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South Asian / Desi dads in their 40s stumble through fatherhood, midlife, and cultural chaos — with laughs along the way.
Welcome to NaanSense! 🎙️ A podcast where dads in their 40s share the funny, messy, and real side of parenting, culture, and aging.
We overthink, overshare, and make each other laugh… usually by accident. It’s equal parts wisdom and NaanSense! 🙏🤪
What you’ll hear:
--> Honest convos about fatherhood & parenting in your 40s 👨👧👦
--> Real talk on South Asian / Desi culture, identity & family life 🌏
--> Midlife curveballs — health, aging, and everything in between 🎂
--> Humor, storytelling, and the chaos of being dads 😂
📅 New episodes weekly-ish — humor and fun semi-guaranteed.
This is a real issue. I think I think this is a public service now. How do you guys feel about having just free deodorant at the mazjid? Just like when you walk in as a public service to to the community, there's free deodorant. You can pick it up. You can use it. There's no compulsion. And I mean, not just the maz, it should be at like the DIY stores, too. Everywhere. No, no. Everywhere there are dies, there should be free deodorant. Yeah. I don't I don't know if my like I know BO is pretty bad. I agree with that. But on top of it like you ever go to the vazoo area and then come back to like it just like like dude like have you never washed your feet? Like I you're here you're doing wizoo. You're washing your feet but like something's going on. Like maybe you're not washing your socks. Like what's happening? Gross. No, it's their shoes that freak. So, your story, your story just brought back a memory for me that I had uh stored away. One time we were at Universal Studios and we went to the Waterworld show. There was a brown couple there. Their bio was so bad. I kid you not, there was nobody within 10 ft of them in the front or to the side. Everyone was moving away and they were just sitting there blissfully like unaware. And I was on a plane the other day and you know, I was boarding the plane. I was one of the last people to board this plane from like 10 rows away. I smelled it and I was like, "Where's the DIY?" And then and then as I got closer, I was like, "There he is." Of course.
Welcome to NaanSense! I'm your host, Ahmed. I'm joined by two other or actually three other tonight uh hosts as well. Uh, Twiddle D, Twiddle Dumb, and Twiddle Dumber. And uh, wow, that's so creative. You came up. So creative. All by yourself. He's just the face of the operation. I know. The brains. And, you know, think of nonsense as a way for dads to open up and talk freely and openly uh about what it means to be a dad. Um, you know, we laugh, we cry, but all in all, we try to keep it fun. So join us with a cup of chai and uh come along for the ride. Chai, when have we cried though? I I want to see that happen. But from LA, we actually laugh so hard that we end up crying. We cried. Okay, that makes more sense. One of my favorite parts of every intro is watching Sajid react to what Emma is saying. The straight up nonsense. I can't take him seriously. And he goes into serious freaking Ira Glass mode with his look at just you know like do you have to see what I have to put up with like you this is what I have to put up with every day. What do you mean we don't live together? What do you mean what you have to put up with? All right. So yeah basically um we have had the dad dilemma segment in past episodes. Got a surprise for you guys. This is going to be an entire dad dilemma episode. We have user submitted dad dilemmas, right? Things that people want to get advice on or get get your take on. Um, and to make it even more fun, uh, I'm the only one who's read these. I've vetted them. I'm going to ask I will read the submissions and we'll get your guys' takes, see if you have any wisdom to impart. Okay. So, we went from being like a somewhat prepared podcast to a completely unprepared podcast. Yeah. And and not just that, like I feel like these are these are plants put in by none other than by other than our significant others. So I'm just I'm just scared. So I vetted through them and you know, we'll we'll start off slow and hopefully we can do this in other future episodes as well. Okay. All right. Power cleanser. Let's go. All right. Here's one. Please settle this debate between my wife and me. What is an acceptable amount of time to be late if you're invited to a party that says it will go for six hours? Do you say acceptable amount of time to be laid? Late. Late dy standard time. D. Can you repeat that question? I was distracted. Dude, do you have the Emma? Do you have the attention span of a goldfish? Like why are you distracted? You're on a podcast. Like what are you what else are you doing? I I was not sure where that question was going. Okay, but someone first of all 6h hour party? What kind of party goes for 6 hours? Yeah. Is this like a wedding? You want to just text my wife right now and ask her? Acceptable amount of time to be late to a party. Okay, let's say I think the six hour thing matters, right? Like