Desi Outsiders

In this episode, I reflect on how things have changed so drastically over the last 12 months. Working hard isn't just about passing my state exams in medical school anymore - it's a whole new dimension in this new phase of my life.  One of my biggest learning points over the last few months is that you shouldn't pat yourself on the back for achieving the basics. Patting yourself on the back from time to time is okay, but sometimes you need good mentors to push you to your limit. And once you reach your limit, the best mentors will push you even more.  Listen in to see how I went from commuting almost 3.5 hours after a night shift or 8 hour day in the hospital just so I could achieve my dream of being on the radio. A special thanks to Sabras Radio and Raj Baddhan for believing in me!

After releasing my thoughts on feminism in episode 88, I had a very interesting interaction with a listener. We spoke about how we feel this new era of feminism has left us in a position where we don't really know where we stand. CAUTION: A lot of you will disagree with what I will say in this episode and I welcome all of you to explain why you disagree. You can email me at meenal@desioutsiders.com Thank you all for joining me in this very important discussion, I have learnt so much over the last few weeks, and I hope we can all learn together!

Over the last few weeks, I have been trying to find productive ways to deal with stress. One easy and adaptable practice is mindfulness. Pam helps hundreds of people in her work as a mindfulness coach and has been studying the science and benefits behind this practice for years. In this episode, Pam talks to us about how we can incorporate this into our daily lives and the benefits we can expect by practicing some mindfulness on a daily basis.  You can find out more about Pam's work on www.learn2rest.com. Enjoy!

This International Women's Day, apart from celebrating all the amazing women who have influenced my life, I want to use this opportunity to re-evaluate what it means to be a woman in the #MeToo era. Feminism is a strong force that is slowly taking over every aspect of our life, but to where do we draw the line? Are we being counterproductive with our feminist thoughts and ideas or is feminism really creating the difference that women need?

In the last few episodes, a few deep conversations were had, a few tears came into the conversation, and we left hoping we'd figure it all out in the new year.  Some answers are never concrete, but it's always good progress when we feel we are taking steps in the right direction!  Please do share your own experiences after listening to this episode, you empower us which helps us empower **YOU! ** We hope you enjoy this one

Following from last week's episode, we unexpectedly jumped into a conversation about finding the true definition of happiness - of course, Meenal is questioning if it really exists after the few weeks she has been through (yes, she has a dark side)! With the new year approaching, both of us reflect on our personal growth, our future growth and share all our hopes and dreams for the coming year. Thank you for being a part of our podcast, and we promise to bring you more in the coming year. We love you all!

When Meenal receives an email that reads "you sound depressed, are you okay?" - we know something is clearly wrong. It's been an interesting couple of weeks for both of us. Each of us experiencing life in different ways and trying to learn from our experiences as much as possible. Not every day will be a happy, bubbly day - a concept Meenal is trying to get a hold of. Tune in to find out why we didn't record last week and why Meenal sounds "dead inside".

Life can get busy.  So busy that we both didn't even get a moment to sit and record an episode last week. But it's okay, because sometimes we have to accept that life can get crazy and we can always find ways to work around it. We are currently learning how to deal with our hectic work schedules and still have time to record a podcast and also deal with our ongoing daily life activities. We talk about our struggles and how we have found our own personal ways of overcoming our anxiety of trying to get enough done during our working days.  If you have any suggestions for us, please send them over - as you'll listen, you'll realize we need all the help we can take!

**Shane (the guy who edits this show and is married to the short one)** - This time, it's my bad that the episode was late. I'm a little tied up in Seattle as part of a work trip. Apologies. * * * Long distance relationships aren't always easy and we've all had to deal with it at some point in our life. We discuss how we've dealt with our own relationships, how we've overcome the difficulties and some tips on how to make things a little easier when you're far away from your loved ones. Enjoy!

This Diwali we bring you a special episode where we catch up with our lives and go through all your mails. We love reading about your opinions and used this opportunity to share what we think with all of you lovely listeners. This special episode is all about you! Enjoy!

The #metoo movement is slowly gaining cadence in India. But what makes this so different to the stories being told in the US, is that India has a lot of cultural barriers which affect the movement and the stories of women that are coming to light.  We look into some case studies and present some evidence as to why women aren't likely to lie about their sexual assault stories and why women wouldn't even consider lying.  Of course, this movement is much bigger than what we have time to discuss, but we hope you send us your thoughts and opinions on this movement.

