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Hello everyone, my name is Sarosh Ibrahim, and you're listening to Dear Body, a show where I, your host, unpack our stories, our experiences of living as Pakistanis in today’s world, in the social, domestic, political, and cultural space.
If you have any thoughts on any topic or issue, or you just want to get in touch with me about the show, find me on Instagram @saroshibrahim
25 Episodes
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In this episode of Dear Body, we explore the politics of the dupatta, not as a piece of fabric, but as a symbol shaped by history, culture, gender, and power.
Across South Asia, clothing has never been only about fashion. Jewellery, fabric, and covering have long carried meanings of identity, honour, belonging, and respectability, often written on the female body. From Mughal courts to modern classrooms, what women wear has been read as a reflection of family, morality, and culture.
Today, these same symbols travel freely across the world. Dupattas appear on global runways, in luxury campaigns, and in Western fashion editorials, celebrated as heritage and elegance. Yet in everyday life, many women still experience clothing as expectation, judgement, and negotiation.
Drawing on cultural history, feminist scholarship, and personal reflection, this episode looks at moral policing, honour culture, modesty norms, and the paradox of autonomy, why the same object can be seen as beauty in one space and control in another.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts and follow me on Instagram @saroshibrahim or @thisisdearbody for more conversations on body politics, culture, and identity.
In this episode, Sarosh Ibrahim discusses Arsalan Attar's Forty Days of Mourning and examines the layered complexity of its protagonist, Saleema.
Set across pre-Partition and Partition Hyderabad, the novel presents a woman whose life is shaped by family, marriage, and social surveillance. Rather than framing her story through morality, this episode explores the importance of resisting quick judgment and instead understanding the structural and emotional forces shaping her choices.
What makes this debut novel compelling is its refusal to silence its female protagonist. Despite societal constraints, Saleema is given interiority, contradiction, and voice.
What happens when a Mughal heirloom appears on a Hollywood red carpet, but the woman who once owned it is left unnamed?
In this episode of Dear Body, Sarosh Ibrahim examines the resurfacing of the Taj Mahal Diamond necklace, worn by Margot Robbie in 2026, and traces its journey back to Nur Jahan, the 17th-century Mughal empress whose authority shaped empire.
This episode explores:
• Epistemic violence and historical erasure
• Why colonialism governs memory, not just land
• How women from the Global South are turned into symbols instead of subjects
This is a conversation about power, naming, and why reclaiming women's histories is not nostalgia, it's political.
Pakistani cinema often presents love through the male gaze—where women are written as fragile, childlike, and in need of protection, while male persistence is framed as romance.
In this episode of Dear Body, I analyze Neelofar as a case study to explore female representation in Pakistani films, the infantilization of women, and how cinema shapes ideas of desire, consent, and power. This episode connects body politics, gender studies, and media criticism to ask a larger question: what kind of love stories are we being taught to accept?
The "mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law" trope is deeply ingrained in South Asian culture, but it is not harmless.
In Episode 21 of Dear Body, we examine:
* How this dynamic is produced by patri-local family systems
* The different forms of violence daughters-in-law face from in-laws
* What South Asian research reveals about intergenerational abuse
* Why celebrity opinions on national television spark such intense public debate
This episode is not about individual blame.
It is about understanding how patriarchy sustains itself, and why recognizing these patterns matters if we want to stop repeating them.
What do we learn when women are repeatedly told, on national television, how to "save" their marriages?
In the latest episode of Dear Body, I reflect on the recurring advice given to young girls on morning shows in the name of marital happiness, advice that often centers women's obedience, compromise, and silence, while leaving out the equally necessary responsibilities of men.
Instead of reducing a recent TV appearance to a villain narrative, this episode explores the deeper complexities behind such statements, the generational conditioning that produces them, and the quiet harm they cause.
This episode is an invitation to think beyond soundbites, and sit with the discomfort of what these conversations reveal about marriage, gender, and power.
What is the cost of education and financial independence in our country? Before you answer this question, I want you to think about yourself, especially if you're a woman, a girl, when was the first moment it hit you that the rules are different for you because you are a female?
