# Episode 135 - Carmen, Comics & Cosmetics

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 25 Mar 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/117441980/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-25%2F5424791c-3a5d-631a-b403-b53dff09b90a.mp3

Do you know under what promotion were discounted tickets being offered for the French opera Carmen, produced by Seattle Opera, in March 2026? Do you know which iconic Tinkle comic character was created to compete with a character in their rival magazine Target? Do you know which company was being reclassified in 1977 by the excise department, leading to a protracted legal battle and one of the most landmark Indian pop culture creations? 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 India, the Republic of Congo, and the country of
[0:04] Bahrain, all three of which form an exhaustive list.
[0:07] Let me repeat the question. Connect India, the Republic of
[0:10] Congo, and the country of Bahrain.
[0:12] This is our audience question for this week's episode, the
[0:15] answer for which I will reveal at the end of today's episode.
[0:18] Welcome to Are You Quizzing Me, your favorite quizzing and
[0:22] trivia podcast show. This is episode #135 queue the
[0:27] music. Welcome to Are you quizzing Me?
[0:31] I am Vineet Nayar with my Co host Aditya Kashyap.
[0:34] This is a quizzing trivia podcast show.
[0:37] Join us as we dive deep into history, science, pop culture,
[0:41] and so much more. Let's get quizzing.
[0:45] Welcome back ladies, gentlemen, and animals of all flavors and
[0:50] sizes who somehow may be listening to this podcast.
[0:54] Aditya and I are back for another fresh round of quizzing.
[0:57] So before we get to the meet of the episode Aditya, will you
[1:00] please reveal who answered your audience question part duh last
[1:04] week? This is both a reveal and a
[1:06] shout out to the person who answered the question and also
[1:09] an apology to the same person because I messed up his name in
[1:14] the previous episode. Because he's the same guy as the
[1:16] last episode and for regular listeners you'd know that.
[1:21] In that case I had to record it. Post and because at that point I
[1:26] had not really shared it on Instagram yet.
[1:29] So when I when I recorded later, I think in a rush, I ended up
[1:32] miss miss speaking the person's name.
[1:34] So apologies. Please accept my heartfelt
[1:37] apologies. Avishkar.
[1:38] Avishkar got it last week as well.
[1:41] And Avishkar got the answer right this week as well.
[1:44] The question was who is this person miming in the middle of
[1:48] Central Park caught by a photographer and was not really
[1:53] famous at this point. So it was just a random picture
[1:55] of mimers in the middle of Central Park mimes.
[1:58] There's a mimers mimes mimes in the middle of Central Park.
[2:02] And many years later, this photographer, I'm.
[2:05] I'm not quite sure how he finally realized that he had
[2:07] caught Robin Williams in the middle of his act while he was
[2:11] performing in Central Park when he was a complete unknown.
[2:14] So that is a lovely picture. I purposely blanked out his
[2:19] face, but just enough so you could see the contours.
[2:22] So maybe you could make out who it is.
[2:24] And if you couldn't, now go back and look at even the blank
[2:26] picture and you probably will be able to recognize the the
[2:29] outline of his face. And of course, look at the
[2:31] actual picture as well on Google or wherever.
[2:33] And yeah, it's a lovely piece of history of a lovely piece of a
[2:37] lovely man actually, because Robin Williams quite, quite the
[2:41] lovely human being. Yes, and a video game fan.
[2:44] It was a gamer for those who do not know so much so that he
[2:48] actually named his daughter after an iconic game, which
[2:52] again I will reveal at the end of today's episode.
[2:54] So stay on to find out which video game he was a fan of and
[2:58] after which character or game did he name his daughter.
[3:01] So Aditya, I believe it is your turn to start off today.
[3:05] I am keeping track. Impressed that you have kept
[3:08] track because it is indeed my turn.
[3:10] And before I take my turn, I have to just do a shout out to a
[3:15] person who commented on her YouTube videos saying that they
[3:17] want our videos back. A few people have said that.
[3:20] Thank you so much for reaching out with all this feedback.
[3:22] We love it. We hope to eventually get back
[3:24] to it. Specifically shout out to this
[3:26] person because they're like, can you get the videos back?
[3:29] I love the smug look on your faces when you're about to crack
[3:32] the question. I don't know who that was
[3:35] pointed at. I think both of us are guilty of
[3:38] it at various points. And yeah, we will bring back the
[3:40] videos along with our smug faces.
[3:43] Rest assured, even while you're listening to the audio, we have
[3:46] a healthy dosage of smugness along with more than a fair
[3:49] share of embarrassment when we don't get the answer.
[3:52] So it's a good mix. But I am not going to twiddle my
[3:56] thumbs around and I'm going to get right to the trivia.
[4:00] And since we were talking about embarrassing and yet somehow
[4:05] cool, my question is about a subreddit and regular listeners
[4:12] know that we have a subreddit. R slash are you quizzing me?
[4:14] And before the subreddit existed, I actually was not a
[4:17] very regular Reddit user. I used to very occasionally go
[4:21] to it. But since R slash are you
[4:23] quizzing me exist, I very often am on it.
[4:25] So I ended up finding this particular side of Reddit which
[4:31] I didn't know existed, and I'm sure there are like 1000 of
[4:33] those. But anyways, in this case the
[4:36] question is about the subreddit. It's going to be difficult to
[4:40] get through that laughing. R slash chairs.
[4:43] Underwater Vineet, have you heard of R slash chairs
[4:46] underwater? I don't believe I that is one of
[4:50] the ones that I frequent, but I am definitely going to be
[4:54] checking out chairs underwater. That's weird, but then Reddit
[4:58] has a subreddit for everything. Clearly you're not part of the
[5:01] 21,000 weekly visitors that this subreddit gets.
[5:07] All right, so this subreddit is a community dedicated to
[5:11] appreciating the beauty of chairs underwater, all right?
[5:14] They literally post pictures of chairs underwater, and they're
[5:17] very particular about the fact that these should be chairs
[5:20] underwater. They talk about it in, let's
[5:23] say, essential terms sometimes. Sometimes it's a little graphic
[5:28] and they don't mean graphic like the picture.
[5:30] I mean graphic language they use sometimes in describing these
[5:34] chairs. It's almost as if the sense of,
[5:36] to put it, pardon my French, to put it very, very lewd and
[5:41] sexual comments also feature on this subreddit.
[5:45] Just literally talking about the chairs underwater.
[5:47] Now Vineet, my question to you is which posts on R slash chairs
[5:53] underwater are marked NSFW? What is specific about the posts
[5:58] that are marked NSFW? Not all of them are marked NSFW.
[6:02] Some of them are marked. So tell me, which ones do you
[6:04] think are marked NSFW? There is an actual subreddit
[6:08] called Chairs Underwater and you're telling me that there are
[6:11] specific posts which are marked not safe for work?
[6:15] I don't know what to tell you. The Internet is a beautiful,
[6:19] lovely, weird and extremely entertaining place.
[6:22] OK, I'm, I'm trying to get in the headspace of a mod or
[6:26] somebody who's going to be posting.
[6:27] You can't think of anything that would be really, or maybe.
[6:30] Oh, OK, But is this something like, OK, apologies to our
[6:36] listeners because is this like, you know, like a sex wing or one
[6:41] of those sex chairs underwater? No, no need to apologize.
[6:44] Sex wings are real things and no king shaming anybody who likes
[6:47] the sex wing. You do.
[6:48] You live your best life. No, no, nothing like that.
[6:51] Yeah, that's a very solid guess. It has nothing to do with sex
[6:54] wings or anything which is used in a sexual context.
[6:58] And and that could be a first hint.
[7:00] It isn't something necessarily that you would associate with
[7:05] sex. Are there other people also in
[7:08] these pictures? No, I have browsers pretty
[7:11] extensively. I have.
[7:12] I'm yet to see a picture with a person featured in it.
[7:15] And are these like posed chairs? As in, they intentionally
[7:19] submerged chairs to take pictures.
[7:21] No, no, these are, I mean some of them might be intentionally.
[7:25] I I didn't really go into the details of it.
[7:29] It was a quick browse as one might of certain submerged, and
[7:34] yeah, these were pictures of sometimes chairs ending up
[7:37] underwater for some reason. Or somebody has intentionally
[7:40] put them there to feature it on this subreddit I guess.
