‘I got closer to my roots in the West’

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I completed my schooling from DPS R.K. Puram and then went to college in California, USA. My college (UCSF) was not very different from colleges in India. Even in California, I was immediately spotted by a group of Indian students and we started hanging out together. When you’re staying abroad, the only thing that you miss the most, or think about is, India.

I watched all the latest Hindi movies and started listening to songs I would not have taken a liking to in India. Living in the West, Indian culture suddenly became too precious for me and I realised how important it is to know where you are coming from. The friends that I made were really fond of reliving and re-enacting our Indian roots, so we were actively involved in theatre and acting.
America is impervious to cricket and it is hard to find a cricket pitch in that part of the world, so we ended up playing cricket with a baseball bat and a tennis ball on a rock solid concrete surface.
College, apart from being all about gaining knowledge, was also a place where I realised where I was coming from and where I was going.