The Passion People Podcast: interviews with people who are living their dreams

Naga Subramanya’s guests have ranged from stand-up comics and voice artists to an 18-year-old math whiz, the most recent being a chat with Vijayendra Mohanty, a comic book writer

The most common mode of podcasting by far is the interview. Politics, entertainment, analysis, humour…name it, you can find an interview-based podcast that features guests — both well-known and not-so — from various fields. Given the ease of making and uploading audio material, and the growing number of platforms that support independent producers, the genre has practically exploded across the podcast space, with the good, the indifferent and the bad available in more or less equal measure. So, it can be quite a challenge to find a show that not only speaks to your interests but does so at a reasonable level of quality.

Many of the Indian shows I’ve reviewed in this column are either monologues (Kit Patrick’s History of India ), conversations between co-hosts ( Agla Station Adulthood ) or interviews with a guest ( NRI Woman ). In the last genre is Naga Subramanya’s The Passion People Podcast , which, in his words, is about people who have followed their passion and are living their dream. “In South Asia, particularly, there’s pressure from parents and from society to pursue a conventional path,” says Subramanya. When on a gap year, he had the opportunity to meet many people who had chosen not to give in to that pressure to conform. “I saw a world of possibility out there, from an 18-year-old who was travelling solo, to an older woman whose mission it was to counter stereotypes about body image,” he says. “It struck me that listening to such stories could push people out of their comfort zone and break some of their mental barriers.”

Natural progression

Subramanya began by blogging about his interviews, and podcasting “seemed to be a natural progression”.

The first episode of The Passion People Podcast , featuring artist and entrepreneur Swathi Nair, who runs a customisation company in Mumbai, launched on February 16, 2017. Now two years and just over 50 episodes old, the podcast speaks to Subramanya’s commitment and the generative nature of his theme. His guests have ranged from stand-up comics and voice artists to an 18-year-old math whiz, the most recent being a chat with Vijayendra Mohanty, a comic book writer. We hear them reflect about their journeys even as they are making sense of it all. As Subramanya repeats through several interviews, “When people see someone successful, they think it is an overnight success…they fail to see the struggle and hard work that preceded it.” If there’s an organising principle to the interviews, it is to reveal these preceding steps, and all the decisions that people have had to make in order to get to this point.

There’s an honesty and spontaneity to the conversations that allows one to look past the occasional awkward pause (don’t we all have them in our own exchanges) and variable sound quality. It’s also refreshing to listen to real people who have not yet become glib talkers, used to the spotlight (or in this case, the microphone).

Keeping such independent shows going is tough, but Subramanya, who is a chartered accountant by weekday, says he gains a lot of energy from the community of independent podcasters, although listener engagement is still “a challenge”. Despite this, he’s been able to drum up enough passion and find enough people to keep talking, with new episodes dropping every fortnight.

The Hyderabad-based writer and academic is a neatnik fighting a losing battle with the clutter in her head.