About this and that
मेरे बारें में – about me
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I was born in the 90s in Delhi, India, and grew up across some of the country's most remarkable regions—an upbringing that instilled in me a deep appreciation for local practices, resourcefulness, and community. That foundation led me to a career in Financial Technology, where I built open-source solutions for social empowerment across the globe. After years of advocating for open standards and bringing communities together both online and offline. I found myself drawn to a different kind of system: one rooted in the tangible, the traditional, and the ethical.
Working in open source taught me something fundamental. It showed me that technology is never neutral—it carries within it the architecture of power. Open standards, free software, decentralized systems: these weren't just technical choices. They were political ones. They were about who gets to build, who gets to own, who gets to benefit. Through years of advocacy and community-building—online and offline. I came to understand the heart of the issue: inequality embedded in the very fabric of the world order.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I was fighting that inequality inside systems that were themselves extractive. I felt a pull toward something more tangible. Something that couldn't be abstracted away.
That shift brought me to textiles specifically, ethical textiles grounded in local practices and de-industrialized platforms such as handloom.
Brief
Today, my work is dedicated to preserving dying art forms while building sustainable livelihoods. I currently support an ecosystem that impacts approximately 3 million weavers directly and indirectly across the globe. My mindset is rooted in utilizing local resources and transforming them into what I call "innovation factories" empowering artisans to excel in their craft without losing their cultural identity.
To deepen my understanding of weaving, I completed an art residency at the prestigious Lisio Foundation in Europe, a historic institute dedicated to the art of textile craftsmanship. I further trained under the guidance of Master Craftsman Mushtaq in Kashmir, where I learned the intricate process of producing handloom Pashmina.
My approach to social impact is holistic. I believe in fostering ecosystems through dialogue and engagement bringing communities together online and offline. I have had the privilege of serving as a mentor at Google, where I supported initiatives at the intersection of technology and social good.
Philosophy: Swaraj at the Loom
When I moved from open-source technology to handloom textiles, people often saw it as a shift from digital to physical, from modern to traditional. But I see it differently. I see it as a deepening.
Open source taught me to see the architecture of inequality. The handloom taught me how to build something different.
For me, the handloom is where my understanding of privacy, data colonialism, and decolonization finds its most direct expression. These are not abstract concerns I keep separate from my textile practice they are the very reason I weave. The handloom is not just a craft; it is a living critique of the world order I spent years trying to understand.
Consider what the handloom represents. It is privacy—the autonomy to create without surveillance, without algorithmic interference, without extraction. It is a bulwark against data colonialism a refusal to reduce labor, skill, and cultural heritage to data points to be harvested. It is decolonization in action—a reclamation of time, technique, and agency from industrial systems designed to erase them.
I approach these ideas through the lens of Swaraj, the philosophy of self-rule that Mahatma Gandhi introduced to the world. Gandhi understood the handloom as a political act a rejection of industrial extraction, a reclaiming of autonomy, an assertion that communities should control the means of their own livelihood. When I sat in open-source communities, we talked about freedom from vendor lock-in, about user sovereignty, about decentralized control. When I sit at my loom in Florence, when I train with Mushtaq in Kashmir, when I help deploy handloom centers through the Cynsar Foundation, I am engaging in the same practice: building sovereignty, one thread at a time.
The world order I saw in technology extractive, centralized, indifferent to local context—is the same world order that has devastated handloom communities. Industrial capitalism, colonialism, now data colonialism: they are different faces of the same structure. And the handloom is one of the few places where that structure is being actively refused, every day, by millions of weavers.
I came to textiles from technology. But I didn't leave the fight behind—I brought it with me. Because I realized that the principles I was fighting for in the digital realm privacy, sovereignty, freedom from extraction—were already alive in the handloom. The loom is the original open-source technology. The weaver is the original sovereign user.
Whether I am building partner.jaalyantra.com—an e-commerce platform that gives artisans ownership over their brands—or setting up a handloom center in rural India, I am working toward the same goal: creating conditions where communities can thrive on their own terms, free from dependency, extraction, or erasure.
This is Swaraj. Not as a historical concept, but as a living practice. Woven into every piece of cloth.
Current Work & Life
Currently, I split my time between Australia, Firenze, Italy, and Dharamshala, India, having recently taken a full-time interest in weaving I now have a loom in my apartment, and I am happiest when I am weaving. I recently built partner.jaalyantra.com, an e-commerce platform that enables artisans to launch fashion brands quickly, handling the technical complexities so they can focus on their craft.
I also run a non-profit in India, the Cynsar Foundation, which helps set up looms and bring traditional practices back to local communities. With the support of generous donors, we have successfully deployed three handloom centers in India to date.
I believe that textile tapestry can create profound social impact, bridging local heritage with international communities. My life's work is to build the bridges, the tools, and the ecosystems that make that possible—always grounded in the belief that true empowerment comes from sovereignty, not dependency.
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