Dr Trishima Mitra-Kahn on family violence, sociology and debating, from New Delhi to London and Melbourne.

In this episode Dr Trishima Mitra-Kahn shares her early experiences of family violence and how this set her on a path to research the sociology question, 'Why do some people use violence?'. Come with us as we walk through Trishima's childhood and early adult years in New Delhi, London, and now in Melbourne. Trish is a remarkable person who has spent her whole career working towards a goal of eliminating all forms of family violence. She is now the Chairperson of Body Safety Australia and a Group Director with Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre where she continues to use research and evidence to inform this critical work.
This is a Memory Lane Life Stories production. Recorded at the Narrm Ngarrgu library in Melbourne, Australia. Music licensed through PremiumBeat. Design by Pass the Salt Studio.

What is When I Was Young?

Exploring the younger years and turning point moments of authentic, outstanding and inspiring people. See the world through the eyes of someone who may have grown up in an entirely different way to you.

Transcript: When I Was Young Podcast
Episode Four: Journey with Dr Trishima Mitra-Khan as she explores our sociology from New Delhi to London, and now in Melbourne.

Nina: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to When I Was Young, the podcast that explores the formative years of authentic, outstanding, and inspiring people. In each episode, we explore the younger years and turning point moments that help people discover who they really are. The foundations of great things to come. I'm your host Nina Fromhold.
Nina: For the last six years, I've been making audio recordings of people's life stories as private podcasts for their families. This year I'm launching When I Was Young, a podcast to share some real-life stories with you. Please note that this interview will include discussion and personal stories of domestic violence and may not be appropriate for all listeners.
Nina: [00:01:00] Please use your best judgment in deciding if this episode is right for you today. If you or someone you love is impacted by domestic violence and you live in Australia, you can call 1-800-RESPECT for counselling information and support.
Nina: In the studio with me today is Dr. Trishima Mitra-Khan. Trish has a doctorate in sociology, is the chairperson for Body Safety Australia, and has had a vibrant career working to increase women's equality and eliminate violence against women.
Nina: The need for this work is so very clear and the progress is painfully slow. In Australia in 2023, reports estimate that 58 women were killed by their domestic partner. Trish is one of those rare and brave people that has dedicated her career to contributing to a wicked social problem that affects women all over the [00:02:00] world.
Nina: In this interview, we are going to delve into Trish's childhood, her teenage years, and the life-changing moments that helped her become the person she is today. Thanks for sharing some of your early years story with us, Trish.
Trishima: Thanks for having me, Nina.
Nina: So take me back to the beginning, when and where were you born?
Trishima: I was born on the 5th of March, 1980, New Delhi, which is the capital of India.
Nina: Do you know why your parents called you Trishima?
Trishima: I have been told it was my dad who named me Trishima. Trishima is a Sanskrit word. Tri means three as it does in English and Shima means horizon. And apparently Trishima means the totality of perception.
Trishima: And when I was born, he told my mother, that's the horizon. So, I was named Trishima .
Nina: What about [00:03:00] your parents' story? Can you tell me a little about them? How they met and their relationship?
Trishima: So I come from a very liberal Bengali family in India. My mum was a molecular chemist and had great aspirations to learn old Turkish because she wanted to translate the Babur Nama. Beautiful woman.
Trishima: She's a poet. She writes drama. She loves acting. I know little about my dad. My parents divorced when I was three years old and my father died when I was 15. My father also spent most of his working life working abroad, so I saw him a handful of occasions till I was about 15. About their courtship. I think I come from a generation of Indian kids where parents didn't discuss things like that.
Trishima: However, I am told that dad and mum met when mum was in university, and mum's [00:04:00] roommate was dad's friend. And he was on a motorbike and he was driving back one night to drop this person away and mum was on the balcony and I believe it was a Romeo and Juliet moment.
Nina: That's rather gorgeous, isn't it?
Trishima: It is. It's fun.
Nina: So what do you remember about your home and life as a young girl?
Trishima: Well, I had two homes. So when mum and dad separated, I was brought up by my grandfather and my grandmother and I would spend the week with them. The weekends were at mum's house. Mum used to come every Wednesday and stay at my father's home.
Trishima: That's what it was from the age of about three to fifteen. What do I remember about my homes? I remember long walks with my grandfather and chats and playing games of badminton, swimming, lots of giggles, lots of laughter, lots of cuddles. [00:05:00] With Mum, the same. Mum is a poet, so I remember listening to mum read out her poetry.
Trishima: I remember going to the theatre with Mum. My love of reading comes from my mother. My mother is a voracious reader, and so I remember books piled up yay high in both homes. For the majority, I have really happy memories.
Nina: Talk me through your earliest memory.
Trishima: The earliest memory I have, I think I must have been four or five. My parents had separated when I was three, and I think the divorce had just come through. And so my grandfather had come to pick me up from dad and Mum's house to take me back to his house. And I remember holding his hand and walking through the neighbourhood, and we lived in a beautiful part of Delhi, which had old ruins from the 15th century.
Trishima: My grandfather, bless him, my superhero, my Superman. He [00:06:00] was a polyglot. He was a historian. He was an economist. My oldest memory is holding his hand, walking through those streets, looking at those ruins and my grandfather telling me the story of that dynasty that built it. It's my happiest memory and my earliest memory.
Nina: That's beautiful. So, he was there to show you the way in life?
Trishima: Oh, absolutely.
Nina: What are the smells that stand out the most in your memories from when you were a young girl in Delhi?
Trishima: Oh, goodness me. Maximum Delhi hey! I think the standout smells, the smell of cardamom and cinnamon in boiling chai. The smell of a winter morning in Delhi where the sigris were on.
Trishima: So sigris are these wooden fire pits and the smell of the campher burning in that. The smell of firecrackers at Diwali. Oh, just the smell of home Nina.
Nina: Tell me about your education and your [00:07:00] experiences at school.
Trishima: I went to a very progressive private school, New Delhi, and I was always very scholastic and academically gifted.
Trishima: I was also a debater and it's a passion that has not left me, and I loved being in school. When I graduated from high school, I was the head girl, in effect, the school captain. I was the captain of the debating team. I was the captain also of the Friends of South Africa Society. I was what you would call a geek.
Trishima: I wore that with pride.
Nina: A nice thing to be proud of. So let's go to some more challenging spaces. Talk to me about your experience of domestic violence when you were a child. What do you remember?
Trishima: I think my earliest memory of experiencing domestic and family violence was when I was five years old and I didn't [00:08:00] have the words that I have now, but I witnessed something, and I knew in my bones that it was not right.
Trishima: I vividly remember a very heated argument between my mother and my father. I vividly remember the argument escalating very quickly to my mother being pushed against a wall. I remember feeling terrified, but I also couldn't make sense of what was going on. So my earliest memory of being a survivor and witnessing domestic violence is the incomprehension, the inability to put words to what I was seeing, but also the sheer terror and vulnerability and fear.
Trishima: Because as a child I wanted to protect Mum, but I also wanted to know why is dad hurting her?
Nina: Which makes so much sense, doesn't it? Because your home is your environment of love. And so to see something that seems to go against that in your home environment, it's very [00:09:00] challenging.
Trishima: That's right. And you know, for a child when they're developing and don't have the language or the tools to understand things.
Trishima: It becomes really hard to comprehend, but children always know. They always know this is not right.
Nina: And so this violence then continued through your childhood and not just towards your mother. Is that right?
Trishima: That is right. The violence escalated. My Mum was the predominant, shall we say, victim of this violence.
Trishima: My grandparents were also victims, and eventually I became a victim of my father's violence as well.
Nina: I'm so sorry to hear that. So your experiences of violence in the home as a child are a lot to deal with, and you've spoken about that feeling of incomprehension, but how do you remember your little-self learning to cope with this environment?
