Manu Joseph on Why The Poor Don’t K*ll The Rich | Dostcast

0:04 What's up Manu? Welcome to my show Dcast. >> I'm glad to be here. Thanks. >> When people ask me um who was my dream guest, I used to read your columns and I had watched the couple at that time. I used to say it was you then I became friends with you. Now they ask me who's my dream guest and I don't have an answer because uh for me it's been doing this one of the most important things was I that I would be able to get writers who write fearlessly on. You're probably the last guy who does it very openly, shamelessly, fearlessly. >> Um >> I have shame though, huh? >> Which is my which is my big problem though, you know. It's uh I've always thought that what One power that some

0:52 people have is the lack of shame. >> And I don't know whether it's a South Indian thing or whatever, but anyway, as as a writer, I've always noticed that I have a bit of shame. Uh so I need courage. You have to compensate with something. >> That's what I mean. I think I think it is courage to be able to call out the irritations and obvious contradictions in the society that you live in and with the risk of offending people. Now, the good thing is that you write and barely read. So, I was telling my friend last night, he's able to get away with all of this. If he's a standup comic and he was saying all these things out loud about the poor and in society, he'd be cancelled because people would not have it. But because you write, you were able

1:38 to, you know, say things that you probably would not if it was a different format. Having said that, your new book, Why the Poor Don't Kill Us, is, I mean, the title is very funny. Probably my first question is how did you infiltrate the ranks of the poor to understand them better? Oh, that's one advantage uh as a journalist that you get very close to all kinds of people and also in India if you want to look and and if you're from the middle class and I I mean I I'm not from a rich uh I mean my my dad was not so rich that I would be a humanitarian socialist you know I was a very real

2:25 uh I mean in my generation we were the lower all of us were lower Indian middle class meant lower middle class the middle class was closer to the poor when I was a boy and then slowly people prospered and all that >> so we it is it is not something alien and of course I I came to Bombay I lived in a chol you know you are surrounded by a kind of people which is chol in Bombay we are so poor that chol in Bombay is still lower middle class it's not it's not poor but it is not very difficult to look into the lives even if you're not a journalist and I was. >> Mhm. So and you always they are serving us at various level our lives are subsidized by them when we go abroad we know what we are missing in fact I think

3:10 half the patriots who actually there are two patriots one long-distance patriots and then the people who actually live here they love being in India because they are served >> there is a 50% of India I I call them pani pilow Indians when I was in office like I would just say there'd be a particular kind of guy who will walk in and say boss panipila to the to the py it's like why the get your own bloody water you know but wherever in that so it's obviously starting I mean obviously this is coming from their home you know panipila wherever they go panipila you know >> I've never asked anybody else to I mean actually you know or in an office scenario or even at home to get me water right but that's how we are trained the

3:56 poor have also trained us to use them, exploit them. >> Mhm. >> So, we are very aware of them and we we know how much we undercut, you know, uh how cheap the tax fair is, you know, like the other day, in fact, I was when I was writing this book, there's a guy who came to clean my toilet 500 bucks and of which he gets 320 on Urban Clap, right? >> He gets 320 bucks. >> Two two hours job, >> you know. So, so anyway, we know what they are and what their lives are. Uh, and as a writer, I've I'm I am very well aware of how they probably to an extent how they think because that is the job of a writer to be in uh to be inside the

4:44 minds of people and uh to see how people might be thinking in situations that you can't personally experience. Mh. >> So it is not perfect but you know the you know what is going on right? >> You say in the first chapter when you were introducing the uh the book and what is to follow you say that the poor overrate us. They overrate our ability to defend ourselves right. Uh is there in your opinion do you think that there is a possible class uprising happening somewhere in the future which compelled you to write this book? Yeah. And I feel that the uprising happens in different ways. You know, that's what the book is arguing. The book is of course arguing why we are safe for now. Uh but the book is also arguing that

5:31 they are already screwing us in some ways. See all of India is also Indian politics for instance and the mess that we are in is in a way the revenge of the poor you know. So there is a a kind of one of the things which saves us and is also a revengeous democracy. >> Mhm. >> Where the poor feel that they get a particular they like a particular kind of people and they don't hate corruption the way middle class intellectuals think they should. Okay. So that a lot of things that we presume that the poor should feel as strongly as us is complete [ __ ] You know, >> and this reminds me of what Mandela once told and I think an American journalist

6:16 when he was asking about why South Africa is aligning with these horrible African and Middle Eastern dictators. He said your enemy is not our enemy. M >> okay that is a completely that expectation on moral grounds is simply not true. Similarly our enemies are not the enemies of the poor. So the revolution is uh is happening uh in terms of how we are being harmed. It is not a coincidence that we give such a bad life to the poor and we also have such a bad civic life. >> You know, we have such a third rate uh

7:04 city life run by second rate people. You know, I just I'm not calling them third rate only because I think I used third rate in the previous sentence. Uh I sometimes I think my life like when I think in of my 20s uh in my in the beautiful film of my life the production sets the production value was horrible and the production value is India you know and I had only one life and when I look at my past everything was just difficult to go meet a girl >> I mean she had to be really worth it for me to go to some place like Anderi west or Anderi east is like a different hell you know right >> hell on earth you know everything every

7:50 every place was hell on earth and commuting to that place was sort of everything was filled with filth the air is filth how is that not a revolution you know in a way it is so I'm also arguing that there are hidden revolutions happening against us already there will be more direct ones now I'm already seeing maids talking back at the MSAB >> even 20 years ago the gods didn't have so much swag the poor were survile now they have more attitude um and that is what is again happening in the south if you look at Bangalore uh there is a lot of sahib lowerass

8:37 conflicts you know that they are quite the the the the street guy on the Bangalore seems to be ready to just hit someone. So this whole notion that South Indians are dosile was first of all a bad analysis of people who don't know what they're talking about and now with a larger economic democratization you're seeing that uh you can't just pick up an argument on the street with just about anybody. It's not going to end very well for people who don't know how to hit. Do you think we will ever arrive at a society that gets rid of class? Because you say in the book that one of India's biggest problems is that it's not able to hide the ugliness of class where other western countries are. >> Yeah. Yeah. Correct. We can't even even

