SBS Spice

What do you do when you’re brown, Muslim and not meant to party? You start early! Set in 1990s London, 'Daytime Deewane' follows the secret daytime raves where South Asian kids, shut out of white nightclubs and watched by their parents, built their own world of bhangra, bass and borrowed freedom. Actor Ashan Kumar joins Dilpreet Kaur Taggar to talk about why joy can be the biggest rebellion. 'Dayt...

He’s Indian. She’s from Hong Kong. They just got engaged and this Diwali, they’re bringing all the love (and all the snacks) to the pod. Nick & Carrie join Dilpreet & Suhayla for a ‘Party in the Pod’ packed with samosas, gol gappe, mithai and some seriously sweet confessions. They tell us which Indian sweet they’d pick for each other, how they celebrate across cultures, and what Diwali means when...

Caste doesn’t just decide where you live or who you marry. It decides what you eat and who you eat with. In 'Come Eat With Me', Indian artist Sri Vamsi Matta turns a communal meal into an act of resistance. Through shared eating, he challenges centuries-old ideas of purity and pollution and rehumanises the Dalit experience beyond pity or pain. Can a meal break caste? Vamsi sits down with Dilpreet...

Lives of ’90s South Asian kids are incomplete without a Lucky Ali memory. For some, it was the first crush, for others the first campfire, and for many, the first road trip. A Lucky Ali song usually made everything better. The legendary singer-songwriter is in Australia with his 'Journey Through the Decades' tour and sits down with Dilpreet ahead of the shows. He admits he doesn’t like Bollywood a...

Born in the 1980s on dancefloors built by people of colour, house music has always been about belonging. In 2022, Armaan Gupta (Kahani) and Kunal Merchant asked: where is that space for South Asian house? From that question came 'Indo Warehouse', a collective and label bringing the pulse of the subcontinent into global electronica. Ahead of their second Australian tour, they sit down with Suhayla...

In 2022, when ordinary bakers became banana bread connoisseurs, Anirban Chanda took his lifelong passion for baking online. Five years later, his sweet experiments have risen to new heights: a spot on season 8 of ‘The Great Australian Bake Off’ and a growing business, ‘Another Whisk’. In this episode, he joins Suhayla Sharif to talk about blending native Australian flavours with his Bengali sweet...

Aryan Khan makes his directorial debut with 'The Ba***ds of Bollywood', a sharp satire on fame and chaos in the film industry. In this SBS Spice episode, Dilpreet speaks with Bobby Deol, Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Anya Singh and Sahher Bambba about villains, managers, “nepo kids” and everything in between. From legacies to behind-the-scenes madness, the cast explain why Aryan’s first series feels dang...

“And what will people say?”... For too many South Asian survivors of domestic violence, it’s the question that keeps them silent. Theatre-maker Kersherka Sivakumaran flips that silence into art with her new work 'And What Will People Say?' at Sydney Fringe Festival. Merging her frontline volunteering with her love for Bharatanatyam and performance, she uses theatre to confront stigma head-on. In c...

We love girl dads. And Saesha's dad fits the bill a little too perfectly. For this Father's Day, she bribes him with a Yo-Chi to jump on the pod and spill his secret to surviving three women in the house. It's a little scary, he admits. Dr Sanjaya Senanayake is one of Australia's most recognised health experts who has often embarrassed his family on national TV with his "jokes". We're certain he i...

For Shabana Azeez, being the first to represent her roots is only the beginning. The Adelaide-born actor once faced a choice between a drama school acceptance and her Indo-Fijian family’s support. Today, with screen credits spanning genres and borders, she’s opening doors in an industry she once risked entering. As she builds her character Victoria Javadi in the medical drama 'The Pitt', Shabana s...

At just 12, Melbourne-based musician Meghna uploaded her first song to YouTube. More than a decade on, her fusion of alt-pop and unflinching storytelling has built a catalogue earning recognition from Rolling Stone Australia and national broadcaster Rage, while connecting her to a growing global audience. With Tamil and Bengali roots grounding her, Meghna speaks to Suhayla Sharif about channelling...

Can obsessive, all-or-nothing love still hold Bollywood’s box office? Suhayla and Dilpreet ask if the success of 'Saiyaara' signals a comeback for Indian cinema’s big, messy love stories. And maybe what Bollywood really needs to feel alive again are the very clichés we once rolled our eyes at: the slow-mo shots, the airport chases, the kind of drama only Bollywood can pull off and we secretly neve...

