Our next speaker speaks British English. He writes books and he's going to talk about those books. He's an economist and a member of the Basic Income Earth Network which has its 18th conference had its 18th conference this year. It's from 1986, 32 years going strong. Allow me to introduce Guy Stending talking about the prokaryate, a disruptive class for disruptive times. That I wrote in 2011 on page one I said that unless the insecurities and the fears and the aspirations of the prokaryate were addressed as a matter of urgency we would see the emergence of a political monster. You will not be surprised that in November 2016 I received a lot of emails from around the world from people who said the monster has arrived. Today ironically he is in Germany inspecting his troops. Maybe a lot of Americans would like him to stay in Germany but I would not. What I'm going to talk about today is something that has involved me in something I never expected in my life, an adventure because since that book was published it's been translated into 24 languages and taken me around the world to speak in over 500 places in about 40 countries. And the reason for that is not the book but the fact is that the global prokaryate is growing in every part of the world. And I want to talk about some of the background of this disruptive class that is taking shape because I think it has a resonance with this conference and similar events taking place. Because as someone like myself, I'm an economist, as I was walking around here this morning I thought this is the future. You are the future if we are to have a future. It's up to you to define that future. And I mean it very seriously. We are in the midst of a global transformation. Those of you who are political scientists or know political science will understand that Karl Polany wrote a great book in 1944 called The Great Transformation and his book was fundamentally about what took place in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. He described the mid 19th century until the Second World War as the disembed phase of the Great Transformation. It was dominated initially by financial capital, by laissez-faire economics and by a technological revolution that was taking place at the time. It took place in which the dominant groups were around finance and monopolies and imperialism. But what happened in that disembed phase was that insecurities multiplied, inequalities worsened. Wealth inequality grew more than income inequality. And in the process we had the emergence of a new class structure in which the bourgeoisie was confronted by a solidified proletariat. The proletariat were the losers in the process of two world wars and the Great Depression. And we had what Polany said was the threat of the annihilation of civilization. We all know what happened. But after the Second World War a new embedded phase of his Great Transformation took place in which finance was tamed, in which social democracy became the dominant force, labor-based insecurities were reduced inequalities were reduced, and we had a period in which global trade grew in competitive goods but with similar standards in the industrialized capitalist countries. But there were inherent contradictions in that embedded phase of the Great Transformation. It became inflationary, it became sluggish, it was no golden age. It was no golden age that prompted 1968 the riots, the revolt against the system. It was a period of drabness in many ways when full-time stable jobs were meant to be the nirvana. But it stultified the human creativities. It stultified subversive thinking. It was a period in which there were many improvements but it had its limitations. As we all know that Great Transformation collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s and ushered in the disembedded phase of the global transformation. The disembedded phase was dominated by neoliberalism in economics, by the emergence of politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to put those neoliberal ideas into practice. It was dominated by the emergence of U.S. dominated financial institutions like Goldman Sachs that became great umbrellas around the world. And it ushered into a new technological revolution that you're all dealing with today. For my story the most important aspect of the early phase of that technological revolution was that it made the relocation of production and employment much easier. So that the relocation depended on relative costs and it strengthened the power of capital over labor. So we see around the world in every country a shift in which more and more of the income goes to capital and less and less goes to labor. It's a phenomenon that spread around the world. And the technological revolution also meant that capital mobility increased dramatically. And we have some other interesting developments which I come to in a moment. But inequalities have increased. Insecurities have become vastly greater in every part of the world. We have a new gilded age at the top and at the bottom. And that gilded age has gone with a new kondratiev long wave of technological revolution which has helped in the relocation again of the geopolitical power that is so important today. We have now moved away from the neoliberal era of the 1980s and 1990s. And a pivotal event came in 1994 with the passage of trips by the world trade organization. Trips trade related aspects of intellectual property. What this did is globalize the American system of intellectual property rights with patents with copyright with brands with all of the adages that go with that system. So now we have a system in which about a quarter of the world's GDP, national income, is attributable to intellectual property rights. Some of you benefit from patents and other copyrights and so on. But it's a system that has entrenched powerful big corporations. So we have big pharma. We have big finance. And above all we have big tech. The big tech are rentiers taking more and more from the world's income pile. And in effect we have rentier capitalism today, not a free market. This is the most unfree market system ever created in history. Where more and more of the income is going to the owners of property. Physical property, financial property and intellectual property. We've had a breakdown of the income distribution system of the 20th century. It's broken. Wages have been stagnating in all industrialized countries for three decades. Three decades. They are lower in the United States in real wage terms than they were in the 1980s. The implications are dramatic. And above all we've got a new global class structure that has taken shape. The class structure has a plutocracy at the top. It's not the top 1%, it's the top 0.1%. A multi-billionaires striding the globe as global citizens. Taking more and more rental income.  His income has grown by 400 million dollars per week this year. This is obscenity multiplied. This plutocracy of course now have a representative in the White House as their spokesperson. We have other plutocrats manipulating our politics, manipulating our technology, manipulating our commons. These are the realities. Beneath the plutocracy is then elite who are the servants of the plutocrats. Who are making many millions of dollars, euros, pounds or whatever. And our servants. We don't have to feel sorry for them either. Below them is the salariat. When I was a student we were told and we were taught and we believed that by the end of the 20th century the vast majority of us would be part of the salariat. With stable, salaried employment, with pensions to look forward to, paid holidays, paid medical leave, paid this, paid that, paid the rest. The only problem is that the salariat has been shrinking everywhere in the world. It won't disappear but today many in the salariat worry about their daughters and their sons. Because they're not going into the salariat. Below the salariat, just, is what a group I call in the books, the profissions. A combination of professionals and technicians. Many in this hall this morning are part of the profissions. But be careful. These people don't want full-time stable jobs. They don't want to be saying yes, no to a boss. They're making good money. They're rushing around with their laptops or whatever over their shoulders. They're making a lot of money. They're making a lot of money and they are tending to be complacent. But they should worry about burnout. They should worry about mental illness at age 28 and a half or their abouts. The profissions are helping in identifying the technological and political options for the future. They have a responsibility. But they must not lose that responsibility in an egotistic, narcissistic pursuit of private gain. It's a difficult balancing act. But they have a responsibility because they have the skills, they have the knowledge and they know what's going on. Beneath these groups are the old proletariat. Disappearing everywhere. They were the ones that established social democracy, the trade unions, collective bargaining, tripartism, all the institutions of the international labour organization. But today they are shrinking everywhere. And along with them, their political representatives are effectively dead men walking. They are not the future. They did many good things in the 20th century. I do not miss to disparage them in any way. But they are not the future. Beneath the prokaryat in terms of income is the prokaryat. Beneath the proletariat is the prokaryat. The prokaryat can be defined in three dimensions. The first dimension is that if you're in the prokaryat, you are being told and you are being habituated to accept a life of unstable labour, an insecure work. You don't have an occupational narrative to give to your life, an occupational identity. I am something. You worry that tomorrow morning you'll have to be something else. You also have to do a lot of work for labour. Work that is not recognised, not remunerated, not in our statistics, but you know you have to do it. Otherwise you will pay a price. And in being in the prokaryat, you don't know the optimum use of your time. Should I spend a little more time networking, doing this, retraining, going to a conference, doing this, doing that, looking after my baby, paying the rent. And therefore you suffer from what I've called the prokaryatised