9:22 the west they are not able to hide class. >> Mhm. >> Class will always be there because that is the aspiration of people that they want to be better than the others. But one thing about class in the sense that people aspire to money and not refinement. People aspire to money and not u intellectuality. That is a big difference. >> 30 years ago to a great extent with some exceptions money and class meant the same thing. Money and refinement meant the same thing. Uh but today you look at the new you look at the people and say uh you look look at the kind of people in a five-star resort

10:09 uh they are not the sort of people you saw 20 years ago. As I said 20 years ago, the kind of people you saw at a Taj R would be people who would be cast by Karan Johar. >> Now they look like they'd be cast by Anurak Kasha, you know. So there is a difference. So people who have money are very different sort of people which is fine. Okay. But which is in fact one of the things I'm arguing in the book uh which saves us because uh they have similar taste you know the they have the same taste as the poor. So there is a kind of a like for example they don't look down at uh the the the the Hindi

10:55 films they don't look down at samosas >> okay they they eat the same kind of food they're the same kind of they like the same kind of music with those same syllables which keep repeating so they know so so they so when the so the first time a genuine uh popular culture is forming where the economic elite and the poor they are united by entertainment, you know, and and not only entertainment, discourse, the way they speak. >> So, they're able to they'll be able to control the poor and transmit ideas which are safe uh for the upper class, you know, like for example, how we transmitted morality. Mhm. >> You know that you should be should not do should definitely not kill and you

11:41 should study >> education like whatever is wrong with you is because maybe you didn't work hard. We have put that in their heads you know and and that has helped us and just when the poor were figuring out that this higher education boss looks like a lot of [ __ ] okay because we are trying but we're not able to like for example my maid's son he's not able to pick up English he's bright >> but you they are figuring you have to be in an English environment but we saying English medium is superior English medium is the best you have to study So we we created a system where we hold all the cards >> and they can't catch up and if they couldn't catch up we kind of try to convey that it might be their fault they

12:28 didn't work hard enough. So those things were you know those those things are keeping us safe. So you say in the book you you describe Kayakumar as as someone who sort of uh arrived at JNU poor and did wasted his time doing humanities something along those lines and >> you mentioned that the poor who are smart play the games where the rich people have all the cards something along those lines can you elaborate that further >> yeah I'm saying that in fact kayakumar I find him very smart he's a good speaker and to me writers He not just write >> he is that writer and in ancient times maybe writers were like that and even today actually. So if it were not for

13:14 politics, what would have happened to me or what would what would have happened to someone like him is my question. When you spend 10 hours uh 10 years on uh uh researching in the humanities on the politics of South Africa, right? There would be thousands of young people who are in the middle of something like this thinking that it is going to lead to something. M >> see people who want knowledge they're lucky they're separate okay it does not require any economic class whoever you are you you're after knowledge >> then you're just lucky because there is no greater product or luxury product

14:00 than intellectuality if that is what you really want which I don't believe most people in the business of intellectuality are after especially these >> what are they after cloud >> no they after prestige. They are after some kind of a hope that they'll get a job, respect, some you know that that it is of some value to them. Okay, that and the most cruel thing about prestige is again we don't tell the poor and the lower class who is called the lower class is that the moment they can access it, it ceases to be prestigious. That's why nobody is I mean it's heartbreaking how many disabled people climb Mount Everest. >> Mhm. But all the odds against them they

14:48 suffer and okay initially it was fine but now someone needs to tell them that if you can scale Mount Everest then Mount Everest is not Mount Everest anymore and your exactly what happened the perfect example is India India landing on the moon >> did it improve our prestige in the eyes of the world really does anybody believe any is anybody stupid enough really to believe actually India landing on the moon has lowered the prestige of moon landing okay that actually it's no big deal you know India can do it >> you know that's how prestige works and that is similar to higher education I'm

15:35 not talking about school education at all the basics >> they're very important okay and they can help and then it can really you know expand uh the minds. But I feel that we are not honest enough with the poor in telling them how much social equity and social contacts help us the upper middle class and how education is just a small part of it and and the doors and the the the the doors are held by a different club, >> you know. And that is why after after they crack IITs, okay, they're just figuring they're

16:20 still not getting anywhere because nobody has told them that it is class which is controlling the whole thing, right? So what what's going to happen when they figure all this out? Okay, you think they're only going to write angry poems? I mean, we would like that. That's why art exists. So that's why we've allowed some art and one in,000 uh expressions of the poor we appreciate, you know, so that more guys keep doing it. But uh [ __ ] is going to hit the roof when very smart guys are going to figure that this this is system has no meaning. >> Mhm. >> And even if they try personal entrepreneurship, which is what I

17:06 recommend >> to the poor >> people. Yeah. you know like it's what I would reckon for myself coming from my own background uh I shouldn't have wasted time in college education >> uh which was complete [ __ ] >> did it not make you a better writer >> of course not of course not you didn't >> the essays the reading >> no I I in fact I did literature because even then I knew not that it could make me a better writer I only wanted to be a writer and a filmmaker actually when I was young But I knew that this is the only uh course where I could [ __ ] without studying because I may have to work uh in the evenings uh to take care of myself. So I just knew that I could just crack this. In

17:52 fact, my sister who was a biology student, she would give me all the synopsis of Shakespearean plays. I couldn't bear to read Shakespeare. In fact, I used to read more until 16. I was kind of 16 when I entered because of a clerical error. Mhm. >> Uh entered college and uh my reading dipped uh in this 3 years as a literature student because suddenly it was a it was a it was a cultural disgust because I I'm suddenly I'm this guy in Kodakam which is a kind of a suburb of Chennai or Madras and suddenly I'm exposed to the British upper class who are the people who used to write you know >> I the Dickens and all that fine I did enjoy some of them but many of those

