Subhadra Das is a writer, comedian, historian and curator. Her debut Uncivilised: Ten Lies That Made The West tears up convention when it comes to our shared histories but what is it that makes her love the craft of comedy too?

Hello. I'm Dhruti Shah, and this is my podcast.

Have You Thought About. I'm a writer who loves to find out

about what passions people are pursuing, especially if they're

managing to blend together their skills and talents in unusual

ways. In each edition, I chat with someone who I find

particularly interesting, who's managed to fit things together

in their life or profession or both. But you don't always think

of as an obvious match. Today I'm speaking to author,

historian, writer, curator, comedian, all in all brilliant

persons, Subhadra Das, I think, but maybe I've got that wrong,

because names are really, really important, and Subhadra, you do

a lot of different things, but what is your name? Please tell

our audience this.

So if you allow me to steal a joke from Ahir Shah.

I'm one of those South Asians who has been colonised by their

own accent. So my rule is, if you are of South Asian origin,

you can say my name however you want to say it, because you will

be able to pronounce it better than I can. So I call myself

Subhadra because I went to English schools in an American

school, and that's how white people say my name, and it's

like what I'm used to responding to Hindi speakers say Subhadra

in Bengali, it's shupadra because we're very awe or round

sounding people.

But do you ever get confused?

If I do, I don't put it on that thread too much,

because then the whole thing unravels. I don't know. No, I

think most of the time I'm just grateful that someone's noticed.

So thanks for noticing. That's right. But what does your name

actually mean? I guess, in what language as well? Well, it's the

name of the South Asian goddess. So she's a goddess in Hinduism,

and she's Lord Krishna sister. So for however, come isn't your

listeners are of Hindu mythology. Lord Krishna is the

really cool blue guy who is a reincarnation of the god Vishnu,

who's part of the Hindu trilogy. So really a very powerful and

important person, and he had a sister, and his sister appears

in the Mahabharata, which is one of the epics. And she's

important for a number of reasons, but mainly, she marries

Arjun. He's like the Achilles in Hindu mythology. If you think of

Mahabharata as kind of being a bit like the Iliad, which I do,

because that's how my brain works. Technically, my mother

always told me it meant a very good girl. Nominative

determinism, I don't like that.

It can also mean auspicious. So shupo, which is the contraction,

can mean, like, good and happy and auspicious. So that's kind

of nice. I'll stick with that one.

Awesome name. I love it. You know, we're here

because you're awesome, clearly. But also you do lots and lots of

different things. You've got this amazing book that I just

keep punting out to people saying you should read this. And

they're like, do I have to? I'm like, yes, it's a brilliant

takedown book, and it's called Uncivilised: Ten Lies That Made

the West so for those who don't know, and I haven't yet

approached, what is it actually all about?

Its' about the white supremacy that's baked

into our understandings of what it means to be civilised, and

also particularly this notion of Western civilization. So the

book has got 10 chapters in it, and in each of those chapters, I

take sort of a bit of received wisdom, you know, things like,

justice is blind. Democracy means power to the people. Art

is for art's sake. And I question those, and I start to

think about, you know, what exactly do we mean when we think

about justice and individualism and ideas to do with the rule of

law and how we govern ourselves in Western society? And it turns

out that the whole thing is way more racist than it pretends to

be.

That's right. Clearly, like reading easy, it

isn't actually a heavy, hardcore, really dry, academic

read. It's actually quite interesting and quite fun and

quite sort of learning. I feel quite Trojan horsed in this

respect. But why was it so important for you to embark on

this journey and take a topic that's actually a lot of people

would avoid.

Thank you for saying that it's not heavy

reading - that was definitely the goal. It's a book for a

general audience. And so the fact that hopefully I've taken

some complex ideas and made them accessible is a real compliment.

So thank you. Why did I take this up? Well, in part, I have

to give credit to my editor, Harriet Poland, who came up with

an idea for a book. Originally, it was something like 10

trappings of Western civilization. And so this is my

spin on that idea. And I guess what I bring to it is several

years of having been the curator of a museum collection at

University College London that was named after the guy who came

up with the word eugenics. And this was a journey that I'd gone

on myself, really, when I first started doing that job. First of

all, I never heard of Francis Galton until I started working

for the museum department that held the collection that was

named for him. And then I guess UCL, this is what happens when

you accidentally put a brown girl in charge of your race

science collection. Is that, the more that I found out about it?

