Ep 450: Small Doors Into the Large Rooms of India

**Amit Varma** (0:07)
Welcome to the preamble of The Seen and the Unseen. Normally, when I record my introductions, they are done after the episode has already been recorded, and I have a script, and I just read that script out. Today, we are not doing that because we are recording this episode. On August 7th, it will release. On August 10th, then why are we in such a hurry? We are in such a hurry because episode 450, I wanted it to be special. All my landmark episodes are with people. I have since episode 200, I think, or 250 or 300, whatever. I have decided that these 50 episode landmarks will be with people who are good personal friends of mine, which certainly applies to today's episode. And because it's releasing on Independence Day week, what we are also going to do is we are going to make it a special episode about the India that we know and love.
And sometimes we also lament certain aspects of it. So what we have decided today is something that I'll tell you after a little bit of packaging music and the packaging is outdated. We are not fortnightly, we are now fortnightly, not weekly, but okay, let's go.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:13)
Welcome to the Seen and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics, and behavioral science. Please welcome your host, Amit Verma.

**Amit Varma** (1:27)
Welcome again to the Seen and the Unseen. My guests today are Pranay Kotasthane and R S J, also known as Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley. They together write the brilliant newsletter Anticipating the Unintended. And all of today morning, they've been anticipating the intended because this is very much a planned recording. Here's what we are going to do today. We want to talk about the highlights and lowlights of India's journey till this point.
We've each picked five highlights and five lowlights. And the idea of course is not, you know, especially of the lowlights, is not to criticize, you know, one gets negative and all that, but the things that, you know, we wish we had paid more attention to, that something could be done about many of them, problems that kind of remain with us. And we love the country and we wanted to do well. So we should look at all aspects of who we are and how we got here and all of that. So yeah, so Pranay and RLJ are here with me. Typically, I would welcome them, but I can't welcome them because the format of the introduction is that we now go to a commercial break. And normally when I record this bit, I know what we already spoke about because the recording is over. But today also, I know what we will speak about. So I hope it goes well. But first, listen to a commercial break now.
Gather around me, friends. I have exciting news for you. I have launched a new YouTube show called Watching the Wheels, in which every week, Shruti Rajagopalan, Pranay Kotasthane and I will gather to discuss what is happening in the world around us. What have we been thinking about? What do we want to brainstorm? We'll discuss ideas, share stories, argue furiously, and punish each other with bad jokes. It will be fun. It will be fast. It will be fantastic. And you are invited. There will be an audio version soon on every podcast tab, but our primary home is YouTube. So head on over to complicated URL alert. Head on over to youtube.com/atwatchinghyphen the hyphen wheels.
At watching the wheels with hyphens. I'll also link it from the show notes so you can just search for it. But remember the name of the show, Watching the Wheels with Shruti, Pranay and Amit. Where the world unfolds and finally makes sense.
Pranay and Raghu, welcome to the Seen in the Unseen.

**Pranay Kotasthane** (3:48)
Congrats Amit on completing 450 episodes.

**Raghu S Jaitley** (3:52)
Yeah, thank you Amit for having us and great to know that this will also coincide with the 15th August. And as the great Manoj Kumar in the greatest film of his life called Clark. If you have not seen it, dear readers, please see it. Sang in that movie Jhoomo Re Jhoomo Aaj Pandra August Hai.
So, let's get down to doing the Lekha Jhoka of.

**Amit Varma** (4:23)
Let's get down to the Lekha Jhoka. And as you would have learned from the commercial, dear listeners, Pranay and I have also started a show with Shruti Rajagopalan called Watching The Wheels. Please do give us your love. We need some love.
And on the 14th, on Friday, we will release our Independence Day special, which we have already recorded. So I can tell you it is a fantastic, mind-blowing, incredible episode, quite different from this, but also an Independence Day episode. So aren't you excited? But first, you can listen to this one. And we're kind of now winging it a little bit. We both, we've, all of us have made lists of five highlights and five lowlights, made sure there are no overlaps, though they are obviously related kind of things. And but we haven't decided an order, ya aise karenge, waise karenge, so nothing is kind of scripted. So I will ask one of my good friends to begin. Perhaps we should go in the order of age. For all of you who speculate about RHS true identity, well you can shorten the list of possibilities substantially when I tell you that Pranay is younger than RHS, so therefore now Pranay will go first. Do you think that was a good clue?