Shekhar Natarajan

A boy with no shoes, no future anyone could see, no proof he was even worth the price.

My mother didn't pawn a ring that day.

She pawned the only story she had that mattered to her.

And she buried on a story that didn't exist yet.

That was my story.

I grew up in a single room in South India, in the slums.

dirt floors and walls that couldn't keep out the rain or the doubt.

But my mother never looked at those walls.

She never looked past them.

That's not hope because hope waits.

She chose a direction and walked towards it.

That's called orientation.

Fire didn't ask our ancestors if they were ready for it.

Neither did electricity or internet or the splitting of the atom.

The future never asks us the permission.

Right now, someone is designing the world your grandchildren are going to inherit.

What would you give up to live long enough to meet your great-great-grandchildren?

What would you give up

to never forget your mother's face?

What if the future offered you everything that you ever wanted and it costed you everything that you had?