:37] such. You are counting the shoe and
[32:38] the floor. Yeah, you need a floor, right?
[32:40] You need was plywood floor. Like if you're on a dirt track
[32:42] somewhere, you'd need some kind of wood.
[32:44] The polished version of it. Tap dancing can happen anywhere
[32:48] that the surface can make noise. Yes, I need a clue.
[32:52] So interestingly, the use of this physical object in both
[32:58] sports and exercise, if not entertainment, dates back to
[33:03] around 800 years ago to the traditional Indian sport of
[33:06] Malakam pole dancing. Ah vineet is just on fire today.
[33:13] It is pole dancing Malakamba. Malakambu, Kamba Pole.
[33:17] Yeah, we did speak of it. Pole Fitness.
[33:21] We are talking about pole fitness.
[33:23] Yeah. So yes, it is pole dancing.
[33:25] Malakamba is the sport and Kamba would of course mean pole and
[33:30] they used it because they were travelling around with it, so
[33:33] they would perform in tents. So they started at some point
[33:36] incorporating the tent pole into their performance.
[33:40] The women, when they were doing their burlesque cabaret dances,
[33:43] they would start using the pole as part of that and hence pole
[33:48] dancing became an art form starting around that time.
[33:51] We were both thinking of joining a pole dance class at some point
[33:55] just to get fit. Yeah.
[33:58] Are we still on for that plan? Because I.
[34:00] Am you know what? You and I will follow up on that
[34:02] plan as well, Vineet. You're welcome to join us if you
[34:05] want to. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, thank
[34:09] you, Thank you. I'm 600 kilometers away.
[34:13] I'll keep that distance, especially when it comes to pork
[34:15] dancing. Aishwarya.
[34:17] So I think the next question is yours.
[34:20] OK, the question goes, what genre or which genre of music
[34:29] most celebrated on the streets? I'm not giving away the country.
[34:34] I'm not giving away anything. This genre of music led to some
[34:41] of the most sales of alcohol on the streets past Sunset.
[34:48] And second, it was also born out of pain, since we spoke about it
[34:54] earlier, and it was meant to beat the melancholy of the day
[35:06] that people would have. It was designed to embrace the
[35:11] softer, more subtler aspects of human emotions.
[35:17] That's my question. Which genre of music?
[35:20] Not vague at all. Now you get it.
[35:26] I dropped 0 hints just in the question.
[35:29] So no, the answer is definitely not in the question.
[35:33] OK, so let me recap the clues. So there was alcohol in it,
[35:38] there was melancholy. It was meant to deal with that,
[35:42] and it had something to do with the time of the day.
[35:44] I think it had something to do with the evening.
[35:46] Or sunset. OK.
[35:48] Was this during a specific festival did you mention or was
[35:51] this not anything to do with the festival?
[35:53] Throughout the year, OK. There is a country in question
[35:56] that you have not mentioned yet. I would say it has like
[36:00] differing versions of the origins, so that's why I'm
[36:02] staying away from the country aspect of it where it was
[36:06] originated. I have a guess though, the
[36:09] melancholy and the alcohol and the evening.
[36:14] I don't know, Evening, night, something spiked.
[36:16] I don't know if it's right, but I was thinking jazz.
[36:19] I was going to say Blues. It is.
[36:22] It is true. It is true.
[36:24] It is jazz. You both got it.
[36:27] It is a local tale that they have revealed and I happen to
[36:32] get this from one of the travelers, Italian travelers
[36:36] actually, who said that the phrase beat the Blues came from
[36:42] music because beating the Blues was one of the main purpose.
[36:46] Why this music was designed and why this music became popular
[36:51] and why the sunset is because this music uplifted the absence
[36:57] of the daytime chores and stress and anxiety.
[37:01] So it would beat the blue skies and be present for sunset and
[37:07] the feeling of, you know, being extremely tired and like, set.
[37:13] And whatever happened, it was supposed to give you an escape
[37:15] from your daytime. So yeah, I'm sorry that I don't
[37:19] have any source to quote this, but yeah, like I got this from
[37:24] an Italian young man, so is really, really nice.
