Desi Outsiders: Recent Episodes
Desi Outsiders
A podcast by two young Indian women who want to be the voice of reason that fails to be heard in certain Indian households. The podcast is designed to bring meaningful conversations on relationships, dating, education, and feminism into Indian homes. Meenal is an Indian who was raised outside of India in a very traditional Indian household while Ankita was raised in India in a more liberal household. So when these two girls get together, the conversation gets rolling.
Following from last week's episode, we unexpectedly jumped into a conversation about finding the true definition of happiness - of course, Meenal is questioning if it really exists after the few weeks she has been through (yes, she has a dark side)!
With the new year approaching, both of us reflect on our personal growth, our future growth and share all our hopes and dreams for the coming year.
Thank you for being a part of our podcast, and we promise to bring you more in the coming year. We love you all!
When Meenal receives an email that reads "you sound depressed, are you okay?" - we know something is clearly wrong.
It's been an interesting couple of weeks for both of us. Each of us experiencing life in different ways and trying to learn from our experiences as much as possible.
Not every day will be a happy, bubbly day - a concept Meenal is trying to get a hold of. Tune in to find out why we didn't record last week and why Meenal sounds "dead inside".
Life can get busy.
So busy that we both didn't even get a moment to sit and record an episode last week. But it's okay, because sometimes we have to accept that life can get crazy and we can always find ways to work around it. We are currently learning how to deal with our hectic work schedules and still have time to record a podcast and also deal with our ongoing daily life activities. We talk about our struggles and how we have found our own personal ways of overcoming our anxiety of trying to get enough done during our working days.
If you have any suggestions for us, please send them over - as you'll listen, you'll realize we need all the help we can take!
Shane (the guy who edits this show and is married to the short one) - This time, it's my bad that the episode was late. I'm a little tied up in Seattle as part of a work trip. Apologies.
Long distance relationships aren't always easy and we've all had to deal with it at some point in our life. We discuss how we've dealt with our own relationships, how we've overcome the difficulties and some tips on how to make things a little easier when you're far away from your loved ones. Enjoy!
This Diwali we bring you a special episode where we catch up with our lives and go through all your mails. We love reading about your opinions and used this opportunity to share what we think with all of you lovely listeners.
This special episode is all about you! Enjoy!
The #metoo movement is slowly gaining cadence in India. But what makes this so different to the stories being told in the US, is that India has a lot of cultural barriers which affect the movement and the stories of women that are coming to light.
We look into some case studies and present some evidence as to why women aren't likely to lie about their sexual assault stories and why women wouldn't even consider lying.
Of course, this movement is much bigger than what we have time to discuss, but we hope you send us your thoughts and opinions on this movement.
As we prepare for the Asian Media Awards, we wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your love and endless belief in our project. We are sending you all a big, virtual hug!
This week, we discuss how Desi weddings aren't exactly the norm anymore - we're all adapting to our needs and desires when it comes to what we believe is the perfect wedding. But can we still keep traditions alive if we continue to veer away from how our ancestors conducted weddings? How important is to us, as a generation, to pass these traditions forward?
The Sabarimala verdict was a great day for women across the country.
Ankita had visited this Temple as a child to make sure she received her blessings before hitting her menstrual age.
We both dig into what the Vedas say about women being impure and why we all need to extend our knowledge and read further into historic textbooks to understand why these rules still live within our society.
Meenal has just moved to the UK from Gibraltar. But this isn’t the first time she has had to move away from home. Ankita also recollects her several moves and the emotional impact it had on her life. Moving away from home isn’t an easy process, whether it’s for a new job, or to go to University. This week, we discuss the ins and outs of moving and how important it is to be mentally prepared for these big changes in your life.
We also go into the topic of trying to figure out where our home actually is. Is it where our parents are? Is it where are our passports says we are from?
We’d love to hear about your moving stories and your thoughts on living with our away from your parents.
Drop us a mail at mail@desioutsiders.com or find us on any social media platform @desioutsiders
Side note: Meenal is running a half marathon in Long Beach, California to raise funds for our 12 orphans in Kenya. We would appreciate any donation, big or small - it will really take us a long way! You can hit the donate button right here: http://altcricketfoundation.org/long-beach-marathon/
English Medicine' is a term a lot of you may have seen or heard before. But what does this really mean?
We discuss the serious impact of myths being passed down from generation to generation with regards to modern medicine. Ankita especially has seen this in her home town in Trivandrum and Meenal has seen family members on their death bed due to ignorance and lack of self-education. We also touch the surface on the science behind Ayurveda and herbal medicine - is it a scam or real science?
If you have any of your own 'English Medicine' stories, do share it with us!
It’s been a month since we last virtually greeted you and as bad as this sounds, we didn’t plan for four weeks to go by before we could show up and say hi.
We don’t have set weekends anymore. Hell, we don’t even get two consecutive days off in a week with our new commitments. And as you can imagine, speaking to guests based in different time zones has been a little inconvenient, if not completely impossible.
