0:00

previously on Rough Translation. Love

0:03

is a beautiful feeling. Surya shows

0:05

us this message. This

0:10

is Akanksha. I'm alive, but I think

0:12

they're going to kill me. So

0:15

then my parents asked me, why

0:17

did you lie? And I said,

0:20

well, because even you lied. You said you'd get me

0:22

married and you got me locked up. An officer

0:25

says, do you know a man named Surya? I

0:27

want to live with him. Yes,

0:29

he's my husband and

0:31

I want to be with him.

0:37

This is episode three of

0:39

Love Commandos. And if you've missed episodes one

0:41

and two, they are available right now in this podcast

0:43

feed.

0:44

The story we've told you so far is about this

0:46

volunteer group in India. They're called the Love

0:48

Commandos. They swear to protect love

0:51

couples. And we also met a love couple who

0:53

the group helped escape, Surya and

0:55

Akanksha. When we pick up the

0:57

story, Surya and Akanksha have taken a bus

0:59

to New Delhi to arrive at the Love Commandos'

1:02

main shelter. Welcome.

1:07

And that's where they meet the Love Commandos' founder, Sanjoy

1:09

Sachdev. It is our base shelter,

1:12

base shelter of the Love Commandos.

1:15

They have no idea what to expect and

1:17

neither did NPR correspondent Lauren Freyer

1:20

when she visited the shelter just days earlier.

1:22

We had to go up this very steep

1:24

set of stairs. Like it was almost like a ladder. And

1:28

through this door and then

1:31

into the safe house.

1:32

Here

1:34

we have a metal detector for

1:37

checking. Checking to see if I've come

1:39

in with weapons. Yeah. The

1:43

microphone. Mansi

1:49

Choksi, the writer and journalist, is

1:52

back with us as guest co-host.

1:54

And two years before Lauren's trip, Mansi

1:56

also visited this shelter.

1:57

There is a shrine of... Hindu

2:00

deities on one wall. She passed

2:03

the same metal detector, stepped into the

2:05

same dimly-led apartment. The first

2:07

thing I noticed was just the amount of cigarette

2:09

packets, biscuits, half-eaten

2:12

biscuits, blood pressure machine,

2:15

piles and piles of old withering

2:17

documents.

2:18

There's a bedroom where Satchitov

2:20

sleeps most nights. And that's kind of the headquarters

2:23

of this love commando shelter. A

2:25

TV in the corner of one room plays Hindi soap

2:27

operas on a seemingly endless loop. In

2:32

another room, the floor is covered with mattresses.

2:35

That's where the love couples who stay here will sleep. The

2:37

air is thick, with smoke from Satchitov's

2:40

cigarettes.

2:41

A fluorescent light flickers. There

2:43

are barely any windows. And

2:47

to a conchia, it's paradise. They

2:52

rested, had breakfast, they went out

2:54

shopping. One of the love commandos took

2:56

you shopping and bought you clothing?

2:58

Yes. And with

3:01

what money? Because you didn't have money?

3:04

No. Harshpapa gave

3:06

us money. Harsh gave you money.

3:10

He's talking about Harsh Malhotra, a

3:12

co-founder of the love commandos who lives across

3:14

the street from the shelter. And you could hear,

3:16

he refers to him as Papa. Satchitov,

3:20

he calls, Baba. So Baba

3:22

means grandfather, and Papa

3:24

means daddy. Yeah, we all

3:27

call him Baba. Baba love

3:29

commandos. Actually, one of the

3:31

rules of the shelter is that all

3:34

the couples must address him as Baba and

3:37

all the other young, other commandos as Papa.

3:40

And it's a role that Satchitov told Lauren he takes

3:42

very seriously. I'm a father.

3:45

I must know, I must understand

3:47

what

3:48

my duties are. So do

3:50

you think that the couples see

3:53

you as a father? Yes. They're

3:55

his children no matter what. He loves them unconditionally.

3:59

I'm sorry. — Surya

4:03

describes how each morning, after he and Akanksha

4:05

would wake up and do their chores, they'd

4:07

sit for hours by Satchtaf's bedside.

4:11

The older man would read to them from the newspaper.

4:16

This is for your knowledge, Satchtaf would tell

4:18

him.

