# Episode 120 - 2 Mountains, 2 Movies & 2 Roots

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 17 Nov 2025, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/111290358/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-10-17%2F412621470-44100-2-7c60732ce3f86.mp3

Do you know what Indian phenomenon, associated with kids, possibly can be attributed to Mt. Sindoro and Mt. Sumbing, in Indonesia? Do you know what do Amitabh Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor Khan have in common (hint: think Deewar and Talaash)? Do you know what is the quadratic formula referred to as in Brazil? 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

[0:02] All About Eve is a 1950 film written and directed by Joseph L
[0:08] Mankiewicz, starring Bette Davis and Baxter and a relatively
[0:13] unknown Marilyn Monroe in one of her first film roles.
[0:17] The film went on to Ghana 14 Oscar nominations, finally
[0:21] winning 6th. What was unique about the film's
[0:25] Oscar nominations? Let me repeat the question.
[0:28] All About Eve is a 1950 film written and directed by Joseph L
[0:32] Mankiewicz, starring Bette Davis and Baxter and a relatively
[0:37] unknown Marilyn Monroe. In one of our first roles, the
[0:40] film went off to Ghana, 14 Oscar nominations, finally winning
[0:44] six. What is unique about the film's
[0:47] Oscar nominations? This is an audience question for
[0:51] this week's episode sent in to us by our regular listener, Mr.
[0:55] Arjun Srikumar. I'll answer this question at the
[0:58] end of today's episode. Welcome to Are you quizzing Me,
[1:03] your favorite quizzing and trivia podcast show.
[1:06] This is episode #120 queue the music.
[1:14] Welcome to Are you quizzing me. I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
[1:18] Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
[1:21] podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
[1:24] history, science, pop culture and so much more.
[1:28] Let's get quizzing. OK, so Aditya, let's start off
[1:33] today's episode with a question that I have for you.
[1:37] This is one that I have specifically curated for the
[1:40] movie lover in you the most specifically the Bollywood movie
[1:44] lover in you. Are you ready?
[1:46] I can't wait. I need more energy here.
[1:49] Come on. Little more energy.
[1:50] Little more energy. Pump up.
[1:51] That's. George, I want to try this
[1:53] again, OK? I want to try this again.
[1:54] Yeah. I'm gonna.
[1:54] I'm gonna swoop into this. Yeah.
[1:58] Woo. Let's go.
[2:00] Yeah. OK, so I'm going to give you a
[2:03] list. OK, you love lists, right?
[2:06] So I'm going to leave you a list of actors and movie names.
[2:10] You have to tell me what the connection is.
[2:12] OK. The actors are Amitabh Bachchan
[2:16] Deewaar being the movie Dharmendra, the movie being Bazi
[2:21] Pran in Tofan, Kadar Khan in Yarana, Sanjay Dutt Hathiyar,
[2:28] Mithun, Chakraborty Guru Amrish Puri Halchal, Rishi Kapoor Jhuta
[2:34] Kahika, Bobby Deol Barsat, Dani Danzogpa Sangram, Monish Bair,
[2:42] Itihas, Aditya Pancholi Jung, Kareena Kapoor Talash.
[2:49] This. I don't think this is a complete
[2:51] list, but you know. It's interesting because each of
[2:54] these films has some trivia attached to it.
[2:56] I think you mentioned Amrish Puri and was that Hulchal?
[3:01] Amrish Puri Hulchal? If I'm not wrong, that is his
[3:04] last film. But then that's obviously not
[3:06] true for any of the other actors.
[3:09] I don't think prans arrived, neither is Kadar Khan.
[3:12] Well, Amitabh Bachchan and Barbadale Kareena Kapoor Khan
[3:16] Kareena Kapoor Kareena Kapoor in in Thalash Spoiler alerts Please
[3:24] skip ahead if you haven't seen it.
[3:27] Kareena Kapoor in Thalash plays a dead woman ghost.
[3:31] But then again, that's that's not true for any of the other
[3:35] actors in the films, or at least most of them.
[3:38] Nitin Chakraborty, yes. Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar.
[3:44] OK, yeah, this is not a list. I expected to go the where it
[3:47] did, so I have no idea at all, you know?
[3:52] OK, honestly I'm so excited to make up this question after I
[3:56] saw it on Reddit that I did not think of any clues to give you.
[4:02] And honestly, I don't think there are many clues I can give
[4:05] you apart from the fact that maybe you should think about
[4:08] Amitabh Bachchan and Deewar that and Bobby Deol in Barsath.
[4:14] Because there is a good chance that you may know what I'm
[4:18] talking about by focusing on this, these two combinations.
[4:21] Or maybe even Mithun Chakraborty and Guru.
[4:24] Mithun Chakraborty and Guru. He plays a mentor.
[4:29] He also has a press. No, no, no, no.
[4:33] OK. You're going cold.
[4:34] You're going cold. OK, so nothing to do with the
[4:36] film itself, not the storyline. OK, OK, so let me just rephrase
[4:40] what I Maybe this rephrasing will help you pick it up.
[4:45] Instead of saying Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar, I'm going to
[4:48] say Amitabh Bachchan and Deewar, Mithun Chakraborty and Guru,
[4:57] Bobby Deol and Barsat, Kareena Kapoor and Tarash.
[5:03] No, it doesn't help at all. I love it when as a question
[5:07] setter or the person asking the question, you're like, oh, my
[5:10] clue is so obvious. Yeah, I know.
[5:12] And then at the other end you're like, none of it makes sense.
[5:15] No. No, this is This is not an
[5:16] obvious clue. I was just maybe thinking that
[5:19] it might help you kind of think of this.
[5:23] OK, you know what, let me try this a little bit more.
[5:26] I'm going to give you one clue. I'm going to give you one clue.
[5:28] OK, so this is relate to Amitabh Bachchan and Deewar and the clue
[5:33] is the following sentence. Go for it.
[5:35] Let's bring our heroes home. Let's bring our heroes home,
[5:40] Deewar. Deewar is not a remake of some
[5:44] American film. Let's bring our heroes home.
[5:46] Sounds like a dialogue from an American film.
[5:50] Also, we're doing this. This is such a delicious
[5:52] ambiguity. But I would disagree when you
[5:55] say that Deewar is not a remake. Oh is it OK?
[5:59] I did not know that it is a remake.
[6:01] Yeah. But then again, let's bring our
[6:03] heroes home. I Firstly I'm not sure where the
[6:06] dialogue is from and also doesn't seem very relevant.
[6:09] It's not a dialogue. I'm not saying it's a dialogue.
[6:11] Oh. Think about the movie itself.
[6:15] OK, another combination may have made this list, but because of a
[6:22] small change I decided to leave it off.
[6:24] Yeah, but. That combination would have been
[6:27] OK. OK.
[6:29] Amitabh Bachchan and surely. I can.
[6:34] Because of a last minute change. Otherwise this would also have
[6:39] been on the list. I don't know, let's bring our
[6:41] heroes home. Like should we let the hero of
[6:44] the film shoot in their hometown?
[6:46] Is only random connect that is coming to me?
[6:48] I don't know. No, no, no, no, no.
[6:53] OK, OK, no. I do remember Guru.
[6:55] I remember Talaash. I remember Deewar.
[6:59] Some of the other films also, I think, definitely rung a bell.
[7:04] OK, you know what? And let me ask you a pointed
[7:06] question. Is it something to do with the
[7:10] plot line of the film? No.
[7:12] OK. Is it something to do with the
[7:13] production of the film? No.
[7:16] All right then. Is there any other clue you can
[7:18] give me? Because otherwise I'm done.
[7:20] OK, well, last, last and final clue.
[7:22] I mentioned that Amitabh Bachchan and Sholay would have
[7:25] been on this list, but it finally ended up not being on
[7:29] the on the list because Ram Gopal Varma made a last minute
[7:33] decision. Otherwise, this would also
[7:36] probably have been on the list. Ram Gopal Varma The only
[7:40] connection to Sholay is Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag which is a
[7:42] remake and he. Cast now what did he decide not
[7:48] to do? There was a court case also that
[7:50] went along with it. I think there was something to
[7:52] do with the naming of it. What did you originally want to
[7:54] name it? Oh, did you just want to name it
[7:57] Sholay? I actually don't know this.
