# Episode 066 - Indian Railways, Ramadan & French Literature

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 29 Apr 2024, 48 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/86071601/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-3-29%2F6e37979a-89b3-2c6b-61b6-cb5bb6c953ce.mp3

Do you know what major change was brought to the Indian Railways by minister Madhu Dandavate? Do you know which is the only place in the world where the Ramadan fast is broken at two different times on the same day? Do you know which famous character was inspired by the fictionalized life of Charles de Batz de Castelmore? Tune in 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

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to R U Quizzing Me. I
[0:03] am Vineet Nair with my co -host Aditya Kashyap. This
[0:06] is a quizzing trivia podcast show. Join
[0:09] us as we dive deep into history, science, pop
[0:12] culture and so much more. Let's
[0:15] get quizzing. And we are back for episode
[0:19] number 66 of R U Quizzing Me, your favorite trivia
[0:23] and quizzing podcast show. Tia
[0:25] and I are back for another round of quizzing and let's
[0:29] start off today's episode with the audience question
[0:32] which I will answer at the end of the episode. The
[0:36] audience question for today is, the logo of this
[0:40] sports team features a rotating Sudarshanachakra
[0:43] which is the discoyed weapon of Lord Vishnu from
[0:47] Hindu mythology. The logo shows the
[0:50] Sudarshanachakra leaving behind trails of orange and
[0:53] green colors that represent the Indian national flag.
[0:57] The anglicized version of the
[0:59] Sudarshanachakra, Razors, was initially considered as the
[1:03] team name before the current name was chosen.
[1:06] Which team am I talking about? I
[1:09] will answer this question at the end of today's
[1:12] episode. We now move on to the not so
[1:15] serious portion of our podcast where every week
[1:18] Aditya asks a question that's quite silly and
[1:22] answers it with an even sillier answer at the
[1:24] beginning of the next episode. So
[1:25] Aditya, what was your question from the end of
[1:27] last week's episode and what answer have you cooked
[1:30] up for us? Alright, so my question from last
[1:33] week was that if a grotesque and please go
[1:38] listen to last week's episode to understand the
[1:40] context, it's a great question. But
[1:43] if a grotesque which usually has scary looking
[1:50] features or animal or character in place had an
[1:54] Indian character, perhaps from Indian movies, which
[1:58] Indian character would be the most apt to be used
[2:01] as a grotesque on a building? And
[2:04] here my answer would be directed towards actually
[2:09] Tamil cinema. And I don't know, Vinit, if
[2:12] you have seen this movie, you are more well versed
[2:15] in South Indian films than I am. Have
[2:17] you watched Sai Pallavi's film about a legal drama
[2:23] that was released in 2022? I
[2:26] know the movie you're talking about, but no, I
[2:28] have not watched it. Gargi, I think is the name of
[2:30] the movie, right? There we go. The
[2:33] name of the movie is Gargi, which is shot for
[2:35] Gargoyal. Oh, God! Oh,
[2:39] I did not know where you were going there. I
[2:41] thought there must be some horrible character in that
[2:43] movie who you're going to do this. You're
[2:46] going to get hate mail for this. You're
[2:47] absolutely going to get hate mail for this. No,
[2:50] Sai Pallavi is obviously a great actor and she's done
[2:54] some great films and Gargi is one of them. But
[2:56] also it would be a great cute little reference to
[2:58] call a Gargoyal a Gargi. I think that that should
[3:01] become a gnarl. All Gargoyals should be called.
[3:04] Let's not, let's not do that.
[3:06] Let's just not do that. Moving
[3:09] on as quickly as possible from that disaster. Let's
[3:12] go on with the regular round of quizzing for
[3:14] today. Aditya, why don't you start us off
[3:16] with your question? All right. So
[3:18] at this point, I have to acknowledge that my job was
[3:22] made easier this week. Thanks
[3:24] to Ayush. So Ayush reached out to us
[3:27] over email and has given me some good questions to
[3:31] ask. Thank you Ayush and always a
[3:34] shout out to any listener who feels like they could
[3:37] want to contribute a question. Feel
[3:39] free to email us and tag either me or Vinith in the
[3:42] subject line and we will ask those questions in an
[3:45] upcoming episode hopefully. So
[3:46] today's episode features questions from Ayush. All
[3:51] right. The first question that Ayush,
[3:52] since he sent multiple questions, I'll take the
[3:54] best out of the three he sent to begin has to do
[3:58] with Indian politics and specifically a member of
[4:03] parliament. The name of this member of
[4:05] parliament is Maulana Badruddin Ajmal. So
[4:09] Mr. Ajmal in 2009, which was an
[4:14] election year in 2009 was awarded a seat in
[4:19] parliament, the 54 year old from Assam was aghast about
[4:25] the division number that was allotted to him. He
[4:29] immediately asked the Lok Sabha secretary to change
[4:31] the number. He was willing to accept even
[4:34] the unlucky 13. Eventually, they changed this number
[4:39] entirely and today this number is no longer
[4:41] allotted. What number was this? Which
[4:45] year was this again? 2009. And he was allotted a
[4:50] number. Is it what kind of number is
[4:54] it like an ID number or a seat number? What
[4:56] number was he allotted? Okay.
[4:58] So a division number is the number in context here.
[5:02] Okay. So it's basically allotted
[5:04] to each member in Lok Sabha or Rajasabha for
[5:06] recording their vote. Okay. Yeah. Whenever
[5:10] they're voting in Lok Sabha or Rajasabha, they are
[5:13] given a number that's called a division number.
[5:17] Okay. It doesn't like the Lok
[5:19] Sabha numbers don't go above 660, 600. Otherwise,
[5:23] I would have thought of 666, the mark of the devil
[5:27] or something like that. Is it because it was some
[5:29] kind of holy number that he did not want to use
[5:33] for politics or something like that? So
[5:36] Maulana Badruddin Rajmal, I'm assuming Muslim person
[5:40] and the most common holy number would be 786. Yeah.
