Sevika Jain: contemporary au headcanons
contemp!sevika who grew up in a cramped apartment in jackson heights, queens, who remembers the hindi songs playing on the radio, the worn leather seats of her father’s old car, the corners with small restaurants that served the best indian food, the hip-hop blasting from around the block, the jingle of the icee man's cart in the public park, the air conditioned library that was too quiet and was her favorite place in the world for that reason, her relatives flocking in the kitchen talking over each other as the smell of dal makhani wafts through the rooms
contemp!sevika who remembers the close knit community of little india, following her mother around the markets on 74th street for a new lehenga to wear to her cousin’s wedding, biting back the urge to ask her mother if she couldn’t wear a sherwani instead, because she can feel her mother’s stress at trying to find something affordable and respectable already
contemp!sevika who grew up speaking seven indian dialects but lost her mother tongue gradually as public school taught her to be ashamed of her accent, but feels the lost language like a missing part of her soul as she grows older and tries to relearn it
contemp!sevika who knew her parents would always adore her younger brother more than her, whom she adored and protected fiercely as well, but would feel the unequal love like a wound that never closed
contemp!sevika who used to pray every night that god would turn her into a boy, because she felt that if she were born a boy maybe her parents would love her more, maybe she would be able to be more helpful and get a real job, maybe the world would forgive her for the way she was built
contemp!sevika who remembers the pressure of money problems that hung over the household like a cloud and deepened the wrinkles in her parents’ faces, who felt constantly guilty for her existence as a result
contemp!sevika who grew up too quickly and was always the silent tall girl in her class, the girl with an accent and an awkward walk, the girl who got into fights and didn’t listen to the teachers, the girl who always seemed to fall behind no matter how hard she tried to please
contemp!sevika who remembers the sting of her father’s palm after he discovered she was going around with a girl in her high school, his rapid fire words telling her that he and her mother did not bring her into this country for her to mix with the social outcasts
contemp!sevika who continued to date girls, who dropped out of high school and left home at seventeen to work for her uncle’s car repair shop, who never showed it but mourned the estrangement from her little brother (who excelled in school and was the son she always wished she could be)
contemp!sevika who returned home and enrolled in community college and tried again to bend herself into the mold her parents had made for her, who felt in the back of her mind that she had failed them, but gradually had to accept that she would never live up to their standards
contemp!sevika who never heard her father say the words “i love you”, or her mother saying the words “i’m proud of you”, but remembers the way her father would stand in the doorway watching over her when she was sick, the way her mother would always leave a plate of panipuri for her when she got back from school
contemp!sevika who found solace in the circles of friends in college, who graduated and went on to engineering school, who would always think of her father with equal parts love and rage, who would always feel off, like she didn’t quite belong anywhere
contemp!sevika who will soon grow into herself, who will stay in her beloved city and never forget where she came from, who she used to be—the oldest daughter of indian immigrants, the student who never felt like she was enough, the woman who raged against the system, the tall angry quiet girl from queens.
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