Determined, Not Stubborn with Dr.Maddy Manchi Nukala

Answering the question where are you from is never an easy one.

I kick Matt's ass instead of Matt kicking my ass. I always flip it around and say I'm just determined. I've also been described as politely persistent.

Welcome back to Portraits of Strength. I'm your host, Harry the Anecdotist, and in today's episode we are exploring what it means to stay rooted in who you are, even as life takes you across countries, cultures, and careers. Today on Portraits of Strength, I'm joined by Doctor Madhavi Manchinukala, or Maddie, a sociologist, researcher and a fierce advocate for social justice. Born into a Telugu speaking family that's moved across India over generations, Maddie now calls Auckland, New Zealand home with a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Please explore the intersections of media, gender, caste and emotion. And continues to champion ethical and equitable research as the Human Ethics Manager at the University of Auckland. Beyond her academic brilliance, Maddie is a movie buff, fantasy fiction lover and an Appalachian style clock dancer. Proof that curiosity and creativity can coexist beautifully. I'm immensely happy to welcome Maddie to Portraits of Strength. Welcome, Maddie. Thank you, Harry. It's great to be here. So let's start off with, you know, tell me a little bit about your childhood, like what kind of a kid were you and what is it that you were, your interests and things like that?

So, and if I think back to how people have described me, I think I was a kid that has always had her head buried in a book. Always and I think I get my bookwormish nature from my mum and I also, I think my earliest memories as a kid is just loving dancing. Always, always So dance and books, I guess. I think I used to be someone who used to love dancing. I, I've been, I think extremely shy and under confident in terms of doing anything on stage or public speaking. It took me a long time to build confidence.

And I think it was I, I sort of started to do that when I hit, I guess 12/11/12 years old, thirteen years old. So I think there's been like, you know, how in India we do fancy dress competitions and things like that, and I would be terrified going on stage. And I think there have been times I've forgotten the lines I've had to say that go with my costume. And I, yeah, incredibly shy about singing or doing anything up on stage when I was younger. And a bit of, I don't know. I don't know if anyone it, I suppose this is a funny way to describe myself, but this is an influence in my family.

I'm, I guess I'm one of those typical aquarium kids, if that makes sense to anybody. It was of a description, OK, always sort of I guess asking for any questions, always wanting to try stuff that looked a bit different. Like I was the kid in the ice cream shop that and this has happened. Like we we got into an ice cream shop and I would be fascinated by the weirdest colour looking the ice cream with the weirdest colour. It was everyone. Would be good shy away from trying new stuff just because it looked different?

Yes. I, I think I've, I think I've tried that particularly socially with stuff in life, there have been places where you'd need to give me a nudge to get out of my comfort zone. That's the that's the odd contradiction, I guess. But I suppose like Aquarian kids are contradictions have those contradictions or we all hold those contradictions within ourselves. But yeah, if I were to describe myself in that sense, quite sociable, quite friendly, would, you know, would mingle with people terrified of being on stage for a while, but always pretty much had her head buried in a book and would secretly love dancing to.

I think the the earliest memories I have of dancing to songs was Madhuri Dixit's Ek Doteen. Ek Doteen.

Our generation's iconic number, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. Like, yeah, like you said, generation sort of defining. So yeah, absolutely a product of that. Yeah, OK, OK. And after that, I guess I have a sister who's a couple of years younger than I am. We've had a very, I said, I suppose in some ways, like a really typical, typical trajectory like siblings do and got on well, OK, She'd always be, she'd find it extremely annoying that I wouldn't play with her because I was reading a book all the time and really fought like cats and dogs for a bit.

And then I think as we got into our teenage years, grew really, really close and she's like one of my rocks, like emotional support wise and just life wise, like she's my rock. Yeah, I've, I've had parents who obviously with, you know, moving cities and things like that, always eager for us to go Chinese stuff, get as much as possible in terms of experiences, learning skills, that sort of thing. So very privileged to have that kind of upbringing and having parents who would let us, you know, go off and explore those things.

And also, I guess, I guess my love of stories and things like that comes from my grandparents, you know, my, my Nanama who my, my dad's mum, who would always like read me stories before I went to bed. And my like, my, like my mum's parents also absolutely rooted with books. I think some of my earliest books I've read have been in my grandfather's collection. We still go to Chennai because they lived in Chennai and they were both also writers. So just I guess a heavy sort of influence there with storytelling.

So always loved stories in where they took me into my inner world sort of thing. So OK, yeah. If that's if that's the way they describe my childhood. So you, you moved around a lot, right? Like you grew up in Chennai, you grew up in Bangalore or and like so how was how did that affect your perspective or how you look at things? So I guess answering the question, where are you from is never an easy one. Yeah. And I think that's the case with any kid. And I think there's this generation of kids like me whose, whose parents have had transferable jobs and they've moved cities.

And I think that's sort of that's always like I, I used to find it quite challenging to kind of answer that question. And I think it speaks a little bit to my own, I guess how I saw myself a little bit for a while. And you also grew up in a time in India where, you know, you, you can't really make sense of this as a kid or a young person, but you don't quite know how to react to it. But you do hear it. You know, I've heard people kind of say, oh, what is this person who doesn't speak our language doing in our state like you Don't you find, I guess you hear different ways of people saying, but you're not.

You're something of another. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think also the magical part of things is when I sit back now and I look at stuff, I'll even something as simple as all of the different kinds of food my mum's made for us over the years. I just recognise like the the threads of all of this going back to all of the different places, not just in terms of where we've been, but also where my parents have been. So my parents are Telugu speaking, but they both mostly grew up in Chennai. So there's there's quite you know, obviously Chennai in in that has that cosmopolitan influence.

Quite a big metropolitan city would have it's kind of impact on my parents as young people there. My great grandparents lived in Kolkata and for quite a big part of their lives, and there's obviously that sort of influence. My mum spent a lot of childhood summers going up to Calcutta and living there with her, with her Nanaman Katagaruso.

It's kind of magical to, I guess, connect to those dots and see that there's so much of all of that in the food that I eat in the way that I pick up languages in. And while it's kind of never easy to say where I'm from, it's also gives you a weird shape shifting ability.

Yeah, no, that is, that is, that is quite an achievement. I guess when you are younger it, although it makes you feel like you don't belong anywhere per SE. You know, once you have grow up a little bit, then you kind of like start to see all that as a superpower because nobody else has it except you, right. Yeah. No, That's, that's, that's great. You know, South Indian families especially, you know, our generation, or like I should say our parents generation were very keen on, you know, either their kids being doctors or engineers.

Because again, coming from that, you know, the time where it was The Economic Times, you know, being a doctor or engineer was the safest bet to have a good carrier and have a financial stability. Yeah. But considering that as the main thing where, you know, most of us were pushed into either engineering or the medicine route, you managed to go into a complete different carrier pathway, which is a PhD, you know, in social sciences. Yeah. How did that come about? Like, well, did you have to fight with your parents to be able to do that?

Or were they? Or even like, how did that interest towards social sciences kind of come about? Yep. So if you ask my mom this question, she will tell you that I drove her crazy. I know I never remember, but I know that I I made it difficult for some of these things, which will probably give you a bit of an answer with this. But yes, absolutely. Sort of fit that mold of particularly like Telugu speaking families as well, where engineering is a very big thing. Yeah.

I I would know that, right? Like I, I'm one of that. Yeah, yeah. And, and this is, this is, you know, having my dad, who's had a 30 year career, retired from from Wipro, where he worked for 30 years, is an engineer himself, you know, or like the, we have a lot of my family has gone on that route of being engineers. So they and I think a classic thing for I suppose, like kids are my generation and probably a little a few years, a couple of generations before, a couple of generations after, if you're talking Gen.

X, Gen. Y, maybe up the just, I don't know what the one after millennials is. I, I lose track, but a lot of, a lot of them, a lot of us I think have done that right. When you do an engineering degree and you go off and do that. And in my family, a lot of those, there are a lot of those engineers and they've done that combination, which is a very classic combination of engineering plus an MBA. And I think I can't, I can't say exactly where my interest in social sciences came from, I suppose, but I just knew that I didn't fit the bill for engineering or medicine.

Maybe medicine somewhat initially because my mum used to teach me biology. Like she used to get me to learn my biology, help me do my homework and my exams. And she taught me like, especially in later class, like years, stuff around genetics and stuff that you learn, like all of that. And that used to be really interesting. But I never ever really liked math. I never really was fascinated. I, I hated math as a kid. I was terrible at it for the longest time. And I think it never really piqued my interest.

Not as much as say English literature date there was and you get a, you get very limited scopes of this in school as well, right, With your subjects, at least when we were in school. So you would have, you have your science, your math, and you'll have history a little bit and then English and you'd probably do like a second and a third language for some time, right? Always loved English literature because bookworm. Absolutely, absolutely my comfort zone and loved it, but nothing there in terms of yes, there was history, used to love history, but it's not exactly a fit.

So I guess it took a while for me to figure out where I did want to go. But absolutely knew that I didn't want anything to do with computer sciences. Did not want anything to do with. Well, well, that's clarity knowing what you don't want to do as well, right? Yeah.

Yep. And, and, and I, I guess my mom was sort of keen of on, OK, why didn't you just by the time you've done your, I've done my 10th exam, which is your main board exam, as we call it, it was decision sort of time. And I, you know, she was like, I was like, maybe I wanna do arts. I don't know what in arts. It's just that the subjects that combinations that we had for we, we call it pre University College or PUC in Karnataka, right, which is inter basically in your plus 1 + 2. And those subjects looked interesting.

And then my mum was like, look, if you take that, you won't be able to go back to do something like accounting or business or MBA or something like that if you want to do it. So just do pick up like business studies and commerce kind of subjects. Two years of just kind of plodding through it, terrified of math. And for someone who who absolutely detested math in your accounting, right, yes. And think of the subjects. I had four subjects, one of which is business studies, which is still OK because it's a very theory heavy object and I had nothing to do with numbers.

The other three are accounting, statistics, and math. And it's math math. I did not leave you, no. And I think that was the I, I would share this at this point, it feels like it may be going off a little bit on the tangent of what you'd asked me as a question, but I think year 11 and 12 is the year I kicked Matt's ass instead of Matt kicking my ass because that's, that's.

Impressive for a person who doesn't like Matt. I turned to Jen and I said I can't be scared and hate math anymore. So I went on to do like 9090 to 93% in all of those three math heavy subjects. So I was like, I'm done with math. I don't want to do anything with that. And then it was my dad, I think, who kind of said who kind of picked up the, or picked up this field that, you know, I was wanting to do something else and I wasn't wanting to kind of stay with things like commerce or anything like that.

And he kind of really said, OK, what is it that you want to do? And I, I went and did my bachelor's with, with three majors. So it's psychology, sociology and English literature. So it was a really good combination. At least psychology made me feel like, you know, it's psychology at least gives you like a career pathway. And at the end of it, I think it's all thanks to my professors really. I just ended up really liking sociology had, you know, because my mum was very like, she was really keen that I sort of at least give it a shot.

Actually gave one of those entrance exams for an MBA. No, the other one, what's it called? A rat. I think there's a cat in a rat or whatever like cats are for your Iims. And like your. Yeah, for your for, for your really top level MBA schools, right. Your rats I think are more regional, kind of. Oh, OK. MBA schools studied for it, gave it absolutely hated it. I think I even did entrance exams for like XLRI, Great Lakes, like I did the whole shebang. OK, then kind of said no. And at that point it was OK.

I want to do a masters. What do I do a masters in actually got admission and got got a seat to kind of do an MSE in psychology, clinical psychology and then decided no, even that is not the thing because I just did not like clinical psycho. What it was offering. I guess it was I guess by then I couldn't really articulate it extremely well, but I think I was looking for more than the individual. I was looking for things that would let me explore the cultural side of things, the collective side of things.

And I think for where I was located and for where I was in life at that point and the places I was looking at, there wasn't an access to cultural psychology, which would have been like real or social psychology, which would have been a great kind of, I guess, discipline at the time. That would have helped. So the only choice was sociology and then I picked that up, you know, finish that kind of you, you, you go into that age, I guess between your undergrad and masters where my parents were going.

Why don't you kind of look at getting married and you know, you have someone or we want to start looking. So there's also those pressures that was kind of looking kind of managing on the side, right. And I think by the time I finished my masters, I decided that I wanted to teach. I was very keen on doing that. I actually taught for a year in the, in the college or the university I finished my master's from. And then I decided, OK, if I want to teach, I need to get a PhD. And I also realized that I want to start getting a bit more experience in life living on my own and what it means to kind of be a little bit more independent.

Because I've, I've done all my studies from plus 1 + 2 up until masters, plus the one year of work all at home in the same college. I hadn't even switched colleges, which is a running joke in my family because they're like, oh, if you ever move back to India, please do not go back there. OK.

Although I absolutely appreciate like everything I learnt over there, I did a lot, I learnt a lot. And I think my foundations and social sciences were kind of really built from interestingly by my English professors and my sociology professors equally. So they they built the foundations of everything I know in my disciplines and there so and then my parents kind of didn't know how to react when I said I wanna go do a PhD and that I wanna do it and that I wanna do it outside of Bangalore.

