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to do. We are five here on the fourth of May, and for
you Star Trek, your Treky fans, May the fourth be with you,
etc. If you watch, if you will listen to us on the fifth,
happy Cinco de Mayo, etc. May is Asian American Pacific Island or
Heritage month. And here are some statistics from the Pure Research Center that you
might find interesting about our Asian brothers and sisters. The US Asian population is
diverse. A record twenty two million Asian Americans trace their roots to more than
twenty countries in East and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, each with unique
histories, cultures, languages, and other characteristics. The US Asian population is
projected to reach forty six million by twenty sixty. In the eighteen seventies eighteen
seventies census, roughly sixty three thousand individuals were classified as Asian by US Census
Bureau enumerators. By nineteen sixty, the first time census respondents could choose their
own race, nine hundred and eighty thousand individuals self identifies as Asian. The
nation's Asian population rose to eleven point nine million by two thousand, and then
nearly doubled to twenty two point four million by twenty nineteen. Folks, that's
an eighty eight percent increase within two decades. Asians now make up about seven
percent of the eight nation's overall population, and their numbers are projected to surpass
forty six million, as we mentioned, by twenty sixty, nearly four times
their current total. The single race, non Hispanic segment of the US Asian
population that makes up a large majority eighty percent of all Asians in this country,
and this is Invasion's fastest growing racial or ethnic group. Between two thousand
and twenty nineteen, their numbers grew by eighty one percent, outpacing the seventy
percent increase among Hispanics. The black population grew by twenty percent during the same
time span, while there was virtually no change in the white population. Now
we have some context, let's introduce our guests and begin our intelligent conversation.
Born in Calcutta but raised in Mumbai and Kuwait, supprotum bows soups to his
friends, of which I probably called myself. One worked for eight years in
the Indian film industry known as Bollywood before coming to the US thirty two years
ago to attend college. Since then, he has established a very successful career
in the video film production business with his company, Fugilist Films. His work
has taken him to produce in twenty two different countries around the world. He
lives with his wife, Lowly and a social worker New City, New York.
Has doing Amaya, recent graduate from Northeast University who is well on her
way to her own career in marketing. He's also an outstanding cook, you
know, especially for Hindu who's not supposed to eat meat. He makes a
delicious chicken. But but we'll talk about that soup's welcome, Welcome to the
program. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Hey, thank
you for having me. If you appreciate it, you know it's going to
be fun. You know, I know he has one of my closest friends.
So let's stalk. Yeah, you know, we've had this conversation privately,
a lot of it anyway, many times. It's time I think to
share it publicly because you do have so many great stories and you really do
bring an interesting perspective to the Asian American experience. So let's start there.
Let's talk a little bit about about growing up in both Mobi and Kuwait.
Tell us a little bit about your family and about your your wife as a
young man in India and then in Arabia as well. Yeah, so you
know, I think my first memories was not in India, was actually in
Quait because I left India when I was four years old and we lived there
for six years and then we came back to Bombay and lived and worked and
you know, came When I left Bombay, I was twenty seven years old,
pretty much older for an Indian kid to leave, because most Indians would
come over here to come here at the age of twenty one. But I
was just remembering. I was just thinking, like the first time I've ever
heard the word American, you know. And I remember I was six years
old. You know, we were in Quait and we had a half day
at school. You know, they bust us out from school. I came
home and my dad was also at home. I said, like, what's
he doing over here? Nineteen sixty nine, we actually saw the man walking
on moon. You know, we had kneel armstrong coming down and doing it.
And my dad was so excited because we've done it. We've died a
man on the moon. And I was like, we've landed. You mean
the Indians have landed a man on the moon. Because I was six years
old, I didn't know the difference, you know, I didn't know what
you know, I heard of America because I grew up on you know,
Porky Pig and Popeye, the salesman and you know all the cartoons, so
I knew, but my brother was not stupid. The Americans have landed,
you know, a man on the moon, and my dad was excited and
seeing him, you know, so it was for mankind to me, you
know what Americans do. It was like wow, they you know, all
of all of the whole world was actually you know, thinking about, wow,
we guys did it. It was America who did it? So those
are some of my earliest remembrance of was that kind of like an epiphany if
you will, was at that aha moment, even at six years old?
Did you at that time really think that you would eventually come to live in
the States? Um, well, you know I was six and I was
no. I didn't think about coming to the United States at that point.
