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.

This week, we spoke to Aditi Gupta, the co-founder of Menstrupedia - the leading comic generating awareness in women’s reproductive health in countries like India, Nepal, Nigeria and South America. This episode is coming out in time to celebrate Menstrupedia’s 5th anniversary and we couldn’t be more proud to share such an amazing story. Aditi’s Ted Talk ‘A taboo-free way to talk about periods’ has close to 1.5 million views and she’s made it into the achiever's list of Forbes India 30 under 30 in 2014 for her work towards breaking the taboo around menstruation. She’s a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC and BBC.

For those of you who watched our ladies perform on Sunday at the Women’s Cricket World Cup Finals, this interview with Snehal Pradhan, a former international cricket player, will help you understand what it really takes to train and support women all the way to the international stage.

This week, we’re talking to Alex Mathew a.k.a Maya the Drag Queen from Bangalore. Born and raised in an orthodox Christian home in Kerala, Alex temporarily broke away from his roots to live his life being true to his identity as a queer man and to pursue his passion for performing Drag in Bangalore. Get ready to share this episode with all your friends who still don’t fully understand the LGBTQ community and Drag as a performing art.

This week, we spoke to Anjali Menon, the award-winning writer/director of popular Malayalam movies like Manjadikuru, Ustad Hotel and Bangalore Days. In this episode, Anjali talks about her disciplined education in film studies followed by the entire decade of her life spent working on her very first film which despite being critically acclaimed, failed at the box office. In the end, she let us geek out about her following record-breaking blockbuster hits by going behind the scenes and expanding on their universes.

36 - that's the number of jokes Ankita has stolen from Meenal (and still counting). HOW ‘BOU DAH? It's also the number of times Ankita has regretted having a KFC dinner, much like on the night of this recording. But do you want to know what else has happened over 36 times on the podcast? You guessed it. The Texas accent of Baaaaaarb Kellner. It’s a braindump. And yes, it gets worse.

Meet Sukhminder Kaur from Leicester, a beautiful young woman who suffered as an emotional eater from a young age. A lack of self esteem was both the cause and result of a pattern she was falling into, and the loneliness she experienced as an outsider in a setting very different to her traditional Indian home was not helping in any way. Tune in to our conversation with Sukh where she tells us all about her journey from a cycle of unhealthy eating to that of a finalist in the Ms Plus Size North India 2017 pageant - India’s very first plus-size beauty pageant.

25 years ago, a malnutritioned baby girl was found abandoned in Ambala with a purple tongue, no hips and ribs sticking out of her body. It took her adoptive parents two whole years to revive her, only to find out that she had a hole in her heart. If it hadn’t been for them, Tia Bhatia would not be with us today, having this conversation. So join us in this episode with Tia, an actress based in Toronto, who was lucky enough to be brought into a loving home and given the kind of life every child deserves.

This week, we bring you an exclusive interview with Amandeep Singh of Inkquisitive Illustrations. Apart from being impressed with our “professional stalking”/FBI investigative skills, Amandeep spills the beans on being jobless for several months despite his very high GPA in college. He shares his journey from that dark place to the colourful one of being one of the most sought after Desi artists in the world.

This week, Ankita exposes the truly lowest points in her life - her relationships PRE SHANE. And Meenal tells us about the half date she had before her Mummy came in and ruined everything. We also share our four gems of wisdom regarding how to deal with a break up. Let us know what you think!

Finally, we bring you the much awaited Season premiere with the one and only "Mom Boss Of 3" from Youtube. Tina started her channel a year ago in order to document her daily life as a mother of three children. We discuss her life before marriage and kids, life as a second generation Desi in Canada, and how she juggles a hectic schedule whilst building her YouTube empire!

In season 2, we discussed many issues affecting us all around the globe and here we are at the Season Finale, discussing the most crucial of them all - who really is the ‘sexier’ one at the Desi Outsiders HQ (not including Shane). This episode brings you all the unanswered questions that may have been swimming in your brain the past few months, including why we’re not called the ‘Desi Insiders’ :D

Meenal left and Shane grabbed on to the opportunity to replace her. The result: a very poor reflection on Shane and Ankita's marriage. They reveal things about themselves that the other didn't know, and about each other that nobody wants to know. When Meenal gave her blessing to the couple to record without her, she probably intended for it to be a disaster.

The first time we came across Simar’s ‘The Legal Rapist’, we were totally attracted to his pink shirt and Khaki pants combo. Oh, and his performance was pretty okay too ;) At the age of 16, Simar took the initiative to start Unerase Poetry. But at the end of the day, he’s just another schoolboy who doesn’t want to go to college. For the first time, we bring you his story in his own voice (and ours too!).

