American Desis Podcast

Start off your new year with a quick reminder of all the amazing tips and tricks from our guests this season. And thank you for all the love and support of our new format!

In the last interview of our health & wellness season, we talk to someone who was crucial to Arjun's personal wellness journey - meditation coach Jon Aaron. Jon gives us some advice about slowing down amid the chaos of our busy lives and making the time and space for meditation, whatever form it may come in. He also reminds us that pretty everything from breakups to breakfast is an opportunity to practice mindfulness.

In the seventh episode of our health & wellness season we get to one of our most requested topics: AYURVEDA. We speak with Monica Bhanote of Sundays in Saffron and talk about moms carrying cardamom, running like deers, and why hot water is still cooling. Figure out what your dosha is here: https://www.sundaysinsaffron.com/dosha-quiz/

Episode 6 of our health and wellness season starts off with one of Arjun’s PSAs on mental health but eventually we get to talk to Navin Dargani about why therapy and mentalizing are important, and why cultural competence matters in mental health. You can learn more about Navin's practice here: http://www.darganimd.com/

In episode 5, we talked to transplant psychiatrist Akhil Shenoy about psychiatry in the desi population as it interacts with parenting, alcoholism and why Akhil's dad still wishes he was a surgeon. Producer note: When we recorded this episode in June, Akhil was at Mt Sinai but has since transitioned to Columbia University Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

In episode 3 of our health and wellness season we talk to yoga instructor Aditi Shah about her personal journey with the practice and how the modern gentrification of yoga has changed dramatically from what it used to be. She also provides some valuable advice for the yoga noobs among us who can't keep up with the crazy intense classes we often come across.

In the third episode of our health and wellness season we talk to Shom Chowdhury, owner of Indie Fresh and the most jacked desi dude we've ever met, about physical fitness. He teaches us why we should aim for 75% during workouts and why we need to give our bodies high quality fuel.

Episode 2 of our health and wellness season starts off with mindfulness but quickly goes much deeper into finding purpose within the chaos of our daily lives. We speak with monk Shubhani Chaitanya who leads the New York chapter of Chinmaya Mission and explains why she chose to take her very unique path towards Vedanta over a career in fashion.

The first episode of our health and wellness season is about something we all love but don’t often know what to do with: food!! In the day and age of this diet and that super food and this cleanse, we invite on to the show the chair of Queens College’s Nutritional Sciences department: Dr. Ashima Kant, to sort through the noise. She educates, demystifies, and gives us all the tools to navigate food in a healthy way that still allows us to enjoy it!

Health & Wellness Season Opener! A quick 7 minute episode to reintroduce ourselves to you because we are insecure and thought you may have forgotten about us. But also to introduce y’all to the new members and new format that hopefully will make our show better! If we happen to charm a few more people into giving us a chance, icing on the cake! Remember to check your feeds for the first interview that's also being released today!

The boys are back!...kinda...they drop in to wish everyone a MUCG belated happy new year and to share what's up! They explain why they haven't been around for a while and share what they are working on for the future of AD! Then, with the serious shit aside, they received some tweets about basketball and hip hop and realized that they had NEVER had a show about sports or hip hop. Well that is now fixed :) tune in and enjoy American Desis

The tides of change upon us and we here at American Desis are not immune to it. So we decided to drop a State of the Podcast episode to let y'all know what we are thinking, introduce our amazing new producer, and put out an APB for all the help we can get to make this show as amazing as possible. So tune in, and join in!

Happy New Year's, everyone! After a holiday hiatus (forced upon us because Arjun landed a movie role in India) we ring in the new year with an overdue Community Episode. After all, how Desi are we if we aren't late? In this episode, we discuss Arjun's time in India and the shifts that he is noticing within the country and himself, get a firsthand account of demonetization and its impact on India, and question what the best way is to praise and criticize our culture. Tune into our first episode from the Motherland (at least for Arjun)!