[5:45] So then that's quite high. Yeah.
[5:48] Yeah. Again, and also to clarify, he
[5:52] was insulted at the number. So
[5:55] not that he felt that was okay. We
[6:00] certainly just not that, but he was insulted at
[6:03] that number. He was insulted by the number.
[6:06] Okay. There is a piece of trivia
[6:09] from the 50s about parliament. And
[6:12] I'm guessing this is a kind of parallel to that.
[6:15] So I'm going to try and guess
[6:16] if it's the same thing. Is it 420? Charsobees?
[6:21] It is 420. It was division number 420. He
[6:25] was a lot to do him and he thought that it was
[6:28] just frankly unacceptable. So
[6:30] he really asked for any other number except 420.
[6:35] Eventually he was allotted 419A. Lok
[6:38] Sabha is now abolished the number 420. So
[6:41] nobody's given him division number 420 anymore. It's
[6:44] everybody badly now only gets 419A. Okay.
[6:48] So for context to our listeners who may be
[6:51] confusing 420 for other reasons, if you are in
[6:54] India, 420 stands for section 420 of the
[6:58] erstwhile Indian Penal Code, which has now been
[7:01] replaced. So the erstwhile Indian Penal
[7:04] Code had section 420 as the section for cheating,
[7:07] fraud. So in the general parlance in
[7:11] India, saying somebody is a 420 or Charsobees as it's
[7:15] called in Hindi is like, is it going to calling
[7:17] them a fraud? If you're somebody listening
[7:19] outside of India, 420 has a completely different
[7:22] meaning. It's a connotation from
[7:25] marijuana. Now the piece of context that
[7:28] kind of pointed me towards this was, I know a piece
[7:30] of trivia from the 1950s where after the release of
[7:35] the movie Shree Charsobees, that is Shree 420,
[7:39] parliamentarians insisted that their salary be
[7:43] increased, yearly salary be increased by 1 rupee
[7:46] because till then their salary amount was 420. But
[7:51] after the movie came out and parliamentarians
[7:54] realized, okay, their amount of money is 420. They
[7:57] didn't want that connotation after that movie came out.
[8:00] They made a big fuss and had
[8:02] their salaries increased by 1 rupee. You
[8:06] know, I'm kind of impressed that they only short for a
[8:08] rupee. Yeah, rupee went a long way in
[8:11] those days. Fair enough. Before
[8:13] the devaluation, I think the rupee was on par with
[8:16] the pound and the dollar. So
[8:18] you could have literally like 1 rupee was equivalent
[8:21] to a dollar or a pound, if I remember correctly.
[8:24] Immediately after independence, it was
[8:25] later that the rupee devalued quite a bit. Yep.
[8:29] So you got that very quickly. 420 was the number
[8:34] in question and that question was Kertzi Ayush,
[8:39] who reached out to us with a bunch of questions
[8:41] actually. So thank you, Ayush. So
[8:44] Ayush did the same thing for me as well. So
[8:47] he had sent me a couple of questions. I
[8:49] have modified the questions a little bit. My
[8:51] apologies, Ayush, but I thought I could kind of
[8:54] modify the question a little bit to make it a
[8:56] little challenging for Aditya. So
[8:58] the next question is also one that is sent by Ayush.
[9:02] So in 1925 or 1920, depending
[9:06] upon who you ask, M .N. Roy
[9:09] along with a few others founded something which
[9:12] still exists today, though it has been banned at
[9:15] least three times that I know of. However,
[9:18] M .N. Roy first founded something
[9:21] similar, not in India, but in Mexico in 1917, and
[9:26] that existed till 1981. So what is it that M .N. Roy
[9:31] founded in Mexico and then three years later in India?
[9:35] Three years or eight years
[9:36] depending upon who you ask. Can
[9:38] you give me those years again? So
[9:40] in 1925 or 1920, again it changes depending upon your
[9:44] viewpoint and who you ask, M .N. Roy,
[9:47] along with a few others, founded something which
[9:50] still exists today in India, although it's been
[9:52] banned at least three times that I know of. However,
[9:56] M .N. Roy had first founded something
[9:58] similar, not in India, but in Mexico in 1917, which
[10:04] existed till 1981. So what did M .N. Roy
[10:07] found in Mexico and then three years or again eight
[10:10] years depending upon how you look at it later in
[10:13] India? The word found because initially
[10:16] I was thinking it could be some sort of a drug or a
[10:19] medicine, but you're saying the word found, so I'm
[10:21] assuming it's a club. I think people would be
[10:24] insulted if you called it a club. At
[10:26] least their members would be insulted if you called
[10:28] it a club. Interesting, the members themselves would
[10:30] be insulted. Okay, so then is it some sort
[10:35] of a political party? Okay, very, very close now. Now
[10:38] put two things together. The
[10:40] time period and political party. 1920s political party
[10:45] still exists today. Still exists today? In
[10:50] India. And in Mexico it existed till
[10:53] 1981. Yeah, Mexico and India. 1920s I
[10:58] remember was HSRA, but obviously that doesn't exist
[11:02] anymore. Okay, put the things that you
[11:05] have already kind of worked out together. You've
[11:08] worked out it's a political party. I'm
[11:11] giving you the time period of its founding which was
[11:13] in the, at least 1917 in Mexico and 1920 -25 in
[11:18] India. I also mentioned that they've
[11:21] been banned a couple of times in India. Put
[11:24] all these together and then see if it's possible for
[11:28] you to narrow down to the answer. Three
[11:31] times have been banned in India. Yeah,
[11:34] three times out of which one time it was a state
[11:37] ban not an all India ban. Okay,
[11:40] is it some communist party? Ding,
[11:44] ding, ding. That's the right answer. It's
[11:48] the communist party of India. Yes,
[11:50] so MN Roy was the founder, was one of the founders of
[11:54] the communist party of India. He
[11:56] had also founded the Mexican Communist Party in
[11:59] 1917. Wow, how did that happen? Yes,
[12:03] so that's the story now. Ayush
[12:04] has given me the complete history for this. I'm
[12:05] just going to paraphrase his words on this. So
[12:07] MN Roy, which stands for Manabendranath Roy, he was
[12:11] actually born as Narendra Nath Phattacharya, but
[12:14] changed his name to MN Roy. He
[12:17] was a 20th century Indian revolutionary philosopher,
[12:20] radical activist and political theorist. He
[12:23] was the founder of the Mexican Communist Party and