4:21

Surya's dad wasn't around that much

4:24

when he was growing up, and he found these lectures

4:26

reassuring. And it wasn't just

4:28

Surya. On Mansi's trip to the shelter,

4:30

she also saw these tender scenes between

4:32

the couples and their protector, Satchtaf.

4:35

— Someone will bring him his food, his medicines,

4:38

someone will check his blood sugar, then, you

4:40

know, the dogs will come.

4:42

— There are three shelter dogs, Sandy,

4:44

Brownie and Romeo. — You

4:47

pet them, and it really reminds me of a

4:49

grandfather.

4:55

— This is Rough Translation. I'm Gregory

4:58

Warner. Couples

5:02

came to the shelter because they needed protection.

5:04

But what they found here was something more like a Spartan

5:07

boarding school. They were told here,

5:10

they would learn to survive without the families

5:12

that raised them. The

5:16

love commandos told Surya, you should learn

5:19

something here because back in your home you

5:21

were only a child. Satchtaf

5:26

would offer lectures on everything from table manners

5:28

to his take on Hindu lore.

5:31

But what was really behind this

5:33

education?

5:36

While every couple who came here had a daring

5:38

story of escape, what

5:40

they would come to realize is that escape

5:43

was far from the same thing as freedom.

5:49

Rough Translation back after

5:51

this break.

6:07

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slash NPR today.

6:42

We're back with Rough Translation. I'm

6:44

Gregory Warner. Surya and Akanksha

6:47

arrived in the shelter in September of 2018. And

6:52

as they approached the end of the year, the shelter filled

6:54

up with couples. Surya says at one

6:56

point there were seven couples living here, along

6:58

with Sajdev.

6:59

We

7:02

would gather around, we would play games,

7:04

we would play Ludo.

7:06

That's producer Rakshak Kumar interpreting

7:08

for Akanksha. There

7:12

was never a boring moment at the shelter. We

7:14

always had a lot of fun.

7:16

There are holiday celebrations. This

7:22

is from a video that Surya and Akanksha showed Lauren

7:25

of a New Year's Eve party.

7:26

Young people shoulder to shoulder, smiling,

7:29

dancing with disposable cups in their

7:31

hands. They look happy. We used

7:33

to enjoy a lot at the party and dance.

7:35

And Akanksha told Lauren it wasn't just

7:37

that life in the shelter could be lots of fun. I

7:39

have a dream that I get to

7:41

marry the person I

7:43

love. Akanksha

7:46

says it was her dream to marry the person

7:49

she'd fallen in love with. And while

7:51

her own father disapproved of that,

7:53

here's an elder, Sajdev, not

7:56

only honoring that but encouraging

7:58

her and placing her in this love. tradition.

8:01

Lord Shiva was ogre

8:04

means scheduled cast of the day.

8:06

Lower cast. Yeah. He's

8:09

talking about you know the great intercast marriages

8:11

in Hinduism. Lord

8:14

Shiva marrying Lord Ispar Bhati.

8:17

It really helps

8:17

a lot of young people to hear that one of the

8:22

primary deities

8:25

in Hinduism, Lord Shiva, married

8:28

out of caste.

8:28

Everything these couples have

8:33

heard before this on the news from their

8:35

parents is that love is a selfish

8:37

act. And

8:41

it you know it stops feeling you know

8:44

like something that they've done out

8:46

of being selfish or an

8:49

act that is primarily seen as too

8:51

small in their eyes now starts

8:53

to have a big large beautiful

8:55

meaning.

8:59

Every couple that arrived in the shelter was told

9:01

of certain rules that they would have to follow. One

9:04

of those rules was that the love commandos

9:06

would take away their phones. This

9:08

is so GPS tracking doesn't give away

9:11

their location. But also as

9:13

such to have told Lauren is that in case

9:15

one of them has a moment of regret or doubt

9:17

or maybe longing for home comforts

9:20

they don't pick up the phone and call home. We

9:22

tell them that until unless

9:25

you are so strong that

9:28

you can counter the emotion or financial

9:30

power or whatever may be the reason you

9:33

should avoid. Otherwise

9:37

emotional torture will start and then

9:41

that could be the result. He

9:43

believes that the law just isn't doing a

9:45

good enough job of protecting young

9:48

people from their families and he says

9:50

he's been there. He's witnessed moments

9:52

when the police have delivered

9:54

a young person back to their family, closed

9:57

the door and

9:58

they hear screams. from the

10:01

other side of the door and the police walk away.

