What do you do now?

I work at in a middle-market bank in Stamford, CT as a Financial Analyst in the Corporate Advisory division. It's basically corporate finance. It's interesting, but not what I want to do in the long term.

What would it take for you to quit your job?

It has to be something that is associated with education (doesn't matter if it's in US or India), has to pay decently well (at least 60K), and I have to like the people there. That's all. I don't care where it is. I prefer the Northeast, but if I got a job offer in Florida in education, I... no, wait, it has to be mid-Atlantic or NE, or India. Anywhere I've been and feel comfortable with.

What do you want to do in the long run?

I eventually want to start a school, but the path to get there varies so much. I've applied to a couple other jobs like the Parthenon Group and my high school's endowment. It requires similar skill sets to what I picked up from college, but it's also related to a path in education. I want to start a boarding school in Punjab, and focus it on being a cultural school. It would mix western and eastern education in the sense that the structure of the school is more based on critical thinking, but include more of the mannerisms of the east.

Is Punjabi culture mainstream?

It's really mainstream now - Bollywood has really helped spread it. About 70% of the actors in India are Punjabi, so a lot of mainstream Indian culture has become very Punjabi. Even popular Indian dishes in America like chicken tikka masala is more similar to Punjabi than Southern India food.

It's interesting because from a historical perspective, Punjabi is a cross-national ethnicity. Most Punjabis are in Pakistan, not India, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to focus on educating about Punjabi culture. Once I learned this, I felt closer to Pakistani people but I never felt like many other people celebrated this. I want to help instill this in people. The biggest thing that identifies us now is religion - Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. I want to turn more attention to ethnicity.

Do you disagree with nationalism?

I would love for a state of Punjabis, but that sounds wrong. I was jealous of Koreans because of this. They share a language and have such a strong individual culture. India doesn't have that unifying factor. Language could be a good way to split, but there are so many ethnic groups in India. Hindi is only spoken by 300 to 400 million people-only 40% of the country. Out of that, most people don't even speak pure Hindi, it's Hindustani. Because we don't have a strong unifying language, we split provinces by regional languages and ethnicities. I think they did the best they could with these smaller states within the national boundaries and have states split by language, and I don't think there will be an ideal situation, but it'd be cool if each province was its own nation. Though I know there are so many issues with that. Some provinces are richer or poorer, and there are a host of other problems. Once you start splitting the country up, rates like "India is growing at 10%" become deceptive. I don't think it'll ever come to a situation that I prefer. But I feel can create this identity over national lines through avenues such as education.

Have you thought about doing this in America?

I would really like to involve the Indian diaspora. Financially, they've got the money and can be benefactors and donors to this school. I was also contemplating how this would fit into my overall vision. I'm not sure how I'll feel being in India full time, so I was also thinking about doing a summer camp about Punjabi history. That could be based in the US or India; I'm pretty open to both ideas. That way, I could attract a different audience.

I brought this idea up with a few people in college and they were pretty excited about it. Even people who I would never thought were into Punjabi heritage, since they don't hang out with many Indians, actually got really excited that we were both Punjabi. Once people know, they want to know more about it.

No one really questions it growing up. I started questioning it more after 9/11, since a lot of random shit went down for most of the Indian population. We got stopped in the airports and we all wondered, why is this happening to me? I'm not Muslim, why is this happening to me? Then, I realized people across the border were exactly my ethnicity too, and that launched me into thinking about how broad my community was (Hindu Punjabi). It goes across different countries and religions. For me, that's something I definitely want to bridge the gap between.

Describe your financial state on a high level - how comfortable are you?

I'm extremely comfortable, in that I'm working in banking, living in NY, not worrying about rent, and thrifting every weekend. I don't eat at extravagant places or spend thousands buying outfits, but I've always been very comfortable and my parents never let me worry about money; they wanted me to focus on education. I never thought about my financial status until I saw a huge jump in it probably around 7th/8th grade. At that time, my current house was being built and it helped visualize the "jump" of going from upper middle class to upper class. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but when most people you know are upper middle class, it separates you from them. It sounds very elitist, but I felt separate and people treated me differently.

Describe your personal finance philosophy. Money is for ___________.

Money is for pursuing your goals. I have so many goals, so it's hard for me to decide when to spend/save.

Describe your outlook on spending vs. saving. What is worth spending/saving for?

It's worth saving for a future endeavor. When I save now, I'm thinking that I'm going to buy a property, and then I can start a school in the property. It'd be so cool to start a school on an estate. (And there are tax benefits!) I'm also thinking about having a family in the future. I don't know how my wife will be doing, and I don't want to depend on anything outside of my immediate family. And even so, I wouldn't want to depend on my parents or my family, unless it's for a down-payment or something I could pay them back for.

How did you spend your last $100?

Dry-cleaning ($15)

Pizza and a drink ($3)

Dos Caminos to celebrate a friend's birthday. I also bought her a gift. That's important - no one brings gifts anymore to birthday dinners. I don't know if it's lack of thought or commitment, or that they don't want to spend the money on someone since they're already spending on dinner. The thought of doing something for your friends is nice. People don't really like to spend money to help others now, but I think that's something that's still important for me.

What's your opinion on brand, quality, buying new/used, thrifting, etc.?

