I come from a long lineage of farmers. My family’s lineage is called Kodathi Reddy. My ancestors and family have been farmers up until my generation, with my cousins and me being the first generation to grow up in a modern city, Bangalore, without having farmed.
Conversations with my grandmother reveal to me, the intimate connection my family shared, for many generations, with the land, the plants, soil, and water. She describes with precision, how the community of farmers in our village—Thirupalaya and Hebbagodi— practiced agriculture—their techniques and strategies—growing everything they needed to thrive and survive. Farming-knowledge was passed from generation to generation, enabling each generation to live a wholesome life, even during the occurrences of droughts and floods. She describes parts of her life through the joy of harvesting grains, sowing seeds in soft soil, and through their farm-irrigation systems that distributed water to all neighboring farms from a river source, much like patterns of veins in leaves. I draw my deep admiration for the plant world through these inter-generational experiences.
My timeline of this journey to understand the plant world is but one speck among the several lineages on Earth that can root their love for plants back to their ancestors, which in a sense is all of us. However, the growing impacts of capitalism over the many years has pushed many farmers and communities away from their generational lands and self-sufficiency of growing food. Such an experience is shared by my family as well, when growing factories in Thirupalaya and Hebbagoddi pushed my grandfather, grandmother and their children away from self-sufficiency into becoming dependent on other sources of money for livelihood. This has shifted the plates for my family, sometimes making it confusing as to what is/was a ‘normal lifestyle’ for an inter-generational agrarian lineage, and other times validating the need for settling into a new ‘normal life’. I have lived through this prolonged-shift in lifestyle and choices, through farms shrinking into tiny city-gardens, slow reduction of our trees and wild native plants, soil turning to tar, through adapting to fast modernization, economy and globalization in and around Bangalore. Simultaneously, I have lived through a pull back towards traditions, culture, values and rhythms of ‘old ways of doing things’, memories and admiration for the plants among us. Throughout, holding onto my dreams, migrating from land to land, weaving a line of my own—connecting many years of working with plants, to many more years of studying/working and being with plants, for the rest of my life.
I was born in November of 1993 in Bangalore India to Saraswathi Muniyaappa and Vinod Ramakrishna
Saraswathi, my mother (here, 20 years old) flourished in the beauty of her gardens. Growing up, she filled our house with plants, and wiped their leaves free of dust each day. Her love and awe for the world's plants, colors, and art is her gift to me and my sister.
My mother and father were arranged to be married by their parents. As young strangers in a committed relationship, they had to navigate their love for each other and in this process, they created the most beautiful world, teaching oleanders and bougainvilleas and love to me.
My grandparents were farmers in Hebbagodi village, like their parents, until much later in their lives, they moved to Bangalore and started practicing real estate management. My grandmother's love for plants continues to flourish in Bangalore in the form of a tiny-garden.
In 1999, my father passed away when I was six. This trauma put my mother through various struggles in her life as a 25 year old young mother to my 5 month old sister and me. As a new widow in an Indian society, she navigated through a world of patriarchy to fight for her young daughters. Her strength and softness billowed in us as we held onto what we deeply loved.
Growing up without a father was difficult but our dreams cushioned our hopes for the future. I wanted to become a plant doctor+ an artist, my sister loved cooking and dancing.
Growing into a young adult revealed several societal expectations laid out for me that were considered "safe" paths. Marriage was one the top priorities for being the oldest daughter to a single mother. I had to chose between my dreams, and my family.
I chose dreams. The more growing- Bangalore clenched me, the more I longed to grow in a different way, in the way I painted plants and imagined being there. However, to leave the country, one needed wealth. I felt terribly afraid, yet determined by this reality. Through the combination of a dream, and firm commitment, a sequence of unknowing possibilities were strung together.
In 2012, I came to the U.S to achieve my dreams and left my family behind indefinitely. Borders felt painful and arbitrary. And the racial struggles of being an international student in the U.S soon became very clear to me
In 2013, I had a devastating lumbar fracture at James Madison University from JMU's misguided caving trip. I met Mr. Maddox, my art history professor (and a naturalist) at JMU who quickly understood my isolated condition and became a mentor for the rest of my life. He revived my wonder for plants and encouraged me to follow my dream of becoming a plant scientist.
In 2014, disgusted by JMU's institutionalized racism, depression from temporary disability, loss of family support and harsh educational cost, I left the U.S to find my own source of education for plant science by travelling to 12 countries (Central America and Asia). Mr. Maddox's support provided hope to pursue this non-traditional path.
I travelled to several countries through selling food on the streets, and trading work for accommodation. My knowledge about various plants expanded through specimen collection and conversations with local friends.
