As a student of the arts and humanities, mathematics has always been a realm that I have been apprehensive of exploring. Numbers and figures have always been difficult for me to understand, generate and analyze. Now, on the brink of graduate school, I realize that this is an approach that I must shed. Born of insecurities that were nurtured by a broken schooling system, my aversion to mathematics has prevented me from accessing tools, techniques and methodologies that would serve me well as a social scientist. Mathematics and all social sciences derive from the same root subject of philosophy. This fact makes evident the common foundation that both these disciplines hold, and the linkages between them. Learning math is useful, of course, from a day-to-day functioning point of view. However, specific to my disciplines of interest, mathematics offers unique ways to think about social phenomenon. Be it Marx and Engels' attempts to calculate the value of labor, Durkheim's mathematical approach to studying suicide rates in European society or modern day studies on voting behavior and polling: math provides interesting and instrumental lenses of analysis. I became scared of mathematics after struggling with it in school. Now, however, I realize that it isn't necessary to be good at every facet of mathematics in order to understand its basic logic and use its basic principles. I was preparing for the GRE exam in my final year college, and realized that the fundamentals mathematics made very clear sense to me. I did a few online courses on basic statistical methods, and quantitative approaches to studying social science problems. My favorite part of studying mathematics now is juxtaposing my current mathematical abilities with the mathematical disaster I believed myself to be in school. In school, the method of teaching was distant and everything depended on scores and marks. But when one moves to real-world math, like the kind we do for the GRE or the kind we employ in social science research, the immediate applicability of math becomes so much more evident. Even when I think of the math that I considered useless in school, I understand the importance of the building blocks that made that sort of mathematics possible. While I may not have ever needed the quadratic equation in my life, I do see the value of algebraic tools in solving tangible issues. To dismiss the entire discipline of mathematics just because of some advanced tools (that one might never need except on an episode of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?), is to throw away the baby with the bath water. I will never make that mistake again.

Growing up as an immigrant child in the USA, one of my core childhood memories is wishing away my dark skin and dark hair on shooting stars. "If only", I thought, "if only I looked more like Hannah Montana, my life would be better." For me, gaining my confidence has been about learning how to be comfortable taking up space. I always excelled at academics, because it was a behind-the-scenes sort of thing: you would put in effort and your teacher would read out your scores in class. Participating in music, dance, elocution and debates was so much harder, because so many people would be looking at you, judging you, creating perceptions about you. Becoming comfortable in my body has taken me time, but as I have gotten better at it, I have also felt more confident in public spaces. The foundations of my confidence are shaky sometimes: they tremble a little when people stare too long, or at the wrong places. However, I use the love I have around me to reassure myself that I am worthy and beautiful. This confidence means a lot to me, because it has enabled me to ask for things that I deserve. It has allowed me to share talents I have always had. It allowed me to enter spaces I should have always belonged to. It has let me sing and laugh and dance without worrying about what other people say or think. It has made me love myself, and find worth for myself in all the myriad things I do, besides studying and scoring good grades.

My bucket list is expansive, and is constantly evolving. Here's a snapshot of what it looks like now. I wanted to explore my current city of study (New Delhi), before I leave it to go to school in the US this summer. I've been making a lot of progress on this front. Pairing up with friends, classmates and my partner, I've been touring monuments, eating at places, volunteering, visiting museums and watching sunsets. Also very high on my bucket list is learning as many languages as I can. I think languages are one of the most spectacular inventions of humankind. I can currently speak, read and write five languages, and I am working on a sixth! A new addition to the bucket list has been going to the gym regularly. During the pandemic, I realized the importance of taking care of my health and how deeply it is linked to my immunity. I haven't been able to make it regularly to the gym yet, but I hope to settle on a routine soon. One thing that has been on my bucket list for a long time, and something that I have been working towards for a long time, has been increasing marginalized groups' access to education. I have tried to do this through community teaching, activism and volunteer work. I understand that this is something that I will always be working towards, and it won't be something I can conventionally 'tick' off of my bucket list. I look forward to channelizing efforts, resources, and time towards this goal in the years to come.