if it's usually parties go for a couple hours. If you're an hour late, you're very late. I think is in the is in the first dividing line they Whoa. No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on. No, Immad. Sorry. Sorry. Got to cut you off. Does your answer change by the length of party? You guys never get invited to kids birthdays when it says like 1 to 4. So that's like it's a three-hour party, you show up 2 hours late, you're pretty the party's done, right? Party's done. Party from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. showing up at 8 probably is, you know, you're not you're going to get the appetizers. It's no big deal because they see people. Yeah. You know what I mean? But there's a big difference between the demographic of who's starting the party then. Exactly. I guess I think 30 minutes is appropriate. 30 minutes accounts for DST. It accounts for all the other nonsense. 30 minutes you're you're still on time. It's not like Oh, yeah. You're still on time. That's what I'm saying. It's appropriate. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like I'm like 30 to 45 minutes. I think that's appropriate. I think yeah, my wife is way more punctual than I am still. Like even accounting for my tardiness and her being her punctuality, we usually get to things I think on time. I don't you know the daisy version of being on time. No, but yeah, I think 30 minutes 6 hour party maybe you can push that to hour, I guess. Yeah. And I think it also should depend on how many kids you're taking with you, right? Like if you're taking zero kids then you can be there a lot more but you keep adding every for every kid you should get a 15 minutes trying to get like multiple kids out the door to do anything in life it's too much but the isn't there a problem like when one person is very punctual and the other person is not yeah how do you how do you solve that problem that's my household oh yeah who are you Madia loves being very punctual she's like you Oh. Oh, man. That must create a lot of lot of anxiety for her, right? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like I'm like the world beats to my, you know, rhythm, my drum, whatever. So, over here. Yeah. You know, whatever. I mean, story has no buyers. Yeah. Have you ever missed a flight? No. I I came really close. I think I think I told you guys a story once. Yeah. Um, so this was early on in my uh Wall Street banking career. So this was like the first time I was traveling for a pitch meeting with like the management team and it was like a simple flight New York to Boston and got in a cab. I kid you not, I got the worst cab driver. This guy literally is a fob straight off the boat. And this is like his second day in America in New York. And like he doesn't know like how to like he doesn't know where things are. Like you know he's trying to use GPS and and whatnot. Um and he's driving and like it's like chaotic unsafe driving. Like you know you know how they drive like back in the motherland like all over the place. No, no semblance of like lanes or or speed like usually comes at the comes at the benefit of getting there faster, not delaying. No, but he's like he's like driving slow and just like taking it easy because I think it's like his second day, so he's like slightly scared of driving and stuff like that. And like I get to the gate, he drops me off at the wrong terminal uh at LaGuardia. And LaGuardia is like really funny. you can't just walk to the other terminals. Like you have to like get in another car and then go to the terminal. So then he drops me off and then I was so pissed off. I was just drop me off here. It's fine. I get off. I get in another cab, go to the proper terminal and I get to the I get to the gate and they're like, "Oh, we we just closed it. Sorry." Like the flight's leaving. Uh, and I literally pretend like I started to almost like well up and cry because this was like my first big meeting. And I was like, "Oh my god." Like I'm going to get I I literally told the gate agent, "I will get fired." Like I literally told her I was like, "I will literally get fired. I I will not have a job." They open the gate for you. So she talked to someone and they took me through some secret gate that I had like my own personal security person quickly do security. They ushered me to the gate. They opened the gate up. Wow. And they got me back onto the plane. I haven't heard of that. Yeah. Wow. What year are we talking here? Yeah. This is 2012. Wow. So pretty, you know, definitely post 911 and all that negotiation skills. I would say that's probably probably true. And like I think what was convincing is that I had all the pitch books on me like cuz I was in charge of them, right? Yeah. They were like, "Oh, this investment bank is going to make few million dollars less if this doesn't work out. We must help this guy." I literally said, "I'm the lowest person on the totem pole." So, okay, but like a flight is a really good litmus test on how do you how how late can you get to your gate or how late can you get to the airport? That's so I just got TSA