18:40 essays to me was I had to I needed maybe I'd be able to enjoy them now >> you know like some like even in poems some guys like Thomas Gray you could enjoy it's easy to enjoy some people very easily but most of them I just uh I just found them very dense >> yeah some of the English writers are definitely full on themselves um That's so you're saying at some point you yourself were lower middle class and then you transcended that you elevated a few classes up and you went there through uh self-directed autonomous entrepreneurial route. When you look at someone who is lower middle class or perhaps in the abject

19:26 poor do you feel a sense of kinship or no? >> Not at all. I don't feel any kinship with anyone. That's more because of my nature. But sometimes I do have some kind of a soft corner for uh that teenager in a college who's dressed a bit poorly who is trying to make something of his life through debating saying something intelligent on and off. And I could I can see the fear uh of the future in his eyes. See, the funny thing about I want to say life, but that makes me sound like some uh you know, patriarch is that most people do not have high standards

20:14 for themselves and that saves them from a lot of trauma. In any uh group of people who are in similar situation like let's say young people in a slum, most of them are used to the situation. They've lowered the bar. Mhm. >> They want their slum girl. They want to be mechanics and that kind of calms a lot of them and they probably have friends and they have a tribe and they are I'm not saying they're okay, but they are reasonably fine. But there would be those two guys in every slum who want to be something more than uh they want they want cards beyond what

21:01 they've been dealt with. >> And they are the miserable guys and they usually they are the ones who do well but they have to go through the misery and they have to survive if they don't kill themselves if they don't have other mental issues. Uh they are the ones who feel the pain. They are the ones who they're not satisfied with a slum girlfriend. >> They you can call them climbers, which to me is not an correct word. Climbers is what people in the upper class would call others who have aspirations. >> Sure, >> it's a [ __ ] word. It it is just a guy who knows that as long as there is a better way to be, you know, then that is where you need to be.

21:46 I feel there is an argument that people make about poverty that today a guy who lives in a Bombay slum has a better quality of life than King George or some or some medieval emperor or Akbar you know yeah maybe you know maybe has a phone and maybe has a ceiling fan which the guy didn't have and maybe has a computer okay there is some argument there but it is still a [ __ ] argument because uh poverty is largely defined by wealth that other people have as long as others have something as long as I I think there is an unknown percentage of people if if 60 if if kind of 50 60% of a population has access to something

22:34 >> then that creates poverty because uh the others don't have it you know uh so that is why that is how I feel that affluence creates poverty. You know, if cell phone has has come, if internet has come, if air conditioned metro trains have come, then everybody should have it. >> You know, otherwise the appearance of an air conditioned train creates poverty for people who can't afford to be in that. The appearance of an airplane, you know, creates poverty for people who can't uh afford it. So it is so I don't think standard of life is independent of the standard of life that other people are having. You know here billionaires don't count the super rich don't count

23:20 because I really feel one of the great things about life is that billionaires demonstrate that there is no real product for them there only lemons for them. You know that like to me bzos proves that there is actually no cure for baldness. Okay, just make peace with her. Just be a very rich man. Okay. And the way all of them look, every billionaire looks, men and women shows that you there's no product to hide age. >> Okay? There's nothing you can there's no product. So there's no meaningful product for so they you build some meaningless house which is many stories high and you create things that you don't need. And then you have that [ __ ] who needs to drive a Ferrari at 100 km

24:09 an hour on an Indian road and crash, >> you know, because he has not he's looking for he's he's saying I I have 5,000 cr. I need to do something more than you guys. >> He's searching for that. And and and some guys go in a submarine, you know, and die. And then some guy is shooting himself to space because there are no products for them. I find that very funny about capitalism that there's no product for the top.1% no real product you know. So that is different. Uh but largely whatever is available to the upper middle class uh and the rich reasonably rich. >> Mhm. which is a very happy class to be in. uh that creates a want you know like

24:54 my my maid's daughter is 1920 and she feels a pain because she's she's a person who wants >> wants better things in life and s she wants those phones and and and I know I can see how she looks at girls of of her age in the colony and I can feel her pain you know because uh she's not lucky enough to be completely blind to what others are enjoying. While most of her friends would just say that the well this is what is destined for us and this is what we are. In fact uh a few months ago one spiritual leader in in Tamil Nadu in Madras I think he told the poor I mean you're poor because your past life you did horrible things. >> That's what many people who are poor

25:40 believe. Yeah >> they believe that some except one man stood up and said okay shut up okay you can't say these things which I appreciate that guy. He's an unsung hero. He should be a hero for one week. If I were running this country, I would just tweet about this guy who got up and I mean that's a great statement he made that he said that you can't say these things to us because we are not responsible for being poor. Right? >> There is perhaps a difference between the poor here and the poor in the west. U you talk about meekness >> as a quality of the poor. >> Yeah. at the start of the book and also throughout >> that uh if you slap someone who's poor, he's going to quietly take it. You know, if if like uh

26:30 he's going to take it. You also mentioned uh this gentleman called Dana Maji. >> Yeah. >> If I'm not wrong, that's the name. >> Nobody's call me called him a gentleman though, but I know him. Yeah. >> Yeah. how he just accepts tragedies like death of a child of a loved one with with the quiet acceptance that perhaps many of India's poor do in u Wes Anderson's movie Darajin limited if Khan plays this dad in a poor village and uh these three westerners they uh they recover the dead body of his son who drowned and he cries for a second and then just goes goes on to rights of passage, you know, as usual, like as if nothing has

27:15 happened. So this this kind of meekness or acceptance of life strategies, where do you where do you think it comes from? Why is it like unique to us? >> Oh, I don't think it's unique to us. Um I feel that um one of the ways in which I understand um this sort of behavior of the poor and which uh I've also encountered many times um in fact once when I was interviewing Ram Gopala he was saying that near where they were shooting if I'm not mistaken there was some kind of a train accident >> Mhm. and someone they knew had died and they had to inform the boy's father that he had died and one guy just goes up to the dad no preparation God gives God

