Meet the Mancunian - Talking social justice with Jesmin Chowdhury

Meet the Mancunian – Ep 7.4- Jesmin Chodhury – transcript

Intro

Hello and a warm Mancunian welcome to you today. I'm Deepa Thomas Sutcliffe, your host, and it's an honour to share Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester with you. This season is all about celebrating the stories of our local changemakers and the profound social impact they are creating.

Every Tuesday, I shine a spotlight on the incredible individuals weaving the fabric of our community. From grassroots heroes to local legends, their stories are the soul of Manchester.

Whether you're tuning in on Apple, Spotify, Google or www.meetthemancunian.co.uk, get ready for a season that showcases the incredible social impact within our community.

Welcome to the fourth episode of Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester.

Passionate about creating awareness for societal change? We hear from Jesmin Chowdhury, Founder, Ayna Arts and Social Justice Activist, in this episode.

This episode Is being released during Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week, which is from the 5th to the 11th of February, 2024. The Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week is the UK's National Week to raise awareness of sexual abuse and violence and to provide an opportunity for any organisation or individuals to engage in dialogue. This week is an opportunity for anyone that wants to use their voice to join a conversation with thousands of others. #ItsNotOK

Episode 7.4

[00:01:46] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Jesmin Chowdhury, Founder, Ayna Arts and social justice activist. Thank you, Jesmin for joining me today.

[00:01:56] Jesmin Chowdhury: Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

[00:01:58] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Please tell us first how you found your passion for societal change. And I know you talk about yourself as a social justice activist. Where did that come from?

[00:02:07] Jesmin Chowdhury: It started a long time back. As a child, I started realising differences among people and it started bothering me then, and then I became a victim of social practices that are not always favourable for women. Being married off at the age of 18 and then struggling at every step, becoming a mother of two before I was 24, no education, no money thousands of problems.

But I managed to come out of all that. So, my life has become a celebration now. I feel like it's a party every day. While enjoying my party. I still think I can't forget that there may be other people who are going through the same struggles. It has taken me several decades to find my way out of the maze of troubles.

And I would like to share with people and maybe just show them a shortcut or something so they don't have to go through so much. People understand and find ways to deal with problems that seem to be too difficult to overcome, they're not.

[00:03:22] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And that's a very optimistic way to look at it and to take your life lessons and your lived experience and take that to help other people. I always find my best guests are talking from lived experience. I look forward to learning more.

So first tell us about Ayna Arts. How did you get involved and what does it do?

[00:03:41] Jesmin Chowdhury: I have always been interested in acting. As a child, I didn't know what theatre was, but I would always dress up as something, try to scare my mom, dress up as a beggar, beg from my mom, stuff like that. Before coming to the UK while I was still in Bangladesh as a teenage girl, I used to run away from home to perform on stage because I had found people who were doing it.

But then I got married off, came to the UK, I started getting involved with theatre groups, but I didn't have enough family support to do it, so I had to give it up. Then I found somebody in life, coincidence, who is into theatre, who was a professional actor in Bangladesh, my current husband. And after meeting him so it rekindled my interest in drama, also my interest in writing, complemented the situation.

So, we both together established this drama group called Ayna Arts. And you know what Ayna means? Mirror. We look at mirror to find our imperfections before going out, fix things. Ayna also means in Bangla, Ayna, come along. So we are calling people to come and join us.

[00:04:58] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's really nice. And so tell us about Ayna Arts. What does it do and how does it affect societal change?

[00:05:05] Jesmin Chowdhury: Ayna Arts is seven years old. If you take the two COVID years out, we've been fully active for five years. We started off with doing classic Bangla plays. We take part every year in a drama festival called A Season of Bangla Drama, arranged by Tower Hamlets Council in London.

Now they started demanding new plays. They said, we want local writers to write their own plays about life here. Things that affect society, issues that affect our communities. So I started writing plays.

My first play was called Maya's Honeymoons which was staged in 2016. So, it was about domestic violence. You probably noticed I said honeymoons, so it's not honeymoon. It's the cycle of domestic violence where honeymoons keep coming back, but they're not real honeymoons.

And then a couple of years break. 2017, we did an adopted play from a Chilean play. Then 18, I had a brain haemorrhage. I'm a brain haemorrhage survivor. 18 was missing. Then Covid 2021, we did a play called Do you know what Orna is?

[00:06:21] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: No.

[00:06:22] Jesmin Chowdhury: You know how some Asian women wear a three-piece suit? So on the top they wear a shawl like thing.

