#VoicesOfIndia- Taking it easy with Keshav and Husein
Keshav Naidu, a comedy enthusiast and a creative director, and Husein Merchant, one who wears many hats- the two amazing men behind the Far From Fact podcast share with us their podcasting journey and a lot more.
Far From Fact is a weekly podcast designed to cater to your basic need for ignorance. Keshav and Husein, two friends meet once a week to suggest some interesting solutions to problems they come across. Some of these solutions include characters like Dr. Robokar and Captain Touch that are super fun to know about.
In this interview, Keshav and Husein talk about their inspiration to start Far From Fact, the journey so far, the podcasting scene in India, and more.
Excerpts from the interview-
So, what’s your life beyond podcasting?
Keshav- What we do apart from the podcast, is basically our day job. However, gradually, podcasting is becoming a part of our day job too! When we started, it was a hobby. But as we move forward, it is taking over our lives.
I run a small branding and packaging consultancy, called Naidu & Punjabi. We work with brands to help them create an identity, brand positioning, package designing if it’s a physical product, and so on. So, that’s the space I work in my professional capacity.
Husein- By qualification, I am a Chartered Accountant. I worked with a large professional services firm in the past and now I am with a small Venture Capital/Non-Profit Organization. About the podcast, I’d say that it just happened. Keshav and I were good friends, he wanted to try it out so I decided to go ahead with him. Now, it is taking more and more of our time, time that we’d otherwise spend unproductively on doing something else. And honestly, none of us are complaining!
How did you two cross paths?
Keshav- This goes back to my wife. I know Husein because my wife and Husein played in the same band together.
Husein- Yeah, so I knew his wife, Kahini. Since we were in the same band, we used to hang out together. That’s how I got to know Keshav. But we became close friends when these guys needed some sort of background music for their company, Naidu & Punjabi. By that time, the band had fizzled out but Kahini reached out to me to see if I could come over and help them with that music. That’s when we began hanging out as friends. Later, these guys moved to Bengaluru and I used to visit Bengaluru very often for work and meet them.
Keshav- After this, we moved back to Bombay because of work and my first call was to Husein. When he visited Bengaluru, we often used to talk about podcasts. So I told him that I felt an itch for podcasting and wanted to give it a shot.
Tell us more about the itch you felt for podcasting. What inspired it?
Keshav- It goes back to seven years when stand-up comedy was relatively new in India. I jumped in early on. I was in Delhi at that time working with an ad agency and ended up going to an open mic and doing 2 minutes there. It just kind of took off from there. The next two years were a blur, in the sense that I was just performing all over. If I went to Bombay for work, I’d do a gig. I also flew to different cities occasionally to perform. Once when I was in Delhi, I performed in this competition by Vir Das’ company Weird Ass Comedy. I won that and that’s how I got associated with them, the AIB guys and did a few sketches with them. When I moved to Bombay, the Canvas Laugh Club used to be the Comedy Store and I performed many gigs there. So, it was great fun.
But I still can’t answer the question why, but I eventually lost that early excitement and rush, just as the scene was taking off. A lot more commitment and energy were required and I lacked it, also because of the time I had to put in at the ad agency. I did not feel like I could commit to it and had to make a choice. I chose the safe thing, and that’s where the itch came from- from having chosen the safe thing, for not having done something that I really wanted to, that is being funny.
So podcasting has been therapy for me!
And Husein and I are great friends, we get each other’s humor, so that helped a lot.
How did the name Far From Fact occur to you?
Keshav- So, we penned down a couple of names on a Google doc and Far From Fact appealed the most to us.
Husein- The reason why this name stuck with us also probably has to do with the format that this podcast is in right now. It took us some time to arrive at this formula where we try and look for some topics where there are problems and then solve these in our own way. However, we knew that given the two of us, given the way we’d end up talking about anything, Far From Fact seemed like a relevant and appropriate title. Because given whatever we are going to talk about, nobody’s going to come to us to gain knowledge or expertise. They’ll listen to us knowing that they can have a good laugh and have a gala time. So, Far From Fact made a lot of sense.
