Age: 32
Gender: Female
Field of Study: Chemical Engineering
Physical Description: Rachana is 5'9" and weighs 155 lbs, with an average build. She's of Indian descent, with a warm brown skin tone, straight black hair going just past her shoulders, and dark brown eyes. Her face is relatively plain, with the most prominent feature being her long, slightly downturned nose. She wears glasses, with her favorite pair having brass-colored frames and oval-shaped lenses.
Rachana generally dresses somewhat formally even in casual situations, preferring officewear in muted colors and with a lot of skin coverage. Her makeup is usually light and doesn't draw attention to itself, and she isn't much for jewelry. For the trip, she dressed very warmly, wearing an olive green snow jacket with faux-fur trimmed hood, snow pants in a similar shade of green, a dark red sweater under the jacket, and black snow boots.
Background:
- Rachana was the daughter and only child of Indira and Navin Kumar, immigrants from New Dehli, India who moved to the US shortly after their marriage. Rachana was born in Centralia, Washington about eight years later. As her extended family remained in India, she would see little of them growing up.
- Her parents opened and ran a modestly popular and successful Indian restaurant in Centralia, and the family would generally be financially stable throughout Rachana's childhood. It was not a business Rachana was expected to inherit, as her parents had grander ambitions for her and her education.
- The family was a warm, nuturing one, and Rachana had a good relationship with both her parents for most of her life. She rarely wanted for much and felt secure at home and was able to trust and confide in her parents.
- Education was emphasized to Rachana at an early age, and she was quite a good student growing up. She maintained consistently high grades and felt particularly drawn to the sciences, especially harder sciences like physics and chemistry.
- Rachana's personality is polite and accommodating, and was so from a young age, but she's never been particularly outgoing, and so she developed a small but very close social circle in school. Most of her friends were nerdy kids with similar academic inclinations.
- Through these friends, she'd pick up a number of nerdy hobbies, such as a fondness for sci-fi films and novels and a love of video games, particularly first person shooters; while other genres were fun to her, her friend group had a particular interest in these games, so they became most of what she played. Though primarily an avenue of interacting with friends, she came to enjoy many of these things in their own right.
- Upon graduating high school, Rachana would attend the University of Cascadia, pursuing a B.S. in Chemical Physics with intent to pursue a Master's in the subject and become a chemical engineer. Though she had some scholarships to partially cover the costs, her parents would also contribute some money. This would put a degree of financial strain on the family, but it was a burden Navin and Indira were happy to bear for her.
- Rachana would meet Ronan Tyrrell, an economics student and her eventual husband, shortly into her first year at the university. The two would date steadily throughout her time there; Rachana was romantically inexperienced, and fell strongly in love thanks to his charming personality and apparent devotion to her.
- While they were dating, Ronan would frequently pressure Rachana to move in with him, marry him, and abandon her academic pursuits. He was from an affluent family and claimed he'd be more than happy to take care of her. Eventually she obliged, marrying him and dropping out of U of C, having only completed three years of education there.
- Her parents expressed disapproval over this choice, citing their financial support of her now going to waste and making their dislike of Ronan known. This put a serious strain on her relationship with her parents for the first time, but she remained firm in her decision.
- Ronan and her would move into an expensive condominium in Seattle together, a wedding gift to him from his mother. The home was luxurious, an Ronan hired a maid to handle upkeep on it, as well as a personal chef to handle meals for Rachana and himself. Financially speaking, Rachana was very well taken care of.
- Her relationship with Ronan would slowly sour in the seven years of their marriage. He grew distant, often not coming home for days at a time; he made vague claims it was for business reasons, but she started to suspect he was cheating on her. When he was home, Rachana found him controlling and unkind, policing what she did with her time, mocking her hobbies, tearing her down for minor mistakes, and isolating her from friends and family. Though she initially tried to be patient and understanding, she would grow increasingly resentful of him over the years for this treatment.
- After a particularly heated argument, Rachana declared she was leaving him, and that their entire marriage had been a mistake. This led to him immediately throwing her out of their condo. With little other recourse, she returned to her parents home that night.
- Her parents were understanding with her as she dealt with the emotional fallout of the situation, and helped her as best they could with the divorce proceedings. Due to a prenuptial agreement with terms that were particularly unfavorable to Rachana, she received little from the divorce settlement, and Ronan was slow-moving, obstructive and belligerent throughout the process of reaching said settlement. Navin and Indira insisted she move back in with them until the matter was settled and she could find her footing.
- Seeing little other way forward, Rachana decided to return to school and complete the education she'd dropped at Ronan's behest. She doesn't have the scholarships and grants she had attending the first time, and was forced to take out sizable student loans to make up the difference. She continues living with her parents in the meantime, intending to remain until she's finished her Master's program.
- She feels no small amount of shame over the situation, and feels like she's far behind where she should be as a result. This has made her determined to focus on completing her Bachelor's degree and then a Master's degree, limiting socializing and other activities she deems frivolous to devote all her energy to the task.
Assets: Rachana is intelligent, well-educated in her chosen fields of study, and quick to learn and adapt to new subjects on the fly. She is not conflict-prone and tends to be agreeable and accommodating, particularly in group situations, which can keep tensions low.
Limitations: Rachana is physically unimpressive, if not slightly out-of-shape, and not accustomed to extreme conditions or significant physical activity. She can be a bit of a doormat in the face of stronger, more dominant personalities, needing to be pushed quite far to defend herself.
