Writing Myself Off the Page: A Writer's Evolution
I came to college a collection of half-formed, unclaimed identities: Indian, but reluctantly so; a feminist who didn’t realize she was a feminist; and a writer who felt uncomfortable calling herself a writer.
With all of these threads hanging loosely inside of me, I began taking an assortment of courses, hoping that the answer to the question of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be would reveal itself to me over time. What I found instead is that I’ve written the person I am today into existence; the best parts of me – feminism, writing, Indian culture – take shape on paper before I can fully claim and own them off the page.
With all of these threads hanging loosely inside of me, I began taking an assortment of courses, hoping that the answer to the question of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be would reveal itself to me over time. What I found instead is that I’ve written the person I am today into existence; the best parts of me – feminism, writing, Indian culture – take shape on paper before I can fully claim and own them off the page.
Feminist
I grew up believing in my own intelligence – in my right to learn, to have opinions, and to be heard. And why not? My parents and teachers had tirelessly encouraged me throughout my entire life, so I’d never really known a world in which women aren’t taken seriously as individuals. But as I immersed myself in eye-opening classes at the university, I realized that I’d been privileged. The more I learned, the more I wanted to seek out and write about women’s stories.
Unfortunately, I found through my Communication Studies writing that some of the recent attempts at presenting women’s stories are only thinly veiled reinforcements of sexist ideas. Through my writing, I was able to look past the surface of what I’d previously accepted as mere entertainment to see the complex contradictions and dangers of different forms of media. From Disney films like “Mulan” to reality television shows like “The Real Housewives” – both of which I’ve watched and, I admit, enjoyed – I explored my own complicated relationship with content that in some ways poses as progressive, but actually portrays women as either (a) submissive or (b) catty and manipulative. I realized that my childhood privilege could no longer shield me from the sexism that pervades both the world around me and, at times, my own mind. It became increasingly important to me to fight this by addressing a wider audience and inviting my readers to consider the harmful consequences of media that ultimately suppress female power, or worse, encourage women to use their power against each other. In an essay in which I focused on the Real Housewives specifically, I wrote about how "ironically" watching any edition of the franchise implicates even so-called "conscious," feminist viewers like me in fundamentally anti-feminist work:
Unfortunately, I found through my Communication Studies writing that some of the recent attempts at presenting women’s stories are only thinly veiled reinforcements of sexist ideas. Through my writing, I was able to look past the surface of what I’d previously accepted as mere entertainment to see the complex contradictions and dangers of different forms of media. From Disney films like “Mulan” to reality television shows like “The Real Housewives” – both of which I’ve watched and, I admit, enjoyed – I explored my own complicated relationship with content that in some ways poses as progressive, but actually portrays women as either (a) submissive or (b) catty and manipulative. I realized that my childhood privilege could no longer shield me from the sexism that pervades both the world around me and, at times, my own mind. It became increasingly important to me to fight this by addressing a wider audience and inviting my readers to consider the harmful consequences of media that ultimately suppress female power, or worse, encourage women to use their power against each other. In an essay in which I focused on the Real Housewives specifically, I wrote about how "ironically" watching any edition of the franchise implicates even so-called "conscious," feminist viewers like me in fundamentally anti-feminist work:
It took me years of watching “trashy TV” to realize that my smug sense of superiority doesn’t make me immune to its negative effects, and it doesn’t exempt me from my responsibility to myself and to my belief in feminism. If anything, it diminishes my power and manipulates me into sitting idly by while feminism is quietly stifled. I’m not going to participate in this deceptively dangerous mess any longer. The first step to fighting it is to refuse to contribute to it. I invite you to do the same. (“The Real Housewives & Enlightened Sexism”)
The more I wrote about these glaring issues that affect and harm not just women, but everyone, “feminism” shifted from just a hazy idea in my mind that seemed to have little to do with me and came into focus as a dynamic, enormously necessary movement. Once my writing revealed to me that I was already entrenched in the movement, it wasn’t difficult to call myself a feminist.
