Alumni Impact: Medha Kohli
Alumni Impact is a social media campaign that recognizes the excellent work being done by FIUTS alumni all around the world. This week, meet Medha!
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SHALL WE BEGIN IN THE MIDDLE?
Medha Kohli, FIUTS SUSI alumna from Hyderabad, India.
I have been suggested to begin by introducing my name and where I come from. But I’m not good with introductions.
They have that warm, yet strange sense of a formal opening for a conversation that finds my introverted self instantly averting. I prefer beginning in the middle. You know… like when you unconsciously start humming along to a tune that you hear someone standing next to you on a bus hum, and then strike up a conversation with them about it? Or when you exchange that unsaid look of, “so, you too eh?” with a fellow companion as you wait to catch your breath on your way up a hike, wondering why you thought this would be a great idea. Then have a great experience anyway… So please with bear with me, would you?
You and I hummed a similar tune too, for most part along our journey as international students in Seattle. We stayed over with ‘parents’ who graciously hosted us. Some to allow their children exposure to different cultures and countries, some because company young or old, is a soothing balm for lonesome or monotonous life, and some because hey, it is an undeniably great idea to meet new people. We jumped into lakes and danced on streets, and were invited for barbeque parties, we went up the gorgeous Rainier, volunteered at food distribution centres, at Marra’s farm, chilled in Magnuson Park or Golden Garden Beach, Green Lake Park, Kerry Park and of course Gas Works Park for the much awaited 4th of July fireworks spectacle, visited the Pike Place market, ate Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican and a dozen other cuisines…. The list could really go on.
Medha pictured with FIUTS ambassadors.
At the heart of all this that you and I share, is our love for our ambassadors who gifted us these memorable experiences, and all the organisers at FIUTS for having helped curate that space. One that not only nurtures, but celebrates diversity in ways few organizations do.
For a while now, the familiar has been romanticized everywhere around us to an extent that we have become antagonistic towards any and all forms of ‘other.’ Our comfort in the familiar has made us complacent, to put it subtly. The drudgery of having to survive a collapsing, burning, capitalistic economy has drained us all. In our quest to find or make versions of our own personal brand of infinities, somewhere our growth as a collective has stunted, both mentally and spiritually.
What makes FIUTS so special is that it takes the unfamiliar — people, places and culture — and redefines ‘familiar’ by bringing us closer not on account of language, race, religion, region; but on account of our love for food, for company, for a community coming together to find meaning in a new place, together and a shared understanding of empathy.
I have travelled to and/or lived in cities across North & South India, from Delhi, Sonepat, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Vizag and Hyderabad now. When you move around so much, ‘conversations’ and ‘curiosity’ become intrinsic to your life experiences.
My time in the U.S. and with my FIUTS ambassadors opened me up. My conversations with 6 strangers in all three American cities I visited, and the fact that I too, as an introvert, was capable of making friends in the shortest span of time I could imagine all were like stepping stones for me to find a space wherever I went to make conversations. Today, more than ever, these conversations are a necessity.
Medha pictured with FIUTS organizers, her host family, and social entrepreneur Mr. Luis Ortega.
And beginning these conversations from the middle too, perhaps? By making meaning and building familiarity out of shared experiences like we did at FIUTS as international students in a new city. Focussing less on where we come from, more on where do we go from here… maybe by beginning to acknowledge that you and I are both anxious, or you and I are both scared or angry or fatigued and are seeking to build alternative societies where we can hope and re-imagine a new world.
I have travelled as a student first, then as a development sector professional. Trust me, it only sounds nice (if at all) professional life by all standards and criteria of capitalistic success would define me as your classic failure and then say, ‘but that is the greatest learning, greatest experience!’ Maybe we could begin here, if this resonates with you.
We’ve all seen crisis after crisis, since the one big pandemic struck us all. The world is reeling with environmental, political, economic, and racial crises. And so, in my attempt to cultivate spaces for conversations to take place, I’m currently working on a program called ‘Writing Through Crisis.’ It is a 5 week writing workshop for young adults 16-25 years of age, to document their feelings/stories from the last 6-7 months and curate an Anthology of their experiences. In addition to Rubaroo – the Hyd-based NGO which has graciously allowed me a platform to host my program, I’m truly humbled to have the support of the U.S. Consulate at Hyderabad and more importantly Journalist & Memoirist Sarah Stuteville, an instructor from my exchange program, who will be a guest speaker for one of the sessions of the workshop.
I continue to be in touch with some of the organisers and ambassadors I met at FIUTS, UW and of course my cohort from the SUSI program, who are an integral part of how I continue to approach ‘conversations’ with the other, with strangers. And I’m truly grateful to them for it. Only now, I begin all or at least most of conversations, in the middle.
Medha Kohli attended the SUSI program on New Media & Journalism in 2014 at University of Washington in Seattle. She is from Hyderabad, India. She completed her Bachelors in Journalism, and went on to pursue the prestigious Young India Fellowship Program that awarded her a Post Graduate Diploma in Liberal Arts from Ashoka University.
She has worked with an ed-tech start-up, a chain of progressive schools and an NGO – all based out of Bangalore, in her quest to explore the education sector. She currently works as an Independent Consultant and is engaged with two projects. ‘Writing Through Crisis’ is a 5-week writing workshop that she has designed. In addition to this, she has also recently taken on a project in the capacity of a Project Producer with Girl Effect – where she will be working on handling a Digital Campaign to sensitize young mothers in India about the importance of vaccines.
SUSI programs promote a better understanding of the people, institutions, and culture of the United States among international students, teachers, and scholars. Study of the U.S. Institutes (SUSIs) are short-term academic programs for groups of undergraduate leaders, educators, and scholars from around the world. Hosted by academic institutions throughout the United States, these 5- to 6-week Institutes include an intensive academic residency and an integrated educational study tour. Extracurricular cultural and community activities help to broaden the participants’ understanding of U.S. society. Learn more about SUSI programs here.
Guest posts on the FIUTS blog represent the experiences and views of individual writers. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FIUTS or any organizations or institutions affiliated with our programs.