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I chose this image simply because it shows the massive and grandeur impact that performances can have on people. This is a picture of an ACL concert, where thousands of people have gathered and are celebrating something one would consider small as in "Oh its just music" but in reality is such a big event.

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“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”, a quote by Shakespeare that has stayed with me throughout my life. My dad first introduced me to that quote, and something about it just clicked with me. Which I would soon realize is my inner passion and love for theater and performance. Ever since I was a little kid, I would always take every opportunity to perform. Whether it was singing in front of family and friends at gatherings, or doing dances for my school assemblies, or even skits with classmates for projects. Every aspect of my life was defined by performance. And that is how I viewed the world as well, and why that quote resonates so deeply with me. I have always viewed the world as my stage, and every interaction, conversation and even moment, a part of one big performance. It is what led me to join theater, and eventually pursue acting as a career. However, the part of the actual stage that got me so invested in it was the ability to affect people’s emotions so deeply simply through performance. Standing up in front of hundreds of people, and in whatever way, affecting their emotion, mindset, and so much more at the time felt so empowering and filling for me. And so I took to a bigger audience in mind, and started my pursuit of being an actor for film and television. The scope in which that entailed, the amount of people constantly influenced by fictional characters through a screen in front of them, left me in awe every time the thought sprung up in my mind. I want to be that influence. That example, that people look up to, or that ideal that people hate. Whatever the role might consist of, I wanted to have that grand effect on the people around me and the world as a whole. A lot of people say that actors are…well just “actors”. That negative connotation, that all they do is simply provide for light entertainment. But I have never been able to see it in such a simple sense. Actors, in my mind, have such a profound effect on the society we live in. They give people something to look forward to, to look up to, or at times to even look down upon. Let us live through their imaginative realities and obtain a glimpse of what our future might look like.

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I chose the image of an Indian flag because when I think of being patriotic towards my country, I think of the flag soaring high and all the people around it looking up to its glory.

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Culture and representation play a big role in my life. While I was born in the United States, I spent a good half of my life growing up in India. It is something that I do not hide from, and am more so very proud of. In a lot of ways, India acts as my other home, one that is very different to the one here, but a home nonetheless. And it hurts me to see such a beautiful place, with some of the best people I’ve ever met, be portrayed in such a negative light in a lot of the media and overall space around me. Which actually brings me back to the influence of actors and the roles they play in society. The lack of Indian actors in Hollywood, is a problem that I relate to deeply, and feel as though it is the reason there are a lot of negative stereotypes about us that are portrayed today. With most of the Indian roles in Hollywood, we are portrayed as comic relief characters simply because of our heritage and culture, instead of actual comic characters. As someone who was raised in India, it is important to me that the stereotypes surrounding it are corrected. Which is why I try to incorporate my heritage in any shape or form into most aspects of my life, but most predominantly my art. I want to serve as a correction to that false light, and show the beauties of the country and the people who reside there. As an actor, one of my main goals is to act as a bridge between the two countries, and the world's so to speak. And so I feel it is evident in most of the cohorts, where I try to bring out some form of my roots. In devised theater, I put India on my map and expressed my time there was comfortable and happy. In playwriting/design, I showed the stereotype revolving around Indian parents that we must follow a strict career path of either Business, engineering or medicine, which I then disproved with my parents letting me go into the arts. And finally in Design, I created a project with others that revolved around displaying different cultures and all they bring to the table. And that demonstration was something I was deeply invested in, as I not only aim to show my culture, but also sit on the other side of the table and learn from others as well.

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UT provides inspiration to not only me but so many people. And so I chose the image of our school to show how much of an inspiration and positive impact it has had on me and so many others.

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Inspirations play a big role in my life. Its something about people who do good, work hard or achieve goals similar to yours that just clicks in one’s brain and makes them seem admirable. Inspirations to me are very important, because other than the fact that they give you something to look up to, they give you something to work towards. I strive to be like those who inspire me, but in other words, I try to learn from them. Whether it be subconsciously, or intentionally, I always try to take their positives and implement those skills, mindsets, or whatever it might be into my life. Whether it be those who inspire me to do better myself, or by setting an example themselves. It's something I don’t realize until I look back at past experiences, and looking back at this year, the one thing I constantly find inspiring me more than anything else are the people around me. UT students and faculty in every one of my classes continue to inspire me to learn more, do better and become better. And everyone in their own unique way. I find it so refreshing and energizing to see everyone around me so passionate and hard working towards their goals and dreams. It is such a fulfilling sight that makes me want to share that energy.

Looking back at the cohorts, different people excelled in each of the cohorts, but they acted as an inspiration to learn from. An instance that comes to mind is the Dance section. I’ve never been much of a dancer myself, but throughout my time in the cohort I constantly found myself taking inspiration from everyone around me. And ended up really enjoying my experience in dance through the help of those around me. In the final presentation especially, taking inspiration from everyone’s ideas and combining them into one was such a nice experience.

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This image just perfectly depicts what I wanted to show in my essay about practices and habits. It shows the work of improving on yourself, and a lot of the time with the help of others.

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One of things I try to work on the most are my practices and habits, in life in general. Our practices and habits are, in the end, what truly define us. The actions that speak louder than the words we let out. And it is definitely something that I work on a lot, and pay a lot of attention to. I feel like my father has a big part in this, but he has always led this virtue with example. My dad was someone who would always work to better himself. Top of his class, the best international student, worked his way up from the bottom of India to the top of the United States. Which is a lot of pressure for me to follow in. However, he acts as a role model in the sense that I am always trying to obtain those qualities he carries. While he just has that mindset, I find myself constantly trying to remind myself of it. But it is something that I constantly find myself replaying in my mind. And so with my art in particular, I constantly try to find more ways to improve on it. Whether it be watching TV shows or movies, I will take mental note of actors that I believe have good acting. Or scenes that I believe are well directed, and implement those notes into my practice. However, I think the biggest quality to improving is to notice one’s shortcomings. Because if you cannot even see the problem, you will never be able to find the solution. And so,  playwriting and creativity are both practices that I feel I am a little less experienced with, therefore I have been trying to put more time into it. It directly correlates with my goal of directing and producing my own works in the future. However, I have a challenging time with creating ideas in general, and then find myself even more challenged going into the details of the stories I create. Things such as dialogue and individual moments of connection.

Therefore in all the cohorts I have tried to be more creative in the works I come up with, creating more unique ideas or at least in the ways of approaching common ideas. The hometown project was definitely the best assignment that helped me in tackling this issue. I found myself not only having to create a unique idea, but going into the details of that idea in addition to collaborating with two other people in finding a way to combine all our ideas that creates a story that displays everyone’s experience.