# Episode 131 - Transport, Troubles & Trump

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 17 Feb 2026, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/115633337/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-1-17%2F75360274-6916-37ec-852a-8a8074afc43d.mp3

Do you know which plant was brought to Asia from the Kew Royal Gardens in India, eventually powering a huge industry and closely associated to a transportation company? Do you know why the 1970 novel Troubles, by J.G. Farrell was awarded a Booker Prize in 2010? Do you know what's the name of the documentary sequel to Farenheit 9/11, which features on Trump's first presidential term? Tune in to the episode to find out!! You can reach us at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingme Email: areyouquizzingme@gmail.com Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/areyouquizzingme Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@areyouquizzingme/podcasts

## Transcript

[0:00] Connect Pink Floyd, Motorola and General Electric.
[0:05] Let me repeat the question. Connect Pink Floyd, Motorola and
[0:10] General Electric. This is the audience question
[0:13] for today's episode of are you Quizzing me?
[0:16] Your favorite quizzing and trivia podcast show.
[0:18] This is episode #131 queue the music.
[0:23] Welcome to Are you quizzing me. I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
[0:27] Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
[0:30] podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
[0:34] history, science, pop culture, and so much more.
[0:37] Let's get quizzing. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,
[0:40] to the 131st episode of Are You Quizzing Me?
[0:42] What you heard just before the musical sting was the audience
[0:46] question for this week's episode, which I will answer at
[0:48] the end of the episode. But for now, I welcome my
[0:52] Paterin crime, Paterin quizzing and overall demolisher of MOA,
[0:58] Mr. Aditya Kashyap, to start off today's episode.
[1:01] Amazing. I have no idea what the audience
[1:04] question is. I'm hoping along the episode
[1:06] somewhere something will strike me and I'll know the answer by
[1:09] the end. Which also leads me to a couple
[1:12] of things, actually. For those of you who have been
[1:14] following us for the past 130 episodes, I know 131 is not
[1:18] exactly a special number to celebrate, but hey, 31.
[1:22] That's that's we're further than we expected to come when we
[1:25] started along. And at this point we're doing a
[1:28] few fun things. So in case you haven't checked
[1:31] those out, we usually plug it in at the end of the episode, doing
[1:34] it at the beginning. Check out the Sunday quiz that's
[1:37] happening on Instagram. It's fun.
[1:39] It's 1 theme and it's multiple choice, which we don't do
[1:44] usually on the podcast. So that's a different way to it.
[1:47] We'll check it out. Quite a few people participating
[1:49] love people correcting me because one thing we know about
[1:52] trivia nerds is they cannot tolerate incorrect trivia.
[1:56] So please go ahead and correct us if you're wrong.
[1:59] The other thing, Vineet and I both love our red page.
[2:02] Thank you always to Ashwin for helping set it up.
[2:06] And there is stuff happening on the red page as well, fun
[2:10] questions being posted both by fans and friends of the podcast
[2:14] as well as by Vineet very regularly and once in a while by
[2:18] me as well. There's that.
[2:20] The other thing is on both on Red and on Instagram, there is
[2:24] this thing that I recently started posting which is episode
[2:27] spoilers and it's nothing more than images and each image
[2:31] connects 2 in some way, maybe direct, maybe round about two
[2:36] questions from the episode. So once you have heard the
[2:38] episode, come back to that post or go to Reddit and see if you
[2:42] can figure out what the connections are and shared in
[2:44] the comments or whatever. Not it's the fun thing for the
[2:48] Friends of the podcast to kind of participate in.
[2:51] And lastly, this is something we are going to start based off of
[2:54] suggestion from our lovely listeners who suggested that
[2:57] maybe potentially we could ask an audience question at the end
[3:01] of the episode that we answer in the next episode.
[3:03] So we need to ask the opening audience question, which we'll
[3:07] answer by the end of episode 131.
[3:10] And at the end of episode 131, we'll ask a question, which
[3:12] we'll answer at the beginning of episode 132.
[3:15] That's the plan for now. Let's see how it goes.
[3:17] And if you have feedback, please share.
[3:19] OK, a lot of random housekeeing. I'm going to start with my first
[3:22] question. Vineet, Are you ready to tackle
[3:24] some trivia? Yes, I am.
[3:27] Alright, so for my first question, I'm going to talk
[3:31] about a genre of books that regular listeners of this
[3:34] podcast would know I am a huge fan of.
[3:36] I've already mentioned I love the book Catch 22, probably my
[3:40] favorite book. A previous episode featured Kurt
[3:43] Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, and this one has to do with the Ray
[3:48] Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. We have also featured trivia
[3:53] about this particular book in some previous episode.
[3:56] Please don't ask me which one. If you can find out which one it
[3:59] is, please tell us also. All right, Vineet, do you know
[4:03] about this 2004 American documentary film called
[4:07] Fahrenheit 9/11? It's a documentary by Michael
[4:11] Moore. I am familiar with it.
[4:12] Perfect. And as should be obvious to
[4:15] anyone that Fahrenheit 9/11 is derived from the novel Frenheit
[4:19] 451. One of the taglines, by the way
[4:22] of the movie, was the temperature at which freedom
[4:26] burns, which also is literally the temperature at which books
[4:31] were supposed to burn at ignition.
[4:33] Temperature of paper exactly? Presumably, or legend suggests
[4:38] that Bray Bedbury called up the fire department and asked them
[4:42] what temperature does a book burn at?
[4:44] And some random guy over there answered and he said 451
[4:48] Fahrenheit, which is apparently not actually accurate.
[4:51] So the the name of the book is perhaps misnomer chemists out
[4:57] there. Please let us know.
[4:59] In any case, that is the name of the famous book.
[5:01] And that inspired the name of the famous 2004 documentary.
[5:03] Yes, very well done. It is by Michael Moore.
[5:06] The subject of this documentary is the presidency of George W
[5:10] Bush. It talks about Iraq war and of
[5:13] course, 911, right. September 11 attacks, most
[5:17] consequential terrorist attacks in modern history.
[5:20] Vineet. Do you know there's a sequel to
[5:22] Fan Night 911? The sequel to Fahrenheit 911,
[5:27] Michael Moore's documentary, also by Michael Moore.
[5:30] Exactly. It is a documentary by filmmaker
[5:32] Michael Moore. I want you to tell me what is
[5:36] the name of the sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11?
[5:42] I think it wasn't a particularly good one.
[5:45] It wouldn't become a hit. I think this is related to the
[5:48] Trump election, right? That was going to be my first
[5:51] hint. I I know this.
[5:52] I know this is going to tell you the subject is that Trump
[5:54] presidency, the Trump election, the first term.
[5:58] Yeah. This is Trump won.
[5:59] Basically, this is about Trump won.
[6:01] I'm trying to remember the name. It's also Fahrenheit something I
[6:07] can't remember why, but I think it's a Fahrenheit 1190, but I
[6:13] don't know what the funda is. I don't remember the funda or
[6:15] anything that, but I think it's that I don't quote me on it.
[6:19] Well, you know what? I am going to quote you on it
[6:21] because it is the right answer. It is Fahrenheit 11/9, yes.
[6:25] Go good. Yeah.
[6:26] Look, I think I've watched this documentary.
[6:30] Isn't this one that had the Michigan Flint water crisis and
[6:33] all those? Or am I thinking of another one
[6:35] of Michael Moore's documentaries?
[6:37] I'll be honest with you, I have not watched this particular
[6:39] documentary so I can't tell you what is in it and what isn't.
[6:43] And yes, you're right, it was nowhere near as lauded or as
[6:47] well received as the original 1. Fannite 911, yeah, which also
[6:52] had its own criticism and retractors, but for the most
[6:55] part was pretty acclaimed. Fannite 11/9 not so much.
[6:58] Question was going to be of course.
[6:59] What is the name? Well done, you cracked it
[7:01] perfectly. What is the funder, as quizzers
[7:05] like to say? I already told you I don't give
[7:10] me a clue. You kind of took my first clue
[7:13] away. It was going to be that it's
[7:15] about the Trump election. So think about there are a few
[7:19] very significant moments for anybody who follows American
[7:22] politics. And if you don't, well, good for
[7:25] you, please don't start. But in case like me, you are
[7:28] unfortunately deep into that rabbit hole, you know, there are
[7:32] a few special moments that have defined the Trump presidency
[7:36] over the years. Some of them which should have
[7:39] been a clear indicator of voters to come.
[7:42] The first one being when he announced his presidency and his
[7:45] presidential run. And he came down the escalator,
[7:48] the golden escalator image that is going to be remembered in
[7:52] history. So that is there, of course, for
[7:54] his second term is the assassination attempt on him.
[7:57] Few pretty iconic images. This was a very iconic moment.
[8:01] This was perhaps a defining moment in that first
[8:05] presidential run. So a defining moment in his
[8:10] first presidential run led to the naming of the documentary as
[8:14] Fahrenheit 11/9? Yes.