But here we are, and we’ve decided that no matter what happens, we’re going to show up every week and have a blast recording our episodes! We explain why all of us at the DO HQ needed a hard reset, and we couldn’t leave without discussing the Serena Williams controversy.
Your thoughts, feedback and even ideas as to what we can discuss mean everything to us! Drop us an email to mail@desioutsiders.com or DM us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Thank you for all your feedback so far - you have provided us with a continuous drip of inspiration to show up every week. #MedicalJoke
After almost half a year, we bring you another Braindump! We use this episode to explain why we've been off the radar for some time, and you'll also hear about why some of our episodes have been released on random days of the week. Both of our lives have changed quite drastically.
Thank you all for being patient with us as we settle into our new lives. After we recorded this episode, it reminded us how much we love doing these braindumps! If you agree, comment below!
This week we have something different to share with you! Recently, we were on Awaz FM, Scotland’s Asian station, with Lehar Laghmani. We shared the journey we’ve had with Desi Outsiders with over seventy episodes so far and also got to play our chosen music for the 17,000+ listeners who tuned in live. This was the first time we had a full 45 minutes to talk about our project and vision. In every other digital appearance we’ve made, we’ve had to squeeze in a lot of information into a very short space of time. It also makes us happy that this time, Shane got to join in on this conversation too so you’ll get to hear more about the gruelling editing process behind our episodes. Enjoy!
This week we’re honoured to share our conversation with Major Archie Acharya, a communications engineer from JNU who now serves the Indian Army. She’s has been posted at the Line of Control, RAPID Battalion as part of Strike Corps and Electronic Warfare Units and Formations.
Archie talks to us about women in male-dominated workforces, the challenges she has had to overcome and the backward mentalities she still deals with on a daily basis. She shares thought-provoking and often hilarious anecdotes from her training and also delves into the importance of having a stable support system while being out there, conquering your fears and chasing your dreams.
This week we’re bringing you our conversation with Natasha Scripture, a mixed desi author, poet, activist and former aid worker. As a spokesperson for the United Nations, Natasha covered humanitarian crises around the world, including conflicts and natural disasters in Ethiopia, Haiti, Libya, and Pakistan. Before the UN, she worked as a writer, producer and editor for a variety of organisations, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera English, TED, and National Geographic.
Natasha has also contributed to the New York Times, The Telegraph and The Atlantic, among other publications. She has lived in several different countries and travels extensively. Yet no matter where she is in the world, she seeks to inspire and empower women with her writing and storytelling. Today, we discuss her new book ‘Man Fast’, her identity as a half desi (her mother is Pakistani/Indian and her father American), the timeline society imposes on women based on biological clocks and the need to “settle down”, and her journey of coping with loss and reinventing herself.
Show Notes:
Natasha’s website: http://natashascripture.com/
After watching Dangal a few months ago, both of us were very excited to speak to Sally Roberts from Wrestle Like a Girl. Sally’s upbringing wasn’t easy and she had to resort to antisocial behaviour to deal with all the complex emotions she was facing as a young teen. But ultimately, she didn’t let any of that get in the way of her dreams. She joined her school wrestling club and was the ONLY girl wrestling at the time in her region. With the support of her coaches and teammates, she persevered and got into the national and world championships medal table. However, life hit her hard again when she didn’t make it to the Olympic team by just one place. From then to Afghanistan to everything she has achieved today is an outcome of her perseverance throughout the difficult circumstances life threw at her. Enjoy!
Now that the royal wedding fever has died down a bit, we want to take a step back and present to you our detailed conversation with Suhani Jalota, the founder if Myna Mahila Foundation, which was the only Indian non-profit to be invited to the royal wedding.
The Myna Mahila Foundation is an Indian organization which empowers women by encouraging discussion of taboo subjects such as menstruation, and by setting up workshops to produce low-cost sanitary protection to enable girls to stay in school.
We spoke to Suhani about how this amazing journey started and discussed the intricacies involved in running such a sustainable and cost-efficient organisation which came into the global spotlight within just three years of its founding.
Aranya Johar is a 19-year-old poet and activist based in Mumbai. She started writing poetry at the age of 11, started performing spoken word poetry at 13, but the world knows her for her viral performance of ‘A brown girl’s guide to gender’ - a spoken word poem she released last year.
In her one year of activism following that, Aranya has proved to be one of the smartest minds of our generation, both talking about and creating content pertaining to topics we all need to be paying attention to. We discuss feminism, gender, mental health, hard work, privilege and a milieu of other things with her in this episode!
This week we spoke to Shreya Nallapati, an activist, entrepreneur and high school senior. Like many of us, Shreya watched Emma González’s speech after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February of this year. But instead of using tech to send just thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families, Shreya decided to use her tech skills and knowledge to build a product that uses predictive analytics and artificial intelligence in order to both predict and prevent future school shootings in America.