In a world that tries to tell one how to feel and what to think, speaking our own mind is an act of great bravery and fortitude. I stay committed to speaking my mind by gathering as much information as possible, and staying true to my morals. I also try to remember that beliefs and positions are made to be questioned, defended and adapted. Therefore, when I speak my mind, I speak with the knowledge that I am being honest, not with the knowledge that I am right. Rather, I speak despite knowing that I might be wrong. That's an exciting prospect, being wrong. It means that you have found an opportunity to elevate a part of your approach to the world. I also make sure that I listen to others when they speak their mind. Even if I don't agree with them, I am a staunch believer in the fact that everyone should be able to share what they think and feel, provided it is not malicious and hurtful. Finally, I remember that my people did not always have the freedom to speak their mind. When we were colonized, it was treason and death to oppose the British. So many of my ancestors showed bravery then, and fought for our independence, and our right to say what we wanted. Now that we have this right, it would be a dishonor to them to not exercise it, and an even greater dishonor to them if we took this right for granted.

My life is fueled by the knowledge that today, I stand on a mountain built by the sacrifices of generations of women before me. It is my sacred duty to contribute to this mountain, building it higher so that the women who come after me can see farther than I ever could. This is especially important for me because I come from India, a country with an incredibly skewed sex ratio and literacy rate. A big chunk of Indian women do not even make it to schools, and out of those who make it, many do not stay. This limits women's capacities to fight for their rights, live as aware and active citizens and take care of their families. I come from a community of Indians called dalits. According to the Hindu civilization's ancient caste system, we dalits were the lowest of the low, slaves and servants. We should never have had access to any form of learning or knowledge. Dalit women were even more oppressed, and were bound to slave for their own men, and for their masters. It was the efforts of women like Savitribai Phule in the past, and Ruth Manorama today, that women of my community can study and grow. I find it my duty to be grateful for the work these women did, and to honor them by taking their efforts forward. Whenever I feel tired and down, I remember that without the women before me, I would never have held a book or a pencil. They stopped for nothing. Neither should I.

My parents are both teachers, and perhaps because of that, people in the teaching profession have always occupied a special place in my heart. Teachers are the wardens of our future, and they perform the most selfless task of passing on current knowledge to the future, so that humankind constantly keeps moving forward. My life has been shaped by the kindness of teachers: my kindergarten teacher who stopped my classmates from bullying me, my elementary school teachers who helped me overcome my stage fright, my high school teachers who helped me come to terms with my sexuality, and my college professors who taught me everything I know and set me up for an education abroad. I hope to occupy a similar empowering, caring space when I finish my education. I hope to become a teacher so that I can help students in my turn, perhaps even inspiring some of them to teach when they grow up too. Keeping up this sustained generational transfer of knowledge is incredibly important. I hope to be a good role model to my students, and to be a sounding board for all of their dreams, problems and doubts. Specifically, I'd like to look out for young girls entering academic spaces. In India, our skewed sex ratio and literacy rate means that not enough women participate in education. This makes it all the more important, that the women who enter, stay. My goal is to help more women find long-term, sustainable careers in higher level academia, and by gaining a MA and moving on to PhD, I am taking my first steps.

I think that when we are faced by times of incredible strife, we understand that it is the simple things that sustain us. In the two years that have passed, the pandemic had divorced us from our friends, from social gatherings, from travelling, from work, from school. I used my hobbies to preserve my mental health and to get some much-needed serotonin amidst all the crisis that engulfed us. Throughout the lockdowns (which lasted several months in India), I practiced my hobby of learning new languages. With mostly just the internet for entertainment, I started watching a lot of movies and TV series during the lockdown, including some in different languages. I found Korean dramas especially funny, and I had heard from a lot of people online that English subtitles simply do not do the shows justice. Thus, my interest in learning languages turned outwards. Till then, I'd been spending time learning Indian languages, which were more useful on a day-to-day basis. Now, however, I focused on these new languages. I picked up the Hangul script within a day, and spent all my free time scribbling the letters until they came naturally to me. Slowly, the words started making sense to me, Korean is a beautifully logical language. For instance, the word for fish is mulgogi, which breaks down into mul (water) and gogi (meat). Fish is meat that lives in water, how beautiful is that? I watched episodes of the same dramas over and over, with subtitles in English, subtitles in Korean and then finally just Korean audio, so that I could practice matching meaning to sound. Finally, apps like Duolingo helped me figure out the logic behind tense and formalities. This hobby kept me busy through the pandemic, and I came out having learnt a whole new language!