[7:58] I don't know this at all. Yeah, he wanted to name it
[8:00] Sholay. OK, so he changed it to.
[8:04] So Deewar is a remake of another film called Deewar.
[8:07] No, you're just there. Just think about it.
[8:10] I mentioned Amitabh Bachchan and Sholay would have happened,
[8:13] would have been on this list, if Ram Gopal Varma had named his
[8:15] movie Sholay. They're just there.
[8:18] Just you're on the precipice. Have they acted in two movies
[8:22] with the same name? Yes.
[8:25] So this list is of actors who have acted in two movies of the
[8:30] exact same name. Bobby Deol In Barsad.
[8:34] He hit his famous debut with Vidu Vidu Chopra.
[8:36] He also acted in a forgotten movie of the 2000s called
[8:39] Barsad. Similarly, Amitabh Bachchan
[8:41] acted in the famous Deewar, his star making role.
[8:45] He also acted in a How about a reasonably forgotten movie of
[8:50] the mid 2000s called Deewar? Let's bring our heroes home.
[8:54] It was a remake of The Great Escape.
[8:56] It was set on the Indian soldiers being held as Park PO
[9:00] WS. Similarly, Mithun Chakraborty
[9:03] added actor in 2 movies called Guru.
[9:05] You remember the one with Amitabh with Abhishek Bachchan?
[9:07] There's a movie much before in which which was named Guru in
[9:10] which he acted. Similarly.
[9:13] Kareena Kapoor acted in two movies called Thrash.
[9:16] The first one which you all remember as you very cleverly
[9:20] spoiled on the show was the one where she acted with Aamir Khan.
[9:24] There was a movie much before that in which she acted with
[9:28] Akshay Kumar, which was an action film called Talash.
[9:32] I know this. I knew this, this the last thing
[9:35] I knew. Oh my God.
[9:36] But there are two Deewars. I had no idea that there's
[9:39] another film called Deewar. There are two Deewars.
[9:41] There are two Deewars. Deewar.
[9:43] Let's bring our heroes home. That's the tagline of the movie.
[9:46] Why would Amitabh Bachchan decide to do that to his iconic
[9:50] film? Why would Amitabh Bachchan
[9:51] decide to act in a remake of Sholay of our piece?
[9:55] Amitabh Bachchan has enough star power to be like, you know what?
[9:58] I'll do the film. I love the script.
[9:59] Whatever XY the reason he did it, just he could have asked to
[10:02] change the name from Diva. Like, why would you want to ask?
[10:05] That is a very strange choice. That is a very strange choice,
[10:09] yeah. But all of these people that
[10:12] I've mentioned in the list, they've all acted in multiple
[10:15] movies with are actually in two movies, at least 2 movies with
[10:18] the same name, and those are the movies on the list.
[10:21] That is a great piece of trivia. Oh my God, I would not have
[10:25] gotten that. Shout out to Reddit by the way.
[10:27] I found it on Reddit. Cool Reddit.
[10:29] Pretty cool source of trivia actually.
[10:31] I do find a lot of trivia on Reddit, but that's that's,
[10:34] that's amazing. That's that is truly a very fun
[10:37] question. OK.
[10:39] Hit me. You know what?
[10:40] Since you did give me a film question, I'm going to hit you
[10:44] with my recent favorite piece of trivia related to Hollywood that
[10:50] I've discovered. OK.
[10:52] What is amazing to me is that how did I not know of this
[10:55] before? I anticipate a good one.
[10:58] Actually, I'm a little worried that because it is such a cool
[11:01] piece of trivia, you might know the answer, but just in case you
[11:04] don't, or any member of our audience doesn't, it's fine even
[11:08] if this becomes a very quick question, just because it's so
[11:11] cool. OK, here are enough build up.
[11:13] Let's do this. This piece of trivia actually
[11:16] starts in the Roman era and with a specific object called a word
[11:21] square. Let me quickly explain what a
[11:23] word square is in case you're not familiar.
[11:26] A word square consists of a set of words written out in a square
[11:30] grid such that the same words can be read both horizontally
[11:35] and vertically. OK, and an example in front of
[11:39] me, which is obviously not the square in question, but just an
[11:41] example. It says heart, ember abuse,
[11:46] resin, trend. So if heart was written and then
[11:52] regular ember each letter below the previous abuse right below
[11:55] it, resin below it and trend. You could also read heart, ember
[12:00] abuse resin and trend vertically as well as horizontally.
[12:04] In case that's not clear with my explanation.
[12:06] I would suggest go look it up and that would make a whole
[12:09] world of sense. OK.
[12:11] This particular word square, a very famous word square.
[12:14] In fact, in 2022, the Encyclopedia Britannica called
[12:17] it the most familiar lettered square in the Western world.
[12:21] Let's call it X for the purpose of a question.
[12:24] X contains A5 word Latin palindrome.
[12:28] So these words are not necessarily translated to
[12:34] English or aren't necessarily English words, but they are in
[12:37] the same script. So an English speaker can
[12:40] pronounce them, can read this particular square.
[12:42] OK. It has been discovered in
[12:44] multiple Romanera sites over the ages, including at Pompeii,
[12:48] which I believe was one of the earliest discoveries.
[12:51] Here's the fun part of the trivia.
[12:53] This very famous word square is related to an extremely famous
[12:57] Hollywood film. In fact, it kind of informs the
[13:02] central premise of this Hollywood film.
[13:06] Vineet. Do you want to take a guess as
[13:08] to what this word square is and also what the movie is in
[13:11] question? Very famous Hollywood film you
[13:14] mentioned. I did.
[13:18] I can't think of any words square When you started the
[13:20] question I was thinking of, oh, you're talking about maybe some
[13:22] production house hazard in their logo or something like that.
[13:25] But to mention the movie Latin has to appear, so I'm guessing
[13:32] it must be a period film. Roman famous.
[13:38] I have no clue why, but is it Gladiator?
[13:41] Decent guess, though I would say a little cold simply because it
[13:45] isn't the most obvious connect. It isn't a Latin connect in the
[13:49] sense that it isn't from that part of history or anybody in
[13:54] the film is speaking in Latin per SE, but because this is a 5
[13:59] word square. Because the square consists of
[14:01] five words, each of these words plays an important role in the
[14:06] film. A really famous movie.
[14:08] Oh so famous like if you go onto YouTube and you type movie
[14:13] essay, I can guarantee you there will be at least one of this.
[14:18] One of the essays will cater to this film and your search
[14:20] result. OK, that leaves The Godfather
[14:23] and Citizen Kane. OK.
[14:26] I think more a little bit more recent than that.
[14:28] Have I seen this movie? Because, you know, there are
[14:30] certain glaring gap because I just don't end up watching some
[14:35] movies. So is it a movie I've seen?
[14:38] Do you know if I've seen it? I'm going to say with 99%
[14:40] certainty that you have seen this movie.
[14:42] In case I am wrong and 1% is actually true, I can safely say
[14:47] episode 120 is our last episode. OK till you see this movie and
[14:52] only then will I record another episode with you.
[14:54] OK, Dumky. Honestly, it's not even one of
[14:58] my favorite films. I don't know why I'm making it
[15:00] such a big deal, but yeah, it's it's a popular film for sure.
[15:04] I am lost. OK, lovely.
[15:07] I'm so glad that this was not cracked right off the bat
[15:11] because you're going to enjoy this piece of trivia.
[15:12] My God, I'm building it up so much now let me go back to my
[15:16] example. OK, heart amber abuse resin
[15:19] trend. I, I guess these are 5 random
[15:21] words, but if somebody was to make some meaning out of it, I
[15:24] guess heart could be love. And you know, you could make
[15:27] some sentence or some translation out of these 5 words
[15:29] combined. So similarly, the five words in
[15:33] R square in question X, I'm going to give you the most
[15:36] direct sentence translation of those 5 words as if they made
[15:41] sense. They don't necessarily make
[15:43] sense, but if they were to make sense, it would say the sower or
[15:47] the farmer. The farmer, a repo, holds the
[15:51] wheels with care. The farmer a repo holds the
[15:56] wheels with care. Why are Dan Brown movies
[16:00] flashing in my head? But I'm fairly sure this has got
[16:03] nothing to do with Dan Brown. I would not judge you too much
[16:05] if you had not seen Angels and Demons.
