In the landscape of human experience, few journeys are as transformative as those that cross not just borders, but the invisible boundaries of culture, identity, and belonging. This is a story about two individuals whose paths through different worlds shaped not only who they became, but how they learned to see themselves and others with radical acceptance.
The first awakening came early, in the everyday observations of a child growing up in India.
I think in India, how much ever you want to, like, ignore sort of the disparity of life and Mhmm. Like, somebody comes to your house and, you know, of life and Mhmm. Like, somebody comes to your house and they’re like cleaning or whatever. Right? You’re like, oh, this is pretty why do they clean and why don’t we clean on another one? Like, kind of a weird question that comes to mind. And then you’re like, oh, even if they clean, that’s fine. But then they don’t live in a proper house. They live in a slightly like a made up house. And I’m like, oh, why is that? Like you kind of are almost like seeing that on a day to day basis in your environment. And I think that was kind of the first time I was like, why, like, why is why is there so much disparity in the world? And then I guess part of it, you start realizing, okay, part of it is privilege. Like, you have some privilege and you want to kind of I call it, like, you have to lend your privilege to other people. Like, if you have if you’re born with some privilege that you identify as privilege, you have to learn how to, like, lend it. These weren’t abstract lessons about inequality - they were daily encounters with disparity that lived right outside the front door. The simple question of “why do they clean and why don’t we clean?” opened a door to understanding privilege that would never close again.
This early recognition of privilege wasn’t just intellectual - it came with a sense of responsibility, a calling to “lend” that privilege to others. It was the beginning of a worldview that would be tested and refined through years of cultural navigation.
Years later, the move to America’s Bay Area brought new revelations.
I think when I moved to sort of the Bay Area, about ten ten ten, twelve years back, I think what I realized is, like, initially, it was like, wow, this is so awesome. Like, there’s, like, technology and a lot of like, I I love technology. So it’s, like, surrounded by all the tech companies and all of that. But I was like over time, I realized that America is very, like, individual first, community second kind of approach. And community is also looked at as from the lens of capitalism as like, how can I who’s a customer? Who will pay me money? How much revenue will they help me generate? So it can start feeling very transactional. And almost like you’re forgetting that. And then a lot of my friends who are from India, they feel right. They miss the community aspects of India, but they don’t, a lot of them don’t even realize that some of that community aspect was a little toxic. It was not like healthy community, right, if that makes sense. The initial excitement of being surrounded by technology and innovation gradually gave way to a deeper understanding of cultural differences. Where India had been community-first (sometimes toxically so), America revealed itself as fundamentally individual-first, viewing even community through the lens of capitalism and transaction.
This wasn’t a simple case of one culture being better than another. Both had their shadows - India’s community could be suffocating and judgmental, while America’s individualism could leave people isolated and viewing relationships as transactions. The complexity of these cultural systems would become a lens for understanding the world.
For the second speaker, the journey began even earlier, with a childhood marked by constant movement.
I think something that really helped when I moved there was I had already moved a lot before moving to India. So every two years we would pack up and we’d move to a new state, state, and I was going to a different school every single year. And so I was already used to the fact of, like, okay, I’m gonna be around a group of people I’ve really never been around, and I’m gonna be interacting with people who don’t really know me. I’m gonna have to either, you know, put in a little more effort to get to find my people, things like that. And so I was already used to that. I obviously had never moved across the world before, and I had never really experienced what it was like to be in a very different culture. Every two years brought a new state, a new school, a new group of strangers to navigate. This constant adaptation built a kind of resilience muscle, preparing them for the ultimate cultural leap.
But nothing could fully prepare them for the identity crisis that awaited.
I definitely I think at that age, what was really hard was I was in America up until I was nine, eight, nine years old, and I had a different, like, skin tone than everyone else. I had different celebrations that I would celebrate. I had different holidays, things like that, and I never really understood why. Like, I just was like, oh, that’s just how it is. That’s how I am. And so I never really felt like I belonged back in America. Any of the schools that I was in the communities as that I was a part of. And then I go to India and seemingly the culture that I’m supposed to be a part of, and the kids were like, oh, you do that the American way. Oh, you have an American accent. Oh, you don’t do this the way that we do it. And I was like, okay. So now these people are also telling the same thing. The exact same thing I’m hearing from people that, you know, are supposed to be from my own community. Here was the cruel paradox of the third culture experience - being too different in America because of skin tone and celebrations, then being too American in India because of accent and approach. It was a double rejection that cut to the core of belonging.
What could have been a story of permanent displacement became something else entirely.