The idea going against your parents and marrying the person you choose is an American ideal that has become fairly commonplace for our generation. But how many times have you heard that story from someone in our parents' generation? If you're like us, it's zero. Enter Sujata Winfield- an immigration attorney in Athens, Georgia. She came onto our podcast and was kind/brave/generous enough to tell us a story of falling in love. While that's the only thing she gives herself credit for- "falling in love"- there is much more to the story than that. Tune in and listen to a fascinating and beautiful story of love.

In the second half of our interview with Yassir we make our way around to the less significant details: his racial makeup and identity, how he grew up, his views on race...you know, the stuff this podcast is based on. Or whatever. All jokes aside, even though this took place in May, it's a great discussion about some issues that are very pertinent to this podcast and even to the current state of our country. And get at us: we would love to hear your thoughts!

Our episodes the last few weeks have been quite serious in response to the goings on of the world. But balance is something we care about here at American Desis, and so we thought that this week we would drop something more fun. Enter Yassir Lester, maybe the funniest dude we know. One of those episodes that's just three people having a conversation. It starts off with the worst intro we have ever done and continues on to talk about twitter as a source of news, death threats, Cecil the Lion, why does news suck, and even the end point of humanity. But most importantly we talk about why Yassir has such a crush on Arjun.

After the stunning events of Tuesday's election, we wanted to have a safe space for people to be heard. So we read the emails and tweets that our community have shared and explore the answers to the question: What Now? *This podcast was originally uploaded two weeks ago but had quite a few technical issues. We edited as well as we could and re-uploaded.

As we realize post election the importance of making sure we are listening to more points of views and cultivating a more true diversity, it is even more exciting to drop this week's episode. Akaash and I are dudes, and in a lot of way brothers. So we brought on two people who felt truly antithetical: sisters! Meet Keertana and Pallavi Sastry. These two Texan ladies joined us in June in LA to talk about the sister relationship and how it has evolved for them throughout their life. They chart the many shifts along the way that have made them similar and the moments that caused them to diverge. We also get to hear their experience post 9/11 and how they each ended up responding quite differently. Please join us to hear about one of the most important -hoods: Sisterhood

On today's community episode, the boys focus on Diwali. They interview each other on what the holiday means to them and share different stories and traditions. Since the holiday represents to them the idea of community, they then reach into their emails and tweets to hear stories of how other Desis celebrated the holiday. They even hear from someone in Trinidad who shared what festivities look like down there! Hope you enjoy this holiday edition of American Desis, and hope your Diwali was full of light, love, and community!

There is a narrative of our community as being apolitical and somewhat isolationistic since we have gotten to this country. This is supported by our voter turnout in election, and the large scale hesitance to get involved in causes supporting other minority communities. Well, that actually does not speak to the roots of our South Asian American history. Actually, many of us don't even know our community was here before 1965. Well thankfully, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee joined our show to put our heads straight. We drove up to Berkeley, California and partook in their Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, which they have been running for four years now. It tells stories of South Asian radicals from as far back as the early 1900's. It paints a new picture of our community: the trials and tribulations we have faced, and the power that we have when we came together. Barnali and Anirvan then sat down with us to track the origins of this tour and talk about the shifts that they see in people after learning this history. In this time of poltical and racial unrest, it is wildly important for us to know our history so we can make better decisions about how to shape the future.

Election time is upon us, so we thought it would be fun to bring you an episode from a woman who has actually run for something! Meet Almina Khorakiwala. She works in marketing for Microsoft in global events for their retail stores. But her passion is serving on the board of directors for "Emerge Maryland", a Political Action Committee that helps recruit and train women candidates for the Democratic Party. Before we got to Almina's political work, we got to hear about her time in Microsoft and specifically how she has seen things change how that there is a South Asian in charge. But then we then get to the timely topics! Almina peels back the curtain for us on her election story and shares with us the issues she faced not only as a woman but as a South Asian. And of course, since we're us, we discuss her decision to marry outside of her culture and learn an amazing surprise regarding her personal life!

