Surface Scratchers

Migration is now a series! In this episode, Sawant & Ronny discuss domestic migration in India - the numbers, causes, and stories of a few districts that are particularly known for migration - Ratnagiri, MH; Ganjam, OD; Udupi, KA etc. Show notes Episode 1 of the migration series (Indentured labour) | Causes of migration according to the Census 2011 | Chinmay Tumbe's book, India Moving - the inspiration and source for most of this podcast (Goodreads) | Channels of Internal Migration in India: A Historical Perspective (paper) | Internal migration in India: Why, Where, How much (article1, article2) | Internal Migration in India: Integrating Migration with Development and Urbanization Policies (paper) |

Surface Scratchers launches a new series! In this one, Sawant & Ronny breakdown a famous speech or quote - and look at the history & events leading up to it, the person behind the quote and its legacy. This episode is about Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a Dream speech. We discuss the history of slavery, the emancipation proclamation, civil rights movement, the life of MLK and the legacy of the speech. Shownotes: The speech, a short version (YouTube), the speech in its entirety (NPR) | A video essay on how MLK composed the speech (The Nerdwriter, YouTube) | Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales podcast episode - (Website, Spotify) | Emmylou Harris' song My Name is Emmett Till (YouTube)

We launch a new series, looking at migration out of India - indentured labour & Indians in East Africa Shownotes Chinmay Tumbe's, India Moving - the book that inspired this series | Charles Darwin in Mauritius (Article) | The Last King of Scotland (Hotstar) | Documentary - Asian Expulsion (Youtube)

New resident expert, Uthara Padmanabhan, joins us for this episode on Dance! Shownotes: The role of music in helping building society for early humans (BBC)| Biological origins of music and dance (Article) | The Dragon Dance (YouTube) | The longest Chinese Dragon in 2012 - (YouTube) | The Whirling Dervish (YouTube) | A Brief History of the ‘Danse Macabre' (Atlas Obscura) | How the beating retreat routine inspired It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (YouTube) | The evolution of dance (YouTube) | Dougie feat. Bhangra makes the best TikTok trends! (YouTube)

In a first for us, we welcome a guest! Join us as we learn all there is about Drag Culture, from a Surface Scratchers certified expert, Anamika! Shownotes: Drag perhaps started in Shakespearean theater. We couldn't find a video, so here's a scene from Shakespeare in Love (YouTube) | Vaudeville - The YouTube of the early 20th century, and an avenue for people to perform in Drag | William Dorsey Swann - The First Drag Queen who was a Former Slave (BBC, Medium) | Protests that set the stage for Stonewall (Vice, NPR) | How Judy Garland became a gay icon (BBC, Irish Times) | A few fun segments from RuPaul's Drag Race - A Drag Ball (theme: Bag ball); Reading Queens; Snatch Game | A handy Drag Dictionary | Meet India's most popular drag queens (Homegrown) | Dragvanti, a website for everything you need to know about drag culture in India (and an article) 

Sawant and Ronny celebrate a milestone. Cheers. Also, listener questions are answered. Shownotes: Books mentioned in the podcast: Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall; India Moving by Chinmay Tumbe; Akbar, Daughters of the Sun by Ira Mukhoty; Jahangir by Parvati Sharma; Shah Jahan by Fergus Nicoll; William Dalrymple's books; Tom Clancy's books. Shows: MasterChef Australia, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Sharp Objects, Schitt's Creek, Jack Ryan Podcasts: The Origin of Things and Getting Meta by Chuck Gopal; The Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma; The History of India by Kit Patrick; Echoes of India by Anirudh Kanisetti Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell; Reply All; Arseblog; The Anthropocene reviewed by John Green; Cautionary tales by Tim Harford; Against the Rules by Michael Lewis If you, like us, don't know much about personal finance, do check out our friend Jai Banga's YouTube channel to become slightly smarter (and richer)

Discover how Indian cities and states got their names ShowNotes: People after whom Indian villages are named after [Indian Express] | A handy guide with Indian-place-name-suffixes | McCluskieGanj: an old NDTV report, some beautiful drone shots | Digboi, its toponomy and oil [Article] | Indian city names abroad [Article]

It's Olympics season, learn all about it here! Show notes: The USSR, amaeteurism and Ice Hockey [Article] | | The Medals of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics [YouTube] | The different types of Fencing, explained [YouTube, Vox] | race walking, explained [YouTube, Vox] | Simone Biles doing the impossible [YouTube]| Madison cycling gets is name from MSG. Not that MSG, but the stadium [YouTube]

Surface Scratchers turns into Econ Scratchers with us de-mystifying the number every economist and country cares most about - GDP Show notes Crash course - English Civil war [YouTube] | William Petty did a lot more than just survey Ireland [Wikipedia] | Kuznets' on GDP [Paper] | Arvind Subramanian: India's GDP Mis-estimation [Paper] | A short history of the Indian Economy 1947-2019 [Article] 