[16:09] So no, this is not a Dan Brown film.
[16:11] Yeah, no, because I I wasn't. I, I am an ambigramist.
[16:14] For a long time there were very few of us in India.
[16:16] So dude, I'm blanking completely.
[16:19] The farmer a repo. Farmer a repo.
[16:24] And these words play a part of the plot of the movie.
[16:27] Very much do, yes. Oh God, what are we talking
[16:31] about here? This is very, very weird.
[16:35] OK, I love it. I'm loving it so far.
[16:37] OK. Here is where it gets a little
[16:40] bit more interesting. OK, as opposed to the example
[16:43] where I said heart ember abuse resin trend, this one kind of
[16:47] forms a palindrome. And let me explain how it is a
[16:49] palindrome. Say in our example, if the first
[16:52] word is ABCDE, the last word would be EDCBA, and then the
[17:01] next line was what? FGHIJ.
[17:05] So the fourth word would then become Ji.
[17:09] Oh my God, this is so difficult to do the other way around.
[17:13] HFG. OK, you know what I mean?
[17:15] You know what I mean? OK, I get, I get what I get what
[17:19] you're saying, but it's it doesn't help me at all.
[17:22] Give me something about the movie itself.
[17:24] No, let me see. Give me something about the
[17:25] movie itself. Maybe that's going to help.
[17:26] This is where I'm going to tell you something about the movie.
[17:29] If the first word is mirrored in the last one, the second word is
[17:34] mirrored in the fourth word. What do you think happens to the
[17:37] third word? It's a palindrome in itself.
[17:39] Do you know which 5 letter word is a palindrome?
[17:42] Is this tenant? It is tenant.
[17:44] This is tenant where. The wait wait wait.
[17:49] I've seen Tenet. Of course you have seen Tenet.
[17:51] Yes, but I'm I'm I'm the chapter names or something I don't.
[17:58] No, no. OK, so now Are you ready to have
[18:02] your mind blown open? OK, please do.
[18:05] The first word is set or sator sator SATOR.
[18:10] OK, do you remember Sator from the film?
[18:13] Not so much. I like I watched the film, I
[18:15] remember the plot of the movie, but this does not ring a bell
[18:18] immediately. All right, that's all right.
[18:20] OK, You know what? I was hyping up the movie too
[18:22] much. It's not my favorite Christopher
[18:25] Nolan film by any means, but it is a very popular film and it is
[18:28] something that people have made like endless video essays about.
[18:31] Yeah, I mean, like, I'm interested in the dynamics of
[18:33] the film, but for character development it wasn't such a
[18:36] great movie. As are a lot of Nolan films, but
[18:40] we digress. Kenneth Brenna's name is Andre
[18:43] Setor. Ah, OK.
[18:45] Yeah, yeah. He's the one who is basically
[18:47] the main antagonist in the film. Yeah.
[18:50] The next word in it is a repo. Opera, Opera.
[18:54] Do you remember where a repo featured in this?
[18:56] The Opera House. Actually, opera is the fourth
[18:59] word. The opera is where the.
[19:01] Happening at the ending. The closed loop starts there,
[19:03] yeah. Areppo is the last name of an
[19:06] unseen Spanish art forger who copies 2 of Goya paintings and
[19:11] they become blackmail for early in the film.
[19:13] Wow. So you got the first word set
[19:15] out. The second one is Areppo, The
[19:17] third one was Tenet, which is the name of the film.
[19:20] Yeah. And the fourth word, like you
[19:22] guessed already, is opera. Opera.
[19:24] Which is the opening scene of the film.
[19:26] OK. And the last word is?
[19:28] Rotas. Rotas and Rutas, I believe in
[19:31] the name of the company and that set or runs.
[19:33] Oh, OK, that's his his multi billion dollar whatever
[19:37] conglomerate that he is the CEO chairman of.
[19:40] So these 5 words feature prominently in the movie Tenet.
[19:43] Nice. The idea of that, that
[19:45] palindrome and the words reversing in and of itself is
[19:48] also pretty much what the movies are about, the pincer operation
[19:52] and everything. Yeah, literally.
[19:54] Christopher Nolan took this beautiful piece of history and
[19:57] incorporated. I must give him absolute props.
[20:00] Not that he's waiting for me to give him props, but I was giving
[20:02] props. He did incorporate it well into
[20:04] the film. Cuz it kind of delivers in the
[20:07] promise of tenet. Yeah.
[20:08] And also the other 4 words also feature in an interesting way.
[20:12] And just because I mentioned what their translation was and I
[20:16] guess it is a little difficult to understand because I assume
[20:19] you don't speak. Latin.
[20:21] Nobody speaks Latin anymore. It's a dead language.
[20:25] I'm sure there is some somebody who is obsessed and wants to
[20:29] learn how to speak Latin, but anyways.
[20:31] No, no. I mean, like there are people
[20:32] who know how to speak it, but it's not a conversational
[20:35] language. So that's why it's called a dead
[20:37] language. I guess you can have two nerds
[20:39] just talking to each other in in Latin.
[20:42] But anyways, come back to this. A repo again doesn't.
[20:45] Nobody really knows what that means, so they assume a repo
[20:48] could be a proper noun and hence the name of the farmer is a
[20:51] repo. So a repo the farmer setor means
[20:54] farmer. OK, a repo the farmer holds or
[20:57] guides which is tenant. Tenant.
[20:59] Yeah, the wheel, which was rotas.
[21:03] OK. With care or with skill, which
[21:06] is opera. Opera.
[21:07] OK. These are the five Latin words
[21:09] that kind of translate and give us that sentence that I
[21:13] mentioned earlier. Nice.
[21:15] That's what the set of Square is.
[21:17] And this it literally blew my mind.
[21:20] Considering how much Christopher Nolan films are discussed and
[21:23] how much I have probably watched video essays discussing it, I
[21:26] can't believe I've not encountered this before.
[21:28] Set of Square. Because I, I, I'll be very
[21:31] honest with you, of all the Christopher Nolan movies in his,
[21:35] I enjoy Tenet as a visual spectacle, but it's probably one
[21:40] of the only Christopher Nolan movies which I've not watched
[21:42] more than once. I've seen Interstellar, like I
[21:45] don't know God knows how many times, the Batman trilogy, a
[21:48] number of times. Oppenheimer I've seen maybe
[21:51] twice, but Tenet I've only watched once.
[21:55] I'm going to look out for this next time.
[21:57] The only Kiss 1 only film I've seen was this Dunkirk.
[21:59] I have seen Tenet I think twice because it's like, you know
[22:02] what, I really want to understand it.
[22:04] I like most Kiss Nolan films. It did make a little bit more
[22:06] sense of the second viewing, but it didn't make it a
[22:09] significantly better film for me.
[22:12] Yeah, it was. OK, good it.
[22:15] Was a little bit of an indulgent film.
[22:16] I think a lot of his films are indulgent.
[22:18] A lot of his films are very indulgent.
[22:21] Yes, but most of the time what happens is that indulgence kind
[22:25] of helps the plot I. Recently rewatched Memento.
[22:28] Memento, something in me really it it kind of reawakened that
[22:35] part which is convinced that Memento is not just Christopher
[22:38] Dolan's best, but it's also one of the best friends in the last
[22:40] few decades. That's the film where I feel
[22:43] like he used that time thing that he loves to do so well.
[22:46] And so like almost truthfully and honestly to the to the story
[22:50] of the film that it just oh God, it blows my mind every time I
[22:54] think about it. In any case, if you haven't seen
[22:57] Memento, please go watch it. It is my top recommendation, pop
[23:00] culture recommendation of all time.
[23:01] Always. OK, but this was a long
[23:02] question. I hope you enjoyed it because I
[23:04] absolutely enjoyed this piece of trip.
[23:05] Definitely, definitely. I am now going to, now I have
[23:08] the impetus to watch Tenet once again, just so that I can see if
[23:12] I can make that connection properly and kind of fixed in my
[23:14] head. So moving on from pop culture
[23:18] and movies to something a little more literary.
[23:22] In 1987, the Youth association, now Yoga, established a double
[23:28] literary prize named after the poet Rahman Khan.
