Sidarth was a student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. He was a Capitol Hill intern for Senator Joseph Lieberman, and has been an active member of the Hindu temple his parents helped establish in Maryland. He appeared on the game show Jeopardy! on December 7, 2009, and came in second place.

On August 11, 2006, George Allen referred to Sidarth using the word "macaca" twice. Allen followed up with "So welcome, let's give a welcome to Macaca here! Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!" Sidarth is of Indian ancestry but was born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia. The term was interpreted by critics to have been a racial slur, as "macaca" is a term for dark-skinned people, commonly used by the French colonists in North Africa. Allen's mother was raised in the French colonial community in Morocco.

At the time, Sidarth was filming an Allen campaign stop in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border for the campaign of Allen opponent Jim Webb. He had filmed numerous Allen campaign events in the previous weeks. His father Shekar Narasimhan, a member of the DNC Indo-American council, participated in efforts to get Jim Webb elected.