As we prepare for the Asian Media Awards, we wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your love and endless belief in our project. We are sending you all a big, virtual hug! This week, we discuss how Desi weddings aren't exactly the norm anymore - we're all adapting to our needs and desires when it comes to what we believe is the perfect wedding. But can we still keep traditions alive if we continue to veer away from how our ancestors conducted weddings? How important is to us, as a generation, to pass these traditions forward?

The Sabarimala verdict was a great day for women across the country. Ankita had visited this Temple as a child to make sure she received her blessings before hitting her menstrual age. We both dig into what the Vedas say about women being impure and why we all need to extend our knowledge and read further into historic textbooks to understand why these rules still live within our society.

Meenal has just moved to the UK from Gibraltar. But this isn’t the first time she has had to move away from home. Ankita also recollects her several moves and the emotional impact it had on her life. Moving away from home isn’t an easy process, whether it’s for a new job, or to go to University. This week, we discuss the ins and outs of moving and how important it is to be mentally prepared for these big changes in your life. We also go into the topic of trying to figure out where our home actually is. Is it where our parents are? Is it where are our passports says we are from? We’d love to hear about your moving stories and your thoughts on living with our away from your parents. Drop us a mail at mail@desioutsiders.com or find us on any social media platform @desioutsiders Side note: Meenal is running a half marathon in Long Beach, California to raise funds for our 12 orphans in Kenya. We would appreciate any donation, big or small - it will really take us a long way! You can hit the donate button right here: http://altcricketfoundation.org/long-beach-marathon/

English Medicine' is a term a lot of you may have seen or heard before. But what does this really mean? We discuss the serious impact of myths being passed down from generation to generation with regards to modern medicine. Ankita especially has seen this in her home town in Trivandrum and Meenal has seen family members on their death bed due to ignorance and lack of self-education. We also touch the surface on the science behind Ayurveda and herbal medicine - is it a scam or real science? If you have any of your own 'English Medicine' stories, do share it with us!

It’s been a month since we last virtually greeted you and as bad as this sounds, we didn’t plan for four weeks to go by before we could show up and say hi. We don’t have set weekends anymore. Hell, we don’t even get two consecutive days off in a week with our new commitments. And as you can imagine, speaking to guests based in different time zones has been a little inconvenient, if not completely impossible. But here we are, and we’ve decided that no matter what happens, we’re going to show up every week and have a blast recording our episodes! We explain why all of us at the DO HQ needed a hard reset, and we couldn’t leave without discussing the Serena Williams controversy. Your thoughts, feedback and even ideas as to what we can discuss mean everything to us! Drop us an email to mail@desioutsiders.com or DM us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Thank you for all your feedback so far - you have provided us with a continuous drip of inspiration to show up every week. #MedicalJoke

After almost half a year, we bring you another Braindump! We use this episode to explain why we've been off the radar for some time, and you'll also hear about why some of our episodes have been released on random days of the week. Both of our lives have changed quite drastically.  Thank you all for being patient with us as we settle into our new lives. After we recorded this episode, it reminded us how much we love doing these braindumps! If you agree, comment below!

This week we have something different to share with you! Recently, we were on Awaz FM, Scotland’s Asian station, with Lehar Laghmani. We shared the journey we’ve had with Desi Outsiders with over seventy episodes so far and also got to play our chosen music for the 17,000+ listeners who tuned in live. This was the first time we had a full 45 minutes to talk about our project and vision. In every other digital appearance we’ve made, we’ve had to squeeze in a lot of information into a very short space of time. It also makes us happy that this time, Shane got to join in on this conversation too so you’ll get to hear more about the gruelling editing process behind our episodes. Enjoy!

This week we’re honoured to share our conversation with Major Archie Acharya, a communications engineer from JNU who now serves the Indian Army. She’s has been posted at the Line of Control, RAPID Battalion as part of Strike Corps and Electronic Warfare Units and Formations. Archie talks to us about women in male-dominated workforces, the challenges she has had to overcome and the backward mentalities she still deals with on a daily basis. She shares thought-provoking and often hilarious anecdotes from her training and also delves into the importance of having a stable support system while being out there, conquering your fears and chasing your dreams.

