2:01

like the time I cut off my hair

2:04

or when I made some non-feminist

2:06

dating choices. Also the

2:08

time I almost had an

2:10

arranged marriage. Almost. You'll

2:13

hear more about my life journey. I

2:16

hope hearing about my

2:18

journey inspires you in your

2:21

own life journey. Hello

2:23

and welcome to the Sala podcast. This

2:26

is an episode with a twist because

2:29

when I interviewed Mel she said if

2:31

you ever come to New York I'll interview you. I'll

2:33

turn the tables on you and I'll ask all the

2:35

questions. I don't think

2:37

she ever expected me to actually turn up so

2:39

here I am in New York. I kind of

2:41

buzzed her and said here I am interview me

2:43

and that's what we're doing. And

2:46

so here I am we're sitting at the

2:48

Spotify offices in New York and

2:51

I'm so glad that we're actually able

2:53

to do this. You know honestly just

2:55

want to celebrate Sangeeta because

2:57

she you know reached out to

2:59

me to do her podcast and

3:01

afterwards I left thinking wow I

3:03

mean this is an incredible woman.

3:05

There's just so much compassion behind

3:07

your voice and I could tell

3:09

that there was just so much there that

3:12

I wanted to explore. I'm you know I don't

3:15

really I don't do this for a living but

3:17

I'm just like let me just try you know

3:19

let me talk to you and hear about your

3:21

stories. You have such a dedicated audience and I'm

3:24

sure they would love to know more about you

3:26

know the woman behind the

3:28

podcast. So I'm so glad

3:30

that we're able to make this work. Thank you

3:32

so much. I'm really really touched and

3:35

Mel is super busy. She's super successful.

3:37

She's running around everywhere and she's still

3:39

made time for this so deeply

3:41

deeply grateful. Fantastic

3:44

so I guess it's on me. No

3:48

pressure Mel. No pressure. So

3:51

I thought it would be fun to start

3:53

with something a little bit different

3:56

just to give your audiences just

3:59

you know a little bit of a bit of flavor. Not

4:02

necessarily rapid fire but just some questions

4:04

that you know people don't know about

4:07

you. So

4:09

first tell me about the last book you

4:11

read. I reread something that I

4:14

read when I was really young called The

4:16

God of Small Things by Arindha Thiroi. So

4:18

I recently found I had an old copy

4:20

and it had a huge impact on me

4:22

when I was 20 something

4:24

living in Mumbai because I

4:26

didn't think you could make a living as a writer

4:28

like I was told that you know you had to be

4:30

Dr. Loy or engineer. So to see

4:32

a woman like me from

4:35

Kerala writing a book which

4:37

became this and it was it won the book

4:39

a prize and all of that so I reread that and

4:42

it really touched me once again. How would

4:45

you describe your session

4:47

style? Very colorful. She is

4:50

wearing a bright red jumpsuit

4:52

and it looks fantastic. I

4:55

don't do beige. Again something I've learned when I moved

4:57

to the West from India. I grew up in India.

4:59

I spent most of my adult life in India. I

5:02

tried to blend in and I started to

5:04

wear a lot more like browns and grays

5:06

and blacks and those were the kind of

5:08

dress codes of advertising agencies places that I

5:10

worked in and

5:12

it's only the last kind of five

5:14

years when I've started to embrace my

5:17

identity kind of the work that I

5:19

do in the Sala podcast that

5:21

I've started to wear a lot more color. Isn't it

5:23

funny? So it's like I've gone back

5:26

to my roots even with the

5:28

colors that I'm choosing. Absolutely and

5:30

you deserve it too. People should

5:33

people should look at you you know

5:35

you're doing so many wonderful things and

5:37

when you walk in the room you

5:39

should you command that attention. And final

5:42

question childhood crush ideally

5:44

someone famous. I don't

5:46

have to think twice. Amitabh Bachchan you were probably

5:49

too young to remember him but oh my god

5:51

I remember being like 12 and

5:53

he did this film I think it was Kala

5:55

Bhattar anybody that's grown up in India will know

5:58

this and he turned up on screen like with

6:00

a shirt knotted at his waist. And

6:02

I had never, I thought, oh my God, I didn't even know it

6:05

was sexy. I just knew I felt something. I didn't

6:07

know what that something was. I was

6:09

too young. The shirt at the waist. Oh my

6:11

God. And he was like tall and lean and

6:13

dark. And we'd never seen anyone like that before.

6:16

So it was Amitabh Bachchan. So I think

6:18

he was my stuff of schoolgirl crushes.

6:22

I watched a lot of his films over

6:25

and over again. I loved his

6:27

voice. I found him very sexy. So

6:30

that was my proper schoolgirl crush.

