From The Slums to Spotify Podcaster to Self-Published Author

Sangeeta Pillai on winning six podcast awards, facing publishing bias, and why "we all have a choice"

Meet multi-award winning podcaster, Sangeeta Pillai - a rebellious spirit who founded Soul Sutras, a South Asian feminist network, revolutionising the universal messages of womanhood through her interview series on Masala Podcast. Having recently released her debut memoir, Bad Daughter, Sangeeta's work continues to centre on one powerful truth: women across the globe have been conditioned to be good girls, people pleasers, and she's here to remind women to be couragous, break free and do what truly pleases you.

In our latest conversation on The Sassy Show, Sangeeta takes us through the extraordinary journey that led her from the slums of Mumbai to billboards in New York. We explore how a mental health breakdown became her breakthrough, why healing requires more than just therapy, and what it really takes to challenge the white middle-class glass ceiling that dominates UK media and publishing. She shares the statistics that prove the industry's bias, the moment she decided to stop waiting for validation, and why she's become possibly the bravest person she knows. This is a story about survival, self-determination, and the radical act of choosing yourself when the world tells you you're not enough.

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Six years ago, Sangeeta didn't even know what a podcast was. She had to Google it. Working in advertising and deeply unhappy, she'd just emerged from what she describes as a mental health breakdown - a period where she couldn't get out of bed, couldn't function, couldn't be the person she'd been pretending to be anymore. "That person had gone," she explains. In that vulnerable space, she started running workshops for South Asian women, inviting them to share their stories and talk about cultural taboos. The response was overwhelming.

These workshops evolved into theatre shows, and eventually, someone sent her a link to a Spotify podcasting competition - at 10pm on the night the deadline closed at midnight. She dashed off an application, never expecting a response. A week later, she was one of ten people shortlisted from 750 applicants, attending a podcasting boot camp where she pitched her idea to the heads of BBC Audio, Apple Audio, and Google Audio. "It was one of those rare times in my life where I'm like, I think I've got that," she remembers, and indeed, she had. Masala Podcast was born, and within three years, it had won six British Podcast Awards, landed Spotify sponsorship, and put Sangeeta's face on billboards from New York to Leicester Square. The podcast became a space for South Asian women to tell their unfiltered stories, challenging everything from arranged marriage to body image, from mental health to sexuality - all the things her culture had taught her never to discuss.

Although it was horrific, it has informed my feminism because it taught me that if I wanted any say in my own life, I had to be independent

The "bad daughter" in Sangeeta started early. Growing up in Kerala and then the slums of Mumbai with an alcoholic, abusive father and a mother trapped by financial dependence, she witnessed firsthand what happens when women don't have their own money or opportunities. "I think that's probably, although it was horrific, it has informed my feminism because it taught me that if I wanted any say in my own life, I had to be independent," she reflects. She lived at home for ten years, fighting with her family, being told she was crazy for wanting something different. In India, she explains, a girl leaves her parents' house in one of two ways: in her bridal procession or her funeral procession. But Sangeeta found a third way - she got a job in another city and left. That fire never dimmed, even through decades of survival mode. But something shifted in recent years. She's accessed softer parts of herself, discovered playfulness and spirituality, and realized her purpose: "I know now that I was put on this earth to do this work." The journey from that defiant four-year-old to this moment hasn't been linear - it's been messy, painful, and transformative. Yet the core remains the same: "Don't tell me what to do."

Her book, Bad Daughter is seven years in the making, older even than her podcast. It's Sangeeta's story, but as she emphasizes, it's also all our stories - a raw, intimate exploration of what it means to be conditioned as a "good girl" and what it costs to break free. The book takes readers through her childhood trauma, her mother's pain, her own mental health struggles, and the alternative healing modalities that saved her life - from acupuncture to craniosacral therapy, hypnotherapy to tantra. She writes about these practices because, she says, "I want people to know that there are other ways to heal. It's not just this one thing we're sold, which is therapy and medication."

I want people to know that there are other ways to heal. It's not just this one thing we're sold, which is therapy and medication.

The memoir doesn't shy away from the difficult truths: the isolation of being the only person asking for something different, the years of fighting, the breakdown that forced her to rebuild herself entirely. But it also celebrates the woman she's become - confident, spiritual, joyful, and deeply connected to her purpose. Reading her story, you understand that being a "bad daughter" isn't about rebellion for rebellion's sake; it's about refusing to shrink yourself into someone else's idea of acceptable. It's about choosing your own life, even when that choice terrifies everyone around you.

The publishing industry, however, wasn't ready for that story. Despite having a successful podcast with over 200k downloads, six British Podcast Awards, a Guardian page, and global press coverage, Sangeeta and her agent pitched Bad Daughter to 39 UK publishers. All of them loved her voice, loved the story, loved the writing, but all of them told her the same thing: "There is no market for your book." She couldn't believe it. "There are 2 million South Asian women in this country alone," she points out. "There are 49 million women in the world. And [what's more], my work isn't just for South Asian women. I'm just telling women's stories."

If someone like me cannot get a publishing deal, what about somebody who just wants to write a book who hasn't got an audience?

The numbers tell a stark story about who gets to be published in the UK: in the last four years, only 71 South Asian women have been published in Britain - fewer than 20 per year - while approximately 4 million books are published annually. The rejection felt personal until Sangeeta realized it wasn't about her at all; it was about an industry that puts people in boxes and only opens the door if you fit their narrow categories. "If someone like me cannot get a publishing deal," she says, "what about somebody who just wants to write a book who hasn't got an audience?" She thought about how writers are taught to wait their entire lives for a publisher to validate them, how it echoes the messaging women receive about relationships: "One day if you're very good, a man will choose you." The parallel was too obvious to ignore.

So Sangeeta did what she's always done when someone tells her something won't work: she proved them wrong. She taught herself every step of the publishing process, hired a top editor from Penguin Random House, found a specialist book cover designer, researched print-on-demand and ebooks, and within five months had her book ready for print. If people's faces drop upon learning she's self-published, she refuses to carry their shame. "There are good books and bad books, published books and self-published books," she insists. "There's just books."

You want to do a podcast, you can do it. You want to write a book, you can do it. Whatever you want to create, it's possible.

Her message to other creatives is simple but powerful: the old systems are collapsing, and we have power now. "You want to do a podcast, you can do it. You want to write a book, you can do it. Whatever you want to create, it's possible." She stands in front of audiences now - the same venues where she once shook with nerves - owning the room, chest out, head high, and tells them to stop waiting for permission. Stop believing you need someone else to validate your worth. Stop accepting the boxes society tries to squeeze you into. Her journey proves that the alternative to waiting isn't just possible; it's liberating. From that little girl who refused to smile to the woman who turned rejection into revolution, Sangeeta embodies a truth she wants everyone to understand: "We all have a choice at any given point." And sometimes, being bad is the bravest, most necessary thing you can do.

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Get your hands on Sangeet's book Bad Daughter worldwide here

Follow her on IG @soulsutras

Check out her website

Head to the Bad Daughter website

Interview and portraits by Bethany Burgoyne @bxsassy2