So yeah, I pretty much got pushed out of India by my parents because
I was twenty seven. I was doing pretty good. I was, you
know, partying every day, you know, just like every you know,
film years, drink a lot, party a lot. And my parents are
ta tallers. They were like, you either get out of here, do
something else, or you get to get married. You know, in India
there's an arranged marriage system, you know, and I was like, I'm
not going to get married. I just want to enjoy life and you know,
produce more films, but the kind of movies that I was making,
you know, I want to do the national geographic kind of movies, you
know. And luckily, at that point of time, I had like,
you know, like five or six movies which I had already directed produced,
you know, cinematographs who had a great portfolio, and they sent it out
to a couple of film school and they all accepted me. And then one
film school said, hey, we'll give you a graduate assistantship, which basically
meant they would cover my whole you know, I didn't have to pay any
college loans or college tu shit, and they would still give me one hundred
one thousand dollars at the end of it. So five years, why not
let's do that. So that wasn't Soups that was in the States or still
overseason, and no, it wasn't. It was in Southern Illinois University in
Carbondale. So I applied to n y U, I got in, I
got I applied to USC, I got in, but none of them were
ready to give me any money. But Siu said yeah, well, we'll
think about it. We'll get you some money. And I landed up here
and my job was basically to produce big events because I had that big event
production in Bombay doing big feature films. So I was producing people like you
know Nine inch Nails, you know, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was
booking blues bands, you know, Albert Collins, you know, Buddy guys.
So to me, an Indian kid comes away here and he does that,
and you know, it was very successful. I had. I had
that graduate assistantship for five years and they would ask me like, how do
you know how do you know which band to pick? Because you pretty much
you know a lot of this is new. I also ran the comedy seller,
you know, and I was to book comedians for the for the university,
and I pretty much followed. I think the reason why I was successful
because I was not into it. I was looking into it from a third
party angle, very objectively. So I would basically look at which band is
playing where, you know, and if the band is playing in Saint Louis,
which is like a few miles away from the place everywhere, you know,
And they had the next booking at Chicago. You know, maybe they'll
take like one third the prize or ten person of the prize to come and
pay play for one night and still make that kind of money. So you
know, so that was how well, let's back up if I can.
Well, let's back up a little bit, because you mentioned your parents,
and this is about also, you know, making a transition as an Asian
and then becoming an Asian American. Um you mentioned you you're you're most It
seems most Indian parents seemed to follow basically a traditional route, especially some people
our age and if you don't mind or give your age, because I just
attended your sixtieth birthday, more so that gives us a little bit of relevance.
So that you're obviously your parents obviously older than that, so it would
have somewhat of a more traditional bent. Were you encouraged to be different or
did you? Would you call yourself more rebellious in a way that you listen
to your parents, but you found ways to rebel. How would you say
you balanced that? I think I was a bond rebel, you know,
I mean the fact that I came here to do films and not because most
students Indian students and they come away here. They come here to do engineering
or medicine. You see that. Yes, yeah, there are very few
Indians at least thirty two years back when I came in. And in those
days, India wasn't making a lot of money. It hadn't opened up,
it was still following a social way of living. It was after I left
ACT in nineteen ninety one that opened up open market, so a lot more
money started coming in. So I think I was different in terms of me
wanting to come here opposed to most of the engineering strent. So yeah,
I was a totally, totally a rebel. It was like opposite day,
you know, like SpongeBob SquarePants opposite day. You know, if my mom
told me to do something, my dad would say, why are you telling
him to do because he's going to do the exact the opposite thing on what
you did. And to me, it made sense to me because you know,
my mom's my mom and dad. My dad was pretty forward thinking,
but my mom was more of a traditionalist. And I remember me going to
college and my mom would said, you know, you're going to college,
You're going to meet a lot of girls. You know, you're a Hindu.
We come from a Hindu family. You can marry anyone you want,
but don't marry a Muslim. And my dad like looked at her and go,
are you crazy. We made a lot of money living in Kuwait,
which was an Islamic country even then, you know, but you're telling him
not to marry a Muslim, you know. But my mom was like,
you know, they'd seen the partition, you know, the big partition in
nineteen forty seven, when India and Pakistan was farmed. There was a lot
of killing. You know, they've seen people burned to death. You know,
it was it was a crazy riot. And my dad was saying,
like, you know, why is he getting educated? Why are you sending
him to college if you're going to fill his head with that kind of stuff.
Well, do you feel like coming to America if I might feel that
being it was at least with America's reputation was supposed to be of a more
open society, did you feel that you would have that opportunity to be a
little more free and more open coming to the States. Was that? So?
