Titled 883 to Infinity, the podcast features Umair Kazi, co-founder of Ishtehari repping Pakistan along with Suveer Bajaj, the co-founder of Foxymoron and Zoo Media (who spearheads one of India’s most prolific marketing and communications groups) repping India. The two have come together for the said podcast.

According to a press statement, the mission is “to start a transformative dialogue about the similarities and differences in values, interests, culture and heritage that we share with our neighboring country, India.”

The reason why it’s called 883 is because it is a reference to the distance between Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and Karachi.

As for the content, the first episode of 883 to Infinity is titled Train to Pakistan during which Umair and Suveer talk about their “friendship”, its roots and a lot more.

Upcoming episodes will feature Junaid Akram (Pakistan) and Cyrus Broacha (India) about how perceptions can be overcome via the role of culture and content. Coming episodes will feature guests that range from sportsmen, authors, musicians, policymakers from both sides of the border amongst others.

Speaking about the podcast, Umair said, “As a media professional and a father, I’m acutely aware of the role that media can play in defining how our future generations perceive the world around them. Pakistanis and Indians are unfortunately perceived in pretty stereotypical terms in each other’s countries. Over the last decade, Suveer and I have been having conversations about how our similarities and our differences, as regular human beings, need to be celebrated, rather than shunned by default. This is evident on some of the challenges we face as people of the subcontinent, whether it’s surviving WFH, or how we’re all lumped together as “brown” by the rest of the world. This podcast is both a great way for us to showcase our country’s tastes and culture to each other. And along the way, Suveer & I are beginning to realize that perhaps we’ve got more to learn from each other than to fear from each other.”

The podcast, produced by Mammoth Media, will release a new episode every Wednesday and will be available on major audio streaming platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Our interest in India never wanes for one reason or another. This podcast is promising to be one that bridges divides by starting a conversation rather than creating newer ones. We highly recommend.