I am a journalist and an aspiring Historian from Kerala, India. I was formerly a news reporter in South India and my research areas are political history, famine history and history of self in South Asia and the Middle East.
I was born and raised in the Middle East. Growing up in an inter-faith household (and as an immigrant?), questions and politics of identity became a central part of my intellectual inquiry. After completing my Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Communication at Middlesex University in Dubai, I moved to India to work with the Times of India as a reporter in Kochi, Kerala. Here, I was exposed to the different forces shaping contemporary politics and society. I covered various beats and natural disasters, such as the Kerala Floods 2018.
In 2021, I graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, while completing my master's thesis with Professor Ayesha Jalal. My thesis explores the history of the political movements in the formal and informal areas that shaped the contemporary Nationalist identity in India. I also worked as a Research Assistant at the World Peace Foundation with Professor Alex De Waal and as a teaching assistant for the course The Middle East and North Africa Since World War I, taught by Professor Hugh Roberts.
At Columbia and LSE, my research will focus on modern political history, contemporary religious thought and the making of South Asian identity, with a specific focus on the South India.
