Atul Khatri on Rock Music, Marriage, and 90s India | Dostcast

Description

Subscribe to Dostcast Clips: https://www.youtube.com/@DostcastClips?sub_confirmation=1 Listen to Dostcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/70vrbHeSvrcXyOeISTyBSy?si=be05dbdd564245d9 Join the Dostcast Janta Party on WhatsApp for regular updates: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAZwo5D8SDs5kf94N3T Want to suggest a guest? Fill this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ft_-1QDs7XpsSWnaPOeF21yUlhk9bzKvwHSyh4hHfBU/edit?usp=drivesdk ==================================================================== Atul Khatri was selling computers before most of today’s comedians were born. Before he became one of India’s most loved stand-ups, he spent decades inside the Indian IT industry — the real Rocket Singh life, minus the Bollywood polish. He told me the actual story of how computers entered Mumbai, when fax machines died, and what the analog-to-digital transition really felt like from the inside. But this conversation went way beyond his career. We talked about marriage — whether it genuinely gets boring, why Indian parents obsess over their children’s weddings, and the quiet comedy of hen-pecked husbands. We talked about his worst rejection, his love for rock music, his brush with Jethro Tull, and the 90s scene of LP cassette piracy and booking movie tickets by hand. We got into the business of comedy too — how clubs are designed, what Indian comedy looked like before stand-up existed, and why startups keep trying to gamify human connection. And we didn’t stop there. Soho House networking, the builder nexus in Maharashtra, pressure on kids, education abroad, cultural diversity — Atul had takes on all of it. I also shared a farewell story from my own life that I’ve never told on the podcast before. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:14 - Agencies vs Artists 08:39 - Hen Pecked Husbands? 11:24 - Does Marriage Get Boring? 14:34 - Indian Parents Obsessed with Children's Marriage 17:39 - Is Rocket Singh Based on Reality? 21:17 - How He Got Into Computer Industry 28:02 - Atul's Worst Rejection 29:44 - Analog I