I am a film and media scholar based in New York. I teach at Columbia University and edit the journal Screen. My first academic book Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City (Sept 2020), does a deep dive into histories of filmmaking in late colonial India. This book was partly inspired by my own work experience in Mumbai’s film and TV industries in the mid-2000s.

Currently, I am at work on a new book titled “Tropical Machines.” My areas of specialized interest include visual culture, media theory, film & photography, postcolonial technology studies, feminist historiography, and environmental humanities – with a focus on South Asian diasporas and the Indian Ocean world region. I also serve as co-director of the Center for Comparative Media. You can read more about my work here.

[Image credit: Hemant Chaturvedi. Torn film poster, Ganga Theatre, Bikaner, Rajasthan.]