[23:33] As I mentioned, it's a double literary prize, So one prize was
[23:36] awarded to someone who'd made a significant contribution to
[23:39] literature, linguistics or criticism specific to the
[23:43] language X. OK.
[23:45] The second of the two awards was awarded in the category of
[23:49] general linguistics, literature or criticism in the country Y,
[23:54] where X is most widely spoken. OK.
[23:57] In the first category, the prize went to the poet Jeet Narayan.
[24:00] OK. In the second to literary
[24:03] scholar Michelle von Kappen. Well.
[24:06] I think I've mispronounced that Michelle van.
[24:10] Campaign No idea where this question is going, but please go
[24:12] ahead. The prize was never awarded
[24:15] again. OK.
[24:16] So obviously my question is about the language X and which
[24:20] country Y, right? So I'll just give you a few more
[24:22] details about that. Asha Rajkumar.
[24:24] Yeah, who wrote under the pen name?
[24:26] Chandni, who passed away from leukemia in 2021, wrote poems in
[24:30] the language X Musician Raj Mohan used lyrics in the
[24:34] language EX along with Hindi in his music.
[24:37] In fact, X is the primary language used in the Batek Ghana
[24:43] form of music. OK.
[24:45] So identify the language X. I'd be very impressed if you
[24:49] did, and if not, you can at least tell me or try to guess
[24:54] which country we are talking about.
[24:58] It sounds like a country that either briefly existed and was,
[25:06] I don't know, later subsumed into some other nation, or maybe
[25:11] an independence movement that didn't come to fruition.
[25:15] It's OK. It's actually neither.
[25:17] Oh, OK. Interesting.
[25:20] I wonder why they would stop the award after one year.
[25:23] It's very interesting. No, that was.
[25:25] I'm just using that as an impetus to get into the question
[25:28] so that I have a stage to set the question.
[25:31] In OK. So I'll just review the basic
[25:33] points again. All right.
[25:34] The literary prize was named after the poet Rehman Khan.
[25:39] So there are two awards, one for contribution specific to a
[25:42] language and the other contribution specific to the
[25:45] country in which that language is spoken.
[25:47] OK. So the award for the
[25:49] contribution to the language went to poet Jeet Narayan and
[25:55] the contribution to the country's linguistics,
[25:58] literature and criticism went to Michelle von Kampen.
[26:02] The prize was obviously never awarded, not obviously was never
[26:05] awarded again. Examples of other people who
[26:08] perform in the same space as with that particular language.
[26:12] Asha Rajkumar who wrote under the pen name Chandni, she wrote
[26:16] poems in the language X Musician Raj Mohan used lyrics and X
[26:20] along with Hindi in his music. In fact, if you just look at the
[26:24] cultural point of view, X is the primary language used in the
[26:28] Baathak Ghana form of music. Baathak, Ghana, I'm guessing
[26:33] means, you know, sit down and sing.
[26:36] Yeah, I think better Ghana does mean sitting and singing quite
[26:39] literally translates to that Rahman Khan.
[26:49] Now give me some clue. Give me some other clue.
[26:52] I'm very. Lost.
[26:54] This language is not specific, it's basically a hodgepodge.
[27:00] It has contributions from various languages, the primary 3
[27:05] being Bhojpuri, Avadhi and Hindustani which is what we call
[27:11] as Hindi, Urdu and to a lesser degree from Maghi, Matli and
[27:17] Braj. OK.
[27:18] So there's another contribution to this which I will leave as
[27:21] the next clue. This feels very Gangetic plain,
[27:27] a country where it is spoken primarily.
[27:30] I'm assuming the country is still around, yes.
[27:33] Makes me think Nepal. I don't know.
[27:36] No, no. OK, so I'll go on to my second
[27:39] clue. So I mentioned that the language
[27:41] has was based off Bhojpuri, Avdi and Hindustani with
[27:46] contributions from Magahi, Metley and Braj OK.
[27:51] It also contains influence and vocabulary taken from Dutch,
[27:57] English, Portuguese and Srinantongo.
[28:04] I was going to go somewhere because Nepal was not actually
[28:08] honestly a very good guess. A better guess would have been
[28:10] somewhere in, I want to say Mauritius.
[28:17] No, not exactly, but you are on the right track at least.
[28:23] There are only two possible options for this.
[28:25] Largely speaking, it's either an African nation or it's a Central
[28:29] American, South American nation. OK, Am I closer with Mauritius
[28:35] or am I far from the? No, you want the geographical.
[28:38] I'll have to look at how many kilometers away to save closer
[28:40] or further, but. No, no, I meant I meant like is,
[28:44] is it in Africa? Is it in the Americas?
[28:46] It's in South America. It's in South America.
[28:48] OK. So then South America could be
[28:55] you have Trinidad and Tobago. I'm, I'm including Central
[28:59] America also in this Trinidad and Tobago is there, there's
[29:03] Jamaica. So my next clue is going to be
[29:07] better. Ghana is very similar to what we
[29:10] call a chutney music, and chutney music originated in
[29:13] Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago, OK, So was
[29:16] Trinidad and Tobago the country in question?
[29:18] No, no, no, that it's not Trinidad and Tobago because that
[29:21] one is chutney music. OK, Chutney music, Trinidad,
[29:24] Tobago, Beta Ghana is which other language?
[29:27] Which other country? Is Surinam.
[29:30] Very good. So what would the language be?
[29:32] Do you know what the language is?
[29:35] That's the extent of my knowledge of Surinam, OK.
[29:40] It has a lot of colonial past. I have no idea what the language
[29:43] is. So the language is known as
[29:44] Tsunami Hindustani. Wow.
[29:46] As in tsunami is Hindustani. That's a beautiful name.
[29:50] Yeah, it's a very beautiful name.
[29:51] It's called Tsunami Hindustani. So the thing goes that when
[29:55] slavery, or at least African slavery was abolished in
[29:58] Surinam, the Dutch Bay did not have sources for labour and they
[30:03] turned to British India and indentured laborers were sent
[30:07] from British India to work in plantations on a kind of five
[30:11] year contract, the five years being held for them.
[30:15] OK. But at the end of the five
[30:16] years, they were told that they could either go back to India or
[30:19] they could settle in certain up permanently.
[30:21] Got it. And there were people from a lot
[30:23] of parts of Bengal, Bihar. And also that's where this
[30:26] hodgepodge language came up because there were people who
[30:29] spoke so many different languages that they finally made
[30:32] an old language for themselves, which they ended up calling us
[30:35] Tsunami Hindustani. So it's considered the mother
[30:38] tongue of Indo tsunamis. People mainly spoken in the
[30:43] Nikuri and Saramaka districts of Surinam.
[30:46] And due to migration, it's also, she heard, in the Netherlands,
[30:49] the Netherlands Antilles, Guyana, the US, Canada and
[30:52] French Guyana. OK, OK.
[30:55] Beta Ghana is a form of music originating in synonym by the
[30:58] Indo synonymous community. It's a Beta is like a social
[31:01] gathering. So it's a mix of Hindustani folk
[31:04] music with Caribbean influences. So the answer I was looking for
[31:08] was Tsunami Hindustani. I found it's a very lovely name.
[31:12] Tsunami Hindustani. It is a beautiful name, yeah.
[31:14] Somehow very Indianised, Surina, you know.
[31:18] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do know of the Central
[31:22] American connections to India. It has cultural, food, language,
[31:28] all those connections, but I do not know the specific one.
[31:30] And it's a rather beautiful one. Yeah.
[31:32] The only reason I actually said Mauritius was because I know a
[31:35] lot of expatriates from well, I guess in that case they weren't
[31:38] expatriates. I don't know if they were
[31:40] indentured labour labourers or maybe in some cases slave slaves
[31:44] who are being transported from the gadgetic plane went to
[31:47] Mauritius if I'm not wrong. No, it's not just the Mauritius,
[31:50] I think Fiji also. Fiji also, so I think some of
[31:53] these island nations are Mauritius and Fiji are in
[31:55] different directions. But yes, so these places did
[31:58] have people who ended up there from that part.
[32:02] But yeah, you're right. I think even Central America had
[32:04] that and Surinami Hindustani. I'm going to remember that.
[32:06] That's that's like Tsarnami, Tsarnami Hindustani.