What started out as a one girl team with a big dream, soon grew into an organisation with 200 enthusiastic contributors - most of whom are female teenagers, just like Shreya. She talks to us about the future of this project and the milestones ahead of her and we couldn’t be more proud to share this conversation with you!
This week, we spoke to Trisha Sakhuja Walia, the CEO of Brown Girl Magazine. This incredible online magazine serves as an anchor for South Asians who believe in gender equality. Their content provides a connection between the readers, the trailblazers, community leaders, and all the badass women in the South Asian community.
We spoke to Trisha about how this small idea had started back in 2008, and how 10 years later, they’ve grown and expanded in the US, London and Canada. Not only do they have their website running with over 150 contributors, they also successfully run their own YouTube channel and recently launched a podcast - queeringdesi. Trisha discusses everything from the ethos of Brown Girl Magazine to how they strive to become the powerhouse of South Asian media for Desis abroad.
Show notes:
Website: www.browngirlmagazine.com
Get in touch with Trisha: www.instagram.com/tsakhuja_walia
Get in touch with Brown Girl Magazine staff: staff@BrownGirlMagazine.com
This week, we’re delighted to bring you one the most inspiring stories you will hear on this podcast. Our guest Malvika Iyer was just 13 when a grenade blast in her own bedroom in Bikaner almost killed her. She immediately lost both her hands, her feet were completely disfigured, she suffered from 80% blood loss, and her BP was zero. Doctors were not sure if she’d survive and once she survived, they weren’t sure if she’d ever walk again in her life.
18 months later, Malvika bagged a State rank for her 10 board exams that she only prepared for three months. A little over a decade later, she walked the ramp as a show stopper for a fashion show, and just a few months ago, she was awarded her PHD and the prestigious Nari Puraskar award on Women’s Day.
Show notes:
Malvika Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvika_Iyer
Malvika’s Website: https://malvikaiyer.wordpress.com/
This week, we have two very special guests on our show!
Chris and Renata have been tirelessly working on building the first ever cricket academy in Czech Republic. Since they started the project in 2015, they have dealt with rejection, theft, extreme weather conditions and culture barriers.
Just three months into 2018, they have managed to reach over 10,000 kids and introduce them to the sport. Despite the resistance they have faced from many locals who have no idea about the sport, they have managed to receive sustainable funding and even getting the local government and mayor involved in their local leagues.
Resources:
http://en.kriketovaakademie.com/home.html
Twitter: @AkademieKriketu
This week, we spoke to Manpreet Toor, a dancer, choreographer, and entrepreneur based in California. You must know Manpreet from her early days where she danced with her friend, Naina.
Now Manpreet has been collaborating with big names in the industry - she recently worked with Punjabi By Nature and also gave us some exclusive news which she hasn’t spoken about just yet!
This mini Navrati, we bring you the internet’s favourite Gujju, Parle Patel from Planet Parle. We discuss his life as a British Asian who spent 6 years of his life in Australia, and also has family roots in Kenya and Gujarat. Parle talks to us about being a blend of these three cultures, his experience with mental health, and his journey from the time he was a child and his parents forced a camera in his face, asking him to make a home documentary, to how he started his own YouTube channel. Today, Parle hosts his own radio show on the BBC Asian Network and is a pivotal force in reviving the Gujarati culture amongst British Asians.
Last Thursday, on International Women’s Day, we interviewed Lauren C. Anderson, one of the first ever women selected for the FBI swat team! When an 11-year-old Lauren toured the FBI Headquarters in New York, she was told by her tour guide that girls could never be FBI agents because they would just sit around all day painting their nails. 15 years later, she not only joined the FBI but also travelled all around the globe after the 9/11 attacks. Lauren speaks to us about her views on women's safety, terrorism, and responsible change making in this world.
On Women’s Day, we present to you our second male guest of this season, Shobhit Banwait. We’re quite sure most of our Desi listeners have seen Shobhit playing his Tabla with his six-winged ceiling fan in the background. He started off by making videos using his simple smartphone and zero equipment but today, Shobhit is one of the most famous tabla artists on the internet, creating beautiful fusions within all genres of music. Enjoy!
This week, we bring you our conversation with Zohra Moosa, the Executive Director of Mama Cash, an organization that supports the financial prospects of women, girls, trans and intersex people around the world who fight for their human rights.
Mama Cash was conceived around a kitchen table in Amsterdam in 1983. Since then, they have grown from a group of five feminist activists into an international fund that supports women’s, girls’ and trans people’s movements around the world.
As a brown, queer, Desi migrant, Zohra talks to us about intersectional feminism and the work she does with Mama Cash to support feminist causes around the world.
This week we are in conversation with Pranav Punjabi - a youtube, Viner, and online content creator. Pranav started his comedy journey at the age of 16 and he fell in love with the laughter of others around him. He continued to work hard on his passion for comedy and today uses his platform to address some very serious social issues which are difficult to voice in our desi community. So join us as we discuss comedy, mental health, and feminism with Pranav!