[12:26] the Communist Party of India, Tashkin Group. In
[12:30] 1915, amid the onset of World War I, he undertook
[12:34] multiple journeys to Indonesia aided by German
[12:37] connections to acquire weapons for a plot against
[12:40] British rule. He was also an ardent
[12:43] communist. He then went to the US, where
[12:45] his arrival in drew intense scrutiny from British
[12:49] intelligence, leading to a newspaper report in San
[12:52] Francisco, which reads, and this is an amazing
[12:55] headline, mysterious alien reaches America, famous
[13:00] Brahmin revolutionary or dangerous German spy. He
[13:05] then fled to Palo Alto, California, where he assumed
[13:09] a new identity, changing his name from Narendra Nath
[13:14] Phattacharya then to Manabendranath Roy. And
[13:16] during his, during the US involvement in World War I,
[13:21] because of his anti -colonial stance, he faced
[13:23] arrest. He then skipped bail, fled to
[13:26] Mexico and founded the Mexican Communist Party
[13:30] there. His involvement continued as he
[13:32] played a pivotal role in founding the Communist Party
[13:35] of India in 1920, collaborating with six other
[13:37] leaders in Tashkent. So it was founded in Tashkent
[13:40] in 1920, but the charter was only written in 1925.
[13:44] So there are two viewpoints
[13:45] depending upon who you ask, as to when the party was
[13:48] actually founded. In between, he also had many
[13:51] other adventures. He went to Russia. He
[13:53] was close to Lenin. But then I think he had a
[13:56] falling out with Stalin and then he had to flee
[13:58] Russia, came back to India. Again,
[14:02] was arrested multiple times. He
[14:03] was active in the movement. He
[14:05] was a fan of Subhash Chandra Bose. And
[14:08] then later on in his life, he moved away a little bit
[14:10] from communism and more towards humanism. He
[14:14] died in 1954. Fascinating. Hello. Interesting.
[14:19] And I guess started the long lasting culture of
[14:23] Indians going to Palo Alto. Yes,
[14:28] yeah. I think that's one. He
[14:30] also married an American woman, if I'm not mistaken,
[14:32] who changed her name to Shanti Devi. Okay,
[14:36] interesting. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yes,
[14:40] very cool. So again, Ayush, thank you so
[14:42] much for this question. We have other questions, which
[14:45] I will pepper throughout the next few episodes, or
[14:47] maybe even in this one, who knows. So
[14:50] let's move on to Aditya. What's
[14:51] your question? What's your next question?
[14:54] Likewise. So I will actually use one
[14:58] of my own questions before I come back to another one
[15:00] of Ayush's questions in this episode itself. So
[15:04] this one is a little piece of trivia that I came
[15:09] across recently. And I thought it was absolutely
[15:11] hilarious and something that everybody should know of if
[15:16] they don't already. So there is a website that
[15:20] was launched in 2020. Track machines that were not
[15:26] working in a specific context. This
[15:29] was created by a 24 year old software engineer and
[15:33] aimed to end such incidents once and for all. It
[15:38] was initially only for the United States, but
[15:40] eventually I think it catered to across the
[15:44] world. What website was this and what
[15:47] were they tracking? So you want the name of the
[15:49] website? Well, you can tell me what they
[15:51] were tracking and I'll take that also. Given
[15:54] the year and you said machines not working, I'm
[16:00] not sure if this fits in the question, but what came
[16:05] to mind is that is this a website that tracks AI that
[16:09] is not working as it's supposed to and he's trying
[16:12] to prevent like a Skynet like evolution of, you
[16:16] know, saw AI going wild and creating a post
[16:20] -apocalyptic world where John Connor will arise and send
[16:23] a Terminator back in time. Oh,
[16:25] this is you're making it a lot more important than it
[16:31] actually is. Okay, no, no. Okay,
[16:36] no, but it would have been cool if that was the
[16:37] answer, but no, okay. Machines
[16:40] not working in a certain context. Is
[16:42] this very serious or a silly kind of context?
[16:46] Extremely silly, extremely silly, but
[16:48] I would argue in defense of this software engineer
[16:51] that something I care about too. So
[16:53] silly yet important. Wow, that's a very narrow
[16:58] definition. He's got a tracker for specific
[17:02] instances of this, which means that whatever is
[17:06] happening, there would have to be some kind of new
[17:08] source for him to gather this information, right, for
[17:12] him to get the data. Like if it was kind of
[17:14] anecdotal stuff that happens to people like them losing
[17:17] their keys or their phone not working or something
[17:20] like that, then that would be very difficult for him
[17:23] to get any kind of accurate data. But
[17:25] since you're saying that he's tracking this on a
[17:27] website, it has to be newsworthy, am I right? I
[17:30] mean, like there'll be some kind of article or
[17:31] something in that context. There
[17:33] have been multiple lovely tweets. Okay,
[17:38] so he's trolling from Twitter so that it could
[17:40] be anything. So he hasn't tweeted about it
[17:43] as much as other people have, I guess. Yeah,
[17:46] no, so I'm guessing the website trolls Twitter to
[17:48] get the information. I'll tell you how this thing
[17:52] works. So maybe that helps you answer
[17:55] this question. Zaid, who is the software
[17:59] engineer who came up with this, he created a bot
[18:02] that attempts to order a specific thing every 30
[18:08] minutes. If the bot successfully adds
[18:12] the item to the checkout, it knows that this machine
[18:16] is working. If it isn't able to add the
[18:19] item, it knows that the machine is broken. And
[18:22] that's how it keeps track of which machines are
[18:24] working or which machines are broken across the
[18:26] country, across United States of America. The
[18:29] bot is able to do it online, then it's not like
[18:32] a a vending machine or something like that. It
[18:34] has to be something that's online. Amazon
[18:37] servers? It is also in person, but
[18:41] online as well. Okay, I'm just lost. Is
[18:46] it like the Macrib or Pumpkin Spiced Latte or
[18:49] something like that? Oh, you're very close. You're
[18:51] very, very close, especially with the first. The
[18:55] Macrib. Yeah, that's the thing they keep.
