Ruqiya belongs to the seventh generation of a family of musicians. She has been training in Sitar for the past 30 years under the tutelage of her father and Guru Ustad Usman Khan, an internationally acclaimed Sitar Maestro. Ruqiya’s passion is music and creative arts. She has been conducting music classes particularly in Sitar for the last 20 years and is a senior tutor at NAAD, an institute set up to impart training in Sitar in the traditional gurukul style.

Ruqiya is a graduate in psychology and a gold medallist in the PG course in Media Communication for Children. She has given solo performances on Sitar in various cities in India and in Singapore, Malaysia and Perth. She also served as a Sitar tutor at Temple of Fine Arts (TFA) – Kala Mandhir, in Singapore. During her stint with the TFA, Ruqiya designed and conducted workshops on Indian music for various age groups in Chinese & International schools and in colleges, composed music for orchestration for Indian instrumental music, and undertook various entertainment projects for the senior citizens in Singapore.

Ruqiya has performed in various cities across India – Hyderabad, Mangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Ujjain, Lonavala, Rishikesh and Udaipur to name a few.

Ruqiya’s passion draws her to explore creativity through origami, and crafting. She particularly enjoys creating 3D boxes out of plane 2D paper. She is adept in engaging children through art and story telling that she has mastered over the years.