mind. The prokaryatised mind when you're stressed, you're anxious all the time. You put a good face on it, but every now and then you see your friends collapsing in one way or the other. That's how it feels for many people. Every day I receive emails from various people from various places who don't know me, who want to explain their experience. Sometimes I get very angry. Sometimes I feel like crying. But the pain out there is part of the process of liberation as well. It's not just a victimhood. It's about people trying to make sense of a life of insecurity. And another feature is that people in the prokaryat tend to have a level of education that is above the level of labour they can expect to obtain. The second dimension of the prokaryat is that people in it have distinctive relations of distribution. What that means is they have to rely very largely on money wages, money payments. They don't get access to the prospect of pensions or paid holidays or paid medical leave or subsidized this or subsidized that. They have to live on wages. The only problem is that the value of those wages attending to go down and the volatility of their income is growing. So basically the second aspect of this distributional question is that most people in the prokaryat are living on the level of unsustainable debt. One mistake, one illness, one bad decision, and you could be tipped out into the lumpen prokaryat. Outside society without a voice. And of course at the same time the state has been changing its social security and social protection system towards more targeting on the poor. So it's reduced the social solidarity of the social protection system and this hits the prokaryat in a very big way because state benefits, welfare benefits have been shrinking and have been means tested and behaviour tested drifting to hearts for or the equivalent in other countries where you expected to behave as the state tells you to behave. Not enough people realise what is happening down at that end of the labour market. The indignities that go with it. The shame, the stigma, the poverty traps whereby if you do get a benefit and you then have the offer of a low wage job you're losing as much in benefits as you get from the low wage job. You're facing a marginal tax rate of 80% in Germany, 86% in Denmark, 80% in Britain. If the middle classes had to accept such marginal tax rates there would be riots in the street but that is what society expects of the prokaryat. It's not funny and in addition and what I think is most importantly about the prokaryat. It has distinctive relations to the state, the institutions of society and governance. The prokaryat is losing the rights of citizenship. Often without realising it they're losing cultural rights because they cannot belong to organisations that represent their cultural identity or aspirations. They're losing civil rights because they cannot get access to due process and legal justice. They're losing social rights because they don't have access to rights based benefits and services. They're losing economic rights because they cannot practise what they are perfectly qualified to do and above all they're losing political rights because they don't see out there politicians or political parties that represent what they are and what they want to be. Now in that context I described the prokaryat today in an old Marxian term. It's a class in the making, not yet a class for itself. And what I mean by that is that while millions of people share the objective characteristics of being in the prokaryat, they have different consciousness of what it is and you can divide the prokaryat into three groups. The first I call the atavists. These are those who do not have a lot of education but their parents and their families and communities used to be in the prokaryat, used to have working class backgrounds of being dockers or steel workers or car workers or whatever. This group is relating their deprivation of today to a lost yesterday, real or imagined. That lost yesterday they want back. It's this group that supports the Donald Trumps. It's this group that supported Brexit in Britain. It's this group that supports the Marine Le Pen's, the Orban's and the equivalent in Germany and elsewhere. This group supported the Liga in Italy. You can name right wing populist groups. There's good news and bad news. The bad news here is that they are proving to be profoundly strong. We risk today that that group could lead us into a new dark political future. Characterized by demonizing migrants and minorities, authoritarian tendencies, destructive, vile outcomes. But there's good news. In my view they have reached their peak in terms of size. Many are getting older of that type and they will not lead the other two groups in the same direction. The second group in the prokaryat are what I call the nostalgics. These are made up with the migrants, the minorities, the disabled, people who feel they have no sense of home. They don't have a home there, they don't have a home here, but they dream of a home. This group knows it's losing rights. It's being demonized. It's being victimized. But they will not support a neo-fascist populism. They keep their heads down because they have to survive. Every now and then there are days of rage when everything gets too much. But this group is looking for a home. It's looking for a future. Its relative deprivation is it's got a lost now. The first group a lost past, the second group a lost now. The third group in the prokaryat are what I call the progressives. These are the millions of people who went to college, went to university and were told by their parents and by their teachers, go to university and you will get a future, a future, a career status, influence, dignity. And they come out of university and college knowing they don't have that future. All they have are debts, disillusions and difficulties. This group is entering the prokaryat. It will not support neo-fascist populism. It is looking for a future. It is looking for a new politics of paradise. There are many people at this conference I believe are in this third part. The bad news is they've been dismissing politics because they know very wisely that it's been cynically manipulated by the plutocrats and by others and therefore they have detached themselves from politics. The trouble with that is that it surrenders the prokaryat to the others with a regressive anti-democratic, anti-enlightenment perspective. But the good news is this. Since the crisis of 2008 and particularly since the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring in 2011 and the Indignado movement, more of this third part of the prokaryat are re-engaging with politics. They're re-engaging in different ways beginning to forge an agenda for that future. And I believe that if you take a historical perspective, then I only wish I were 21. I would love to be 21. Because if you are 21, you have a vacuum. You have an opportunity to forge a fundamentally enlightenment led future. Let me give you by way of conclusion a few thoughts on what that might be. The thoughts are these. Today our income distribution system is broken. We can't put yesterday back. Therefore we have to build a new income distribution system. We will not get anywhere by trying to raise wages, but we will get somewhere if we decide that what society has to do is recycle the rent from the technocrats, the financiers, and the property owners to the commons, to the commoners. We must build that distribution system by returning to the values of the enlightenment of egality, liberty, fraternity, or solidarity. And to do that I strongly believe that one part of this new income distribution system should be a basic income that everybody has as a right. I have had the privilege of working for this for 30 years. Since we formed Bien, anybody can join Bien. We have many Germans who are part of it. We have thousands and thousands of people who are members. For many years we were regarded as crazy, mad, bad, and dangerous. But suddenly in the last few years we've suddenly become respectable, at least tolerated. I've had the privilege of designing and conducting basic income pilots in four continents. The biggest being in India. Anybody who's interested, I've written a book, Basic Income, and how we can make it happen. But let me just tell you what happened in India. A country that's poor, a country that poverty is terrifying. And when we decided we would do it and we mobilized money, we provided 6,000 people, men, women, and children with basic income, Sonia Gandhi told us herself. She said, you're wasting the money. They're wasted on drink and drugs. Two years later, after we had done the pilot and seen what had happened, she called us back to our house and she said she wished she had known. What happened was that when they started receiving the basic income, they did what all of us in this room would do. They started giving their children better food. So nutrition improved. Health of the children improved. Schooling improved. Health and nutrition of others, adults improved. People with disabilities suddenly had a basic income with which they could be citizens. Women's status improved. Sanitation in the villages improved. Work increased. Production increased. If you go to those villages today, you would have seen a transformation. Now that happened in a poor place. We also did it in Africa where very similar results were shown. We've now got pilots in Canada and some hopefully launch it soon in Scotland. And the opposition leadership in Britain has asked me to prepare a plan for doing it in Britain. If you had told me ten years ago that any of those things would have happened, I would have said I must have had something to smoke or drink because I must be hallucinating. But change can come quicker than we think. It is up to us. I want to tell you one story. I still have a few minutes, I hope. What figure? I don't know. But I'm going to tell the story. When we were launching the pilot in India, we went to one village and all the young women had veils. And we had to have their photo taken for the cards so that they could get their monthly basic income. And we had to persuade them to go into a hut with other women to have their photos taken. Nine or ten months later, I went back to that particular village. And I said to one of my Indian colleagues, I said, Have you noticed a difference here? He said, no, no. I said, what difference? He said, nothing. It's better sanitation. No, I said, none of the women are wearing veils. He said, yeah. So we called some of the women across and we said, look, excuse us, but war veils are not wearing veils now. Why? They were shy. They didn't want to speak to a foreigner and so on. But after a while, one of the young women spoke up and she said, you know, before we had to do what the elders told us to do. Now we have a basic income. We can do what we want to do. There is an even more poignant story in our Namibian pilot. At the end of that one, I went to one of the villages and I asked some young women. I said, what was the best thing about having a basic income? What was the best thing?  