This week we’re bringing you our conversation with Natasha Scripture, a mixed desi author, poet, activist and former aid worker. As a spokesperson for the United Nations, Natasha covered humanitarian crises around the world, including conflicts and natural disasters in Ethiopia, Haiti, Libya, and Pakistan. Before the UN, she worked as a writer, producer and editor for a variety of organisations, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera English, TED, and National Geographic. Natasha has also contributed to the New York Times, The Telegraph and The Atlantic, among other publications. She has lived in several different countries and travels extensively. Yet no matter where she is in the world, she seeks to inspire and empower women with her writing and storytelling. Today, we discuss her new book ‘Man Fast’, her identity as a half desi (her mother is Pakistani/Indian and her father American), the timeline society imposes on women based on biological clocks and the need to “settle down”, and her journey of coping with loss and reinventing herself. Show Notes: Natasha’s website: http://natashascripture.com/

After watching Dangal a few months ago, both of us were very excited to speak to Sally Roberts from Wrestle Like a Girl. Sally’s upbringing wasn’t easy and she had to resort to antisocial behaviour to deal with all the complex emotions she was facing as a young teen. But ultimately, she didn’t let any of that get in the way of her dreams. She joined her school wrestling club and was the ONLY girl wrestling at the time in her region. With the support of her coaches and teammates, she persevered and got into the national and world championships medal table. However, life hit her hard again when she didn’t make it to the Olympic team by just one place. From then to Afghanistan to everything she has achieved today is an outcome of her perseverance throughout the difficult circumstances life threw at her. Enjoy!

Now that the royal wedding fever has died down a bit, we want to take a step back and present to you our detailed conversation with Suhani Jalota, the founder if Myna Mahila Foundation, which was the only Indian non-profit to be invited to the royal wedding. The Myna Mahila Foundation is an Indian organization which empowers women by encouraging discussion of taboo subjects such as menstruation, and by setting up workshops to produce low-cost sanitary protection to enable girls to stay in school. We spoke to Suhani about how this amazing journey started and discussed the intricacies involved in running such a sustainable and cost-efficient organisation which came into the global spotlight within just three years of its founding.

Aranya Johar is a 19-year-old poet and activist based in Mumbai. She started writing poetry at the age of 11, started performing spoken word poetry at 13, but the world knows her for her viral performance of ‘A brown girl’s guide to gender’ - a spoken word poem she released last year. In her one year of activism following that, Aranya has proved to be one of the smartest minds of our generation, both talking about and creating content pertaining to topics we all need to be paying attention to. We discuss feminism, gender, mental health, hard work, privilege and a milieu of other things with her in this episode!

This week we spoke to Shreya Nallapati, an activist, entrepreneur and high school senior. Like many of us, Shreya watched Emma González’s speech after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February of this year. But instead of using tech to send just thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families, Shreya decided to use her tech skills and knowledge to build a product that uses predictive analytics and artificial intelligence in order to both predict and prevent future school shootings in America. What started out as a one girl team with a big dream, soon grew into an organisation with 200 enthusiastic contributors - most of whom are female teenagers, just like Shreya. She talks to us about the future of this project and the milestones ahead of her and we couldn’t be more proud to share this conversation with you!

This week, we spoke to Trisha Sakhuja Walia, the CEO of Brown Girl Magazine. This incredible online magazine serves as an anchor for South Asians who believe in gender equality. Their content provides a connection between the readers, the trailblazers, community leaders, and all the badass women in the South Asian community. We spoke to Trisha about how this small idea had started back in 2008, and how 10 years later, they’ve grown and expanded in the US, London and Canada. Not only do they have their website running with over 150 contributors, they also successfully run their own YouTube channel and recently launched a podcast - queeringdesi. Trisha discusses everything from the ethos of Brown Girl Magazine to how they strive to become the powerhouse of South Asian media for Desis abroad. Show notes: Website: www.browngirlmagazine.com Get in touch with Trisha: www.instagram.com/tsakhuja_walia Get in touch with Brown Girl Magazine staff: staff@BrownGirlMagazine.com

This week, we’re delighted to bring you one the most inspiring stories you will hear on this podcast. Our guest Malvika Iyer was just 13 when a grenade blast in her own bedroom in Bikaner almost killed her. She immediately lost both her hands, her feet were completely disfigured, she suffered from 80% blood loss, and her BP was zero. Doctors were not sure if she’d survive and once she survived, they weren’t sure if she’d ever walk again in her life. 18 months later, Malvika bagged a State rank for her 10 board exams that she only prepared for three months. A little over a decade later, she walked the ramp as a show stopper for a fashion show, and just a few months ago, she was awarded her PHD and the prestigious Nari Puraskar award on Women’s Day. Show notes: Malvika Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvika_Iyer Malvika’s Website: https://malvikaiyer.wordpress.com/

