Simply Shreya: maybe I’m the bridge
Wingspan’s Shreya Jagan shares her personal take on issues and experiences in her weekly column Simply Shreya.
October 23, 2019
Four days from now, I’ll be celebrating the festival of lights. Just the thought of of Diwali brought this overwhelming feeling of melancholy upon me. But not for the reason you would think.
I’ve lived in the United States all my life. I grew up surrounded by American culture. But I’ve always had an affinity for my culture. Festivals, and traditions. I don’t know if I had ever wondered why. Why I cared so much, but suddenly I did. Questions I didn’t even know I had started popping into my head. But one question, in particular, stood out.
Who am I?
My parents moved from India to the United States so that I’d have a better life and so that my brother would have a better life. I never realized how much they gave up for me. They gave up their family and I know that nothing could ever amount to that. My parents are the bravest people I know because I don’t know if I would have it in me to do the same.
We religiously celebrate every single holiday. We do it for our heritage, our religion, our beliefs. But, we also do it for the people we love. And I wasn’t mature enough to understand this until now.
I like to assume that I don’t have an ego. But I know that I’m one of the proudest people there is when it comes to my history.
It’s hard to explain, but I feel like I’m torn between two different countries with no bridge to cross.
Maybe I’m that bridge. I’m dejected, but yet full of joy; I’m devastated, but I’m also hopeful because I get the best and the worst of both worlds.
My whole life is here.
Friends, dance, school.
All of it.
And most of my family is over there.
They’re only a phone call away. But at the same time they’re also 9,000 miles away.
I think that’s why it matters so much to me: all these celebrations. Because, no matter where I am, they’re celebrating and I’m celebrating.
We’re celebrating.
Staff Reporter Shreya Jagan and her family visit this temple in Kanchipuram, to recognize the Gods that her family celebrates during Diwali. While the celebration of Diwali isn’t strictly religious, the origins of the holiday can be found in Hinduism, and can be honored and celebrated in temples such as this.
Staff Reporter Shreya Jagan visits India every few years to see the sights of Chennai, the city where her family lives. The views of Chennai are very different from American cities, and a place where Jagan can visit her family in India.
The kolam is a form of visual art made of rice flour, where designs are traced with the flour onto the floor. Staff Reporter Shreya Jagan and her family decorated this one with lights, to celebrate the cultural holiday called Diwali.
