Her small frame, an embodiment of diversity, with African, Iranian, Scottish and Chinese blood rushing through her veins, Osha was born in the Osho Ashram of Pune, India. She arrived at the precise moment that the spiritual leader Osho left his body a few doors away.
Now she lives with her mother, tucked away in the muscular arms of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, in the predominantly white, rural Rappahannock County. They have chickens. And goats. They live with the daily challenges of narrow-minded, small town thinking in a place where cell phone reception and broadband connections are scarcities, and traffic lights and grocery stores are non-existent. Despite the limitations of food stamps and welfare checks, Osha was determined to overcome her situation and surroundings and become the first person in her family to go to college. In the mornings, Osha attends Mountain Vista Governor’s School for Math, Science and Technology, and in the afternoons, she returns to Rappahannock County High School. A recognized AP Scholar, she also received the AP English and AP History awards. She was selected to attend the University of Virginia’s Summer Enrichment Program for five years, and she was one of four American students chosen to attend the United Nation’s Play for Peace Program in Trogen, Switzerland in 2005. Last year, she attended the state funded Governor’s School for Humanities at the University of Richmond.
Osha has continually challenged and stretched herself, reaching out beyond the opportunities available to her. She has been deeply involved in soccer, classical piano, dance, competitive cheerleading, International Club, National Honor Society, Mountain Vista Governor’s Student Council, and Headwaters: The Rappahannock County Public Education Foundation. In addition, from Friday nights to Sunday afternoons, she works 28 hours as a fine dining waitress, wielding pistachio-encrusted trout on her carefully balanced serving tray. Osha can’t wait to leap into college and achieve a place from which she can give back to the world in return for the many blessings she has received.
In her free time, Osha spends time with friends who have taught her the true meaning of family, which has nothing to do with blood relations or skin tone. She hopes to share this sense of family within her community and around the globe. Though much of her future remains a mystery, she knows it will hold a great deal of traveling, studying international relations, and working towards a more unified global community, one person at a time. As her namesake, Osho, believed, so Osha believes: “Share your revolution with others; it has to go that way, from heart to heart.”
