Ideas at every stage. Not everything here is finished, and that's the point.
While volunteering on a design project, I interviewed 10–15 middle-aged women near Lucknow. What began as fieldwork became something more — a firsthand encounter with how these women perceive themselves and navigate their worlds. Their stories are powerful, real-world manifestations of the theoretical frameworks I study.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty's critique of Western feminist evaluations of the "Third World Woman" provides a critical lens for my research. The women I study are not passive subjects — they are agents of change who have been rendered invisible by dominant narratives.
School curricula still erase the agency of women and marginalised communities. My goal is to develop an educational reform project — tested locally, informed by interdisciplinary collaboration — that changes how history is taught. Not a vague aspiration but a practical plan.
The story of my grandmother made history feel alive and urgent. Her life is not in any archive, but it shaped my understanding of how women in post-independence India navigated family, community, and selfhood. Personal inquiry as scholarly method.
Urvashi Butalia reveals the female body as a site for the politics of power during Partition. Tanika Sarkar and Radha Kumar illuminate female identity during the nationalist movement. Reading them together opens a fuller picture of women's history in India.
From a widely-read blog post to leading our department's magazine toward more inclusive themes — I keep returning to the same instinct: history's insights are too important to remain only within the university. Bridging that gap is the work.