[32:09] My bad, Sarnami. Hindustani, I also cheated a
[32:14] little bit. Let me just clarify that when I
[32:15] mentioned that Asha Rajkumar who passed away from leukemia in
[32:19] 2021, who was a poet, her name even though I'm pronouncing it
[32:23] as Asha Rajkumar, the Rajkumar portion is spelled RADJKOEMAR,
[32:32] which is a Dutch version of writing Rajkumar.
[32:35] OK, OK, OK. Nice.
[32:37] Yeah, I like how these things, they change and translate over
[32:40] time and space. Yeah, nice.
[32:42] OK. I am so happy today because this
[32:45] is such a perfect segue moment. Oh God, I've given you a segue,
[32:49] haven't I? Speaking of things that
[32:51] translate over time and space. A connection to India also.
[32:56] Actually, I am going to take you to Indonesia, OK, And I'll tell
[33:01] you about the connection to India in a bit, OK, I'm going to
[33:03] take you to Indonesia and I'm going to tell you about two
[33:05] mountains there, Mount Sundoro and Mount Sumbing, OK Mount
[33:11] Sundoro and Mount Sumbing are very closely connected to
[33:16] something that is prevalent across India as a cultural
[33:18] experience for a lot of us who went through the schooling
[33:21] process of India. OK, So Mount Sundoro and Mount
[33:24] Sumbing are somehow connected to something a lot of Indian kids
[33:29] went through in the school days. And again, I might be coming
[33:32] from a privileged background, so maybe this is in the English
[33:35] medium schools in our urban locations.
[33:37] But yes, at least in the circles that I grew up in, this seemed
[33:40] to be almost a universal occurrence, a universal
[33:44] experience for children in India.
[33:47] The funny and interesting and the most exciting trivia in this
[33:50] whole thing is that it turns out that Indonesian children also do
[33:54] the same thing that Indian Indian children do.
[33:57] So can you tell me how Mount Sindoro and Mount Sombing are
[34:00] connected to this particular experience of both Indian and
[34:04] Indonesian children? OK, if you hadn't specifically
[34:07] mentioned the mountains, I would have said Brennan Martin
[34:10] textbooks. Explain.
[34:12] Explain that. No, there was a famous Renan
[34:15] Martin textbooks. No English textbooks for Yeah.
[34:17] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no.
[34:19] So I thought that might be the shared experience non answer.
[34:22] No, no, no. I think Renan Martin showed up
[34:23] in her lives when you were in secondary school.
[34:25] Yeah, I'm talking much younger age than that.
[34:28] I'm talking I'm talking possibly primary and maybe even pre
[34:32] primary much younger. Age.
[34:35] I don't even remember that part of my life.
[34:39] But you do remember this, I can assure you.
[34:41] Also be aware that even though I did study in a CBSE school, I
[34:44] did that in the Middle East, so I'm not sure all your experience
[34:48] would translate to mine, but let me see.
[34:54] Mount Sindoro. First thing that came to mind
[34:57] was sindoor. I actually did look up the
[35:00] etymology. I don't think it is directly
[35:02] connected to sindoor. A lot of Indonesian words and
[35:06] names have Sanskrit origins, so possible that there might be
[35:09] something. I couldn't find it, but yeah,
[35:11] maybe. No, I you'll have to give me
[35:13] clue. I have no, I have nothing
[35:15] springing to mind. OK, that's fair.
[35:17] Mounts Indora and Mount Zumbing are located in Central Java and
[35:22] are sometimes cited as an inspiration for the work of an
[35:29] artist, Tino Sidin. This artist is from Yogi Karta.
[35:34] Yogi Karta? I've never quite known how to
[35:36] pronounce that. Yogi Karta.
[35:37] Yogi Karta. So Yogi Karta, this artist from
[35:41] that particular place, which is by the way, in case you don't
[35:43] know, in Indonesia, his one art piece that is very popular is
[35:49] considered to be inspired by Mount Sundoran, Mount Suming.
[35:54] I don't think there is concrete proof that it was inspired by
[35:56] those two mountains, but a lot of people assume that that's
[35:59] where it comes from. Does this have to do with the
[36:00] fact that the first thing that we learned to draw are two
[36:04] mountains with slightly overlapping and a sun in
[36:06] between? The Yogi Cartan artist Tina
[36:08] Siddhin was a host of a children's drawing program in
[36:12] Indonesia, I'm going to probably butcher it, which is spelled as
[36:15] Gemar Mangamar, OK, And it aired in Indonesia in the 1980s.
[36:20] OK. He is known to have produced
[36:22] this one particular piece of drawing, which contained iconic
[36:26] twin mountains. There's a river or Rd. kind of
[36:30] thing coming down from it and a house in it.
[36:33] Yeah, and a house and a tree. I've.
[36:35] Drawn it Yeah, my son drew that all of.
[36:37] Us have drawn this. Yeah, all of us have drawn this.
[36:41] There's a Wikipedia page. You can actually Google this.
[36:43] There are a lot of articles about this.
[36:44] Are you kidding me? But there's a Wikipedia page
[36:46] called Twin Mountain Drawing and this is a universal experience
[36:50] in Indonesia. And The thing is, they were
[36:53] inspired by this one artist in 1980s who drew it.
[36:56] And so, OK, I understand why Indonesian kids are doing it.
[36:58] Why are we doing it? I'm mind blown at the fact that
[37:01] Indian kids are doing it and I have no idea where the
[37:03] connection exists. I've not been able to find the
[37:05] connection and I'm putting it out in the universe right now.
[37:08] If anybody who hears this podcast and has any idea of how
[37:10] this connection has been established, please tell us.
[37:13] I'm dying of curiosity. Internet did not quench my
[37:17] curiosity are. We sure it's not like a
[37:19] universal thing. Could be now that could be a
[37:21] universal experience. But here's what is interesting.
[37:24] Now you grew up in the Middle East.
[37:25] Yeah, there is no reason for you to be drawing to mountains and
[37:28] and river and and true the house and sun in that particular
[37:33] order. Like you should have been
[37:34] drawing sand dunes I guess like or the sea like.
[37:38] There is no reason for you to be doing what you did.
[37:40] Does that does make sense? I grew up in Mumbai.
[37:42] Again, no reason to be drawing mountains and the sun coming
[37:46] over it. Wow, that makes absolutely zero
[37:48] sense and it is a universal experience.
[37:51] OK, we really have to deep dive on this.
[37:53] I need to find out. It blew my mind because I could
[37:56] not. At least there's a Wikipedia
[37:57] article which explains the Indonesian connection.
[37:59] There's nothing on the Internet which explains the Indian
[38:01] connection. Except, I mean, all of us know
[38:03] it. It's almost like the shared
[38:05] experience that we I never quite really tried to figure out or
[38:08] understand why we do it. Yeah, except there's one
[38:10] beautiful piece of stand up by Biswa where he talks about like
[38:13] this thing that all of us do and he's joking about it.
[38:16] But of course he's only doing a stand up bit.
[38:18] He doesn't do a historical or socio cultural deep dive into
[38:23] it. Wow, I'm I'm just blown away.
[38:26] No, there are certain things like I've read about this.
[38:31] This is a bit of a tangent, but I've read about certain
[38:33] experiences that we find universally across cultures and
[38:38] we have no a clear reason as to why it's there.
[38:41] For example, you'll find some form of Dragons in almost every
[38:46] culture. The fear of ghosts is there in
[38:52] every culture, and not just the fear of ghosts is that most of
[38:56] us always think of ghosts in the same kind of way.
[38:59] They're always usually pale. They're always usually pale
[39:03] white faced with black eyes or something like.
[39:06] So that's also depiction that you find in almost every
[39:08] culture. Where did that come from?
[39:11] Similarly, there's there's a concept of the woman in white.
[39:15] It's a specific kind of ghost story, urban legends again, that
[39:18] you find in every. It's not just like, OK, the
[39:22] ghost wears white and it's a woman.
[39:24] It's a fact that it's usually a woman who's dry tragically, you
[39:27] know, killed by a lover or something like that.
[39:30] So there's always, there are a lot of these kind of trends
[39:32] which we find across and almost all of us have a flood myth in
[39:38] our mythology. Even I think the Gilgamesh talks
[39:41] about the great floods. The Bible talks about the great
[39:44] floods. Hindu mythology also has a great
[39:46] flood. There's a flood.
