I’ve known Nutan now for 33 years – an auspicious number for Christians since Jesus lived on the earth for exactly that number of years. That, and the fact that we call her God’s Elder Sister.

She is my nanad (my husband’s sister. Now wait a minute: does that make him God?) and my very dear friend, but this past week, I realized that she is also my Guru.

That is not a title I toss around lightly. A Guru is someone you turn to for wisdom; someone whose life you can study and learn from; someone who inspires and guides; someone who lives in full awareness and who makes decisions based on her deepest beliefs.

Integrity. Nutan in a Nutshell.

Gurus can be summed up, I find, in remarkably few words: Be the change. Do unto others. I have a dream. To be happy, practice compassion.

Nutan’s mantra would be, if I may be so bold: Your whole heart for your whole life. Six words. That’s twice as many as Jesus and Gandhiji, two more than Martin Luther King and one more than the Dalai Lama.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows her. Nutan can’t be compressed into quite as few words as other gurus. She is the embodiment of abundance, a living example of generosity and over-the-top-ness. More is more, you might say.

Last week I took my Dad to her house for a little R & R. I wanted some time alone with him and to give my sister and her family (with whom he lives) a bit of a break. Being at Nutan’s house with an anchor attached (Dad’s not exactly foot loose anymore) gave me an opportunity to observe her more closely than has been possible on other visits when I’ve been in whirling dervish mode. This time, I was able to reflect a little on what makes her so remarkable and what we can all learn from her.

Just for example:

These beautiful meals are standard in her house. It’s not because she’s a foodie (she isn’t) or because she is an awesome cook (she is). It’s because she believes if you are going to serve food, why not serve it beautifully? It’s because she cannot bear to do anything half-heartedly.

And that is really all you need to know about her.

Nothing with half a heart. Taking care of her children. Taking care of her mother. Taking care – actually – of anyone she loves, anyone who comes across her path, anyone who seems to need a bit of a break or an extra helping or a golden chance.

And with such pleasure! With such delight! The gorgeously decorated plates above are only the beginning. The full tank of gas in the car she is loaning you is next. Then there is the ride – not to the train station so you can schlep your suitcases up and down four flights of stairs – but to the very address in Manhattan to which you are going. Five hours out of her hard-won Sunday. Nothing half-hearted.

And no hidden agendas, no secret codes. We all know about that because we all do it. Say one thing and mean another. Say yes when we mean no and then get irritated because the person we are communicating to hasn’t understood.

Not Nutan. With Nutan, everything is hassle-free. No second thoughts or regrets or judgements. Staying in her house, I never worry if I have offended or annoyed because I know that if I have, she will tell me – right away, that moment, before I have a chance to make the same mistake again. How refreshing!

It’s a zest, an abundance, a joyful embrace of life at its fullest, a vision of life as it is meant to be lived. No sermons! No preaching! Simply living the truth: It is by giving that you receive.

She brings out the best in everyone around her precisely because she is having so much fun. Watching her being so generous and living so large, we first feel a little jealous, wondering why we don’t enjoy our lives quite so much. And then, if we hang around her long enough, almost without being conscious of it, we realize how much we have to give ourselves.

That’s true inspiration. That’s my nanad.  And that’s why we call her God’s Elder Sister.

He’s reading a magazine and he looks peaceful and absorbed but his thoughts keep coming through.

As he’s gotten older, he has become less conscious of anyone around him being able to hear what he says. My sister Lucy says being in a room with him now is like living inside his head – a jumbly rag-bag of unrelated thoughts and grievances – the kind we all carry around with us and repeat mindlessly and to no purpose.

“Oh boy, I’m tired,” he sighs. “I’ve never been so tired.”

“I don’t like this magazine. Why doesn’t someone answer the phone? Here comes the mailman. Oh boy, my feet hurt.  I’m going to tell him the next time I see him. I don’t know why she does that. Come here, puppy. Oh, you want some Cheerios, don’t you? No, don’t worry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

The past and the present intersect; ancient childhood regrets collide with yesterday’s longings while the future looms – implacable and stern. It’s a lot to make sense of.

