About Me

For almost a decade, I have had a dream to retrace the path of the Ancient Greek hero Odysseus — starting from the ruins of Troy and ending at the shores of Ithaca.

From August 6th to 19th, 2023, I plan to do just that.

As a child, I read and reread the Mahabharat, the Ramayan, and other tales from Hindu mythology in the Amar Chitra Katha comics. On trips through long desert roads and on commutes to and from school, my sister and I would spend every second possible lost in B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharat TV series, marveling at the strength of Draupadi and the moral ambiguity of Karna. In fifth grade, I took my first classes in Latin and Classics and was immediately fascinated, studying Latin until I started high school. Throughout middle school, like everyone else, I waited with baited breath for every new release of Rick Riordan’s books, especially Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus. In college, I pursued a minor in Classics, taking courses in Latin, classical mythology, ancient religious cults, ancient Roman legal trials, literature, and more. I read texts in the original Latin, notably including the Aeneid, the Catilinarian Orations, and Menaechmi.

One might wonder what I find so compelling in mythology that I have made the choices I have. The standard explanation for the contemporary relevance of mythology certainly holds true; it elucidates the development of our political systems, helps define the sources of modern inequities in power and privilege, and reveals the cultural values of early societies. Yet I have come to believe that there is also something core to our humanity that finds salvation in classical studies: while capitalism often expects concrete and defined answers, the most profound stories in mythology pose moral and existential questions without easily defined or even comfortable answers. They uniquely complicate our collective understandings of justice, love, morality, joy, and beauty; they universalize our flaws and suffering, they lessen the weight of our pain. In doing so, they encourage us to see others — and importantly, too, ourselves — with deeper compassion, in a way that recognizes and eases the burden of human imperfection.

After college, I have spent less time thinking about classics and mythology in favor of other interests, and so this trip represents a personal “homecoming” for me — a way of rediscovering myself and my interest in the human condition as it exists in the form of literature that has always held the deepest resonance for me.

I have long been fascinated by classics, and now the time has come to not just study that world — but to truly live it.