6:34

Let's stay with your childhood a little bit.

6:36

You know, ultimately I wanna know what drives

6:38

you and understand why you created this podcast

6:40

and where you're going with it and talk

6:42

about its impact. But I think a lot

6:45

of that starts from

6:47

youth. Can you tell

6:49

me a little bit about your childhood,

6:51

your fondest memories, maybe some hard things

6:54

that you had to overcome? So

6:58

you're absolutely right. All the

7:00

work I do now

7:02

I've realized goes back to my childhood. It's

7:04

kind of how I grew up, who

7:06

I was. I grew up in Islam

7:08

in Mumbai. I grew up in a very poor family.

7:12

We were from Kerala, but we moved to Mumbai when I was

7:14

a year old. And my father

7:16

was alcoholic. He was very

7:19

abusive. So there was

7:21

a lot of violence at home. So every

7:23

night, I'd be terrified to go to

7:25

sleep. I would, I feel like children

7:27

do that thing where I would

7:30

say, if I count to this and I haven't

7:32

fallen asleep, it won't happen tonight. Like

7:34

it was this thing I told myself

7:38

and I'd sometimes fall asleep and my dad would come home

7:40

and I would kind of sniff the air. And

7:42

I think of smelling alcohol, but I didn't know what I

7:44

was doing. I would smell like an animal and

7:47

he would come and it would be very violent. And there

7:49

was a lot of blood and he would hit her head

7:53

against the wall and it was horrific. And

7:55

we'd kind of, I don't know what it was. We'd wake up in

7:57

the morning, help kind of put her together.

8:00

together, sometimes take it to the hospital and then just

8:02

go to school. It was

8:04

so disconnected and so dysfunctional, but it's the

8:06

only kind of way we knew. So

8:09

I grew up thinking that women

8:11

had no power. Like my mother couldn't leave. She

8:13

didn't have a job. She didn't have money. You

8:16

know, she couldn't go anywhere. No one would look

8:18

after her and her kids. A lot of my

8:20

kind of deepest beliefs

8:24

come from there where I was thinking

8:27

I did not want a life like that. I

8:29

was like, whatever happens, I

8:31

want to have a voice. I want to have

8:33

my own money. I want to have the

8:37

ability to kind of live in the world

8:39

without being battered by a man every single

8:41

night because that's what I saw. At

8:44

one age did you realize that? I

8:47

don't think I did. And this is what's funny. I

8:49

think I always knew.

8:52

Like it was this belief deep in my gut

8:55

that I did not want this life, the life

8:58

that I saw around me and

9:01

the life that I was being told, like, you know,

9:03

girls at that point, you know, eighties India were told

9:05

like, oh yeah, well, the best you can hope for

9:07

is a nice man will marry you. Like

9:10

that's the best possible

9:12

dream life that you can have. And

9:15

even my mother sometimes I'd say like, oh, I'd love

9:18

to travel. She'd say to me, oh, well, if you

9:20

marry someone who travels, you can travel. So

9:23

you see, like those were kind of the boxes we were put

9:25

in. But I think

9:27

I was born with this kind of fire

9:30

inside me. Like that's the only word I

9:32

can think of. And

9:35

I knew I always, always knew that

9:37

that life wasn't for me. And

9:41

it was really hard because I was staying at home

9:43

and girls didn't leave the house at that point. They'd

9:46

say, you know, either your funeral pyre leaves or your

9:48

bridal, whatever leaves, like that's one of the things I

9:50

was told. But I just stayed at home. I fought

9:52

and I fought and I fought. I'm like, okay, this

9:55

is the job I'm having. These are the clothes I'm

9:57

wearing. These are the friends I'm having. And

10:00

it was very hard for them. And

10:02

now I look back and I feel a bit sorry

10:04

for my mother because she did the best she could.

10:06

Like she was trying to give me the best and

10:08

for her, the best would be like a nice guy

10:10

would marry me, you know? So in her own way,

10:12

she was trying hard. But

10:14

I was just different. I was born

10:17

different. I was different. And I just,

10:19

yeah, I just knew inside

10:21

me like did like the cells in

10:24

my body knew. Yeah. That makes

10:26

sense. Yeah. I think we don't realize

10:28

till we're older that our parents, most

10:31

of our parents did want the best for us. You

10:33

know, coming from not living

10:36

where you grow up and not

10:38

having a support system and being

10:40

under so much pressure, whatever the

10:42

circumstances are, they're trying their best

10:45

within the circumstances. How long

10:47

did you stay in that house? I

10:49

left when I was 29. So

10:51

we kind of moved from the slum. I

10:53

think we moved. I was in six, fifth or

10:56

sixth standard, which is like eleven, twelve in India.

