List of Errors

1.adiidtional commas

2.cohesion

2.organisation of the paragraphs

4.spelling errors

5.Less details about myself and more generalization

Ranvir Singh

Mariana Abuan

Writing 001 04

2/17/2019

Hero of the battle: Prompt 4

A word like a person’s name is a person’s first identity. It is the only thing that can define a person’s

identity immediately such as their religious or cultural backgrounds, family, and sometimes even

their native country. Furthermore, rather than just being an identity, a name can also be an

expectation. Name can also have a meaning and it becomes one’s duty to stand up to it. My name

is Ranvir Singh. I was born in a Sikh family in Punjab, India. This information about my culture

is given by my name itself. The word ‘Singh’ is used as a suffix after names in Sikh culture, which

also means Lion. Whereas, my name Ranvir means ‘Hero of the battle’(‘Ran’ for battle and ‘vir’

for a hero) or ‘Winner’.

From childhood, I had an habit of hiding my feelings from others. In middle school, I made some

friends but there were only a few with whom I could share everything. The real reason I was shy

was because I was afraid of people knowing me and figuring out that I was not a winner, but a

loser. I was afraid that I would never meet the expectations of my name. There were several tiny

steps that I took after taking a huge one that changed my life and brought me closer to my name. I

always got good scores just like a winner, but that didn’t break the fear inside of me of being a

loser. Then I started playing sports. At the beginning, I played cricket and it was the first time in

my life I didn’t feel scared. Everybody on the ground was calling my name and I had a want to

win rising inside of me. That was the day when I felt closer to my name than I have ever in my
life. Since then I knew that there was always a winner inside of me and the surprising thing was

that I hadn’t only been hiding from others but from myself too.

Whenever there was a wedding our culture people do bhangra on the dance floor made for it

specially as a means of celebration. The second thing that happened to me, that drew me closer to

becoming Ranvir was when I began practicing bhangra, which is dance form, in high school.

I was always shy to dance in the weddings as I thought if I do it wrong then I would look funny.

I always wanted to dance but I didn’t because of the fear of doing it wrong. That very particular

fear also kept me away from my name. My name Ranvir also meant Lion who is fearless. But

unlike my name, I was filled with fear and I had to get rid of it. So I decided to join Bhangra classes

in order to improve myself and get rid of the fear. Before that, I never thought I could do dance,

but after a few months of practicing hard I started performing on stage in front of the audience.

Afterwards, I realized a secret to meet expectations of my name was to win a battle that I think I

can never win. It would liberate me of fear of losing and helped me to work at my best as a hero.

But the struggle or the battle never ends. It is only once you become a winner you come to know

loss. Once I succeeded in becoming everything I wanted, I never wanted to fail again, so I started

to ignore my failures as if they never happened. I started putting an act of winner rather than doing

something to improve myself.

There was this small incident at school that changed my point view on failures forever. In my

junior year I joined basketball as a transition from cricket which I was playing for a long time now.

There was a person named Sohrab who played for my school's basketball team. He was one captain

of the team and one of the best player. I admired him as whenever he led the team he always won.

One day in the morning when he was coming to school for practice, he got himself in an accident.

He was on a bike while another crashed into his and he lost balance. He somehow managed to pull
the bike off the road but it fell on the right side and he was injured badly on his right leg and hand.

There were only three weeks left in semifinals for inter school basketball tournament. I knew that

the team was not going to win as Sohrab was injured and he couldn’t play. He was not only the

captain but also top scorer of the team. In the second week as I was warming up in the basketball

court, I saw Sohrab. He was using support to walk. I quickly ran towards him and put his arm over

my shoulder to help him get to the court. As we were walking, I said him I know there is no way

that our team could win without you but if you play in this state you are going to make it a

permanent injury. He smiled and said I know but winning doesn't matter we have to try. He was

not there to play but he was there to encourage us, making new strategies for the game, and

deciding who will replace him in the game as the captain. He was doing whatever he could do to

help the team. He never gave up on the idea of winning unlike me. Even though we didn’t win but

we tried and gave it our best shot. After the game Sohrab wasn’t sad but satisfied and he said to

me there is lot to work on, but we will win next time. Then I realized that I have come only halfway

to embracing my name. Since it is part of being a hero to never give up even if you fail but learn

from it and try harder next time.

I concluded that a person has to continuously live up to his name each day and your name defines

you until the day you define your name. A name is not only limited at person background or just

meaning of itself, but it can also become a title of what person has become in his life. My name

currently defines me as a student studying at the University of California Merced. That’s the thing

with a name first it shapes you to become who you want to be as a person then it shapes itself

according to what you want to become in life. As in my life my name helped me to become a hero

and then it shaped itself as someone studying in University of California Merced. In either way, it

sticks with the person from the beginning and defines him till the end of his life.