I am a Senior Art History and Comparative Literature double major from outside Kolkata, India, though I spent most of my childhood living in Kuwait, with a brief stint in Montreal, Canada. I grew up in a bilingual household of Bengali and English (though we often also resorted to Banglish) and my first exposure to a third language came at the tender age of six while living in Francophone Canada. Given the extent to which I struggled with basic French at the time, nobody would have guessed that over ten years later, I would count French as one of my most beloved languages. I went on to take intensive Spanish alongside Arabic, later adding some rudimentary Italian and Portuguese.

The most rewarding component of my Williams experience has been the travel. Winter Study of my sophomore year, I took part in the Williams in Georgia program, living in Tbilisi and working in a contemporary art gallery for three weeks. In summer 2010, I was awarded a Wilmers Travel Fellowship to study the effects of Moroccan immigration on the Islamic legacy of Andalusia, spending time in both Morocco and Spain. Then in the fall semester of my third year, I attended the International Honors Program, traveling to Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam. Even my spring break last year was an alternative trip in the Dominican Republic, where I was able to drill my Spanish (I am fluent enough to make myself understood to five year-olds!).

With this constant movement, I have been forced to examine the power of language and through it, the diversity in the world’s cultures and traditions as well as the universality of happiness and strife. What was once an academic and literary interest in language is now fueled by an interest in people. So what’s next? Maybe some Hindi, a little bit of Chinese and a smattering of Japanese.