Woman's Hour - Maya Sondhi, Aunties, Consulate Failings

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Maya Sondhi has made a name for herself in television dramas like Silent Witness and Line Of Duty. But now she's in the writer’s chair, and she's behind a new police drama called DI Ray. It follows DI Rachita Ray who's promoted to join a ‘Culturally Specific Homicide’ investigation. Rachita suspects there's something else going on here.Rebecca Hilsenrath from The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman talks about failings of the Foreign Office when dealing with a 2018 rape complaint in Turkey. She describes how a British woman who was raped when she was on holiday went to the Consulate for help but was told, "Carry on with your holiday and enjoy it." The woman, who's remaining anonymous, first complained about the response she got from Consulate officials, and then how the Foreign Office dealt with it. Her complaint’s been upheld. We have our last part of Life After Divorce. Today we're hearing from Sita who talks about getting divorced from her wife. They didn't have children or shared assets but, she says, in a way that made the split harder to deal with.And we talk about the "aunties". You know: they're the older women in the community who we should respect. But to be honest, they might be suffocating and judgemental as well as motherly. We speak to podcaster and writer, Tolly Shoneye who honoured her Nigerian aunties in her book, Keep the Receipts, and Anchal Seda who's a podcast host and author of What Would The Aunties Say.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. Today we're talking about aunties and I don't just mean the auntie who's your actual relation, not your mum's sister or your dad's sister. If you were brought up in a black or Asian household, you'll know exactly who I'm on about. Basically, any woman older than you is referred to as an auntie out of respect. There is nowhere in this world geographically that I'm not without an auntie, right? There's always someone who feels like home, someone who feels

like I feel loved by and taken care of. I was brought up in a single parent household, so it was just my mum and her army of aunties. That's a clip of Tolly Shonai. I spoke to her along with Anshul Seda a little bit earlier, and you'll be hearing that in the show. But these aunties are also a community network who love nothing more than a bit of gossip and judgment. So today we're lifting the lid on anti-culture,

shaming them before they can shame us. I want to hear your stories about aunties today. How have your community of aunties impacted your life? In my book, I actually give them a name, the Illuminanti. Your business is their business. And there is great comedy in aunties and there can be great strength in community, but they can also have a very negative impact or a suffocating impact, if you like, on the lives of both men and women.

So I want to hear your stories of your aunties today you can text woman's hour on 84844 you can email us via our website or you can contact us via social media it's at bbc woman's hour also on the show we hear another story from our life after divorce series and this time we look at the stigma attached to being divorced. If you'd like to comment on that, please get in touch. 84844. We've been running that series for a while. And a brand new police crime drama is about to hit our screens,

this time with an Asian female lead. Can you believe it? Maya Sondhi, the writer behind the groundbreaking D.I. Ray, will be joining me to tell me all about it. And I might even ask her about playing Manri Bindra in Line of Duty. I might. I might just. Of course, message me throughout the show. We'd love to hear your comments about everything we discuss in the next hour.

The text number, once again, 84844. But first, a woman who was raped when she was on holiday in Turkey and went to the British consulate for help was told to carry on with your holiday and enjoy it. The woman who's remaining anonymous first complained about the response she got from the consulate officials and then how the Foreign Office dealt with her concerns when she escalated it. Her complaints being upheld, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman says the woman wasn't given vital information which could have led to a police investigation. To tell us more about this is Rebecca Hilsenrath, who's Director of Strategy and Communication at the PHSO. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Rebecca. I want to start by just understanding who the PHSO are and when would someone come to you? Good morning, Anita. So we're an independent body. We investigate complaints across government bodies, some other public sector bodies and NHS complaints,

whether at a primary or secondary care level. But we are the place of last resort, if you like, because we expect people to complain first to the body where the complaint refers to a level of service that's not adequate or poor. And if that doesn't resolve it, then they'll come to us. And so she ended up coming to you. Can you tell us what happened to this woman? Tell us about the story. This is a horrible, horrible story. woman went to turkey um on holiday in september um 2018 with a couple of friends and what happens is um one evening she becomes separate from her friends there's a possibility that her drink was spiked um and she's assaulted um and i'm afraid this is about multiple rape.

It's a horrific, horrific ordeal. She goes next day to the police station to recover her bag, which was lost during the process. But she's not able at that point. She's too intimidated to make a complaint. So the following day, she makes contact with the local consulate who come to visit her. And even at that early stage, it starts to go wrong because we know from having seen notes of that the vice consul's own notes of that meeting that they knew from the very beginning that what this woman wanted was medical attention to make a complaint but she wasn't given a leaflet which was in breach of their own guidance, setting out what all the procedures are. She was, they did arrange for the police to come.

She wasn't able to talk to the police at that stage. So she went to the police the next day and she messaged the vice consul and she said, could the vice consul come with her to the police station? No, because they were busy. She went on her own with her to the police station no because they were busy um she went on her own with the book she went with her friend um she messaged for help and advice when she got there not available wasn't advised about the need for a lawyer wasn't advised about anything spoke to somebody at the police station and gave her story what she didn't know because she didn't have a lawyer with her she didn't have special support so the person she spoke to was not a policeman, but a translator.

