Samir Panda and Kian Rashidi
Samir Panda and Kian Rashidi became friends during their first semester at Harvard University in fall 2019. Samir had come from coastal Odisha, India, and Kian from Iran. Their friendship endured across the following decade, grounded in companionship between men whose different origins were often ignored by Americans who read their appearance before learning anything about them.
How They Met
They met after both arrived at Harvard as international freshmen in fall 2019. The circumstances of their first introduction are not recorded. Their connection formed quickly as they learned the university’s academic and social expectations while living far from home. They recognized similar forms of isolation without treating their countries or experiences as interchangeable.
What Bound Them
Kian’s Iranian nationality drew assumptions shaped by decades of political tension and travel restrictions. Some Americans treated it as a political declaration. A question such as “where are you from?” could carry the implied demand “whose side are you on?” The demand reflected the questioner’s anxiety rather than Kian’s actions.
Samir’s accent sometimes drew judgment before people listened to his words. He encountered stereotypes about tech support and call centers, condescending requests to repeat intelligible English, and xenophobia that could range from “say that again?” to “go back where you came from.” None described the engineer from a coastal Odisha town whom Kian had come to know.
Both were brown men whose specific backgrounds could disappear under other people’s assumptions. Samir and Kian understood each other’s displacement without experiencing it in the same way. Their friendship allowed them to recognize the overlap and explain the differences when those differences mattered.
The First Winter
Their first Boston winter deepened the friendship. Samir’s lean frame and mild iron-deficiency anemia increased his sensitivity to the cold; dry radiator heat also triggered migraines. The loss of coastal heat, salt air, and the sound of waves sharpened his homesickness. Kian faced his own adjustment to the weather and distance. They shared meals when dining-hall food felt unfamiliar, let study sessions turn into conversations about home, and understood why a call to family could comfort them while making the separation more painful.
Kian became an anchor for Samir during those months. He could sit with him without requiring conversation or insisting that homesickness be talked away.
Over the Years
After Samir left Harvard for graduate study at Johns Hopkins University and settled in Baltimore, their contact became less frequent. They could go months without speaking and resume their friendship without resentment or a need to explain the silence.
Kian had known Samir before Hopkins, Haven, the postdoctoral research team, and his public profile. He remembered the eighteen-year-old from Gopalpur who had struggled with the cold. Their mothers’ mailed spice packets were among the small ways home entered their American lives. That shared early history remained available to both men even as their careers and cities changed.