[7:43] I need some kind of clue. I don't I'm I'm completely
[7:46] underwater. All right.
[7:47] OK. So well then, are you seated on
[7:53] a chair we need? On a sofa, on a.
[7:56] Sofa, sofa. Right here on the sofa.
[7:58] Very. JD Vance of you.
[7:59] No. All right, let's.
[8:00] Let's not. Let's.
[8:02] Not, Oh no. Oh, you dirty, dirty boy.
[8:05] All right, OK, so my first hint would be that it somewhere lies
[8:09] in the name of the subreddit. Chairs underwater.
[8:13] So chairs are supposed to be underwater, but what if it isn't
[8:18] fully true? I think that's a pretty direct
[8:20] hint, but yeah. It's not fully true, as in it's
[8:23] not a chair. Or it's not.
[8:25] Fully underwater. Fair enough.
[8:27] That's it. That's it.
[8:28] Already got it. You cracked it.
[8:29] Very well done. Proud of you.
[8:30] I think you're amazing. What did I crack?
[8:34] That. It's not fully underwater.
[8:37] The posts which? Don't have chairs fully
[8:40] underwater like I have a part of it sticking out a leg sticking
[8:43] out of the back sticking out of the water.
[8:45] Those posts are supposed to be marked NSFW.
[8:48] You, you're, you're caught on. Is this something like a just
[8:52] the tip joke? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[8:55] We need. Don't get ahead of me.
[8:57] Do not try to get ahead of me. All right, now Vineet, The
[9:01] second part of this question is what does NSFW stand for?
[9:05] Not safe for work. What does NSFW stand for on our
[9:09] slash chairs underwater? Oh you bugger, you've been
[9:12] saying NSFW. You never said not safe for
[9:14] work. OK.
[9:15] When I was passing the question aloud, I specifically mentioned
[9:18] not safe for work first because I didn't feel like if there is
[9:21] somebody who was listening to the podcast who did not know
[9:23] NSFWI thought they might not understand what you asked.
[9:26] But you were tricking me the whole time, so.
[9:29] This is some sort of man, and yet I was a few feet below you.
[9:37] So this is an alternative expansion of NSFW?
[9:41] I'm guessing correct? I'm guessing it's water at the
[9:45] end. W will be water.
[9:47] Very well done, yes. So NSFW you said not fully
[9:51] submerged in water. Not not not not.
[9:54] OK OK, OK, OK. Not sub, not submerged fully in
[10:00] water. There you go.
[10:05] So here are the here are the sub rated rules on R slash chairs
[10:12] underwater. Rule 1.
[10:14] OK. Posts must feature one or more
[10:16] chairs or seating apparatuses. So sofa might work as well.
[10:20] All right, Rule 2. Chairs must be at least
[10:24] partially submerged in water. No holding water over a chair
[10:28] and calling it underwater. So you don't, don't try to be
[10:31] funny on the subreddit, all right?
[10:32] They take it seriously, OK, all right.
[10:34] And rule #3 is if a chair is not fully submerged, please flag
[10:38] post as NSFW. Not submerged fully in water.
[10:43] Oh God can't. You can't outwear the.
[10:47] Internet No, you can't. You can't, you can't now you
[10:51] cannot know the process fun piece of trivia.
[10:54] I will I will give you that fun, very fun.
[10:56] I don't have a Segway so but just go ahead.
[10:59] I'm going to ask you a question. Which is the real mythology
[11:04] culture plate? OK.
[11:07] All right. No, I'm sure you will be able to
[11:09] crack it. So X.
[11:11] The name X here denotes A forbidden ancient God or fiend
[11:16] tied to the Netherworks, A colossal force of chaos so
[11:21] potent its mere utterance was shunned.
[11:25] It SARS as the key figure in Voltaire's 1756 proto sci-fi
[11:32] tale called Plato's Dream, often hailed as an early milestone in
[11:36] speculative fiction. Alvaro de Campos, one of
[11:39] Fernando Pessawa's literary personas, penned a poem titled
[11:44] X, where the poet dreads insanity from piercing life's
[11:49] cosmic veil and secrets. The name X and the shot to fame
[11:55] after Y came out in July 2016. So I want you to tell me what X
[12:03] is and that will obviously lead you to why.
[12:07] July 2016, Something came out. Could be a movie.
[12:12] Yeah. Who was it that had written
[12:14] that? What is speculative fiction?
[12:17] Voltaire, Voltaire. Voltaire.
[12:19] French author, Voltaire, 1756. 18th century, 1856.
[12:25] Yeah. All right.
[12:26] Plato's Dream was the name of the sci-fi tale.
[12:29] Underground. Sorry, not underground, sorry
[12:33] I'm think still thinking it's submerged.
[12:35] Underwater. Yeah, yeah.
[12:37] OK, but something to do with the underworld, hell or whatever it
[12:42] is, Haides said. I guess you could go Hindu
[12:48] mythology with Yam, Yamraj could go Satan.
[12:52] This is not anything to do with India, I can tell you that.
[12:55] OK, right. Trying to think of the top of my
[12:59] hand, the figures, the mythological figures that are
[13:02] associated associated with the underworld.
[13:05] You know this name, but you may not completely associate it with
[13:10] mythology because it's association has come as part of
[13:14] completely something else in pop culture and modern pop cultures
[13:16] in the past 40 years. OK.
[13:19] And a very niche group of people knew about it for the past 40
[13:23] years. It was among their lexicon, but
[13:26] it became part of the cultural zeitgeist.
[13:29] Post 2016, post July. 2016 you mentioned OK, something came out
[13:35] in July 2016, some movie. Are we actually worth asking?
[13:39] Is it a movie or should I be thinking?
[13:41] It's ATV show. TV show?
[13:44] I'm assuming it's pretty famous, right?
[13:45] It's a famous TV show. Or it's a very famous TV show.
[13:48] Like, extremely famous. 2016 was that when Stranger Things came
[13:52] out? Vecna.
[13:53] No, it's not Vecna, but you are right with Strange, it's
[13:55] Stranger Things. Oh man I I did not bother
[13:58] watching season 5 and it's been a while since I've watched the
[14:01] early seasons. Even if you watched only the
[14:04] first season. You know, this, I, I, it's just
[14:06] been so long that I really, apart from Vecna and 11, I can't
[14:09] even recall the names of any of the other characters.
[14:12] There was Vecna and there was that, that, that, that big
[14:15] thing, the whatever. 10 picky. No mine.
[14:18] Player. Mind, but yeah, that I'm
[14:20] guessing that's not it. Never mind flare.
[14:23] Oh Vecna mind flare. Hey, yeah, no.
[14:26] If it's a specific Stranger Things, actually I'm probably
[14:28] like, it's slipping my mind right now.
[14:31] OK. I mean, like you've got most of
[14:32] it apart from the actual question answer, but yeah, no.
[14:38] So The thing is, if you remember the first season, I'll give you
[14:41] the first season. Was it?
[14:43] Demogorgon. Yes, that is the.
[14:45] Answer that I'm looking at. It's a Demogorgon, and yes.
[14:48] So Demogorgon is a shadowy underworld deity or demon from
[14:53] late antique texts like the Lactantius Placidus's 4th
[14:58] century Tabad commentary derived from a scribal error for Greek
[15:03] Demyo Gorgon, its name became taboo in the medieval
[15:07] Renaissance floor. As the primal God of chaos,
[15:10] Voltaire's Plato's dream indeed centers demagogue, and as the
[15:15] flawed creator of Earth critiquing divine perfection,
[15:19] Alvado Alvaro the Campos wrote a poem titled Demagogue and in the
[15:23] 1920s expressing dread of madness from life's unveiled
[15:27] mysteries. Stranger Things season 1
[15:30] premiered on July 15th, 2016 on Netflix popularized the name via
[15:35] its monstrous demagogue, which basically boosted searches for
[15:40] the term on Google by around 1000% for the past 40 years,
[15:44] Players of Dungeons and Dragons would have recognized the
[15:48] demagogue organ as one of the characters featured in the show,
[15:51] but as you know, it was a that's a very niche population of
[15:54] people who played Dungeons and Dragons.
[15:56] This became part of the modern cultural zeitgeist after the
[15:59] launch of Stranger Things. Very cool.
[16:01] Very cool. All right.
[16:02] I'm glad I tracked that. But yeah, nice.
