This episode uncovers a story far richer than food culture. We go back to the 1960s, when Black and Asian migrants in Britain were refused service at pubs displaying signs that read “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.”

In the West Midlands, Punjabi foundry workers created their own spaces, places that offered safety, solidarity, and, later, a new cultural identity. These early “desi pubs” weren’t restaurants; they were hubs of resistance.

Activists organised inside them, and Bhangra musicians played in makeshift back rooms. In 1965, Malcolm X even walked into Smethwick to see Britain’s colour bar for himself, experiencing refusal of service in a local pub that now stands at the centre of this history.

Over time, these spaces evolved. Once Punjabis felt safe inside them, food emerged as a defining feature, a fusion of working-class Britain and diasporic Punjab. What began as a refuge became a cultural invention: the mixed grill.

This dish, found almost nowhere else in the world, remains tied to the industrial heart of Birmingham, the rhythms of the Bhangra scene, and a community rebuilding itself far from home.

Today, as the UK faces rising tensions once again, the story of the desi pub is more relevant than ever. It reminds us how communities resist exclusion and how culture is born in the spaces where people fight simply to belong.

In this episode, I speak with historian and journalist Anne Sebba about her book The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz and the unsettling role music played inside the Nazi camp system.

Music is usually associated with comfort or beauty. However, at Auschwitz, it was used as a tool of control, discipline, and deception. Anne explains why the orchestra was not about uplift or art, but rather a functional part of how the camp operated day-to-day.

On 26 April 1915, 444 men of the 47th Sikh Regiment went over the top at the Battle of Ypres. By nightfall, 347 could not answer roll call, a 78% casualty rate in a single day. Their names? Barely 16 or 17 appear on the Menin Gate.

This is the story Britain left out.

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I sat down with Dr Dominiek Dendooven, historian at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Belgium, to piece together what actually happened when Indian troops were sent to the Western Front in 1914. Not as a footnote. Not as support staff. But as combatants who held a third of the British front line at the height of the First Battle of Ypres, in autumn, in tropical kit, carrying weapons one generation behind the British soldiers beside them.

They were never supposed to be in Europe. Britain had never deployed Indian troops to the continent before, partly because officials feared what Indian soldiers might learn if they watched Europeans destroy each other up close. But by the end of September 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was in dire straits. They needed bodies, so they sent for India.

Yet something else happened in those trenches. Sikh soldiers, Hindu soldiers and Muslim soldiers ate together, slept side by side, and began describing themselves, perhaps for the first time, simply as Indian. The Western Front did not just take lives. It also planted a seed.

Dr Dendooven has spent more than two decades recovering this history at the In Flanders Fields Museum. This conversation is long overdue.

Explore the interactive WWI Indian Army map here: https://bit.ly/WW1IndianArmyMap

Read the guide, Who Was at Ypres: Every Indian Unit That Fought in the Battles of 1914–1915, here: https://bit.ly/WhoWasAtYpresGuide

Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, raised at Elveden Hall in Suffolk and goddaughter to Queen Victoria.

Then she became one of Britain’s most fearless suffragettes.

Her sisters were even more extraordinary.

I sat down with Dr Mishka Sinha, Curator for Inclusive History at Historic Royal Palaces and the historian behind a landmark new exhibition at Kensington Palace, to tell the full story of three daughters of Maharaja Duleep Singh who used their privilege, their pain and their fury to fight the very empire that shaped them.

Queen Victoria was Empress of India. She was also godmother to the children of the man whose kingdom she helped destroy. Victoria called him “your affectionate friend.”

But as Polly Putnam tells me, it was a strange relationship between conqueror and conquered.

Polly is the Collections Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the historian behind Netflix’s Bridgerton, and the curator of The Last Princesses of Punjab — her 31st exhibition, and the hardest one she has ever done. She did not want to tell this story from above. She wanted South Asian voices in the room.

In this episode, we cover why Sophia sold suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court, why Bamba had snowballs thrown at her on the way to medical school, why Catherine told a Jewish refugee fleeing the Nazis, “I’ll be that person,” why Duleep Singh died with a Bible at his bedside despite taking Sikh initiation, and the revelation that almost everything in this family’s London history happened in Kensington, including the birth of the women’s suffrage movement itself.

Most people think Chandi Di Var is simply a celebration of divine vengeance, a straightforward battle between good and evil. But what if we have been reading it wrong?

In this episode, we explore the deeper meaning of Chandi Di Var, Chandi Charitar I, and Chandi Charitar II, asking why the moral universe in these compositions is far less clean or predictable than many assume. As discussed in the conversation, gods behave badly and demons speak uncomfortable truths, forcing us to rethink easy assumptions about morality, myth, and spiritual struggle.

