Tuckered Out with Ami Thakkar

When I met my next guest for the first time after getting to know her on social media, I felt like I’d known her forever.  Akruti Babaria is the founder of Kulture Khazana , a business is dedicated to sharing Indian culture with children through educational and play activities.  Her story began in 2018 after the birth of her son, Ayaan. When Akruti realized that the diverse places she has lived in...

How is it February already??  While we are working on a few other projects these past few weeks, we're going to share an episode from the end of last year that we also submitted for The Webby Awards this year.  Please do go watch "To Kill A Tiger", it's one of the most powerful documentaries I've seen   Nisha Pahuja is a writer, an artist, and director and now an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her pass...

Nick Rathod has been thinking a lot about the power of culture and using it as a platform for change.  And he has some experience with that. Over the span of his 20-year career, Nick Rathod has built successful campaigns, businesses, governmental and non-governmental institutions and been a key advisor to the nation's leaders. Nick has served as special assistant to the President and Deputy Direct...

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar is a Harvard physician, stress expert, speaker, national television correspondent, and host of the podcast, Time Out with Eve Rodsky. She is also a lecturer at Harvard Medical School in the Division of Global Health and Social Medicine, and serves as the co-director of the Clinical Clerkship in Community Engagement. She has spoken at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, the HBS Women'...

We're back!  It's the new year and we hope everyone had a safe and peaceful holiday....and we also hope you're ready to get Tuckered Out this year! And what a way to start off 2024... Megha Tolia is the President and COO of Shondaland as well as a beacon of ingenuity and leadership. Her professional journey began at Neutrogena and spanned over 20 years, where she honed her expertise in building mi...

Today, in the last episode of 2023, I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who makes this podcast possible: my hubby and our girls, our amazing production team Ginni Media, and of course, to you. Thank you for your company, support, and for pretending to laugh at my jokes. Before you go, I need to ask you a favor. Tuckered Out has been recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and...

Falguni Lakhani Adams is an Emmy Award-winning producer and executive with Vice TV and another one of my long-lost soul sisters. She is the epitome of a multi-hyphenate, a mom, a director, a writer, a mindfulness coach, and an entrepreneur, and she has more than 20 years of experience producing creative nonfiction stories for broadcast TV, digital media, and long-form audio documentaries.  She has...

 Today's guest is none other than Raja Kumari, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, and India’s top female rapper. Known as Svetha Rao to loved ones, she brings an otherworldly fusion of Eastern and Western music that's completely reshaping the industry. In our chat, Raja Kumari takes us on a journey through her album 'The Bridge’. Released worldwide in April 2023, this album is a work that not only sho...

Nisha Pahuja is a writer, an artist, and director and now an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her passion for social impact is marked by a quiet courage towards exploring complex social issues that often breed division through the lens of her camera. We chat about her latest award-winning documentary "To Kill a Tiger," which has won 19 awards from prestigious festivals such as TIFF, Palm Springs Internat...

Manu Raju is a Chief Congressional Correspondent for CNN and an anchor of Inside Politics Sunday. He has covered Capitol Hill for over seven years with Politico before taking on his current role at CNN. With a career spanning from Congressional Quarterly to inside Washington publishers, he's a familiar face to anyone following political news. Award-winning and always at the heart of the action, Ma...

Swati Sharma is the powerhouse Editor-in-Chief of Vox, a leading platform for explanatory journalism. I recently had the pleasure of sharing a panel with her earlier this year and felt an instant connection.  As the Editor-in-Chief of Vox, she’s on a mission to demystify the complexities of the world by helping her audience move out of ignorance into knowledge, no matter their background. Througho...

Nisha Ganatra, is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actress of Indian descent. We met this year at Sundance where I was lucky enough to see her screening of Rise, a short film focusing on the struggles of women enterpreneurs today. I first got to know her after watching Chutney Popcorn back in '99, now a cult classic, which she wrote, directed, and produced herself.  G...

We're coming at you LIVE! from the inaugural summit of SALUTE in my favorite city, NYC baby.   The SALUTE (South Asian Ladies Unite To Empower) mission is to build an impactful community of South Asian women focused on innovation, unity, and progress. Members of this community are rising leaders in their fields, who are making decisions to shape the present and influence the future.   Guys, I can'...