This week we bring you our conversation Shaili Chopra, a face you might already be familiar with. She’s an Indian business journalist, author and entrepreneur who has worked extensively with NDTV and is also the founder of shethepeople.tv - “A video story-telling space that inspires women, strengthens their efforts, exchanges leadership ideas, fosters networking and reinforces their ability to contribute to growth.”
Shaili’s world is full of incredible experiences as a journalist including one where she and her husband covered the Mumbai terror attacks live for three days from the Taj Mahal palace hotel in Mumbai. She was named one of India's 50 most influential women in media, marketing and advertising by Impact Magazine. Enjoy!
This week, right before the release of the much awaited Bollywood film Padman, we bring you a discussion on female reproductive health with Hollywood’s very own Gynaecologist, Dr Sherry Ross. She’s the OBGYN of Hollywood, and stars like Reese Witherspoon, Jane Seymor, Brooke Shields, Katherine McPhee are regular clients of Dr.Sherry.
Dr Sherry’s book she-ology: The Definitive Guide to Women’s Intimate Health. Period. was named one the 6 Most Life Changing Wellness Books of 2017 by Prevention.com and Women’s Health Magazine.
PadMan will surely be a huge success, but before we go explore the narrative of USING a pad, we believe that it’s just as important to go all the way back to basics. So if your parents didn’t pass this information down to you, or if your school didn’t emphasise on sex education - not to worry, we have Dr.Sherry to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about female reproduction.
This week, we bring you our conversation with Supriya Joshi, a stand up comedian and writer who’s worked extensively with All India Bakchod.
Supriya enlightened us on what it means to be at the forefront of both the feminist movement as well as the change happening in the comedy circles in India today. And as you can imagine, we shared a lot of giggles along the way and hope you enjoy listening to the three of us as much as we enjoyed recording this episode.
You can find out more about our orphanage and our Foundation right here: www.altcricketfoundation.org
We warned you that we were coming back although the last time you heard from us, we had no idea that we were about to leave you for a month without a warning. As usual, we jumped from topic to topic in this episode and ended up discussing Zaira Wasim’s flight incident and how these situations contribute to the discourse around feminism. And then, again without a warning, and completely ignoring Meenal’s pleas to be spared the image, Ankita describes a very graphic incident of a man who stood in the middle of a flight with his pants undone.
We leave you with a food for thought - how important is it to be mindful of the way we represent our Desi community when we travel abroad?
Ankita's blog - http://ankita.ink
We’re delighted to bring you our super special episode this week as we interviewed our first ever non-Desi guest! We couldn’t be happier to share her story with you because we learned a lot about a culture that is very similar to our own.
Luz Amuchastegui is a social rights activist, hockey superstar, consultant and an established entrepreneur based in Argentina. She currently serves as the Youth Development Director at an NGO called El Desafio (which means ‘The Challenge’) and is the co-founder of two companies - Evolution Factory and Keep Going Hockey. In 2013, Luz was selected as one of the 16 Emerging Leaders of the world by the US Department of State, ESPNW and The Center for Sport, Peace and Society of the University of Tennessee to be a part of the Global Sports Mentoring Program.
This week, we had the pleasure of speaking to TheSandyLion who confessed that this was her debut podcast interview!
Sandy is a full-time elementary school teacher and a fashion stylist based in Toronto. In this interview, Sandy takes us through her 4-year journey to bring her where she is now, working with big stars like Lilly Singh, Humble the Poet, and even styling in some music videos!
This week, we bring you our conversation with Elsa D’Silva, the Founder & CEO of the Red Dot Foundation. Through her app called SafeCity, Elsa and her team document sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. In the past four years, Safecity has become the largest crowd map on the issue of sexual abuse in India, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Nepal.
This week, we bring you our conversation with Kirthi Jayakumar, an Indian women's rights activist, a social entrepreneur, a peace activist, artist, lawyer and writer among many other things. The list of Kirthi’s achievements is almost endless and to put it simply, her hard work landed her the US Presidential Services medal in 2011. But in this interview, we get into all the influences that made her want to do the work that she does today, especially as a lawyer who left her corporate job within just one month, and went on to volunteer with many NGOs including the UN.
Kirthi also revealed right at the beginning of our interview that she is a victim of sexual abuse - and this was a surprise to us. The conversation took a completely unexpected turn and here we have an amazing story to share - stay tuned until the end, we promise you, it’s worth it.
Yup, that’s us high-fiving each other for making it this far. Fifty episodes. Celebrating fifty of anything is a big milestone! We even celebrated 50 Twitter followers, then realised that they were all fake accounts.
This week, we bring you a very special episode where the tables completely turn and instead, we get interviewed instead by our most devoted fan - Nishant Joshi of AltCricket! This is the very first time where we truly get to express our opinions on the world, feminism, and our society after gathering so much knowledge from all our inspiring guests. Enjoy!