This week, we have two very special guests on our show! Chris and Renata have been tirelessly working on building the first ever cricket academy in Czech Republic. Since they started the project in 2015, they have dealt with rejection, theft, extreme weather conditions and culture barriers. Just three months into 2018, they have managed to reach over 10,000 kids and introduce them to the sport. Despite the resistance they have faced from many locals who have no idea about the sport, they have managed to receive sustainable funding and even getting the local government and mayor involved in their local leagues. Resources: http://en.kriketovaakademie.com/home.html Twitter: @AkademieKriketu

This week, we spoke to Manpreet Toor, a dancer, choreographer, and entrepreneur based in California. You must know Manpreet from her early days where she danced with her friend, Naina. Now Manpreet has been collaborating with big names in the industry - she recently worked with Punjabi By Nature and also gave us some exclusive news which she hasn’t spoken about just yet!

This mini Navrati, we bring you the internet’s favourite Gujju, Parle Patel from Planet Parle. We discuss his life as a British Asian who spent 6 years of his life in Australia, and also has family roots in Kenya and Gujarat. Parle talks to us about being a blend of these three cultures, his experience with mental health, and his journey from the time he was a child and his parents forced a camera in his face, asking him to make a home documentary, to how he started his own YouTube channel. Today, Parle hosts his own radio show on the BBC Asian Network and is a pivotal force in reviving the Gujarati culture amongst British Asians.

Last Thursday, on International Women’s Day, we interviewed Lauren C. Anderson, one of the first ever women selected for the FBI swat team! When an 11-year-old Lauren toured the FBI Headquarters in New York, she was told by her tour guide that girls could never be FBI agents because they would just sit around all day painting their nails. 15 years later, she not only joined the FBI but also travelled all around the globe after the 9/11 attacks. Lauren speaks to us about her views on women's safety, terrorism, and responsible change making in this world.

On Women’s Day, we present to you our second male guest of this season, Shobhit Banwait. We’re quite sure most of our Desi listeners have seen Shobhit playing his Tabla with his six-winged ceiling fan in the background. He started off by making videos using his simple smartphone and zero equipment but today, Shobhit is one of the most famous tabla artists on the internet, creating beautiful fusions within all genres of music. Enjoy!

This week, we bring you our conversation with Zohra Moosa, the Executive Director of Mama Cash, an organization that supports the financial prospects of women, girls, trans and intersex people around the world who fight for their human rights. Mama Cash was conceived around a kitchen table in Amsterdam in 1983. Since then, they have grown from a group of five feminist activists into an international fund that supports women’s, girls’ and trans people’s movements around the world. As a brown, queer, Desi migrant, Zohra talks to us about intersectional feminism and the work she does with Mama Cash to support feminist causes around the world.

This week we are in conversation with Pranav Punjabi - a youtube, Viner, and online content creator. Pranav started his comedy journey at the age of 16 and he fell in love with the laughter of others around him. He continued to work hard on his passion for comedy and today uses his platform to address some very serious social issues which are difficult to voice in our desi community. So join us as we discuss comedy, mental health, and feminism with Pranav!

This week we bring you our conversation Shaili Chopra, a face you might already be familiar with. She’s an Indian business journalist, author and entrepreneur who has worked extensively with NDTV and is also the founder of shethepeople.tv - “A video story-telling space that inspires women, strengthens their efforts, exchanges leadership ideas, fosters networking and reinforces their ability to contribute to growth.” Shaili’s world is full of incredible experiences as a journalist including one where she and her husband covered the Mumbai terror attacks live for three days from the Taj Mahal palace hotel in Mumbai. She was named one of India's 50 most influential women in media, marketing and advertising by Impact Magazine. Enjoy!

This week, right before the release of the much awaited Bollywood film Padman, we bring you a discussion on female reproductive health with Hollywood’s very own Gynaecologist, Dr Sherry Ross. She’s ***the*** OBGYN of Hollywood, and stars like Reese Witherspoon, Jane Seymor, Brooke Shields, Katherine McPhee are regular clients of Dr.Sherry. Dr Sherry’s book she-ology: The Definitive Guide to Women’s Intimate Health. Period. was named one the 6 Most Life Changing Wellness Books of 2017 by Prevention.com and Women’s Health Magazine. PadMan will surely be a huge success, but before we go explore the narrative of USING a pad, we believe that it’s just as important to go all the way back to basics. So if your parents didn’t pass this information down to you, or if your school didn’t emphasise on sex education - not to worry, we have Dr.Sherry to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about female reproduction.

