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“I tried to do everything right.”
Dear Janice,
Hi Leo,
Growth is a complicated thing.
My first breaths were taken in the languid heat of a Los Angeles August morning. My mom tells me I was born with a head full of hair and that my birth was thankfully a lot easier than my older brother’s. A home video exists on a clunky camcorder somewhere in our house that’s just a close-up of my newborn face while my mom wiggles me into a soft white onesie. When I watched it for the first time, it was a little surreal hearing her voice from another time, even if it was just her saying “bless you” and cooing after I sneezed for the first time ever.
If I had to define my life, I would choose to define it not by what I’ve accomplished, but rather by the books I’ve read. I’ve spent my whole life passing from one story to the next. To me, it isn’t a choice to pick up the next book but, rather, a need to consume words. I fall hopelessly in love every time I open a book and then break my own heart the second I turn the page to the author’s acknowledgements. And then, I remedy my heartbreak with the next dose of a good book, falling into this cycle of ups and downs as I search for something that will soothe my craving for another story.
I grew up in New Delhi, India — a city where summers blaze relentlessly, where the streets never sleep and where every corner hums with stories waiting to be told. The scent of sizzling street food clings to the air, rickshaws weave through traffic in a chaotic dance and the pulse of the city is constant. Even as a child, if I had to describe my life in one word, it would’ve been eventful. There was always something happening — a festival transforming the skyline with bursts of color; an impromptu cricket game on the streets; a monsoon that turned the roads into rivers. In this fast-moving world, I learned to adapt, to stand firm in the face of unpredictability and to dream of what lay beyond the narrow alleyways of my childhood.
Despite being the shortest month in the Gregorian Calendar, February — the month of love and Punxsutawney Phil — can feel endless. As someone from the Northeast, I’m used to the cold. However, the grey slush barricading the Baltimore roadways is not a very welcome change. The winter Sunday is a short, dark blip marketed as a day of rest in the vein of the long-standing religious tradition observed by people across the world: the Sabbath.
As I approach the end of my undergraduate career at Hopkins, I’m looking forward to new adventures and novelty. At the same time, I have also developed quite a firm place in my heart for our school and our city. Like many other students, Baltimore is the first place I have lived in by myself, independent from my family and childhood friends, so it’s safe to say that the city has seen me through a lot of moments of growth.
Let’s be honest — goal-setting sounds amazing in theory. Every January, millions of people, including me, sit down with fresh enthusiasm, ready to finally get their life together. This is it, we tell ourselves. This is the year I wake up at 5 a.m., read 52 books, get ripped, find inner peace and maybe even learn French. And for a solid week (if we're lucky), we actually do it. We power through a few early mornings, sweat through a couple of gym sessions and nod along to the Duolingo owl aggressively reminding us not to break our streak.
I think people spend too much time talking about who they want to be and not enough time talking about who they already are. It’s always about the next step; the next goal; the next milestone. Nobody ever asks, “What’s your favorite thing about yourself today?” Like right now; in this moment. Not the person you’re hoping to become five years from now. Not the polished, grown, fully developed version of you. Just you, today.
Coming to Hopkins as an international student during the pandemic, I really had no idea what to expect. We were still under some pandemic restrictions, especially on the Homewood Campus, and I had barely met anyone who would also be attending Hopkins that fall. I felt scared and a little isolated. But my parents had been insistent on me giving it a go. Specifically, I remember my dad saying that I would make a new life for myself here in Baltimore, and that the chance to live in a country like the U.S. during university would open my eyes to a whole new range of perspectives.
In Irish, “sláinte” is the colloquial term used for toasts and other cheers. My Irish grandmother often uses it at birthday and holiday celebrations to start a meal and celebrate our family’s togetherness. This summer I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Ireland for two and a half weeks. Going into the trip, I was relatively nervous because it was my first time traveling alone internationally, but I was mostly excited for the chance to experience a foreign yet familiar culture in such an immersive way. So I boarded an Aer Lingus flight with my suitcase and guitar, looking forward to the time I would spend across the pond.
I used to say that I was from nowhere, everywhere or from the South China Sea. All were true enough.
Being African in the mid-2010s earned me rude comments on my appearance, my food and my way of communication. I used to evade inquiries into what I wore to Nigerian parties out of fear that people would see pictures and deem my clothes ugly. I refused to bring anything African for lunch because in my majority white middle school, I had experienced kids making fun of the savory smells or asking for a taste and spitting it out in disgust. I was even afraid for my friends to meet my parents because 1) my mother and father are extremely judgmental, and 2) they would remark on how loud we all laughed or talked.
Bharatanatyam is an ancient, classical dance form that originated over 2,000 years ago in Tamil Nadu, India. As a result of its distinct quality of movement and emphasis on storytelling, Bharatanatyam has grown in popularity over the years and is practiced around the world. In a typical, full-length Bharatanatyam presentation, pieces are performed in a traditional sequence, known as the Margam, which translates to “path” in Sanskrit. This structure is a skeleton that is followed for every performance. A complete Margam is typically made of seven to eight pieces of which there are hundreds of compositions to choose from. It provides artists with a general sense of direction — a foundation upon which they can then rely on when exploring their own creative ideas. The possibilities are endless.
Was it a week or two into Hopkins? It was just another day when the bustling noise of people packing up their bags was subtly pressuring the TA to dismiss the section. In between the hustles were warm exchanges of “great work” and “good job” amongst groups. I opened my mouth to join in on the formality — when I realized that no English word could be a medium for the 수고했어 (“sugohaesseo”) I wanted to convey. When entered in Google Translate, “수고했어” is translated as "great job," but this does not hold the same connotation. By acknowledging the effort regardless of the result, 수고했어 conveys a sense of camaraderie and thus is commonly used in both professional and casual contexts. There was simply no English word that touched on this base, and I uncomfortably stooped to reciprocate “great work!” as I packed my bag.
Today, I share with you some experiences from living in Brooklyn, China and Hong Kong: three places that have shown and given me a greater appreciation of my own life and the meaning of home.
I grew up in the world of films and Hindi tunes, colloquially termed “filmy music,” a world that extended beyond wedding Sangeets and obligatory family-friend parties. No nightly meal was complete without my parents’ favorite childhood songs quietly filling the room with their nostalgic rhythms and beautiful words, and no car ride was truly perfect without playing either the Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani soundtracks with the windows down. I can still recall three-year-old me falling asleep to my dad singing Aa Chal ke Tujhe, a song I still know every word to despite not having heard it in years.