Seventeenth

“When I was 17, it was 2004 and the top-grossing Bollywood movie of the year was about the love story between a Pakistani Muslim politician’s daughter and an Indian Hindu air force pilot, better known as Veer-Zaara.  A year later, while at MIT, I took a class on Bollywood called “Topics in South Asian Popular Culture,” where I wrote an essay on the struggle between duty versus love in this epic saga. You could say that’s where my passion for Bollywood writing first planted its seeds, but the roots of my passion ran far deeper than I realized at the time. Beyond the sometimes half-baked plots and glitzy exteriors of Bollywood, there lies a thread of commonality between South Asians everywhere. Whether you love or hate the movies, if you’re South Asian, you are at least familiar with the premise of the Indian film industry.  This common thread is what allows Bollywood to have such a far-reaching impact across Indian society, and it is what ultimately ties culture and heritage to these 3+ hour-long movies. And it is this common thread, this undeniable familiarity, and this far reaching penetration into virtually every level of South Asian society that drew me into Bollywood so many years ago and keeps me anchored in to this day.” – Farah Khan

Bio: I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama and then went to Boston for undergrad at MIT.  I returned to the Deep South for medical school at UAB, and I am currently a second year internal medicine resident at Emory University.  Along with Bollywood, my passions include my family, writing, and global health.