[00:06:31] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yes, dupatta.

[00:06:31] Jesmin Chowdhury: In Bangla we call it Orna. Orna was about rape and victim blaming. So, it was a symbolic play where an orna is telling its life story, what it saw while hanging in the shop. What it heard people saying about women, all those comments.

Then how it ended up in the hands of a teenage girl who used to love and adore the orna. but then her father gave her the orna to cover herself, to protect her from men. But then one day she got raped while wearing the orna. And then she committed suicide with the orna, and her father threw it away.

But then that girl, from her deathbed, she rises up and she says, No, I'm not gone. May seem that I'm gone, but my story will inspire other women to speak up, to fight for their rights, to stand up, to go out.

So it was like a symbolic story, which was very well received. We did three shows, two in Manchester, one in London. I was a bit worried about how the community will react to some of the dialogues that I actually didn't write myself.

I just took it out of people's mouths. Exactly what I heard as a teenage girl in shops, in markets, on buses, on trains. And I was very worried, those raw dialogues. But people actually appreciated it and applauded me for my courage to actually put those words in my actor's mouth.

And then last year we did two plays. One was called Ghorni, A Disastrous Cycle. It's about climate injustice. How the luxurious lifestyles of the rich countries contribute to carbon emissions more, but the sufferers are those who don't contribute, who hardly contribute anything. I was commissioned by a charity organisation called Crossing Footprints to write this play.

We did about six or seven plays very well received. And we did another play commissioned by Manchester University History Department. It was called Telegram Migrant Bangladeshi. Women of working class families. It's about them in the 1970s and 80s, those who came, their lives, their lost hopes or dreams, or how they survived. So, this is what we've done.

And this year we are doing a comedy. It's a bit different from what we have been doing so far. On the surface, it's different. It's a comedy called Extramarital. But I do talk about misogyny in it as well.

[00:09:22] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much for sharing that and, such a varied amount of subjects covering, societal stereotypes and societal concepts and constructs. And it's really lovely that you're trying to use drama to influence those change.

Have there been challenges on this journey that you're been on with Ayana Arts ?

[00:09:44] Jesmin Chowdhury: Challenges are of different types. As a woman, no matter where you've reached, how educated you are, how powerful you've become, you cannot escape the grips of the patriarchal society. The thing is It's very difficult to work as a playwright, a co-director and an actor being a woman who has a family. You know what Virginia Woolf said, a woman needs her own room and her own money to write fiction.

I don't write fiction, so maybe my own money and my own room hasn't been enough. I'm not writing fiction, I'm dealing with society's troubles, and I have felt, I have been writing for many years now. People come up to me and they say, so who actually wrote this play, you or your husband? People can't believe that I can write that well.

Because my husband has a reputation for being a theatre professional. I have not had any theatre schooling. I have not had any schooling, really. I have educated myself. I have obtained a few qualifications studying privately at home. I've never been inside a university as a student.

People find it difficult to believe that a woman can do. important work. People still don't believe I do it. They think my husband does it. Whereas I write, I buy the costumes, I put the groups together, cook for every rehearsal because we have no money. We can't buy food for the team. Do everything, but still people think that he does it. So that's one emotional struggle. It's not practical.

But as a writer, I face much more difficulties. So, I'm a Facebook writer, not just Facebook. I've written in different portals, print media in Bangladesh, published five books so far. And I've had life threats. I've had people calling me names. Do you mind me saying the words that they call me?

[00:12:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: If you like, you can share.

[00:12:02] Jesmin Chowdhury: They call me a whore. They, sometimes they describe the things they would like to do to me. Horrible, horrible words,

[00:12:12] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Very ignorant people, unfortunately.

[00:12:15] Jesmin Chowdhury: But there are lots of them, Deepa.

[00:12:17] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yes,

[00:12:18] Jesmin Chowdhury: I have seen a change as well. I started writing on Facebook. I have written all my life, but I've started sharing my writing with others since 2016 on a regular basis. And at the beginning, there was more challenges, more protests from people, more online verbal violence or written violence. Slowly, it has decreased, so that's where the impact is.

I have 30,000 followers on Facebook. 30,000 followers means at least 100,000 people are reading my writing. It's reaching out. Those 30, 000, they share. Wherever I go, people tell me, Oh, read something by you. Oh, I've seen your post on Facebook. I've seen your play there.

I'm reaching out to more people than sometimes I realise myself. And those people are slowly learning to accept me. I write very openly. Very. It's been a long time since I stopped thinking there is anything private about me. There's nothing private about me that I've suffered, anything that I've experienced, someone else is experiencing right now. If I don't share, that means I don't want them to share either.

So I've been sharing very openly, the abuses that I've suffered in life since my childhood, people didn't like it at the beginning. Some people didn't. But now, I can see that more people liking it than before. And I don't receive threats anymore. It's been three years, I haven't received any threats. Good stuff.

[00:14:07] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Good stuff. And I'm so sorry you're going through this difficult... There is an online world where there are people who are armchair warriors and who can just give opinions hiding in the dark, let's call it.

But it's really good that you're seeing so many more positive people because I think the people are basically good. There are lots of good people out there. Just need to find the good people and give them an opportunity to rise. Which is what this podcast tries to do, gives a voice to people like yourself.

Tell us more about the impact. You talked about, a little bit about the impact you made influencing 100,000 people. That's a big impact. Are there other things you want to share about any, maybe one experience where you helped somebody?

[00:14:49] Jesmin Chowdhury: Many women reach out to me on Facebook. Some of them are transgender women, some of them are sex workers, victims of domestic violence, women who want to come out of an abusive relationship but don't know how, simply don't have the courage.

I have quite a few young women to decide not to commit suicide. Just by talking, just nothing. I'm not trained. I'm not a trained counsellor or anything. So I always say to them, okay, you've connected to me. I can't ignore you, I'm not trained to do this. I used to do this a lot, but since I had a brain haemorrhage in 2018, reduced that because it creates a lot of mental pressure on me.

But just by reading my writing, a lot of women have written to me that pieces about how I broke my first marriage, how I remarried again, became happy in life, how I've raised my two children to give them a good education, whereas I didn't get an education myself, a formal education myself. So those writings give them courage.

One woman wrote to me from India. Maharashtra, I think. She wanted to know the exact spelling of my name. I said, why? She said, I'm doing PhD in physics, and I want to give credit to you. I said, how come? She said, reading your 100 Happy Days series. I used to write 100 Happy Days. So every day something that made me happy on that day. So, reading that series. has given me hope and strength to finish this course.

At one point, I was just breaking down. Another time I met a woman at the book fair in Bangladesh. After my brain haemorrhage, she came up to me and hugged me and said, You saved me from committing suicide. I said, How come? She said, You climbed up. What's this mountain called? Not a mountain, so it is a mountain in North Wales.

[00:16:57] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Snowdonia.

[00:16:58] Jesmin Chowdhury: No, it's not Snowdonia. It's not Snowdonia. It's not one of the very well-known mountains. It's not that high. It takes about for a normal healthy person, about 25 to 30 minutes to climb and then you see the Irish Sea on the other side and it's a treat once you climb up. Two and a half months after my brain haemorrhage, I went and climbed that mountain and my son made a video of it. took me more than an hour to do it. And I wrote a piece on my experience. How I did it , how it made me feel after doing it and what my surgeon said, what the people in the community said. Everybody said I was harming myself, my health, I was crazy. And my surgeon said, if you asked me before going, I would advise you not to. But now that you've done it, will say, well done. You've managed to do it.

[00:17:53] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It is very inspiring that you could do it.

[00:17:55] Jesmin Chowdhury: I write about these small experiences that may seem insignificant. I write about everything I do, and later I find out that it has touched somebody. That young woman said, reading that piece made her feel that there is still hope. And she decided she threw away her pills that she was going to take. It makes me emotional. These are like individual examples, but I think there are much more, many more cases that I don't know about. The impact that is actually being made; I don't know about.

[00:18:31] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's lovely that you're sending so much good vibes into the world, that you're helping people consciously, unconsciously.

How can interested people reach out to you and learn more? Where can they find you online?

[00:18:44] Jesmin Chowdhury: They can email to me. I'll always respond to emails. I even check Facebook spam folders because that's where I found many messages from people who were trying to reach out to me to get suggestions and advice. Facebook is quite a good platform for me. It has worked for me even though I write in Bangla.

Now, it has, I think, auto translation or something. If you just click, it translates so people can read. I have two YouTube channels, though those are a bit irrelevant. One is about gardening, one is about cooking, but while doing gardening and cooking, I talk a lot as well.

[00:19:26] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'll include them in the episode notes so people can find you.

And what advice would you have for people looking to start a similar movement in their local community? Like you said, gender-based violence, patriarchy, these are universal problems, not just in Greater Manchester, around the world.

[00:19:43] Jesmin Chowdhury: Everywhere it's the same.

[00:19:45] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So how do they start a movement?