Travelling allowed me to see a different picture of the world. Something that was not taught in schools, or even perhaps hidden in the Indian and particularly American education that I had received.
I pondered a lot during my travels, and asked many questions. I was often asked to pay more during border crossings while my western peer travelers were allowed to move ahead of me. I wondered why my Central American, among other country friends and people from my part of the world had little mobility in this world we all shared?
Why lands here were owned by white people, and how oil spills changed the landscape and life of those living here for generations? Why education was far out of reach from my hands, and the hands of people that were from globally 'poor' countries?
And yet, knowledge was more attainable here. While my family and I felt so separated because of our traumas, in these many places I was cared for and loved by the people I met. Plant knowledge was taught to me by people living in cities, on mountains, by rivers, by street vendors, and farmers.
Care was so profound, and love was so abundant. I felt a contrast between life at JMU and in other countries. I found myself through the empathy of people around me and through abundance of plant curiosities that so many people shared. The injustices of these lands, and our people felt unreasonable and painful.
Stimulating, unrushed conversations showed a world otherwise. A collection of afternoons with friends from many worlds showed that a world without borders thrived with more life and jubilance. And this was what we needed to remember, in order to make happen
Acquiring education meant empowerment to me, and the ability to understand my surroundings. Knowledge in it's true form is a revolution, and often the revolution that is prevented from happening through systemic academic segregation. I, among my many friends deserved this, and I was determined to receive it and build bridges for those around me to attain the same.
2016 I returned back to the US. Travelling had opened my eyes to many curiosities and the reality of social-climate injustice. My desire to find solutions, learn about the problems, coupled with my dream of becoming a plant scientist brought me back to the U.S to finish my undergrad at Eastern Mennonite University in environmental sciences.
My 'national' identity, and assigned 'immigration' status, my constricted mobility in this world was reminded to me over and over through crossing borders but this reminder became particularly more present in my everyday life when I decided to finish my undergrad in Harrisonburg--where I had gone, to fulfil my dreams, and leave family trauma behind
Among my classmates in Harrisonburg, I was one of the few students who didn't receive scholarships, school loans, tuition aid, and economical support to study, and had to pay $24,000 per year from my pocket. For the reason that I was from India-- "an international student" studying in the US.
Attaining an undergraduate degree here meant a choice between food and paying education. The latter made me starve for 4 years. What did it mean to be filled with the curiosity to learn and to be kept away from acquiring knowledge because of 'identity'. What did mean to be from a 'developing' country? what did mean to be brown and alone in a white school?
What did it mean when 'my country's' plant specimens were taken, and saved in western herbariums and that I, from the same land as the plants wasn't allowed to understand them, and that I had to chose between life itself and education in the same countries where my land's plants resided under glass covers?
I wondered if this education was truly meant to empower its students. Particularly when I had lost 10lbs, couldn't afford text books and still put every breathe of my day into academia, and yet received a 'D'. Was this knowledge? what was I working towards if I was meant to fail?
In 2020, I graduated from EMU with a BSc in environmental science . Though I had acquired a degree now, I was parched for not having an opportunity to do plant science research. Internships were supposed to fill this gap.
Early in 2020, I applied to >25 internship programs, among many listed by my university. Many of these where students received research experience, eg. REU, BTI etc.. were places that I was not eligible to apply as an 'international student', other places I had to volunteer. I yearned from every cell of my body to study plants, but knowledge continued to remain far from reach.
Though away from my family, our parallel lifestyle showed a common struggle --the structural distancing from a life of land and farming, and educational plant knowledge that we both had the right to. The structure though across countries, was the same--capitalism & privatization of all life forms, such as land and knowledge.
In a misguided structure, hope and belief is the line that doesn't settle for injustice and works toward what is truth--justice. This hope often shines through kindness in people, in the structure, that make a path. Hope, in my circumstance was calling researchers to acquire an opportunity, and a path became when I could research with the Smithsonian through a kind researcher.
One elite institution provides connection to another elite institution; but most importantly in my case, one kind researcher knowing another researcher makes a path for the 'underrepresented'. In 2021, I was accepted into Cornell, UCLA, U. Florida etc..to start my PhD. I chose UCLA.
I see aspects of my own healing (and with my family) now that I (+we) can access my(our) love for plant study. I also see that acquiring higher education is a life threatening process for oppressed students, even in a 'globalized world'. Whereas how easy it is for western countries (+elites) to research (and live) in any part of the world under the same 'globalization'.
If we believe that our place in this world and its knowledge are our foundational rights, then knowledge about our world in it's honest form will revolutionize our systems. However, this revolution is often prevented from happening through systemic academic segregation and global oppression. The move to make education available, will create systemic change