Yeah, OK. I mean, I, I can relate to that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 2009 well, I did my entrances to a couple of places. I don't like those admission exams. Yeah tried a place or two in Bangalore didn't work out. And then I guess it was this cuz they had they had a place in gender studies and they had a place. I wasn't even looking at media and cultural studies, to be quite honest. I actually OK, the proposal I sent through was on a topic that I ended that ended up being nothing to do with. Like when I got my PhD in.

So, OK, I was I was wanting to do the the thing I sent my proposal on was to look at how gyms were very gendered spaces. And we're talking about a time when gym culture wasn't really a thing. It was gyms were very heavily especially when you. Did male male male dominated? Male dominated, particularly the strength training sections of gyms and areas of gyms are very male dominated. So I guess I was trying to look through and I had sort of started to go to the gym a little bit at that point. So it was a very interesting thing and I said, OK, I'll go see what what it is that, you know, I want to do my PhD on this thing did a complete like 180 when I got to this.

It was a infill plus PhD sort of integrated programme. Learnt so much life wise, discipline wise and then took me 6 years to finish it. No, yeah, I mean, PhD can be quite a daunting journey, right? Because you're basically, I've seen it with Vasudha as well, where like, because it's, it's a individual pursuit, the research can be very lonely. Doing all by yourself can be very lonely. And sometimes you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. So it can affect your mental health, it can affect your emotional physical health.

So what made you because I don't, I believe that whoever has done a PhD, no matter what the subject is, that shows me that that person is quite resilient and they are like literally persevering to, to, you know, to finish it. Through SO. What is it that gave you the strength to have that grid, to have that resilience, especially considering that was the very first time you were living away from family all by yourself in Mumbai? So what got you through that? Yeah. I guess I'll start by kind of adding a little bit more to your very first question.

In terms of describing your childhood and who I am, who I was as a child, I guess I still am this. So one of the ways I've been described is stubborn. I always flip it around and say I'm just determined.

I think that's just a has been a little bit a part of my personality a little bit I I may not be your very outwardly kind of what do you say? Like I'll stand on both feet and firmly ground myself in I won't budget kind of thing. It's a very I can be. I've also been described as politely persistent. So those are those are I guess it's always kind of stuck around a little bit. So that's that's been a little bit a part of my personality, but also absolutely right in terms of it's it is a lonely journey.

It does take a lot to, to pull yourself through that six years and particularly the writing part is extremely lonely. And it, that's pretty much what you're doing in a PhD, right? You're writing, you're reading and you're writing and you are quite, it's quite you're, you're alone if you're not lonely. It's, it's kind of wavering between those two constantly. I think it in a way it helped that I was living away from family because you do need that focus and it also helped that I just had great mates.

I just made really good friends. It it I started off as a cohort of info students and I became friends with three people still, still really good friends and they really helped me through. And they were also two sort of lecturers in my faculty who were like who, who were just a few years older than I I was, I guess they were teaching like masters and things like that weren't really teaching me directly. So when I when I decided that I was moving into media and cultural studies, that's the school I wanted to attach myself to.

I've Smit these great, really similar age kind of people teaching and one of the things that and they're really good friends as well to date one of the things and they're a couple and this couple basically said don't isolate yourself. Even if you don't do anything else once a day come have a cup of Chai with us. You know, it doesn't matter what where go have a cup of Chai either with your either with your friends or come have a cup of Chai with us. And I think that that is it. It leaves a door open, right?

No matter what you're going through, you know that you've if you put that into your routine, you know you're going and you're meeting people and you're meeting people who are in this with you or have been through it. And you know then that you're not alone, although it feels a little bit like that. So just I think absolutely wouldn't have made it through without my friends and without that bit of advice. I think just someone saying, hey, come have a cup of Chai every day with us is all the difference, right?

And I think while my parents kind of couldn't really understand what an academic life is, and you are at the start of an academic life when you get into a PhD, they couldn't understand, for example, why it took me a year to put a proposal together. They go in our context, proposals get put together in a week. I'm like, no, that's how it's done here. Although it took a while for them to sort of understand where all of this was coming from, they absolutely were supportive, finally came around to it.

And then sort of at the end, look, at the end of the day, they had their worries in terms of, oh, you've hit a certain age, you need to get married. It's going to be tough when you're living away from home, you know, getting all this done. There's a lot of different questions when you do an arranged marriage kind of journey. People don't really understand or people don't always appreciate that there's, you know, this woman that they're looking at who, who has a degree more than their son. So it becomes a bit difficult that that still is a thing in India, unfortunately.

So, yeah. And, and, but they came around to it, although there was all of this that we were all dealing with as a family. My parents also were extremely proud. So I think I'm the 1st and I'm the first woman in my family to get a PhD. And I think that's, I've, I have two aunts, I have an Atta and a penny who have pimples who obviously your inspirations in life. Yeah. And I think I, I, it's, it's just awesome that I've had the chance to take that one step further. So I think that they've always been proud, although they didn't always understand it.

So they've obviously always that helps kind of push things through.

And I've done, I've sort of finished my PhD in, I wouldn't say unique circumstances, but but as in it's not singular to me, but but I suppose an unusual circumstances in some ways because I met Akhilesh in the middle of doing my PhD and I essentially we, we met three days later. We'd said, yes, we're getting mad to each other. And then I had six months to finish my data collection because there was a wedding. Yeah. And then by the following March, I'd moved to New Zealand. So I was still, I, I, I didn't really, it was too kind of late in the process to transfer my PhD here to any university or anything like that.

And so we did like I think the first two years of our marriage, I must have stayed away like 5-6 months going back and forth between India and things like that to. Get so to complete to complete your PhD. Yeah. And I think if you don't, when you, when you have that change happen in your life and you, you need a partner who, who's OK with you shuttling back and forth, particularly if it's through an arranged match thing. Because you obviously, if you look at it and you go with like the general notions of what an arranged marriage involves, you would think that there's certain things involved.

But he was OK with that. He knew that I'm someone who probably wouldn't have and income coming in, which some people don't you, your partner needs to be OK with that, right. You're not going to really be bringing an income in. In fact, he needs to probably he's needed to support me in some ways in in that sense. So I think if if it wasn't for him kind of going OK, no, finish this, go do this. It's fine. Take your time because it we got married in 2012. I got my I submitted my thesis in 2015 at the end of 15, so that's like 3 years at a on a young marriage.

Period, Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't have a partner who you just getting to know, you would keep trying to get to know this person in a new country. You know, I, I think if it wasn't for just that support and understanding, that wouldn't have happened either. So all thanks to him as well. Yeah. That's that's awesome. So you've lived and you've worked both in both India and New Zealand, though I guess your work in India was a little very small compared to what you worked in New Zealand. Yeah. How do you feel?

Like, how did what? How was the transition like, you know, both personally and professionally when you compare those two countries? I think so. I, I'll say this for the academic, tertiary sector, university sector, a lot of things are the same anywhere in the world. Those politics are the same because the structures are fairly similar.

