Hrishikesh Hirway

Summary

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Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Guest: Hrishikesh Hirway

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Podcast by NPR

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Wild Card, Rachel Martin sits down with Hrishikesh Hirway—musician, storyteller, and acclaimed host of "Song Exploder." True to the show’s format, the conversation is guided by cards with probing questions, prompting ruminations about independence, music, memory, grief, validation, morality, order, and what it means to live a good life. The episode delves into both lighthearted and deeply personal territory, highlighted by reflections on creative ambition, losing parents, and the enduring search for contentment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

On Aging and Feeling Unchanged

• Opening Question: "What have you found surprising about getting older?" (00:16)
  • Hrishikesh: Surprised by "how little changes, actually," still feels like a work in progress, hasn't settled into a final version of himself.
  • Quote: “I still feel like I’m wondering what I’m gonna be when I grow up.” (00:31)

Childhood Independence

• First Card: "Where did you get to feel independent as a kid?" (01:53)
  • Hrishikesh: Independence was important from a young age; rejected default choices (like mainstream sodas), preferred "the path less traveled" (choosing orange soda).
  • Quote: “Part of what I liked was that I felt like I was doing my own thing.” (04:13)
  • Independence also expressed in resisting family pressure to pursue traditional careers, especially medicine.

Music as Identity

• Second Card: "What music became part of your identity as a teenager?" (04:34)
  • Music offered a self-chosen identity, contrasting the externally assigned one of "doing well in school."
  • Hrishikesh got access to drum practice space, learned by playing along to Fugazi’s 13 Songs (05:48).
  • Parental support was mixed: supportive in presence but worried about his career path—e.g., his dad suggesting an MBA even years into his music career (06:30).

Family Support and Early Influences

• Strong Memories: Parents attending punk shows in full formal attire—mother in sari, father in jacket and tie at Fireside Bowl (07:25).
• Musical Inspiration: Early love for beauty (08:22) came from Indian music admired by his mother, such as Asha Bosle and Lata Mangeshkar:
  • Quote: “Their voices ... is probably the first time that I remember falling in love with music and maybe having a sense of something beautiful.” (09:22)

The Creative Hiatus and Grief

• Album Discussion: After a 10-year break, Hrishikesh produced his first album in 15 years, In the Last Hour of Light (11:07).
  • Hiatus induced by feeling his career was "stuck," questioning his path: “Was I even meant to be doing this?” (11:24)
  • The album’s overarching narrative is about memory, grief, and the urgency to capture fleeting moments, especially after his mother's death.
  • Memories of his mother now feel "gossamer thin," generating anxiety about fading recollections (15:15).
  • The album title reflects the preciousness and impermanence of experiences: “This is a beautiful moment, and you know that it’s not going to be here forever.” (17:57)

"Voice Off Screen" and Unseen Influences

• Song about Father-in-Law: Final album track is about his wife’s late father, whom he never met. He was given the man's guitar and mandolin, and home movie footage inspired a song about loss and unseen presences (18:16).
  • Memorable Moment: Rachel assumes the song is about Hrishikesh’s mother; the lyric "the voice off screen" resonates across experiences of familial loss (20:04).

Qualities Admired in Others

• Round Two, Card One: "What's a quality you're drawn to that you don't possess?" (20:58)
  • Hrishikesh envies his friend Carl's effortless charisma and ability to attract friends naturally, feeling his own social connections require more effort.
  • Quote: "I just wish I were someone like that...where everybody wants to hang out with you, everybody wants to be your friend.” (21:49)

Perpetual Chasing and Validation

• Round Two, Card Two: "What do you feel like you're constantly chasing?" (23:45)
  • Strives for external validation matching internal identity—wants to be seen as the artist he hopes to be.
  • Struggles to internalize praise, discounting compliments even from friends (26:05).
  • Quote: “It's very hard for me to accept the idea that maybe I actually am the person I hope to be.” (26:27)

Continuing the Conversation on Aging

• Rachel reflects on feeling like the same person mentally despite physical changes—her strong grandfather's decline as an example (27:13).
  • Hrishikesh: Echoes this: “I'm surprised as I get older that I don’t feel like a reflection of that number. I still feel like a kid and a kid who wants to grow up and be this person.” (30:04)

Morality and Meaning

• Beliefs - Card One: "Who or what is your moral compass?" (33:25)

  • Raised Hindu but sought morality from multiple sources beyond religion: his parents, cartoons (e.g., Transformers), literature, and philosophy.
  • Moral compass is an aggregate, not rooted in a single dogma.
  • Quote: “Having your moral compass be too attached to just one dogma was limited or dangerous.” (36:52)
  • Rachel quips: "Rishikesh Hirway’s moral compass is Transformers." (35:31)

• Beliefs - Card Two: "Order vs. chaos in the universe?" (36:55)

