Opening three chapters of novel in progress, SANGAM For Indian American DJ Amar, music is his gateway to two things: girls and social cache. In college, he bands with Iranian Americans Erfan and Dalia to create a new sound of the brown millennial diaspora. While Erfan’s success grows and Dalia abates his affections, he’s stuck gigging across small-time clubs and weddings. As his obsession grows, he turns to his grandfather’s record of an old Sufi ghazal -- the backstory of which crosses both 13th century and post-Partition India, revealing to us the missing streams of a cultural and personal history of the subcontinent that have met at the confluence of his life.

Currently shopping novel to agents.

Genres/Keywords: Bildungsroman, historical, triptych, music

Comp titles: 99 Nights in Logar (Jamil Jan Kochai), Compass (Mathias Enard), Londonstani (Gautam Malkani)

 Excerpt published in B O D Y Magazine.

Terminus follows two characters: Ashok, an Indian immigrant grieving from the loss of his son, and Abdi, an African-American trying to reintegrate to society after release from prison for a wrongful conviction. Their lives are intertwined by the construction of a new metro line in Baltimore – for Ashok and his wife, this is a new lease on their snatched American dream; for Abdi, a growing sense of local activism to protect his community. The novel crosses the suburbs and inner-city neighborhoods, highlighting fractures of race, gentrification and daily human struggle. The ideas for this novel began before the Freddie Gray Uprisings in 2015, and in the aftermath as it’s issues have become more prominent. I am keenly interested in getting feedback at how it addresses issues of race to make sure I am writing ethically and responsibly. Genres/Keywords: social novel, criminal justice, gentrification Comp titles: Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Deepa Annapara), Lucky Boy (Shanti Sekaran), The Leavers (Lisa Ko) Current draft: 4

A version of this was published in Taco Bell Quarterly, April 2022
https://tacobellquarterly.org/monkey-brains/

Critical essay reviewing the Netflix series Never Have I Ever as a basis for considering questions of media representation, nostalgia, craft's impact on content, and what it means to "be seen." Published Tropics of Meta May 2020.
https://tropicsofmeta.com/2020/05/27/the-quixotic-search-for-south-asian-media-representation/

A creative essay written in response to the February 2017 shootings in Olathe, KS where a white xenophobe targeted two Indian men he believed to be Iranians, killing one. Published originally in The Rumpus, September 2017:

http://therumpus.net/2017/09/the-cost-of-doing-business/

Told in the second-person POV, a man reflects on his unfinished backyard pool at a time when he is becoming increasingly disconnected from his family.

Forthcoming in District Lit, 2017.

This excerpt from my novel-in-progress follows an Indian-American man still grieving the loss of his son, as a new work promotion puts new lease on his hope for the American Dream.

Published in The New Engagement, January 2017 Issue.
http://thenewengagement.com/literature/a-bend-in-the-track

This excerpt from my novel-in-progress follows a young African-American man attempting to re-enter society after being released from prison.

Published in the Asian American Writers Workshop's The Margins, featured Fiction Friday Author, 2/5/2016.
http://aaww.org/foraging/

Set in the Indian-American enclave of Edison, NJ, this story profiles a family caught in a moment of fracture. This was my first story published.

Published in The Kartika Review, Summer Issue 13, 2012.
https://issuu.com/kartikareview/docs/kartika_issue13