And the statement that she signed in Turkish actually said that she didn't want to take any further action. She then comes away. She messages the vice consul. She is not told that they're not taking any further action although the vice counsel knows that because she's spoken to the police who've told her um she's not advised to get a medical exam in fact she's advised by the vice counsel that she can take a shower and change her clothes which she's actually smart enough not to do and i'll come back to that and she asks if she can press charges back in the UK, which she can't, but she's not told that

and she's not told that the police aren't taking any further action and, in fact, I'm afraid she's told to carry on and enjoy her holiday. Yeah, I mean, I opened the piece by quoting that. Carry on with your holiday and enjoy it. What do you make of that? It's tone deaf. It's incredibly insensitive um i don't know why it was said but i can tell you that i think it made the woman feel that she wasn't being

taken very seriously um and you know this is in a world where violence against women and girls is has become such an important topic and it's not just a British issue it's a global issue and you have to wonder where they were during the Me Too movement at what point were they going to be properly trained and made aware of the importance of protection for somebody who was so vulnerable vulnerable because of the ordeal that she went through but also because she was in a foreign country without recourse to the network she would have had, her own language, everything. And because of the service or the lack of service the consulate gave her, it meant that this woman couldn't get justice. Why not?

Well, that's the thing. And she's approached the whole thing with a basis of wanting to take forward, to get justice, to have legal recourse, so this wouldn't happen to somebody else. These people had never been caught. By the time she got back to the UK, she had a medical examination. She sat in the same soiled clothes for three days. She didn't change. She went home. She got a medical examination.

But the evidence of that was not admissible in Turkey. So all that and that horrific secondary invasion was for nothing. And even at that point, she wasn't told that they weren't taking any further action, even though they contacted the vice consul at that stage. And it took the British police five weeks after the rape had taken place to find out and inform her that in fact there were going to be no investigations. And by which time, of course, it was all too late. No CTV, no witnesses, no DNA. We've got a statement from the woman at the heart of this.

I'm going to read it out. She said, and it's worth reading it out in full actually, the awful failings and bad advice given by the FCDO left me in a vulnerable situation where I was forced to use my own initiative to preserve forensic evidence whilst in Turkey and on return I was failed at every hurdle by the FCDO

and re-victimised the FCDO gave false hope on my return to the UK which led to a forensic medical examination the very poor advice and deceitful involvement of the FCDO hindered the assistance of the British police force, causing me prolonged suffering, additional anger and unnecessary distress.

I wouldn't wish my experiences of the FCDO's mishandling on anyone else. I can only hope that significant lessons will be learnt. How do you respond to that? It's really horrific. And I think it's important to say that the local consulate acted in breach of their own guidance, which would have said that this woman was vulnerable and therefore needed to be given

as much assistance as possible. I think if you described it as the bare minimum, you'd be being quite generous. But what happened was subsequently when she complained to the FCDO, it actually got worse. And this is something that we do see and we worry about we worry about government bodies seeing complaints as a nuisance as something to be ducked or avoided instead of being learning opportunities so they didn't admit to failings um they didn't they actually continue to cover up they talked about misunderstandings these were not misunderstanding they talked about improving their translation services this was nothing to do translation services they said that the vice consul had been too far away to help with the police well then you know you do something you move you move an appointment you find somebody else none of it was about admitting and apologizing and I think that compounded everything what they

did at the time compounded the rape and their inability to apologise and address the complaint compounded poor handling. Yeah, she says herself, doesn't she? She felt re-victimised by it. Absolutely horrendous. So what's at the heart of it, Rebecca? Is it a lack of emotional intelligence, a lack of knowledge? You know, the Me Too movement was happening globally. Where were they? Well, exactly. It's very difficult to understand because, as I say, they do have their own processes in place and they were clearly in breach of that. We don't know what went wrong. We do know that the first duty of every government is to look after its own citizens and keep them safe. She was let down. She was let down by everybody and she was let down by the people

who were there really most of all to keep her safe. And that didn't happen. How often do you come across situations like this? Well, we have actually had similar complaints in the past, sadly. We had one a couple of years ago in Panama, which wasn't to do with an assault, but it was to do with a local person being arrested and processes not being followed we had one I think 10 years ago in very similar circumstances actually not quite with such poor outcomes and this is at the heart of our concern about how complaints are dealt with because if

lessons aren't learned the same thing will happen again and what bodies need to do is view complaints more seriously, be less defensive, apologise and amend their service. We're there to address complaints and we're there to give access to justice. We're also there to improve services. And what we've been doing is trying to talk to bodies, both in government and across the NHS, to improve the way they handle complaints. We've rolled out complaints handling standards across the piece and we're hoping that this leads not only to a better outcome for people like this woman, but also to better services.

So what are you telling the Foreign Office to do? How are they going to improve their services? So we've asked them within three months to come up with an action plan to improve the way they handle cases like this and others. We've also asked them to pay compensation, not only for her legal costs and her travel costs. She went back to Turkey three times to try to address what had happened. She hired lawyers, none of which she should have needed to do, but also in addition money to recognise what she's gone through. In three months' time, within three months,

we want to see that action plan to be able to review it. We want this woman to see it as well. And after that, they will be accountable to select committees, to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, to the Public Affairs and Constitutional Affairs Committee, so that they can hold them to account for how they carry out that plan. We just had a message in from someone saying when I took the hippie trail to Kathmandu 50 years ago there was a saying amongst travellers

that back then the British embassy will give any assistance short of actual help. That's pretty bad isn't it and the thing is that the local consulates this is the local british consulate in marmors this is their job yeah their job is to look after citizens from their country who are in need of of some sort of support um and this person was i mean she was kind of this sounds awful but she's kind of bau family she was that's what they were there for it wasn't an outlandish thing to do. It was an acute trauma and an acute emergency, but it was their job.

