Tarana Khan

Dr. Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian based in Rampur, India. Her publications include the historical fiction, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I (Hachette India), and the bestselling debut novel, The Begum and the Dastan. Her critically acclaimed non-fiction, Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (Penguin Random House India), explores the culinary history of Rampur. She has co-edited and contributed to Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India). Her work has appeared in eminent media outlets, and her research papers have been published in the Global Food History Journal and Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. She was a fellow at the MacCormack (formerly Tin House) Winter online workshop 2026. She worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield on an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project (2019-2024).

A Woman Walks

I know it wasn’t my imagination. The man held a large sickle with a long handle in his hand. The handle, a sturdy block of wood on which the iron implement was mounted, was longer and bulkier than the usual sickle seen in the hands of women who harvest wheat or rice. Not many people from this posh South Delhi colony would have seen a woman sitting on her haunches to gather the harvest or heard its swish and smelled the freshly cut paddy.
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