Elderly people are like children in so many ways. They depend upon us to move through the day; they eat what we give them; their bodily functions are our concerns; our schedules determine theirs.

And yet, like children, like anyone, really, their thoughts remain their own.

So when I heard Dad say “I’m ready to die. I am really ready to die.” yesterday – in the stream of other unrelated thoughts and ideas his rag-bag of a mind keeps retailing to the world –  I listened hard. With respect. It’s not a new thought for him. He is ready. His entire life has been a preparation for this moment: to be ready to die, to be ready to move on, to meet his Maker and to settle his accounts.

And he is – after all – 90 years old. Not a small age and certainly not an age to make light of, not an age to pretend that things are other than what they are.

 I like Dad’s realism. I like that his thoughts are now bubbling up to the surface, unedited, unrehearsed, reminding us of how brief our time on this earth really is.

I am learning all the time – from my father; from the memory of my darling, departed mother; from the example my sisters and brothers set as they take care of Dad (or don’t – very instructive too).

When he talks to himself, Dad’s face is abstracted and remote: he is clearly in some other world where what he is saying makes sense.

When he is aware of us; aware of his continued tenancy on this earth, his comments are more measured, less challenging.

Dad is ready to die. He says it often, out loud, in the face of all that our culture does to dissuade him – as if this life is not all there is; as if there is more to our existence than drawing breath.

I find it comforting.

Dad’s life is slowly drawing to a close, with all the attending physical demands and indignities that fact commands. He knows it; and yet he doesn’t. Like a baby, he takes for granted the presence of those who love him, those whose job it is to look after him. He doesn’t give it a second thought. Is there a better proof of success? Any better way we could show how much we love him, how deeply he matters, in spite of frailties and breakdowns?

I don’t think so. I think this is our measure, this is how we will be judged.

We were named a CNN IBN Real Hero!

Manju and I were the lucky ones who got to go to Mumbai to receive the award – we were put up in a five-star hotel and feted (along with 23 other amazing people from around the country) by Nita Ambani, Sachin Tandulkar, Amir Khan and Rajdeep Sardesai.

Receiving the award, Manju recited a beautiful Hindi poem she had composed and I spoke in Hindi!

And while awards are wonderful, this one came with cold hard cash – five lakhs of unrestricted funding – straight into the Foundations sadly depleted coffers and providing us with enough money to keep doing the work we are doing for a bit longer.

But just for a bit, good people. We still need to raise funds urgently. So if you agree with CNN IBN that the Foundation is a Real Hero in this world, do consider sending a donation to help us carry on.

Neha is doing a PhD at Mt Sinai School of Medicine and her research is to try to find patterns in the brains of children with Autism which differ from those of typical children. Nisha is about to embark on a PhD in Psychology at Duquesne University and her special interest is in the role of faith in people’s lives. Cathleen is doing a Masters at Yale Divinity School and she’s working on Biblical Studies and Archaeology.

Three remarkable girls. They grew up together (though on two separate continents) and they have shared concerns and deep, long-time connections. They know the same stories; their parents are all some version of each other; they glide effortlessly between worlds.

That car ride from Easton to Boston was like being at Wimbledon, watching masters at play. They leaped like quicksilver, like minnows or goldfish or glistening trout, tossing ideas back and forth and back and forth again, for the sheer pleasure of the sport. Everything was interesting; everything sparkled. “Look at us,” one of them laughed. “We’re about the Brain (Neha), the Spirit (Nisha) and the Memory (Cathleen).”

What more does anyone really need?

Nutan and I, sitting in the front seat, listened and basked. From time to time we nodded at each other, beaming. “We’re blessed,” she whispered to me.

Nutan never used to believe in being blessed. When her American friends would say such things in reference to their children, she would roar at them: “I am NOT blessed. I worked hard to bring my children up. They are the way they are because I made them that way.”

