I was born in Juneau, AK, to immigrant parents from Tumkur and Hassan in the state of Karnataka. My father was a very hard-working man, but carried the burden of hiding his sexuality of being gay, filing for bankruptcy twice, and not being proud of himself. That hatred was displaced on everyone. My mother would go on to live with schizophrenia, 16 years lock down, 9 years step down psychiatric facilities, and I would be separated from her until I was 33 and took her out of a psychiatric facility the day after I graduated residency. My brother was gay and had a tough time accepting it. He tried to control and fix his emotions through methamphetamine and alcohol overuse, and was found dead for 17 days with a heart attack at 48. I inherited pain, confusion, doubt, and self-hate, which would be the catalyst to Alchemical Awareness™.

Child Protective Services (CPS), Adult Protective Services (APS), Domestic Violence Shelters (DV), and the police visits became my early reality. Systems tried to protect me, but I was already guarding myself. Fear became my nervous system's first language. I was undergoing neurobiological warfare before I could even speak a complete sentence.

You know, my mom wouldn’t say much about my childhood. One thing she always says in her cute, soft-spoken Kannada is that my dad said, “Don’t cry at the airport.” That was when I was separated from my mom. When I moved to Seattle, Child Protective Services (CPS) was ongoing with regular physical and mental abuse. GOD was always there guiding me, and for some reason wouldn’t let me give up. The physical abuse is one thing, but saying—wait, no, yelling—that “you’re stupid, you’re dumb, and you’ll never amount to anything” daily must’ve been hard for that young boy to tolerate. I bet if he just said it once, it would’ve hit harder than saying it every day. The empathy I have for him today is that he was hurting so much that he felt the need to displace his fears on an 8-year-old to feel better about himself.

At my last speaking engagement, I told the audience that if you’ve ever felt like someone’s words tried to define your worth, you can alchemize those moments into the very fuel that drives your future.

This picture was taken, I believe, in the 5th grade. I do not have many photos of me growing up because they were all thrown away after my mother had a schizophrenic episode and she got evicted. There are no photos of me from middle school. However, this time in my life is significant, which is why I've placed this picture to show how I was still trying to be happy. In 7th grade, I was made fun of for years for saying that I masturbated in the band room. I’m still embarrassed to talk about it. To be honest, I didn’t know what that was at that age. I was just doing what everyone else was doing in the bandroom. At this time, I was being beaten by my dad regularly, going in and out of Child Protective Services (CPS). Still, I was putting on a facade. That rumor was one of the worst experiences I've had, and it was a setup for my overly confident wannabe gangster attitude.

This is the only official image I have from my wannabe gangster days. This is how we used to talk back then.  My homie was like, “Aye dawg, ice cream ain’t good for you.”I said, “I agree,” but the truth is, I enjoyed ice cream back then. Do you know how people say, “I can’t believe I said that?” I do. It’s because I wanted everyone to like me. I quit sugar in December of 2024, but before then, I liked ice cream. This just shows the extent to which I’d go to please others, to try to fit in. I just wanted someone to like me. Someone to believe in me.

That pattern followed me for years… until I started living in monastic solitude.

Let’s not forget, I probably had a pack of Newports, a dime bag of bud, and a 64-ounce Mickey’s Ice on me, en route to jacking cars for fun.

My world was hurting. My mom had just up and left Juneau with a manic episode when I was 15.

She would be in and out of psychiatric facilities. I started running away, staying with different people. My mom and I did live together for a couple of years, but we never really hung out. I was homeless at varying parts of my teenage years. She was either hospitalized, or I was being hauled off to juvenile detention. We were on welfare, food stamps, and our car got repossessed.

I made three trips to juvenile detention for stealing jeans and grand theft auto. After my third stint in juvie, I moved to India. My mom had been hospitalized again with a schizophrenic episode, and everything was gone. All my wrestling trophies, pictures, and baseball cards were thrown away after she was evicted.