10:04

Parents think that children are their properties.

10:07

And so when couples come to the shelter, he warns

10:10

them. Kindly don't lose your own minds.

10:13

And I think he means just put

10:15

your safety in my hands and I promise you,

10:18

you will stay safe. It's

10:20

at this moment

10:21

when the shock of these couples' estrangement is

10:24

just starting to register

10:25

that Satchtif will tell the story of Abdul

10:28

Hakim, a young man who stayed at the shelter

10:30

in its earliest years. Every

10:34

single person that I've met who's come through

10:36

the Love Commandos shelter has heard

10:39

the cautionary tale of Abdul Hakim.

10:41

It has been widely reported Abdul

10:44

Hakim was killed because he had not

10:46

gone on our advice.

10:48

Abdul Hakim and his wife have a baby.

10:50

First delivery of the child was in one of the shelters.

10:53

And in some versions of this story

10:55

that Satchtif tells, Abdul Hakim

10:58

needs to go out to get medicine for the baby.

11:00

They are going to doctor for getting medicine

11:02

for the child as she was having

11:04

fever. In other versions, it's

11:06

because he wants to see his family. But

11:09

whatever the reason, he leaves

11:12

the shelter, makes contact

11:14

with his family. Shot

11:15

dead in broad daylight while everyone

11:17

watched. A young man was allegedly killed by

11:19

the brothers of his wife in Bulinshire, his wife. His

11:22

crime, he dared to fall in love.

11:24

I don't know if you can't believe

11:26

it. I

11:31

remember when he told me the story,

11:33

I was disturbed.

11:37

Satchtif advises his

11:40

couples about a three-year

11:42

cooling period. He

11:44

says it would take three years for aggrieved

11:47

family members to truly forgive and

11:49

move past a couple's

11:52

mistake of being together.

11:53

For three years, you're not supposed to call and

11:55

say hi to your mom and dad.

11:57

And the length of the separation period,

11:59

the extent of Sachdev's distrust, not

12:02

only of parents, but of their children. I

12:04

mean, there's not a single decision they've made for themselves

12:07

in their entire lives before

12:10

they ran away. They probably haven't

12:12

been allowed to choose a career path. They've

12:15

probably been told what to wear, what to

12:17

do, how to spend time, who to hang out

12:20

with.

12:20

So when they come to the shelter, Sachdev tells

12:22

them they have to learn to live on their own. And

12:25

a daily schedule is planned out for the couples that stay

12:27

there.

12:30

Alarm clocks go off a little after 6am. That's

12:32

a rule. All the couples line up to

12:34

receive instructions from the group's co-founder,

12:37

Harsh Malhotra.

12:38

Usually it is the women that cook

12:41

and the men that clean, and the men

12:43

also run errands.

12:44

Scrub the bathroom, refill the water tank,

12:47

walk the dogs, run to the kiosk

12:49

to get such dead more cigarettes.

12:51

And there are other rules they have to follow too.

12:53

No naps because Sachdev feels that

12:56

it makes young people lazy. You're

12:58

not allowed to be inside the room with

13:01

the door shut at any point in

13:03

the day. The door must be kept open. One

13:05

of the rules of the shelter is no sex.

13:08

And Sachdev justifies this by saying, look,

13:11

you guys are sleeping multiple couples to a room.

13:14

Let's be respectful of one another. And that's a big shocker to

13:16

them, but of course all of them have sex.

13:18

I hadn't really put this together, but they may

13:20

not have actually literally had a place to have sex

13:22

before this. Exactly. Exactly.

13:26

Yeah. And all the other couples kind of just make

13:28

adjustments for the new honeymooners that

13:31

come in. Everybody will turn away.

13:33

And just so, because everybody understands that they

13:36

want to be together.

13:40

But

13:45

one of the most fascinating aspects about Sachdev

13:48

is that he has no patience

13:51

for going young couples.