Somewhere along the line, she saw the light. So much of bringing up children is luck and chance and sheer coincidence. You do the best you can given the cards you are played and you hope and pray that they will grow up safe and protected, that no evil will befall them, that they will be good citizens and good people, that their lives will add something valuable to the world. You watch their brains and their spirits develop and you hope that the memories they create and leave behind will match the love you pour into them.

And, perhaps above all, you know as parents that you must move over and make room for the next generation, that you must let go one day and  leave the world in their safe-keeping.

That morning, driving up the Massachusetts Turnpike, it was clear that the three girls in the back seat were more than ready to take the wheel.

We got there early enough to see the children arriving, all happy and eager to greet their teachers before starting the new day.

Some of them had important things to tell their teachers:

while others were busy having fun with their friends:

It was a typical school morning. It was just the Assembly that got to me a little.

Every child – whether she could speak or not – was invited to come up and share something with the rest of the school. It could be as complex as explaining that Papa had brought ten bananas yesterday or as simple as declaring that today is Wednesday.

Today is Wednesday.

And tomorrow will be Thursday.

Very simple things, celebrated at Karuna Vihar, become profound.

Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow will be Thursday.  Think about that the next time you feel anxious or stressed.

The simplicity of what our children know and what they believe is important enough to be shared is a clue to understanding the universe. We make plans for next year; we invest for our retirement. We worry about the future; we regret the distant past.

Yet at Karuna Vihar, today is Wednesday. Tomorrow will be Thursday. A whole world in 48 hours. Time enough and world.

I guess it can be measured by where you put your eyes

It’s so big when you’re close

And it looks smaller back a bit

That’s about the size of it.

Do yourself a favor and have a look at this sweet little video.

I loved Sesame Street when my children were small and I love it even more now that they are grown up and I see what horrors of despair and consumerism are being  inflicted upon this generation’s version of my own dear darlings.

Because Sesame Street wasn’t just about educational TV or about making learning fun. It was also about profound moral truth, about understanding life from a child’s perspective and about bringing the wisdom of parents to the challenges of the day (whatever day it happened to be).

“That’s About The Size Of It” is a perfect example on so many levels.

Special education is all about perspective – about understanding where we want to be and how we are going to get there; about knowing how to move from Point A to Point B; about understanding that we need to break the journey down into small manageable steps and then begin.

It’s so big when you’re close.

How do you help a child with CP to learn to dress himself? What a huge and daunting task.

And it looks smaller back a bit

Just as well. It is not easy – it is almost impossible – to comprehend quickly the ending of a life. Especially a young life, a life full of promise and possibility, a life which had just passed itself on in the person of a tiny daughter – just five weeks old when her father died.

So for once, we welcomed bureaucracy. For once we found the slow grinding of its wheels acceptable and even appropriate. This was one process we didn’t want to rush.

Yet when his mother and his aunts and his sisters and – most painfully – his young wife – arrived, we quailed. Their grief was so wild, so out-of-control, so visceral. It was frightening.

And also scripted. It was clear to me that each woman mourning was acting a part. Not to say their grief wasn’t real, but just that it had to play out in a certain way to be counted.

In the Bible – our Holy Book – people in mourning, especially women, are said to “rend their garments.” That’s what happened that day in the hospital for Manoj. His mother, his aunts, his young wife – they wailed and flung themselves about and tore at their kurtas. They writhed on the floor of the hospital corridors. And, oblivious to anything or anyone, they left their mark on others.

Somewhere in the confusion (Oh! Those women flung themselves about so wildly, so carelessly. They had no idea whose feet they were stomping on; whose chunnis they were tearing to shreds), one of my sandals (brand new) was broken.

That little broken tag has become an emblem for me of the grief and the loss: I can still wear that sandal. It still protects my foot. But the decorative bit flaps helplessly and sadly – reminding me forever of the truth of the loss: he is gone.

Manoj is gone forever. A life snuffed out through another’s carelessness; a life that can never be restored, never be returned. His daughter will grow up without him, his wife will soldier on.

