Episode 9 - Sexy Auraten

Remember the movie Crazy Rich Asians? Well, South Asian weddings are just as crazy irrespective of the riches.

In the South Asian culture a woman's whole life revolves around her wedding. As a young child she'll watch Bollywood movies about love, sprinkled with toe tapping music, lots of fancy clothing and grand celebrations of marriage. She'll be expected to help with household chores from very early on in preparation for life after marriage. At the first sign of protest moms are always ready with the infamous line - "Agar ab nai hora, tho shaadi kay baad kya karogi?" At 15 years old if she asks to go away with the rest of her class on a school trip, she'll often be told - "Yeh sab travel shavel shaadi keh baad karna." If she argues with her parents she'll be reminded that good girls don't argue cuz men don't like those kind of women. It's almost as though all her worth is wrapped into her ability to secure a good partner, become a wife and her ability to stay married.

Marriage in South Asia is considered a joining of two families. Both families take about two weeks of celebrations to get to know each other, the grand finale of which is a huge event filled with colors, music, lights, fancy clothes & indulgent foods. 

The life long buildup of marriage is real. Women & men are expected to be married by a certain age. If you're single beyond that age it's literally all anyone will talk to you about. Anyone means anyone, mom, dad, uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces & nephews, the uncle at the corner grocery store, the aunty at the temple, the woman who lives four houses down. 

So after the mad dash towards the finish line, after you've found your partner, spent much more than you could afford on a grandiose celebration announcing your union to more people than was probably necessary and you realize it's not at all what you wanted. What then?

Are South Asian women left out of political conversations or is it willful ignorance?

When was the last time you had a discussion about a policy, politician or political party with your husband, daughter, brother, sister?

Where did you learn political engagement?

Do you care about politics?

Should we care?

These are some of the questions we will be discussing in today's episode. Growing up with immigrant parents is a vastly different experience in comparison to the average American predominantly Caucasian or African American household. I dont remeber my mom or aunts every having opinions about elections or policies. Anything I heard was a spillover of conversations between men during some large celerbatory gathering while I delivered snacks or beverages that were prepared by the women huddled in the kitchen. Our gatherings were pretty sex segragated. Men in the living room, women in the kitchen. 

I wasn't taught about women's reproductive rights or racial inequality. I had to live it & then understand it. 

I am still understanding it. 

With everything that's been happening in our country over the last 7 years it is more important than ever for us to understand the power of our vote and the importance of political engagement. There is a palpable movement amongst South Asian women towards empowerment. We need to bring that movement to the collective.

Empowered women, empower women. 

And Saadia Mirza is one of those women. Saadia is a 30 something entrepreneur with a successful marketing firm which helps companies establish & grow their online presence. She spends her free time creating videos on tiktok & instagram about big policy changes, racial injustices, human rights violations, women's reproductive rights or fighting off the many trolls that flock to her comments section. She's a democrat in the heart of Texas so you can imagine how that's going for her. She is also editor at www.theprogressivists.com. The Progressivists is a progressive social movement driven by inclusive and reformist empowerment who mission is to consistently demand for political & sociopolitical change for the betterment of people & the planet. 

Saadia's Insta Page

Saadia's TikTok 

The Progressivists Insta Page

In August 1947 when India finally won its independence from the British Raj after a struggle of almost 300 years. It left in it's wake a nation divided into two states: Hindu majority India & Muslim majority Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history & one that is the least discussed in the West. Growing up it was a paragraph in a history book at best. Grossly misrepresenting a monumental crux of the South Asian identity. 

Across the subcontinent people who had coexisted for centuries attacked each other. Hindus and Sikhs on one side, Muslims on the other. There are endless stories of families separated, women & children slaughtered, people pushed out of their homes, abandoned in refugee camps with nowhere to go in an unknown land. 