[8:17] And also another obvious clue is the fact that 11/9, just like
[8:21] 911, refers to the American date notation, right?
[8:25] Oh, this is November 9th, right? That would be the election
[8:29] victory. Perfect simple answer.
[8:32] Yeah, yeah. November, yes.
[8:33] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love the poetry of it, that
[8:38] for night 911, September 11th attacks and of course had to do
[8:43] with the George Bush presidency. And then the next Republican
[8:45] president comes, which is Trump, and his election victory is
[8:49] announced on November 9th, and that becomes Fahrenheit 11/9.
[8:54] So Fahrenheit 9/11 had a sequel, Fahrenheit 11/9, both by Michael
[8:58] Moore, both by Republican presidents in the 21st century,
[9:01] and both telling you how they were probably not the best
[9:06] presidents, but hey, listen, Michael Moore initially tried to
[9:09] partner with Harvey Weinstein to make Fahrenheit 11/9.
[9:14] And if you were to go with anything with the Epstein files,
[9:18] clearly nobody across the political spectrum or across the
[9:21] social spectrum in the US is exactly an Angel.
[9:25] So. That's that fair enough.
[9:28] I mean, like I, I also kind of think that, you know, when you
[9:32] say Republican president, it's be kind of become like a bad
[9:35] word right now with Trump being embodying that.
[9:39] But compared to Trump, and I thought, like at the time I
[9:41] thought Bush was bad. But compared to Trump, the man
[9:45] is a genius and an Angel. He's an erudite person who is
[9:51] so, yeah, thoughtful in his approach to world politics and
[9:55] domestic politics. Yeah, it was just, it's all
[9:58] perspective, you know, like Einstein was right.
[10:00] It's all relative. Indeed, it is all relative.
[10:04] And that is my first question. Well, crack very quickly, Craig.
[10:08] Even if you didn't know the funder, props to you.
[10:11] OK, the baton is in your hands. I will take the baton and move
[10:16] to India, our particular little homeland and something to do
[10:20] with the rivers, and I will give you clues for this.
[10:23] Not many, but you should be able to do it.
[10:25] So OK. As you may already know, most
[10:28] rivers in India are objects of reverence, rituals, pilgrimages,
[10:33] often associated with rivers. The River X is a striking
[10:37] exception. Although it is a major tributary
[10:41] of the Yamuna, which is a sacred river, local belief holds that
[10:45] this River X is cursed. Its waters are described as
[10:50] tamsic, basically imbued with anger or aggression, and are
[10:55] often blamed in folklore for the violent reputation of the
[10:59] surrounding region of that river.
[11:02] As a result, this river has never attracted temples or large
[11:05] scale worship. There are many legends to this.
[11:08] There are many, many legends to this.
[11:09] One popular legend traces this curse back to the Mahabharata.
[11:13] The region through which X flows is said to have been part of the
[11:17] Kingdom of Shakuni, where the infamous dice game took place
[11:21] after the attempted disrobing of Dravati.
[11:25] She is believed to have cursed anyone who drank from the river,
[11:28] which was then known by its older nick.
[11:31] Ironically, this very belief is now credited with protecting X
[11:35] from human interference. Avoided.
[11:37] For centuries, this river has remained remarkably pristine,
[11:41] allowing wildlife such as Mughers, garials and river
[11:44] dolphins to thrive undisturbed. Today, it stands as one of
[11:48] India's cleanest and most ecologically impact rivers.
[11:51] So long question short identify the river.
[11:55] A major tributary of the Yamuna, one of the cleanest rivers in
[11:59] modern India. Something to do with Shakuni in
[12:03] Mahabharat? I am going off the assumption
[12:07] that this is a name that should, if not be at the tip of my
[12:10] tongue, would be definitely very familiar.
[12:12] Oh yeah, it is very familiar to you, even if not the name.
[12:15] The region around it is also known roughly by the name of the
[12:18] river, so that region is definitely known to you.
[12:21] OK. When you say region, and I'm
[12:22] thinking somewhere in that general region, I'm thinking of
[12:27] the mountain ranges of the mountainous regions.
[12:30] And no, no, no, I'm not very familiar with the geography, but
[12:34] we are not very mountainous, OK, At least not what I've seen of
[12:37] it in. Film.
[12:37] OK, I was going to go with something like Kumal and that's
[12:40] the first thing it came to mind. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[12:42] Is it an official name by any chance?
[12:44] Is it like some I know Uttarakhand doesn't make sense
[12:47] or Taranchal doesn't make sense but is it used in some official
[12:51] state, district, city, demarcation or is it a general
[12:54] region which is not necessarily official?
[12:56] It's a general region. It is known by that name.
[12:59] There are places named after it. Unfortunately, my my school
[13:07] knowledge of Indian rivers and tributaries is failing me.
[13:10] No, it's fair. Fair, fair.
[13:12] It's completely fair. Feel like I just remember the
[13:15] five Punjab rivers. I remember Maladi, Godavari,
[13:20] Krishna, Kaveri. It's remember that in order.
[13:22] Good for you. I wouldn't be able to do that if
[13:25] you put me on the spot. This is all fair, so I will give
[13:28] you a clue. One of the clues that I've
[13:29] embedded in the question is that this curse is also believed to
[13:33] be one of the reasons for this place is violent reputation.
[13:37] Then the only thing that comes to mind is Kurukshetra.
[13:39] Oh no, no, Kurukshetra's was not where Draupadi did the curse,
[13:44] right? So that's also the clue there.
[13:45] It's, it's not the Kurukshetra. You would not have probably
[13:49] heard of this particular name in the Mahabharat because it had a
[13:52] completely different name in the Mahabharat.
[13:54] The older name we know it by a different name.
[13:58] They say violent and Mahabharat Kurukshetra seems to be the only
[14:01] thing that is popping into my head.
[14:02] So is there any other hint? No, it's a violent reputation
[14:06] now. OK, OK, I'm going to give you a
[14:08] clue. OK, recent movie.
[14:11] You also have to take into account that when I say recent,
[14:13] I also include the 90s and 2000s in that.
[14:16] So let's just say a few years, let's take a few years ago that
[14:19] we both enjoyed and we both recommended, OK, OK, The very
[14:23] first line of the movie has this name in that a similar example
[14:28] of Moby Dick. The first line is called Me
[14:30] Ishmael. This also has a very distinctive
[14:34] line that begins the movie. Technically, it also begins the
[14:38] movie and ends the movie with a similar line.
[14:41] Does this line feature the name of the river or the name of the
[14:44] river? Is the name of the movie this?
[14:45] Line features the name of the river.
[14:48] Actually, he's referring to the region, but the name of the
[14:50] region and the name of the river is the same, so.
[14:51] Got it, got it. I don't think Gangs of Wassepo
[14:54] starts and ends with the same line.
[14:56] Oh. No, no, yeah.
[14:57] So this movie starts with a narration and this person says
[15:01] this iconic line and towards the end of the dannemo of the movie
[15:05] he again then starts the last paragraph of narration with
[15:09] this. Line.
[15:10] I have feeling Amitabh Bachchan's narration in Lagan
[15:13] does start and end with a similar line.
[15:15] It's not Amitabh Bachchan, it's not Lagan.
[15:19] It's more recent than that, much more recent than that.
[15:22] We've both recommended on this podcast.
[15:24] We've both loved the movie. OK.
[15:26] So 2020 tens. A little more recent than that.
[15:30] So you meant recent when you said recent.
[15:32] OK. Like 20 twenties.
[15:36] Yeah. Huh.
[15:38] And we both liked it. And we, yeah, both recommended
[15:41] it. Yeah, well, this is gonna when
[15:44] we saw annoyed when I figure out what the answer is.
[15:46] Give me a hint. The next hint is that probably
[15:49] I'm not ashamed to say that I did tear up during this movie.
[15:52] Wait, you're not ashamed to say that you didn't tear up?
[15:56] No, no, I'm not ashamed to say that I did tear up during this
[15:59] movie. OK, OK.
[16:00] During certain points towards the climax or this.
[16:04] Is gonna remind me. You actually saw the movie 1st
[16:07] and recommended it and then I saw it much later?
[16:10] Homebound, I remember we both. No, no, it's not homebound.
[16:14] OK, I'll give you my last clue. Yes, please.
[16:16] Also another movie, it's actually the name of person and
[16:19] another movie, but it should point you to the direction.
[16:22] It's almost like a give me. OK please give me.
[16:25] So other movie that I want to give you as a clue is Paan Singh
[16:27] Tomar, The Chambal Region. Yes, it is the Chambal.
[16:33] Chambal, the violence. Got it.
[16:35] OK, great. Oh, I didn't know it.
[16:38] Was where Shakuni's thing is supposed to have happened.
[16:40] OK, interesting. Yeah.
[16:41] So it's one of the myth. There are lots of myth.
[16:43] The Chambal, yes, it is not a revered river like the rest of
[16:48] the rivers are. Oh my God yes.