In the second episode in the Origins series, learn about the origins of RedBull and Coca-Cola. Shownotes: SS epi on the Origins of McDonald's (Spotify) | A Twitter thread on the origins of RedBull | RedBull's company profile | The Red Bull sporting dynasty (article) | Mexican coke - a lie, apparently , a taste test (YouTube) | Where they drink 2L of Coke a day (YouTube) | Our favourite ads - Aamir Khan's coke ad, A collection of RedBull-giving-wings cartoons | Pemberton was born in Rome, Georgia, USA. The USA is filled with such cities (a relevant XKCD) | The YouTube video Sawant does not want us to watch

We return with two more battles - the Anglo-Mysore Wars between the East India Company and Mysore; and the Military coup and Rohingya crisis in Myanmar

Ronny & Sawant dig into the origin stories of the names of countries. And play a quiz (do stay till the end!)

Have you wanted to get into and start following some sports, but never had an idea how? Sawant and Ronny break down four sports in this episode - Basketball (NBA) , Football (EPL) , Formula 1 and Cycling (Tour de France) and discuss the basics and strategy of the game.  Shownotes: The difference between American & European basketball fans (YouTube) | The Last Dance, documentary on Michael Jordan's career with the Chicago Bulls (Netflix)| Tour de France explained (Vox) | F1 explained, by F1 drivers (YouTube) | F1's Drive to Survive documentary (Netflix)

Sawant & Ronny talk about those weird things our body does!

Hitch a ride on the cryptocurrency bandwagon with Sawant and Ronny Shownotes: Satoshi Nakamoto's paper on bitcoin | The bitcon Energy Consumption Index | Meet Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ether(ium) | Starting a cryptocurrency - an episode from the Radiolab podcast - The Ceremony | Why India Should Buy Bitcoin - an article

Sawant & Ronny scratch the surface on the details behind everyone's favourite beverage, beer! Shownotes: A nice article on the history of beer | A handy beer guide | Some beer stats: Largest companies, Countries by per capita consumption | Our favourite beer ads: Carlton Draught 1, Carlton Draught 2, the OG Kingfisher ads, Knock Out, Haywards 5000

Sawant & Ronny discuss airports in today's episode, listen to learn about a few records, fun facts and airports named after people.

Vaccines, vaccines! Hear all about them! Sawant and Ronny discuss their history, how they work, how the Covid-19 vaccines are different, and bust a few myths. Show Notes (This time, we're linking podcasts we think you may like. All on Covid-19 or pandemics) Radiolab: The Great Vaccinator - On Herman Miller & the role of chicken eggs in vaccine development (Spotify, Google Podcasts). Radiolab: Challenge Trials (Spotify, Google Podcasts). Freakonomics Radio: Why Can't Schools Get What the N.F.L. Has? - On systematic, widespread and regular testing (Google Podcasts, Spotify) Freakonomics Radio: Which Jobs Will Come Back, and When? (Google Podcasts, Spotify) The Seen and the Unseen Ep 221: Science and Covid-19 (Spotify, Google Podcasts) The Seen and the Unseen Ep 177: India's Economy in the Time of Covid-19 (Spotify, Google Podcasts) Cautionary Tales: How To End A Pandemic - on smallpox (Spotify, Google Podcasts) Cautionary Tales: The Village of Heroes - on the plague (Spotify, Google Podcasts) Planet Money: Fork the Govt - How tech helped Taiwan beat Covid-19 (Spotify, Google Podcasts) Planet Money: After the plague (Spotify, Google Podcasts) The Anthropocene Reviewed: Penguins of Madagascar and the Smallpox Vaccine (Google Podcasts, Spotify) Vox's videos: Why you can't compare Covid-19 vaccines, mRNA vaccines, Why side effects are a good thing, How rich countries are making the pandemic last longer, Can we get rid of Covid-19 forever?

Some festivals we're sure you haven't heard about Show notes: James May of TopGear and The Grand Tour fame attends Kanamara Matsuri | A Gatari Amavasya song (Marathi, use headphones - cool stereo effects) | CoCo on Disney+Hotstar

It's alcohol season on Surface Scratchers - this week, is Whisky week. Shownotes: Figure out which alco-bev conglomerate owns which distillery | The best Whisky channel on YouTube - Whiskey Vault | How some scotch whisky distilleries got their names - here and here | Whisky glassware explained | Our favourite Whisky (or Music CDs, or whatever) ads 8PM, Imperial Blue Music CDs, AC Apple juice | The 25 Best-Selling Whisky Brands In The World | A Single Malt Whisky Flavor Map, Tasting wheel | Whisky from unheard of places

