“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I really loved our green lawn mower. It broke when I was four years old, and I cried as my dad tried to throw it away. When the garbage truck arrived, I held onto the lawn mower with all the strength my little hands could muster. You see, when I was young, I believed that objects were like people — that they had feelings and thoughts and personalities. Throwing away the lawn mower was like throwing away a family member. How could we do that?

As I grew older, I learned that my metal friend had no consciousness. I became more analytical, more absolutist — now there had to be a reason to do something. Emotions became fleeting. I trusted logic and fact instead.

I hugged that lawn mower out of instinct. It was naïve and uncalculated. Yet there was a certain truth to that gut feeling. My mission is to get back to that place. The place where I can be free to care without hard evidence; free to do things I can't always explain. I want to live, embracing that fresh simplicity.

— Kishan Madamala

The Portrait Project

Each year we ask our classmates a straightforward, simple question taken from the lines of a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mary Oliver. We share with you intimate and candid responses to this question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Concept and photography: Tony Deifell, MBA '02

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