1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:19,620 Kush Dhebar researches, studies and supervises excavations of ancient and medieval Indian 2 00:00:19,620 --> 00:00:25,380 sites of importance. His PhD was a study of the sculptures of grappling and feudalism 3 00:00:25,380 --> 00:00:31,060 of the Vijayanagara monuments. Apart from archaeology, he is a wrestling enthusiast 4 00:00:31,060 --> 00:00:36,920 which he thinks has built more mental than physical strengths in him. How did a student 5 00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:42,760 who couldn't focus on his school studies develop this set of diverse career interests? That's 6 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:50,260 what this fascinating conversation is about. This is episode 19 of My First Job, the podcast 7 00:00:50,260 --> 00:00:56,880 that covers engaging career journeys and every single one is full of twists, turns and insights. 8 00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:03,440 I am Venu Gopal Nair, the host of the podcast and CEO of Ideascape Communications, an advertising 9 00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:09,560 agency into branding, creative and design. So settle in, sit back and enjoy the conversation 10 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:15,840 or put on your earphones and pound the pavement for the bucks. Kush, welcome to the show. 11 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:20,960 First of all, thank you very much for the great introduction. I don't think anyone in 12 00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:26,080 my family would give me such accolades the way you have given. Whatever career I've had, 13 00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:29,920 it's a very short career compared to a lot of people who have come on this show. I'm 14 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:35,080 grateful for whatever good, bad and ugly has happened. I studied at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya 15 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:41,320 in Delhi where the school was very compassionate towards my special learning disabilities that 16 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:48,440 I had. I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia, but it is right now at the age of 31, two 17 00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:54,920 years ago that I was properly diagnosed as a neurodivergent ADHD. For the longest time, 18 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:59,800 my diagnosis like had been on a completely different tangent. I mean, it's okay. As long 19 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,480 as my school was very good and compassionate with me, they never put any pressure on me. 20 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:09,360 My parents never put any pressure. The only pressure was ki beta pass ho jaana. I am actually 21 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:15,120 very, very, very lucky there. Maths was a pressure, but I think my father learned to 22 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:22,480 be okay with me not doing maths. I had some of the best teachers who sort of were just 23 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:27,880 there for me and I happened to like them and not the subject exactly. Predominantly, they 24 00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:33,720 were political science, history, sociology, economics teachers. Unfortunately, math teachers 25 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:39,680 were a lot stricter. And out of that, the history teacher was the most dedicated towards 26 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:45,000 me, honed my skills. Actually, she passed away when I was doing my undergrad at Hindu 27 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:50,440 college in history honors in my first year and I dedicated my PhD thesis to her. That's 28 00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:56,400 history, but it's still not archaeology and I learned the difference between history and 29 00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:02,080 archaeology earlier than what a lot of archaeologists do. After doing history at Delhi university 30 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:08,840 in Hindu college, for a lot of reasons, I realized that I wanted to study things that 31 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:15,920 are more tangible and my mental state, like my hyperactive brain was never the type to 32 00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:23,240 stay in a room or a library or a classroom per se and just read. So I preferred being 33 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:29,280 outdoors, seeing things for myself and that's where archaeology struck a chord. The love 34 00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:35,360 for history came from the teacher's attention and she has obviously given you something 35 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:40,200 that you will treasure your entire life because she's pointed you in a direction that you 36 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:45,760 know you can keep exploring. And what I was fascinated by during one of our early conversations 37 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:52,920 is that you told me that you understood that you couldn't focus on a long term. So you 38 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:58,520 looked at how to build your career around projects. How did that understanding come 39 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:03,840 about? That's still a work in progress. The understanding came out during the pandemic 40 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:08,640 in 2020. It's like universe telling me now actually be serious and think about something. 