Every film industry seems to have a dark underbelly. It seems to have countless unexplained murders, mysterious disappearances and ties to high profile criminal activity. Bollywood is the same way. From Sri Devi to Jia Khan, from Pratyusha Banerjee to Raj Kiran, crime seems to seep through our industry, leaving behind death and devastation. This is the story of one such crime that shook Bollywood, the story of a family, massacred. This is the story of Laila Khan. For extra episodes, early access...
Jun 15, 2024•32 min
Titu Singh was last interviewed by BBC in 1989. After 35 years, this is his first full length interview. To know his full story, watch our Desi Crime episode on his case: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oL8DpFJKd4uuJHz2Qd9aG?si=uBU1JZ1KTsyQkFyroH2j9w If you are a non-hind viewer, you can access the full translation and script here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wHlDT0Gc8NufLFWoUYGfohfBjEirrVpLNBkmuwV4_e4/edit?usp=sharing
Jun 14, 2024•29 min
Titu Toran Singh was born in a village near Agra on December 12th, 1983. At age 2, his first words were: I am not from here. He insisted he was actually a man named Suresh, who was murdered in his past life. Over the years, he began making outlandish claims like owning a radio shop in Agra and having a wife named Uma. Finally in 1986 his parents put his claims to the test by visiting Agra where he said his shop was. They found it…Suresh Radio. And 41 years later, we found Titu. This is FIRST EVE...
Jun 08, 2024•55 min
Imagine you live in Perfect World. I don’t mean 'a' perfect world. I mean Perfect World, the video game. Slowly, the more you play the game, the more its adventurous valleys and roles take you into an alternate world, and the easier it becomes for you to forget the very real, imperfect world around you. This scenario, as dystopian as it may sound, was the very real state of mind of a young, Bangladeshi-Canadian boy unable to reconcile Perfect World with his world. This is the story of the Toront...
Jun 01, 2024•47 min
Mountains have a rapport for mysteries and hauntings. It’s as if all the world’s eeriness finds refuge in these hill stations. Folk tales of spirits and serial killers run amok. But there is one hill station in India in particular which is infamous for mishaps and mysteries. Every year, there is some story about a haunting, kidnapping and even murder taking place here. This is the story of a small hilly town in Maharashtra where kids don’t step out after sundown, this is the story of the mysteri...
May 27, 2024•24 min
[RECAST] Beginning next week, we will be releasing the new slate of Desi Crime episodes. We spent the last month researching and writing new scripts, hence been uploading video versions of older episodes. Can't wait for y'all to watch some of the upcoming bangers. Stay crazy, stay desi! When we cover these cases, the ones that hit the hardest are the ones where we can clearly see there was deep rooted and long lasting injustice. Cases where those responsible for protecting us, our parents, our s...
May 18, 2024•44 min
[RECAST EPISODE] The case that we have for you today is as much about the crime as it is about what happened following the crime. It is about death as much as it is about life. It is about morality and ethics and the society we seek to create as much as it is about punishment and sentences and justice. A case that will come to be discussed for generations now in every Indian class on the law. This is the story of a 25 year old nurse and the one night that changed it all. This is the story of Aru...
May 11, 2024•34 min
What happens when skeptics and believers go ghost hunting? Find out in this special episode where we investigated the mysterious mountains of Matheran. Checkout the amazing PAIRS team here: https://www.youtube.com/@ghostencountersindia To send us your scary stories to read, write to us at staydesi [at] thedesistudios [dot] com. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios or join our YouTube family https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbfV0Y...
May 04, 2024•1 hr 3 min
[RECAST EPISODE] This is a bonus episode with video. Love triangles…a concept in existence for as long as love itself. But love triangles, unlike love, are controversial. They’re viewed as scandalous, calculated, and deceptive. Perhaps that is because we never hear of happy, successful love triangles. We hear of ones where jealousy and possessiveness take over, only to end in a tale of disaster. This is the story of one such disastrous love triangle that kept India on its toes. This is the story...
May 02, 2024•39 min
In part 1 of the story of Rajneeshpuram, you heard the story of Bhagwan Rajneesh’s life and his move to the US to a sleepy little town outside of Oregon. You heard the story of his unprecedented town takeover and the all out culture war he now found himself in the middle of. By the year 1983, the residents of Rajneeshpuram and Antelope were armed against each other and more dangerous than ever before. As this culture war would unfold, crimes would unfold too, making the plot more sinister and ma...
