This next Senior Spotlight features Vishal Dhruva, a day student who’s been at St. Stephen’s since sixth grade! Even if you don’t know him, you’ve probably seen hoodies/shirts around campus from his brand, “Uncle Bobby.”
What started as a simple pattern design project for his graphic design class soon became the blueprint for what “Uncle Bobby” is today. Through that project, Dhruva began experimenting with what various designs could look like for a clothing brand but soon realized he could make that brand a reality. After researching how to easily, and cost-effectively, start a business, he took the fateful first step of buying his website domain. From there, and after another year of planning, the company’s first drop launched in February of 2023.
“I always wanted to provide a product to people,” Dhruva shared when explaining why he chose to start his own business. Aside from getting to create designs, he also loves sharing them with his community. His favorite part of having his own company is when people recognize his merchandise and he gets to promote it: “It’s a shameless plug, like whenever people say they like my sweater, I’m like, oh yeah, you can get it at unclebobbystore.com.” In addition, “Uncle Bobby” is also contributing to the affordable fashion market with authentic designs. In terms of the brand’s future, Dhruva envisions more additions to his collection, specifically through accessories. From keychains to stickers, accessories would help drive the company’s main goal of making products affordable to everybody.
Outside of “Uncle Bobby,” Dhruva also continues to create through writing a book! As another passion project, Falling in Elysium is “about a kid who never felt like he belonged in what was assigned to him” and chose to use art as a form of escapism. Dhruva never planned on writing a book, but he explained that he “kept imagining it as a movie first” as “random scenes would come to his mind.” The book is semi-autobiographical, so the characters and events are based on Dhruva’s own experiences. In fact, he continues to add more characters as he meets people in real life. In the future, Dhruva plans to professionally publish the book. He also wants to design handmade dust jackets for its special editions: “I want to give these copies to the people in my life who inspired the characters in Falling In Elysium as a way of saying thanks for making it possible.”
Dhruva also takes the school theme of “Create” as a philosophy in his own life. “When I was a freshman, I felt obligated to be part of a group even if I didn’t feel supported by them, but I wish I took a second to find myself first and know which kind of people I wanted to surround myself with.” Looking back, Dhruva feels confident about the time he’s spent at St. Stephen’s because he learned the importance of creating your own community and took the important first step to do so. “It was never about the destination, nor the journey, but the company I kept along the way.”
Dhruva plans to keep creating, whatever that looks like, in the future. In college, he aims to study business to accumulate enough financial backing to then pursue something he truly loves, whether that be growing his company or pursuing another project like his book. Regardless, Dhruva embodies the theme of “Create” in everything he does.
“For me, ‘Create’ means more than being artistic or creative – it’s about creating your own reality, and creating better ways to think and go about your day-to-day life. Sometimes, instead of taking things at face value, I feel that creatively thinking about them gives not only others the benefit of the doubt, but yourself the benefit of the doubt. That makes all the difference.”
