Dear Team at Zuban,

I am writing to you to express my interest in the position of Projects Associate (Outreach &
Communications). My name is Aniqua Rakshi, and I’m a third-year undergrad majoring in
English with a minor in Psychology. I am Bahujan Muslim who comes from a very small village
called Lachchanpur, in the district of Purnea, Bihar. I identify as a Queer, Non-Binary Person.
Also, I am Neurodivergent, and have constantly battled with ADHD, Borderline Personality
Disorder and Major Depression.

My major in English has helped me understand the women’s movement, the struggles, conquests,
and fights that women as a community are striving towards, through texts like Toni Morrison’s
Beloved, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Poems by Eunice D’Souza, Alice Walker’s
The Colour Purple, Rassasundari Debi’s Amar Jiban, and many more. Marxists readings of the
texts of Tennesse Williams’ The Glass Menagerie or Bertolt Brecht The Good person Of
Szechuan have given me an understanding of the people of this world under its capitalistic
regime. All of my texts have given me a critical insight into people’s minds and lives that makes
me more empathetic towards them. I have then, actively sought to find answers and solutions to
the problems my professors have, during the course of my study, laid out before me with each
text passing. Socio-political scenario of each of our authors’ texts have made me understand that
this world is just turning circles where similar situations amount to similar climb up-hill, and
then the same descent downwards resulting to protests, uprisings, horrors, and then a
breakthrough. This means that we could always learn from our ancestors and their struggles to
know where our struggles would peak and resolve. Furthermore, my minor in Psychology has
equipped me with issues like contemporary challenges faced by the field (workforce diversity,
sexual harassment, technology, corporate social responsibility, globalization, labour supply,
quality management, etc.). It has helped me in understanding the role groups play in our life and
the significance of healthy inter-group Relations, and the nature of relationship between groups
in terms of cooperation, competition and conflict. It has also helped me in realizing the relevance
and consequence of social categorization and in understanding how group memberships shapes
one’s social identity and colors our perception of others.Thus, It has collectively shaped me in
knowing ways to resolve and manage inter-group conflicts.

Finding my voice is still a long way to go for me, I have realised. Being a second generation
learner from my family, my father took us out of our village and placed us in the city for better
schools and education prospects. This severed my ties to my roots. In my conquest to find my
voice I reached out to my village, and my people, my mother tongue and the specific kind of
muslim I was, in this country which has actively sought to uproot my community from deep
within. I wish to volunteer with your organization as a major step towards that goal. I wish,
towards the end of my work with you, that I speak like I want to, and not the voice this state
wants me to have, that is none at all.
Sincerely,
Aniqua Rakshi
Contact: +91 8434621329