When I say politics, I do mean office politics. And you know, and there is a difference in terms of obviously being in completely different countries will bring its own differences, for instance, and I, I, it is right. Like I've had just one year of working professionally in India. So it's just been that one year. I, I most of my career has been here in New Zealand. Yeah. And, and there's been a bit of a gap as well. So I worked for a year between 2008 and 2009 in India, then went on to do my PhD, moved here while I was doing my PhD and I had my first, I guess, part time job when I'd finished in 2016.

So I had a bit of a gap where I was only doing like studies and focusing on that. So I guess in some ways my mature career, if you want to call it that, has pretty much been here. And I guess and someone has to come and say I'm wrong because I want someone to come and say I'm wrong because I'm not familiar very much with or I have very little familiarity with the work culture in India. And it feels a little like I I still come with that notion of maybe there is that very you defer to your boss a lot extremely, you know, respectful of.

Experience is more. Yeah, yeah. Which is not the case here and in and I think that's been one of the hardest transitions. So and particularly in the past three years, because before this I was doing a lot of contract based research roles where you're sort of doing your own thing. You're part of a project. You will sort of meet up with the rest of your research assistants or your lead investigators and things like that. But it's a very, very different set up to the job I do now, which is the more business side of university.

It is a lot more if if some, if you want to call it that, the corporate side of uni, it's not your, we're not academic staff. We're actually what in New Zealand is referred to as professional staff. It's a bit of a funny term, I guess if you look at it internationally. But you're we're non academic staff. We're research support staff in a lot of ways. So my team sits in the research and innovation office. That is the deputy vice chancellor researchers portfolio. So it's we're very administrative lean in that sense.

So I think that has been a mindset shift, one that's one sort of transition going from being in this very academic mindset to suddenly people kind of competing with things. And all of your, if you're from the social sciences, there's also very specific ways in which social scientists come to the academic space as well. Like you're very, you're, you have a heightened kind of way in which you look gender, you look at all of the social interactions in a very specific way. I had to really quickly, I realised that that lens I can't hold anymore in this space.

You can't. And especially when you work in a space like ethics, your left, right and centre and politics cannot come into play. Ethics is ethics. It's sometimes active. Right. Yeah, very facts based. And it's not the same as law, but very similar to law in the sense of there's a there's a compliance component. It doesn't matter what your beliefs on a particular cause or something like that is. It doesn't matter where on the political spectrum you fall. Ethics is ethics. It's doing the right thing.

Right. So your so that's one kind of I suppose transition and the other sort of transition is I guess it's those two really if I think back to it, it's like a cultural thing and it's a mindset thing. So this is, I guess that's, that's the sum of it. And it's also upscaling in that sense. So that's another kind of shift, I suppose.

You know, you do your hours, they're not really flexible. You, you have business hours that you kind of stick to things like that. So, yeah, I, I suppose that's, that's kind of like some of the transitions I've been through professionally, personally, gosh, it feels like a lot staff personally. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard to, I mean, I know people say that you have to kind of like have a boundary between the two, but it's kind of hard to have a clear cut boundary because your mindset shift or the way you work at, at work, you, you pretty much bring your whole self into the work.

So it's really how you change your mind shift mindset, whether it's all those transitions that you're talking about, I'm sure that has affected your personal growth as well, right? Personal growth, personal upskilling, as you said. Because. Yeah, to your point, I it took me a lot of time to get out of the the obedience mindset that I call when you work, when you go to, when you go to school and when you work in India. It's all like whatever the professor says or whatever your boss says, you just kind of like, do it without questioning.

Yeah. And that that is kind of like rewarded. But once you come, once I came here to the US for my masters, it's like you are required to have an opinion of your own. You are required to put your own opinions out. It's not just doing what's being told to you. Right. So it's like, and in fact, I for years I thought I was actually doing that well, but after a few years in the corporate world is when I realized that no, I am actually not doing it. I need to completely, you know, it's, it's what we call as unlearn what you've learned and relearn a complete new thing.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely related to that. And I think I feel that every day even now, right. So this is my first kind of, I suppose, leadership position, so within my team and I sort of stepped up from being an advisor into my manager role at the moment and I'm learning that a lot, right? So I suppose when when you ask someone who's had to fight a little bit and really navigate challenges to kind of say, no, I will go do this PhD, you know, I will go do it in a different subject. No, I will get mad, you know, mad later in life.

You actually do come from that idea that I haven't actually been obedient. I have rebelled a little bit and I have stood up for what I want. And then you come here and it's exactly like how you said you, you realise that, you know, that was probably scratching the surface. There's so much more. Exactly. I mean, even those little things, right, like looking back, you might think they are little, but at that point of time, at that point of your life, those were the big things and those were the things that you had to fight your way through, right.

Like because for example, like I I wanted to come to the US for my masters and the in the family. It was like, how can you send your daughter to another country without getting her married? Right. That was the big thing when I wanted to come and it took me 6 months to fight to get my parents to agree that it was OK to send me for my masters. So yeah, when we look back and we talk about it, it's like, yeah, as you said, it's probably scratching the surface. But at that point of time and that point of life that you are in, that's like it took immense amount of strength.

Yeah, yeah. Which? Is not easy. Yeah. And, and it's not easy. And, and I think you, I think sometimes we sort of, as we're speaking, I, I'm sort of reflecting on it and I think we don't realize how much we're going against the grain of the cultural norm in some ways because women in our culture don't do that. They don't and and we and as you said, we are named or we are called stubborn for that matter, right because we don't go with the grain. We are like as a as a famous saying, is that right? Like nice women don't make history.

Yeah. I, I wouldn't say what we're making is history per SE, but somebody has to be go against the grain, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's, I think, I think it's sort of has its own little butterfly sort of effects internally, right. So my sister is also someone who didn't go down that engineering medicine route. She has her masters in visual communication and design. And that's the route she's in. She's now, you know, within that space of UIUX design and, and things like that.

And she was probably in that space before UIUX was a thing. Like you were talking like mid 2000s when it was still a very new field and you weren't getting. Yeah, yeah. So it was. So she's, I guess in that sense, my parents have supported that. But also it's it's all of those. I think they sort of sit back and think a little bit about how much we went through as a family with the pressures of me kind of getting married by a certain age and things like that. I think they they took that back a little and, you know, they did it differently with my sister, which is an awesome thing.

So, you know, she's, she's had a slightly different journey of where she ended up with her husband and her partner and how she met him and things like that. And you can see that, you know, so it, I guess the stubbornness has helped. And while you're not making history on a world stage, it's it's. History. Families, right? Yeah, you're you're you're having an impact in, you know, within, within your core space and on your core people, which, yeah, I guess for our lifetimes it's a a big deal. So I. Take it.

