The next best thing to experiencing something yourself is to hear people talk about their interests, sharing their experiences and stories. And the best stories are those that come from passion - striving to overcome obstacles on your way to succeeding in your chosen field, funny anecdotes, hardships endured. "Release The Geek" is our weekly forum to chat to people who are geeky about something - they could be successful, semi-so, or on their way to achieving a level of it but they've all got one thing in common - passion. Can't replicate it. And we want to share their experiences, their hurdles, their stories with the greater geek populace (or anyone who would care to).
http://www.releasethegeek.net/blog/
episode 138: Episode 138: Indian Cricket Geekery with Chetan Narula!
One of the things that marks us geeks is passion. Geek passion is on display everywhere - from heated arguments online around whether Superman could beat the Hulk, to cosplayers spends dozens, even hundreds of hours making precise replicas of costumes as an homage to the character.
Passion in geek culture is undeniable, which makes the topic of this podcast potentially relatable, even if most geeks aren't necessarily interest in it.
This week's podcast is going to discuss sport, (Please, geeks, give it chance before skipping this episode to move on to another podcast). In particular, we're going to discuss cricket. Played mostly in commonwealth or former commonwealth nations, it's an incredibly popular sport around the world but in India ... the passion Indian fans have for the sport and their national team is unlike anything any other fanbase can muster.
Chaytun Naroola is a sports journalist and author based in Delhi, and has been following the Indian cricket team since 2011. During the Indian team's recent tour to South Africa, Chaytun covered the team and also played guest commentator during radio coverage of the matches. We reached out to Chaytun to ask for his help in understanding of the depths of the passion Indian cricket fans have, and he was gracious enough to make time in his incredibly hectic schedule to discuss many things including his path to geekdom (there are Tintin references enough to keep the average geek interested), the moment on a Doha beach that led to his big career change from engineering, and how difficult it can be to negotiate the politics of covering the sport in cricket's biggest market.
If you'd like to hear more of Chetan's thoughts, you can follow him on Twitter, and then check out his Instagram feed for all the pics!