Imagine today's episode as a roundtable conversation with lots of people filling up the whole room. You are sharing stories with one another about what it was like growing up in your home, what did education mean to you, what your relationship with your parents was like, and where you are in life now.
I will be bringing you stories from women who wish to remain anonymous but have poured their heart out to me. Some parts of these stories are too intense, even I broke down more than twice listening to them. So, let's begin.
You can find me here:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/pk/podcast/dear-body/id1642998095
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dearbodypodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dearbodypod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saroshibrahim/
Every year, we find ourselves having the same conversation about smog. Even though we know that Lahore's smog isn't limited to October through January, its visible haze is enough to jolt us, physically and emotionally. Deteriorating health, shrinking social life, and a growing sense of uncertainty make us question the future of our city.
This year, I spoke with citizens of Lahore to understand how smog is reshaping their lives, what they've experienced, what they've observed, and what, if anything, has changed. Some are battling serious health conditions; others are documenting the crisis through research and advocacy. But one emotion connects them all: hopelessness.
You can find me here:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/pk/podcast/dear-body/id1642998095
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dearbodypodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dearbodypod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saroshibrahim/
Substack: Dear Body [https://saroshibrahim.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips]
This episode of Dear Body explores the physical and emotional transformations women experience during perimenopause and menopause, phases that are rarely talked about but deeply affect how a woman feels, thinks, and connects with her world.
We talk about the exhaustion that doesn't go away with sleep, the hot flashes, the headaches, the brain fog, and the growing irritation that no one seems to understand. But most of all, we talk about what it means to go through all of this alone, in a culture that celebrates a woman's youth but silences her body as she ages.
This isn't just biology, it's identity, emotional labour, and survival.
Let's break the silence around menopause, hormones, and women's health in Pakistan and beyond. Because understanding these changes means understanding the women who raised us, nurtured us, and continue to hold everything together even when their own bodies are falling apart.
You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saroshibrahim/
#DearBodyPodcast #WomensHealth #Perimenopause #MenopauseAwareness #SouthAsianWomen #HormonalHealth #BodyAcceptance #EmotionalHealth #PodcastPakistan
In today's episode, I open up about a world beyond social media, the 9 to 5 world. The world where being a Pakistani working woman means living by a different set of rules. We talk about body image, feminism, workplace bias, mental health, and the weight of expectations women carry in professional spaces.
Through real stories, this episode explores the unseen struggles of women navigating careers within patriarchal systems, from labels and rumors to the quiet ways our workplaces fail to support us.
Tune in if you've ever felt unseen, unheard, or underestimated at work.
In this episode of Dear Body, host Sarosh Ibrahim takes listeners into one of the most urgent and silenced issues in Pakistan: suicide among women. September marks Suicide Prevention Month, but here, conversations about suicide are often hidden behind whispers of shame and honour. Through real stories from Southern Punjab, Rawalpindi, and Chitral, and with insights from studies by Farooq Ahmed, Neha Jain, and Hussain et al., Sarosh explores how patriarchy, forced marriages, domestic violence, and family honour shape women's lives, and sometimes, their deaths. This is not easy listening, but it is necessary because silence can be deadly.
You can find me on Instagram @saroshibrahim.
What happens when more than half the women in a country are living with a condition no one talks about? In this episode of Dear Body, we're diving into the world of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), what it is, how it affects women's bodies and minds, and why silence around it can be just as harmful as the symptoms themselves.
I'll share stories of young women navigating shame, stigma, and confusion, while also highlighting the groundbreaking work of initiatives like PCOS Helps, who are reframing PCOS as not just a health issue, but a human rights issue.
This isn't just about medical facts, it's about empathy, awareness, and breaking cultural silences. Whether you're living with PCOS or want to better understand the women around you, this episode is a must-listen.
Follow the journey and join the conversation with me on Instagram: @saroshibrahim [https://www.instagram.com/saroshibrahim]
This week on Dear Body, I step into a story that is both urgent and deeply personal to me: the gendered impact of floods in Pakistan.
When we talk about climate disasters, we usually hear numbers: homes destroyed, acres submerged, lives lost. But behind every statistic is a body, often a woman's body, carrying the heaviest burden.
