Today two Indian American teens have walked into the White House to attend an invitation by the US First Lady Michelle Obama. Gopal Raman from Texas and Maya Eashwaran from Georgia are the first Indian Americans to be selected for the National Students Poets Program by the White House. They are among the five budding poets selected for this prestigious program this year.
Most of the times, young Indians in America hit headlines for winning scholarships in science or technology, making impactful inventions or significant contributions to communities, and pursuing philanthropy. Undeniably, the achievement by Indian-origin Gopal Raman and Maya Eashwaran is an altogether different feather in the cap of Indian American community.
Incepted in 2011, the White House’s National Student Poets Program seeks to promote and establish the role of creative writing in academic and other spheres as a key to personal success across the nation. Every year, five National Student Poets are selected from a number of creative writers, who have bagged a National Scholastic Art and Writing Award for poetry.
17-year-old Maya Eashwaran from Alpharetta in Georgia exercises his creative writing skills to write about foreigners and his personal experiences of dealing with them. Cultural assimilation in the modern age is a subject matter of his writings.
Gopal Raman, a High School senior from Dallas in Texas, believes that the emotive power of poetry unites people against all odds. He draws inspirations from the writings of such eminent authors as Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens and Billy Collins.
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