Gin, gin, gin! Hear all about it! Show notes: The 'dry' in London Dry Gin just means the Gin is not sweetened (sorry we missed this in the podcast) | The many Gin Acts, enacted to curb Gin drinking in England (spoiler: not all were successful) | A nice read and a few made-in-India Gins worth trying | G&T and the British Raj | 5 easy-to-make Gin cocktails

Sawant & Ronny talk about festivals - a few for which we get days off from work or school; but don't really know much else about Show notes Chemetz (pronounced Hemetz) - the practice of avoiding fermented (leavened) bread during passover | Possible explanations to the 10 plagues that struck Egypt, that convinced the pharaoh to release the enslaved Jews | Navroz in the Mughal court | Robin Williams on Good Friday - Easter (YouTube) | Stoning the devil in Mecca (YouTube) | Thaipusam (Graphic, NSFW) being celebrated in Penang | A few hip hop artists from Dharavi worth listening to: Dopeadelicz, 7bantaiz

Another origins episode, this time on everyone's favourite city - Mumbai! Shownotes: A short film on Gilbert Hill | The BDL museum's collections on the history of Mumbai | The Forts of Mumbai | The English in Tangier | Haffkine and his vaccine for the plague | The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 that made the British realize that their time was up | A few more origin stories of names of areas in Mumbai here and here

Learn more about a not-so-well-known colonizer, Belgium Show notes: A BBC article on King Leopold II and his legacy | The scramble for Africa (Wikipedia) | Prisoners of geography by Tim Marshall (Amazon) | A profile of Edmund Morel, an abolitionist who exposed slavery in the Congo | How Janssen, J&J's pharma arm with a Covid-19 vaccine, is connected to Belgium's colonization of the Congo (YouTube)

Discover the origins of commonly used phrases in the English language! Shownotes: Slightly less popular pirate flags | Read more about the 'Mad' Marquis of Waterford and his town-painting | A really nice sea-shanty on Nelson's Blood, if you prefer to drink it yourself, here's the recipe for the cocktail | Nelson's strategy during the Battle of Trafalgar | An interesting paper on surgery in ancient Egypt | Read more about Geronimo, the Apache Indian chief | The evolution of the crocodile

Sawant and Ronny explore McDonald's. We're lovin' it - making this podcast, and hope you do too! Shownotes: Watch The Founder (Netflix) | Mark Knopfler on Ray Kroc's view on the origins of McDonald's - Boom, like that (YouTube) | An image of the McDonald's at Guantanamo Bay (Wikipedia) | The Big Mac Index (The Economist) | The dictionary entry for the McJob (Merriam-Webster) | Why McDonald's McFlurry Machines Are Always Broken (Thrillist) For suggestions and feedback, do write to us at: surfacescratchers@gmail.com

All you need to know to get into eSports! If you like stats, here's E-sports-Stats | Learn more about DOTA2's flagship annual tournament - The International | Stats about one of the winningest eSporters - N0tail 

Ronny and Sawant dive into the origins of a few sports. Find everything from Golf to Lagori in this episode. Show notes: Sport in ancient Greece | The first Marathon | Cuju - the grandfather of football | The oldest football trophies | Robin Williams on Golf | How his love of tennis killed King James I | Car colours in motorsport - find out India's allotted color here | How motorsport is improving our lives | Rahul Dravid on Indian cricketers fielding | French Cricket being played | Go play Lagori - rules here | Watch and enjoy - World Chase Tag | Monty Python - Hide and Seek

Sawant & Ronny explore National Anthems. Origins, lyrics, records, the whole shabangg. Show notes: A playlist with all the 25 or so anthems discussed in this episode | Spain's effort to add lyrics to their anthem | New Zealand's effort to crowdsource a flag | The British freeing slaves in the 1812 War in America | Italy's football team singing their anthem 

Ronny & Sawant discuss two battles (the war type) that aren't 'popular' but changed the world as we know it! Show notes: William Dalrymple, The Anarchy (Goodreads) |  A list of Indian battles (does not feature The Battle of Diu) |  50 battles that changed the world (does feature The Battle of Diu) |  Wars that went on for a bit longer than they were supposed to |  Find Nagorno Karabakh |  The Armenian Script, The Aremnian Genocide, The Armenian Revolution 2018 |  Turkey and natural gas |  Armenia- India relations

Sawant and Ronny look at food (both dishes and raw ingredients) that are thought to be distinctly Indian, but aren't! Show notes: Some things you did not know about Wallonia | Guru Kripa (best Samosa in Mumbai) | Portuguese loan words in Indian languages | Chai v/s Tea: The origins of the only 2 words we know for tea | All you need to know about Indian Bananas; The threat of over-reliance on the Cavendish Banana; Origin of 'Banana Republic' | On the origins of the Idli

Meet self-professed Surface Scratchers, Ronny & Sawant!