28:01 takes that's what the I don't think the father I don't think they feel less but I feel that the poor uh I define them as people who are centuries behind whenever as an Indian journalist I interact with the Indian poor uh and especially uh in in exceptional situations like earthquake and other things. >> I feel that poverty's whole definition is that it is centuries behind the present. So you have a situation where your child just dies and you go to work and a woman has a uh miscarriage and next day she appears >> and people deal with death uh in a way

28:49 that we consider weird. It is just that they have I mean they need to go somewhere you know. So uh I look at I look at poverty as something which is uh a few decades or centuries behind depending on the extent like this guy whom you mentioned um Dana he I mean readers may not know the story mean they they might have forgotten >> the story he his wife dies of TB she's young probably 30s he just picks up her body and begins to walk 42 km to south because there's no money for u the hearse or a van and uh the hospital is supposed to provide but uh a poor guy is

29:37 not going to realize that he has a right to a van for a corpse. >> He doesn't know he has rights in the first place. So he just walks with her body with his young girl walking behind her crying and he's already walked 10 12 km when people begin to notice that he's walking with her body >> though he has wrapped her very neatly >> as though he has done it before. That's another thing about uh people in uh who are facing exceptional tragedy. They do stuff as though they have rehearsed for it. Like how do you know how to wrap a body? Yeah, >> you know, or the small things of life. So I that moment to me could have happened thousand years ago, >> okay, where a man has taking his wife

30:24 back home 42 km away on his shoulder, you know, and it would have been probably normal. Uh so that's something I noticed when I covered the Gujarat earthquake but 20 20 uh more than 25 years ago. uh when everybody not just the poor everybody suddenly were in a day they had become medieval people because they had seen so many deaths like people are walking on the body like there's a body and you put put a stone on the body so that you can step on it and grow because it's a practical thing to do. A guy's whole family has sunk in and he's standing on the rubbles of his house and every 1 hour he can hear his wife and

31:09 kids ask yell for help. He's just standing because no helpers come because the journalist got there before the army >> and uh and I don't know how to talk to him. So I asked someone else for the directions to some place and this guy whose family is under in the rubble still alive is giving me the directions right because and I don't think this whole sophisticated interpretation need to mean that he's in shock or all that thing you know I find anybody in shock and just mouthing directions properly because a lot of people who are not in shock are not able to give correct directions in this country >> correct So it is not in shock. It is just the way he is. You know at some

31:54 point a great tragedy you know he knows the enormity of his own tragedy but a guy has also asked for directions. So he's also giving that you know. So I I I feel that poverty is that uh and I feel that all our wars are about an ancient century going to war against the present century. So that's that does not keep us safe. you know that people if people are living in different times um and they do that is how wars form there's many people I know who have a very simplistic

32:40 and romantic notion of the poor where they consider them simple primitive happy and it's often younger girls who will do it with their man's servant or their boy's servant like Raua so cute. Oh, he did this not knowing that he also goes back to his room and jacks off to her. There's that whole thing that he they they want to hide you know they want to it's the same way as you know like a David Adenboroough type would describe the tribals when he first encounters when a explorer first encounters them somewhere and then you say yet the poor are also rape murder and kill they're also violent so why do you think most

33:27 some Indians in the upper classes have this very stupidly romantic notion of the poor >> maybe they don't know better because they don't consider them as their equals. >> Mhm. >> So, as you said, this is probably similar to how the early colonizers looked at what they call natives and they also need to compensate uh for the fact that they are so much luckier than these people. So, they kind of kind of try to give them like we do with animals to just give them >> uh sweet qualities. uh because everybody you know pe I feel the the very definition of sweetness in living things is the lack of power >> that's all there is to it there are

34:12 living things with no power and very sweet and there are living things with a lot of power and are quite mean uh so so that's how they they reacting to the powerlessness as something which is kind of sweet >> this uh idea of giving your servants separate cutlery, separate glasses >> has its origins in the cast system, right? Like u back in the day uh I mean it still happens in nowadays some people are very blind to castism but it's happening in India. Um Dalit would be asked to have their own glasses. >> Now you say the younger middle class wants to be nice to their servants. They don't want to call them servants anymore but they don't want the job abolished.

34:58 Right. So how have you seen um this new middle class deal with the rising empowerment of of their maids, their drivers, their security guards? What have you seen drastically change? >> I feel that some of the things are good. They are see I feel that one thing about this generation is that they want to be better people than the parents. >> Mhm. And then just like in any reformation they figure that they are becoming their parents because there was a good reason why their parents were there the way they were. >> Uh so now this whole thing is about name and I mean something I do is I kind of always say hello thank you. Something which you learn from white people is that when you're exploiting the poor you

35:43 always say good morning. You know it can it can go a long way and thank you. uh so this generation does that you know they have a conversations probably pro but I don't think they share cutlery even a lot of writers with the moral compass in their homes >> I don't think uh they share the cutlery with the mains >> all that is it's not bad but they realize that uh actually the the tragedy is that poverty in every poor person the the depth of poverty is such that uh the height of affluence is actually nothing compared to how deep poverty goes because I'll tell you what happens

36:29 is that they have so many problems they have their own health problem and then their children and this everything needs to be solved only with money >> right >> okay and then what happens is that the moment they see a glimmer of hope there are there's more and more demands because you can feel good by giving someone 500 bucks, thousand bucks sometimes but then the thousand bucks might feel good for a day but then that does not solve the problem. And then they're looking at you as a savior. And then they start asking. And that is when people they then they start behaving like the parents. They say that don't ask for advance anymore. You know, >> uh you just work here. Okay. I give you

37:14 a salary whatever blah blah you know. So they become their parents. Right? Because I don't think anybody is good or bad. I feel that the biggest evidence of the nature of people is very simply that the way the the way they are >> that is the biggest evidence of how people want to be and the way they are. You know in fact what is I feel an interesting thing which is happening right now is the American middle class is becoming Indian. Mhm. >> The American middle upper middle class in like when I was in the 20s, they didn't have servants and nannies, >> right? >> Okay. Now the now there are so many migrants and the upper uh middle class of America is so much richer than the rest of the world. Forget the American