  • Believes both exist; cites the Fibonacci Sequence as evidence of mathematical order in the natural world (37:03).
  • Wonders at everyday miracles: “Everybody should always be going around in awe of everything and desperate to remember it.” (39:41)

• Beliefs - Card Three: "What does it mean to live a good life?" (39:59)

  • Rachel: “Be good to other people, make their journey on this planet a little easier. And find joy and wonder and awe and be grateful for it all.” (40:22)
  • Hrishikesh adds: Contentment and letting go of striving; acknowledges his struggle with restlessness, but believes “the secret to a good life is letting go of that gap between what you have and some imaginary idea of something you might have someday.” (42:18)

Time Machine: A Memory to Linger In

• Final Question: If you could revisit a moment without changing it, what would it be? (42:21)
  • Hrishikesh chooses the moment he fell in love with his wife; he even has a photograph of it—a private, ordinary moment in her apartment, captured before their relationship fundamentally changed his life (42:46).
  • Quote: “It’s like someone took a picture right before the meteor hits...it’s the moment where everything changed.” (43:00)
  • The memory is kept in a photo album, moved there after being found tucked in a journal (45:23).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On perpetual uncertainty:
  “I still feel like I’m wondering what I’m gonna be when I grow up...when I will get to settle my version of myself into the thing that I hope to be.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 00:31)

• On independence and doing the unexpected:
  “I know that I liked that it was sort of a less...it was the path less traveled.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 02:55)

• On parental expectations:
  “The traditional career of choice for any Indian family for their kid. And because, again, it was the default, almost before interrogating it for myself, I felt like that wasn’t going to be for me.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 03:19)

• On learning by doing:
  “My piano teacher gave me a key to the drum practice space...I would go in and play drums along to the album 13 Songs by Fugazi. And that was sort of my, that was my music school just trying to play along with that album.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 05:48)

• On creative doubts and career:
  “I was just really clinging to a dream that I had for myself. And if I had any kind of objectivity, the way other people were maybe looking at my life, they would say, nice try. Mmm. It's sweet that you had a dream, but if you were really meant to be doing this, don't you think after all of these years, you would be in a different place than you are right now?”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 12:10)

• On memory and grief:
  “Every single memory that I had of her was all the more precious because there’s a finite amount...reaching for memories that I used to have and recognizing how gossamer thin they were.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 14:20)

• On validation:
  “I want to feel like the person that I hope to be and that I hope I am is actually seen out in the world in the same way...it’s very hard for me to accept the idea that maybe I actually am the person I hope to be.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 23:51, 26:27)

• On unconscious mentors:
  “If somebody modeled it, I might not have been as attracted to it. Right. Part of what I liked was that I felt like I was doing my own thing.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 04:13)

• On awe at existence:
  “Everything is unbelievable. We should all be walking around all the time, saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that any of this is happening.’”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 39:04)

• On a good life:
  “Letting go of that gap between what you have and some imaginary idea of something that you might have someday.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 42:18)

• On falling in love:
  “I think I know the exact moment when I fell in love with my wife...it's like someone took a picture right before the meteor hits...it's the moment where everything changed.”
  (Hrishikesh Hirway, 42:46, 43:00)

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Memorable Moments

• Hrishikesh’s parents, out of their cultural element, attending punk gigs to support him (07:25)
• Rachel and Hrishikesh bonding over the quest to hold onto memories of lost parents and the anxiety of forgetting (15:54–17:14)
• The insight that his moral compass includes lessons from Transformers and cartoons—humor and depth mingled (35:31)
• Hrishikesh’s vulnerability in discussing imposter syndrome and the persistent chase for validation as an artist (23:51–26:27)
• Using the Fibonacci Sequence as evidence for order—Rachel’s delight at a truly unique answer (37:03)

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Thematic Highlights

• Restless creative ambition vs. gratitude/contentment
• The bittersweet urgency of memory
• Finding meaning beyond cultural defaults
• Grief’s imprint on creativity and perspective
• Humility and humor in self-examination
• The beauty in fleeting, ordinary moments

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:16 — What’s surprising about getting older
• 01:53 — Childhood independence stories
• 04:34 — Music and identity as a teenager
• 07:25 — Parents at punk show
• 08:22 — Early appreciation of beauty
• 11:07 — Musical hiatus and new album
• 15:13 — Grief, memory, and urgency to capture moments
• 20:58 — Qualities admired in others, effortless charisma
• 23:45 — Chasing validation and imposter syndrome
• 33:25 — Sources of morality and ethics
• 36:55 — Order and chaos in the universe
• 39:59 — What it means to live a good life
• 42:21 — Memory to linger in: falling in love

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Tone & Language

The episode balances vulnerability, warmth, and humor. Both Rachel and Hrishikesh speak candidly about insecurities, familial expectations, and personal loss; their rapport is marked by mutual empathy and gentle teasing. Notions of self-discovery and shared humanity are at the heart of the exchange.

