Oral historian, poet and squash player. The first female cadet at the Rashtriya Indian Military College.
Grade 12, Vantage Hall Girls’ Residential School, Dehradun. Applying to study History.
Founder of the Living Epics Project · author of Camphor Archives · India No. 18, Girls U-19 squash.
Founder, editor and interviewer · 2025–
Soldiers who will not tell their own stories, and a record of what they asked us not to forget.
A veterans’ oral-history archive. Fifteen retired officers of the Army, Navy and Air Force interviewed; twelve full-length accounts published and three forthcoming, each transcribed, footnoted and edited by Gargi. Every interview closes on the Keystone: the one story the officer wants carried forward.
livingepicsproject.comAuthor and book designer · 2026
A collection of 75 poems in five seasonal sections, illustrated by Biplab Roy. Gargi wrote the poems and designed the cover and interior. A second collection, Twilight, is under way: dialogue poems, a form she devised, in which two voices who disagree write one poem.
camphorarchives.comCo-President · 2026–27
A student-led initiative for women and girls, run from Vantage Hall. Gargi co-leads about 40 volunteers: menstrual-health sessions in villages and with NGOs, 120 sanitary kits and 1,040+ items of clothing donated, and an awareness run now being organised.
ummeed-india.orgGargi Arya is in her final year at Vantage Hall Girls’ Residential School in Dehradun, where she is School Sports Captain, Editor-in-Chief of the annual magazine and Co-President of Ummeed. She came to Vantage Hall from the Rashtriya Indian Military College, which she joined in 2022 as the only girl in its first co-educational batch, and left after her Class X boards in 2025.
Her work sits where military memory, postcolonial South Asia and the writing of history meet: an oral-history archive of retired officers, a research paper on civil–military relations in India and Pakistan after 1947, an archaeology internship at Rakhigarhi, and a published book of poems. She plays squash for Uttarakhand.
Recruitment and Rupture: The ‘Martial Races’ Inheritance and the Divergence of Civil–Military Relations in India and Pakistan, 1947–1958
A 5,200-word research paper written on Indigo Research’s IRIS programme (Advanced International Politics, full scholarship) under Dr Ida Danewid, University of Sussex. Presented at the Indigo Research Academic Conference, September 2026, for two UC Santa Barbara units; selected on the strength of the paper to present it to Dr Slava Gerovitch, historian of science at MIT.
Conditionally acceptedInternational Journal of High School Research
John Locke Institute Global Essay Prize 2026, History
Essay on whether justice is found or made.
Commendation100,227 entries from 183 countries
Eight Words for Water: How AI Decides What India’s Languages Sound Like
Harvard International Review Academic Writing Contest, Summer 2026.
Silver MedalSenior Division
The Battle They Did Not Choose
A 3,958-word essay on post-colonial Indian military identity, built on four Living Epics interviews. Written for the Julia Wood Prize, St Hugh’s College, Oxford, 2026.
EssayJulia Wood Prize entry
Rakhigarhi: research assistant to Prof. (Dr) Mahender Singh
Archaeology internship with the Head of History, Dayanand College, Hisar, including fieldwork at the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi: catalogued 200+ artefacts and drafted content for three sections of his forthcoming book on the site.
InternshipGrade 11
RIMC Archives: a century in twenty lives
Student researcher under Mr Samir Sarkar, College Archivist. Rebuilt the lives of 20 alumni from regimental records and oral accounts, five from each quarter-century of the college’s hundred years, and compiled them as a commemorative booklet.
Independent researchGrade 9
History Club, Vantage Hall
Founded a 25-member club: weekly primary-source analyses, guest speakers, and eight-plus editions of a magazine of student essays.
Founder and President2025–
Uttarakhand State Champion, seven titles
Women’s Open 2024, 2025 and 2026; Girls U-19 2025 and 2026; Girls U-15 2023 and 2024.
7 state titles2023–2026
38th National Games, 2025
Played No. 1 for the Uttarakhand women’s team.
Uttarakhandwomen’s team
Junior National Championship, October 2025
Reached the main draw of 16 through a 64-player qualifying draw.
Main drawlast 16
All India IPSC Squash Championship, 2025
Girls U-19.
Bronze
RIMC’s first girls’ squash team
Founded and built the team from junior cadets, 2023–25: team gold at the State Championship and the Uttarakhand State Olympics, bronze at the All India IPSC Championship.
Founder2023–2025
Squash Captain and School Sports Captain, Vantage Hall
Revived squash at the school, which now fields two teams.
Captain2026–27
Beyond squash. Bronze in Hacks (U-14) at the All India IPSC Equestrian Championship, 2023; cross-country gold at RIMC in both Grade 9 and Grade 10; and, less seriously, athletics, pistol shooting, badminton, table tennis, rock climbing and trekking.
School Sports Captain, Vantage Hall
Chosen by interview and student vote to the 13-member Student Council. Coordinates athletics for 230-plus girls across teams and inter-school competition. School Prefect in 2025.
Student Council2026–27
Editor-in-Chief, The Hallmark; Creative Director, Sangam
Leads the 20-member editorial board and the full production of the school’s annual magazine, and directs the creative vision of Sangam, the diversity magazine.
Editorial board2026–27
Co-President, Ummeed
Volunteer in 2025–26; co-leads the initiative in 2026–27.
Ummeed2026–27
Founder and President, History Club
See Writing and research.
History Club2025–
MU20 20 Under 20, 2026
One of twenty young people aged 12 to 19 selected across India by the MU20 School of Opportunity for leadership and change-making; featured in the MU20 Magazine.
National honoree
Harvard International Review Academic Writing Contest
Silver Medal, Senior Division, Summer 2026.
Silver MedalInternational
John Locke Institute Global Essay Prize, History
Commendation, 2026, from 100,227 entries across 183 countries.
CommendationInternational
Indian Olympiad Qualifier in Mathematics, 2025–26
Top 10% of participants nationally.
Top 10%National
National Finance Olympiad, 2025
Rank 2, Level I.
Rank 2National
APEX Scholar, Vantage Hall
One of 20 students selected school-wide for academic distinction; Student Head of the programme, 2026.
Student HeadSchool
Adventure Course, Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi
Most individual medals on the course: gold in cross-country, silver in the lecturette, bronze in the obstacle race.
Three medals