In English, we worked on short, personal essay-writing during this project. I produced two essays; one was a This I Believe essay, and the other was a personal essay from college. Whenever I had been asked to talk about myself before this unit, my mind would automatically go to rattling off a resume. But these essays gave me a chance to reflect on who I was as a person, once you had stripped away all the extracurriculars and achievements. Below are my two essays.
This I Believe Essay
I believe in parathas. “Paratha” comes from the Hindi “parath” (layers) and “atta” (dough). Stuffed with anything from cauliflower to rice, they’re a staple in India—delicious to eat and, for my Americanized tongue, murder to pronounce. My father ate at least one every day as a boy. But when he moved here, he averaged just one a month at “Chaat Paradise,” a dingy Indian restaurant 45 minutes away from his one-bed-one-bath. That changed during the pandemic. Instead of nurturing a sourdough starter like my friends, I gathered my family and announced that we were going to study the art of homemade parathas. This decision followed a long list of attempts to try to become more “Indian.” Other such endeavors included speaking to my family only in Hindi, wearing kurtas to formal events, and, yes, working on my pronunciation of “paratha,” among other words. Ironic, considering that nine years ago, I was making every effort to push away all things Indian. I’ve moved between India and the US multiple times, leading to a certain amount of cultural confusion. As a third-grader at an international school in Bangalore, I exaggerated my American accent, talked about baseball, and only ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches at lunch. But when I moved back to the US, I didn’t feel embraced by the culture I worshipped, no matter how much I studied football terminology. My solution was to swing the other way. Commence the Indianization antics. As my family began our attempts at paratha-making, my film teacher assigned a documentary we could make at home. I saw another chance to “Indianize” and began work on a documentary about parathas. During the first shoots, I asked my family to wear traditional Indian garb, decorated the kitchen with Indian idols, and blasted Bollywood music. They were robotic and uncomfortable, and the footage turned out a tacky mess. Nevertheless, I threw myself into the filmmaking with the same enthusiasm my family and I devoted to making parathas. Interviews with my father, however, provided a stark contrast to the garish footage. He told me about the lunchtime economy at his school, where parathas were the most valued items, or the time he and his mother spent hours making parathas for a big wedding party passing through their town. Unlike me, my father wasn’t trying to put on a show. As I realized this, my documentary changed. I removed the Bollywood music and idols and let my family wear whatever clothes they were comfortable in. In the new footage, my family is flour-dusted and oil-spattered, but laughing. Parathas taught me that I can believe in the power of tradition while still remaining true to who I am. Oil, water, flour, and salt; that’s all that they are. And during those spring months, I discovered I needed nothing more complicated than to be in my kitchen with my family and those four ingredients, listening to their stories, and struggling to roll the “r” in “paratha.” I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting closer.
College Essay
The “Peter Piper” tongue twister is burned into mind; rather, one recitation of it is. It was the day before I left my home in India to move to the US. I was 10 years old, and deathly afraid of having to have everything be new. So far, I had done most of my growing up at my grandparents’ house in Bangalore. My best memories are playing in the cool pond, or collecting flowers from the parijata tree. It was 2014, and my family was preparing to move back to the US from India, where we had lived for the past 6 years. We were about to leave for the airport from my grandmother’s house, and it was the usual scene. Absolutely massive dinner? Check. 45-minute doorway chat? Check. Crates of tissues for buckets of tears? Check and check. But there was one notable change to the time-honored goodbye ritual: the chilli seeds. Before anybody in the family moved houses, my grandmother made sure to give them chilli seeds from the “mother plant” she kept at her house. “So that there’s always a part of home wherever you are,” she would say. It was usually a solemn affair; the chilli seeds would be tucked away, deep into a bag, far from the prying eyes of a TSA agent, and then the recipient would take my grandmother’s blessings before embarking on their journey. But when I was five years old, the first time we moved homes, and ergo the first time I was exposed to the chilli seeds ritual, I began loudly reciting the Peter Piper tongue twister, much to the chagrin of my mother, but to the amusement of my grandmother. It was then that the tongue twister became a part of the chilli-seed ritual—since then, every move began with the family chanting “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers…”, and laughter, rather than tears. Or so I’m told. Because my first memory of the ritual was from when I was nine years old, when nursery rhymes were starting to lose their appeal. Nevertheless, I diligently recited the four lines, took the seeds from my grandmother, and hugged her goodbye. When we arrived at our new house in the US, I placed the seeds on my nightstand, and forgot about them in a few days’ time. The struggles of adapting to a new educational system and trying to make friends were far more pressing in my mind than gardening. I became caught up with the idea that I “wasn’t at home.” Our new town felt quiet, and empty, as did our house; it was just me, my parents, and my sister. I missed the rest of my family terribly. I spent my first month sulking about how lonely this new life was. But then, I remembered my grandmother's words about the chilli seeds. I took them off my nightstand, went outside, and planted them in our vegetable patch. I realized that home wasn’t a specific place; it was wherever we decided it was. So to answer the question, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? They’re right at home.