Living by instinct recipe for a healthy happy life

[Music]

what i am today

is because i believed in my instinct

i followed my heart i did not follow

the template society had to offer i

embraced

the animal inside me i fell in love with

that animal

and that’s how my journey began i

remember

being abused by my father at a very

young age

he almost burnt the whole family alive

my mother was a school teacher she had

very limited means

and which means she knew how to give us

very basic stuff

and i was hungry for more i did not get

the love of a father

so that made me go and hunt

for for something that i was missing

nutrition nourishment

i started to read books on uh on food

by the time i was a i gained enough

knowledge

but the knowledge was not enough it was

not satisfying

something was still wrong i eventually

joined the gym

i started to build my confidence my body

and very soon i was representing san

diego’s college as the college captain

and heading heading the team

uh in weightlifting bodybuilding and

powerlifting i won all the titles

and it made me famous it made me happy

uh i was learning

more and more every day

post that wendell rodriguez was doing an

audition

and i was i was not aware of it a friend

said let’s go for the audition

i did not know much about modeling and i

went for this audition and i got picked

up

the next day there was a mention in the

newspaper that iggy is going to do

wendell roddick’s show and again there

was a boost

in confidence and and popularity

but i was also a dj at that time my

music

was not appreciated i was playing

different music something that is not

playing on mtv and channel v

i wanted to expose that to people and

people were not ready for it i mean not

everybody was ready for it

and there was a disheartening that that

kind of killed my confidence

there was not many modeling shows

happening in goa

and then one day

a photographer from bombay named colston

julian

uh said iggy why don’t you try something

in bombay

so with with a heavy heart and with a

lot of

uh i mean from going from a village to a

big city

was complicated not enough money but

because colson said i can shoot you the

pictures

and and gave me a platform there i

decided to go

i went to bombay but then it was not

working out bombay was

bollywood based and i was not cut out

for that i didn’t want to do movies

so i did a few shows but not much i

focused back on my music

my music took me to many many bars and

clubs in across bombay and i got

recognized as a very

good dj and i started to make some money

and then i was picked up by a agency

called

elite models and i was signed up and

they said ikey why don’t you come to

delhi

and and try and audition for the lakme

fashion week

which i did i was not too sure because

again moving from another

big city to delhi was again complicated

not much money so friend bought me a

ticket and he came along with me and we

went by train

and at the audition i was there with the

rest of the boys

and the next day again there was a

mention in the paper that iggy is

selected for fashion week i was super

excited

i just moved everything from bombay came

back to bombay and moved everything back

to delhi

to delhi and then life changed

i was doing all the shows across delhi

for all the famous designers

in in a week’s time i was popular i was

playing at the after parties

life changed and i was neglecting my

body

i noticed that in this fame and then

this popularity i was

eating pizzas i was eating burgers and

and not

really being conscious about myself

and i over the span of five years my

body started to tell me that

something is wrong there was some level

of

unhappiness my body started to tell me

after showing

every year i would come to goa

which i really didn’t want to i would do

it because of my friends because they

wanted to have a holiday and go and they

wanted someone to guide them

so i would bring my my all my my my

my model friends with me to go up they

will stay in my house we would have a

good time and go back

i would make them have a good time there

was this one year in 2009

then i got invited to play at a bar in

goa

and when i played i found there was a

change there was a change there was some

kind of acceptance

to the music i played and these these

were tourists

with a very few local population and

i got so much satisfaction from playing

there that i said i don’t want to go

back to delhi

um i told my friends you go back let me

stay here

and i started playing at this bar and

then idea came to my head that

i should start my own place and

i was seeing all this development around

bridges

construction big festivals

the carnival with all this plastic waste

created and i was like i don’t want to

do the same thing i want to make

something very sustainable very simple

and and still have fun and how to do

that

so i created cirrus i started collecting

waste from

from from the highways people

from different bars plastic bottles or

whatever anyways even even

broken use nails from wood we would

extract them and reuse them

for metal to everything anything that’s

on the street we would pick it up in my

jeep and bring it to service and start

building from that there is a

possibility to do this

and that was the point i wanted to make

whether it lasts for three years or five

years

is not important but it’s possible and i

started creating that

many people started joining me the

tourists started joining me we created

we created a skate park we built it with

our own hands

we built three houses and eventually

many many many creative people started

joining and

i had time and space in goa to rethink

about my food

because i had slowed down my life we

were going fast

i was a part of the rat race so after i

slowed down my life i was

okay now i need to go back to my diet i

need to fix my body

i was working so hard for one hour two

hours in the gym and there was no

satisfaction my body was bloating up

i had a layer of fat over me i had

muscles but there was a layer i could

feel that within me no one else could

could see it because i feel it people

cannot feel people can see only a

superficial layer

they see photographs but what i feel

from inside i know

and that was troubling me and i don’t

want to cheat people and i don’t want to

cheat myself

so what i did is i started going back to

basic science what we learned

in our school what i was doing

earlier was like what everybody what all

of us do we have heavy breakfast

right and then we block we block that

highway of us

we we put that heavy food

and then and then we take then we put

other foods inside

so what i started to do is start slow

think what is the easiest food to break

down its water

first then comes fruit

then comes the carbohydrates and then

comes the protein

so you let the ferrari go it’s fast

moving baker

let it go then you put the second

fastest vehicle

and then you put the slowest vehicle

that’s how i treated my food and that’s

how i teach kids

i make it very simple what’s the fastest

food and they know

it’s it’s fruit it’s easy to bait and it

gives you instant energy that’s how you

wake up

then you put in the carbohydrates for

lunch

which is slow release of energy

and then comes the protein at night

which helps you build your muscle

and i stopped going to the gym after

that since 2007 i haven’t touched the

gym i don’t have

any regular routine in workout or

workout happens on the field

digging hammering nails pushing the

vehicles fixing vehicles this is our job

and that’s how we maintain our body

there’s nothing unnatural we didn’t do

anything unnatural like lifting weights

and you can see you can see that at 41

today

i still i still look good my body is

in in good shape

and i started being militant on the

people working with me

i’m quite a dictator at my place i even

i’m i do the same with my mom because i

want my mom to live long

she’s 71 today and she’s also following

the diet she cheats a bit

but i’m watching like a hawk i’m

watching her because

i wanted to be healthy

so i offered this this way of method of

eating to to people i’m working with and

they saw results in two weeks

everybody started saying yes our

digestive system is now clean i don’t

i don’t burp anymore i don’t i don’t

have i don’t smell bad anymore

there is no gas anymore and then i said

okay now let’s start fasting once a week

we need to do a 24 hour fast

i observed that and we saw results in

two weeks

even the kids my own kids actually we

all started

following this and everyone said yes it

works it works

and then we move on you know i moved on

in my

in my in my project cirrus and

eventually

i felt the need that okay we are

it’s a very small space we need to even

we need to we need to go out we need to

reach out to more people

there was a broken jeep there was a

broken bus we converted that

into what i call the vinyl ambulance

because i’m a dj and i have love for

vinyl

uh i still play vinyl i have fairly a

very big collection of vinyl and i

wanted a

platform that i can move around so we

converted this jeep

and we made it from from plastic from

plastic waste

and wood and so that we can take our art

and our and our vision across india and

the world

because this is what we do and keep it

simple

my my my my policy is

sustainable sustainability minimalism

think slowly just don’t hurry into

things

keep it simple and move on so

the vinyl ambulance helps me to to

travel to different cities and tap more

people

and that’s all i have to say i hope

and that’s all i have to say thank you

[Music]

you