I Was Born in a Brothel. I Just Got Into Columbia.

I didn’t find education in a classroom. I found it in the people who refused to give up on me.

📍 Newport, RI, March 2026 (Mahek)

Last week, I was accepted into the Ed.M. program at Teachers College, Columbia University. This is the essay I wrote for my application.

My first classroom was not in a school. It was a brothel.

I was born in Kamathipura, India’s oldest red-light area, to a mother who was a sex worker. In that environment, learning happened informally and often harshly, especially through watching, listening and surviving. By the time I was ten, my mother had died, my sister and I had escaped sexual enslavement, and we arrived at Kranti, the only place that has ever felt like family. Kranti is also the world’s only school for daughters of sex workers run by daughters of sex workers themselves. It was there that I first encountered education not as a system, but as a lifeline.

At Kranti, education did not follow a standard timetable or curriculum. Learning happened through shared responsibility, dialogue, creativity, and care. A typical day might include schoolwork, therapy sessions, conflict mediation, and crises that demanded collective response. I learned English there. I learned to trust adults again. Most importantly, I learned that education could help people make sense of their lives and imagine futures that were not predetermined by stigma or circumstance.

One of the most formative tools in this environment was theatre. At age eleven, I stepped onto a stage for the first time as part of a play we devised together called Lal Batti (Red-Light) Express. It told the stories of our lives in the brothels of Mumbai. We performed it in alternative schools, juvenile jails, community centers, sex workers’ collectives, and eventually on international stages. What stayed with me was not the performance itself, but what happened afterward: audience members staying behind to talk, to cry, to share stories they had never spoken aloud. I began to understand that learning and healing often happen in the spaces created around content, not just within it.

This understanding has shaped how I approach education ever since. Theatre was not an extracurricular activity for me; it was a way of thinking, listening, and facilitating dialogue. Over time, it became less about expression and more about structure: how experiences are framed, how voices are invited in, and how learning environments can either reproduce harm or interrupt it.

I am currently completing my Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. Studying theatre formally gave me technical language and historical context, and a minor in literature deepened my engagement with narrative and interpretation. I also had opportunities that many young artists aspire to, including performing on Broadway and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. While I am grateful for these experiences, they clarified something essential for me: performance itself is not my destination. The most meaningful work I have done has not been on professional stages, but in classrooms and community spaces where learning is fragile, relational, and deeply consequential.

Throughout my undergraduate years, I returned to Kranti School for two to four months every year. This was not volunteer work. Kranti is my home, and teaching there is my responsibility. During these periods, I worked daily with girls aged eight to eighteen, often for several hours at a time. I led theatre-based learning sessions, creative writing workshops, journaling and reflection circles, meditation and gratitude practices, and collaborative problem-solving activities. Many of the girls I worked with were navigating trauma, instability, and intense social stigma. Traditional schooling had often failed them. In these classrooms, I saw how a curriculum that is grounded flexibility, creativity, and relationship could re-engage learners who had been labeled “difficult” or “behind.”

These experiences made one thing very clear to me: curriculum is never neutral. What we teach, how we teach it, and whose knowledge is valued all shape who students believe they are allowed to become. I could sense what worked in these learning environments, but I also became aware of what I lacked. I did not yet have the theoretical grounding or research tools to design curriculum that was intentional, sustainable, and ethically accountable beyond instinct and experience.

This is why I am applying to the Ed.M. program in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College. Teachers College’s emphasis on curriculum as a site of inquiry, justice, and innovation speaks directly to my goals. I am particularly drawn to the program’s focus on how curriculum intersects with identity, culture, and power, and how educators can design learning experiences that respond to real-world complexity rather than abstract ideals. I want to study curriculum not as a fixed body of content, but as a living framework that must be continually questioned and adapted.

At Teachers College, I hope to deepen my understanding of curriculum theory, pedagogical design, and qualitative research methods so that I can strengthen the work I am already doing. I am interested in how arts-based and narrative approaches can be integrated into curriculum to support adolescent learners, particularly those from marginalized communities. I want to learn how to evaluate impact responsibly, document learning outcomes without reducing students to data points, and contribute to conversations about education that are grounded in lived realities.

My strengths as a learner and educator come from having navigated multiple educational systems. I have studied in India’s poorest government schools, elite boarding schools, alternative education models, and international universities. I have experienced what it feels like to belong and also what it feels like to be visibly out of place. These experiences have shaped my ability to listen carefully, adapt quickly, and hold complexity without rushing to solutions. In classrooms, I bring patience, humility, and a deep respect for students’ lived knowledge.

I would contribute to the Teachers College community as someone who understands education as both intellectual work and moral practice. I bring with me perspectives shaped by community living, collective responsibility, and the realities of learners who are often excluded from academic conversations. I am eager to learn alongside peers from different backgrounds, and to contribute thoughtfully to discussions about curriculum, equity, and educational transformation.

After completing my Ed.M., I intend to return to India to continue developing curriculum at Kranti School and similar community-based learning spaces. My goal is not to replicate Western models of education, but to co-create curriculum that is contextually grounded, culturally responsive, and accountable to the communities it serves. Education gave me a future when my circumstances suggested otherwise. I want to help build educational structures that do the same for others.

Everything I am pursuing now is rooted in where I come from. I am not seeking to leave my community behind, but to return to it with stronger tools, clearer language, and deeper responsibility. Teachers College represents a place where my lived experience and my commitment to curriculum design can meet rigor, reflection, and purpose.