[16:49] I knew I would hate myself when I figured out.
[16:52] That and did you guess the first movie?
[16:54] The one and where the line begins with this.
[16:56] Oh yeah, no, I'd still have figured that out.
[16:58] It starts with Chambal. It ends with Chambal.
[17:01] Something that was a tearjerker we both loved.
[17:03] And not a tearjerker, I mean. But I did get emotional.
[17:06] I will give you the first line of the movie in hopefully the
[17:09] same intonation. Please do yeh hai chambal.
[17:16] I love that but Oh my God did not ring a single bell.
[17:20] Yeh hai chambal. OK Vidu Vinu Chopra 12 Field
[17:24] 12th fail. Yes, 12th fail starts with the
[17:27] first line in the movie is Yeh Hai Chambal.
[17:29] No chance in seven lifetimes was I going to guess that Chopra's
[17:35] 12th fail referred to Chambal at any point.
[17:38] Like, that's not the memory or that's not the word I would
[17:40] associate with 12th fail at all. But OK, so don't blame myself
[17:43] for not remembering that. But the rest of it makes sense,
[17:45] yeah. OK, so the Chambal River is what
[17:48] I was talking about. The ancient name of the river is
[17:51] the Charmavati. Local folklore deems the Chambal
[17:55] River cursed due to Draupadi's wrath after her humiliation in
[17:58] Shakuni's Kingdom during the Mahabharata dice game.
[18:01] She cursed anyone who drinks from the Charmavati Eris waters.
[18:05] Its tamsic waters symbolize rage and locals blame them for the
[18:09] area's banditry history, such as the coits like Pan Singh Tomar.
[18:13] No temples line its banks like those of the Ganga or the
[18:16] Jamuna. The curse preserved the river's
[18:19] 960 kilometer course through Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and
[18:22] Uttar Pradesh, making it one of India's cleanest rivers despite
[18:26] urban proximity. It hosts the National Jumble
[18:29] Sanctuary spanning 5400 square kilometers, and it protects
[18:33] critically endangered carriers, muggers, Gangetic dolphins, and
[18:38] birds like the saris graves. The IUCN recognizes the jumble
[18:42] for its role in career recovery from near extinction in the
[18:45] 1970s. Locals avoid bathing in or
[18:48] performing rituals with the Jumbles waters.
[18:51] Now I mentioned that this is 1 local myth or folklore that
[18:55] depicts Dropathi's curse. There are additional myths that
[18:59] link its curse to being Narmada's sister or deriving
[19:02] from Kalima's skin, hence the name Charmavathi.
[19:06] Wow, OK. But I haven't been able to get
[19:08] too many details on those particular myths.
[19:10] I particularly like the Dropathy 1, so I went with that.
[19:13] In either case, all of them basically end up with the river
[19:16] being cursed and nobody doing anything wholly near it.
[19:19] So it's the Chambal River and the Chambal region, home to
[19:23] India's most notorious dacoits. Very cool, I should have guessed
[19:29] it with most of the clues. The 12th failed flu I feel that
[19:32] so but the rest of it was makes so much sense in.
[19:37] Retrospect, I've watched 12th film multiple times.
[19:40] It's one of those movies that just resonated and I really,
[19:43] really enjoyed it. Yeah, I recently was going
[19:45] through. The movies I have watched
[19:47] recently and and 12th field is one of the movies I usually go
[19:50] on IMDb and I will rate the movies that I have seen so I can
[19:52] go back and refer to it. And I saw 12th Field I had rated
[19:55] as a nine and for a movie I have rated A9 I have only seen once.
[19:58] That is a rare I re I try to revisit films that I have rated
[20:01] the high just that I you know if it is a great film I like then
[20:03] the first go, why not go back to it?
[20:05] I will probably watch it soon again.
[20:07] But yeah, great clue, great clues and a great question.
[20:11] Wow. Who would have thunk?
[20:13] The chumble you wear your hair chumble.
[20:17] So. Help me.
[20:19] So you spoke about Mahabharat, which is a pretty important text
[20:25] in the Hindu religion. And I'm going to do a religion
[20:29] segue and I'm going to go to Christianity and it's different
[20:34] branches, I guess. Are you, I'm sure you're aware
[20:37] of, but do you know the history behind the Methodist movement?
[20:41] I may have read about it in passing, but I'm not ready to
[20:45] answer a quiz question on it right now.
[20:46] So, but I am fated to it. So no, no, I will not make this
[20:51] a theological quiz. But that would be a Sunday quiz
[20:55] at some point where it would be all theology related questions.
[20:58] So watch out for that, but not this one is I'm going to give
[21:00] you the information in this case.
[21:02] The Methodist branch of Christianity was started in
[21:07] England by a group of men. And the most prominent of these
[21:10] were specifically the brothers John Wesley and Charles Wesley.
[21:14] They were both at the University of Oxford.
[21:17] They founded the Holy Club and eventually through the years
[21:21] with, you know, the philosophical paths that they
[21:24] took in life, they ended up with this different branch with its
[21:29] own identity within Christianity.
[21:32] The reason, and just another piece of trivia, the reason that
[21:35] it is called the Methodist is because the fellow students at
[21:39] the university thought that these guys used rule and method
[21:43] a lot in their religious affairs or in their religious thoughts.
[21:47] So the rules and the methods were very important and very
[21:51] direct etymology that Methodist comes from that.
[21:54] OK, so there were John Wesley and Charles Wesley.
[21:57] The other third person who's mentioned very prominently in
[22:00] this is George Whitefield. Just like the other two, he was
[22:05] also a preacher and one of the founders of Methodism and the
[22:09] evangelical movement. Really unlike the Wesley's,
[22:12] though, he embraced Calvinism. So over time there was a little
[22:17] bit of bifurcation. Calvinism, which is also called
[22:20] Reformed Christianity. It is a major branch of
[22:22] Protestantism, the history of it.
[22:24] Anybody who's interested can go read upon.
[22:27] OK, TLDR. These two brothers started
[22:30] Methodism or Methodist Church in Oxford.
[22:33] They were joined by another gentleman by the name of George
[22:36] Whitfield. They worked on this.
[22:39] They came up with the structure. At some point they also had a
[22:41] bifurcation where George Whitfield embraced Calvinism.
[22:46] Now George Whitfield died before the other two, and while writing
[22:51] a memorial sermon for George Whitfield, John Wesley used a
[22:57] specific phrase which we continue to use till date. 1770
[23:04] was when this phrase was presumably first used in in
[23:08] print or as its first occurrence.
[23:11] Or if not the first occurrence, it is definitely a moment where
[23:14] it became very popularly known. It probably was used before that
[23:17] as well, but this is when it became popularly known.
[23:21] Which phrase in the memorial sermon for George Whitfield that
[23:27] John Wesley used is today also used very commonly in English
[23:32] language? During the funeral for George
[23:35] Whitfield, John Wesley used a phrase in his elegy, which has
[23:42] become a common phrase in usage right now.
[23:47] Yes. OK, it's specifically a phrase,
[23:52] right? It's a very specific phrase.
[23:55] I need some kind of context here.
[23:57] The reason I gave a pretty long sermon myself was to provide you
[24:01] the context that would help you figure out the phrase, right.
[24:04] So I told you how they came up with Methodism.
[24:06] There are three of them are considered the founders of
[24:08] Methodism. OK Wesley brothers and
[24:11] Whitfield. Whitfield died.
[24:13] John Wesley, who perhaps played the most important role in
[24:16] Methodism or Methodist Church. He wrote a memorial sermon,
[24:21] which he delivered. He was also a preacher, so he
[24:23] wrote a memorial sermon that he delivered in which he used this
[24:27] phrase. The context of this phrase has
[24:29] to do with the lives that they had LED.
[24:31] They had come up with Methodism. They had bifurcated little later
[24:35] in life. OK, when Whitfield passed away,
[24:38] generously acknowledged that. First thing that strikes is the
[24:41] fact that the Wesley brothers agreed to do analogy for
[24:44] somebody who split off from their denomination.
[24:49] I'll put a caveat here. My knowledge is very
[24:52] superficial. My knowledge is very
[24:53] superficial. So whatever I presented is a
[24:55] very superficial understanding. Is it particularly a schism?
[24:58] Is it a split or is it just a small bifurcation?
[25:00] All those specifics, I'm not sure.
[25:02] Anybody interested, please go read up on it.
[25:04] But yeah, that's the broad strokes of it.
[25:07] Is it like my order anatomy or something like that or?
[25:10] OK, let me give you the second hint.
[25:12] I was going to. The second hint has to do with
[25:15] that. This would probably be used in
[25:17] so many different contexts, but you'll hear a lot of it in
[25:22] debates. Maybe specifically political
[25:25] debates, but definitely in debates.
[25:28] I wouldn't piss down his throat if his heart was on fire.
[25:31] Wait, where? Where is this commonly used?