41 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:16,560 My career started after my undergraduate. I had the opportunity to teach 29 amazing 42 00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:21,800 kids in Seelampur in Delhi. I was a Teach for India fellow. Teach for India actually 43 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:27,880 gave me a lot of insight into myself. Things that I realized that I'm really good at was 44 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:35,280 like being with kids, explaining certain concepts, just being out there in the field. I thrived 45 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:41,080 when I was not in a very structural corporate setup in Teach for India. My manager, she 46 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:46,160 was a British and she was amazing the way she managed me. For her, she understood me 47 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:52,960 that let's not make push do things which he doesn't like but make him do things that he 48 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:59,120 likes at the same time are aligned with Teach for India's vision. So I'm actually very 49 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:06,000 lucky that I've had a lot of managers and bosses who were women like Emma and of course 50 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,960 my mother. I think my first manager, the first puraskar should go to my mother for being 51 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,560 out there. If you would ask her, I would actually tell her to give me a t-shirt and saying Karya 52 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:26,080 Pragati Par Hai. I think Emma and then later on, I had a lot of female bosses and I think 53 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:32,800 I was very fortunate that my first set of classroom was 85% girls students. I think 54 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:38,880 around them, it used to make me calm, give me that motivation to go that extra mile. 55 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:44,240 But say if my bosses told me to do that, I would not do it. But if I could feel it, now 56 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:49,680 I need to do it for my kids, I would definitely do it. So you know Teach for India is a compulsory 57 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:54,480 two year project. It's a fellowship. So I knew that in 2013, I'm going to get done with 58 00:05:54,480 --> 00:06:00,560 it. Then I did my masters. I was really short. So I will be very honest and brutal about 59 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:06,400 one thing that I got into Teach for India because initially a lot of people who were 60 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:11,400 getting into Teach for India were like the cream of the cream of Indian society and really 61 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:17,120 brilliant people being surrounded by such brilliant minds in Teach for India. It actually 62 00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:24,320 gave me my own identity and even today, most of my mentors are. So I was one of the youngest 63 00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:29,600 fellows in Teach for India because at that time the students, they were still more focused 64 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:35,720 on Oh, I need a career. I need to go to say McKenzie or a Bain or a BCG or study for 65 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:40,840 the civil service. Like the aspirations were still very stereotypical. And to be honest, 66 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:45,360 Teach for India had not learned marketing very well at that point of time. So I think 67 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:50,080 now they are excellent at it. Their outreach and everything is really good. But during 68 00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:55,320 that time, at least I could see that people who are coming, they did not have that ulterior 69 00:06:55,320 --> 00:07:03,280 motive of getting into say any good college. And even today TFI actually gave me that push, 70 00:07:03,280 --> 00:07:09,280 figure it out, be opinionated. I used to be very vocal with everyone in TFI and I wasn't 71 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:14,680 fired. That was the first phase. However, the type of experiences I had with Teach for 72 00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:21,200 India, I did not find a couple of my future organizations that I worked for later on to 73 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:26,800 be as accommodating to me. I would say you can't clap with one hand. I was at mistake 74 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,920 also and I don't blame them to a certain extent because at the end of the day, everyone has 75 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:35,320 to get their work done. That's when I realized that I should be choosing the people I want 76 00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:40,280 to work with rather than the names of the organizations and the set up I want to work. 77 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:47,760 Couple of bad experiences at workplaces actually taught me not to go after brands. I ended 78 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:53,360 up doing masters in archaeology. So everyone from who does Teach for India, they usually 79 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:59,800 end up doing public policy. During my time, there were people doing MBA and people just 80 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:04,040 starting their own not for profits or for profit. But I took a completely different 81 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:08,920 tangent and I was always different. So like it's not that something that anyone was surprised 82 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:18,480 about. After working in two, three organizations where I was just not a fit for them and they 83 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:24,720 were not a fit for me, I started taking up a lot of conscious decisions on say calibrating 84 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:30,840 my expectations, always surrounded by people who were earning big packages and I wasn't. 85 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:38,800 I took that route and tried to get into various setups where I worked 13, 14, 15, 18 hours 86 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:44,720 a day. So I realized at the age of 26 that I'm not meant for this. My mother realized 87 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:51,880 it when I was 28 and my brother realized it now. So like, you know, I mean, it's like 88 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:56,880 more like a strength and conditioning happening for the entire family. And now I'm at a space 89 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:01,960 where no one in my family questions. As long as you're doing what you want and you are 90 00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:06,240 on your own, we are