Meet the First Lady of NYC: All about Zohran Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji
Rama Duwaji, 28, is the wife of Indian-origin Zohran Mamdani. She is an artist by profession.
Zohran Mamdani’s stunning ascent to become the first-ever Muslim mayor of New York City caps a highly-visible, months-long campaign. While Mamdani was everywhere over the last few weeks — going from nightclubs to marathons — his wife Rama Duwaji remained largely behind the scenes.

The New York Post described her as “aloof” — noting that she “quietly helped boost the Democratic socialist’s viral social media presence and even designed his logos” despite choosing to stay out of the spotlight.
Here is all we know about Rama Duwaji:
Rama Duwaji, 28, is the wife of Indian-origin Zohran Mamdani. She is an artist by profession.
Duwaji was born in Houston, Texas to a family of Syrian descent. Her family moved to Dubai when she was 9.
She attended the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar for some time, before transferring to the school’s Richmond campus in Virginia, USA.
The 28-year-old went on to earn her master’s in illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Rama Duwaji has over 2 lakh followers on Instagram — a number that has shot up significantly since her husband began his mayoral campaign.
Grazia reports that her works have been featured in prestigious publications like The New Yorker, The Washington Post, BBC, Vogue, and Tate Modern. Her artwork often features themes revolving around Middle Eastern women.
Duwaji lent her expertise as an artist to Mamdani’s electoral campaign — according to a CNN report, she was the one who finalized Mamdani’s brand identity, including his use of bold colours like yellow, orange and pink in the campaign material.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSanya JainSanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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