A Thirsty Mind - A Podcast by Abhiram

Meet Professor Raghuram Iyengar, he teaches and researches marketing and customer analytics at Wharton school.  We talk about his experience of being an advisor to the Tamil Nadu government, what should children do if they want to get into Wharton, what customer analytics are and much more.

On the occasion of Porsche Design's 50th anniversary and to kickstart season 3 of A Thirsty Mind, we have Robert Ader, the CMO of Porsche AG. We talk about how cars are sold, his favourite countries to visit, Porsche's history and its future.  

This episode of A Thirsty Mind is very cute. It was hosted by my brother Abhinav, we had a younger guest Aaradhya Chakravartula, my cousin, and a budding Carnatic singer. They talk about their life in the US, her family and of course some great singing. So tune in and enjoy the cuteness.

One morning, I noticed a woman handing over a pamphlet outside my school. When I checked the photo on the pamphlet, it dawned on me that it was my area's MPP herself handing it over to people and informing us how she can help people in her constituency. I walked to her and asked her if she would like to be a guest on my podcast, voila, she agreed. Meet Dr Jill Andrew, MPP of St Paul's constituency in Toronto, Ontario. We talk about how MPPs help people, diversity in leadership, and how to overcome body image issues. 

Meet my podcast's senior most guest, Varatha Shanmugathan, Toronto's York University's newest graduate. She is 87 and graduated as York U class of 2021. She is oldest person to receive the master's degree from the university. We talk about her plans to write a book, how the Srilankan civil war impacted her, difference between Tamil in India and Srilanka and the impact Gandhi has had on her.

I just love trains. I love traveling in them, I love talking about them, I love studying transit maps. Meet Anne Marie Aikins, former nurse, current spokesperson of Metrolinx, I couldn't have found anybody else who could match my passion for trains other than her.  We talk about ever expanding plans of Go Transit lines, impact of Presto cards, Covid measures in trains, using Morse code to prevent birds from crashing into glass and the upcoming green measures for transit services.

Meet Pranay Manjari Samal, CSR head of Edifice Foundation. She has been running a campaign highlighting the cultural issue where married daughters are not allowed to take care of their parents. We talk about this campaign, about helping the continuity of education of construction workers' children, her efforts to increase participation of women in politics and much more. 

Meet Jayasimha Nuggehalli, co-founder of Global Food Partners, an organization that helps farmers to produce cage free eggs. He is my uncle and we talk about animal rights, future of meat, alternates for animal testing in clinical trials and so much more.

In this episode we have Dr Latha Jagannathan, medical director of BMST Blood Bank in Bangalore, as our guest. We speak about types of blood group, why it is important to donate blood, how it is healthy for donors, different types of blood cells, impact of Covid on blood banks, bone marrow, stem cell registry and importance grabbing opportunities that come our way.

Meet Aparajit Sridharan, a variant scientist based in Halifax. We talk about genes, DNA, RNA, gene editing, ethics around it and how much fun studying science can be.

This episode was absolutely fun to work on, because my guest is Stuart Green, spokesperson for Toronto Transit Commission, the company that runs TTC services. We talk about the past, present and future of transit in Toronto.

This episode is dedicated to my favorite dog, Angel, who I used to foster in mumbai. My brother joins me on this episode as we talk to Huzannah Banajee Joseph about what dogs love and the foods that they like. We also talk about some advice on choosing the right dog and her work Expericne in training dogs.

Just like my dad, my uncle Arvind Sheshadri also loves Michael Schumacher. In the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind, both of us talk about being an instrumentation engineer, what petrochemicals are, his life in Saudi and his love for gardening. 

Do you know what an eponym is? Come join me and Ralf Heuel, chief creative officer of Grabarz & Partner, an ad agency based in Germany, as we talk about eponyms, love for driving classic sports cars, having fresh ideas, original content and much more in the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind. 

In this episode of A Thirsty Mind, I talk to Divya Ramagopal, my aunt who works for Effective Altruism in Singapore. She practiced architecture for 14 years. We talk about her survey of buildings around Charminar to protect the monument, her love for sketching and painting and her experience of switching careers.