happy. What is it that the children were looking for? You were going 91 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:10,880 from being a student to becoming a teacher. If I had not done Teach for India, I would 92 00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:16,800 have definitely pursued my masters in archaeology. I just thought let's do this two year fellowship 93 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:22,040 and see how it goes. The fellowship never gave me that mindset that I don't want to 94 00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:27,040 get into archaeology. The universe has its way of working things out. Job prospects, 95 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:35,480 career prospects or anything monetary is not as rewarding in archaeology. Government being 96 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:40,960 the sole major player in the archaeology and the heritage sector makes it even hard. I 97 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:46,120 don't blame the government because our heritage is owned by the people of the country select 98 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:51,040 the government. Hence the government owns it. Like any other government sector undertaking, 99 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:57,320 you give a certain exam. So people who are in the system as in ASI or State Departments, 100 00:09:57,320 --> 00:10:02,880 I actually don't see them doing a lot of archaeology. I actually see them doing a lot of desk work. 101 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:09,400 So the pay scales are not even close to what anyone would imagine. The fellowship stipend 102 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:15,040 in Teach for India was like a full time salary for most of the people in archaeology at that. 103 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:21,640 The balance was that bad. I loved archaeology so much that I decided a lot of credit goes 104 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:26,960 to my mother and my brother. They said that if you have the capability to earn more by 105 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:33,200 taking your education background and making more money, why don't you do that and do archaeology 106 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:39,320 for fun and passion. I always wanted to make archaeology a career living out of it. But 107 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:46,640 to be honest, it was not until now. The first time I was employed as an archaeologist properly 108 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:52,480 was in 21 in the Department of Science and Technology project on the DNA project of Rakigadi 109 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:58,160 at Deccan College. Before that, I was so scared looking at my friends around. They are giving 110 00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:03,520 this government exam. They are giving that government exam. At least I can continue that 111 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:09,520 much if you know I work in the development sector or if I say teach in an IB school or 112 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:14,720 something. So I was just very practical. Although I was miserable. Every day I wanted to quit. 113 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:20,680 But I think those eight years after my masters put a stone on my heart and just did what 114 00:11:20,680 --> 00:11:26,240 I did. If I did not have curriculum VT the way it is now, I don't think you or anyone 115 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:30,720 would approach me. The initial years when you put in the effort, when you're building 116 00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:35,880 your base, your foundations, nothing is seen above. It's as if you don't exist. But the 117 00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:40,400 point is you're learning the most, you're absorbing the most and you're internalizing 118 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:45,760 so much that once you start taking off, then it's as if people are saying, okay, where 119 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:51,440 did this guy come from? That is one of the mistakes that I see about people who aspire 120 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,880 to. I'm not saying it's a mistake. Probably it's because of conditioning that they look 121 00:11:55,880 --> 00:12:02,160 at saying I need a very high salary. And after that, the lifestyle fits the salary. And then 122 00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:07,080 it becomes a kind of wheel from which you can't break away. If you don't like it, you 123 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:11,000 started by saying you love archaeology. So you prepared to do whatever is required. It 124 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:15,600 took you seven, eight years to get to where you are. But I think that this will really 125 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:21,160 stand you in good stead. What part of archaeology do you like the actual on-site? There are 126 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:25,600 a lot of learnings from archaeology. I can't speak. Another thing is that I'm colorblind, 127 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:30,160 but I didn't know how much it will affect me in archaeology. This is the first time 128 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:36,360 that I am excavating in Rakhi Gadi. I am going with my batch, my classmates from Bandra to 129 00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:42,440 Delhi, Dehradun Express. And my first experience is two o'clock at night, the train burns. 130 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:47,800 We are stranded in Dhanu. People die. Two compartments completely burned. That's the 131 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:53,240 first time I'm like, maybe should I do archaeology or not? Now, fast forward a few days, we reach 132 00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:59,800 Rakhi Gadi, terrible cold, no water, no electricity. You know, like we, I can't even see my food 133 00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:03,680 and I'm so hungry that I don't want to see my food. Let's just eat it and go to sleep. 134 00:13:03,680 --> 00:13:08,160 Then you know, when I started excavating, I'm a juvenile asthmatic and I'm a colorblind. 