Apr 27, 2024•44 min
Imagine you’re living in a small middle town in the state of Oregon in 1981. Living in a ranching town with just about 50 people, you were most probably white. Life was quiet and life was simple but life was good for you there. Until one day, something seemed different. Cars and people, including Rolls Royces show up at your small sleepy town. And the people seem different— dressed in reddish orange robes, they chant music, hold ceremonial events, even have the roads around them closed off, and ...
Apr 20, 2024•41 min
Live in Mumbai on 21st April. Get your tickets here: https://zoma.to/live-event/33059 Register for Meet and Greet if you have tickets: https://mg.socialnationnow.com/desicrime (LIMITED SPOTS) Meeting the desi fam is gonna BE CRAZY and DESI (can't guarantee safe hehe).
Apr 15, 2024•37 sec
Live in Mumbai on 21st April. Get your tickets here: https://zoma.to/live-event/33059 If you have a ticket and want to meet us, limited spots are open. Register here: https://mg.socialnationnow.com/desicrime [RECAST] On May 18th, an email was sent out to the faculty of Shiv Nadar University at 1:20 pm, which had a link to a confession video. This email was sent to 11 people on the campus. The recipients included a student and some authorities. It was sent by a second year sociology student named...
Apr 13, 2024•49 min
On the midnight of 23rd November 1993, a family’s massacre jolted Shubham Apartments in the Dum Dum region of Kolkata. When the cops arrived the scene of crime, they realized there was one survivor, 16 year old Sajal Barui. Soon, that notion changed. According to India’s Juvenile Justice Act, a person under the age of 18 is viewed as a minor, and is tried as such when they commit a crime. But there are a few rare cases that blur the moral distinction between a child and an adult, a minor versus ...
Apr 06, 2024•33 min
Sandese Aate Hain is a beautiful, old bollywood song. This song is from the movie Border, which hit theaters across the country in June of 1997. That June of 1997, Border was also playing inside one of Delhi’s most famous cinema halls– The Uphaar Grand. By the time the song played and got over though, 59 people had died in the cinema. This is the story of one of India’s most infamous fires. This is the story of the Uphaar Grand. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: htt...
Mar 30, 2024•51 min
Sometimes, when Indians move to foreign countries, they migrate with dreams in their heart, stepping away from everything they’ve ever known only to be able to live a better life. This is exactly what Lovely and Mathew Varugese thought they were doing when they moved from India to the United States in 1990. But 2 decades later, every dream they ever came with was going to come crashing down the night their son disappeared. This is the story of that night. This is the story of Pravin Varughese. F...
Mar 23, 2024•55 min
Kirat Assi was a young 30 year old living in a world where it was becoming more and more common to find love, companionship, and connection online but also a world where deception, scam, and abuse behind a screen ran rampant. This is the story of a single text received in 2010 that changed Kirat’s life and a decade long romance that never actually existed in reality. This is the story of Kirat Assi and her love, Bobby. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.p...
Mar 16, 2024•52 min
To listen to the full episode, head on over to our new podcast, The Bhootbusters Podcast, to get your weekly dose of Chai & Chithi: Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/episode/3TlBzoTNUOSsd0HEE8FJYQ?si=10a5042ab0fd4de8 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chai-chithi-17-the-desi-horror-podcast/id1728625464?i=1000648565087 Amazon: https://music.amazon.in/podcasts/564ff27d-d49f-443b-9fa1-318fab5630aa/episodes/595de227-6d40-4631-8e49-31fcc7f8c99f/the-bhootbusters-podcast-creepy-nurse-hor...
Mar 09, 2024•22 min
With 33 locations in India and 72 across the world, this Saravana Bhawan has set the benchmark for India’s culinary offerings. But hidden inside Sarvanna Bhawan’s dosa isn’t just a delicious potato mix, but a mysterious ingredient that took years to unfurl. An ingredient that had captured the state of Tamil Nadu, jolting its capital city of Chennai to a halt. That secret ingredient was murder. This is the story of the man who built a dosa empire that feeds millions across the world, and his ulti...
Mar 02, 2024•48 min
[RECAST EPISODE] This episode was uploaded last year, but in light of the recent documentary, we are releasing it as an extra episode that sheds light on the aspects of the case that the documentary did not.