10:59

So I was in that place for that that long.

11:02

I was horrible. I still have a lot

11:04

of memories like the toilets were outside. And when

11:06

I say shitty, I mean like literally shitty.

11:08

It was horrible. Yeah. And

11:11

it was a tiny house like this

11:13

studio is probably as big as our

11:15

entire home. And there were five of us. I

11:18

don't even know how we lived. So

11:20

we moved from there when I was eleven or

11:22

twelve and then I went

11:24

to school, studied in Bombay. We call

11:26

it Bombay, call it Bombay now. But

11:28

I knew that the only way out

11:31

was education. Like I knew like my

11:33

one out was this. So

11:36

I worked really, really hard. And

11:38

I did it well at school, university,

11:41

eventually got a job in advertising.

11:43

Okay. Is that what you studied?

11:46

I, your love, I did. I have a commerce degree.

11:48

If you ask me what's two plus two, I won't be

11:50

able to tell you like I'm that bad at anything. What's

11:53

two plus two? Okay. You're

11:58

not that bad. I'm

12:00

better than my two year old. I

12:03

bet you if you're a two year old and I had a

12:05

competition they'd win. Did

12:09

you go through any sort of rebellion

12:11

phase in your youth? Oh

12:13

my god, yes. Tell

12:16

me about it. So

12:18

you've got to keep this in perspective. So

12:20

if you're an American teenager or a British

12:22

teenager listening to this, you'll be like, what

12:24

is that? But imagine kind of where I

12:26

was in this family where girls had never

12:28

had a job, girls had never had a

12:30

university education. When I was about 15,

12:33

I started to wear these really short skirts. I

12:37

think everybody does that with a team, right?

12:39

But not in India, right? Not in India,

12:41

not in Mumbai, not in suburban Mumbai in

12:43

a nice Malayali family. You know, like we

12:45

don't do shit like that. And

12:48

then one day I remember like I had

12:50

this really long black hair, you know, and

12:52

my mother would put this coconut oil

12:54

every Sunday and it was like this

12:57

kind of ritual, which I also love.

12:59

But one day I decided that I

13:01

didn't like the long black hair. I

13:03

went and had it cut really short, like up

13:06

to my ears, or they call it a boycott,

13:08

and I came home. Oh my god. So

13:10

my hair was my mother's pride and joy. It

13:13

was like the symbol of female beauty

13:15

in India, especially from Kerala. It's like

13:18

a big thing in Malayali culture. She

13:21

didn't speak to me for like, I think two

13:23

months after that. Two months? She just didn't speak to

13:25

me. She would tell my brother. Go tell her to

13:27

eat her dinner. She was so

13:30

angry. So yeah, the

13:32

clothes, the hair. I

13:34

had friends. I had male friends, which was

13:36

again completely unheard of. If

13:38

a boy calls, my mother would like this big inquisition.

13:41

Like, what does he want? And who is he? And

13:43

what's the family? And the whole time, why do you

13:45

think you had such a rebellion?

13:48

I think some

13:51

of it was probably teenage hormones, I'm guessing.

13:54

But I think I knew

13:56

instinctively. I think I was trying

13:58

to find a way out. of

14:00

that culture, of that upbringing, of

14:03

that family. Because I remember when I think

14:05

about it, I feel like this sense of

14:07

being really suffocated within

14:10

that life, because I had to come home

14:12

at 6.30. I

14:15

couldn't, my friends would have parties. I would never be

14:17

allowed to go to a party. You

14:20

know, I couldn't wear a certain thing. So

14:22

I was very, you know, and I think

14:24

what I was subconsciously doing was creating my

14:26

life. So it felt like

14:28

rebellion, but actually, I think what I was doing

14:30

was like, that's me. That's

14:32

who I am. Taking charge. Taking charge.

14:35

You know, in the little ways that I

14:37

could. Taking your power back. Exactly. I mean, that's

14:39

what I was doing. Were you scared at all?

14:41

I guess I must have been, but

14:43

I don't think I let it. Cause we,

14:45

my mother and I were at war for

14:47

like 10 years. My brother still talks about it

14:50

and he's, we're not happy about it. He

14:52

was like, why were you always fighting? But

14:55

what he doesn't understand is that if I didn't

14:57

fight, I didn't have a life. He had a

14:59

very different life. He was a boy in an

15:03

Indian family. He became an

15:05

engineer. He's, you know, like done lots of things.

