I had all the answers. I earnestly told her that I wanted to be an actor and filmmaker. I had also been so inspired by my grandparents—who basically instilled in us the idea of public service as a family value—that after my career got going, my goal was to add something civic-minded, like development studies or nonprofit work.
For the summer between the Summer Arts Institute and Governor’s School, I had my eye on a few of the philanthropic international programs I saw advertised on the school library’s bulletin board. I came home one evening and eagerly presented my dad with a colorful pamphlet about a “volunteer” opportunity that took high school students to Kenya for four weeks in July. He thumbed through it skeptically and laughed when he got to the last page: “Program Cost: $5,500.”
“If you really want to volunteer in a developing country,” Dad said, “I’ll send you to India. Our friends Daxa Auntie and Anil Uncle run a small NGO in rural Gujarat called Action Research in Community Health and Development [ARCH]. You can stay with them there.” I took him up on it. Each morning that summer I’d wake up early and shadow one of the various teams of ARCH specialists that could use an extra hand: doctors running an on-site medical clinic （which some patients traveled on foot for several days to access）， environmental and social workers visiting tribal sites deep in the Dediapada rain forest, volunteers running sex education workshops on the street （bold for a conservative country）。
I came back from India late that summer completely fluent in Gujarati—something I’ve managed to keep up, thanks to my parents and other relatives. I also returned with a basic understanding of 1） some important international development challenges, and 2） the reality that nobody wants to hook up with a sixteen-year-old American who came to rural Gujarat for a summer of volunteer work. （It was the exact opposite of the bucolic Maine sleepaway camps where my friends were getting repeatedly laid after Midnight Lip Sync Competition by the Lake Night.）
Mrs. Cummings knew about the summer volunteer work, and as I shared everything else that I wanted out of a future professional life, saying it out loud made my dreams feel more real than they had before. “So, that’s what I want to do,” I said eagerly. “Be an actor and filmmaker and do something in public service!” I was unprepared for her sudden, deep, from-the-belly laugh, just like Pussy Auntie’s. “That’s pretty much impossible,” Mrs. Cummings said with a hint of condescension. “You know, Kalpen, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
She spent the next ten minutes bringing me back down to earth, telling me that my interests were too varied, my dreams too lofty and unrealistic. I was used to this scorched-earth tactic from the Indian community, having been recently asked at a family friend’s house, “Are you not smart enough to get into medical school?” I just wasn’t expecting similar discouragement from my guidance counselor too.
What a disappointment. Just like the elementary school teachers who couldn’t tell me and Persian Araz apart, I mostly felt bad for Mrs. Cummings, thinking to myself, Your grade-A, inspirational guidance counselor advice is “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”？ A cliché you probably read on a fortune cookie?
“Something that might help get you on a more realistic path,” she continued, “is a test we administer for students with varied interests.” Okay, this was different from Pussy Auntie’s “Be practical.” I was listening. “It measures your interests and gives you a set of suggested careers to consider.” This felt very promising: If an objective tool existed to figure out my future, that meant there was a way to know for sure whether something was going to work out, right? Maybe this test would give me special knowledge about how to blend my passion for acting with my interest in the social sciences, development studies, international affairs, and poli-sci. Maybe I’d never make it as an actor because my brain was actually wired for some other thing that I hadn’t thought of yet.
Mrs. Cummings pulled a long multiple-choice test out of an envelope and handed it to me. I don’t remember exactly what the questions were like, but I feel like they were more “Buzzfeed Quiz” than AP exam because I didn’t stress over the choices. I quickly filled out the Scantron bubbles that would help me define my life, and returned to class, eagerly awaiting the results. Six weeks later, she called me back down to her office, and that’s when my heart started beating fast. “Have a seat,” she said. Opening this envelope felt like it took forever. I was sweating because I was excited about what it might potentially tell me about my future. What would be possible? What could I accomplish? I pulled out the results. On top, in bold letters, it read: “Inconclusive. This student’s interests are too varied for us to provide tangible recommendations.”
Mrs. Cummings laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. “I have never seen these results before,” she said. “They always give you a specific set of answers.” I broke the test. I was the anomaly, the oddball, the misfit. She sighed. “I guess no matter what you do, you’ll be happy doing it.”
* * *
Around the same time, the wonderful, caring director of my performing arts high school, Mr. Green, tried a different tactic based more on emotion than a test. “I’m going to flip a coin. Call heads or tails. Whatever it lands on, stick to that decision. If it’s heads, you’re going to drama school. If it’s tails, you major in political science.”
The coin landed on tails.
“You’re doing political science. How does that make you feel?” he asked.
“I dunno, not great.”
“You have to go with drama school then.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know about drama school either. I kinda want both.”
Well-meaning tricks like the coin toss or a standardized interests test didn’t work on me because I didn’t see the world as binary. Had I taken that test a few years prior, these results might have ruined me. We’re Indian. We don’t do that. Now, I knew who Mira Nair was. I had Nathans and Bens in my life. The confusing results were actually freeing. Maybe I could trust my instincts and become an actor. Or maybe I really could pursue a bunch of academic paths at once.
I kept my options open and applied to sixteen universities—some known broadly for liberal arts （with no clue what I’d specifically major in）， and some for a BFA in theater, film, and television. Nothing with passion is ever as simple as heads or tails. Sometimes you’re the guy who just wants a bunch of coins.
* * *
In addition to the standard university application, most theater programs require you to go through an audition and interview: pick two monologues, one classical, one contemporary （mine were from Henry V and The Catcher in the Rye）， perform them, and then “discuss them with us while we ask why you want to major in theater, film, and television instead of becoming a doctor like everybody expected.”
FPAC had a dedicated monologue study in the weeks leading up to college interviews. Since most of the class was applying to theater programs, the performance and critique sessions with our teacher allowed us to hone our skills when they mattered most. I was confident in my choices and had defended them in class several times.