But there is also a larger truth: “Though much is taken, much remains.” And that is also true. And we hold on to it tenaciously and fervently. Manoj is gone. But Rakhi and Simran are still here. His memory, his legacy, remain.

Simran, his daughter’s name, means “the memory of God.” Part of remembering God – and this is the part we don’t like – is accepting that we are not in control, that we are in His Hands, that there is a larger plan we may not always be able to see.

My sandals are broken and I won’t get them repaired. I want to remember the wildness of grief, the surrender, the total lack of control. I want to remember Manoj.

A few friends come together to address an urgent problem – in our case, Moy Moy needed a school to go to and we couldn’t find what we wanted in Dehradun. No one was thinking about creating an institution. Leave rules and salary scales never entered our minds.

What we needed was a school for Moy Moy. We were looking for people who shared our passion and our sense of urgency. We wanted the sky: people with skill and commitment and a genuine desire to make a lasting change.

And we got them. In those early days, we were so small that everyone did everything: I jumped into the van if Girdhari didn’t show up. Paula scrubbed toilets if Sat Pal was sick. Manju did the physio from a book because we didn’t have a therapist on staff. We knew every child by name and where they lived and what their parents did for a living.

Our own devotion attracted staff who found our zeal a match for what they had in mind for their own lives; it attracted donors looking for a good place to invest their money; it attracted parents who wanted to send their children to a school which cared so deeply about its work.

From two kids on opening day, we hurtled relentlessly onward. 15. 27. 36. 59. 200+.

Soon, in spite of ourselves, we were an institution. And like it or not, leave rules, salary scales, job descriptions and performance appraisals suddenly became a necessity. If Girdhariji called in sick, I was now too busy with proposals and donor reports to hop into the van and pick the kids up myself. Paula had appointments with two teachers and four parents when Sat Pal needed the day off. She couldn’t clean the toilets in his place.

There was no way around it. We needed systems.

Slowly and painfully, we began to put them in place. Letters of appointment. Salaries that had some grounding in reality, not just my whim on making the decision to hire. Performance reviews. Budgets. Clear channels of communication. Audits. Targets. Monitoring.

But as many systems as we developed, our heart really wasn’t in them. They seemed like an imposition, a concession, a capitulation. To say nothing of a little insulting. What do you mean we have to sign an attendance register? Apply for leave? Develop a work plan? Check on whether anything we are doing is actually having an impact? PLEASE.

So we would create systems, follow the new rules half-heartedly for a few days or weeks and then happily revert to our old ways.

Because really, the old ways were so much better. They were built on trust and respect and genuine commitment – not some corporate management psycho-babble.

Except for one thing: year after year, the same exact problems kept coming up. Why is she being paid more than me when we both do the same work? I still don’t know exactly what my job description is. I never got a letter of appointment – am I still on probation? Am I doing my job well? I’m not quite sure what’s expected of me.

It reminded me of something.

When Anand was a baby, I was a big fan of breastfeeding.

Well, who isn’t?

Turns out, Anand wasn’t. I mean, he loved it until he was about six months old. But after that, it wasn’t quite enough. He was too big to survive on just milk. He needed more. And since solid food wasn’t on the menu (“What could be better than breast milk???”), he started whinging. A happy little boy turned into a whiny fellow simply because his mother couldn’t read the writing on the wall: growing babies need more than milk.

The Latika Roy Foundation has a staff of over 100 people. Our annual budget is well over a crore. We’ve won awards. The government asks our advice. Yet we’ve been acting as if we were still that tiny little organization we started out as – an infant NGO which could grow and thrive on nothing more than breast milk.

While the baby keeps on crying.

Last week, we began the slow process of growing up, realizing that we are NOT infants any longer, that we need solid food – and stronger, more coherent systems if we are to continue to flourish.

Our friend and advisor, Vibha Krishnamurthy, whose organization Ummeed experienced identical challenges, spent three days here recently (along with her mentor, Bob Scheelen), helping us to look at our current way of functioning and the systems we need to put in place to improve the way we work.