My maternal grandmother lived through the partition and throughout her life shared stories with me about where she was born & her childhood home in a faraway land called Sindh. At the time it sounded like some exotic place I would never visit. According to Nani's passport she was born in 1921. At the time of partition that would've made her approximately 25 years old. Her birth records could never be found. 

The Sindhi identity is perhaps the largest collateral damage of partition. Sindhis migrated to India with no state to call their own. They left behind their beloved Sindhu Darya, their friends, the only home they'd known - and were removed from it forever. Some will argue that this displacement proved fruitful. With no attachments to the new land they were free to move around the world, which they did. And went on to create a new identity in foreign lands as successful business tycoons often spinning their fortunes from nothing. 

But did that leave them with a fractured identity? Do they still long for the homeland of their forefathers? Have they recovered from the intergenerational trauma?

Is peace in South Asia possible?

Is it time for a new narrative?

In today's episode we explore these questions and many more with our guests Sunayna Pal and Beena Sarwar. 

Sunayna, author of the book Refugees In Their Own Country, a collection of poems about the partition based on conversations Sunayna had with her Chacha - her only connection to Sindh, the land of her forefathers. 

Beena Sarwar, a renowned journalist and activist, is curator & founder of the South Asia Peace Action Network (SAPAN) and was Editor of Aman Ki Asha, a joint initiative by Jang News PK and Times Of India to foster peace between the two countries. 

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Stay tuned. Season 2 is coming soon. 

Dr. Amna Buttar, Dr. Geet Chainani and Director of Humanitarian Affairs, Sabyn Zaidi, will be going to Pakistan at the end of September to perform emergency disaster relief work. The most emergent needs are tents, food kits, clean water, medical care, mosquito nets. 

Severe rains and flooding have killed at least 1,300 people, including 348 children since mid-June, officials said on Sunday.

At least 50 million people have been affected by the disaster, Pakistan's Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman said on Thursday. She called the floods "unprecedented" and "the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade."

The southern province of Sindh, which has been badly hit by the flooding, has asked for 1 million tents, while nearby Balochistan province -- largely cut off from electricity, gas and the internet -- has requested 100,000 tents, Rehman said.

"Pakistan's priority, at the moment, is this climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions," Rehman said, urging the international community to provide aid given Pakistan's "limited" resources. - CNN 

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In this episode the Auraten are in conversation with Dr. Sadaf aka The Savvy Woman's Sex Coach, who is also a board-certified OBGYN, life coach, and sexual counselor in New York, with over 22 years of experience in helping women and adolescent girls with their physical and emotional health issues. She started her social media presence in 2021. And in 2022, Dr. Sadaf kicked off the Muslim Sex Podcast where she talks about sex and other topics important for female health. An OBGYN, mom and Muslim – she talks openly about topics your mom may have never spoken to you about.  No shame, no judgment, and no topic is taboo… that’s absolutely where our stars aligned, and we’re so thankful to have her on our podcast. Her motivation was to be that sex resource she never had and to create an online space that’s safe for primarily Muslim women to talk about sex and take a sex-positive approach to their relationships.

Mandeep Kaur, Sania Khan, Noor Mukaddam, Garima Kothari - are women who were victims of intimate partner violence. The hidden cancer of the South Asian community. About 60% of South Asian women report having experienced some for of domestic abuse in their lives. We here at Auraten believe the numbers to be closer to 75-90% due to the nature of problem, the cloak of secrecy and shame attached to reporting these incidents. 

Mandeep, a 30 yo woman, has left behind multiple videos detailing the abuse her husband, Ranjodhbeer Sandhu, subjected her to for eight years - in the most distressing video of them all he is beating her while you can hear her 4yo daughter crying asking him to stop. She committed suicide two days ago. 

Sania Khan was a 29 yo Pakistani American woman who married a man after dating him for 6 years. She left them less than a year later for trying to jump out of a 20 story building holding her. She filed for divorce and moved from GA to Chicago. She had wanted to go back to  her family in Tennessee but they told her they’d kill themselves if she came back. On July 18, 2022 Her ex husband, Raheel Ahmed, traveled from GA to Chicago and killed her w a single shot to the back of the head. She was documenting her divorce journey on TikTok. 

