Brown Taboo Project South Asian Sexual and Mental Health Alliance

We had the amazing opportunity to speak with Dr. Meera Shah (@mjshah8) on IGTV. She's a family medicine physician, abortion provider, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic (@pphphealth), and the author of "You're the Only One I've Told: The Stories Behind Abortion." One of our takeaways from this episode is: you can be a doctor like your parents want, and still speak up for injustices.

Make sure to buy her book on @bookshop_org! Also support @sakhinyc, @sistersong_woc, @wwhalliance, and @prhdocs.

// Intro and Outro Music adapted from: "DJ" by Jazzhar, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.

In this episode, we speak with Prince Bhojwani from ASANA Voices (@asanavoices). We dive into a topic that's a little out of left field for this podcast: heart health! But as Prince walks us through, South Asians have a big problem with hearth health, and relevant legislation to increase research in this area has unfortunately been stymied in Congress (the South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act). What's the big deal, and what does it say about minority communities and health?
• • Find ASANA voices at asanavoices.org or at @asanavoices
• • Call your local congresspeople in the US about the South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act! www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative and https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
• • Intro and Outro Music adapted from: "DJ" by Jazzhar, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.

In this episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Meenakshi Krishna, Founder and CEO of My Mantra Wellness (mymantrawellness.com), on the topic of grief. We dive into Meenakshi's own personal story, as well as how she navigated the grief process as a Desi-American. We dive into cultural competency (or lack thereof) in therapy, where she was able to find help for herself, and how her journey led to her founding My Mantra Wellness to help get people culturally-sensitive and community-based therapy and support.
• • Find My Mantra Wellness at @mymantrawellness or mymantrawellness.com
• • Fill out our community survey! This will help us get you more relevant content and help us serve the community better: bit.ly/SASMHAsurvey
• • Intro and Outro Music adapted from: "DJ" by Jazzhar, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.

We welcome our friend and the amazing dancer, choreographer, and teacher Amit Patel to this week's episode! We discuss Amit's journey towards creating the groundbreaking Bollywood Heels class in LA, what their experiences are teaching dance classes in a Desi space, how we met back at the SAAN conference in 2019, and about the impact that queer Desi art and art spaces in general have on the community.

• • Find Amit Patel at @_amitdances on IG and at his website, Amitpateldanceproject.com
• • CW: Drinking
• • Intro and Outro Music adapted from: "DJ" by Jazzhar, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.

In this week's episode, we react and discuss the tragic shootings that occurred on 3/16 at Asian-American businesses in the Atlanta metro area. We get into what solidarity means, why intersectionality matters, and the reaction from within our community.
• • Check out the book mentioned by Sriya in this episode called "Things I’ve Been Silent About” by Azar Nafisi.
• • Find the amazing org Red Canary Song at redcanarysong.net
• • If you're interested in donating, head over to https://linktr.ee/sasmha to see a few options.

We recently asked our followers about questions they had, and we got a lot of traction on a question about how to go about dating in your 30s. We answer the question from our personal experiences and our professional knowledge about relationship building.
• • Intro and Outro Music adapted from: "DJ" by Jazzhar, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.