How it all started

I fell in love with storytelling at 6. I loved telling stories to myself at bedtime, imaginative stories of kings and queens or even of ordinary people, my mind imagining a different time and place. There was no audience—only myself. I could retreat into these stories at any time, any place. They existed in my mind, always there for me to pick up from where I had left things the previous night. As my imagination soared, the stories became more complex and detailed.

Being raised around two older, more vociferous sisters, meant that I was left alone most of the time. I was just that way—curious, serious, and shy. I drew heavily from my love of books and reading—as kids growing up in India in an army family with access to army libraries, we were raised on a diet of Nancy Drews, Noddy, Hardy Boys, and the magical world created by the English writer Enid Blyton. While we read ferociously, we were not encouraged to write creatively. Writing was only for school assignments.

There was no blueprint for how to become a writer professionally or anyone to follow in our circle who had become a writer. This love of storytelling helped me imagine how people loved, cared, fought, and made sense of their lives.

Bucking convention and forging my path

The love of understanding humans, of their struggles and victories, carved my path forward as I enrolled in an undergrad degree in anthropology at Punjab University, in India and eventually got a Masters degree in medical anthropology.

Pursuing anthropology was bucking convention because (a) I refused to have an arranged marriage (a real prospect at the time) and (b) if it wasn’t becoming a doctor, teacher, or engineer, then what the heck was I doing studying anthropology? Everyone in my extended family were either doctors, homemakers, or engineers.

I arrived in the US for a PhD in anthropology at UMASS (Amherst). My world opened up like never before. Critical readings of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and of diseases like HIV/AIDS expanded my view of the world as I engaged in course work and dissertation research in medical anthropology.

Writing ethnographic notes and bringing attention to the lived experiences of minority women living with HIV/AIDS in the mid-1990s set me on the path to writing. I found my voice through my dissertation writing—the first body of work at the time to highlight the struggles of coping with HIV/AIDS for low-income, minority women living in urban US.

Building a career in human research and product design, while impacting youth and communities

Today, I lead a dual career as an anthropologist/researcher in tech and also volunteer on two non-profit boards. One is a US non-profit supporting the education of marginalized youth in India and the second non-profit works on issues of homelessness, health advocacy, and urban development in an underserved community in California. All require writing—research summaries, student stories, compelling testimonies, presentations, reports.

My passion for social justice, and the drive to understand people and highlight their resilience and courage are the threads that connect all my writing together. Change happens when these stories of resilience and courage are brought to the front through words. Those living these experiences who believed their stories and struggles to be insignificant now feel seen.

I hope you enjoy my writing.