[25:33] I don't know if it's commonly used.
[25:35] I've read it in places. No, no.
[25:37] Something so commonly used in maybe not even debates, but
[25:41] maybe arguments. You could perhaps use this in an
[25:44] argument with a loved one or with a colleague.
[25:47] I reject your reality and substitute with my own.
[25:50] I don't know who you are talking to, Vineet.
[25:52] I don't have such fancy conversations.
[25:55] See. That's a classic Mythbusters
[25:56] line. Come on, Adam Savage.
[25:58] I don't know what content you're watching, but I am watching a
[26:02] lot more reels than Mythbusters so.
[26:04] OK, no, but that is one of those lines I'd love to use.
[26:06] I reject your reality and substitute my own.
[26:09] Agree to disagree. Agree to disagree is the phrase.
[26:15] Oh yeah, makes sense. Makes sense.
[26:17] They disagreed, but he agreed to disagree and came up for his
[26:21] funeral anyway. Nice.
[26:22] Exactly. So again, because this is a
[26:27] straightforward in a phrase, we can't exactly pinpoint it.
[26:31] This is where it was first ever used.
[26:33] OK, perhaps it was used in other cases of the context.
[26:36] Agree to disagree. It sounds pretty
[26:38] straightforward, but it has definitely been popularized by
[26:42] John Wesley's use in his memorial sermon for George
[26:45] Whitfield, and context makes clear why it would have been
[26:48] popularized as well. It was two people who were
[26:51] leading thinkers in that particular space in that
[26:55] particular time, and when they had disagreed, they perhaps in
[26:59] that John Wesley decided to agree with him even as he
[27:02] disagreed. So the court goes exactly there
[27:06] are many doctrines of a less essential nature in these we may
[27:10] think and let think we may agree to disagree, but meantime, let
[27:15] us hold fast the essentials, right?
[27:19] And that's where agree to disagree find its roots.
[27:22] And I thought it was just so interesting that such a common
[27:25] place phrase like agree to disagree is you'd bandy it about
[27:28] randomly in conversation and arguments comes from this very
[27:31] specific and very significant moment in Christian history.
[27:34] Nice, Very nice, very nice. I stumbled onto the answer, but
[27:37] I'll take it anyway. I'll take the credit for it
[27:39] anyway. You you're doing some very good
[27:41] stumbling today. I like it.
[27:42] Very nice. OK, you've ended us on the
[27:46] British Isles and I'll continue my questions from there.
[27:49] In the late 19th century, a few seeds from the Royal Botanical
[27:54] Gardens at Kew were planted somewhere in Asia, leading to
[28:00] the rise of a multi billion dollar industry.
[28:03] By the early 20th century, a company famous for
[28:06] revolutionizing transportation in the British Empire became the
[28:10] largest owner of plantations in the same region.
[28:14] So my question to you is what plant and which company?
[28:20] Transport British Empire industry makes me think tea.
[28:25] Tea was one of the big drivers of train.
[28:28] Like of course they were transporting a lot of things,
[28:30] but tea was something they were transporting a lot.
[28:32] Yeah, but why would they need to get seeds from the Royal
[28:36] Botanical Gardens? So I don't.
[28:37] Know maybe it was like a roundabout way, like go from
[28:40] China, a flight to London, come back.
[28:44] I'm not sure tea gardens are like planted with seeds.
[28:48] I don't know how how. I honestly don't know how seeds
[28:50] tea. I do know they are tea trees by
[28:53] the way and they are much taller than they look and we purposely
[28:56] prune them to that size so it becomes easy to pluck.
[28:59] A beautiful, beautiful song. A random pop culture
[29:01] recommendation because you mentioned this is Ek Kali do
[29:04] Patniya. This is a song by Bhuped
[29:07] Hazarika, one of the greats of Assamese music.
[29:11] It's such a beautiful song. I lived in Assam for a while and
[29:13] that's what I encountered the song and it's eventually
[29:15] something that he was inspired by when he saw the women singing
[29:19] this song while they were plucking the leaves.
[29:21] It literally talks about Ek Kali and do Patya which in Hindi
[29:24] translates to 1 Kali which is the flower bud and two leaves
[29:28] which is how it appears. So a Khalid dopatya which is
[29:31] what they pluck and they put into their baskets.
[29:33] If you've ever seen a tea plantation or a picture or a
[29:37] video Anyways. So not tea but still the British
[29:41] Empire still a huge business and something to do with transport
[29:47] multibillion. Dollars.
[29:49] Then it has to be some sort of a fruit.
[29:52] I'm going to say some apple orchard.
[29:55] No apples came from Kazakhstan. You know your fruit history.
[30:00] I'm impressed. OK, I I don't know why my BAE is
[30:04] stuck in the mountains for some reason.
[30:05] I think because I recently did Ruskin bond when this
[30:08] associating British to the mountains.
[30:10] I'm thinking of things that have grown in that space.
[30:12] No, they were quite attracted to mountains.
[30:14] Is it the mountains or is it some other part or I actually
[30:17] don't even know if it's India, Is it India, is it the mountains
[30:19] in India by any chance? No, this is not India.
[30:22] Not India, OK. And not mountains either.
[30:26] No, OK, completely off the mark. As as of as I could be OK.
[30:33] So if it's the British, then could be Hong Kong, could be
[30:36] Singapore, could be Malaysia. Like I mentioned, the location
[30:42] that I'm specifically asking you in this question, where they
[30:45] took the seeds and planted, it was not in India, but you do
[30:50] find this plant in India now, OK, especially in Kerala, so in
[30:55] other states as well. But in Kerala especially, at one
[30:58] point it was quite popular to plant quite big plantations of
[31:02] these and make money from them. OK.
[31:04] Does it have to do with food consumption or some sort of
[31:08] edible consumption from this tree?
[31:09] No, absolutely not. Clue that you should be taking
[31:13] is that a company that became famous for revolutionizing
[31:16] transport in the British Empire ended up, you know, becoming the
[31:20] largest owner of plantations for this particular plant.
[31:23] I mean, I know trains were used for transporting timber as well.
[31:26] I don't know there's something specifically some specific kind
[31:29] of timber, no. This is going to make me some
[31:33] very stupid. Is sandalwood in Kerala?
[31:37] No, no, not stupid per SE. Sandalwood is native to India.
[31:41] Yeah, but I don't know where specifically which part of
[31:43] India. No, no, the basically the area
[31:46] that you're talking about is correct.
[31:47] The Tri region of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala is natively
[31:51] where you do find varieties of sandalwood.
[31:54] Yeah. So not stupid.
[31:55] I'm very glad. No, but something that has been
[31:58] imported into Asia and also India very recently, yes.
[32:04] Not recently, but yeah, in the 1800 late 19th century.
[32:08] By recent, of course, not by Bollywood movie recent standards
[32:10] of the 90s and 2000s. That's why recently I went like
[32:15] not ancient history Kerala non food tree.
[32:21] Yeah, no idea at all. It's a cash crop.
[32:24] I think you would have stumbled upon that by now because when I
[32:27] told you it's not an edible or whatever, the way that this is
[32:30] harvested, that requires the use of a very specific, very sharp
[32:35] tool and the product itself can be transformed without the help
[32:42] of any factory or whatever. In Kerala, you would have at one
[32:45] point, especially in the 90s, you could go to homes and find
[32:49] them kind of processing this at homes itself.
[32:54] Like I've seen it in my uncle's home.
[32:55] And it used to be a huge industry as well.
[32:58] So I'm assuming right now the malus who are listening to the
[33:01] podcast are all shouting at me the answer, right?
[33:04] Yes, for sure. No, they started shouting some
[33:06] time ago, yeah. But it sounds like this is very
[33:09] common cultural knowledge. OK, I don't know if my friend
[33:13] Neha listens to it, but hey Neha, Sorry I haven't got an
[33:16] answer yet. Transportation industry and
[33:18] plant. I'm just telling you to think of
[33:20] these two. No, no idea at all.
[33:22] You know what put me on my misery?
[33:23] Tell me the answer. I'm going to give you one last
[33:26] chance. You are kind.
[33:29] I'm going to tell you the name of the company, OK?
[33:32] The company is Dunlop. So actually.
[33:35] Not my God, OK? I truly do apologize to our
[33:39] listeners because I think in my head I said Robert at some
[33:41] point. No, you did not.
[33:43] You did not say Robert, not even a row.
[33:47] Like I said, Robert, no, you did not say number.
[33:49] It is rubber. Yes, it is rubber.
[33:51] The company is Dunlop. OK fair, makes sense.
[33:54] Rubber only came to win when he said Kerala cash crop and all.
[33:57] Interesting. Wait but explain to me rubber
[33:59] only came from the queue car? Oh wow, so it didn't exist in
[34:02] Asia before that? No, no, no.