[37:27] That's really cool. And I have a piece of trivia
[37:29] related to jazz and the Blues, which is also kind of almost a
[37:33] pop culture recommendation for us, is an artist by the name of
[37:36] Robert Johnson and one specific song of his from the, I think
[37:41] it's the late 30s and the early 40s, which is called Crossroad
[37:44] Blues. It's a very haunting song made
[37:47] especially haunting by the fact if you know the legend behind
[37:50] the song, which I think I've mentioned in the podcast before.
[37:54] But if you're a fan of the show Supernatural or if you are a fan
[37:57] of anything paranormal, this is a very famous story.
[38:00] So Robert Johnson apparently had a very mediocre guitar playing
[38:03] talent, but then all of a sudden he started playing like amazing
[38:08] Blues guitar and his songs also had references to certain
[38:13] paranormal activities, especially the devil.
[38:14] So there is this myth and legend that Robert Johnson made a deal
[38:18] with the devil at a crossroads at midnight to gain the ability
[38:23] to play the guitar, that the devil himself taught him to play
[38:26] the guitar, and he died at a very young age, which also added
[38:30] to the legend that his soul was reaped by the devil because of
[38:34] the deal that they made. It's a major plot point in the
[38:36] show Supernatural as well. And if you keep that story in
[38:39] mind and you listen to the song, it's pretty haunting.
[38:42] So Crossroad Blues by Robert Johnson.
[38:46] Adding it on my Spotify right now.
[38:49] It's so underrated and it's so misunderstood as a genre of
[38:54] music. There is so much to it.
[38:57] And yeah, like the post sunset, the alcohol, the street, all of
[39:00] that. It is so nice.
[39:02] But. Very nice.
[39:03] So now it's my turn and I have a question that I curated
[39:08] especially for Reading Room India and the fact that we have
[39:11] Aishwarya as a guest. There's a historical nugget,
[39:14] I'll give you that. If I don't get it again, I'm
[39:18] saying there's a spectacular content team that does.
[39:23] I don't think anybody will guess this unless you already know it.
[39:26] So on February 23rd, 1913 in Russia, people protested the
[39:32] possibility of a World War. OK.
[39:35] On another such Sunday of February 23rd, 1917, there were
[39:42] protests against the ongoing war and shortages of food and other
[39:47] essentials under Tsar Nicholas A Seconds regime.
[39:50] Something about the nature of these protests was unique given
[39:55] that period of time. Although the causes were worthy,
[39:59] evolutionaries like Trotsky were upset at the protesters as these
[40:04] disobedient and misbehaving people were going out on this
[40:08] day when they were meant to wait till May, which is when Workers
[40:13] Day is marked these events, especially that of February 23rd
[40:18] 1917 which was a Sunday. These events set a precedent
[40:22] which we are now familiar with, but we became familiar with it
[40:27] after a specific adjustment. Now, how do we know this date
[40:31] and what was the adjustment that was required for us to be able
[40:35] to celebrate it the way we do it now?
[40:37] What was the adjustment required?
[40:40] What happened on this day, We celebrate it now.
[40:43] That led to something which we celebrate now, but for us to
[40:47] recognize it now, there had to be a certain adjustment made.
[40:51] Yeah, there are two hints you've already given into this, which
[40:54] is the familiarity of the causes, like it was similar
[40:59] causes and the second one you said was like how how the people
[41:03] reacted to it. So these are like subtle hints
[41:06] in this. I know I I'm familiar with it,
[41:09] but I I don't think what I'm thinking is the right answer, so
[41:12] I'm gonna like. No, no, please go ahead.
[41:14] Shoot your shot. It doesn't matter.
[41:15] You said this happened in 1913 and 1917.
[41:18] Yes, both on a February 23rd, which was a Sunday.
[41:21] Both on February 23rd and you mentioned that the Trotsky and
[41:25] who else were not in support of it because they thought people
[41:28] should wait till. May May, which was the Workers
[41:30] Day, International Labor Day. And you want us to guess what
[41:34] the Causeway? Was number.