This Diwali, we bring you a “pattaka” called Karan Talwar a.k.a Bollywood Gandu, who is a comedian based in Mumbai. He shares the story of how he left a boring desk job in the US and returned to India at the age of 28 to kickstart his career in stand-up comedy. This led to the founding of SnG comedy and later, Bollywood Gandu. Over the years, Karan has garnered close to 2.5 million followers on Twitter alone but has also been “unfollowed” by many Bollywood celebrities on the very same social media channel. Tune in to find out how and why it all started.
We’re kicking off Season 4 with an exclusive interview with Vidya Vox where we accidentally damage her eardrums by singing along with her. We’re the new Desi Spice Girls now and Vidya is leaving her job as a solo artist to join us. That’s once she repairs her eardrums, of course.
We discuss her journey from the age of five when she started training in classical Karnatic music and wasn’t the biggest fan of it, to how she almost became a doctor but then ended up being a superstar instead - basically, Vidya is living Meenal’s alternate reality.
Somehow, one year ago today, we convinced you to replace your Sai Baba bhajans and Niki Minaj playlists with our podcast episodes. We really wish we could invite you to Desi Outsiders with chai and samosas this fine morning, but Ankita can’t cook, and Meenal doesn’t share food.
So instead, we put together a very special season finale where we share the snippets of the good, the bad, and the ugly of our journey so far. We bring you cringe worthy clips from previous episodes and tell you how we started out initially as a two-member team before Shane got involved in this project. We’ve come a long way together since then and can’t wait to see what Year Two has in store for us. As always, thanks a ton for tuning in every week. We couldn’t do this without you.
Jasvinder Sanghera CBE is a UK born and raised Sikh-Indian who narrowly escaped a forced marriage by running away from home at the age of sixteen. She is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a national award winning charity that supports both men and women affected by honour based abuse and forced marriages.
She was listed in the Guardian’s top 100 Most Inspirational Women in the World in 2011. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire in 2013 in recognition of her outstanding contribution for the victims of forced marriage and honour based abuse. In fact, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that her work “turned his head on the issue of forced marriage” and her work is recognised as being pivotal to the creation of a specific UK forced marriage criminal offence in 2014.
We couldn’t be more excited to present to you our conversation with the writer Jaishree Misra. Her debut novel ‘Ancient Promises’ which came out in 2000 was a major best-seller, following which, she has written seven books. But apart from her success as a writer, we delve deep into many other aspects of her life and career. Her personal story is one of breaking social barriers to let her passions thrive, especially as she stepped out of an unhappy marriage and a rigid system to reclaim her own life. She talks about arranged marriages, the stigma surrounding divorce, step parenthood, and the many facets of caring for a child with special needs.
This week, we’re in conversation with Gurmehar Kaur, a face that you might already be familiar with. Since February of this year, a photograph of her holding a placard that says ‘Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him” has been plastered all over the news and social media channels in India.
She was scrutinized by the whole nation, criticised by celebrities, and directly compared to the antagonists of the world. The title “anti-national” as a suffix to her name was at the tip of everybody’s tongue although, most people didn’t even have the slightest context into how and why this branding was taking place.
What resulted was her receiving rape and murder threats while the whole nation forgot the main reason for all this scrutiny - Gurmehar’s stand against a leading student body in India that attacked young students at a Delhi University campus. Tune in to listen to her side of the story!
This week, we bring you our conversation with Ajit George who helps run Shanti Bhavan, the institution showcased in the Netflix documentary ‘Daughters of Destiny’. Shanti Bhavan is a free residential school for underprivileged children in India. Every year, the school enrolls 24 children at the age of four and takes care of their needs and expenses all year round, supporting them till they land a job and become capable of taking care of themselves and their families. 95% of these children come from the Dalit or ‘untouchable’ communities in India and almost all of them are from impoverished families that survive on less than $2 a day.
Tune in to hear about the 20-year journey of this institution that starts with Ajit’s father, Dr Abraham George’s dream to uplift the Dalit community in India.
In this episode, we continue the beautiful story that Nishant shared with us last week. For those of you who are just tuning in, last week, we interviewed Nishant Joshi from AltCricket. Nishant is a full-time doctor who has written his own book, hosted his own cricket TV shows, and even built his Alternative Cricket brand on the internet all with his own two hands.
After the tears from the previous episode, Nishant pulls us all out of gloom by sharing the story of how he wrote a book in just a month during his second year of college, and how a simple twitter account he started to publicize this book later landed him deals with high profile media partners like Star Sports. This time around, we promise there are fewer tears!
We’re proud to present our very first two-parter with Nishant Joshi from AltCricket - a London based doctor by day and sports journalist by night. Once the conversation about his dual life began to unfold, we unexpectedly delved into an in-depth discussion about Desi parenting, culture, and adolescence. It was only half-way through this conversation that we realised that Nishant’s story actually begins in 1972 when his father immigrated to the UK as a refugee from Uganda.