First of all, it was shocking and kind of horrifying. You

know, it's one of the best universities in the world. It's

at the forefront of a lot of scientific investigation and

research. And yet, at the same time, here were these objects

related to scientists in the collection. Here was, here was

ideas and work done by a guy who thought it was possible to breed

better people. Who was hideously racist and ableist in the way

that he looked at the world. So first of all, that was a shock.

And second of all, I found that when I started writing Francis

Galton back into the history that I had learned at school,

suddenly a lot of it made a lot more sense. And so I wanted to

bring that to other people. I haven't really shut up about it

since I started finding out about it myself. I guess my

philosophy is, if I've had to suffer through it, then you all

should have to as well.

What was the most surprising thing that you

learned?

Just the sheer basis of it, the fact that, and

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, and I'm

mindful that that's what I sound like altogether. Having done

this work for a while, one of the questions that gets thrown

at me very often is, you know, why do you have to make

everything about race? And my answer is, because everything

kind of is especially when you start to find more about the

history of what that idea was, what it meant, how influential

it's been. And what I say about eugenics is that it made race a

broad church. So eugenics takes race and it starts to encompass

ideas to do with disability, gender and sexuality, class,

body size, all of these discussions that are around the

banner of so called identity politics today, but really have

just been ways in which people's identities have been

marginalised for centuries. So I think just the overarchingness

of the thing continues to astonish me,

But a lot of it is about common themes. Even now,

it's not like, Oh, this is old school history. This is stuff

that's still being touted. Now, what can actually be done?

Should every school have a copy of your book? Because I think

they should. But really, what will we do?

I think we just need to start talking about it.

Sorry, and I don't mean to decry the huge amount of work that has

been done by scholars and activists for decades. Because I

think a fair criticism of this book is that there's nothing new

here. These are ideas that have been in circulation, admittedly,

in academia. So there's an ivory tower element that we really

need to tear down, but it needs to be spoken about and

acknowledged. And I think there just needs to be an

understanding that this isn't supposed to be a stick to beat

people with. This isn't about making people feel bad. It's not

about making people feel smaller and significant or like they are

responsible for bad things. Everyone is responsible for how

much they are open to and how much they look at the world. So

like I said, you know, when I started to learn more about

this, those typical things that you learn in history class made

more sense, and I think that'll be the case for a lot of people.

So acknowledgement is just a first big step. So read this

book, but there are plenty of other books and so many other

stories out there that we just need to start acknowledging and

incorporating into how we look at our history.

I mean the first chapter called Nullius in verba,

I think take no one's word for it. So do you trust anyone now?

Do you trust anything now? Is there anything that you're like,

hold on a minute. That's okay. I'm gonna go with that. Or is

everything just up for grabs?

If we were to always be properly scientific

about everything, everything has to be up for grabs. You have to

be open minded. But I think if you read the rest of the book,

it's probably very clear what my position is on that, and I am,

inevitably, and just like I am perfectly validly trusting of

everyone in ways that I probably shouldn't be. You know, to

become critical is, is like a muscle, you have to exercise and

stretch, and I can do it on the page, but I won't pretend like I

can do it in real life. I fall for this stuff all the time

On that note. I mean, because, you know, this is

very, very serious stuff. But actually, you know, you've done

an amazing job. And I do definitely recommend that people

should go and read the book. However, it's serious. You're

not always serious. This is, this is the case. You are a

comedian, which can have serious elements. But how on earth do

you do you marry that? What's going on there?

I was thinking a potential title for this would

be laughing to keep from crying. So often, people do ask me, you

know, you find out about all this horrible stuff, how do you

keep saying and how do you like not cry all the time? And part

of that is, you know, having to be able to maintain an academic

distance. I think there's, there's a value in that. But

when it comes to talking about these sorts of heavy topics. My

experience is, first of all, I need to be able to make fun of

myself in this situation. There's an academic persona

which is inherent in the voice as well that needs puncturing.

Another important thing, by the way, races don't like it when

you laugh at them, which is a good enough reason for doing

anything. But also, there are aspects of this history that so

ridiculous as to be inherently funny. If we don't acknowledge

that, then we just sound ridiculous ourselves.

