Riddhi (b. 1991, Calcutta) lives and works in Delhi, India. They grew up across Oman, Sharjah, Calcutta and Ontario. Riddhi graduated with an MA in Gender Studies from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi (2020) after previously completing a BSc in molecular biology from the University of Waterloo (2014) in Canada.

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At Ambedkar Riddhi's thesis explored embodiment, hybridity and psychiatric disability in women and queer persons -- a subject they have continued to explore in subsequent work. They have previously worked with various nonprofits on gender, feminist scholarship on sexual violence and impunity, education and inclusion including stints with Zubaan, Vidhi Legal, Pratham Books, and Teach for India.

 

Prior to moving to India in 2014, Riddhi worked in biology with their last research stint at the Karp Lab at Harvard-MIT's HST center, developing mesenchymal stem cell therapies for acute lung injury. 

 

Riddhi is queer, nonbinary and disabled; Their research interests are shaped by lived experiences of people whose bodies defy industrial time and normative hierarchies. In 2021, they founded the collective Mutual Aid India with disabled and queer friends.

 

​Their work has appeared in CNN, Atmos, Autostraddle, Vogue, The Baffler, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Fuller Project, Himal Southasian, Article 14, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Art India Magazine, Helter Skelter Magazine, Harper Collins Anthology of Queer Poetry South Asia, Rattle Magazine, Glass Journal, The Wire, Scroll, Business Standard, and elsewhere. Find more @gaachburi across social media.

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TEACHING

Since 2020 Riddhi has taught workshops in creative writing and narrative journalism for The Himalayan Writers Retreat, Teach For India, Khabar Lahariya and Yoda Press among others. Starting in 2025 Riddhi began teaching writing independently through courses and stand-alone pop-up workshops. The participants have largely been people who work with writing in some form -- academics, journalists, food-writers, non-profit workers and research professionals,  although there has been the odd doctor-engineer-psychiatrist as well.

 

The workshops offerings have been:

• Writing Vivid Prose (prose)

• Eating The Essay (essays)

• Strange Leaps (fiction)

• Essaying - a five week course on the essay as a form

 

You can keep up with workshop updates on Instagram @workshopburi ​or email workshopburi@gmail.com for inquiries. ​

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