This week, we come with the last Braindump of the season. As always, nothing can prepare you for the tangents because, at the end of the episode, we ourselves struggled to figure out where it all started. But we’re sure the image can give you a gist of where the conversation took us this time. Enjoy!

This week, we’re in conversation with Priyanka Madan, a lawyer based in London. She learned the value of hard work and discovered what it means to be independent from the age of sixteen when she bagged a scholarship to complete her high school studies in Singapore. And then, there was no looking back. Tune in to follow this incredible success story!

This week, we want to talk to you all about the sensation that has taken India by storm - he IPL. Since 2008, April and May have been the two months when most Indians refuse to leave their homes to socialise with real people because they’re all too busy interacting animatedly with their television screens while watching the Indian Premier League. Stay tuned to hear Ankita scream “BLEED BLUE!” and find out why Meenal's new nickname is ‘Mummy Chappal’.

We’re so excited to share our conversation with Esha Malkani from Lasya Dance where we talk about how she found the time to build her dance empire while handling the demanding career of a Chartered Accountant. Girls and boys, it looks like you don’t have to choose between a career and a hobby these days when people like Esha are setting an example by making it all work out with grace.

This week we have another braindump for you! As always, the tangents are unexpected and this time, it ranges from Meenal’s birthday celebrations to the human instinct of fixating on romantic relationships. Stay tuned till the end for a lesson on psychology and we’re quite confident you’re about to put on your thinking caps after listening to this episode.

With just 3 days left to Mother’s Day here in the UK, we decided to have a little chat about motherhood, what it means to us, and whether or not we see ourselves taking up the role of mothers in the future. Hope you enjoy the show!

We hope you’re as excited about the changing seasons as Ankita is about the one day of sunshine in Edinburgh. This week, we discuss the onset of spring, the festival of colours that celebrates this welcome change, and the consequences that women face during public festivities and celebrations in India. We try to understand the core of this problem and what we can possibly do as a society to see some incremental change.

HOLY COW! This is our 20th episode and we can’t believe it either. We think it’s quite fitting that this episode is a braindump. And boy, are you not ready for the tangents because we sure weren’t. You’ll hear about topics ranging from women who inspire us, to Ankita's antisocial tendencies, all the way to the births and deliveries Meenal has witnessed in all the different continents she’s visited. Fasten your seatbelts, this is one rollercoaster of a conversation.

A lot has happened this week as far as Indians worldwide are concerned and we’re here to bring you a fresh perspective on all these issues. We discuss the murder of a fellow Indian at the hands of a xenophobe, the casual rape threats sent out to a 20-year-old, and also look at the influences that led to these eventualities. But most importantly, we tackle the influence of the affluent in our society. Show notes : http://www.timechor.in/gurmehar-kaur-freedom-speech-exist-india/

Happy Thursday, everybody! Our blog feminismindia.com is up and running now and to celebrate the growth of our community, we wanted to bring you an episode introducing the basic concepts of feminism. We also go into a few scenarios which are quite common in most Desi homes and classrooms. However, we feel that practicing feminism could have saved all the victims in those situations. Show notes: Feminist not Fascist! : http://feminismindia.com/feminist-not-fascist/

As promised, we have a Valentine’s special episode this week where we read hilarious accounts on dating sent in by our listeners. But as usual, it’ not all fun and frolic - we also bring you some food for thought during this season of love. Show notes - The News Minute article: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/love-doesn-t-stalk-kill-or-murder-stop-justifying-toxic-obsession-romance-56671

We’re back with season 2 and we have updates to share with you! Meenal now has straight teeth and Ankita got a nose job. Just kidding! Meenal still has those braces and a peacock beak continues to replace Ankita’s nose. But what actually got a makeover is our website. Tune in to find out what else is new!

It’s been 15 weeks of Desi Outsiders - yes, you have been putting up with our lame jokes and high pitched giggles for that long. You’re welcome. As promised, this final episode of Season 1 is a QnA where we answer all the questions you asked us! Thank you for sending them in! For any questions we haven’t answered, stay tuned for either a part 2 or a blog post :)

Christmas Mubaarak to all our listeners! This holiday season, we want to share our season’s favourites with you and also treat you to pretty things. So do stick around till the end of the episode to find out how to enter our special end of season GIVEAWAY. We hope you find our list of favourites interesting, and we’re looking forward to announcing the winner of this giveaway in next week’s episode. Here are the links to some of the things we mention in the episode.: The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle KhannaThe Good WifeExploding Kittens - Board GameFitness BlenderYoutuber - Liza KoshySkin care - The Body Shop’s Tea Tree TonerJoe Rogan Experience PodcastEpisode - Let’s talk periods ft Shane Girish The Talk We're an Amazon affiliate - which means that amazon items that we genuinely recommend may earn us a commission which in turn help support this podcast.

