When Nish Amarnath shifted to Chennai to attend middle school in 1995 after spending her growing-up years overseas, she was in for a culture shock. Boys and girls could not—and did not—interact with each other. “When I was in sixth grade, we went for a school excursion. There were about 34 boys and 12 girls in my class. The boys got to ride in large buses. The girls were cramped into a Maruti van. Since we were afraid of being ridiculed for making ourselves ‘available’ for the boys, we sat in the van. Clearly, there was no gender equality,” she says. There were issues like being ridiculed for wearing spectacles or braces, being flat-chested or dark-skinned. Her classmates also used terms like “eunuchs” for ‘queer’ behaviour. The school management preferred to be silent.
Growing up, such a gender-prejudiced environment shaped Amarnath’s future narrative, motivating her to act for social justice. After working as a financial journalist in London, Washington DC and New York City, Amarnath was brought on board Mentza, the live audio platform, in January to host People Who See, a show around social changes. “I jumped at the opportunity to be a social change channel host because I enjoy connecting with new audiences through content. Communication around socially relevant themes is gaining more awareness,” says the 35-year-old.
Amarnath, also an author (Victims For Sale, 2018), believes that the sessions are aimed at socially and politically aware beings who are “woke about the accelerated pace of change we’re seeing in today’s world—from increased validation and acceptance of LGBTQ+ communities to evolving discourses on body positivity, colourism, and mental health”.
“My hope is to provide some key takeaways that can, in some way, strengthen emotional resilience, and enhance the quality of life of my listeners. I also aim to sensitise myself to new perspectives and dimensions,” she explains. While it may take time for change to take effect in society, Amarnath’s chats are garnering interest. A yardstick for whether her episode has been meaningful enough, she says, is the level of engagement in terms of comments as well as active debate from listeners who may want to join in as speakers. For instance, Amarnath’s recent session with Saira Shah Halim, a writer, educator, and activist, allowed her listeners to understand the state of the school systems in terms of their effectiveness in preparing young people for the real world. Most of her listeners are Gen Zers and millennials who take forward the discussion to social media and keep the conversation going.
Over seven sessions so far, anecdotes from outside the chatroom too help her form a narrative. “A 26-year-old Indian woman told me once that she’d rather walk the plank into water filled with sharks and jellyfish than admit to her family that she had premarital sex. It was a good opening for my episode on sex education in schools, because audiences can globally relate to such topics with strong emotional resonance. It’s a chord I hope to strike,” she shares. Going forward, Amarnath will address topics related to mental health, alcoholism, access to toilets, criminal justice, #BlackLivesMatter, and more. Now, Amarnath rides an omnibus of opinions and nobody is mocking her for it.
Catch Nish Amarnath on Mentza every Wednesday at 9.30 pm IST
The app is available for Android and iOS.