#intro | abhilasha dasari

[ashadasari]

𝐀𝐁𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 '𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀' 𝐃𝐀𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐈 — ​🇸​​🇮​​🇲​​🇴​​🇳​​🇪​ ​🇦​​🇸​​🇭​​🇱​​🇪​​🇾​

THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD; CIS WOMAN ; GENETIC ENGINEERING RESEARCHER; has lived in MASONBORO since june 2024 (prev. lived in Wrightsville Beach)

But whose heart would not take flight, betray the moon as acolyte on first and fierce affirming sight of sunlight, sunlight, sunlight?

Asha was brought into this world as an attempt to save her brother's life, who had been diagnosed with an aggressive and rare type of cancer. Although the transplant was successful, Santosh's illness came back and he didn't make it the second time around. Growing up, she did everything she could to be the perfect daughter and not bring more trouble to her family that had already been broken by so much disappointment. She learned how to bake in order to make her mother happy during her lowest states of depression, she went up and beyond herself to get good grades in school and when a science project earned her a scholarship in MIT, Asha saw it as her chance to leave all the sadness behind. It worked for the most time, but her parents were always finding excuses to make her come back and take care of them from time to time, which made her resent them and her brother Vedant a little. Alas, she's very a nerd's nerd: science nerd, pop culture nerd, anime nerd… She's the sweetest soul, sunshine in the form of a human being and will talk your ear off if you let her. Has recently married her best friend Nikhil to help him with his green card papers!

information —

triggers for — infant death, mentions of alcoholism & mentions of depression

To be your brother’s only hope to keep on living and your family’s answer to their prayers seems far too much responsibility to be placed in a newborn’s shoulders, and yet, that was exactly what Asha represented to this family who had already gone through so much even before her arrival. Maybe, she would have been better knowing that her parents weren’t the closest before her arrival, or that if it weren’t for her, the chances of her older brother not making it would have been completely null, but still, that were far too much responsibility to a child.

Her mother Kiran, a young and childless Tamil woman, had been set up in an arranged marriage to an older man who already had children of his own: the oldest, a little boy named Santosh and a baby boy named Vedant, who had lost his biological mother mere minutes after his birth. Kiran doted on the little boys as if they were her own, because, as far as she knew, those would be the only children she would end up having, since her husband did not seem keen on adding more children to their family. Not too long after the marriage, the couple and their children moved to the United States and settled in Iowa, where yet another chapter of their lives began. One, that wasn’t the happiest, but it was the one that made it all possible for Asha to come to life.

Santosh was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of cancer and it was required a bone marrow transplant. When Vedant turned out not to be a perfect match for his brother, their parents then found themselves trying for another child, thus Abhilasha being born on a scalding hot summer day, kicking and screaming her lungs out. Yet, despite being the one to bring, as her name itself said it, hope to the Dasari family, they still lost their precious Santosh to the aggressive cancer he’d been diagnosed with years prior to her arrival, and so, even though she had bought him some extra time to spend with his family and say his proper goodbyes, Asha still wasn’t enough to keep him around for good. Again, it took a toll on the family. Asha, being only three years old, was far too young to understand the sadness that had fallen upon her family, especially on her mother, who had always loved and doted on Santosh as if he’d been her biological son.

Their move to Wilmington, North Carolina gave the family a second chance of happiness as it had always been Santosh’s biggest wish to live by the ocean, and so, after placing on work transfers they were in Wilmington just in time for Asha’s fourth birthday, and this beautiful coastal city became the little girl’s only memory of a home. Despite her early childhood being coated with tragedy and dispair, Abhilasha had always been a blissful child. Some even dared saying she’d inherited Santosh’s bright spirit and Ved’s sense of responsibility the more she grew up. However, with Vedant leaving for college, her mother falling into a state of depression and her father beginning to drink more than he should, Asha also found herself realizing that not even the amount of love and joy she brought into the family would be able to heal some grief-inflicted wounds. She learned how to bake in order to fill the house with sweetness, she was the most dedicated student in her class, thus not leaving room to be a nuisance to her parents, she dated in secrecy not to worry anyone and she did everything and so much more so that the pain her family felt wouldn’t increase because of her.

None of what she did would bring Santosh back, that much was a fact, so maybe, she could become so good in her future field of work that other families wouldn’t have to go through the trouble that hers did. When college years came around Abhilasha and flew herself to Boston to start studying Biochemistry at MIT, she realized that she had been needing that break from home and from her family, that they had been sucking all of her light while she’d be bending over backwards to try and make them happy. Thus, being away from home, for her parents and from everything else, she could be herself again, and she could focus on her own happiness.

That, however, didn’t last long, for she was always being summoned back home either due to her mother’s deep state of pression or her father’s alcohol abuse, and with Vedant being away playing hero and not being around for the ugly parts of it, of course it was up to her to patch her family back over and over again, but that didn’t keep her from being accepted in a MS for Molecular and Celular Biology, and then immediately follow up with a MSc in research for Molecular Genetics. With the help of her best friend, she was also able to keep her spirits up most days, with the constant love and support Nikhil offered.

That same love and support was the reason why she offered to marry him on a whim. Since he was struggling with his papers process, the young researcher figured that it would be easier and faster if they were married. So, an announcement was made to their families, which, oddly enough came as no surprise since they were already so close as it was. The Dasaris doted on their little girl, making her the most beautiful bride the world had ever seen, the Kohlis could not seem happier for the union and, despite the news hitting them from one day to another, the duo got married on Spring Break of 2024, looking like they couldn’t have been happier, despite have never harbored romantic feelings towards one another.

Recently, Asha was accepted in a PhD program in Genetic Engineering in Harvard, and, since her supervisor at Harvard was going to be relocated to Wilmington to implant the department of Microbiology and Genetic Engineering at the University of North Carolina, they’ve agreed on Asha using the labs at UNCW for her research, while also taking classes at the Ivy League University, so she spent the first few months of her married life splitting her time between New England and North Carolina.