In the future, I hope to become a teacher at a college similar to the one I studied in: an all-girls' institution. This sort of preference comes from my cultural context. I am Indian, and back home in India, the sex ratio and literacy rate are both terribly skewed against women. Specifically women from compromised class and caste backgrounds are discouraged from pursuing education, and that means academia, especially at the highest level, has too few female voices. My goal is to change that. During my PhD, I hope to acquire skills and do research that will help me understand how to make structures like academia more accessible to women, as well as make me competitive in the funding and job market. After I secure a job, back in India, I hope to teach here and help mentor young women into joining higher education. This includes sharing insights and expertise, and helping them do the research that is involved in studying abroad at the MA/PhD level. Additionally, I also plan to set up a small fund for my students. The money will be used to help women pay the application fees for universities abroad. These application fees sometimes run into several hundreds of dollars, and negotiating waivers is a complicated process for international students. Thus, many women end up applying to only a few foreign schools, or none at all. I hope, that by covering their application fees, I can at least help them kickstart the process. My acceptance to University of Chicago's MA program has allowed me a foot in the door. I plan to spend the rest of my career holding it open for the Indian women to come.

Much of the richness of human life comes from our ability to connect with each other, and support each other through trying times. Thus, what I am most grateful for, are the incredible people who have chosen to love me and be kind to me. I make it a point to not just feel gratitude for my parents, my family, my partner and my friends, but to convey it to them. I have an alarm on my phone that rings every day, and when it does, I text one person I love and tell them I am grateful for them. I pick out a specific instance of something they did for me, and I tell them how much it meant to me. I also make sure that I supply as many details of this incident as possible, to show them that I remember and that I appreciate it. Besides this, I also make sure not to be stingy with my thank-yous. When strangers do something nice for me: holding a door open, picking up a dropped bill, complimenting my clothes or even smile at me, I make sure I return the generosity. I thank them, I smile at them and I wish them a good day, because through their small act of kindness, they have made mine. I am grateful that people take out time and effort to make me feel loved. For me, every day is a success if I have experienced and conveyed more gratitude than I did the day before. In this manner, my gratitude journey is always ongoing.

If we map the trajectory of life from the beginning of time to now, we see a bunch of ups and downs: there were Ice-Ages, mass extinctions and plagues, just as there were Golden Ages, progress and revolutions in science and philosophy. If one thing characterizes this journey, I think it is the impulse to improve. Therefore, the meaning of life lies in being better today, than you were yesterday. It lies in being better tomorrow, than you are today. The way each of us defines 'better', is different. For some of us, better means smarter: we should know more than we do today. For some it means fitness: we should be healthier than we are today. For some it is wealth: we should be richer than we are today. And for some it is happiness: we should be happier than we are today. It's a process of moving forward, not mindlessly, but towards something meaningful. I think the important thing is having a goal that matters to you, and orienting your efforts towards achieving in. I believe the best life is a grateful life, and so in the process of being more grateful everyday, I make an effort to tell the people around me how much they mean to me. I stop to celebrate small wins and appreciate all the people who make them possible. And often, I pause to remind myself that I am lucky to be in this time, this space, and this body, and it is important to be grateful for all I make possible.

I am extremely excited to spend the next year pursuing a master's degree in Social Sciences, at the University of Chicago. I am looking forward to studying areas that fall in the intersection of political science and anthropology, a space that has fascinated me immensely. I am passionate about using anthropological tools like interviewing to understand how different groups engage in politics. Post my MA, I plan to move on to a PhD, following in my parents footsteps. I have known since the very start that academia is where I'd like to give my best contribution to the world, and a PhD is the first step to that. My long-term plan involves coming back to university teaching and research in India. I think teaching is one of the most important professions in the world, since so much depends on our ability to nurture and empower our youth. I hope to teach in the kind of college I studied in: an all-girls institution. India's sex ratio and literacy rates are incredibly skewed against women, and I would like to do my part in changing that. As a teacher, I also hope to open a small fund for my women students, that would allow them to pay the application fees for applying to universities abroad. These application processes are so costly, and it is so difficult to negotiate a waiver as an international student, that most women Indian students do not even take the first step in the process. Now that I have a foot in the door, I hope to spend the rest of my career holding it open for the women to come.