On the occasion of World Engineers Day, we have a special episode. Today's guest, Srini Rajagopalan is a former test flight engineer in Indian Navy. In this episode we talk about black box, moving to Canada and of course about his experience as a test flight engineer.  

A lot of guests that I talk to on my show, highlight the importance of self care and mental health. What is self care and mental health? Tune in to the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind as me and my brother Abhinav talk to Juniper Kiran Ashtekar. She is a clinical psychologist and a Bach Flower therapist. We talk about her job, mental health and importance of work outs. 

Join me in conversation with Amitha Sridhar, founder of The Care Hub. The Care Hub is a social start up, aims to connect elderly people with community heroes to get over isolation and boredom. Besides starting a company, we also talk about who community heroes are, how children like us can get involved in community work and importance of internships.

In this episode of A Thirsty Mind, I speak to Ahmed Ali, a retired DIG of CRPF. We talk about what CRPF is, how it is different from police force and armed forces, instances of ambush, life in CRPF, challenges and triumphs they face on a daily basis and the impact it has on their family. This episode is a special tribute to all those officers who protect us, ensure we live a peaceful life everyday. A big thanks to all of you.

While growing up, Joanne Fong wanted to hold the record of being the fastest speaker. But now, she enjoys hosting new people who come in as guests to her Airbnb property in Toronto and also helps women who turn homeless due to various reasons as a director on the board of Nellies, a not for profit organization. Tune in to the 3rd episode of season 2 as we discuss fun things to do in Toronto, challenges people face as immigrants and the skill sets needed to be an Airbnb host.

Meet Sachin Ravi, co-founder of QShala, a company that helps children like me do what we love doing the most: quizzing. In this episode, we discuss how Sachin started QShala, its future plans, importance of being multilingual, how to be inclusive, importance of talking gibberish with your sibling and how he changed his career from being a lawyer to be a founder.

Welcome to season 2 of A Thirsty Mind. It has been a little over a year since I started the podcast. To make the launch of second season special we have an unusual candidate running for the post UN Secretary General, Arora Akanksha. Did you know that UN has never had a woman Secretary General so far? Come join us as we talk about the way UN works, the issues across the world and how we can work together to change the world. 

Sorry folks, the 20th episode got a bit delayed because we were busy with a whole host of things at personal front. But then, to make up, I talk to a future restaurateur, a fellow Among Us player and my dear friend Agastya Kiran. We talk about the Nizam city, Hyderabad, how we children can learn to be sensitive to siblings with special needs and his future plans of taking on his father's restaurant business.PS: I am going to be on a break for sometime. Will be back with more fun in season 2.

Did you know that Eucalyptus is not suitable for Indian forests? Jacob Cherian and I discuss how it came from outside of our habitat along with lantana and is growing in the wild uncontrolled.  Meet Jacob, founder of TerreGeneration. He is a plogger and a tree planter. He loves dogs, hates plastic misuse and over use, is in need of support, funds and time from people like us to clean up the world we live in. 

Join my brother Abhinav and me, as we "co-ghost" our wonderful guest, Grechen Huebner, the co-founder of Kodable, our favorite coding app. We discuss javascript, swift, functions, sending a drone to space, beach clean ups, her plans to improve Kodable and her love for Taco. Stay tuned till the end, when Grechen chooses to become the host on our show.

Meet my friend Dariya Chewane from Mumbai, who lives in the company of books. In this episode we talk about books, what she learnt from them, beauty of Ukraine, online classes and a Russian surprise. 

A dancer, Yoga enthusiast and a baker all rolled into one makes Abhigna Arvind. She is my cousin who lives in Saudi. Join our conversation as we discuss life in Saudi, her love for baking tutti-fruity cake, how she misses Indian street food and her family (including me) back home. 

I used to think that only my mom thought her son to be the best actor, until I spoke to Chaitra Chidanand, who thinks her son Pranav is the best actor because he does a lot of drama. We sons love all the drama, join me in conversation with Chaitra in the upcoming episode where we talk about working in Infosys, meeting Sudha Murty and Narayan Murthy, her experience of starting up couple of companies, how to get into Stanford and importance of volunteering.