Noor Mukaddam was a 27yo Pakistani victim of murder who was kidnapped, tortured for 2 days, raped and then decapitated with a knife. Her killer, Zahir Jaffer, who confessed to the police that he had intended to kill her if she didn’t accept his marriage proposal. 

Garima Kothari was a 35 yo woman who was 5 months pregnant when she was found dead in her apartment with trauma to her upper body. Her death was ruled a homicide. Her husband, Man Mohan Mal, was found dead in the Hudson River in Jersey City soon after. His death was ruled a suicide. There are no other details available. 

In an article in the Inquiries Journal author Humza Hussain asks the question Why Are South Asian Immigrant Women Vulnerable to Domestic Violence? In it he discusses South Asian culture and how it places a strong value on collectivism with an emphasis on a strong family unit. This discourages and often punishes individualism and expects the sacrifices necessary to make this work to come from its women. After all women aren’t supposed to be liberated anyway. But more interestingly, Hussain talks about an integral component to the South Asian diaspora - the model minority myth. He states, South Asians in the United States are often believed to be a “model minority,” as they are commonly thought of as a “successful, hard-working, family-oriented community in an attempt at upward group mobility,” The model minority image is problematic as it not only deters public attention from internal issues like domestic violence, but also encourages members to conform to their expected gender roles and to maintain their public image. This includes internally motivating domestic violence victims to keep their violence hidden- a common trend in South Asian culture.

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In today's episode we will be talking to Tejal, a therapist specializing in couples therapy and maternal mental health who is also mom to two young boys about some of the challenges second generation South Asian millennial parents face.

As I always say parenting is one huge experiment. We all aspire to be better than the generation before us. But no one actually knows what they're doing. And just when you think you've got it all figured out our kid shows us otherwise. 

Being queer in a desi family is a tough battle. It can be a tragic, traumatic and isolating experience. Fearing social ostracization parents often respond to their child coming out with choice epletives and rage coupled with shame and guilt for bringing shame to the family. Sometimes the reactions can be violent and extreme in nature; physical abuse, banishment, stopping monetary support for education, etc.  Your entire life is spent maneuvering around the potholes of ignorant assumptions or questions and under the weight of other people's morality resulting in total disgust of who you are. As if this one thing defines you in your entirety. Feigning support while saying things like "well you can still dress like a girl, at least." is disingenuous at best. 

The right way to respond to someone coming out to you is to remind them that this doesn't change anything. If it does, you aren't an ally. 

Queer desi youth struggle with depression and anxiety which follows them into adulthood as a result of their life experiences. Thankfully, their has been an increasing amount of representation in South Asian pop culture which is creating a bit more openness for queer desis. But we're nowhere close to inclusivity, so we MUST continue sharing our stories in the hope of a better tomorrow. 

In this episode the Auraten will be exploring SEX! It’s one of the most important ways we can get to know ourselves, our sexual selves and desires to own and explore.

It’s that hush-hush topic that we could never talk about for ourselves. Our parents never gave us the birds and the bees talk, we were embarrassed to talk about it even with our closest friends and all along, everywhere else, we were getting shame signals and beliefs telling us it’s wrong, scary or dangerous, especially for women. Yet, it’s all around us - in education, movies, shows, laws, economy, relationships, books, like there’s literally a 2000 year old book called the Kama Sutra that is about the sexual goal of pleasure and not procreation. 

And why not? Why do we accept this toxic, pervasive culture of discomfort when it comes to sex or anything related to sexual pleasure for brown women in our families and communities? Why can’t we talk like it’s a normal part of being human, of being women? Well, Sexy Auraten are here to talk about sex and normalize talking about it - openly and candidly! We’ll share how we learned about sex as young people in our own desi families, why we’re afraid to talk about sex and what we wish we could have said to our 20-year old selves.