Weekly BBC podcast addresses social issues faced by Indian and Pakistani Communities

BBC journalist Samrah Fatima is producing a new five-part weekly podcast in Hindi and Urdu languages.

The podcast, called ‘Drama Queen’ has the London-based journalist talk about common social issues faced by the people of both India and Pakistan. It will be available for people to listen to on BBC News Hindi and BBC News Urdu websites as well as their YouTube channels.

The original song of the series, ‘Nazrein Mila Ke Dekhein’ has been recorded by Samrah, who is also a singer and songwriter. As part of her collaboration with Saad Khan, the mixing and soundtrack have been engineered by Khan at his studio in Lahore.

Samrah says that everyone needs to understand that many suffer in silence every day due to various reasons, and these need to be discussed. She adds, “It’s been 75 years since India and Pakistan became two separate countries. But the emotional and cultural issues, due to not sharing and dealing with pain alone, are still common on both sides of the border.  With Drama Queen, we have brought up these common issues – to introduce ourselves to each other with the idea of sharing and caring.”

From gender stereotypes and inequality to mental health issues, Samrah discusses topics that are rarely talked about in the South Asian community even today and aims to make these subjects more commonly discussed among people. She addresses the deep-seated issues and talks about them in-depth, providing the listener with relevant information and knowledge on the subject.