Desi Outsiders

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