[39:47] There's a virgin birth, so these are things that are pretty
[39:51] standard across. Yeah.
[39:52] So is it like there was one civilization from which kind of
[39:56] came up with this and then it kind of disseminated or Because
[40:00] why would you have Dragons in almost every culture there's?
[40:05] I'm just picturing this little cute child 10,000 years ago
[40:09] drawing a mountain and the river with like a stone tool on to its
[40:14] tablet. Somehow, for the last next
[40:17] 10,000 years, we all desire to copy him.
[40:19] You said that in jest, but I think going and looking at cave
[40:22] paintings to see if anybody's actually done this as a cave
[40:25] painting would be, you know, useful.
[40:29] Because if it's in that, then this guy has nothing to do with
[40:32] this. Yeah, but at least in I read
[40:37] this of course is Wikipedia page, there were a couple of
[40:40] links to it for two Indonesian news articles, which are of
[40:43] course the translated version I did read.
[40:45] And they all seem to be certain of the fact that Indonesian
[40:48] children at least seem to be even been inspired by this 1980s
[40:52] artist and this art program on kids TV.
[40:55] Wow. All of us have seen these Bob
[40:57] Ross kind of shows. Art Attack.
[41:00] Art attack was one for Indians for the longest time.
[41:04] So yeah. And it's I'm so blown away when
[41:07] I found this piece of trivia. Though I must say, the little
[41:10] bit of difference is when we draw it, we usually have a river
[41:12] coming down from the mountains. Yes.
[41:16] I think in the Indonesian version of it, it's a road that
[41:19] seems to be going into the horizon.
[41:21] OK. Yeah, but it looks pretty
[41:24] similar, except maybe it doesn't curve as much.
[41:26] OK. And the same like that bird
[41:28] thing when the you know, we draw the little 2 curved lines, Yeah.
[41:33] Yeah, the like an R, like a sideways R or something that
[41:36] yeah. And the sun with the sun rays.
[41:38] Nice. Yeah.
[41:39] Oh my God. Like, it blew my mind that this
[41:40] exists. And by the way, we were talking
[41:42] about cave paintings and this is nothing to do with trivia, but I
[41:45] just thought it was an interesting thing that I read
[41:47] somewhere, some code. And who said that?
[41:49] It's so interesting that the one thing AI art gets wrong his
[41:53] hands and the first thing that children learn to do is do a
[41:58] finger painting or hand painting or even oldest paintings that
[42:03] exist in caves are our hand prints on the walls.
[42:06] Yeah, hand prints are outlines of hands.
[42:08] And yeah. And the one thing that AI messes
[42:10] up the most when we ask it to draw a picture, it's it's the
[42:13] hands. And I don't know what it says
[42:15] that I think it is some deep poetic thing over there.
[42:18] But would I like the implications of it?
[42:20] Yeah. But anyways, let's not digress
[42:22] too large Vineet, your question. OK, great.
[42:25] So Speaking of shared experiences between countries
[42:29] and whatnot. Oh, amazing.
[42:31] OK. So I'm going to take you to
[42:32] mathematics, and you were talking about primary school.
[42:36] I'm going to take you to. I think secondary school would
[42:39] be. I don't remember exactly when I
[42:41] learned this, but I vividly remember learning this.
[42:44] So you remember the quadratic formula?
[42:46] Minus B is equal to minus B square -4 A is equal.
[42:51] To minus B plus or minus. Oh my God, what am I saying?
[42:53] Let's let me I'm going to add it this I'm going to do this.
[42:56] X is equal to -b ± B square -4 AC over 2.
[42:59] AI know it. Yes mega ma'am don't get mad.
[43:02] So in elementary algebra, the quadratic formula is a closed
[43:05] form expression describing the solutions of a quadratic
[43:09] equation. Given a general quadratic
[43:12] equation of the form AX square plus BX plus C = 0, with X
[43:17] representing an unknown and AB and C coefficients representing
[43:21] known real or complex numbers with a not equal to 0, the
[43:25] values of X satisfying the equation called roots can be
[43:28] formed found using this quadratic formula.
[43:32] Worldwide, this is mostly known as the quadratic formula.
[43:37] However, there are exceptions. OK.
[43:40] What is this formula known as in Brazil?
[43:45] OK, Brazil seems to have fun Twist on the quadratic formula I
[43:50] guess. Yes, they have it.
[43:51] They call it by a specific name. I want you to tell me what name
[43:54] that is. This is a little bit of a
[43:56] general knowledge question as you know it or you don't, but I
[43:58] should probably be able to give you some clues.
[44:00] Promise me this answer will be fun.
[44:02] The answer is fun, yes. OK.
[44:03] Yeah, I'm, I'm in for the right. OK, double XI, don't know.
[44:09] I don't know. I'm trying to think of what
[44:10] could the two values of X be. Is there some Portuguese?
[44:14] Portuguese limited? No, no, no, no, no.
[44:17] I was trying to think roots. Whatever the Portuguese word for
[44:20] root is, for plants, root is. OK, So I'll just give you an
[44:24] example. I mentioned that there are
[44:26] exceptions to the rule. It's called the quadratic
[44:28] formula. In many, in almost worldwide,
[44:30] there are certain exceptions. 1 exception is Brazil.
[44:33] I like saying Brazil and the other is India.
[44:38] So in India it is known as I like among English speaking
[44:42] circles as the quadratic formula.
[44:44] Among non-english or at least in other circles mathematical
[44:48] circles. It's also known as
[44:50] Sridharacharya's formula after the Indian mathematician
[44:54] Sridhara of the I think 8th or 9th century.
[44:57] OK, I want you to think of, or maybe try and guess, a
[45:03] mathematician who may have been credited with coming up with
[45:07] this. Oh, so is it named after that
[45:10] mathematician? Yes.
[45:11] Practically the only two places in the world where this formula
[45:14] is known after people. So in India it is
[45:17] Sridharacharya's formula. If it's not Sridhara, the only
[45:20] name that at least the first name that comes to mind is
[45:22] always Aryabhatta. It's not Aryabhatta, but you are
[45:25] close. Or some other mathematician from
[45:32] ancient India. Probably going to kick myself
[45:35] once you say tell the answer because I probably know this
[45:37] name but now I can't think of it right now.
[45:39] You do know this name. You do definitely know this
[45:41] name. The reason actually, see we'll
[45:44] call it Sridharacharya's formula, is because he described
[45:49] this in a different way, like he didn't use the root square of
[45:53] it, he mentioned it as an equation with both sides of it.
[45:56] However, he himself had based it off a now lost work of another
[46:04] mathematician. OK.
[46:06] It's his name that I'm asking. He based it off of the work of a
[46:10] mathematician who's who predates him and whose work is lost.
[46:15] Yes, whose work is lost, but because he's mentioned in that,
[46:18] that's the reason we know that he came up with it first.
[46:22] Are we still talking ancient India?
[46:23] Yes, it is an it is an Indian mathematician that we're talking
[46:26] about. Is there anything else this
[46:28] mathematician has done? Because right now.
[46:30] Oh yeah. Yeah, this is list is huge.
[46:34] OK, give me give me maybe one or two things I might be able to
[46:38] remember. So this person had a version of
[46:41] proving the Pythagorean theorem, and that proof is sometimes
[46:46] called as the Hindu proof. Oh, I know this.
[46:48] I know this. I know this is this is this.
[46:53] He very famously drew the proof and underneath wrote Behold.
[47:00] In English, BEHOLD. The translation is in English
[47:06] Eureka. Yeah, it's Bhaskar.
[47:12] Bhaskar. Is it the Methodist in Bhaskar?
[47:14] Yes. Yes, it is the math measures.
[47:17] In Brazil, the quadratic equation is known as the Pascar
[47:21] equation. Oh my God, that's insane.
[47:23] Practically the only place in the world where it's known as
[47:27] the Pascara equation. Nice, nice, nice.
[47:30] So a little bit of background. So the earliest known
[47:32] association of Bhaskara with the quadratic equation in Brazilian
[47:38] texts was in 19 O 9 by an influential math pre college
[47:43] algebra textbook called Elementos de Alhabra.