Trishima: That's a lovely question, Nina, and I always [00:10:00] say, having worked in this space for since the Jurassic age, whilst children might not have the tools to put a lingua franca or a language around this experience, children are highly agile and adaptable and good at keeping themselves safe. One of the things that I learned early on as a child, as a coping strategy and a coping mechanism.
Trishima: Was that if I did my bit to keep the peace, perhaps the violence would not escalate.
Nina: So what did that mean for you in your home?
Trishima: What that looked like in practice are two things. When the violence changed from my mum being the sole victim to the family and me, I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone about it.
Trishima: And I did that because I wanted not for my mother to have an additional load. The abuse, the coercive control, the power dynamics, and [00:11:00] the violence was escalating, and it was severe, and it was unrelenting. So the last thing I wanted my Mum to know that, hey, he's hurting me too. The second thing I did was to find joy in things outside of home.
Trishima: So I was always a nerd and a geek. I loved to draw. I loved to elocute, to debate. You know, I was a straight A student and one of my greatest coping strategies was immersing myself in my scholastic endeavours. A third coping strategy, which through years of recovery in healing I have learned, was to always be the good girl.
Trishima: The girl who says yes to everything. The girl who diffuses the tension. At that time as a kid, absolutely, they worked.
Nina: It's quite incredible, isn't it? The places where our personality starts to be formed. So with this as the [00:12:00] context showing a fuller picture of your early life, let's talk about your later teenage years.
Nina: How did you start to assert your sense of self from fifteen to eighteen?
Trishima: I think every time I hear the word fifteen night chuckle. So as I said, I loved being scholastic. I loved education, I loved reading, I loved writing. But something happened at fifteen, shall we call it Teenage Rebellion, where I said, Hmm, we've done the Good Girl thing for a bit.
Trishima: What is it like to be a party girl? And so I spent my years from fifteen to seventeen being a little rebel.
Nina: Do you think part of what gave you the freedom to explore rebellion was that your father had passed away and therefore the threat of violence was gone?
Trishima: Absolutely. And I also think that was another coping strategy, and more importantly, it was the next level of [00:13:00] sense-making.
Trishima: And so I was making sense of a childhood riddled with trauma, and I think that rebellion, that breaking away from the mould. It gave me an opportunity to look deep and to make sense of what had happened to me.
Nina: So tell me what rebellion looked like in your world?
Trishima: Am I allowed to say sex, drugs, and rock and roll?
Nina: Absolutely.
Trishima: I love using that term because, you know, it's such a privilege, Nina, to hear other children, victim survivors stories when they recount it as adults. And there's a common theme of rebellion. There's a common theme of finding or seeking solutions in spaces that are not long-term solutions. And that's perfectly all right.
Trishima: 'cause that is how you recover and that is how you heal. So my rebellion was skipping school partying with my boyfriend, shall we say, hiding [00:14:00] a couple of beers here and there. You know, nothing out of the ordinary, Nina. Nothing that a fifteen and a sixteen-year-old doesn't do.
Nina: Fantastic. Tell me how your life changed when you were 20. Where did you go and what were you doing?
Trishima: So, as I said, my earliest memory was my grandfather giving me a history lesson, and I chose at the age of 18 to go and study my bachelor's degree in history. And at 20, I was going to go and study for a master's degree in Asian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Trishima: So at 20, with two lovely red suitcases, a new transport backpack. Little bit of money in my hand. My Mum said, “Off you go. Go see the world”. So I landed in London and I had been in London many times before as a kid on holidays, but this time I was going to live apart [00:15:00] from my family. I had never lived away from my family.
Trishima: Typical Indian in that regard. And there I was in the big smoke and boy, was that exciting. I still remember, I have this memory of walking into my room in the Halls of Residence. And so there were six rooms and we shared a kitchen and meeting all my flatmates and they were from Cyprus and Georgia and Lebanon and Norway and Kenya, and I was like, oh my goodness.
Trishima: It's the united colours of Benneton. And I absolutely loved it, but it was also a revelation. Because I was brought up in a very sheltered, typical upper class Indian environment where we are not taught life skills such as cooking or cleaning. And so it was a revelation opening a drawer in our kitchen and looking at something and [00:16:00] going, what exactly is this?
