By Aneka Podcast Team
[lo-fi hip-hop]
Shikhar: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 4 of Aneka. I’m Shikhar
Vishwa: and I’m V-. Wait, no. Shikhar, this isn’t an episode. You’re in the wrong medium. We’re in Young Minds…
Shikhar: Umm, well all I know how to do is podcast…so podcast we shall do. I wonder if the creaminess of our voices translates to text?
[Aneka intro music] Vishwa: So our listeners want to know the story behind the podcast.
Shikhar: We kinda told them how we got to the name back in episode #0, but yeah, how did this podcast start? Let’s take it back to the start
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[disc scratch]
Vishwa: I keep noticing this bold, italic text in brackets. Why does it keep interrupting?
Shikhar: That’s Virag! Remember, we’re in a podcast…
Vishwa: Oh true. Where’s Umang then? Probably writing the episode description…
Last July, I listened to an episode of NPR’s Hidden Brain that set off a chain of ideas in my head. Called “Creating God,” it discussed the function of religion and the idea of God in society from anthropological, religious, and historical perspectives. It got me thinking about the way the Jain community is evolving, and how many perspectives in the modern-day are floated around.
I’ve loved the conversations I’ve had at conventions or retreats, so why not expand that into the podcast medium? That got me to education subcommittee, where I pitched it to the then Director of Education Parshva Vakharia. And soon enough, he connected me to you, Virag, and Umang.
Shikhar: Ahhh yes. And then began our long, winding calls.
We worked on defining the scope and audience of this podcast, marketing and distribution channels, and potential episode ideas — many of which were actually born out of our own tangential discussions, or personal experiences. And as we approached a consensus on what we all wanted to achieve with this podcast, we realized a central theme: this idea of researching new angles, talking to people across the Jain community, and presenting their perspectives. And this idea of various perspectives we embodied in our name: Aneka, which means “not one” — like in anekantvad — multiplicity of views.
Vishwa: We’re still working on coming to a clear definition of what our mission is — we know our audience is mostly young jains, so we’re trying to experiment with different kinds of topics (varying how closely tied to theoretical Jainism they are, how we tell the story, etc). From a production perspective, we’re also working on stabilizing our research, story development, and editing processes.
Shikhar: In the upcoming months, Aneka will try to publish an episode a month, connect with our audience through ‘reaction’ episodes, and continue to dive into interesting discussions as we explore the many challenges and triumphs we face as individuals, and a community.
Vishwa: Thanks for joining us on this “episode” of Aneka. Feel free to drop us a line at @anekayja on Instagram or Twitter, or shoot us an email at aneka@yja.org.
[outro]