This week we chat with a fellow Desi Outsider, Abhishyant on his radical change of career choice during his final year of Mechanical Engineering. Abhishyant chose to complete his studies in Engineering, only to make the switch to Journalism immediately after his graduation. We discuss his journey from VIT to CNN-IBN to Columbia School of Journalism in New York. We absolutely loved speaking to him, and hope that you enjoy listening to our conversation. You can find Abhishyanth on twitter @AbhishyantPK

It’s time for another special episode where we sit down and let our brains take a dump on your screens. After making you uncomfortable with all that period talk, we think you deserve a nice laugh. We’re not sure if you’re going to laugh with us or at us (most likely the latter). Either way, presenting our December Braindump. Don't forget to check out the blooper reel at the end of the Youtube video: https://youtu.be/cKWx2PyPVnA As always, send us your stories and comments to mail@desioutsiders.com

In our final episode on period, sex and reproduction, we come to you with a discussion on hygiene - female, male and even sexual hygiene. We round off our series on sexual health with an insight into the importance of maintaining proper hygiene, and stressing on the impact it can have on your body if this is neglected. If you know anyone who you feel may benefit from this, please do share this episode with them - it may just help them more than you think.

This week, we bring you ‘The Talk’ in the form of a Youtube video. Sit back, and join us as we discuss all the things you need to know about puberty and sexual reproduction. This is for anyone who hasn’t been given the talk yet, or is unsure of the concept of reproduction. But mainly, we encourage parents to watch this video so that they have an easier time imparting this knowledge to their kids. We also hope that parents show their kids this video and watch it with them, to break all communication barriers. Original Video: https://youtu.be/nKthChB5CMc Please share, comment and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you feel this video is helpful. If you have any other queries or confusions, we’d love to help you out! All you have to do is drop us an email to mail@desioutsiders.com

This week, we’re bringing period talk into your homes in an attempt to address one of the most taboo topics in most Indian homes. To make it even more awkward for Desi parents, Ankita’s husband Shane also makes a guest appearance to shed light on the importance of educating young boys on the very basics of human reproduction to fight fear and related stigma. P.S. Last week, for the first time, we uploaded our podcast as a Youtube video. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/rloxtko08Ws

This week, despite coming very close to losing faith in humanity, we have something that might just cheer you up. No, it’s not a re-election, it’s a braindump. Instead of sticking to our usual theme, we decided to release this week’s episode in the form of a YouTube video. You’ll be able to see our conversation as we pretend to sit in the same room, side by side even though we’re in two different countries. And as always, we invite listeners to send in their stories to mail@desioutsiders.com Youtube: https://youtu.be/rloxtko08Ws

This week, as we discuss the various options available to us before going into University, Meenal’s Dad makes a special guest appearance and reminds us that things don’t suck as much as we make them out to. We also go into horrifying CA pass rates in the country and talk about the importance of looking into all the available options before making an important decision.

In this week’s episode, we walk down memory lane and tell each other stories from our respective school days. Meenal went to school in Europe and Ankita was raised in India. So there were a lot of ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s when Meenal learned about steel ruler beatings and Ankita heard about the freedom to do “nothing at all” in an art class. Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deepblue66/10375972415/

In this episode, we discuss how we embarked on our respective career paths and the things that influenced these choices. Meenal dishes out on how she failed to get into medical school, only to find an opportunity that changed her outlook on life, while Ankita tells the story of how she climbed on hostel toilets to look at boys.

This week, we discuss the untold story of the younger Indian daughter. Being a younger Indian daughter who has been left behind in a household that has suffered the loss of an eloping child is not an easy situation to be stuck in. We reflect upon the root causes of all treatments in a setting like this. Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bhagathk/3084924167/in/photostream/

In this week's episode, Ankita and Meenal dig deeper into the topic of marriage in India. Not only do they discuss the fallacies of love and marriage in the Desi culture, but they also attempt to give their listeners a reality check by shedding light on their own personal experiences.

This week, we discuss the biggest business transaction in India - marriage. Ankita shares her personal story of introducing her parents to a guy of her choice while Meenal gives Ankita the shock of her life when she tells the story of an Indian family in Europe. But they don’t stop there.

Ankita and Meenal give a brief introduction into their lives as they explore their journey from where they started off as two girls with big ideas to how they ended up grabbing their mics and sharing their stories. The two girls tell us about the biggest, yet most significant change in their life which brought them to where they are now. They introduce their vision of the Desi Outsiders community, a safe place for all 'Desis' to come together in order to be a part of many meaningful conversations. They invite listeners to send in their stories to mail@desioutsiders.com You can follow them on Social Media @TheDesiOutsiders