From Mumbai slum to podcast star: Sangeeta Pillai’s story of resistance and persistence

Poplar activist Sangeeta Pillai is on a mission to break taboos for South Asian women using a microphone as her weapon of choice.

If you attended one of her events or listened to her podcast, it would be almost impossible to imagine a time when Sangeeta was not the colourful, outspoken woman sitting across from me today at the Poplar Union café. 

An activist and host of the award-winning Masala Monologues Podcast, Sangeeta Pillai’s mission in life is to empower South Asian women everywhere, from Tower Hamlets to New York via India. 

Wearing large sunglasses and electric-blue trousers, she dresses with the confidence of someone who is not afraid to be noticed, and speaks with the conviction of a woman who demands to be heard.

Her story did not start in the peaceful canal-side flat in Poplar where she lives now, but in a Mumbai slum in the early 1980s. Her childhood unfolded against the backdrop of a violently patriarchal society, setting the stage for a personal revolution that saw her transform from a quiet girl who could not speak in front of her male relatives to a feminist advocate who uses a microphone as her weapon of choice.

‘My father was an alcoholic. He was violent. My mother almost died a few times. I felt like I could die every night. It was horrific, but my mother had no choice. She even tried to kill herself and kill us at some point, because there was no way out.’ 

Rebelling became a moral imperative for Sangeeta, who was quick to embrace her Bad Beti persona, a South Asian expression meaning the ‘bad daughter’ that has now become a huge part of her brand as an activist. 

‘A lot of women, not just Asian women, are expected to be the good daughter, the good wife or the good mother, and we take those roles on and that becomes our whole life and we never stop to ask ourselves, what is it that we want?’

So she went to school, got an education, and then did the unthinkable: she cut her hair short, rejected an arranged marriage, and set out to find herself a job. She realised early on in life that financial independence was her only ticket to freedom.

She got a job in advertising and, a few years later, moved to Bangalore and into her own flat. That’s when Sangeeta had the first taste of freedom: ‘You know what I did when I was free? I drank Baileys and wore shorts because I was never allowed to wear them at home. This was my idea of liberation.’

One night in a hotel bar in Goa, an Englishman visiting India struck up a conversation with her. A few months later, he asked her to marry him. She chose to say yes, recalling how liberating it felt to have the space to make that decision for herself.

That’s when Sangeeta moved to England. The marriage, however happy, came to a natural end after nine years. Now single and moved by a lifelong dream to live near a river or canal, she picked Poplar as her new home. She smiles with her eyes as she tells me this, pointing to the Limehouse Cut as a symbol of all she’s achieved. 

After the divorce, she continued to enjoy a normal life until her childhood trauma finally caught up to her, and everything changed: ‘I had what can best be described almost like a breakdown, a huge mental health crisis.’

The healing journey was intense – and it involved a lot of therapy, but it marked the beginning of a new life. When she first arrived in Tower Hamlets, she was oblivious to the area’s status as a destination for many South Asian immigrants – but eventually, it was the local community that infused her with a new sense of purpose.

She got a group of South Asian women together at Poplar Union, a local arts and community space, and began running a series of workshops called the Masala Monologues. Many of the women who attended had never had a safe space to discuss the common features of womanhood that are still taboo in the South Asian community. 

The Masala Monologues were eventually developed into a series of successful theatre shows at Rich Mix Shoreditch. She felt a surge of optimism: ‘The feedback was phenomenal. All these women kept hugging me and thanking me for telling their story.’

By this point, Sangeeta had found her voice. All she needed was a megaphone. 

She entered a contest for the Spotify ‘Sound Up’ competition, and made the short list of ten, beating over 700 candidates. ‘I had five minutes to pitch my idea. But as soon as I finished the pitch, I knew that I’d won it.’

‘The first season was just me. I launched it, I did all these interviews with all these amazing South Asian women talking about mental health, periods, sex, menopause, porn, being LGBTQ, sexual abuse and so on.’

An energetic and warm speaker, she quickly discovered that the medium suited her, and the podcast was a success, winning many industry awards. The emails and Instagram DMs started pouring in – messages of hope, fear, of lives on the cusp of change. 

She smiles as she tells me this, then looks around: “It all started here in this coffee shop. I come here almost every day, I’ll get a coffee. I’ll chat to people. I have a local walking group, we meet every Friday morning. I feel very connected to this area. 

‘Even places like Canary Wharf, there’s a whole history of migration here, of shipping tea from China and spices from India and it all came here. So I feel like my immigrant self is very connected to the immigrant history of this part of London.’

She is careful to remind me that, even locally, there is still a lot of work to be done to advance the prospects of South Asian women.

‘In many ways, it’s harder if you’ve grown up here in the UK, because your ideas of culture are what your parents have taught you. To be South Asian here is to be a certain way, to follow certain rules.’

She travels back home to India often to see her siblings. Both her parents have now passed away – and it’s taken her a long time to come to terms with the death of her mother, who was murdered more than twenty years ago. It’s a story she hasn’t told before, and one she plans to open up about in her upcoming book, ‘Bad Daughter’, which she describes as a ‘feminist memoir for recovering good girls’.

Despite all that, the most pervasive feature of her personality is an earnest joyfulness that cannot be ignored. As we walk through Chrisp Market to look at spices and herbs, she jokes with the vendors as she tests mangoes for ripeness or feels the fabrics used to make saris.

‘When I started working in the corporate world in London, I gave up all my colorful things. And it’s only recently that I’ve started to wear bright colors or even wear saris again. My sense of fashion is eclectic and dramatic and bold. And that’s who I want to be.’

Hearing Sangeeta talk, it’s easy to forget that the woman she is today is also the product of life-changing trauma, of struggle, of rage. She wants her story to continue to inspire women who are yet to find their voice, hoping that their collective noise will drown out the remnants of a patriarchal worldview that, unlike her colourful fashion, is slowly but surely going out of style. 

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