And therefore they should be held to account against the way they undertake their job. And will they be held to account? Can you follow up and make sure that they are putting into action the things that you're asking them to do? Well, that's the job of Parliament. That's why that report, the action plan that they are going to produce is going to be shared with those select committees. They will report to them and they will oversee how they implement

that to improve their services. Rebecca Hilson-Reth, thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. That's the Director of Strategy and Communication at the PHSO. And we've got a statement from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. And they said, we apologise for the distress caused and will immediately implement the Ombudsman's recommendations. Since this happened in 2018, the FCDO has taken a number of steps to ensure victims are not failed in the same way. We're committed to learning so we can improve the consular support we provide to british nationals in cases involving rape and sexual assault 84844 is the number to text um and next uh we're talking about divorce divorce is common more than 40 of marriages end in divorce whether it's your own your parents or your children's the fallout can be messy and sad the aftermath

is rarely discussed and there is often shame and stigma attached. We've just had a message in from Anonymous saying, I'm a divorcee and a married friend of mine is always interested in my progress with online dating. Without thinking, she said that if she was in my position, she would never consider a new partner who was divorced as he would be damaged goods. So what does that make of me? I would love to hear what people say to you about being a divorcee and the stigma of that.

84844 is the number to text and you can go via our social media to message us as well. But back to this, this is our last in our series about life after divorce. We hear from a woman we're calling Sita who met her wife when she was just 18. They married after seven years together, but separated after two years in 2020.

Our reporter Henrietta Harrison has recently been through a divorce herself. She met Sita to trade experiences in the garden of Sita's parents' house. You know the saying, a death by a thousand cuts? That's probably what it was. I met my ex-wife when I was very young, actually, and it was my first real relationship,

so I wasn't sure how to be, and I think we just settled into behavi behaviors and patterns that weren't serving the relationship and by the time we realized it it was too hard to break out of them you know we did go to couples counseling and try but I think even at that point it was too late and we just realized we were unhappy more often than we were happy unfortunately and what was the final trigger like you say it's a sort of it's a slow death but then there's usually something that gives it that final push i don't even remember the day that's how kind of the slow the slow burn it was i don't even remember the day we decided to do it

i remember the day i moved out but i don't remember the day we finally decided that we weren't going to try anymore why did you get married why did I get married I actually think it was to integrate not only my ex-wife but our relationship properly embed that into the family and it's not that she wasn't accepted into the family before because she was she'd been in that family for seven years at that point. But it was to kind of make it official and to say, you know, we're the same as everyone else in this family. We've got the same sort of love and commitment for each other. So I guess in part it was because of perception. Tell me about the day you moved out. It was a process

of months packing up my half of our lives. My dad came to help me move stuff out. I was coming back to my parents' place, which I think is the case for probably quite a few people. But in my case, it was my childhood home that I was moving back into so I felt quite odd about that having not been there for 10 years neither of us cried but it was very sad I'm speaking to lots of different people in this series what's different about you is that there are no kids involved no kids but a dog, I didn't know there was a dog. And I think a lot of people might say, well, actually, your divorce must be a lot easier.

I mean, do you buy into that at all? I think it's probably much easier logistically, absolutely. But I will just probably ask you a question if that's okay. Yeah. So I actually wonder if there's more loss felt in relationships that don't have children because you may never see that person again. It's the prospect of never seeing that person again. So my question to you, I guess, was whilst people might say, oh, I hate that I have to see him or her every week to drop off the kids. Is there also

something comforting about that anywhere deep down that you don't lose them from your life I'm not sure but but certainly I'm glad that after the breakdown of my relationship I have this structure and this purpose that's provided by my children. You don't have that. It's starting again with no routine, no certainty. And it's mourning the loss of a family that you didn't have, that you'd planned to have, that you thought about together and dreamed about together, makes it very hard. And I'm lucky that I am young enough

to have the opportunity to have children but it doesn't mean that I don't grieve the loss of any potential children and a potential life that I was supposed to have with my ex-wife. I think the figures are about a year old but they indicate that gay women lesbians are more likely to divorce than gay men in marriages. Why do you think that is? I think that's true probably for a number of reasons. I think firstly, gay men, from my experience, are more likely to have non-monogamous relationships,

open relationships, freer relationships. And so actually infidelity doesn't necessarily become a reason why people separate and I think gay men are sort of rewriting the rules of of marriage actually as well in a really great way. I think with two women as well something I've talked about with a lot of my friends is this idea that women leave relationships and men move relationships so men need to have this sort of someone else or a sort of cushion and won't necessarily leave to be by themselves once they've made that commitment but women are more ready to be by themselves and are braver if I'm making a generalisation. You say that gay men are more open to open relationships.

Was sex a factor in the breakdown of your marriage? Was that a problem at all? It certainly became less frequent, as I think is the case when anyone detaches emotionally or there's some issues. I think sex is a symptom rather than the cause, though. Do you think a lesbian divorce is taken less seriously than a heterosexual divorce? Do you get any sense of that? Oh, that's an interesting question.

It's more to do with a divorce without children is taken less seriously than a divorce with children, rather than it being a lesbian relationship. Certainly from the divorces that I've spoken to and certainly my own experience that the acrimony sort of had a life of its own. It was, you know, hard to manage. Was there much acrimony between you two? Not really. Lesbians talk a lot in relationships. Just so you know, if you're not really lesbians talk a lot in relationships just so you know if you're not already aware they talk a lot it's a generalization that women talk a lot when you've got two women in a relationship there's a lot of talking and so we talked a lot about our

issues anyway so anything that was there wasn't much that was pent up that we hadn't already spoken about which might lend itself to be the reason why heterosexual divorces are a bit more acrimonious there's things that you couldn't say in the marriage that now all come out and I don't think that's maybe the case for gay women yeah communication is good usually yes um but it doesn't mean to say there that weren't a few arguments here and there. You know, as I mentioned, there was a dog involved and there were quite a few heated discussions about the dog. But ultimately, we both want him to be happy and safe and have some consistency in his life.

