“Oh, we’re definitely not sex experts, we’re sex clowns,” says Rubina, 34. “We’re the silliest, most open person in the room, the one who encourages everyone to join in, be silly and free…” “He filters it for you,” says Poppy, 36. “He usually says we’re the kinkiest uncles at a party. Or we’re like white van men with brown girl skin.” The reason we were so honest at first was because we thought no one would listen! Rubina Pabani Sex clown? perverted uncles? Men in white vans? Or am I just glad we’re talking about what sex means to them? Unlike many in their community, for these women no sexual topic is off limits. Listeners know that Rubina has stopped masturbating since having a baby, that Poppy doesn’t like porn, that Rubina once left a new sex toy on a train, that Poppy, who recently ended a 10-year relationship, is online dating for the first time and is definitely ready for first date sex, but only if there’s some kind of connection – “not just dry chat.” Having had enough of the show since the beginning, I could give you a lot more personal details about both of them, but, you know, that’s not quite the place. You should just listen. If you do, you will be joining a wide audience. Despite its title, Brown Girls Do It Too has become a hit with audiences from all cultural backgrounds. “Well, everyone has sex,” Poppy points out. “Most people are sorry. And many people feel like strangers. In the second series, we discovered that we had a lot of white female listeners in their 40s who always seemed to be listening to us in a supermarket, in the pasta aisle. And he’d be like, “You’re both funny, but sometimes what you say makes me cringe.” And I’m like, ‘Hey, we shudder at what we’re saying!’” “Honestly,” says Rubina, “the reason we were so honest and shared at first was because we thought no one would listen and no one would care!” In fact, Brown Girls came pretty close to ending after just one series. The BBC didn’t put it back on, but the show went on to win two UK Podcast Awards in 2020, including podcast of the year, so there was a second series – minus the third presenter, Roya Eslami, who opted to leave after the first series. Poppy and Rubina then appeared in Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton’s much-missed The High Low, which helped attract listeners, as did the enthusiasm of Deborah Frances-White, presenter of The Guilty Feminist. “The female podcast community is a lot tighter than people think,” says Rubina. “There was this stat the other day that said only 11% of podcasts are hosted by women… everyone is very supportive.” For this third series, they have a new all-female production team and remarkably, their presentation improves with each series. Off the mic, they both talk at a million miles an hour, Rubina probably at a million and a half. They have a boisterous, high-octane energy like teenagers on the lash. There will also be a Brown Girls Do It Too Mama Told Me Not to Come tour in the fall. It won’t be a simple live version of the podcast, they say, nibbling on chicken wings in the dressing room outside the studio. Instead, it’s more like a sketch show – they both love Goodness Gracious Me – with them telling stories of their childhood and teenage years and then doing funny skits to emphasize their points. Rap promises. “We even do Indian accents,” says Rubina. “For which everyone will hate us.” Now a bona fide double act, Rubina and Poppy say their relationship, essentially, is that they’ve both experienced belated personal liberation after sheltered childhoods and repressed teenage years. Poppy grew up in a Bengali family in Tower Hamlets, east London, the eldest of five girls and one boy. Her parents do not speak English and she had a strict upbringing. “I was a moustachioed, unibrowed doll,” he says. “I was wearing a headscarf. All my friends wore jeans and western clothes and I was not allowed to do anything. I never sneaked out, never changed clothes before school. I just accepted it. I really was the obedient daughter.” Rubina Pampani and Poppy J. Photo: Suki Dhanda/The Observer At home, she had many responsibilities, reading official letters, translating for her non-English-speaking parents: “Being a third parent, she is treated like a boy.” But when she was with her cousins, she says, “All of a sudden they treated me like a girl, a second-class citizen, and I couldn’t understand it.” At 17, a husband was chosen for her. After they married at 20, Poppy moved into his parents’ house. It didn’t work out: at 23, she moved into her parents’ house – “And she didn’t come to get me” – before divorcing at 25. She didn’t talk about it for several years, but she does now, as there are “so many Asian women who are forced to marry someone they don’t want to, a cousin or someone from home. It’s such a normal experience for us. I don’t even see it as trauma. I was talking about this the other day with a friend. I said, “I had a forced marriage.” And they drained their beer and said, “Who hasn’t?””’ “I almost started crying. I was like, “Give her my number, she can come live with me.” Rubina’s upbringing, in Enfield, north London, was more liberal than Poppy’s, although there was still a gendered hierarchy: at mealtimes, her father and brother always ate before her and her mother . There’s a very touching episode in Brown Girls about daddy issues, which starts off as a joke about whether they’d call a lover “daddy” in the bedroom (they wouldn’t) and then progresses to a disturbing discussion about not they feel close to their father. “My dad didn’t speak to me for two years when I started seeing my partner,” says Rubina. “It only started again because we had a baby boy. He has made tremendous progress. But it’s 75 – we’ve wasted all that time.” There’s a lot to unravel from their past, and they’re still doing the apocalypse. Poppy not only deals with the breakup of a 10-year relationship, but also the fact that her parents didn’t know she was in it. “It breaks my heart,” she says evenly. “All those memories they’ve lost. He was such a great guy and he loved Asian food, and Asian family is all about cooking and family around. But I did not introduce him because he was not a Muslim. I’m a part-time Muslim at best, but I’m a Muslim when I see my mom and dad. And I’m starting to think that I might have activated this double life. I fed it. I have been lying for so long, I should have dared to tell.’ How much of yourself can you be when you have all these people to try and please? You can never be yourself Poppy J She also, she says, struggles to think about how she treated her sisters when she was little. “My parents literally groomed me to raise my sisters the way they raised me,” she says. “I was their leader. It was horrible. I was so strict. If they were wearing eyeliner, wearing lipstick, or going out of school… I think I need therapy to come to terms with how I treated them.” Two of her sisters cut her off when they found out about the podcast, though they’ve reconciled now. Her parents don’t know anything about it yet. Rubina, who met her partner on Tinder, finds it interesting to raise a child of mixed heritage (her partner’s family is South American). She plays her son’s music from Bollywood, even though she’s never heard it before: “I’m culturally appropriating my own culture.” She is an Ismaili Muslim and her son will have a bay’ah (a vow of spiritual allegiance), but she will not be circumcised: “Don’t tell my mom!” She and her mom are on good terms, but she’s determined not to recreate her family dynamic. “I am 100% equal to my partner, we are in a political partnership. And I don’t think you have to be a martyr to be a mom. To be a good mom, you have to be: ‘I love my life!’” Ringing each other, laughing, joking, Rubina and Poppy are incredibly good company. They break down why they don’t like Asians, what podcasts they like (Harsh Reality, Whoreible Decisions) and what they took from the huge podcast hit Sweet Bobby, about a British woman of South Asian descent who is romanced by someone from her community. They note that when she told her family, the podcast host (who is not Asian) was shocked at the father’s reaction. “Dad didn’t want to make a fuss about the community,” says Poppy. “It’s no surprise.” “Being disowned is such a popular trope in Bollywood films,” agrees Rubina. “And you watch it growing up – the whole time you know you’re on that edge with your parents. You do…