Trishima: Only to be told that it was a dishwasher. And my second question was, how does one use this? London was fantastic because quite apart from my studies, I learned how to adult. I learned how to use a dishwasher and I learned how to use a tumble dryer. I had never even seen a tumble dryer in my life. I loved London, I grew up!
Nina: So you got to get a university education and some life skills along the way?
Trishima: Absolutely.
Nina: How nice. Were there any cultural differences that surprised you in London?
Trishima: You know, when I was a child, London was the annual holiday, and my holidays were with my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandfather used to be the head of British Airways in India, so therefore London was the holiday.
Trishima: It's very different when you are in London as a tourist and when you are in London, not as a [00:17:00] tourist, as a Londoner. So I remember when I moved to London when I was 20 to study, one of the things that I thought was so different to Delhi was the independence. Where you could be faceless in a crowd, which was very exciting.
Trishima: And I remember getting onto the tube and saying, why do people look at each other's shoes? No one's talking. No one's in anyone's business. Everyone's reading the newspaper. That was liberating, and it was fun because I could be anyone I wanted to be. Hey.
Nina: I felt like that when I moved from the country in Victoria into Melbourne, and suddenly I was anonymous.
Trishima: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Trishima: And in Delhi, my beautiful Delhi. You can be anyone you want to be, but everyone will know. So it was very freeing. It was thrilling. Of course it was. I was 20.
Nina: Was London your first real sense of strong independence in the world? [00:18:00] Oh,
Trishima: Absolutely. I always say I'm Indian, but I'm a Londoner at heart and now I'm a proud Melburnian.
Nina: When and how did you meet your husband and why did you choose him?
Trishima: I met my husband in 2004. I met him on the second day. I had started a master's degree at the University of London. I met him at a halls of residence party. I think he'd had one too many. I certainly had had a couple of pints. And I remember him walking through the door and I looked at him and he walked to me and I said, ‘hi, I'm Trish’.
Trishima: And he said, hi, I'm drunk. And I remember saying, what an arrogant, so and so. I have to say, Nina, it was not love at first sight, but things progressed from there. I soon found out that he literally lived on top of my hall of residence, so I was room two B and he [00:19:00] was room three B, and we kept bumping into each other, you know, walking to university, walking down to the tumble dryer, and we started having conversations.
Trishima: And I think why I chose him was that when we got to know each other, I saw a man who was inordinately brave. Inordinately kind and intelligent and funny, and charming and witty. He wanted to change the world just the way I want to change the world. We had progressive values, but mostly Nina. I think what attracted me to him is that he loved me so well and he taught me how to love well.
Trishima: He is the greatest love of my life and the best thing I've ever done.
Nina: And was there a particular romantic day or something that happened that made you go, that's who you are?
Trishima: You know what, yes. I think about three months into, I couldn't call it a [00:20:00] relationship, you know, were we dating, perhaps, who knows?
Trishima: But three months into our relationship, we were sitting and having a cup of tea, and I suppose I was looking a little sullen or scared. And Ben, my partner, put his arms around me and he said, Trish, is there anything you want to talk about? And Ben wasn't my first romantic relationship, but it was getting serious.
Trishima: I had been careful with my former partners to disclose as much or as little as I was comfortable with at the time. And I remember looking at Ben and saying, Ben, I need to have a conversation with you, and I need to tell you something. And I told him my story. I told him my journey. I told him about my trauma.
Trishima: And I remember he turned around and the first words, he said, thank you for trusting me. And I remember breaking down in tears, happy tears, and saying, I think I love this boy.
Nina: And how beautiful to be held and [00:21:00] supported in that moment.
Trishima: That's right. Takes me back to what I always say. He loves me so well.
Nina: This is a good thing.
Nina: What were your expectations of love and marriage as a young woman, and did this differ from the expectations of your family and closest friends?
Trishima: Oh, I had no expectations of love and marriage, to be honest with you, given what I grew up with. In fact, I didn't even think I would get married or start my own family.
Trishima: But then, you know, life happens, and I think my expectations did differ from my peer group in India. I came from a progressive family. I went to a progressive school and university. I went to an all-girls university before I went to London, and these are remarkable independent feminist women who I'm still in touch with, but they had a very healthy understanding of marriage, which was based on trust, commitment, love, partnership, and I knew intellectually this is what it [00:22:00] looks like.
Trishima: But because I didn't have a formative example, and because my parents' relationship was so tortured and so fractured, I had very little expectations emotionally.
Nina: So you spent many years studying in London to earn your PhD. So talk me through your studies and your scholarships and your academic journey.
Trishima: I was convinced when I was fifteen that I was gonna be a historian.
Trishima: Then I went to SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and I did a Master's in Asian history and I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And then my professor said, this is a remarkable thesis, but sorry, my dear, I don't think you're a historian. I think you're a sociologist. So Professor Tiedemann, who was my lecturer in modern Asian history, gave me a book by an American sociologist by the name of Irving Goffman called The Presentation of Self.
Trishima: And I remember taking that book and saying, huh, [00:23:00] that's interesting. And I asked Gary, professor Tiedemann, why am I getting this book? And he said, why don't you go have a read and come back to me and let's talk about that history PhD of yours. And I remember sitting in my dorm room one afternoon and I said, well, let's just give it a crack.
Trishima: I finished that entire book and it is a tome of a book that day, and it blew my mind. It talked about the self in a way that I had never been aware of, that it was possible to look at the self as performative. It also gave me meaning about how I had lived my life as a child to cope and as a teenager to cope.
Trishima: But it's the method, the questions Goffman was asking in those books, the answers, his solutions, and I said, this is such a fascinating discipline. I remember coming back a couple of weeks later and Gary and I [00:24:00] had that promised cup of tea, and I said, I think you're right. I think I'm a sociologist. I don't think I'm a historian.
Trishima: And I remember Gary smiling at me. He said, well, you can be both my dear, but I think sociology will give you the answers you're seeking.
Nina: That book gave you a question and a new inspiration. What was the question and what did you do next?
Trishima: I think that book gave me a question, why do certain selves behave in a certain way?
Trishima: Why do certain selves harm other selves? With that knowledge, I decided to do a PhD in sociology, looking at sexual violence and looking at sexual violence prevention. In particular, what works, how for whom and why?
Nina: That would've been a really interesting PhD to do. How long did it take you, Trish?
Trishima: It took me four years, and I always think I [00:25:00] was 25 when I started that PhD.
Trishima: If I were to do another PhD, because there is another doctorate in me, I would do it very differently. Simultaneously, I was teaching at university, but I was also working as a consultant in the not-for-profit sector in the UK. Once I finished my PhD, I started a postdoctoral piece of research at the University of Keel where I was working on sexual violence.
Trishima: It was quite propitious because my postdoc finished. Bang at the same time where my husband was offered an opportunity to move to Australia, and so I said I have really enjoyed being at university, teaching and researching, but perhaps there's something else I could be doing. And here we are.
Nina: How was your arrival into Australia?
Trishima: I have to say I am a big city girl. I grew up in Delhi, and it [00:26:00] is a hundred K an hour. It's bustling. It's lovely, it's gorgeous, and it's fun and it's loud. And then I grew up in London and I found myself on a little airplane moving to Canberra. That was my introduction to Australia. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Canberra.
Trishima: I absolutely do. It's a gorgeous place, wide open spaces, lovely people, but it is Canberra. So we spent a couple of years in Canberra, and then I spent a couple of years in Sydney, and now I'm so proud that I get to call an Narrm home.
Nina: Melbourne definitely doesn't stack up to Delhi in terms of enormous city, bustling everything. How have you found yourself adapting to Melbourne?
Trishima: Oh, I love our lovely city. There is a gentleness and kindness [00:27:00] about this city. It also has just the right amount of hustle and bustle. I love the culture. You could never be bored in Melbourne. When people ask me, Trish, what's the one thing about Melbourne that you like I said, it is impossible for anybody to be bored in our fair city.
