In this as-told-to essay, the actress Avantika reflects on what she's looking forward to in her 21st year (and spills all the details about her star-studded Coach birthday party).
Growing up, I remember two big birthday parties my parents threw for me: one when I was five and one when I was about 10. But I wasn't a big “I'm going to celebrate my birthday” person. My birthday was always a day that I cried. I grew up not really having very many friends, and so I was like, “I don't really want to celebrate this and feel underwhelmed by the amount of people that are here.”
But after coming to New York a few years ago, my best friends insist on doing something every year for my birthday. This year, Coach was so kind to basically say, “Do whatever you want and we'll help out with it." They asked me, “What are your favorite things to do, period?” I was like, "Hanging out with my friends and playing games."
So my 21st birthday party is this Saturday, a party at Dandelion in the West Village. My best friends are planning it for me, so I have no idea what the scale is or how much is going into it. The birthday theme is sort of casino vibes. I grew up playing poker. My dad is a big poker fan, and both my parents are, and that was kind of a staple of a lot of the parties they threw. I know a lot of my broader friend group plays poker as well, and we've never actually gotten to have a time where we do something like that. I'm wearing Coach, which I'm so, so excited about. I love the Tabby, it's the bag I take when I'm going out. I went into their headquarters and was allowed to pick something from their spring 2026 show. For anybody who knows me, I don't wear pants. I'm always in a long skirt or in a dress. I just am anti-pant in general. But I thought it could be fun to wear a pant, radically for me, for my birthday.
I also always eat tres leches on my birthday. That's been a consistent thing since before I can even remember. We have a lovely baker, she's making this incredible strawberry tres leches cake. The music will definitely be a mix between Desi music and American pop and Hip-Hop. Granted, there's maybe six people at this party who are going to know the Hindi songs that are going to be playing, but I'll be having a good time. All my best friends are like, "It's your birthday, you should own it." I think I'm going to get flamed for this, but there's a Punjabi artist named Yo Yo Honey Singh, and his songs are really so over the top. I don't want to parallel it to Drake because it's not Drake, but he's kind of a cornball in his music like Drake is. He has a song called “Love Dose,” which is so popular. It's only appropriate to listen to at midnight, when no one's expected to be in their right mind. I'm excited for that to come on, and for none of my Indian friends to judge me for dancing to it.
I really struggled with the concept of freedom and independence as a kid, and not having the room or space to do what I wanted to do and be myself. I just was in a very critical environment because I grew up in sort of Silicon Valley, and so it's not the easiest time at school to relate to people when you want to pursue a career in the arts and the only people on your side are your parents. You go to school and you just don't find a lot of community there.
I thought that the easiest way to get by in life was to dim any light or any personality I had.
When I worked on the movie Senior Year in 2021, meeting Josh Colley and Jade Bender was very monumental for me, because it was the first space that I was in removed from Silicon Valley, and working with people my age where I was just allowed to be myself. They're some of my best friends now. This party is the first time they'll be in New York for my birthday, because they both recently just moved to New York. So this will truly be like all the friends I love in a room together.
All of my best friends are actually older than me, and so they've all seen me evolve as a person. You change a lot from 17 to 21 because you're going through so many phases of life.
I moved out to New York when I was 17. At the time, I was very uncomfortable with change in a way that I'm not right now, because I've come to the big realization that at any point in my life, I haven't met all of myself yet. Trying to plan out the future with this idea of me in my head is pointless because I've never been able to guess what doors have opened. My life has become infinitely more beautiful than I ever thought it would be. The past two years, I haven't cried on my birthday because I've been very happy with where I've been at.
19 was a really great year for me. I still feel like it was my best year, the year that I was the happiest. 20 was a big come down. 20 was really, really hard for me, it took so many turns that I just did not expect. And towards the end of the year, it sort of turned out great. Like I ended up working on a TV show (called NSFW) and I felt really happy. But you know, after talking with a lot of my friends, that year specifically, I think 2025 was a tough year for a lot of people. Maybe there was something in the air, things weren't lining up well for a lot of my friends as well.
And so, walking into 21, I don't have very many expectations. I don't do New Year's resolutions, but my resolution of sorts this year is to take accountability for the things that I have in my control. My goal is to move my body intentionally a few times a week, three to four times a week; to volunteer or to help out someone in my community a few times a week; and to do something that tangibly advances me to my goal a few times a week.
Being a woman of color and being in a marginalized community in this industry means you have to be proactive about your career and be proactive about the things you want to accomplish. Like you cannot just sit back and someone's going to hand it to you on a platter. This year I would like to take advantage of the fact that my next two projects, NSFW and Ballerina Overdrive, are two massive platforms with incredible actresses and actors. I would love to get more into producing this year and really pick a story that I feel strongly about and take it to market. I would also potentially like to dive more into my Indian film industry career in this year. I've reached a point age-wise where it's sort of the precipice for where you should be entering into your leading Indian actress phase.
As cheesy as it sounds, putting myself out there and putting love and empathy out there for people has always benefited me. And granted, a lesson that I've also learned over the past few years is: you can't really love people into loving you back, and it doesn't always necessarily help to be crying out for someone's validation or for someone's love. That being said, this feels like my year where it's really benefited me for loving people and caring about them despite whatever they're going through. I think we really need a lot of that in the world right now, to be loving our community and loving our neighbors unconditionally. That's what I'm taking into 2026.
My actual birthday was the 24th of January. I celebrated by creating my ideal day, and any of my friends could join for any part of the day that they wanted to. So I woke up in the morning at 7:00 AM and went to Othership, and I did a sauna and cold plunge—a good way to start the day. Then I went to a conditioning class, and then I came home and cooked a bit and drank some tea and danced around to “A Place in the Sun” by Stevie Wonder, and then I went to my best friend's house and we had Thai food, my favorite, and played games. I went out in the night, to the really classic New York college-age spots Hair of the Dog and Little Sister, because it's my 21st birthday. We really didn't stay out for very long. I was actually super tired, and I was like, “Oh, maybe I'm retiring now that I turn 21.”