[18:59] Wait, wasn't there some kind of
[19:01] dip that McDonald's was famous for? I'm
[19:05] thinking of going cold looking at your face. No,
[19:08] so it's not that. McDonald's
[19:10] was where it's at, but not the Macrib. It
[19:16] tries to add something to the cart and if it's
[19:18] possible, it's working. Are these the self -order kiosks
[19:22] at McDonald's? Is he tracking whether they
[19:26] are working? No, because if you were to
[19:29] order online, you can't do it on the kiosk. Yeah.
[19:33] The condition is what really throws me off
[19:35] because if he's able to add it to cart, then the
[19:38] machine is working. But then that's the specific
[19:41] item on the menu. But yeah, but whatever item it
[19:47] is, whatever item it is, if he's able to add it,
[19:49] it's working. It's very shimmy, so being
[19:53] broken all the time. Is it the slushy machine? Yes,
[19:56] it is the softy. Oh, wait, what? It's
[20:02] called macbroken .com and he basically tracks all of the
[20:07] ice cream -winning machines across the locations in the
[20:11] United States of America that are working or not
[20:13] working currently by just trying to place an order
[20:15] online. So if it manages to place it,
[20:17] that means the machine is working. Interestingly
[20:19] enough, it is such a trope that there have been so
[20:21] many funny tweets that I'm just going to tell you a
[20:24] few of them. McDonald's itself tweeted one thing
[20:27] back in 2020 itself and we have a joke about a soft
[20:32] serve machine, but we're worried it won't work.
[20:36] That's a rare humor. I
[20:38] think Wendy's had a really funny one. So
[20:40] McDonald's had tweeted something along the lines
[20:42] of, if you were the person who ran the McDonald's
[20:45] account for a day, what would you tweet? And
[20:47] Wendy's replied to that tweet by saying, where the
[20:51] things that should be fresh are frozen and the things
[20:54] that should be frozen are out of order. Oh,
[20:59] that was savage. That was savage. Interestingly
[21:03] enough, a very stupid reason as to why they're
[21:07] broken so often. There's a company called Taylor
[21:10] Company, which manufactures ice cream machines and for
[21:13] the longest time, they have been the exclusive provider
[21:16] for ice cream machines for McDonald's. So
[21:18] contractually obligated to buy those machines and they
[21:22] have a very long apparently cleaning cycle. So
[21:25] they're supposed to be done overnight whenever those
[21:27] outlets are not in operation, but if something
[21:31] goes wrong, it restarted and that takes a couple of
[21:34] hours again. So very often when they tell
[21:37] you that the machine isn't working, it's because it's
[21:38] been cleaned and the cleaning process is taken
[21:42] quite well. And yeah, because of this
[21:45] monopoly that Taylor Company had over ice cream machines
[21:48] and McDonald's, we so often don't get a McFlurry
[21:52] because the machine isn't working. And
[21:55] that's the little story behind McBroken .com. First
[21:59] of all, I find it, I don't know. I
[22:02] don't know. Weird is the right word. Somebody
[22:03] was so invested in a McFlurry that he made an
[22:07] entire website to track if the machines are working or
[22:09] not. And second, what does it say
[22:11] about me that in my entire life, even though I've been
[22:13] to McDonald's countless times, both here and in
[22:16] the Middle East, I have never ever ordered one of
[22:18] their softies and McFlurries. Oh,
[22:21] they're actually not bad. You
[22:22] should try it out. And I say this knowing fully
[22:26] well that I'm endorsing a company who doesn't need
[22:29] any endorsement. Okay, moving on. My
[22:33] next question is based in history a little bit.
