Forming my own identity Unveiling the reality of a younger sibling living in a pre-written path. RAJASI LADDHA features editor
My early childhood was filled with afternoons in Collins Elementary
FORMING MY OWN IDENTITY RAJASI LADDHA School under the blistering sun potting plants with the Garden Club, eating Otter Pops during the walk-a-thons and solving accursed math timetable sheets after lunch. As my second-grade teacher handed me my bright yellow timetable quiz, my eyes flitted around to see if anyone received the same colored sheet as I did. Across the classroom, I spotted a few green sheets on my friends’ desks and my heart plummeted. I hoped no one would notice that I was handed the lower level yellow sheet and that I failed to move on to the green sheet for the third week in a row. My friends needed to believe that I was smart, just like them with their lovely green timetable sheets. I blamed myself for not being intelligent enough, not being more like my idol -- my older sibling who I imagined would have been able to clear each sheet on the first try. At the time, I was only seven years old. Growing up in the Bay Area, I had to learn to accept the constant academic pressure as my cruel reality early on, much like many who were raised in Silicon Valley. Moreover, as a younger sibling, I also grew up listening to my parents telling me that I should follow in my older sibling’s footsteps since they were doing so well. So I took my parent’s advice
more than my sibling had while formand ventured in those footsteps, living ing my own identity based on who I under the heavy weight of the shadow was not another version of my sibling. my sibling’s figure ahead cast on me. My inferiority complex worsened as I I joined the same clubs they had used whatever means I could to be in the past and took up similar better than my sibling in the eyes of hobbies. Essentially, I tried to bemy parents, whether it was sleeping come a mini version of my sibling. just four hours a night to study a litHowever, we were not the same tle more or developing calluses from person and I was not able to perhours of dance practice. form at their academic standard. The constant comparison coupled In an attempt to encourage me, with internal and external pressure my parents fed me tales of my sibling’s culminated in self-doubt, low self-esaccomplishments in school: their work teem and mental health issues. I felt ethic, grades, time management skills as if I was back in my second-grade and more. I started to develop an infeclassroom, anxiously comparing myriority complex towards my sibling. self to my peers and the image of my As a few years passed by, I transelder sibling I created in my mind. ferred to a private school where the I am still learning how to accept myacademic pressure nearly doubled. self and how to manage a good relaIt was the first time my path diverged tionship with my sibling to this day. So from my sibling’s, but the added stress are many other younger siblings, as meant my grades plummeted below my story is a common narwhere my sibling’s rative, especially grades had ever in the Bay been. The weight of I WAS NOT Area. I my sibling’s shad- ANOTHER VERSION hope ow came crashing OF MY SIBLING. that down on me again, RAJASI LADDHA and this time it was heavier than ever. someday all of This cycle repeated many times in us can heal the next few years as I attempted to our inner secshed their shadow by doing someond-grade thing different, whether it was doing self and classical dance instead of Bollywood grow as or joining clubs they never did in o u r school, only to burn out over and over o w n again. I chased after that high bar they indiset for me, the pathway they paved before me; striving to be more perfect, to get better grades as long as I could at least touch that bar. The academic stress of private school and its highly competitive atmosphere increased the vidumental baggage I carried. I was bendals ing over backward trying to achieve
“
”
PHOTO | KRITI KAUSHAL