15:07

So I had to fight. I was fighting for

15:09

my survival. The survival of the

15:11

person that I became, I think

15:14

is what I was doing. It was a very

15:16

core fight. So it

15:18

could have been about the skirt or the hair but actually

15:20

it wasn't about any of those things. It was about, I

15:23

need to be who I am. You're not giving me

15:25

the space. So I need to fight to have

15:27

that space. As

15:32

South Asian women, we're not taught

15:34

to fight. If anything,

15:36

our culture teaches us to adjust,

15:39

to accommodate to the demands

15:42

of our families and society. But

15:45

I think fighting for what we want, whether

15:48

that's a seat at the corporate table or

15:51

the right to sexual pleasure, something

15:53

as simple as choosing the career path we

15:56

want is critical. Anger

15:59

can be. cleansing, raging

16:01

can be liberating. Remember,

16:05

so many of our female goddesses

16:07

are warriors and

16:09

they're definitely not waiting to be given

16:11

things. They demand it, they

16:14

take it. So

16:16

if there's something in your life that you

16:18

really really want, fight

16:20

for it. So

16:24

what happened after rebellions?

16:28

You go off, you get your

16:31

degree in commerce, you get a

16:33

job in advertising. And tell me

16:35

about those first few years as

16:39

a working professional. It's

16:41

really exciting actually because

16:43

I've never had money.

16:45

And it was like Pidley, like

16:47

some 2,000 rupees or something. It's

16:49

nothing. That's like 20 pounds or whatever,

16:53

$25. That's how small it was. But at

16:55

that point, it meant something. It was my first

16:57

ever job. And

17:00

I felt I used to feel really good and I'd

17:02

take the Mumbai trains and they were horrific. Like if

17:04

you think the New York subway is bad, try

17:06

Mumbai locals. So it would take me an hour and

17:08

a half to get to work, hour and a half

17:10

to get back. And I

17:12

don't know if you've ever seen pictures of how people

17:14

get into the Mumbai locals. So the train

17:17

comes in and before the train stops, you've got to

17:19

jump in and hang on

17:21

to the bar, the pole in the middle. And all

17:23

these ladies in their saris would

17:26

hike up the saris and just

17:28

jump and aim to get into

17:30

the middle of the compartment. That

17:33

is mad. I'll send you

17:35

a video. It's quite hilarious. But they

17:37

were so like adapted it. So you had to do

17:39

that because if you didn't do that, you wouldn't get

17:41

into the train. There's too many people. Right. So you

17:43

had to do that kind of maneuver. So

17:46

anyway, so all of that was tough, but I

17:48

still was very, very happy to kind of have

17:50

a job, like have like

17:52

a thing I was doing, bring money

17:54

home. And funny

17:57

enough, I remember my first paycheck, I bought

17:59

a my mother a sari. I still remember the sari.

