Brown Don't Frown Podcast

In the final episode of Season 6, I sit down with India Rakusen, a renowned audio and TV producer and presenter. She is best known for her work on BBC's highly acclaimed productions '28ish Days Later', 'Witch', and more recently, 'Child' where India delves into the journey of conception, pregnancy, birth, and the first twelve months of a child's life, exploring the science and history behind our c...

I sit down with hosts of Two Chickpeas in a Podcast, sisters Nikkita and Natasha to talk about our podcasting journeys, including how we started out, as well as our challenges, successes and future aspirations. We also talk about our experience as second/third generation South Asians - how it has shaped us and our outlooks on life and how it differs from our parents/grandparents, including our con...

Neelam founded Cysters in 2015 as a way to challenge some of the misconceptions and stigma around reproductive health, particularly for marginalised and racialised groups. It started off as a Facebook group and has evolved to become a community-led charity which aims to address some of the systemic barriers to better health outcomes. In this episode, Neelam's fierce dedication to improving reprodu...

Mitali Dargani is our next guest. As creator and host of Brown Game Strong, an interview show spotlighting creative South Asian minds, Mitali tells us how the show originated from a place of community support and encouragement, and is an embodiment of lifting each other up. Yet, Brown Game Strong is not just about showing outward success, but equally, recognising the flaws, demons, and challenges...

In this episode, I sit down with an inspirational former colleague and friend, Gabbie Stewart. Gabbie is originally from New Zealand but has spent many years in London with her husband and three young children. We talk about the inevitable juggle of life, personal identity, work, motherhood and everything in between.  We consider the evolution and revolution of pregnancy and motherhood over genera...

Seetal Kaur is our next guest. She is Co-Director of Forward Culture, a social initiative focussing on the empowerment of South Asian women. Seetal explains Forward Culture exists not just for finding pride in our South Asian heritage, but also about critically evaluating previous traditions and evolving them in line with our own empowerment and identity. In this episode, we talk about our shared...

The first guest of season 6 is Sairish Hussain, author of ‘The Family Tree’ and ‘Hidden Fires’. Sairish shares her writing journey and the inspirations behind the characters and plots in both of her novels. We also discuss the depiction of negative South Asian and Muslim stereotypes in popular culture and how she has defied these narratives in her stories as well as the importance of authenticity...

Brown Don’t Frown is back again! Season 6 drops March 2024! Make sure you hit the subscribe button and you will be notified as soon as a new episode goes live.  This season is all about empathy and empowerment through various lenses, such as navigating our 30s, not just reaching life goals and milestones but making new ones, parenthood and reproductive health, spinning plates, challenges, fears, s...

To mark Black History Month, the final guests of season 5 are Alison Burton and Natalie Duvall, founders of March Muses, which produces luxury gifts representing people of colour and received backing from Dragons’ Den’s Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden. They are the only UK brand to have created a full range of Black Christmas decorations, shining the light on the need for diverse and inclusive figu...

Katie Pearson is an old classmate from Sixth Form. She talks frankly about life as a stay-at-home mum,  the societal stereotypes and stigma associated with it, “mum guilt” and how she manages her anxiety and negative thoughts.  The negative perceptions of stay-at-home mums have been created by women. We are the gatekeepers of this narrative.  It often feels like whatever women do, they’re not good...

Today’s guest is Jane Chelliah, a South Asian midlife influencer and blogger who talks candidly about motherhood, feminism and transforming the female midlife crisis into a happy phase in life. Jane didn’t always see herself as a mother but found that she was absolutely besotted in love with her daughter when she was born.  Jane describes herself as a Feminist mother. I ask her what that means to...

The first guest of this special series on the joys and challenges of maternity and motherhood, is Joeli Brearley, Founder and Director of Pregnant Then Screwed . It started off as a safe space for mothers to share stories of their pregnancy discrimination and has evolved to become a one-of-a kind charity that lobbies against the gender pay gap, maternity discrimination and aims to be a voice for w...

Brown Don’t Frown is back! Season 5 drops September 2022! Make sure you hit the subscribe button and you will be notified as soon as a new episode goes live.  Inspired by my own personal journey with pregnancy and motherhood, this will be a special series covering the joys and challenges of motherhood and maternity, empowering change in childcare, mental health and the workforce. Sign up to our ne...

