This is Us

Even as a kid, I was already a world traveller. I grew up in Africa, Bahrain and India, thriving in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual atmosphere. Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Hindi, English, French and Japanese are the languages I operate in.

I began studying Commerce in college, but was soon drawn into the world of the French language, studying it at Pune University, Alliance Française and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. At JNU, I was thrilled to combine my love for language and cinema and wrote my MPhil thesis in French on the films of Canadian filmmaker – Xavier Dolan. I also had the most enriching experience of living and teaching English in a school in Loudun, France for a year. After that, I have been teaching French at Pune University and liberal arts institutes like FLAME, to young children in school and also privately to interested people in India and abroad. I also took up learning Japanese, another language I find endlessly fascinating, complex and beautiful like a Math puzzle, a Turkish tapestry or Asian cuisine.

I have translated and subtitled a number of Hindi and Marathi plays and films into English and even into French. Some of these include:

Feature films - Ashleel Udyog Mitra Mandal, Sumbaran (into French)

Short films & Web Series - How was the Date?, Kavita, Safe Journeys

Plays - Les Combustibles (from the French), Binkaamache Samvad, Avyahat

Miscellaneous advertisement films & videos.

Radhika and I wrote and made our first film together in the great pandemic year of 2020 and after that we are now satisfying our endless appetite for words and meaning through सबtext.film. Our dream is to bridge the language gap between cultures to help the voices of content creators reach wider audiences.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was 14 years old. (The first essay I remember writing was about how Chaos and not ‘God’ controlled the workings of the Universe.) After studying Political Science, I thought Journalism would be the way to go about realizing my dream, but as Chaos willed it, I ended up studying Film Direction at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII, Pune) and making documentaries, short films and assisting for Inde films (Astu, Chuskit, The Disciple.) Whether it is writing screenplays, stories, subtitles, call sheets, blogs or my journal, I feel most at home in the world of words.

As a Tamilian brought up in Pune, Maharashtra, being multilingual has been my finely-honed survival tactic and strength that I now enjoy immensely. I might as well say that I have not just one, but four mother tongues – Tamil, Marathi, Hindi and English.

While living and studying in Pune, I flowed easily into learning German at school, at Pune University, Max Mueller Bhavan and later at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. I also learnt French for some time at the Alliance Française because my best friend at the time was learning it.

Alongwith writing, directing and assisting on films, I have translated and subtitled over 10 Documentaries and articles in the fields of Education, Peoples’ Movements, Gender, Mental Health and Philosophy from Hindi and Marathi to English. I also had the rare privilege of subtitling some classics of Hindi Cinema – Madhumati, Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool and Do Bigha Zameen – for a film festival in Bologna, Italy.

Meeting a fellow writer, language and film buff like Meera and starting सबtext.film is an organic progression of turning a way of life into a passion and profession. Together, we will translate your vision into words of another language, constantly striving to stay faithful to the connotation and meaning inherent to the native expression.