Part 1 with Nishant covers his extremely high profile schooling once his family rose from the refugee status, his sheltered upbringing in a Desi-London home, and the resulting incapacity to deal with the lowest point of his life when he was asked to leave Imperial College London after his first year of medicine.
Nishant is one of the most honest guests we've had so far and he never held back while narrating quite a vulnerable story. We promise it has a happy ending, although you’ll have to tune in next week to find out how he rose from the ashes to reclaim his life.
This week, we spoke to Aditi Gupta, the co-founder of Menstrupedia - the leading comic generating awareness in women’s reproductive health in countries like India, Nepal, Nigeria and South America. This episode is coming out in time to celebrate Menstrupedia’s 5th anniversary and we couldn’t be more proud to share such an amazing story.
Aditi’s Ted Talk ‘A taboo-free way to talk about periods’ has close to 1.5 million views and she’s made it into the achiever's list of Forbes India 30 under 30 in 2014 for her work towards breaking the taboo around menstruation. She’s a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC and BBC.
For those of you who watched our ladies perform on Sunday at the Women’s Cricket World Cup Finals, this interview with Snehal Pradhan, a former international cricket player, will help you understand what it really takes to train and support women all the way to the international stage.
This week, we’re talking to Alex Mathew a.k.a Maya the Drag Queen from Bangalore. Born and raised in an orthodox Christian home in Kerala, Alex temporarily broke away from his roots to live his life being true to his identity as a queer man and to pursue his passion for performing Drag in Bangalore. Get ready to share this episode with all your friends who still don’t fully understand the LGBTQ community and Drag as a performing art.
This week, we spoke to Anjali Menon, the award-winning writer/director of popular Malayalam movies like Manjadikuru, Ustad Hotel and Bangalore Days. In this episode, Anjali talks about her disciplined education in film studies followed by the entire decade of her life spent working on her very first film which despite being critically acclaimed, failed at the box office. In the end, she let us geek out about her following record-breaking blockbuster hits by going behind the scenes and expanding on their universes.
36 - that's the number of jokes Ankita has stolen from Meenal (and still counting). HOW ‘BOU DAH? It's also the number of times Ankita has regretted having a KFC dinner, much like on the night of this recording. But do you want to know what else has happened over 36 times on the podcast? You guessed it. The Texas accent of Baaaaaarb Kellner. It’s a braindump. And yes, it gets worse.
Meet Sukhminder Kaur from Leicester, a beautiful young woman who suffered as an emotional eater from a young age. A lack of self esteem was both the cause and result of a pattern she was falling into, and the loneliness she experienced as an outsider in a setting very different to her traditional Indian home was not helping in any way. Tune in to our conversation with Sukh where she tells us all about her journey from a cycle of unhealthy eating to that of a finalist in the Ms Plus Size North India 2017 pageant - India’s very first plus-size beauty pageant.
25 years ago, a malnutritioned baby girl was found abandoned in Ambala with a purple tongue, no hips and ribs sticking out of her body. It took her adoptive parents two whole years to revive her, only to find out that she had a hole in her heart. If it hadn’t been for them, Tia Bhatia would not be with us today, having this conversation. So join us in this episode with Tia, an actress based in Toronto, who was lucky enough to be brought into a loving home and given the kind of life every child deserves.
This week, we bring you an exclusive interview with Amandeep Singh of Inkquisitive Illustrations. Apart from being impressed with our “professional stalking”/FBI investigative skills, Amandeep spills the beans on being jobless for several months despite his very high GPA in college. He shares his journey from that dark place to the colourful one of being one of the most sought after Desi artists in the world.
This week, Ankita exposes the truly lowest points in her life - her relationships PRE SHANE. And Meenal tells us about the half date she had before her Mummy came in and ruined everything. We also share our four gems of wisdom regarding how to deal with a break up. Let us know what you think!
Finally, we bring you the much awaited Season premiere with the one and only "Mom Boss Of 3" from Youtube. Tina started her channel a year ago in order to document her daily life as a mother of three children. We discuss her life before marriage and kids, life as a second generation Desi in Canada, and how she juggles a hectic schedule whilst building her YouTube empire!
In season 2, we discussed many issues affecting us all around the globe and here we are at the Season Finale, discussing the most crucial of them all - who really is the ‘sexier’ one at the Desi Outsiders HQ (not including Shane).
This episode brings you all the unanswered questions that may have been swimming in your brain the past few months, including why we’re not called the ‘Desi Insiders’ :D
Meenal left and Shane grabbed on to the opportunity to replace her. The result: a very poor reflection on Shane and Ankita's marriage. They reveal things about themselves that the other didn't know, and about each other that nobody wants to know. When Meenal gave her blessing to the couple to record without her, she probably intended for it to be a disaster.
