- 7/5/2025
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00:00So, we were driving back from the boho itself and you saw something that looked like a sports
00:09stadium with lights.
00:11What was that?
00:12It was actually… do I even find words for it?
00:24You know, we saw like lines and lines of cars parked beside the road going back to his apartment.
00:33And then Darius was, I think you were in a lively mood after the session, adventurous.
00:41And then he asked me, do you want to go see what is that?
00:46And I was like, okay.
00:47And seriously, to me it sounded seriously like a sporting event.
00:52I saw those lights in the skies and someone talking to a mic and there was this ambience
01:00and a feel of a big space in which the sound was.
01:04And I think there was a wave of applause also just after that made me feel that, yes, it
01:10has to be a sporting event.
01:13Well, we go closer.
01:16Turns out it's a wedding, a really big wedding.
01:20And I mean, as you were, as we said, adventurous, he just said that you want to go in.
01:29And I was like, well, okay.
01:30Okay.
01:31And then we just walked in past the weather guards there.
01:33There were two guards.
01:35Ah, nice.
01:36I didn't, I don't even know if I noticed.
01:39And two big chandeliers.
01:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:41But seriously, I mean, well, that's actually another thing that, yeah, well, Finland is a
01:48very small country.
01:49And even on the basic level of just horizontal space, it's just staggering how far things
02:03are.
02:04And even here at the wedding thing, the hall was, how many people would you estimate
02:10to be there?
02:11Yeah.
02:12I really can't say, but you know, just like seven, eight hundred.
02:15Yeah.
02:16Well, you know, like right, really big, at least on.
02:18That's a medium size.
02:21Yeah.
02:22Yeah.
02:23But this is something that comes up repeatedly.
02:26I'm like, yes, it's so massive.
02:28And then someone's like, nah, medium.
02:31Medium.
02:32Yeah.
02:33But as a percentage of the population of Finland.
02:35Oh, that's true.
02:36That's true.
02:37That's true.
02:38It was already significant.
02:42I mean, the ceremony, I mean, the strangest part of it was that it was late in the night.
02:52So the way the tables looked, I mean, it looked like people had already eaten.
02:58There were like piles and piles of...
03:01No, no, no, no, no.
03:04Nobody is ever done with eating at an Indian wedding.
03:08Well, let's...
03:09Nobody would say, I have already eaten.
03:11You are always in the present continuous tense.
03:14I am eating.
03:16You are never done with eating.
03:18Yeah.
03:19Yeah.
03:20But that was the thing that the piles of plates kind of suggest that they would be done.
03:25But the eating was the only thing happening there, you know.
03:30That people are talking to each other and just getting more and more food.
03:35And that's the whole thing.
03:37And I just...
03:38You just rename them to an eating instead of a wedding.
03:42Oh, seriously.
03:44And...
03:45I mean...
03:46Well, I haven't been to that much weddings, but the ones I've been to...
03:51I just...
03:52Start thinking that...
03:54Like this...
03:55How can these people even socialize with each other?
03:57Because there are just so many.
03:59Because the mouths are all stuck with food.
04:01They're also.
04:02They're also.
04:03And they're just eating there.
04:05I mean...
04:06I would actually love to know what's the deal with that.
04:13And the whole food stalls.
04:15Yeah.
04:16And the whole grandeur with the whole thing also.
04:18Like everyone decked up and just eating away.
04:23Even when we left, I think they tried to give us some methane to take away.
04:26Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:27And we said, no thank you, because we weren't invited.
04:29Yeah, I mean, Darius was brave, but I got a bit scared.
04:34So we had to leave.
04:35No, not scared, but restless.
04:37It was too much for me.
04:39No, they would have felt offended at that.
04:43You didn't eat.
04:45You go to a place and you don't eat.
04:47People don't like it.
04:49It's as bad as, you know, not liking them or disrespecting them.
04:55I was saying, you're not worth...
04:58You're not worth my chew.
05:03So...
05:04But what's the deal with all the glamour and glitz?
05:06There was a stage and there were people in a band.
05:08It was like this was a rock concert.
05:10There was a lady with a mic and she was singing.
05:13And then there was food on literally all the three corners.
05:17So one corner was stage.
05:19Other three corners were just food.
05:21And it was like never ending food, food, food, food, food.
05:24Glamour on the stage.
05:26People in jewellery.
05:27They had hung up chandeliers.
05:29There were posh cars on the side of the road.
05:32And the lights in the sky.
05:34It was an open roof thing.
05:36The Southern lights in Finland.
