Most of my research focuses on the Chitradurga region of central Karnataka. I am particularly interested in questions of a military nature, especially where I feel that I can bring together contemporary documentary evidence and the archaeological record to achieve a better understanding of this part of South India between AD 1500-1850.

My most recent publication is a brief history of Mayakonda, a village about 35 km west of Chitradurga (South Asian Studies, 2021). More than 250 years ago it was the fortified headquarters town of a Chitradurga pargana and the object of several battles, one of which left Chitradurga’s ruler, Hire Madakari Nayaka, dead and his army defeated.

A short history of Ramandroog in the hills above Sandur, Bellary District, is nearly finished. At various times a Hoysala hill fort, a military convalescent centre, a minor hill station for Bellary, and a German POW camp, its story needs telling.

After that, I need to return to a project that I started several years ago, but set aside for various reasons. It is a spatial analysis of castes in east-central Karnataka as they were represented in khanasumaris, or house censuses, collected by Colin Mackenzie’s staff between 1800-1801. While I undertook this analysis because I wanted to assess the validity and reliability of such tabular information from the Mackenzie Collection, I found that these documents also offer fresh insights into how castes and caste-like categories would later be handled in the early British India censuses of the late nineteenth century.