Stories Seldom Told

Robin Shohet started his therapeutic career in 1976 working in a residential therapeutic community with people who had come out of psychiatric hospitals. He left in 1979 to work freelance as a therapist, supervisor and trainer. He is the author and editor of several books, the latest co-written with his wife, Joan, called  In Love with Supervision: Creating Transformative Conversations....

Eliza Griswold is a journalist, poet and contributing writer for the New Yorker. She was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for her book, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America . She’s a distinguished writer in residence at New York University and lives between New York and Philadelphia with her husband and son. "Basically, what we did is look at how cultures wel...

Amish Tripathi is a diplomat, author and columnist. He is currently the Director of The Nehru Centre in London, the cultural wing of the Indian High Commission. Amish was been listed among the 50 most powerful Indians in 2019 by India Today magazine. Forbes India has regularly ranked Amish among the top 100 most influential celebrities in India. In 2014, Amish was also selected as an Eisenhower Fe...

"I didn't write politically conscious songs or songs that talked about the skin colour of my first child. I didn't write those things, saying, I'm going to change the world and this is how I'm going to do it. I wrote those songs, because that's the way that I felt, like everything that I do with my music. There’s not a disconnection, and it's just a focus on 'how can I market and get my music out'...

"And I walked away, thinking, right, okay, so this kind of dominant view as a man, that if you have an encounter, that you have to kind of become this alpha male who's gonna kick butt. Even though I spend a lot of work on myself trying to, you know, remove the idea that violence is the way to solve problems and so forth. That, in that challenge, I couldn't just say to the guy, well, actually, give...

"And so, I was brought into this family, who already had two children. They were my parents' biological children, two boys, very white. So, it was very interesting, when we would go out as a family. I would be stood there with classically sort of Pakistani colouring, you know, I have jet black hair. I have amazingly dark eyes, with my brothers and my parents who are blond and blue eyes. And it was...

"There still is an aspect of always having to come out, basically, because the status quo is that you're straight. Therefore, in work and that kind of thing, there's always a bit of friction there when you meet someone new who doesn't know. You will end up telling them, you know, ‘at the weekend, what did you do?’. Oh, well, I was with my boyfriend or whatever. And there's always going to be that,...

"Let's say now, you're getting married. You've no relations to call on to come to your wedding. You're aware of that at the time. Then when your first kid is born, you've nobody to ring up and tell -  aunts, uncles or anybody. Nobody to ring up. You have plenty of friends and that, which is great. But you could always feel the other person had all the wives, uncles, aunts to ring up, whereas...

"You get respect when you are someone, when you're doing something. When you're no one, people forget you. They forget what you have done for them. They forget who you are, or they even forget what you have done in your past. So, at that time, I learned that if I will not accept myself for who I am, if I will not respect myself for who I am, no one is going to do that. Because the world is very cr...

This is an extended two part episode. Part one is just under half an hour, followed by a brief segue into part two which is approximately twenty minutes. Please do listen to both! “The other thing that was my unconscious bias, I'd always perceived myself as a strong woman . I am a strong woman and I've coped with some pretty significant adversity in my life with pragmatism and a degree of humanity...

"We  were told that everyone was butchered, was literally butchered on the  way to India. Now supposing we were there, what would happen? I think it  made me more resilient. Subconsciously, having escaped death at such  close quarters and at such a young age. It allows me to be a little more  cavalier in my approach to life. Not careless, but carefree." SP Rawal was born i...

"These kids are so privileged...I knew that they were all going to third level education, they're going to be doctors and engineers... I realised that the class structure was so profound and it's developed at that level in education, right from the very get-go. Where those kids would have been in local creches or play schools, the Traveller (indigenous ethnic group) kids lived on the other side of...

"What I'm saying is, is that because they're not aware of their unconscious bias, they think they actually believe that what they're doing is right... There are a lot of people who disagree with me, not just the people on the left or the right, because many people on the right refuse to recognise how complex racism is.... People in the middle recognise that racism isn't just black and white,...