So he's now with her. Do you think it's different for gay couples getting divorced because arguably you've not made conventional choices quite early on in your life? You've made quite soul-searching decisions quite early on in your life? I actually think that makes it easier. I think there is something about a non-heterosexual marriage that means that we are able to rewrite the rules of marriage in a way there's no kind of expectations of our relationship as much as there is of a heterosexual relationship there's I would imagine the expectation that you got married that you have kids that you move to the suburb I don't know whatever your your expectations are. It's just, it's not that way, I think, in same-sex relationships

because there aren't any of the old tropes. So you have to make joint decisions as you go. You have to decide how you want to do things because society doesn't expect you to be married full stop. I think it may be slightly different in queer relationships. Potentially, if one person is more masculine presenting and the other more feminine presenting. That wasn't the case for me, so I can't speak to that. We were both quite feminine presenting.

So you'd have to ask somebody who was in a butch femme relationship about that. But certainly from my experience, you make the rules up as you go. How did your friends and family react to the breakdown of your marriage? They knew we were having trouble before we separated that was when we knew it was real was telling our parents. Friends I think was easy and fine because they'd been on that journey with us almost of hearing all all of our arguments and everything but for family it was more of a shock and I was very conscious with my family to let them know that she was still part of my family that's how I can

still consider her part of my family for example I had my birthday a couple of weeks ago and she was invited to my family party and came she is my family she's my ex-wife in the same way that I think if we had kids and she was the mother of my children she'd be a member is my family she's my ex-wife in the same way that I think if we had kids and she was the mother of my children she'd be a member of my family I view that her in the same way now she's got a new partner yes how does the new partner feel about her still being part of your family I'm not sure I'm not sure and I haven't met her new partner either and I think that that will take a bit of time too I would hope like if I have a new partner at some point that will just have to be a given they will just have to appreciate that I talk to my ex-wife every other day pretty much and that

she's still what I consider my best friend a member of my family and if they don't appreciate that then we probably aren't going to be together what do you miss about your marriage oh lots I miss going through my day for someone whenever I do something in a day whenever I have a work meeting or whenever I go for a walk, I'm thinking, oh, I can tell this person about it later. This person cares about what I'm doing now and I care equally about what they're doing. And I want to hear all about it at the end of the day. So that's what I mean by going through your day for someone. And I'm learning how to do that for myself. I'm definitely not there yet. Genuinely, ask me this in 10

years, but I believe that joy comes from sharing experiences with other people. I think you can be content and very happy by yourself, but I think joy is about sharing yourself with someone else. And that's what I miss about a marriage. And I miss watching TV together and listening to music together. One of us cooking for the other person or taking each other out on a date. But I don't know, is that missing a marriage or is that missing a person? It sounds to me a little bit like that you left a marriage and there's not really much left for you on the other side. You've had to actually rebuild your life quite a lot.

Dramatically, yeah. There was no home. I have now just bought my first place in a different country, actually, so I plan to move in a couple of months. There was little stability. She was kind of everything. And I'm thankful that I'm not completely without her. But it will probably do me good as well to figure out who I am.

My divorce process started about three years ago. And I look back and I think, I really wasn't prepared. You know, I really didn't have any idea what was ahead. It was actually, it has been a lot harder than I anticipated. If you met your 28-year-old self about to begin the divorce process, what advice would you give her? What would you tell her to expect? Be very gentle with yourself and your ex-wife.

The next two years are going to be very difficult for both of you. And you don't need to justify your choice to anyone else. What advice would you give your 48-year-old self? I've thought about this quite a lot. Because I've asked everyone in the series what their advice to their selves their younger selves would be and one woman said brace yourself it's going to be a lot harder than you anticipate another woman said it's going to take longer than you expect and actually the guy I spoke to said it'll be all right you know he wanted to be reassuring to his younger self for me I think I would say don't expect it to be liberation

I mean there are moments where it feels freeing and you feel really proud of yourself for being courageous but it is mostly about compromise and hard work still absolutely And I think the most disappointment and sadness comes out of expectation that isn't met. And I think expectation is the death knell of everything, really. So actually, that's probably my advice is don't expect things are going to be easy. Don't expect things are going to be hard. Just take things as they come and deal with them the best you can good bit of life advice at the end of that report from henrietta harrison speaking to sita there and you're getting in touch about your own experiences um anonymous here says after i divorced i decided i would not marry anyone again unless they had been through a divorce i wanted someone who might equally have reflected on how relationships go wrong

and had a better perspective on how to make them work. I've been married now for 14 years to another divorcee and we're both very happy and have a very strong relationship. Someone else says, I'm five years post-divorce and it gets better and better. I'm now so delighted to be divorced and the feeling of being left out,

I felt with my married friends has slowly been replaced by fellow divorcees. Once you're over the early tough stages, it's wonderful. And Philippa emailed in to say, a married girlfriend was telling me about a single man I might like to meet and said without thinking, he's divorced, but he's very nice. Maybe in a Yorkshire accent, I'm not sure. There is a definite preconception, she says, amongst the smug marrieds that divorced people have done something wrong and it's their fault and they're alone. 84844 is a number to message.