[41:36] So the first time it was against the possibility of war, and the
[41:38] second time there was a protest against the ongoing war and
[41:42] shortage of food and other essentials.
[41:44] But there was something very unique about these protests,
[41:47] especially for that period of time, and that is what led to
[41:51] leads to the celebration today. I know that smile.
[41:56] The adjustment I think I know. OK.
[42:00] I'm trying to figure out what is it that he resulted from it.
[42:03] OK, tell us what the adjustment is and that might help.
[42:06] The adjustment has to be the switching of the Russian
[42:10] calendar. Bang on that happened around
[42:13] this time is what I remember. It was around the First World
[42:16] War that they switched. At the end of the First World
[42:18] War, yes. At the end of the First World
[42:20] War, OK, so I don't know how much would it have shifted it
[42:24] by. I don't know where it would have
[42:26] gone. I think it would have gone from
[42:28] February to March, I guess. Yeah, I think it was like it it
[42:32] it would have gone in that direction.
[42:34] Yes. Something in that time frame.
[42:37] So something in March that we celebrate in March today, but
[42:41] was on February or 23rd you mentioned?
[42:44] Women's Day. It is Women's Day.
[42:47] Yeah, yeah, I know I I wanted to guess that, but I said maybe we
[42:50] have to guess the adjustments and I was like one second.
[42:53] The adjustment that I know of is probably from a different story
[42:57] that we did. But I was like oh OK, when Adi
[43:00] said OK Russian and then you said bang on, I was like yeah,
[43:03] Women's Day. I know this on them.
[43:05] Yeah, it's Women's Day. The.
[43:06] Protests were all women. It was almost an entirely female
[43:09] protest. And disapproving Trotsky,
[43:12] looking down his nose, very long nose at them saying that what
[43:15] are you doing out of the house on a Sunday?
[43:18] So The thing is until February 1918, Russia followed the Julian
[43:24] calendar and then it switched to the Gregorian calendar.
[43:28] So February 23rd, which was the last Sunday of February,
[43:33] actually falls worldwide in the Gregorian calendar on 8th March.
[43:37] So this day was chosen as International Women's Day.
[43:40] Now celebrating the fact that we have, quite shamefully as a
[43:45] matter of fact, finally had a female quizmaster after 81
[43:49] episodes. Now is the start, and you know
[43:52] that. And what a start.
[43:53] And what a start. Yeah.
[43:54] So wow, that was a great guess, by the way.
[43:56] No. It was it was because like,
[43:58] we've done the story, so I just happened to confuse them.
[44:02] But it was quite tailored for you, yes, curated to you.
[44:06] It was. I'm glad I was not totally bad
[44:09] at it. There was a great There was a
[44:11] great answer. Great crack, Great crack.
[44:13] Yeah, yeah. Thanks Aadi.
[44:17] So that's all the time we have for our regular quizzing.
[44:20] Before we start sign off and give up pop culture
[44:22] recommendations, there is the small question that I asked at
[44:26] the beginning of the episode, our audience question.
[44:29] Americo Vespucci with an Italian explorer has two continents
[44:33] named after him, making him the person who has the most area on
[44:36] earth named after a person. So North America, South America,
[44:40] you have two entire continents named after him.
[44:42] So the land area, entire combined land area named after
[44:46] one person. The maximum amount cow goes to
[44:48] America West Pucci. My question is who's in 2nd
[44:51] place? Which person has the second most
[44:55] amount of area on earth named after them put together?
[44:59] Like these are not like 1 continuous places.
[45:00] There are like multiple places around the globe.
[45:02] But when you put them together, this will probably be second
[45:05] place. There's an entire Wikipedia page
[45:08] with, I don't know, hundreds of places named after this person.
[45:12] So. Then there's probably some
[45:13] British dude, like I'm guessing some like Georgia, George,
[45:17] whatever. Again, right gear, wrong car.
[45:20] OK. Alexandria.
