The Story Isn’t Over: History from the Margins

Ramblings of a Sikh

The Story Isn't Over is a podcast from Amar Singh, aka Ramblings of a Sikh. Historians, authors, artists, journalists, activists and culture-makers join wide-ranging conversations that unearth forgotten histories, challenge dominant narratives and rethink the stories we thought we knew. From empire and resistance to migration, faith, music and community memory. We explore how power, identity and diaspora continue to shape the world around us. Rooted in research, lived experience and sharp curiosity. The story isn't over.

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  1. Oct 2

    How Babbulicious Built a Creative Life without a Blueprint

    Babbulicious built a creative life across comedy, design, music and puppetry, without ever following a conventional blueprint. In this complete conversation, Babbulicious reveals how the celebrated JusReign sketches were created, why he remained independent, how his family supported an unconventional career and why one final comedy song unexpectedly opened the door to music.

    How Babbulicious Built a Creative Life without a Blueprint

  2. Sep 18

    Did Sun Tzu Really Exist? The Mystery Behind The Art of War

    The man behind the most quoted strategy book in history may never have existed. Professor Peter Lorge — one of the world's leading historians of Chinese military history — joins Amar Singh to dismantle an enduring myth in Western thought: the legend of Sun Tzu and The Art of War. What we call The Art of War isn't what it was called in ancient China. The figure of "Master Sun" is almost certainly a composite, assembled over centuries rather than the work of a singular battlefield genius. And the iconic title? An entirely Western construction.

    Did Sun Tzu Really Exist? The Mystery Behind The Art of War

  3. Sep 11

    8 Years To Translate Jap Ji Sahib? Here's Why

    Can Jap Ji Sahib be translated into poetic, rhyming English without losing its meaning? Satpal Singh, founder of Nanak Naam, joins Amar Singh to explain the eight-year, four-version process behind his English interpretation of Guru Nanak's Jap Ji Sahib. Every translation makes choices. In this complete conversation, Satpal explains why he felt literal translations and archaic English left something missing, and why preserving the poetry, emotion and accessibility of Gurbani made his task considerably harder.

    8 Years To Translate Jap Ji Sahib? Here's Why

  4. Sep 4

    The Untold History of Desi Pubs & Mixed Grills: Racism, Resistance & Reinvention

    This episode uncovers a story far richer than food culture. We go back to the 1960s, when Black and Asian migrants in Britain were refused service at pubs displaying signs that read “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.” In the West Midlands, Punjabi foundry workers created their own spaces, places that offered safety, solidarity, and, later, a new cultural identity. These early “desi pubs” weren’t restaurants; they were hubs of resistance. Activists organised inside them, and Bhangra musicians played in makeshift back rooms. In 1965, Malcolm X even walked into Smethwick to see Britain’s colour bar for himself, experiencing refusal of service in a local pub that now stands at the centre of this history. Over time, these spaces evolved. Once Punjabis felt safe inside them, food emerged as a defining feature, a fusion of working-class Britain and diasporic Punjab. What began as a refuge became a cultural invention: the mixed grill. This dish, found almost nowhere else in the world, remains tied to the industrial heart of Birmingham, the rhythms of the Bhangra scene, and a community rebuilding itself far from home. Today, as the UK faces rising tensions once again, the story of the desi pub is more relevant than ever. It reminds us how communities resist exclusion and how culture is born in the spaces where people fight simply to belong.

    The Untold History of Desi Pubs & Mixed Grills: Racism, Resistance & Reinvention

  5. Aug 28

    Auschwitz Had a Women's Orchestra and It Was Not What You Think

    In this episode, I speak with historian and journalist Anne Sebba about her book The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz and the unsettling role music played inside the Nazi camp system. Music is usually associated with comfort or beauty. However, at Auschwitz, it was used as a tool of control, discipline, and deception. Anne explains why the orchestra was not about uplift or art, but rather a functional part of how the camp operated day-to-day.

