My name is Kavya. I’m Indian. However, I’m not actually that in touch with my family’s culture. Although I can understand some Hindi, I can’t speak or read it. I also, quite uncharacteristically, can’t handle spicy food at all. I’m also not Hindu or vegetarian (for some reason, everybody expects me to be, as if every Indian person is also Hindu and vegetarian.) However, I do feel attached to my heritage in a way.
When I found out Overwatch (a video game that came out recently) had an Indian character, I was ecstatic. I had never seen an Indian character in a video game before, ever. She quickly became my favorite character. Not just because she was Indian—her powers, personality, and backstory were interesting and well-fleshed out. Not only was she a Indian representation, she was a good representation, and not just there to be a token character. I was even more excited to find out later that she was autistic. I’m not on the spectrum myself, but having neurodivergent characters in a game, who weren’t demonized for being different, but instead celebrated, was a great thing.
As a person with three disorders—ADHD, anxiety, and depression, ending the stigma of mental illness is very important to me. As you can probably tell by now, I’m pretty passionate about media representation of diversity. I didn’t used to be, though. Even though I knew I was bisexual from a young age, I never thought it was important to come out, or cared if there were bi characters in media or not. But everything changed when I came out to my mother. Suddenly, I became intensely aware of any portrayal of an LGBT+ person, knowing that that was the only understanding that my mom (and many other people in the world) had of me and my community. I became aware that I had to take matters into my own hands, instead of just playing a passive role and expecting society to understand the person I am.
I'm Kavya