"We were exactly the class which filled the Imperial hierarchy...sufficiently well connected to get a place with the East India Company or in the Raj Civil Service, but desperate enough economically to need to send the younger sons out... It was a guy called Stair Dalrymple who ended up in the Black Hole of Calcutta in 1756. And so, generations have been there one after another and like...

"Others conspire that if you're not cut, you are not clean, nobody will marry you. You are not going to be the same as other girls. You're going to school and you feel like you're different. Because you are not cut. That is why I am an activist and campaigner on female genital mutilation." Ifrah Ahmed is an Irish-Somali activist, campaigner and Civil Society Organisation director working in t...

"In 2017/2018 I opened a restaurant called Tapestry in New York City that served food from 17 or 18 countries at one time on the menu. And people loved it. It was in the West Village. And we had the who's who of New York coming to eat with us. But there were certain food critics that were absent. And I then got an email from one food critic who said to me, don't you think you're being too dar...

"When I pray five times a day, it's interesting that the way I start my prayers, I refer to God, as the God of all creation. I don't say the God of Muslims, I say the God of all creation which includes everyone on Earth. So that's part of my faith. And that's why I feel that my faith underpins and underlines the way I behave, and I interact with people." Reza Beyad is a multilingual entrepreneur,...

"A lot of the young people that I work with, see themselves in a troubled state. But the minute they start engaging with something positive, they have an identity shift, they start to position themselves as an artist. And that takes them away from what they perceive themselves to be in the past. We can all create these identity shifts, but it's about just taking that one positive step and having a...

Content Warning : This episode deals with material of a sexual nature. "The Kama Sutra was written in metaphors. And it talks about pleasure  so delicately and with such elegance and refinement that it actually inspired about 2000 years of ancient Indian literature." Seema Anand is a mythologist and a storyteller with a focus on women's narratives and a specialty in the erotic literature's of...

"I guess I could see unconscious bias in other people's ideas of a Muslim. You could be White, Asian, Black, you could be from any type of background.  It's a religion, like other religions where you choose to become a Muslim and fall in that religion. People make a lot of assumptions, on what a Muslim looks like. It could be anyone." Matt Henderson is originally from Scotland and lives in Yo...

"In September 2019, Aditya Atri was defined by what he did for a living, what car he drove, what his status was in society. Post September 2019, Aditya Atri is defined by the fact he has cancer." Aditya Atri has over 30 years' experience as an advertising and marketing executive He has managed large consumer facing programmes and campaigns for both local and multinational brands across South Asia,...

"I remember going into the Miss England competition being told by my organisers, just go take part -the Asian girls never do  well. And I basically got told you're not going to win because the Asian girls don't do well. And I remember being at the competition and confirming this bias. " Dr Bhasha Mukherjee is the reigning Miss England and NHS front line worker in the battle against the C...

"I mean, I say to people in this country, you know, not everybody who voted for Trump is an idiot. There were a lot of smart people who voted for the guy, just look at the numbers. You look in London with Brexit, a lot of smart educated people voted for Boris Johnson. And I don't think you can dismiss that." David Knaus is a collector and patron, focused on photography and  contemporary arts...

“If you're able to speak many languages, this means you're able to live many lives, or be immersed in many identities.” “Be the best version of yourself and then the world will adjust to you eventually.” Dr. Ghida Ibrahim is a global citizen with many hats; a technologist, a data scientist, a tech for good entrepreneur, a community builder, a lecturer, a speaker who has appeared on TEDx, a World E...

“You are different - your accent speaks of privilege. Foreign living and foreign exposure, and therefore you're not authentically one of us is what some people think. Accent can be used to separate people from the person noticing the accent.” Shashi Tharoor, author of 20 books, former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, current Member of Parliament of Trivandrum, Kerala and my brother.