Now, on to aunties. That's what we're discussing today. Do you have a favourite auntie? Whether it's the cool aunt, the interfering aunt or the motherly aunt, they all bring something different. But in some cultures, the word auntie isn't just used to talk about your parents sister it's a respectful way to greet older women in the communities these aunties whether an actual relation or not are often pillars of their

communities to help collectively raise the younger generation of women and actually you are getting in touch with me in droves to tell me that it's not just in communities of colour. Elizabeth emailed to say, I grew up in a white community in the 50s. Then it was considered the height of bad manners

to call a grown-up by their Christian name. My mum's best friend was Auntie Marjorie and my dad's Uncle Ken. Someone else says here, I grew up as a white British child in Warwickshire.

All older females were called Auntie. It's a shame our culture has dropped the practice. It's respectful. And someone else says, we had aunties and uncles among our neighbours on the council estate. I grew up in the 50s. It's a working class thing, not restricted to ethnic minority communities.

Whatever your thought on aunties, I would love to hear about it. But first, let's hear what podcaster and writer Tali Shonai, who honoured her Nigerian aunties in her book, Keep the Receipts, and content creator Anshul Seda, podcast host and author of What Would the Aunties Say? What they had to say about being an auntie. Most of them you're not related to at all. There's just someone that, a long-time family friend,

someone who is older than you by a certain amount of years and just people that have just somehow been around your family your whole life but there's actually no relation whatsoever so why call them auntie i'm sure it's out of respect and even you know your lady at the tesco checkout who's helping you who's slightly older than you i will actually refer to her as auntie i she's never seen me and I'm never going to see her ever again. But she is also auntie. And that's what I'm going to call her out of respect. If she's non-white.

Yeah, if she's non-white. Have you ever tried to call somebody white, auntie? I did when I was six. I went to a birthday party. I was having my bangers and mash. And somebody said, oh, what would we call you and I said I call all my mummy's friend auntie you're not calling me auntie and so that was my introduction to how actually it's only us that it's only me that has to say that word um now Tolly in your

book you talk about aunties and how that they are women within the community and how there is an important reason. Let's talk about the positives of aunties first, the important reason why they exist within a community and how it means that you don't have to deal with things alone. Let's do the positive stuff about auntie culture, if you like. Do you know what auntie culture just means? There is nowhere in this world that I can go geographically that I'm not without geographically that I've knocked

without an auntie right there's always someone who feels like home someone who feels like I feel loved by and taken care of like I was brought up in a single parent household so it was just my mum and her army of aunties so I think they helped raise us there was never like we could go to like Stratford shopping centre or go anywhere there's an auntie somewhere lurking you might not see them but they'll see you sort of thing. So it's always just felt like there was always home somewhere, right? And there was always someone to look after you or talk to you. And I remember like my family would take turns.

So during the summer holidays, if one auntie was working, all of us would go to one auntie's house for a week. And they'd swap to go to another auntie's house for a week. It's literally the same like you're raised by a village. It's literally that's what they are to me like the village that raised me and I hold them so fondly in my heart like I just love them to bits. And it comes from exactly that doesn't it when I suppose we all we all come from countries where we when we were raised in villages like auntie this anti-culture this community network comes from comes from that, doesn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely.

And it just hasn't left. And it's quite nice for, I always think it's really nice for my mum to have because I think a lot of my aunties came to the UK at around the same time. So even though she didn't have her parents here, she's in this foreign land where she doesn't know anybody, there was this village that she was allowed to make

of people that she worked with or she went to parties with or people that she was actually related to, which allowed her to have a home outside of Nigeria. And Anshul, you're Punjabi Indian, similar sort of thing, community that it happened in India. And so it kind of got transported here, this idea of a network of aunties bringing up a family together. Absolutely. I feel like it's no matter where you go in the world,

we kind of take our culture and and that whole that whole concept of a village raising you wherever we go I have loads of my dad's out of the family in the US and they're like I have tons of aunties there and I know that if I go there I'm so again I'm looked after by all of them there and the ones that I have here they also like take me in as their own as well it's they're the people that you can go to if your mom's kind of not there um yeah and yeah they they help raise you to be the woman that you are whether they do it in a good way or a bad way um they definitely do play a huge role in shaping you. And you in your book, brilliantly categorize aunties

according to spice. I absolutely love this. Oh, I love that. Isn't that clever? She's got mild, spicy and hot aunties. Tell us more, Anshul. Oh yeah. And I've got all of them, which is what inspired this Nando spice chart. You know, you've got your mild auntie who's slightly younger you know she's got the blow dry going on she looks fresh and she'll want to talk to you about boys and be like yeah so tell me what's going on but you still have to watch out for her then you've got your your spicy auntie who's more of your middle-aged one slightly older and I feel like it definitely the spice level goes up by age it really does like in my experience um yeah your your spicy one is again she's slightly more maternal

she's loving she gives you the food and the tupperware to take home she wants you to be well fed but if you give her the tea and the gossip she will gossip. And your heart, she is just all about the gossip. She is spreading the rumours left, right and centre. So, yeah, that's my spice chart of aunties that you need to look out for. Have you had gossip spread about you, Anshul? Oh, yeah, of course, every time. Come on, what are they saying? I mean, it's interesting that your spice chart is about the degree

to which they'll gossip, the ones that you have to watch out for all of them. What is this about? Oh, that I'm not married and I'm 30 or that I'm too much. You know, I'm too much. But you know what? That's a compliment to me if I'm too much. So I don't mind. Keep talking.

