The Beginnings

OK, so I have a little bit of updating to do, so this will be a bit retroactive... I guess I will start by describing why I decided to join the Peace Corps. This will be a bit long, so feel free to skip this over :-P

I guess I would say that I had an almost ideal life. For the things I could not control, like who my parents are, what would be my environment, how they would raise me... things like that, I have always benefited. We never had a lot of money, (I would consider us very middle class), but I had everything I needed, and an abundance of those things that were not monetary. With that came some desire to give a little back to the world that gave me a great opportunity. So here are a few reasons why I can honestly say the world has been very good to me.

Lets start with the parents. They are the greatest parents I could have ever hoped for. Being absolutely unconditionally loving, no matter how often I messed up, was not the least of it. They raised me so well, and I really believe they are responsible for any success I may have. They were always kind, loving, and proved to be great role models for me. They also cultivated a pride in my Indian Culture while always promoting finding the best in both my American and Indian Cultures. It is because of this that I feel like I will have an advantage in adjusting to a whole new culture in Guinea over my service. Also, and I guess most importantly, they laid down a very good foundation of morals and priorities in life that help me be the best person I know how to be.

They also always supported me and supported my decisions. Even when I (supposedly) blindsided them with deciding to go into the Peace Corps, true to form, they calmly replied "you are just like your grandfather" who I had never met. Apparently he volunteered with a man named Swami Vivekananda (who was an incredibly famous and selfless public servant in Indian). They were immediately proud of me and offered a ridiculous amount of support. With how difficult it is to support your son going over seas to a foreign land for over 2 years, they rarely flinch. They knew that this was very seriously what I wanted to do.

Next comes my brother, Manoj... I would consider him my best friend, and someone I would go to first for any problem I have. He has helped me though some of my toughest times. Also, we both would do anything for the other at a moments notice. Now, talk about a role model... he has been able to follow that "path to success" that so many people aspire to do. He has more work ethic in his little finger then I have in my entire body. He had to, to get his Bachelors Degree in the very demanding field of Biomedical Engineering, and continue on to his path towards his PhD. Even doing all of that, he still finds time to volunteer at a local school, mentoring and tutoring kids. Through all of this, he never looked at me and my erratic movements between majors and life choices with anything but pride. I think he always knew that I just needed to find my passion and things would start falling into place. He has always been a great marker for me and a very centering force as well.

alright, now to the influences to join the Peace Corps specifically. Mainly over a 2 year span, there was a number of situations that focused my interest in the Peace Corps. After some reflection, it seemed very clear to me that that was my next step. Here is a significantly shortened, but still really long description of those circumstances:

It started years and years ago... most of middle school and all of high school I felt a draw to join the Peace Corps. At the time I thought I would be going into Engineering or into Medicine eventually (like any good Indian) so i figured that I shouldn't take another 2 years out of what would end up being a really long time before I start what I will call my real life.

Looking back, throughout High School and College, for reasons I won't discuss here :-P, I felt I did not really have a chance to grow a varied set of skills and just grow personally. I felt as if there was an imposed schedule for my life that kept me from doing some of the things I really wanted to do. For a long time there, I also subscribed to this schedule for life. Only after college did I realize that that wasn't for me.

Back to college: after a long journey to find out what I really want to do in my life, jumping from Biomedical Engineering, Pre Med, Biology, Religion, and Psychology, I finally decided on a degree in Psychology and Religion. I think I landed on these two subjects both because they truly interested me, and they also profoundly shifted my outlook both of the world and myself.

Religiously, I am Hindu. Many of the courses I took in college was to better understand the religion I grew up with and to hopefully reinforce my beliefs. I also took courses in just about every other major religion. through my Hinduism classes, I began to better understand the concept of Dharma (basically what one's duty is in life). I can best describe this by saying that it is the path of least resistance. That doesn't mean it doesn't involve work, it simply means that which you do that doesn't push against yourself. There are many possibilities for this according to Hinduism: The homemaker, the religious zealot, the business man, the volunteer, etc. I truly believe that the last is more of my calling. That feeling has been with me for as long as I can remember.

On to Psychology... I began the subject because I really enjoyed the fact that it is not a hard science. I like the humanity in Psychology, and I hope that never goes away. During my time at the University of Rochester, I worked on a study involving Happiness with a professor named Veronika Huta. She was a great mentor to me. she taught me about the different types of happiness and how they are obtained, and ultimately it fell right in line with my belief that, for me, I am happiest when I am helping others. It was incredibly reaffirming for me.

After college, I began working at the Mt. Hope Family Center at the University of Rochester. The Mt. Hope Family Center is an incredible place. It is a Psychology Research Center which also does a great deal of outreach and clinical work. Not only is it state of the art when it comes to bridging research and evidence based clinical work, but the people that work there are incredible as well. in general, most of the employees of the center do a wide variety of great things. To see them would inspire anyone.

Working at Mt Hope, I got a sneak peak into a strata of society that struggles a great deal. these inner city families live with so little, and the more time I spent with them, the more I understood how difficult it really is to pull yourself out of such a hole. With racism, people constantly trying to take advantage of them, a broken welfare system on top of a whole slew of other things makes the task nearly impossible. To find out that these conditions existed just minutes away from my relatively cushy home in the suburbs shocked me. After working there, my coworkers became some of my best friends because they were among very few who could understand.

Next, I was flipping through the TV, after I graduated and started working at the Mt. Hope Family Center, and landed on the worst show in the world. This show is on some CNN off-shoot channel and its anchor is a guy named Glen Beck. in my mind, he is among the worst people in the world. I was watching him interviewing this lady on his show, and they were claiming that they had it bad before, and they pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, and all Americans should do that. If they don't then they don't deserve out help. well, I can tell you with absolute certainty that he has no idea what a hard life really means. he has no idea how much of a leg up he really had.

One of my co-workers at the Mt Hope Family Center put it well when she told me about the concept of a handbook for success. This includes all those things that we take for granted that us suburb kids grow up with. That includes a feeling of inevitability when it comes to going to college. Also, this includes knowing where to look, where to apply, how to dress, how to talk, and many other things that give me a leg up. What my good friend Glen didn't understand was that he, and for that matter I, had that handbook, and those stuck in that spiral don't. That on top of the fact that there is an endless amount of history and the current, less obvious racism that stacks up against them. To deny this is either being naive or purposely hiding yourself from reality. I didn't feel that way, I knew that I had a leg up. it goes back to my point in the beginning. I got so many things from the world, I should try to give that to someone else who wouldn't have otherwise had it.

Lastly there was the very untimely and premature death of a dear cousin of mine in India, Nikhil. He was among the best people I knew. Although we were only able to see them when we went to India, he, his sister Anjana, and our cousins Vishnu and Iswarya are who I consider my closest cousins. He constantly gave unconditional love to those around him, and would do absolutely anything for others in need. He was younger then me and died in a motorcycle accident. This occurred in my Junior year of college and rocked my foundation. That was the moment I knew that I had to make the most out of my life and I needed to do it my way.

So, the result of all of these things pretty much happening in tandem was me deciding to go to the Peace Corps. I began doing all of the things i had always wanted to do. I read more, took and EMT class, learning a little construction, volunteered in the community, exercised more (running, biking, racket sports, etc), started to eat right, and reconnected with my family whom I love more then anything else.

It was quite the transformation, and I can truly say that I have never been happier.