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This summary captures the depth and intimacy of the conversation between Rachel Martin and Hrishikesh Hirway, providing key highlights, insights, and timestamps for listeners seeking the heart of the episode.

Transcript

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[Rachel Martin]

What have you found surprising about getting older?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

What I'm surprised about getting older is how little changes, actually.

[Rachel Martin]

Well, now you're just bragging, But do tell, tell.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I still feel like I'm a work in progress as much as I did 20 years ago. Like, I still feel like I'm wondering what I'm gonna be when I grow up. And I'm wondering when I will figure it out. I'm wondering when I will get to settle my version of myself into the thing that I hope to be.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the game where cards control the conversation. Do you have one of those friends who's always been into music, like, into music? And this friend also happens to be an incredible storyteller with an amazing ear for detail and an insatiable curiosity about human nature and creativity. Well, that's who it feels like I'm hanging out with whenever I listen to an episode of the podcast Song Exploder, because the host, Rishikesh Hirway, is like that friend, helping me understand music and musicians in a deeper way. He is so very good at this because he himself is a musician. He's got a new album out, and it's called in the Last Hour of Light. And I am so very happy to welcome Rishikesh Hirway to Wildcard. Hi.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Hi. So good to see you.

[Rachel Martin]

First round, memories. I hold up three cards. I know you listen to the show, so you know how this goes. You pick randomly. Rishikesh, 1, 2, or 3.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Let's start with 1.

[Rachel Martin]

Let's start with 1. Where did you get to feel independent as a kid?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Oh, you know, I think that feeling independent was a really important thing for me as a kid and still as an adult. I remember when I was little, I didn't quite recognize it for what it was, some kind of willful streak or something. But I remember it used to manifest in a way where people would ask if you want Coke or Sprite or Coke or Pepsi or something in my head, I remember as a little kid, mainstream sodas, and I thought, no, no, no, I want orange soda.

[Rachel Martin]

And it wasn't that you necessarily really loved the taste of orange soda. You were just like, I'm gonna be different. That's like, for the basic Kids, I'm gonna fly my little freak flag of orange soda.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. Yeah. That's something different. I think I did genuinely like it more.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay. Okay, good.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

But I also don't know that I can completely separate where the motivation was. Was it because I liked the taste or. The thing that really sticks out in my mind was. I know that I liked that it was sort of a less. It was the path less traveled.

[Rachel Martin]

Did this ever get you into trouble, Independence, or was it mostly a productive feeling in your family and childhood?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think I wouldn't say that it got me into trouble, but my parents certainly wanted me to be a doctor. The traditional career of choice for any Indian family for their kid. And because, again, it was the default, almost before interrogating it for myself, I felt like that wasn't going to be for me. And then I did think about it more, and I recognized that, yeah, I don't think that's going to be what I want. But that was another example of feeling a need to be independent and find my own path. And I just had this inborn nature of trying to avoid the thing that felt like the default.

[Rachel Martin]

Who modeled that for you? Do you know? Or you just kind of conjure it? Yeah, yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I don't know that anybody modeled it. And in fact, if somebody modeled it, I might not have been as attracted to it. Right. Like, part of what was. Yeah, part of what I liked was that I felt like I was doing my own thing.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. One, two, or three.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Let's do two.

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

Two.

[Rachel Martin]

Ah. What? Music became part of your identity as a teenager?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I mean, so much, really. Just the idea of music. Music became a part of my identity. I think growing up, I had been a kid who did well in school, and that was kind of an identity that I didn't want it to be an identity. It was a fact. But then other kids in school would

[Rachel Martin]

be like, make it an identity.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, yeah. They make an identity for you. Yeah. And then when I started playing in bands and I started playing drums in bands, I was like, oh, this is a thing that's kind of mine. This is a thing that I'm choosing and I really love. And that was huge for me. And I guess specifically the music that helped me get there was. Well, I remember I used to take piano lessons in school, but my piano teacher gave me a key to the drum practice space as sort of. Because I'd asked if it would be possible. And so I would go. I wasn't taking drum lessons, but I would go in and play drums along to the album 13 songs by Fugazi.

[Rachel Martin]

Nice.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And that was sort of my, that was my music school just trying to play along with that album.

[Rachel Martin]

And where are your parents with all this at that point? Like, are they like, okay, Rishikesh is, you know, music is a helpful thing to know to be a well developed human being, but obviously it's not a real thing that. In a career.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. No, it's part of, it's part of being a well rounded person. Exactly.

[Rachel Martin]

And what was it like when it became clear to them that this was going to be your path?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Oh, then it was very worrisome. There were so many years where they tried to suggest helpful alternatives.

