Skip to main content

maithreyi 'ray' shankar

maithreyi 'ray' shankar:

21.
studying human development and psychology @ Harvard  
USC Trojan '13

striving to become a hurricane of eloquence & social change.

but how did i get here?

i was born to a simple tech/tamil brahmin family in mumbai, maharashtra. INDIA.

the hospital was the same one used for mine, my brother's, my cousins' births except for one glaring exception. that hospital represents our lives--journeys. facing a train that always was ephemeral. a fashion store on one side. life buzzing. ghatkopar.

my birth was linked to my aunt's engagement party. the night before i came to the world, my aunt and uncle became my aunt and uncle. that idea was born. the family was born. just as the cars left town, my mom had to turn around. i was en route, and eager!

this theme of waiting for the right moment to EXPLODE onto the stage is something so natural to me, i cannot explain. i do it again and again to the point where most do not realize i was waiting or hibernating at all. it is sheer instinct. like the instinctual love i have for the texture of wax crayons on rough paper. like the scent of fall memorizing and intoxicating me. 

tbc sooon! stay tuned!
xoxo,
Ray :)



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Florida 2012 Day V: Grapestomping Good Time!

I have decided to post my blogs about my family vacation to Florida from 8/15 to 8/20. Here's the fifth one, August 18th: Our day at the Lakeridge Winery! (These are directly transcribed from my written diary on my iPad.) "We're went to Lakeridge Winery for their annual Grapestomp to listen to local music, and STOMP some grapes! We took some pictures, stomped some grapes (my mother and I tried employing bharatanatyam skills to no avail.) Then Aditya and I drank homemade Godiva dark chocolate raspberry chocolixers with relish fries on the side. Surprisingly good! We then ate a picnic lunch of Indian food my mother packed from our full kitchen in our suite amidst ants and giant dragonflies. I got my face painted solely for the opportunity to enter the bouncy castle with little children. :) Then we ate more chocolate and drank shots of limoncello, waiting for the tour to begin. Doug our tour guide was hilarious. We all drank a few more samples, and I bought some pres...

Diwali Dreamin'

An ode to home, real November, and the friends who don't need to know everything to know what I want and need: I miss it. I miss being more than these polite souls, who say hello in public, and are like sisters in shadows. I miss being in the cold air, crisp, with my voice puffing out laughs with the last of my breath in the freezing winter's night, running like our youth, our time together, out like a match. I miss the house I had lived in for fifteen "carefree" years, unaware of its fleeting glory, it's ineffable beauty of simplicity. I want nothing more than one more night on your moth-eaten, lumpy, comfy old sofa. With old movies and new, echoes of our childhood and our future playing alongside the soundtracks. I need one more silly spontaneous dessert date, if only to reaffirm that you will never waver, and will always be there. Even if you change your clothes, or your style, you'll be my homes. I wish for one day more: to make a change. To t...

ELEVEN YEARS: so much inaction.

I say this yearly now, but my heart can't take it. Every year people honor the victims and heroes of NYC, and while I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment, it ignores an aching sore in the American hear-- what about Balbir Singh Sodhi, an elderly Sikh-American racially targeted the next days after 9/11? What about the thousands of hate crimes and racially charged incidents all over the United States, United Kingdom, and the world over? What about the communalism and divisiveness that has only grown more pointed since 9/11? Last year was the 10th anniversary. One decade. The mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came to USC to make a speech. There were initiatives made, promises whispered, the resounding response seemed like it had a reasonable chance for success. One year later, and we have already grown complacent. We have barely integrated our new charges into those established initiatives. We have barely brought up this national tragedy, relegating it to a generic Facebook post ...