I am a storyteller, educator and workshop facilitator working with adolescents and adults from multilingual, multicultural and disadvantaged backgrounds. I work with different genres: folk tales, fairy tales, epics and myths, mainly from non-European regions, and autobiographical storytelling. I tell stories in various languages including Urdu, Hindi, English and other Indian languages such as Gujarati and Marathi. I am especially interested in the concepts of witnessing in storytelling, translation, multilingualism and embodied nature of creating stories.

I was born and grew up in India, arriving in the UK as an adult in 1999. I moved to Scotland in 2017. My first memories of storytelling are of sitting wrapped up in the sari of her great grand-mother reading stories to me. I remember her father telling her stories with her sister as children that were autobiographical or of Marilyn Monroe, Tarzan and the adventures of the British royalty. I did not grow up with a fascination of traditional Indian stories, instead a deep relish of story-listening that meant intimacy. I began to be fascinated by myths, stories and their power to hold community memories and transform hearts & minds during her doctoral fieldwork among indigenous and displaced communities in western India.

I formally trained in telling stories with the School of Storytelling, Sussex and then with Jan Blake. I incorporate my training in Indian classical music and dance in my storytellings. I believe storytelling to be a community art form and trained in Theatre of the Oppressed and witness based work, which enables those with no performance background to tell their stories.

I have designed and taught courses to migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers relating to building up their expression skills through storytelling work in English. I run workshops on basic skills of storytelling, biographical storytelling and deepening storytelling performance work based in India and the UK with performers, writers, charity workers, teachers, universities and mid-level corporate personnel.

My notable performance projects include directing 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon' a collection of stories for adults from around the world translated and told in 3 different Indian languages in Mumbai, India. I ran an Arts Council-funded project in Birmingham called 'Long Journey Home: True Life Migrant Tales', a monthly multilingual storytelling evening by first generation migrants telling their stories about making home in the U.K. I have worked with asylum-seekers in detention for many years and recently completed a project with Radio Awaaz gathering stories of South Asian migrants to Glasgow for a book and an exhibition at the Scottish Parliament.

I have performed and told stories in the UK, Europe and India. I tell stories in schools, in barns, by rivers, on the land and in ruins of heritage buildings.

Specialities: Community storytelling, multilingual storytelling, working with vulnerable, marginalised and migrant groups, project management, group work, story collection and documentation