Writer
Before I began the Minor in Writing program, I – at least in my own estimation – was never a writer. I wrote all the time as a teenager, but I resisted putting any name to what I was doing; I’d been a writer in elementary school, sure – published (by the PTA, that is!), accomplished, confident. But by the time I got through high school I was just a lover of literature who blogged occasionally for a small audience and managed to get As on voice-less academic papers. This, I felt, hardly qualified me as a creative, dedicated writer.
Still, something drove me to apply for the Minor in Writing and to take as many writing-based classes as possible. So when I was asked to consider “Why I Write” for the MIW gateway course, I pushed myself to understand how writing could be so central to my life and not to my self-concept. First, I questioned what being a “writer” even meant to me:
Still, something drove me to apply for the Minor in Writing and to take as many writing-based classes as possible. So when I was asked to consider “Why I Write” for the MIW gateway course, I pushed myself to understand how writing could be so central to my life and not to my self-concept. First, I questioned what being a “writer” even meant to me:
In my mind, there has always been a disconnect between my understanding of what a writer is – inspired, creative, a master of language – and my understanding of what I do: resist, doubt, and procrastinate. (“Why I Write”)
I realized that it was that idea of “mastery” that was holding me back, a goal that I ultimately decided was “limited, unattainable, and frankly undesirable” in comparison to growth and discovery. It was through the process of writing this essay that I finally began to take ownership of my writer identity, and I haven’t looked back since.
In fact, that semester I continued to immerse myself in my exploration of what writing meant to me. In Writing 300, the training course for the peer writing tutoring program, I was pushed to examine my own writing process before thinking about how to help other writers. I did a research paper about writing apprehension, or “an irrational fear of writing characterized by avoidance and withdrawal” (Johnstone), focusing on the emotional rather than technical aspects of the writing process. This was a project directed at helping students in the writing center but it doubled as therapy for me – I learned to identify parts of my process that lock me in and cause stress; in fact, through my research I discovered Peter Elbow’s “Writing Without Teachers” and his now widely-used freewriting exercise, a tool that has revitalized my writing process by easing the self-judgment, perfectionism, and stress that sometimes blocks my creative flow as I write. This along with all of the other long-form and reflective writing I did in this course deepened my understanding of the recursive nature of the writing process and shaped my approach to tutoring, so that when I finally began tutoring and writing my statement of tutoring philosophy, I was able to not only accept my identity as a writer but also use it to help others.
Even after the MIW gateway and Writing 300, I continued to make discoveries about myself as a writer; I took English 325, “Art of the Essay,” which not only challenged me to develop my ability to write in narrative form, but also gave me a space to blend the personal and the scholarly and to make critical connections between to two. For an assignment that required me to incorporate scientific research into a personal narrative, I chose to write about my lifelong struggles with strabismus, a neuromuscular eye disorder that prevents binocular vision and forces me to either see double or see through one eye at a time. At first I found it really difficult to make this medical problem engaging and thought-provoking, but when I started exploring the question of eye contact – something I struggle with physically – it led me to question how I communicate and why. My essay centered on how my difficulty making eye contact and my anxiety about my physical appearance interfered with my ability to form intimate connections with others; writing became my primary means of connection. But as I thought more about why I write and how the way that I literally see the world affects the way I think and communicate, I realized that writing is more than a comfortable crutch for me. In a MIW blog post that I wrote while working on this paper, I wrote that because I see through one eye at a time and literally can’t see the “big picture,” I:
In fact, that semester I continued to immerse myself in my exploration of what writing meant to me. In Writing 300, the training course for the peer writing tutoring program, I was pushed to examine my own writing process before thinking about how to help other writers. I did a research paper about writing apprehension, or “an irrational fear of writing characterized by avoidance and withdrawal” (Johnstone), focusing on the emotional rather than technical aspects of the writing process. This was a project directed at helping students in the writing center but it doubled as therapy for me – I learned to identify parts of my process that lock me in and cause stress; in fact, through my research I discovered Peter Elbow’s “Writing Without Teachers” and his now widely-used freewriting exercise, a tool that has revitalized my writing process by easing the self-judgment, perfectionism, and stress that sometimes blocks my creative flow as I write. This along with all of the other long-form and reflective writing I did in this course deepened my understanding of the recursive nature of the writing process and shaped my approach to tutoring, so that when I finally began tutoring and writing my statement of tutoring philosophy, I was able to not only accept my identity as a writer but also use it to help others.
