Struggling, Striving, Yet Always Smiling

＂＂In 7th grade, my older brother asked me for help with his 9th grade English assignment in which he had to pick five words and write an essay about his life around those five words. I didn’t want to give him five random adjectives with no cohesiveness. After some thought, the words ＂＂＂＂Struggling, Striving, Yet Always Smiling＂＂＂＂ popped into my mind, and it was not long before a spark turned into a firework. The words stuck with me all the way through high school and college, and I even decorated my graduation cap with the same phrase. It became my motto and source of encouragement whenever I felt life was too challenging. In this book, you will find poems of my struggles, body image issues, and lack of a love life. Moreover, I have written about causes meaningful to me such as gender roles, farmers, and soldiers. I also tried to incorporate my Hindi knowledge into some poems. The poems are written about my experiences, thoughts, and questions about life and the world. From the pervasiveness of technology and the beauty of senses to the route to happiness, the poems shed light on my unique perspectives about the modern world and our surroundings.＂＂