[45:22] Alexander, OH. No, no, no, you've, you've,
[45:24] you've, you've, you've got, you've gone cold, you've gone
[45:26] cold. Like you're on the right track
[45:28] with British. Oh, OK.
[45:32] British. Guy, I'll give you one clue.
[45:34] There was a very famous a headline given by, I think it
[45:39] was the journalist Manu Pillai. Basically, he gave a headline
[45:43] after a particular name change in India saying the largest sex
[45:46] change operation in India has just taken place.
[45:48] Oh, interesting. Victoria.
[45:51] Victoria Terminus. Yes, Victoria Terminus.
[45:55] Chitrapati Shivaji. Terminus.
[45:58] Yes, so. So the answer is yeah, Queen
[46:00] Victoria. So Queen Victoria has a lot of
[46:03] places named after her. There are no countries per SE,
[46:06] but she has Lake Victoria, Victoria Island, Great Victorian
[46:09] Desert, Queensland in Australia is named after her.
[46:13] There's an entire Wikipedia page.
[46:15] I recommend people to just go read it.
[46:18] There are places in India, there are places in Pakistan, Canada,
[46:21] Ghana, places across Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, New Zealand.
[46:25] So many places when you Add all those areas up.
[46:28] Point of clarification, your Honor.
[46:30] OK, then wouldn't I don't know if it probably will be similar
[46:33] or if larger, Wouldn't Bharat be technically one of the largest
[46:37] places named after a person? I don't think put together.
[46:43] Yeah, not like. Large parts of Canada and a huge
[46:47] chunk of Australia are named after Queen Victoria, plus you
[46:51] have a lot of other places, so I think that's definitely more
[46:53] than. Yeah, half of Australia is still
[46:56] called like with Victoria, right?
[46:59] Fine, fine, I'll give up my jingoism then.
[47:03] Yeah, you should. We should.
[47:07] We should actually make that the the clip for this particular
[47:10] podcast. You know it'll make it go.
[47:11] Yeah, no, because Queen Victoria winning over Bharat is
[47:14] definitely going to get you some fans.
[47:15] Vineeth. Yeah.
[47:17] Yeah, I did not think this through.
[47:20] First of all, how is Queen Victoria the a British dude?
[47:23] Yeah, that is true. I'm sorry, you said dude.
[47:25] By the way, you very casually just put the word dude there.
[47:29] Okay, my mistake. Not dude, dudette.
[47:32] Yeah. Dudette or like lady?
[47:37] Yeah, but no, that was fun. That was.
[47:39] Victoria. I was like, British dude, which
[47:42] British dude? And then I'm already thinking of
[47:45] like with George because like George here and.
[47:48] I went in the opposite direction.
[47:50] I went like very Tom, Dick and Harry.
[47:51] I'm like other places named after Tom or Richard or.
[47:54] Harold, which one is it? OK, so I can't claim credit for
[48:00] this question. This question appeared in one of
[48:02] my quizzing groups from Goa. There was a quizzer who put up
[48:06] this question, so I can't claim full credit for it.
[48:07] But yeah, it's a fantastic question.
[48:09] So I thought it definitely deserved a mention here.
[48:11] So before we start signing off pop culture recommendations,
[48:15] let's give our first opportunity to recommend some pop culture to
[48:20] Aishwarya. Obviously you can't do Reading
[48:23] Room India. No, no, no.
[48:25] That is, that is our pop culture recommendation.
[48:27] Reading Room India is our pop culture recommendation.
[48:29] No, no, no, I'm not. I'm going to take this
[48:31] opportunity to actually put in some fun, but only for like age
[48:36] appropriate audience out there. You got to read this book called
[48:40] kill your friends. It's absolutely disgusting.
[48:45] It's absolutely filthy. It's absolutely inappropriate.
[48:51] I'm just also going to give you the author's name, so it's Kill
[48:56] Your Friends by, I hope I pronounce it right, John Nevin.
[49:02] So it's about a record producer who's 27 year old and it's from
[49:07] like the early 90s kind of setup and stuff like that.