This is a discussion about Sikh theology, the Dasam Granth, myth, symbolism, and moral philosophy. It looks at how these compositions work, what they are trying to do, and why they continue to provoke debate.

If you are interested in Sikh theology, Dasam Granth interpretation, Chandi Di Var analysis, or deeper conversations on myth, symbolism, and the moral complexity of Sikh scripture, this episode is for you.

Timestamps

00:00 — What do people commonly get wrong about this story and what it is actually trying to achieve?

12:44 — Why are there three separate compositions, Chandi Di Var, Chandi Charitar I, and Chandi Charitar II, and how do they differ or overlap?

21:21 — You state explicitly in the text that you are not promoting any agenda. Why make that declaration?

29:32 — What role do moral inversion and the collapse of principles play in shaping the story?

36:08 — How should we read this as an internal journey as much as a cosmic one, not just an external myth but something personal?

41:04 — Time in this story is cyclical. There is no happily ever after. What does it mean to accept that?

44:54 — What is the biggest assumption you had to rethink while working on this project?

57:36 — If Chandi is not about defeating an external enemy but an internal ego that returns every day, what does the text ultimately ask the reader to do?

59:49 — Where can people get a copy?

1:01:28 — There was confusion about Chandi among Sikhs even in the precolonial period. What was that about?

1:08:16 — Tell us about your involvement in the art and creative direction.

1:17:51 — Do you treat images like hieroglyphics, as another form of language?

1:21:41 — What was the process behind creating the original artwork that accompanies the translation?

1:26:04 — What do you hope people take away from this work?

Religion at school always felt too neat. Boxes. Definitions. “This is what Sikhs believe.” But real life is never that tidy.

In this episode, I sit down with Professor Eleanor Nesbitt, Emeritus Professor of Religions and Education at the University of Warwick, co-founder of the Punjab Research Group and author of Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction, to explore what the textbooks miss.

We talk about why lived religion rarely fits a single definition, and how Sikh, Hindu and Punjabi families often practice differently, even within the same household. We also discuss the limits and failures of GCSE-style Religious Education, and what Britain looked like after Empire during the first waves of migration.

Professor Nesbitt reflects on what she learned while teaching in India in the 1970s, and on the emergence of Sikh Studies as an academic field in the UK. We also explore where academic research still struggles, why open debate matters, and the gaps that future scholars still need to fill.

Along the way, she shares the story of how one pen friend changed the course of her life.

In this episode, I speak with Marieha Hussain about the story behind the Coconut Placard Case.

We begin with her early life and identity as a Muslim South Asian woman in post-9/11 Britain, before turning to the protest that led to a police investigation, a criminal trial, and ultimately her acquittal.

We unpack what really happened at the pro-Palestine march, and why a satirical placard featuring Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman triggered such a rapid police response.

Marieha explains how an anonymous right-wing blog came to play a role in the case, and how the word “coconut”, widely understood within South Asian communities, was reframed by the state as a hate crime.

Our conversation explores the tension between free speech and hate speech, the policing of protest in the UK, the emotional toll of being prosecuted, and the role community solidarity played throughout the trial.

Marieha also reflects on what this case reveals about activism, racism, and state power, as well as the advice she would give to others considering speaking out.

What does it mean to make ancient music feel new again?

In this episode of The Story Isn’t Over, Ramblings of a Sikh sits down with sitar maestro Jasdeep Singh Degun, a Leeds-born virtuoso reshaping the soundscape of British Indian classical music.

From his early training within the NADA Yatra tradition to headlining the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Jasdeep reflects on the tension between tradition and innovation, growing up British Asian, and the quiet confidence it takes to reimagine classical forms on your own terms.

🎶 How do you honour centuries of raag while making it speak to a new generation?

🎤 What happens when South Asian identity, classical training, and mainstream recognition collide?

🌍 Why does Indian classical music deserve a central place in Britain’s cultural institutions?

Whether you’re a musician, a cultural critic, or simply curious about what it takes to blend heritage with bold reinvention, this is a conversation not to miss.

In this episode I sit down with Shuranjeet Singh, founder of Taraki and one of the leading voices on Punjabi mental health in the UK.

We have an open and grounded conversation about masculinity, youth, community trauma and why mainstream mental health systems often fail South Asian communities. Shuranjeet reflects on leaving a career at Oxford, the power of lived experience and how grassroots work can create forms of healing that institutions cannot.

This episode explores stigma, identity and what meaningful, community led mental health support actually looks like. A thoughtful listen for anyone interested in mental health, South Asian experiences and culturally rooted approaches to care.