And then one of the young women said, you know, before when the men came down from the fields at the end of the month with their wages in their pockets, we had to say, yes. Now we have our basic income. We say, no, that's emancipation. And if you can put an analogy in Germany or Britain anywhere else, you will find that this ability to say no to exploitation and oppression is a fundamental part about a progressive agenda for the 21st century. We have to find a way of liberating people to say no and also to say yes, to say yes to the ability to help people, to do things, to care, to participate in the ecological aspects of life. And I think it will help in both respects. In that context, let me conclude by saying a basic income is not a panacea. It must be part of a new system. We need new forms of voice. We need new forms of work. We need to realize today the new technologies are potentially liberating us to escape from labor so that we can do more work. Most languages distinguishes the difference.  I have never worked harder than since I stopped doing labor. Since I stopped having a job. And what we have to do is convince the politicians and the social scientists that they should change their thinking about what is work and what is not work. Every feminist, and we should all be feminists, every feminist should be demanding that they change their concepts because it means that most of the work women do doesn't count as work. It's ridiculous. It's sexist. It's arbitrary. For me, this is given a new dimension because of the growth of the precariat because if you're in the precariat, you know you have to do a lot of work. A lot of work.  But there's another wonderful opportunity here. We all know or should know that we are threatened by extinction. Extinction that comes from the greenhouse gas emissions, the pollution, the erosion of the commons, the privatization of our spaces, our loss of nature, our loss of an ecological landscape. We know that. It's the number one crisis charging towards us. We didn't need the panel of climate change to tell us that, but we know it. And what are we doing? We've just seen in Poland hardly anything. We need big carbon taxes, big carbon taxes. But there are two problems. There are two problems. First, taxes are unpopular. And second, if you just put a carbon tax, it would worsen inequality because the poor person pays proportionately more than the rich person. Therefore, we need to combine carbon taxes with carbon dividends so that the proceeds of carbon taxes are recycled. I think most of you can work it out where I'm ending this discussion. Recycled as basic incomes. The carbon tax can pay for a large part of a basic income future. And therefore, this perspective leads to you thinking we can advance the cause of ecological survival, advance the cause of security, advance the cause of emancipation, and do what every transformative class should do. The precariat is a transformative class because it wants intuitively to abolish the conditions that define its existence and therefore abolish itself. We can do it. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. They say on Congress every time, every year we have a system that we don't want to use anymore. I think it's capitalism. We're going to hold a Q&A, including questions from the Internet. There are six microphones scattered around the room. So, if anybody wants to ask a question in public, we'll start this now. And we'll start with Mike Six over there. Brilliant. So, where's Mike Six? Mike Six is over there. Okay. So, I was wondering, you mentioned basic income and you connected with the carbon taxes. I was wondering what other strategies you're thinking towards tackling other systemic issues we have, especially in regards to land, which to me, you mentioned different type of property, but I think that land today is the proxy to access to all the other values. So, should I answer that one? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. I've got a new book coming out to make me even more boring. It's called Plunder of the Commons. Basically, what you've touched on is the theme of this book. If you think of the commons, the natural commons, the social commons, the civil commons, all our commons, including land, water, the air, our amenities, and so on, we've allowed the privatization and colonization of the commons to take profit from our commons. And therefore, we need a system of levies to say, hey, we want the rental income back for the commoners. And that includes land. That's why I strongly favor a land value tax. A land value tax is a very efficient tax, and it has to be part of building this commons fund along the Alaska Permanent Fund principles of those of you familiar with that. We also need it for water, for air, for digital information. I don't believe taxing robots, as Bill Gates proposed, is the answer. What I do believe is we should put a levy on all the information that Amazon and Facebook and the others are taking from us free and making billions. We should have a levy on that. And the levy, the levy should go to everybody equally because you cannot attribute the profits they're making to any individual. We have to give it to everybody. And if we do that, we are all the time building the fund that can help pay out towards a decent basic income. So that's my answer to your question. Thanks very much. Mike Four. Hi. Thank you for being here. Great pleasure. Just recently, Sarah Wanknacht was invited in a talk show about basic income and future of work. She's a leader of the German party in the left, Die Linke. She said that she don't like the idea of basic income. I had two arguments. She said she don't like it regarding emerging neoliberal powers. They also like the idea of basic income. For example, CEO of Volkswagen and other big players. And second, she said if you move to a basic income, we will lose a lot of, we as society will lose a lot of protection and social benefits. What would be your reaction on her opinion? I address this question in my basic income book in the following way. Every new idea in history, in social policy in particular, has been greeted at the time by people saying it will threaten something else and that it will lead to unintended negative consequences. They said this about unemployment benefits. They said it about family benefits. And then when it's introduced, suddenly the objections go away. To me, I ask myself the following question. Do I want that person or that person or the person I meet in the street? Do I want that person to have the basic security of being able to pay for food, to pay for their rent and to buy decent clothes? Do I want that? And I say very easily to myself, yes, I want that.  Why is it that so many social Democrats make this argument? I've confronted many, including one major trade union leader. I said why are you so hostile to having people have a basic income? Why? And the man who was chairing the session when I was talking, he said I think we'll have a coffee break now before anybody could answer. And when he came back, he said, well, now we'll move on to the next session. And the trade union leader at the back stood up and he said, no, I think we should answer the question. And he said, you know, I think the answer is that if people had basic security, they wouldn't be dependent on us. They wouldn't join trade unions. And I looked at him. I looked at him and I said, just imagine the morality of what you've just said. The morality is you want people to be fearful and insecure because you want to gain. I said, but you're also wrong because you're wrong in their following respect. People who are insecure and frightened don't engage in politics. They don't engage in society. They've got too many things to worry about. If they have basic security, they're more likely to stand up and fight for rights. More likely to stand up and fight for the ecology. More likely to be good citizens. Why don't you trust people more? Why are you so bureaucratic and distrustful? Believe it. We need a new distribution system. And don't tell me neoliberalism is going to destroy it. They're destroying what we've got anyhow. We can do better than that. And if you deny people who say this, not you, but people who say that, you're denying the enlightenment freedoms that we should be fighting for.  