Zahra Budhwani (12) reclines on the bench. She opens her scrapbook and carefully draws a sketch of her character for the next show. Ever since she was five, Zahra had a special place for visual arts in her life.

“I used to do visual arts when I was really little, and then recently I started an art journal which is really easy to keep,” Zahra said. “It’s full of sketches, collages, and a basically scrapbook. I started it a couple of months ago, and it’s kinda just my way to keep a bunch of random memories in one place. Whenever I have something going on in my life its really good way to sort of turn it into something productive. It’s been something that has helped me express myself.”

As part of her diverse identity, Zahra identifies as a practicing Muslim, attending the mosque regularly and helping out her community.

“I think part of the reason why I feel different is because I’m an actual practicing Muslim,” Zahra said. “A lot of people at Harker may identify with a certain religion, but they might not be a practicing or they might consider themselves atheist or agnostic. It’s a huge part of my life. I go to the mosque almost every Friday.”

After she attended a religious camp, Zahra felt more comfortable to practice Islam freely.

“Ever since I was 13, I started consciously thinking about it and sort of trying to make my decision whether I want to pursue it in my life,” Zahra said. “I’m still questioning, but I believe strongly in the basics of Islam. The community and the support system that it brings along is so vital to my life and has taken me so many places. There was a religious camp that I went to, and the instructors allowed us to ask them anything about Islam. I had a lot of interesting conversations there that taught me a lot about the culture.”

Among her several identities, Zahra prides herself in the performing arts. One of her key memories from the program took place last year.

“One of my most memorable shows is the Laramie project,” Zahra said. “It’s a true story, and that was really important to me and all of us because they were real people. It was so important to honor the story and not detract anything or make it too sentimental. There were so many people in the cast that identify as LGBT.”

Ultimately, Zahra believes that acting is a core tenet of society, which is among the reasons that she participates.
“Storytelling is a huge part of our society,” Zahra said. “I don’t think our society could function without telling stories. I think actors sort of take everything that people don’t want to talk about bring it to the light. That’s one of the main reasons I started acting. There’s always something that I can tie to my own life, which is really cool and especially cool when the audience reacts. Becoming a different person is definitely a distraction from everyday stresses and issues, which is very helpful to me.”