I grew up in a northwest suburb of Chicago. The elementary and middle school that I attended were pre-dominantly Caucasian.  I wasn’t exposed to other cultures/religions until high school.  My nuclear family consisted of three sisters and my parents. Four women under one roof flourished us into God loving, compassionate, and driven women.  My dad has always been self employed and I learned strong work ethics from him.  My mom was a passionate teacher and because of her I am a life longer learner.  Both of my parents are involved in Church, and instilled strong values and faith in all 3 of us.  Because of this, my parents always taught us that we are all God’s children and equal.  I made my first Indian American friend my freshman year of high school.  She was very studious and not “mainstream”.  I would love learning about her culture and Hindu religion.  My school was mainly segregated, as each nationality felt comfortable hanging out with people that looked and acted like them.  I was a maverick and desired to learn about people that were different than me.  To this day, I feel that travel is the only thing that you buy and it makes you richer.  It’s a way to contribute to world peace when you go to a different place and see how similar we are as humans (despite what media tells us). 

My junior year of high school, I became best friends with a girl who moved from Jordan.  She was my first Middle Eastern, Muslim friend.  I was fascinated to know how school was for her back home and what the staple food was, along with her religious beliefs.  Everyone already had their cliques and because she had a strong accent and looked different, no one was interested in befriending her.  I would help her with her homework, and eventually gave up my study hall period to go to her ESL (English as a Second Language) class to help her and the other students.  This exposed me to more friends from different countries.  The bond we made grew into eternal friendships.  Through those connections, we destroyed any walls or misconceptions we had about each other and became like family members.  At the end of that year, I was invited to one of the Indian girls from ESL’s graduation get together.  I was the only non-Indian invited.  To my surprise there were no men there (except her brother).  Everyone was wearing traditional Indian clothes, so I said, “Hey!  I would like to dress up, too!”  Her eyes lit up from this statement of acceptance and she quickly ran to her mom’s room and let me pick up a salwar kamiz.  I immersed myself that day at her party in all the new experiences.  My 5 senses were stimulated, as I took every moment in.  I felt so comfortable in a completely different environment than what I am used to.  They showed me love and acceptance, and that day a desire to go to India was born in me.  I told my parents and they encouraged me to follow my dreams.  I told them I wanted to learn Hindi, Gujarathi, and Arabic (because of the friends I made that spoke those languages).  I felt a strong connection to them.  My Hindu friends to this day tell me I they have do doubt that in my previous life I was Indian.  They say my passion and love for everything that has to do with India is so unique and my book Hindi is more correct than their slang.  My parents bought me books and cassettes for Christmas that year and I began to teach myself daily.  I had notebooks that I would write the alphabets in repeatedly until I memorized the characters and started writing words and reading/comprehending sentences.  I began to buy Bollywood DVDs and listen to music.  The more I learned, the more I yearned for more!  I would go to Devon, the Indian neighborhood in Chicago to buy bindiya and wear colorful shapes in between my eyes to match my clothes.  Any chance I had, I would go to Indian functions with my jewelry and increased wardrobe of clothes. 

Stay tuned to hear about my first trip to India and how I got my name in Hindi…