[22:38] Charles de Bats de Castelmore. Let
[22:40] me repeat the name for you again. Charles
[22:42] de Bats de Castelmore was born at Château de
[22:46] Castelmore near Lupiac in southwestern France. He
[22:51] died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco
[22:54] -Dutch War. Like many of his ilk, he would
[22:58] have remained a tiny footnote in history if not
[23:01] for a fictionalised account of his life by Gatien de
[23:06] Coutil des Sandras, which in turn formed the basis
[23:11] for a trilogy of books in which he was one of the
[23:14] leading characters. He has been portrayed on film
[23:17] and television in excess of 40 times by many celebrated
[23:22] actors, including Douglas Fairbanks, Gene Kelly, Chris
[23:27] O'Donnell and Gabriel Byrne. How
[23:31] do we better know Charles de Bats de Castelmore? Is
[23:35] it the mask of Zorro? No, good guess but no. Mask
[23:41] of Zorro would have been Mexico, Mexico to say it
[23:45] right. I'm not making fun, it's
[23:46] actually how it's pronounced. Like
[23:50] how you got defensive. Okay,
[23:54] so not the mask of Zorro. French
[23:58] character then, yeah Castelmore in near Lupiac
[24:03] in southwestern France and he died in the Franco
[24:06] -Dutch War. I'm trying to think of iconic
[24:09] French characters. I'll just repeat one portion of
[24:15] the question again for you. Like
[24:16] many of his ilk, he would have remained a tiny
[24:19] footnote in history if not for a fictionalised account
[24:23] of his life by Gattian de Cortile de Sandras, which
[24:29] in turn formed the basis for a trilogy of books in
[24:34] which he was the leading character or one of the
[24:37] leading characters. Honestly, the first French character
[24:40] that comes to mind is always Inspector Cluzo, I
[24:44] don't think at all. This is not in yes, not the
[24:46] Pink Panther, no. And trilogy of books. Yes,
[24:52] it's a trilogy. No, I think I need some sort
[24:54] of hint. There are four main characters in
[25:00] the books out of which this guy is one. There
[25:05] are four main characters. That
[25:07] does not help me at all. I
[25:14] guarantee you, you know this book. Gen
[25:17] Z, I don't expect them to know about it, but they
[25:21] may know it from movies. So
[25:22] that's also possible. But you and I are generation,
[25:26] we definitely know it. Like this was one of the books
[25:29] that you know, people always said that you have
[25:31] to read. Like when you're in school and
[25:33] what not, there are certain books that they keep
[25:35] telling you you have to read. Only
[25:37] when I remember that would fit. The
[25:41] description is the little prince, but obviously little
[25:43] prince does not have high school. No,
[25:49] I am quite. Okay, I'll give you a clue. I'll
[25:51] give you a clue. I don't know how much of a
[25:53] clue this is going to be. But
[25:55] the books were actually co -written. So
[26:00] the trilogy of books we're talking about were actually
[26:02] co -written by two authors, right? Both
[26:04] of them contributed to the writing. However,
[26:08] to someone like you or me, or if you went to buy the
[26:12] book of the shelves, you would find only the name
[26:15] of one of the authors. While
[26:17] the other author, whose name I'm going to tell you
[26:20] is Auguste McQuitt or McQui, his name is almost
[26:24] always left out. So what is the name of the
[26:27] first author? I haven't told you the name
[26:29] of the first author. I'm told you the name of the
[26:31] co -writer. If I told you the name of
[26:33] the first author, it would be over, finished, done.
[26:36] Like there would be no question
[26:38] as to which book I'm talking about. It
[26:41] is extremely famous. And you also said you would
[26:45] have been a footnote if not for a fictionalized
[26:47] account. So I'm trying to talk maybe.
[26:50] So I'll go the movie route.
[26:52] Maybe that'll help you. Okay,
[26:53] so the movies which you may have seen based on
[26:58] this character, there was a 1993 Disney movie which
[27:03] featured Charlie Sheen, Keefer Sutherland, Oliver
[27:06] Platt and Chris O'Donnell. Then
[27:08] there was a 2011 movie which featured Luke Evans,
[27:13] Ray Stevenson, Mila Jovic. Okay.
[27:17] Okay. This character also appeared in
[27:20] 98 -99 movie which starred Gabriel Byrne along with
[27:26] Leonardo DiCaprio in his first big role after
[27:30] Titanic. Oh, Gabriel Byrne, the guy from
[27:33] usual suspects. Yes. I don't remember seeing him
[27:38] in a lot of films. This was okay. Let
[27:40] me try working out backwards. After
[27:42] Titanic, this was Leo's first big role. The
[27:46] movie wasn't a big hit, but it was his first big
[27:48] role after Titanic. Okay. So the reason I know that
[27:55] this might be the film and well, tell me if I'm
[27:57] wrong. I think it is Man in the
[28:00] Iron Mask. Yes, the movie is Man in the
[28:02] Iron Mask. Okay. So yeah. The
[28:06] reason I know this is because of a YouTube video.
[28:09] A lot of people might have
[28:10] seen this, the Oris Trailer series. Yeah.
[28:13] Oris Trailer. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[28:15] Yeah. He did one of the Man in the
[28:16] Iron Mask and the joke was, what do you do with
[28:19] the biggest heartthrob that every woman is suing over?
[28:22] Put him in a movie where his
[28:23] face is invisible for half the film. But
[28:27] to be fair, you do see his face as his twin
[28:29] brother. So that's fair enough. Which
[28:34] brings you to the point that I haven't seen the
[28:35] movies. I have no idea what Gabriel
[28:37] Byrne played in that. Okay. But I'm assuming it's some
[28:41] sort of a, because the period film, so some sort
[28:46] of a general or a spy, something like that. No,
[28:49] something a little more common. The
[28:51] name of the first book is universally known. I
[28:55] can tell you that. In the trilogy, the name of
[28:58] the first book is universally known. Like
[29:01] if I just told you right now, you would immediately
[29:03] get to it. You'd be like, oh, yes. And
[29:07] French book, that's what I'm trying to think.
[29:09] Tripping me up. Okay.
[29:11] I'm going to give you one last clue. And
[29:13] then you have to tell me who it is. I'm
[29:15] going to give you one line, one line which has
[29:17] been immortalized from the books and the movies. Yeah.
[29:21] Okay. You ready? Sitting
[29:23] down. Go for it. Bucket
[29:25] up. Yeah. All for one. One
[29:29] for all. Oh, my God. You're
[29:34] telling me Shah Rukh Khan did not come up with this
[29:36] in Chakdeitya? No. Okay. Because
[29:41] it's a trilogy, I'm not so sure because I didn't know
[29:44] that this was a trilogy or if it is the right answer.
[29:46] I'm just going to hazard a
[29:47] guess. Is it the three musketeers?
[29:50] Yes, it is the three musketeers.
[29:52] Who are we talking about then?
[29:54] Who's the character we are
[29:55] talking about? The protagonist, if you could
[29:57] say. The count something. No,
[30:02] no, no. You're thinking of the count of
[30:04] Monte Cristo? Oh, yes, I'm confused. No.
[30:10] Okay. I'll tell you the, I told you
[30:11] there are four major characters, four major
[30:13] protagonists in the movie or in the books. I'll
[30:15] tell you three of them. Tell
[30:16] me the fourth one. So you have Athos, you have
[30:20] Athos, Portos and Aramis. I've
[30:23] not read the books. I have no context to the
[30:25] story. Oh, okay. I'll
[30:28] give you the answer. The answer is Datanian.