Yeah, we should, right. That's we should take it. And yeah, I totally can relate to that for sure. Yeah. So since you work in the space of ethical, what is it called ethical studies or what's what's your department? Oh, it's just research ethics. Research ethics, yeah. What are some of the ethical dilemmas or challenges you see researchers are facing today, especially when it comes to studies that involve people and culture?

Oh, look, I'm going to say the buzzword because it's on everyone's mind, but AI is the thing that's bothering even no, not bothering. I guess we sort of navigating our way through through that and it obviously has impacts in in terms of culture and society and, and the way we are socially and doing research on these things. Because I think we're now by now we're all familiar with that idea of coded coders kind of building their biases into algorithms and that sort of thing. And, and obviously that has impacts on it.

You also have group harms that come with what you do with big data, which is probably not the it's obviously not the same as AI, but it sits alongside AI given given the given how data hungry AI is every yeah and. I like the way you said that. Data hungry AI for sure. Yeah, no, I like that. I like it a lot. And within the New Zealand context, we have New Zealand's own indigenous tribe, like you have Native American tribes across the US, you have the Maori people who are the indigenous people of New Zealand and Maori data sovereignty.

And you know, just I guess bringing that equity and social justice lens is a really important thing within ethics. So any sort of research with and on Mari or engaging Mari in any way is always something that is considered here and it will always take on.

And I guess that intersection of AI and Mari data sovereignty is one of the one of the main sort of things that people are trying to find or build pathways forward in terms of the research that they do and in making sure that that engagement exists within the research that they do. Where New Zealand is a bicultural nation in the sense if you have, we call them Pakiha. So they're New Zealand, white New Zealand or Europe, New Zealand, Europeans, essentially settler families who sort of been near generations and they call it Pakiha.

And then you have the Maori sort of tribes and sub tribes, probably tribes, not the the right word. So it it is a bicultural sort of nation that has a treaty attached to it. You have formal Crown and Mari relations and things like that. So that is always like one of the fundamental things you would consider within research ethics in New Zealand. And we operate under, you know, a dual set of guidelines. So you have the, we have a set of guidelines that's been created by a national ethics advisory group that sits or advises the Ministry of Health.

And a lot of research ethics comes from very unfortunate research malpractice in the medical space, right? We're talking about experiments during the Nazi regime. We're talking about the very famous Tuskegee trials in the US around syphilis. And New Zealand has its own sort of what's called the unfortunate experiment here where there were women with cervical cancer who experimented on without consent. So it's all of these kind of things that is the reason why such ethics exist. And given that sort of medical research history attached to it, our main guidelines, including international ones like your Declaration of Helsinki, declaration of type, they all tie in from that side of things.

And then you have something called the the Aratika, which is your Marie research ethics guidelines. So when you do and ethics application, you consider all of that together over here. So that's kind of what that's one of the things people are sort of contending with here, keeping in mind that when you compare to a country like India and New Zealand is is a fairly young country in terms of history versus say the Indian subcontinent. So when when I say this still contending with things like that, I sometimes look at people from India kind of going, there's a different sort of reaction.

But I guess it's keeping in mind that, you know, the, the spans of history we're talking about are different and these situations. So, and I think for, I think the other sort of things that we might be contending with is

people building a lot of medical devices. You know, for instance, I think there's a lot of places where things like phone apps attached to a device or mental health app are now considered medical devices in, in, in, in a bunch of different legal context jurisdictions, things like that. So right, that's another thing. And I think those are like the latest challenges. It's always something happening when you do cutting edge stuff with research. You know what happens when you want to commercialize research findings?

That's an ever sort of evolving space. It always adds a layer of complexity to things, so. And things and things don't actually come up till like more number of people start using it. And like things like for example, right, like when AI initially came in a few years ago, it was like, oh, this is such a cool thing. This is such a it's so like technologically it's cutting edge. But until the huge volume of people started using it in various different ways, the issues with ethics or issues with privacy or legal issues did not even come up.

It's only after that happens that you know guidelines start coming into place, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think actually that kind of reminds me a little bit of, I think, I suppose the things that we contend in terms of areas of disciplines bleeding into each other, right. So one, a lot of people talk about the ethics of AI, but there's, there's I guess different, different types of ethics in in that sense as well, right? You have an ethical code of conduct, which is your professional profession related.

So as a doctor, what is the ethical code of conduct you have? Or as a, you know, a teacher and things like that, you have professional codes of conduct, which is 1 sort of ethics. And then everyone now talks about the ethics of AI, which encompasses a range of things. And then you have research ethics, which is a very specific little pocket of things that you would look at. So right.

So one of the things I guess we sort of often, and I suppose ethics in particularly research ethics, but ethics in a lot of ways is that Canadian, the coal mine. So we're sort of spotting a lot of stuff before anyone else has spotted it, which is where we we then have to kind of go things to do with the privacy law in any place isn't us because we don't, we cannot, we don't comment on the law or we don't make legal comments. We cannot, because we're not lawyers. We're ethicists. We cannot speak to how data security will matter to anything because we're not cyber security.

Ethics is not the same as data security. It's a different. Thing, it's completely different, yeah. Completely different. We might be absolutely fine with a researcher, you know, using a bit of data he's collected from a group of people and publishing it and using it and, and say in say ABC different ways. As long as they've assured the people they're taking it from who'll be your research participants and this is what they're doing. They've been transparent and they've got consent to do it in that way.

Whereas if I talk to, you know, someone who comes from a cyber security perspective, they might have a problem. But as an ecosystem, we will not have a problem because the people have agreed to it. The people whose data they, it is, have agreed to the use of it in that way. So I, I suppose in, in that sense, it's, it's a very, it always puts you in those interesting grey areas and interesting sort of conundrums. And OK, when you sit as part of a team that does ethics for the entire university, it's, it's, it's interesting when you have to sort of negotiate these spaces with your colleagues who do the other side of things.

And there's institution or organization wide policy and things like that that you have to sort of keep in mind, so. OK. I suppose those things make it very challenging and very interesting to be that Canary in the coal mine. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. That, that that's pretty interesting, for sure. Yeah. So, being an Indian woman in New Zealand with a PhD from an Indian institute, how do you navigate the intersections of, you know, gender, race and cultural identity? At. Your workplace or even your in a social life in New Zealand.

That's been interesting and I think it's it's good that I suppose I flagged that New Zealand is at it's heart a bicultural nation. And when I say bicultural, it's not. It's different from

monocultural, if that's the word, and different from multicultural. Like the US for. Like the US or India, right. And I suppose it's interesting when you are of an ethnicity that isn't one of the two main cultures that make up the bicultural nation.