Yeah, yeah. Keep talking. Keep being too much. Absolutely don't mind no well yeah yeah keep talking keep being too much absolutely you're in the right place absolutely Tully you're you're agreeing Tully oh my god the gossip is always about me not being married my aunties cannot believe I am 32 and single they like they think there's something wrong with me and it's so funny because like they've sat me down in different variants sometimes it's like ask how's dating going and then the aunties I guess you call them hot that I've been like no what is wrong with you what is actually wrong with you is it that you can't cook is it that you're looking you're too picky so I do think that like the marriage being married gossip is always so funny to me and what's

really hilarious is especially in my culture a lot of the aunties that are so like onto me about being married i'm where is your husband you also do not have a husband why are you stressing me about having a husband where's uncle auntie where is uncle why are we all aunties and no one yeah you know why are you in unhappy marriages and talking to me about getting married like it doesn't make. I can completely relate to all of this, all of this. And, you know, I'm sure the generation older than me can relate to it as well, these aunties who are just in your business. And we are laughing and joking about it

because, you know, we're just having a fun conversation about, you know, the pressure to get married. But actually there is more, there is a sinister side to this, isn't there? Because there is a, the gossip ultimately is about controlling, isn't it? And it's not just controlling anyone. It's particularly controlling young women. There's something really interesting about not living your life

according to how they've lived it or how they think you should live it, right? Most of the time, you get an education, you get a degree, you get a job, you get married, you have kids. And if you ever choose to just defer from that a little bit, they can't understand it, right? So it's really interesting because I remember I've had so many conversations with my aunties and my mum I've literally broke down in tears where I've been like it feels like all of my other achievements don't count because I'm not married yes but I remember even buying a house and it was like well hopefully you're gonna get married one day or like my books come out

hopefully you're gonna get married one day or like my books come out hopefully you're gonna get married one day but these two don't even link what's it gonna do I know believe me you can do it doesn't matter how much you achieve or how successful you are you know until you are married so how do you deal with that Tolly yeah it does impact me a lot I've kind of thankfully because I've got my own place now I can dip in and out so I had like a family wedding recently and like my family was there for like two weeks. It was in America, but I literally went for the weekend

and then I came home. Just came home again. Just want to be able to dip in and out. Yeah, so I just don't feel like I hear the noise all the time. But yeah, it's different variants. Sometimes I just like joke about, oh, let's keep praying. Ha ha ha. Like, ha ha ha.

Yeah. Or sometimes it's like, no, literally leave me alone. It's one of the two. Yeah. So Anshul, how do you deflect? And also just let's talk a bit about the serious, serious aspects of this, this controlling, controlling community that you have around you. It's all fun and games on one side, but actually there is a darker side to it, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's about setting boundaries for yourself and being able to like you know where you're saying tolly that you dip in and out that's exactly what I do as well it's like I choose how much time I'm

gonna spend there because I know if I spend the whole week with these people I'm gonna lose my mind so you know and there's just gonna be more chance for them to ask me more questions and get more in my business when I don't need that it It's my life, my choices. And I don't actually need to explain that to anyone. So yeah, it's about setting these boundaries to feel a bit more comfortable with yourself and your choices and not have anyone judge you for them as well. What about the younger generation? There might be someone listening to this thinking, you know, that's all well and good, Tolly and Anshul, you're able to do that. But for me, I'm very much can't get away from this. this and actually my parents won't let me do what i want to do because of this anti-culture you're nodding uncial yeah um i only recently moved out so i've

lived with my parents up until i was 30 so what did the aunties make of you moving out then yeah well they it's a shocker that i've left by myself I've bought a house by myself and you know there's no man to help me do it and I've also done all the building work myself as well so yeah it's a complete shocker but I must say they are proud of me and um yeah because I I'm really proud of me so yeah like it's like I'm shameless with everything that I do. But yeah, if you I've been there where I can't escape it. And, you know, like with like Asian houses, especially like we have people in and out all the time. Like it's always an open door, especially our house. Like anyone can come anytime uninvited guests and they can stay for hours.

And it's out of my control because it's not my house it's my parents house and I think the best thing to do in that situation is again it's just like mentally prep yourself for how much time you are going to be around them physically um in the house you could just nip off to your room you could be working you could be doing other things um and also just prepare yourself mentally for okay there might be conversations that are going to be uncomfortable. How am I going to react? Because I can only control my reaction, not what someone else is going to say.

So that's all I can control and that's what I'm going to do. And so how did you react? Because, you know, the way I reacted was just started boycotting weddings at 16. I just stopped going. And even now I only go to the ones I really have to go to. Sorry, I have misery. But that was it. I'm like, I'm not coming. It's just a meat market.

You're just sizing me up to get married. Yeah. Yeah. It is about making the choice and also standing your ground. I'm quite lucky that I can do that in my household and my parents will eventually understand if I explain to them. I do understand that a lot of young women don't get to do that and they they are they have parents that pressure them to constantly do what they want as well as the aunties pressuring them which is sad but yeah I guess in those cases it is really about mental preparation and um doing the work on yourself so that you can get through the day or the evening or whatever with these people around you i often find even if your own parents are all right with it it's the it's the gossipy nature of

the community and the aunties that are sort of pressurizing your own parents into making you behave a certain way here's the thing tolly is a generational thing are these aunties of a certain generation maybe the first wave from wherever or are aunties in every generation do we have aunties my age I'm not revealing my age I think we all have auntie in us I think we all have auntie in us variant of spies but I do think what I've started to do is that like you actually have cousins as well so I feel like me and my cousins who are around the same age we're kind of now aunties we're in our 30s and like the kids our teenage cousins see us as aunties now so we're kind of like we're making a shift right so I've got a lot of my younger cousins that will come

to me and talk to me about boys talk to me about decisions and it's a lot more like open I don't judge them because I've lived in their world so I think what's happened is yes I do think aunties are generational but I think with every generation we're going to change right so I do think my generation of aunties will be a lot more understanding I'm gonna I'm not gonna pressure you to get married because I've lived a different variant of life than they have and I think it just allows a gap I honestly think aunties are important in every generation I don't think we should ever stop having aunties right every generation is going to change how they auntie right because now with my cousins who are teenagers I listen to the same music as them. I understand them a lot more.

