Noah's rock and our bucket list

When all goes well, I may find myself sitting at what looks like the end of the world and gazing at the endless sky and calm seas. Just looking at the picture makes me travel as I am probably the most enthusiastic armchair traveller. Life as a nomad in my childhood and teen years, and then in part of my married existence have taken away my desire to travel or even go out if not needed. And this time again the Gods had a plan as they gave the one who wanted to travel in space or at least be a pilot at age 10 after meeting Valentina Tereshkova, not just a fear but a terror of flying. A wicked ploy as one still has free tickets courtesy Ranjan's days in Air India. It does not end there. By making me a control freak who leads a life planned to the last second, travelling was anthema. Will you believe me if I told you I eat the same thing every day. I must one day share my schedule. It will astonish you. I guess I must have some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder so to my friends who beseech me to sleep longer, I need to say I just cannot. as if I try even an extra 15 minutes makes me edgy!

I am so grateful for the picture they sent me as looking at it makes me fly off and be elsewhere for sometime at least. As I loose myself in the immensity of the sea under what could be called a marmalade sky, I am filled with a sense of peace and gratitude. I am sitting on Noah's rock and my thoughts begin to wander. I hold them for a second as I would like them to drift in the right direction as today I need a clear head with the ability to  break out of the symphony in (C)ancer major and look at life beyond. The eureka moment was triggered by a conversation I a with a dear uncle who is playing the same symphony for almost a decade. When I shared Ranjan's mood over the week end which bordered on giving up, my uncle simply told me that what sees you through is the will to live to fulfil the unfinished tasks. I shared this with Ranjan and this morning we sat down and made our bucket list.

The one thing that is crucial and is on both our lists is making sure that Shamika is settled and empowered before our final movement. There are many options we need to discuss and we will now. I remember writing Dear Popples when the child lost his home and went to boarding school at age 4. For me it was the right moment to share what I wanted to with him. I would like to quote a few lines from the first letter in the book: As I sat down to write about you today, I sensed something had changed and that I needed to write to you and not about you. I realised that there were scads of things I wanted you to know but had not told you because there was no time, or because I thought there was still so much time; because you were too young to understand or simply because I was to tired to explain. I feel the same today. Sending Popples to school was a heart wrenching experience. Ranjan's cancer is a heart and soul breaking one.

So Ranjan and I have to make our bucket lists. The common one is to settle Shamika, make our wills wherein we protect the girls interests and make walking in our shoes easy for them. We may have demons to deal with and it is time we did it. I guess we both need to follow the Alcoholic Anonymous Steps 8 and 9 even if it is traumatic: Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all and  make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. This is the toughie.

Ranjan has only a family and some dear friends and colleagues. But for me it is a different game all together because I have another family, one I created myself and who have entrusted their dreams in me. It is easy to start an NGO and many do so because it is the in the thing to do, almost a page 3 sine qua non. I am not page 3 and  do not aspire to that 'honour'. I created Project Why to fill a deep void I had sunk in after my parents death. It took me 6 long years of emotional loss to find the way to live a full life again. Project Why was created to honour their memory and leave a trace of our little menage a trois that would disappear after me. I know that here again the Gods ha a plan for me and that is why Project Why defies any definition and cannot be contained in a  box!

Two Angels landed in my life and changed it forever. Manu who showed me the way when I was lost passed away gently having completed the reason he came to this planet. Utpal on the other hand is here to stay and has broken all the seemingly well planned scenarios one crafted for him. Today he is part of our home as he is no body's child, a fate worse than an orphan as his mom just walked away. As he grows questions crop in his mind and we have weak answers if any. Today he is bullied and beaten in school and we need to find another school that will understand him and give him an enabling environment to grow. Then he will need mentors and a surrogate family, a network of friends and the skills to make his future. Utpal always remind me of the Little Prince where we are the rose that he is responsible for. I can never forget the words of the fox: “People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose. So Utpal new school and above all a trust fund that is well managed and that will take care of his needs till he can do it himself.

But there is more on my bucket list and that is Project Why. Before I sing my finale, I want to build a small centre near the place where we run our women centre as it has a legal resettlement colony teeming with children. I need to sell the land we have and buy a smaller plot and build with the money left. Till now the money we raised was because of my writing and communicating skills. This is something I cannot pass on so we will need to make a corpus and trim the project to the size of the interest. Here I need a miracle. An Angel who would be willing to place a corpus that will not be ours, and leave the interest for us. But where do I find such an Angel? I know the trimmed project will not reach out to as many as we do now, but there are some staff who have give me their heart and soul and I need to leave them a sustainable project.

Then there is dear Popples II, the project why story which needs to be told as it is a portrait of a brave India no one is aware of. It is the lives of millions we just pass by but who battle every day to make their morrows better.

Maybe after all this is done, God will take my fear of flying away and free me of my  prison like schedule and allow me to fly with my fondest friends and actually sit on that rock under a marmalade sky!