But I have always been a person to find the funny in things. I

think that that is an intelligent and engaging way of

looking at the world. I don't trust people that don't find the

funny in things, keeping in mind, of course, that being

funny at the expense of other people's humanity is not funny

at all, and it's also rigorous. When I do comedy about my

research and about this history, it means that I've got to be

accurate, concise and clever. And as you can probably tell in

how long it's taking me to answer this question, that isn't

necessarily something that comes naturally, it's something

that's. Part of the craft. So I enjoy the craft, and it

encourages me to be rigorous about what I'm saying and the

message I'm trying to get across.

How do you prep for the comedy elements? Like, are

you taking notes and being like, oh, that's something I can

definitely not make fun of as such, but play with a little bit

stronger in order to get that convey that message. Like, what

is it about the craft? How have you trained yourself because you

stand up as well without giving away your secrets. How do you

manage those comedy elements while also doing everything else

that you're doing?

The thing that you've just described is what I

would do if I was if being comedian was a day job, and I

would love that there's an element of me that would really

adore that just to kind of absorb and have time to reflect

on those things. The way that I write my sets is that somebody

asked me to do five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes somewhere,

and then it'll be the day before they've asked me to do it, and

that's when the writing gets done. And sometimes it works and

sometimes it doesn't, that's kind of also the joy of the

format is that there's so much glorious room for failure. But

I've not done a huge amount of study in terms of the mechanics

of comedy. I'd love comedy from when I was a very, very young

child, I probably watched a whole bunch of stuff that I

really shouldn't have watched. To watch Dave Allen as a four

year old is probably not recommended, but I loved him,

and I thought he was great, and so I hopefully taken some of

this stuff in by osmosis. There's a bit of practical stuff

in terms of learning how to write jokes and structure them.

Yeah, the joy is actually being on stage and interacting with an

audience, seeing what they're into, what they get, what they

know, what they don't know, how far they're willing to follow

you, how adept you are at being able to bring them with you. To

me, the joys in the doing probably more than in the

putting it together. But that's probably just a sign of how

unprofessional I am when I go about the whole thing.

Doing all of that and being able to put yourself

out there. It's not easy. You know, can be tiring. You can

come under, uh, attack. You can have people abuse. You can have

fans. You can have everything. So what do you do again without

giving too much away? Because it is for you that that's for you.

How do you relax? How do you sort of take time for yourself,

bearing in mind you're giving so much to the world?

Well, thank you for saying that. Because at the

beginning of you asking that question, my initial reaction

was, I don't actually do that much, because I'm not that

famous, so I mean, aspire to it. So thank you for this

opportunity, but I am inherently lazy. It might be something to

do with the way my brain is wired, and I shouldn't joke

about it, but I kind of do, because otherwise I'd actually

have to do something real about it. But I've essentially

diagnosed myself as having ADHD by watching Instagram reels. And

I'm sure I'm not alone in that. So I don't actually work all

that much. I'm always thinking. This is how I know I'm a

thinker, is because I'm always thinking, but I'm not

necessarily always working. And so, yeah, the work gets done.

The work is quite deadline based, as you can tell.

But when do you get out of your brain?

Oh I wish really, if I possible, who could, who

does that really?

Wait you went for a walk earlier, right? Just were

you, you know, you went from, does everyone know about walking

helping? Meditate, I can't meditate. Does meditating help

like you? Just like, idea, idea, idea.

No, I can't, because if I close my eyes and

sit in a quiet space, guess who's talking in my head? It's

me, and that is also the person who's talking when I'm walking

as well. It's like, I don't know whether you find this, but it's

definitely the case that I'll sit and struggle over a

paragraph for about two hours staring at the screen, nothing

happens. And then the moment I get up from my desks and like,

or Shut the front door to go outside for a walk, something

immediately clicks into the place, yes. And then I'm like,

Oh, I go back and write that down. No, we're gonna go keep

walking, but I'm gonna be keeping thinking about it too.

Yes.

And then you arrive and you're like, what was I?

What was it again? What was that note? Again? Exactly how to

write? No, I get where you come from. One of the things that I

did, and if you have a technique, like this, so when

I'm having a thinking day, or I need to sit down and I read, to

write, and it takes me a while to get over that first hurdle, I

tend upon host and the planets for the me, for me, that helps a

lot because of the varying rhythm and the pace. Is there

anything that helps you sort of push past because that is a lot

that you're holding in your brain and pushing through.