[Rachel Martin]

Really still, like years into it.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Years into it. You know, I remember my dad telling me, he was like, okay, so you're, you're making records and you're touring. It's almost like you have a small business. And I was like, yeah, kind of. And he was like, well, maybe you could go to business school. Maybe you should get. Try getting an mba. This was like last ditch effort. He's like, I'm really stretching here, you know, like, what about that? And I was like, I don't think that's really.

[Rachel Martin]

I can totally hear it playing out. It seems like maybe you're a closeted business person, really is what you are. Right?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. He's like, you could use the skills you're learning there in business school, even in this, whatever it is you're doing.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, I know your mom passed away several years ago, but did she ever go to your shows? Did she ever. She did, she did.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And this is the thing, they didn't understand it and they didn't see a path forward and they saw how little money I was making, so they were just very, very concerned. But they would come to the shows when I would be close by for a while. My family, my mom and my dad lived in the suburbs of Chicago. And I remember, I have a very strong memory of them coming to this sort of punk classic venue, the Fireside Bowl. It's a bowling alley where they would have punk shows and them coming to see me. I was on tour playing with some friends of mine who were in a hardcore band. And they came to the show. It was like a Saturday afternoon. And my mom's wearing like full. Her full. Like she's in her sari. My dad's wearing a jacket and tie. And they, they came to the Fireside bowl to support my show.

[Rachel Martin]

I love it. Okay, one, two or three?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Three, please.

[Rachel Martin]

Three. What's something early in life that made you appreciate beauty.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

It's hard to think of a time when I feel like I didn't appreciate it. It's hard to imagine a time when that changed. My earliest memories still feel suffused with that feeling. My family didn't listen to a lot of American music or Western music. We didn't have the radio on. Sometimes we would listen to Indian music. We'd listen to old Bollywood cassettes and things like that. And I think I first fell in love with music listening to the music that my mom loved. And I remember listening to Asha Bosle and Latha Mangeshkar and their voices. And that music is probably the first time that I remember falling in love with music and maybe having a sense of something beautiful in that. In that way, certainly in in a music way.

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[Rachel Martin]

We're gonna pull out of the game, okay, to talk about your album. This is your first full length album in 15 years.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, I've put out a little bit of music in the last few years. After, you know, a 10 year break, I started to put out music again and this album is the first album in 15 years.

[Rachel Martin]

So how come. How come the hiatus?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I just really got caught up in the idea that my career wasn't working out the way that I had hoped it would or what I had dreamt of, that it was just kind of stuck in second Gear or something. And I didn't know how to get out of that. I didn't know how to push things forward. And I'd been doing it for, you know, at that point, over a decade, and the fact that it was feeling stuck there really made me question the whole. Whole thing. Like, maybe. Was I even. Was I even meant to be doing this?

[Rachel Martin]

You know, maybe. Maybe you should have gone to business school.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Exactly.

[Rachel Martin]

Do you really think that?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. I mean, for sure. I thought I had been maybe trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, you know, that I was just really clinging to a dream that I had for myself. And if I had any kind of objectivity, the way other people were maybe looking at my life, they would say, nice try. Mm. It's sweet that you had a dream, but if you were really meant to be doing this, don't you think after all of these years, you would be in a different place than you are right now?

[Rachel Martin]

And to be clear, what place was it? You just weren't getting the record deals you wanted, the gigs you wanted. You weren't making the kind of money or getting the kind of attention you wanted.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, I mean, I think by some standards, you could have looked at where I was and would have looked good, would have looked fine, certainly. You know, it was kind of like I was a working musician, but I was making my living from it. I was, you know, kind of like a middle class of musician that nowadays there. There isn't that much of a space for. For a lot of reasons. But at the time that, you know, I was touring, I was playing shows, I had a record deal, but I had put so much into that. That album that came out in 2011, I really thought it might, like, take me to the next level. And it felt like things did move forward, but it moved forward incrementally, not exponentially.

[Rachel Martin]

Is there an overarching narrative to this body of work, to this particular album?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think so. It wasn't exactly clear when I first started, you know, when I was younger. And the last time I made an album, I was in my early 30s, and now I'm in my mid-40s. You know, just so much has changed in my own life. I lost my mom, and I've been married now for. For over 15 years. And the scale of things is just different. And I think also just losing someone, losing my mom was really the first. My first experience with profound loss. And she'd been such a big part of my life. When I lost her, I started to think about how all of my experiences with her were now in the past, and that the only relationship I had with her is in the past. There was no chance to make new memories. And so every single memory that I had of her was all the more precious because there's a finite amount. And I also started to be very aware of how fragile those memories are and reaching for memories that I used to have and recognizing how gossamer thin they were.