Could you share with us how do you go about making these episodes?
Keshav- First of all I’d say, it’s a lot of fun. We put in approximately 12–15 hours per episode, as a team, including travel, content creation, editing, and publishing. When we started out, we were just doing all the work at home. Now as well, we just switch between my place and Husein’s place because it is way more comfortable than a studio. We have tried a studio a few times but what happens is that- one it requires a lot of coordination with other people, and two we still do the editing at home. Husein does the editing, he is an ace editor, super quick and great at it. Even while we are talking, he must be figuring out a plan to edit ;)
Moreover, the way we do the recording is very simple. We follow a very amateur method that we absolutely love. There is a single microphone, so both of us are on a single track. If we go to a studio, we’d be on different tracks. That creates more post-production work- removing the echo, and so on. That said, when we have a guest, we do prefer using a studio.
Husein- That’s right. I’d just add that whatever we do, we do keeping in mind the listener. One reason why we make podcasts is that we are also consumers of podcasts. When we come down to spending time, resources, and money on this thing, both of us are very aware that it has to be as lean and cost-effective as possible. So the money we would end up spending on renting a studio, going to a studio, and so on, we’d rather invest it in engaging with the listener in some form or the other. That’s the kind of decision making that takes place.
If we know that we have x amount of money to spend on an episode, we’d see if we’d like to spend that on a recording studio or rather spend it on Instagram Ads, or on buying some cool merchandise, and the like.
What is the kind of traction you are getting on Instagram? Could you share any lessons on promoting podcasts on Instagram?
Husein- Okay, so the first question is about engagement on Instagram.
The two methods we have tried are Facebook and Instagram. We started with Facebook just because for both of us, these promotions were something we hadn’t done before. So we said why not begin with Facebook, it is super affordable. I then realized that Facebook itself gives you an option where it automatically pushes your content on Instagram too. And of any post that we used to make on Facebook, about 70–80 percent impressions used to be from Instagram. This pushed me to create an Instagram account and get people to see it and follow us there. Because an Instagram user who would see this Facebook post coming up might not be directed to our Instagram account and might drop off in between. So we decided to create an IG account and promote directly on IG so that viewers can look up our profile and follow us if they like it, and hopefully become a listener too. Our end objective is to hope that the viewer becomes a listener which is the toughest thing, to be honest.
Keshav- How Instagram serves amazingly is as a response mechanism. It enables us to engage with active listeners, who feel they are a part of an active community, where they can make suggestions, give feedback, tell us how they liked or hated something. We love how intimate and live it is. The episode is out only once a week but the conversation is on throughout.
Husein- So when we started the podcast, we used to say in the episode write to us, email us at hello@farfromfact.in, etc. I felt that damn, our mailbox is going to be exploding. But we received one email in three months. So, then we realized that email is not the best way for a medium like podcasting. And now you will hear us say things like DM us on Instagram, follow us, etc.
Could you describe your listener base to us? And where are you getting them from?
Husein- Largely, listeners are in the age bracket of 18 to 40. The reason why I say that is because we’ve got two kinds of feedback- one is through Instagram where most of our followers are between 18 to 24. These are the ones who are very open to engaging. So, as soon as an episode is out, they will like the video, DM us, they’ll make memes, stories, and so on. This is really flattering, to be honest. It provides instant gratification.
The second segment is people like myself. What I mean by that is they enjoy the content because it is different. These people consume largely English content but they are not very participative in terms of engagement. These are people who mainly listen during their commute, listen in while procrastinating at work, etc.
Now, talking about where are these listeners coming from. Initially, a lot of them came from Google podcasts. But since Spotify has entered India, a lot of our these listens come from Spotify. iTunes remains the biggest contributor, though, which is close to 40 percent. Recently, Castbox is also getting us some good numbers. So for the top four, I’d say- iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, and Google Podcasts.
How do you go about selecting a topic for a new podcast episode?