13:52

You could hear this in the recordings that Mansi

13:55

made from the shelter. Me,

13:57

me, me, me. It's

13:59

not only these

13:59

marital relations that Satchdev frowns

14:02

upon. Even

14:07

public displays of affection.

14:09

Like, he would snap at them, he'd be like, get out of

14:11

here, nod in front of my face, I don't want to see this,

14:13

speak in proper voices, no baby voices,

14:16

I can't handle it. At the

14:17

very least, it seemed kind of like a honeymoon

14:20

with grandpa. Satchdev was

14:23

not quite the defender of love he played

14:25

on TV. But Surya, Surya

14:28

says that Satchdev was not the main problem. It

14:30

was other couples who didn't follow the rules.

14:33

And at one point, Surya is talking to Lauren, and

14:35

he's reminiscing about life in the shelter, scrolling

14:38

through videos and group photos.

14:39

And then I start asking about, oh, well, what about those people?

14:41

Where are they now? Do you keep in touch with

14:44

these people? No. And then when I

14:46

point to this one couple,

14:47

he's

14:50

like them? No, we're

14:53

not in touch. Because

15:01

what Surya was living through in the shelter,

15:04

and his experience of Satchdev is a kind of

15:07

substitute father, that

15:09

was only one side of this story.

15:13

Rough translation back after this

15:15

break.

15:26

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15:44

We're back with rough translation. I'm

15:46

Gregory Warner. Now,

15:48

we're going to tell you about another couple that stayed in the

15:50

shelter at the same time as Surya and Akanksha.

15:53

Actually, it's the couple in the photograph that Surya just

15:55

referred to, the one that they no longer

15:57

talk to.

15:59

Akriti and Gaurav. Akriti

16:02

and Gaurav are also an inner caste couple. And

16:05

they met in college, they've been dating in secret.

16:07

So then, it's one of the problems with the family, that

16:09

the Akriti family is also a higher caste.

16:13

Gaurav says caste is the main problem.

16:15

Akriti's family belongs to a higher caste,

16:18

and I am from a lower caste. Their

16:20

story is also pretty similar to Surya

16:22

and Akanksha's. Gaurav says that Akriti

16:25

too was taken by her family, Gaurav

16:28

had to rescue her. And so when they

16:30

arrive at the shelter, they're also really

16:32

fearing for their lives.

16:35

And

16:37

Surya says, you know, Gaurav was weeping

16:40

when he arrived at the shelter, and he said, please

16:42

save me. He

16:46

says they'll kill me. We

16:51

spoke to Gaurav, but when we reached out to Akriti,

16:53

his wife, she wasn't available for an interview.

16:56

And though we're not using any surnames in this story,

16:59

out of safety concerns,

17:00

Akriti's last name happens to

17:02

be the name of a prominent political family.

17:05

So Gaurav has reason to be terrified

17:07

of their power and reach.

17:09

Gaurav had come to the shelter after seeing

17:11

Sandra Satchdev on YouTube.

17:19

And what he expected to find was... A

17:24

nonprofit group that was going

17:26

to protect him. Before

17:31

he could put the bag on the floor, they asked

17:33

him how much money did he have. Gaurav

17:39

said he had 40,000 rupees with him, around

17:43

US$500, and he told them he had

17:45

this money.

17:46

And that's a decent amount of money for

17:48

India. It's way higher than the average

17:50

monthly income. Gaurav

17:52

says immediately they took the 40,000 rupees. from

18:00

me and I did not bother

18:02

putting up a fight.

18:06

This is so different from Syrian Aakonksh's

18:09

story about being greeted at the shelter with

18:11

money to go shopping. Gurov,

18:14

he didn't feel like he had a choice. If they kicked

18:16

him out now, he feared his wife's family

18:18

would find him. I asked Satchtiv about

18:20

this, why some couples are charged a whole lot

18:22

and others seem to pay nothing. And

18:24

it is their mention on our website that they

18:27

need to bear actual expenses.

18:29

Satchtiv points to the Love Commandos website,

18:32

which says couples are responsible

18:34

for administrative expenses related

18:36

to getting married. But then he says that some

18:39

couples could not even pay that. So the

18:41

Love Commandos had to charge other couples

18:43

more money to make up the difference.