 Rooshy Roy is the founder and CEO of Aavrani, a holistic skincare line that uses clean, effective cosmetics rooted in Indian agent beauty rituals, which she saw her grandmother using as a young girl in India.  As an adult searching for an easier way to access non-toxic formulas, Rooshy reconnected with her roots by creating the beauty products she wished she had as a young Indian girl growing up...

Gotham Chopra is an American sports documentarian, media entrepreneur, producer, podcast host, director, journalist, and author.  He is the co-founder of Religion of Sports, Liquid Comics, Chopra Media, and the Chopra Well. Gotham is known for his sports-centric films, having worked with athletes such as, Tom Brady, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Simone Biles, and in today’s episode, he talks with...

Neelu Kaur is an author, facilitator, NLP and executive coach, and a wellness and burnout management expert. She combines leadership development, neurolinguistic programming, and burnout management to offer her clients a healing hybrid of research-based professional development skills intricately intertwined with the wisdom of Yoga and Ayurveda. Neely’s book, Be Your Own Cheerleader , is an Asian...

My fourth guest for my South Asian author series is Sj Sindu. As a genderqueer Sri Lankan American novelist and riveting short story writer, SJ Sindu is one of the most exciting young voices out there today. Her first novel, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, won the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for debut fiction and was named an American Library Association, Stonewall Honor Book. SJ’s upcomin...

Once labeled as the ‘Face of Failure’ by The New York Times, Suneel Gupta is a best-selling author, renowned speaker, Harvard Medical School visiting scholar, and host of a global documentary series (presented by American Express Business Class). Suneel has studied leaders around the world to discover and share simple, actionable habits that lift our performance and deepen our state of well-being....

My next interview for our South Asian author series is with the indomitable Hitha Palepu. Hitha Palepu is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, CEO of Roshan Pharmaceuticals, and a lover of all things Mr. T and Taco Bell. From a young age, Hitha’s parents encouraged the belief that she didn't have to be just any one thing but her dreams would require hard work and diligence no matter what. Today we di...

Priti Tanna is the author of I Married A Coconut, a coming-of-age story turned memoir that explores Priti’s journey through navigating the dichotomy of being a first-generation Indian American. It is an incredibly insightful book about growing up South Asian and having to walk the tightrope between two seemingly opposing cultures. Today, we talk more about her book and how Priti found her path as...

To honor and celebrate Pride Month, you are in for a treat! This week, I am bringing back three episodes near and dear to my heart. Get ready to listen to the third episode of the mini-series, with Maneesh Goyal, where we're talking true hospitality – Indian style. I have been following my next guest for quite a while now through social media and mutual friends.  He has been doing some amazing wor...

To honor and celebrate Pride Month, you are in for a treat! This week, I am bringing back three episodes near and dear to my heart. Get ready to listen to the second episode of the mini-series, with Zameer Kassam, where we're talking diamonds – the kinds that tell your story. With a background as unique as the jewelry he designs, including time at McKinsey & Company, Harvard Business School, and D...

To honor and celebrate Pride Month, you are in for a treat! This week, I am bringing back three episodes near and dear to my heart. Get ready to listen to the first episode of the mini-series, with Ginni Saraswati, where we're talking podcasting. It's always nice to interview someone who has nicer equipment than you. Today I talk to fellow podcaster, Ginni Saraswati . She is Founder and CEO of Gin...

In honor of the Indian American Impact Summit we attended last week and Pride Month, we're bringing back to your ears the amazing interview we had a while back with Communications Specialist and my college friend Parag V. Mehta. We start off our interview discussing our University of Texas at Austin days as dandia/raas champions (of course) to how the story of Matthew Shepard changed his life. We...

Anita Verma-Lallian is the CEO and founder of Arizona Land Consulting, a Phoenix-based land investment consulting company that specializes in commercial real estate. But like a true boss, Anita couldn’t stop there. She is also the founder of Arizona’s first South Asian and first female-owned film production and entertainment company, Camelback Productions.  Their mission? Focusing on South Asian a...