[16:04] So hate me. Very nice.
[16:06] Very cool. Since you were talking about the
[16:09] French author Voltaire, I'm going to ask you a question that
[16:13] has to do with the French opera. The opera in question is Carmen.
[16:17] So Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer
[16:22] Georges Bizet. Georges, I don't know.
[16:26] I don't know how to pronounce it.
[16:28] GERGE is by BIZET, and it's it's considered pretty famous.
[16:34] It's been performed all over the world.
[16:36] Recently it was being performed by the Seattle Opera.
[16:40] My question to you is, Vineet Seattle Opera was offering
[16:44] discounted tickets for Carmen. Can you tell me why were they
[16:49] offering discounted tickets for Carmen?
[16:51] This was. When This was in 2026.
[16:55] Particularly familiar with Carmen.
[17:00] Is it something to do with the the opera itself or something
[17:03] part of the story of the opera? You don't need to know so much
[17:06] about Carmen, the story, or any of that to crack this question.
[17:10] OK? I don't know.
[17:12] But you'll have to give me some kind of clue because I'm not
[17:14] familiar with the opera in general.
[17:17] I'm not familiar with this particular opera either, so I
[17:21] have no idea. Was it to boost sales of?
[17:27] OK, so there was a. This is this is the look.
[17:32] This is the look that they were talking about.
[17:33] It is the exact look. He has cracked it, listeners.
[17:37] He has cracked it. Yeah, go for it.
[17:39] So during the Oscars opening monologue that Conan O'Brien was
[17:44] giving, he particularly shouted out Timothy Chalamet because he
[17:49] had mentioned that he wouldn't want to be part of an industry
[17:54] where something, yeah, what he that it was struggling to
[17:58] survive or something. And there was a lot of a
[18:00] backlash that in Europe, for example, or the opera and ballet
[18:04] were huge and still drew lots of big crowds.
[18:08] So is this a dig on Timothy Chalamet?
[18:13] Oh, and that was so beautifully cracked.
[18:15] Very well done. Yes, the promo code was Timothy
[18:18] TIMOTH EE. There is a Timothy promo code
[18:22] that has been offered by Seattle Opera.
[18:24] Do you want to know how much discount they were offering?
[18:26] No, I don't. I don't.
[18:27] I don't know. I don't know.
[18:29] You're not chronically online. You're not constantly online,
[18:31] clearly, because. I am chronically online there,
[18:33] but there's not in this particular space.
[18:35] Because because Timothy Chalamet's entire code where
[18:38] he's basically in a conversation with Matthew McConaughey and he
[18:41] says something about how he doesn't want to be part of dying
[18:45] arts quote UN quote like ballet and opera, where again, I'm
[18:49] quoting him. The people have to beg audiences
[18:52] to come and watch them. And then he says something like,
[18:55] oh, no offense to all the ballet and opera people.
[18:58] And then he laughs and he's like, I guess I just lost $0.14
[19:03] and my revenue or whatever, right?
[19:05] Implying that whatever. There is barely anybody out
[19:08] there who's from ballet and opera whole care.
[19:10] So they were offering 14% discount on their tickets as a
[19:15] little bit of, you know, slap back, clap back or slap back,
[19:20] clap back at Timothy Chalamet for his quip.
[19:23] And I was trying to throw you off with the whole Carmen and
[19:26] Seattle Opera part of it. But you were not to be
[19:30] confounded. You were very, very well attuned
[19:33] to this question. Well done.
[19:34] And because Seattle Opera is not the only one, there were a bunch
[19:38] of other operas also which were offering discounts on on their
[19:41] opera seats. And two, with these credit, a
[19:44] fair bunch of people didn't go and watch opera because of this.
[19:47] So hey, you know what? No such thing as bad publicity.
[19:51] I did not get the chance to watch the Oscars live so I was
[19:54] watching the recording on Geo recently, which they like.
[19:59] They cut down almost all the ancillary awards and just showed
[20:03] the major awards only. Which is fine.
[20:06] Fair enough because otherwise it would be very long.
[20:08] But. I remember the opening monologue
[20:10] which was which had this. Yeah, that that kicked memory.
[20:13] Nice, nice, nice, nice question. This was also an excuse to
[20:17] actually do another shout out to another friend of the podcast,
[20:20] another listener of the podcast, or I believe he's a listener,
[20:23] but at the very least he's he's somebody who follows us on
[20:26] Instagram because Vaishnav Mohan on Instagram predicted because
[20:30] I, I in my last Sunday quiz, I asked the Oscar related trivia
[20:35] right and a bunch of people enjoyed it.
[20:37] Some people who are not big movies fans are actually let's
[20:40] specific Oscar Hollywood fans didn't care for it.
[20:44] And apologies to those people. Come back next Sunday.
[20:47] There'll be a fun quiz again, another new fun theme for you.
[20:50] But in any case, in my Oscar theme trivia at the end of it, I
[20:54] asked people for their predictions of who they think is
[20:56] going to win. This was literally a couple of
[20:58] hours before the winners were announced.
[21:00] A bunch of people got the regulars right, Jessie Buckley
[21:03] and and Michael B Jordan Sinners 11 battle of right.
[21:08] I have to shout out though Vaishnav Mohan because he got 1
[21:14] Battle after another gets best picture, adapted screenplay and
[21:18] best director. Sinners will get best actor and
[21:21] best score. So an educated guess, yes, but
[21:25] very bang on because getting like five of these right is is
[21:29] very impressive. So these are the five
[21:31] predictions he made. He got it all.
[21:33] I hope you bet some good money on it, Vashnav, because he would
[21:35] have made good money on those bets.
[21:37] Vashnav well done. An Oscar fan just like me.
[21:40] What do you think, Bonita? Did you like the?
[21:42] Did you agree with the winners? I honestly think that sinners
[21:46] should have won a lot more lot more categories.
[21:49] Honestly speaking I I really like 1 Battle of Another but I
[21:55] feel that the Oscars have become completely about Oscar bait.
[21:58] Nowadays you just don't see fan favorite movies or movies that
[22:02] were really enjoyed in theaters. You see like these critical
[22:05] darling movies which have one which have grossed maybe
[22:08] 20,000,010 million which is like prime examples of film making.
[22:12] Don't get me wrong, but I think that also has to be a place for
[22:15] the fact that a movie is intended to be entertainment,
[22:19] and the movie that succeeds in entertaining a very large
[22:21] audience should be given a fair chance at hitting.
[22:24] I don't know exactly how the Academy votes for these things,
[22:28] but it's always the critical darlings who hardly, you know,
[22:31] grossed anything who usually end up winning.
[22:35] Not always the case, but it's becoming increasingly the case.
[22:38] At least that's what I felt. I feel that maybe we have to get
[22:42] back to that portion where, you know, we're in summer
[22:44] blockbuster has a chance. And Sinners was, I mean, like I
[22:47] think of the recent past few years, I think Sinners had the
[22:51] best chance to do that. So in like a mainstream big
[22:54] entertainer, Mosana entertainer that anybody could watch and
[22:57] anybody would want to watch. I'm not saying that people don't
[22:59] want to watch 1 Battle of the Other.
[23:01] It's not my intention. Neither am I saying that Begonia
[23:04] was not a girl. But it's not a movie that draws
[23:07] people. These are not movies that draw
[23:08] people to theaters and large crowds.
[23:11] And I believe that is an art form in itself.
[23:13] And then creating a movie Gordon a hoop which is able to pull in
[23:17] people at the same time be that good as sinners was that I felt
[23:23] it. It should have won more.
[23:24] It should have won more. Obviously Paul Thomas Anderson,
[23:27] an author, genius man, but I don't know if he'd be able to
[23:32] pull off something like a sinners.
[23:34] I generally think a lot of the Oscars are also about while they
[23:37] do position it as in the context of a specific movie, very often
[23:44] it is about the body of work as well.
[23:46] Like I think Paul Thomas Anderson was just his body of
[23:49] work is very impressive. Ryan Coogler is much younger and
[23:52] and has I'm sure a long way to go and is going to do
[23:56] interesting amazing things. I personally don't think
[23:59] Oppenheimer is Nolan's best. No, it's not.
[24:03] Winning the best picture for that and not having won it for
[24:06] some of his more exceptional frames.