18:45

Generally, these love couples are always short

18:47

of money. If we get 10 couples

18:50

at a time, there are hardly

18:52

four or four who can bear the total

18:55

expense.

19:00

So the picture that Gurov paints of this shelter,

19:02

some of it overlaps with what

19:05

Surya and Aakonksha experience, but it

19:07

differs a lot.

19:09

For example, to hear Surya tell it, the chores

19:11

they did around the shelter were expected, even morally beneficial.

19:16

But Gurov describes it as exploitation. And

19:18

he says not only were they asked to clean the

19:21

shelter where they lived, they also had to

19:23

clean the private apartment of Harsh Malhotra,

19:25

the Love Commandos co-founder.

19:28

Gurov says they even made them clean

19:31

their toilets. Harsh

19:34

Malhotra denies this, but other couples also

19:37

told Lauren that they were expected to clean his house.

19:39

Almost everything Gurov has told me,

19:41

I have verified with at least one

19:43

or two other couples who've been to the shelter, but

19:45

they're frightened and not everybody wanted to go

19:47

on the record.

19:49

One of the things that Gurov said, another man said,

19:52

is that they were asked to do something in the evenings

19:55

when the Love Commandos would be relaxing and drinking

19:57

whiskey. And the way he

20:00

said it, I remember the words, he

20:02

says, we had to press his feet.

20:06

And I was like, what do you mean press the feet?

20:11

And it was Harsh Malhotra's

20:13

feet and Sanjay Sajdev's feet.

20:15

Lauren would hear this from other couples too, so

20:18

she called and asked Sajdev about this. Just

20:30

sometimes when I was having acute pain

20:32

and there was no family with me, only these children

20:35

were my family. If I ask any of the boys

20:37

to just

20:39

do something, so that is not wrong.

20:41

It is a fatherly pain

20:42

to

20:45

a son.

20:45

Yeah. He saw these couples

20:48

as his family, so he says

20:50

asking the men to do this was not wrong,

20:53

it was what any father might expect.

20:55

When an elder asks, tells you

20:57

that his legs are aching, could you please press

20:59

my feet? That is just something that you

21:01

would do.

21:02

Like calling him Baba, like running

21:04

his errands or listening to his lectures.

21:07

I mean, this is the thing, it

21:09

is, you know, rubbing

21:11

your grandfather's feet is something you do

21:13

out of love and it

21:16

is a gesture of tenderness and

21:18

closeness and it is

21:21

voluntary. But

21:23

these couples, of course, when they fled their own

21:25

families, hadn't expected to be

21:27

part of a different one. I just

21:29

wondered whether this was voluntary, given

21:32

the power dynamic that these people's

21:34

lives were in this man's hands.

21:37

Gaurav,

21:37

also by his own admission, challenged

21:40

the authority of Sanjay Sajdev and Harsh Malhotra

21:42

in a way that Surya never did. And

21:44

he says that the love commandos tried to humiliate him

21:46

in return. They would mock him for being

21:49

of a lower caste than his wife.

21:57

Gaurav says they told him how dead

22:00

Did he come here with the daughter of an abacus family?

22:02

Who does he think he is? I heard

22:04

it time and time again from couples

22:06

who've gone through the shelter. Racist

22:09

language, castest language, Islamophobic

22:12

slurs. One Muslim man told me

22:14

he was like reduced to a caricature of

22:16

a Muslim, like accused of wanting

22:18

to make babies all the time. Another

22:21

one said the commanders made fun of people's

22:23

body types, the way people speak. And

22:26

different couples told Mansi and Lauren

22:28

that harsh Malocha could be demanding. He

22:31

also is known to have a temper. He's

22:33

known to have a pretty bad temper.

22:36

Gaurav says Malocha once threw one of the

22:38

shelter dogs at him. I've seen him in

22:40

the shelter. I've seen him in the shelter. I've

22:44

seen him in the shelter.

22:46

Gaurav says I still have a scar

22:48

from the dog Brownie. And that is because

22:51

the love commandos threw

22:53

Brownie at him and Brownie

22:56

bit him on his shoulder.

23:00

There was another person in the shelter who

23:02

actually says they saw

23:04

this and would later allege

23:06

in a police statement the same thing,

23:09

that harsh Malocha made this dog

23:11

bite Gaurav.

