Garima Kaushal and I were in the same team trying to bring people together for a better world, or simply to sell some good beer. Both in our first post-MBA career switches, we soon discovered that landing a coveted so-called dream-job doesn't really mean that one suddenly stumbles upon clarity and a reason for what we were doing with life, or even why.   Now with COVID-19 having infected our minds and lives, we talk about out daily WFH life, being part of an 'essentials' business, how the Aarogya Setu app is shady and probably gathering data to sell us gaumutra on Google later, and how society uncles, armed with their trusted source of news and information (WhatsApp) are out to change the world as we know it and how we never saw them coming.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, the human overlords of planet Earth are locked in a vicious battle with the virulent army of COVID. Forced to retreat to their shelters, the human 'race' has had to slow down, and reassemble their actions to find a 'new normal', the promised age when things will start feeling okay again.  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

This time I'm chillin with Kashyap Swaroop, the only one in his family of 3 who doesn't have a National Award, his Father, Mother and Sister all have at-least one. He's trying hard though by writing and being a joke, stand-up comedian, producer, digital marketer and rehabilitated cynic. We talk about a whole ton of things: how COVID could change the way we consume live entertainment, the stand-up industry, content creation, his father Kamal Swaroop's first movie Om Dar-Ba-Dar, the holocaust, having the courage to be disliked, stolen bicycles and the environment.  

Link to the book The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

Also check out The Director's Cut: Kamal Swaroop Interview | Om-Dar-Ba-Dar

See what you like: Recording conversations - 00:10 Comedians with cats - 05:33 Courage to be Disliked - 06:45 Reducing Carbon Footprint - 09:30 Empty Bombay Roads - 12:05 Learning how to ride a bike - 13:55 Europe and the Holocaust - 21:20 Future of entertainment - 33:00 Coding and Comedy - 44:30 Digital Content and Being Nimble - 56:37 Learning the Guitar - 1:02:05 Bois Locker Room - 1:08:25 Sexuality and Menstruation - 1:13:14 Om Dar-Ba-Dar - 1:16:45

Gaurav is that friend we not only deserve, but also need, especially if one was a last bench dork growing up. We've spent countless hours playing 1v1 cricket (yeap, that's what happens when you both sorta suck), playing random computer games (or more like he played and I watched) after bunking tuition classes in 10th standard (SWAG - Students With Average Grades). He's the one who I went to with all my problems, and to bitch about my other friends and humans in general because his family was (and still is) cool enough for me to randomly show up every second day.   

Apart from being the quintessential childhood friend, I am happy to say that Gaurav was also able to survive through puberty and smash it as a self-taught coder and tech enthusiast, he is resident nerd and co-founder at Ekahal, a product, technology and marketing consulting firm with Manan Vora, the couple met at a WeWork, the world's speed dating venue for start-up founders. In this conversation we talk about our old and new passions (gaming, counter-strike), things which blow our mind (Samay Raina playing chess, each word of the book Sapiens) and also about how racism might be the reason for the war on Marijuana.

We're under lock-down but the show must go on so I met Yash over video call to record this conversation. We talk about a ton of random things like trying to hone our passion for writing (and never really getting to it), stand-up comedy and podcasts, but one of our favorite things is roasting friends, which you'll get glimpses of time and again. Apart from being a full-time bully and social-circle clash-alyst (saying something controversial and enjoying the drama that unfolds), Yash also runs Brevity - an Ed-tech and Learning & Development content start-up. He's also a chess enthusiast, reads about a lot of random subjects, has attended more classes as a kid than I knew existed (ranging from playing the piano to learning magic), and also loves tearing apart rag-dolls with his big pooch, Buzz.