Mar 01, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Justice delayed is justice denied. This is a phrase embedded within the very being of every judicial system in the world. Or, at least it should be. Yet the essence of this phrase is sometimes hard to live by. Sometimes comes before us a case so shocking yet so convoluted that not years but decades pass by without a shred of justice. Such is the case of a 21 year old nun from Kerala. A woman whose brutal death in 1992 remained unsolved till December of 2020. This is the story of Sister Abhaya. B...
Feb 24, 2024•31 min
Take a second and think about your mom. You probably smiled a little just now. Everyone’s mom is their life’s singlehanded superhero. Countless pieces of song, film and poetry have been dedicated to moms; it’s a relationship like no other and all dads seem to know they come a close second. So what happens when that very same mom, the one you’d take or fire a bullet for, spirals down into a path of sinister crime, and decides to take you along with her? This is the story of one such mother whose ...
Feb 17, 2024•24 min
Home is supposed to be your safe haven; your bed, the thing you crave coming back to at the end of a long day. Your parents, the people you’d take or fire a bullet for. Between the four walls of a home and around the people you love, exists most of your life. That was all true for 13 year old Aarushi. Little did she know, though, on the night of 15th May, in that very home, those very people were about to conspire to commit murder…her murder. And they were going to succeed, making sure she never...
Feb 10, 2024•46 min
To listen to the full episode, head on over to our new podcast, The Bhootbusters Podcast, to get your weekly dose of Chai & Chithi Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/episode/4n6SRj0Pqmy9Tajed9uH8k?si=763f084076584c85 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bhootbusters-podcast/id1728625464 Welcome to Chai & Chithi, a segment where we read some of the scariest, most terrifying, and most haunting stories that YOU send in to us. In this week’s episode, we’re reading: The Twin Broth...
Feb 03, 2024•19 min
Chai & Chithi is on our new feed now, The Bhootbusters Podcast. Please go follow and rate our new show if you are a C&C fan. Episode airs this Saturday. Bhootbusters Podcast on Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/5Uku1lCciEOoQ5lL5v6dvD?si=587a0d1e5b02476b Bhootbusters Podcast on Apple : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bhootbusters-podcast/id1728625464 We’re back with YOUR FAVORITE, OUR FAVORITE, INDIA’S FAVORITE community storytelling show on a BRAND NEW FEED! Chai & Ch...
Feb 01, 2024•2 min
This is the story of the man who created India’s first crime show: every week he was on television screens around the nation narrating the exploits of the most devious criminals of the time, until January 10, 2000, when he found himself at the center of a criminal investigation. The difference was, he was no longer researching or hosting this case, but instead living it – in the eyes of the police, the man that covers murder for a living, had just covered up the murder of his own wife. This is t...
Jan 27, 2024•53 min
Where do you feel the safest in the world? For most of us, the safest place on Earth will be within the four corners of our home. It is the certainty of intimately knowing your surroundings, with its many variables, that makes us feel safe at home. I know that the ringing of the doorbell at 10 PM is the guard asking me to move my car, or tapping sounds are from a pipe I have procrastinated to get fixed. The chances of something going wrong in my own home is minimal, almost impossible. That’s why...
Jan 21, 2024•42 min
We’re back with a bang, bigger, better, scarier. Regular release begins tomorrow. To support us and help the podcast run, join our community at: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios YouTube Membership (for those facing payment issues with Patreon. Same benefits can be availed as YouTube member): https://youtube.com/@thedesistudios?si=beNUVluYSjCueOSq...
Jan 20, 2024•10 min
Welcome to Chai and Chithi, a segment where we take fan stories mailed in to us, as well as share some of our more personal ghastly experiences. Mail in your spooky, crime or desi stories to staydesi@thedesistudios.com
Aug 19, 2023•31 min
Over the last decade, India has been home to a slew of unexpected, scandalous and devastating suicides with sinister back stories. These suicides, those of Jiya Khan, Pratyusha Banjerjee, Sushant Singh Rajput, Tunisha Sharma and more, weren’t just stories of people who gave up on their lives. They were stories of crime, corruption, power, politics and our country’s criminal underbelly that led these young people to death. Today, we’re covering one such case, a suicide, that shook the country 11 ...
Aug 13, 2023•46 min
