Love Matters, a new DW podcast

Evelyn Sharma is half-Indian and half-German. The actor grew up in Germany and moved to India around a decade back, where she featured in 15 popular Bollywood movies like the 2013 coming-of-age drama Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani (The madness of youth) and most recently, Kissebaaz (Storyteller) in 2019.

So it's obvious why she wants to stay connected with her fans in India after she recently moved to Australia to be with her husband, Tushaan Bhindi.

Romantic themes were an obvious choice for the podcast project, she says: "My friends have always come to me and asked me, 'Hey Evelyn, how did you meet your husband? How do you have a great relationship? What's the secret?'"

"There's no secret, let me tell you that," the actor laughs, adding that she and her friends have always spoken a lot about their love lives. "I thought it was a great topic and a great idea to start a podcast, especially in India where there are a lot of topics that are still taboo. Sometimes it just needs a voice to talk about certain things that others are too shy to talk about," Sharma says.

Let's talk about love

"Love has no limits. Love is for everybody. Love is life," Sharma says at the beginning of each episode of Love Matters.

Every episode features a call by a listener who asks a question on matters of love. The idea is to create an atmosphere where close friends sit together and have a heart-to-heart over a cup of tea or a glass of wine, Sharma says. These "friends" include somebody who has experience with the problem or has advice on the topic. "They share their story to inspire the listener to make their own choices," she explains.

Love Matters tackles problems like dealing with long-distance relationships, for instance. As an actor who has traveled a lot, Sharma herself was initially in a long-distance relationship with her partner Tushaan.

For that episode, she speaks to her friends, Indian playback singer Benny Dayal and his partner, Catherine Dayal. "They have been in a long-distance relationship since the start, because Cathy is from New York and Benny is from India, and when they met, Benny was starting to become a really big star in music." Sharma explains. "They were separated a lot of the time."

She feels that listening to a discussion on such a topic helps: Sometimes "people just need to hear, 'I'm not alone in this.'" Then, they can decide if they want to go for the relationship or if it's not something they want to pursue.

Sex matters

Love Matters also tackles topics that are difficult to talk about, like sex positivity.

In one episode, Sharma speaks to Indian influencer Leeza Mangaldas, who describes herself as "India's foremost pleasure-positive content creator." Her aim is to create awareness around sexuality, sexual health, gender and the body while focusing on women's sexual pleasure.

Speaking about the episode featuring Mangaldas, Sharma says: "Our listener had the confusion that her partner didn't think she was enjoying sex with him when she didn't have an orgasm. And he worked really hard to please her every time they had an intimate moment." In the episode, the listener therefore wants to find out how she can let her partner know that she simply enjoys sharing intimate moments with him, even without orgasm.

"Leeza was talking about the female orgasm, how male and female bodies work differently," Sharma says, adding that it's an interesting topic considering Indian audiences don't really have these conversations with their parents or friends and it's not really addressed in schools.

LGBTQ and more

Love Matters also deals with controversial topics like inter-faith marriages and homosexual love, and also issues like normalizing divorce in India.

And while it features experts on various issues, it does not aim to be a platform where listeners get professional advice.

"Sometimes we have experts on for difficult topics. It's more like me and my friend having a conversation and trying to help out a third friend; the third friend being the audience," according to Sharma. It's like inviting everyone to come into your living room and discuss their problems, she says.

"I hope it inspires listeners to think from different perspectives, see things as not as heavy as they may seem in a certain situation and be inspired to come out of that," she concludes.

The podcast is available to listen on Spotify, Apple, JioSaavn, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Podchaser, Deezer  and Indian Express. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here.