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.