current
The Killing of a Tiger, Book
TKOT traces my relationship with the natural world and hybridizes humor writing with autotheory, cultural criticism and memoir. The manuscript is out on submissions.
Oriental Cyborg, a chapter from the manuscript, on labor, automata and race, won the Essay Press 2021 Chapbook Prize.
Problematic, Scripted Series
Co-creator, writer, producer
Overnight, Twinkle Reddy goes from unknown media minion to viral sensation, forcing a reckoning with her newfound status as a hot take guru in an internet culture already pushing her to the edge. Co-created with Pranav Behari and Devyn Fusaro. BRIC TV series shoot in July 2022.
El Bastón (2022), Doc Short
Producer
Filmmaker Nemo Allen travels back to Colombia to finish his mother’s documentary on the indigenous struggle in Cauca Valley. World Premiere at DOCNYC 2022, Texas Premiere at SXSW 2023. Winner of National Board of Review student award.
Sketch (2021), Hybrid Short
Creator, producer, editor, lead
A meta/mockumentary filmed in late 2019 on the trials and tribulations of co-writing sketch comedy, with Vikrant Chandel.
Lumpenpockets Magazine
Editor
Artist Elena Grossman and I co-edited an anthology of pandemic-era writing and art; the outcome is called ‘lumpenpockets,’ and it is a non-quarterly sickrag. It launched itself at Pete’s Candy in Dec. 2022.
past
Park Slope (2017) Music Video
Co-director, writer, producer
An absurdist food gore music video for experimental artist OHYUNG. I co-directed and produced with Hanna Edizel, DP Neo Sora.
Inherited Trauma (2017), Art
Curator
“Inherited Trauma” was an exhibit at Local Project with Danni Lin, Zain Alam, Hanna Edizel, Zorica Colic, Ten Izu, Hira Jafri, Vikrant Chandel. I produced a gallery event during the LIC Open Arts Festival with live music by OHYUNG, Yusuf Siddiquee, M Chilton, Eli Sundae.
Hometown Browns, Radio Show
From 2015-2016, Hira Jafri and I were co-hosts of a free-form radio show for three seasons on WESU 88.1 FM—every week, we tuned in with the latest on desi culture, humor, and a lot of music. Also a tad bit of gupshup.
“Grace us with your presence”, a short play performed as part of Tonya Pinkin’s Truth and Reconciliation of Womyn series, April 14, 2019
“Reflections on Tirhut”: Co-author of essay with Dr. William R. Pinch on the water history of Mithila. Forthcoming publication in The Power of Bhakti: Social Location and Public Affect in India’s Religion of the Heart (University of Washington Press). Research presented at “Exploring Bhakti: Is Bhakti a language of power or protest?” conference, South Asian Studies Council, Yale University, May 2016.
Oral histories: Collaborator on a book/media project with Dr. Indira Karamcheti, building narratives of the South Asian immigrants who found a way to the US before the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, 2015-2016.
“The First Americans”: Researcher for Dr. Karamcheti’s project on 19th-century seamen who might have been from India, and the treatment of race and difference in the Seamen Protection Certificates 2015.
Madhushala: Translated a large portion of the neo-romanticist Hindi book of 135 quatrains from 2011-2012.
Rubbing Eyes and Rings: Wrote a play performed at CultureHub NY upon invitation to the “Verbally Challenged: Digital Dialogues” where Manchester and NYC used telepresence to create a hybrid analog-digital performance.
paused or incomplete projects
(because to err is human, to own one’s fails is divine)
“Authentic Yoga?”: A comedic audio documentary in pre-production.
“Honey Darling” (2018): A fiction short involving race switches and drowning milk baths.
“Nostrand Ave” (2017): A documentary short on protests on two sides of Nostrand Ave: one against a restaurant with bullet holes memorialized in a wall for rich patrons, and the other, in support of a small business owner being evicted.