The Openhouse Podcast

Schooling will never be the same again. We can thank the pandemic for that. This final episode, we have a student host, Teesta Banerji, in conversation with Maria Hashmi and Roshan Agarwal. They talk about what they miss about school, what they would change and whether we really need 14 years of school.

Climate change is real and Gen Z understands this. This episode, we talk to Deeksha Madhu, an 11th grader from Bangalore, and Nathan Marcus, who completed school this year, about what they can do about the environment and the sense of hopelessness they feel. 

Skinny waist. Long hair. No body hair. There is immense pressure on women to look a certain way. This episode, we talk to two students, Mayurakshi Sarkar and Niharika Verma about body positivity and what it really means to be comfortable in your own skin. 

The last two years of school can be stressful. There are board exams to give and then the pressure of getting into college. Admission processes are long and tedious and there is the anxiety of board exams at school. In this episode, Openhouse is in conversation with Enakshi Chatterjee, currently studying at the Technical University of Munich and Indranil Basu, a 12th grader all set to go to college. They talk about how to deal with this pressure and anxiety from experience and also answer some of the questions students commonly have about the admissions process.

Reading the news can be stressful. Or confusing. Or annoying. Especially when the news is all about coronavirus, death and loss. This episode, we talk to Associate Editor at Newslaundry, Meghnad S, and two Openhouse students, Kanishk Agarwal and Zahra Javed, about how they feel about the news and how they consume it responsibly.

No, you're not "too distracted" or "too hyper". It's called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and you're not the only one with it. This episode, Openhouse is in conversation with Aranya Johar, an Indian poet, and Abhishek Kumar, from the Openhouse founding team on what it means to be a student with ADHD and how they navigate everyday life. 

A good sense of humour is almost like your mind's immune system. As hard as life is right now, a little laughter can do wonders. This episode, we talk to stand up comedian Atul Khatri and two Openhouse students, Ananya Naik and Carolyn Shreya Serrao, about how humour helps and the ability to laugh at yourself.

This last year, board exams have gotten cancelled and postponed. Exams aren't important in a pandemic. But do we need them otherwise? This episode, we talk to two Openhouse students, Vedant Singh and Navya Jain, about their perspective. Their answer? We need exams, but the way we think of them needs to change. 

The last year has made us all encounter death like never before. All of us respond to the death of a loved one differently. It could be grief, shock or no reaction at all. This episode, we talk to two Openhouse students, Dhriti and Dhyana, and therapist Nabonita Banerjee about their encounters with death and how they deal with it.

Memes play many roles in the world today. They can be a source of news, a tool for learning or simply a way for people to feel like they are not alone in feeling a certain way. Gen Z expresses themselves through memes. This episode, we talk to Kyle Fernandez, founder of MemeChat, an app for meme makers and Shrikrrit Bhatter, an Openhouse student who made memes to learn better.