Trishima: The food, the people, the activities, very, very proud Melburnian here, Nina.
Nina: I understand, me too. Have you had a lifelong passion, something you've done since you were a child that you still love?
Trishima: That question makes me smile. I am a very proud geek, and from the ages of seven I have been a debater. So debating is very big in India and we call it the commonwealth style of debating.
Trishima: It's the way they debate in Australian schools as well. And debating was my sanctuary. Debating was my happy place. Debating was my safe space. So I debated all [00:28:00] through school. I represented my school in competitions, represented the state of Delhi in national competitions, even represented the country. I debated straight through university as well in India.
Trishima: And one of my greatest joys was going to New Zealand in 1999, representing Delhi University at the Australasian Championships. We didn't win. But boy, that was exciting. I did a bit of debating when I went to the University of London, but then it sort of fell off the radar. However, my daughter, who's eight years old, has expressed a very keen desire to write poetry, to debate, and to take part in elocution.
Trishima: So my current ambitions are starting up a debate club in her school and being the school's first debate coach.
Nina: Now tell me what role do you love the most on a debating team?
Trishima: Leader of the opposition.
Nina: Terrific. What feelings [00:29:00] could you access when you started debating?
Trishima: Debating gave me joy and it took me out of myself, and it gave me a sense of self-worth.
Trishima: I was good at it. I enjoyed it.
Nina: Were you feeling as a child like that part of you was hard to access?
Trishima: It was very hard to access because I was scared to tell people what was going on, that he was hurting me as well. I didn't want my grandparents to know that he was hurting me. And you know, purpose is something that every person desires.
Trishima: Whether you are an infant, child or an adult worth and purpose and debating gave me that. It was wonderful to be able to stand there in front of an audience and to prosecute an argument and you know, to hear the claps, I felt valued.
Nina: What about your journey of healing and recovery? How did it start and what have you learned along the way?
Trishima: My journey of recovery and healing actually started when I [00:30:00] was about sixteen years old in school. I went from a shy, reticent, nerdy, high achiever to pretty bolshy rebellious 16-year-old, and my first champion was my high school principal who clearly saw something was not right, and she staged an intervention that saved my life.
Trishima: Through that intervention, I got early intervention supports. I got mental health supports. My mother and my extended family could assist in my journey, and I'm very grateful for that because that intervention changed the absolute trajectory of my life and that is not an overstatement. The second intervention point was in my twenties when I was in London when I was studying, and I was researching. Where it hit me one day that the research could be one avenue for recovery and healing, however, shouldn't be the [00:31:00] only way to recover and to heal.
Trishima: And I remember having what can only be described as an acute mental health episode and asking my partner if I could be taken to the emergency room. And I was taken to the emergency room and from there I was taken to the ward. I stayed there for a couple of days and I was put in touch with psychologists.
Trishima: That is the second bit that changed my life.
Nina: So you got the help you needed.
Trishima: I got the right help at the right time, and I am so grateful. So grateful to my high school principal and so grateful for the incredible doctors in the national health system in the UK who gave me this gift.
Nina: As part of your healing and recovery, was there something that you've taken away that you keep at the centre of you now that you didn't feel like you knew before?
Trishima: You know, one thing that's a common thread is the shame [00:32:00] some of us carry. I have been inspired by the work of Madame Peliko and how Madame Peliko says, the shame is not ours. The shame is the perpetrators, and I carry that in my heart. I know that recovery and healing is not linear, but I know that I am a confident, balanced, resilient woman today.
Trishima: But if I have a wobble, I take my right hand and I put it between my chest. And I say, you are all right, and the shame is not yours.
Nina: So when you look back across the breadth of experiences in your life, what has given you the most joy?
Trishima: The most joy I have felt is just being with my husband and our beautiful daughter.