[Rachel Martin]

So you wanted to write them in some way?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I wanted to write about what I did remember, and I wanted to just write about the idea of this, of. Of feeling the memories around me fade. You know, how much that breaks my heart and what that's doing to me right now in the present moment. Every memory that feels important right now, I feel this desperation to hold onto. You know, I want to capture it. I want to fix it in the firmament of my mind as it's happening, as impossible as I know that is, Because I also know what it feels like to lose it on the other side.

[Rachel Martin]

Does that cause him anxiety? Because I relate to that. Right. Like, I also lost my mom and my dad. And there's this. I start to get stressed when I think about the preciousness of those memories, just what you're saying. And we have to preserve them. And it falls out into other parts of my life, not just about grief for my parents, but even with my kids who live now are living humans, creatures, beautiful creatures. And I'm constantly like, remember this. Okay? And now you gotta remember this. Like, be in the moment, but also be separate from it so you can remember it. And because I feel this desperation about time. Have you been able to acknowledge that you have that predilection and also sort of just like, settle down about it?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I haven't gotten to the settle down part of it.

[Rachel Martin]

Right, right.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. Yeah. This. This idea of, remember this, remember this, hold onto this, don't forget this. That feels like it's playing in a loop. And, yeah, there's an added urgency to it now because also, I grew up feeling like I had a very good memory. And now, for the first time in my life, I don't feel that way. I'm like, oh, there are.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, dude, wait ten more years.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. I'm starting to become aware of the limitations of it and how it's receding, and that's so scary. I used to kind of take it for granted that I would remember the important things with vivid clarity, and now I know that's not true. I know that's not going to be true forever. And. And so, yeah, I feel this constant anxiety. And that's sort of why. That's why I named the album in the Last Hour of Light. Because I was trying to find a phrase that captured this sense of, like, this is a beautiful moment and, you know, that it's not going to be here forever.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And all these great things, all of these hours have already passed.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Here's your last chance to bask in this and appreciate, like, please appreciate right now how beautiful this is.

[Rachel Martin]

Is it a real home movie at the end?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

It is, actually. It's a song about my wife's father. My father in law, who I never met. He passed away two weeks before I met my wife. And despite the fact that I never met him, he has a huge presence in my life just because of how big of a presence he was for her. And I had been wanting to write about him. One of the things Lindsay's family gave me is his old guitar. He played music. And Lindsay and her brother are so sweet to me, but neither of them played guitar or mandolin. And so they very generously. Their mom gave me his guitar and his mandolin. And so for all these years that I've had it, you know, I think of him every time I play one of those.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, my God, that's so lovely.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

But I never met him. I'd never talked to him, never had any kind of conversation. I had no idea what he would have thought of me as the husband of his daughter. And I had just had that feeling for so long since, you know, we met in 2007 and we'd been together for so long. When I finally started writing this song, one of the things that happened around that time was Lindsay found these home movies that were from her childhood. These, like, camcorder videos.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, that's so great.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And then they digitized them so we could actually watch them together. And a lot of the videos were shot by her father.

[Rachel Martin]

So he's the. There's a beautiful lyric. Like, you're the. What do you say? You're the person out of frame, but you're clearly.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, the voice off screen.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, the voice off screen. I mean, it's. I assumed it was about your mom because it's such a beautiful way to encapsulate the loss of a person who was central and maybe in a family structure was just out of frame. Like, it's usually the moms who are taking all the pictures, by the way. So I made a grand assumption about that. But it's just a beautiful, beautiful song.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Thank you. But Yeah. I mean, living with someone who had lost a parent the entire time that we've been together, in a way, kind of gave me some instruction of how to. How to carry that loss.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

We're gonna go back. Round Two. One. Two or three? Three new cards.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

One, please.

[Rachel Martin]

One. What's a quality you're drawn to that you don't possess?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I have a very close friend, Carl Oendorf, who everybody loves.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Just.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Everybody loves him. I. I love him from the moment I met him. I was just like, this guy is so charming and funny and sweet and great, and. And I thought I had a special thing because I recognized all of that in him, you know, and that's why we were such good friends. And then very quickly, I realized everybody felt that way about him.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, my God. I have a friend like that, too. I was like, it's us. It's a we. I see you. I understand you, and you realize, oh, you're everyone's best friend.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And I find myself drawn to so many people like that. And then, of course, that's because everybody's drawn to people like that. And. And I just wish I were someone like that. I wish I were one of those people where it's like, you know, of course everybody wants to hang out with you, everybody wants to talk to you, everybody wants to be your friend. Because it's. I don't know what the attribute is. Charisma, I guess. Charisma, yeah. Where someone who just. They walk into a room and everybody wants to be their friend without them having to make the effort.

