In this episode of The Brown Box, we chat with Shibani Mahtani, investigative journalist with The Washington Post.
We talk about:
• Political discourse at the dinner table — her father’s relentless questioning of the PAP vs her mother’s gratitude and how this made her curious about the world
• The journey from straightening her curls to embracing them — a two-year process of making peace with who she is, and what that says about belonging in Singapore
• “Indians are smelly” — the phrase her Chinese friends taught her, and the jarring gap between lived experience and Singapore’s ‘Racial Harmony Day’ narrative
• Being Sindhi — growing up in a tiny diaspora community with no homeland and extended family across the world, and how that showed her there’s a whole world out there waiting to explore
• PropertyGuru, curry, and Singapore’s rental racism — uncovering housing discrimination that contradicted the fair and equal HDB quota system Singapore is known for
• Reporting in Myanmar, the US, and Hong Kong — how each place taught her something different about racism, resistance, community, and what’s possible
• Finding community in Hong Kong’s streets — witnessing shopkeepers opening their doors during tear gas, people buying burgers for strangers, and discovering a kind of solidarity Singapore doesn’t seem to have
• What living away, taught her about hope and the fight for a better Singapore
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