#23 – Chidanand Hiremath (Visual Designer, Photographer and former Digital Nomad) – Traveling the world, knowing oneself and creating nude art

Chidanand Hiremath
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In this episode, I’m talking to Chidanand Hiremath who is a Visual Designer, Photographer and former Digital Nomad. He has travelled 30+ countries till now and currently living in Berlin and getting his Masters in children’s rights and childhood education. His love for travelling started since his childhood when one day his father brought him an old NatGeo Travellers magazine from 1949. In his early 20s, he left his first job and started freelancing as a graphic designer. Since then he’s never looked back, he’s doing what he loves and exploring himself as an artist and as a creative.

In this conversation, we talked about how he got started with travelling, why he doesn’t like travelling as a tourist. How he started out with freelance graphic design and did his first solo trip in India with his own earned money and subsequently internationally. His perspective on how being a digital nomad may look attractive externally but how hard it is when you actually go ahead and do it.

He also does nude art (sketching and drawing) and we get into the detail about how it practically works out. He also talks about why he doesn’t like selling work of art or photos on stock sites. There are a lot of interesting topics in this conversation. I really enjoyed talking to Chidanand.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Chidanand Hiremath.

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#22 – Shashank Murali (Co-Founder and CEO of TapChief) – Building the Future of Work

Shashank Murali
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In this episode, I’m talking to Shashank Murali who’s the Co-Founder and CEO of TapChief. TapChief is an Indian Start-up which aims to build the future of work with it’s focus on Solopreneurs and the gig economy. A freelance professional can register on TapChief and can access thousands of projects to choose from and TapChief handles all the things around this and help the freelancer earn well.

Shashank is a BITS Pilani Alumni. Like many tech founders, his journey also started in the hostel room of BITS Pilani where he created the early version of what today is TapChief.

In this candid conversation, we talk about his journey and how TapChief started out from his hostel room and has now become one of the top Indian Start-ups and is having 1 Lakh plus professionals on their platform. How BITS Pilani shaped his thought process. We go deep on TapChief’s focus on people with Attention to detail and empathy. Their goal of getting 2 Million people to the platform and much more. There are a lot of nuggets in this episode for anyone who’s aspiring to start a company or a start-up which is looking to level up.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Shashank Murali.

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#21 – Aditya Kalyanpur (World-renowned Indian Tabla Maestro) – Taking Indian Tabla across International boundaries

Aditya Kalyanpur
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In this episode, I’m talking to Aditya Kalyanpur who is a world-renowned Indian Tabla Maestro. He has trained under the Tabla Legends Ustad Allarakha Khan and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Since his first appearance in the Wah Taj! ad in the 90s where he played the Tabla along with Ustad Zakir Hussain, to now when he has become the Tabla Maestro and taken the Indian Tabla Classical Indian music art form across International boundaries. He’s played along with the Indian Legends like Shivkumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman, Rahul Sharma and western legendary artists like Katy Perry, Herbie Hancock, Larry Coryell and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones to name a few. He also popularised the colourful Tablas. He’s wearing multiple hats at the moment, founder of 2 music institutes in the US and a non-profit in Mumbai India which helps out kids with Cancer.

In this conversation, we talked about his initial journey, his time with his Gurus, his creative process, how to perfect your craft and much more.

It was amazing to talk to Aditya jee and I hope you’ll love it too.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Aditya Kalyanpur.

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#20 – Stuart DaCosta (Music Composer and Bassist of The Yellow Diary Band) – Making Music, Touring with bands and co-creating 6+ million view songs

Stuart DaCosta
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In this episode, I’m talking to Stuart DaCosta, who is a music composer and bassist in the band The Yellow Diary whose songs like Na Tere Jeha Hora Disda and Rab Rakha have been rocking the charts since the day 1 of launch. I absolutely love this band.

Stuart has been in the indie music scene in India from a long time. He has played in various bands like Something Relevant, Baycity Lights etc and then eventually made his way into The Yellow Diary. Which is now signed by Sony Music India. On the side he’s also working for bigger projects with his music production company – Salvage Audio Collective and have worked with films like Gully Boy which had chartbuster songs.

This is an episode with which most of the musicians might resonate. A lot of tidbits for musicians. But for everyone else also it will be a good episode and teach you if you keep working on what you love with all your passion, you definitely will get there.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Stuart DaCosta.

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#19 – Rajat Ubhaykar (Journalist and Author of the book – Truck De India) – Hitchhiking 10000kms with Truckers of India and writing for a living

Rajat Ubhaykar
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In this episode, I’m talking to Rajat Ubhaykar who is a journalist and author. His first book “Truck De India” launched in late 2019 and since then it’s trending in top travel books in India. In this book, he shares his 10000km hitchhiking adventure throughout India with Truckers. He documented the lives of truckers, the highway economy and busted a lot of myths about truckers.

