WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PETER ALTER]: Okay. This interview is being conducted on 07/14/2025 by me, Peter Alter, on behalf of the National Indo American Museum. If you could please, state and spell your name. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SHRUTHI KANNAN]: Sure. My name is Shruti Kharnan, and the spelling is S H R U T H I space, and it's so my last name is K A N N A N. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Very good. Thank you. And where were you born? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I was born in Bhilai in kind of Central North India. But I really was brought up in kind of partly in Chennai in South India and then the rest of the time in Chicago. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. Very good. And in in what year were you born? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: 1989. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. Very good. So, we like to start our interviews kind of at the beginning. So, could you talk a little bit about what it was like for you growing up mostly, well, in India before you moved here? It sounds like primarily in Chennai. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. So I was in Chennai, you know, from infancy up until right before I turned 13, which is when I came to Chicago. So, I had, you know, those years there. And I lived in a joint family with my parents and then my father's mother and father. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 When I think about my early days, it's, there's a there's a lot of family around. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on both sides, as well as cousins and aunts and uncles. My father was very, very busy with work, and my mother was enrolled in school, in grad school, that she essentially took a break from in order to have me. So, you know, I was a pretty self-sufficient child. I kind of managed myself. I did my schoolwork. I played, you know, independently or with my friends out in the street. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Gosh! Yeah. I'm trying to think what else. Like, I would say, you know, if I think back to those early years, there's some things that stand out. I lived in what's called a dead end. So it's a street it's not a through street. So, it was a pretty safe place for me and my friends to play in. So, we had the multiple friends, like kind of school-aged friends of an age range. And we used to play outside all the time. And that's one of the things I remember with the most, like fondness and joy we had. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Not only that we had each other, but the physical environment, you know, not only was it safe, but we also had, like, lots of walls and things that we could climb on, jump on, like gardens. So, there's just a lot of place for us to play. And the weather was generally nice. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I started learning music at a young age and, you know, it's funny. I, I went to music classes, like, I think twice a week, for, like, an hour or so. I started at the age of 4. Initially, I had a teacher who would come home, and then I moved to a teacher whose home I went to. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And it's funny because I don't really remember practicing music at home. Like, it wasn't a thing that I just went to classes, and I came back and that was it. But it still feels like a very big part of my childhood. The songs that I learned, the role of the guru, the musical teacher, in my life was a big thing. And, and really, like, I would say the role of a musical guru is comparable to what other people have as a spiritual guru, like in terms of, you know, there's a discipline and a practice. And as an adult in some ways, like, those things have become cringeworthy to me, but, but other parts of it have felt very influential and glad it happened. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. What, if I may ask, what parts feel cringeworthy? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Well, in Carnatic music, there's a lot of...harsh judgments about what is kind of what we call pure classical music and then what lies outside that realm, which is a music pop music, folk music, folk music. And I think, I grew up hearing a lot of those, yeah, very harsh value judgments, from many people around me. And part of the role of the guru is really to inculcate, like, that value in you of sticking with what is held as pure and classical and not--and kind of protecting you as a student from those other influences. As an adult, I see that those boundaries are they're very elitist and, they serve to, disenfranchise a lot of people from having a voice and having respect in the musical world, especially people whose traditions are not part of Carnatic music, who don't come from the caste background. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 On the other hand, though, I mean, I am glad I had a musical education. It's something that's special to me. It's something that helped me. It gave me a discipline to follow something that was equal parts art and science that, helped me cultivate something outside schoolwork, something that's helped me connect with other people in multiple ways. And having a structure to do that, having a serious art form that, that really rewarded an investment of time, investment of practice, and having the guidance of a teacher for all of that has been helpful for me. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Wonderful. Thank you. Did you have any, siblings? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: No. I'm an only child. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. Alright. Very good. So, you talked about your musical education. What about, sort of the standard school? What was that like for you? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah, I went to a private school, and it's called Vidya Mandir. It was an elite school in like, close, pretty close to where I where I lived. And in my family, studying in academics has always held to be very important. Like, it's just you have to do well. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, you know, I was seeing everyone study around me. Like, my mother was in school. So, I had that model of, you know, like an adult who's close to me, that I looked up to, studying. My father was he wasn't want to put pressure on me, and I really didn't need pressure. I just kind of took to schooling easily. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But I do have memories of my father asking me, like, we used to have these graded tests. And so we'd have we'd make, like, I don't know, they'd be out of 20 points. And then if it was if I got a 19 or if I'd like missed a couple, he'd ask me, "Like, where did those two points go?" Like, what happened? He'd ask me what all my classmates got. And at that age, like, I think I felt I had mixed feelings. Like, one, I was thinking about all those things. I did, you know, it did matter to me what my peers, had. You know, I also was a little resentful because--come on now, I think this seems good. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, I think there's a lot--yeah--there's a lot to be said for achieving perfect-- like, trying to achieve perfection, especially when it's possible. I think there's a-- Perfection is possible in a math test way more than anywhere else in life. *both laugh* So maybe it makes sense to do it, to try for it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Right *laughing* 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah! And I think, like, doing well in school gave me a lot of validation. I mean, it was something to claim out, to say I was doing well, I was fulfilling expectations. That adults had in me. And mostly if I was doing that, I was left alone in the rest of-- You know, people didn't worry about me. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: I read, in a piece that you wrote, I think, for Medium, about your mother and grandmother, allowing or encouraging you to wear saris. Could you talk about sort of that aspect of your growing up? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: *pauses* Yeah. That some of that is hard to remember. I don't remember what I said in the Medium, but I do remember that I had an interest in...saris. Let's just say that. Like, and I don't know when, but somehow, I learned how to drape one when I was a child. And so, later on in college and so on, like before I had transitioned, I was helping my friends drape their saris 'cause I knew how to. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, at least at that-- And this is the, let's say, before I was 7. So some time under the age of 7, a boy child's interest... Hm, I thought this was a universal experience, but it's true for me. It's definitely true for some other people I know. A male child's interest in female clothing was treated pretty benignly, especially by the women in the house, you know, the people who are bringing you up, essentially. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So, I was-- I saw my mom's saris. I, you know, my grandmother would let me take her jewelry out, and she had a lot that she had collected over the years. I was able to see it. She would, just to entertain me, I think, to keep me occupied. She'd set it all out and then she'd go do her work. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And so I'd look through it and fantasize about it. And, you know, people knew me as a child who loved jewelry. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mmm! 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And it was fine. It was completely fine. I used to like to wear bangles as well. And then there was one... I don't know if I fully remember this, or if it was something that I kind of made up as a memory, because my mom told me it happened. You know, we went to a doctor's checkup. I believe it was just a regular checkup, and the doctor told my mom that she had to stop me from wearing, or she had to take the bangles away. Because it-- Yeah, it's gonna confuse me. I think it was her, it was her advice. I don't remember if my mom acted on that. It was just so long ago and I mostly remember it from my mom telling me, but... 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Yeah, that I remember. And then I had this, this very clear--this is just funny--I had this very clear memory as, as an adult of this party that my mom threw for me in, in the apartment that we used to live in before we moved to a house. Where, you know, she dressed me up in women's clothing and, had me wear her jewelry. And, I had a lovely time. Like, it just felt--and she called all these people--and it just felt great. But the party ended kind of in tears because I'd lost her ring. And I remember that clearly. I remember the ring that it was. It was it was a, it's a nari mothiram. It's a specially shaped ring. It's kind of tooth shaped, but kind of fits onto your finger. And it--it's just it's a special-- It's a special shape. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And the thing is, after I transitioned and I came out to my mom, like, a few years after that, I asked her about this party because I-- For me, that was, this memory of my mother having accepted me as I was, like, and kind of, like, this memory if it happened before, it can happen again, you know? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: But she has no recollection of this happening. So I don't know if I just like dreamed it up. It was just like intense, like, wish fulfillment? And the-- Things don't add up. Like I when I was living when we were living in that apartment, I was too young to really remember much. So, this feels too vivid a memory for that age. And I also don't think my mother would have given me rings that, you know, were expensive and really would not have fit on a 3-year-old's fingers. So, I probably did make it up. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Ah, okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: But that-- Well, I don't know why I went into that. But, like, just, you know, just I think maybe there's some wishes that I had when I-- that weren't really fulfilled, but I just kinda held on to them. You know, like a kind of a bad little kind of stream of, like, this is how life could be or how it could feel... 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And there's some milestones, markers in Brahmin, like, in a proper caste Brahmin boys' life. And the thing that I talked about with, like, interest in feminine clothing and so on being treated benignly, goes away when you have your, kind of thread ceremony that happens. It's different for different boys. Usually, it happens at an odd age, so, like, 5, 7, 9. And that's when you're supposed to kind of move to the male world. So, once you have it, your part-- You're like, initiated into doing rituals. So then you start moving with the men. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And after that, like I do remember, either that, or was it just other physical changes? Maybe all of them came together? That really marked me as a boy. So then, you know, schooling was also very separate. And, Oh! Sorry. Schooling wasn't separate. But in our schools, like, we-- The gendering was pretty, constant. Like, we line up differently. Like, people look at who stands with whom. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Ah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And... Yeah, I don't really feel like I fit in. Like, I'm, I'm *sighs*. A lot of my memories are very impressionistic. I don't think I have clear memories of much. I do remember, like, kind of being more friends with the girls than the boys, at school and that being hard because it's not a-- It's, it's not, you know, how do I say it? There's only so far those friendships can go after that, like, really beyond a certain level of depth. People split up. I'm not staying over at their houses, so they're spending all the time with them and so on. And I didn't want to be with the boys. So I ended up feeling a little lonely, I think. Like, not having friendships didn't go very far. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 That said, though, in my-- that was at school. At home, in my neighborhood, I had great friendships. And they were, of children of, like, a few different ages, like, a couple years younger to younger than me up to people a few years older than me... 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Yeah. And I remember peop-- Like this again, this there's no way to prove any of this or to be sure about this, but I do feel like people treated me a little differently. And not always badly, but just with a little bit of kind of... affectionate amusement? Kind of, "This person seems a little different." 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Ah, okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And, I don't know if that was-- My...I don't know. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. You mentioned that your mom was in graduate school when you were younger. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Right. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: What was she studying? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: She was studying English literature. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. And, what did your dad do for employment? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: He, was and still is, a software engineer. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. Very good. How did your family decide to come to United States? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: My father had started a small business in India, and the... I think had some clients in the US. So, there was this opportunity for him to head a small office here, kind of like a satellite office. Here in the US, in Chicago. So, you know, this is when I was 12 or so in 2002, right, before I turned 13. He said it was a possibility. Both me and my mom were very happy to do it and, to move. And, you know, then it became (inaudible) 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. Why were you happy to move? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I knew at that age that I was queer. I think from the age of 9 or 10, I kind of knew and I had seen little things here and there. So, like, on TV, there were, like, some shows on American, channels. There's the Internet that we had. Scooling a little bit here and there. And so, you know, I could I felt like, "Oh, that's me. I see that. That I like boys." And it, you know, immediately felt like this is just based on the on TV. Like, there's just there's more room for me in the US than there is in India to be who I am. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: I see. Okay. What was that, as a-- What was your, what were your experiences coming to the Chicago like for you? When you were that kind of young, still a young person? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: It's yeah. It's been so long and, like, after some of it, it's tough to have very clear memories. When I came here, I enrolled in school pretty quickly. We moved to-- So this is in, 2002. I want to say August, sometime over the summer. And we moved to the suburbs, like the Northwest suburbs. So, Palatine first and then Rolling Meadows. My mother was actually sick at the time. So she was recovering in India. My father and I came first so that I could start school because I was missing out in a lot of school... And, I came here and enrolled in eighth grade in one of the suburban junior high schools. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 It feels like a whirlwind, especially that first month. I mean, everything was different. There was there were a lot fewer people. You had to drive everywhere. We didn't know people either. So there was some of that, was also that, you know, I came here. I was... confused. Like I took the old school system was new. I knew what to do, kind of. Like, I think I think my, instincts were that still that I had to do well in school. That was a nonnegotiable. I just had to do it because that's what my family expects. That's the ticket to success in life. So I have to do it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And so I learned the ropes around school pretty quickly. Socially, was it's quite harder, quite, quite a bit harder. My father for the first, maybe for six months, maybe it was-- I don't remember exactly how long before my mom came... But, I remember going to school, doing my schoolwork and watching a lot of TV. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Like I was, we had just got TV at home. I was watching a lot of it. And then my father got me the small kind of TV that was as big as this pillow. So like, I don't know, like a foot and a half, by foot and a half. And I was watching that. And that was a lot of my life. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I started taking music classes again, maybe a year or a couple of years into, coming here. You know, and at least at that time, I don't know how many people were doing it online, but felt like a new thing. You know, I was using Skype and we're using the speaker phone to just like do it from India, for the same teacher I had in India. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, wow. Okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: So things kind of fell together. Like, the pieces of life came into place. It took me a long time to make friends. I think there were a lot of things that, you know, things with the social rules, how people talk to each other, the-- I didn't have the pop culture kind of context. I didn't grow up watching the same cartoons and movies and listen to the same music. It did take me a lot of time to catch up is what I remember. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Like I made my first-year friends, you know, I came here when I was 13. I said it took me five years to meet my friends, you know, like and those are still my best friends, but that's how long it took for me to meet them. And until then, I was just really, was at home is what I remember. I was just at home, studying, watching TV... Yeah. You know, high school became a little easier. I think I was coming into myself more and had my personality and I'm trying to think. Yeah. It's a little hard. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: It is. Yeah. Of course. That's fine. What high school did you go to? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: William Fremd High School. It's in Palatine. Are you familiar? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yes. For sure. For sure. Yeah. In high school, did you continue music? Did you have, like, extracurriculars? Or? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. I continued learning music. I wasn't performing. And I wasn't at that level. Like, it really, I wasn't at that level until two years ago. But I was still learning and I was still an important-- music was very important to me. I spent a lot more time in high school listening to music than I ever did before. There was a lot going in. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I had a set of cassette tapes that I used to listen to constantly. And then, you know, in, once we got an internet connection up and running and I had a computer in my room, I used to download a lot of music. Like, people were putting, like with thematic classical music, people had this pressure trove of recordings from the '50s onwards. Like, just be random people who used to, go out and record concerts. They started putting them up. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And so I was downloading a lot, listening to a lot. And all of that is still up there on websites that you can still access easily. So, I would say that music, taking in music was a big part of my life. So every day after school, I'd listen to a couple of records. I would just sit down my bed, play the recordings. I had a cassette tape player, and I just listen, and I would do my homework. That was my main extracurricular. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 There was, towards the end of my, high school. So like maybe the last year I joined Model United Nations and that was because my friend wanted me to. So it was peer pressure and I was not good at it. I didn't understand the rules. I didn't know what was going on. I've never been good at, like, playing those kind of elaborate strategy games that are very divorced from what I-- what I can see and feel. So but I still just did it because, I don't know, pure pressure, I guess. And, it gave me something to do with, and I became, somehow became one of the part of the leadership of the club. Yeah. I don't know what to say about that. It's a little surreal. Like, I just I was not good at it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: *Laughs* You mentioned you realized you were queer around 9 or 10, so you were still in India. And then you come to the US to Chicago, the suburbs, and, you felt like this could be a place where you could be, grow into more of yourself. How was that for you from that, like, 13 through high school? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. I mean, I think it was true. I never really had, like, a coming out as such. People just knew. And I let them I let them figure it out. I didn't have to say it. But I do think that's saying at some point, that's not true that I never told them. I think lots of people just knew and I was comfortable with that. But at some, at the age of 17, I think is when it felt important for me to say, I have to say it for myself. You know, I just, there's a narrative here that I have to be able to claim for myself because I could tell in addition to all the-- There was a fair degree of this acceptance, such as kind of confusion about who I was. And then that was fine. There were some people who were, mean about it and I could hear comments. Nobody-- I didn't draw a lot of hatred from a technical. There was one person who tried to, like, hit me, but it was it was once or twice. It wasn't often... 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 That's funny because one of them even like, I met him years later, maybe, like, ten, twelve years later in, at a, like a, like some kind of big street fest. And he had totally forgotten me and he's changed and he's, you know, like he's queer accepting and, that's what his Facebook says. So it's, it's a little surreal to me that like, "Oh my goodness. You were really just working through your own issues." With all of that unpleasantness towards me. So that was that. I think the people were unpleasant. Some people. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But so that, and then I think the confusion amongst some people, I felt that. And then I was also, you know, in some way at that age, looking for love, feeling the need to connect on that romantic level and felt important for me to say, "This is who I am." Not just let other people figure it out themselves because they will clearly go in different ways with it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So I came out to my mother first and then she told my father, and they I think they were confused, not sure what to do with it, but they were really very open minded and accepting from the very beginning. They just let it be. They didn't ask me a lot of questions and I don't know what they would have asked either at that age. I wasn't dating anybody. I really it took me a long time to start doing that. So, so yeah. So that I don't know if there was much to ask, but I do think that it was the right decision for me to come out in my own terms and say this is who I am. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And your how about your friends? Like, your, sounds like you were growing into this group of friends at about that time, 17, 18 years old. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Right. Yeah. I had a small group of about four friends. One of one of them was a lesbian. So, you know, she and I connected pretty quickly. She came out to me after I told her and the rest of my friends. And, they were all very accepting from the very beginning. I think one of my friends who had a more conservative fantastic background was a little uncomfortable with it, for a brief bit, but not in a way that she showed it to me or took it out on me. I think she was always open to hearing me out and seeing where what I felt...Yeah. Yeah. And then college was similar. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yeah. And, so what year did you graduate from Fremd? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: 2007. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. And where did life take you after that, after graduation? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: After high school graduation? I studied at the University of Chicago. I got my bachelor's degree there. Then I went to work after for a couple of years for several years. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. And what did you study at the University of Chicago? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I studied History and South Asian studies. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, wow. Okay. Great. What was your college experience like in in Hyde Park? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Gosh. I study a lot. *Peter laughs* Lots and lots reading and lots of writing. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: As history majors do. Yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Right. Right. Is that what you study? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yes. Uh-huh. Yes. I'm a historian. Yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Right. Of which I knew, I guess, yeah. I didn't I didn't know, how you got there. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yes. Right. I yes. I like you, I was a history major as an undergrad. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Okay. Yeah. I yeah. I had a good time. I feel like I learned a lot. I feel like I, you know, like, got to respect, learn and respect, like, the art of critical thinking and analysis and, you know, not just believe what people told me, but I really developed my own perspective on things. I also I was part of the South Asian studies department. I took a lot of classes there. And that was one of my majors also. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So I think it was nice to be amongst, have South Asian role models, like professors and black students and so on, that I could see myself in doing this hard work of, you know, research, critical thinking, and so on. And it was not something I had in high school, so it's nice to have in college. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And in college, I was kind of an organizational leader. I was part of, like, a few different groups. There's a music group. There's a South Asian students' group. So I would organize events. There was a feminist group that died down for a bit. I think we were active for a bit and then kinda, died down. I wasn't part of resurrecting it, I would say. Moved on to other things. But, yeah. I think one thing that I did was spend a lot of time socially with my friends. I lived with my friends after, you know, after moving out from the dorms, in my third and fourth years. And I made friends that, that meant a lot to me, that I spent a lot of time with. Yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: How did you pick history as a major? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I've liked it since high school. I don't know, like, what, why did I pick that discipline? I think I think I've always been the kind of person that, wants to know where things came from. Like, if I see anything, I want to know what was the shape of this thing before, you know. Like, what did it look like before? Or made it come into existence? What is going to make it dissolve? And you know, I think you can ask that question of anything. You can ask it of people, you can ask it of families, you can ask it of countries, you can ask it of like objects. And I think it's just an interesting thing. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Everything has a story. Everything has a before and an after. I think, like, history reconnects you to that. And it's nice, like, you know, like, it's in some way, it feels relieving to, to know that everything came from somewhere and was going somewhere. I don't I don't know why it feels that way, but it does. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And, thank you! And your, sort of your transitioning, what was that like, through your college years? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I transitioned quite a bit later when I was 27 or so. 28, maybe? So, you know, about seven years after college. I think I you know, in in just kind of common parlance, we talk about, especially in queer community, people talk about being a boy and being a girl in a way that's, you know, even before transitioning, don't call myself a girl, call myself a woman, and people just treat it as part of who I was. I don't think without saying, "Oh, you're trans." But subconsciously, I have always had that thought because, I remembered me and my friend, going to a party and then taking a cab back home, and I was quite drunk. And I told her I'm transgender, and I was 17--I was 18 at the time. And she, you know, didn't say anything to it, just said "Okay." And then but, like, I remember that memory because I said it, and then I forgot about it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And then later on, when I was 20 or 19 or 20, I met this, South Asian trans woman. Her name is Prerna Sampat, and she now lives in New York, but we still keep in touch a little bit. And, she kind of, was leading this meeting, that was founding this organization called Trikone Chicago. It's like a queer South Asian organization in Chicago. And so, like, one of the first meetings of that group, I was, I happened to just be a part of somehow. And I was young, so I was mostly there as a spectator, not as a decision maker. But, you know, I saw her and at the end of it, I told her, "I think I'm trans." And, she said, "Well, you're welcome to talk to me about it anytime," and then I never did *laughs*. I let it go. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 It just kinda kept coming up like this. Like, it was just little moments that I, I think what was going on for me was that I wanted to be able to just say it, and it, it was helpful that it was not momentous. It was helpful that-- Or if not more helpful. It didn't set off a chain of events. It's not that I was worried about, "What is going to be the impact, if I am trans?" And it was nice to see it in these very contained environments where there was going to be no huge response. You know, I think I needed to feel that, "Oh, this can be of no consequence." Just for a moment, we can just say it, and it will be fine. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I...yeah. Yeah. Those are not pleasant years though. Like, at that time, all I knew was who I was. So, like, a lot of discomfort with my body, discomfort with the way I was looked at. But also not just other people, but just what my body was doing. This is the course of its own development that I didn't like. And I just thought, you know, that's normal. There's no way for you to know that it's not. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But I, I moved away from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin for a couple of years. And then I came back, and I got involved in this organization, Trikone. And so when I met my, community, like the kind of and we met them again. I was already friends with many of them, but, you know, kinda came back to me as an adult with my own job, with my own place. I think it gave me the comfort I needed to do early transition. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I met someone who's-- We transitioned at around the same time. And we, became good friends. We started living together and we transitioned, yeah, pretty much the same time. It was in summer. That gave me a lot of support and, you know, kind of a companion to go through the experience. So it gave me the courage to go through with it and fully do it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I came out to my mother and father about a year in. My, you know, told them I don't remember the, what the words I used were. I might have confused them a little bit because I didn't want to say outright, "I'm a woman!" You know, I don't know I don't know exactly what I said. I think I told my mother, "I'm a woman, but not quite like you." Just trying to-- I don't know what I was trying to get, out of saying it that way. I think I was... I don't know. Yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But, you know, since then, it's been-- I just said "I'm trans, I'm a woman." I'm treated as a woman by my family, by my friends, at work, pretty much everywhere I go. And that's what I wanted. I don't think I went into any of this with a clear plan of how things would go, even taking the medical the medical transitioning part. Like, I didn't have a goal in mind in the way I think some people do of exactly how I want to look. My doctor asked me, and I didn't know. You know, she asked me what, you know, like, "What do you want?" And I said, "It's more like a feeling that I want that I don't have right now. It's not about the physical changes." And she was relieved because I think she had to often tell her, like, patients that, like-- Because the way she said it was, " Okay, I'm glad. I don't want you to think that you're gonna look like a supermodel." And I, you know, some people think that they might look like a supermodel. *both laugh* 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: *laughing* Well, now that you put that thought into my head, maybe I do want to look like, you know. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: That's right. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: But if we get it! Yeah. I think I went into it with a lot of faith in the process. And just feeling like I'm doing something that's meaningful to me and I'm just going to go through with it. And it was very scary for me. I think one thing, you know, people-- There's a lot of discourse out there about male privilege, and do trans women have male privilege. And I don't know. I think everyone's experience is mixed. I think there were some things that I got that cis women and girls did not get. I think there were a lot of things that I did, that everyone else gets that I did not get growing up before transitioning. So it's I don't know how to evaluate it in an honest way, especially when it feels like all of that is judged so much and so harshly by other people, like what I say. But this I will say, like, the one thing that was hard was, not knowing who would find me attractive after transitioning. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, like, there was I think there's beauty standards out there, and that is that men look manly and women look women-ly, womanly. And, feeling like not knowing what I was gonna look like, feeling this fear of being some kind of monster, or some kind of very odd-looking creature. It was it was scary for me. But I, I have some instinct that says that there's something that I fear a lot about how other people will treat me. I need to go through with it. I shouldn't run away from the fear. I should just go through it, and see. See where I end up. And I've been proven right. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I still have a lot of insecurities, and I think some experiences also of people not treating me well, based on how I look. But that said, I think I also have experiences of now of being able to connect with people because I like I, I like myself. I feel at home in my body and that's opened up, opened me up emotionally to be able to connect with others. And I feel now I need, I'm able to, like, just be a little softer, because I'm not avoiding my own feelings. I'm full more fully cognizant of how I feel, my comfort or discomfort at any moment. And that means I'm also able to acknowledge that in others. It feels like there's more room to connect with other people now. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But I do remember this my friend Catherine who's my high school friend told me-- Somehow she picked up on it. Like we were talking about me transitioning and what it meant for me, and I don't know if this is early, in either right before or right after. And I don't know if she just picked up on it intuitively or I told her, but she turned to me and she said, " I think you will be very, very pretty." And it meant a lot to hear that. I think that I needed to hear it, and I was resisting. You know, I was trying to tell myself, "I don't need to hear that. I don't want it. Anyway, I will be okay without anybody telling me that." It was nice to just have someone to say it. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. You mentioned the, medical part of transitioning. In general, what was that that like for you? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: *Pauses* You know what? Surgeries is kind of too big. But, I will speak for trans women, and like this kind of, two kind of big interventions.. One that are medical, one is, hormonal. So like you ingest them, inject them, whatever. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Right. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And then there's surgical interventions. So I haven't done any surgeries such as taking hormones. And like the first--this is in 2017--the first year, I saw very quick changes. Like those, you know, my body changed, how the fat distribution, the kind of breasts and so on. Hair, body hair. I think I was like, I like, the-- It was a little bit of a wild ride. I had hot flashes for the first month or couple months, just that's just part of the process, and then they kinda die down. And, you know, the other kind of discomfort that comes with growth, other parts of your body. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Yeah. I got my care through Chicago Women's Health Center for a few months. And then I moved to Howard Brown because it-- I don't remember why at this point, but I just at one point, I moved to Howard Brown, which specializes in LGBTQ care. And, you know, I've had no problems getting my hormones. I also, I have about a few years in, I think I, I saw the changes that I wanted. And I've become a little less of a compliant patient. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Uh huh. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I take my hormones every now and then I don't take them. And, you know, I could get my levels checked in the time. So I just let it go. But I think I have the social support I need and the social recognition I need. I am considering surgical intervention in the future just to make some things a little more convenient and possible for me. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, I still feel I stick out like a sore thumb. It's a very it's a tough feeling to stomach on a daily basis. I think when I was younger, I took a lot of pride in being able to say, "I am who I am. It doesn't matter what you think." For whatever reason now at this age, I'm not feeling that kind of strength anymore. I think I'm more interested in or maybe just gravitating towards, like, towards: What in me does require other people, the support of other people, the care of other people? And fortunately or unfortunately, a lot of people's care comes from them understanding you, and a lot of that does come from them relating to you. So if you seem different, I think people don't know what to do with you. It takes a little extra time to connect. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, I've got good at telling people my story. You know? Like, I've it just kinda comes out. I've done it so many times in so many different ways. I know how to tell people how I feel and what I feel and why I feel within limits. I, I know how to say that. But it gets tiring after a while. And I think at some point, I do have started to want for easy connection. Like connecting with people that doesn't feel like work, that doesn't feel like endlessly explaining myself just to be understood. And, yeah, I feel like I'm speaking in a very general way. I hope you will just ask me to be more specific as and when necessary, because I'm-- Yeah 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yeah. You're doing a great job. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. Thank you *laughing* 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yes. Yes. You're-- it may sound coming out of your mouth in general, but it's very specific feelings. You're describing your experiences, and that's what we want. Okay. So you're right on track. Speaking of experiences, you mentioned that you moved to Madison, Wisconsin for a couple of years. What took you what took you up there to Wisconsin? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I worked for this company called EPIC Systems. They're a software company. It was a job. I needed a job out of college. They gave me a job. It was a well-paying job, respectable job. You know? So, I was there for two years, saved a lot of money, money that put me through grad school eventually. And yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And what brought you back to Chicago, then? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I, at the time, it was that I didn't like the job. I didn't want I didn't see myself doing it long term. Let me just say that. And also that Madison was too small for me. I missed having a queer South Asian community because I had started cultivating that in Chicago. And it was rough for me not to have that...Yeah. So I came back. Yeah. I think I also I had this at that time, I think I had this need for a passion career, like this job I really wanted to do, which ended up being teaching. And I did teach for about ten year, almost ten years. But looking back on it, it was more than that. I think that work and career, I needed that as a kind of organizing activity in my life, but I really needed these other things as well, a bigger city, a queer South Asian community, which I didn't have. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: What drew you to teaching? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: It's kind of a family vocation. My mother's a teacher. She teaches at a community college in the Northwest suburbs. My aunt, my one aunt is a, was a preschool teacher. One was a primary school teacher. My grandfather's brother was a teacher. It's a lot of people in the family. It was such a thing. My father sometimes feels that it's because teachers were the role models I had growing up. You know, that's what I saw. In retrospect, I don't think-- That's what everyone sees, but not everyone wants to be a teacher. So that doesn't feel right to me. But he might have been on to something, and maybe I was just very influenced. You know, school meant a lot to me... 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I don't know. I think it meant different things at different times. I think, I do think that I, you know, value learning a lot, and the classroom space, a lot. Like, just, like, feeling your brain grow, feeling yourself exposed to new ways of looking at the same world that we live in. Like, that's, you know-- Seeing the same thing in a different way is like a very magical feeling. And I think I create that, that the work of making that happen. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, I once I got into early childhood education, I think it became more about growth. You know, like, you see kids grow before your eyes. It's very inspiring to see them gain abilities they didn't have before. And in some way, it also inspires me to feel like, "Oh, I, you know, like, I'm also connected to my own growth." Even though it happens a lot more slowly as an adult. I mean, at least being connected to the growth cycles of kids makes me appreciate mine. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, I also think being a caregiver was very special. I have a lot of loving energy in me, and I think caring energy in me. And it was a place to put all of that, a place where that could thrive and that could be of use. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. What did you, what did you teach? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I taught, I taught in the day care system. So if you're familiar with that or you're not, you know, in in Illinois, it usually refers to the zero to 5, like infancy up to preschool. And then you know, kindergarten kids go to the public school or to other schools. So it's a separate system from the public school system because one, it starts earlier, it starts in infancy, not in preschool. And then two, it's for working parents. So it goes year-round. It goes day-long. And in that, I taught all the age groups. I started out with afterschool, like, with kids, and that was 5 through 13 for a brief while. And then I moved into the early years, so toddlers in preschool. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, wow. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And I took that pretty much, yeah, the rest of my time. So, like, nine--nine years and a bit. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. What was that like for you being a preschool teacher? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: It was very mixed. I think at the beginning, I, I felt myself grow. I felt as a caregiver, as a as a teacher. You know, I invested a lot of my time into it. I also got, mentorship from, from wonderful people in Chicago. It meant a lot of different things to me. I think one, having a career that suited me, my actual kind of abilities to, to nurture and help someone grow... I, yeah, though some parts are challenging. It's a, it's a very stressed system. People don't make a lot of money. I was making, you know, with my bachelor's degree, I was making $13 an hour when I got into it. And that you know, at the time, it felt like a lot of money, but looking back on it, not that much. You know? And every time the minimum wage would go up, my wage would also go up a little bit because they had to. So that's how I get raises. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: What school what school or schools did you teach? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I taught at Southeast Asia Center in Uptown and then, Mary Crane Center in Rogers Park. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Well, they have a few different centers, but the one I taught at was at Rogers Park. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. And, at the Southeast Asia Center, what kind of students did you have? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Many of them were students of Vietnamese origin, so their families either-- Had come from Vietnam at some point, anytime from, I don't know, the '70s through now. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Right. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And, I was teaching most, like I said, the younger kids. So, yeah, they would come in for daycare. All the parents were working often, working in restaurants or other kind of service jobs. They'd like the shifts would be a little later. Like their days would start at ten, go on until about six or seven. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Yeah. What was, so, Mary Crane, could you describe that too? What, your experiences were? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: It was a very similar day care setting. So, Mary Crane is a bigger center, so they had access to more funding. But, you know, similar age group, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-year-olds. I think, yeah. The environments were really interesting. Like, it's, like I said, it's a stressed system. But there were lots of things that made it rewarding. Being close to the families, I think, like, it's kind of getting to know them over time, especially if their siblings came into the classrooms. You'd see this, you know, kind of a few waves of kids from the same family come in. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 The teachers are mostly, black and black women and Latinas. And I felt very privileged to get their mentorship, like, from women who'd been in the field for years, and who'd, you know, like, gone to school and really raised themselves in that field, and had a lot of wisdom to pass down. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I think I grew up, even, you know, as an immigrant here and as a person of color, if you're Indian, very often you have a degree of privilege. I'm sure some Indians do. And I came here with my both my parents having advanced degrees, being able to have decent jobs and be able to, you know, buy a house pretty soon into us being here. All of those things are not possible for most people. And I think I was living in a bubble for much of my early years. And so really working in that system connected me to working-class Chicago, like, with both the families and then the workers, my coworkers. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So, I think I, yeah, I just, like, gained a lot of respect for people who build themselves up from, from not having a lot of resources in life. And, I think it's, like, instills some skills in me of empathy of, like, being able to respect-- Not only respect people with the college education who, you know, talk like they've been to college or, have had advanced degrees because that's such a small set of skills. There's so much to be said for how well you understand people, how dedicated you are to your job, how good of a problem solver you are. And, you know, those are skills that you can cultivate in many different ways. Going to school is just one of them. And I learned that. Yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I think I think it's a lovely thing also just as, you know, the true me, pre-transition, post-transition. I think that, caring for young children, I think in my mind connected me to, like, a femininity and a female role in society. Even as I wasn't kind of claiming that for myself, yet. And even after, you know, it gave me a lot of validation to say, "Yes. Like, I mean, you can see me as a woman or not as a woman. But this is what I do for work every day. It's valuable. It's important." And, you know, can, yeah, it connects into caregiving and that all of that is a part of my womanhood. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 It's not true for everybody, but it's true for me. And there's plenty of women, trans women and cis women who don't want to, who don't particularly enjoy being around kids, especially if they're not their own kids. That's, that's them. But for me, I do... Yeah. And I think not just that, but being accepted and kind of nurtured and brought up by other women. Like, it was a very special kind of feeling. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. Where did where did, work life at least take you after teaching? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Towards the end of my teaching career, a few things happened that were very frustrating. One is that I got COVID from work and that really took a lot out of me physically. Like, I don't think I fully bounced back as yet. This would have been in 2021. You know, daycare workers were essential workers. So I started-- We were in lockdown for about two and a half to three months. I went back to work in 2020. You know, masked and so on, which many other people didn't. But I was back, and I was teaching the kids masked. It was very tiring. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 The system also, like I said, was stressed in many ways. I think COVID really, decimated the field. Lots of people left the field. They got sick. They wanted to do other things. So the short staffing got very bad. So I was running the classroom by myself with very occasional help. And it really got to me. I was very stressed. I was tired. There were days when I put the kids down to sleep and I couldn't get up. I was just that exhausted. So I would just take my nap, sleeping in the classroom. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, and then, you know, like, I think I have this idea from going to grad school, which I did in early childhood, like, like on the same time I transitioned, which was a lot. Like it was like in 2016 through 2018 or so I was in grad school. And I got this idea from school that like, if we could just tell people, you know, to the power of advocacy and so on, tell people how important early childhood is for kids and for families and for society, we would get the funding we needed, we would get the support we needed to run this field. Cause it's a, it's a field that, it's a public good, right? Like in the same way as like the CTA in the same way as elementary education, it's like a-- Like those are not things that we treat as privatized. We don't expect everyone to pay full price for that. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 We don't expect every parent to pay, to pay like a full tuition to go in order to go to the public schools. But for daycare, we don't, we don't have that kind of system, parents pay. And there's a small set of parents who, get government assistance, but it's not a ton of assistance, which means that teachers don't make a lot. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, yeah, so I was saying that, with all these problems I was running into, I was stressed. I was not making the money I needed. I was working long hours, being very tired, short staffed. And grad school taught me that I should be an advocate. I should speak up and, you know, build public support by education, of the public. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And then as a union leader, you know, we have that collective power. We had come together. We had some power to do something. We could quickly handle issues. We realized that the management in the in the center just wasn't able to do much for us in terms of wages, because the centers that I worked at were government funded. So there was this bigger kind of entity there that we had no bargaining, as workers, we had no bargaining power with, even though we had a union. Our contract was with management, it's not with the state. Workers have no platform that they can really, approach and demand funding from the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago. So, so that was frustrating. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I--but I at least gained an analysis of why I was in the hole I was in, health wise. It's because, the field is under resourced. It's, it's a privately run field when it should be fully publicly funded and, resourced. And, and, you know, so then I joined the union as staff. I was a union member for three years. And then I joined the union as a staff organizer because I wanted to change things. I wanted to feel connected to childcare. I also liked the staff members of the union that I've been working with. Like, they were my organizers when I was a union member. And I respected them a lot. I liked them. And so-- 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And, that was, is that the Service Employees International Union? The SEIU? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Exactly. It's the health-- And there's different-- If you're familiar with how unions are structured, you know, there's different locals. My local is just called Healthcare. Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Oh, okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: And it's, at the union-- I think the focus, as you can see by "healthcare," the focus is really on caregiving professions. So childcare is in there. It also includes hospitals, nursing homes, and home care workers. And then also, the focus is on those fields because they're significantly publicly-funded or should be if they're not.. You know? So there's like a big public component to having an electoral program, to having a program that targets government officials and get convinces them to put funding into the field. So it's that's kind of what shapes that local and its activities. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. And, please talk about your role as an organizer, for SEIU. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah! So it's been the last three years, and I, I work in the childcare division. So I work with the people I used to work with, side-by-side in the classrooms. I'm an organizer for childcare center workers. And, what I-- A lot, most of what I do is to have conversations with workers that help them see that, the conditions that they work under are not normal. We don't have to accept them for what they are and, and all the things that most people are seeing, which is having their life goals kind of scuttled, but because of the poor wages, experiencing a lot of stress in different ways. Those are things that, there's a reason that they are the way they are. And it's possible to change them through collective power. And so, the meat of my work is that is talking to workers one by one and just saying, "Look at this differently." 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, it happened for me when I was a union member. I was able to look at it differently and I, and trying to help people do that. I learn a lot. I think like I think part of what keeps me going is trying to gain some understanding of: What does it take for a person to want to go from accepting things the way they are to changing them? Like what does that mental switch? What does it take to make that happen? Or does it take to sustain that? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, I think there's a lot of things in life where we accept them because we don't-- either we don't know they can be changed or we don't feel like we have to, it's exhausting to think about change. I think, when you think about, you know, people getting involved in politics and, or not getting involved in politics, people feeling apathetic, towards that, people complaining. It really is a matter of, you know, "What will it take for you to say, 'I have the power to make change,' to finally claim your own power, and not just see yourself as a victim of everything?" 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. Thank you. And, yes, Service Employees International Union. Thank you for talking about your current work. Let's make a transition. You-- There's been a thread of your music. What role does music (play) in your life today, in terms of performance, practice, that sort of thing? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I'm just going to situate myself 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. I, you know, I started singing at a few different open mics just when I transitioned 2018, I felt like I had some some more oxygen. Like, I know my lungs got bigger or something. I could just breathe in more. And I made these goals for myself. I decided I was going to, dress adventurously. It was like a New Year's resolution kind of, or maybe a birthday resolution. But, like, a couple of years after transitioning: dress, cook, and sing adventurously. And I, you know, I've done all of-- Well, I don't dress adventurously anymore. I just dress to get through the day, but, *both laugh*. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 The singing, you know, I started going out to open mics and just kind of putting myself out there, letting people hear me. And then with COVID, you know, I think things took a hit. I was just wasn't, nobody's doing that much. But I was starting to sing here and there, before that. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 But what really kind of made things catch fire for me and make this into something that feels like a real side gig and not just a very occasional amateur set of performances is, in 2023, I found out about this organization called Chicago Mehfil. It was started by a group of people in Hyde Park, and they, some of them were UChicago students, some of them were not. But it was like an independent organization. And they started doing these chamber concerts, essentially, followed by open mics. And I went to-- And they had a big event in 2023 I went to. And I sang there, and it, it-- You know, I sang two songs that I loved. It was very powerful because I-- I, not only did I see that I'm holding the attention of, of this group of a 100 something people, through my music-- And I was singing essentially just me and a drone. It was just it wasn't a big or complex sound, but it was-- held people's attention. And people came up and complimented me afterward. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Then I met-- There were, I think, three, people that I met that have been transformational for me. One of them was, his name is Tomal Hussain. He's a UChicago PhD student, and he, he's, you know, he's a very good singer, vocalist, and a teacher. And I think having his friendship and his, just, like, little bit of guidance at the beginning gave me a lot of validation, that, like, there's something in my music that's worth listening to, that's worth investing and putting time into. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Then there was this other person called Mithila who's, his stage name is Müsila. He's a Sri Lankan guitarist. And, he, he wanted to collaborate with me. So he and I-- I was very intimidated because he, he goes around performing and I don't do that. I've never, you know, got money for my music. So I was intimidated at first, but then he-- I told him that, and he said, "Well, I've seen you perform, so I know how you sing. So I don't know what's you know, what else there is to, like, even discuss here." Right? And that was, you know, relieving to hear. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And then the last, is, the band that was being featured that night for a big performance was Do the Needful. And, you know, they came and talked to me and I ended up joining the band. And that's probably where I sing the most in public is with that band. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. It's like a Bollywood punk band. So it's like a pop, Indian pop music, Fufuree music, but, like, with, like, a punk sound, it's like, yeah. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. I noticed, I think it was this year or maybe not, but you performed recently fairly recently at Steppenwolf? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yes. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Could you talk about that? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. The Steppenwolf performance was, it was called "Dream Babies." And it was a tribute to Bollywood--Indian cinema--Bollywood and the women in the cinema. And specifically, it was a queer tribute to them because a lot of people--you know--that's, queer people, in South Asia and in the diaspora here, identify with the women in different ways. Like, in different-- There's different archetypes of womanhood and that people identify with, people take joy in. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, the show was, yeah, it was a tribute. So kind of, like, featured the different archetypes. There's the ingénue, there's the mother, there's the vamp, there's the courtesan, and so on. I was the singer, and I was the only vocalist. So my role was to, put together a little set of my own, about ten to fifteen minutes that spoke to, the music in the films, and also the women depicted in the music, who, either way, who sing in the background. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So, it meant a lot to me. I think it took me a little time to wrap my head around the assignment. It was led by two of my friends, Abhijit and Leija, who, who are the kind of the coordinators planners of all of it. And they're both film aficionados. And, you know, they're not musicians. I didn't, I don't, I actually don't know film that well. And I didn't grow up watching Bollywood. I don't know Hindi. So there's, like, a little bit of a gap there. So I was lost for a bit. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 You know, we talked about this project. It happened in April 2025, but we were talking about in in December 2024. I thought my main role would be as a coordinator, like, that I would just be doing logistical work here and there. But it turned out they actually wanted me to do a vocal piece, and it was very confusing, for me because I--for the reasons I just said. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 So I had to, with their help, you know, we-- I had to dig in and figure out what the connections were. And what clicked for me, is that this is a group of South Asian trans feminine people doing the show together. And I think when I saw, when I thought about it that way, the set came together. So I spoke to the, the feeling of-- You know, what I said before which is having, like, having wishes that might not seemingly be unrealizable. You don't know, you don't you can't make a plan out of them because that might not happen, but you still hold on to them. They're a part of you, that might not be visible. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 That was-- There were three songs. That was one song was about that, and there was a narration about, playback singers. There's these women who, are not shown on screen. So the-- Playback singing is a big thing in cinema. Like the actors don't voice their own songs. There's set of professional musicians who do that and the actors lip sync. But it's its own world. I mean, in cinema, they're not shown, but there's a circuit of concerts that, playback singers do. They have classes, they give classes. They go, you know, on tours and so on. So they're big figures in their own right. And I, I, spoke to that feeling of, kind of bursting out of the box that you've been put in, and becoming bigger than you are. And that's, you know, that's something that I think is part of being trans, but at least something I can relate to. It sounds silly, but, like, it feels real to me. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And then, the film industry has a, a connection, an early connection with courtesans. You know, there's this class of women in India who were, hereditarily kind of excluded from marriage and from living a domestic life. Instead they were, performers who, in some sense, they were living independent lives. They had their art and therefore were earning money of their own, but they were also treated as kind of...subjects for sexual exploitation. So part of the work would also be sexually satisfying the men who are paying you to perform. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, it's, it's not a one-to-one comparison for that with trans women. But I think there's some, some similarity of, you know, like women whom, are seen a certain way and men will exploit, but will not want to be seen in public with, will not want to say, yeah, I, you know, "You are mine as a as a girlfriend, as a wife." 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And then, the other thing that I also talked about was the-- I sang a lullaby. And, you know, one of the very-- A very, very special experience for me has been, you know, transitioning really felt like I was unearthing this, like, set of desires and, like, kind of letting parts of myself that had been covered up and kind of shut in a room to breathe. And doing that in a community with other trans women, it was very rewarding because it really felt like we were mothering each other and caring for each other in, you know, like, we hadn't got that. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 Even those of us who had good parents, like I did, there were lots of parts of ourselves that we just didn't show to other people. They didn't see this is part of the society we live in. And there's a lot of care and affection that is needed for trans women in those first few years of life that I think--the first few years of transitioning--I should say, that I really think can be make or break, and can be the difference between someone, having good outcomes and someone really having terrible outcomes, including suicide. It just it takes a lot. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And I think, like, I have had the experience of doing that for my good friend whose name is Leija, and then of receiving the same from her. And then from other trans women around the world as well, like, it's just people that I've met over time. And so I sang about that. I think those-- You know, like, once I kind of figured that narrative out, then the connection to the show the rest of the show became clear. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Mhmm. Okay. Very good. I think we're coming towards the end, but I did notice a couple of hobbies. You mentioned cooking. Could you talk about your interest in cooking a little bit? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Oh! *both laugh* Yeah! I'm, I-- Yes! I love being in the kitchen. I, you know, I, in college, when I moved, when I was in the dorms for the first two years, there was a cafeteria. But when I had to move out on my own, I had to learn some basic recipes. So I my mother and my grandmother taught me a few recipes just over a summer, some basic things. And then I kind of expanded from there. You know, like, the basic skills of South Indian cooking happened, then I added more. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I love it. To me, it's, like it's, it's self sufficiency. It's being able to support myself. It's being able to support people around me. It's like an important skill. It's also something that physically is very, engaging and stress relieving, because it's a whole body experience. You're being creative. And, like, can I really enjoy the challenge of making do with what you have, like looking at what you have in your pantry, in your fridge and coming up with something good. Indian meals are always two or three course meals, like, there's always a combination, I think. And we do have a lot of one pot meals as well. But, like, your typical meal has a couple of components to it. And so that's always a fun challenge to figure out what's a good combination. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 And, and I also just it makes me feel very satisfied, makes me feel very proud, when I can make something that I like to eat. Like, it's like a-- That, you know, I like feeling productive. I like feeling useful, and cooking food for myself as a chance of for me to do that in a way that satisfies me. It's just for me. Yeah. So I must cook Indian food, but I've, you know, learned a few other things here and there. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And, one other thing I noticed, you have, a it seems like you have an interest in trains. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: I do have an interest in trains. *laughing* How did you find that? 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Just out in the world of the Internet. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Oh, no. There is so much! *laughing* I need to go delete some things. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: *Laughing* I just, I just-- I mean, it's another interesting aspect of your personhood! So yeah. I mean, if you're-- It'd be kind of a nice way to wrap up. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Oh, sure. Sure! Yes! I do love trains. There's something magical about, like, the prospect of this gigantic system that requires a lot of technology, a lot of coordination, that links people. You know, one system that accommodates so many, the liveli--the trajectories of so many individual lives and days. You know, there's all these people having to go from all these different places and, they live in-- And just, like, figuring out, like, what is the most efficient way to connect them. I think it's like a just like a such an interesting aspect of, living in a giant society, a giant country. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 I have a lot of positive memories of trains growing up, because in India, like, train travel is a very common way to go between cities. And so, you know, all my family is in South India. So there was a lot of-- There was a wedding every year. Some child was born every other year. And so we, we'd go on these big train journeys, and would go as a big family. So we book, like, sections, like, half to one full carriage just for us. And so and when we had that, you know, it was a big party. Like, all the kids were playing games, talking to each other, running around the train. And, you know, while the adults were talking, we'd have these-- The food would keep coming out. Like, people brought, like, buckets and buckets of food from home that would just come out in at intervals and, like, yeah, just positive memories of all of that. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. I just wonder, Shruthi, if, there's anything that you'd like to talk about that I didn't ask you about. Any like, "I really wanted to get that on the record." If not, then I think we'll wrap up. But, we've definitely covered the gamut of things that I thought would be important to learn about you and capture on the recording. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. Nothing comes to mind. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: Okay. Yeah. Awesome! Well, thank you very much for your time, for coming out. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. Thank you. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [PA]: And, it's been wonderful, learning about your experiences. 00:00:00.000 --> 01:16:55.000 [SK]: Yeah. I appreciate being asked.