Sorry. I was a bit angry, but I apologize. You got all reason to... a question from the internet. That was a popular vote for Switzerland on basic income and it was massively rejected. How do you analyze that? And how can we gain leverage against the lobbyists who pose basic income? I, again, address that particular referendum. I participated in the referendum. We had no money. We mobilized 125,000 signatures literally going in the streets. All the banks were putting up money. The main political parties were opposed, etc. But we were doing fantastically well. We got up to about 40% opinion poll support. And then one of our leaders, one of our leaders without permission from any of us, went on television and an interviewer asked him, he said, well, how much do you think the basic income should be? And the man, instead of saying it's up to parliament and everything which is what the referendum said, he said it should be 2,500 Swiss francs per month. Which, for your information, is considerably higher than all the rural areas, the rural cantons in Switzerland. At that moment, we lost the referendum. We lost. I'm proud of the fact that in Geneva we got 38%, and that was where I was campaigning. It had nothing to do with me, but the fact was that they had more meetings and more people could understand what the politics were. But the greatest thing about that referendum is that today people in Switzerland, in the auberge, the cafes, they're talking about basic income. They know what it means. I gave a talk recently in a big theatre in Geneva. There were hundreds and hundreds of people. Many of those had not participated. If there is another referendum, I think it will succeed. Switzerland has a history of even very mild ideas losing in the first referendum, and then a few years later, a second referendum, they pass. I'm optimistic that it will come in Switzerland, but not 2,500. Thank you. Mike Six again. I think a lot of the ideas you presented here are respected in the community and here in Congress, but how can we change the society? How can we change the mind of all the other people to consider these ideas to transform to a new society? I think this is the biggest question you could ask. I strongly believe that it's up to us. It really is up to us. Politicians have spaghetti in backbones. Our job is to strengthen the spaghetti. Our job is to explain why dreaming of the impossible leads to it becoming possible and then happening. I believe that we have to be taking part in any small way we can. I will tell you a secret. Yesterday, a very good friend of mine, an economist, very well known economist, he contacted me and we were talking and he said, Guy, why are you wasting your time going to Leipzig on December the 27th when you should be having relaxation with Christmas? And I said, John, that's not it. I hope that just one person, just one, will leave this room with more energy and with more thought than when I started. Just one. That would be worth coming to Leipzig. I feel energized. I hope somebody here feels energized. We have to realize that it is up to us. We have no excuse for cynicism. We have to challenge the trumps. We can't let them win. For our children and grandchildren, we can't let them win. Thank you very much. I think you'll be around for more questions. We're out of time. Sorry, but you can ask those questions directly and I think they will be answered in great length. Okay, thank you.


Hello, my name is John Harrison. I'm an author, editor, and avid reader. From Sumerian Kanaeiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics to reading on our smartphones and kindles, humans have been telling recording and sharing stories for thousands of years. Our goal with this program is to start great conversations and find out what makes authors tick. Together we will dive into the creative process and come out on the other side with a story. Join us. Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince who grew up on the Upper East Side. Today's words come from Gilded by Sin. We are fortunate to have her joining us in the studio today. Sin, it's great to have you here. How are you today? Oh, I'm fine. I'd like to start with some questions about your origins as a writer. What are some of the creative influences on your writing? Well, when I was little, my father used to read us roll-doll stories. So I grew up with you and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and James in the Giant Peach and all the children's books. And then as I got older, I started reading some of his short stories which are much darker, but they also have a very moral message and it's essentially people get what they deserved. And so I've always liked that and I like to bring that into my writing and, yeah, basically people get what they deserve.  I want to do this. I mean, how did these stories lead to starting your own writing? Well, when I was little, I mean, I was your typical kid that always would write the little stories and I even had a few that I self-published and put in our school library, you know, all of two pages long and written in pencil, of course. But then, yeah, writing was never really something I did when I got older and back for quite a while I was afraid that I couldn't write at least nothing long. And then, of course, I got a master's degree and you have to write a 100-page thesis and I was reading that one, but I managed to do it and realized, oh, wow, I can actually write longer things and the irony is when I was in my courses and the instructors, when we were starting to do the process for writing the thesis, they said, yeah, if anybody's got any problems with writing, you know, come talk to us and stuff. So I went up to one of my instructors and I was like, I don't know that I'm a really good, you know, writer and the response was, oh, really, you're one of the best writers in the class. So that was very helpful and really boosted my confidence. So I got through the thesis and then one day I just decided, I've got this idea for a story. I'm just going to start writing it. Okay, so that's what began it. If you hadn't had to write the thesis in school, do you think you'd have gone on to write your story or would it have come any way somehow? I don't know. I'm sure that the characters would have been speaking to me, but whether I actually wrote it down or not, I'm not sure.  What brought these characters into your head? Why the Upper East Side? Why this story? Why these characters? When did they start speaking to you? I mean, do you know what the influence was when that happened, how that happened? Well, it was after I retired from the Navy and just, gee, what do I do now? And it just sort of started as a fantasy autobiography. Like I just had this idea of what if I were essentially richer than God? And so that's how this character just sort of started to form. And then it was just the adventures of finding love. Now, I will admit, I was happily married at the time I still am, so it wasn't like I was frustrated dating or anything. It was just a what if. So this fantasy lived on in you and you went with it. Now, how long did it take you to write the story itself? Well, it started as a novella and I wrote that in three months. And then put it away and, okay, we're done with it. But then the characters, they just kept talking and they just, no, it's not done. This is what happens next. So a few months later I was like, all right, fine. And then over the next three months wrote down essentially the sequel novella and then put them together. And then I mean, I would say I edited it off and on for the next 10 years. And once you start something like this you never really finished, even if you put it away for a while. If that's what you have to do, that's what you have to do. So you say you put it away for a while. I mean, the whole process of the final book, the entire, not the novella, but the entire book, how long did that take? Once you've decided to go and finish it and make it a full novel. Well, like I said, it was essentially two, three month chunks. Then put it together, probably worked on it for maybe another six months. And then just put it away. Let a few people read it. Got some feedback on it. And it was all very positive. But of course, family usually is. And then just sort of put it away and went on to, I had other stories coming into my head. So I started writing those down. And so I would say over the next 10 years I worked on maybe seven manuscripts that are at this point in varying states of doneness. Gildes is the only one that I will say is truly complete. Do you have one or two almost complete? I mean, do you see yourself in the next year, two, three having another one, two, or three full novels finished? No, writing is sort of, I've sort of put that away for now. Maybe something will come down the line that'll just prompt me to pick up one of the stories. I was recently involved with the Boston Comics Roundtable and pulled out one of my old manuscripts to start working on as a graphic novel. And I did that for about six months and then it went back in the box. That's a different approach. The graphic novel world is very different. Well, what would you like readers to know about your book, to interest them in your book? What would make them say, I want to read this book. I want to pick this up. I'm curious about how the story continues. Well, if you want to read a story about a gay man who is richer than God, but of course grew up in a very conservative household and essentially rebels against that completely and essentially is just sort of out to prove that he can become even richer than richer than God, but not really embracing who he is and trying to make it by being middle class and then finding out how that works out for him. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't. It is a contemporary story though. Those issues are very contemporary and that would resonate with people. In your book, does your character find happiness ultimately or contentment or satisfaction with who he is? It's ultimately a romance. I mean, I tried not to be that. I kept saying, I don't want to write a romance and it's ultimately a romance, but not one of those bodice rippers. No, no, no, no. That's not sure. There are degrees of romance. But that is a relevant story today. So I think you should publish it and do it. I should let you read it and then see what you think. Yeah, be glad to. So what was your goal when you started this? I mean, you started writing this story.  