While it seems unintuitive, I relax and take care of my mental health by watching horror movies! When I share this with people around me, it is understandable why they seem taken aback. After all, horror movies are designed to terrify audiences, and keep them on edge for several hours. Using ghosts, ghouls, monsters, demons and horrible humans, horror movies aim to leave us disturbed and sleepless. Nonetheless, I find great joy in a good horror movie. While they do give me quite a fright in the process of watching them, afterwards I feel extremely relaxed. I feel that a lot of my stress or worry has been worked through, by being completely distracted and invested in a scary storyline. It's even more fun to watch these movies with my family, friends or partner. When the movie ends, we make fun of each other's reactions and try to predict what would happen if we were in the movie. It's such a unique juxtaposition, to be watching something so cold and horrifying, in the presence of people who give you peace and warmth. It is in this contrast that I experience immense unwinding. I always make sure I find someone for a horror movie date, at least a few times a month. I've made many friendships this way, and I look forward to making more!

"I've been going through a tough time recently. I've been applying for scholarships for higher education, while balancing a difficult graduate degree. I'm homesick after moving to a new city, and the pollution here has made my asthma flare up. I've been having fights with my friends, it's difficult to maintain sleep and food cycles, and I have been struggling to find a therapist who can help." Yesterday, I wrote my professor an email asking him if I could have a two-day extension on a crucial assignment. I wrote him a paragraph that closely resembled the one above, but with more detail and documentary evidence attached. His reply was simple: "Hi. You don't need to prove to me that you need support. Thank you for asking for an extension. Please submit the assignment any time in the next week." The practice of teachers being sensitive towards student's mental needs is a new, and incredibly welcome change. This wasn't the case a few years ago: I remember when my sister was threatened with a grade cut, for asking for a two-hour extension on her assignment. She said that a headache was making it very difficult for her to wrap up the final touches on her essay. Her teacher replied that if she could not produce evidence that she was going through a headache, she could not be given an extension. Just a few days ago, I was reading a thread of tweets by a teacher who was caught in a school shooting in America. She wrote that in the middle of everything, she got a text message from a student reading something like: "My laptop is close to the shooter, so I don't think I can submit my essay on time. I'm really sorry." In the face of this, my teacher's generosity is rare and extremely meaningful. It shows that he is sensitive towards the fact that each of his students have their own struggles, and that not all of them can be supported by paper proof. When he told me that I did not have to prove my issues, he implied that even if I had simply asked for an extension (without providing a reason), he would have granted it. That means that he prioritized an honest and sustained communication between student and teacher, over the need to have assignments submitted on a strict deadline. He told me that he would rather have a handful of students lie and get extensions, as opposed to even one genuinely needy student not feeling free to ask for a relaxed deadline. I believe that, as a generation, the youth is more perceptive towards invisible struggles. I am sure that as more of us become teachers, we will be able to extend similar kindness and consideration to our students.

"For it won't be long Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on" Lean on Me by Bill Withers I am committed to being selfless because I believe that human beings weren't made to put themselves first. One of my favorite stories is that some anthropologists do not hold that human civilization started with humans building houses or practicing agriculture. They trace it back to a healed femur and argue that human civilization started when someone put in effort to heal another human in need. To help the people around me, I donate time, money and resources. I teach underprivileged children at community centers across New Delhi. When I was a college student, I helped tutor several of my classmates for free. My roommate came from a poor family and was used to studying from third or fourth-hand books. Every semester, I would save some pocket money so that both of us could afford new, or at least, second-hand reading material. I also extend my attempts at helping others beyond just humans. I am a regular volunteer at the Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Center here in Delhi, where I help take care of paralyzed, injured and abandoned dogs. I believe that I am completely and utterly dependent on the people around me, and that is the most ideal state of affairs.

I am debater, and therefore, my talents include understanding complex argumentation, recognizing logical fallacies and flaws, and most importantly, making space for multiple perspectives. I have won several national tournaments throughout my college career. As a debater, one could be asked to support any side, of any motion, in a matter of minutes. What that teaches me is to constantly question the information I consume: I am careful about the sources I trust, and I critically consider the way that information is presented. Besides cultivating this sort of criticality, I also make an effort to read as much as possible. There is value to understanding the facts behind a situation, but just as intriguing to me is reading opinion pieces, editorials and blogs about controversial and contentious issues. I am fascinated by them as they present such an unique opportunity to observe how people around me think. I practice debating as often as I can, often staying back hours after class to train with my teammates. We give each other feedback on our speeches and on the roles we played while preparing our cases. I've learnt so much about teamwork and co-operation through my experience with them. We discuss strategies we have learnt and approaches we have observed in other debaters around us. With debating shifting online during the pandemic, I also make use of all the resources that have become available online. These include online recording of international debates, special sessions conducted by talented debaters and a whole repository of motions from tournaments all around the world. I find great joy in debating and I treasure the experiences I have had with my fellow debaters, some of whom have become my closest friends!