This past spring, Arjun and I spent three days in our nation's capital. To nobody's surprise, we got the opportunity to speak with a number of intelligent, eloquent, advocacy minded individuals. To that end, we were blessed to speak with Lakshmi Sridaran, the director of National Policy and Advocacy of SAALT- South Asian Americans Leading Together. We speak to her about the origins of her organizations, what their mission is, and how that mission manifests itself on a day to day basis. We also learn about some of the issues facing our community we were previously unenlightened upon- such as the undocumented South Asian population and the importance of the census. We also asked how she came into this field after getting a Master's in City Planning. Last, we are informed about things we can do to help (which is one of many phenomenal questions asked by Arjun). So tune in for an enlightening and inspiring episode!

We talk so much about being brown on this show, BUT we aren't the only "brown folk" out there. To that end, we are excited that Bernardo Cubría could come on the show and help us see through the lens of "the other brown folk": Latinos! Bernardo is a Mexican playwright, actor, and robot-fearer. And in what is Akaash and my favorite style of episode, he joins us for a conversation: pure and simple. It is windy and it is messy but it tackles all of the themes you guys love to hear and we love to explore. Starting from how Mexican culture and Desi culture is basically the same, to the issues of diversity within the "Latino" culture, to representation in Hollywood and the arts. It is a show that really tries to find the nuance in recognizing how different we all are, but how we can thrive together regardless. Hope you guys enjoy!

It's Election season!! You know that means?? The time for civility, compassionate discourse, and peace of mind are thrown out the window. And since the first debate was last night, we kicked off our community episode trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Once we couldn't do that, we moved on to talk about Atomic Living; a philosophy of life by musician Kiran Gandhi. We also not so subtly invited her to be a guest on our show because she is incredibly smart and seems cool. We rounded off the show by talking about the other tweets we received and discussing the importance of voting! Enjoy!

As we state in our intro Desis are a community from South Asian countries not just India. So it's a thrill when we get to have on our show someone from one of the other countries as it helps continue to expand and specify what it means to be Desi. To that end we are thrilled to have on our show Gowri Koneswaran, a Tamil American from Sri Lanka. As we begin the show we dive straight into how the language we use around what community we are from can be so important. How an issue with a government might cause you to press pause on identifying with that nation state but you still want to honor that area from which you sprung. Gowri walks us through the fog of ignorance around the civil conflicts that have plagued Sri Lanka for the last few decades and through that journey we learn about her transition from lawyer to writer and poet. And how her choice to be a poet is rooted in the same social advocacy as her lawyering. Please tune in to this brilliant woman helping us to be a small bit smarter and better.

We all see how Colin Kaepernick's relationship with the US Flag is causing a huge uproar. Well this isn't a solely American issue! Listen in to this clip as we talk, as Desis, about our relationships to our TWO flags!

Louise Keshaviah is a caucasian woman dedicated to the brown cause. So dedicated, in fact, that she is Arjun's agent. So SO dedicated, in fact, that she recorded an interview with us a year ago, then came back when audio errors ruined the first one. So tune in as we speak to agent and Political Correctness Powerhouse Louise Keshaviah talk to us about the ways in which people of color (mainly the South Asian ones) are under and mis-represented in the entertainment industry, the marriage to a South Asian man that sparked her activist streak, her trips to India, and the inside secrets she's learned about brown people (much to Akaash's chagrin). We wrap up the discussion with how she would raise her kids (of course), and her relationship with her identity.

Continuing our theme around literature and its importance with children, this week we welcome Sanjay Nambiar. Sanjay is a man of the moment: sensitive, intelligent, an entrepreneur, and a feminist. I am not sure he would call himself a feminist but his work in creating the "Super Amazing Princess Heroes" children's stories/ brand surely qualify him as one. Sanjay shares with us how being raised by a single mother laid the foundation for a viewpoint that would erupt into action when he had daughters of his own. His experience trying to find worthwhile literature for his young daughters caused him to say, "Enough! I'm doing this on my own." Please join us for an eye-opening episode that gave me hope for our future.