[Rachel Martin]

But I think they do make effort. I think that is part of it, is that those personality types get filled up by connection with other human beings. And so when they're in a group setting, it's just those cliches. They make everybody feel important and seen, and they spend a lot of time cultivating friendships and relationships. So much so that both of us think that our best friends are just our best friends. But they have, like many others.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Well, you know, and I think specifically there's an effortlessness that I really admire because I do try to be that person. I admire it so much that I want to emulate it, but I'm so aware of all the effort that I put in. You know, I'm the one who's always asking my friends to hang out. I'm trying very hard to stay in touch with everybody, to make sure that the connections that are important to me stay alive. But I feel like often I'm the one putting out that effort. And the people who I really admire are the ones who don't even have to put in the effort. Everybody's drawn to them.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, that's beautiful.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Everybody's, like, reaching out to you to

[Rachel Martin]

say that the invitations just come to that person.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Exactly.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, next. Three. One, two or three?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

Two. What do you feel like you're constantly chasing?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Hmm. These days, I think I feel like I'm constantly chasing this validation that I am the person on the outside in the world that matches up with the person that I think I am on the inside. I want to feel like the person that I hope to be and that I hope I am is actually seen out in the world in the same way. I don't know. You can't ever see yourself from the outside.

[Rachel Martin]

I know.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

So it might be something that you never, ever get.

[Rachel Martin]

Who do you think you are on the inside that's not necessarily recognized on the outside?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Well, I don't know even that I believe it these days so much, but who I hope I am is an artist. I hope that I can look myself in the mirror and feel like I deserve to be doing the music that I'm doing, that I get to make this record and play these shows and write songs and feel like I have earned that somehow. As opposed to it's being a. As opposed to it being a lark. Some kind of, you know, daydream. Some kind of self indulgence. I don't know. You know, it's funny, because if someone else were writing songs, I would never judge them for the act of trying.

[Rachel Martin]

Right.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I mean, songs or anything else. If someone said, this is something I really love and I really care about and I'm pursuing, I'd be like, great. That's fantastic. Whatever level you're at, that's amazing. I'm so happy for you. But for me, for some reason, I don't seem to be able to access that kind of permission.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, for yourself. And also, if someone told you that, which I'm sure people do all the time, like, this is awesome. Hrishikesh. This is so great that you're doing this. Do you not believe them?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think I. It's not. So, basically, yes, I don't believe them. I think that they're being very nice. I'm like, people are nice, right? What they say to you?

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

To your face. Yeah. I. If it were a stranger who had never met me and they were saying it behind my back.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Then I might believe it.

[Rachel Martin]

Right.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

But anybody saying it to me, I'm like, people are Too polite. Maybe they're just saying it because they think that's what they need to say. Or they're my friend. They're someone who loves me for some other reason, and they want to support a dream or something like that. And it's very hard for me to accept the idea that maybe I actually am the person I hope to be.

[Rachel Martin]

What if you're already there? Just have to wake up to it. Okay, last one in this round. 1. 2 or 3?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

3.

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

3.

[Rachel Martin]

How did I count? 1, 2, 3. That's right. What have you found surprising about getting older?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I would love to flip this one around and ask you this question. Yes. Especially since you made that comment. Wait 10 years.

[Rachel Martin]

No, I have an answer to this. I always think of my. Although I haven't answered it on the show before, no one's ever flipped this one. I remember my grandfather on my dad's side, my grandpa, Ernest Martin. I remember we used to go to their house quite often. And I remember my dad had picked us up and we were kind of getting. Collecting our stuff and trying to scoot out the door. And it was clear he and my dad were in a really good, intense conversation, and he was starting to forget things. And he was aware that he was kind of diminished in his mind. And his body was so strong. His body was so strong. He was such a physically strong man. He's one of these guys who had those hand. You know, those hand exerciser things on his car, on the steering wheel. So when he was at stoplights, he was always going like this. And he was a farmer and he invented stuff. He was just a very strong guy. And he was really struggling with that disconnect between feeling so strong on the outside and having his mind start to diminish. And how that applies to me is that it's. I think of that because there is still a disconnect, but it's the opposite. I feel like the same in my head. I'm like the same. I'm the same person I was when I was like, of course I've had life experience, but, like, I think about myself when I was 22 or even when I was a kid, like when I was 10. It's like the same mind. I mean, knock on wood, it hasn't started to go yet. Even though I make fun of my memory. And my body starts to change, though, and there are all these physical reminders that you're aging and the world tells you you're aging, especially if you're a woman pointing things out all the time. But it's just weird to me, getting older. I feel like the same person. It is the same person. It's the same brain. It's just my same personality. I don't feel like I've changed that much. And that's what's surprising to me,

[Rishikesh Hirway]

that the disconnect exists.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. That either your mind starts to be different and your body stays the same, or you perceive it to be the same, or your body changes and your mind or your perception of yourself is the same and it doesn't feel connected. So now you.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I'm. What I'm surprised about getting older is how little changes, actually.