I lived in Bombay, you know, and Bombay you think about Bombay
as very much like New York, city, except as four times more crowded.
And I think all cities are pretty much the same, you know,
whether you go to you know, whether you go to Mexico City, you
know, as Tokyo. You know, cities are probably an extension of an
industrial industrialization. So it's like rats. You know, you put the rats
in a maze and you give a food on the end. They go in,
they eat that food and they come back to their holes. You know,
it's the same thing in the city. You know, everybody gets up.
You know, they might speak a different language. I may I eat
it, you know, different food, but it's basically go to work,
come back, spend some time. So every and there is uniqueness in the
terms of what you eat and what. But if the city life is pretty
much and I've been to so many cities, they're pretty much the same.
You know, the rhythm of the city all around are pretty much the same.
So if i'd lived i'd lived in Bombay. So I didn't in Bombay.
You know, no one cares about whom you're marrying or what cast you're
marrying, because India has a huge gas system. No longer, yeah,
it no longer. I mean in paper after independence they you know, they
basically made it illegal to discriminate based on cast, similar to over here,
where you know you can't discriminate based on race and color. But people do
people still discriminate, Yes they do, you know so, but that's coming
down. I mean places like Bombay, you know, nobody cares who you
married you as long as you know. So the reason I came here was
purely to study filmmaking, although I'd already made films, but I also wanted
to party, you know. I was like, okay, you know,
my parents wanted to get rid of me, and I was like, okay,
I can get rid of them by coming over here and just hang loose.
So that what was your very first impressions? What was the first thing
that struck you about America that was kind of a moment that you went like,
wow, that's different. Oh you know what, and I still think
about it. Is like, it's pretty stupid. It's funny. Is like
people eating and driving at the same time. It's like, what, you
know, they're driving and they got a Hamburger on their hand, and I
was like, wow, you know, I like you can eat and drive,
you know, how come you don't get into an accident and today I
do that too, you know, eat and dry, you take up all
the bad habits. In other words, yeah, well yeah, now you
know, if you're in Rome, you know, do as the Romans do.
But to me, that was like, wow, these guys eat and
drive, you know. And in India, well, one of the things
is like you sit down for proper meal. And you know, when I
came in, they went that many fast food joints. And I'm sure that
when I go to India now I'll see people eating and driving the burger on
their side. But when I first came in, you know, to me,
it was like, you know, and food is a huge issue in
India. You know, I was sort of like lucky that I grew up
in an upper middle class family. But if you stepped out, you'll see
poverty. You will, definitely you'll see a lot of rich people. And
I went to a school where the kids would come, you know, chauffeur
driven in rolls, rice cars. I was probably the most poorest kid,
and even then I was pretty you know. My dad was upper middle class,
but I was a guy would come in a public transportation while my other
friends would come in you know, showfoot card. But then you walk around
the corner and you see someone who's trying to pick something out of a garbage
dump and eat, you know, And this is so it's a very diverse
country, so food for me is important. And so when I saw people
eating food and driving, I was like, whoa, Okay, that's that
is a huge culture shock, but not really a culture shock, but it
was like, hmm, that's weird. One of the things that you mentioned.
And you know, we've shared this story, and I think it's important
we share it with our with our listeners. Um, the fact that the
idea of and I do want you to talk a little bit about America as
an ideal and an idea as well. I know we've talked about that,
but with that in mind, as a quote unquote foreigner, and if you
will, and forgive me or say it with all due respect, is an
obvious farmer foreigner, excuse me, a little bit of an accent. Okay,
darker, even darker than me, which which is something because the Italians
you can call me ill moral more because I'm so dark. And I know
you've experienced kind of both sides of that. And it was a particular incident
when you were at school at Southern Illinois driving you were down south on an
assignment or something and you were literally driven off the road. But then also
if you would tell the story because it's so interesting and yes, so work.
My thesis film was about a washboat player from New Yorleans. He was
known, I mean, he was known as the Jimmy Hendrix of washboat because
just like Jimmy Hendrix, he took the good you know, like Jimmie Hendrix
took the guitar to New Heights, you know, washboat, Leo took the
washbood to New Heights. So he used to play it with the wah wah
pedals at you know, yeah, you know, he had jazz his washboat.