[00:19:48] Jesmin Chowdhury: I would say don't look at your weaknesses too much, even if you have a tiny speck of strength, use it as your capital. I had nothing. I didn't even realise when I was fighting. I was just trying to survive, but at one point I realised. Now looking back, I feel, oh my god, have I done all those things? Okay.

Even if it seems people are not accepting you accepting what you do. If you do it with genuine love and care, people are bound to come around at one point. Because in Manchester, I'm still not very popular.

But at one point, I had a feeling that people didn't like me. Now, in Manchester, in the community people reach out to me. They approach me. They want me to go and do things with them, things for them, give talks or run workshops, things like that.

[00:20:42] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Lovely. Thank you for sharing that. And then it's an opportunity now for you to talk about anything coming up soon that I haven't asked you about.

[00:20:50] Jesmin Chowdhury: 26th (November) we are going to stage a play, most probably in Oldham Millennium Centre. Everybody knows it as the Millennium Centre. So it's going to be a comedy, a play called Extramarital, which is about extramarital relationship. Actually, of Bungalow Rama asked us to do a play on love. Are trying to show in this play how can be lost if you don't nurture it. and there, there are some feminist ideas in it as well.

And I'm also looking to publish a book called Minaras. It's about child sex abuse in post war Bangladesh. That I'm not sure when it will come out. but in the next year or so.

[00:21:34] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. Now come to the signature questions I ask all my guests. And the first one for you is to describe the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase.

[00:21:45] Jesmin Chowdhury: Think friendship and working together.

[00:21:48] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's a good one because there's a lot of community spirit definitely in Greater Manchester.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why?

[00:21:57] Jesmin Chowdhury: I'd like to mention my friend Kooj Chuhan. I don't know if he will be listening. Kooj has inspired me in spite of a lot of personal pains and difficulties, Kooj continues to help and support the community especially he's a climate change warrior. He taught me a lot of things about this so I could write a play that was hugely successful. Kooj is my inspiration.

[00:22:26] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Amazing. You must share the podcast episode with him when it comes out, and a big shout out to Kooj.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:22:36] Jesmin Chowdhury: Life lesson is keep going. You call people, they don't come, you start working alone. If you can walk enough length of the way, people will start coming again.

[00:22:49] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That is beautiful, it's like you're a pathfinder. You're showing the way. People are joining you. Very lovely.

If you could have one superpower, what would that be?

[00:23:00] Jesmin Chowdhury: Eliminate from the world and make people accept differences.

[00:23:06] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I think it's a very good one. We would be a much kinder world if this was the case, so I hope that comes true someday.

And the last one, is there a funny story or a heart-warming story you'd like to share with listeners to end the podcast?

[00:23:20] Jesmin Chowdhury: I don't know why this one came in my mind. In 1997, I was working in a school as a home-school liaison, and one of the Students I was working with had died from stomach cancer that day. I was very sad, very upset with the school for many reasons. And I was so emotional that I left my bag at school. I started walking off, I got on the bus. Those days you didn't have to buy the ticket first.

I got on one of those buses, not having a penny with me, and then the conductor came and asked me for the fare. It was only 50p. I didn't have it. And he refused to let me get off. He wasn't a kind person. Then an old couple came forward and they gave me five pounds. I said, I only need 50p. And they said, but you might need some more later. And you may not find somebody who will help you.

And I said, how do I pay you back? They said, pass it on. I didn't know. My English was okay academically, but I didn't know these phrases. Pass it on was a new phrase to me. I went home, I looked up the meaning, and that has been one of my mottos of life. Pass it on.

[00:24:44] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Such a lovely gesture that they did and like you, I'm sure you're passing it on in many different ways through your books, through your writings, through your videos. That's really nice and very kind and more kind people in the world we need so much.

[00:25:00] Jesmin Chowdhury: Definitely.

[00:25:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Jesmin, it's been a real pleasure. I really enjoyed talking to you today.

[00:25:06] Jesmin Chowdhury: Thank you, Deepa. Thank you very much for inviting me. I wish we had a few hours.

[00:25:11] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: For sure.

Outro

Jasmine, I really enjoyed learning about creating societal change today.

Next week on Tuesday 13th February 2024, I speak to Wesley Hamnett about fundraising through cycling.

 Dear listener, I hope you were inspired by today's episode and it sparks your passion to make change happen wherever you live and work.

I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our community for your support and feedback. Your stories inspire this podcast.

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Keep thriving, keep connecting and remember the power of change lies within us.