[30:31] Datanian. So Datanian, maybe my age
[30:36] is becoming apparent because in my day, everybody like
[30:40] three musketeers was like required reading.
[30:43] Interesting. Yeah, I don't think it was
[30:44] that. It was quite big when I was
[30:47] growing up like three musketeers, the count of
[30:48] Monte Cristo. Alexander Dumas was a, you know, one
[30:52] of the kind of adventure authors that everybody used
[30:55] to read classic, when it comes to classic literature.
[30:57] I did read the count of
[30:58] Monte Cristo. I did not read it. That
[31:00] is my favorite, one of my favorite revenge books of
[31:03] all time, the count of Monte Cristo. So
[31:07] cinematic. So cinematic. Your
[31:10] right. I should say that is the
[31:12] right way to describe it. Yeah.
[31:13] That's the book. So for those who did not
[31:16] know, the three musketeers is a very famous historical
[31:20] novel, adventure novel. It's a swashbuckler, lot of swad
[31:23] play, intrigues, spies and whatnot. And
[31:26] it was written by French author, Alexander Dumas, in
[31:30] collaboration with Auguste Mackwit, who was a ghost
[31:32] writer. So many people would have
[31:36] heard of the three musketeers. Obviously,
[31:37] there have been numerous movies made on it. Right.
[31:40] There is a Disney movie, which I would ask you to
[31:42] watch. It's just silly. And
[31:44] we're not one of the greatest, it's not a good
[31:46] movie, frankly, in my opinion, from the early
[31:49] 90s. Again, on the three musketeers
[31:51] were Chris or Donald played Dardanian. What
[31:57] many people don't know is that the three musketeers,
[31:59] the book was part of a trilogy. And
[32:02] the second in the series was called 20 years after.
[32:05] And the third book in the
[32:06] series was called The Viscont of Braggalone, 10
[32:09] years later. If you've heard of the legend
[32:14] of the man in the iron mask, Alexander Dumas'
[32:17] theory on that is what he put in his novel, The
[32:19] Viscont of Braggalone, 10 years later. And
[32:22] that was loosely used as inspiration for the 1999
[32:24] Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Man in the Iron Mask.
[32:29] Aditya, have you heard of the Man
[32:32] in the Iron Mask? No. So, the Man in the Iron
[32:36] Mask is an enduring mystery. It's
[32:39] still unsolved, though there are many, many theories
[32:41] about it. There was a prisoner in the
[32:46] Bastille who apparently had a mask. It
[32:51] was supposed to be a velvet mask where his face
[32:53] was covered all the time. Alexander
[32:56] Dumas made it an iron mask. So,
[32:59] this prisoner was never allowed to show his face
[33:02] to anyone. We still don't know the
[33:05] identity of this particular prisoner. It's
[33:09] a very, very famous mystery. And
[33:14] one of the theories which is what is seen in both
[33:17] the novel by Alexander Dumas and the Leonardo
[33:20] DiCaprio movie is that this was the twin of the French
[33:27] king or a sibling of the French king and he was
[33:30] imprisoned so that there would be no challenger to
[33:34] the French throne. Interesting.
[33:38] Okay. Now, I feel like I have to
[33:40] watch the movie. Yeah, the movie is bad. Just
[33:42] read the book or even read the Wikipedia page. That's
[33:48] even more interesting. Though
[33:50] there is some fine acting in the movie. The
[33:52] movie is just, it's not a good movie. Okay.
[33:56] Okay. So, that was my question
[33:58] regarding D 'Aptanian. What's yours, Aditya? All
[34:03] right. Fun little piece of trivia. The
[34:07] biggest TIL of the episode actually that the Three
[34:11] Musketeers is part of a trilogy. It's
[34:13] not a standalone book. Yes. Okay. The
[34:16] next question is somewhat, I guess, well, not timely
[34:21] because it's already passed but it came up recently.
[34:25] So, it's about Ramadan. Okay.
[34:28] And Ramadan just passed. I'm
[34:31] going to ask you a question related to it.
[34:34] Which place in the world during
[34:37] Ramadan is the fast broken at two different times?
[34:42] Which place in the world is
[34:44] where Ramadan's fast is broken twice during a day?
[34:48] Yeah. My first inclination is to
[34:51] go to the extreme north, somewhere in Norway or you
[34:57] know, Swalbart or places like that where there is
[34:59] sunlight for a very long period. Is
[35:04] it something like that? It's
[35:05] very interesting. If you actually look at
[35:07] Muslims who live in the extreme north of the globe,
[35:13] they do tend to have a difficult time, especially
[35:16] when there is no sunset for very long periods or
[35:22] not at all in fact in some parts of the world.
[35:24] So, how they deal with it is
[35:26] a very interesting thing that a lot of people can
[35:28] go search on YouTube. There are some short videos,
[35:31] documentaries which cover that but no, in this case,
[35:34] that's not the answer because even there the fast
[35:36] would be broken at the time of sunset. So,
[35:39] then they would, there would have to be two
[35:41] sunsets for them to break their fast in one day. For
[35:46] this question, yes. Okay. Now, let me just ask you
[35:51] to rephrase that question or let me just clarify.
[35:54] You said which place you're not
[35:57] saying where on earth? No, I'm not but I mean, I
[36:02] don't know why that would be so different but
[36:03] anyways, go ahead with your guess. Because
[36:05] I was going to think what if there is a Muslim
[36:08] astronaut on the International Space Station
[36:10] or somewhere, like he would have multiple sunsets,
[36:13] right? That's actually a very interesting
[36:16] guess and I would love to search if there has been
[36:18] such a scenario where a Muslim astronaut has been
[36:22] in space during Ramadan but no, not the answer in
[36:24] case. Okay. Now, I thought I was being
[36:25] very clever with that. Okay.