18:01

It was like this cotton

18:03

block print green and black

18:06

sari. And

18:08

she was actually really proud of it. Although she

18:10

and I had quite a complicated relationship. That's

18:13

one of my happy memories of her

18:15

and our relationship. And she kept the

18:17

sari for years. And anyone

18:19

that came home, she'd say, Oh, this is my

18:21

daughter. She got inside with her first salary. So

18:24

you know, I think somewhere

18:27

she was proud of me, even though she

18:29

said, Oh my God, you're going to ruin

18:31

my life. Here's my daughter working professional earning

18:33

an income, helping the family, buying me nice

18:35

saris. Exactly. That was that

18:37

was really lovely. So yeah, that was a

18:39

good couple of years. And

18:41

how about dating life? Tell me. So

18:44

dating life Mel was a zero because we

18:46

were not supposed to date. We

18:49

were supposed to get married. So since the age of 18 or

18:51

19, these CVs would appear at

18:59

home. CVs, a CV like a like

19:02

a resume. Oh, resume. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

19:04

I think you call them resumes. And

19:07

they were of boys. So when I say boys,

19:09

I mean, like marriageable boys. And I

19:11

remember turning around and saying to my

19:13

parents, like, is it

19:15

like they're applying for the job of my

19:18

husband? Like what is this? What am I

19:20

supposed to do? Like it says his qualifications,

19:22

his height, his address. And where

19:24

are your parents getting these from? I

19:26

have no idea. They would disappear like on

19:28

the on the table. They would be somebody

19:30

like a girl reads a certain age and

19:33

they're like, Oh my God, she's eligible for

19:35

the skin. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I wasn't

19:37

in bed. But like good cook, which I

19:40

wasn't. If you're not watching

19:43

this, we dish complex. Couldn't

19:48

cook because I refuse to learn to cook. I'm like, I'm

19:50

not doing this thing. And but

19:52

anyway, these these resumes used to keep coming and I'd be

19:54

like, no, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm

19:56

not doing it. And then one day a

19:58

boy, I say in quotes because

20:00

the boy was like, I don't know, 30 or

20:02

something. Turned up. I

20:05

was so angry that somebody

20:07

had just me saying, no, no, no, I

20:09

do not want to get into an arranged

20:11

marriage had ignored me and turned up. I,

20:13

there was only like, at that point we were living in this

20:15

one room, one kitchen. So I came out of the kitchen in

20:17

my pyjamas and

20:19

you know, the traditional arranged marriage scenario, you're supposed

20:21

to like, wait, you're sorry. And wait,

20:23

you're jewelry and building really pretty. I came

20:26

up to Jonathan just sat in front of him like

20:28

really grumpy. So

20:34

suffice to say the boys didn't stay very

20:37

long. I feel like this is straight out

20:39

of a movie. This

20:43

gruntled daughter comes into the living room,

20:45

brush her hair, just sitting there in

20:47

her pyjamas. Okay, fine deal with this. You

20:51

want chives? Here I'll chive.

20:57

I'm sure the boy was still smitten with.

20:59

He did come back actually. And he said,

21:01

Oh, we like the girl. And I'm like, well,

21:04

I don't like the boy. That was

21:06

the end of that. So nobody else came after that. So

21:09

dating as in marriage proposal scenarios.

21:12

I briefly did this one guy, he was such

21:14

an idiot, but I didn't know any better

21:16

for a couple of years. What makes a

21:18

guy an idiot? I was a

21:21

very different person, very naive, said

21:23

yes to everything. I've kind of grown

21:25

into a far stronger person. And

21:28

he would tell me what to wear,

21:30

what he didn't like me wearing. Was there

21:34

how many drinks I could have because all

21:36

this was hidden because in India, you couldn't

21:38

date and because I had no experience of

21:40

relationships. I thought it was love. I remember

21:42

thinking, Oh, I really love this guy. But

21:45

lucky for me, he dumped me. Best

21:48

thing he ever did. Yeah, because I

21:50

mean, who knows I could have ended up marrying him

21:52

or something. Right? So he was a horrible

21:55

guy. Yeah, really, really not nice. Alan,

21:57

if you're listening to this, thank

21:59

you. dumping me. I was

22:03

like who are you talking to? Oh

22:06

Alan was the name of it. Is

22:08

that his real name? Yeah, yeah. Okay

22:10

Alan. Bye bye. Bye bye Alan. Adios.

22:12

Okay so now you're working, you're

22:16

turning away, these suitors at your

22:19

home, still have this rebellious energy

22:21

to you that this fire, this

22:23

independent spirit. Where did your career

22:26

continue to go and at what

22:28

point did you decide to create this

22:31

podcast and why? So I carried

22:34

on working in advertising, moved finally

22:37

after 10 years of trying to leave home by

22:39

finding other jobs in other cities. I used to

22:42

apply to hundreds. Nothing worked until

22:44

one day a job in Bangalore worked. So

22:46

I left very very quickly, moved

22:50

into this tiny one room, one

22:53

bedroom like flat and I was happy

22:55

as anything. And my idea of

22:57

like freedom, you laugh at this, was to

23:00

drink half a bottle of Baileys and wear

23:02

shorts. Because I wasn't allowed to do either

23:04

of those at home. So I was

23:06

like sitting there thinking, I love me some Baileys,

23:09

little Baileys over the holidays. So good.

23:11

So that was my, this was freedom

23:13

for me. I'm like oh my god

23:15

this is an amazing life, like that's all I

23:17

wanted to do. So anyway, moved

23:20

and I ended up going to,

23:22

I had a couple of days between joining my new

23:24

job. So I'm like what do

23:26

I do? I don't know anyone in Bangalore. I got on

23:28

a bus and went to Goa. Like I'd never done anything

23:30

like that before. Didn't know anyone in Goa,

23:33

got into an auto like a tuk tuk and started

23:35

chatting with him and said you know any nice hotels?

23:37

So he recommended this hotel. I ended up staying in

23:39

this hotel and remember that I've

23:41

never gone anywhere. This is my first ever

23:43

trip anywhere. And I

23:47

sat then, this guy, English guy came to join

23:49

us, joined me and the lady who ran the hotel

23:51

and he asked me for, he said do you want

23:53

to go for lunch? So we went for lunch

23:56

and over lunch he said to me don't freak out

23:58

but I'm gonna marry you. And I'm like,

24:00

whatever, dude. I've just managed

24:03

to escape my home. I'm really not

24:05

getting married to anybody. But

24:07

I did about three years later. He was

24:09

very persistent and he kept flying over from

24:11

the UK and all of that. So we

24:13

moved to the UK eventually. The marriage didn't

24:16

work out, but you know, I think everything

24:18

in life happens for a reason. And

24:21

I continued working in advertising and many jobs,

24:23

you know, it was okay. And

24:25

about five years ago, I

24:27

had, I guess what can best be described

24:30

as a sort of a mental health breakdown.

