Serendipity

“You’re like my Dumbledore--not as wise, but still pretty cool,” joked my friend. It was one of the best compliments I’ve received. Though his words made me laugh, they also made me reflect on why he perceived me as the fictional, old wizard. Although it’s assumed that with age comes wisdom, I’m not sure I agree. However, I know with age comes perspective. As an eighteen-year-old, I don’t have much wisdom, but I certainly have gained some perspective. My story begins in New York City, where I was born to a Zoroastrian mother and a Hindu father, two religions that strongly discourage interfaith marriage. Their union provides me the opportunity to celebrate double the number of holidays, enjoy two different cuisines, and live an interesting life that embraces varied cultures. I spent my early childhood as an expat in Singapore, learning Mandarin and British English. Everywhere I looked, I found diversity—in skin color, religion, and garb. I grew up thinking such a heterogeneous environme...

When I was twelve, I thought I was invincible—not in the comic book sense, but in the way that I assumed I would always be around. That all changed the day I learned that my friend Danny had lost his fight with cancer. In my young mind, I believed in the fairytale: that he would eventually be victorious. The memory of Danny laughing and performing magic tricks while hooked to a myriad of machines still replays in my mind. It was a strange paradox: his soft smile and warm features against the plastic tubery and metallic machinery that supported his life. We were each inhibited by our own bodies in different ways. I was hooked on ‘perfection’, scared of judgment and failure, so I hid my ideas from the world. Danny was restrained by his tumors, not allowing him to live through even the simplest things, like going on adventures or graduating high school; the things I took for granted. Grief distorted my sense of time. I felt like I was walking through a Van Gogh painting, everything bl...

I remember at the beginning of this year, someone asked me: “What is your favorite movie?” I sat there and honestly couldn’t name anything. I couldn’t even respond with the last movie I’d seen because it had been so long. These seemingly mundane questions kept popping up in conversations: “What’s your favorite book?” “What’s your favorite song?”, “What’s your favorite color?” I didn’t even know how to answer anymore. I tried to brush off this observation because who has time to really focus on such “frivolous” stuff while writing college apps, trying to keep up with classes, and extracurriculars? Yet, it didn’t sit well with me that I couldn’t answer basic questions about myself. When you have to sit and think about what your favorite color is or what your favorite food is there’s something wrong. It’s almost like not being able to say your own name. It’s like being a robot and just going through motions without truly living. The robot I had become was a res...

“Mallika, which pre-med programs are you applying to?” asked my aunt at our Thanksgiving dinner. “None,” I responded with a smile. As an Asian-American girl, who spent last summer as a research assistant, has devoted much of her past five years for pediatric cancer advocacy, and has always been interested in biogenetics, everyone assumes that I want to pursue medicine. Before high school, I always thought I’d study biology or biochemistry, but over the years, I’ve found myself serendipitously drawn to the world of public policy and politics and their various intersections with the sciences. Every day that I worked in the laboratory trying to determine the presence of neoplasia in biopsied tissue, my mind pondered how to share the benefits of such research with patients. Due to FDA mandates and the necessity of clinical trials, it would likely be years before the work would actually benefit patients. As I collected data from spectroscopic images, I wondered how human testing laws woul...

Prompt: How often do you leave your comfort zone? “If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?” When I was younger, and my parents would use this phrase in a lecture, I’d always say no, scared to challenge them. Now, I say perhaps. Maybe I’ll realize that I value the stable ground a lot more than the exhilarating seconds of free-fall. Maybe not. I won’t know until I try. The phrase used by parents to keep their kids from following the reckless activities of their peers sends a powerful message. It tells kids that “jumping off cliffs” is rash, pointless, and simply, dumb. What if I did jump, though? Not off the cliff built on peer pressure but one of risk, challenging me to reach new heights. I want to jump off mountains I have built up over the years, stones stacked on stones of fear and nervousness. Where do I find these cliffs? They are in places I least want to go. Places like a podium, where I was too afraid to share my ideas and the judgement that ma...

“You look like the color of poop.” My pudgy, 5-year-old, poop-colored self couldn’t muster any words. She just looked down at her skin, ran into the bathroom and tried to wash the “poop” off her skin. At that point in my life, I didn’t understand the connotations my skin color had. That all changed on April 15, 2013, the day of the Boston Marathon Bombing. At 13, I was a bubbly teenager who thought she knew it all. Life was good. Life was simple. One day I was walking home after basketball practice, sweaty and ready for a warm shower followed by an evening curled up with my copy of Animal Farm. After my shower, I saw a new SMS from a boy in my class! The subject line read: Boston Marathon. Excited, I clicked on it right away. “Who did it? Was it your cousin? You don’t deserve to be here, I’m going to make you leave!” Confused and scared, I Googled “Boston Marathon” and my screen was inundated with stories of what had transpired. My heart fell to the core of the earth; how could this ha...

“Who’s taking you to the dance?” I found the note from middle school on my desk and it brought me back to the first time where I realized how pervasive gender bias was. It seemed as though the craze over the upcoming dance was a virus and all of the middle schoolers had been infected. I never quite bought into the whole phenomenon, despite friends surrounding me who all lauded it as the most important event in all of middle school. After all, what’s so important about fancy dresses and dancing? In reflecting how this pervasive tradition was treated by my class – through endless lunchtime conversations, text messages, and Facebook posts – I now realize that the institution of dances reinforces many of our culture’s damaging attitudes towards women.  The version of my peers and me that took form through the dance was not one that I valued or even recognized. Trying to resist being drawn into the obsession, I took a step back and observed the drama unfolding before me. I saw how my...