I am quite a podcast fan and listen to podcasts almost everyday. You might also know I had a podcast, Eat Watch Binge Read for sometime with a dear friend during the lockdown. You can still listen to previous episodes of it if you want to. Its exactly what it says on the tin – chat between two friends about what we are eating, cooking, reading and watching.
So anyway, I have been listening to some really interesting stuff lately and wanted to post about it. Why did I want to do this post? One, so you can go listen too and two, so I can remember and re-listen later.
1. You Are Wrong About: Flight 571 – Survival in the Andes with Blaire Braverman
I would not have put myself down as someone who is majorly interested in outdoor adventure stories as such and it was odd that out of all the fascinating episodes of this podcast, this one was a story I got hooked onto. I had never heard of this story which was surprising to me already since it was such an outlandish event. It is about an Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. Of the 45 people on board, 16 ultimately lived. I’ll be honest, more than the story of human perseverance and This was one of those stories that you read about and realise fact IS stranger than fiction.
I also think this story hit such a chord because it reminded me of the case of Dudley and Stephens that we studied in our criminal law classes which left a deep impression on. Look it up if you have the stomach for it.
2. The Happiness Lab: Season 6, Episode 4: Stop Looking for the Perfect Job – A ‘Good Enough’ Job is Just Fine
This one really hit home. The analysis and psychology behind why we work the way we do, our identity as an employee, our self-worth connected to this identity was a fascinating listen. It discusses how without our own self-worth and identity we end up looking for identity and self-worth in our jobs. This is a fantastic listen for almost everyone but especially someone who cannot answer the question – what would you do if you didn’t have to go into work everyday?
3. Empire: Season 1, Episode 16: Partition
As someone who has grown up and studied in India, colonial history and partition isn’t exactly news to me. But even after studying the same history so many times, reading and listening and seeing the stories about partition, this podcast manages to bring a whole new perspective, add new stories and completely pull me in. The whole podcast itself is fantastic but this episode took my breath away. Literally. I was listening to it in a public place (probably the tube) but had to turn it off it was so intense and made me so emotional – I couldn’t stop tearing up. Its a hard one but so important. Whether you have intricate idea of Indian history or not, this is a must listen.
4. The Ezra Klein Show: Our Brains Weren’t Designed For This Kind of Food
I am a total Ezra Klein fan girl. I have followed him from his Vox Media days now onto the New York Times platform. So he is mostly known as an political journalist but in all honestly, I don’t care too much about USA politics but it is his writing and podcasts episodes about culture, health, books, movies, psychology and lifestyle in general that I really enjoy.
This particular episode about junk food and the psychology behind it. How much of junk food consumption is not so much choice but biology. How our bodies and brains have not been able to evolve to be able to deal with the way we grow, eat and advertise our food. Even after knowing so much about our food habits and the science behind it, this episode was a revelation.
5. Shameless: You! Don’t! Need! To! Like! The! Photo! and Em Rata and Naked Feminism
This podcast totally lives its tagline – for smart women who like dumb stuff. On the the level its another gossip podcast but below the gossip there is extremely intelligent analysis on feminism, social media and culture. Some of the questions picked up by Zara and Michelle in this podcast make for fantastic debate. What is feminism really? Is choice feminism a real thing? If you twist your feminism to appeal to men, is it really feminism? Their podcasts always make me look at the world and the current topic with a different perspective – and a less dumb one.
Hope you enjoyed this post and got some value out of these podcasts. I am always up for listening to interesting podcasts so would love some recommendations from you as well. And I will see you on Instagram.
Until next week.
– Anisha
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