[49:11] It's something that you guys will relate to.
[49:13] And if you're into reading, for sure, you have to have to read
[49:16] this book called Kill Your Friends.
[49:18] It's disgusting. It's like nasty.
[49:20] It's absolutely unfit for a decent society.
[49:24] It's just crazy. But you have to read this.
[49:28] And in terms of watching, I am watching quite a lot of like
[49:31] regional cinema and like trying to pick up on a lot of backlog.
[49:35] I happen to watch this Marathi movie which is in two parts.
[49:39] It's called Bhai Vyakti Ki Valli.
[49:43] OK, so it's about Pula Deshpande, India's early
[49:48] columnist theatre artist, who was a comedy writer and also
[49:53] like, I think one of the early Indian first stand up comic guy,
[49:58] but he did it out of theatre. So because Adi is into theatre
[50:02] and since you read a lot of like fun Reddit posts and like, you
[50:07] know, you read a lot from whatever, I'm guessing digital
[50:10] reads. But yeah, this book in case
[50:12] you're into books, hard copies for sure Kill your friends is
[50:16] for you and the Theatre 1 Marathi with subtitles,
[50:20] subtitles. It's available on Netflix.
[50:22] You should should definitely, definitely watch it and what
[50:26] theatre did to his life, what comedy did to his life and how
[50:30] it went on. It's brilliantly put and it's
[50:33] two parts. It's a little dragged and slow
[50:36] in between. That's my personal take of that.
[50:38] But overall it's, I think beautiful.
[50:41] It's absolutely beautiful. This guy, Pula Deshpande, late
[50:45] Pula Deshpande, he was Bal Thackeray's teacher as well.
[50:52] He's a very, very renowned names in Arasha and with the
[50:57] Maharashtrian community. So yes, those are my
[51:00] recommendations. See, I told you I came prepared.
[51:04] I came not prepared for this. You did.
[51:06] You did. Adi, your turn.
[51:08] I would have to first of all give a shout out to Reading Room
[51:11] India. Not enough shout outs can be
[51:13] given. It's phenomenal.
[51:14] If you haven't Gofal we have recommended in the past.
[51:17] No qualms about recommending it again and again.
[51:19] It's phenomenal. So please go check it out.
[51:21] Absolutely. I have two recommendations for
[51:24] today. The first one is this book
[51:25] called Ice Station. This is by an author goes by the
[51:30] name of Matthew Riley, an Australian thriller writer.
[51:32] Matthew Riley. Ice Station is one of my
[51:35] absolute favorite books. It just plays out like a great
[51:40] action film. Scarecrow.
[51:42] Scarecrow. Yeah, Vinit has read it clearly.
[51:44] I just saw Vinit throw his hands up into the air and then the
[51:46] screen froze for like, it is a book that does evoke that very
[51:52] response because I read it and I could not believe it for my life
[51:56] that this has not been been made into a movie because it really
[51:59] reads like a screenplay for an action film.
[52:01] It's a lot of fun and it's just very fast-paced.
[52:04] Don't expect anything which which provides you some literary
[52:08] awakening but. Intellectuals.
[52:10] Yeah, nothing. Nothing like that.
[52:12] So Matthew Riley's Ice Station absolutely must read.
[52:16] Hopefully somebody makes a film out of it.
[52:18] And the other thing I'm going to recommend because I'm looking at
[52:20] my bookshelf right now and the one thing that sticks out over
[52:24] there to me is Tintin. If you have read Tintin, I
[52:28] recommend rereading it, probably have read it as a child or as a
[52:31] teenager. I recommend going back to it as
[52:32] an adult. But there are of course some
[52:34] things which are outdated and of its time, but for the most part,
[52:38] it is a beautiful read. It is something that evokes that
[52:41] love and childhood adventure sense.
[52:44] So I would say yeah, Tintin is something you should go read
[52:48] again, and those are my two recommendations for this
[52:51] episode. Interesting.
[52:54] Very interesting and I can personally recommend.