That's one thing. I think there are spaces in which you, I think there's, there's, there's flows of or waves of you being moving into invisibility, coming back into visibility because of your race in, in different contexts. So in some places you won't even strike people in the room as needing engagement of some sort. And I'm speaking at a very high level, broad level, because you're not one of those two races or ethnicities. You're invisible in that sense because because you're simply just not part of the bicultural and you're not part of the bi of the bicultural, let's put it that way.

In other ways, like most, I guess people of colour, you will see you you. I have had experiences of racism if you like. So I have had, you know, your typical sort of, I guess racial slurs, if you like, against Indians, you know, comments on Curry. I suppose, you know, someone like young kids driving by and calling you blackie. It's it's all of those things. You've you've had some of those experiences. I think the, I think the fortunate thing and I think a blessing here is despite all of it, you know, despite all of this, I think New Zealand is actually up there when it comes to racial equity compared to a lot of places in the world, a lot of places in the world.

I have. And, and, and I, when I say this, I say this in terms of where race intersects with colonization because race in a lot of ways is a product of colonization in some ways. So it's been sedimented in that way. It's, I don't know any other nation that does repatriations. Oh, right. Oh, usually it does that it, it, it does. So you have, and that comes within the Treaty of Whitani. There's a tribunal that sits there is there is a reason why that Treaty of Whitani exists. It's because you need to have that partnership with the word is EV EV as in like the sub tribes within Mali.

So and, and Mali are not homogeneous. They're when they, when they talk about the EV, they come from different regions of New Zealand and each EV is different in its own way. And there's strong ties that they have to that identity, right? So it's you need to have that consideration and everything, which I have not seen anywhere else in the world. That's right. I think while I've experienced some of that sort of racism, I've also had people be equally apologetic on behalf of someone else because they said something not great.

Like, I don't know how many people will look this. There'll be some people who'll call it white guilt or whatever. But keeping that aside, it takes a lot for someone to come up and say, hey, I'm really sorry my fellow countrymen did that to you. Like, it's yeah, I've had that happen. I've had that happen as well. Like there, there was no need for that person to come and say anything, you know, other than other than probably leave it at, hey, are you all right? Do you need any help to kind of go one step further and say I'm really sorry that person behave like this towards you?

Is it might happen about places, but I'll take it as 0 something that I've experienced here. So that's that's nice. That says something and it says quite a lot, I think. And in terms of gender, I think that's, I feel like the, we probably need a whole other episode to unpack it, but I'll probably share something with you that'll hopefully give anyone who's listening a sense of a sense of the, I guess the difference that I'm talking about. So I've got from Bangalore to Mumbai, right, where Bangalore is relatively safe.

And I was in India at the time of the Nirbhaya case being a big thing, like it happened when I was there. And that's, that's, that's something that's a case. And that's a, that's, that's an incident of sexual assault that impacted a lot of women and my age when we were when we were in the country, right? So we've gone from understanding that Delhi is this completely unsafe place for women. To me living in Bangalore, which is relatively a bit. Safer. Safer to Mumbai, which was extremely liberating in the sense of I have not been scared to take a taxi by myself at 2:00 AM.

And this is pre Uber days in India, right? Right. And pre having like your safety features and stuff on Uber to coming here in New Zealand where it has its pockets of danger. It's not no place is danger free, right, But where in in broad daylight, I would hesitate to go to some parks and just sit down as a lone woman on a bench. I wouldn't hear I think there's there's like I've always been in public transport except for maybe Mumbai for the most part I've always you always make your body small. You shrink down and you're on your guard all the time, right?

You're. We're. Wearing, yeah, we're wearing exactly. We're wearing backpacks the wrong way around to protect ourselves like and and that's knowing that it's no guarantee that there will be some, some guy who will try his hand at something anyway to really not having a fear of it at all here, right? Or or the if you want me to not put it in absolute terms. It's like I have to now work to turn up the danger and alertness in my head, if that helps.

That is, that is a lot of freedom and, you know, freeing of that mental energy that we usually tend to. Yeah. Use when we go to India, like I see that a lot, especially because Purvi, she's born here, right? So like they are born with that sense of freedom that they can actually do everything and anything. And every time I take her to India and I tell her, you have to be safe. You have to do all of this. And that doesn't get or she, she cannot wrap that around her head because she hasn't seen that.

She hasn't experienced it, which I love for her. But it also kind of like gives me that additional worry because when I go to India, I can't let her go by herself, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And it, it's never the big things in India, right? It's always a, it's always a culmination of really small bad things. It's it's, it's, it's, it's two different guys at two different places making a lewd comment that has essentially ruined your week and and put that fear in you, right. So it's we we sort that that I think has been extremely sort of liberating. It's not to say again that New Zealand is completely like, you know, whatever like this, this is a country that I think was one of the first to give it's women the right to vote.

It's one of the first in the world to do that. There's and it's it's had some earliest sort of suffragettes. There's there was a Mari woman and there's I think one of the settlers sort of party of women who advocated for that right. And they got that right sort of given to women. So this is a country that comes with those histories in that sense. It's not to say that I haven't met the odd man who comes from a specific cross section of demography is if you will or identity is if you will, who will, who, who you know is a product of his times.

Like they will. They will come and say, oh, they will make those jokes about, oh, are you going to go take your husband's credit card and spend all this money sort of thing. Hey, OK, I earn my own money, man. I can go shopping on my own. Don't need the husband's money. He's welcome to take my money if you like. Yeah. You know. Oh, it's not to say that this place is, you know, like, like a load of places in the world. I guess there is. You will still see somewhat a different division of labour in the house or things like that, right.

OK. And and I will say in terms of gender, because we are talking broadly of gender, this is one of the countries in the world that I know of that is that it's very LGBTQI plus safe. It's legal to marry here. A lot of people, I think, come here to marry, and that's very, very forward in that sense. Very forward in. That, yeah, that's that's good to know that's. Great for you. I'm I'm happy for you in that sense. That doesn't mean you don't have any guy coming and mansplaining to you ever. Oh no, I don't think those.

Oh look, I think the world is a long way to go before men stop mansplaining. I don't think any places amend you'll you'll you'll have your mix of you'll have your mix of people who you'll have your mix of men who some people are, you know, better at doing it less than others or right or, you know, respecting you and not being patronizing to you compared to other men. There's always a mix of those. So I think we have a long way to go before that happens. Fair enough. Fair enough. You know, it's you'll still have people.

You'll still have people who want to take credit for your ideas and that somehow think it thinks, you know, it's easier because you're a woman and they're a man. So. Right. Yeah. Yeah. OK. No, that's, that's fair enough. But looks like in majority of things New Zealand is a much more progressive place and you are you have more. It's not that much of an issue when it comes to other gender or race things like that is what I'm understanding. OK, Yeah, Yeah, yeah. I think I, I will say I think it's, I think one just has to look to how New Zealand sort of New Zealand's response to the terror attacks on our mosques in Christchurch on the 15th of March 2000.