[34:05] So, story time The story begins in 1876 when Sir Henry Wickham
[34:11] collected thousands of seeds from the wild trees of the
[34:14] Amazon rainforest and sent them to the Royal Botanical Gardens
[34:18] at Kew in London. Only a small fraction of these
[34:21] seeds survived the journey and they were successfully
[34:24] germinated in Kew's greenhouses because obviously, Britain does
[34:29] not have a tropical climate. These seedlings were then sent
[34:32] to British colonies, including Malaya, Malaysia, Singapore,
[34:37] where they were planted in botanical gardens and later
[34:40] distributed for large scale cultivation.
[34:43] This sparked the creation of the multibillion dollar rubber
[34:47] industry. The plant in question, which is
[34:49] called heavier Brazilians, became the foundation of a
[34:52] global trade that transformed colonial economies.
[34:56] By the early 20th century, Malaya had become the world's
[34:59] leading producer of rubber. The company that became
[35:03] synonymous with this transformation was also Dunlop.
[35:05] Originally a tire manufacturer, Dunlop recognized the strategic
[35:09] importance of controlling the raw material for its products.
[35:13] By the 1910s it began acquiring vast tracts of land in Malaya
[35:17] and by 1917 it owned around 60,000 acres, making it the
[35:22] largest plantation owner in the British Empire.
[35:26] Wow. OK, Cool, cool, cool.
[35:28] And have you actually seen a rubber tree and how it's
[35:30] collected? No.
[35:32] I mean, I think I've vaguely somewhere read it, but I don't
[35:35] have any visual memory or recollection of how it looks.
[35:38] But they have. What you said sounded like
[35:40] something I've read somewhere, yeah.
[35:41] Yeah. So basically just the clues that
[35:43] I was giving you is, you know, the rubber trees, they are
[35:46] tapped. It's called rubber tapping,
[35:47] right, Right, right. There is a very specific, very
[35:50] sharp kind of knife which is used to strip away the bark so
[35:53] that the resin or the latex from the tree can drip into small
[35:58] bowls which are tied around the trunk.
[36:00] So when you travel through Kerala, at least less common
[36:03] now, but maybe 20-30 years ago, it was much, much more common,
[36:07] you would find huge plantations of all these trees with small
[36:10] cups attached to them. Those are like rubber trees.
[36:14] And this basically we used to in colloquial Malayalam, you'd call
[36:17] them rubber parl or which comes as rubber milk, which is the
[36:20] latex. So this latex is then formed
[36:22] into sheets and many homes which had rubber plantations attached
[36:27] to them. They used to make these rubber
[36:29] sheets themselves which would then be sold.
[36:32] Wow OK, it was a common sight in the past but now rubber has
[36:35] fallen out of favor. Not as common as it used to be.
[36:39] And by the way, now I know why I never saw it because I remember
[36:41] listening to a podcast or Rubber and that's why I don't have any
[36:44] visual memory of it, but I remember hearing what's nice.
[36:47] And also because I'm a little embarrassed it took so long, I'm
[36:50] going to just edit this clip into the earlier part.
[36:53] Let's act. OK.
[36:54] That is 3 to one. Oh, yeah, of course.
[36:56] Rubber. Yeah, yeah, rubber.
[36:57] Yeah, of course. Dude, yeah.
[36:59] So easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[37:01] I knew you'd get it, you know? Before you even finished your
[37:03] question. Having lived in Singapore and
[37:04] Malaysia and all. Singapore, Malaysia.
[37:07] My Malu friends, you're Malu. I know.
[37:09] I know all about it. Yeah.
[37:10] Yeah. So easy.
[37:11] Let's move to the next question. Yeah, obviously.
[37:13] Please call the tougher questions.
[37:16] Yeah, definitely. OK, Well, you were Speaking of
[37:20] rubber, and I'm going to talk about another thing that is
[37:24] associated with trees, and that is a book, and quite literally
[37:33] in this case, the Man Booker Prize.
[37:36] We need any before I go into it, any Man Booker Prize books that
[37:39] you've read and love? Anything that comes to mind?
[37:43] Government. OK.
[37:45] The God of Small Things, one of my favorites of all time.
[37:47] And the theater is, of course, yeah, perfect.
[37:50] So Man Booker Prize, or the Booker Prize has been awarded
[37:55] over the years. I think it started in 1969.
[37:58] A lot of books have stood the test of time.
[38:02] Some of them have had controversies attached to it.
[38:05] I am talking about a specific Man Booker Prize award in 2010.
[38:11] This was given to the book The Troubles by JG Farrell.
[38:17] Troubles is a novel that concerns with the dilapidation
[38:21] of once grand Irish Hotel in the midst of the political upheaval
[38:26] during the Irish War of Independence, which was in 1919
[38:30] to 1921. So that's where the story is
[38:34] based. The author himself, JG Farrell
[38:38] died in 1979. My question is why was this book
[38:44] awarded a Booker Prize in 2010? So why was the book The Troubles
[38:50] awarded the Booker Prize in 2010, despite having been
[38:54] written in 1979? And he's the author died, so it
[38:57] was written even before that. Oh, OK Was it published?
[39:01] Only in 2010. No.
[39:02] It was published before the death of the.
[39:05] Author The Man Booker Prize started in the 60s so this was
[39:10] published prior to the Booker Prize and they decided to know
[39:14] what correct themselves and give a prize to it or something like.
[39:18] That I mean before the 60s. Also, there were so many great
[39:22] books and novels, it would not make sense to single out this
[39:25] one specifically. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[39:28] That makes sense. No, I'll need a clue.
[39:31] OK, this book was published in 1970, right?
[39:37] And the Booker Prize started being awarded in 1969.
[39:42] This doesn't have anything to do with the publication of the book
[39:45] itself, it has to do with the prize.
[39:48] As to why was the book not awarded a prize in the year that
[39:53] it was published, but it was awarded the prize what, 40 years
[39:57] later? 1969, the Booker Prize started
[40:02] to be given. Yeah, so it would have been.
[40:05] Eligible for the Booker Prize, the first ever Booker Prize,
[40:08] right? No, it was.
[40:09] It was published in 1970, So they started giving it in 1969,
[40:13] right? The Booker Prize.
[40:14] So how would a 1917 all be eligible in 1969 for a Booker
[40:18] Prize? So it's released in 1970.
[40:20] It should have been eligible for the 1971 prize, right?
[40:24] And it did not win. I think there's a voting
[40:28] committee for this, right? Was there some kind of like a
[40:32] tie and then they decided to give it to one book and this one
[40:34] got look? It's actually a lot, a lot
[40:36] simpler, a lot more straightforward, but a lot
[40:38] straightforward. But they are probably more
[40:40] esoteric actually, I should say, not say what exact opposite of
[40:43] it, OK, It is the fact that they did a rule change in 1970.
[40:48] It was the previous year publications that were rewarded
[40:51] from 1971. It was the current year that was
[40:54] rewarded, so 1970 was skimmed entirely.
[41:01] It disappeared, literally. Agent and archivist Peter
[41:05] Strauss has been credited with conceiving the idea of lost Man
[41:12] Booker Prize. That was the name that was given
[41:14] to the special edition of the Man Booker Prize.
[41:16] Oh, OK. And he came with the idea
[41:18] because he was wondering why Robertson Davis's 1970 novel
[41:22] Fist Business also pretty famous.
[41:24] Or at least was a claim back then.
[41:27] It was not included in the Man Booker Prize shortlist.
[41:29] So he started reading up on what happened and he's like, wait,
[41:31] what did we do in 1970? And we just skipped.
[41:34] The entire year. So 1969 awarded 1968 novels.
[41:39] 1970 awarded 1969 novels 1971. They like, you know what, let's
[41:43] just award the same years. 1971 awarded 1971 novels. 1970 was
[41:48] ignored altogether. Oh God.
[41:50] Even if you want to make the jump, you could perhaps combine
[41:53] those two into the same year and give one award.
[41:56] So it is there, they're in consideration.
[41:58] It was just ignore. It was like, too bad if you
[42:00] published it in 1970, We're just going to move on.
[42:04] It's nice, man. I'll give credit when it's due.
[42:07] Very often I don't remember where I come across trivia.
[42:09] In this case it was specifically a colleague of mine, somebody I
[42:13] worked with AMI. AMI runs a Instagram page called
[42:17] Quizzing with AMI. Quizzing with AMI and I follow
[42:19] her, yeah. Both Anita and I are fans of it
[42:21] and she posts some very fun trivia and this particular piece
[42:24] of trivia was on her profile page.
[42:26] She used to be part of a company, a trivia company that I
[42:30] have all been in the past and I cut into work which used to do
[42:32] content curation for them. So well, A lot of experience
[42:36] that Lady carries with her in the cuisine interview space, so
[42:39] well worth your time and attention.
[42:41] I think she posts questions every day on Instagram.
[42:43] It's very interesting that she becomes of questions.
[42:46] OK. Thank you, AMI for this piece of
[42:48] trivia as well. I'm going to move on to the last
[42:51] question that I am going to be asking in this episode, which I
[42:56] think will also be the last question of the episode.