It was fun, and it was humbling. The systems we need are so many. How did we not see this coming? Yet how can we not welcome what we need so much?

We are welcoming it. Better late than never. This baby deserves our best. We don’t want him to stay hungry, we don’t want to hear him cry. Willy nilly, we are going to feed him and make him strong.

For both of us, however, the experience was permeated with an immense sadness. Manoj died on Wednesday and just two days later we were off to Mumbai. Both of us kept forgetting for a while and allowing ourselves to be lifted up by the excitement; then we would remember and go all small and quiet.

For me, it was even more complex.

A few weeks after the accident, Avdesh Kumar, the man responsible for it, was finally arrested. It’s a bailable offense, so he was released from jail shortly thereafter. He was required to surrender copies of all his papers and the police handed them over to me. These included his license, his car registration and his insurance papers.

Getting his insurance policy was an enormous relief. We knew that the paperwork would take some time, but we were confident that with our excellent lawyer and our water-tight case, the money awarded would allow us to cover Manoj’s outstanding medical bills as well as create a trust fund for Rakhi and their little girl.

Something troubled me about the insurance policy, however, and though it sounds crazy now, at the time I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I looked it over again and again. It was a poor photocopy and at one point I wondered if he had fabricated the whole thing. Did a “General Insurance Company” even exist?

I checked, however, and found that it was a well-known, reputable company, owned by the government of India. It was in his wife’s name, as was the car’s registration. The expiry date was 2013.  Everything added up. Yet something still bothered me.

Friday night, trying to fall asleep on the train hurtling toward Delhi, it suddenly dawned on me: his policy had lapsed. He had renewed it only ten days after the accident.

I don’t know how I missed that crucial detail, that one piece of the picture which made the policy entirely worthless from our point of view. Maybe I just didn’t want to accept that Avdesh Kumar had tried such a stupid, deceptive and transparent trick. Did he think it would fool anyone (other than me)?

Maybe I didn’t want to deal with the fact that now we would have to come up on our own with the huge sum we still owe at the hospital. Maybe the weight of responsibility for Rakhi and little Simran felt even more crushing than before.

Or maybe it was because suddenly Avdesh Kumar – chillingly, hauntingly -reminded me of myself.

The day after Manoj’s accident, I renewed my own car insurance. It had lapsed some weeks before. I knew about it and I always meant to get around to it. But – hey – I was busy!

And I didn’t let a little thing like no insurance slow me down. I was still driving all over the city. Eventually I was going to find the time to locate my agent and make the payment. Tomorrow. It took Manoj’s catastrophe to spur me to action.

Just like Avdesh Kumar.

Anger is so much easier. Self-righteous anger is even better. I am still so angry with Avdesh I can hardly bear to think about him.

But now, this little green shoot of forgiveness keeps pushing its way into my heart, into my soul. And I don’t want to feel it. I want to stay angry. I want to curse him for the havoc he has wreaked on Manoj’s family, on the Foundation, on me. I want him to suffer as he has caused others to suffer.

And I do not want to hear that stupid and irritating voice which keeps insisting on breaking through: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, it keeps saying, insisting that I answer.

My soul, don’t try to answer yet.
Find a friend and hide.

But what can be hidden? Love is always
lifting its head out from under the covers:
“Here I am!”          (Rumi)

Manoj died after a month of suffering and agonizing pain. Avdesh Kumar, whether he admits it or not, will never be the same. He will never be able to hide – at least from himself – what he has done.

Can we choose? Can we still make things come out right?

My soul isn’t ready to answer yet, but the truth is there in these tender green vines, so delicate, yet so strong. It’s there in these amazing and exquisite blossoms, fragrant, fragile, enduring.

What can be hidden?

First, you have to do something significant for a long time (in our case, 17 years). Then you have to get discovered. And finally you have to be documented.

The first two were easy. After 17 years of working-working, you know a little about net-working.

It was the 3rd bit that took us by surprise. The documenting. We were selected as a CNN IBN Real Hero. The honor comes with a Five Lakh prize (that’s $10,000!). But also with a little movie being made about our work.

