Writer | Sharanya Deepak

Sharanya is a writer and editor from and currently in New Delhi, India. Her work has been published in Orion, Eater, Vittles, The Audacity, Popula, Atlas Obscura, Wasafiri, Longreads, Roads and Kingdoms, FiftyTwo, The Believer and The Baffler among others.

She is an editor at Vittles Magazine, and also at at Mangal Media, a collective of writers and artists from outside Western Europe and North America. In October 2020, she won the Wasafiri new writing Prize for her essay "Seamless". In 2022-23, she was a fellow at One World Media, and South Asia Speaks.

She is represented by Imogen Morrell at Greene and Heaton Agency, and is currently working on her first book: a memoir in essays.

Featured Writing

Dear Neighbour

Fifty Two, December 2022

"But in recent years, the topic of Pakistan, always touchy in many Hindu households, has become touchier still. For the Indian state, Pakistan is, among other things, a permanent enemy, and to be “Pakistani” is an attribute that is used to designate people and communities, almost always Muslims, as outsiders. Today, many of the BJP’s supporters have also claimed popular authority to dictate the terms of exile—Go to Pakistan!—to those they consider adversaries."

Meals for One

Longreads, June 2023

"...I slice a malta orange. I watch my hand dip into the cut-glass box with chaat masala I stole from my mother and watch the masala emerge, tucked into a small steel spoon. I watch myself take the cluster off a head of garlic, I watch myself heat butter and mix honey in with it to put on toast. I watch myself. In these gestures, a new person emerges, a person that understands sensory preferences, who can witness herself move. I have never known this person. I like her. I tell her about how I always thought that pleasure belonged to someone else."

Warm Blood

The Audacity, September 2023

"I feel ignorant for doubting the rage of others around me when I was growing up. As I watched the stage in front of us pile up with poetry and consolation, I decided to keep my head up, like she said. I resolved to stay angry as we were picked apart, all citizens of the one blasted republic, separated by caste, class and religion, torn apart and into pieces by a bloodthirsty state. Even though the government had weakened me, at the protests, I witnessed hundreds of others it hadn’t. I saw the young rummaging spirits were furious with the knife brought to our country’s throat. We were led by young Muslim women, students and activists. They climbed onto cars, unafraid, to urge the rest of us into song. They headed marches to parliament, pushing past barricades in swarms."

India's Beef with Beef

The Baffler, March 2023

"As Indian vegetarianism gains mass appeal by way of the Western diaspora, its presence in India continues to be used to deny people adequate nutrition and to enact violence on the citizens that Modi’s government is attempting to exclude. While in the past decade there have been stories of resistance to the state and the ruling elite’s imposition of vegetarianism, tales of grief and mourning crowd the conversations surrounding Indian food."