[42:58] Now that you have said it, so it shall be.
[43:01] Yes, and I have hopefully saved the best for last.
[43:04] OK. India operates its own
[43:08] independent satellite navigation network, known as the Indian
[43:14] Regional Navigation Satellite System or IRNSS OK.
[43:22] The system is better known by its operational name X, which is
[43:27] a word derived from Sanskrit that means sailor or navigator
[43:33] and is used across several Indian languages.
[43:36] Interestingly, X is also an acronym.
[43:40] Now, if you did not know, IRNSS is a fully automated regional
[43:45] navigation system that delivers precise real time position and
[43:49] timing information covering the entire Indian subcontinent and
[43:54] around 1500 kilometers beyond India's borders.
[43:57] So take India's GPS. What is the operational name for
[44:02] India's GPS, which is officially known as IRNSS or Indian
[44:07] Regional Navigation Satellite System?
[44:10] What is the operational name for it?
[44:12] And you said it's a Sanskrit word which means?
[44:14] It's a word derived from Sanskrit, which means sailor or
[44:17] navigator. Very apartment name, right?
[44:20] And it's also an acronym. OK, I'm assuming in this case
[44:24] it's like a backronym. Is that what it's called?
[44:28] I think that's. Possibly, maybe they did do did
[44:31] that. A backronym is for those who
[44:33] don't know, is where you basically decide on an acronym
[44:36] first and then make a, you know, an expansion for it.
[44:39] So it's possible that it was the case.
[44:42] The best example of a backronym in my opinion, in pop culture is
[44:45] the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage and Law
[44:48] Enforcement Division. And the reason I love it is
[44:51] because I think in the show Agents of SHIELD, they mentioned
[44:55] that that is what the acronym SHIELD stands for, Supreme
[44:58] Headquarters International Espionage and Law Enforcement
[45:00] Division. And one of the characters it
[45:02] says, do you know what that means?
[45:04] And the other guy replies. I think it means that somebody
[45:07] was really trying hard for the acronym to be SHIELD.
[45:10] SHIELD Yeah, I think it's the very first episode of the.
[45:13] Show. Yeah.
[45:15] So that that exactly pretty much defines backronym, like somebody
[45:18] was trying really hard for it to make sense and then so you come
[45:22] up with a word and then you try to, whatever, assign some
[45:24] meaning or come up with some phrase that would make it an
[45:27] acronym macronym. OK Sailor Navigator Sanskrit
[45:33] derivative word also used as a backronym or an acronym.
[45:40] Hey. Humga charming.
[45:44] No Tom Patasi, no Rama. Where?
[45:51] Are you getting these? Is the extent of my Sanskrit
[45:54] knowledge. Oh my Sanskrit ends there.
[45:57] Wow. OK so no, I I don't remember
[46:00] enough Sanskrit to immediately figure out what navigator.
[46:04] I'm assuming if it is in Sanskrit that potentially is
[46:07] also somewhat similar to the Hindi word.
[46:10] But what is the Hindi word for sailor?
[46:12] Sailor Samudra Yatri? No, no idea.
[46:19] There are certain words of the same domain in English which are
[46:26] surprisingly similar sounding to this Sanskrit derived word, even
[46:32] though like I mentioned, this word comes from Sanskrit and
[46:35] those words come from Middle English, older English.
[46:39] OK. We are tracing it back to indoor
[46:42] proto European roots potentially.
[46:46] Yeah. Sailor.
[46:48] I don't think there's any equivalent to Sailor in Hindi.
[46:53] So like I mentioned, it basically means Sailor or
[46:57] Navigator. Oh, interesting.
[46:59] Navigator. Navic.
[47:01] Now Now of course, now means boat.
[47:06] Is there a word for boatman? I think is it?
[47:09] Is it? Is it navic?
[47:12] It is navic. It is navic as in NAVIC.
[47:17] Now Aditya, you are a man of words.
[47:20] You have a way with words, with puns, with acronyms, with
[47:23] acronyms, with whatever we want to call them.
[47:26] So what do you think it stands for?
[47:29] NAVIC? OK.
[47:33] And it has to do with with our satellite system.
[47:36] So I'm going to say I is India VNAVAC arrow not arrow
[47:47] astronomical via Navigating Astronomy via Indian.
[48:01] Co flying docket devices complete for now.
[48:05] So basically it is navigation with Indian constellation.
[48:09] Where? I'm sorry, where's the V?
[48:11] Navigation Anyway I I quote. Vineet Nair from a few episodes
[48:16] ago where he rejected my Sunita Williams trivia.
[48:20] I reject your premise. And substitute your own and
[48:26] substitute your own. So story time.
[48:28] I found this is quite an interesting history.
[48:30] Indian Regional Navigation set by System IRNSS is operationally
[48:34] branded as NAVIC, which is an independent regional rival for
[48:41] the GPS on the Indian subcontinent.
[48:43] It derives from the Sanskrit to Navic, which means sailor or
[48:47] navigator, Navic, navigator, even though that comes from
[48:50] navigator, which is Latin. And then you have Navy, which
[48:54] also sounds similar, but that's from Middle English.
[48:57] And this word also apparently across Hindi, Tamil and other
[49:00] English languages also means roughly the same thing, you
[49:02] know, sailor or navigator. So the reason we have this
[49:06] during the India Pakistan conflict, that is the Kargil
[49:11] Indian forces requested precise enemy positions from the US
[49:16] controlled GPS system. the US refused access to military grade
[49:22] accuracy. They have two grades.
[49:25] So that is a military grade accuracy.
[49:26] And then there's a selective availability which is given to
[49:28] the public. So we were used if we used the
[49:31] only the public kind of GPS data that is available, forcing the
[49:35] reliance on that civilian GPS, which has roughly around an
[49:38] error of 100 meters or we had to use maps, which then lead to
[49:42] higher casualties and operational setbacks.
[49:44] This exposed India's vulnerability GPS or Glonas.
[49:50] Glonas is the Russian version which is controlled by the
[49:52] Russian Defence ministry. Both of them could degrade or
[49:56] deny service during conflicts. We as in our tradition on you
[50:02] know, doing shit ourselves. Including a space program and a
[50:05] nuclear program. We devised a fully autonomous
[50:10] GPS like system with eight operational satellites. 3 of
[50:14] them are geostationary, 4 are Geo synchronous.
[50:17] The accuracy is primary accuracy is up to less than 20 meters and
[50:23] with enhancements to less than 5 meters.
[50:26] Wow. It is also interoperable with
[50:28] GPS or Kronas. It covers India and 1500
[50:33] kilometers beyond India's borders.
[50:36] The future Gen. Generation 2 satellites will
[50:38] also be adding an L1 band for variables.
[50:41] OK, so it started. The launch span was between 2013
[50:45] and 2018. We became fully operational in
[50:48] 20. 18. There are many phones available
[50:53] in the market right now which can use navic.
[50:57] Even apps like Mac My India integrate navic, you know,
[51:01] navigational data. So this is actually having
[51:04] better penetration than GPS in many areas.
[51:07] And unlike GPS which has a around a 20m global resolution,
[51:11] this can hit up to 5m resolution with augmentation.
[51:15] Yeah, that's pretty cool. So even apparently the Apple
[51:18] iPhone 15 series and onwards from 2023 compatible with Navi,
[51:23] we have our own GPS system which is technically more accurate
[51:28] than GPS, so. I'm assuming the primary
[51:31] motivation was military usage, so I'm assuming that is a
[51:34] military grade thing again. And you mentioned these phones
[51:36] using, so there is a civilian grade thing that was also being
[51:38] used. Yes, the other countries which
[51:41] have something similar is GPS. China.
[51:44] Yeah, China also has its own kind of thing, but the huge
[51:47] coverage, like worldwide coverage is grown ass and GPS.
[51:50] Right, right, right. Yeah, I remember reading about
[51:52] that. I did not know there's something
[51:54] like Navi which exists. Well, has something to take part
[51:56] of in, in our country's progress out of that.
[51:59] Actually, you're right. I think some of those things
[52:01] that we we had the hood spot to be like, you know what, screw
[52:05] it, we're going to do it our own way, the nuclear program or, or
[52:08] the space exploration. And now I guess this is well,
[52:11] there's been some very cool technological advancements that
[52:16] India should take part of in it's history.
[52:19] There's a map going around which shows the transfer of knowledge,
[52:24] transfer of nuclear physics and nuclear programs.
[52:28] So isn't 1 country got it through from it was either
[52:31] transferred, you know, officially through back channels
[52:34] from this government to government or it was spied upon.
[52:37] So when you look at that, you can see a line that continuously
[52:40] connects every country that currently possesses nuclear
[52:44] powers, except II is like an island in that because we did it
[52:50] completely ourselves, without spying on anybody else or
[52:53] without having somebody gifting it to us.