23:15

So I called up harsh Malocha and I

23:18

put this to him.

23:19

There is an allegation that you

23:21

encouraged the dogs, Romeo,

23:24

Brownie, Sandy, to bite

23:26

people at the shelter.

23:28

And

23:31

he says, are you kidding? Like Romeo,

23:34

Brownie, Sandy? Sandy. They're

23:36

adorable. At one point he even

23:38

showed me a video of couples in the shelter

23:41

like cooing at the dogs

23:46

and playing with them.

23:47

He's

23:53

like the couples doted on these dogs. They

23:55

lined up to walk them. They cuddled

23:57

with them hugging.

23:59

Cuddling the dog. What's

24:04

the date of this video? This is January 2019.

24:09

And he says he doesn't remember any incident,

24:11

accidental or otherwise, in

24:14

which any of the dogs bit any

24:16

of the people in the shelter.

24:18

For the record, Harsh Malocha denies every

24:21

accusation that the couples make against him. But

24:23

the perplexing thing about this dog story is

24:26

that there is that video. And there's

24:28

a photo

24:29

of just the dog

24:31

and Gurov. He's smiling at the

24:33

camera. The dog is tiny, adorable,

24:35

fluffy, tongue-out panting, just

24:38

inches from the guy's face.

24:40

Lauren finds that photo on one of Satchita's

24:42

Instagram stories. And when

24:44

she shows Gurov the photo,

24:48

he's furious. It

24:52

was the first time he'd been told that this photo existed

24:55

and that it appeared publicly.

24:56

And he said, it's just unfair

24:58

that we didn't have phones. We couldn't document

25:01

any of it, and they could. And he

25:03

said that there were times when they filmed

25:06

them and took photos of them to

25:08

make it seem like they were having a good time. And he didn't

25:10

even remember that picture being taken, but he said,

25:13

somebody must have told me to look at the camera

25:15

and smile, and I did.

25:19

Someone told me to look at the camera and smile,

25:22

and I did. Gurov seems more

25:24

angry about this Instagram story than

25:26

almost anything else he experienced at the shelter. Because

25:30

if you think about it,

25:31

what the love commandos represented in the

25:33

public eye

25:34

wasn't just protection of love couples, but

25:37

the freedom to choose their own path.

25:39

And when couples showed up here, they met rules

25:41

meant to free them from their parents' control, only

25:44

to have Satchita assume control over

25:46

almost everything in their life. And

25:48

while couples had come here because they wanted a different story

25:51

than the one that their parents set out for them,

25:54

while they were in the shelter,

25:55

they were part of Satchita's story, one

25:57

that he was telling the whole world. Actually,

26:00

I was in the shelter for a while.

26:05

Gaurav says the fact is that

26:08

if we were allowed phones in the

26:10

shelter... You

26:13

would not have had to talk to us for

26:15

this long. You would

26:17

just see the evidence yourself. We

26:20

would have shown you all the evidence and we would have

26:22

documented all the evidence.

26:31

Mansi Choksi, my co-host on this series,

26:33

had her own experience reporting in the shelter in 2016.

26:37

And she'd write about it years later in her

26:39

book, The Newlyweds. You

26:41

remember when she first heard about Sachdev.

26:44

She'd admired his mission. It seemed like

26:46

the thing that India needed. The thing that I

26:48

find striking about him is that he's

26:51

a guy that belongs to the generation of people

26:53

that are opposing love matters.

26:55

It wasn't just his offer of shelter and protection,

26:58

but his approval, which seemed to carry

27:01

so much moral weight. I think that

27:03

he is the first one who is making

27:05

the idea of forbidden love,

27:08

of political

27:09

rallying cry.

27:11

Everything that Mansi had read or heard about the love commandos

27:13

fit this story. And then she

27:15

visited the shelter herself. Okay.

27:19

You have to be

27:21

able to find love commandos in the

27:23

shelter. And she was surprised at how quickly

27:26

her own doubts about him started to grow. Sachdev

27:29

wouldn't let her talk to any couples without him being

27:31

present, which seemed odd. And

27:33

then there was something else. When I was

27:35

sitting with him, interviewing

27:37

him, he'd received

27:39

a call. The

27:44

rescue mission to save a love couple, it's hit

27:47

a snag.

