Komal Surani
Favorite Color
“My favorite color is purple. This is kind of weird, but when I was younger, I had a lot of family friends who were guys and so like I always wanted to be like them. I was like, my favorite color is blue, and I’m a tomboy, but the problem was I actually really liked dresses, and heels, and dressing up. I liked being a girl! So, I was just like, well, what’s the mix between red and blue? It’s purple!”
A Conversation With..
“I like J.K. Rowling a lot. For me she was a huge reason that I thought I could really, like, be a writer. Because, you know, she came from nothing, and got herself this far. I think we’d, you know, talk about her life, and what advice she might give to an aspiring author.”
Favorite Quality
“Persistence. I’m good at bothering people.”
My Story:
“I went to an all girls high school, so we had a few smaller classes, too. And of the smaller classes I took was Vocal Arts. I took it my sophomore year— I actually took it for three years, but I started in sophomore year. So, it was a solo singing class and around April or so, they would do this thing called the Cabaret— a jazz performance. And it was like a lot of work, because the school didn’t pay for it, so we had to charge for it. So like, all the chairs and tables we had to rent, and you know like, all the decorations and things we had to make ourselves, the performance was our responsibility. We had to make it work. We had to charge like an entrance fee and it was mostly just parents that were invited. We gave them dinner too, so we had to pay for that too. In sophmore year— so like the class was multi grade— and there were 11/12th graders in that class too—the Cabaret needed a stage manager. And, like, I have this thing about volunteering when nobody else volunteers because I just can’t take it. And it was, like, a lot of work— the stage manager job, and she was like, “Oh does anybody want the job?”. And nobody raised their hand, so I was like, “I’ll do it!” And I was like this shy little sophomore— not like I am now— who didn’t know how to talk to adults, didn’t know how to talk to people in general, actually, didn’t know how to give orders— which is like a stage manager’s job. I was none of these things! And she gave me the job. I guess, you know, nobdoy else volunteered, but I just couldn’t believe it, that she let me do it. Because, then I did it the year after that, and the year after that too. She changed my life in that one moment. Everything I know about being, like, a strong, confident empowered woman, I learned from her.”