Cultured, or Nah?

Bollywood, our parents' marriages, Disney movies, Hollywood - all of it would have been enough to throw us into a doozy. How did you think about love and dating growing up? What has changed for you, and what do you hope for now? In this episode, Shabnum sits down with fellow podcasters Lahari Rao (of Down to Brown podcast) and Mitali Dargani (of Brown Game Strong podcast) and the three compare their childhoods, influence of their parents' relationships, what they saw in the media, and the impact of their relatives' perceptions and relationships on their conceptions of love both growing up and now. Travel with us as we talk about our childhoods, our teenage years, our twenties, and how we think about love/relationships now! 

Do you ever feel like our collectivist cultures and all the models we grew up with of what a fulfilling life could be make it seem like not having kids is a strange, or even selfish choice? How do we talk about not wanting kids and still being able to live fulfilling lives without feeling like we're missing out on something or feeling guilty? Listen to this episode where Shabnum and her friend Avani Patel speak candidly about when they started to feel they may not want kids and how they think this choice is perceived by their family members. Shabnum and Avani talk at length about how fulfilling lives without kids weren't really modeled to them, and how as South Asians it's hard to find models for these even today. Not enough is mentioned around the choice to not have kids, and so the two take a moment to really sit in this discussion around all the different thoughts they've had about what kind of life they see themselves living and why we feel we don't hear about this choice enough. 

In this episode, Shabnum compares two books: The Doctor and the Saint - Caste, Race, and the Annihilation of Caste (the Debate Between B.R. Ambedkar and M.K. Gandhi) by Arundhati Roy, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander to get a deeper understanding of the way in which we can define caste. Shabnum is no expert in caste, nor someone who has personal experience with any of the issues highlighted, and wants to call that out upfront. This episode is Shabnum's journey through reading the two books mentioned, and sharing her learnings and personal opinions with her audiencel. 

Today we're joined by Payal Shah - Founder & Designer of L'Dezen and Psylish Jewelry, fashion influencer, and Web3/NFT enthusiast! Payal talks through the basics like what even are NFTs? She then proceeds to explain how she has been looking into and experimenting with Web3 and the blockchain to future proof her own business, and why she enjoys the world of NFTs so much. Payal will talk us through an endless world of possibilities when it comes to this space, and even highlight some South Asian artists she specifically likes. I personally learned a lot in this conversation, so if you've ever been curious about NFTs and have been nervous to dive in or feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start, definitely do give this episode a listen! Payal made it all super accessible.  

What do you think when you hear the term "mom"? What do you picture when you picture a desi mom? Taking the previously uncool to cool, we're seeing a new generation of women claiming all aspects of their identity - motherhood, South Asianness, their hobbies, their kids, and everything in between. Today we have on Jyoti Chand (@mamajotes on Instagram) and we talk about how and why the image of what a South Asian mom is has changed. Jyoti talks about her journey as a creator and how she juggles the multiple identities and perceptions that come with being a South Asian woman and mother. 

Note: the title is a reference to the film Mean Girls, and not in any way meant to diminish the role mothers play in our lives. 

Does your comedy always have to stem from your race / religion / culture? Join us as we talk to Meghana Indurti and Daman Bamrah about how they got started in comedy and what drives them. Meg and Damn will get into the good, the bad, the ugly of comedy and how they think about the content of their sets as they think about talking to different kinds of audiences. 

Publishing a book is no joke - especially one that seeks to tell the stories of South Asian women across the world in all different phases of life - young, old, married, single, divorced, taking care of their mothers or mother-in-laws, maintaining friendships or struggling with the loss of them. Untold did what few other books have been able to do before - collect a series of varied experiences and bring them together to representatively try to present a point of view on the experience of growing up South Asian. In this episode, Shabnum sits down with Trisha Sakhuja-Walia, the founder of Brown Girl Magazine, and editors of Untold Kamini Ramdeen-Chowdhury and Gabrielle Deonath. The group talks about the motivations of starting a book, how and why BGM was started, and the lessons they learned in publishing this anthology. 

Join us as we talk to 3 writers from Brown Girl Magazine's Untold anthology who speak about unique experiences such as the expectations between a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, caretaking duties as a children of desi parents, and relationships with grandparents abroad. In this episode we'll dive into the relationships that define so much of our lives, and the way the expectations of those relationships are distinctly unique to being South Asian - often serving as extreme counter-types to the relationships we see portrayed in western media. Any relationship between two people is unique, and in this episode Shabnum gets a deeper dive into the relationships and thoughts that inspired each of these writers to write their pieces. Featuring Anita Gulati, Neha Patel, and Radhika Menon. 

Ever been confused by how your parents can hate Trump but support Modi? How do we have difficult and honest conversations on social media given very real potential threats from the governments of South Asian countries, as well as the comment trolls? What started as a conversation about how these two accounts, Urban Asian and South Asian Nation, are working to amplify South Asian voices and building a brand blossomed into a much more important conversation on the importance of being able to amplify the areas of utmost attention in conversations about South Asian matters - but this isn't always easy. The internet can still be a scary place to have an extremely opinionated opinion. Join Shabnum Gulati in conversation with Roshni Patel Vasram (founder of Urban Asian) and Divya Suneji (founder of South Asian Nation). 

How did this happen? What allowed this to happen? And what are the legal arguments that underpin such a momentous decision in American history? Back with a bang, Shabnum comes back for Season 4 with Seema Iyer, a lawyer and journalist with Queens City News as they explore what the legal arguments were that allowed Roe v. Wade to get overturned. Seems explains the fractious history behind America's abortion laws (or lack thereof) and how we are in the situation we're in, as well as what we need to do for the future to ensure that access to abortion is fair and equal for citizens of the USA going forward.