Stories Seldom Told

Smita Tharoor
Stories Seldom Told

I'm Smita Tharoor and I ask guests from around the world to share their seldom told stories and to reflect on their life experiences. We are defined by our narrative, our personal story, our experiences. These have an impact on how we make judgements and form opinions. A lot of time that’s just fine but every once in a while, we make snap conclusions that have a negative outcome either for the other person or ourselves. Just one particular experience can lead to a lifelong belief. That is our unconscious bias.

  1. 15 SEPT

    Megan Davis

    Megan Davis is a lawyer turned author of two novels, The Messenger and Bay of Thieves. The latter released in 2024 follows two women, Vanessa and Kate, who get dragged into a glamorous but dangerous world of financial crime and corruption spanning London all the way to the south of France. Bay of Thieves was the Sunday Times thriller of the month for July 2024. It's been described as "A timely, gripping, and richly nuanced financial thriller that exposes the Riviera’s seedy underbelly". "I had this idea that fraud and corruption were very complicated concepts, and they needed time to cook up. But at that point, I realized how simple it was and how it was actually the easiest thing to do. It's very easy to bribe someone, to falsify documents and to lie. I didn't do it more out of fear than anything else, because I'm quite cautious. But I could really imagine doing that kind of thing." To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    46 min

  2. 17 AUG

    Dr Satyen Sharma

    Dr. Satyen Sharma is a consulting psychiatrist who has been working in Punjab and in and around Delhi for 16 years. He was trained at the prestigious Armed Forces Medical College, in Pune, India. Satyen has held leadership positions as Secretary and then President of the Indian Association of Private Psychiatry. His areas of interest are addiction psychiatry and general adult psychiatry. "It would be so common for a family from Punjab to bring in a young, strapping, healthy boy, 20 years of age, who's been using heroin for some time. And they would tell me, 'Doctor, this boy, we want you to remove his heroin habit. And we have given him no work at all.' Now he's free to work out on his addiction, which is so counterintuitive. The first thing I would say is that if he doesn't have any responsibilities or anything to look forward to, what motivation does he have to go off drugs?" To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    44 min

  3. 14 JUL

    Sindhu Wadhwa

    Sindhu Wadhwa likes to call herself a glorious mess. On good days, she wears her ADHD diagnosis like a crown, on other days she is a reluctant adult. Sindhu is also a freshly minted cat lady. For the last 19 years, Sindhu has been a clinical psychologist and a practicing psychotherapist. She currently heads the therapy team for MindSmith India which is a premium brain health platform. Sindhu is also on the advisory panel as a mental health expert for TRIOMPH (Transplant Recipients of India and Organ failure patients - a Movement to Provide Hope), a national support group in India for organ donation. Sindhu likes to write and speak on women's mental health. "The gift was, I got a lot of time alone. I literally built a world inside me, I could imagine things. I suppose while it was undiagnosed ADHD back then, it was always somebody who had a thousand windows open in this house of life. So imagine you have all the windows of the house open. And there is a lot of wind coming in, sunlight coming in. This is my house is life in my head. So I grew my own beliefs, I started to have deeper self awareness and reflection. I was always that child who was far more aware and cognisant of internal chatter than perhaps other people. So while it can be a curse, it can lead to severe anxiety, but I see it as a gift." To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    45 min

  4. 15 JUN

    Robert Newcome

    Robert Newcome is an author and retired Army officer best known for his novel The Name Beneath the Stone. In addition, Robert has worked a retail manager and a management consultant specialising in leadership training. During lockdown he posted a 500-word story every Saturday and he now writes full time. War is often a setting for his novels.  "I joined the Army, at the age of 19. At the age of 20 I was serving in Northern Ireland, leading a platoon of soldiers. When I joined the Army, my mindset would have been, we're the good guys. In Northern Ireland, it was the time of The Troubles. We were there essentially stopping Catholics from attacking Protestants and vice versa. And the sense of, I'm part of an organisation that is here primarily to benefit people. And my whole upbringing I guess up to that point had been, England, Britain, a good place. We've done good around the world." To stay up to date, follow us on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    46 min