[47:47] Perez E Marine, the author of this book was born in Spain in
[47:51] 1858, moved to Brazil in 1893, spending the less rest of his
[47:55] life there. He's recognized as being a
[47:57] respected math teacher and prolific author.
[48:00] So in the book on the resolution of the quadratic equation proof,
[48:04] Perez E Marine shows the quadratic formula deduced from
[48:08] completing squares and connects the formula with a footnote in
[48:12] Portuguese. It's written in Portuguese, the
[48:14] translation of which reads this method of resolution, notable by
[48:18] its simplicity is due to Pascara, an Indian
[48:21] mathematician. So since then this equation has
[48:26] been known as the Pascara equation in Brazil.
[48:30] Not even in India do we call it the Pascara equation.
[48:33] We call it the Sridharachari equation of the quadratic
[48:35] formula. Like Brazil is the only place
[48:37] where it's known by the name the Pascara equation.
[48:41] My next group was going to be that there's a 1981 satellite
[48:44] named after him. That's amazing.
[48:46] And I we've had a question about Bhaskar on the show before.
[48:50] One of these days I'm going to go back and listen to all our
[48:53] episodes and and revise that trivia.
[48:55] Just so that we can remember what we've asked here.
[48:58] No, but that, that is a phenomenal piece of trivia.
[49:01] There are some questions that when we ask in an episode, I am
[49:03] 100% sure we're not going to forget.
[49:06] Actually, so far, if I may say so myself today, all of the
[49:08] questions have been really good. Yeah, I might risk that streak
[49:13] with our last question, but I gotta ask it because this
[49:16] question just made me giggle a little.
[49:19] And you know, I love questions which make me giggle.
[49:22] No, no. OK, Have you heard of this
[49:26] software called Winamp? Yes, I have.
[49:29] It's a music MP3 player. Software.
[49:32] A child of the 90s, of course. No Winamp.
[49:34] Yes, highly customizable. It is a media player that was on
[49:37] Microsoft Windows and it was originally developed by this
[49:41] company Nullsoft, and they later sold it to AOL in 1999 for $80
[49:47] million. Completely unrelated to trivia,
[49:50] but I got a fair chunk of money in the 99 for just a media
[49:55] player. Like literally just piece of
[49:56] software. It's pretty cool.
[49:58] Anyway, so those of us who remember Winamp remember simple
[50:00] features like, you know, the equalizer where you could, you
[50:02] could mess around with things, you could change the bass, the
[50:05] treble. Yeah, the skins.
[50:07] Skins. Exactly, that's what I was going
[50:08] to get to next. The Winamp skins were considered
[50:12] a pretty strong USB for the software, right?
[50:16] Yeah, now coming to the question.
[50:18] Winamp has had multiple versions, as have more softwares
[50:22] over the years. Winamp One was released June
[50:25] 7th, 1997. Winamp 2 was released on
[50:29] September 8th, 1998. OK, the next major version,
[50:33] Winamp 3 spelled it as Winamp and the Ava Small Winamp Three
[50:39] MP3 at the end of it. Oh, OK, OK.
[50:41] It was released on August 9th, 2002.
[50:45] OK. After that came Winamp 5.
[50:47] If you are a keen listener, you noticed that I missed a number
[50:51] in between. Oh we need it on fire there.
[50:56] I like it. Really not messing up a math
[50:59] unlike me. OK.
[51:01] That was, by the way, my segue. Also the math.
[51:04] OK so Vinamp did not release version 4 and I don't know what
[51:10] their internal reasons were, but they did put out a statement
[51:13] which was pretty, you know, almost in a comedic tone
[51:17] explaining why they decided not to release the 4th edition or
[51:20] the 4th version. Did you take a guess as to why
[51:23] Winamp said they didn't release the 4th version?
[51:25] Which is pretty much a joke or or let's say something meant to
[51:30] be humorous. Anything to do with the MP4
[51:33] format? No, nothing to do with MP4,
[51:35] because Winamp 3 did kind of integrate MP3 into its name.
[51:39] So no, it has nothing to do with that.
[51:41] Yeah, no. But MP4 is a video format,
[51:43] right? Smart.
[51:44] That would be an interesting assumption.
[51:46] I don't think that had anything to do with the real reason, and
[51:50] definitely not to do with the joke reason. 345 Is it like a
[51:55] silly 789 kind of joke? It is.
[51:58] A very silly joke. It is maybe not as common as a
[52:04] 789 joke, but in it is very relevant to the case of Winamp.
[52:09] OK. I would suggest you think about
[52:10] what we spoke about, the features of Winamp that were
[52:14] popular or what made it very popular.
[52:15] The skins were very popular. Exactly.
[52:18] Because I remember everybody used Winamps for the skins we
[52:20] used to change us. We used to download our skins
[52:22] and then change them every other day just to make it look
[52:25] different. Exactly, and that is the biggest
[52:29] clue I can give you towards the answer.
[52:31] Oh God, this is going to be some this is going to be torture for
[52:34] me. I hate these kind of questions
[52:36] of yours because I can never guess them.
[52:41] So skins. So the MP5 is a skin for MP4 or
[52:47] when M5 is a skin for MP4 MNM 4 or something like that.
[52:52] And there are moments in our podcast where I'm like, Oh my
[52:54] God, what a smart man I talk to. And then these other moments
[52:56] where I'm like, why are you so smart?
[52:58] Like, come down to my level. Let's talk at my level.
[53:03] Let's talk at the level where jokes exist just for comedic
[53:07] purpose, and they don't make a lot of sense beyond that.
[53:10] I'm not somebody who's sense of comedy is as keen as yours.
[53:17] Seeing the comedy in that is not something like mine is very bass
[53:21] comedy, fart jokes and things like that.
[53:25] I like the when I'm preference there Your bass comedy.
[53:28] OK you said the skins are popular right?
[53:31] And what is the version number 4?
[53:35] So if you were to make a stupid juvenile foreskins, oh God, this
[53:40] is. A foreskin joke?
[53:42] Oh my God no. Why do I even?
[53:49] Regarding the omission of version 4, Nulsoft joked that
[53:54] nobody wants to see a Winamp foreskin.
[54:01] Why am I laughing at this? Because this is a great joke and
[54:05] and you you understand the greatness of the joke.
[54:08] It's so puerile. I mean, like, it's so childish,
[54:15] but I have to give it to the British.
[54:17] Pretty good word play. Yeah, it was right there.
[54:21] So there is no official reason for why they decided to skip it,
[54:24] or at least none that I could find.
[54:26] But yeah, when I'm foreskin something they did not
[54:31] advertise, so who wants to change there when I'm foreskin
[54:35] every single day? God, stop.
[54:39] Yeah, I don't know if this has to be marked as explicit.
[54:41] You probably will have to. Whoever does not want to listen
[54:44] to explicit content is missing out on a great job then.
[54:48] That was a great question to end or kind of bookend the episode.
[54:53] Yes, Let's go back to the audience question that I'd asked
[54:55] at the beginning of the episode. This was a question sent to us
[54:57] by our regular listener, Mr. Arjun Sreekumar.
[55:00] All About Eve is a 1950 film written and directed by Joseph L
[55:04] Mankiewicz, starting starring Betty Davis, Betty Davis and
[55:08] Baxter, and a relatively unknown Marilyn Monroe in one of her
[55:12] first film roles. The film went out to Ghana, 14
[55:15] Oscar nominations, finally winning six.
[55:17] What is unique about the film's Oscar nominations?
[55:21] Aditya, do you have any idea what we're talking about?
[55:24] Marilyn Monroe. I think this was Monroe's first
[55:27] Oscar nomination. So was this everybody's first
[55:30] Oscar nomination? No.
[55:32] Was this Monroe's first? I think this was Monroe's first.
[55:34] No, she was not nominated. Oh, she wasn't nominated.
[55:38] She wasn't nominated. No, I have no idea, sorry.
[55:41] Which were the categories that they were nominated for?
[55:43] Oh, so that's the, that's the answer.
[55:45] So what categories were they nominated for?
[55:48] OK. So what is?
[55:49] What is peculiar about that or unique about it?
[55:52] Can I ask what how many Oscars were they nominated for?
[55:56] 14. They were nominated for 14
[55:58] Oscars. Yeah.
[56:00] Oh wow. OK, this is short in the dark.
