Selected Writing
2024
Orion, April 2024, Stall Economy
on constructed homelessness and state-neglect faced by India's street-food vendors
2023
Longreads, June 2023, Meals for One
an essay on solitude, and cooking for one's self
The Baffler, March 2023, India's Beef with Beef
on vegetarianism, national-identity and caste-based surveillance in Modi's India
Vittles, November 2023, Hospitality is not conditional
on demanding racialised communities to perform service with a smile
Orion, November 2023, Spring Has Left Us
on the loss of transitonal seasons and the language of desire
The Audacity, September 2023, Warm Blood
an essay on anger and the masculine city selected by Roxane Gay
2022
FiftyTwo, December 2022, Dear Neighbour
A story about Indian fandom of Pakistani music and post-partition sentiment in India today
Vittles, December 2022, Introduction to Punjab: Food, Music, Resistance
an introduction to a series on food in music across divided Piunjab
Vittles, May 2022, Indian Biscuits: A story of Indian Biscuits
a story about independent India through four biscuits
Whetstone, May 2022, Songs of Survival, The Opposite of Plenty
reportage on famine-foods, folklore and the cyclical nature of starvation in Rajasthan
Hazlitt, March 2022, Bad Taste
on selective outrage in global food-media
2021
The Believer, December 2021, An Interview with Artist Alana Hunt
a conversation with Alana about her book, Cups of Nun Chai
Orion, September 2021, The Ghost Crop of Goa
a reported essay on saline-resistant indigenous rice varieties in Goa, India
Wasafiri, February 2021, Seamless (Winner, Wasafiri New Writing Prize)
an essay on navigating a body split at the seams, or the aftermath of sexual assault
The Third Eye, November 2021, How Momo Aunties Changed Delhi
reportage on women momo-vendors in Delhi, and what makes a hospitable city
Vittles, June 2021, All too much: The Absurdity of the Tandoori Momo
an essay about Delhi and chaos as an ingridient in street-food
2020
a social history of custard powder and utilitarian cooking in India
A story about the foods of the Bengal Famine of the 1940s, and the biases of culinary history
The Baffler, December 2020, Harvest of Dissent
A dispatch from the historic farmers' protests in Punjab
Vittles, August 2020, Whose food city? The Northeastern Restaurants of Humayunpur, Delhi
A dispatch from Humanyunpur, Delhi
Montez Press, August 2020, On Stillness a mediation on stillness and time during the pandemic
Mangal Media, October 2020, Delhi's kebabs: The Taste of Memory
Mangal Media, May 2020, The commodification of South-Asian identity politics
on South-Asian representation in the Western diaspora
2019
Longreads, March, 2019, Coming Home, One Word At A Time
an essay on learning to write Urdu and returning home to a polarised India
Popula, January 2019, Me, today
dispatch from a traffic jam in Delhi
Eater, February 2019, The World's Most Expensive Spice is on the Verge of Disappearing (Conde Nast Best Food Writing, 2019)
reportage on the challenges of growing saffron in militarised Kashmir
2018
Popula, November 2018, There is no Dalit cuisine (Longreads, Best of Food Writing, 2018)
A story about the dissonance in dominant-caste documentation of food in India
2016
Roads and Kingdoms,September 2016, Eating Beetles on a Shrinking Island
a story about unlikely climate warriors in Majuli, Assam, Northeast India
Roads and Kingdoms, April 2016, The Bone-setters of Kanpur
a dispatch about traditional medicine practitioners in Kanpur, North India