So I went and shot in Louisiana, and I came back and I
was editing the film and I looked at it and I was showing it to
one of my prefers, and he said, you know what, you might
need some b roles. You might need some covers to cover off some of
the one of the songs that I was filming. So I founded a place
called Cypress in Mississippi. So it was by a highway. I get off
the highway I'm on a dirt track, and as I go by the barns,
I see these huge swastika signs painted on the barns, you know,
And it's a dirt track, and it's probably like about twenty minute drive from
the highway to through Farmland. I go to the swamp. Beautiful the swamp
plan, you know, you have a boardwalk in the middle so you can
walk right onto it and move your camera and you can capture cypress trees and
the swamp. So I shot there, got in and it started raining,
and the number plate on my car, it was my first car, it
was Bombay nine because you didn't have to pay extra money for having vanity plates.
I was like, hey, my first car in America. You know,
I'm gonna call it after Bombay nine. So there I am, and
you know, outcomes this. I look in my rear view mirror and I
see this white truck, you know, van actually pulling behind me, and
it starts raining and he's just riding bumper to bumper and I rolled down my
window and I tell him to go, and he doesn't want to go,
and then we go and embanked when he comes close to me and he actually
hits my car and pushes me down. So now I'm rolling down, you
know, down the embankment and if I had a passenger next to me,
they would probably been killed because the passenger side took the brunt of it and
I, you know, so I crashed, I got pushed out, and
you know, it was it was pretty surreal because one it was in slow
motion almost and then it was almost dusk and I go help, help,
and all that I hear is the cows answering me back and they're going moom.
You know. I go help and they go back. They answer me
back. So I climbed out of the truck and I'm climbing out of my
car and then I'm hanging by the road and I see, you know,
like another car coming back from far and I'm like, okay, here comes
his buddy to pretty much you know, she finish you off. Yeah,
So anyway, he pulls up and the guy turned out to be a sweet
guy, turned out to be really caring, and he goes like what happens?
So I tell him he oh, you know, I'm so sorry,
so apologetic that this is there a bunch of yeah, who's a bunch of
crazy people who live over here and I'm so sorry, and he took me
to the hospital. But in that you know, and I was deep in
the South, as deep in rural country. So even amongst them, there
are bad people, and there are good people. In fact, you know
I've met and it's not in America. You go to India, you'll meet
good people, you'll meet bad people. And luckily in today's world there are
more good people still than bad people. And when I mean bad people,
people who want to kill you because the way you look, or the way
you talk, or what religion you come from. You know, So you
know that as America, that was awesome, that there still exists a whole
bunch of good people, even amongst that area which is notorious for not being
kind to people who look different. Well, let's talk a little bit about
it. It's a perfect leading for it is the promise of America. And
we mentioned it's both an ideal with an L and an idea. What is
if you can? What does that mean to to uh two people from other
parts of the world, If I might prefer might said with a with a
story of my of my own, which I think I've used before, forgive
me, but it was the covering the Republican Convention in Cleveland. I think
I think it was twenty sixteen. It comes a blur, but anyway,
I was working at that time with CBS News and a foreign Portuguese reporter,
lovely young woman who spoke beautiful English, and we had a little bit of
time in between her live shots, so we struck up a conversation and at
one point it just led to this, and she said, you know,
um, Americans frown on the idea that you're you're the signing shining city on
a hill, but we count on you to be that. You know,
we're just from from from Portugal. It's got great beaches, great food,
great culture, but we're not players on the world stage. We count on
the United States to be that shining city on the hill. And this was
at the time when wondering what Trump would do. And we'll talk a little
bit about after that afterwards, what the Europeans were thinking at the time,
and unfortunately pretty much came to pass. But but your thoughts on that is
that inaccurate? Did you ever feel that way? You run with that a
little bit soup? Yeah, so, you know, I mean, America
has often been known as the policeman of the world. You know, we
weld the stick stick, but lately we've welded the strick a little bit differently,
you know, like and it's not only lately, but you know,
Vietnam War was an unjustwar, you know. The Iraq War to me was
a very unjustwar, you know, like and it almost seems like a jump
the bandwagon, so you know. And for me, I saw that building
fall, not on TV. I saw it from the windows because I was
a block away down right, Yeah, I was. I was. I
was working at Williams Street, so I seen it and it was and if
you think about it, it was out of this work. It was the
nineteen terrorists. Eighteen of them were Southeast, right, and so these were
buddies, you know. But we attacked Quait. I mean, we attacked
Iraq sorry, you know, based on the principle that they were Arabs and
you know, they wanted to kill my daddy. That was George Bushes saying,
oh, you know, he's a terrorist. But we forget sometimes that
amongst those countries, it might be ruled by a dictator, but the people
am not dictator. The people are not bad people. I've met iraqis a
lot of iraqis when I and I grew up playing with iraqis when I lived
in Quait, because that's a neighboring country, you know. So we sometimes
do not put ourselves in their shoes. We think that just because this guy
is a dictator, the whole country is bad. And and to me,
it's so stupid, like, Okay, it's an Arabic country, but Arabic
is a language, you know. To me, it's like if Canada did
something to the United States, it's like going and hitting Australia, dropping bombs
in Australia because hey, they speak the same language. There's no connection to
any of them, you know, I mean, And so it was like
almost a popularity contest at that point, like hey, let's let's go and
drop bombs on Iraq. And very sadly, there are a lot of Democrats
who actually, you know, jumped into the bandwagon, you know, and
this is yes, we are going to be Incidentally, Trump did not support
the war in Iraq, you know, but that's another story. I mean,
he's done other stuff, but at least he got that part right,
you know. So I think when you wild a stick, you also have
to the response with it that sometimes you might hit the wrong person. But
I think what matters is also we need to think in terms of like we
shouldn't be doing that. That's why we have the UN to do that.
