Amidst the buzz of feet that fills the hallways and buildings of the upper school, there is always at least one idiosyncratic pair moving with a conspicuously leisurely yet dignified gait. As he walks into Dobbins during lunch, Arjun Kilaru (12) is not rushed, nor is he panicked. Cool, calm and unfazed, he makes eye contact and smiles ever so slightly as he sits down to talk — and talking to Arjun feels like a rare gem of verbal and social experience.

“He talks really slowly. Even when he’s excited — and he’s the president of spirit — he talks really slowly and he sounds bored whenever he’s talking,” Arjun’s close friend Esha Deokar (12) said. “Like when he is talking to the school, he is so excited, and it’s just adorable the way he tries to convey that.”

In a world of hectic activity and commitment, how can Arjun always seem to be so relaxed? Simply put, it’s because he doesn’t believe in stress.

“It’s not because I don’t care as much, but I always feel like stress is something that your body does as a response to an imminent threat. If a lion is about to eat you, your body will get flooded with those stress hormones that are meant to alert yourself, save your life. An English test isn’t a lion — it’s not going to kill you,” Arjun said.

Yet though his calm exterior often doesn’t reveal it, Arjun is a bastion of excited optimism instead of stress.

“He’s forever the optimist. If conditions aren’t necessarily ideal, he is always able to positive spin on it. And that definitely shows in the way that I’ve never seen him get upset or mad,” Zach Hoffman (12) said. “He’s very calm, he always has his head on straight, and he’s always ready to crack another joke.”

It is with this mentality, one of tranquil optimism, that Arjun goes so enthusiastically after what interests him. Community service and spirit are just two of the outlets that he channels his optimistic energy towards.

From volunteering at an eye foundation in India to make life easier for the blind to being an officer for the Make a Birthday Wish club, Arjun has devoted much of time to helping others, yet as community service coordinator Kerry Enzensperger attests, he’s never interested in recognition of his selflessness.

“Anytime if I’m like ‘Hey Arjun, can you help out with this?’ or ‘Do you mind checking in with that?’ there’s never a complaint, he’s always just willing to help anybody,” Enzensperger said. “He never looks for the recognition for the things that he does. He does them because he genuinely cares about doing them and wants to do them.”

Since freshman year, Arjun has been an avid member of the Make a Birthday Wish club, through which he derives satisfaction and solace in knowing that he is making someone’s life better.

“We basically throw parties every couple months for a bunch of kids in low income areas. I just ended up going to every party [freshman] year, and I had a really good time,” Arjun said. “It’s such a cool experience — seeing all these kids and how much it means to them to have [a party]… it’s really, really rewarding.”

Arjun brings his dedication to service to spirit as one of the co-presidents, introducing fun wherever he can in events for the student body.

“Between the time when we start organizing the events to planning it to executing it, the whole process is really a lot of fun, and I think [it has] a lot to do with Arjun as a person,” Zach, fellow co-president of spirit, said.

Apart from spirit and service, one activity that perhaps contributes the most to Arjun’s composure is mixed martial arts (MMA), or “fighting,” as he calls it. One process unique to Arjun’s experience of MMA is “animiting,” as his studio calls it.

“Right before the fight, they always stop you so you can bump gloves and at my gym, they give me like five seconds to just close your eyes and like calm yourself. They call it ‘animiting,’” Arjun said. “You just basically just close your eyes for about five seconds and try to channel everything and focus.”

Another ability that martial arts has honed for Arjun is his ability to observe and analyze everything that is going on around him.

“It’s all about how you can focus or how you can perceive what other people are going to do. It sounds weird, but during the fight, everything kind of slows down in my head and I can just notice what we’re doing,” Arjun said. “I can notice that your stance isn’t wide enough, I can notice that your kicks are like a too low, and I can notice that your spacing is going to give away what you’re going to do.”

Whether in service, spirit, martial arts or school, Arjun undoubtedly faces his own obstacles and challenges. Instead of being discouraged by them, he enjoys working through them as a thinker and lets his curiosity lead his actions.

“He is genuinely curious about a lot of things. I’ve had him multiple times type some weird formula into his calculator, and [he says] ‘Can you explain this to me?’ and I have no idea how he ever thought to put that into his calculator,” Zach said.
From service to spirit to MMA to biology and economics, his two favorite academic areas to explore, each day is a field of new ideas and obstacles, ready for him to traverse and enjoy along the way.

“It’s just solving problems in really interesting ways. I have this drive to be like, “Okay, I know I’m going to have x amount of problems in my day — how can I solve them coolest way possible?” Arjun said. “Sometimes that problem is a 200 pound guy trying to fight me or sometimes the problem is that a kid is unhappy or sometimes the problem is spirit: how am I going to make the best route possible?”