135 00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:13,160 You can say it was my immaturity that I still wanted to do archaeology. These two things 136 00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:18,800 were big limitations for me. On-site I fell sick. When I was sick, I went to Jind, which 137 00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:23,680 was the closest city because there were no antibiotics available for like 50 kilometers 138 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:28,000 from the excavation site. So I come back. When we are excavating in India, everywhere 139 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:32,480 in the world you have to observe is that we get a lot of pottery and Rakhi Gadi is a Harappan 140 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:38,160 site. And in India, all the cultures, all the periods mostly are identified through 141 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:44,740 the type of pottery we get. And the pottery is mostly identified based on shapes and color. 142 00:13:44,740 --> 00:13:50,360 Now the color part is gone for me. I mean, it was so funny that I would go to my professor, 143 00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:55,360 professor Shinde, the site supervisor, Nilesh Bhau and Amrita ma'am, who was the other 144 00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:59,120 professor. I actually took a lot of modern pottery to them, ma'am, see Harappan pottery. 145 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:03,800 And there was a time when all the people were like, you take out the mud, leave the color 146 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:10,320 work to us. I was literally like using my forearms and you know, taking out all the 147 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:14,720 dirt and sand. And the other thing is that in archeology, we need to see stratigraphy. 148 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:19,880 When we excavated trench, we have to basically mark and do some stratigraphy drawing. That 149 00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:25,800 is all either based on color and texture that you have to touch. Wherever I could make out 150 00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:30,880 that the texture is different, I was lucky. But a lot of time I just missed all cultural 151 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:38,700 layers. I think asthma and my colorblindness studying art history with colored art is gone. 152 00:14:38,700 --> 00:14:44,040 Getting ceramic studies is gone. I actually did not like excavations much. One because 153 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:49,640 I always kept on falling ill. And the other is people think that we archeologists do a 154 00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:55,120 lot of amazing stuff. We have to stand at a trench and just wait for it to go down. 155 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:59,560 If workers are there, we have to manage workers. And trust me, it's not a very good thing. 156 00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:06,000 It's very boring. I was at a site at Telangana called Fani Giri recently in 2018 and no antiquities 157 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:10,200 are coming out from my trench. But I can't go anywhere. I'm supervising my trench. So 158 00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:15,400 there is no cool stuff happening. It's scorching sun. I don't speak Telugu. All I could speak 159 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:21,560 is Muttham excavate all. Mitty, Mitty, Tee, Yee. The workers taught me certain words. 160 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:26,600 The reality of archeology is that this is what majority of archeologists face. I mean, 161 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:33,080 I get a lot of messages on LinkedIn like everything that, oh, I want to find a civilization. I 162 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,920 want to find this, that earlier I used to be very supportive to these youngsters. And 163 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,880 now I'm like, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that doesn't happen with everyone. They 164 00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:47,400 might hate me for the brutal honesty that I put in, but I think they will thank me for 165 00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:51,920 being honest to them because when they actually get it, they're not finding anything. That's 166 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:57,400 when you said grappling, right? I was a very active person because I was hyper. I got into 167 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:03,640 martial arts. Then I went to my professor, Dr. Shrikant Ganvir and I asked him that sir, 168 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:09,080 you deal in temple, temple. You tell me that I can do something like martial arts. Can 169 00:16:09,080 --> 00:16:14,360 I do something? Initially, even he thought, yes, there are sculptures of Vali Sugriva 170 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:19,320 and some master's dissertation on it. But if I'm interested in something, I like to 171 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:25,320 go deep down and I don't leave it. I actually figured out through these sculptures of grappling, 172 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:33,880 I can technically not just be very simplistic that, oh, temple had these sculptures to actually 173 00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:38,920 start understanding India as a whole. That's a complete conversation. I have written a 174 00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:43,120 lot of articles and I'm still working on it. Two best things have happened to me in my 175 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:49,440 life. One is getting acquainted with children. Second was doing my PhD research. Because 176 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:54,680 of my PhD research, I started going to an MMA gym. At that time I was young. I was 25 177 00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:59,000 years old for my master's dissertation. So I thought, if you're doing it on a wrestler, 178 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:05,000 then try it out. And trust me, it's not that good when you're fighting with professional 179 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:10,440 fighters. Delhi