I don't care if I buy used or new, unless there's a minimal price difference in which case I'd get it new. I'd rather buy good quality used things. It needs to be an expensive item that I know is high quality. I do care about brands because brand is associated with quality or a look I like/enjoy. If I told my parents I thrifted, they'd be taken aback. They'd never buy a used good. In their minds, a used good is destroyed/cheap and they don't want to be associated with that. They have this view that only new things are good, because it's also more expensive. When you have money, you should spend it. You should be able to live nicely with the money you have, but also save for the future. If I told them I was thrifting, they'd ask me why I wasn't just buying new things.

Tell me a bit about your family and how you grew up.

I grew up in Andover. I have two brothers, one six years older and another three years younger. Growing up, my parents were only tough with me until middle/elementary school. From then on, I was tough on myself. They instilled a sense that I should be proud of my own achievements, but my parents let go really early (after 3rd/4th grade). Because of that, I really enjoyed my childhood. Unlike my friends, I was never pushed by my parents later in my life.

I always grew up knowing that I wanted to respect my elders, including my brother, and we have certain sayings we say to give them respect, so I did that when I was younger and I still do that now. We were also taught that family is #1. Friendships will come and go, but family is always most important. While I don't believe that entirely because friendships can be strong, I do believe family comes first all the time. This also includes extended family. The reason we go to India so frequently is because we wanted to see them and be close to them. It's always fun to see them.

Besides really focusing on teaching respect for family, my parents gave me a lot of space, but I think it was because I was doing what they wanted me to do. Also we weren't outright taught to be creative when we were younger, but my parents pushed me to go into the arts. My mom made me dance, so I didn't have a choice there, but I ended up liking it. That's how I grew up.

I also grew up with a lot of close family friends. Even though I had friends in school, I felt like my Punjabi friends were my "real friends". I didn't see them as frequently, but my parents spent a lot of effort to push that connection. I felt closer to them, even to this day. That's a group of people I will always be friends with forever. I don't even like all of them completely, but I've grown up with them, so they understand me a lot more. They also have insight into the cultural things I do.

I was close to one other Korean girl in middle school. James Lee and Stephanie Shin were my friends since middle school. (JF: You have a connection with Koreans!) Stephanie and I were voted best friends in middle school for 8th grade. Haha, it was kind of awkward sometimes. She'd come into the bathroom when I was changing and she'd barge in like, "I have to go!!" but I'm like "I'm changing, hold on!" I don't know why that is. I think Koreans also have strong cultural bonds and respect for elders.

When did you realize you were the ethnicity that you are?

When everyone started saying that I didn't look Indian. It happens half the time, but it was more in the context of non-Indians. Because of that, I thought it was a little weird. I didn't realize that until high school, and that's why I kept questioning it. It happened more to my brothers too. People joked around about it, I didn't care about it but I didn't understand. Once I found out that most Punjabis are in Pakistan. That's why I took this up. For me in my head, I didn't want to just say I was Indian because I don't share that identity with a lot of Indians. They're different by language and food. We just share the religion, but we have different customs that are similar to Muslims (though we wouldn't say that). Because of that, I wouldn't say I care about Indians as much. My parents never put this in my head. They weren't like, "You're Punjabi!!!" until later on. But they want me to marry a Punjabi girl. I never realized my whole system was Punjabi until recently.

Has it been a factor in how you feel about place/connection?

There wasn't a big Punjabi population where I grew up (Boston), but because of that, we stuck together even more. We'd seek out other Punjabis and meet up every weekend at least. Our group at home is probably 50-75 people, about 12-15 families. We always hang out together. There aren't too many Punjabis in the States. Most Indians here are Gujurati or south Indian. When we find each other, you stick out so much more. That's possibly why there's such a strong bond with Punjabis in the states. I don't know if South Indians/other Indians feel the same way. I think my dad met a friend when he went to grad school, and they both ended up coming to Massachusetts. That's how our circle started, and my mom is just a social butterfly. There are a lot of Indian functions (non-Punjabi specific) and you realize who is Punjabi based on their name, and then you start talking to them in Punjabi. That relationship keeps growing because they know others. It's easy to grow the network.

How do you relate to America?

I was born in Beverly, MA and grew up in Andover, MA my entire life. I don't often say I'm American, even though I'm a citizen and have grown up here my entire life. I would take America's side in a conflict over India... but that's more of a power thing. America is stronger. It's giving me a lot of opportunity; it's giving me the basis to excel. I would side with America in that case, but I think it feels ambiguous. When people ask me, "Are you American?" it's so ambiguous because everyone is American, and if I go outside the US, it sometimes has negative connotations. When I say "Indian", I never think about it in the national sense, only an ethnic group. Now that I realize it's not an ethnic group, that's why I started changing it to just Punjabi. In terms of my identity as an American, I guess I side where it's beneficial to me (haha).

Is being a part of the diaspora a blessing or a curse?

Definitely a blessing. I can hold onto the cultural aspects. In a society that is so diverse, you want to make yourself seem a little different. Being different is awesome and makes you unique. Also, my parents do that too. My mom dances, my dad loves talking in Punjabi, we have friends who write poetry in Punjabi. We're part of something outside of the US as well, but we also get those economic benefits of the US. I don't want to associate with the US's culture as much - there's not really one, it feeds off individual cultures. I do like to associate with US economically. Once you go outside the US and say you're American, people know you have money. No one thinks of a poor American. At the same time, I have the cultural aspects that make me rich in a different sense. ■