I am a historian of modern south Asia, focusing on colonial and postcolonial India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. My research focuses on the Tamil-speaking southern regions of India across the twentieth century, spanning the colonial and postcolonial eras. In the last fifteen years, my interests have moved thematically – from policing to rivers, from legal to environmental history. What has stayed consistent across projects is my attempt to reconstruct the lives of ordinary people by drawing on a range of sources – written and audio-visual, in Tamil and English, found across archives in India and the UK. A long-time resident of New York now, I grew up in Chennai, and still go back regularly to meet family, work at the incomparable Tamil Nadu Archives, and eat good dosai.