How often do authors say that the characters end up driving them rather than them driving the story? The characters end up telling them the direction they want to go and they end up with the book that says, this is the book that I started out with that I thought I would finish. Exactly. Yeah, I had this idea and this was my little fantasy and then the characters essentially took on a life of their own. Yeah, that's what happens. And they just went. And when I said, okay, this is where the book's going to end and I wrote the ending and they're, no, no, that's not our story. This is our story. Yeah, they tell you. They direct you. So what's next? I mean, what's next for you? I mean, this one is put to bed. You can decide how you want to go forward with it, but the story's complete. So what's the next in your writing quest? Well, I probably won't write per se, but I'm a calligrapher and I'm... Okay, that's the other thing I love about writing. I actually love the physical act of writing, which is why I write all my stories longhand. That's right. When you say it, it's going to ask. So obviously you don't do calligraphy on a computer. No, so I want to get back into that and sort of more of the fine art aspect of it. Oh yeah, speaking of longhand, yeah, this is where the tangents start and your guests will do this. I participated in national novel, Nano Rimo, a national... Nano, novel writing month... You know what I'm talking about. National novel writing month, Nano Rimo, it's in November. Every November? Yes, every November. Why don't I know that? And the goal is to write a minimum of 50,000-word novel in 30 days. And a number of years ago, well, I basically found out about it like the first week in November, so I'm like, well, I haven't started at the beginning of November, so there's no point in writing anything. But I participated on the writer's boards and stuff, and then there was this one person who was whining about not being able to write, didn't have the time, and oh, did I mention that I have to make Thanksgiving dinner next week for all these people? And I said, that's it. I'm going to prove this person's a whiner. So the next morning, 10 o'clock in the morning, I started writing, and over the next eight days, I wrote over 50,000 words and completed another story. It's not a very good story. Eight days, that's a record. And I actually wrote my start and finish times, and I think it came out to 56 and a half hours, 56 and three-quarter hours, that I actually wrote. And I would write, and then I would go walk on the bike path, and then the next part of the story would talk to me, and I'd come home and I'd write, and all longhand, and it was rather painful, but I finished on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving just to prove it could be done. Well, how many people do you think that start out in that program and writing their 50,000-word novel? Well, there tend to be a lot of people who do succeed, and a lot of people who start out and have all the excuses for why they can't finish it, and some of it is, they just don't have the complete idea. They don't have the characters talking to them. Others, they realize it's a lot more than they can chew, and others have Thanksgiving dinner to make. Yeah, to tell someone to write a novel is a lot different than I have this story that I have to tell. I don't know how well that can work being told as a school project or something, write a novel. In today's world of publishing, all of the big authors, the James Pattison's and the John Grishams and that top of the iceberg, the publishers want one novel a year. They want them coming out on a regular basis. And you could do that. Well, back then. With your ability to write quickly, a little inspiration in that ability, and you could be writing for Random House one book a year. I have to admit my muse has left me. For the moment. Yeah, it may come back. Do you have any suggestions or advice for aspiring authors? I would say if you've got that story in your head and you've got characters talking to you, write it down. I think a lot of the hindrance most people run into, because I ran into it, is they don't think they can write, or they don't think they can write enough. And I would just say just start writing. If it goes someplace, great. If it doesn't, at least you try. Yeah, you've learned. And you may find... You can go on the websites and people can tell you all the oh, you have to sit down and write for an hour. But it's much more of a... You have to learn your style. And once you find your style, it'll work for you. It's a very difficult task. And once you decide to do it, it's really hard. It's hard, hard work being an author. I remember at our second book launch for Kim and my book Dead in Good Company, one of the participants, one of the essayists in the book at that launch asked me perhaps the most interesting question that I've been asked since doing this. And he said, John, if you knew what it was going to take, because now you're at the other end of the process, what was it going to take when you started this project? Would you have done it? And wow, that's because we worked on it 17 months. We had a bunch of well-known authors, including Alan Dershowitz and Hank Philippi Ryan and Pulitzer Prize winner Megan Marshall. And as soon as you commit to it, you realize you don't want to embarrass these people.  So I don't know. I couldn't answer that question. If I knew how hot it was going to be, every day was gut-wrenching and, oh, are we doing this right? Is this going to happen? So maybe it's better that you don't know what's coming, that you just dive into it, follow your instincts and hope for the best, because it really is very hard. Writing is very, very difficult. And if you're doing this just for yourself, that's another whole aspect, because I was just doing this for myself. I had to write this down. I think it's very different for somebody who wakes up one day and says, I'm going to be a writer. Right, yeah. And hotter than they think. Yeah.  Right. You know, writers have to be writers. Yeah. For all the authors that I know, they have no choice. They have day jobs, but they have to write. And they're good at it. And they have something to show the world, a story to tell. And they have to do it. And they love doing it. It's a love business, the book business. I have always felt. Yeah. And I would say that it's the people who have to write are the better writers and that the people who decide, well, I can write a novel. How hard can it be? And that's when they discover how hard it is. And because they don't have that drive, the language they use, just their general writing in and of itself, isn't at the same level. I mean, they may be well trained and I'm not saying that they had a bad education. It's just they don't have the heart. It's like listening to somebody who sings. And you can have somebody who can sing technically beautifully. And then you can have somebody who can sing. Technically. And then, but really puts their heart into it. Which is really the better singer? Yeah, without passion, nothing in the arts really happens. The only time I know of an author that worked in Senior Moment, the Mass General Surgeon years ago, I can't remember his name, I hate when that happens, but he read a couple of books and he said, I can do that. And he ended up writing a bunch of great books, best sellers made into movies. I'll remember it as soon as this is over. But he did start out that way saying I can do that. How hard can that be? He didn't have a passion for writing, but he was a great surgeon and driven and he did that. But for most of us. Okay, there's flukes. There are flukes. Yeah, very rare though. The flukes are rare. But mostly if the passion isn't there, if you don't have to do it, you're not going to do it. Yeah, and the other issue is with, what is it they say, 3 million new titles coming on every year because of self-publishing? Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, you really have to worry about it. And you can't be worried about how well it's going to sell. There are people who get their books on the Amazon and say, Jesus, it's been on the Amazon a month and I haven't sold anything. Yeah, who knows? Well, you've got to do your marketing. Yeah, that can't be a principal thing. And you learn that quickly. And unfortunately, because of the way the market is, that you write your book and then you spend what you would otherwise write your next book, marketing your first book. Yeah, but that's okay because you like it. And you'll get good feedback along the way and there will be people who like it and people who have suggestions and it matters to authors. That's what matters. Yeah, so it's not easy. Yeah, there are very few James Paterson's and John Grisham's end up. Yeah, and they don't even write their own books anymore. In that world, yeah, now they have franchised like card dealerships. But it's an amazing thing. But that's the world we're in today. But still, it's a worthwhile thing. And if you get a book to happen, you publish a book, it's a great thing to hold the book in your hand that you've done.  And the other thing you can do is you can just print it all out on eight and a half by five and a half and get it comb-bound and you're holding your book. Yeah, so it's a great feeling. It keeps you doing it, which is what we've found anyway. So this is, yeah. So I hope as time goes by that you'll have other finished books, any of these seven that you mentioned, manuscripts or however many that you'll pick a couple of them out and say this is worthy of finishing and this one's worthy of finishing and sometimes when you put something away for a while and then come back to it, you file, wow, there's something to this. I mean that happens with playwrights all the time. Great Broadway playwrights wrote shows long ago that they put in a draw because it just didn't resonate. They become big successes and then they take out that old chestnut and rework it a little and that becomes one of their best works. Yeah, because after you've completed something and then you can go back to that and you can see essentially what was wrong with it, why it didn't work and then now you've got some way to polish it. Yeah, which you've learned from the other things you've done. So that's why putting, it's good that you put them away for revision at some later time because you never know one.  And then most authors will tell you that nothing is ever finished. That's right, not in that world, absolutely. There are so many authors that I've been involved with and they've finished a story. It's been published and some have said, Jesus, if I had to do over again, the ending would be a little different or I would have added this but there has to be a time when you say, this is it, this is how I'm ending it. So this has been a great experience, sin, learning about your writing quest. Thanks so much for joining us and speaking about your book and writing experiences and thank you viewers for joining us to find out about sin and her gilded attempt to write fiction. It's been inspiring. And I'm John Harrison and this is Conversations with Great Authors and hope to see you next time. We have a full slate of authors that we plan on bringing in to speak to you about their writing life. Thank you, sin.