[56:05] Are all of these Oscar categories discontinued now or
[56:08] changed their name or something like that?
[56:10] Nothing like that. No, no idea.
[56:11] No idea at all. OK, so this is one of those GK
[56:14] kind of questions but I really like the answer so that's why I
[56:18] included it. And shout out to Arjun Sree
[56:20] Kumar for sending it to us. This was the only film to date
[56:24] to have four female acting nominations, 2 for Best Actress
[56:30] Davis and Baxter, and two for Supporting Actress for Celeste
[56:33] Home and Thelma Rita. Wow, that's nice.
[56:36] Yeah, fun fact, none of them. What?
[56:39] OK, OK. Only George Sanders, one from
[56:42] Best. Supporting actor.
[56:43] Oh, the men always swoop in there, OK.
[56:47] Yeah, so before I put out my usual spiel, what's your pop
[56:52] culture recommendation? So for today's pop culture
[56:55] recommendation, I'm going to do something I don't usually do.
[56:57] I want to recommend a book. I'm more a movie guy.
[56:59] But this book, it it reminded me why I love reading books as a
[57:05] child. I love reading books as a child
[57:07] and it literally KET me up at night.
[57:09] Now I use books to fall asleep. Literally I open up a book so
[57:12] that I can fall asleep quickly. This book, it ruined my sleep
[57:16] for three nights straight and I finished it.
[57:18] And this author has been guilty of doing this with every single
[57:21] one of her books. This is the last queen and her
[57:25] previous two books were Palace of Illusions and Forest of
[57:28] Enchantments. In case I haven't recommended
[57:30] them in the past, consider this a recommendation for those two
[57:33] books as well. Chitra Banerjee Devakarni is the
[57:36] name of the author. I I don't know.
[57:39] I don't know what is it in her writing style.
[57:41] And this isn't necessarily saying that this is great art
[57:45] and nobody to make that judgement because I have also
[57:47] found books like like a damn round novel to be something very
[57:51] tough to put down. It just keeps you so engaged.
[57:53] And this woman does this with Indian mythology and in this
[57:57] case, Indian history or at least historical fiction.
[57:59] So both Palace of Illusion and Force of Enchantment deal with
[58:02] the Ramayan and Mahabharat rather the other way round.
[58:06] And in this case, the last Queen deals with the last Queen of
[58:10] Punjab. Oh, it's a tragic story.
[58:13] Her son Ranjeet Singh was the last was the last person.
[58:19] I guess he's a spoiler but also history so not by fault if I'm
[58:23] spoiling it for you. His, her son, was the one who
[58:25] lost, or rather, was the one who signed the papers over or signed
[58:30] the Kohinoor over to the Queen. To the East India Company, who
[58:34] then in turn gifted it to the to Queen Victoria.
[58:37] Apologies, I feel like I didn't read the book.
[58:40] When you thread the book. Yeah.
[58:42] And the name of the queen is Jin Dakar.
[58:44] Marani Jin Dakar. I also something about this book
[58:48] where, you know, when, when we read about historical fiction,
[58:51] either because it's fiction, so the authors take liberty and and
[58:54] you know, make, make them glorious or, or make them
[58:59] really, really despicable. In this case, no, Jindkar was
[59:03] both at various points where like at some point you're
[59:05] rooting for her. At some point you're just like,
[59:07] Oh my God, how can you be this ridiculous?
[59:09] And I guess that's that's part of her charm of the authors
[59:13] charm. She was a chariot, his daughter
[59:15] or something like that. She was a common woman, right?
[59:17] As she was the daughter of the person who was I think the guard
[59:22] of the dogs, I'm forgetting dog keeper.
[59:23] Sorry, something like that. She was a commoners daughter.
[59:25] Commoners daughter? Yeah.
[59:26] And she rose to prominence, apparently very beautiful.
[59:30] Marani Jintkar was also I think forced by the British East India
[59:35] Company to never see her son again and she was banished to AI
[59:38] think, somewhere in Nepal. Yeah, yeah, the book covers all
[59:41] of that. She she moved from prison to
[59:43] prison. OK.
[59:43] Pretty heartbreaking part of history.
[59:45] You would also see at some points.
[59:46] And while, while these these things are much bigger than one
[59:49] person, you also see how human beings falter and, you know,
[59:53] these missteps that they make. And I think this book really
[59:56] exemplifies that. I'm sorry.
[59:57] I've I've waxed eloquent about this book.
[1:00:01] Definitely read it if you and if you, like me, have struggled to
[1:00:03] read a book and finish it quickly enough in the last few
[1:00:07] years. Hopefully this book does it for
[1:00:09] you like it did for me. And fantastic I have.
[1:00:12] I'll have to check out this book because I haven't personally
[1:00:14] read it. I'd definitely like to see that
[1:00:17] kind of reinterpretation of history in a fictional aspect.
[1:00:20] I have been on a kind of a nostalgic route to these past
[1:00:24] few days, so I ended up rewriting.
[1:00:27] So I have an entire hall upstairs which is dedicated to
[1:00:32] just books. Like you.
[1:00:34] Yeah. So there are a lot of books
[1:00:36] which I've, I've collected over the past 30-40 years, many of
[1:00:41] which I have not gone back to in like maybe 10 years or something
[1:00:45] like that. So there's a book, however, I
[1:00:47] keep going back to every few years.
[1:00:50] And that book is Naomi's Room by Jonathan Icliff.
[1:00:56] I don't know if I've mentioned this to you before.
[1:00:58] I may have mentioned it on the podcast before, but Naomie Room
[1:01:01] is a horror novel. And when people say that they
[1:01:06] usually don't get scared you're reading novels.
[1:01:09] This is the book I refer them to.
[1:01:12] This is a really good book for people who are looking for a
[1:01:16] book to actually scare the bejesus out of them.
[1:01:20] OK, OK, so it's really, really creepy, really creepy book.
[1:01:22] And it's not a big read. You can probably like me, if
[1:01:26] you're like me, you can just read in one sitting in a day.
[1:01:29] So that's an easy, digestible book.
[1:01:30] So go to check that out. There's another movie called Jeb
[1:01:33] Heme, which I would recommend. It's a fantastic movie based on
[1:01:38] a true story and it stars actor Surya from the Tamil industry.
[1:01:42] It's a basically a Tamil film but being, you know, dumped into
[1:01:45] multiple languages. You can catch it on OTT
[1:01:47] platforms and India. Definitely go watch it.
[1:01:49] It's a heart renting, wrenching kind of watch.
[1:01:53] It hits use much harder because you know that this is a true
[1:01:57] story. This actually happened and the
[1:02:00] unimaginable horrors that certain parts of society have to
[1:02:03] face. So I'm not going to spoil
[1:02:04] anything. Just go watch Jeb him.
[1:02:06] And the third one I would recommend is a movie called Diaz
[1:02:09] ere it's a horror film. It's the DSA is a Latin term
[1:02:15] literally meaning the day of Ross.
[1:02:17] And this is a Malayalam movie by director Rahul Sebastian, who
[1:02:22] has now become kind of the go to horror movie director in
[1:02:28] Malayalam. His two previous movies have
[1:02:30] been exceptional. Bhuta column which literally can
[1:02:34] be translate to the past. It translates to the past.
[1:02:38] Bhutakalam translate to the past.
[1:02:39] It's available on Sony live. It was an OTT only release.
[1:02:42] And again when I'm looking for horror movies to actually scare
[1:02:46] people, this is one of the movies I recommend.
[1:02:49] It's a slow burn but the climax makes it worth it.
[1:02:55] And I always describe Bhutakalam to people as what a real life
[1:03:00] haunting word might actually look like.
[1:03:03] This is the most realistic, haunting movie probably ever put
[1:03:06] on film. OK.
[1:03:08] Oh, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening in.
[1:03:09] You can connect with us and reach out with the reach out to
[1:03:12] us for questions and other things on our socials, which are
[1:03:16] in the episode description and right here somewhere.
[1:03:20] We'd love to hear from you. So connect with us.
[1:03:22] We appreciate your support and look forward to sharing more
[1:03:25] episodes with you in the future. Thanks again for tuning in and
[1:03:27] have a great day. See you guys next week.
[1:03:40] Blackface, you have to give me something to work with here.

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