About Me

I analyze and make media for social good. My work focuses on dismantling colorism, which I define as a system that creates opportunities for people with light skin, regardless of their true strengths.

I conduct workshops and talks at schools, in higher education, and in maker spaces in the U.S and India. My thoughts and insights have appeared on or in Bitch Media, Brooklyn Free Radio, Romper, and The Washington Post. I have presented at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, TEDxWomen, and the Jaipur Literature Festival.

My newest anti-colorism media project is a children’s book, Different Differenter, an arts-based racial literacy toolkit for 5- to 9-year-olds. I crowdfunded, designed, researched, wrote, and finally self-published it in 2019. It has been featured on Social Justice Books (a Teaching for Change project), in the Resource list for Race and Ethnicity in Planning to Change the World and The New York Times Holiday Gift Guide. The book uses a critical pedagogy framework to proactively engage early elementary-aged children (3-8 years) on the topic of skin color using arts-and-crafts.

Prior to Different Differenter, which took me nearly 2 years to complete, I conducted numerous independent, anti-colorism projects for public engagement. The first, public-facing ‘counterpublic’ project, ColorsOfBrown.org was a website, launched in 2008, a culmination of media studies graduate work. Aside from the analysis presented in this 20-page website, which is still relevant (if not current), I produced, conducted, and edited 10+ video interviews with Indian luminaries such as the classical Indian dancer and national awardee of the fourth-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, Padma Shri Shovana Narayan; art historian, scholar, and the dean of the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU Delhi, Parul D. Mukherji; and the celebrated art-house actress and director, Nandita Das. Some of the video interviews can be found on my video channel from the time. In 2013, I had the opportunity to add an interview series with Professor Radhika Parameswaran, the endowed Herman B. Wells chair at Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Parameswaran was one of the earliest scholars to begin working on colorism practices in the Indian subcontinent. Her important and deep work and words encouraged and reignited my passion to pursue anti-colorism work.

In 2013, I received the Individual Artists’ Grant by the Houston Arts Alliance, supported by the City of Houston to curate “Putting the U in Color,” an art + media culture exhibit that challenged biases targeting “dark-skinned” girls and women (and men) in the South Asian community and media. The naming highlighted the need to not only add the South Asian perspective to the discussion of race in the U.S., but to raise awareness of colorism in the South Asian diaspora. This exhibit acquainted colorism’s Indian avatar to other communities of color in the U.S. as Latinx, Hispanic, and Black visitors would tell me, “We didn’t know this happens in your community too.”

My professional work in the U.S. prior to founding The Colo(u)rism Project includes working as Executive Director of The Indus Entrepreneurs-Houston, a membership organization for South Asian entrepreneurs, and consulting projects with the Bach Society-Houston and Asia Society Texas Center. During my graduate years in the U.S., I wrote for the South Asian Journalists Association Forum (SAJAForum) and completed two successful summer internships with Breakthrough.tv, a human rights organization, and Love146.org, an international organization working to end child trafficking.

Before moving to the U.S. in 2005, I worked as a creative with international advertising agencies, including J. Walter Thompson, Mc Cann Erickson, and Havas Advertising Group’s direct mail marketing venture, The Sales Machine. I also worked as an infographist in the art department at The Economic Times, Bennett, Coleman, and Company Limited’s financial daily.

During my professional working years in Delhi, I volunteered at Mobile Creches, who work for the right to Early Childhood Development of marginalized children, and SPIC MACAY (Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth). SPIC MACAY is a nationwide, voluntary organization that aims to enrich the quality of formal education by rendering programs of Indian classical music and dance, folk, poetry, theatre, traditional paintings, crafts & yoga primarily in schools and colleges. I consulted on media advocacy projects, including a PhotoVoice project with children, with the Center for Advocacy and Research, which ‘works to create spaces in the community, in the key institutions, and in the media for a dialogue on issues related to social development.’

I hold an MA in Media Studies from The New School, New York City, and a BFA in Visual Communication from the College of Art, New Delhi. I am pursuing my second master’s degree at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

I am currently a member of Cornerstone Studios in Washington Heights, Manhattan. I live with my spouse and 8-year-old son. (And until recently, his imaginary cat, Daisy.)