Hi everyone! My name is Saumya Bhutani. I’m 21 years old and a senior at Vassar College, a small liberal arts school in the Hudson Valley in New York. I’m majoring in History and minoring in Biology, and I plan to attend medical school in the future. I am thrilled to be joining the BG team as a writer and newsletter administrator. On that note, let me take this opportunity to encourage you to sign up for our monthly newsletter! Keep reading and I assure you my wit and charm will persuade you to sign up for the newsletter simply because you will want to hear more.
I found out about BG just a few months ago thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook, which does, in fact, make our world go round. I was so impressed by this unique resource for young South Asian women growing up in the United States. I was also incredibly disappointed that I had never heard of it before. Growing up I had neither solid lifelong brown girlfriends (mainly because my family moved often) nor an older sister (or any siblings for that matter). So I would have loved to have something like BG to help me out through those teenage years in dealing with issues that are uniquely brown and to give me a way to read about and express what I love about our culture.
Despite the lack of close brown friends I still grew up immersed in my culture. Some of the ways I did this was through developing a love-hate relationship with Bollywood, learning Bharatnatyam, listening to Hindi music, and visiting India almost every year. In college, I have been heavily involved with my school’s South Asian Students Alliance, culminating in serving as Co-President for my senior year. Being a part of the South Asian Students Alliance has been a huge part of my college experience and I have loved it. But, being on a predominantly white campus has come with its own set of challenges in thinking about my identity and where I fit in.
Okay. Now besides all that seriousness I like to pride myself on being someone who doesn’t take life too seriously and likes to have fun—although I can burst into tears at the drop of a hat as I am incredibly sensitive (both a blessing and a curse). I love traveling, meeting new people, making friends, shopping, dressing up, dancing, playing board games, reading, taking pictures, visiting museums, and more. I am also a pop culture junkie and history aficionado. I am full of many more quirks and idiosyncrasies and I can’t wait to share them and my thoughts with all of you through writing for BG!