24:32

It was hard, highly anxious, couldn't

24:35

get out of bed, like everything

24:37

with like palpitations, it was just

24:39

really, really scary. And

24:41

I had no experience of anything like that before.

24:43

Like no one that I knew

24:45

had spoken about anything like that. Now

24:47

looking back, I think it's all the stuff I

24:49

hadn't addressed in my childhood. There's

24:51

a lot of crap that happened. My dad,

24:54

his violence, my mum, she was murdered. There

24:56

was a lot of stuff. And

24:59

I, I think like a lot of

25:01

people just said, right, I need to get on. I

25:03

need to work. I need to do this. I'm fine. I'm

25:05

fine. I'm fine. Until there was a

25:07

point when I wasn't, it was hard. It was really

25:09

hard. So there was a couple of months of very

25:12

dark days and coming out of it, and I kind

25:14

of did a lot of therapy, a lot of kind

25:16

of inner work. I

25:19

realized that I no longer wanted to

25:21

work in advertising. The path that again,

25:25

instinctively knew was

25:27

this, this work with

25:29

South Asian women, feminism. I

25:31

started running these workshops for South Asian women

25:33

to write their stories. I

25:36

did about 20 of those the first year.

25:38

Then I was like, I need to do

25:40

something with this. Turn those into two theater

25:42

shows, got South Asian actors together. And a

25:44

lot of people came to see them and

25:47

loved it because we'd never seen our stories

25:49

represented. So what were you doing with

25:51

these workshops? So I've always

25:53

been a writer. So it's something that the only

25:55

thing I knew is words and writing. So

25:58

I'm like, I'm going to get a bunch of women together. and

26:00

get us to talk about all the stuff

26:02

we don't talk about, which is like the

26:04

basis of this podcast. Exactly. So sex, periods,

26:07

mental health, you know, all the stuff. And

26:09

my brief to each of these workshops were

26:11

like, think about the one

26:13

taboo that you've experienced and write about it.

26:16

And I'd coach them and kind of tweak

26:18

those stories. And then I found a director

26:20

and a producer turned it into the shows.

26:23

The shows were like received really well.

26:25

Like all these women came up to

26:27

me hugging me and saying like, oh

26:29

my God, we never see our stories on, you

26:31

know, represented in that way, on the screen, in

26:34

the theater. And I was like, this is really,

26:36

really good. Like I knew that there was something

26:38

really good there. For

26:41

me, having that huge mental health

26:43

crisis was the best thing to happen.

26:46

And I'm not saying this lightly. Like

26:49

so many who experience mental health issues,

26:52

it was incredibly tough not

26:54

being able to get out of bed or

26:57

function beyond the most basic level. But

27:01

it forced me to stop. It

27:03

forced me to seek help. It

27:06

showed me that I literally couldn't carry on

27:08

as I had all my life. Because

27:12

ignoring difficult emotions is what we all

27:14

do, right? We

27:16

tell ourselves, you know, it's okay.

27:19

Ignore what we're feeling and hope it

27:22

goes away. So yes, my

27:24

mental health crisis was the hardest thing, but also the best

27:26

thing to happen. Because

27:30

everything good in my life came

27:32

from there. This podcast,

27:35

this life, this clarity,

27:38

this joy. And I'm

27:40

deeply grateful. I wanted

27:43

to broaden the canvas. I'm like, I want to reach a lot

27:45

more of my women, like when I say

27:47

my women, I mean like South Asian women like us. I

27:50

started thinking about what were the other avenues. So

27:52

theatre is great, but it only reaches like a

27:54

couple hundred people at a time. And I wanted

27:57

to reach a lot more. sent

28:00

me a link to a podcasting

28:02

competition from Spotify called SoundUp

28:05

and it was to find more women of color podcasters.

28:08

And I just dashed off these couple of lines thinking

28:10

it was at midnight or something and I'm like, I'll

28:12

never hear back from them. They

28:15

called me the next week. They

28:17

said, we had 750 people apply in

28:19

London. You were one of 10 that got

28:21

shortlisted. I was

28:23

put into like this boot camp for podcasting for

28:26

like a week long. And at the end of the boot camp,

28:30

I got five minutes, all 10

28:32

contestants got five minutes to pitch to the head

28:34

of BBC audio, Apple audio

28:36

and Google audio. And

28:38

they got five minutes to ask you questions. And

28:41

I did my presentation. This is where the advertising

28:43

experience came in very useful. I'm like, okay, my

28:45

five minute deck rock. And

28:48

I won the competition. That's fantastic. And

28:50

I'm so glad that you

28:52

found that contest and that you, you just

28:55

crushed it. And your experiences leading up

28:58

to that point prepared you. I say

29:01

this all the time, like there is nothing

29:03

wasted in our lives. Whatever we

29:05

may do, even the pain, nothing's

29:07

wasted. Everything leads you

29:09

to the point of where you're supposed to go.