Tina says it's up on the flight track That's good, that's good Cosmicale, I think it's hanging onto the runway Yeah Cosmicale is now turning, we'll be able to see that Virgin logo, very bright with the logo lights So we won't be able to see Cosmicale start I'll take off one because it will go behind this hangar operated by Pristo and someone else who changed something behind trees Here we go, hurry it up Here comes Cosmicale, they said it's a good layout


We have this little motto, nothing's taught until something is learned, nothing is learned until you've done something with it. So we want our kids to take action with their learning, meaningful action. I do think it is really important that kids learn about bush fires, especially if they live in a place like Harkaway with all the plants, crops and other vegetation that we have here.  And all Victorians, which includes children, need to be educated about this. We evaluated a lot of the programs that the fire agencies had developed. And developed an approach to bush fire education that is place-based and participatory, that involves students in their learning and places them as genuine agents for change in their communities. The program is designed to be delivered over the course of one school term. This program is broken down into three phases, discover, investigate and take action. The discover phase begins with the teacher tuning into students' existing knowledge, thoughts and feelings about bush fire. The students then embark on a cross-curricular exploration of key topics including fire ecology, Aboriginal cultural burning, bush fire behavior in the landscape and bush fire risk. This provides students with a solid foundation of knowledge and skills to build upon throughout the learning process. In the investigate phase, students draw on what they learned in the discover phase to identify authentic problems in the local community. Students then choose one problem of particular relevance, interest or concern to study in more detail. Through focused inquiry and engagement with their wider school community, they develop a deeper understanding of that problem from the perspectives of local people. In the take action phase, the students generate a multitude of ideas for possible solutions to their chosen problem. They assess the merit of each idea and they select the best one to develop into a low fidelity prototype. The students engage in an iterative process of testing their prototypes with subject matter experts and target users and refining them based on the feedback that they receive. The students then move on to creating high fidelity prototypes of their solutions which they share with their school community at a showcase event. We've worked with educators, fire agencies and subject matter experts to develop curriculum-aligned teaching and learning resources and professional development for teachers. This topic of bushfire creates so many opportunities to address the curriculum. Every single area of the curriculum is represented from maths to literacy to science. You know often students who go home they'll have conversations with their parents and their peers about bushfire as a result of this process. They're cross-pollinating, they're sharing their ideas, they're learning from each other. They're doing things that take action, they're informing their identity about who they are in this space. It's never been more important for children to be learning about bushfire so that they can grow up understanding the environment that they live in. Every single young person can engage with this and walk away with a meaningful difference that they've made and ability you know to make a change. This has just been amazing. It's been one of the best experiences I think the way you've had here I'm pretty sure. I definitely feel a lot lighter in terms of worries for bushfire season. If kids don't learn about bushfires then it can really affect them if a bushfire occurs.


Thank you for tuning in to another episode of 420 grams. Now the focus of our attention on this show was the recently concluded Indian women's league that took place in Ludhiana and Sethu FC Walked away as the winners of the second edition of the Indian women's week Third edition perfect start to the show But of course I'm joined on this show by two people who were there and watched it from an arms distance Siddhanth, Annie and Aditi and also to talk about just the women's game and where it is right now We've got a seasoned journalist Sharda Ugra standing under a tree because that is next-level dedication Sharda respect It's great to be here. It's very hot. My sacrifices for Indian football are enormous So I'm gonna start Sethu FC first and foremost deserved winners for you guys. Were that the best team on show? I think maybe Aditi should take the question because She was actually covering it from the perspective of a reporter. I was just generally Hanging around checking out the scene, but there were many teams. I think that were up to a decent standard, no? Yeah, Manipur for one and which were also the finalists with Sethu. Bala Devi. Yes and then there was Gokulam SSB these are all teams and players from teams that we spoke to and They were quite good So what was the sense that you got from them and you were talking to these guys and you know You were talking to them about stuff around football and you know Because when you're talking about women's football is still not as evolved as the men's game right now I think the two major kinds of teams that we spoke with were One set of teams were teams whose players and I mean these teams didn't get any funding and Their players came from community programs And then the other teams were for example Manipur we didn't get a chance to speak with but we watched them play closely And then there was SSP there was Gokulam Colapur say to all these teams had players who were national players six to seven each in fact and So the general sense was that As a league I mean you can't really compare all the teams Can't I don't think pitch them against each other because the level of playing then obviously was very different So I think the system that they figured out to for what it's worth make it balanced is that they asked the state federations to have State leagues for women So only those states would be eligible to play in the women's league that have conducted state leagues So to may have a some kind of a starting point Team So as a consequence of that Like she's saying the range of teams or their quality and whether they are semi-pro absolutely amateur is Different clubs like Gokulam which have an existing structure and an understanding of football clubs perhaps a little bit more money They have made us sort of they've given contracts to their players and tried to build a team that has all the paraphernalia at least of a professional squad Including sort of video analysis and a media manager and you know all these little bits and burbs So so yeah, I while the others like Bangalore United Who in fact is being coached by a lady called Chitra? Who's one of the oldest like she played the first women's international that India ever played first in 1975? Yeah, respect and she's been involved with the sports of massive amount of experience She has and an extremely sort of interesting lady to talk to because she must be what in her mid 50s now Or actually older probably and but she's constantly updating herself doing the latest badges coaching badges Doing grassroots programs whatever she can to learn and learn ways of I suppose imparting The knowledge of the game to as many people as she can so Sharda you know you've been covering sports for a long time and Just the fact that the conversation around the women's game has moved beyond key Mujhe khelne ko nahi milta. Mujhe society mein khelne ko nahi milta to the fact ki ab kya game mein ho rahe What the game is all about do you suppose that in itself is you know suggesting progression for the women's game And I've been following Stories of the women's footballers who came on your program and then you It's just a we need to find that there's something there No, and that is there and the moment it increases Sort of it will start Gathering face what I wanted to ask Aditi for example is what what did she find with the physical level of the players that were there because they are seeing women playing football At another level the world cup women's world cup is this year What did you find in terms of their physical capability never mind what the technical skills are what was the physical Sort of the level over there it would have been uneven I was doing and I want to know how the banglots This is what we were talking about in terms of the community program So when we spoke to for example Amulia now, she's a 34 year old mother of one and she's actually captain And she's also coached there back home and then there's paramita say Sit and these are women who are much older in age But if you're talking about physical capabilities, they seemed fit and there's stamina and the running I mean Those are women's What was it like to sort of watch women playing football at that length? You know a few days ago There was an incredible video about women's rugby that turned up which was like wow and it would be good to see this kind of How women's football is represented even in the public sphere as in what it's made to be I mean, I'm thinking about it that bend