05:39Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:40A bit like that.
05:41See, it connects to the same thing.
05:45The pursuit of happiness.
05:47One thing is when you are internally joyful.
05:54And then you may dress up.
05:56Not necessarily.
05:58But at times you may dress up.
06:02Because you are just glad.
06:04You're just glad to be.
06:06I exist.
06:07I'm glad.
06:08For no obvious reason.
06:09So I put on nice clothes.
06:11Sometimes you don't want to put on nice clothes.
06:12Sometimes you don't want to put on any clothes.
06:17So that's one thing.
06:18When dressing up and putting on jewellery is an expression of your inner wellness.
06:29And then there can be a totally different thing.
06:31When putting on jewellery and nice clothes is a substitute for the real inner thing.
06:39Because I don't have the real inner thing.
06:41Therefore I am compensating by decking myself up with all the extravaganza.
06:49Similarly with eating.
06:52Nothing else to do.
06:53What can you do in a wedding?
06:55Except eating.
06:58Now there is no real joy.
07:00No real love.
07:01Not even on the stage where the couple is there.
07:04Even they don't really love each other.
07:07So you have to fill yourself up with something.
07:11Love fills you up.
07:12Joy fills you up.
07:15A general euphoria fills you up.
07:18And if these things are absent.
07:21Then you fill yourself up.
07:23With naan and biryani and kofta and shahi tukla and all the jazz, the fancy names.
07:33Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Arctic food.
07:38Name it.
07:40Was there any finished food?
07:43There.
07:44I wouldn't be surprised.
07:45You drop the idea and very soon it will catch ground.
07:51Gain ground.
07:53You know, because continental, well, it's dated, obsolete.
08:03Everybody has continental.
08:05Scandinavian is a little to the north.
08:09Still untried.
08:11It still has a…
08:12Maybe it will bring me that happiness.
08:14It will bring me that happiness.
08:15It will bring me that happiness.
08:18So the same thing.
08:21It's not East versus West really.
08:23You see, we are all the same in our ignorance.
08:29In our reality, we are the same.
08:31And in our ignorance, we are the same.
08:33Just that ignorance is very diversified.
08:37Your ignorance looks very different from my ignorance.
08:42Just as your skin looks a lot different than mine.
08:47Fundamentally, all ignorance is one.
08:50Just as truth is one.
08:54So the East fools itself in one way, the West fools itself in another way.
08:59Both, however, do nothing except fooling themselves.
09:06Talking of wedding, you were mentioning that you've never seen a space that didn't have
09:16people in it in India.
09:19And that there just seemed to be so many people, 1.4 billion people.
09:23Whereas in Finland, you said there were 5 million people.
09:26And there are probably 5 million people just in this road over here.
09:29This is one of those, it's a mediocre thing, you know, kind of things that I mentioned
09:35earlier that we've been talking about this, that Fraser Noida, for example.
09:40That this is not even like crowded.
09:44I mean...
09:45It's one of the most planned cities in the country and least densely populated.
09:51Well, what I have to admit that to me, even this is a bit like too much at times.
09:58But that's the thing when you come from Finland, because there...
10:02I mean in my hometown, if you get there by night, you're lucky to see anyone everywhere.
10:08Seriously.
10:09Like no one anywhere.
10:11From animals maybe.
10:12There are a lot of forests.
10:13Forests, yeah, but they hide.
10:17They hide.
10:18They hide.
10:19They hide.
10:20They hide.
10:21But yeah.
10:22And you noticed it was easy to get people to come and do stuff for very little money?
10:28Yeah, that was actually...
10:30I think this relates...
10:32Yeah, I guess we have to take a little step back.
10:40Because, well, Darius has been lending his apartment to me, which has been very, very kind of you.
10:48But there's this one thing that has been very, very exquisite to me.
10:54And it's the fact that he has a maid.
10:57Or do you call them maids?
10:59Yeah, maids helps.
11:01Yeah.
11:02And it's funny how, yeah, I mean, I come to India and suddenly my standard of living just like jumps up a scale.
11:12That someone is actually cooking food for me and doing all this kind of stuff.
11:17It's very like, this doesn't happen in like lower middle class, middle class Finland.
11:24Like you actually, yeah, it was very like, very new to me.
11:32And in addition to this, it's funny how, yeah, there were those days that everything possible was breaking in the apartment.
11:41And Darius just always could get someone to come and fix it all.
11:46And one day I dare to say that we had probably like seven or eight like separate repairmen coming in throughout the day.
11:58Like it was constantly someone was coming to the room to do something.
