MAM
The Swaddle launches ‘The Night Shift,’ a podcast series profiling women who start their work after the sun sets
MUMBAI: For women, leaving home after dusk implies an automatic invitation to danger and societal censure. Some people have even justified sexual assault and rape on the premise that women were out late at night.
Amidst this, four women — a cab driver, a bouncer at a popular club, a bar dancer, and a home guard constable guarding the women’s compartment in the local trains — have been defying societal constraints and patriarchal mindsets each night when they go to work.
The Swaddle has launched a unique documentary podcast series, ‘The Night Shift,’ on October 8, 2018. This four-episode narrative journalism podcast series dives into everyday stories from the lives of these four Mumbai women who work through the night, breaking boundaries that society has traditionally set on women’s mobility, morality, and sexuality.
The podcasts, created by journalist Kunal Purohit over the course of three months, follow the lives of these women to find out what it means to be waging these battles every day. These women’s professional lives have transformed their personal lives. A sense of independence has enabled these women to challenge patriarchy within their own homes and communities.
One episode follows Nisha, who drives a radio cab through the night and sleeps in the cab alone. For Ranjana, the bouncer, night work means walking back home alone at 4am each day. Rozy, the bar dancer, feels the safest when she is inside the dance bar, where she is empowered to fight back against men, if needed. The Home Guard constable, Suvarna, believes that fighting off druggies and hooligans on locals trains each night has made her tougher and more independent.
Rather than being vulnerable in the night, these women are redefining their own boundaries.
For Kunal Purohit, a journalist who has written extensively on gender issues, this was an opportunity to highlight the everyday feminism that lives around us. “Far away from the din on social media, these are women who have set examples for men and women around them and have transformed mindsets through their own examples. Yet, they are seldom recognised and celebrated.”
Karla Bookman, the founder and editor of The Swaddle says, “As a publication, one of our aims is get people to rethink some of their assumptions about women’s roles in the family and society. People tend to think of dismantling patriarchal norms as something that is necessarily done loudly. Sometimes, it is. But these four women illustrate the power of each individual to upend gender stereotypes and change the way those around her think about her place in the world, through the seemingly mundane act of going to work.”
What made this journey so much more exciting was the audio format. Bookman says, “We could have printed these women’s stories. But hearing directly from them – hearing their passion, their humour, their grit, and their laughter – in their own voices, was really important.”
Purohit, who initially felt that it might be challenging to capture these intimate stories on audio, “especially because we, Indian media consumers, are so accustomed to associating stories with images. Interestingly, the form made it so liberating for many of these stories to be told especially because the recorder is unobtrusive and invisible, unlike the camera,” says Purohit.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
