South India

Sonali is the author of The 90% Code, Rewriting Power for the AI Era.

Sonali became a mother at 19 in a fairly orthodox environment in India, and she says that experience taught her what it feels like to have very little say in the decisions that shape your life.

Her career has been anything but a straight line.

And through all of it, she's been asking one question.

And so I was just wondering if you could touch on how you got to the point of like deciding you wanted to write a book to put all these experiences together.

Yeah.

Yeah, I became a mother very young in a fairly orthodox environment in India.

And before I had any language for power or systems, I understood what it felt like to have a very little say in decisions that shape your life.

Don't fear.

If you go to South India today, then you can go to Varad Raj.

Understand Varad Raj is a form of Vishnu.

So Raja means the king.

I think we all feel a little less fearful.

Recently, I attended a Carnatic workshop, Intro to Carnatic Music.

And there was a guru from South India who was a very accomplished Vena player.

He was hosted by a friend of mine, which is why we went.

Yeah, that's better, much better.

What I always tell people is, you know, when it comes to South Indian or South Asian names, you say it like you spell it.

And if you get it, you will eventually get it over the course of time.

I'm pretty

I mean, I don't need to tell you.

You come from South India.

This has been... culinary capital of microbial alchemy, right? And ragi had been known here for long

ages.

An ebony, now so rare as to be almost fugitive, is the king of the lot.

The tree is shared, as are many of its indigenous trees in Sri Lanka, with South India, especially along the western Ghats and around Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The South Indian kings loved the wood.

For these ever-warring Chira, Chola and Pandyan rulers, ebony heartwood was the preferred material for their sceptres and their staffs of office.

Its extreme durability and unrivaled beauty also made it the ultimate wood for Sri Lanka's ancient chieftains and later-day millionaires, for any number of pieces of furniture, especially for beds and tables.

And anyway, your perception of whatever that is that set up your prejudice... was happening in your own mind bouncing off your own personal hang-ups and may not really be the way you think it is do you understand what i'm saying so when you find yours whether it's against bored southern cops sorry i can only name some american ones or journalists that have sold their soul and spin, without believing in it, a mess because it gets votes.

The guy in India who cut out the fact that it was a demonstration on children's safety and a play and just retweeted the little bit, about a child kidnapping with the tweet, there's child kidnapping kidnappers here in South India, and they went and lynched a whole bunch of college students and strangers and anybody they could catch they didn't recognize.

But he got a lot of likes on his tweet.

It went viral.