38:00 rich. >> The American upper middle class is so much richer than the rest of the world that they can afford servants like just like Indians can you know. So that is a big change which is happening around the world that everybody we not being westernized everybody is being Indianized when it comes to househel it's just that they sing good morning there's a a song called a hey and it's this uh rapper who is flirting with his maid it's from the 2000s it's a very hit song you mention in the book that the maid has to not look pretty so as to she has to look less prettier than the mai and

38:47 you mentioned something about a Filipino maid sort of messing things up in a in a family >> of a Delhi house um yeah >> so what what is that about >> oh it was just a kind of passing reference to the dynamics I feel that uh uh the Filipino uh maids are popular in Dubai and other slightly more affluent places but they kind of look good especially in good clothes because they're very very well turned out and what happened was uh this family had a Filipino maid when they didn't live in India they came from elsewhere and most of the aunties didn't look as possess because one of the one of the big crisis

39:34 in uh the Delhi social situation is if a a person is mistaken for a maid >> and she's not a maid, right? So, so they want the mage to look clearly. So, I I find that one of the one of the funniest thing about the Indian middle class is how they are shadowed by their maid >> who looks pixelated in the background, right? She's just pale and she's in bad clothes as though it's a uniform like this is a maid, right? And now the young generation wants to be nice that they want the maid to sit at their table because they don't want to be [ __ ] >> But I see that the maids suffer because they have nothing to say. They don't need this food. They are miserable.

40:21 And uh sometimes I do wonder why they can't be given better clothes. But then I've seen even with even with better clothes, Indian poverty kind of transcends clothes. It's like something that you know people are not able to you know you can't you can't uh you know you can't hide it. It's like something which it's as though it's reminding all of us look what you did >> and look what you've done or like you know because uh it is a problem uh that actually the people the country can solve >> you know and uh it is horrible that whole lives are spent in this when a solution is there for it. In my building in Bandra where I live, there is a small

41:09 elevator that barely works. It's quite fast, >> but it's tiny as opposed to the other ones. >> And they have a notice that says for residents only. >> Mhm. >> And the one for the maids and the zumato guys, that doesn't say anything. >> Yeah. >> That elevator door takes about four or 5 seconds to close. Closes very slowly. >> Which the residence one or the >> the maid? the Zumato maid, everyone else, everyone they don't want to see in their line of sight or they don't want to share that list. >> I'm sure they put up a board once they removed it because many many uh societies have that board uh uh not for servants and then there is there would have been someone who would have someone with a moral compass in that building

41:55 would have posted it on Insta. >> They're smart. No, because they say for residents. They never say not for um but it says for residents only. So you will see that sometimes it's so funny in the reception some of these people who live there it's a nice locality nice building they'll wait for the lift but it won't come and the maid lift comes faster but they won't get into it. >> Oh >> because they'll just keep waiting. And the same thing happens with the maids or the zumato guys. Every now and then I'll be like if I'm downstairs and I'll see the zomato guy I'll be like hey bro just come with me in this lift. Let's go. >> Like [ __ ] this. And the guards will look at me like this. You are breaking this very delicate social fabric. >> But this whole thing of trying to, you know, force the poor into the walls or

42:43 in the dark corners so they don't uh distract us from the beauty of our buildings is something you've highlighted here. Yeah. >> Which I think is very interesting. More people don't talk about that. >> Yeah. Yeah. So Indian middle class has this problem that uh they have managed to uh because they their colonies are an island to escape India first of all. So they create this thing and put a farmer in a in paramilitary clothes and create this walls and you have flowers and some shrub and roses this Yeah. >> But you need to be served. So India seeps in every morning okay through maids. Now maids have maids and guards have phones and they have the internet

43:29 >> is kind of cheap. So and the maids have emotions they have arguments. So they want to be served but they don't want the whole mess of another class living their lives sitting on the bench you know and talking on the phones crying having their own problems. So in fact one society in Bangalore had issued a notice you know and then some someone just publicized it. We we know what to take offense to you know I don't think anybody is exempt from this. Everybody wants this. And then there's a stupid argument uh that uh uh Indians treat the poor worse than animals which I find kind of funny because uh in people only treat people poorly.

44:16 You know as I argue if suddenly deer appeared in someone's colony or peacocks as they do know that horrible noises that they make though everybody just likes it. People have only problem with poor people you know. So um so yes so this is uh so this is the conflict all this is going on but even so I find that 20 compared to 20 25 years ago the the working class the poor the serving class they have more attitude uh they have more swag I feel that actually the government is also responsible for it because the government uh kind of helps them a a lot. >> Mhm.

45:01 >> And you can always see the difference between a person who has land back home, they have a completely different attitude. >> Yeah. >> As opposed to people who don't have a land. And most people these days who work here, they all have land back home. So all these things are going on right now in the society. >> You also say that the municipal ugliness of India conveys to the poor the nation belongs to them that it has not left them behind. the street chaos and our general civic disorder too have the same effect. I always feel like you go to America, you go to any European country, the public space is public, you know, across classes, everyone will >> sit on the same bench, there's one central park which everyone will use.

