Our audio storytelling project, Zubaani is a conversation into South-Asian parenting tips and storytelling for our future. While diaspora parenting presents distinct (and sometimes unsurmountable) challenges, this is equally relevant to parents within South Asia. Often as parents we have to provide modern twists on ancient tales in an attempt for adapting stories for today’s generations. This mini-series and season one of Zubaani talks about and with South-Asian parents to create a space for this conversation.

In this episode of Zubaani, we spoke to Urdu educator and influencer, Tamania Naqi. The episode is in Hindustani and English. We talked about contextualizing and modernizing language and adapting stories for children in a new generation. Naqi talked about raising multilingual children that helps wire their brains to be more creative. She also shared the colonial impact on South Asians that has historically created a need to be English-speaking over giving importance to regional and local languages. We talked about tips and ideas for parents who are willing to make the effort and raise kids who can celebrate their culture and languages.

The first season of Zubaani is produced by ⁠Peerbagh with Upasna Kakroo as the host⁠. “Zubaani” in Hindustani translates to through the language or by means of language. Peerbagh’s late founder, Vatsala Kakroo chose the name of the Podcast in summer 2023 when the work began. Upasna Kakroo made the episode artwork. Krista Rodrigues⁠ supported the episode research especially on adapting stories for diaspora kids. The background soundtrack features Slim Finger Pickings by artist Heston Mimms (2021), sourced from Imuno. 

This program is supported by the Elevate grant from the City of Austin’s Economic Development Department and Texas Humanities. 

Details and further reading is available on the episode page here.

To support this work, consider joining Peerbagh as a Bento member.