Our Founding Team

Harshita is a dedicated high school English teacher who brings a deep passion for literature into every lesson she transacts, encouraging students to connect with authors, stories, cultures, and traditions across ages and national boundaries. She strongly believes that texts and traditions can transform young minds — making them empathetic and creative, and encouraging critical thinking. She draws on global traditions to introduce diverse narratives and perspectives. Whether investigating classic novels or contemporary voices, she inspires students to find meaning in storytelling and folklore, and to appreciate the ways they shape our understanding of the world.

Hansini is a Rajasthan-based researcher in folklore and cultural studies, also working as an assistant professor at JECRC University. Her PhD focuses on Phad traditions and community identity. Growing up amid Rajasthan's vibrant cultural landscape, her initial fascination with the celebratory aspects of folk expressions gave way to an engagement with their underlying social, political, and cultural potential. Her work focuses on exploring folk practices as an active site shaping memory, identity, and community. She holds a vision to support its documentation and recognition through folklorestudies.org.

Himanshu Singh is a PhD scholar in English Literature at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi. His research interest is exploring urban legends and spatial narratives. Raised in Delhi, his work is shaped by documenting stories and lived folklore. He is committed to bridging academic research and modern folklife, contributing to the vision of Folklore Studies. Deeply drawn to spatial experience, he reads and photographs places as sites of memory, where everyday landscapes become repositories of narrative and lived folklore.

Neha Dagar, a PhD scholar in English, walks between archives and traditional courtyards, where Haryanvi voices rise like dusk folk melodies. A listener of the daily tunes of life — rooted with grassroots and carried by stories of mothers, friends, and family under open skies — she studies and stands for folklore. Having grown up listening to these tunes without fully understanding them beyond lyrics, she now hopes to connect those who live these traditions with those who study them, so they receive the care, space, and respect they deserve.

Azra, from Assam, currently pursuing a BA in Anthropology (Majors) at Concordia University (Montréal, Canada), loves to study folk narratives. Often in poetry, she seeks to unwrap her identity as an unravelling of 'home' — one that is in movement: redefining home through folklore. A childhood folklore she returns to is the wrath of Bordoisila, the Goddess of Storm, who — according to local legends — sweeps off everything in her way while returning from her mother's home after marriage; yet her presence is long awaited, as she brings the rain that also announces the onset of the Assamese New Year, Rongali Bihu.

Aryan Singh, a VIT Vellore Computer Science alumnus, has built platforms serving 100+ users and led animation-culture events as a Board Member and Design Head of the VIT Animation Club. As a volunteer, he is committed to helping folklore gain its due recognition. Fascinated by how Greek and Hindu myths intertwine, Aryan finds his centre in the silence of wind-swept, overcast landscapes — an atmosphere he finds reflected in the quiet, gentle presence of his favourite companions: ducks and capybaras.

For Kirti Bhadana, Dadi Ji's and Nani Ji's stories growing up were among her most meaningful experiences — stories in which traditions, beliefs, and values quietly came alive, making her realise that folklore lives in voices and lived experiences. With these thoughts, she joined this initiative — aligned with her goal of becoming a storyteller and contributing to Folklore Studies through stories. She completed her graduation from Delhi University and holds a B.Ed. from SCERT Delhi and an M.A. in English from IGNOU.

Siddhartha first encountered folklore studies during his post-graduation days at Ambedkar University Delhi; connecting and studying folklore around the world changed his mindset about learning. Currently an English teacher at Ramagya School Noida, he always includes his learnings about folklore in his lesson planning. He teaches students the value of folklore through the school curriculum, helping them understand how folklore shapes an individual's identity.

Chitra Rajora is a researcher with interdisciplinary experience spanning International Relations, tribal welfare, and socio-economic studies. Her work includes a focus on Russia and Kazakhstan, alongside field-based documentation of Koya, Gond, and Chenchu tribal communities in the Krishna–Godavari basin. She has also conducted research on Delhi's gig economy and gender dynamics in sports across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Her academic journey includes associations with premier institutions such as the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, the University of Hyderabad, Ambedkar University Delhi, and the ICWA. Having developed a deep research curiosity across different cultural, linguistic, and geographical domains, she is very happy to be a part of this initiative.

Chhavi Chaudhary is a doctoral candidate at the University of Delhi, shaped by her roots in Mathura — a city where myths, rituals, and everyday life flow together. Growing up amidst festivals and oral traditions sparked her interest in folklore as lived experience. She has worked as a Research Assistant on an ICSSR project on the Kumbh, studying faith in practice. Drawn to rivers like the Yamuna, she sees folklore as memory in motion — connecting people, place, and identity.

Kritika is a Textile & Design graduate from IICD with a Master's in Visual Arts. She has 15+ years of deep experience and engagement with the Phad Painting tradition — a 700-year-old folk art kept alive by her family across generations. While giving it a little "glow-up", she curates, paints, and narrates stories related to the fantastic epic tradition of which the Phad tradition is a part. She describes herself as a family-friends-and-pets sort of person (her biggest hype squad), with whom she loves to spend time. She loves to roam in the mountains, or halfway into the ocean — often wondering if she was a fish in her past life. Perhaps all these make her an ardent lover of folklore traditions across the world.