being the place it is, as it is known for its roadside brawls. These 180 00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:14,920 people come to these gyms to make sure they don't brawl outside. So you know inside the 181 00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:20,280 gym, they will go all out. My fight club where I learned whatever little bit of Jujitsu, 182 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:26,680 boxing, Muay Thai is like my family now. They also learned to accept me. They knew that 183 00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:31,560 I will not come every day, that I will not do everything that my coach tells me. My coach 184 00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:36,800 Siddharth Singh, he knows me so well now. He doesn't judge me anymore. And my entire 185 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:40,680 fight team doesn't judge me. So initially, you know, when I started training, all of 186 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:46,520 them are professional fighters now. Our gym has just signed a fighter with the UFC, which 187 00:17:46,520 --> 00:17:52,240 is like the mother load of mother load of mixed martial arts. I mean, that's how successful 188 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:57,280 my gym is. All of these youngsters, I have seen them, I have trained with them when they 189 00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:01,640 were teenagers. They are more mature than me to realize that Kush, why don't you come 190 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:06,760 and sit and watch us fight? I was always injured. But then they sort of realized that, okay, 191 00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:13,280 Kush wants to do Jujitsu for research. I don't want to choke people for a living. Even right 192 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,840 now, cross-chain fight club. And then when I was working in Bangalore, I joined another 193 00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:23,720 gym called Institute of Jujitsu. I actually found a lot more encouragement, motivation 194 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:29,920 and following in the fight industry than in archeology. Everyone in archeology, the ones 195 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:36,120 who do it, Gadadharibheem, Pehelwan, Malla. Now that people have seen that I've done my 196 00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:41,200 PhD, I've given so many podcasts, interviews and stuff to different places. So now like 197 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:46,280 people have started taking me a bit seriously, but I'm fine with it. So you said Vali and 198 00:18:46,280 --> 00:18:53,120 Sugriva who featured in your PhD dissertation, how did you go deeper into that? When we see 199 00:18:53,120 --> 00:19:00,240 a temple, most of us look at a temple from a very religious, pious point of view. But 200 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:06,520 the reality of the situation is that what we define as a Hindu temple today is not the 201 00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:14,440 way it was defined earlier. Temples were centers for power. Temples were landowners. Temples 202 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:21,200 were employers. Temples were places of gathering. Temples were places of festivities. There 203 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:26,360 were Kalyanamandapam. There were Bhoogamandapam. They were places for charity. Same way the 204 00:19:26,360 --> 00:19:32,680 mosques are today. There are orphanages running out of mosques, out of churches. All the religious 205 00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:38,080 bodies all over the world under the umbrella of religion, they don't just pray all the 206 00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:44,360 time. They do a lot of other stuff. There is lack of awareness regarding these cultural 207 00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:49,640 processes. I have started an organization myself called Vratya Foundation where I am 208 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:56,480 writing graphic novels and comics on Indian culture to make our youth understand various 209 00:19:56,480 --> 00:20:03,680 cultural phenomenon. For me, a temple can be interpreted on multiple levels and the 210 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:08,720 sculptures on the temple. People always joke about Khajurau temples, erotic sculptures. 211 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:14,640 If you go deep into it, like I have a friend Anuja, then I have a mentor, Devangana Desai 212 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:20,200 ma'am, who went so deep into those cultures that they were not just erotic sculptures. 213 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:25,440 They had a lot of significant meaning for the people of that time. They actually symbolize 214 00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:31,600 a lot about the contemporary human behavior and mindset. We have to understand the tantra 215 00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:38,000 shastras. We have to understand the Shaiva agamas, Vaishnava texts. Even Shaiva, Vaishnava, 216 00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:43,360 within Shaiva there is Kalamuka, there is Kapalika, there is Nath Sampradaya. The sculptures 217 00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:49,400 that I dealt with were not just religious in nature. The sculptures had a lot of deeper 218 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:56,040 symbolic meaning. For example, I did my PhD on sculptures of grappling and pugilism, which 219 00:20:56,040 --> 00:21:03,280 is basically boxing and grappling on Vijayanagar monuments. For my PhD, I went around Northern 220 00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:09,240 Karnataka. I saw Badami Chalukyan monuments. I saw Yadav, Raj Trikot and I saw a lot of 221 00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:15,880 monuments. To figure out my PhD topic, I would have seen around 200 temples for identifying 222 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:20,680 my area. Vijayanagar was a very unique setup. Again, the universe has its ways. In Pune, 223 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:25,320 I started doing another martial art because there was no Jiu Jitsu. I started doing Kapuera. 