Maybe I was never meant to fit into one box

I have always been the girl with too many questions.

Why does this work? What if I tried that? Who decided it has to be this way? I asked them of my teachers, my friends, my family, and most of all, myself. And I didn't just ask. I tried things. A new skill, a new hobby, a new sport, a new book. If something made me curious, I wanted my hands on it.

People have a name for that: a jack of all trades. For a long time I heard it as a warning. Now I think it might be the truest thing about me.

The girl with two worlds

But I grew up in India, and where I come from, curiosity is lovely as long as your marks are good.

So I did what was expected. I studied hard. I chased the scores, the entrance exams, the admission to a top university. Not because someone forced me, but because I understood what was at stake. A good education meant a good career. A good career meant a better life, and not only for me. For my family and my sibling too.

So I kept clearing the next exam, and the next one. And the whole time, my heart kept stretching in other directions: towards sports, towards spirituality, towards painting, towards understanding how people grow and change. A hundred things that had nothing to do with a syllabus.

Here's the honest part, though. All of those things need time and money. And time and money come from the very path I was trying to wander away from.

So for years I lived in two parallel worlds. In one, I was the focused student doing everything right. In the other, I was a restless, curious girl who wanted to try everything. I kept thinking that one day I would have to choose.

Then came IIT

Getting into IIT Gandhinagar for my master's felt like arriving. It turned out to be the beginning.

Something in me changed completely there. It was challenging on so many levels. For the first time, I was surrounded by people who were simply better than me: sharper, faster, more prepared. It was a whole different world, and it quietly took apart the story I'd been telling myself about who I was.

It was uncomfortable. It was also the best thing that could have happened to me. That story deserves its own post, and it's coming.

Then the world stopped

And then, in 2020, covid happened.

After nine years of living away from home, I was suddenly back with my family and my sibling. Everything outside went quiet. And in that quiet, I did something I had never really done before: I started investing in myself.

I read book after book. I spent hours upskilling. And I spent a lot of time alone with my own mind, noticing what I think, how I think, why I think that way, and whether I could change it.

Somewhere in those months I came across a line that I have never forgotten:

"Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It's your masterpiece after all."

Nathan W. Morris

So I started editing. What I gave my time to. What I believed about myself. What I was actually working towards.

My family gave me so much love in those months, and with it, the room to imagine beyond what I had always assumed my life would be. There is a lot more to say about that time. Maybe one day.

So much happened in between

A lot happened between that girl and the woman writing this. Too much for one post, so I'm going to tell it properly, one story at a time:

• My IIT dream (coming soon): what it took to get there, and what it cost.
• Life as a master's student (coming soon): the hardest and most humbling two years.
• The PhD: a leap of faith, or a bet on myself (coming soon): leaving a good job in industry to start again in a new country.

Maybe I was never meant to fit into one box

Today I'm an AI researcher and an engineer. I'm also someone who lifts, travels, paints when she can, reads about the mind, and stops mid-walk because the sky is doing something beautiful.

For years I thought I had to pick one. I don't.

The two parallel worlds were never really separate. The discipline I learned from all those exams is what lets me chase everything else. And the curiosity that pulled me away from my books is exactly what makes me good at research.

That's what LiveLiftUp is: my place to share all of it.

• Growth: the real story of higher education, PhD life, and careers
• Tech & AI: beginner-friendly explanations and research made simple
• Fitness: training around a busy life, and why a strong body helps a strong mind
• Travel: places, stories, and experiences over things
• Life: new city days, routines, and everything in between

I especially want this to reach women in India who are dreaming of a master's, a PhD, or a career in tech, and wondering if it's really possible for them. I'm not here because I have everything figured out. I'm here because I'm a few steps ahead on a road a lot of us want to walk, and I'd rather share it honestly than keep it to myself.

If any of this sounds like you, the one with too many interests and too many questions, stay a while. Say hi, ask me anything, and let's grow together.

Live. Lift. Level up. ♡