Trishima: You know, the mundane stuff like cooking dinner, eating together, playing a game. Or just sitting on the sofa and giggling and watching a film and having popcorn. Being with my [00:33:00] husband and my daughter brings me joy. I think the second thing is travel. I love seeing the world and getting to know different cultures, and although I am a sociologist and I was told I was never going to be a good historian, I do like traveling and seeing historical ruins and tying them both together. The most joy would be traveling with my bub and my husband.
Nina: Is there somewhere that you've gone together as a family that you particularly enjoyed?
Trishima: Fiji! Oh, how beautiful. The natural beauty, the people, the food. What an incredible multicultural society. And literally, if you closed your eyes.
Trishima: And if you said, Hmm, I wonder what an island paradise looks like, it would be Fiji. I had that time of my life there,
Nina: So nice. What are you doing when you feel most content and [00:34:00] peaceful now?
Trishima: I have two activities that bring me such peace. One is gardening. I am Ms. Green fingers, and whilst I'm sad that I live in a townhouse with not a garden.
Trishima: I have hundreds of containers growing, things from cactuses to veggies, to herbs. You name it. It is such joy and it feels therapeutically great as well. The other is that I'm a foodie and a cook. I love to eat and I love to feed. The greatest joy is cooking a meal for 12, for example, when it's Passover and I spend two days cooking up my chicken soup with matza balls, my short ribs.
Trishima: It's such a joy, and gardening is the way I love myself, and cooking is the way I show how I love others.
Nina: Tell me, Trish, is their a favourite dish you love to make for others. [00:35:00]
Trishima: So there are two, Nina. For my friends who love Indian food, I make the spiciest Bengali chicken curry, and a proper curry. And for my friends who like Ashkenazi Jewish food, it is my chicken soup with matzo bowls.
Trishima: I am a nana when it comes to that.
Nina: Beautiful. Do you believe in a life's purpose? And if so, what does it mean for you and your life?
Trishima: I absolutely believe in a life's purpose. You know, as a woman who comes from a multi-faith household, both my religions talk about purpose and a life's value, and the commonality in both religions is to do good, to leave the world better than you found it.
Trishima: For me, my commitment to social justice, my commitment to anti-oppressive practice, my commitment to ensuring that no person should [00:36:00] ever be the victim survivor of domestic and family and sexual violence, that we have to do better is connected to this higher purpose. And I see this is a calling, and I always say I, on my deathbed, would like to look out of the window and say, have I left the world a wee bit better than when I found it?
Trishima: And if I can say yes, that's a life well spent. Absolutely.
Nina: Alright, I think we've got it. Thank you, Trish, for being my guest today and sharing your insights into the world as a young child and a woman. I really appreciate the courage it takes to share your lived experience as a survivor of domestic violence.
Nina: Also to bring to life all the other parts of your story and shine a light on how they come together to make you the extraordinary person you are today. Before we go, would you like to talk very briefly about Body Safety Australia and the [00:37:00] beautiful work that they do?
Trishima: Thank you, Nina. I am very proud chair of Body Safety Australia.
Trishima: Which listeners might know as one of Australia's leading primary prevention organisations. We work across early childhood in schools, teaching young ones and the parents who love them and their carers about consent and sexuality education, and violence prevention. If in the 1980s in India, little Trish had some of those programs that Body Safety Australia now delivers, she would've not been as scared and terrified to put her hand up and speak to a safe person as to what was happening to her.
Nina: So you can really see a clear connection between what wasn't available to you as a child and what you are doing now to give those opportunities to children across Australia.
Trishima: Absolutely.
Nina: Thank you so much Trish. [00:38:00] We are very lucky to have people like you working in this critical area of social justice and equality.
Nina: Trish, I hope you have every happiness and success in the years ahead. You have been listening to when I was young, an exploration of the formative years of authentic, outstanding, and really brave humans. I'm your host, Nina Fromhold, and this is a Memory Lane Life Stories production proudly made in Narrm, Melbourne, Victoria on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people.
Nina: We have new episodes and guests each month. If you have enjoyed this episode, please follow the show to hear more of the series, share the podcast with your friends and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us out. Thank you for [00:39:00] listening.