When Rohan Kanawade returned to his family’s village to mourn his father, he carried more than grief. He carried a story. That story became Cactus Pears, the first Marathi-language film to premiere at Sundance and now making its Australian debut at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In this conversation, Rohan speaks to SBS Spice about finding tenderness between men without cliché, resisti...

Content warning: This story contains references to domestic violence. In Australia, 1 in 6 women are survivors of domestic violence. For migrant women, that rises to 1 in 3. In South Asian communities, shame and taboo can bury these stories even deeper, silencing survivors of physical, emotional and financial abuse. In this episode, host Saesha Senanayake hears from Emma*, trauma-informed counsell...

Keg de Souza, an architecturally trained artist of Goan ancestry, sees plants as living witnesses whose roots trace journeys of migration, displacement and survival. From the colonial spread of eucalyptus to the politics embedded in everyday landscapes, her work asks us to look closer. In her latest project 'Plant Trials', a residency with the Melbourne Arts Precinct and the University of Melbourn...

Leela Varghese was once told there weren’t any roles for her on Australian screens. So she stopped chasing auditions and picked up a camera instead. Now her films, including 'Lesbian Space Princess' and 'I'm The Most Racist Person I Know' (screening at MIFF this year), are crashing festivals around the world. In this episode, the Lebanese-Indian filmmaker speaks with Suhayla Sharif about growing u...

Masala is the backbone of South Asian cooking, and for Kashmiri-Australian author Sarina Kamini, understanding it has established her as a scholar of spice. In her new book 'What We Call Masala', she unpacks the layered alchemy of Indian food and invites readers to explore its transportive power. Sarina joins Suhayla Sharif to share the magic of a masala dabba, why eating with your hands is the on...

Podcast episodes are planned. This one wasn’t. Expect practice kisses, podcast fails, almost-texts to your ex’s new girlfriend and a few emotional curveballs. Dilpreet and Suhayla go rogue in this no-topic-but-all-the-topics episode of SBS Spice. But what starts as pure banter lands somewhere surprisingly tender. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

What do you get when a millennial and a Gen Z walk into a podcast? A bit of chaos, a bit of cringe, and some surprisingly common ground. In this spicy episode, Dilpreet (1994) and Suhayla (2002) roast each other’s quirks, compare internet childhoods, and ask whether dreaming big was a millennial curse or just a bad idea. They dive into cancel culture, low-rise jeans, therapy-speak, and why Gen Alp...

For queer South Asians in Sydney, Bar Bombay is more than a party. It’s a space to be seen, to move freely, and to celebrate identity without compromise. Run by Trikone Australia, a grassroots collective supporting LGBTQIA+ South Asians, Bar Bombay is where drag meets desi beats, and community turns into chosen family. In this episode, dancer, choreographer and Trikone Chair Zahra Babuji joins Dil...

If you have darker skin, you're more likely to be misdiagnosed, untreated, or ignored. Even when it comes to something as serious as skin cancer. SBS Spice hosts Saesha Senanayake & Suhayla Sharif cut through the noise and ask why the medical and skincare industries still fail people of colour. Dermatologist Dr Leona Yip breaks down the blind spots. Cosmetic physicians Dr Sanamdeep Dhillon and Dr...

Taught by her father at just four years old, Gayathri Krishnan began her musical life steeped in Carnatic tradition: its scales, its rigour, its reverence. Today, the LA-based singer carries that inheritance into a sound that folds seamlessly into neo-soul and R&B, creating something both ancient and entirely her own. In this episode of SBS Spice, Gayathri joins Dilpreet Kaur Taggar in studio ahea...

Prada Kolhapuris are trending. But why does something rooted in South Asian culture only become “fashionable” once it hits a Western runway? And when did basmati rice bags become designer? Dilpreet and Suhayla unpack the mixed feelings around cultural validation, from luxury takes on everyday items to oil massages rebranded as TikTok wellness rituals. Is it appreciation, appropriation or just capi...

Ever heard a bansuri drop into a bassline? That’s exactly the kind of sonic alchemy Indian electronica duo Tech Panda (Rupinder Nanda) and Kenzani (Kedar Santwani) are known for. Ahead of their debut Australian tour, the pair are bringing a bold new sound to the stage — blending classical Indian textures with deep, hypnotic electronic rhythms. From 'Saawariya' to 'Dilbar', their tracks have lit up...

Sharon Johal didn’t just want to act. She wanted to be seen. The Punjabi-Australian actor left behind a career in law to fill a gap she’d long noticed on Australian screens: someone who looked like her. First seen on SBS’ Bollywood Star, Sharon has gone on to appear in the cult-classic Neighbours, The Block, and more — becoming both a familiar face and a vocal force for change. But visibility has...