[Rachel Martin]

Well, now you're dragging.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

No, no,

[Rachel Martin]

but do tell. Tell me.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Well, it's like you said, you have the same brain.

[Rachel Martin]

Well, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And I feel like I also have the same brain, which means that I still feel like I'm a work in progress as much as I did 20 years ago. Like, I still feel like I'm wondering what I'm gonna be when I grow up. And I'm wondering when I will figure it out. I'm wondering when I will get to settle my version of myself into the thing that I hope to be. In some ways, it's kind of neat that I still have that feeling. And in other ways, it's terrifying because then I think about the number of my actual age and I think I am way too old to be having this feeling. When I read about people in the newspaper and they list their name and then their age, and I'm like, oh, yeah, of course. That's an adult person. And then I'm like, wait, actually, they're my age. That's my age. I feel this separation between what that number is and how unsettled I feel. So I'm surprised as I get older that I don't feel like a reflection of that number. I still feel like a kid and a kid who wants to grow up and be this person.

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[Rachel Martin]

Round 3 Beliefs 1, 2 or 31 who or what is your moral compass?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

My parents were Hindu, and they wanted to raise me Hindu, but I felt again like this allergic reaction to sort of going with the flow, going with the default path. I felt very much inclined to do my own thing. And when I was around 14 or so, I started to say I didn't want to go to temple. I didn't want to just go along with that. I wanted to find my own way. Because I was like, those were my first days of thinking, well, what does that. What is religion for, really? Isn't religion just a way of communicating morality? And aren't these things separately? Like, aren't these things separate? If you can communicate morality to an entire community and have everybody sort of follow a general sense of morals, then isn't religion just sort of the ornamentation around that? Like, these are the stories to get to the ultimate, you know, Aesop's Fables, ultimately, you know, what's the moral of the story? If you can skip the story and just get to the moral, that's the important stuff.

[Rachel Martin]

But can the moral exist without the story architecture?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Maybe not, maybe not. But I think I had felt like I was starting to understand what the morality was, and I started to recognize all the different places that I was getting it from, you know, not just from religion, but also from the way my parents just taught me to live, you know, and also from cartoons, you know, like watching Transformers and like, the stories of good and evil playing out in that scale and the idea of just, like, being kind to people. So I.

[Rachel Martin]

That's the headline of this whole podcast episode. Rishikesh Hirway Moral compass is Transformers.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, Optimus prime is my answer.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, but you were creating your own sense of what it means to be a Good person separate from a religious identity or a religious inheritance from your parents.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. I really wanted to see what you could glean from lots of different places. And then when I went to high school, I took a class on the Old Testament. I took a class on ethics. I really was trying to learn from things that people had written about the idea of morality and, you know, and de Tocqueville and, like, social contracts and things like that. Like, I feel like it wasn't one singular thing that I was looking for as a moral compass. It was more like this aggregate of writing and talking and teaching and just like the people around me and what I could learn from them. Because it felt like having your moral compass be too attached to just one dogma was limited or dangerous.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, one, two or three?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I'll pick one.

[Rachel Martin]

One. Here we go. Do you think that there's order in the universe or is it all chaos?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think there is both. I think there is order in the universe, I think because of the Fibonacci Sequence.

[Rachel Martin]

No one's ever said that before. Guarantee. Yeah, I don't know what it is, so just explain what it is.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I don't know if I know enough to explain it, but the Fibonacci Sequence is a mathematical phenomenon where you start with one and then one, and then it's two. You basically add the number previous to get the next number. So 1 plus 2, 3. 2 plus 3. 5. 3, 5, 8. 5 plus 8, 13. And it goes on and on and on.

[Rachel Martin]

I like that.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

That's a Fibonacci sequence.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. It feels like a pattern.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

And it exists in nature. That pattern is in. You see it in the way that flowers, petals. The petals of flowers, the leaves of an avocado. There's all these ways in which nature represents this sort of mathematical idea. And I think it's so cool and so beautiful. There are so many patterns and. Yeah. Just the fact that we are walking around and talking and have brains and think. I mean, evolution is just so incredible. There's a level of order that exists in just all living things. I think all of that. You know, there's so much order in science, and yet it's also an accident.

[Rachel Martin]

Right? I mean, when we think about. I mean, there's so much chaos. There's so much obvious chaos. But when you say it like that, the chaos is exceptional to the order. I mean, the order is paramount. It's all so miraculous that it has to be ordered.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

It's miraculous. I mean, right now, some electrical impulse is happening in my brain. And it's moving my body, and I'm saying words, and the words are in an order that you can understand as an idea. Like, that's unbelievable. Everything is unbelievable. We should all be walking around all the time saying, oh, my God, I can't believe that any of this is happening.