If you look at the number of women today who pursue bachelor's degrees (specifically in countries like India), the statistics are encouraging. This is, among other factors, because of institutions like the one I went to college in: subsidized government run schools that cater to the academic needs of women. However, if you go a step further and measure the number of women who pursue graduate education, the stats tell a very different story. The numbers nose-dive even further if you try to count the number of women pursuing PhDs or Post-Doctorates. Professional academia is still very much male dominated. I am going to change that. I plan to pursue my education in the social sciences all the way up to a PhD and then return to India to teach in institutions for women. I hope to provide women students with guidance that will make them competitive in a globalized world of college applications, and I also hope to provide them with encouragement. Any goal that they dream of, they can achieve. Through my teaching, I hope to cultivate in my students a love for academics, and I hope I can even motivate some of them to become teachers in their turn! Finally, I hope to collect funds for a small support program that would help women fill the application fees for master's/PhD applications to elite foreign universities. These fees range up to hundreds of dollars, and getting a waiver is a complicated process. I hope that my fund would at least give brilliant women a foot in the door, and a shot at their dreams.

If you look at the number of women today who pursue bachelor's degrees (specifically in countries like India), the statistics are encouraging. This is, among other factors, because of institutions like the one I went to college in: subsidized government run schools that cater to the academic needs of women. If you go a step further and measure the number of women who pursue graduate education, the stats tell a very different story. The numbers nose-dive even further if you try to count the number of women pursuing PhDs or Post-Docs. Professional academia is still very much male dominated. I am passionate about changing that. I plan to pursue my education in the social sciences all the way up to a PhD and then return to India to teach in institutions for women. I hope to provide them guidance that will make them competitive in a globalized world of college applications, and I also hope to provide them with encouragement. Any goal that they dream of, they can achieve. Through my teaching, I hope to cultivate in my students a love for academics, and I hope I can even motivate some of them to become teachers in their turn! Finally, I hope to collect funds for a small support program that would help women fill the application fees for master's/PhD applications to elite foreign universities. These fees range up to hundreds of dollars, and getting a waiver is a complicated process. I hope that my fund would at least give brilliant women a foot in the door, and a shot at their dreams.

I've been lucky enough to have teachers who have changed my life, with their knowledge, kindness and advice. When I was struggling to find my feet in the discipline of political science, during my BA, my teachers gave me their time and resources, and helped me steady myself. When I was going through the loss of loved ones and the struggles of moving to a new city, my teachers gave me their affection and support, giving me a space where I felt like I belonged. When I stood on the cusp of graduate school, debating which career path I should invest money and time into, my teachers offered me sound advice and encouraged me to take the path that made the most sense to me, even if it didn't make sense to everyone else. My goal for the future is to train and become a teacher in a college similar to the one that I was enrolled in: a subsidized government institution for women. Specifically in India, where circles of academia and professional careers are so male-dominated, it would be the honor and mission of my life to work to create avenues of access for the women to come. I stand on the shoulders of women who have made similar efforts on my behalf, and I am incredibly excited to pay the debt forward.

When my parents decided to leave their jobs in America and move back to India, they thought it best not to tell me. They assumed the prospect of moving half-way across the world would be too stressful for an eight-year old. So, we prepared for what I thought was our usual once-in-two-years visit to India and it was only when we touched down at New Delhi that I was told that we were not going back. Retrospectively, it's easy to see the consequences that this sudden move had on me: I lost my social support system (friends, teachers, neighborhood dogs), I was in a country I was barely familiar with, and I didn't even speak the local language. Things got worse when I enrolled in school. I faced a significant amount of bullying because of my accent, my lack of commonality with my classmates, and my perpetually melancholic mood. My parents began regretting their decision of keeping the move a secret. They thought perhaps, that if I had been given a chance to prepare for this change, it would not have affected me this drastically. Looking back, I am incredibly proud that I found a way out of these trials, using a skill that I have subsequently developed as one of my greatest strengths. I signed myself up for a Hindi tutoring program that was run by our school, and within a month and a half, I'd cultivated a working knowledge of the language. The ability to speak and understand Hindi opened up doors to friendships, bonds and belongingness. This experience impressed upon me the power of learning of a new tongue, and I've been a language enthusiast ever since! I currently speak six languages and I'm eager to add to this count, throughout the rest of my life.