Today we welcome to the podcast two people with an incredible business that is perfect for children and anybody who wants a simple way to learn about South Asian culture (us): Gauri Manglik and Sadaf Siddique. The business is Kitaab World- a one stop shop for South Asian parents to find books (kitaab) that help kids connect to their South Asian culture. It's ideal for kids, or people who know nothing about South Asian culture (Arjun and me). Sitting down with Sadaf and Gauri, they explained to us the challenges they had teaching their kids about their South Asian heritage. Specifically the challenge to instill in them "strength of identity"- a strength that is difficult to develop without immersion in that culture. We discussed the importance of books and entertainment as a form of representation and reflection, the "spectrum of Desiness", and changes Gauri and Sadaf noticed in their own children since exposing them to these books. So sit back and listen to two women speak about a service we can all benefit from.

Our community episode this week obviously starts with a conversation around the Olympics and the Desi and American Desi athletes we want to applaud. But because sports are a lens through which to view society, our applause leads us to discuss the importance of the three female athletes from India. Their dedication and successes inspired us to hope that all people can understand that fighting like a girl means winning. This message is even more poignant in light of the emails that we share today dealing with misogyny in our community and the correlation between abuse and the joint family structure. Oh yea, we also talk about Glenn Beck being a clown. In a wide ranging set of topics we heard from you and it is our pleasure to share that voice back.

Akaash and I are in way over our heads as went to the United Nations to interview the Bureau Chief for the New York Times, Somini Sengupta. Somini has been a journalist for over 20 years and has been the Bureau Chief for the Times covering South Asia, Western, and Central Africa all before ending up at the UN. She generously took time after a huge vote to talk to us about her latest book End of Karma: Hope and Fury among India’s Young, as well as her journey from being born in India, to growing up in Canada, to college in the US, to going back to India to work. Her journey allows her to share the unique aspect of inhabiting each of the identity spaces with which we so often talk about being in conflict. It is a powerful discussion that goes so far as to even question the very concept of the East/West construct. Akaash and I were taken to school, and I gotta admit, it was beautiful.

We started off our west coast road trip of our show at the majestic campus of UC Santa Barbara, where we got to interview the professor of "Asian American Studies": Dr. Sameer Pandya. Not only is this gentleman rocking a mirch on RateMyProfessor.com, he is also a brilliant mind and published author. After sitting in on one of his lectures, we sat down in his office to discuss his latest book, the origin of the Model Minority myth, Linsanity, and sports as a vehicle through which to understand culture. In classic style, Akaash and I are the students asking all the stupid questions so you guys don't have to. So sit back, relax, and enjoy some edutainment.

Judith Williams is a know it all. No, I don't mean one of those annoying people who thinks they know everything. I mean she actually knows everything. With degrees from Harvard and Stanford, the Global Head of Diversity at Dropbox came on the show to school Arjun and me on just about all things diversity. After explaining what diversity really is, and all the different types of diversity that are necessary, she explains how companies are looking to achieve it. She also explains the unconscious bias that we all have, and how to correct for it. Basically, she sits down and teaches us for forty minutes. So sit back and soak in the knowledge.

Few cases have captured our collective attention as much as the murder trial of Adnan Syed, brought to our attention by the podcast "Serial", which caused a national stir & brought a wealth of attention; however, it's safe to say that the follow up podcast, "Undisclosed", is the reason Adnan has a new case. We were honored to welcome one of the founders/hosts of that podcast, as well as fellow Desi, Rabia Chaudry, to the show. Listen in as we talk to her about her current work, the origins of Undisclosed, and ask for an education about the headscarf/hijab. I promise you will learn things (like for instance, hijab and headscarf aren't the same thing) while being entertained by a wonderful woman. Do not miss this episode.

After our community episode surrounding Black Lives Matter, it felt right to drop an episode with one of the brilliant activists in our own community. Enter Anand Subramanian, Associate Director at PolicyLink in Oakland, leading their efforts to advance community-centered policing. Our conversation begins with a reading from their Equity Manifesto and continues to explore the difference between equity and equality. We then get to explore how he got started, examples of how history has created advantages for different communities that makes equity necessary over equality, and how being South Asian plays into this whole narrative. In a time of such racial unrest centered around policing, this conversation could not be more necessary. Consider this a jump off point and come join.