[52:55] Or as a skeptics might say, we were just so good at it that
[52:58] nobody figured out that you got it from them.
[53:01] I remember reading this on some random unrelated random
[53:04] unrelated Reddit page or somebody.
[53:06] Like have you heard of any female serial killers?
[53:09] That's right, you haven't because they are so good at it.
[53:15] You had me in the first half. I thought you were going
[53:16] somewhere else with that. But yeah, I was about to mention
[53:19] a couple of female serial killers and then it was like, Oh
[53:21] yeah, they are. They are good at it.
[53:22] Yeah, yeah. But yeah, in any case, whether
[53:27] we were really, really efficient at stealing it, which would be
[53:29] the cynical way of looking at it.
[53:31] But let's take the optimistic route.
[53:32] And yeah, kudos to all the scientists and the brains that
[53:36] came up with this. And you know what?
[53:37] We create the scientists very often, but there are so many
[53:39] people who work on these projects.
[53:41] So everybody from from the person who who prepares the food
[53:45] in the kitchens to to maintenance.
[53:47] Everybody deserves. I was literally about to say
[53:49] chaiwala. Yeah, the chaiwalas, yeah, for
[53:50] sure. Without a political corridation.
[53:54] Yeah, Yeah. No, no, this is not a political
[53:55] country. I'm literally talking about the
[53:57] people who deliver chives to government offices because our
[54:00] scientists bubbles whoever the entire bureaucracy of India runs
[54:05] on Chai. Yeah, we do.
[54:06] If the bureaucracy of India is an engine, Chai is the diesel
[54:09] that goes into it. Indeed, indeed, indeed, and that
[54:14] it brings us to the end of that. Yeah, it does bring us to the
[54:16] end of the episode. I'm, I'm going to point you to
[54:19] back to the direction of my very, very short audience
[54:22] question, which was Connect Pink Floyd, Motorola, General
[54:26] Electric, Aditya, do you have any idea what I'm talking?
[54:29] About GE the Motorola logo, I don't know if Pink Floyd has a
[54:36] logo. Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope.
[54:38] Nothing. Nothing like that.
[54:40] I guarantee you Bertie knows this.
[54:43] Yes, we do have Bertie yelling at me now.
[54:47] This is way too broad right now and clearly I'm not in my best
[54:51] mental faculty sync business. Pink Floyd Business Connect
[54:55] business concept. Let's put it this way.
[54:58] Some theory that is named after these things.
[55:00] Yeah, somewhat similar. You would have heard of it.
[55:03] I don't know if you probably know it, but since you were in
[55:05] the software industry that chances are you do you have
[55:07] heard of it. Yeah, that that intrigues me,
[55:11] but doesn't lead me to any answer.
[55:14] OK, I don't have any clues to give you here so I will give you
[55:16] the answer. The answer is 6 Sigma.
[55:19] Yeah, I'm sorry escaping me, but explain.
[55:22] Oh, OK. So 6 Sigma is a methodology.
[55:26] So it's a data-driven kind of methodology for processing for
[55:29] improvement, OK, You use it to aim for near perfect quality.
[55:35] When you say 6 Sigma level of quality, you're saying that you
[55:37] have at most 3.4 defects per million opportunities, OK?
[55:44] So if a process happens like a million times, you don't have
[55:47] more than 3.4 defects among a million of them.
[55:52] That's an insane level of quality.
[55:53] So this basically is a process methodology which is used for
[55:58] improving process improvements in manufacturing especially.
[56:02] This was developed in Motorola, OK by an engineer named Bill
[56:07] Smith and famous CEO Jack Welch of GE General Electric.
[56:13] He was famous for adopting it and popularizing it globally.
[56:16] They used it to save billions by waste reduction and things like
[56:20] that. It's used by a lot of other
[56:22] Fortune 500 films, but GE and Motorola are known for having
[56:28] used Six Sigma, quite effective. One came up with it and one is
[56:30] the one who mass adopted it. Now my question is, where does
[56:35] Pink Floyd come into one of this?
[56:38] That's so random. So basically.
[56:40] Pink Floyd formed in 196364 with the name Sigma 6.
[56:46] Oh, wow, that's really cool. OK, OK, nice, nice, nice.
[56:51] Yeah. So their original band name for
[56:53] Pink Floyd was Sigma 6. Motorola invented the Six Sigma
[56:57] quality methodology in the 80s, and General Electric famously
[57:00] popularized and adopted it under CEO Jack Welch in the 1990s.
[57:05] So the connection is 6 Sigma. Love lovely piece of trivia,
[57:09] wouldn't have cracked it but you know what my my trivia inner
[57:14] trivia child is is happy OK. Cool.
[57:17] Love it. Nice.
[57:18] As I've mentioned, I also have a question which is our.
[57:22] Let's say we'll talk with the terminology.
[57:25] This is not the audience question.
[57:26] This is the figure it out and message us your answers question
[57:33] because we'll reveal the answer only after a week.
[57:36] Question is, in 1941, there was a New Yorker cartoon and I'm
[57:42] potentially going to post the picture both on Instagram and on
[57:44] Reddit. So this is a visual supplement
[57:46] question. In 1941, there was a New Yorker
[57:48] cartoon by the artist Peter Arno.
[57:52] The image is of a crashed plane and a bunch of military
[57:56] personnel running towards the plane.
[57:58] And there are there are people who are rushing to help it, cars
[58:02] moving towards it as well. And there's one guy walking away
[58:06] from it looking very cool, cool and composed and holding a bunch
[58:12] of papers under his arm. My question is what was caption
[58:17] given to this cartoon which has become a popular phrase today,
[58:22] March 1st 1941. New Yorker cartoon caption that
[58:25] is a popular English phrase today.
[58:28] The image will be shared as well.
[58:30] If you are curious, go check it out on Reddit or on Instagram
[58:33] and tell us what do you think the answer is.
[58:35] Without Goo using Google of course.
[58:38] Yes, no Google, no perplexity haha.
[58:40] No chat GPD either. OK, so Aditya, what's your pop
[58:43] culture recommendation for this week?
[58:46] My recommendation for this week, I'm going to do like I've been
[58:49] doing one of those Oscar buzz films and I'm going to do
[58:53] something different from that. So the Oscar buzz film is
[58:56] Begonia, Emma Stone, La La Land favorite.
[59:01] She won an Oscar there. She won it again for Poor
[59:04] things. She has worked again with the
[59:06] Poor Things director for this particular film, Begonia.
[59:10] And if that was not enough reason to watch this film, it
[59:14] also has one of my absolute favorite actors, except for the
[59:18] fact that he's cast in similar roles all the time and and I
[59:21] think he deserves more, but Jesse Plemons.
[59:24] So Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons acting powerhouses.
[59:28] Yorgos Lanthimos, a Greek director who works in Hollywood.
[59:33] Some fantastic films under his belt as well and phenomenal
[59:39] writing, great cinematography. Everything.
[59:41] Everything is very very solid. Check out Bugonia.
[59:45] Fun, fun film. And if in Durandar, because we
[59:51] talked about before, if in Durandar you like the chapters
[59:53] that that Aditadar uses, you might enjoy the chapters that
[59:58] Yogas also uses in Begonia. And it's it's quite the lovely
[1:00:02] visual treat that pops up in between.
[1:00:04] So that's my Oscar buzz film. The other film that I'm going to
[1:00:07] recommend is Tumble. Recently, somebody convinced me
[1:00:10] to go watch Maya Sabha I. Regret it, You know really that
[1:00:15] right? I think they were going for
[1:00:16] something interesting. I think at its core, there was
[1:00:19] something truly, truly beautiful cinematically, possibly.
[1:00:23] I think the execution is very poor.
[1:00:25] I'm I don't know, there's a part of me which really doesn't like
[1:00:27] dark films. Like not dark in concept, but
[1:00:29] like dark like in visuals. And this is entirely short in
[1:00:33] like a dingy dark space at night.
[1:00:35] So there's anyways not enough light.
[1:00:37] But fine. If you justify that with the
[1:00:39] everything else, I'll I'll, I'll get on board.
[1:00:41] Oh my God. And myself, I was just annoyed
[1:00:44] for the most part. I like, I don't get what's
[1:00:45] happening. I don't get what they're trying
[1:00:47] to say, which is sad because Tumbar is so good but same
[1:00:51] director. This is back in 2018.
[1:00:54] Didn't get enough of recognition or it came out but eventually
[1:00:57] got a cult status as people start watching.
[1:00:59] It truly truly is a great film if you want to watch something
[1:01:03] which is horror but also very Indian in its approach.
[1:01:08] Probably Lovecraftian I think is the term I would use for that
[1:01:11] movie. It's an interesting phrase to
[1:01:13] use it. Yeah, Lovecraftian probably as
[1:01:14] well. I would give a pass to a lot of
[1:01:17] the Tama and the random films that have come out.
[1:01:21] No, absolutely in that particular cinematic universe.