45:47 The homeless Jew will use it, the stoner will use it, the migrant will use it, the millionaire will use it, the politician will use it. In India to be able to use a public space right and make it poor free you have to gate it you have to have strict rules you have to have RWAS right and >> but they're not public spaces they're private spaces >> how so >> because they are called residential colonies >> oh right right I mean >> so public spaces uh in India they are poor India that's why I feel that India looks most countries look richer than they are And I feel that India manages to look poorer than what it is. Like I was driving from Gura to Faridabad. >> Mhm. >> Actually that that the thorn forest I I

46:33 started enjoying the thorn forest >> because Guran Yeah. Because the Indians Gura is so ugly >> that I kind of was admiring the thorn trees. uh which is strange because if you're in New Zealand and you you you're watching then you'll see an ugly patch and that will always be the golf course because New Zealand is so beautiful. Uh but anyway so we are I think this uh this ugliness of us that that we kind of really bring bring it down to some kind of a it looks poor broken >> uh I feel unconsciously I don't think India plans these complex things unconsciously it reassures the poor >> that u they have not been left behind in fact

47:20 it first struck me when I saw an ugly piece of thing called the aronely cricket stadium in Delhi. It is so ugly that I thought uh 95% of Indians would be reassured that the country has not left them behind. I I believe that you know I feel I mean I have met and spoken to the poor in Europe. It is worse to be poor in a rich beautiful country >> than to be poor in a poor country. In many ways, it's it's kind of horrible because your hospitals are horrible and your commute is terrible and they have far worse lives than the European poor. But the strange thing about the human mind is that it is not looking at these

48:08 things objectively, right? It is it it is always comparing its plight to what is around. when your ghetto is uglier than if you're living in Paris and if your your ghetto is uglier than the than the railway station and that's usually the case in Paris, it does something to your mind as opposed to you're living in a slum and your railway station looks very close to the slum, you know. So, for some reason we want airports to look swanky, right, in India, >> right? And I mean theoretically I understand the logic of it but I find it stupid. >> Okay the Bangalore airport is gorgeous but what's the point of it? You know after 5 minutes okay if it's for the

48:56 foreigners 5 minutes they're going to hit that secondary city and what they're going to think that but they have a great airport. Let's respect Bangalore because they have a great airport. Some things are dangling from the ceiling and all that. So I don't know what uh I don't think we know what we're doing, you know, but unconsciously this ugliness of public spaces and the informality and the mess and the fact that there is no really civic order, >> it kind of is like uh one consolation for the poor. >> Yeah. Also this l complete lack of civic order I think is getting worse and worse. I remember a few years ago cars driving on the wrong side of the road blatantly

49:41 arrogantly you'd say like in 100 cars >> I've also started noticing that >> it's it's become so much >> last 6 months in Gura in Bangalore it happened earlier >> last 6 months in Gura suddenly this this wrongside driving has become very common >> people are on the edge some some things like I started to do this thing where I will literally blind them with my headlights and go like this, you know, a headlight, high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam, and then stop my car right in front to make a point that what you're doing is stupid. Don't do it. To my surprise, a few guys will wear off to the side and go away. Some guys, they were like a few guys in an SUV. They were laughing at me and laughing amongst

50:27 themselves. Oh, we are such great warriors. >> But this this is so dangerous. I've almost crashed a few times because there's a factory in Faridabad called es it's an escort factory. So those workers they feel like because they you know they commute there every single day they have their jobs there around 1:00 a.m. if you're coming back from Delhi a string of a 100 bikes on the wrong side will emerge and then they will get uh emboldened and they will instead of following a single line then they will like basically take over the road. >> Yeah. And so what's happening is you're desperately trying to save your car weirding to the right and even stopping while these bikes go for at least a kilometer in the wrong direction. >> Yeah. >> So I don't know what's happening.

51:12 >> Yeah. And then they'll abuse and then when they crash then uh they look surprised. That's one Indian national emotion you know the surprise at the most logical outcome of your actions. >> Actions. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, another vehicle on the road on the wrong side. You know, >> something you mentioned in the book is the poor are the first of all, I love these headlines, the the way you've titled the chapters. You mentioned the poor are the worst enemies of the poor. >> Usually most literature, popular culture, movies pit everything as rich versus poor. Yeah, I feel that uh this is one of the realities of the lives because uh most

52:00 of the time we tend to hate people who we have to share the resources with. >> Mhm. >> And most of their competition is the other poor. uh for example if you're a Haranvi AC mechanic and suddenly the Bihari Muslim AC mechanics are undercutting and they're coming and then you you it looks like a communal uh thing but it most of most of the problems are more practical uh or you you take the people like for example uh for the housemates in my colony their biggest problem is a security guard who's >> most of the guards they they they flirt through harassment It is one Indian way of being romantic. And most of the problems are the poor,

52:45 the the cops and the people who harass them. They're all in their community. While the rich, they do beautiful things. You know, they ambassadors of beautiful. We are >> we are providers. They know that theoretically we are the villains. >> Mhm. But in visible things and they are right to but in visible things we seem to be absolutely fair and uh of course Indians can behave better from what I hear they still treat them very poorly >> long hours rude >> uh rude behavior and stuff like that. Um but still their real real tormentors are still within their own

53:31 >> uh community. You know it is one of the underrated >> aspects for uh why we uh might be safe for now you know that um we are not their immediate villains. What do you think is the hierarchy of the people you see in your colony or society in uh Gurugram who are you know there's a hierarchy amongst all kinds of staff members what if you could uh perhaps categorize them >> see in a city it's hard to put the uh hierarchy there you know but I feel that in terms of if cast is what you're asking to further my point that the poor are the biggest enemies of the poor if you take uh what's happening with say

54:19 the Knax. >> Mhm. >> The Knax are poor people fighting. I mean they're being they're being killed by people who are just slightly richer than them who are the cops, you know, and most of the uh police atrocities, you know, which are framed as cast atrocities, which could also be true. >> And these cops are not brahinss. It's not like brahmans are attacking dalits because now in the way of the world a dalut almost never meets a brahman in the first place because I think the brahman now is a kind of a surgeon in the US or something or they are in a different orbit >> or they've occupied major positions in mainstream media. >> Yeah. You know in fact they're in a

55:05 position to write with great compassion about the dalits. In fact, the greater problem with Dalits and which their own leaders and also the intellectuals don't want to talk about because why? Because they're already going through a lot of problems is that there are 100 subcasts within the Dalits and they treat the lower they have their own hierarchy. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> The the cobbler, you know, looks down at the scavenger, the artisan has his own views about people who are beneath them, you know. So, they have their own issues. And even in in in in the police atrocity, these are middle class against the lower class. >> Sure. >> Right. So that's why I say that uh in terms of Shia violence, the greatest enemies of the poor are the other poor.