[24:08] I think Dunkirk was criminally unappreciated inception just
[24:12] very, very impactful in terms of of, you know, the pop culture
[24:16] impact it had had. Memento person favorite.
[24:18] So yeah, the Barbie was not even nominated, right?
[24:21] If I'm not wrong, considering how big a phenomenon it was, I
[24:24] didn't think it was the best picture of the year.
[24:26] But still not nominated. Strange.
[24:28] In any case, I agree with you and I'm still glad that the
[24:33] cinematography for cinemas one well deserved and it's mind
[24:37] blowing that is the first ever woman.
[24:38] First female cinematographer. First ever woman to win that
[24:41] award. It's ridiculous that is
[24:43] happening in 2026, but well, never better late than never.
[24:48] So yeah, some interesting nominations of interesting wins,
[24:50] and that's this question was just an excuse to shout out
[24:54] right now and to have a little bit of a Oscar chat.
[24:57] But back to you, Vinny. Yes, let's move on from the
[25:00] eccentric Timothy Chalamet. He did a great job with Marty
[25:04] Supreme. Let's also give him due credit,
[25:06] even though he's he might have shot himself in the foot with
[25:09] all those interviews. Let's move on from him to India
[25:13] in the 1980s. In the 1980s, Tinkle was rapidly
[25:17] pulling ahead of the pack when it came to these kind of
[25:20] children's magazines and it was edging towards nationwide
[25:23] dominance. Its strongest competition came
[25:26] from a rival publication called Target, which is produced by
[25:30] Living Media, and that one relied on written stories rather
[25:34] than comic strips. The Driver magazine Stand Out
[25:38] attraction was a fictional detective.
[25:40] His name was a literal Hindi description of his most defining
[25:44] feature and the character was created by illustrator Ajit
[25:47] Nainan. Seeing the popularity of this
[25:50] detective, the team behind Tinkle decided that they needed
[25:54] a challenger of their own. Associate Editor Subbarao
[25:58] proposed developing a comic persona to drive in the
[26:01] detectives appeal. While shaping the character.
[26:05] The creators borrowed elements from the loud, charismatic and
[26:09] expressive personality of Ricky Ricardo from the classic
[26:13] television series I Love Lucy. Which character am I talking
[26:17] about? Which iconic Tinkle character
[26:19] was born from this idea? Oh man, OK, there's AI Love Lucy
[26:23] connection there as well. That doesn't help me.
[26:27] I don't really have too much a context over there.
[26:31] There was a detective in Twinkle.
[26:32] Wow, this is. No, this is a rival character to
[26:35] a detective who was appearing in Target magazine.
[26:39] OK, OK. OK.
[26:40] I thought it was a rival detective character, but not
[26:43] necessarily a detective. Got it.
[26:44] No. No no no.
[26:45] There is another connect which I have specifically not mentioned,
[26:48] but that will be my clue. The the most defining feature
[26:52] thing was about the target detective, right?
[26:54] Not about the twinkle character. No.
[26:57] And you haven't given me either of the names, but you're asking
[26:59] me for the Tinkle character. If it's a rival character, but
[27:02] it's not really a detective, then it could be anything.
[27:05] I have a feeling Subandi is probably older.
[27:09] I'm just gonna go with Shikari Shambhu.
[27:11] Very nice, very well done. It is Shikari Shambhu, so
[27:14] Shikari Shambu was created by the writer Louis Fernandez and
[27:19] artist Vasant Halbe for Twinkle magazine, debuting in 1983.
[27:23] Subbarao also proposed the initial concept as a rival to
[27:27] Target Magazines. Detective Moochwala, which is
[27:30] going to be my next clue. Vasant Halbe's illustrations,
[27:35] featuring Shambu's iconic hat pulled over his eyes, boosted
[27:38] the character's popularity. Shikari Shambu drew inspiration
[27:41] from the TV show I Love Lucy, eventually evolving into a lazy
[27:46] explorer who avoids real danger through luck.
[27:49] Other Tinkle staples like Chopandi originated from reader
[27:53] submitted stories by P Vardarajan, illustrated by Ram
[27:57] Varghar, capturing everyday simpleton humor.
[28:00] Kalia the Crow was pitched by Louis Fernandez, again despite
[28:04] cultural hesitations, with artist Pradeep Sathe emphasizing
[28:08] realistic animal anatomy. That's very sure you'd get this
[28:12] Shikari Shambhuza. Yeah, but I was trying to make
[28:14] it a little side the Muchwada connection.
[28:18] I love it. I love it.
[28:19] Cool. Since you did a little bit of
[28:21] Throwback to India of the 80s nineties, I'm going to do
[28:26] something along those lines as well.
[28:28] And I'm going to talk to you about something as far away from
[28:32] a comic book as can be. And this is a court case, right?
[28:39] I actually don't know that. You could go to
[28:40] indiancarmoon.org and you can look up old court cases over
[28:45] there, right? Whatever has been digitized.
[28:47] Yeah, pretty interesting. So I'm assuming law students and
[28:51] and people who are pursuing law in whatever form do use this
[28:55] website. But for other lay people like
[28:57] us, we could also go on it and read up on interesting court
[28:59] cases. This is one of them because this
[29:02] is Union of India versus. X.
[29:06] Identify So the Supreme Court of India ruled on 26th November
[29:11] 2007 in the case Union of India versus X.
[29:16] This case was roughly 30 years old.
[29:20] There were many back and forth and before it ended up at
[29:24] Supreme Court, of course, it went to the District Court, the
[29:26] Maharashtra High Court I believe and then finally at Supreme
[29:30] Court where the ruling happened in 2007.
[29:32] The first filing of the case was 1976.
[29:35] The filing was done by the excise department.
[29:38] The claim was that the certain category of a product should be
[29:44] contested or should be re categorized and hence it would
[29:48] have to pay a higher excise duty.
[29:50] The company X was arguing that no, you know what, we shouldn't
[29:53] be re categorized and we shouldn't have to pay the higher
[29:56] amount. There is a very strong pop
[29:59] culture connection to the Supreme Court case.
[30:03] Vineet, can you identify what is X that I speak of?
[30:07] Court case filed in. 1976 in the Supreme Court by the Excise
[30:11] Department and it was not filed in.
[30:13] Supreme Court. I don't think it was filed in
[30:14] Supreme Court. It was probably filed in the
[30:16] lower court. It ended up in Supreme Court in
[30:18] 2000 like when they resolved in 2007 because the excise
[30:21] department. Wanted to reclassify something
[30:24] which would attract more tax, yeah, so and the case was Union
[30:28] of India versus this company, yeah, I mean.
[30:31] Forget the technicalities of it, but yes, it was a government
[30:34] body which was fighting against a private company and they were
[30:39] trying to reclassify a certain product type and the company was
[30:42] against the declassification. The reclassification would have
[30:46] meant higher excise duty. And of course, the company
[30:48] didn't want to pay that higher excise amount.
[30:51] I did not tell you which side did Supreme Court end up on, but
[30:56] in any case, my question is there is a very strong pop
[30:59] culture symbol, icon or whatever.
[31:02] It's a pop culture thing that is associated with this court case.
[31:06] Tell me, what is X? So this pop culture thing is it?
[31:08] Is it a movie by any chance? It's not a movie, no.
[31:11] OK. Yeah.
[31:12] You could try a process of elimination there that might
[31:14] help you actually. So, so reclassification.
[31:17] Of something so obviously the company produces a product so
[31:20] let me just clarify one thing is it the case itself which has had
[31:23] a connection to the pop culture phenomenon or is it the product
[31:27] that. Has a connection with the pop
[31:28] culture phenomenon. The case is related to the
[31:30] product and the case is directly related to the pop culture
[31:35] phenomenon. And of course the population has
[31:37] to do with the product as well. So all three are linked
[31:39] something after 2000. And seven no, no, no, wait when
[31:44] we get. After I never said after 2007.
[31:46] Oh, OK, so this is. OK, OK, I have understood.
[31:49] What I thought was that the resolution of the case is what
[31:52] the pop. Culture.
[31:54] No, the pop culture thing has existed since.
[31:56] That's what I meant. Like the pop culture thing has
[31:58] existed since the 80s and 90s, since the 70s and. 80s Oh, yeah.
[32:04] OK, pretty much. Oh, that actually widens the
[32:07] field quite a bit. Something.
[32:09] Is it a publication? I think I already asked you
[32:11] that, but you don't really ask. You ask me a movie?
