at home and today I will be talking to
you about the creative journey the
creative journey is one that we all take
and is one that I took that helped me to
learn that identity is a journey we all
have different avenues and through
finding my passions I was able to
explore who I was as a person it all
started in middle school now middle
school is a rough time middle school is
where you’re trying to find out who you
are what you can and can’t change about
yourself and your roots there are four
pathways in my life that really help to
explore myself the first started in
sixth grade this was when I had a desire
to learn more about my heritage through
the learning of my language Canada I was
able to learn a part of myself this
language is my mother tongue the one my
parents speak and my family in India
speaks I found an awesome that there was
this whole aspect about myself that I
could learn that I had never even
explored before so I had this desire to
just learn the language what I did was I
used my resources I used the internet to
research the language and how to read
and write in it and the next summer we
went to India and I would practice
reading the billboards and kind of them
so I felt that through this exploration
I was able to find a deeper connection
to who I was as a person it was at this
age that I stopped calling my mother
mummy and started calling her a mom and
I stopped calling my father daddy and
stopped calling him and started calling
him Appa
so really I feel that it’s important
that we explore our roots to solidify
how we feel as people today and the next
pathway that I took my life was drama
now my exploration with drama started in
the sixth grade when I joined my middle
school’s speech team which was sort of
like a drama teen where we would compete
in different competitions with
monologues but it really Sullivan I came
to care with a school in the seventh
grade and join my first drama class
here I was opened up to the avenue of
performing on stage one that I’d never
explored before and I was terrified I
remember doing our first play which was
That’s Entertainment sort of a review of
different acts and I was terrified I had
no idea how to act on stage but in the
end I had a great time being a part of
something bigger and I wanted to
continue I had a desire to evolve as a
actor so the next year I decided to
involve in our musical our full school
musical which was Oliver except I was
way too scared to audition
apparently auditioning required you to
sink and about at that age I had a range
of about two notes so I was too stubborn
I didn’t even audition but often it
takes someone else to instill a
confidence within us my former drama
teacher mrs. Callaghan saw something in
me that I didn’t and during her class
she took me out and told me sing happy
birthday and I did and she said that’s
it you’re in the show now that’s all it
took so often it just takes someone else
to see something with us to instill that
confidence and for me it was miss
Callahan and so I continued my
exploration of being an actor on stage
through involving the different musicals
the next year i involved in Bye Bye
Birdie and that in 10th grade I played
Sebastian in our production of the lunar
mermaid and this was really the first
role that really gave me a lot of
confidence after the first time seeing
on stage
I heard the audience cheer which it
wasn’t just for me of course it was for
the beautiful dancers behind me but it
instilled this sense of confidence
within me one that I’d never thought I
would have before and so my evolution of
acting or being an actor evolves with
involving in different musicals
throughout the years so I played Prince
dauntless in Once Upon a mattress which
was last year and I played The Tin Man
and our recent production of Beauty and
the Beast I played Lumiere and through
my evolution of all these characters I
was exploring this creative
individuality with each character it’s
easy to copy someone else’s
representation but it’s more satisfying
to make your own interpretation to
really explore your individual sense and
to express it in that way and so theater
really helped me to break free of some
mental constraints that stereotypes have
placed on me as a person and the next
explore the next pathway that I took was
music now my introduction to music was
started from an early age when my mother
forced me to take piano lessons now I
say forced because I hated it I hated
playing piano I hated being forced to
put my hands on those ivory keys and it
was awful but at that young age
something was evolving in me I was
developing a deeper passion for the art
of music and it took years until this
passion was developed in about eighth
grade I started to explore different
types of music and I even started to
connect back to my roots I developed a
passion for classical Indian music too
and I’ve been able to give back to the
community recently by involving in our
music school this music school has been
one that taught me the drums and the
guitar and I’m so thankful to be able to
have the opportunities to give back to
them by involving in their summer camps
by teaching little kids their favorite
songs on their favorite instruments of
their choice so it was at this camp that
I saw so many different people of so
many different ages music or art in
general it’s just a universal language
one that could connect anyone from a
cloth across the world so music has
given me the sense of individuality in
the sense that in anything I can do I
can be musical whether it’s wrapping a
campaign speech or even supplementing my
musical theatrical pursuits music has
given me the sense of individuality in
everything
and the last pathway was joining the a/v
league the a/v League is our school or
high schools audio-visual leak or out of
you to a club here we produce videos
that we showed
school which are informative or
entertaining and I was introduced to
this club in about eighth grade when my
friend told me hey you should join this
club is full of pretty cool people and I
was like you know I’ll give it a shot so
I did I went to their first meeting and
again I was terrified there was a room
full of big seniors and I was so scared
but I was also inspired by these seniors
all these seniors sort of had this
individuality they were creative they
were confident in what they were making
I wanted to be someone like them I
wanted to be someone who could inspire
others and to make videos like them and
so I started out small I did I anger for
our broadcasts that we showed about
bi-weekly and the a/v League really
opened me up to this new sense of
communication in which I could present
these videos in an entertaining way and
I continued being in the club the next
year but at this time I was an officer
of the club which meant I had to be a
leader in some sense and again I was
terrified I had never been a leader in
my life how can I do that in the
beginning it was rough I was afraid of
criticism I was afraid of what people
would say I was afraid of being told oh
he should do it this way rather than
this way so I closed myself up it took
other people to instill another sense of
confidence within me eventually I
realised that people enjoyed our videos
that people would come up to us saying
when’s your next video I love the last
one that really instilled a sense of
confidence within me and nowadays I love
making videos for the a/v league I love
producing my own segments and helping
others with theirs so in the end these
four pathways helped me to find myself
as an individual we all have these
opportunities that help us what
opportunities will you take what
passions will you explore where will you
go
thank you [Applause]