[52:57] Also add on to what Aditya said, Matthew Riley isn't master at
[53:02] writing books that read like you're watching a Hollywood
[53:05] movie, something that Jerry Bruckheimer produces.
[53:09] He there are also other books of his.
[53:11] There's another book called ADS 7 and there's another one called
[53:13] Scarecrow. I recommend all of those.
[53:16] My recommendation is a little closer to home.
[53:19] I recently binge watched in Indian adaptation of Sherlock
[53:24] Holmes called Shekhar Home starring KK Menon and Ranveer
[53:30] Shorey. Fantastic actors.
[53:33] And what I really liked about it was that when it started I was
[53:38] like, this is just so silly. This must be some kind of comedy
[53:42] pastiche because there's a lot of comedy involved.
[53:45] Say, for example, the adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles
[53:47] is something that's happening at a place called Bhaskar Villa.
[53:51] So Baskervilles becomes Bhaskar Villa, that kind of thing.
[53:54] Every day, that joke of sort. Exactly.
[53:58] So you have KK Menon playing the role of Sherlock Holmes, but
[54:03] here it is Shekhar Home, and you have Ranveer Shorey playing the
[54:08] character equivalent to that of Doctor Watson.
[54:10] They have adapted some of the best, better stories, but what I
[54:15] really liked is that they went against Green towards the end.
[54:20] There is a twist in the tail at the end of the season and I was
[54:24] like, I did not see this coming and it was very well done.
[54:28] I'm not going to say it's the best in terms of production
[54:30] value because it's set in the early 1990s, it's set in 1992,
[54:34] but it doesn't look flat. It's not the most polished show.
[54:39] The acting, obviously KK Menon knocks it out of the park.
[54:41] He, like he always does, Ranvir Sherwood does a great job.
[54:44] But overall, it's not something I want you to take too
[54:47] seriously. Don't compare it to Steven
[54:50] Moffat, Sherlock or anything, but just watch it on a Sunday, 6
[54:53] episodes. They'll pass by like, you know,
[54:55] the snap of finger. I really, really enjoyed it.
[54:58] So that's my pop culture recommendation for this week and
[55:02] that's all the time we have for this episode.
[55:04] Thank you all for listening in. We hope you enjoyed the show and
[55:06] learned something new. If you liked what you heard,
[55:08] please consider subscribing to our podcast and to Reading Room
[55:13] India, the Instagram channel. It's a fantastic channel and I
[55:17] would recommend it to everybody who enjoys trivia, who enjoys
[55:21] history, politics. It's pure infotainment.
[55:24] We'd also love to hear from you feedback, suggestions, even
[55:27] trivia. You can send us questions that
[55:29] you want asked on the show. You can send us all those
[55:31] questions either on our personal Instagram accounts or on our
[55:34] e-mail ru.quizzing.me@gmail.com with the name of the quiz master
[55:38] in the subject line. We also have a community on
[55:40] Reddit, R slash ru quizzing me where you can join other fans of
[55:44] the show. We appreciate your support and
[55:47] look forward to sharing more episodes with you in the future.
[55:50] Aishwarya, it's been a sincere sensation.
[55:53] We really enjoyed this doing this episode with you and hope
[55:55] you can come back again for future episodes.
[55:58] That's all from me, Aditya. I just have to say, yeah, we
[56:01] have to get Aishwarya back and hopefully some of the other
[56:04] people who are associated with Reading Room India.
[56:06] I would love to meet the rest of the team also.
[56:08] Exactly the people behind the curtain.
[56:11] And hopefully a collaboration on social media at some point too.
[56:15] We should figure that out and deliver on that for people who
[56:18] love trivia across all platforms.
[56:21] So look out for that things in the future.
[56:24] Obviously exciting, entertaining, but for today,
[56:26] thank you so much, Aishwarya. That was a phenomenal episode.
[56:28] We have to do this one more time, hopefully very soon.
[56:32] Thank you once again for being our guest and I guess we'll see
[56:36] you guys next week. Yay.
[56:38] Thank you. Bye.

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