224 00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:30,680 Now Kapuera has its own very symbolic meaning. It is something that is comparable to Kalari 225 00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:37,400 Payattu in Kerala or Chao martial dance of Mayurban Sarai Kela area. We went for a road 226 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:42,600 trip from Pune to Hampi just to chill because Hampi is known for a lot of other reasons 227 00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:47,800 as well. Once you cross the river, my friends were enthusiastic in that point of view as 228 00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:52,920 well. Just hanging around with them, showing them over like I found out a lot of sculptures 229 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:58,600 of my topic. Then I did repeated visits to Hampi. Then I decided, okay, let's see more 230 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:03,960 temples in Karnataka. Then I deliberately took up a job in Bangalore in an IB school 231 00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:09,480 so that I could bootstrap my PhD research. Every weekend I was on the road. I used to 232 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:14,520 take the Karnataka Sarai Kela or I used to go to Majestic from Bangalore, go all the 233 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:20,440 way to Anantapur, Lepakshi and roamed around. Not a single word of Telugu, not a single word 234 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:26,280 of Kannada. I learned what a temple, what a Devasthanam Illidira. I just had to say this 235 00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:30,760 much and people would point and I would walk there. The temples would feed me. I have actually 236 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:36,360 in my Rayalaseema field work, so Rayachoti, Somapalam, all of these villages don't have 237 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:42,440 places to stay. At Rayachoti, I did not find a bus to Kadri where I had to see the next temple. 238 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:48,680 So it was quite dark and the pujari allowed me to sleep in a Vijayanagara temple. It was a living shrine. 239 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:53,880 The next morning I woke up, went to Kadri, to Lakshmi Narasimha temple. Archaeology taught me a lot of such 240 00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:59,080 things, a lot of life skills. I'm not an excavator. When people think archaeology, the first thing 241 00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:05,160 they are like ek toh hat hogi aur haath mein haath mein hunter and next hand they will either have a 242 00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:11,320 pitchfork or shovel or something. I am not that kind of an archaeologist. Martial arts made me 243 00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:15,080 learn a lot of things. I would actually see that there are certain moves that I'm really good at 244 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:20,840 and when I'm paring with my coach or someone, I would actually stick to them. Here's when I think 245 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:26,600 a lot of transference and liquid or fluid intelligence helped me. Applying my learnings 246 00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:33,640 from various other parallel experiences I've had to my other parts of life made me a lot more 247 00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:39,080 wiser and mature. A lot of my friends would say I have a long way to go in these departments but I 248 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:45,240 think my skills from jujitsu, I actually am not able to apply them in jujitsu because all of my 249 00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:50,760 opponents are stronger than me in the gym. I actually apply them in my career. Similarly, 250 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:57,000 my anthropological and archaeological fieldwork and experience knowledge helps me to connect with 251 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:02,040 the fighters. If someone is from Haryana, I can speak a little bit of Bangru. When I was doing my 252 00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:08,360 PhD fieldwork, I went to Kolhapur, I went to Mysuru. So these two places are like hubs of 253 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:15,640 Mallayudha. I learned Marathi by just going around villages with my professors. I could not learn 254 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:21,720 Kannada because I think Kannada was a lot tougher for a North Indian like me to adapt to but I could 255 00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:27,800 understand very basic stuff and I could communicate and the best part about wrestling was that in 256 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:34,680 Mysuru, I met with a lot of Jetis. I was not able to understand. They did the moves on me and it was 257 00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:39,880 really fun. It was not like we were fighting. I would just talk like for example what we see in 258 00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:47,400 jujitsu today is very similar to medieval periods Jambuvanti Mallavidya, Hanumanthi Mallavidya and 259 00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:52,600 again why people call it Hanumanthi, why people call it Jambuvanti. It's not just because these 260 00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:58,040 people were strong but there are certain moves which required the intellect of these mythical 261 00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:04,840 characters. So it is very interesting how grappling helped me understand mythology. It helped me 262 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:12,200 understand folk culture. Maharashtra and Karnataka were like the hubs. Then I got deeper into local 263 00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:19,000 religious deities. In Andhra, Tamil Nadu, we have Mylar, Mallari and Maharashtra. It's the same. 264 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:24,840 Okay and then there is Mallanna. Then there are these Khandoba. Connecting with the local people 265 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:32,600 helped me get better at a lot of things in my fight world. All the fighters mostly don't come 266 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:38,360 from very affluent backgrounds. To be a