29:12

Like I look back now, look

29:14

back at all the pain, my mother, you know,

29:16

like us and you

29:18

know, all the pain of those early years, advertising,

29:22

the things I learned,

29:24

everything has led me to

29:26

this point in my life where I do the podcast and

29:28

I do the work that I do. So for all of

29:30

us, I think that there's nothing wasted.

29:33

On our interview for season five,

29:36

I had a similar

29:38

turning point to so many stresses and

29:40

pressures. Your body just breaks down, right?

29:42

And you have to use that as

29:44

a signal and take a new path

29:47

forward, which is what you did. And

29:50

now you have this award winning podcast

29:52

that is reaching so many people. So

29:54

what continues to propel you

29:57

forward? You've done five seasons now.

30:00

What keeps you going? There's, we've already

30:02

had such success. You could

30:04

say, you know, I've done my part and I'm gonna go

30:06

work on something else. But

30:08

you're not, you're here. You're

30:11

here and you're so invested. Yes,

30:14

massively. So to

30:16

me, so it's been super successful, right? Like

30:18

to explain to somebody like I am not

30:20

from the audio world. I don't know anybody

30:22

at the BBC, you know, or

30:25

anything. I didn't know what a podcast

30:27

was. I had to actually Google what a podcast

30:29

was. Like seriously, I didn't know. I'm

30:31

old, you know, like I grew up with radio. I don't know

30:33

what a podcast is. So for

30:36

someone like me coming in with

30:38

zero knowledge, so

30:41

it is a big deal, I think,

30:43

that podcasting allows that space. So I have

30:45

a lot of time and passion for podcasting

30:47

because of that. But I learned and I

30:49

taught myself and I had people, you know,

30:51

supporting, helping, all of that. It's been hugely

30:54

successful, like sex British podcast award,

30:56

audio production award. I was

30:58

on a billboard in New York city. It

31:00

was big. You and Ting, the billboard and

31:02

Ting. A little bit insane. All those are

31:04

great. So that's obviously, you know, like it's

31:07

validation for the work you do. And I've

31:09

been kind of written about, I'm on the

31:11

BBC and Guardian and, you know,

31:13

and all of that's happened organically. So that's

31:16

again, wonderful. So I really feel like this

31:19

is a divine journey in many ways. Like

31:21

I really feel like I am guided. All

31:23

I know is the next step. I

31:25

know what the next step is. I don't know anything beyond that. And

31:28

then as I do that, then the next step unfolds and

31:30

the next step unfolds. So therefore I believe like there's a

31:32

divine purpose to all of this. The thing

31:34

that keeps me here

31:37

and turning up and doing this again and again

31:39

and again is the women in our community. I

31:42

was one of those women. I would have

31:44

loved to have a podcast like this when

31:47

I was 15 and drive some sort of

31:49

strength or energy or support from it. But I

31:51

want to do this for the girls, for our

31:53

girls, for our young women, for our sisters, for

31:55

our daughters. I want to be in their ears

31:58

and I want to tell them. that

32:00

it's okay, you know, that

32:03

it's okay to challenge some of the stuff you've

32:05

been taught. Not everything is culture.

32:07

We're allowed to pick and choose. We

32:10

can be the women we want to be and still

32:12

be Asian or Indian or Pakistani or whatever, you know.

32:14

It can be American, it can be British, it can

32:16

be whatever we want to be. So to me, it's,

32:19

that's why I do this. I get a

32:21

lot of feedback, like amazing feedback. Like almost

32:23

every single week I get an email or

32:26

a message or a DM or something. From

32:29

young girls in India who sort of write to

32:31

me in to say, you know, thanks to you,

32:34

we feel less alone. Like

32:41

I say this always because it's so dramatic. I was

32:43

in Kerala, someone contacted me on Instagram to say, hey,

32:45

are you in my city? And I was. And

32:48

she said, how do you feel about a

32:50

coffee? So we met in the cafe, had a cup

32:52

of coffee. And she

32:54

said, you know, your podcast changed

32:56

my life, like quite literally. And I'm like, OK.