This week, we bring you our conversation with Supriya Joshi, a stand up comedian and writer who’s worked extensively with All India Bakchod. Supriya enlightened us on what it means to be at the forefront of both the feminist movement as well as the change happening in the comedy circles in India today. And as you can imagine, we shared a lot of giggles along the way and hope you enjoy listening to the three of us as much as we enjoyed recording this episode. You can find out more about our orphanage and our Foundation right here: www.altcricketfoundation.org

We warned you that we were coming back although the last time you heard from us, we had no idea that we were about to leave you for a month without a warning. As usual, we jumped from topic to topic in this episode and ended up discussing Zaira Wasim’s flight incident and how these situations contribute to the discourse around feminism. And then, again without a warning, and completely ignoring Meenal’s pleas to be spared the image, Ankita describes a very graphic incident of a man who stood in the middle of a flight with his pants undone. We leave you with a food for thought - how important is it to be mindful of the way we represent our Desi community when we travel abroad?  Ankita's blog - http://ankita.ink

We’re delighted to bring you our super special episode this week as we interviewed our first ever non-Desi guest! We couldn’t be happier to share her story with you because we learned a lot about a culture that is very similar to our own. Luz Amuchastegui is a social rights activist, hockey superstar, consultant and an established entrepreneur based in Argentina. She currently serves as the Youth Development Director at an NGO called El Desafio (which means ‘The Challenge’) and is the co-founder of two companies - Evolution Factory and Keep Going Hockey. In 2013, Luz was selected as one of the 16 Emerging Leaders of the world by the US Department of State, ESPNW and The Center for Sport, Peace and Society of the University of Tennessee to be a part of the Global Sports Mentoring Program.

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking to TheSandyLion who confessed that this was her debut podcast interview! Sandy is a full-time elementary school teacher and a fashion stylist based in Toronto. In this interview, Sandy takes us through her 4-year journey to bring her where she is now, working with big stars like Lilly Singh, Humble the Poet, and even styling in some music videos!

This week, we bring you our conversation with Elsa D’Silva, the Founder & CEO of the Red Dot Foundation. Through her app called SafeCity, Elsa and her team document sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. In the past four years, Safecity has become the largest crowd map on the issue of sexual abuse in India, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Nepal.

This week, we bring you our conversation with Kirthi Jayakumar, an Indian women's rights activist, a social entrepreneur, a peace activist, artist, lawyer and writer among many other things. The list of Kirthi’s achievements is almost endless and to put it simply, her hard work landed her the US Presidential Services medal in 2011. But in this interview, we get into all the influences that made her want to do the work that she does today, especially as a lawyer who left her corporate job within just one month, and went on to volunteer with many NGOs including the UN. Kirthi also revealed right at the beginning of our interview that she is a victim of sexual abuse - and this was a surprise to us. The conversation took a completely unexpected turn and here we have an amazing story to share - stay tuned until the end, we promise you, it’s worth it.

Yup, that’s us high-fiving each other for making it this far. Fifty episodes. Celebrating fifty of anything is a big milestone! We even celebrated 50 Twitter followers, then realised that they were all fake accounts. This week, we bring you a very special episode where the tables completely turn and instead, we get interviewed instead by our most devoted fan - Nishant Joshi of AltCricket! This is the very first time where we truly get to express our opinions on the world, feminism, and our society after gathering so much knowledge from all our inspiring guests. Enjoy!

This Diwali, we bring you a “pattaka” called Karan Talwar a.k.a Bollywood Gandu, who is a comedian based in Mumbai. He shares the story of how he left a boring desk job in the US and returned to India at the age of 28 to kickstart his career in stand-up comedy. This led to the founding of SnG comedy and later, Bollywood Gandu. Over the years, Karan has garnered close to 2.5 million followers on Twitter alone but has also been “unfollowed” by many Bollywood celebrities on the very same social media channel. Tune in to find out how and why it all started.

We’re kicking off Season 4 with an exclusive interview with Vidya Vox where we accidentally damage her eardrums by singing along with her. We’re the new Desi Spice Girls now and Vidya is leaving her job as a solo artist to join us. That’s once she repairs her eardrums, of course. We discuss her journey from the age of five when she started training in classical Karnatic music and wasn’t the biggest fan of it, to how she almost became a doctor but then ended up being a superstar instead - basically, Vidya is living Meenal’s alternate reality.