I do listen to classical music when I'm writing

because I find it just helps. So my poison is Eric Sati, I think

quite settling. No again, tremendous unprofessionalism

involved in my writing process. I will do anything like if my

house is clean, you can tell that I'm supposed to be writing

something, but I also find actually, that I need to get

better about just writing down the thing that I am thinking and

working on ideas for. Well, ideally a next book. But there's

several other ideas that are kind of floating around, and

what I find is that it's really easy to be thinking a lot about

things and get those thoughts down onto paper. At that point

you're just in glorious first draft stage. So there's so many

words, none of them are good, but hopefully there's a germ of

a thought there that starts to outline itself. It's not

necessarily that difficult to get the words on the page. It's

just a question of then trying to make them good. I think

that's the trick.

At what point do you learn to let go of your

writing? And or anything you create, to be honest?

By the time something is published, be that

a blog online, or even actually the caption on an Instagram post

or a book, by the time it's published, at that point, I will

let it go, because I don't think it helps to dwell. Kurt Vonnegut

said that there were two types of writers, and I can't actually

remember what he called the second type, he said that there

were bashers and there were some other people, and the other

people are the ones that just write, and it all kind of comes

out of them fully for like, it's amazing, and they're in the

flow, and then they'll go back and they'll fix it. Bashers are

the ones, and I'm a basher, which is that, like, you're

correcting it in the sentence as you were going along, although

someone else told me, and I can't remember who this quote is

from, but the advice is that you write drunk and edit sober which

I find actually helps. But I do find that I'm crafting sentences

probably with more effort than I should when they're first coming

out onto the page. So I'm happy with it when it's done, but the

doneness of it tends to be like an arbitrary thing that is out

my hands.

And is there anything that you haven't; any

genre yet, that you haven't sort of parleyed your way into, that

you're like, this is the next thing I'm going to tackle. Oh,

God, you sound like my mum. My mum was like,

well well done. You've written a book. Next time write a novel.

Yeah, that.

I get that.

Please I have, I have experimented with fiction.

I do find it a little bit easier, but I find it easier to

write and much harder to be good. So I think I'm going to

stick with the nonfiction and the history writing for the

moment, but I'm scoping it out into other areas which are

enjoyable at the moment. It's always that thing, if it's

enjoyable, until someone makes you do it, and then it turns

into a job, and it's no fun at all.

So I couldn't work in a chocolate shop. It was hard

times. With you - You have so much, you encompass so much, and

even with the in your own heritage within you know, your

third, third culture, kid. Is that right to say?

How? Yeah, how does in mind? There should be a

better name for it, but I actually

I was going to say, I dont' actually like, I don't

like it, but I'm gonna have to keep going with it, because

that's the only terminology I know. What role does that play?

So for you know, others who are sort of at the moment trying to

figure out their own heritages, trying to figure out their place

with diaspora links, etc, how does it help you navigate the

world?

I mean, whether it helps or whether it hinders,

there's no getting away from it. It's who I am. And so the real

journey here has been acknowledging both of those

cultures. Because, you know, while I was growing up, I was

growing up as an Indian person, very much in western

environments. In the Middle East, we all encompass

multitudes. Those are the ones that make up me. And I think

just get the journey of getting to the place where I'm

comfortable acknowledging my Indianness, because there's a

lot of aspects of that identity that I don't enjoy, but also

there's lots of aspects about the westernness of me that I'm

not that thrilled about either. It turns out, so just sitting in

the discomfort of both of them actually is where I'm at right

now, which sounds like a piece of self loathing. It isn't

always. It's more a question of, you know, how can I make these

things work together the best effect while acknowledging that

both, that I can be both, there's a power and a certain

joy in accepting I don't have to be one or the other. Being all

these things doesn't mean that I'm bad at all of them. It's

just who I am.

I mean, if you had a comedy set like that, I would,

I would be coming to watch it. A pit of self loathing

A pit of self-loathing would be a good

title.

I mean, again, income, you know, we talk about

things like income, strands and stuff like this, you know, I'm

like, get the t shirt again. I think just, I'm just saying that

there are opportunities out there. One things that I really

like about being Indian is the food. Is there anything that you

quite like in terms of sort of food that we we bring to the

world? The food goes

without saying, right? This is not a point of

conversation. Salmon food is better than most of the others.