The final episode of season 4 is here and joining us is Dina Begum, a British-Bangladeshi cook and writer who is passionate about highlighting the underrepresented recipes and authentic food traditions of Bangladesh. For Bengalis and Bangladeshis, and across much of the South Asian continent, food is inseparable from humanity, community, purpose and love. I ask Dina why food is so important to her...

Deborah Broomfield is a doctoral candidate in Women and Planning. Her research focuses on spatial inequalities, urban planning and their intersection with deprivation, race and class. Urban planning overlaps with both politics and technical knowledge because of its focus on land use and the built environment, encompassing infrastructure, water, the air we breathe, transportation, networks, and com...

Today’s guest is Dr Lisa Mckenzie, Assistant Professor, Ethnographer and Sociologist, currently based at Durham University who has written and spoken extensively about classism, social inequality and leftist politics. We begin the conversation talking about her roots coming from a mining town in Nottingham and the pride of her working class identity growing up, defined by values of community, fami...

Today, I am joined by Dr Fatima Rajina and Hajera Begum of Nijjor Manush, an independent campaign group which empowers and educates Bengalis and Bangladeshis in the UK.     Brick Lane’s legacy is synonymous with Bangladeshi cuisine, culture and history. It is both a symbol of struggle and success for Bangladeshis, from Altab Ali to infamous curry houses and everything in-between. It’s somewhere I...

What are the challenges of dating, particularly in pandemic times? Has the pandemic accelerated innovations to dating apps for a more realistic dating experience? Has dating culture commodified romance and set unrealistic expectations for relationships? Today, I’m joined by Nichi Hodgson, a journalist, dating expert and author of ‘The Curious History of Dating’ who answers these questions, and mor...

Season 4 kicks off with Shalina Patel, an award-winning history teacher and co-founder of The History Corridor on Instagram. Shalina tells us about her career journey and what motivated her to become a history teacher. We talk about the tendency to be tokenistic when it comes to teaching diverse history, for example a gloss over the Windrush Generation or the glorification of the British Empire, w...

Brown Don’t Frown is back! Season 4 drops on Monday 3 May! Make sure you hit the subscribe button and you will be notified as soon as a new episode goes live.  We will be bringing you six episodes and hosting some wonderful guests talking about a range of topics, including an award-winning history teacher who shares how to build a diverse and fairer teaching curriculum, a grassroots-led movement w...

“Disabled people are infantilised, sensationalised or they’re just not believed.”   We end Season 3 on a thought-provoking note and I’m pleased to welcome Lucy Stafford to the show. Lucy is the Director of Patient Led Engagement for Access (PLEA), a non-profit which advocates for access to medical cannabis through mainstream healthcare. She speaks about her experience as a long-term patient of Ehl...

Today we’re joined by Adiba Jaigirdar, author of Young Adult fiction books The Henna Wars, and Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. She shares with us her journey from Bangladesh, to Saudi Arabia to Ireland, her sense of identity and belonging, and her motivations for writing.    As a Queer Brown author, whose books are about Queer Brown girls, I ask whether she had any challenges with finding an...

Our first guest of 2021 is Sangeeta Pillai. She is the founder of Masala Podcast and Soul Sutras , a feminist platform tackling taboos in South Asian culture. South Asia is made up of diverse countries, ethnicities, cultures, faiths, and traditions. One thing that we share universally across the continent and beyond, is patriarchy. It forms a part and parcel of our social fabric. As a Keralan born...

2020 has shown us that a world of remote working is entirely possible. But can mentorships, networking and representation be as effective over a screen?   We're excited to have Indy Sira, founder of Voices of Colour , a community action and leadership development programme for South Asian girls aged 15 to 18. The programme seeks to empower young girls by equipping them with the tools to create mea...

*Apologies in advance for the slightly off sound quality; we hope you still find the content meaningful.* What is Artificial Intelligence? What role can it play in ensuring information is factually correct (especially during a pandemic) and that data is gender disaggregated? Today I’m joined by our first honorary male guest, Freddie Kalaitzis , Senior Research Fellow in Machine Learning at the Uni...