[36:27] So, I'm not. Okay. I'll give you a funny
[36:30] point sort of clever answer for sure. Thank
[36:32] you. Thank you. Okay.
[36:34] Now, twice a day, breaking fast twice a day, no,
[36:38] you'll have to give me some sort of clue here. I
[36:41] guess it's on earth. You're already, you're already not
[36:47] an astronaut. So, let me tell you that the
[36:52] difference between the first time that the fastest
[36:57] broken and the second time is two minutes. Two
[37:00] minutes? How can you break your, so the
[37:03] fastest, the second fastest lasting only for two
[37:06] minutes? All right. Let
[37:07] me clarify. The second, the second, the
[37:08] last is in lasting for two minutes. Some
[37:10] people break it at a certain time and the other
[37:13] group of people break it two minutes later. Okay.
[37:16] Is this some country which is like across the deadline
[37:19] or something like that? Again,
[37:21] it couldn't be two minutes in that. Two
[37:23] minutes. And, and breaking of the fastest
[37:26] nothing to do with the time of the day. Oh,
[37:28] okay. I know this. I
[37:30] know this now. Okay. I got it. I
[37:31] got it. I got it. Separate
[37:32] piece of trivia. But I believe that this is in
[37:36] Dubai. Hit it. Hit
[37:38] it out of the park. Okay. So, this trivia is
[37:42] exclusively to one building in Dubai, which would be
[37:45] the Burj Khalifa, where the sunset is seen two minutes
[37:50] later on the top floor as compared to the bottom
[37:54] floor. Correct. Yes. That
[37:56] is the answer. Yeah, because I had read this
[37:59] piece of trivia that you can watch the sunset twice.
[38:01] You watch it from the ground,
[38:03] then you take one of their high speed elevators all
[38:05] the way to the top and you can watch it once
[38:06] again. Yeah. I believe the elevator
[38:09] speed, or rather the elevator gets you up to
[38:12] the top most viewing platform in 90 seconds. So,
[38:15] you would be able to see it with 30 seconds to
[38:18] spare. And yes, the people who live
[38:21] in Burj Khalifa, if you are above a certain floor,
[38:24] the Muslim clerics will recommend that you break
[38:27] the fast two minutes after whatever everybody else in
[38:31] Dubai is doing, because your sun would still be
[38:34] visible for two more minutes as compared to the
[38:37] rest of the population. Nice.
[38:39] I guess that's the price you pay for being that
[38:42] bougie living. No. No, no, no, no, no, no,
[38:48] no, just no. But great question, great
[38:52] question. I love these kind of
[38:54] questions that you put up. Beautiful
[38:56] question, Aditya. That would be the question for
[38:58] the day. I am now going to move on
[39:00] to a question that Ayush has sent. So,
[39:01] this is the second question from Ayush that he has
[39:04] tasked me to ask you. Madhu
[39:07] Dandvate served as the Railway Minister in the
[39:11] Janta Party government in India between 1977 and
[39:14] 1979. And he made an initiative that
[39:17] had a profound influence on the lives of millions of
[39:21] ordinary Indians. He tried to bridge the
[39:24] enormous class difference in Indian railways. As
[39:28] Railway Minister for two years Dandvate implemented a
[39:32] comforting measure in praise of which historian
[39:34] Ramchandra Gohar argued that if a social history of the
[39:39] Indian railways is ever written, it might be
[39:41] divided into two parts entitled life before
[39:45] Dandvate and life after Dandvate. What
[39:49] path -breaking measure did Dandvate implement? Well,
[39:54] do we know which time frame? This
[39:58] is between 1977 and 1979. Interesting.
[40:03] So, air conditioning could be? No,
[40:06] that's a little too early for air conditioning, I
[40:08] believe. Alright. Everything else I can think
[40:11] of in the railways would be too trivial because I
[40:15] am thinking about cushioned seats and stuff. Is
[40:22] that close? Actually, it is. Why
[40:26] am I doing this? Yes, you have the answer. So,
[40:29] it's basically not cushioned seats but cushioned sleeping
[40:33] births. Alright, interesting. It
[40:36] is considered that significant to change. I
[40:39] mean, just imagine you had to sleep on the wooden
[40:41] sleeping births. Compared to that, a cushion would
[40:45] make it. How that would be a game
[40:47] changer. I just thought it would be
[40:48] obvious enough. But I guess, in retrospect,
[40:53] everything is very obvious. Okay,
[40:56] I am mistaken. Let me just say this again. I
[40:59] was mistaken that air conditioning was first
[41:03] introduced in India in 1934 for the frontier mail and
[41:10] in independent India, the first air conditioned train
[41:13] plied between Haurav and New Delhi in 1956. Okay.
[41:18] So, air conditioning had already been implemented. I
[41:20] was not aware. I thought that was a more
[41:21] recent innovation. But yes, so you are right.
[41:25] Dandwate introduced padded birth and
[41:27] it had such a big impact that Ramchandra Gohar said
[41:30] that if there's an ever social history of the
[41:32] Indian railways written, the time period would be
[41:35] measured as life before him and life after Dandwate.
[41:37] So, thank you Aish Dash again
[41:40] for that beautiful question. So,
[41:41] that's all the time we have for today's episode.