And sometimes you know, we are the biggest we lend the most money to
the UN, but we also make fun of the UN. You know.
So those are my thoughts. Um as far as you know America being this
big you know police, uh, you know, a policeman of the world
or unbalanced soups. Soups are unbalanced? Do we more do we do more
good? In your opinion? Do we do more good in the world or
do we do more harm? I think that's definitely. Definitely we do a
lot more good than harm, you know. And you know me, I
speak my mind. I mean, if you look at the Statue of Liberty,
it says give me your tide, you're pure, you're poor, your
huddle masses, you know, you know, earning to breathe, to breathe
free. You know, that's what's written on the Statue of Liberty. You
know, America's is a migrant country. You know, like your parents,
your grandparents might have come your frank and they might have come your like four
hundred years back. I got a tree back in my backyard, which is
six hundred years back, you know. So let's not talk about how how
long we've lived here lived here. We are all immigrants, you know,
your dad was, your grandfather was an immigrant. The only person who basically
can throw up, you know, a fit are the Native Americans. But
the Native Americans now and are and we've pushed them to the reservations. You
know. So I look upon America not as a not as an area,
not as a region where you have a salt you know, a salt border
and the North border. You know, I think of it. I think
of it more of a as a concept of an idea. You know that
right now the idea, Well, are we living up to that concept that
we're really truly living up to that idea? Look, you know, as
an Asian and Asian American crime, we talked about the rising statistics of the
increased in population. With that increase has become an alarming increase in anti Asian
crime in this country. So are we truly living up to the idea and
the idea that you mentioned? Well, you know, there's always some bad
people or people who are misled who But more or less, I think,
yes, we are leading. I think Americans are the most kindest people that
have met. And if I didn't like it, I would have left.
I've been here thirty two years, so you know, everything that I do,
I consider myself first and foremost. You know, a US citizen,
you know, so to me, everything that we do is reflects on me.
I think definitely, we live up. We do a good job.
But you know, lately, you know, you might be a little bit.
We can be very embarrassed of what we do. You know, like
you do, we do call ourselves the land of the free, home of
the braves. But if you look at in serious we have the second largest
of people, the second largest country which has the most amount of people in
prison. You know, the only country which has more prisoners in prison is
China, and then we have and then it's America. Yeah, so what
do you mean the land of the free? You know, you know,
it's land of the free for certain people. It all depends on where you're
born. You know, you know where you're born or to whom you're born.
You know, it's the luck of the draw. You know, you
had nothing to do with it, you know, you would you could have
been born in South Sudan, you know, and you could be facing dangers
today, which or you could have been born in Turkey and you had an
earthquake, you know. Or you could have been born in say in New
York City, in some of the worst ghettos, you know, so you
have no control of where you're born. But again, you know, like
I say, I said, like, you know, the US still has
the second largest of people in prison, and unfortunately, you know, although
African Americans are just only twelve per from the population, thirty eight percent of
the prisoners are African American, you know, proportional of course, of course.
Well, you know you mentioned you've been here thirty plus years. What
and you've obviously seen the political climate change. Many times we talk a little
bit about that. What what have you what changes have you seen in the
thirty plus years for the better or for the worst? I think I think
you Our bottom line is, like precedents are pretty ineffective, but you know,
on what they do. It doesn't matter who your president is. What
matters is who sits on the Supreme Court. And today, if you think
about it, like you know, Trump did assigned three guys on the Supreme
Court. We couldn't get a single Supreme Court judges. And today we just
went back fifty years back, you know, when the overturned Rowers as waiting.
