Looking In & Opening Up
Since before I was born, my family would watch Bollywood movies and play Bollywood songs around the house and in the car. I remember being obsessed with the movie Kal Ho Na Ho and my best friend and I would sing the title track every car ride to and from ballet class. The only language I’ve ever spoken is English and at the age of five, I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around the concept of languages. So, when I would sing these Hindi songs, I didn’t know they were in Hindi — I just knew I didn’t understand them. As an adorable consequence, I formed this habit of singing in gibberish and thinking it was Hindi. I had no idea I wasn’t singing real words but I just loved singing, so I sang every one of those nonsense syllables with my whole chest.
As a now 20-year-old, I can’t remember the last time I did something so incorrectly, yet with so much confidence. I’d like to think that speaking with my chest and shouting from the rooftop should not only be acceptable when I’m walking the roads I’ve tread for so long that I know exactly where to place my feet. I feel that free-falling, and navigating new terrain, can also be done with confidence.
“If I stopped judging my own worth and instead allowed myself to accept that I am innately worthy, I could expand in ways that reflect that, instead of becoming smaller to prove my own insecurities.”
But before that, who am I to say that singing proudly in gibberish was incorrect? I was having fun. Now, I’m too busy trying to be good at things to have fun doing them. My confidence wavers even when I do what I know I am good at, and what I love. For instance, despite taking singing lessons my whole life, I will rarely admit I’m anything more than mediocre, out of fear that that may be the actual truth. This attachment to mediocrity is like an old friend that no longer understands the person you’ve grown into. They will ask you: Why would you need different friends if you already have us? Are you sure you’ll find other people that care about you? But if I told myself the truth — that the world holds opportunities for me that I don’t see, that there are people and places I haven’t yet encountered that will change me for the better, and that taking a risk is better than staying blind — that would mean I actually have to open myself up to those opportunities.
When I first met my boyfriend, naturally, I told my therapist about him. She told me, “Worst case, he’s an asshole and you never have to talk to him again. Easy.” I countered, “But what if he’s not an asshole? What if he’s nice to me? That might be worse.”
He was nice to me. And I was right, it wasn't as easy as if he’d been an asshole, because now I had to open up and be vulnerable and allow love into my life. Keyword: allow. If I stopped looking for everything I lack, I could allow myself to expand. If I stopped judging my own worth and instead allowed myself to accept that I am innately worthy, I could expand in ways that reflect that, instead of becoming smaller to prove my own insecurities. Allowing the love of another into my life meant welcoming new opportunities that were initially scary but also infinitely more fulfilling than closing up. The same sentiment applies to allowing myself to love myself.
One of the biggest consequences of my lack of love for myself was that, although I have always wanted to be a musician, as proven by my five-year-old antics, I never thought I could actually be one. Just like my identity as an Indian was my entry into the world of music, it was also the barrier. When I think of all the stars I aspired to be like as a kid, Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, and most formatively, Hannah Montana, they all have one thing in common: they’re white. As young as I was, I wasn’t consciously aware of racism, but something inside of me knew I could never be like the girls I looked up to because I didn’t look like any of them.
From then on, my mindset when it came to being a musician was always rooted in what I couldn’t do rather than all the possibilities of what I could. I planted myself in fertile soil by taking singing lessons, writing songs, and going to New York University, but I was too afraid to grow past the ground to meet the sunlight and fulfill all my potential. I arrived in New York City for college and was surrounded by ambitious artists and their respective art. It inspired me to give my best shot to the art form I was always drawn to and intimidated by. For a while, it was freeing. I could finally shift all of my focus into writing and singing and admit that I was a musician. I could embrace my inner calling without feeling like I didn’t deserve to. But old energy lingered. Sometime in the past few years, music had faded from being an expressive outlet to something I needed constant validation for. I began comparing myself to every successful singer close to me in age and asked why I wasn’t as talented or successful as them, while ignoring the glaring fact that they were all, once again, white.
“There is no part of my journey that is unimportant, and maybe if I really let that sink in, I would invest wholeheartedly in this current moment…”
I am the daughter of Indian immigrants who had no choice in what they did for a living; they had to do whatever would provide a stable income. This meant my mom went to engineering school knowing she had absolutely no interest in being an engineer and my dad abandoned his dreams of being a musician to be an accounting major. Career choices looked less like an indulgent buffet and more like being force-fed the same dish every meal for the sake of safety and stability — which sometimes coincided with boredom and compromise. I grew up in a town with a population of majority Asians and South Asians who, as a byproduct of their immigrant parents’ struggles, had no choice but to adhere to an extremely academically rigorous environment. Every extracurricular hobby was just another thing to put on their resume for when they applied to college. Now, I was around kids at NYU who embraced that they were musicians when they were just learning how to talk and I was consumed by the Instagrams of Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, while constantly punishing myself for not being more like them.
In some way, though, I understand that just like they have spent their lives singing and writing songs in preparation to be catapulted into stardom, I have also been preparing for what my future holds, and the steps I’ve taken to get here are no less valid than theirs. Every night I’ve spent pouring my heart out into my journal helped me develop emotional clarity that aided in writing my next song. If that song was shitty, it pushed me to make the next one better. Every time I’ve acted in a way that didn’t align with my morals or who I want to be was an opportunity to change course and realign with my soul. Through all these moments, I’m becoming someone who will one day do all the things I’m meant to do, and the fact that it’s not all happening right now doesn’t make it any less special. If anything, it will be even more special as I continue to inch closer and closer to the truest version of myself. There is no part of my journey that is unimportant, and maybe if I really let that sink in, I would invest wholeheartedly in this current moment because no matter what choice I make and what arbitrary judgment I place on it, I will get to where I am going and it will be beautiful, natural, and exactly what I deserve. Which is absolutely everything, of course.
