Riddhi Pankhadiwala
Ms. Riddhi Pankhadiwala is a Hindi FLTA from India for the year 2023-24. She completed her master’s in English literature from Symbiosis International University, Pune, in 2021. She also holds a master’s in Bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance) and a bachelor’s in Indian classical music. She also earned a diploma in ‘Gender and Cultural Studies’ from Savitribai Phule Pune University. Throughout her academic journey, she has dedicated herself to raising a solid foundation of literature and bringing Indian mythologies, performing arts and aesthetics together on common ground for her doctoral research.
Riddhi used to work with Asian-Indians as a professional interpreter, establishing her translation skills by working on more than four languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and English. She started her career as a trainer of English language at Speakwell English Academy and later served as a medical translator at Datamark Incorporated, US. She has a research paper on social voyeurism in “Lights Out” by Manjula Padmanabhan to her credit. She has also been an active member of the English Language Teachers’ Association in Pune for a few years. She is also one of the founder members of a theatre group named ‘Sfatik Creations’- a non-profitable organization of youngsters and has been an active part of their productions like Manto, Tu Maar Halleso and served as a music composer, lead vocalist and a music director. To her achievements, she is a Bharatnatyam (Classical dance form of India) state level gold medalist and has 250-300 stage shows to her experience. Her research area includes Indian mythologies, Indian criticism in general and Natyashastra in particular, and performing aesthetics through literature.
As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Riddhi is teaching Hindi at Yale University. Having experienced a diversity of cultures around the world, she looks forward to finding a way to intermingle the cultures of the East and West through performing arts and literature to bring them to life on a stage. She aspires to utilize her experiences to invent new teaching methodologies amidst the traditional approach of teaching in her own country and come up with an active and practical nature of teaching through art forms and literature.