55:52 >> We had uh on this trip to Rajasthan, we had a driver from Fidabad, a local guy accompanying us. He's like a freelance mercenary driver, not like a >> guy you hire for full-time, you know. So my friend friend and I are in the fortuner. These guys are with the driver in the Nova. Now this guy is a he says he's a Brahmin Nambardar >> and Nambadar is usually someone who's been given some kind of a status >> as that he's a decision maker or a mediator in the village. >> Later I realized he said it's even higher than a sar punch. >> Now these guys their casts are unknown to him >> because he's a Brahman driver. He will make it a point saying this is this driving I'm only doing for fun otherwise I have 200 basin.

56:38 >> Yeah. >> And I'm this and this this and this and he's constantly trying to assert himself over these guys who are not local. They haven't declared their cast publicly and they're just trying to shoot my [ __ ] series to the point that it had come to such a extent that Baswan here he almost went to blows with the guy cuz he would keep playing Hayani music and he wanted to play the eagles. So there's a clash. >> Mhm. >> So it's like the he kept saying you are an English man, you are an English man and then he would take certain liberties like he would play cheap songs. Great guy by the way. I mean shows you a thing or two about life, about being street smart. I'm sure some of these guys learned a lesson, you know. But what was fascinating to me is that he operated

57:24 from such self assuredness, which is something you write about in the book that drivers are very self- assured amongst all of the staff in the poor that we you know employ. >> Yeah. And also uh but there is a difference uh as you as you said he's landed. So the guys who are who are doing what are called lowly jobs but have land and actually Gurka has a lot of these guys because when the real estate prices shot up like 40 to 100 times uh many of those guys they were able to sell at a good price >> right >> because these were people whose land were not valuable earlier and they were lucky that they couldn't sell or they didn't sell at that point or maybe they

58:10 had the parents who are life uh and now they are suddenly rich but at the same there's nothing else that they can do so uh they drive but they used to actually they I don't know what they do now they forgot that driving is also tough or maybe they bought a lot of cars and they are make the others drive anyway the landed person always uh behaves uh you know differently you know uh because he has that >> uh he has a certain attit ude >> yeah um in the in the in the book the white tiger you will see that this guy emerges from the darkness quote good Bihar and you know >> tries to kill his master

58:56 the gentleman who works for me here who's made this coffee I think he happened to one day accidentally play the white tiger on Netflix the next day he came and I have never seen expression on his face was slightly conniving expression. He's like >> like that. In my in my class, I'm like, "Oh [ __ ] Oh shit." He knows. So that uh that fantasy uh that maybe some of the poor would have to usurp their masters or kill them, overcome them uh should this kind of uprising happen. When you were writing this book, did you notice

59:41 some of these resentments at all? >> Not at all. I I I really think that the revolutions are usually more complex. You know, the violent ones are either individual uh issues or they are a riot which ideally should last just for 4 hours like it happened in in in Noa. In fact, that is when I got this idea a few years ago. I don't know why these things happen in Noa but uh one family >> the Arushi Dalwar case. >> No no no no no. One family had detained a young servant maid because they thought that she stole something. >> Mhm. >> And that whole village of maids came and beat up the sahibs and they attacked. >> There was a village of maids >> as in where the locality of you know where they live. Uh so and another time

1:00:30 there was this guy in the house. He was abusing the guards for uh damaging the Wi-Fi. >> Then the guards started beating him up. So uh those things are impulse because they mean they don't want back bad behavior like especially if you're landed if you're a landed person and you are doing this because you're not very educated and you're doing some something because you want to keep the land you don't know what else to do but you're not going to take too much attitude or abuse uh from people now that is the no >> right >> so uh uh see another thing is there is no human rights in the Indian police station in the Indian if at all there is anything worse than being poor is to be trapped in the Indian judicial system for something that you actually did

1:01:16 >> right >> it can be quite horrible if you're trapped for something you didn't do also but if you actually did something so that is a huge deterrent in fact one of the big things that keep us safe is the sheer rarity of what happened to safe >> you know that to be stabbed in your own house so uh in many actually we are unnaturally safer than many countries like for example I've been to South Africa you step out in some areas you will get mugged and here being mugged is seems like a posh >> concept like Halloween you know something that if you say you got mugged it's like are you sure you're using the right word >> right >> because see I I feel that uh we have not

1:02:02 empowered our criminals I I feel that people who are deranged or violent or criminal from the poor strata are very empowered in the west in the sense that they have human rights they have you know they have a certain attitude >> they have lobbies defending >> I still remember that how fast the guys one guy had stolen a mobile phone in South Africa >> and he ran so fast it was impressive that's obviously he's eating a lot of protein he's in good health you know and all that. Uh I feel that now those are the things that are changing. Okay. And that is going to be the first violent sign uh in our system. Okay. As we

1:02:52 prosper uh and there is a pressure to have some kind of values for human beings that you can't just bump them off that easily. we do uh the number of encounters you know it's in hundreds the last one decade or something and the society does not want to investigate if they are criminals and the cops said that the criminals always running away from them and they're shot you know from behind >> so so the so these are the ways in which we are keeping the we are cleaning our system of the criminals >> uh I don't know how long they can be sustained uh so when those uh systems go

1:03:37 then I think the a sign of uh this will be a simple aspect of revolution which is >> straightforward violence I think we'll begin to see something like Indian cities being un unsafe suddenly you know uh but as of now they're kept safe because of because we're a brutal society you know we compensate what we don't have in terms of competence. >> Mhm. >> We compensate through informal ways. You know >> what do you think uh is is a man work conflict and what are its consequences on the poor? You mentioned that in the book. >> A woke first of all a a woman can't be a woke in uh the way I see it because women uh uh have always been like that.