Somehow, one year ago today, we convinced you to replace your Sai Baba bhajans and Niki Minaj playlists with our podcast episodes. We really wish we could invite you to Desi Outsiders with chai and samosas this fine morning, but Ankita can’t cook, and Meenal doesn’t share food. So instead, we put together a very special season finale where we share the snippets of the good, the bad, and the ugly of our journey so far. We bring you cringe worthy clips from previous episodes and tell you how we started out initially as a two-member team before Shane got involved in this project. We’ve come a long way together since then and can’t wait to see what Year Two has in store for us. As always, thanks a ton for tuning in every week. We couldn’t do this without you.

Jasvinder Sanghera CBE is a UK born and raised Sikh-Indian who narrowly escaped a forced marriage by running away from home at the age of sixteen. She is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a national award winning charity that supports both men and women affected by honour based abuse and forced marriages. She was listed in the Guardian’s top 100 Most Inspirational Women in the World in 2011. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire in 2013 in recognition of her outstanding contribution for the victims of forced marriage and honour based abuse. In fact, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that her work “turned his head on the issue of forced marriage” and her work is recognised as being pivotal to the creation of a specific UK forced marriage criminal offence in 2014.

We couldn’t be more excited to present to you our conversation with the writer Jaishree Misra. Her debut novel ‘Ancient Promises’ which came out in 2000 was a major best-seller, following which, she has written seven books. But apart from her success as a writer, we delve deep into many other aspects of her life and career. Her personal story is one of breaking social barriers to let her passions thrive, especially as she stepped out of an unhappy marriage and a rigid system to reclaim her own life. She talks about arranged marriages, the stigma surrounding divorce, step parenthood, and the many facets of caring for a child with special needs.

This week, we’re in conversation with Gurmehar Kaur, a face that you might already be familiar with. Since February of this year, a photograph of her holding a placard that says ‘Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him” has been plastered all over the news and social media channels in India. She was scrutinized by the whole nation, criticised by celebrities, and directly compared to the antagonists of the world. The title “anti-national” as a suffix to her name was at the tip of everybody’s tongue although, most people didn’t even have the slightest context into how and why this branding was taking place. What resulted was her receiving rape and murder threats while the whole nation forgot the main reason for all this scrutiny - Gurmehar’s stand against a leading student body in India that attacked young students at a Delhi University campus. Tune in to listen to her side of the story!

This week, we bring you our conversation with Ajit George who helps run Shanti Bhavan, the institution showcased in the Netflix documentary ‘Daughters of Destiny’. Shanti Bhavan is a free residential school for underprivileged children in India. Every year, the school enrolls 24 children at the age of four and takes care of their needs and expenses all year round, supporting them till they land a job and become capable of taking care of themselves and their families. 95% of these children come from the Dalit or ‘untouchable’ communities in India and almost all of them are from impoverished families that survive on less than $2 a day. Tune in to hear about the 20-year journey of this institution that starts with Ajit’s father, Dr Abraham George’s dream to uplift the Dalit community in India.

In this episode, we continue the beautiful story that Nishant shared with us last week. For those of you who are just tuning in, last week, we interviewed Nishant Joshi from AltCricket. Nishant is a full-time doctor who has written his own book, hosted his own cricket TV shows, and even built his Alternative Cricket brand on the internet all with his own two hands. After the tears from the previous episode, Nishant pulls us all out of gloom by sharing the story of how he wrote a book in just a month during his second year of college, and how a simple twitter account he started to publicize this book later landed him deals with high profile media partners like Star Sports. This time around, we promise there are fewer tears!

We’re proud to present our very first two-parter with Nishant Joshi from AltCricket - a London based doctor by day and sports journalist by night. Once the conversation about his dual life began to unfold, we unexpectedly delved into an in-depth discussion about Desi parenting, culture, and adolescence. It was only half-way through this conversation that we realised that *Nishant’s story actually begins in 1972 when his father immigrated to the UK as a refugee from Uganda.* **Part 1 with Nishant** covers his extremely high profile schooling once his family rose from the refugee status, his sheltered upbringing in a Desi-London home, and the resulting incapacity to deal with the lowest point of his life when he was asked to leave Imperial College London after his first year of medicine. Nishant is one of the most honest guests we've had so far and he never held back while narrating quite a vulnerable story. We promise it has a happy ending, although you’ll have to tune in next week to find out how he rose from the ashes to reclaim his life.