Even after the MIW gateway and Writing 300, I continued to make discoveries about myself as a writer; I took English 325, “Art of the Essay,” which not only challenged me to develop my ability to write in narrative form, but also gave me a space to blend the personal and the scholarly and to make critical connections between to two. For an assignment that required me to incorporate scientific research into a personal narrative, I chose to write about my lifelong struggles with strabismus, a neuromuscular eye disorder that prevents binocular vision and forces me to either see double or see through one eye at a time. At first I found it really difficult to make this medical problem engaging and thought-provoking, but when I started exploring the question of eye contact – something I struggle with physically – it led me to question how I communicate and why. My essay centered on how my difficulty making eye contact and my anxiety about my physical appearance interfered with my ability to form intimate connections with others; writing became my primary means of connection. But as I thought more about why I write and how the way that I literally see the world affects the way I think and communicate, I realized that writing is more than a comfortable crutch for me. In a MIW blog post that I wrote while working on this paper, I wrote that because I see through one eye at a time and literally can’t see the “big picture,” I:
“need a lot of time to absorb and synthesize information before I can form an opinion on it…Writing gives me that time and space to work out my thoughts and see what they add up to…[W]riting has been both an invaluable coping mechanism and an act that challenges me to think and to learn. (“Vision & Writing”)
Soon it seemed impossible not to consider myself a writer. After all, the only way I’ve truly been able to see the world around me is through a writer’s lens, a tool that pieces together my observations and experiences and creates something meaningful out of them.
Even though this process of discovering myself as a writer is hardly complete – and frankly, I hope it never will be – it was during this period when I took the MIW gateway, the peer tutoring course, and the “Art of the Essay” that I finally started to feel different aspects of myself falling into place.
Even though this process of discovering myself as a writer is hardly complete – and frankly, I hope it never will be – it was during this period when I took the MIW gateway, the peer tutoring course, and the “Art of the Essay” that I finally started to feel different aspects of myself falling into place.
Indian
English 325 is also the course in which I finally started exploring my Indian roots. I’d felt caught between Indian and American culture my whole life, but, having grown up in this country, felt much more connected to the latter. Still, I’d grown up in an Indian home surrounded by a loving immigrant community, and I was finally beginning to appreciate that when I enrolled in English 325.
The confidence I’d cultivated in my writing over the previous several months inspired me to take on a topic that had previously seemed too complex and too personal to explore: my relationship with my family and its culture. The final assignment in the class was to reconsider an argument we’d made in a previous paper. The original paper I chose to work with was a braided essay about India’s nationalist movement and subsequent independence from the British. I wove in scenes from my parents’ childhoods and young adulthoods, because they were born only a few years after Independence – a new generation in the wake of intense Indian nationalism.
When I went back to reconsider the central argument, I decided to look at how the cultural and historical context my parents came from has affected my relationship with them as I’ve grown up in the United States. I included some of the existing historical information and scenes about my parents’ lives, but I also incorporated research about India’s collectivist culture vs. America’s individualist culture, and how this dichotomy has played out in my life. I wove in scenes that demonstrated how I struggled against and rejected some of my parents’ beliefs and behaviors, and through this process I finally began to understand them – and, consequently, my identity as an Indian – much more deeply.