  5. 8 APR

    Shubha Priya

    Shubha Priya shares her opinion on death, dying and how to grow old. Shubha has previously served as a Creative Director in leading advertising agencies around the world. She is currently fulfilling her lost childhood dreams of being an author and musician. She wrote, illustrated and designed her book of satirical verses for adults, called Whimsical Brew. When Shubha was in her teens, she heard Maurice Chevalier singing the lyrics of a song in the movie Gigi: ‘Oh I’m glad that I’m not young anymore!” Struck by the way he sang it with such conviction, she wondered how growing old could ever be joyful. Fast forward to her 60s, Shubha moved with her mother to what most people referred to as an ‘old age home’. The stark side of ageing was visible all around her, a daily reminder of a Shakespearean vision coming true. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Shubha’s mother passed away in 2021. But Shubha chose to stay on at the old age home. Shubha is hoping to keep dementia at bay by learning to play the piano! "One of the things that always struck me is it takes a village to raise a child. Right? And that's how we grew up. We had a whole neighborhood bringing us up. We could stroll into anybody's house and be fed, by some aunty or the other. And the parents didn't worry. Now to the elderly, it takes a community to transition the elder into death.You need, you know, you need all of the support of not just family in your old age. I think it needs a community. I think it needs the community of elderly who can empathise." To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    56 min

  6. 28 JAN

    Rachel Thomas

    Rachel Thomas was the first Indian woman to compete for India in a skydiving competition in 1987. After 23 years, she ended her career in 2002, when she skydived from 7,000 ft over the North Pole also creating the record of being the first Indian female to skydive over the North Pole. During her career, Rachel has completed 650 jumps in 18 countries. She has won multiple awards including the winner of the National Adventure Sports Award and is a TedX speaker. In 1979, this small-town mother of two kids, just 23 years old, decided one evening at an Army Party to join a Skydiving Course at Agra. Unknowingly history was created. In 2005, Rachel was honoured again by the Government of India, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award - the Padma Shri. "At 28 years old, my marriage broke. And in those days, to say that you're divorced was very difficult. At this point. My son was about ten, My daughter was about nine. They were young and I thank God that my mother and my sister was there to give me support and help me and be there for me because I had to keep going for training. To lift my head high and walk in Agra, the place where I was, was difficult." To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    41 min

  7. 09/12/2023

    Maggie Steber

    Maggie Steber is an internationally renowned documentary photographer, educator, and photo editor. Her work has appeared in major magazines, newspapers and book anthologies as well as national and international exhibitions. She has worked in 72 countries specializing in telling the stories of underrepresented people and her work has been seen in 70 exhibitions in 35 countries. Best known for her photo essays in National Geographic Magazine and her humanistic documentation of Haiti, she published Dancing on Fire: Photographs from Haiti with Aperture. Her nine-year project on her mother’s melancholic voyage through memory loss was made into a multimedia presentation by MediaStorm and won a Webby award. In her career Maggie has worked as a picture editor for Associated Press, a contract photographer for Newsweek, and as the Director of Photography at The Miami Herald. Maggie is a member of VII Photo Agency. Maggie has received wide recongition including as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Guggenheim Fellow and a the Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service to Journalism from the University of Missouri. To see some of Maggie’s moving photographs just check out her website: maggiesteber.com/main.html To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    44 min

  8. 25/11/2023

    Nematullah Ahangosh

    Nematullah Ahangosh is an activist, poet and social worker from Afghanistan. He studied in school in Kabul from 2014 to 2018. He's also been a young member with a group of peace activists there too. Subsequently Nemat went to Chennai in India to study a Bachelor of Social Work at Madras School of Social Work where he was awarded the Budding Social Worker Award and the Best Library User Award in 2021. This was followed by a one-year diploma course in Trivandrum, Kerala in leadership and social entrepreneurship. Nemat has been busy writing poems in English since 2017, mainly about the day-to-day life of refugees, women and overall life in Afghanistan alongside studying an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at the University of Sussex. Apart from this, Nemat is a good swimmer and coach. He is the founder of Stretch More, a mobile empowerment parkour that empowers people with disabilities to survive natural and man-made disasters. Parkour (French: [paʁkuʁ]) is an athletic training discipline or sport in which practitioners attempt to get from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Nemat’s first and upcoming poetry book, The Color of Peace, will be published by Haley’s Publishing, a company based in Massachusetts, USA. He is 28 years old. He says his ambition is to bring about change in the future leadership of Afghanistan, mainly in the social sector. "People around me, including my family, they believe that one day, a miracle will happen to me and that will cure my disability. But I don't want that right now. I have accepted myself through my disability. I really care for empowerment. I want to be empowered and I want other people with disabilities also to be empowered." To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and on X (Twitter) @smitatharoor. Stream and follow us on your favourite podcast platform.

    42 min
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17 Ratings

About

I'm Smita Tharoor and I ask guests from around the world to share their seldom told stories and to reflect on their life experiences. We are defined by our narrative, our personal story, our experiences. These have an impact on how we make judgements and form opinions. A lot of time that’s just fine but every once in a while, we make snap conclusions that have a negative outcome either for the other person or ourselves. Just one particular experience can lead to a lifelong belief. That is our unconscious bias.

Information

  • Creator
    Smita Tharoor
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2024
  • Episodes
    101
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Smita Tharoor
  • Show Website
    Stories Seldom Told

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