[41:44] Let me just answer the question
[41:47] that I asked in the beginning of today's
[41:48] episode. So, the question that I asked
[41:50] was this. The logo of the sports team
[41:53] features a rotating Sudarshan Chakra, which is
[41:55] a discoyed weapon used by Lord Vishnu in Hindu
[41:58] mythology. On the logo, this Sudarshan
[42:00] Chakra leaves behind trails of orange and green, colors
[42:03] representing the national flag. The
[42:05] anglicized version of the motif for the Sudarshan
[42:09] Chakra raises was initially considered as the team name
[42:12] before the current name was chosen. Which
[42:15] team are we talking about? Aditya,
[42:18] do you have an answer for this? The
[42:20] Mumbai Indians. Yes, it is for the Mumbai
[42:24] Indians IPL cricket team. If
[42:27] you don't know, you can just go check out the
[42:28] logo. The only reason I know this is
[42:32] because I have been conducting quizzes for IPL
[42:34] recently. Both Vinith and I are not the
[42:39] best at sports trivia. Absolutely
[42:42] not. Of course, I have some on my
[42:43] IPL trivia. So, I know fair bit about IPL
[42:46] trivia actually. So, come at me. Please
[42:50] don't. Please, everybody send questions
[42:55] about IPL so that I can torture Aditya. Now
[43:00] that he has thrown down the gauntlet, pick it up.
[43:03] Our dear listeners, please pick
[43:05] up the gauntlet. Please send me questions. Aditya,
[43:08] what is your question for this week? What
[43:11] new torture are you going to inflict on our
[43:14] listeners? We spoke about how Madhu
[43:18] Danduvate revolutionized Indian railways. I
[43:22] want to ask who revolutionized the Indian
[43:27] airline industry and how and when. Very
[43:34] open -ended question that somehow there will be an
[43:36] answer to next week. A rational person might say
[43:39] Mr. Tata, but I know that you're not
[43:42] rational when you're asking these questions. So,
[43:44] let's wait to see exactly what you come up with.
[43:48] Aditya, what's your pop culture
[43:49] recommendation for this week? Okay,
[43:51] so I did a name drop a friend of mine a couple of
[43:56] weeks ago who happens to be a rap artist. Hey,
[44:00] so that was a dish from a few weeks ago. Today,
[44:03] I'm going to name drop another friend, Tanvika and
[44:06] Tanvika Parlikar is an actor and she recently
[44:09] appeared in a film that I had the privilege to watch.
[44:11] It's called LSD2. So,
[44:14] the Baccar Panic is a sequel to his very popular
[44:18] LSD from 2011 if I'm not wrong. LSD2
[44:22] just came out in theaters. I
[44:25] cannot recommend that film enough. It
[44:27] is so much fun. My friend Tanvika isn't it?
[44:30] But regardless of that, even if
[44:31] I did not know a single person was in the film, I
[44:34] would still recommend it so, so highly. It
[44:37] was a blast watching the film. If
[44:38] you're into satire, if you're into comedy, if you
[44:41] like a show like Black Mirror, which talks about
[44:44] the future and how technology is going to
[44:47] shape us all, LSD2 is a film that you absolutely
[44:51] cannot miss. Go watch it in theaters or
[44:53] well, I guess you can wait for it to come out on OTT
[44:55] but yeah, watch the film for sure. Great.
[44:59] I will definitely watch because the Baccar Panic is
[45:02] one of my favorite directors in India. So,
[45:04] I will definitely be watching that. My
[45:07] recommendation is something a little off -brand. I'm
[45:10] not a person who watches a lot of these kind of
[45:14] romantic movies or rom -coms. My
[45:16] standards are a little high when it comes to romantic
[45:18] comedies and modern -day romantic comedies, at least
[45:21] in the past two decades, there have been just very
[45:24] few that I can point out to say like this is a
[45:26] really good romantic comedy. I
[45:28] know these are fighting words but I stand by it.
[45:32] So, I've recently watched a
[45:34] romantic comedy. Again, I own up to the bias that
[45:38] I have a little bias towards this movie because
[45:40] this is a Malayalam movie and I'm a Malayadi but
[45:43] this movie has been a hit all through the states in
[45:46] India. So, I believe anybody can watch
[45:48] it and still enjoy and still relate to it. The
[45:50] script is top notch when it released Bharadwad Ranjan
[45:53] actually mentioned that this was probably the best
[45:56] script of the year so far. It's
[45:58] a beautiful performed film. I
[46:01] would advise all of you to go watch it. It's
[46:04] available on Hotstar now. The
[46:05] name of the movie is Premaloo. So,
[46:08] Premaloo, it's a very young romantic comedy, very fresh.
[46:12] The story is nothing new. It's
[46:15] the well -trodden track but the performances and the
[46:18] script and the characters themselves are so relatable
[46:21] to many people. I would definitely encourage
[46:24] everybody to go watch it. It's
[46:26] available on Hotstar. I made the mistake of not
[46:28] watching it in theaters. I watched it much later on
[46:31] OTT and I sincerely regret that happening but it's a
[46:34] fantastic movie and I recommend everyone please go
[46:37] watch it. It had a tiny budget but it's
[46:39] already scored hundreds of crores so please go watch
[46:43] Premaloo on Disney Hotstar and this is not a
[46:46] recommendation for Disney Hotstar. This
[46:55] is a all the time we have for today's episode. Thank
[46:58] you all for joining in. We sincerely hope that you
[47:01] enjoyed the show and you learned something new.
[47:03] Massive TILs, amazing questions
[47:05] today. If you liked what you heard
[47:07] please consider subscribing to our podcast and leave
[47:09] us a review on your favorite podcast platform
[47:11] wherever you're listening to us. It
[47:13] helps us reach a wider audience, allows more people
[47:15] to discover and enjoy the show. Take
[47:17] two seconds after listening to my spiel to go hit the
[47:19] subscribe button and the follow button. We
[47:22] would also love to hear from you, feedback,
[47:24] suggestions, even trivia. You
[47:25] can send us questions that you want asked on the show
[47:27] just tag us tag the quizmaster in the subject
[47:30] line and send an email to areyouquizingme at gmail
[47:33] .com. You can reach us on Instagram
[47:36] at areyouquizingme. We have a Reddit community, a
[47:38] subreddit r slash areyouquizingme. You
[47:41] can go there and interact with other listeners as
[47:44] well. We appreciate your support and
[47:47] look forward to sharing more episodes within the
[47:49] future. Thanks guys again for tuning in.
[47:51] Have a great day. See
[47:54] you guys next week.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.