it like Beckham came like years ago Because I think I know that 10 years ago 15 years ago. You know, so there has to be a bend it like Beckham moment I'm not sure that that that is what will take it forward because football is a big sport I'm standing in Bombay where I just moved from under the tree Something's been cleaned by a slightly And I just watched this football matches being played On a on a rooftop on a rooftop of football ground full football size ground Till about 2 3 in the morning got up in the morning at 6 o'clock in the games are still on so football is There, you know, it's So how do you pick up this sort of mania that there is women now? How do you pick it up and you move on with it? How does it look women's football become part of the cultural conversation like say badminton? You know, I even wrestling or boxing or whatever that's what I'm interested in I and I find the The women's league really something that's just heartening and you want to continue And and be regular not to that's a cancel over I think because of several factors coming together and the fact that For one FIFA gives a lot of development money for the women's game all over So conducting the leagues at least at a showpiece kind of national level is pretty much a mandate now They have to do it. So it's unlikely to disappear But in terms of the organization, how do you think or what you spoke to a lot of players? What was the sort of sense that they gave you in terms of how it was organized put together in schedule? So there were majorly two things that I think came up one was that I mean obviously a lot of women I think most of them whom we asked about organization spoke about how it was off-season And it was that it was extremely hot and they had to play all day in that heat There were a few days where the weather was okay, but other than that Okay is 35 There's a lot of us so even though a lot of people spoke about how AIFF is I mean this is the third league and They've become better in terms of organization in general But there were a lot of things that the women did not agree with One is that the this is exam time So a lot of women who are good and who wanted to come and participate couldn't because they're back home giving exams Women who got out of the league sooner. So for example, you have Panjim These are women some of whom have to go back home in the next day is their economics paper for example, you know I just just taking you from what Sharda was saying earlier. How can we cultivate a culture? Yeah, I think what culture wala Indian women's league Thoda us my time. Hey, I think that culture can be cultivated through the success of the national team And if the national team starts building on what they've done Then you know that culture will slowly slowly and the conversation around it will happen like the same in cricket man Women's cricket how they started performing? Yeah at an international level. They were amongst the best in the world Now they are amongst one of the best in the world and so the same way like we were having that conversation yesterday Yeah, so if there is a team which can really go and reach the World Cup an Indian team It's the women's team not the men's team and the way they're progressing right now. What is it 44? 63 63 63 Which is not you way off with the exit poles or not 63 say to come to 20 in the women's game. I know it's On the Football no What you're saying about what you're saying about the Fact that is a women's team that is going to give you more than the men's team. I mean three hundred and thousand times That is that is very obviously good to happen. So women's sports are always You get first-mover advantage if you're smart enough. We have lost first-mover advantage over football about 25 30 years, you know, so but what is what we've got What I did he was talking about the you know the league it was held at the office even there were exams This is almost like a very sweet short way of handling. Okay. We'll do it. So, let us do it like this that We'll do it at this time. Oh, I don't know these women will come and play. It's okay Oh, so you're not showing genuine serious commitment to calendar and slotting this incorrect Properly at a proper time. So it might just sound like grumbling, you know But you have to have some sticker you I think this is the third leg in four years of ideas It's not been it's not been Consistent enough. It's not happened You know, and now what are you going to do with the women that are not going to play in over 17 women What is that schedule and calendar going to be like, you know, why didn't you? Make Go viral by yourself on social media all the time put her out send her to TV All those kind of things that's what you need to kind of I don't know. I'm again like not taking any sides in this but From an organizational standpoint, it's very difficult for anyone to sit in Delhi Let's say and make a structure and say this is how we want the league to be Simply because we don't know how many clubs will have the way with all the players that the money to even show up to this tournament now so it is there's a lot of ad hoc ism and a lot of the organization is just because Karna to head But the starting point is that only key at least Karna to show you That's one and just one one more thing to come back to what you were saying about the physicality and maybe a little bit about the technical aspects also of the game The improvement over the past three seasons in this league has been tremendous I Forget about forget about that. Even if you look at how some of the better teams played Their first match of the tournament and how they played maybe six matches into the tournament Because simply because all these players had then been together they practiced together They got to know each other the communication was better and Therefore they were playing this level of play also went up as the tournament went along Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up. Is it that or which is a little bit more patient because I was very happy and surprised to see 14 Next year, I hope it will not be I hope it let me speak it, you know The progression will continue because whatever conversations we have with people in the effort whether it be Abhishek Yadav Who's directly involved in you know making the schedule of the women's league and the international and of course the national team and everything And it is a major part of their plan and I have a feeling and yesterday we had the I would say privilege of attending the press conference of the coach and the technical director and For me that technical director came across as someone really sound someone who knows what he's talking about Of course, that is just a press conference and that was day four into his job What his job will actually entail him to do and how he will really conduct that job after five months Oh bad ki bath. But so far the signs are there. Yeah, anything else that you came across in The women's league through your conversations with the players and everything. What's what's the financial situation like are they being paid? It's incredible actually because even the autos that we would take to the stadium Even around the people the people around the stadium the autoguys who would drop us to the stadium. They're mostly local guys I mean, I would see the same guy almost every day Even they didn't know there's something like this going on inside. No one did So many girls School children have dough, it's good. Okay. It's a it's a just do something just do something At least if the girls like like the Dalima chicken goal is that in that event in Nepal the ground was full The ground was back You know, so I we're also going to back the ground But I think along with the whatever they do about the women's they need to fill in all these other little gaps You know How will that happen Sharda? I mean, you've got it in Ludhiana Yeah, but you don't think they look at people who watch all sports I understand But the only thing is you have to literally then try and work backwards and say okay now where can they play this where people will come and walk Yeah, Chota Chota Chota round Chota round in the stadium make a new year. So there are school may look I ain't gonna take me a school may let's say there are a thousand people in that school You have a ready-made captive audience have it in the school What is the why have it in a 20,000? You're making the best players in the country play inside a school India versus Nepal I will Blame for that, but you need to give the women an audience you need to get every athlete an audience It's just that that I think whatever is being done towards making women's football work There were way like you're talking about the technical director Abhishek Yadav and how trying to look the calendar. Maybe this other stuff also has to get filled in a little bit Think of it as like the social media side of women's To be filled in and create these little personalities and characters and do something around it because there is an interest and it doesn't cause money And venues are very important like a cricket is having a problem filling ground for test matches So they're trying to say let's move to boutique smaller venues and imagine a sport like cricket where infrastructure is such a Hustle and such a and you are able to create some dirty grounds or whatever So the spin-offs from success of a sport are huge Since