So I kind of understand their world, right? I don't think aunties should ever stop. I think we should keep having aunties still forevermore. But upgrades, you know? An upgrade of an auntie, a cool auntie. I like this, upgrading aunties. Right, we can't talk about aunties without finally saying, what about the uncles? Yes, aunties are, we are saying they're gossipy they're community

they are controlling they can be fun we go to them advice but hang on there's uncles in the background here as well just how much of a part to play do they have in all of this and sure no well i feel like uncles they they also have a huge part to play in it as well but they really are for me i feel like they are in the background like they are vocal but they are passing the message to the auntie the auntie is the one that is delivering the message it's like it's like they go home from the family event they discuss it with the uncle uncle gives their opinion and the next event auntie is coming with all the the messages and everything she has to say.

And it's, yeah, like the uncles don't really, you know what, they don't get as much heat as they should. Yeah, they need to get, that's why to bring up the uncles, let's give the uncles some heat. Because you're right, they're the ones doing the chatting in the background. They are, they are. I mean, I can speak for my own dad, who's definitely, I call him like, I call my own dad an auntie

because I see him like doing all the gossiping and I see him doing all the judgment and everything um but yeah the uncles have a huge part to play in it for sure I have loved talking to both of you I feel like we've barely scratched the surface but we've also really got into this Tolly and Anshul thank you so much Tolly and Anshul there are loads of you getting in touch about your aunties and your uncles. Karen says, I'm a white British woman of 75 and all my parents' friends were aunties and uncles. It's a force for good all round. Mark says, when I started working in catering in 1980, I was put to work with an experienced member of staff who was about three years older than I.

This was known as working with auntie. Catlin says, I had plenty of Welsh aunties growing up, basically all my grandmother's friends. So I spent most of my summer holidays visiting who would put a five pound note in my birthday cards. More of those kinds of aunties, please. 84844 is the number to text. I'm delighted because I'm going to be chatting to Maya Sondi next. She's sitting right opposite me. I'm looking into her eyes. She made a name for herself in television dramas from Citizen Khan and Silent Witness to Casualty and Line of Duty. Now she's turning her attention to creating a new police drama, D.I. Ray. The show follows D.I. Rachita Ray, played by Pamindanagra,

who's promoted to join a culturally specific homicide investigation. Rachita suspects she's been chosen for her ethnicity rather than her ability, but sticks to the case. And as the investigation progresses, we see the world of policing and institutional racism through D.I. Ray's eyes. Let's hear a clip. I notice you've applied for a move over

from response to serious crime on a number of occasions over the years. I have, sir. I'm sorry it appears you have been overlooked thus far. Moving forward, there's a DI position come up in homicide. You don't sound more interesting than response, eh? Where are you from, Ray? Leicester, sir.

And what's your heritage? My family are from the Punjab. Right. Whereabouts? The middle. Although my dad's side's originally from Bengal, I think. Let me talk to the team, see what we can do. They're exactly what we need right now.

Thank you, sir. And Maya joins me now in the studio. I love that. In the middle. My first question, Maya, is where are you from? I'm from Birmingham. Yes, thank you. I'm from Hansworth Wood in Birmingham. I absolutely loved it. I watched the first episode. Everybody should be very excited about this. And you're someone who knows your way around a police drama, having featured in Line of Duty for years. so why was it important for you what was important for you in creating your own i wanted it to be different i didn't want to write sort of a rubbish line of duty and i'm not trying this isn't trying to be line of duty um this has got its own identity identity well because it's pominda it's pominda nagra playing di rashida rate this is, because it's Paminda. It's Paminda Nagra playing D.I. Rashiduray.

This is her show. It's about her. We see everything through her eyes. We're with her for the whole time. I mean, she's in every scene. I didn't really I didn't do her any favours there, putting her in every scene. Poor, poor thing she was in every day of a 10 week shoot. So but it really is about her, her conflict, her identity, her amazing police work. Because actually, at the beginning, when everybody else is saying that this is a so-called honour killing, she uses her amazing skill as a police officer to go, hang on a minute, the evidence isn't there. Let's look at the actual evidence rather than your bias and stereotypes and lazy kind of racism. Let's actually, you know, she's not afraid to go there. And then by going there, she uncovers a lot of other stuff.

She's not afraid to go there. You weren't afraid to go there writing the script. No, because if you're going to do it, you've got to do it. I've had to write my truth. And my truth is that I've experienced casual, everyday racism all my life. But before, I just got on with it and put up with it. And then I got to a point where I realised I actually need to do something with this. It's kind of burning a hole in me. And identity is always a massive part of whatever I write. So I thought, well, why don't we just actually address

it head on? You know, I hope we haven't done it in a kind of bang you over the head with it that's why it's wrapped up in this police drama but we can really look at it and we can look at her discomfort that she's never felt like she's properly fitted anywhere because she like I didn't see herself growing up I didn't see myself I didn't have an Anita Rani. I didn't have Maya. I, you know, I had like blonde, white women who were amazing on telly. And yet, but I'm not that and I wasn't that. And, you know. Well, we did have a Paminda Nagra 20 odd years ago. We did.

