Creating Life

A Lesbian In Urban India

Last month, we attended Chennai's Pride Parade. We marched with the hundreds of people there, made feeble attempts at dancing, made plenty of conversation, took pictures and brought back a few stories that we'd like to share with you today. We went with Rasika Venkatesa (yes, she's Nikhil's sister), and after the parade, we caught up with Rasika in the studio to talk to her about living as a lesbian in urban India. She discusses challenges like coming out, family acceptance, finding a community, how she found support in online platforms, the difficulties of dating and navigating apps like Tinder as a queer person, and why she sometimes feels like she can't fully express her sexuality, living in Chennai. Also, what does it mean to be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, and how much support is enough support? We also discuss this: Donna Minkowitz's apology from last year for how she covered the 1993 murder of 21-year-old trans man, Brandon Teena. Music Credits: "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com All recorded interviews were obtained with the consent of the individuals interviewed. We're lucky to share their stories with you. Logo by @aparna_ramanujam. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/creating-life/support

'What would Real Madrid do?' | On athletic obsessions and hyper-fans of the sporting world

After the hype of the Indian Premier League, cricketing nations are cheering on their teams at the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup in Wales and England. Then there’s the Women’s Soccer World Cup, Wimbledon...a lot to keep any sporting fan engaged right now. But, the thing is, the hosts of this show aren’t really sports fans. We never really played much of it (except when Sindhu got to captain her school’s badminton team because there were only a handful of people in it), and don’t feel moved by any sporting team or individual to qualify as ‘real fans’. To help us understand the art of ‘hyper-fandom’, we speak with Ishaan Achanta, probably one of the most diehard Real Madrid fans we’ve ever met. He walks us through why the team is so important to him, and why its presence extends to other (non-sporting) parts of his life. We also speak with Priyansh, a Delhi-based freelance writer who has written extensively about sports (he also covered the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia) about what why cricket reigns supreme in India, why women’s sports don’t command as much fandom, and more. Podcast Highlight: NRI Woman Music Credits: "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com Los Angeles by Kabbalistic Village | https://soundcloud.com/kabbalisticvillage Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US "Chillbill" by maoen Logo by @aparna_ramanujam.

2019 in Culture (So Far)

IT IS JUNE ALREADY!?!?!?!?!? Are you pinching yourself? Are you breaking down in panic as you try to remember your 2019 resolutions and whether you achieved them? So are we. We wanted to slow down a little this week and reflect on 2019 now that we're halfway done with the year. We thought it would be a good time to recap all the things that have inspired us in the last six months - books, movies, TV, music, podcasts - and maybe you can find some great stuff to check out. After all, thanks to all the streaming services around us, they're only a click away. We also talk about the impact of streaming on culture and the role of critics in a saturated landscape. Join us for this freewheeling discussion around all things culture. And if you live in Chennai and can find a drop of water, too late, it just evaporated. Things we discuss: Barry (TV) Fauda (TV) Fleabag (TV) Russian Doll (TV) See You Yesterday (Movies) Always Be My Maybe (Movies) Us (Movies) Guava Island (Movies) Suspiria (Movies) Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors (Books) When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön (Books) Charles Bradley (Music) On Being, Dear Sugars, Still Processing, Today, Explained, The Daily (Podcasts) Music Credits: "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com "Solitude" by maoen Sorrow by Sappheiros | https://soundcloud.com/sappheirosmusic Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US Our logo was designed by @aparna_ramanujam.

Shameless about slut-shaming | Priya Alika-Elias

DISCLAIMER: This episode discusses some sensitive subjects and contains some explicit language. In 2014, American writer Jessica Valenti wrote this in a column for The Guardian: "So what makes you a slut? It seems the the only hard and fast rule is that you have to be a woman." Five years later, that appears to still be very true, even if the term has also been extended to gender non-conforming people and members of the LGBTQ community. Either way, it's exhausting to be slut-shamed. In this episode, we speak with Priya Alika-Elias, author of the recently-published book Besharam, and a lawyer and feminist writer based in New Delhi. We discuss our experiences dealing with criticism about our dating lives, clothes we wear, beverages we drink, and how these remarks tend to come from different places: partners, ex-partners, family members, acquaintances offering unsolicited opinions. As easy as it would be to stop caring about what other people say, the truth it, slut-shaming hurts. As Priya writes in her book, "And yet, no matter how many times we hear it, no matter how many casual comments we make about not caring what people think, we are not free of its tyranny." We also discuss: Season 1, Episode 4 of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's show, Fleabag, where she stumbles upon a centre that teaches men how to be less misogynistic. Here's an interesting interview with her from 2017. Music Credits: "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com Summer Coffee by Barradeen | https://soundcloud.com/barradeen Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Lok Sabha Elections 2019: 'Chowkidar', VVPATs and mangoes

India's month-long Lok Sabha elections come to an end on May 23, when the winners will be announced. This election season hasn't been without its share of drama and mayhem. BJP candidate Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, recently called Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, a patriot. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the first press conference of his premiership, but chose to defer all questions to his party leader, Amit Shah. But in a 'non-political' conversation with actor Akshay Kumar, he talked about his love for mangoes, among other things. Not to forget the social media storm caused by the PM's "Main bhi Chowkidar" campaign ("I am a watchman"), positioning himself as a guardian and protector of the country. We speak with Prathap Nair, a Germany-based freelance writer and the son of a former chowkidar about his Huffington Post essay where he calls the campaign a misappropriation that pays little heed to the real experience of chowkidars across India. Then there are all the controversies surrounding the Election Commission and its role as guarantor of free and fair elections in India. We chip away at the complex topic with the help of Sushovan Sircar, Senior Correspondent at The Quint, who has written about the topic extensively in his work. And finally, what are people looking for in these elections, and how can we look past our own echochambers of ideology? And can we look at a framework of discussion that looks beyond the legacy family Congress party vs right-leaning BJP split? Music Credits: Music from https://filmmusic.io: "Whimsy Groove" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) "Silver Frame" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) "Me In Your Life" Music By The Passion HiFi www.thepassionhifi.com "The Great Battle" by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com; "Sparking Eyes" by Glitch | https://soundcloud.com/glitch; "Banjos, Unite!" by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com; "The Impossible" by Savfk | https://www.youtube.com/savfkmusic; "Stories" by INOSSI | https://soundcloud.com/inossi. Promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution: 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US Our logo is designed by @aparna_ramanujam.