you brought up the money Gokulam was the only club From either the ISL or the iLeague that had a team No, this is something that I was reading otherwise also that a lot of people one main criticism is that you need to make it longer So that even the national players and whoever is getting paid at all Their contracts then can be extended and they can be paid for a longer time She was saying there were players who are not being paid? Yeah, not at all. So I mean most of the teams actually they weren't being paid at all And most of the teams that we spoke to like I'm talking about teams. For example, there's Bangalore There's Baroda. There's Panjim Academy kids. Yeah, these are teams that just they're just there Baroda for example I think their Academy is getting funds, but for them to come play here. There is nothing at all these there are a lot of women who One a lot of them don't have jobs at all. I mean there are only a few states for example There's Urissan, there's Manipur where you also have a lot of state backing So these women who get into football then that they have that incentive But for most women who get into football, you don't have an incentive at all So when you talk about the culture for football growing that else that is also something that I think you need to consider So what's the motivation then as a sense like Paisa bhi nahi milre job bhi nahi milre? The motivation guy you said there was a 34 year old mother Yeah, what was the motivation to come and play? Her motivation is that now she's a Yeah, I mean actually it's extremely sad because at the end of the day I mean however much you love a game it's still I mean like it is for men It still needs to get you some sort of money in yeah, I mean you need to run a home But that's not what happens in women football at least not that I've seen at least for the four days or whatever Whatever will be there for a six-week man tournament league and which is really sad So most of these women who are coming from teams Yeah, so for example Delhi ki team and that went through Keto Keto is an online funding Cloud funding yeah, yeah, yeah Only that that's about it all their funds went into coming coming going to Ludhiana and staying there etc etc Apart from that they're not getting a penny Fair enough at least that's a step ahead that's a start You know how you can bring in some income or the other So like Gokulam for example Biggest payers No, so the issue with Gokulam or the criticism level against Gokulam before the tournament when the tournament began Was that they didn't have a single Kerala player in their roster So then the owner of the club as well as the coach explained the situation to us in some length Basically saying that the sports quota jobs in Kerala are taken by basketball, volleyball, athletics etc Right football women there are no jobs So therefore there's no incentive for women Yeah, they would rather become nurses or schoolteachers or whatever else they're doing whatever Play other sports Other sports to Kaili Reha There's a fencing academy in Kerala Fencing, sports authority of India has a fencing school where a fencer comes from So I'm thinking that in terms of the investment input per athlete and you do a mathematical calculation of the space of the ground And how many people can occupy it Football is a no brainer But I must be optimistic, optimism is required at a time like this I feel, I know I'm not, I shouldn't be but Anjani is saying like you have to be optimistic If you're not optimistic then you'll just collapse and say ok nothing should happen No, no, no, I'm just optimistic I'm seeing from where you had something Nothing So something happened, it started and then slowly slowly you need to build on it I agree with you, now that it started you have to build on it Anjani that you didn't have a league for 2 years My impatience comes from my generation saying that boss we have been liberalized 25 years ago Come on, there is money, there is money to be given, there is money to be made Energize, do something, that is where my impatience comes from I understand your part of you If your generation is impatient Sharda, can you imagine what the kids these days must be like Exactly No, but this is why I think the rate of change has been accelerated Because as impatient as we are We also sort of have less of a stake in it now I think to some extent These women who are whether it's young reporters who are starting out to do stuff or players They have much more sort of to invest or to gain or lose or whichever way it is From how the system No women are outstanding, women are okay You cannot even imagine how they are able to do this It is beyond my comprehension, how they are able to do this Yeah, I know and purely from a game perspective also I mean you can hate me all you want It didn't feel like football is happening, why should I watch it? So that is why all the chatter was around issues, society and so on and so forth But now this season, I'll tell you I've seen 2 matches though But in 2 matches I've come to know that the game is so much better The ball is being kept on the ground, they're moving it around nicely And then the final, it was like the way Sethu had a plan That was good to watch man, the plan worked and they got them on that Even Pandit was watching it means I was watching it as well, yeah So I think 1200, 1200, 1500 people were watching online So it's a start The final Also one more thing, marketability factor I feel women athletes, it is so much easier to market women athletes I suppose to male athletes because the general male athlete is a dumb guy He can't speak, they don't know how to speak And these guys have put up a story right now on NewsClick Where they've done interviews with all these female athletes Who are playing at the Indian women's league And you can make out just how well, how articulate they are At the point they want to make and what they're saying is so clear and crisp So that is something the AFF should jump on man That day Dalima and Aditya were here, they spoke so well We didn't talk, we talked So that's that, anyone else has So it was interesting, two things that were interesting One was that a couple of senior players actually said that The Ludhiana tournament was better than the one in Shillong Which is the first one No, the last one Wrong on every count No, no, no Which is surprising because northeast at least crowds are guaranteed There's interest is guaranteed But they were talking from a logistics and organization point of view So things are getting a little bit better The other thing was when we did our last round When they did their last round of interviews The players were extremely reluctant to come and have a chat Why? All the conversations everyone was asking them about Was which uncle, brother, father inspired you to play football How did you start playing? The inspiration, the struggles They were like basically, we don't want to do all this, let it be That's progression Leave it now, talk about football So the minute we say we'll talk about football They're all up for it Last comment, I think we've gone way over time Sharda, you just paid 90 bucks for the toll So we'll start with you Not me, I'm very kindly being My friends are dropping me to the airport I've just moved back to Bangalore So, but it's been fun, it's been fun Thank you Thank you so much for joining Thank you so much for joining This was like next level reporting On the move Thank you Anadithi, any final words from your experience in Lothiana and everything? Yes, so this was my first time reporting football Women's football, I was very lucky to do that Just I think there's a lot of scope for these women Most of the women we spoke to There's a lot of stories that come up That really people need to hear about There's so much that needs to be said about the game About the technicalities And then about why these women Like Sharda was saying, I mean why are you even doing this When there is no backing Like there is no backing, financial backing, etc And then when you come and say that men Don't speak and women do I think it's also because they have a lot to say I mean in terms of just being able to No, there is a dumb factor I think the manager is purely dumb We don't know how to speak I mean we learn as we move on So there's just, yeah I mean it was great It was great, perfect and bhai Agree I mean they definitely You guys have done a couple of stories right Can you tell us what stories you'll be putting out On news click which people can watch Yes, so we did a story a few days back I think the day after the final Is when it got released It's called football on the margins So this is where we spoke to Baroda Bangalore and Panjim Spoke to them about how they reached Lodhiana In the first place, how they reached the IWL And where they come from What's the backing in terms of the state that they come from Is it a state that has a culture of football Like Goa does, but mostly just for men And not for women as much And yeah so I think And look forward to any more stories coming up This one And I think we're coming up with another Features Yeah, something on setu Something on setu, not bad bro Okay Aditi, Sadan thank you so much for joining us Guys as promised I don't know, this is the camera So as promised, one weekly episode On Indian football Keep tuning in to 420 grams On news click Coming to you from Thailand next At the Kings Cup That sounds weird