Audiomatic: The podcast that cuts to the chase

Where does the Marie biscuit feature on an Indo-Russia spectrum ranging from Sukhoi fighter jets to Raj Kapoor?

An odd question – unless you've heard Vikram Doctor's The Real Food podcast. This fortnightly programme traverses the little-known stories behind some of India's most intrinsic foods: the haapus, Amul butter and yes, Marie. Speaking of which – it was created by English biscuit manufacturer Peek, Frean and Co. for the 1874 wedding of Russian duchess Maria Alexandrovna and Prince Arthur.

A penny plain biscuit, named after a Russian aristocrat.

The Real Food is one of four programmes (along with The Intersection, Our Last Week, Ask Aakar Anything) by Audiomatic, India's first narrative podcast. At two months old, Audiomatic – which had 80,000 listeners three weeks in – is an infant, albeit one growing by leaps and bounds. The Real Food and The Intersection have a cult following, says founder Rajesh Tahil. "Ask Aakar Anything (AAA) has more followers, but they don't necessarily listen to each podcast," he shares. "The others have fewer, but ardent listeners who never miss an episode."

Aakar Patel – whose columns both infuriate and amuse (depending which side you're on) – is just eight episodes in for AAA. But the man pitched as Audiomatic's Swiss Army knife has answered queries on everything from marijuana legalisation to public buildings. He's also given gyaan on Deepika Padukone's appetite and what he makes of people with $10,000 gold Apple Watches.
Listener questions for Aakar, reveals Tahil, are handpicked not for censorship, but to avoid repetition. But is the scribe game to answering any question, no matter how puerile or debauched?
"It's advertised as 'Anything', so I must respect that," says Aakar.

We're wont to put it to the test. More on that later.

Audiomatic is much written about not because it's the first Indian podcast – IndiCast and SynTalk have been around longer – but because it intends changing consumer behaviour. "Media consumption today is like a high-speed chase, with bombardment from all sides on the same topics," Tahil says, adding that narrative storytelling is sidelined by anything considered "high news value".

A culmination of this outlook is The Intersection, hosted by journalists Samanth Subramanian and Padmaparna Ghosh. The podcast visits nodal points of history, culture and science to present topics spanning from the Indus Valley Civilisation to the Bombay Blood Group, issues rarely covered in mainstream media. "We're trying to have as wide a spread as possible: medicine, zoology, genetics, seismology, history, archaeology. It mixes things up nicely for listeners," says Samanth.

Also on Audiomatic's roster is Our Last Week, an observational humour show by comedian Anuvab Pal and Kunaal Roy Kapur ("His humour is so deadpan, it's brilliant," says Tahil).

Tahil had first mooted the idea of a storytelling-focused Indian podcast with Samanth in May 2014. Less than a year later, Audiomatic is up and running, and looking to become a full-fledged network that invites podcasts from the public – perhaps even podcasts in different Indian languages, or one for children.

"You can't be a network if you don't have (diversity in) languages. But it's a niche within a niche, and the current audience base has to grow first," he elaborates. "As for children's shows, it's difficult to get kids to listen to something at a stretch without parental intervention. But one can consider something like a children's bedtime stories podcast."

Until then, the focus is on tweaking existing shows based on feedback. As for what we can expect from upcoming episodes on shows like The Intersection: "We're great fans of medical procedurals, and I think everybody has a visceral interest in how bizarre and wonderful the human body can be," says Samanth. "So expect a medical mystery."

DNA Asks Aakar Anything

1. Other than (Delhi's) Bahrisons Booksellers, what are the best book shops you've visited in the country?
I like Ram Advani's in Lucknow for the service, Chakravarthy Chatterjee in College Street, Calcutta for being sullen and quaint (there's no discount if you pay by card), Blossoms in Bangalore is a terrific second hand store. Landmark in Chennai used to be good.
New And Secondhand Bookshop near Metro in Mumbai is where I found the final volume to complete my Nehru series, but that shop is now gone.

2. On AAA, you invited questions ranging from 'how to assassinate an aunt' to 'how to plagiarise Wodehouse'. Please answer both here.
Aunts in India are to be indulged. They are the most entertaining of relatives because they love you unconditionally. Assassinate only if absolutely necessary. Wodehouse is to be copied for one thing alone: using exaggeration and saying wild things in tempered and reasonable language.

3. Does a day go by without a detractor ever saying something to or about you?
I'm in China at the moment, so the answer is 'Yes'. But anyone who speculates on culture must be open to receiving criticism in return and sometimes abuse.
4. What's the best single malt you've had?
For the last 10 years, I've been drinking Laphroaig 10. When I didn't have as much money I used to drink local whiskeys. Peter Scot is very good. The other aspect is that the time of day you're drinking matters. Whiskey is for evenings, and the peaty Islay malts are the ones I go for. Laphroaig in my opinion is second best. The problem with the best whiskey Lagavulin is that it's forged too often, you get duplicates too often. So I'll stick with Laphroaig.

5. Meanwhile, we'd like for Aakar to answer this on AAA:
Who's the most megalomaniacal politician in India (other than the man you often write about)?