I think there are three steps that collectively constitute the best way to live a long and healthy life. The first is recognizing the several sacrifices that we are coerced into making, by the world we live in today. Extra work hours for a little more cash, years of student debt for a competitive edge in the job market, constant hustling and the idea that all failures are our individual burdens alone, contribute to a culture that sets us on a direct path to burn-outs. It is crucial for us to question our roles in systems that operate in this manner, and ask ourselves what impact such a work and life ethic will have on us, in the long run. In this context, steps two and three are radical choices. Step two is repeatedly, unflinchingly, unapologetically taking out time to look after yourself, no matter what. I recognize that much of the 'self-care discourse' out there is really privileged and presupposes a certain amount of money and leisure. But even for the busiest, poorest and most compromised of us, looking after our mental and physical well being is a good idea. Not only does it keep us going, it keeps us going for the people we love. Step three is remembering that there are people we love, and that regardless of the alienating, atomizing tendencies of the world, we are deeply connected to the people around us. Making time to do things we enjoy, with people we enjoy, is one way that we can rejuvenate ourselves for the daily struggles we take part in. More importantly, by underlining our connections with people around us allows us to attach ourselves to meanings, movements and messages larger than our own personhoods. This sense of purpose brings us closer to long, healthy lives.

I learnt patience from my grandmother, the seventh daughter of a working-class father. She'd waited long and hard to get her chance at schooling, enrolling four years late because their family could not afford to teach all their children at once. She worked hard and graduated from school, took a course in stitching and became a seamstress. She funded the educations of her two children and, at the age of 45, completed her bachelor's degree. Often, while sewing a sleeve onto a dress she was making for me, my grandmother would tell me stories from her life. The stories, distinct and spread across time, would somehow always end up at the same moral: "What is yours, is running straight at you. Give it some time, and it will come." Patience is important to me because I am not the center of the universe. I may firmly believe in the validity and vitality of my goals and aspirations, but I hold that this confidence must be tempered with faith. This faith is of fundamental importance because there are so many elements in the world that are beyond my sphere of control. Family falls ill, money becomes scarce, opportunities evaporate and aspirations fade. The only thing in this world that I really do have control over is the kind of commitment I have to my goals and the perseverance with which I approach them. Being patient is one way of having a conversation with my circumstances, telling them that while they may have temporarily bested me, they will never get the better of me. I will always have an internal repository of faith that keeps me going. Patience is thus, the language I use to tell the world and myself that my faith and fortitude are limitless.

