Biography

Growing up in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir gave me an insight into the limitations in the ascribed definition of secular, democratic nation-states. The public movements that emerged in the region in 2000’s and 2010’s gave me an understanding into the varying vulnerabilities that are unleashed on people in a conflict zone, whose trials are levelled and homogenised in the articulation of a singular, resisting nationalism. Internships and social activities on the ground helped me realise the nature and extent of internal hierarchies that exist in the region along the lines of caste, class, gender, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. My research interests, that I will be carrying out at the University of Cambridge, will focus on the vocabulary of landscapes as it is emerges in the cultural production emanating from the region. It will try to answer the question why Kashmiri creators go back to the cliched signifiers associated with the region by British colonial photography and Bollywood filmography. And explore the possibility of landscapes enforcing an urban and upper caste national symbology.

Previous Education

Jamia Millia Islamia English 2023
University of Dehli (Lady Shri Ram College) English 2020