In light of recent events, Akaash and I felt moved to do a special community episode to discuss the BlackLivesMatter movement as well as our role or responsibility in it. We needed a space to process what has been a difficult week and wanted to hold space for you guys to join in the conversation. Listen in to what that conversation provoked and join the discussion on Twitter or in our email box.

We talk often about how to be more Indian, or how we feel disconnected in America. Well, in honor of America's Birthday we bring on a gentleman who moved here from India and is a proud American! We have the pleasure of talking with Puneet Sabharwal, a tech industry star, who moved here from India for a woman. Puneet and this nice lady from the midwest got married, and then in true American fashion, realized a few years later it wasn't working out. We chart the journey of his relationship from meeting in India to its amicable demise. In the course of this roller coaster, we explore the differences between dating in India and here, Tinder etiquette in Delhi, and how a beard can raise you from a 4 to a 7 in Brooklyn. Come celebrate America with a conversation about the ways this country has helped a man become happier, more confident, and more swaggerific. Enjoy!

On Wednesday, June 29th, over 100 high school students will depart for a two week journey that will shape the future of their lives. I know that sounds dramatic but that is what Uplift Humanity offers and provides. These students are going to drop into juvenile detention centers all across India and work with the young kids to help them break out of the cycle of recidivism. Before they leave, we had the pleasure to chat with a handful of these volunteers to get a snapshot of who these young volunteers are: why they decided to join Uplift? What they were trying to gain? What they were nervous about? Once they get back we will get to speak to them to paint the picture of who they become. Akaash and I were thrilled with the smart, thoughtful, and wildly confident people we encountered and we think you guys will as well. So enjoy a peek into our collective future! Enjoy

We begin this community episode with a discussion about family. I just had the fortune of spending some time with my Nani in DC and I ask Akaash if there was a point in his life that shaped the importance he held for family. It springboards us to a moment of advocacy around spending time with those we love, but we had to keep it short because y'all showed up big time this month! Had many beautiful emails to respond to, on top of our normal Twitter fodder. Emails that asked us about Asian solidarity, Sikhism, Yves, and Physical Disabilities. All of the questions were thought provoking and insightful. We responded to our Twitter friends including a request to interview a 6 year old. An interview that I believe would be our finest hour. And with our closing we got to talk about Orlando and end this week's episode with some poignant words from Akaash. Proud of the community and all you bring to this show. Excited for you all to hear this episode!

On today's episode we were fortunate enough to speak with Vaani Gupta- a teacher in Washington D.C. She is also Arjun's, and by extension my own, Didi. Arjun doesn't call her "Didi" though, because he's super disrespectful and an awful brother. And that's the topic on which we begin our discussion. We delve into our terms of respect for our elders, and how Arjun and Vaani used them growing up. We also speak about something Arjun has touched upon frequently: the year he spent in India. We learn that Vaani's year there, along with her most recent trip five years ago, affected her relationship to the Motherland quite differently than it did in Arjun. We then delve into her profession. As a teacher, Vaani easily has one of the most important jobs in the world; however, it is not really viewed as a "typical South Asian field." We ask her what it's like to be a South Asian public school teacher. We also ask how her peers treat her, how her students see her, and of course how the South Asian community has received her. So take a listen as we finally speak to a Gupta who has intelligent things to say. It's refreshing, to say the least.

"We started this partnership because we realized we didn't have a National Voice." In what feels like a perfect follow up to the Yves episode, so begins our wildly informative conversation with Aarti Kohil, the deputy director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. After unpacking why the name of the organization is so long, we dive into a collection of topics and thoughts that are incredibly important and fun to think about for our community. We explore how the South Asian voice fits into a larger narrative of Asian Americans, as well as how our history has taught us about our responsibility to other communities. Thankfully for you guys, we are the kids in the classroom who aren't afraid to say "I don't know." It is a phrase we say repeatedly to Aarti during this chat and it forces her to explain some of the historical events that have shaped our community even though most of us don't know about them! Aarti breaks down for us all the issues that are hindering our community from flourishing, and the steps we can take to address them. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed doing it!