I can't remember the year now. It seems been about 5-6 years now. But you know, it's, you can you can dissect this 100 different ways, but it is a country that chose to have, it's set a narrative that's different from what you would see when it comes to terrorism. And I suppose calling this for what it is. It it was a terrorist and it was a gunman who who terrorized people. And it that's what it was. And I think that reaction is quite, it says a lot, I think for what this country stands for and how it looked at, looked at that and managed it's communities and stood behind the community that was impacted.

So, yeah, yeah. Nice. So you know, this podcast celebrates strength in all its forms and strength, in my opinion is a is a huge range, right? So what does strength mean? To you. Oh, I'm gonna need to pause and think a little bit on that. Sure, I think for the oh look, strength to me is I would I would love to do like a like a high weights deadlift someday the. Physical strength. Definitely the physical strength, if not strength, the endurance, which I think is different, the strength or well or another dimensional strength, if you want to put it that way.

The mental counterpart of that, I suppose is being resilient. Endurance, resilience and definitely those things. I think and I think resilience has an interesting, what is the word for the lack of words? I'll say texture and and form to it because resilience in my head, you're resilient when you've hit rock bottom and you've picked yourself up and then you've moved on and you've been able to do that a number of times. So what that dimension of strength tells me is you don't have to be steel. You can, you have strength when you're pliable, if, if that makes sense.

So it's, it's a different kind of it's a different way to be strong. And I think strength also, I'm going to say this for someone like me, who's who's, who's this, who's this mix of an extrovert, introvert needs my little space pocket won't still trying to unlearn the obedience mindset, that sort of thing. I think I like the quietness and strength. So a quiet strength is also a strength.

I think it's always, I think we're too bombarded by and we live in this, this context where strength is loud, it's big, it's it's firm standing. And I think I'm, I'm, I guess I'm also kind of Speaking of that strength of water that's very will take the shape of its container, but will also erode. And I think it's, it's, it's that power, right? It's the power of water is actually here's my aquarium reference again. And I, I, I'm a water person. I'm a beach baby. So this is probably perfect. It is, it is understanding that water will take the shape of its container, but it will erode stuff and it will also give you tides, right.

And it can be powerful in that sense as well. Yeah. It's not like say fire, which is heart burning will have an impact a specific way. So I think that's, I would sort of for myself, I think that's the type of strength that I've had to kind of or I, I have sort of inculcated or draw on in a lot of ways. Yeah, OK. So have there been moments in your journey, whether it's academic, personal or cultural or professional, when you had to summon that kind of strength? All the time, all the time.

A lot of the everyday at work, to be honest, because we're a team that has to support a community of researchers but also make it very clear they need to comply with some things

and that is. Sort. Of and yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is, there is that I've learnt this recently and I've probably used that way to sort of share this. You have to make empathy and assertiveness exist side by side, which which is not an easy balance because when you're dealing with very difficult tense conversations where one of the two of you in that dialogue is triggered in some way, is frustrated, angry, just sometimes pure panicked. In some ways you it's easy to go off on either end. Yeah. You know, it's, it's really easy to sort of be extremely empathetic and then just given or be extremely sympathetic and given.

So I think that empathy, sympathy, plus a certainness. Can coexist. And that is something I think we need to bring to our work every day for the types of conversations we need to have,

which, you know, I'm not perfect at it still, but that's how I think I draw on that strength every day as well. OK, Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

I don't know if there's anything culturally in that sense, but I suppose culturally it has been before, like everything in my past experience, I guess has let me just sort of draw on that a bit and go from there. But yeah, OK. So what Or who gives you the source of your? Like what? Or it could be a person or it could be something that you do or anything like what what would you define is your source of strength or where you tap in for that strength? Because sometimes it can be really overwhelming and you kind of like feel that, you know, the strength is like really at a very low this thing, but you need to tap into something to bring that forth.

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think family and friends, to be quite honest, really family and friends, my spirituality in some ways I'm, I'm not I I don't describe myself as overly religious or spiritual or anything like that, but I do have my beliefs. I do believe in that big power beyond everything and, and I think, and I have my own ways of, you know, praying and things like that, which I think when you have a, when you have something terrifying or scary or stressful in front of you, you are going to say the prayer.

And I get, I get my strength from that as well. OK. And and I think it's, it's, it's, it's very strongly rooted, I'm going to say in, in my family, like, and my friends like I've, I've had days when I've completely lost faith in myself and confidence in myself, you know, on a professional trend or I've been extremely stressed. And all it's taken for me to kind of do is call my childhood best friend or call my mum or call my sister and just have a good cry and then you'll feel better, you know? And Akash, I think has seen more than his fair share of my, my towns with these things particularly work because because of some of the challenges we face as a team within my work context, I won't go into too much detail, but let's say we, we, we face the challenges of our times and our economy and a lot of things like that.

Yeah, it's very, very strongly like from, from the close people in, in my circle, my family and my my friends. I'm going to say yeah, yeah. OK. Yeah. What advice would you give to women, especially those who are navigating their careers in academia or, you know, or moving across countries and cultures? Like do you have a specific advice for them? Perseverance in general, sometimes, even if that perseverance means you're holding by this, holding on to things by the skin of your teeth and, and not necessarily you have like a good grip with your, you know, sometimes it is that, but also specifically with academia, I'm going to say find your tribe within.

I will, I will still not forget that someone told me if you don't do anything else, come have a cup of Chai. And I think the other thing with academia, and particularly if you're doing like the long haul with a PhD, it's to find something to do every day that's a little bit physical or tactile. Our pH DS are an intellectual exercise. They will keep you in your head a lot. And I used to just do 3D puzzles. I used to literally do 3D puzzles in origami and things like that. And that get you out of your head a little bit.

And that's, that's, that is your, if you want to use a gym metaphor, that's your recovery time for your brain. You are, you are the second person who said that you do puzzles or Sudoku or, you know, things like that origami. Because I, I did another interview with Doctor Aprajita. She's also a PhD in social cultural studies. And she was the one who kind of like said, yeah, to get out of my head. I used to do. She used to. She said She played games and, you know, puzzles and things. So yeah, that's yeah, I love that.

Yeah, in my in my life today when I'm not doing a PhD. It took me a while to find this and I stumbled on clock dancing. Clogging is what does it for me. Nice. I, I go on a Thursday after I've had a long, terribly tough week, maybe or just an exhaust, productive but exhausting week. Maybe it comes on just before the end of the week. It's, it's on an it's on a Thursday evening. And the way that dance is organized does not give you space to think of anything else but the dance and the step you need to do next.

