Cultural Storytelling Takes Spotlight As Modern South Asian Relationships Examined.

With data released this week showing content diversity is helping to grow podcasting’s audience, Vaaka Media is teaming up with iHeartPodcasts to release a new series with appeal to the South Asian community. It will take on the highs and lows of being on the arranged marriage carousel while looking for “desi love,” the South Asian expression of romantic love shaped by social structures, family involvement, literary traditions.

Hosted by Radhika Viswanathan, the series “Boys & Girls” will explore the reality that 93% of Indian marriages are arranged, with elements such as caste, class, family connections, and location acting as stand-ins for compatibility.

“I was just beginning to explore who I was. Choosing breakfast was hard enough, so choosing a life partner made my head spin,” Viswanathan says. “It felt like I was in a fishbowl, watched by everyone around me. In this new series, my friends and show producers Samyuktha Varma, Menaka Raman and I will go on a journey to talk to the boys and girls who lived this same experience and survived.”

In the first episode, Viswanathan will introduce listeners to the unique process of arranged marriages and why, in Desi communities worldwide until someone is married, they’re viewed as a “girl” or “boy” regardless of their age. “I lived to tell the tale, and I think it’s time everyone finds out what really happens on the road to the big fat Indian wedding,”Viswanathan says in the show’s trailer.

Episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere podcasts are heard.