The first time we came across Simar’s ‘The Legal Rapist’, we were totally attracted to his pink shirt and Khaki pants combo. Oh, and his performance was pretty okay too ;) At the age of 16, Simar took the initiative to start Unerase Poetry. But at the end of the day, he’s just another schoolboy who doesn’t want to go to college. For the first time, we bring you his story in his own voice (and ours too!).
This week, we come with the last Braindump of the season. As always, nothing can prepare you for the tangents because, at the end of the episode, we ourselves struggled to figure out where it all started. But we’re sure the image can give you a gist of where the conversation took us this time. Enjoy!
This week, we’re in conversation with Priyanka Madan, a lawyer based in London. She learned the value of hard work and discovered what it means to be independent from the age of sixteen when she bagged a scholarship to complete her high school studies in Singapore. And then, there was no looking back. Tune in to follow this incredible success story!
This week, we want to talk to you all about the sensation that has taken India by storm - he IPL. Since 2008, April and May have been the two months when most Indians refuse to leave their homes to socialise with real people because they’re all too busy interacting animatedly with their television screens while watching the Indian Premier League. Stay tuned to hear Ankita scream “BLEED BLUE!” and find out why Meenal's new nickname is ‘Mummy Chappal’.
We’re so excited to share our conversation with Esha Malkani from Lasya Dance where we talk about how she found the time to build her dance empire while handling the demanding career of a Chartered Accountant. Girls and boys, it looks like you don’t have to choose between a career and a hobby these days when people like Esha are setting an example by making it all work out with grace.
This week we have another braindump for you! As always, the tangents are unexpected and this time, it ranges from Meenal’s birthday celebrations to the human instinct of fixating on romantic relationships. Stay tuned till the end for a lesson on psychology and we’re quite confident you’re about to put on your thinking caps after listening to this episode.
With just 3 days left to Mother’s Day here in the UK, we decided to have a little chat about motherhood, what it means to us, and whether or not we see ourselves taking up the role of mothers in the future. Hope you enjoy the show!
We hope you’re as excited about the changing seasons as Ankita is about the one day of sunshine in Edinburgh. This week, we discuss the onset of spring, the festival of colours that celebrates this welcome change, and the consequences that women face during public festivities and celebrations in India. We try to understand the core of this problem and what we can possibly do as a society to see some incremental change.
HOLY COW! This is our 20th episode and we can’t believe it either. We think it’s quite fitting that this episode is a braindump. And boy, are you not ready for the tangents because we sure weren’t. You’ll hear about topics ranging from women who inspire us, to Ankita's antisocial tendencies, all the way to the births and deliveries Meenal has witnessed in all the different continents she’s visited. Fasten your seatbelts, this is one rollercoaster of a conversation.
A lot has happened this week as far as Indians worldwide are concerned and we’re here to bring you a fresh perspective on all these issues. We discuss the murder of a fellow Indian at the hands of a xenophobe, the casual rape threats sent out to a 20-year-old, and also look at the influences that led to these eventualities. But most importantly, we tackle the influence of the affluent in our society.
Show notes : http://www.timechor.in/gurmehar-kaur-freedom-speech-exist-india/
Happy Thursday, everybody! Our blog feminismindia.com is up and running now and to celebrate the growth of our community, we wanted to bring you an episode introducing the basic concepts of feminism. We also go into a few scenarios which are quite common in most Desi homes and classrooms. However, we feel that practicing feminism could have saved all the victims in those situations.
Show notes:
Feminist not Fascist! : http://feminismindia.com/feminist-not-fascist/
As promised, we have a Valentine’s special episode this week where we read hilarious accounts on dating sent in by our listeners. But as usual, it’ not all fun and frolic - we also bring you some food for thought during this season of love.
Show notes - The News Minute article: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/love-doesn-t-stalk-kill-or-murder-stop-justifying-toxic-obsession-romance-56671
We’re back with season 2 and we have updates to share with you! Meenal now has straight teeth and Ankita got a nose job. Just kidding! Meenal still has those braces and a peacock beak continues to replace Ankita’s nose. But what actually got a makeover is our website.
Tune in to find out what else is new!
It’s been 15 weeks of Desi Outsiders - yes, you have been putting up with our lame jokes and high pitched giggles for that long. You’re welcome.
As promised, this final episode of Season 1 is a QnA where we answer all the questions you asked us! Thank you for sending them in! For any questions we haven’t answered, stay tuned for either a part 2 or a blog post :)
Christmas Mubaarak to all our listeners! This holiday season, we want to share our season’s favourites with you and also treat you to pretty things. So do stick around till the end of the episode to find out how to enter our special end of season GIVEAWAY. We hope you find our list of favourites interesting, and we’re looking forward to announcing the winner of this giveaway in next week’s episode.