[32:14] It's not a movie, it's not a publication, it's not a book,
[32:16] it's not a comic, it's not a magazine or do television.
[32:20] Journals and things like that have to do something with like,
[32:24] no, it doesn't. Tax doesn't apply to that.
[32:26] So wait, is this television warmer?
[32:28] It is not a. Television, like, nothing to do
[32:31] with the technology of it, but warmer associated to mass media
[32:35] like television. You know what?
[32:37] I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, this might help you.
[32:40] I did say no to film. And it is of course not a film
[32:42] specifically, but it is associated to mass media.
[32:46] It is definitely associated to television, to radio.
[32:48] I think it should have at some point also been associated to
[32:51] cinema. I'm not quite sure on that, but
[32:53] probably at some point even associated to cinema.
[32:56] So you can try to think what combines all these things?
[32:58] What pop culture thing combines all these three?
[33:00] Something specifically indeed. Yeah, yeah.
[33:02] And Oh no. No, I'm talking about the
[33:03] category what some what is something pop culture that would
[33:05] be also associated to radio, what is also associated to TV,
[33:09] also associated to cinema. And also by the way you said
[33:12] publication probably also associated to newspapers at some
[33:14] point. Yeah, Deomkesh Bakshi.
[33:17] Again, no. No, don't think of.
[33:18] Specific things I'm talking about, like what category of pop
[33:22] culture would be associated to all of these comics, Comic
[33:25] books? You would have publications, you
[33:27] would have radio adaptations. Good guess, but no, not comics.
[33:30] No. All right, You know what?
[33:31] I'm going to give you a hint. This is pop culture meets
[33:34] capitalism advertisements. Oh.
[33:37] There we go. Yeah.
[33:38] OK, so ads. Is this amul pretty much at the
[33:41] same level I? Think of popularity.
[33:43] Yeah, not a Muldo Durex, no. Durex wouldn't be in the 70s,
[33:48] right? Durex No, no.
[33:49] They have a really good ad game. But Durex is an amazing ad game.
[33:52] Listen, I've been. Part of a Durex ad.
[33:55] So so I know what Durex ad game is like go check out my
[34:01] Instagram feed all right. But in any case, the it's not
[34:05] and I don't even know if Durex was around back then.
[34:08] I doubt it in India at least. So yeah, it's not that they
[34:12] wanted to reclassify. Something something that's ad
[34:15] related so you've you've gotten. You've gotten quite, quite a bit
[34:21] into the answer. I'm going to give you a bigger
[34:22] hint. The ad Jingle itself talks about
[34:25] the reclassification washing powder Nirma.
[34:28] Literally at the same level of of.
[34:31] Recall as washing powder Nirma. Think which iconic Indian ad
[34:37] literally talks about a category dude I am not very good at.
[34:43] This but it is it is Hindi so like.
[34:46] Like washing powder, Nirma a Hindi Jingle.
[34:48] So I'm I'm hoping you have heard of it.
[34:50] I should clarify that when I said that level of popularity, I
[34:52] meant Hindi speaking audiences, not Hindi speaking audiences.
[34:55] I don't know if they were translated versions.
[34:57] I'd be curious actually. Like the moment you say add.
[34:59] Jingle. What comes to mind is washing
[35:01] powder Nirma. And then what is the second
[35:03] thing that comes? To mind, what is the second
[35:04] thing that comes to mind after washing bottle Nirma.
[35:06] Literally nothing right now in. My head oh God, what is this
[35:10] Complan boy complan No that that's not a Jingle per SE, and
[35:13] I think complan boy is probably. 90s but don't quote me on that,
[35:17] I'm missing something really obvious.
[35:18] And I can't for the life of me figure out what it is, this
[35:21] company and I. Believe because I'm just looking
[35:24] over browsing so don't don't again quote me on this, but what
[35:27] I'm browsing is I think 2 of their products and these are the
[35:29] two products I know as well. This company's two products were
[35:32] under whatever under question or under purview.
[35:35] And these are the two iconic products that you know of them.
[35:38] They're still around. I've still seen ads of them of
[35:40] their products being played and and now I only encounter ads
[35:44] either on on YouTube or on in cinema trailers.
[35:46] I've seen it in the actually the number of people who are
[35:49] shouting answer at you Vineet are I'm aware.
[35:52] I can guarantee you 99 point. 9% of our Hindi speaking audience
[35:57] is singing the Jingle right now. Wait, is this is?
[36:00] This is? That a little soap.
[36:04] Oh bad. No way.
[36:05] Way more famous than that little soap.
[36:07] Also famous, but OK. Vico turmeric, nahi cosmetic.
[36:12] Vico turmeric, everybody cream. Perfect.
[36:14] You got that? Absolutely.
[36:15] Right, I'm very impressed you did get it.
[36:17] You're not a Hindi speaker so maybe it wasn't as common for
[36:20] you, but you have heard of it I assume?
[36:22] Since you've cracked it, I'm just going to quickly explain
[36:24] Vico. The company is probably most
[36:26] famous for the two products, Vico Vajradhanti and Vico
[36:29] Turmeric. On 8th November 1976 there was a
[36:33] show cause notice that asked why should we not classify you as
[36:38] cosmetics instead of Ayurvedic medicines.
[36:40] Eventually that led to a 1977 a court case and so on and so
[36:44] forth for the next 30 years to later reach the Supreme Court.
[36:47] Vico was strongly against it being classified as a cosmetic
[36:51] 'cause that would have meant a higher excise duty and I guess
[36:54] they believe that it was truly an Ayurvedic medicine.
[36:56] And honestly, if you ask any Indian out that they agree just
[36:59] because it is so deeply ingrained in US.
[37:01] The public PR campaign was public PR.
[37:05] The PR campaign was also like, you cannot overstate the
[37:12] importance of the ad Jingle that truly must have swayed the
[37:16] population, including the judges in the High Court and Supreme
[37:20] Court. Because if you say Vico turmeric
[37:24] to anybody who has grown up in an Indian household speaking
[37:26] Hindi, they will say the next line is nahi cosmetic, nahi
[37:30] cosmetic. Imagine the insane impact of
[37:34] that. There was a court case where
[37:35] they were literally battling the idea that you should not
[37:37] classify as cosmetics because we are an Ayurvedic product.
[37:41] The excise department had disagreed and they wanted to
[37:43] reclassify them. And rest is history and truly
[37:47] history. It is historic that we could
[37:49] turmeric nahi cosmetic. We could turmeric Ayurvedic
[37:52] cream. Like that Jingle day summed up a
[37:56] long legal battle and all the technical jargon into 4 lines.
[38:01] I genuinely mind was blown when I realized this.
[38:06] Oh dude, it's fantastic. Fantastic.
[38:08] No? It was a big part of my
[38:09] childhood and I remember whenever we used to bring to
[38:11] these VHS cassettes, many of them would have ads in the
[38:16] beginning of it, and we go to turmeric cream was pakka.
[38:19] Once in a while you'd get Hamara Bajaj dead, dead.
[38:24] There used to be like these ads and there's always one, I cannot
[38:27] remember which was it for some cassette brand.
[38:29] It featured this guy in boots walking up a stair and then
[38:33] that's kind of slight pulsing music in the background.
[38:35] And then he gets to it and it's like, you know, wall like he's
[38:37] got like boots and the jacket and everything.
[38:39] And then he gets and he used to, he has gloves, biker gloves on
[38:42] and he uses it to insert a cassette.
[38:44] I don't know. It's just memories, just.
[38:47] This one doesn't trigger any memory for me, but you know
[38:50] what? Third audience question for the
[38:54] if anybody can help me I guess. Yeah, I can't remember which one
[38:57] it was, but if anybody can help me figure it out, that's great.
[38:59] The first one had to do with India.
[39:01] Bahrain and one more country. What is it?
[39:02] The third one? The third one was.
[39:04] The Republic of Congo, India, wherein and.
[39:07] Congo. And then there's a question
[39:09] which had to do with Robin Williams.
[39:12] Robin Williams and his daughter's name.
[39:14] And now we have a third one. This one you won't know the
[39:17] answer for because we need to can't remember it.
[39:18] So I don't know the answer. I don't remember the.
[39:20] Answer. Go ahead and and let us.
[39:22] Know on Instagram or Reddit wherever you are.