In this conversation, we talked about his book, his writing process, a lot of stories he actually lived through while on this crazy journey, including an insurgent attack in northeast India

It was a great experience talking to Rajat about his own story and his documented journey called “Truck De India”.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Rajat Ubhaykar.

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#18 – Delton Dsouza (Adventure Film Maker and Director of Photography) – Living life one adventure at a time!

Delton Dsouza on zipline over some forest with Action cameras mounted on his body.
Delton Dsouza
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In this episode, I’m talking to Delton Dsouza. He’s an adventure Film Maker, Director of Photography and Cinematographer. He’s been publishing his amazing adventure outdoors videos on YouTube including his BikePacking Series. His video editing works are just out of the world. He’s also done commercial work with names like Vogue, Flipkart and more.

In this conversation, we cover a wide variety of topics – his creative process, how he transitioned to this creative career from a regular airline job. We also talk about his YouTube series called BikePacking. There is a lot of nitty-gritty details if you are an aspiring filmmaker, YouTuber or Director.

It was just pure joy listening to this guy talks about his passion.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Delton Dsouza.

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#17 – Chhavi Sachdev (Founder of Sonologue and Independent podcast consultant) – Telling stories through Audio and bringing podcasting to life in India

Chhavi Sachdev
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In this episode, I’m talking to Chhavi Sachdev. She’s an independent podcast producer, consultant, and coach. Basically one-stop-shop for podcast production. She is also the most experienced podcaster in India; she has been making podcasts since 2008.

She is also a multimedia journalist and has worked with names like BBC, PRI and NPR. When she moved back to India from the US almost 10 years back, she saw almost nobody in India was working with the new intelligent medium of storytelling which was podcasts. So she embarked on this long journey of making the Podcast medium relevant in India. Like smart and intellectual radio stations.

Meanwhile, Chhavi worked on interesting projects and co-founded IVM which is a big podcast production company now, but she left after a short stint and eventually founded Sonologue which is her own podcast production company. She has worked on a wide array of projects in Audio and it reflects in her production value.

Chhavi has also been conducting regular workshops for individuals, colleges, corporates, as well as NGO’s. Her 4-hour crash course in podcasting is fairly popular.

In this conversation, we cover many of the things about podcasting, the state of radio industry in India. Her productive routine, tools and tips about podcasting.

I had a blast having this conversation with Chhavi.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Chhavi Sachdev.

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#16 – Ashish Bedekar (Chief Product Officer of picoNets and a Startup Mentor) – Predicting the future by the patterns of the past.

Ashish Bedekar Portrait

Ashish Bedekar

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In this episode I’m talking to Ashish Bedekar who is the Chief Product Officer of Piconets (a company which is working on revolutionising Content Delivery Network system by working acceleration the last mile performance. To simply say he is making the Internet sites you see daily, load on lighting speeds and meanwhile decrease the cost.

He is also a productivity expert and a start-up mentor. He works with many start-up incubators to nurture and support start-up companies who are focusing on clean-tech, energy, Internet of Things (or IoT).

There are a lot of small tools and apps you’ll learn in this episode about and can implement to improve your productivity.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Ashish Bedekar.

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#15 – Venkatraman Pichumani (Founder of YouTooCanRun) – Cultivating uncorrupt behaviour, Providing world-class user experience and Coaching Cardiac patients!

Venkatraman Pichumani

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In this episode I’m talking to Venkatraman Pichumani who is founder of YouTooCanRun, a company through which he provides a 360 degree platform to organise sports events starting from the registration process till the event wrap up. YouTooCanRun is leading the charts in the end to end user experience it provides. He is also the Founder of the Zippers Club, which is a very unique club where he coaches people who have or had cardiac conditions, he trains them to run long distances and even Marathons. Venkat himself is a long distance runner despite having a cardiac surgery years back.

In this conversation we talk about his life journey, things and experiences from the 80s and 90s. How he surrendered his CA title after achieving financial freedom and started various ventures and found success in many of his entrepreneurial acts. All of this and much more in this episode.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Venkatraman Pichumani.

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#14 – Aditya Shroff (Author of the book “The Best Life Ever”) – Taking the road less travelled, being a writer and living the best life ever!

Aditya Shroff
[Image Courtesy – Aditya Shroff]

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In this episode I’m talking to Aditya Shroff popularly known through his blog as “The 5AM Guy” who is also an author of the book “The Best Life Ever”. He is also a competitive runner and frequently gets podium positions in various running races. He leads quite a simple but interesting life at a farm in a Village of Gujarat. After doing his engineering from Mumbai, he got a high paying job in Germany but eventually dropped that job and came back to India to work on his passion which is writing.

In this conversation we cover a wide variety of topics – how he took the brave decision to drop the job and work on his passion and live on a farm, his creative process while writing the book. How he got the book published and even got a forward from a celebrity whom he didn’t directly know. How someone, who has a passion can convert it into a profession. All of this and much much more is in the episode.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Aditya Shroff.

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