fighter, you need to be a killer. There needs to be a switch 267 00:25:38,360 --> 00:25:43,960 in you which when you turn on, you don't think about anything else. My coach Siddharth Singh, 268 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:49,720 with him, I have just seen so many fighters like seen Afghans, I have seen Iranian fighters, 269 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:55,160 I have seen North Eastern people. I think they are born with a six pack. You know these Afghans, 270 00:25:55,160 --> 00:26:01,800 these North Eastern fighters, a lot of say from Maharashtra, from Kolhapur and Marathwada area, 271 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:08,520 their whole background is into farming, hard core physical work. You don't become a fighter by just 272 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:15,800 watching videos or you know or by wearing expensive trash guards in the dope language. Once the cage 273 00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:21,240 shuts, everyone will know who is a fighter. It's good that I realized that before the cage shut, 274 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:28,680 so I was safe. The type of people I connected with, I think I was so humbled. My PhD led me so deep 275 00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:34,120 into knowing so many good people who don't even get the type of attention that I am getting right 276 00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:39,320 now, who have fought for the country in the boxing ring or who have represented the country in 277 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,880 Thailand in Muay Thai by abouts but no one knows about them because they don't play cricket. A lot 278 00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:50,440 of humbling experiences through my PhD research. I lived my PhD research unlike what a lot of 279 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:56,360 archaeologists do or a lot of PhD scholars in general do. I've been very lucky that I have a 280 00:26:56,360 --> 00:27:02,360 very practical mindset in things. So I'm not very connected or invested emotionally into a lot of 281 00:27:02,360 --> 00:27:07,720 things that can be bad also that can be good also. Yeah, that's true. Let's say you look at a sculpture 282 00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:13,480 which is to do with wrestling. How do you draw interpretations because you might have texts which 283 00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:20,840 describe some of the sculptures which are there but the cultural aspects of these images, how do 284 00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:27,400 you begin to go deeper into that? What majorly archaeology deals with is iconography. Just to 285 00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:34,360 give a basic information, a sculpture is studied by an archaeologist as an archaeological source 286 00:27:34,360 --> 00:27:40,760 material. Anything more than 100 years old comes under the purview of archaeology. So an archaeologist 287 00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:47,160 will look at the sculpture as an artifact while at the same time someone from a fine arts background, 288 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:53,480 arts and aesthetics background will look at a sculpture from a more holistic visual culture 289 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:59,560 or a popular culture point of view. So they will look at iconometry, they will look at the 290 00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:06,680 composition of the sculpture, the stone used, the type of chiselling marks done, the type of artwork. 291 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:13,320 They will try to interpret which school of art it comes from. For them, it's a very aesthetic sense. 292 00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:20,840 For an archaeologist, it's not more of an aesthetic object of appreciation. It's more of a heritage or 293 00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:28,600 an artifactual object of human behavior. At the same time, a scrappler will see, oh see he's holding 294 00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:35,880 a necktie or he's holding a single leg. While I was successful in identifying the sculptures from 295 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:42,440 a grappler's point of view and an archaeologist's point of view, what happened was my PhD evaluator 296 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:49,960 was an arts and aesthetics person. So in 45 minutes, he gave me a boot camp on arts and aesthetics 297 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:55,800 during my PhD evaluation. It wasn't a very pleasant feeling when I was getting that lecture 298 00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:02,600 from him. But now I, if I did in hindsight, I'm very, very, very grateful to his hard words. 299 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,640 You know, like I said, Lato ke boot baat se nahi maandte hain. Now I realize how people should 300 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:13,560 approach sculpture from a cultural angle. It needs to be a very multidisciplinary approach. 301 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:20,200 You cannot be an archaeologist and not study a sculpture from aesthetics point of view or 302 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:25,320 historical point of view. There are multiple phases of identifying a sculpture. The first is 303 00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:32,200 identify what is happening. If you can identify the people in the act of grappling well and good, 304 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:39,720 then you identify what they are wearing, what kind of physical appearance the sculpture has. 305 00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:47,560 The second phase comes if you can identify or place that sculpture in a context. For example, 306 00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:55,080 if it is Vali Sugriva, you know it is Kishkindha Kand of Ramayan. That's your greater. But if you 307 00:29:55,080 --> 00:30:01,960 don't know, that's when the game gets tricky. In my case, the sculptures on temples which deal 308 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:09,160 with grappling don't find much mention in the Shilpa Shastra. When we look at the Shilpa Shastra 309 00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:15,400 or Vastu Shastra texts for