pre-check on my last two flights and that's a complete game changer all into the club. I don't know like you just got it like welcome to for my wife and the kids get free right 15 like what what are you like what year are we in $85 yeah what kind of Muslim person are you who doesn't have TSA pre dude like that's like our way of living at this point that's the only way we can when my wife got it and our daughter was really young people were like oh you don't have to get it they'll they'll they'll let you in I think that happened like the first time my daughter was like a be and they're like, "All right, sure. You come in." But after that, no luck. So, like last time I got stuck going in the regular line and my wife was in with the kids right away. So, this time I got it. But going back to what you're saying, Immad, having TSA pre really messes with your internal clock, like how early it doesn't mess with it. It It makes it easier. You get there later, right? You you show up 45 minutes before your flight and you're get through, right? 30 other but you go before the holidays TSA pre is still you know it's not 5 minutes anymore it's like it's going to be longer also like now everybody has TSA pre so everybody's in that line has TSA pre maybe you guys know this but the other day I was going through the TSA pre-line whatever and I forgot to empty out my water bottle so it went through the scanning machine and then on the other end of it they were like you got to throw away the water bottle or you have to um go all the way around and redo the entire check-in. And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Re have the same problem." They would still catch the water bottle again. So why would you go do that? No, the water bottle was full of water. So they're like, I understand that. No, you you would throw it out. You wouldn't walk back into the same exact thing. Yeah, that's implied. Why would you go back into a loop? Yeah. Um No, no. like you throw out the water as you are exiting and then you have to get back in line TSA pre-line right you know do the thing go all the way through everything and I usually give myself like very little uh time for these short domestic hops and but I'm looking at the bottle thinking I'm also guu and this bottle is like you know water bottle you bought the boss boss or whatever no idea is this whatever No, no. This is like my like actual water bottle, you know? Like our listeners need to know what is the value of that water bottle. Are we talking a $30 water bottle that made you do this or like a $60 water bottle? I didn't know there's a $60 water bottle. Yeah, I didn't know there was $60. I doubt I'm just I'm just guessing cuz it must be pretty priceless to me. No, no, it's more of a good you thing. Like I'm like I'm not going to throw away something I own. So I wasn't going to let go of You're like I'll miss the flight if I need to miss the flight. Let's go do this. It's It's like, you know, when you I have no idea cuz Gayen bought it. So, I don't know how much. So, that that just happened with my son's water bottle, though. And they're supposed to test it. They have a little strip. They test it, make sure it's in there. I've made that mistake with milk, you know, the baby's bottle. I've made that mistake with his with like children's medicine. We had this like powdered medicine and it was in the bag and they just test it and then you're good to go. The PSA is a scam. They're just doing whatever they can. Like, it's not it's like best effort. It's a best effort to situation. This is all security theater, you know, it's not like grounded in any science. It's just to make people feel good. Um, so yeah, you know, that's what we're doing. The more you guys talk, I'm wondering why people would want your advice on anything. But let's advice. If you are brown and likely to get pulled over at the TSA or at immigration, you have to get TSA pre and you have to get uh Global Entry. That global entry is game changer. Like that is the biggest game changer over TSA. Like TSA pre looks like nothing. All right, we're gonna keep this moving. Uh, you did a great job of moving it by the way, Son. We've been on the white. I'm letting you guys warm up. You know, my my goal is to let you get out all the bad jokes so I can cut those out. Uh, if you have like six or seven more, I don't know how long we could go here. I know a couple more endurance problem to begin with. Okay, this one I think you all can relate to because I felt it. I can relate to it. Self-explanatory. Annoying uncle keeps pimping me out for jobs for friends and family. So, here's the story. This old uncle at the musid is always flagging me down and wants to introduce me to people he knows and usually it's recent college grads and he thinks I can help them. I work for a large firm and I'm not opposed to helping someone out, but this constant volunting is so annoying. Also, rarely has he sent me someone worth recommending. How do I make this stop? Like, literally has happened to me twice in the last few weeks. Um, I feel like I probably wrote that one in.