Keshav- We do it in a very simple way. We have a two person WhatsApp group. Anytime during the week, we paste stories in that group and when we meet, we spend the first half hour as an editorial discussion on which topics we should we pick. We choose three of them and just take it from there. It is literally like two friends meeting and talking rubbish in a very determined way. Earlier, we used to do it in patches. I mean we weren’t that confident and we had to meet almost three times to record one episode. Now, we’re way more confident and there is a lot of ease while doing it.
Husein- Also, a lot of our topics are listener recommended. We get DMs on Insta and pull them out from there.
Where do you see Far From Fact a few years down the line? Also, could you drop your 2 cents on the podcasting scene in India?
Keshav- We have spoken with a lot of people in the podcasting industry- production houses, distribution houses, podcasters- the evangelists of podcasts so to say. We have gotten the impression that in India, it is a doomsday sort of scenario with podcasts. That’s the picture they paint. And they are not doing it negatively but rather with absolute optimism, we may not have the numbers, but we’re just at the tip of the iceberg compared to what is happening in the West. In the West, consumption is very different. Given the penetration of smartphones in India, podcast consumption is very low. And I believe that regional podcasts in India will be a greater success than English podcasts. The best part, however, is that though it sounds like a negative picture, everyone in the field is optimistic that there’s going to be an inflection point where it will change.
Husein- Talking about where we see Far From Fact, it is honestly something which doesn’t keep us up at night. So as far as our podcast is concerned, we are going to continue doing it in the existing format as long as it is fun for us. If a year back, somebody would’ve told us that we would have this level of engagement and following, we’d have never believed it. The plan was to see how much fun is it for two months and take it forward accordingly. So for us, that’s our approach right now. If something cool comes along the way, we’d be happy to take it up. For instance, we think it’d be fun to collaborate with other podcasters. If any sort of brand alignment happens, we’d be happy to assess that as well! But again, we’re not approaching anything actively. We want our listeners to continue listening and having fun. That remains our ultimate goal.
When I look at many other podcasts in India, the approach that many new podcasters are using is getting a big name as a guest and hoping that it gets them traction on their listens. I honestly don’t know how well that works for podcasting as a medium. If you get Biswa, for instance, on your show, what I suspect will happen in most cases is that Biswa’s fanbase is going to listen to just that one episode and then drop off — because they’re coming for Biswa, not for the podcast. So I feel a little frustrated when I see the same 10–15 names circulating among all the podcasts. I feel that as podcasters, our objective should be for the listeners to like us, our content. When we started out, we thought about doing this too. But now we are very proud and happy that our listeners come to listen to us! We’ve had to be patient, but we are beginning to see a loyal fanbase now.
Keshav- I couldn’t agree more! To add to that, I would say that it isn’t that we’re not open to any changes. Even about the guests, like Husein mentioned, we’d love to collaborate with a fellow podcaster- somebody who has their own listener community that they’ve built. It will give the listeners an opportunity to discover a new show too.
Would you like to recommend any podcasts to the readers?
Keshav- To be honest, the irony of creating a podcast is that I’ve stopped listening to them as much. This is because the time I spent listening to them, now goes into creating content for our podcast. But when I did, I really enjoyed listening to Our Last Week by a comedian writer called Anuvab Pal and actor Kunaal Roy Kapur. I enjoy stories on podcasts, and most recently, I listened to this podcast called This Sounds Serious which is about murder mysteries.
Husein- I recently discovered this podcast called BBC Earth. I spend an unreasonable amount of time watching nature documentaries. So, the BBC Earth Podcast is right up my alley. Stuff You Should Know is another one which is very informative and they talk about everything under the sun.
Just last night I discovered the Chernobyl podcast, where there is an episode you have to listen to after every episode you watch (of the Chernobyl show on HBO).
If you want to hang out with the crew, now is your chance.
Next week, on June 20th, Far From Fact is doing a meetup on the occasion of their 50th episode at Qtube cafe, SV Road, Bandra.
Sign up for the meetup, and the AMA, by filling out this form (it’s a quick one) :)