12:02I mean the fridge and I think that was the day the whole electronic system went down and all kinds of stuff like this.
12:12And that also is something very different compared to Finland because, well, I actually, I didn't make the calls,
12:21but I could see that he could just make the call and then someone comes to immediately fix it until it breaks down again.
12:31But in Finland it's more like you can call someone to do something like this, but it actually takes time.
12:39Like you actually have to wait for it.
12:42But here, yeah, you actually get people to do stuff fast.
12:46Even the fact that people work as, is it Korea?
12:50Like Korea?
12:51Yeah, you can, people actually just bring everything to each other.
12:58Not where I come from.
13:00This happens not yet.
13:02That's just a very unfortunate kind of luxury.
13:14Indians are enjoying because most of their countrymen are not well off and there are just too many countrymen.
13:27So, those who have a bit of money can afford cheap labor.
13:32That's not something about India and Indian would want to be proud of, you know, that you have services available.
13:42As a drop of a hat, you call them, they come and they, the services are quite cheap.
13:49So, I understand in the language of economics, it's a big advantage.
13:54In fact, India has been gaining economically because India can provide cheap labor.
14:05China too has gained.
14:07India in services, China in manufacturing.
14:10But fundamentally, that's just in some way an exploitation of the fact that we are just too many and too poor.
14:22So, people produce kids and then what do those kids end up as?
14:37They end up as laborers, helps, maids, cooks, cleaners, plumbers.
14:44I am not berating any of these professions.
14:47But for sure, I also know that being a maid or a cook or a helper is not obviously the fullest expression of one's potential.
14:59So, in that sense, I am calling it unfortunate.
15:09These days we are calling it here in India as the demographic advantage or demographic dividend.
15:18We are thinking that this is what will catapult India to the foremost league of prosperous nations.
15:29We have so many young people who can work.
15:32So, India will either export their work to the rest of the world or export the workers themselves to the world.
15:45Nice, but I would have rather had a situation where these many people in surplus didn't exist in the first place.
16:00Because most Indians from the lower classes and the lower middle economic classes, they live pretty wretched lives.
16:13They do provide a lot of comforts and conveniences to the moneyed people, but their own lives are quite miserable.
16:26Even dollar one a day is not available to a lot of people.
16:33Just imagine, dollar one a day.
16:39Yeah, and I guess I actually, sometimes you get the feel for it just, maybe from the general kind of a vibe you get from people.
17:05Sometimes there can be this kind of a, it's hard to find the right word for it.
17:20So, for example, when I see the shop clerks and the guards and, well, the maid is very nice though, she is very polite, but it's clear that they are not enjoying themselves.
17:38Of course, of course, of course, of course.
17:41The average Indian lives a very confined, very joyless life and you would not want to trade positions with him, no way.
17:57And believe me, a lot of that is just due to the population we have.
18:07And somehow, leaders both political and spiritual have not been able, rather not been willing to drill this down to the Indian mind that kids are not an important part of the happiness package.
18:32That having kids is not a random event.
18:42That kids are not sent down by God.
18:49They are not defined divine gifts.
18:52So, that concept that having kids and having more kids is a very central thing in life, especially that of a woman, is very deeply ingrained in the Indian psyche.
19:14And that needs to be corrected, not just to control the population, but to develop the Indian mind itself.
19:26As long as Indians keep taking reproduction so seriously, they will not have time or space or energy to give respect to the more important things in life.
19:44And I am talking especially of women.
19:47You can't imagine how much an average Indian woman spends of her whole life in just giving birth to and raising kids.
20:06Now the fertility rate has dropped to less insane levels.
20:15But just a few decades back, the average Indian woman was just continuously pregnant, one kid after the other.
20:26Four kids, five kids, and one or two of them would die early, and then more kids, and then you want a baby boy in particular, so more kids.
20:45Yeah.
20:46And it's the funny counterpart in the West.
20:51I mean, probably many Western women also want kids, but then they have fewer ones, but they get more resources.
21:04Now the fertility rate, I think TFR is about 2.1 or something in India.
21:13I may not be accurate in that case, I want to stand corrected, but it's now greatly fallen.
21:21But still, with the population that we already have, it needs to fall even further, 2.2 is still alarming.
21:40At least with this population?
21:41With this population.
21:42It's above the replacement, right?
21:43Above the replacement level.
21:51Unless it's above the medicinal level, there's no signs 0.521.
22:07Dolocalus gives d axe you.
22:11If you're good at the dentist, I launch a cafe to come near you.
22:16Thank you very much.
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