So, what's what's the move here? This actually this this person wrote, I actually walk past faster when I see him. So he can't stop me. Oh, poor guy. Poor uncle and poor guy. That sucks. Emmett, what do you do? Emmed probably gets a lot of these, right? I assume you get like 10. Yeah. Um, so I think I do get a lot of intros. I try to take a call or a chat. I try to be somewhat giving with my time. Um, you know, especially for younger folks because I know how hard it is to to find a job. um as it pertains to this uncle, like I'll talk to some of these folks, but after a while, if it's just, you know, not great and it's basically eating up my time, I think I would talk to the uncle and be like, "Hey, look, I appreciate all the effort you're doing and trying to build community and getting us connected. Um, but I I can't take any more introductions. I'm out." I think I would I would try to talk respectfully to the uncle and explain to them like, "Hey, I'm I'm split between too many things." So, um I did have to do that too recently with uh with an uncle uh from the community. So, I appreciate the honesty. Yeah. No, I think you're doing the right thing. I think it's worth like helping out people in the community. That's like one of the things that we need to be better about. That's how I how I feel about call. Yeah. I'm on the other side of this. I feel like every time like first meeting these young people is often inspiring because they on on one hand are very early stages of their career. We were there once and many of them are going to like 10 20 years from that time are going to probably be in awesome spots. Uh but there are a lot of duffers in there too. So like you just have to like be like hey you you got to help yourself. I think most people don't understand until you've been in a hiring role long enough to realize that it the job fit is like a very hard thing. It's not a oneway fit conversation. It's a two-way fit conversation and that's not an easy thing to do. Yeah. Um but I don't think the question comes from you know are you guys taking uh outreaches? I I think yeah like any reasonable person would do that. I think the question is like this uncle is like you know attacking this person every every Juma and is telling them to you know make introductions. Yeah. Uh that gets annoying you know. Yeah. And then how does this uncle know that many young people? Like that's out of another like every uncle should only have x number of young people they come into contact with, right? Like well it's it's it's tough because like I I think Sajid said he shows bad for the uncle and I it's like you know those uncles those older sweet uncles and you know they they kind of don't get all the social cues and you know you're like hey I'm in a rush or I can't stay and talk right now. they just want to talk tell you this long story or they're like hey you should meet so and so because he just does this and you know and it's like oh that's not really my thing but you don't want to cut them off either. So yeah totally uncles and their rants and like engaging with them very hard difficult decision how to like disengage. Uh I think so I think what we need to do though is like start cutting people off respectfully but like make aware like dude dude time is money time is money time is I think that's a good I I appreciate the honesty from him but like just tell him hey I'm sorry I can't do this I can't handle it I don't have the time for it whatever it is. Um, I actually had this happen to me recently and I think Emma had something similar too where you do actually speak to someone that someone's connecting you with. But when you tell them straight up like, "Hey, look, like this is what I do. This is what you're looking at. I can't really do anything, you know, and then you're like, I I felt this. I was I was on a call somebody." And they made it seem like I was I was wasting their time. I'm like, I took the meeting with you. You better talk to me. I'm telling you the reality. [ __ ] Oh, you know, nothing bothers me more than that where like they set it up as a double up intro with this young kid who's needs the really needs to help and then they don't they don't have their own stuff figured out, have no level of confidence, no communication skills and you're like, "Dude, this is the worst." At that point, I just like yell at the kid pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I had to yell at a kid too recently. Um, and yeah, I'm I'm with you. I don't offer people 30-inute meetings anymore. I offer them 10 minutes. That's all I have. So, sell me in 10 minutes. And then I think we need to pay it forward. Um, we're Do we Do we need to pay it forward? Why Why do we have to Why is that responsibility on us? Because difficult. Because somebody did it for Who did that for me? Who did that for me, dude? This guy. New York. Holy [ __ ] But I I'm like I'm legitimately curious, right? Like you all we didn't have access to like networking and