Area of Practice

Theatre Artist and Historian

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru (degree awarded by University of Mysore)

Master of Philosophy in History from the University of Hyderabad

Master of Arts in History from the University of Hyderabad

Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History from Lady Brabourne College, Kolkata (degree awarded by University of Calcutta)

Work Experience

• Community Manager at Dara.network
• Content Creator of more than a dozen illustrated audio plays and multiple emailers for training personnel at Titan
• Associate Editor at Native Place for Bangalore Turf Club’s commemorative volume celebrating 100 years of its existence
• Writer at Citizen Matters, Bengaluru
• Programme Development Consultant for the History of Ideas and Children’s Theatre Programmes at Bangalore Little Theatre Foundation
• Historian at StoryTrek Tours
• Communications Manager at Lahe Lahe, Bengaluru
• History Teacher at Oakridge International School, Hyderabad
• Theatre Artist, specialising in acting, directing, producing, and playwriting, in nearly thirty stage productions

Interest Areas

intersection of gender and history on stage; littoral societies and their history and culture

Current Practice at Srishti

teaching in the general studies program and the creative writing program

Creative Practice and Outreach

• Best Comedy Actress at the 67th Annual All India Drama and Dance Competition in Shimla, 2022.
• Professor Sudhir Ranjan Das Memorial Prize, jointly with Dr Sanjay Subodh, for being “adjudged the author of the best paper among those on Archaeology submitted at the 70th annual session of the Indian History Congress” in 2011.

Select Performances

• First play, originally written in Bangla, titled Dharmotthānam adapted into a podcast by [Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar winner] Sunil Shanbag and Sapan Saran’s Studio Tamaasha for its series, New Writing Podcast, 2020. (Hindi)
• Acted in Bangalore Little Theatre’s adaptation of The Tales of Tenali Rama by Bangalore Times for its digital series, #StorytellingSessionsWithBangaloreTimes, 2020. (English)
• Directed Bangalore Little Theatre’s all-women cast-and-crew production of Foursight Theatre’s Six Dead Queens and an Inflatable Henry!, which had ten well-attended shows in Bengaluru and was invited to The Red Curtain’s 50th Year Theatre Festival in Kolkata, 2019. (English)
• Performed at the 5th Kenya International Theatre Festival in Nairobi as an actor in Theatre for Change’s production of When the Rainbow is Enough, 2019. (English)

Select Publications

• “Once There Was a Syncretic Deity.” Seminar 750. February 2022. https://www.india-seminar.com/.
• “Localising Global Faiths: The Heterodox Pantheon of the Sundarbans.” Asian Review of World Histories 5, no. 1 (2017): 141-57. https://brill.com/view/journals/arwh/5/1/article-p141_7.xml. (indexed by SCOPUS and Web of Science)
• “A Littoral Space: Making a Case for the Southern Deltaic Region of Bengal.” In Living with Water: Peoples, Lives, and Livelihoods in Asia and Beyond, edited by Rila Mukherjee, Issues in History, 55-65. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2016.
• “Ma Bonbibi, Mother to Humans and Tigers.” People’s Archive of Rural India, April 16, 2016. https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/ma-bonbibi-mother-to-humans-and-tigers.

Recent Units facilitated

• Writing for Stage (BFA Creative Writing, Year 3: Studio)
• Women’s Words, Women’s Worlds (Undergraduate Professional Program, Year 2/3: General Studies)
• Festivals, Faith, and You (Undergraduate Professional Program, Foundation: General Studies)