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piqer for: Global finds Health and Sanity Doing Good
Bangalore-based Rashmi Vasudeva's journalism has appeared in many Indian and international publications over the past decade. A features writer with over nine years of experience heading a health and fitness supplement in a mainstream Indian newspaper, her niche areas include health, wellness, fitness, food, nutrition and Indian classical Arts.
Her articles have appeared in various publications including Mint-Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, Deccan Herald (mainstream South Indian newspaper), Smart Life (Health magazine from the Malayala Manorama Group of publications), YourStory (India's media technology platform for entrepreneurs), Avantika (a noir arts and theatre magazine), ZDF (a German public broadcasting company) and others.
In 2006, she was awarded the British Print-Chevening scholarship to pursue a short-term course in new-age journalism at the University of Westminster, U.K. With a double Masters in Globalisation and Media Studies from Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), University of Amsterdam and Swansea University in Wales, U.K., she has also dabbled in academics, travel writing and socio-cultural studies. Mother to a frisky toddler, she hums 'wheels on the bus' while working and keeps a beady eye on the aforementioned toddler's antics.
Podcast Series: A Fun Club About Cancer – Yes, That's Right!
This podcast series is fun, irreverent and greatly enjoyable. It just so happens that it is about cancer.
True to its introduction, the podcast does feel like "the coolest club you do not want to be part of". A girls' group that looks at the Big C with eyes and hearts more interested in living than dying. As its logo says, it is about putting the 'can' in cancer.
It was also BBC Radio 5 newsreader and presenter Rachel Bland's dream project. Through this pioneering podcast, she not only chronicled her own battle with breast cancer employing her trademark dry humour, but also managed to free the disease from its sombreness. In fact, she and her co-presenters made cancer a more accessible, animated dinner-table discussion in many households.
The outpouring of love and messages the podcast and BBC received last week after her death was a testimony to how many cancer survivors and patients took solace from the weekly listen and how it provided great insights for caregivers about what their loved ones were going through. The podcast series covers just about everything you might want to know about cancer – from pain management to practical advice on hospital visits and treatment as well as tips on handling finances. But all done in an off-hand, cheery manner that neither sounds phoney nor affected – perhaps because it was presented by cancer warriors themselves. For instance, the podcast often had 'over-a-cup-of-tea' sort of jokes on the clichéd 'battle with cancer' phrase (used here as well!) and belly laughs over whether eyelashes will ever grow back after chemo.
When Bland announced on the podcast that she had only a few days to live, the reaction was such that the podcast topped the iTunes chart that week. If not all, do listen to its latest episode where Deborah and Lauren talk about their friend's final days and pay a heart-breaking tribute to her. The best way really to honour someone who managed to start a new kind of conversation around the dreaded C.
Source: Rachael Bland, Deborah James and Lauren Mahon Image: BBC Radio 5 Live bbc.co.uk