stuff like that, right? No, you had you had to build it and you obviously got it from people outside your community. So, okay. So, I was resourceful and I was crafty and I I had a clear purpose in mind. So, that's one thing that I do get annoyed by everyone does not like a handout, but just like an easy leg up into like, oh, I this person works here. You should talk to them. It's like that's not my responsibility, right? That's not your responsibility. They're not entitled to it. And then you come totally. Totally. I think you're what I'm talking about is compounding where they're already doing the hard work that we already did in the past, but then on top of it, they have the advantage of having our experience and network help them out. All right, let's make this the last one for um let me see. Let me pull up the email. That's nonsense showgmail.com. Nice film, man. The producer. Here we go. Look at that. Here we go. We're about to have our first kid in a few months, and I'm in a dilemma. I've always thought I'd want my kids to call me Papa, not Abu or something old school. My father-in-law has now also said that he wants to be called Papa, even though his kids call him Dad and Daddy. What do I do? That's tough. That's tough. That's a tough one. All you Well, first of all, congratulations, listener. That's awesome. Yeah. Congrats. Join the club. But number two, you got to lay the the law. This is your kid. Papa, you be papa. You tell the father-in-law. Your territory. Maybe maybe the dad could be like the father-in-law prefers Abu. No, the father-in-law wants to be called the same thing that this this guy wants to be called. Oh, yeah. Super. Did you guys actually So, I got a question. I I don't think I thought about it. It just kind of happened like whenever my kid like my my daughter calls me daddy like that just I don't know where that started from. Like did you guys interesting implement what you wanted to be called or did it just happened? Implement very intentional. What was it? I wanted to be called what did your kids call you? Aba. Okay, good. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen organically. Um, but no, I strongly feel if you want to be called something like you get dibs. It's your child. Yeah. Throw down with with father-in-law. Bring on bring bring on the drama, Phil. Uh, yeah. I think I think you got to make space for yourself. I think you got to lay down the law. I can't believe I think it's such an interesting conversation because like this is this like you're really far removed from that problem. The number of problems you're about to like encounter like that will be like so far down the list at that point that you got to be like okay like let's figure that out when we get to that because like kids don't start saying any words until like 8 months or like like a year old at least. So but you're still calling each other that, right? Like what's what Sajid's saying, right? You would like your your wife would be talking to the baby and saying, "Oh, here's Abba or here's dad or here's daddy." Yeah. Yeah. I mean you you can own that but like I think in the number of I I think par dad dads and I think moms but dads more so highly underestimate the amount of the amount of craziness they're about to like go in like the the storm is so real and I think that these issues feel big before the baby arrives because there's nothing else nothing to do you're just kind of waiting around. You're like, "Oh, let's let's have this discussion." No morning sickness, nothing. You're just a dud. I mean, there's that, but like as a as a dad, you're just like waiting. So, you're like, "Oh, let's let's have a discussion about what we'll call the baby. Let's have a discussion about what like all that goes out the window the moment baby arrives." Because and I think even the moment that the baby arrives and your parents become grandparents for the first time, that's a very transformational moment for the even the grandparents and you'll you very quickly realize that they're willing to completely change because of that moment. Yeah. But I'm with listener. If it's one of these hard-headed like father-in-law types, they are also uh you know head stuck in the sand, right? But it's interesting if you think they are headstrong like would they rather have a beef with the kids or not really make this an issue to make sure that they have they get to hang out with their grandkids? I think I think I think this is where the husband has to use his wife and go through his wife and be like look you you got to dictate like what the kid is calling us as a family unit and what uh the kid is going to call your parents. I think that's the way you go about it. I don't disagree with that. I I honestly don't disagree with what you guys are saying. I just think that this is a issue that you could like punt down the road much longer than you think you you have to like you know like right now like the bigger issue is like hey who's going to come spend