I began with science, discovered communication, fell in love with stories, wandered into development, filmmaking and culture, found myself building festivals and experiences — and somewhere along the way became an entrepreneur.
More than two decades later, I still find it difficult to answer the simple question:
"So, what exactly do you do?"
Perhaps this page is the longer answer.
To understand an idea. Find its story. Bring the right people together. And make it happen.
One evolving story, across nine chapters — read top to bottom, like a strand still writing itself.
Long before brands, festivals and boardrooms, there was curiosity. Science gave me the questions. Communication taught me how to share the answers.
Recognition as a young National Child Scientist and National Science Talent scholar led me toward science communication — and an experience that left a permanent imprint on how I thought about possibility.
An idea became an organisation. LAKSHYA Foundation grew from a belief that media could do more than inform or entertain — it could create access, expression and opportunity.
The focus was children and youth. The geography was South Asia. The language was media for development.
Media. Film. South Asia.
For almost eight years, I helped establish and lead the South Asian programme in India for the Amsterdam-based VAN Group of Companies — across development, media strategy, sustainable project models, environment, wildlife and filmmaking.
Strategy taught me to look beyond what something looked like and ask a more important question: what should it mean?
As Creative Director at The Old Man's Furnace, a multidisciplinary Brand & Design Consultancy, I worked across brand strategy, identity, advertising, campaigns, packaging, environmental and exhibition design.
It was a long chapter — and an important one. Here I learned to move between strategy and aesthetics, research and instinct, business problems and creative answers.
India is impossible to understand from a desk. Its stories live in its artists, artisans, music, rituals, languages, streets and contradictions.
Through the India Foundation for Arts & Dialogue, I became part of a curatorial journey with young curators from across the world. Something clicked — I had found the intersection of everything I loved: people, ideas, culture and storytelling.
Sometimes curator. Sometimes strategist. Sometimes producer. Sometimes the person called when something needed fixing. Titles changed. Responsibility didn't.
Riverside Media began with an ambition to create meaningful entertainment without drawing a line around it — television, films, shorts, documentaries, live experiences, theatre, and whatever came next.
As Curator & Strategist, the idea was to travel the lesser-travelled roads of creative media — work that could be artistic yet accessible, contemporary yet enduring, imaginative yet relevant.
The world was changing. So was storytelling. As Head of Content Curation & Partnership Development, I led a 25-member team and helped curate nine global programmes spanning music, film and literature.
As Creative Development Consultant for a Banijay Group Asia initiative, my work moved deeper into strategic development and on-ground execution of collaborative non-fiction, non-scripted experiential programmes.
Sustainability had always been part of my development journey. At MYNIWA, that conversation entered commerce — leading content, corporate communications and digital asset strategy for a marketplace built around sustainable brands.
Millions of people. Thousands of stories. One extraordinary living civilisation. I was entrusted with leading Content Curation and Production Management at the Media Centre during Mahakumbh 2025 — overseeing internal and external communication, content creation, curation and media operations.
Scale teaches humility. Because when the canvas becomes that enormous, you realise communication isn't about making yourself heard. It's about knowing what deserves to be heard.
After years of helping build stories for organisations, institutions, platforms and people, one question became increasingly difficult to ignore: what would I build if the canvas were mine?
People don't connect with assets. They connect with stories.
Today, the work brings together creators, brands, entrepreneurs, culture, content, strategy and technology — different worlds connected by the same instinct that began this journey.
Find what matters. Give it meaning. Help it travel.
And storytelling somehow connected all of them.
Communication Consultant. Curator. Strategist. Executive Producer. Festival Director. Creative Director. Programme Head. Country Head. Content Head. Corporate Communication Head. Digital Asset Strategist. Entrepreneur.
But careers are rarely as neat as LinkedIn makes them appear. Mine certainly wasn't. There were unexpected turns, difficult rooms, extraordinary collaborators, impossible deadlines, failed ideas, reinventions, accidents, friendships, risks — and some wonderful stories.
I wouldn't straighten the line even if I could. Because the bends are what brought me here.
Not a ladder. More like a double helix.
Experience on one strand. Curiosity on the other. Still evolving.
Next: Today.End-to-end image reserved