Unmute

There are often blank spaces in many child sexual abuse survivors’ memories – who bury the abuse and often return to confront it only as adults. They return, either with determination to find some semblance of justice, or with the hope that speaking about their stories will help someone today, to speak about theirs. In this episode of Unmute, we speak to a few adult survivors of CSA to find out what their stories are and how their lives are still impacted and forever changed by the sexual abuse they faced as children. Host: Urmi Bhattacheryya Producer: Shorbori Purkayastha Editor: Shelly Walia

“My mother was hospitalised. I was supposed to stay in the hospital and look after her. But the moment I found time, I went to the wine shop and got myself a bottle. Then I’d come back, inebriated, and sleep in a blackout,” says 53-year-old Pulin. He's a former alcoholic who has been sober for over 6 years now. Alcohol is responsible for killing over 2.5 lakh Indians every year, as per a 2018 report by the WHO. In this podcast, we spoke to a 53-year-old former alcoholic who has been sober for over six years now, a 22-year-old woman who was hospitalised because of alcohol-related health complications, a man who lost his uncle to alcoholism, and another whose family was torn apart because of his father’s alcohol addiction. And together, we try to answer the question: What does alcoholism take from people? Host: Vishnu Gopinath Producer: Vishnu Gopinath Editor: Vishnu Gopinath

In 1938 British Playwright Patrick Hamilton wrote a play called Gaslight. It also got adapted into a an award-winning film in 1944. It’s a psychological thriller around a married couple — the woman comes from wealth and the husband realizes she is his jackpot and so he drives manipulates her into believing that she’s insane. If you’ve heard of the term gaslighting - this is where it comes from. The expression Gaslighting has been used in psychoanalysis a lot of time. It is an exceptionally common form of manipulation and yet it goes unnoticed by those who face it. In this episode of Unmute, two women who were muted by gaslighting in their personal relationships speak out about their experiences. We also speak with queer therapist Ipsa James on how to identify and address gaslighting in any relationship. Tune in!

Tune in to the second episode of Unmute – a podcast series where we have little-heard voices speak out loud. In this episode, I speak to two survivors of sexual harassment at the workplace. They both worked in the same organisation and were sexually harassed by the same man, who was the MD of the company. Both the survivors had to quit, but the MD is surprise surprise, still the MD of the company! 

What does it feel to be living as a woman, working as a woman in a male-dominated world? There are still a number of restrictions on women. In fact, believe it or not, women aren’t allowed to apply for mining jobs in China, in Russia women can’t be truckers. Closer to home in India, women haven’t occupied some of the top posts in the country such as that of the chief of army, director of CBI, RAW or IB, Chairman of ISRO — the list can go on. The weirdest bit is how the female labour participation rate in India has been on a decline in the recent years while simultaneously we get to read about girls outperforming boys in board results every year. Do these capable women not want jobs? Do they not need it? How did nearly 20 million women in urban and rural areas quit work between 2004-05 to 2011-12? Three words Marriage, motherhood, patriarchy. But women are fast moving in into the male-dominated space. So for the third episode of Unmute, I spoke to a few women in professions that are still largely male dominated. Tune in to the podcast!

Tune in to the second episode of Unmute — a podcast series where we get voices little heard to speak out loud. In this episode I spoke to some members of the transgender community. Although the community has culturally been a significant part of Indian society, when it comes to providing quality of living and healthcare and acceptance we’re lagging far behind. Music: Audioboom

In the first episode of the Unmute podcast series we speak to men on growing up in a patriarchal tradition with expectations of masculinity. So, how do boys and men deal with masculinity? Tune in!