SBS Spice

We love girl dads. And Saesha's dad fits the bill a little too perfectly. For this Father's Day, she bribes him with a Yo-Chi to jump on the pod and spill his secret to surviving three women in the house. It's a little scary, he admits. Dr Sanjaya Senanayake is one of Australia's most recognised health experts who has often embarrassed his family on national TV with his "jokes". We're certain he is a big deal but for this episode, he is just a dad (and also our official Spice Girl). Listen now, only on SBS Spice.

For Shabana Azeez, being the first to represent her roots is only the beginning. The Adelaide-born actor once faced a choice between a drama school acceptance and her Indo-Fijian family’s support. Today, with screen credits spanning genres and borders, she’s opening doors in an industry she once risked entering. As she builds her character Victoria Javadi in the medical drama 'The Pitt', Shabana speaks with Suhayla Sharif about humble beginnings, the lessons of failure, and turning competition into community. Listen now on SBS Spice, wherever you get your podcasts.

At just 12, Melbourne-based musician Meghna uploaded her first song to YouTube. More than a decade on, her fusion of alt-pop and unflinching storytelling has built a catalogue earning recognition from Rolling Stone Australia and national broadcaster Rage, while connecting her to a growing global audience. With Tamil and Bengali roots grounding her, Meghna speaks to Suhayla Sharif about channelling fury into music, the power of staying authentic, and her new EP ‘A World Full of Idiots’.

Can obsessive, all-or-nothing love still hold Bollywood’s box office? Suhayla and Dilpreet ask if the success of 'Saiyaara' signals a comeback for Indian cinema’s big, messy love stories. And maybe what Bollywood really needs to feel alive again are the very clichés we once rolled our eyes at: the slow-mo shots, the airport chases, the kind of drama only Bollywood can pull off and we secretly never stopped loving.

When Rohan Kanawade returned to his family’s village to mourn his father, he carried more than grief. He carried a story. That story became Cactus Pears, the first Marathi-language film to premiere at Sundance and now making its Australian debut at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In this conversation, Rohan speaks to SBS Spice about finding tenderness between men without cliché, resisting the urge to define characters by their sexuality, and why rooting a film deeply in the soil it comes from can make it universal. Listen on SBS Spice.

Content warning: This story contains references to domestic violence. In Australia, 1 in 6 women are survivors of domestic violence. For migrant women, that rises to 1 in 3. In South Asian communities, shame and taboo can bury these stories even deeper, silencing survivors of physical, emotional and financial abuse. In this episode, host Saesha Senanayake hears from Emma*, trauma-informed counsellor Shalina Lodhia, human rights lawyer Lokesh Kashyap, and sexual health and forensic medicine specialist Dr Vanita Parekh on the cultural, legal and medical supports needed to break that silence. Listen now on SBS Spice, wherever you get your podcasts.

Keg de Souza, an architecturally trained artist of Goan ancestry, sees plants as living witnesses whose roots trace journeys of migration, displacement and survival. From the colonial spread of eucalyptus to the politics embedded in everyday landscapes, her work asks us to look closer. In her latest project 'Plant Trials', a residency with the Melbourne Arts Precinct and the University of Melbourne, she turns a rooftop garden into a living laboratory investigating which plants can thrive in a changing climate to shape resilient urban landscapes. Listen on SBS Spice.

Leela Varghese was once told there weren’t any roles for her on Australian screens. So she stopped chasing auditions and picked up a camera instead. Now her films, including 'Lesbian Space Princess' and 'I'm The Most Racist Person I Know' (screening at MIFF this year), are crashing festivals around the world. In this episode, the Lebanese-Indian filmmaker speaks with Suhayla Sharif about growing up brown in Queensland, making space for queer South Asian stories, and why confronting internalised prejudice starts with gentle honesty. Listen now on SBS Spice.

Masala is the backbone of South Asian cooking, and for Kashmiri-Australian author Sarina Kamini, understanding it has established her as a scholar of spice. In her new book 'What We Call Masala', she unpacks the layered alchemy of Indian food and invites readers to explore its transportive power. Sarina joins Suhayla Sharif to share the magic of a masala dabba, why eating with your hands is the only way, and how Indian recipes carry generations of resilience. Listen now on SBS Spice, wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast episodes are planned. This one wasn’t. Expect practice kisses, podcast fails, almost-texts to your ex’s new girlfriend and a few emotional curveballs. Dilpreet and Suhayla go rogue in this no-topic-but-all-the-topics episode of SBS Spice. But what starts as pure banter lands somewhere surprisingly tender. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.