[1:01:24] But as 3 was good. But anyways, that's not
[1:01:26] notwithstanding, Tumbar is very original, feels very new way,
[1:01:30] feels very fresh and good. So skip my SMR but definitely
[1:01:33] was Tumbar and definitely was Bugonia.
[1:01:36] OK, very nice recommendations. I have a couple which I want to
[1:01:40] recommend. 1 is a movie from the 1980s.
[1:01:46] I had mentioned director Padmarajan and his movie Nyan
[1:01:50] Gandharvan or AI Gandharva in I think the episode #129 I think
[1:01:55] it was. So there is another movie of his
[1:01:58] which I really really love which stars 2 of Malayalam cinema's
[1:02:04] greatest actors Mahmudi and Mohanlal.
[1:02:06] They had acted quite a bit together in the 80s.
[1:02:08] It was only once they became like huge stars that you know
[1:02:11] movies starting both of them became far and few between.
[1:02:14] So this particular movie starts off with no spoilers because the
[1:02:18] movie starts off with the Mahmudi's character dead and
[1:02:21] Mohanlal's character coming to investigate as to why he died.
[1:02:25] Ness. I don't want to give away the
[1:02:28] spoiler, but there is Bomati's character is a director and
[1:02:33] scriptwriter. So he is writing a script at the
[1:02:36] time of his death. And that script, it's, there's a
[1:02:39] very meta thing going on throughout the movie.
[1:02:43] It's a very well crafted movie, which I don't think I've named
[1:02:46] the movie yet because it's really going to confuse people
[1:02:48] who don't know Malayalam. But ORU Kari Lakatu Pole is the
[1:02:53] name of the movie. Interesting.
[1:02:58] So it's a 1986 movie directed by, as I mentioned, Padmarajan.
[1:03:03] The translation would be like a zephyr of dry leaves.
[1:03:08] Zephyr being the kind of wind that you associate with it, but
[1:03:11] Zephyr of dry leaves. It's one of the best
[1:03:14] investigative thrillers in Malayalam, but it's not a
[1:03:16] classic kind of whodunit investigative thriller.
[1:03:20] More than that, there is a core element to it.
[1:03:22] There is a surprise towards the end and whatnot, but there is a
[1:03:24] core element which is which I found really which it fascinated
[1:03:28] me when I saw it years ago and I still considered one of the best
[1:03:32] movie Malayalam movies. Fair warning, Malayalam movies.
[1:03:35] The script is great, acting is to notch, but the quality of the
[1:03:41] cameras and the lenses and the things and the background music
[1:03:44] wasn't that great in that particular era.
[1:03:48] But, you know, still give it a try.
[1:03:50] The second recommendation is a podcast that I want to mention
[1:03:53] which I've been listening to recently and which might help
[1:03:56] many people understand me better because it resonated with me
[1:03:59] quite a lot. It's called Talk 90s to Me.
[1:04:02] So it's all about the stuff that happened that shaped the pop
[1:04:05] culture of the 90s, which shaped me.
[1:04:08] So it I, I found it quite nostalgic and I listen to it and
[1:04:12] it makes me feel a little warm and going inside.
[1:04:14] So yeah. So with Talk 90s to Me, the
[1:04:16] podcast and the movie Cariola Cartopole by Yeah, but those are
[1:04:21] my recommendations I. Actually recently went on a very
[1:04:24] tiny small rabbit hole of Mahmudi and Mon Lal because
[1:04:28] you've been talking so much about it.
[1:04:29] And I was like, oh so who's the greater actor?
[1:04:32] And I loved it. Actually, somebody asked this on
[1:04:35] Reddit slash Malayalam cinema or whatever I think the Red V is
[1:04:38] called. And this was the person who was
[1:04:40] not familiar with Malayalam survives.
[1:04:42] Like I know these two people are famous, but who does the Reddit
[1:04:45] think is the better actor? And everybody was like, oh, you
[1:04:48] do not ask that question. Oh, absolutely not.
[1:04:52] Yeah. And everybody came up with like,
[1:04:54] OK, this is what Mammootty's thing is.
[1:04:56] And this is all Mammootty thing. And a lot of it made sense.
[1:04:58] I've seen, I think I've seen a few of Mahalans films.
[1:05:00] I think one or two. I don't think I've seen enough
[1:05:02] from Mahmudi's films. And I know this is where in that
[1:05:04] small rabbit hole I found out that Patriot in 2026 is going to
[1:05:07] star both of them. They're full collaboration after
[1:05:11] many years, definitely more than 1020 years, whatever.
[1:05:14] So I'm going to go watch Patriot, but before that, I'm
[1:05:17] going to watch a few more Mammootty films.
[1:05:18] I want to jump on the bandwagon and I'm not Mallu, so I'm going
[1:05:23] to have a pic of whether I like Mammootty or more.
[1:05:25] I am going to give you a crash course in Mammootty films.
[1:05:30] I'm going to give you a good time.
[1:05:32] You OK? You have 30 seconds.
[1:05:33] You name as many Mammootty films as you want in 30 seconds and
[1:05:36] go. I'm going to ask you to watch
[1:05:38] Kadel the Core which is a recent movie, Brahma Yogam which is a
[1:05:41] horror movie that he starred in that was amazing, Vidhayan in
[1:05:45] which he stars a very cruel landlord.
[1:05:48] Then there is Buddha Kanadi who again a fantastic movie of his,
[1:05:53] Madilugal Pondan Mara Uruvakan Viragata.
[1:05:56] This is like the essential Mammootty who if there are a lot
[1:06:00] more movies, but this is a good starting point to show you.
[1:06:02] And time. Oh, perfect.
[1:06:04] Wow, very nice. Listeners can go check.
[1:06:07] I timed into 30 seconds exactly and we need delivered.
[1:06:10] So yeah, OK, I'm going to check out these films and I'm going to
[1:06:13] have an opinion. So all my non Malu listeners,
[1:06:17] let's all convene and not tell the Malu folks what we think.
[1:06:21] Who is better. Let's not offend them, but let's
[1:06:23] have our opinion. There's a fun fact, Mammootty
[1:06:26] and Mohanlal acted together in a movie called Hari Krishnans.
[1:06:30] This was in the 90s. This was after both of them
[1:06:33] became like huge. And the actress, by the way, was
[1:06:36] Juhi Chawla. So the director actually filmed
[1:06:38] 2 climaxes for the movie because it was like a love triangle.
[1:06:43] And who does do each other pick? So some areas in theaters got
[1:06:48] that she picked Mammootty, some got that she picked more land.
[1:06:52] Lovely. Yeah.
[1:06:53] So I remember at the time when people were like which climax
[1:06:56] are we getting kind of things. So it I think they kind of
[1:06:58] distributed and spread it out some people.
[1:07:00] So both nice and in between. I think there was also a plan
[1:07:04] which did not, you know, come to fruition that neither of them
[1:07:07] would get her because Shahrukh Khan would show up and get Juhi
[1:07:10] Chawla person listen. A child, a child of Hindi
[1:07:13] cinema. I love Shahrukh Khan.
[1:07:14] He has done some great work, he has his charm and everything
[1:07:17] true about him. But don't do that, don't.
[1:07:19] Like I can say right now without having seen enough Mahmudi
[1:07:22] Mahualal films, I can still say just don't do that.
[1:07:24] Never ever, any director ever thinks about Please don't.
[1:07:26] Do it. Frankly, it's been insulting
[1:07:28] Mahmudi and Mona could act circles around Shahrukh Khan.
[1:07:30] No offense, but it's just a fact.
[1:07:32] None taken. None taken.
[1:07:34] That's all the time we have for today's episode.
[1:07:36] Thank you all for listening. Then please follow us on
[1:07:38] Instagram, follow us on Spotify and wherever you're listening to
[1:07:41] us on this podcast, please go us and rate.
[1:07:43] Give us a five star rating on wherever you're listening to us,
[1:07:46] whether it's Spotify, YouTube, and if you want questions asked
[1:07:49] on the show, please feel free to send us those questions at
[1:07:52] areyouquizzingme@gmail.com. Our socials will be in the show
[1:07:55] notes, so you can follow us on whichever platform that you're
[1:07:58] comfortable with. And I will along with Aditya,
[1:08:01] see you guys next week. Go ahead and dig deeper.
[1:08:07] That's the catch Phase I came up with what Listen, I I love
[1:08:10] rabbit holes, so and you only come across rabbit holes if you
[1:08:13] go dig one out yourself. So I would say whenever you read
[1:08:17] something. No, rabbit holes technically
[1:08:19] mean a rabbit has dug it and you're basically going down it.
[1:08:22] OK, Vineet, I don't know if you understand anatomy.
[1:08:24] Human anatomy. Human beings are much bigger
[1:08:26] than rabbit, so you'll have to dig around the rabbit to try to
[1:08:30] figure out where to fit in. Why do I?
[1:08:42] Have all of these open. I am incapable of closing tabs.

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