You know, sixty person of women in all over the world have access
to safe and legal abortion, okay, and today that's changing. We just
went fifty years back. So where are we? I mean it's like you
have a show, it's called being Frank. My show, if I had
a show would be what the f? You know, what the f America?
You know, sixty we went back way back, and it's like,
you know, and woman's right to abortion. I look at it as human
rights and that's what the United States stood for human rights. But he just
took away the rights of a woman, you know, to do what she
could do with her own body, you know, and that's like, wow,
this is America. So there are stuff like that, So which and
there's some stuff it is totally nonsensical to me. I mean sorry I'm using
that word, but you know, the stuff like you know, like as
all to rifle. You know, I've been to so many countries as a
producer. You can't just go to any country in a semi automatic. There
are forty two states in America where you can walk in and buy an assault
rifle. There's no band, there's no waking period on assault rifles. And
I have sort of come around the view of gun control. I know a
lot of people when I lived in Southernlinda who lived, you know, hunting
and foraging, you know, so I can understand when you want to go
deer hunting and you have a rifle, but you don't need like a AK
forty seven or a R fifteen to pull down a deer, it probably means
you're a bad shot, you know, if you need like a whole bunch
of so stuff like that. I think it's it's a lobbyist bottom line.
You have the money, you can change policies, which is wrong because that's
not what America is built on. You know. Well, I want to
you know what, I want to take a quick break, soups, and
I do want to talk with what what would you change? What in America
has changed you. I want to talk a little bit about that after the
break, and a little bit about pugilist films and what you look to accomplish
with that and your your magnificent studio up there in New City. You turned
your house. If people only knew, I know, we'll let them know.
Anyway, let's take a quick break. Everybody you're listening to being Frank.
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Welcome back. It's Being Frank the Intelligent Conversation Podcast. I'm your host,
Frank Labono. You know, we stream with a fresh topical program every week.
Our home basis Hudson River Radio dot Com. But remember you can get
us wherever and whenever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts. It's Asian,
American, Pacific Island or Heritage Months. My guest is filmmaker UH Protombos.
He's also a friend and he's giving us a unique perspective of coming here
from Mubai and Kuwait and living here in the States now for thirty four years.
And when we left for the break, I posted the question, uh,
what's the best of America? What's the worst? What would you change?
And what would what should I say? How has it changed you?
Let's start with first, what's what's the best of America? SUPs Um.
I think people are pretty you know, um, they're open to you know,
they have list of barriers, uh in meeting people. I think in
they're more welcoming than most people around, you know. So definitely that's the
best thing about friendship, you know. And maybe I'm being wishy washy,
but yeah, that's what I like about America. You know, brotherhood,
you know, there is a lot and it all depends from region to region.
I'm pretty much based in New York, you know, and I've traveled
in you know, in the South, but I have great friends in the
South. You know, Um there it's it's it's it's a sense of acceptance,
you know, like they'll accept you. There are a lot of people
who who won't accept you, but that's in every country. And you know,
I look at those and people and I say, no, those guys
are bad heads. You know. In fact, those are the guys who
make my life interesting because at least I can laugh at those idiots. So,
you know, more or less, you know, very friendly people.
You know, I feel right at home. That's that's the best. What's
the worst, man, Oh, politicians, dude, I mean they suck,
you know, and you know, it's all about the lobbies. It's
all about you know, they come in every four years and they beg for
their votes, and then they go back and they sort to forget you and
they forget why they got elected. So yeah, I'm you know, and
it's across the border. You know, how would you change that? Then?
I mean, how would I change them? It's one of our plea.
I would put them on the street and flog them. If they didn't
flog them, let's back to public flogs. No, seriously, how would
you you know, it's you know, it's an interesting point that we could
make here, soups. You know, India, the world's largest democracy,
votes at the rate of over well over eighty percent. I think it's over
eighty five percent, somewhere in the area of eighty eight percent, where we're
pathetic often under fifty percent. So you know, it's like we can't complain
if we if we don't participate. I mean, that's always been a big
issue with you, with me. What are you what are your thoughts?
Totally? I mean if you don't if you don't vote, you don't get
to talk. You know, I have a lot of you know, crew
who I work with, younger people, so you know what, I don't
want to get into politics. I don't want to vote, but they do
have an opinion, you know. But these people will have an opinion.