Imagine waking up to the smell of breakfast on the stove and your mom and dad chatting it up in the kitchen. You check the clock and it's 6 am. Suddenly there is banging on the door. "It's the police open up!" And at that moment your life turns upside down. You are interrogated in your own home, and your father is taken out the door in handcuffs and deported. It is the last time you will see him. This is not a scene from a movie. This is a real moment from Yves Gomes' life. He is part of an all too often unseen community of South Asian undocumented immigrants. Yves joins us this week and generously shares his story with us. He walks us not only through what happened with his family, but also how he stumbled into the undocumented youth movement. He educates us on some of the problematic language that is used around this issue and how the "model minority" myth may be a big part of why this community is so unseen. He also updates us on his status and how community and social media are helping him stay in this country to pursue his Master's Degree. There are episodes that help Akaash and I understand why this podcast can be important. This is one of them.

Deepa Iyer is many things: lawyer, professor, and writer. But above all, she is an activist. Arjun and I were fortunate enough to speak with this enlightened YOUNG woman on this week's episode. We begin the discussion with a talk about her book: "We too Sing America". We discuss the inspiration for the book, some of the people she wrote about (including a future guest of the show), and what she learned from the process of writing. We also discuss the passion of the younger generation she see encounters at the University of Maryland, and how she has helped stoked the fires of activism within them. We then chart Deepa's path to becoming such a racially aware, dedicated, and inspirational YOUNG activist. We close the discussion with a pledge to action and/or inaction from Arjun and myself. Please listen in to an extremely intelligent and passionate woman, who, as our first interview in D.C., set the tone for a series of amazing interviews from our nation's capital.

Akaash makes his long awaited return to my arms in this latest episode. He regales us with how annoying brown folk are in Italy and I sing him an amazing version of Happy Birthday. As soon as we are done with the pillow talk, we dive into our thoughts of the last few episodes. which mainly consists of us just shouting out how amazing Anish, Diana, and Dr. Manchanda are. Then I take us down to Twitter Valley and we respond to you guys! Been some amazing twitter involvement the last few weeks and we get a chance to respond to it all...we even learn a new word...on air! Akaash then wraps us up with an incredibly sweet and powerful email from a woman who had an intense response to Dr. Manchanda's episode. Also, a question: Do you guys feel anxious when you're not connected to your phone?

In part one of our love affair with Dr. Manchanda we dove into what was the concept behind going "upstream." So for part 2 the big question became: "OK, so how do we do this?" Our conversation continues right from where we left off last week answering that question. We ask about the very nature of humanity as being reactionary and whether that needs to change first for any other shit to occur. We explore how upstream thinking can be used in other realms of society, which leads to a spirited discussion of Trump, Bernie Sanders, and our political system in general. Finally we implement upstream thinking to deal with a real life situation: Obesity. Dr. Manchanda walks us through how an upstream-ist system would affect the way we deal with that issue and in the process blows our mind by letting us know that a calorie is not a calorie....Yea. This episode gets nuts. So nuts that Akaash nearly pees his pants. You won't want to miss this episode.

Our health care system is broken. Its a sad but true fact. We have become a system that is based on volume of care rather than value, so we now have a healthcare system that is not focused on health! Enter Dr. Rishi Manchanda. A doctor and social medicine advocate who is going to make it right. He is leading the charge with a community of what he calls upstreamists to bring health back into this system and make it more accessible for all. We had the honor to sit down and talk with him outside his home in the LA area where he walked us through his virally successful Ted talk, how he knew he wanted to be a change agent; and most importantly, what it means to go Upstream. The conversation was so informative and enlightening that we recorded twice what we normally do with guests so sit back and enjoy part 1 of our interview with Dr. Rishi Manchanda.