That's why I collected and wove together these stories. I felt the need to highlight them because these stories show that floods are not "gender-neutral." They reshape women's health, dignity, futures, and they demand a response that sees women not just as victims but as leaders of resilience.
These are not my stories, but I carry them forward because they deserve more ears, more eyes, more urgency.
Please support the organisations named here: Mahwari Justice, Mama Baby Fund, Sujag Sansar, HER Pakistan, whose work restores dignity where disaster strips it away.
In this episode of Dear Body, let's unpacks a troubling pattern in Pakistani television: the endless cycle of baby-faced, fair-skinned female leads in their early 20s paired with male actors twice their age. From the diverse casting of the 2000s to today's obsession with youth and "innocent" features, we explore how beauty standards, popularity politics, and colonial-era ideals continue to shape the stories we tell, and the women we put at the centre of them. Why are older male leads allowed to age on screen, while women are replaced by younger faces every few years? And what does this say to the next generation of girls watching at home? Tune in for a critical conversation on representation, ageism, and the future of inclusivity in our media.
What kills women in Pakistan isn't always a weapon. Sometimes, it's the silence that surrounds them. In this deeply personal and reflective episode, Sarosh speaks about the harrowing realities of femicide and honour killings in Pakistan — where women are murdered for speaking up, for dreaming, for choosing.
Through the stories of Humaira Asghar, Qandeel Baloch, Noor Mukadam, and countless unnamed victims, this episode explores the systemic violence that justifies a woman's death in the name of honour. It questions why society remains silent until after a woman's body is found — and why her life was never considered sacred to begin with.
From legal loopholes to social apathy, this episode of Dear Body asks: What is the cost of a woman's freedom in this country? And who decides which dreams are worth dying for?
In this episode of Dear Body, host Sarosh returns after a 2.5-year hiatus to critically examine how toxic relationships are romanticised in Pakistani television, particularly in the drama Mann Mast Malang. Through a character analysis of Kabir and Riya, Sarosh explores how media normalises control, silences women, and embeds dangerous expectations into cultural understandings of love and marriage.
This episode delves into the psychological and societal dimensions of these portrayals: childhood trauma, coercion masked as love, the invisibilisation of women's voices, and the deep-rooted pressures surrounding fertility and gender roles in marriage.
Dear Body is a podcast about the lived experience of Pakistani women — their bodies, their stories, and the systems that seek to shape them. Each episode invites listeners to reflect, question, and reimagine what it means to reclaim agency in a society that often denies it.
In today's episode, we have a bit of a complicated situation with Taylor Swift's new music video that came out recently titled "Anti-Hero." Here, she reflects upon her experiences being in the limelight. However, some fans and viewers took to Twitter to address their take on one of the clips from the music video. Before we dive into it together, do not forget to follow me for weekly episodes on our bodies because this is your safe space.
If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at ibrahim.sarosh@gmail.com.
• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon
• Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim
• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim
In today's episode, we will together explore a major stigma in various cultures and spaces i.e. Periods. I am going to start off with how this physiological process of bleeding continuously for 6-7 days was labeled a luxury. How much does the Pakistani awam know about menstruation, and how well-aware are Pakistani women about Menstrual Hygiene Management? There are so many projects and campaigns in Pakistan fighting to remove the stigma of menstruation so young girls cannot be stopped from sitting in classrooms during their period.
If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at ibrahim.sarosh@gmail.com.
• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon
• Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim
• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim
In today's episode, we are going to be looking at the ongoing human rights violation in Afghanistan ever since the Taliban took over in 2021. Women are being deprived of their basic right to receive education or continue working in a professional space. It is very important that we look into how the Afghan women after fighting for basic human rights in a country ruled by those who limit their opportunity to economically stabilize the country. Their mobility is being measured by the Taliban who are deciding for the Afghan women increasing gender inequality in the process.
If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at ibrahim.sarosh@gmail.com.
• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon
• Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim
• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim
In this episode, we are going to talk about the unfortunate series of events that recently occurred in Iran coupled with what veiling really stands for Muslim women vs what has been portrayed by Western media. Let's dive right into it.
If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at ibrahim.sarosh@gmail.com.
• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon
• Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs
• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim
• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim
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