American Desis Podcast

The boys are back!...kinda...they drop in to wish everyone a MUCG belated happy new year and to share what's up! They explain why they haven't been around for a while and share what they are working on for the future of AD! Then, with the serious shit aside, they received some tweets about basketball and hip hop and realized that they had NEVER had a show about sports or hip hop. Well that is now fixed :) tune in and enjoy American Desis

The tides of change upon us and we here at American Desis are not immune to it. So we decided to drop a State of the Podcast episode to let y'all know what we are thinking, introduce our amazing new producer, and put out an APB for all the help we can get to make this show as amazing as possible. So tune in, and join in!

Happy New Year's, everyone! After a holiday hiatus (forced upon us because Arjun landed a movie role in India) we ring in the new year with an overdue Community Episode. After all, how Desi are we if we aren't late? In this episode, we discuss Arjun's time in India and the shifts that he is noticing within the country and himself, get a firsthand account of demonetization and its impact on India, and question what the best way is to praise and criticize our culture. Tune into our first episode from the Motherland (at least for Arjun)!

The idea going against your parents and marrying the person you choose is an American ideal that has become fairly commonplace for our generation. But how many times have you heard that story from someone in our parents' generation? If you're like us, it's zero. Enter Sujata Winfield- an immigration attorney in Athens, Georgia. She came onto our podcast and was kind/brave/generous enough to tell us a story of falling in love. While that's the only thing she gives herself credit for- "falling in love"- there is much more to the story than that. Tune in and listen to a fascinating and beautiful story of love.

In the second half of our interview with Yassir we make our way around to the less significant details: his racial makeup and identity, how he grew up, his views on race...you know, the stuff this podcast is based on. Or whatever. All jokes aside, even though this took place in May, it's a great discussion about some issues that are very pertinent to this podcast and even to the current state of our country. And get at us: we would love to hear your thoughts!

Our episodes the last few weeks have been quite serious in response to the goings on of the world. But balance is something we care about here at American Desis, and so we thought that this week we would drop something more fun. Enter Yassir Lester, maybe the funniest dude we know. One of those episodes that's just three people having a conversation. It starts off with the worst intro we have ever done and continues on to talk about twitter as a source of news, death threats, Cecil the Lion, why does news suck, and even the end point of humanity. But most importantly we talk about why Yassir has such a crush on Arjun.

After the stunning events of Tuesday's election, we wanted to have a safe space for people to be heard. So we read the emails and tweets that our community have shared and explore the answers to the question: What Now?

*This podcast was originally uploaded two weeks ago but had quite a few technical issues. We edited as well as we could and re-uploaded.

As we realize post election the importance of making sure we are listening to more points of views and cultivating a more true diversity, it is even more exciting to drop this week's episode. Akaash and I are dudes, and in a lot of way brothers. So we brought on two people who felt truly antithetical: sisters! Meet Keertana and Pallavi Sastry. These two Texan ladies joined us in June in LA to talk about the sister relationship and how it has evolved for them throughout their life. They chart the many shifts along the way that have made them similar and the moments that caused them to diverge. We also get to hear their experience post 9/11 and how they each ended up responding quite differently. Please join us to hear about one of the most important -hoods: Sisterhood

On today's community episode, the boys focus on Diwali. They interview each other on what the holiday means to them and share different stories and traditions. Since the holiday represents to them the idea of community, they then reach into their emails and tweets to hear stories of how other Desis celebrated the holiday. They even hear from someone in Trinidad who shared what festivities look like down there! Hope you enjoy this holiday edition of American Desis, and hope your Diwali was full of light, love, and community!

There is a narrative of our community as being apolitical and somewhat isolationistic since we have gotten to this country. This is supported by our voter turnout in election, and the large scale hesitance to get involved in causes supporting other minority communities. Well, that actually does not speak to the roots of our South Asian American history. Actually, many of us don't even know our community was here before 1965. Well thankfully, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee joined our show to put our heads straight. We drove up to Berkeley, California and partook in their Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, which they have been running for four years now. It tells stories of South Asian radicals from as far back as the early 1900's. It paints a new picture of our community: the trials and tribulations we have faced, and the power that we have when we came together. Barnali and Anirvan then sat down with us to track the origins of this tour and talk about the shifts that they see in people after learning this history. In this time of poltical and racial unrest, it is wildly important for us to know our history so we can make better decisions about how to shape the future.