Season 2 of Nightout Talkies opens inside Kowdiar Palace, with the man who irons the whole family’s shirts.

Aditya Varma was born in Kowdiar Palace, Trivandrum, and still lives there. He is a director at the family company Aspinwall, runs Sree Padmanabha Royal Indoor Courts, and is the member of the Travancore royal family you are most likely to see at a public event. In this conversation, he talks about the childhood, the work and the decision to speak up online.

→ A third-standard walk-out from Nirmala Bhavan, and what changed at 12:15 every day after

→ The charcoal iron that taught him to do his own ironing

→ Khaki, 8 to 4, at the TVS workshop in Madurai before the family business

→ Lines on a stone courtyard that became a five-court badminton venue

→ Why the family stopped staying silent on social media, and what he plans to share next