The Importance of Reconnecting to Your Heritage

From San Diego, Vedan Desai is currently a Junior studying Data Science at the University of California, San Diego. He has shared how reading comics of Indian history and mythology has allowed him to reconnect to his heritage, Indian (Gujurati and Konkani to be specific), and gain confidence in the process. Thank you for your submission, Vedan!

Importance of Reconnecting with your Heritage

By: Vedan Desai

When people look at me today, they see tons of confidence (some even say that I suffer from an excess of it) and a coherent, well-presented individual who can usually speak in full sentences. What they don't see is the awkward, socially unadjusted kid I was all throughout elementary. Back then I was what some would consider a loner, incapable of holding conversations with my peers, and this was compounded by the fact that I was the only Indian in my grade.

I recommend everybody to enter these strange Indian comic books, retellings of Indian history and mythology for kids, that my amazing extended family in India, to whom I owe much of my success today, brought me as a gift knowing that I loved to read. They were published by a company called Amar Chitra Katha and these books were essential in helping me find out who I was. Up until I read them I thought I was isolated, an outsider to society with no connections past or present. The knowledge that there were Indians before me who became global and historical figures of great importance filled me with confidence and helped me realize that I could be more than just a fringe member of Western society. These books taught me that I was the only person holding myself back, and the world was at my fingertips.

Example of an Amar Chitra Katha Comic: