An Author Biography

Here's the thing. As I casually sip flavorless lukewarm tea out of a chipped ceramic mug my mother bought from IKEA only seventeen years ago, there's too much running through my head. To my left, a picturesque book on jellyfish lies flipped open to a dog-eared page portraying vivid photos of Cassiopea andromeda, the upside-down jellyfish that invades so many waters due to eutrophication. To the right is a list of essays I must write to attend a seven-day camp to ensure that my mediocre writing skills become that of a sophisticated journalist. And so here I am, paying no heed to either. Because if there is anything harder than surviving the best four years of my life, it's writing a blog post about who I am.

I'm just me, with my brown eyes, an algae-colored streak in my curly dark hair, and a permanent frown deeply etched into my face. My name means "bearer of truth" in Sanskrit (and folks, I could not possibly give you a better example of irony). I am 100% Indian, all the way back to my grandmothers and great, great, great grandfathers, and everyone in between.* 

But enough with the hard facts. If you're sifting through an author's biography, you probably don't want to know things like what seventeen-year-old juniors in high school do with their free time. So here's where I talk about the real me.

The me who adores medusae and ctenophores and anything you could know about the ocean. The me who learns and lives at every passing moment, but fails miserably in school. The me who writes and writes and writes and says she does not write enough. The me who paints depictions of the sky when it looks like He-Who-Does-Not-Exist threw watercolors throughout the universe, who refuses to attempt to be Gillian Flynn's "Cool Girl" (because it is simply not possible), who drags a pick across six stubborn strings and expects a beautiful sound. The me who is Top, Top-Top, Tops. 

The me who cries when she feels trapped, but not when she feels alone. The me who doesn't let anyone see her on Sundays when she's spent the entire morning scratching off scabs to relieve her anxiety. The me who is a waste of tissues, who eats too much and thinks about running to the bathroom, but doesn't - because even though she may think she doesn't love herself, she does. Very, very much. 

I try to write about myself the way I would write about my closest friends: the qualities that differentiate them from others. No one is as simple as [hair color, eye color, favorite subject, favorite food]. And nobody enjoys reading about a two-dimensional character anyway.

PC: Rajeeb Hazra