27:55

If I don't send a car immediately,

27:57

they're not going to be able to make it out

27:59

alive. They risk being separated,

28:01

they risk being murdered. But

28:06

then he is turning to me while

28:08

he is having these key

28:11

discussions, like to kind of gesture,

28:13

like, do I have any ideas for

28:16

what can possibly be done?

28:17

He

28:25

seemed to be asking her for money.

28:27

He is definitely turning to me, dropping

28:29

massive hints. It

28:34

wasn't just the request for money that seemed strange.

28:36

But when he's just kept on being pushy

28:39

and just, you know, just would not take no for

28:41

an answer, it

28:48

just felt really strange. Like, yeah,

28:51

it just made me really uncomfortable.

28:54

I

28:54

was put off by it. Like, the

28:58

fifth and sixth and seventh time. I

29:01

mean, I was like, I told you, I can't

29:04

give you money.

29:05

The subject also asked Lauren for money repeatedly,

29:08

and it made her ask herself, like, is

29:10

he where is this money going?

29:15

That's next time on Love Commandos

29:18

from Rough Translation. If

29:24

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Translation fan base is as

29:57

global and curious as the show itself.

29:59

You can...

29:59

meet these fans, as well as help

30:02

me chart our post NPR future and

30:04

continue to hear surprising stories from around

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30:07

Check out my sub stack. It's an email

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free to sign up. You will meet folks from

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more than 100 countries,

30:15

all of them united by the desire to hear

30:17

stories of people as they are

30:20

and not as we're told they should be.

30:22

This month on the sub stack, you'll find extra reporting

30:24

from India, like the role of public

30:26

parks in shaping private desire. And

30:29

next month we are going on the road, you're not going to want to

30:31

miss it. Join me on substack.com.

30:34

Search for my name, Gregory Warner or

30:36

search for Rough Transition stories

30:38

from a changing world.

30:40

Love Commandos from Rough Translation is a

30:42

collaboration with NPR's international

30:44

desk. It was reported by Lauren Freyer.

30:47

The series was written and edited by me,

30:49

Gregory Warner.

30:50

And it was co-hosted by me, Mansi

30:52

Choksi. This episode

30:54

was produced by Ariana Lee with help from

30:56

Bhat Shah, Elena Torek and our senior producer

30:59

Adelina Lansinese.

31:00

Our senior editor is Louise Treyas.

31:03

Our consulting editors are Miranda Kennedy and

31:05

Sana Krasikov. The Love Commandos team

31:07

includes Justine Yan and Dan

31:09

Gurma, Kimberly Iza, Bhaskar

31:12

Chaudhry and Jess Jang. Our producers

31:14

in India include Raksha Kumar and Sushmita

31:16

Pathak.

31:17

Fact checking by Nicolette Khan. Mary

31:19

Glenn Dinning is director of research at NPR's

31:21

RAD department. Legal support from Micah

31:24

Ratner and Johannes Derghi. NPR

31:26

standards and practices editor is Tony Cavan.

31:28

Mastering by Josh Newell.

31:30

The Love Commandos theme song is by Vasu

31:32

and Amira Gill and it's inspired by Rough

31:34

Translation's original theme song from John

31:36

Ellis.

31:37

Additional music in this episode by Ramtina

31:39

Rablui and First Con Music. Special

31:41

thanks to Muskan Nagpal. To see original

31:43

illustrations of this series by Vartika Sharma,

31:46

visit npr.org slash

31:48

roughtranslation. Our visuals editor

31:51

is Emily Bogle.

31:52

Irene Noguchi is the executive producer

31:54

of the Enterprise Storytelling Unit, our

31:56

home at NPR. Liana Simstrom is

31:58

our supervising producer.

31:59

Didi Skanki is Chief Editor

32:02

and Nishant Dahia is Deputy Supervising

32:04

Senior Editor at NPR's International

32:07

Desk.

32:07

Anya Grunman is NPR Senior Vice

32:09

President of Programming and Audience Development,

32:11

and I'm Gregory Warner.

32:15

See you next time for Episode 4 of

32:18

Love Commandos

32:19

from Rough Translation.