This week we get to hear from the person who brought us into the Audioboom family. And surprisingly they are not South Asian. Diana Velez is a New York born Puerto Rican, or "Nuyorican", who was searching for diverse content stumbled upon our podcast and thought it was great. But aside from the life-changing insight offered on our episodes, there was a more personal appeal. Diana's son is part South Asian as her partner is a Pakistani Christian; which makes her son "Pakirican." Listen in as we dive into the Bollywood proposal that snagged her, the issues that arose as they raised a child, and the cultural differences that ultimately helped end their relationship. Thanks to Diana's generous honesty, we are able to explore some of the challenges and joys of inter-cultural relationships! Listen in and then send us your thoughts!

By the age of 22, most of us consider ourselves successful if we've graduated college, possibly with a job in hand. But then there are people like Anish Patel who make most of us feel like absolute losers. Anish is graduating college in a few weeks, but instead of having a job in hand, he has a non profit that he's been running for 6 years! That's right, when Anish was just a self proclaimed sophomore nerd, he started "Uplift Humanity." It was born as a simple idea from a kid who spent summers and winters traveling to India and wanted to give back. It started with one trip to India with 15 friends who volunteered at juvenile detention centers! It has become a full fledged non-profit organization with year round programs, as well as their original summer programs, taking high school and college kids to India to work with this underserved community. Anish walks us though how this journey started, the obstacles he faced, and his dreams for the future...all the while making Akaash and myself feel really old and useless! So listen in and be inspired by a young man who had an idea and is now quite literally changing the world!

In the third edition of our wildly popular community episode, we talk about you guys and all the things you care about...but only after we talk about a few things we care about first! I wanted to talk about pressure, but as soon as we started, Akaash reminded me that we hadn't talked about Cuba!! I just returned from there a week and a half ago and wanted to talk about how amazing it was and how much it reminded me of India. This started a discussion about similarities and differences. That lead to a conversation about my time in India, which lead to a conversation about living with a large family. All the while I keep trying to bring up pressure, which we finally get to 15 minutes into the show. Once Akaash and I decided to get off our soapbox, we dove headfirst into our Twitter notifications which have been sprightlier than usual. We thank you for that. We discuss skin color, fair and lovely, and our overwhelming presence in the NBA. We also hit our email that asked us why Pakistan wasn't represented in the media. I am gonna be honest with y'all: Akaash and I are killing our game these days so you don't wanna miss this episode! Sit back with some chai and enjoy!

This week we're excited to have on the show one of the more famous South Asian actors in America: Utkarsh Ambudkar. He is a musician, rapper, actor, and basketball nerd who has been on everything from The Mindy Project to Pitch Perfect to being the first Indian American on The Simpsons to Barbershop 3 (which drops April 15th). He joins us for what turns into a free-flowing conversation amongst three brown men who are figuring shit out. We dive into topics from showing up on time to work, to how someone showing their DD's to Utkarsh is how he started acting. We also talk about the insecurities we faced growing up, whether it would be easier being white, and who were our role models as kids/what kind of role models can we now be. But as if that wasn't enough we also got to hear about his amazing experience working with South Asian kids in a program that took Basketball to India. This meandering but fascinating conversation cuts into the core of what we are trying to do with this podcast: we question the status quo and keep on questioning...so pull up a cup of chai and listen in. We know you want to.

After hearing from the Super Duper Movie Producer Megha Kadakia last week, it was only right to hear from the other part of this amazing partnership. Megha's husband Saurabh Kikani joins us this week and helped us create maybe our funniest episode ever. Akaash did a spit take during recording, I was in tears I was laughing so hard and Saurabh was just killing it. All because we started talking about how dating an Indian woman was a pain in the ass (fear not women listeners, it was all from love.). We also talked about how he grew up in completely white towns, his ties to South Asian culture, how he inherited a social misfit mentality from his father, and how he was a complete doofus in the way he pursued Megha. As if that wasn't enough, Saurabh clues us in to how he came to be on the board of the International Hip Hop Museum! You won't wanna miss this amazing episode so press play NOW!