If you don't vote, you don't. That's the only way you can change
a government. You know, it's to vote. And you know, and
India people vote. But and it's a democracy, but it's not a complete
it's not in a Democracies are not supposed to be perfect. They'll never be
perfect. You know. It is as imperfect in India as it's in you
know. You know, we might as we have and we have time,
we might as well talk a little bit. We've we've got time. The
Prime Minister, I believe it's a prime minister. He's not the Prisident,
the Prime minister mode minister. Yeah, yes, the Prime Minister. And
who is who has often been called the Trump of the East and sometimes people
called Trump the emotive of the West. Yeah, very very soon right leaning
and ultra nationalistic presidents. I know that there's a concern that you have with
with both of them. Yeah. So I think it's a trend happening everywhere
in the world today. You know, like, uh, the more educated
you get and the scary thing is educated people are getting to be more and
more fundamentalists. You know, do you see a big rise of the educated?
And I think they do it just to control the masses. But if
you go to France you had you know Mary Lapan, if you go to
you know, United Kingdom, you had you know Boris. You know,
you go everywhere, there is more and more right wingers taken. I mean
you're closely related. I mean, you know Italy it has a woman yea,
yes, he's a fascist, you know. So it's not a uniquely
American or an Indian thing. I mean we had Trump, Holy crap.
I mean, you know, like the guy was he basically try to overturn
the election, you know, and I think it took like Mike Pence took
a lot of gohonez to be able to stick up and says no, you
know, but Moody similarly, you know, like I was born a Hindu.
I call myself a beefeating Hindu. You know, I can't deny a
good steak, you know, like I love a good steak. Well,
Hindus are not supposed to each steak, but what are dude? That's you
know, so I'm not very modification. You've messed an American modification you've made.
Yeah, well it's no, no, no, it's to me.
You know, there is a whole story of why Hindu's journey, but you
got to keep up. It's like a software system, you know. I'm
not going to follow Hinduism two todd zero. I'm more like Hinduism sixteen point
one, where you marry whom you want, you do what you gotta do.
And Hinduism a great religion. You know, it's a lot of rock
and roll, and you know, smoke here, you know, like shivap
is smoking a bomb. You know, like how cool is that? You
know, And of course you're in New York State, so you know it's
all good, you know. But the bottom line is like so Modi getting
back to Modi. Modi is a Hindu fundamentalist. And if you think about
let me give you an example of Pakistan and India. Pakistan and India they
both got their freedom on the same day. They got their independence on the
same day, fifteenth August nineteen forty seven. The British left same day they
got there. But then Pakistan went down the route of became becoming an Islamic
country. India did not do that. India, although eighty percent of the
people are Hindus, decided to call itself a secular country. Incidentally, India
has the second largest population of Muslims living there because it is the second largest
country in the world. Well, actually, I take that back. It
is now India's population is exceeded that. Yes, they say it, well,
but it already has you know, it's just a month world people in
two countries. Yeah, that's so. I often say, like, I
would be very ashamed if India calls itself a Hindu country, you know,
because you have to, you know, And that's I think that's the greatness
of India. It's like a secular country. But Moody is making into a
fundamentalist country because that's a way of getting votes. But will Indians resist?
Will will they? I don't think so. No. I think he's said
to win another election. I mean he's already done eight years. What he's
done though, is like he has so what he so. The previous government,
although was secular, was also very much into like vote banks in a
sort to appease the different sections of groups of different religion and try to get
vote banks, which sort of pissed off the must the Hindus, so they
voted, you know, and so Moredy basically, you know, he tried
to get all the Hindus together. He got them together. But what Moody
is also doing is there's a huge development right now happening in India. You
know, Bombay. My brother just came back from Bombay, says, you
want to recognize it. It's like massive skyscraper, huge roads, awesome trains.
So he's basically hoodwinking people by giving them a lot of facilities, by
making their life easier to live with, but he's also turning the nation into
a fundamentalist country. It would be very easy for me to live there in
India because I'm a Hindu, but I you know, I grew up with
friends or a Muslim. I've seen them. I see them suffer, you
know, in terms of getting a job, and it's very hard if you're
a Muslim to get a job. You know, they look at your name,
well you know, so yeah, but I think it's all across the
borderm I mean, if you look even in America, you'll see the same
thing. Not with Muslims and Hindus or you know, but it's a ratio
thing over here. So how has America changed you, soups? How has
America changed me? I think I was always progressive thinking. You know,
it turned me into a better cook, you know, definitely but pretty good.