[Rachel Martin]

We would be so tired if we did that. Between that and sees every memory that's happening around us.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah, exactly.

[Rachel Martin]

We would be so tired.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

That is fair, though. Everybody should always be going around in awe of everything and desperate to remember it.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's a good way to live. Okay, last question. Last three cards. One, Two or three?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

Two. Well, you may have just answered this one. What does it mean to live a good life?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think if you've. Gosh, I wish I could ask this one. I wish I could turn this one around on YouTube.

[Rachel Martin]

Nope, you can't.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I can't.

[Rachel Martin]

If it were easier, I would let you. But this is a hard one. Or it's not hard. Or it's not hard. What does it mean to live a good life, Be good to other people, make their journey on this planet a little. A little easier? Right? Yeah, I think that's it. And find joy and wonder and awe and be grateful for it all. And, I mean, it's just. It's the big question, but it's also just like such a simple, simple question.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think right now, just from where I am in my own life, the idea of living a good life is something about contentment, something about finding peace. And it feels like it should be easy. Like you said, I have so much to be grateful for, but I also have this restlessness that I think in some ways has been really helpful for me. It's been the source of my drive in a lot of ways, a lot of my ambition, but it also fuels this discontent. And I'm trying so hard. In my happiest moments, I forget that. And I can just be with the people that I love and be aware of how much I love them and be grateful for all of that. So I think the secret to a good life is letting go of that gap between what you have and some imaginary idea of something that you might have someday. Letting go of the idea of striving.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. Yeah, That's a good one. Rishikesh. We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory. Time machine. In the time machine, you revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you want to change one thing about it's. Just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. Which moment do you choose?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I was talking about this last night. So this is. I'm just gonna go with this because it feels close to my memory, but I think. I think I know the exact moment when I fell in love with my wife.

[Rachel Martin]

Really?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

I think so, yeah. And one of the reasons I'm. I'm so aware of it is because I do have a photograph of it. You know, in terms of wanting to hold on to these important memories. I don't know that I realized it was so important when I took this picture, but I took a picture of her. It was on our third date. And now I can look back at that, and I can remember what that felt like, what I had in that moment. It was basically. It's like someone took a picture right before the meteor hits. You know, it's like an inch away from me. It's like the moment where everything changed.

[Rachel Martin]

Where was she? Paint a little bit of a picture.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

This was in New York. It was in her apartment. In her apartment. And is she looking at the photograph? Yes. She's. She's sitting at her desk, and she's looking back over her shoulder at me and smiling. And she looks happy. And I remember just how happy I was and how accidental the whole thing was. The chance that we had found each other was so unexpected. And I felt all of it. I really felt the profundity of that moment of just like, wow, I can't. This. This idea. Right. Of, like, everybody should be walking around saying, I can't believe this is happening, and I want to hold onto it. That's a moment that I remember feeling that way, you know, as it was happening. Yeah. I don't know that there are a lot of times when your life is changing and you're aware of it.

[Rachel Martin]

Right.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

You know, and especially when it's something good. Usually we know when it's something bad, but a lot of times I think you don't know until you look back. And I think maybe in that moment I had a sense, but I would love to be able to go back to that moment, knowing what I know now.

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Where's the photo? I mean, probably on your phone, but, like, do you have it printed out or anything?

[Rishikesh Hirway]

No, it was a photo I took on my, you know, film camera.

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

Oh.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Yeah. It was 2007, so I didn't have a, you know, camera phone yet. Or at least not one that I. That looked anyway.

[Rachel Martin]

So is it in a shoebox or is it properly displayed somewhere.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

It's in a. It's in a little photo album of pictures from from that year. Yeah, actually I found it. I found it tucked into a journal and that's what made me think of it. Like I was flipping through a journal and I had put it in there and now it's moved into the photo album.

[Rachel Martin]

Rishikesh Hirway his new album is called in the Last Hour of Light. Rishikesh. Thank you so much for doing this.

[Rishikesh Hirway]

Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to be able to talk to you about this stuff. I really, really, really appreciate everything you do.

[Rachel Martin]

If you love the show, you might probably love having a Wildcard deck of your own. And guess what? You're in luck. We've got a custom deck available just for you with some of our favorite questions from the show. It's at shopnpr.org wildcard it is a fantastic way to get deep and introspective with your friends and your family. Or honestly, with your own thoughts. I hear from people all the time about how they're using them on family vacations out with friends as journal prompts. You can find the deck at the link in our episode description or just go to shopnpr.org wildcard this episode was produced by Alicia Zhang and Lee Hale. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Andy Huether. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni and our theme music is by Ramtin Arabui. You can reach out to [e-mail] we're going to shuffle the deck and be

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

back with more next week.

[Rachel Martin]

Talk to you then.

[Podcast Producer/Additional Announcer]

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