So it's, I think it's for anyone who's sort of doing intellect, thinking heavy stuff, especially for people like me who overthinkers, fellow overthinkers, over analyzing stuff. I think that helps keep you centred. Anything. If if lifting weights is your thing, do it. I love lifting weights. For me, it's almost like it has the same breathing flow as yoga because you need to do the breathing and breathing out. So if you know any of those things help. For me, it's dancing because that's always been I I wanted to be a professional dancer in life at some point, pretty much made plans to run away, to go be one.

But that's, I think, very important if you're doing. We need to have a dance party, man. Come on sometime. I love dancing, as you know, like it's yes, the music. If the music is blasting, I cannot sit still. Yeah, stay here. Purvi is like, I'm, I'd always tell Purvi like, OK, let's go for an hour. And she's like, come on Ma, you're not going to come out in an hour. You're not going to stop dancing till the music is turned off. She knows it. We definitely need to get together for a dance party. Yeah.

Oh yeah. So OK, if you could go back and tell your younger self one thing before she began her academic journey, what would that be? Gosh, I think it's just to kind of say you're nothing to be scared of and you're not an impostor. We all have our impostor syndromes, huh? We do me to this day, to this day, sometimes even when I'm, when I'm managing A-Team, even now I have it right. So I guess another lesson in leadership that leaders don't have to have it all figured out. But yeah, I guess to kind of say believe in yourself.

And you know, it took a long while to flip the stubbornness to determination, but I guess I would allow myself to call it determination earlier in life. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Right. Let's switch the type a little and we're going to go into a little bit of rapid fire questions. OK. What's your favorite? Book Gosh, can I pick 2? Sure, sure. OK, The Prophet by Khalil Jibran. I don't really, I haven't read it as often yet, but I think if I've ever returned to a book, it's been that. And I think of late there's a trilogy by this amazing fantasy fiction writer called NK Jemison, New Yorker.

I think it's called the Broken Earth Trilogy. Just fantastic work. Like it just left a lot. Gosh, now you make me think of a third one. I think a. Book I I know though, like people who love to read books like you and me, it's like there it's really difficult to pick one favorite. So yeah, that's fine. Go for. It thank you for thank you for extending the rapid fire. I think in the recent past, a book that has been powerfully transformative for my own sort of journey as a woman has been The Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay.

Oh yes, I do love that book. Yeah, yeah. It just, it just taught me to be very kind to myself and very forgiving of myself. So absolutely love that book. Yeah. What's your favorite song?

You can't be asking like, what's the first thing?

That comes to your mind, just say that. OK, I will give you something that's somewhat recent. It's not extremely new or anything, but one song that I really loved is this song that has the lyrics by Baron Grover from the movie Kala. It's called Robaiya, OK? Just just absolutely love the lyrics of that song and love, love the love everything about it. So. OK, Yeah. OK, favorite quotation. Gosh, I don't think I have a favorite quotation. OK, I'm no, not, Not really. OK, that's fine. Favorite movie?

This is the toughest rapid fire ever, and the questions are deceptively simple. Look, I think books impact on me and imprint on me more than movies. But if I really had to pick like a movie that kind of was very,

I'm going to say the Matrix trilogy. OK. Yeah. OK, what's your greatest fear? That I'm gonna lose all the love in the world. OK, yeah. What's the most courageous thing you've ever done till date?

I'm gonna say there's, there's been a few of those, OK, including kicking Matt's ass. But I think I think I'm, I don't know if it's courageous as much as it is a leap of faith, but it's pretty much kind of and ignore for a second that you're related to this person, but it's essentially following a glacier across the world after just I guess, you know. Meeting for three days? Yeah. No, that is a courageous thing for sure. And, and also like you, you left your PhD in the sense left in the sense you left when you were studying to, yeah, go to another country.

Yeah. Which is it? It's essentially leaving your career, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that is the most courageous thing for sure. Yeah, and I think courageous also in the sense or leap of faith rather in the sense that the only thing I could determine at the end of, you know, this whole, I had quite a long journey into the whole arranged marriage like thing like this. It was quite a difficult, challenging thing. But by the time it came to meeting Akash, I think the only thing I knew was I trust him enough to want to take the leap of faith.

But after that, we'll see what happens. And I think it's that being in that sense of free fall, I think, yeah. Yeah, OK. What's your philosophy of life or the one thing that you keep going back to that makes you keep doing whatever that you're doing right?

I guess I come come with life in in the sense of a lot of sense sense related, sensory related experience related things. I'm like, try everything at least once, even though I'm more successful or less successful at it in in, you know, it's a varying range of being successful at keeping to it

because God knows I have my comfort zones and I hate getting out of them. I think it's that and. Everybody. So, and I think it's also, it's funny, I think I said this to a friend when I was probably in 1920 and he is, he's a couple of years older than I am. And I think he was kind of, it sounds silly now when we're in our 40s, but he was, he's obviously turning 23 or whatever. And he's like, oh, I'm turning 23. I'm going, I'm like, don't think of it that way. Think of it as you ever get to be an age only once in your life.

You'll never get to be 43 ever again in your life. Only that one year you get to be it. So I guess it's it gives you a sense of urgency to live your life, not in a bad way, but you know, you. I guess it it the times that I can remember this, it's basically I try and not let my life go by idle or I just try and get I guess I try and juice it as much as I can. Yeah, I. Can totally. I can totally appreciate and relate to that. Yeah. It's the good, the bad, the ugly. It's the snotty tears. It's everything.

But you get to be that age only once. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I, I believe in living life to my fullest. Whether other people judge it, like it, not like it, I don't really care because I'm living my life. So I can totally get on board with that. Yeah, this was amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to, you know, patiently answer my questions. And it was a lot of fun getting to know you better. And I hope my the audience audience will also get to know you better and enjoy the conversation as much as I have.

I hope so too. Yes, I hope so too. And I hope it's been awesome. I think it's extra special that it's with family and, and and you're right, like I think we we haven't had a chance to really sit down and have like a de conversation. And this has been really good. And gosh, I hope I didn't bore people going off on tangents. I'm sorry if I did. So sometimes interesting stories come from those tangents, you know? So it's, it's all good. It's all. So what I love most about this conversations like this one with Maddie is how they remind us that strength doesn't always look like resistance.

Sometimes it's reflection, curiosity, and the quiet courage to keep learning, unlearning, and evolving. Maddie's story from her roots in India to her life and work in New Zealand, is a testament to how intellect and empathy can coexist, and how purpose can find new forms across cultures, disciplines, and continents. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to follow Portraits of Strength wherever you listen to podcasts and share this episode with someone who could use a reminder that strength can be both fierce and thoughtful.

Until next time, this is Harry signing off, reminding you to keep finding your own Portraits of Strength in the world and within yourself.

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