[39:25] All right, cool. Well done.
[39:26] Very well cracked and such a fun piece of trivia related to
[39:29] India. Vineet, you're done.
[39:31] Next, let's go. OK.
[39:32] Moving on from. Very quickly from the fact that
[39:34] I took too much time to correct that question, which I should
[39:37] have gotten earlier. To all those who have lost their
[39:41] voices screaming at the podcast Vinny, I'm can only say sorry
[39:44] and take you back to the turn of the last century.
[39:48] Posse trading family called the Narojis operated the longest
[39:54] running general provision store in a quiet British era Himalayan
[39:59] hill station. A catastrophic earthquake in 19
[40:03] O 5 reduced much of the settlement to rubble, prompting
[40:07] a mass departure of its wealthy inhabitants, leaving behind the
[40:11] rows of vacant colonial buildings.
[40:14] Decades later. Nauser, Naloji.
[40:17] The families then surviving heir and unofficial caretaker of
[40:20] numerous abandoned British colonial properties, struggling
[40:24] to sustain his life livelihood among the ruins, reached out to
[40:27] various businesses and government bodies to breathe
[40:31] life back into the dormant town. When these efforts yielded
[40:35] little fruit, he took an unusual step.
[40:38] He wrote directly to India's central government with a
[40:42] proposal for the novel use of the neglected properties.
[40:46] New Delhi acted on a suggestion and the once forgotten hill
[40:49] station was soon transformed into a hop of cultural and
[40:54] political significance. So my question is, what's the
[40:58] funder? What was the outcome of this
[41:00] correspondence of the letter that Nazar Naloji sent to New
[41:05] Delhi? Which year?
[41:07] Was this or what time was this around?
[41:10] 1960 This is, by the way, the. Naraji in question related to
[41:15] the other by Naraji. No, no.
[41:17] OK, that is now Roji. This is now Roji.
[41:20] Sounds the same. No, I don't even know which hill
[41:24] station. So specifically, yeah.
[41:28] There's a reason I haven't mentioned the hill station,
[41:29] because the moment I mentioned the name of the hill station,
[41:31] you'll know what I'm talking about.
[41:33] I don't know why. And I don't know if there's any
[41:35] connection, but the toy train came to mind.
[41:38] There are multiple toy trains. In multiple hill stations in
[41:41] Uttarakhand, in Ooty, in Kodaikanal.
[41:44] It's no, this is not one of us. And you said also political.
[41:48] Significance, right? You caught that clue.
[41:51] There is something in the back of my head.
[41:53] There's some confidence. I'm thinking Shimla conference
[41:55] and I'm trying to think politics.
[41:57] It's either that this is the face, this is the smug face.
[42:05] I hope now I'm right, because that's the face.
[42:07] That's the face. Otherwise it's a very unarmed.
[42:09] Smug face Is it to do with Dharamshala, with Tibet, the
[42:14] exodus of the Tibetan population and you're giving Dalai Lama
[42:21] some space so this will be Dharamshala, the hill station
[42:24] yes so the. Outcome of his letter was the
[42:27] establishment of Dalai Lamas Tibetan government in exile and
[42:31] refugee settlement in Mcleodganj, Upper Dharamshala,
[42:35] transforming it into Little Lhasa.
[42:37] That's incredible. Let's go back to the first.
[42:40] Ever domino in 1849, following the end of the Anglo Siq Wars in
[42:45] 1849, British India absorbed the hill territories that would
[42:49] later become Dharamsala and Mcleodganj.
[42:52] The Nauruji family Parsis from Punjab, migrated to Mcleodganj
[42:57] in 1860 along with the British Army and established Nauruji and
[43:02] Sons General Merchants, the town's first and longest running
[43:06] provision store, selling everything from baked goods to
[43:09] tobacco to liquor and even arm. For nearly a century, the
[43:13] establishment served as the primary commercial hub for
[43:16] British officers and their families stationed in the
[43:18] Himalayan cantonment. On April 4th 19 O 5, the
[43:22] devastating Conga earthquake struck, obliterating much of the
[43:26] Dharamsala and Mathurganj, killing an estimated 20,000
[43:29] people across the region and destroying the majority of its
[43:32] buildings. The catastrophe triggered a mass
[43:34] the exodus of the area's wealthy and elite residents, leaving
[43:37] behind derelict colonial structures and a town stripped
[43:41] of its prosperity. It effectively became a ghost
[43:43] town post independence, with the remaining inhabitants too few or
[43:47] too poor to maintain the abandoned colonial buildings.
[43:50] When India gained independence in 1947 and many European
[43:54] residents emigrated, they trusted their keys of their
[43:58] bungalows to Nausar Navroji, making him the unofficial
[44:01] custodian of the colonial era property.
[44:05] Now he was the 5th generation heir and eldest of five
[44:08] brothers, and he watched over these properties for many, many
[44:12] years. When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet
[44:14] in 1959 following China's military occupation and began
[44:18] searching for a home in exile now, Roji wrote directly to
[44:21] Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru suggesting that he considered
[44:25] Mcleodganj's vacant colonial buildings as a settlement.
[44:29] Immediately, like it was a very dramatic reaction.
[44:32] New Delhi sent large Landmaster cars carrying government
[44:35] intelligence officials and who questioned him, surveyed the
[44:38] town and departed. The Dalai Rama visited in 1960,
[44:42] approved it, and established his residence at a house known as
[44:45] Swarg Asrab. The Central Tibetan
[44:48] Administration was formerly based there, and thousands of
[44:51] Tibetan refugees followed, transforming that ghost town
[44:54] into what is now known as Little Lhasa.
[44:57] That is incredible. And it's such a lovely
[45:01] serendipity that has happened because today I was thinking
[45:05] about where I want to go on a holiday during the summers.
[45:08] And I was like, oh, you know what?
[45:09] I've always wanted to go to Dharamshala.
[45:10] I want to go for a trek over there.
[45:12] Maybe I'll plan something in the summer today.
[45:14] And that's why it was at the top of my mind.
[45:15] And it's insane. Like I love how trivia like this
[45:18] just finds you where of course, Dharamshala, Tibet, the Lhasa or
[45:23] all of those things, Dhalai Lama, you know, all of it.
[45:25] I saw a picture of my friend also just went and visited the
[45:28] Met Dhalai Lama very interestingly and just the idea
[45:32] of. Where it came from?
[45:34] I never thought about it and thanks for introducing that to
[45:36] me. I love it.
[45:37] I love it so much. That was a very fun piece of
[45:40] trivia if you are visiting Dharamshala.
[45:42] Unfortunately, you won't be able to see the Naroji and Sons
[45:45] general merchants because after Nazar Navroji passed away in
[45:50] 2000 at the age of 85, it still remained a landmark, but it
[45:55] closed and was sold in 2020 when the family's last heirs chose
[46:00] not to continue it. So I don't know if they've still
[46:03] maintained it with the name, but that family who had established
[46:07] it in 1860, they've decided not to continue running the store.
[46:12] You know what? I hope there's a placard.
[46:13] There at least or some signpost which which, Yeah, remember that
[46:17] the contribution is pretty cool. I like that.
[46:19] All right, well, Speaking of government policies, which were
[46:24] pretty historic significant, I I'm going to ask you Vineet, you
[46:31] of course know about the gold standard and how history has
[46:36] taken us to it from it and back to it and back away from it at
[46:39] at through various times. And of course the central
[46:42] character in all of this is of course, as usual, the United
[46:45] States of America. They were dictating a lot of
[46:48] this. For anybody who doesn't know,
[46:50] the gold standard had to do with the idea that the amount of
[46:53] literally the amount of gold reserves a country held was the
[46:57] amount of money that they could then have in circulation.
[47:00] So basically we're saying. Meaning that the currency, any
[47:02] kind of paper currency or coin currency, was backed by actual
[47:06] physical gold rather than a notional value, which meant that
[47:10] people could. Actually go if they were felt
[47:13] like the currency was losing value.
[47:14] And this has happened in the US also, by the way, they could
[47:16] literally go to the bank and the banks were obligated to give
[47:19] them gold bars or gold coins in exchange for the currency of the
[47:23] same value. So if they made a run at the
[47:25] bank, the Bank of course would not be holding the exact same
[47:28] amount of money as as even today banks very often don't even hold
[47:32] the same amount of money that they have in digital form as
[47:35] they do in physical form. So in this case also they didn't
[47:39] have and that meant a lot of banks did wonder.
