Born and educated in Kashmir, India, I received a Bachelor's degree in
English and Education from the University of Kashmir and the M.A. and Ph.D. in
Linguistics from Kurukshetra University. I taught Hindi/Urdu in the Department of
Linguistics at Syracuse University, where I earned a Master's degree in Linguistic
Analysis in 1988. Since September of that year, I have been teaching Hindi and
Urdu at Brown University. My research interests are in the field of South Asian languages and linguistics. In addition to Kashmiri, my mother tongue, Hindi and Urdu, I know
several other Indian languages and have worked on the structural properties of these
languages. I have co-authored a textbook Colloquial Urdu Routledge. During the past few years, I have published a number of papers in reputed Journals. My forthcoming books are: Lexical borrowings in Kashmiri, Hindi-Urdu for beginners or travelers and Colloquial Wordbook.
