"I'm a Ph.D. Candidate in History, composer, and musician from New York. My current research focuses on linguistic nationalism and cultural politics in postcolonial India, particularly in Bombay from the 1940s-1966. I'm particularly interested in the efflorescence of vernacular forms of theater, music, poetry, and fiction produced by an ideologically eclectic range of activists, lawyers, artists, and labor organizers — including Communists, Socialists, Gandhians, Dalits, and figures on the Hindu Right — in service of a "United Maharashtra."

 

At Brown, I've been fortunate to combine my interests in cultural history with my work as a musician. In my first year, I served as a teaching assistant for Pakistani-American singer Ali Sethi, the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia's first artist-in-resident (and whose band I tour in regularly!), and collaborated with Pakistani-American visual artist Shahzia Sikander through a course she co-taught with Professor Holly Shaffer (History of Art and Architecture). Last year, I was invited by Professor Leela Prasad (Religious Studies) to speak and perform at the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting, and designed the soundscape for RISD alumna Aiza Ahmed's solo exhibition at Sargent's Daughters in New York.

 

This semester, I'm thrilled to have organized a performance and conversation on March 17 from 6-8:30PM at Watson with Sangat, a rabab/trumpet and voice/percussion trio which draws inspiration from the mystical poetry of Sikh, Sufi, and radical bhakti traditions to center oneness and connection. I'm also excited for a concert and panel on April 16 from 5-6PM at the Yale Center for British Art on the hybrid musical culture of early colonial India. Paralleling the YCBA's Painters, Ports, and Profits exhibition, the panel will be moderated by Professor Holly Shaffer, the exhibition's co-curator."