And in point of fact, really what we're always talking about

when we say about most of the others, we mean Western food.

The fact that we understand how seasoning works, I think, is

enough of an argument to suggest that this is a good thing,

although now I'm now reminded of my husband is English, and when

we went back to India after we got married for the first time,

my mum held a little like reception for us. It was tiny,

but she did tell me at this reception, when we were at the

buffet, she just took me aside and she said, I have ordered the

blandest things on the menu. She was literally saying it. She

wasn't even referencing that sketch. She didn't she'd never

seen that sketch, and she doesn't know what it is, because

she was genuinely saying, I have made them cook all the bland

things so that your husband will be able to enjoy the food.

As I say, that's the Goodness Gracious Me sketch.

But goodness gracious me, is absolutely phenomenal. Honestly,

it's one of the best reference guides ever.

It is the best. I don't know why they didn't. I

mean, I know exactly why they didn't make more. And well, not

not the crew, but the BBC should be ashamed that it didn't make

more. What my favourite thing about that show is altogether,

which was that it was. Unapologetically South Asian.

Yes, there was in jokes. There was jokes in the language. They

did not translate. You know, they didn't do that on purpose.

And actually, I don't know anyone else who's been that

brave, even in recent years. There's 20 years ago we're

talking about this comedy. Yeah, 100%

between that. It was the real McCoy and

originally wasn't it, and then from the real McCoy, then,

goodness gracious me, came honestly, when's your history of

comedy book coming out?

It's not me. That's not for me. I mean, I

kind of would love to, but also that's really not me, for me to

write. There's plenty of other people that have done that. So,

yeah, the thing about comedy is it's not fun to write a book.

It's fun to do and it's fun to listen to. But

yeah, no, there are definitely people that are

definitely opening doors, paving the way. I actually do believe

that you are one of them with the and I'm I'm not fangirling,

but I'm no way fangirling, because you deserve it. I

honestly cannot wait to see what comes next. The fact that you're

coming up with ideas, that's quite exciting. The fact that

you do these live performances again, I think there's a real

treat for anybody who gets to, you know, come across. You know,

I'm really grateful that that your book came my way, that I

fell in love with the book, that I was like, I need to meet the

real person behind it. You know, just verify they actually exist.

Never know in these worlds. But honestly, I really think you're

making a huge difference when you are at the vanguard of

something. It's not always easy. It can be a bit lonely because

you are crazy, you know, you are bringing stuff together the

perhaps people don't want to hear. How have you been able to

navigate that space that you know you are having to open

these doors there aren't comfortable spaces for

everybody?

First of all, thanks for all that love. I'm so

touched. I will take all the fangirling, bring it. Thank you,

so long as I can do it back in return, because I know the

reason you're asking that question is because you exist in

the same space, so you know what it's like, and that's part of

the answer. Is community. I'm blessed by the friends that I've

been able to make in this fear along the way. So shout out, not

only to your good self and the amazing work that you're doing

here, but also to some of the people you've spoken to Angela

Saini, has been so generous. Roma Agrawal, who's also an

engineer who writes about the history of engineering in really

engaging and brilliant ways. Writing is a very lonely

profession. I think it's very generous. You're saying I'm at

the vanguard. I don't think I am. I think I'm following in the

wake of these people. It just so happens that the wave is a tiny

one that needs to be bigger. I'm grateful to everything that

other people have done. That means that, you know, the work

that I'm bringing out is, first of all, that there's a market

for it, and also, it's not necessarily as controversial as

it would have been on its own. The publishing world is

brilliantly fickle, and so it doesn't, it doesn't pick things

up if it doesn't feel like there's room for it. So credit

to those people for making room. But I think, why do I do it?

Primarily because I genuinely don't understand how not to do

it. And I don't mean to sound like worthy in that way that's

mildly nauseating, but it's just like, I don't know how you find

out about this stuff, and to not talk about it. It's just not how

I'm wired.

And that was the amazing Subhadra Das, do you

have an interdisciplinary life? Because I would love to hear

from you, and perhaps we can chat on this podcast that goes

with my newsletter, which is also called, Have You Thought

About and can be found via www.dhrutishah.com. Please join

me next time for a brilliant conversation with another guest

who likes to mix up everything in their life. Do listen to past

episodes and rate and review the podcast if you've enjoyed it,

and also, thank you to Rian Shah for the music.