Most students lose time figuring out the goals that matter to them, and the potential they have to transform the world around them. They will spend years, sometimes decades, identifying the arena of study that they want to dedicate their lives to. That is not the case with me. My academic ambitions are distilled from some of my earliest childhood memories, and they form the core of my formative experiences. I have fine tuned these experiences into academic endeavors, throughout my time as an undergraduate and graduate student. Growing up as an immigrant in the USA, I was dependent on my diasporic community for belongingness and support. Thus, our birthday parties centered around the local ISKCON temple as opposed to the neighborhood Chuck-E-Cheese. Every year my parents would force me to wear a lehenga (traditional Indian attire) and dress up as an ‘Indian princess’ for Halloween, as opposed to an Aurora or a Belle. My mother made vigorous attempts to keep us connected to our Indian and Hindu identities: we would sit for an hour each Sunday to listen to Bollywood songs, she would teach us prayers and mantras, and we would have the stories of Indian freedom fighters memorized by heart. My education goals revolve around identifying and studying the role that Hindu women (in the capacities of mothers, wives, daughters and women) play as repositories and transmitters of nationalism. For instance, it makes sense why a woman who immigrates from India today, would retain ties to her community, region and country of origin. However, how does she go on to cultivate a similar form of connection in her children, who have most likely spent the vast majority of their lives abroad? What specific gendered role does the Hindu woman play and what tools does she use to create these bonds? Studying this is important to me because I recognize that when women are studied under nationalism, they are rarely centered as agents of the discourse. Rather, they are conceptualized as bodies for the discourse to operate upon. By focusing a light on the experiences of women, we can gain an understanding of how they imagine themselves to participate in larger political movements. The thing about women’s experiences is, rarely do they find the time to write or theorize about their experiences. Rather, they live them. Interviews, specifically ethnographic interviewing, is a potent way to tap into this kind of knowledge. Ethnographic methods are one of the strongest disciplinary specializations at the University of Chicago’s Anthropology Department. I am honored to have received an acceptance to the University, for the MA Program in Social Sciences (MAPSS). I will be using MAPSS to pursue a concentration in Anthropology for the purpose of acquiring expertise in ethnographic theory and practice. If awarded the I Am Third Scholarship, I will be using the funding towards my graduate degree. My work has the potential to have a positive impact on two levels. On the first level, it contributes to a body of research that recognizes women’s political agency and attempts to highlight it in instances where it operates in action. Leading from this, the second positive impact is the broadening of our understanding of how women can articulate their claims for social change. When we see women as political actors with agency, we open a space for engaging with their claims for educational rights, healthcare benefits, greater safety and electoral representation. I envision that by studying women's politics seriously, we can create space at the table for important voices from around the world, who have hitherto been marginalized.

A fight for social justice boils down to a fight for equal rights, dignity and the recognition of agency. The agency of Indian Hindu women, specifically their political agency, often gets denied in mainstream discourses. Most traditional Indian Hindu women are seen as political extensions of their husbands, fathers or sons. They vote for the same parties, distance themselves from the same communities and join the same political missions (for instance, nationalism). While men are seen as agents and leaders of this movement of nationalism, women are seen as bodies for the discourse of nationalism to operate upon. This constitutes a direct undermining of these women’s claims to equal participation in political projects. One way to counteract that is to nurture political agency where it exists, and bolster academic engagement with women’s politics. My goal is to investigate sites of female political agency, particular to the traditional Indian Hindu woman. The first site I have chosen is Hindu immigrant women who associate themselves with religio-nationalistic bodies like the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. By centering Hindu women, I hope to gain an understanding of how they negotiate their nationalistic aspirations and imaginations. This extends from some of the work that I have done in India. Right after graduating, I joined a research group called The Indian Women’s Project (TIWP). We maintain the largest digital archive of oral histories of marginalized Indian women. By interviewing uneducated, non-English speaking and mostly impoverished women, we were able to create a repository of subaltern information on the operation and impacts of state policy. While working with TIWP, I realized that most women do not have the time or leisure to write or theorize about their experiences. Rather, they live them. Interviews, specifically ethnographic interviewing, is a potent way to tap into this kind of knowledge. Ethnographic methodologies are one of the strongest disciplinary specializations at the University of Chicago’s Anthropology Department. I am honored to have received an acceptance to the Division of Social Sciences at the University, for the MA Program in Social Sciences (MAPSS). I will using MAPSS to pursue a concentration in Anthropology for the purpose of acquiring expertise in ethnographic theory and practice. If awarded the Advancing Social Justice for Asians Scholarship, I will be using the funding towards my graduate degree. Much of the racial hatred that occurs against Hindus abroad stems from the idea that Hindu women are oppressed, helpless and in desperate need of saving. This sort of discrimination, exclusion and objectification must be brought into contact with a counternarrative that questions these categories of “empowered” and “unempowered”. I believe that by challenging the assumptions around agency, we move towards building spaces of understanding that take Hindu women’s politics seriously, both inside and outside the community. This opens up the possibility of women, Hindu or otherwise, using their own political agency as a premise for their claims for social justice. As a young Indian woman, this holds immense value for me and the politics I hope to embody. Claims for educational rights, healthcare benefits, greater safety and electoral representation all base themselves on the recognition of a community’s politics as legitimate. For Indian women to make their specific gendered claims, it is crucial to see them as agents, with the capacity to make active political choices. While nationalism is only one of these political arenas, in current global imagination, it constitutes an important one. I thank the International Chinese Fine Arts Council for considering my application, and for viewing it in the capacity that it holds for all Asian women to strengthen and solidify their political aspirations and agendas.