Yes, yes, but no, I mean I'm sixty. I left
India when it was twenty seven, so you know, even if I lived
in India, I would change, right. You don't expect the same guy
to live to Yeah, so I don't think it has changed been a huge
way, but you know it's made me try everything. I think New York
is a great place. I mean, we live in probably the I call
New York the capital of the world. Okay. In fact, I was
so proud that when COVID happened, new York caught it first, because you
know, it was sad. But where else won't have cold, you know,
other than New York. I mean I would be pretty bummed if Chicago
or like, why is Chicago? You know, I mean I'm taking talking
about as you know, a joke, but you know, like New York
is the capital of world and I'm so blessed that I live in New York
and I get to try everything around in the world. And yeah, and
tell us a little bit about Pugilist Films and some of the things that you
do with with pugilist. I know you've built a state of the art studio
up there in New City that even rivals stuff in New York. I got
it. It's it's a pretty amazing spot. But tell us a little bit
about Pugilist films. Yes, a pugilist films makes corporate videos. And I
used to be a documentary filmmaker. My daughter was born. I was like,
there goes all my dreams of making great documentaries. I got to feed
the baby. So the best way was to become a corporate filmmaker. And
I was pretty successful. I've you know, my clients love me. They
sent me all around the world. I go there and shoot, and as
a producer, I figured out, like, it's great to be a producer,
but you can make a lot more money having cameras. And I've always
worked on cameras. I bought more and more cameras. Now have seven cameras,
like a lot of lights. So every time I go out and shoot,
I go with my gear, so I get paid for all of that.
So the money is good. But now you know. It's so I
built a studio because when COVID happened, I looked at my great room.
It has twenty feet ceiling. It's like, wow, twenty feet ceiling.
I can hang some lights over here. So I rigged up a whole trust
system. It's thirty feet by thirty feet. I got my seven cameras in
there. I built a whole switcher room. You know, I can actually
go live. I can get a video signal from anywhere in the world.
We did that with you with Uri when we did the Ukraine. Yes,
and feel Henry and Uri my Zarsky in Ukraine. As a matter of fact,
you helped a liaison on that, right and yeah, So anything,
my whole thing is anything CNN or Fox or any of these guys can do,
I should be able to do it, and we can do it.
You know were my graphic packages works on a Google spreadsheet, So you don't
even have to be on the studio to be able to update your lower thirds
or breaking news stories. You would be somewhere anywhere away. So I'm a
bit of a techie geek. I mean all the pretty I love you as
a geek, Yes you b Yeah, I love my toys. I love
the latest bandwidth. I have redundant bandwid I have like a gigabyte, two
gigabytes, you know, gigabyte each from Optimum Online and then from Verizon.
If one of them goes down on a thunderstorm, I still got a feed.
You know, I'm still alive. So it's all planned for it to
be a live studio that can operate any place, anytime. And we've had
our successes, you know, we've done It's not like it's being used every
day, but we've you know, did a bunch of investment banking shows from
here, and we did a talk show. We've done you know, some
commercial and we're planning more into the future. So yes we are. And
so it's it's changed from instead of me traveling to different countries with my gear
or different places people. Yeah, I got a great meet up room,
you know, all the jets, anything you need, control room, good
stuff. Yeah. I think I'm getting a barber's chair. So when you
come away here, you get a haircut and get to you direct a show.
We'd like to thank our guests, the protom Bows, for being Frank.
Of course, it always with his intelligent conversation, never pulls any punches
you appreciate it. Of course, special thanks to our listeners who take the
time to give us a voice in their lives, and of course Neil Richter,
our engineer every week getting us getting us up and out there streaming.
Remember we offer a fresh topic every week and you can catch us wherever and
whenever you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Speaker and
more. You can also check us out on the Being Frank Facebook page.
Now let me leave you with two last little nuggets. First, a Hindu
saying that's actually the national slogan of India, and I know it's one that
soups appreciates. Truth alone tiums pretty simple, straight and to the point.
Remember truth alone triumphs. Well, leave you some great music. Bobner Sissy
in his back, always fun, always rocking out. Here's give me what
I want. We'll catch you again on the next Being Frank. I'm your
host, Frank Bruno, see you next time time, fun give me,
give me you want? Thanks pretty much for coming. She gave me,
get she get me she wants. But he has lit to tell me,
but that he eat sis beginning, Baby, I can't hear me. She
wants babies, fell babymo Her, Gette. I want, I need,
I want, I want to do Time for the Time Sol. You want
us another radio dot com