MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY I'd say I really enjoyed the first 11 years of my life; I felt like it was a perfect world. I don't know if that's the innocence of being a child, being supported by my family or just growing up in Bangalore where the culture and school were great. I had friends and I have fond memories of my childhood. But I think really, my mental health, or my awareness of my mental health declining, was with moving. It was kind of abrupt, like over six months span of me knowing that we were going to move and me moving. So that was tough, especially because I was so comfortable in the environment I was in, being so close to grandparents and a school I loved. It was also in the middle of 6th grade around February. So, when I moved, initially the shock of being in a brand-new world was crazy, I mean I never thought I would be in America. I went to a predominantly Caucasian school, so that's kind of where the turmoil started, because I felt I was just a side character in other people's narratives and stories, and I didn't feel like I had my own in many ways. And I'm not blaming anyone else. I think it was just like, how I felt because of the representation in that school. In terms of my practice, I'd have two communities where I would explore music: one was my family at home, and the local temple. At the temple, I would go every Thursday to be a part of the bhajan group there. bhajans are devotional songs, and basically one big element of bhajans is the improvisation, which really helped me grow musically.
50 | THE INDIAN STANDARD