32:59

And she said she

33:01

had an arranged marriage and

33:03

the husband was gay. And

33:06

in many traditional South Asian homes, they'll

33:08

marry a guy off thinking it'll fix him. You

33:11

know, it's just one of those things. And obviously

33:14

they were unhappy. So she

33:16

told her in-laws that, you know,

33:18

we don't really have a sexual relationship because,

33:20

you know, he's he's not that very inclined.

33:23

They had a word with him. He forced himself

33:25

on her. She

33:27

got pregnant. She lost the baby. And

33:29

she's like, I had the most traumatic time.

33:32

But she said, through all of this, I kept

33:34

listening to your podcast. I kept

33:36

listening to your episodes again, the same episode, sometimes

33:38

over and over again. And

33:40

one day I left. And

33:43

like even now, when I say this, I

33:45

get goosebumps. Wow. You know, I didn't know

33:47

what to say to her. I just sort

33:49

of stared at her and I'm like, thank

33:51

you, was all I said. Oh, I was

33:53

just, you know, like really blown away. Changed

33:55

her life. I really changed her life. Wow.

33:57

I'm sure there's so many more stories like

33:59

that. Yeah, yeah, yeah and her I

34:01

just happened to meet you know because I

34:05

don't know what it is that people will Very

34:07

rarely reach out to tell you if

34:09

you meet them this oh my god You know I heard this or

34:11

this happened, but it other you know it takes a lot for someone

34:13

to reach out and tell you that So

34:16

to meet that that girl that

34:18

young girl in India or this girl. I met in

34:21

Kuchy. That's why I do this And

34:23

I will do this until my dying breath. I

34:26

don't know how uh-huh You know whether I get

34:28

the funds to do it not you know whatever

34:30

I don't know what happened, but I will find

34:32

a way to keep doing this because it is

34:35

that important So

34:38

yeah that in a nutshell is why I do this well

34:41

That's a beautiful way to close

34:43

things is there anything

34:45

else you'd like to share with your

34:47

audience um Yeah,

34:50

keep Keep talking to

34:52

me. I think I love

34:54

to hear from you And I will respond as

34:56

I always do to every single message that you

34:58

send me Because to me

35:00

it's a really precious relationship that

35:03

you the audience and I have So

35:07

keep writing to me keep telling me what you

35:09

know if it helps you what you'd like to hear

35:11

is anything different You want me to do just tell

35:13

me and I'll do my best to make it happen

35:17

And Follow the

35:19

work tell each other about it I've

35:22

just done the US season of the podcast Which

35:26

Mel was on I? Want

35:28

to do another American season because I find

35:31

it very interesting how the American Salvation experience

35:33

is so different from the British South Asian

35:35

experience and the Indian experience the

35:37

Pakistani It's just so different dramatically different it

35:39

really surprised me so I

35:41

like being surprised as well Yeah, I went in thinking

35:43

there's gonna be one thing and it wasn't so I

35:45

had to kind of change things and I like that

35:49

So I hope to do another season here. I

35:51

hope to come back to the US I

35:54

want to do maybe something in Canada, so I want to kind

35:56

of reach there are I don't

35:58

know how many million two 2.7

36:00

per million South Asian women in this country.

36:03

Canada is a similar amount. There's just millions and

36:06

millions of us. And

36:08

we, because of the

36:11

culture we come from, and also Western culture, which

36:13

doesn't really kind of give us a lot of

36:15

voice, we tend to be the quiet ones. We're

36:18

the ones that are the doctors, the lawyers, the

36:20

engineers, the ones behind the desk, you know, working

36:22

away. But I want

36:24

us to have a voice. I want us to

36:26

kind of step up, talk, ask for

36:28

what we need, even

36:31

if it's not being given to us. We can

36:33

be quiet. We don't need to be shouty. Or if we don't

36:35

want to be, we can be shouty if we want, whatever. But

36:37

ask. Use your voice. It's

36:40

the hardest thing in the world, but it's

36:43

also the most beautiful and profoundly life-changing thing

36:45

that you can do. Thank

36:51

you for listening to Nisala Podcast.

36:53

Nisala Podcast is part of my

36:55

platform, Soul Sutras, dedicated

36:57

to celebrating and supporting South

37:00

Asian women. This is

37:02

a space for all of us bad

37:04

babies who don't do as we're told.

37:06

This is where we get to celebrate

37:09

our culture, our way, and be exactly

37:11

who we want to be. I'd

37:13

love to hear from you. Get

37:16

in touch via email

37:18

at soulsutras.co.uk or my

37:20

website, soulsutras.co.uk. I'm

37:23

also on Instagram and Twitter. Just

37:26

look for Soul Sutras.