Learning From Identity Crisis

Confessions of a Lifelong PolyPath

As a kid, I loved studying and learning new material at school. I loved taking neat notes and solving all the problem sets. As nerdy as it may sound, doing homework was one of my favorite things as a school kid. My mom had to force me to eat something once I was back home from school before I ran to do my homework. Math was my most favorite subject; it always felt like a series of interesting puzzles and games that I get to solve!

But I was never categorized as a “nerd” at school because I was big time into the performing arts – music, dance and theater. Every year at the school annual function, I would be part of several performances. In the higher grades, I was made in-charge of some of those performances, and I thoroughly enjoyed curating them, writing scripts, choreographing, and practicing. Throughout the school year, I used to also participate and bag prizes in a bunch of inter school competitions.

Music, especially, was an inseparable part of my daily life. I was born in a musical family and since childhood, I have been learning music from my mother (an accomplished musician herself). Growing up, I was always surrounded by music whether it was my mom’s students coming home to learn, or other artists visiting for musical hangouts (baithaks), or me attending concerts with my family every other week, or just listening to music at home on the radio or cassettes.

I could never be put in a box as a school kid since I was both academic and artistic, both geeky and groovy, both musical and mathy! 😀

Me trying to be in a box!

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Phase 2: College

Post school, I wanted to continue learning math and that somehow led me to engineering(!). I believe the biggest reason for picking engineering was the peer group. Most of the seniors that I looked up to, especially the ones who aced at math, were choosing engineering and specifically computer science at elite universities in India. So I gave the relevant entrance exams and decided to enroll in a dual degree program at BITS Pilani which let me do both math and computer science!

While academics was front and center of my experience there, music not so much at least initially. That’s when I realized how much I miss music and how much it is a part of me. Though I was part of the music club, I still felt a big void since I was no longer surrounded by music the way I was used to. At home, music was embedded in daily life just like food or water, and only at BITS I realized how much I was taking that atmosphere for granted! Eventually, I did find a wonderful musical group at BITS, also founded some clubs and organized festivals dedicated to Indian classical music.

When I look back at my time at BITS, I fondly remember all the fascinating CS and math courses, as well as the time spent in the music room, and the music concerts that I organized and performed at! Also, can’t forget the gorgeous beaches in Goa.. 😀

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Phase 3: PhD

At the end of undergrad, I had found my love for cryptography – a rigorous discipline at the intersection of mathematics and computer science. I had also experienced the thrill of research through a few projects, so a PhD seemed like the natural next step. Initial years of my PhD were the happiest of times — I was at Brown university and MIT, surrounded by the most prolific cryptographers. I was learning research from the best of the best! I was also spending a good amount of time on my music practice and performances. The IndianRaga fellowship happened around that time which put me on the digital map!

Towards the end of my PhD as I was wrapping up my thesis, I thought I should get rid of “distractions” and focus on just research. PhD can get very hard and lonely at the end, especially since the pressure of completion can feel very heavy and existential. Amidst that, I wasn’t able to muster the bandwidth or energy for music :( The fact that I was so disconnected from music made me even more unhappy, adversely affecting my research, and thus forming a vicious cycle. That’s when I decided that having space for music in my life is non negotiable! Also I was never a fan of the snow, so I decided to move away from the depressing winters! 😀

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Phase 4: My First Job Ever

Post PhD, the plan was to take up an “easy” job and make sure I have time for music. In spite of having a few competitive postdoc offers, I decided to part ways with academia and embrace the 9-to-5 in sunny California! I was looking forward to a clear separation between my job and my personal time, especially to having more time for my music. I was also looking forward to traveling and performing a lot, but this was in Feb 2020 so you know how that went.. 😀

Lo and behold, a few months into my job, I actually loved it more than I expected to! I naturally wanted to put in more effort and drive innovative solutions. However much I wanted my job to be something almost “boring” and something that does not take up much of my energy, it in fact turned out to be something that gave me immense energy! It wasn’t that I worked extra hours or anything, but my job hardly felt like “work” to me – just a series of intriguing problems that I was excited to solve! 🙂

I finally fully embraced the fact that both music and math (now, tech) are integral to my identity and well-being. Even though the term came much later, I had the epiphany that I always had been and will be a PolyPath 🙂

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Is there a Persistent Phase?

Embracing your life paths is often a long journey. It takes time to understand what paths define you because it takes time to understand and accept yourself. There are signals everywhere if you pay attention. For example, do you miss gardening when you travel and keep thinking about the plant that is about to bloom? Do you feel a huge surge of happiness when you go to your dance class? Do you feel a sigh of relief when certain events get cancelled? Do you feel particularly excited or drained by a work project? Pay attention to these emotions because they are telling you what paths should or should NOT be in your life.

If you are struggling with some version of an identity crisis and need help debugging your life paths, I am happy to be your rubber duck :D! You can schedule time with me HERE :)

PS: Rubber ducking is a technique to debug your code i.e. identify and fix why your code is not running as expected. In this technique, you describe your code line-by-line to a rubber duck, that’s it. The idea is that the process of explaining and articulating your problems aloud even if it is to a rubber duck, often helps you debug 😀