Listen to the latest episode of my podcast to understand what pathos and logia means, as Dr N Jayaram, managing director of Anand Diagnostic Laboratory starts talking to us. We also discuss how to become a pathologist, inhibitions one has to shed, different specialisations, how Covid has impacted the medical testing labs, AI and data science in pathology, difference between autopsy and biopsy, transplantation and its uses, a balanced body and mind and importance of following a dream and achieving it. Stay tuned till the end for a musical surprise.

I have decided to spend 24 hours in every new place I visit when I grow up. Thanks to Brian Yessian, Chief Creative Officer of Yessian Music, I learnt that this could be a fun way of experiencing food, people and cultures all over the world. Come join us on a musical journey as we talk about music as a career, various options in the music industry, creating jingles, music for theme parks, songs and television commercials in the new episode of A Thirsty Mind.

Say hello to MG Arun, executive editor of India Today magazine in the latest episode of my podcast. We discuss all types of news media, how to become a journalist, how to collect news, about the mega floods that stuck Kerala in 2018, being compassionate to animals and staying up all night to watch football World Cup.

Can one play cricket without a cricket bat? Listen to Naveen Bharadwaj as he describes how he managed to do it while he played as a child with his friends. In the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind, I talk to Naveen, my uncle about visiting Africa, moving from Bangalore to Dubai, uses of cyber security, how to keep your passwords safe, growing up as a cop's son and what it means to be an intrapreneur.

Did you know that it took 24 days to go to Germany by ship in the 1960s? I got to know about it when Kamla Bhasin told me in episode 10. Listen to us as we discuss being born in part of India that went to Pakistan, living through the partition, feminism, patriarchy, stereotypes, living and working in many countries. Stay tuned till the end for a fun surprise.

What if your suitcase could follow everywhere you go in an airport, what if your fridge knew how healthy you are. These surely are interesting technology that already exists. So now buckle up, put your seatbelts on and join us on a journey to explore the world of AI, UI coding and programming with Sandy Fernando, a UI programmer with a keen interest in technology and AI. He is our guest on Episode 9 of A Thirsty Mind.

He is just 7, has his own podcast, has lived in three different countries. Meet Vedanth, the host of Curious Vedanth show, an inspiration for me to start my own show. Do listen to this fun filled episode where we talk about the experience of being a podcaster, living in Hyderabad, Boston and Singapore, things we do for time pass, future plans and some mutual admiration for each other's show. 

In this episode of A Thirsty Mind, I speak to Hena Mehta, CEO of Basis, an app that teaches people saving and investing. She is a Wharton MBA, so she told me how does one get into Wharton, importance of saving money, how to become a CEO and how she started and is running Lean In, a community for women. 

Meet Bharti Kannan, founder of Boondh, an NGO that works on educating people on menstrual hygiene. I must be honest, this was slightly uncomfortable in beginning to talk, but Bharti made it easy for me. So listeners, join us as we discuss periods, the stigma around it and how it is just another natural process of the human body in the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind. 

Can you imagine life without mentors? Come join me as I learn about the importance of having the right mentors, biotech in cancer research and a lot more as I speak to Dr Prashant Krishna Shastrula, a Cancer Biologist working in Syngene, on the latest episode of A Thirsty Mind.

What if I could finish one class at home, continue with the rest of the classes in the car while my parents drove us off on a holiday? This is what Chita Varanasi is enabling cars to do at Ford Motor Company. Join us while we discuss connecting cars and homes, life in Michigan, studying and earning at the same time, all on the 4th episode of A Thirsty Mind.

Today I speak to Aylwin Fernando. A VFX Supervisor and a Creative Director for feature films, ads and games. He is from Vancouver, Canada. We speak about choosing to follow your passion and opting for a job that you would enjoy doing. We also talk a bit about Visual Effects, growing up in Sri Lanka, living close to wilderness in Vancouver and a lot more. 

In the second episode, I talk to Sama Deshmukh. An 11 year old who is breaking stereotypes in her favorite hobby of drawing cartoons. We talk about her passion and inspiration towards this art form as well as how each of us is dealing with second siblings.

In the introductory episode of A Thirsty Mind, I speak to Preethi Herman, executive director of Change.org, about growing up among nature, her experience of having met the Obamas and how to design a changemaker program for children.