South Asian Films and Books

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Tanmeet Sethi, an integrative family medicine physician, and clinical associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Our conversation focused on her debut book, Joy is My Justice, which explores cultivating and practicing joy in the face of oppression and day-to-day hardships.

In this episode, I speak with the award-winning film director Kanu Behl, about his film Agra, his second feature film, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Director’s Fortnight. Written by Behl and Atika Chouhan, Agra is an exploration of sexual dynamics within a family and the deep dystopian fractures created in modern India fast shrinking into pigeon-holed spaces. Kanu's first feature film Titli was screened at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.

In this episode, I talk to the award-winning novelist and professor at UC Berkeley, Vikram Chandra, about his critically-acclaimed mystery/thriller novel Sacred Games. Winner of the Hutch Crossword Award for English Fiction, and finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Sacred Games is now the first original television series from India on Netflix.

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Lamia Karim, a professor at the University of Oregon, about her new book, Castoffs Of Capital: Work and Love among Garment Workers in Bangladesh, a book that dispels stereotypes about garment workers in the global apparel industry. It draws on fieldwork in Bangladesh to examine how female garment workers experience their work and personal lives within the stranglehold of global capital. Anthropologist Lamia Karim focuses on relations among work, gender, and global capital’s targeting of poor women to advance its market penetration, showing how women navigate these spaces by adopting new subject formations.

In this episode, I talk with Barkha Dutt, India's most well-known and leading broadcast journalist, about her 2022 book "To Hell and Back: Humans of Covid"

In this episode I talk with Zainab Fasiki, Morocco’s most radical and disruptive feminist who transgresses the taboo on sexuality and the female body through graphic activism. We also talk about her 2019 graphic novel entitled Hshouma (Shame).

Beautifully written and deeply personal, Sonora Jha's memoir follows the struggles and triumphs of one single, immigrant mother of color to raise an American feminist son. From teaching consent to counteracting problematic messages from the media, well-meaning family, and the culture at large, Sonora offers an empowering, imperfect feminism, brimming with honest insight and actionable advice.

In this episode I talk with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni about her latest novel "The Last Queen," which is the story of the spectacular rise of the beautiful Jindan Kaur. Starting out as the daughter of the royal kennel keeper, she went on become Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s youngest and last queen; his favorite. And when her six-years-old son Dalip Singh unexpectedly inherited the throne, Jindan Kaur became Queen Regent of Punjab.

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Geetha Jayaraman, a former journalist and a filmmaker who teaches film practice at the Culture Lab, Newcastle University, UK. Geetha’s debut feature film "Run Kalyani" won the Special Jury Award at the Kolkata International Film Festival and got awards in the Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor categories at several international film festivals including Trichur, New York, and Montreal.

As a director, script writer and producer of a range of documentaries. Geetha produced the award-winning documentary ‘Algorithms." She also wrote a prize-winning script for "A Certain Slant of Light" which won the 2008 Goteborg International Film Festival’s development fund.

In this episode, I talk with Sultana Siddiqui, a Pakistani media mogul, and television producer and director, who is celebrated for her widely successful TV drama Zindagi Gulzar Hai. As the founder of Hum Network Limited, she is the first woman in Pakistan to establish a TV station.