okay but like you say that but like what happens if the father-in-law like comes to visit like in the um in at the hospital and he goes like he go and he just yells out he's like papa's here you know what are you going to do then you know like I actually I love what Amad is saying cuz you're very correct. Like I'm just thinking about like to all the stuff we talked about before the baby was actually here and being like, "Oh yeah, remember we were going to do this and we thought we'd buy that thing." And they just totally forget about it cuz all the real life stuff, you know. Um but I but I hear what what Emma is saying too. And so I had a question for you guys. What do your kids call your parents? They call them dada. Dada or nada. Those are like because you because you told them to say that, right? Well, um on the bomb side, so they call they don't say nana nani, they say baba nani jan and baba was something that um their nana wanted. So we didn't have any territory issue because I didn't care for baba. It's interesting because nana and for us like it wasn't just us teaching the kids. I'm sure we were overwhelming but everybody around us would say the same. So I was just thinking cuz my my mom stated she wanted to be called dad which was like a play on daddy, right? She wanted to be called dad. What's funny now is my son calls her Ami cuz he hears me call her Ami. Wow. And so now Dada's kind of got away and she just goes by um and she calls herself um to him. So I was going to say to this what do your kids call your wife? Oh uh mama. Yeah. So it's so it's it's different. There's like a distinction there. Different. Yeah. Yeah. But what I was going to No, I was just going to say if you uh Yeah. Maybe you can teach your kid just to call the father-in-law whatever you call him. Yeah. And your kid will pick up on that. Hey dude,
our most passive way to tackle this. Yeah, I like it. I mean, passive aggression is rife in our community, right? Like, we're just keeping it going. That's part of the culture. Yeah. Something really strange with my 5-year-old. She calls me baba at home, but if I catch her at school, she's going to call me dad or daddy. Strange. So, she's just being very conscious. Yeah, she she's Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. She's got high emotional intelligence. It sounds like I don't know. I can I can relate to this. Yeah. Cuz I remember growing up, right? And like you have that distinction of like, oh, I'm not like every other kid, right? Or like I remember being like my mom would come and shame and as a kid being like embarrassed by that. Totally. Right. or like every other kid called their dad dad and so I'm not trying to tell them what I call my dad. So there's like a distinction of when I said it to my school friends. Yeah, I'm sure. But it's crazy how like kids pick up on it. They pick it up. Then they're very perceptive at a very early age surprisingly, you know. Well, if if it's if it uh helps anyone. My my son right now is going through a phase, I guess, with his friends and stuff. So, he's calling me big bro. Um he's calling you what? Big bro. He like he like comes home and he's like, "Hey, what's going on, big bro?" And I'm like, "Okay." I well I I get my kids to do something and it's really awkward for them but it's just I enjoy it more than they enjoy it which is uh anytime we're doing pretend play u I'll just be like hey you can't call me Baba during pretend play you just use my actual name further proof that you don't even listen to the episodes after they come out. I think this is like literally literally from this whole story.
I cannot listen to my own voice, guys. So, I'm sorry. Like, I'm very hard for me to listen. Dude, if you can't listen to it, what do you think we have to deal with when we're editing the episode? You mean when I'm editing the episode? Oh, no. When when I have to listen and and I give timestamps of like, "Oh, yeah. Hey, Immod's voice is kind of squeaky here." I was going to say I think every recording IM Wild refers back to something he's already said. I know. I'm like I'm turning I've turned into that uncle like big time. Please don't run out of stories. Like the first episode you talked about the uncle that keep telling the same stories over and over. Thank you. Hey, before we sign off, can you remind us of what happened in Bali? Completely old episode. I remember that one. that that one he is um seeing residual uh impact from. Uh awesome. Well, this was an interesting episode. Hopefully, we can impart some advice to you dads or or moms or whoever is reaching out to us uh because I think we have something of value to add uh to your dilemmas. So, our email is nonsensgmail.com.
reach out. We'll maybe provide some nonsense. Uh, as always, you can find us on Instagram, nonsense show, as well as YouTube. That's all I got. See you later. Bravo. Thanks, boys. Hey, guys. So much value coming out of your ass right now. I'm just glad our cameras kept working.