34 hours. That’s how long I’ll have between leaving my home in California and arriving in Hyderabad for the incredible journey that will be my first six months out of college. Between reading books from the list of selections we were given to educate us on India, tearing through Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed again to remind myself what good teaching looks like, and listening to the 16-hour playlist I’ve carefully curated for the long trip, I can only imagine that the rest of the travel time will be spent trying to contain my excitement (or sleeping, but excitedly).

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an interest in social justice. So when I decided to study filmmaking, it felt only natural for me to explore how the two could be used alongside each other. But the mainstay of social justice filmmaking, the depressing documentary, left a lot to be desired. After working with a nonprofit that seeks sustainable solutions to poverty over the periodic dispensing of charity and an organization that provides participants with the technical training and tools to tell their own stories through film, my curiosity about what those depressing documentaries would look like if their subjects were the ones producing them intensified. I was drawn to The Modern Story because they were asking the same questions I was. What would it look like if we helped empower those most often spoken for or never spoken about to speak for themselves? What would we see in those stories that challenged the script so often dispensed? These are exactly the questions I hope to see answered during my time in India. And these are the questions that will carry me through my 34-hour journey when the revolutionary words of Paolo Freire and the soothing sounds of Sufjan Stevens aren’t enough.

When my sister and I were growing up in Bahrain, my father made up bedtime stories for us using characters from comics he read as a child in India. For the longest time, I believed that Chamataka the Jackal was entirely his own invention. Now I see how those stories let him keep alive something from his past, while connecting us to something we had never truly known. By linking generations and places, stories – both real and fictional – become central to the migration experience.

My parents also took many photos and videos over the years, zealously documenting our life in a new country that became home. Looking back, it’s no wonder I was drawn to visual media. I was already a voracious reader and video and photography opened up the world even further. One of the most fulfilling educational experiences I had in high school was working with friends to make a short documentary about local reactions to the imminent invasion of Iraq. In addition to digital skills and new perspectives on our teachers, classmates, and each other, the project let us take action in our community and speak back, in our own small way, to events that left us feeling powerless.

In my experience as an advocate, I learned more lessons about the power of storytelling. It was a critical tool, whether working with families who were fighting to save their homes after being targeted for predatory loans, or organizing with immigrant students for access to higher education and their families’ safety. Telling your story can provide an invitation, a catharsis, or a catalyst. It can bring people together and expose obscured truths. When we share the experiences that give meaning to our lives and define the changes we want, it creates space and strength for others to do the same.

The first stories that we learn might be about wily animals and their forest adventures, but we collect stories throughout our lives. Considering this abundance of narratives, we might wonder about the significance of our own. In those moments, I believe, it helps to remember how storytelling can transform us, and how the personal can be political. I can’t wait to embark on this journey with the TMS fellowship and collaborate with the young people, educators, and community organizations of Hyderabad.