This essay sparked something in me, leading me to seek out angles that would allow me to write about Indian culture in classes that had nothing to do with India: for a communications course entitled “Music & Mediated Identity,” I spent nearly two months researching the cultural roots of lip-syncing in Bollywood films in an effort to understand something that had bothered me throughout my childhood; in English 425, an advanced “Art of the Essay” course that built off of English 325, I wrote about the guilt I feel as a privileged child of selfless, hardworking immigrant parents and how I’m working to reconcile that guilt with more Western ideas of independence; and, finally, for my capstone project for the Minor in Writing, I’m researching marriage, dating, and love from an Indian perspective.
But the more I think about my capstone project, the more I realize just how much I’ve developed, strengthened, and synthesized the fragments of identity that I brought with me when I first arrived on campus. The project is indeed an exploration of my culture, but it’s also a feminist endeavor and an ambitious narrative project that rests firmly on real women’s stories. The Indian American women that I’ve interviewed about their efforts to negotiate different, sometimes contradictory cultural forces are happy to share their experiences and fill in what they see as a gap in both cultural and feminist discourse. As women who identify strongly as both Indian and American, who can’t easily isolate either of these aspects of who they are, they want to both celebrate and challenge the cultural forces that have shaped them.
As a writer, I’m excited to highlight at once their personal, unique stories and the diverse range of experiences that come with the Indian American identity. As an Indian American woman myself, I’m proud to put my story next to theirs.
The confidence I’d cultivated in my writing over the previous several months inspired me to take on a topic that had previously seemed too complex and too personal to explore: my relationship with my family and its culture. The final assignment in the class was to reconsider an argument we’d made in a previous paper. The original paper I chose to work with was a braided essay about India’s nationalist movement and subsequent independence from the British. I wove in scenes from my parents’ childhoods and young adulthoods, because they were born only a few years after Independence – a new generation in the wake of intense Indian nationalism.
When I went back to reconsider the central argument, I decided to look at how the cultural and historical context my parents came from has affected my relationship with them as I’ve grown up in the United States. I included some of the existing historical information and scenes about my parents’ lives, but I also incorporated research about India’s collectivist culture vs. America’s individualist culture, and how this dichotomy has played out in my life. I wove in scenes that demonstrated how I struggled against and rejected some of my parents’ beliefs and behaviors, and through this process I finally began to understand them – and, consequently, my identity as an Indian – much more deeply.
This essay sparked something in me, leading me to seek out angles that would allow me to write about Indian culture in classes that had nothing to do with India: for a communications course entitled “Music & Mediated Identity,” I spent nearly two months researching the cultural roots of lip-syncing in Bollywood films in an effort to understand something that had bothered me throughout my childhood; in English 425, an advanced “Art of the Essay” course that built off of English 325, I wrote about the guilt I feel as a privileged child of selfless, hardworking immigrant parents and how I’m working to reconcile that guilt with more Western ideas of independence; and, finally, for my capstone project for the Minor in Writing, I’m researching marriage, dating, and love from an Indian perspective.
But the more I think about my capstone project, the more I realize just how much I’ve developed, strengthened, and synthesized the fragments of identity that I brought with me when I first arrived on campus. The project is indeed an exploration of my culture, but it’s also a feminist endeavor and an ambitious narrative project that rests firmly on real women’s stories. The Indian American women that I’ve interviewed about their efforts to negotiate different, sometimes contradictory cultural forces are happy to share their experiences and fill in what they see as a gap in both cultural and feminist discourse. As women who identify strongly as both Indian and American, who can’t easily isolate either of these aspects of who they are, they want to both celebrate and challenge the cultural forces that have shaped them.
As a writer, I’m excited to highlight at once their personal, unique stories and the diverse range of experiences that come with the Indian American identity. As an Indian American woman myself, I’m proud to put my story next to theirs.
Click below to see how this project turned out!