The film crew – Reena (the director, producer and anchor all rolled into one), Nishad and Gautam – descended upon us like an Immutable Law of Nature.

And at first, truth be told, it seemed like fun. There were balloons! Felt-tip pens! Beautiful children, dressed up in pretty clothes.

We all know, however, that reality is just a little kinkier than that.

Reena, for all her sweet smiles and charming manners, was as fierce as any Tiger Mom and just as ruthless and demanding.

Moy Moy, of course, is always and only herself. No amount of ordering or demanding made the slightest bit of difference and in the end, Reena got some amazing shots just by waiting around long enough.

But as for the rest of us . . . well, let me tell you about our three day saga.

On Day One, I was expecting that we would only have a discussion about the plan. but I guess we just looked so good (HAHAHA) they couldn’t resist starting the shoot immediately. We were both wearing some old rags and I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but I figured we would wear our planned outfits the next day.

Moy Moy and I were then filmed relentlessly in our front garden. The soft evening light was perfect and all we had to do was what we had been doing anyway – leaf through photo albums. I thought – oh, this isn’t so difficult.

Suddenly, Reena decided we needed more trees. “Quick!” she exclaimed. “Is there a place we can go with a forest? We’ll have to move fast – while we still have the light.”

You try moving fast. Moy was in a wheelchair in the garden. She hadn’t had her milk yet and she needed to be changed. At lightening speed, I trundled her chair into the house, raced through those two small chores, then dashed out to the car and bundled her in to the front seat. Scooped up her stroller and hoisted it up onto the roof-rack. Sped off to FRI (luckily we keep a forest close at hand). Walked down the leafy lanes over and over and over,  trying not to go too fast or too slow, trying to remember not to glance directly into the camera, trying not to look too self-conscious.

Then a recce to all the centres where we would be shooting on Day Three (Day Two was Sunday). Then finally, home (where Reena informed me casually that we had to wear the same clothes – the old rags! – for the entire duration).

Day Two. The story Reena had concocted required a flashback to Moy Moy as a little girl – Lakshi won that part. After the dress she first arrived in (all pink and sparkling and covered with lace and sequins) was rejected and changed, Lakshi was put through her paces.

She tried gamely to understand the intricacies of correct balloon placement until finally, she simply and sweetly gave up.

She used the charm and disarm approach to return the balloon to Reena

and Reena, conceding defeat, came up with another approach to her story.

But that was just Round One. Round Two, which she had every intention of winning, was out in the Mohand Forest, in a dry river bed. The idea was to portray the difficulties of Moy Moy’s early life and featured Lakshi, first perched on a tree branch, reciting a poem:

and then being shown how she would have to walk up the rough, rocky path . . .

and finally being filmed doing it alone (over and over and over!):

Manju and I were also there, sweltering in the hot sun (me still wearing the green sweater from the day before because it had been cool in the evening) and all wired for sound:

Our sound bites were filmed there (over and over and over – there is a pattern, right?) in the bright white light until Reena was satisfied and we were finally allowed to go home.

Day Three! Finally, we got to the real stuff: the work of the Foundation.

As usual, our kids hammed it up:

And as usual, Reena and the crew made them go through their usual routines (coming through the gate, saying the morning prayer, singing the National Anthem) over and over and over.

Manju was filmed explaining how we function over and over and over . . .

And then Reena got another idea and the whole crew piled into and on top of their vehicle for some action shots of a father bringing his daughter to school by bicycle:

Looking at the two-minute film that was finally produced, you would never guess all that had gone into it.

Nor, looking at us in real life and knowing our casual, unscripted, down-home style, would you ever imagine we could look so glamourous and poised (we do, right?) on stage:

But there we are. Miracles do happen. The Latika Roy Foundation. A CNN IBN Real Hero. Thanks be to God, thanks be to Vandana Malik, Reena Bhardwaj and the CNN team, thanks be to all of you – our dear friends and supporters – for making it happen.