each period, right from Vishnudhar Mottar Puran, Matsya Puran, 310 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:21,160 then we go to Mayamata, Manasara which are even late and the latest being Shri Tattva Nidhi of 311 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:27,640 Krishna Rajavode are the third. They are more dealing with sculptures which are religious in 312 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:34,200 nature. So they compartmentalize them as Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakt, minor gods and divinities, 313 00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:40,840 Sura Sundaris, floral motifs. Then you have to figure out why are my sculptures not mentioned 314 00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:46,440 in the Shastra. It gets tougher. Then you need to understand that okay, now I have to, then comes 315 00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:54,200 the third phase. That is when you don't take that sculpture in isolation but sculpture as a part of 316 00:30:54,200 --> 00:31:00,680 a whole body, that is the temple and that temple is more like an epicenter of the area. Then I will 317 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:07,080 not look at one particular sculpture but how to study the cultural scheme of the temple. Based on 318 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:13,720 the sculptural scheme, based on the period of the temple, you will actually have to study local 319 00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:20,200 history of the area. Then slowly you have to expand. Now it depends on your research methodology 320 00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:26,600 and your skill set on how broad you want to be versus how niche you want to be. The thing is in 321 00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:34,360 a PhD, you have to state what exactly you intend to do. For me, what began as a phase one PhD thesis, 322 00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:40,840 when the evaluator evaluated my thesis, I thought that I had covered all the three phases but he 323 00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:46,200 very nicely said beta tumne pehla phase hi kiya and he still awarded me the PhD because this kind of 324 00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:51,880 work was never done before. So I think I was lucky that I was the first one to do it otherwise god 325 00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:57,720 knows I would have been rewriting my PhD thesis today but what he actually pushed me to do, I am 326 00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:03,480 right now converting my PhD thesis into a monograph because apparently every PhD scholar should do that 327 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:09,080 if they in a rainy day want a job in a university. Pray to god that I don't have to apply for a job 328 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:15,160 again. Me being practical, you should always have contingencies. When I'm converting my PhD thesis 329 00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:22,040 into a monograph, I am actually taking each and every pointer that the evaluator told me into 330 00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:27,800 consideration and I have just, I mean it's mind-blowing. It's fascinating because the 331 00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:34,040 arts are normally seen as dance and music whereas this is always seen as something physical so there 332 00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,600 is no application of the mind here but from whatever you've told me so far, there is such a 333 00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:45,640 wealth of knowledge that needs to be uncovered. That big misconception. You fight and then you will realize there is 334 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:52,280 more mind than body. Sun Tzu has very nicely said what happens on the battlefield is a by-product 335 00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:59,080 of what happens in the head before that. The type of strategizing, the type of mental preparation it 336 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:05,320 takes to condition a fighter. When the cage is locked, you have to be so good at what you have 337 00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:12,680 learned that it needs to happen unconsciously or subconsciously. For that, the conditioning of brain 338 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:19,320 is the ultimate factor. I think physically I'm very fit but the only reason why I could not 339 00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:25,400 take up martial arts even at an amateur level, I mean I still somewhere regret not being able to 340 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:33,160 fight and I tell my mother this enough but main reason why I haven't become a good martial artist 341 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:40,440 in my eyes is not physical, it's mental. I did not have the maturity and the sincerity to put in that 342 00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:46,280 much effort. Mentally if I was strong enough in during those days, I don't think anything would 343 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:51,320 have been able to stop me because I'm really smart when it comes to identifying various moves, I have 344 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:57,160 a good memory but all that is useless if you are mentally not stable. This has been so instructive, 345 00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:02,360 Kush. It's a fascinating journey. Thank you for coming on the show. The fact that you go deep into 346 00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:07,240 something and you have a point of view that people may not agree with but that doesn't in any way 347 00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:11,160 take away from what you are saying. That is completely fine. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you. 348 00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:18,600 Thank you Mr. Venu. My first job, the podcast is a production from Ideascape Communications. 349 00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:25,800 Guest relations, promotions and creative is managed by Deepa Ravi with occasional support 350 00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:33,800 by Venugopal Nair. Archiving and technical help is provided by LPS Jayachandran.