[47:41] So anyways, that's all economics history.
[47:44] The idea being that gold standard was in question.
[47:48] There was also silver, which is considered.
[47:51] And of course there was the idea of the floating exchange rate,
[47:55] floating currency. All these things were different
[47:57] economic theories that have at various points of time come up
[48:00] and gone down. There was a late 19th century
[48:03] debate regarding monetary policy, according to this view.
[48:07] There was the gold standard. There was also the civil rights,
[48:12] as they were called, who wish to maintain convertibility to a
[48:16] silver. And there was, of course, the
[48:19] idea that none of these should be in consideration.
[48:22] This particular piece of history, this debate, or this
[48:25] very significant economic and social upheaval is apparently
[48:31] allegorized or has been made an allegory of in a very famous
[48:36] piece of literature. Vineet, Do you know which piece
[48:39] of literature am I talking about?
[48:41] First thing that comes to mind is Harry.
[48:42] Potter, But because the the coins and the what not, but good
[48:48] guess, second guess I would give was again, because I was just
[48:55] like to just before we were coming on to this, I was giving
[48:58] some time and I noticed that Dio Hotstar was showing that wicked
[49:04] was on the thing. So yellow brick, road pin man,
[49:08] something to do with that gold brick and whatnot That's.
[49:12] That's just incredible. I no smug face here because that
[49:15] was generally a very good crack. Listeners, this was Vineet at
[49:19] his very best because he has got that answer right on its head.
[49:23] It was one of the political interpretations of the wonderful
[49:27] Wizard of Oz, and this is by a historian, Henry Littlefield,
[49:31] and there are of course, contentions to it.
[49:33] People have argued that it is not the most accurate
[49:36] understanding of the text. And as any analysis of any
[49:40] literary text goes, I'm sure there'll be reasons for it and
[49:42] against it. But any case, I thought it was
[49:44] so interesting because According to him, the yellow brick road
[49:48] represents the gold standard. The silver shoes, which are the
[49:52] Ruby slippers in the 1939 film version, represent the silver
[49:55] rights wish to maintain convertibility to silver.
[49:59] And very interestingly, there is also the idea that the road of
[50:04] gold leads eventually to Emerald City, which they also saw as
[50:08] being representative of a Fiat currency.
[50:12] Fiat currency is a currency which is not backed by a metal,
[50:15] right? So it is a currency that is
[50:17] valuable in and of itself because the government
[50:19] guarantees it to go into economics of it if you're
[50:21] interested. But in any case, I thought was
[50:23] very interesting. There are also interpretations
[50:25] of how Dorothy, the naive, young and simple girl represents the
[50:29] American people, right. And, and in the there was there
[50:34] was apparently musical 1902 musical version of Visit of Oz,
[50:38] which was written by Bomb and that was an adult audience and
[50:41] that had numerous explicit references to contemporary
[50:43] politics, including Theodore Roosevelt over at that point of
[50:48] time. So they were literally making
[50:50] political references. Whether it had to do with the
[50:52] monetary policy or not is still debatable, but the author did
[50:56] have some kind of political commentary in mind when when
[51:00] this text was being written. Nice.
[51:02] Wonderful. Wizard of Oz.
[51:04] Is supposed one of the interpretations is the 19th
[51:07] century debate regarding monetary policy.
[51:10] Oh, very nice, very nice. Oh nice, no, fantastic question.
[51:14] I have somewhat similar. No, nothing.
[51:17] Absolutely nothing similar, except for the part that we were
[51:19] talking about movies. So X started as a child actor in
[51:24] the early 1980s, acting in movies like Kamjoor, Beitabh and
[51:28] Takhir. As an adult, X acted in movies
[51:32] like Jani Dushman, Kash AAP Hamare Hote Love in Nepal,
[51:36] though that's limiting his feature film career.
[51:39] X has however appeared in 50 plus short films and music
[51:42] videos. Who am I talking about?
[51:44] Who's X? No idea.
[51:46] I don't know why Dilaar Mehndi gave to my first name.
[51:48] No, no, no. It's just that.
[51:50] Last thing you said was music. Videos, you are closer than you.
[51:54] Think when you said dilaar mehndi but you are still called
[51:57] the time frame again OK. A child actor in the. 1980s
[52:00] Kanchor beta AB takdir as an adult actor in feature films
[52:04] like Jani Dushman, Kashyap Hamare Hote love in Nepal Sonu
[52:09] Nigam Sonu Nigam love in. Nepal Jaaneshwar Sonu Nigam.
[52:11] Sonu Nigam. Yeah, yeah.
[52:13] Very good, very nice. Yeah, so I honestly did not know
[52:16] his that he act when always as a child actor.
[52:19] I was hoping to trip you up with that.
[52:20] But yeah, very well. Correct.
[52:22] So Sonu Nigam, the man basically, you know, he's like
[52:26] the Chuck Norris of Indian singing.
[52:29] This is just a. Shout out to my man Chuck Norris
[52:33] recently passed. Yeah, he passed.
[52:34] He passed in peace. No, but The thing is, you know.
[52:37] You have all these Chuck Norris jokes, right?
[52:40] Chuck Norris doesn't do this. That does this to him.
[52:43] That kind of format of jokes. Auto tune tunes people's voices
[52:47] or pitch corrects people's voices.
[52:49] Sonu Nigam's voice will pitch correct, auto tune.
[52:52] The man can never go out of tune or out of pitch.
[52:54] I mean, the key has one of the most stable voices I've ever
[52:57] heard. So Sonu Nigam His acting peaked
[53:01] briefly in 2002 2004 but yielded zero hits and that led him to
[53:07] return full time to singing where he won national awards in
[53:10] a pub Mishri post 2016, he has stuck to music videos, guest
[53:13] song appearances and shorts No feature fibs.
[53:16] Overall, his acting output totals around 7 to 810 feature
[53:20] credits mostly unsuccessful and around 2000 plus songs across
[53:24] languages. Yep, I.
[53:26] Think there's a pretty interesting history of, of
[53:30] singers trying to and very objectively a good looking guy
[53:34] trying to make it into the acting space and being
[53:37] unsuccessful at it for the most part.
[53:39] Yeah. So I'm a voice of an Angel.
[53:41] Absolutely. And Speaking of Chuck Norris,
[53:44] the best Chuck Norris reaction or homage or whatever paying
[53:49] tribute to him after his passing was Chuck Norris passed away six
[53:54] months ago. Death only worked up the courage
[53:57] now to tell him. But she was in his 80s.
[54:01] I feel so old. 86 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[54:04] Well. OK.
[54:06] I think that all that's all the time we have for our regular
[54:08] round of quizzing. So let's get to the
[54:10] housekeeping. So the first piece of
[54:11] housekeeping that we have is the audience question that I am
[54:14] asked in the beginning of the episode which was connect India,
[54:19] the Republic of Congo and Bahrain.
[54:21] And this is a pseudo exhaustive list public of Congo.
[54:24] Bahrain, India, countries that have done or demonetization.
[54:30] No, no, no. There are, that's a much bigger
[54:32] list. OK, I mentioned that it's a
[54:35] pseudo exhaustive list because if you're very strict with your
[54:37] definition, you would get only these three.
[54:40] But if you relax the definition or if you relax that connect a
[54:42] little bit, there are two more countries which can be added to
[54:45] the list, which are South Korea and North Korea.
[54:47] What's Bahrain doing in all of? This, it's an interesting one,
[54:51] yeah. And again I was thinking firstly
[54:52] I was thinking partition, but that's not a very so many
[54:56] countries in the world have been divided up so there can be it.
[55:00] No, absolutely no idea. Let's just say they all.
[55:04] Share a particular milestone a particular a milestone.
[55:10] Now that they share a milestone, they share a particular
[55:14] milestone. I think you're.
[55:15] Estimating how helpful that hint is, because it's absolutely no
[55:19] help. Because there are no other clues
[55:22] I can give you but what I can tell you the answer.
[55:24] The answer is that India and the Republic of Congo and Bahrain
[55:28] are the only three countries which achieved independence from
[55:32] colonial powers on August 15th. Oh, what?
[55:36] That's insane. Oh, that's good.
