Before I got on the train, my team and I donated blood.

It was a small thing. A needle, a few minutes, a cup of juice after. But sitting there with them, it felt warm. Full of heart. still i’m okay 😵‍💫

Giving is easy for me. I did not know yet that this week would be about the other side.

Forty-two hours on a train from Delhi to Madurai.

The AC was cold. Eight people on my side of the coach. By the second day, they were not strangers.

The Tamil Nadu national chess team was travelling with us. The boys’ team came second in the country. The girls’ team came fourth.

Across from me sat a Tamil family. They moved to Delhi twenty-five years ago. Now they were going home for the kumbabhishekam at their kula deivam temple.

With them was a young girl. She is not their daughter.

Her own family lives next door to them in Delhi. Her parents are from Bihar. When she was six months old, this family began looking after her. She has grown up with them ever since.

I kept watching her. I know something about that life.

As a child, I almost never ate or slept in my own house. I grew up in my brother’s house. They gave me everything.

But growing up in someone else’s home leaves a quiet ache. It comes later. When you leave for college. When you build your own life, and neither house is fully yours to go back to.

I wondered when it would come for her.

The family shared sweets with me.

At Chennai, the train stopped for fifteen minutes. I set a ten-minute timer on my watch, ran out of the station, and came back with parottas. We ate together.

A young soldier was travelling. He is 23, two years in the army.

“I didn’t study much,” he told me. “In my village, everyone goes to the army. My mother asked me to. So I did.”

When I reached home, Amma was waiting. I was seeing her after five months. She was so happy.

There was someone new at home too. Luna, our new pet, already friends with Arya. Both were enjoying the Madurai weather.

On that train, I kept noticing one thing.

Almost everyone there had been held by someone. A neighbour who raised a child who was not theirs. A cousin’s family who fed me for years. A mother whose one request shaped her son’s life.

None of them asked for anything back.

In October, in a writing session with Natasha Badhwar, I wrote one line in my notebook.

I don’t know how to ask others for help.

On the same page, I wrote another.

A lot of people I owe a small moment.

This week, I had to ask.

I have been selected for Jagriti Yatra, another train journey. Fifteen days across India, meeting people who build things in small towns. I got a partial scholarship. The rest, I decided to raise.

My fellowship stipend could not cover it. At ISDM, a fundraising class had taught me how to ask for money for a cause. This time, the cause was me. So I picked up the phone.

The first call was hard. I kept saying, “I am not borrowing.” As if I needed to explain why I was allowed to ask.

As an entrepreneur, I have always earned money by giving something back. A product. A service. Time. Asking without a direct return felt like owing something I could not repay.

Not a single rupee has come in yet. But no one has said no. Some promised to support me later. Others gave me names of people to call. The fear was bigger than the answer.

The train showed me the rest. I have been held all my life, and never paid anyone back. Asking is only saying that out loud.

Natasha said something that stayed with me. The personal is universal.

So this week, I want to hand the pen to you.

Try this. It takes ten minutes.

First, think of one person who held you, without asking for anything back. Write their name.

Now go back to one moment with them. Write what you saw. What you heard. What you touched. What you smelled. What you tasted. One line for each.

Then write one sentence: What I never told them.

Last step. Do one small thing for them this week. A phone call. A message. A thank-you note. It does not have to be big.

If you want, tell me who you wrote about. Reply to this email or write to [email protected]. I read every one.

One line for October:
We are not always the ones giving. Sometimes we have to ask.

One more thing, and this is me asking.

The Yatra costs ₹66,700. That’s a ₹56,700 fee after my scholarship, plus ₹10,000 for train travel. One day of the journey is about ₹4,200.

If this newsletter has given you something, would you invest in this journey? One day, or any amount.

There is no financial return. What I can give back is what I learn. I will write to you from the stops, and you will read it here first.

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If giving isn’t possible, sharing this with one person who might care means just as much.

Be kind, help people, trust muruga.

Nami
Waves of Change