1:04:23 They've always cared for these some issues. When when I was in college, the posh girls used to send postcard to naradachaw and you know all that they always used to do and a new man is trying to appropriate some of the issues which naturally come to uh progressive women. Okay, that is that is one uh respectable definition I have for Voke because my other definitions are not >> so respectable. So the VO basically is a new uh guy who's usually a jerk, okay? and who has to make very poor guesses at what being decent

1:05:11 is that he ends up making uh you know uh he ends up having exaggerated ideas uh about what being good is >> you know because it does not come naturally to them. That is why they're a bit over the top, >> right? >> In everything that they do because uh uh it's like a city guy trying to be a cool rustic like in our film. >> Cool rustic >> like our our our our band Juu guys is trying to make a gangster film or a >> or a village or rustic film you know so it'll have a certain exaggeration. uh but even so I feel that they probably are good ambassadors for us for the poor because they try to project us as people

1:05:56 who care we don't but they they are always protesting they are they they're doing some set of things so so yeah so that is what I discuss in the book where I grant them their use that that they have a use uh which kind of favors us as a kind of a visible uh expression of upper class decency, you know, which may not run deep, but but sometimes a gesture is important, >> right? You also mentioned that uh perhaps politicians are able to fight back against these books and uh really in strange fashion be courageous

1:06:44 and actually speak on behalf of the poor. >> Exactly. People people forget and I will never let them forget. Okay. The the objection to Aadhaar which has now transformed lives. When Aadhaar first was introduced, there was typical same paranoia. That's a problem with activism. Okay, it might do a set of good things, but it is also a magnet for people with mental illness with a kind of an unpleasant uh uh uh paranoia for everything. Okay? Because that is their personal life. So they projected upon society that anything which is going to take your fingerprint or any kind of biometric has to be evil.

1:07:29 Unless it is the US government okay granting you a visa for your holiday okay then they will give you they'll give the kidney to the US for a visa I've seen them okay but if your government is asking for biometrics they basically think that there is a problem and then defense they will say oh you don't understand the nature of choice we choose to give a kidney to the US government but did you ask us for our choice you know to give a biotech biometrics to the Indian government which is complete [ __ ] because the choice can be influenced by like someone say you're not giving your kidney I'm not giving a visa what do you want to do okay I want I want a single

1:08:14 Indian upper middle class woke person to tell me that he did not apply he he he decided not to apply for a US visa because they wanted biometrics there is no such person So initially it was all I'm saying that the politicians because they were they didn't get into these sophisticated ideas you know of uh kind of a a a monoculture of madeup uh virtues. These are sons of the soils kind of or village headmen you know. >> Sure. So they just said that okay fine this looks like a good idea because if we can put money in every bank account

1:09:00 maybe we can control our voters. Okay or we can we it just makes it easy to do a lot of things. Sure. So politicians okay and nand nandanda nilakani and politicians saved Aadhaar from the amateur Indian who had uh kind of uh foolish notions >> uh about uh privacy and other concerns. See basically I feel that everybody has similar values. uh what separates us is the hierarchy of those values you know >> what do you value the most >> exactly you know and and people need to have an intelligent hierarchy because you cannot say I have these values that

1:09:47 is not enough >> you need to know the hierarchy of values in your head and sometimes uh giving biometrics to the government is not such a bad idea you know as people might think this is a very obvious point I'm laboring on but people don't realize the extent of objections 10 years ago and there was a uh in fact there were people who wanted to abolish it >> there was a small segment which was kind of saying that Titan had make it good if you're going to make it compulsory be bloody efficient that's correct I agree with that view but a lot of people wanted to abolish this whole thing okay there's a problem with it the governmental control is a kind of a surveillance abolition Okay. So these

1:10:32 were uh people who are defeated by India. Okay. They're defeated by the politicians and by the courts and we should be grateful. See we should not underestimate the extent to which activism can create false ideas. Like for example we still have people who believe that GMO is some kind of a evil. Okay. that that that this banana is okay because I mean it's thousand years old but if a company is going to do something >> with something and something else is going to happen. This is a notion which is created by activists and once people have committed to an idea people don't want to go back. I'm saying this because there was a moment when cell phones

1:11:19 just escaped narrowly from the wrath of activism. Okay. There was some kind of a fear radiation if people say radiation children cancer. Okay, that is enough for a technology to be delayed by 10 20 years. >> Sure. >> Because there would be this paranoia cell just escape. Now it is so prevalent that it is you know uh it is beyond the critical point for activism to pull back. But activism is very efficient when something is nent. There's also fear-mongering uh within new technologies or innovations that older people don't understand. Many people in my own family relatives will say

1:12:07 and it's these dudes who are selling 49 rupee courses on like how to master AI in 30 minutes but like these guys believe it and then a few days later hi Chad Gibb what should I do to lose weight it's like they get onto it they get onto the train or they do it quietly >> then they don't talk about it so it's it's very difficult in India in the intellectual space change your mind publicly because you've got big lobbies supporting you. >> Before I let you go, just a few more questions. Um, you described the fivestar buffet which is very interesting because I was at a four-star buffet recently, not a fivestar buffet. I was in Rajasthan and I something happens to people at buffets where they become like cows. They start grazing. They lose all

1:12:54 social grace. you know, like you're at a nice cafe. If we go to a cafe and have dinner, lunch, we'll talk, chitchat, have a few drinks, we'll be we'll be graceful. We'll be dressed okay, you know, we'll be uh a little bit mindful about who's seeing us in public, like dress up and walk a little nicely, not talk too loudly. But you mentioned that in these fivestar buffets, they [ __ ] lose everything. >> They're like they they'll even fart. >> Yeah. >> And enjoy that. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> but they'll not be the same in the hotel >> or even >> when they're sightseeing. >> What happens to these Indians? >> No, I've not seen the fart thing though, but I can I believe you. Um, so the Indian fivestar is is something, isn't

1:13:42 it? I I feel that um it's all wrong. It's it's it's though in the book argue that some vulgarity is good. It's one of those vulgarities which is kind of horrible. Mhm. >> Because uh we have two sets of people here and people who have spent 5 to 10,000 per per plate for to eat as much as you can. >> Mhm. >> And the Indian buffet is so lavish uh that it is meant to convey that it

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