[55:38] Yes, if you. Consider the fact that they got
[55:42] they were liberated from an occupying force.
[55:44] Then South Korea and North Korea also fit the bill because August
[55:48] 15th is when they were liberated from Japan.
[55:50] So that's also there. But strictly that's not
[55:53] considered independence because it's a short occupation and not
[55:55] a colonic. Also, by strict definition,
[55:58] countries which achieved independence on August 15th, you
[56:01] have India, the Republic of Congo and Bahrain.
[56:04] Now those of you who are listening to this podcast and
[56:09] who are from the Middle East would be like Philip, you grew
[56:12] up in Bahrain. Bahrain doesn't send a pre
[56:14] celebrated independence on August 15th.
[56:17] It celebrates national day on December 16th, right?
[56:19] It's something that you taught, yes.
[56:20] So Bahrain declared independence from the UK protected status on
[56:25] August 15th 1971 following AUN survey confirming self
[56:30] determination. A friendship treaty was signed
[56:33] but celebrations occur in December.
[56:36] The country does not observe or celebrate August 15th as the
[56:40] Independence Day. It instead marks National Day on
[56:45] December 16th, commemorating the accession of Srikh ASA bin
[56:50] Salman Al Khalifa. In 1961, he was the person who
[56:53] built the nation and in 1971, December 16th was also the date
[56:58] when the Constitution was ratified under his rule.
[57:01] So they do celebrate it on December 16th.
[57:03] But technically they they did get full independence of the
[57:06] decade, independence from the UK in on August 15th, 1971.
[57:12] Similarly the Republic of Congo from France in on August 15th,
[57:15] 1960 and India from the British in 1947.
[57:20] That's the connect. Now coming to the second
[57:24] audience question that I put to the audience there is that Robin
[57:28] Williams was also a a gamer. He was a big gamer and he named
[57:32] one of his kids after a very very famous video game
[57:35] character. So which video game character it
[57:38] is needed he name his daughter after?
[57:40] Is it Zelda? Is it?
[57:41] Peach it is. Zelda it is.
[57:44] Zelda yes, he did name his daughter Zelda.
[57:47] And so now Aditya, you it's your turn to give the audience your
[57:51] audience question. Pop Duh.
[57:53] OK as the. One or two people who did
[57:55] message. Me asking me what the hell I'm
[57:57] talking about when I say part. Duh.
[58:00] I'm saying stop it. Stop it.
[58:01] It's nobody. Nobody wants it.
[58:03] Nobody. Likes it.
[58:03] It's a stupid name, Vineet. Stop it.
[58:06] Shut up. No.
[58:07] It's. Basically part Dukes.
[58:09] If you want to pronounce it DEUX, I've been fighting a
[58:11] battle with you. Very passive aggressively on
[58:14] Instagram, because let's say if you go to the posts of the
[58:18] episode, I put my question as audience question and then I put
[58:22] the question that you ask as not the audience question.
[58:26] I reject your reality and substitute my own.
[58:29] That's fair. That's fair.
[58:30] All right, so just do a piece, Vineet.
[58:32] The junior audience question is this is a particular stub that
[58:39] has to do with the preview for a film, and this review was not
[58:43] held. So I'm going to be posting the
[58:44] picture. It has some details in it as
[58:46] clues so you can go and try to figure it out.
[58:48] I'm going to give one clue right now.
[58:49] It's a Stanley Kubrick film. Alright, so there was a preview,
[58:52] a special review for a Stanley Kubrick film and it was never
[58:56] held and in and handwriting rather is handwritten what the
[59:00] reason was. So I'm going to be blanking out
[59:02] both the name of the film and the reason.
[59:04] The person who gets both of those right first will get a
[59:08] shout out in the next episode. So far it has been Avishkar who
[59:11] has gotten it twice and I'm forgetting, I'm so sorry, I'm
[59:14] forgetting in the name of another person who has gotten it
[59:15] once. So yes, go ahead and tell us,
[59:19] what do you think the answer is? Which movie was this a preview
[59:23] for by Stanley Kubrick, and why was it not held?
[59:29] Why was it postponed, Which is handwritten at the bottom of
[59:32] this particular piece of paper? That would have admitted one
[59:35] person into the preview. All right, that's the audience
[59:38] question, Junior. So yes, that was the audience.
[59:41] Question part What's your pop culture recommendation for this
[59:44] week? The Oscar season just went.
[59:46] By so I'm going to recommend some of the Oscar films.
[59:48] I've recommended some in the past.
[59:49] I'm just going to do a quick shout out to the ones that I
[59:51] loved. 1 Battle after another, phenomenal.
[59:54] Sinners, just mind blowing. Begonia, Oh so good and Marty
[59:58] Supreme. Loved all of these films.
[1:00:00] I missed a few. The ones that I did not care too
[1:00:02] much for Hamlet either. Jesse Buckley was amazing.
[1:00:05] Didn't care too much for the movie though.
[1:00:07] Frankenstein again. I think I was a little bored.
[1:00:09] Fun. Also a little bored, a little
[1:00:11] too long a film for me. So these are films that I didn't
[1:00:14] like as much. There was also a Film Festival
[1:00:16] happening in Mumbai. I managed to catch a very nice
[1:00:19] film which had been waiting to watch for a very long time.
[1:00:22] Is this thing on? This is written by Will Arnett
[1:00:26] and I think Bradley Cooper has also written it and he has
[1:00:29] directed it. Bradley Cooper features in it.
[1:00:31] Will Arnett is a star and it opposite Will Arnett is Laura
[1:00:34] Dunn. Both of them, the leads, both of
[1:00:36] them phenomenal. It's a relationship drama.
[1:00:38] Will Arnett also plays somebody who is stepping into the world
[1:00:41] of stand up comedy. Won't tell you too much about
[1:00:44] it. Bradley Cooper, I think is a
[1:00:46] very competent director. I think he has found his footing
[1:00:48] as a director way more than he did as an actor.
[1:00:50] So Will, hats off to him, though he does do a very fun role in
[1:00:53] this movie. So yeah, this, the other films
[1:00:56] that I would recommend is this Thing on and the other Oscar
[1:00:58] nominate films that I said what I want to recommend is the
[1:01:01] pitch. Which I believe Aditya has
[1:01:02] already recommended in the past. I got to it recently and I
[1:01:06] binged it even though I had actually watched one episode.
[1:01:09] And then because it was coming out weekly, I got bored and
[1:01:12] then, you know, my shorter tradition span and ADHD kicked
[1:01:15] in. But I did get to it and I
[1:01:16] watched it at a stretch and I really, really enjoyed it.
[1:01:19] Now that season 2 is out, I'm waiting for all the episodes to
[1:01:22] air before I go ahead and pinch it.
[1:01:24] So that's that. And that's all the time we have
[1:01:27] for today's episode. Thank you all for tuning in.
[1:01:29] We hope you enjoyed the show and hopefully you learned something
[1:01:33] new. Whichever broadcast platform or
[1:01:35] YouTube or any video from that you're listening to us on,
[1:01:38] please like, share, subscribe and rate US15 stars.
[1:01:42] It helps us. It helps the show and helps us
[1:01:45] reach out to more people. If you want any questions asked
[1:01:49] on the show, please send us those questions at
[1:01:51] areyouquizzingme@gmail.com with the name of the quiz master in
[1:01:54] the subject line. We also have a subreddit R slash
[1:01:57] are you quizzing me? Where the fans of the show
[1:01:59] congregate. We also have very active in the
[1:02:02] Instagram profile where we post questions or quizzes every
[1:02:06] Sunday. Plus there's a lot of other
[1:02:09] content on it as well, especially Aditya's very clever
[1:02:12] spoiler non spoiler posts, which he does a fantastic bang up job
[1:02:17] off. So that's it and that's it.
[1:02:20] That's all the housekeeping that we have for today's.
[1:02:22] Hopefully we'll see you next week.
[1:02:25] And that's, this is me signing off and leaving Aditya to go
[1:02:30] ahead with his regular sign off. I'm not appropriating that
[1:02:35] because I don't want to hear any weird things that he comes up
[1:02:38] with, you know, just to sign off because he has nothing else to
[1:02:40] say. As for my sign off, it's.
[1:02:42] Going to be interesting. It's going to be see you guys
[1:02:50] next week. You remember Twinkle twinkle.
[1:03:05] Twinkle, twinkle.

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