Here are the links to some of the things we mention in the episode.: The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna The Good Wife Exploding Kittens - Board Game Fitness Blender Youtuber - Liza Koshy Skin care - The Body Shop’s Tea Tree Toner Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Episode - Let’s talk periods ft Shane Girish The Talk
We're an Amazon affiliate - which means that amazon items that we genuinely recommend may earn us a commission which in turn help support this podcast.
This week we chat with a fellow Desi Outsider, Abhishyant on his radical change of career choice during his final year of Mechanical Engineering. Abhishyant chose to complete his studies in Engineering, only to make the switch to Journalism immediately after his graduation. We discuss his journey from VIT to CNN-IBN to Columbia School of Journalism in New York. We absolutely loved speaking to him, and hope that you enjoy listening to our conversation.
You can find Abhishyanth on twitter @AbhishyantPK
It’s time for another special episode where we sit down and let our brains take a dump on your screens. After making you uncomfortable with all that period talk, we think you deserve a nice laugh. We’re not sure if you’re going to laugh with us or at us (most likely the latter). Either way, presenting our December Braindump.
Don't forget to check out the blooper reel at the end of the Youtube video: https://youtu.be/cKWx2PyPVnA
As always, send us your stories and comments to mail@desioutsiders.com
In our final episode on period, sex and reproduction, we come to you with a discussion on hygiene - female, male and even sexual hygiene. We round off our series on sexual health with an insight into the importance of maintaining proper hygiene, and stressing on the impact it can have on your body if this is neglected.
If you know anyone who you feel may benefit from this, please do share this episode with them - it may just help them more than you think.
This week, we bring you ‘The Talk’ in the form of a Youtube video. Sit back, and join us as we discuss all the things you need to know about puberty and sexual reproduction. This is for anyone who hasn’t been given the talk yet, or is unsure of the concept of reproduction. But mainly, we encourage parents to watch this video so that they have an easier time imparting this knowledge to their kids. We also hope that parents show their kids this video and watch it with them, to break all communication barriers.
Original Video: https://youtu.be/nKthChB5CMc
Please share, comment and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you feel this video is helpful.
If you have any other queries or confusions, we’d love to help you out! All you have to do is drop us an email to mail@desioutsiders.com
This week, we’re bringing period talk into your homes in an attempt to address one of the most taboo topics in most Indian homes. To make it even more awkward for Desi parents, Ankita’s husband Shane also makes a guest appearance to shed light on the importance of educating young boys on the very basics of human reproduction to fight fear and related stigma.
P.S. Last week, for the first time, we uploaded our podcast as a Youtube video. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/rloxtko08Ws
This week, despite coming very close to losing faith in humanity, we have something that might just cheer you up. No, it’s not a re-election, it’s a braindump. Instead of sticking to our usual theme, we decided to release this week’s episode in the form of a YouTube video. You’ll be able to see our conversation as we pretend to sit in the same room, side by side even though we’re in two different countries.
And as always, we invite listeners to send in their stories to mail@desioutsiders.com
Youtube: https://youtu.be/rloxtko08Ws
This week, as we discuss the various options available to us before going into University, Meenal’s Dad makes a special guest appearance and reminds us that things don’t suck as much as we make them out to. We also go into horrifying CA pass rates in the country and talk about the importance of looking into all the available options before making an important decision.
In this week’s episode, we walk down memory lane and tell each other stories from our respective school days. Meenal went to school in Europe and Ankita was raised in India. So there were a lot of ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s when Meenal learned about steel ruler beatings and Ankita heard about the freedom to do “nothing at all” in an art class.
Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deepblue66/10375972415/
In this episode, we discuss how we embarked on our respective career paths and the things that influenced these choices. Meenal dishes out on how she failed to get into medical school, only to find an opportunity that changed her outlook on life, while Ankita tells the story of how she climbed on hostel toilets to look at boys.
This week, we discuss the untold story of the younger Indian daughter. Being a younger Indian daughter who has been left behind in a household that has suffered the loss of an eloping child is not an easy situation to be stuck in.
We reflect upon the root causes of all treatments in a setting like this.
Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bhagathk/3084924167/in/photostream/
In this week's episode, Ankita and Meenal dig deeper into the topic of marriage in India. Not only do they discuss the fallacies of love and marriage in the Desi culture, but they also attempt to give their listeners a reality check by shedding light on their own personal experiences.
This week, we discuss the biggest business transaction in India - marriage.
Ankita shares her personal story of introducing her parents to a guy of her choice while Meenal gives Ankita the shock of her life when she tells the story of an Indian family in Europe. But they don’t stop there.
Ankita and Meenal give a brief introduction into their lives as they explore their journey from where they started off as two girls with big ideas to how they ended up grabbing their mics and sharing their stories. The two girls tell us about the biggest, yet most significant change in their life which brought them to where they are now. They introduce their vision of the Desi Outsiders community, a safe place for all 'Desis' to come together in order to be a part of many meaningful conversations.
They invite listeners to send in their stories to mail@desioutsiders.com
You can follow them on Social Media @TheDesiOutsiders