Undergraduate / Cornell will be absolutely amazing; Cornell Arts and Science [4]

Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are exciting to you. Why will Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences be the right environment in which to pursue your interests? (Please limit your response to 650 words.)

I saw this prompt and the first thing that came to my mind was something that is simple- yet quite demanding in its own right. I love reading. No. I looove reading. I enjoy turning pages, exploring the world through the ink on pages of papyrus. My mother tells me that I was such an active fetus that I made it impossible for her to read books. She could never balance them on her tummy as I kept moving. I say to her that it's probably because I was itching to snatch the book out of her hands and devour it myself.

The reason I find it so incredibly exciting, is that it keep reality at bay like nothing else can. You can watch a movie while you're doing a chore, or you're engaged in conversation, but not with a book. It demands your complete focus. You forget everything- the family problems, the high school drama, the school pressure, and focus entirely on a world that' not quite your own, yet you feel strangely at home. I believe that I am the person I am because of what I read. Reading Harry Potter taught me that I have both good and evil inside of me, and I can choose to be what I want, which has been a deciding factory my entire life. My favorite genre has to be historical fiction. The first historical fiction I read was 'The Other Boleyn Girl' by Philippa Gregory, and it literally blew my mind (okay, figuratively.) I hated Henry VIII with a passion and yet I couldn't wait to know more about his fascinating life (He killed his own wives!) Ever since then I have been passionate about Tudor history. Reading 'A Passage to India' helped me see how Muslims were discriminated against, and how people in Colonial India survived. See, it's not just about imagination, it's also about information. Historical fiction tells you so much about people who lived in different eras, and the added bonus is that the scandalous plotlines with bits of fiction keep it from getting boring. Historical fiction is mesmerizing because these are things you will never get to experience. It's almost like an elite club, you're only in if you read. My other intellectual interest is giving what I get from authors to others i.e. writing. I love the feeling I get when I read stuff by others, so I want to give back that feeling to people who read my work. I started blogging for fun when I was in freshman year. One day, one of my classmates came up to me and said "You are the best writer I know of our age, I am so addicted. Our country needs good writers, never give up!" and it was so entirely heartfelt that I couldn't not do it after that. Another thing about me is that I am a bit of an introvert, which is why writing is also therapeutic. What I can't say, I write. I believe that you are nothing if you aren't opinionated, and I express my opinions truly when I write. I actually have epiphanies when I write, because it helps me put my thoughts into order. What you write is also immortal. When I read things I wrote seven, eight years from now, I find things about myself I never knew. I am almost giddy about literary devices. It's so amazing that through metaphors and similes, you can make unreal analogies and get your point across. Hyperbole is so awesome I could go on for ages about it (pun intended!)

Cornell will be absolutely amazing because I can develop my own program while majoring in English. I can choose to focus on a particular historical period or genre, or combine creative writing with literature. It's basically all my interests combined together into a beautiful package that I cannot wait to explore.

Is it too general? I absolutely love reading and writing, passionately, so I thought these will be the most apt, and show a true picture. Is it okay?

Undergraduate / 'My friends have a running joke' Common App- Perfectly content essay. [4]

Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do and experience there and why is it meaningful to you? (250-650)

My friends have a running joke, that whenever I tell them I am going somewhere, they immediately say it has to be Anuppur. It is a small town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, where my aunt lives. She has a beautiful home with a spacious terrace, a huge and stunning garden, insanely large rooms with high ceilings, and a balcony surrounding the entire house on the first floor. My aunt has a knack for style, so she has decorated her house with queer knick-knacks and amazing paintings. All rooms are painted in such a way that one wall has a statement wallpaper, while the other walls have neutral colors. My favorite part is that the house has huge windows that let the sunshine in. You feel like you are inside and outside at the same time. For as long as I can remember, I have spent part of my summer and winter vacations there, and it is safe to say that those times are the best time of the year, because I am perfectly content there.

Whenever I think of my aunt's place, I think of all the hours my cousins and I have spend late into the night talking about anything and everything, from crushes, celebrity gossip, favorite songs and movies, to family drama, our anxieties and fears, and even death. I remember darting from one room to another while playing hide and seek, eating barbecued chicken and dancing around the bonfire, playing catch-catch, cricket and kabaddi on the terrace and rolling around the garden and playing with Charger (my aunt's dog). Most of all, I remember all the movie marathons we always watch, when all of us somehow snuggle into one large blanket, and almost always end up ignoring half the movie because we have so much fun with each other. Besides, Anuppur in itself is a beautiful place, with no malls and shopping complexes (not even a decent cinema hall!), but a large forest cover and many lakes, which make for interesting picnic spots.

When I am at my aunt's place, I forget everything else. All the peer drama, the school pressure and other fears and anxieties roll themselves into one large ball of nonbeing, and my mind kicks it out of the zone effectively. There's an infectious energy in the house, and every corner of it holds some childhood memory that puts a smile on my face. I feel like I am on a holiday from life, and the world is at a pause, while my life gets to play, and play how. Perhaps the reason I am so happy and content there is because normally, I live with my mother only. My father comes home on weekends as he works in another city, while my brother is married and lives in another city. It is amazing in a way, because I believe my mother and I have the best relationship it is possible to have, and she is my absolute best friend. But, I will be lying if I say it doesn't get lonely and quiet at times. I crave the zingy and crazy atmosphere where lots of people are laughing and enjoying, and that's exactly what I get at my aunt's place. The atmosphere is always charged, and there's never a dull moment. There's no time to dwell on or think about mistakes. All the time is spent playing, laughing, talking and just enjoying. I always get this really warm feeling in my tummy when we're all together, because I feel so cherished and loved that I possibly couldn't want anything else. There's not a doubt in my mind that if I could spend my entire life there, I definitely would.