    Auschwitz Had a Women's Orchestra and It Was Not What You Think

  6. Jun 15

    Belgian Historian Exposes How Britain Used Indian Soldiers As Cannon Fodder At Ypres

    On 26 April 1915, 444 men of the 47th Sikh Regiment went over the top at the Battle of Ypres. By nightfall, 347 could not answer roll call, a 78% casualty rate in a single day. Their names? Barely 16 or 17 appear on the Menin Gate. This is the story Britain left out. Right now, you can get 50% off your first three months of Audible using my link here: https://bit.ly/ROASAudible I sat down with Dr Dominiek Dendooven, historian at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Belgium, to piece together what actually happened when Indian troops were sent to the Western Front in 1914. Not as a footnote. Not as support staff. But as combatants who held a third of the British front line at the height of the First Battle of Ypres, in autumn, in tropical kit, carrying weapons one generation behind the British soldiers beside them. They were never supposed to be in Europe. Britain had never deployed Indian troops to the continent before, partly because officials feared what Indian soldiers might learn if they watched Europeans destroy each other up close. But by the end of September 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was in dire straits. They needed bodies, so they sent for India. Yet something else happened in those trenches. Sikh soldiers, Hindu soldiers and Muslim soldiers ate together, slept side by side, and began describing themselves, perhaps for the first time, simply as Indian. The Western Front did not just take lives. It also planted a seed. Dr Dendooven has spent more than two decades recovering this history at the In Flanders Fields Museum. This conversation is long overdue. Explore the interactive WWI Indian Army map here: https://bit.ly/WW1IndianArmyMap Read the guide, Who Was at Ypres: Every Indian Unit That Fought in the Battles of 1914–1915, here: https://bit.ly/WhoWasAtYpresGuide

    Belgian Historian Exposes How Britain Used Indian Soldiers As Cannon Fodder At Ypres

  7. May 27

    This Historian Reveals the Punjabi Princesses Erased From Kensington Palace

    Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, raised at Elveden Hall in Suffolk and goddaughter to Queen Victoria. Then she became one of Britain’s most fearless suffragettes. Her sisters were even more extraordinary. I sat down with Dr Mishka Sinha, Curator for Inclusive History at Historic Royal Palaces and the historian behind a landmark new exhibition at Kensington Palace, to tell the full story of three daughters of Maharaja Duleep Singh who used their privilege, their pain and their fury to fight the very empire that shaped them.

    This Historian Reveals the Punjabi Princesses Erased From Kensington Palace

  8. May 1

    Queen Victoria Had a Punjabi Goddaughter. This Is Her Family’s Story at Kensington Palace

    Queen Victoria was Empress of India. She was also godmother to the children of the man whose kingdom she helped destroy. Victoria called him “your affectionate friend.” But as Polly Putnam tells me, it was a strange relationship between conqueror and conquered. Polly is the Collections Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the historian behind Netflix’s Bridgerton, and the curator of The Last Princesses of Punjab — her 31st exhibition, and the hardest one she has ever done. She did not want to tell this story from above. She wanted South Asian voices in the room. In this episode, we cover why Sophia sold suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court, why Bamba had snowballs thrown at her on the way to medical school, why Catherine told a Jewish refugee fleeing the Nazis, “I’ll be that person,” why Duleep Singh died with a Bible at his bedside despite taking Sikh initiation, and the revelation that almost everything in this family’s London history happened in Kensington, including the birth of the women’s suffrage movement itself.

    Queen Victoria Had a Punjabi Goddaughter. This Is Her Family’s Story at Kensington Palace
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Ratings & Reviews

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About

The Story Isn't Over is a podcast from Amar Singh, aka Ramblings of a Sikh. Historians, authors, artists, journalists, activists and culture-makers join wide-ranging conversations that unearth forgotten histories, challenge dominant narratives and rethink the stories we thought we knew. From empire and resistance to migration, faith, music and community memory. We explore how power, identity and diaspora continue to shape the world around us. Rooted in research, lived experience and sharp curiosity. The story isn't over.

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