Hello, Simran here! Welcome to post #3 of our School for a Village member spotlight series! Today, I will be sharing you my own story! I am one of two Communications Managers at School for a Village.

At School for a Village, alongside Jonathan, the other awesome Communications Manager, I manage our social media accounts and blog. I create marketing materials for S4V such as pitch decks and flyers, content to post on social media, and help create and maintain a cohesive brand. What’s cool about S4V is that even though I am in the Communications department, there is fluidity in our roles, so I also have had the opportunity to help design some of our projects. But now for the big questions—who am I outside of School for a Village and what brought me here, writing to you all on this blog?

I am 20 years old (turning 21 in April!), and was born and raised on Long Island, NY—I know, pretty boring, especially at my college where it seems like literally half our student body is from the tri-state area! Currently, I am living off-campus in Durham, North Carolina, where I am a third-year student at Duke University majoring in a self-designed major entitled, “Narratives of Health: Global Perspectives.” My major is a testament to both my indecisiveness and my multifaceted passions—as I was nearing the time I was supposed to declare a major, I realized that I could not choose just one department. I loved taking classes across various disciplines such as English, Global Health, and Psychology, and I realized that although these courses were not necessarily housed in the same department, they all shared a common thread—at their core, they were about infusing health with humanism, with empowering others to share their stories and speak their truth. Thus, through my major—an intersection of medicine and storytelling—I study the various biopsychosocial and cultural factors that comprise patient narratives and how sharing patient narratives can (a) facilitate the recovery/healing process and (b) improve patient-provider communication.

Sorry, as you can tell, I can ramble on and on about my major….Anyways, back to my backstory of sorts. I come from a family of 6, and I have two younger sisters and one younger brother. One of my sisters, Varsha, is a year below me at Duke, so it is nice having her at the same college! My brother, Nevin, is 10 (ten and a half years younger than me!), so he is definitely the baby of the family. Growing up, my sisters and I would always fight for who got to take care of my brother when he was a baby. Now, it seems like he would rather play Minecraft than play with us, but I guess that’s the new normal for kids his age. I literally come from a family of doctors….like I’m not even joking, basically everyone in my family is a doctor—both my parents, all of my grandparents, and essentially all of my many aunts and uncles. My mother is a dermatologist, and my dad is a gastroenterologist (or as my sisters and I lovingly termed it growing up, a “poop doctor.”) I too hope to pursue a career in medicine, not just because I was exposed to the field at an early age, but because I am passionate about helping people recover from mental illnesses and I want to incorporate more culturally-sensitive care into the field of psychiatry. My dream is to open up and oversee my own residential eating disorder treatment center where clients will feel like their treatment team truly understands the role their culture plays in the recovery process. I’ve always wanted to move to Hawaii when I grow older (I have zero tolerance for the cold), so it would be so cool if I could open up a treatment center near the beach, where clients could heal while appreciating the natural beauty surrounding them.

I would say that growing up, I was definitely a rule-follower and planner. I am trying to be more spontaneous now when making plans with friends, but the pandemic has certainly been difficult since there is so little we can actually plan ahead of time for. I attended the same school district, Jericho, from kindergarten until I graduated 12th grade, and I have basically been friends with the same core group of girls since I was 5 years old. I am so grateful to have friends who have become more like sisters over these past 15+ years, and I will always cherish the various memories we have made such as traveling the country together.

In my free time, I really love to play piano, play tennis, binge-watch shows on Netflix, read, write, and draw on my iPad. I played tennis all throughout middle school and high school, and while I am in no way, shape, or form good enough to be on Duke’s tennis team, playing tennis recreationally is still a fun way for me to bond with my sisters! Some of my favorite TV shows include The Office (please don’t ask me how many times I have rewatched it, it’s just embarrassing at this point), Gossip Girl (your girl’s gotta vicariously live through the Upper East Side drama), One Tree Hill (yay for North Carolina!!), and This is Us (could not recommend more, beautifully interwoven narratives that span across generations). Fun fact—Season 3 Episode 1 of Gossip Girl (the Polo Party scenes) was filmed at my house (my personal claim to fame)! I watched the filming of the episode, but I wasn’t really a fan of the show at the time since I was still in elementary school. If I had to choose any fictional character that I resonate with most, I would have to say Randall Pearson from This is Us. Both of us have similar flaws and strengths. Like Randall, I can be overly hard on myself and struggle with maladaptive perfectionism. However, like Randall, at my core, I wish to touch the lives of those around me for the better. I am driven by the desire to bring happiness to those I surround myself with and create meaningful change in my community.

As I mentioned earlier, I am interested in pursuing a career in psychiatry, for I am passionate about mental health advocacy. I have a blog entitled Numbers Don’t Define Us where I aim to spread the message that our self-worth should not be dependent on mere numbers—whether that is our weight, GPA, or the number of followers we have on social media. In addition, I am a National Ambassador for Project HEAL, a non-profit organization that aims to make treatment accessible for eating disorder sufferers. I am also passionate about digital art and graphic design, and in my free time, I love creating different illustrations and graphics on platforms such as Procreate and Canva. One of my proudest accomplishments was actually publishing a cookbook alongside my grandmother a few weeks ago—my grandmother was in charge of the cooking (I could never call myself a chef), while I compiled the recipes, took the photographs, and formatted all the pages using Canva. Shameless plug—our cookbook, Noms by Nani, is available on Amazon and includes over 100 flavorful and delicious recipes! It has always been my grandmother’s dream to have her own cookbook published, so I am so happy that I was able to help her accomplish one of her life goals. 

My grandmother (whom I call “Nani”) is one of my biggest inspirations and role models. She is a mover & shaker, shattering glass ceilings, having the courage to pursue her passion in medicine despite the insurmountable obstacles she faced in mid-twentieth century India where STEM-related fields were reserved for men. She is unbelievably brave, moving to the other side of the world at an age not much older than I am, leaving behind her family, friends, job, & familiarity in order to provide future generations with more opportunities. If I can be half as courageous and persistent as my grandmother throughout life, I will be able to say that I have genuinely been successful. My grandmother is one of the primary reasons I decided to join School for a Village—growing up, her high school did not allow females to enroll in STEM classes, for women were supposed to learn how to roll the roundest chapatis in the kitchen, not memorize the anatomy of the human body. Because my grandmother was extremely self-motivated and confident that her calling was to become a physician, she stayed up for hours into the night, learning science on her own so she could eventually enroll in medical school. However, I cannot help but think of the thousands of other girls who were unable to pursue their dreams due to inequitable access to quality STEM education. Thus, I work at S4V with the hope that future generations will not have to endure similar struggles.

There are many songs that describe my life, but one in particular that I turn to time and time again is “Waves” by Dean Lewis (if you have not listened to it, I highly recommend!). I particularly resonate with the line, “There is a light in the dark, and I feel its warmth in my hands and my heart.” It reminds me that hope exists even in hard times, and it inspires me to continue swimming through the storm. The quote that I choose to live by is “Be the change you want to see in the world” by Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t want to live life complaining about the problems I see around me—I try to actively work to ignite positive change in my communities. I painted a canvas with this quote on it, and it hangs on the wall adjacent to my bed, so it is one of the first things that I see every morning. If I had to pick a favorite food, it would probably be a toasted everything bagel (has to be from New York, those bagels just hit different) with scallion cream cheese and tomato slices. I could eat this every day, but sadly, Durham does not have the superior NY-style bagels. And finally, my favorite STEM subject is probably biology, although I’m definitely more of a social sciences (particularly psychology) person.

And just like that, our third spotlight story has come to an end! If you are still here, thank you for listening to me rant about my life story.