Except, where did she go? Well, and I know it's an uncomfortable subject. So Paminda, just to remind everybody, was the excellent lead in Bend It Like Beckham. Except, where did she go? Well, and I know it's an uncomfortable subject, but... So, Paminda, just to remind everybody, was the excellent lead in Bend It Like Beckham, and then Keira Knightley did amazingly, and Jonathan Rees-Meyer did amazingly. And Paminda, the lead, who was phenomenal.

And it was her film, and this is the thing, and that film means so much to so many people. It meant so much to me, watching it, thinking, oh, my goodness, I can have my own story. We can have our own stories. And then it just didn't happen. I actually watched that. I think I was around drama school time coming out or whatever.

And I thought I could be a lead in a show. And it just didn't happen. And it hasn't happened really for people. I mean, Mindy Carling's doing amazing things in the States. In America. In America. But also, look how long that's taken. You know, it's just,

it's kind of soul destroying when you think about it. But then I'm glad that we are making a shift now. And is this the only way it was going to happen for you to write the script? I mean, I got sick of, as an actress, reading, you know, oh, this is clearly shoehorned in to tick a box. This character doesn't serve any...

Come on, give me some corkers. What have you been asked to play? Oh, goodness. I mean, well, it's just, it's like lawyers, doctors, solicitors, nurse, accountants, you know, there was a random one for an astronaut. And she had it. But did she have an Indian accent?

Oh, she had to have a, what did they describe it as? She had like a, what do they call it? They called it a South Asian accent. What's that? I'm sorry. What? It's just like general northern. There's not a general northern accent. Where are you from? You know, it was just, it was insulting, quite frankly. And I mean, I don't understand why we can't be front and centre of things. And it's not about us being brown. It's just about us being a person. away from it so if it is important to the story then it should be you know portrayed in in the correct way by people who know and i'm not just saying that only brown people can write brown characters and only white but i'm not saying that i'm just saying that has to be a level of understanding and true representation and she's a woman in her mid-40s who's fully rounded yeah

and people have to make so many assumptions about her, you know, that she can speak a language, if you like, that she can speak South Asian. From the start, she is other. Rashida Rae in this, from the start, she is coming into a Brummie police station and she's from Leicester. So that makes her other. So she's East Mids and they're West Mids. She's a woman in very much a kind of a very male environment and she's brought in to manage them. And you are, you know, the British police force have been under much criticism in the last few years and you discuss institutional racism and sexism within the police.

You went there as well. I did. This isn't, I mean, this isn't a police bashing show. I mean, I don't think we need to go there because there's been enough about that. But I did want to address that. But it's not just the police. I think there's institutionalized racism everywhere. And this is why these themes are universal, that they relate to any workplace. We could have made her not a police officer.

She could have been working in a whole different environment. And i think we would still come up against the same issues it it is thrilling to watch she's such a she's such a badass in it she's amazing oh would this have been commissioned five years ago two years ago i don't think so what's changed well i think that we there's an appetite now to there's a there's an appetite for change and there is more of a shift towards representing unheard voices, minority voices and really pushing them forward. I do have Jed to thank for that because he was really adamant that I write my truth Jed McCurry the writer of line of duty yes yeah and he's the exec on this and it's his production company that made it and Jed was always really supportive about look what do you want to say you know you can write your truth this is different because it's your story you know and he didn't try and squash any of the he was very particular about getting the police stuff right which we absolutely had to but he didn't he didn't ever try and um and and squash any of the ideas where I wanted to go there in terms of racism and sexism.

Well, I mean, just how much free reign did you have? I was going to ask, was there a lot of explaining for you along the way? Because it's you writing it, but presumably you're surrounded by people who don't look like you. But actually I had a brilliant script team around me. So I had a lot of women and women of colour.

And I think because we had so many women across it editorially and we you know we do zooms about plot about character you know I wrote it but I had a lot of support and I think that was really helpful and Jed does himself understand what the identity issue you know he's from an immigrant household so his parents are Italian so we did have a kind of an understanding there um so it was just about how we do it in the most easy accessible way for everyone we had bend it like Beckham with Paminda in the lead over 20 years ago you know lots of things happened at the end of the 90s when we thought Asians were cool and then kind of everything disappeared are our stories here to stay now Maya oh I hope so I hope so and you know what we don't have to put all brown people in one

show we can spread them out we can spread them out through at different shows they can be leads and I said I was gonna is it gonna be another line of duty I've got to ask the show's about to come off air do we know I don't know oh I said I'd ask I said I'd ask uh Maya I've got to ask. The show's about to come off air. Do we know? I don't know. Oh, I said I'd ask. I said I'd ask. Maya, I've loved speaking to you. Best of luck with it. I've got, I am going to watch all of it. I'm going to consume it all at once. The first episode is not to be missed.

It's brilliant. Thank you all for listening. Before we go, about our series on divorce called Life After Divorce, you can find the article pulling all our stories we featured together on the Woman's Hour website. Have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I thought it was going to be like, we have such a great friendship that we can talk about things that I can't talk about with anyone else, even my wife. I can talk to you about things that I can't talk to my wife about because when I try to talk to my wife about work, she just rolls her eyes.

I thought you were going to say like, we're like astronauts, we're the only ones who've been to the moon and no one else has seen what we've seen. I'm Louis Theroux, and if, like me, you enjoyed listening to John Ronson's Things Fell Apart podcast, you might also like this conversationonson's Things Fell Apart podcast, you might also like this conversation where I ask him all about how he made it. Funny, so you're conflict-averse, I'm conflict-averse, yet we spend our lives putting ourselves in very conflict-heavy situations. Why is that, Louis? That's How Things Fell Apart with John Ronson and Louis Theroux

on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con,

Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.