Welcoming 2022

Since the dawn of 2021, it has proven to be very difficult to even begin to compose my thoughts, let alone bring them into words. Countless lives have gone too soon, and countless more are still suffering the repercussions of the pandemic. Among them are souls that are or were too close to me. All of it left me badly shaken, and it took me a lot of time to come to terms with the loss, the pain and the emptiness that follow when you lose someone close or see them suffer.

 We’ve all been searching for answers, for reasons to justify the happenings of the past couple of years. Painfully, it has dawned on me that no amount of human understanding can soothe the unimaginable grief of young children losing a parent, or someone losing a young, healthy child, a spouse, friend or grandparent. Justifying the loss, the vacant emotion, with any vague term becomes futile when we as a human race are at a loss for words and are left perplexed with no choice but to endure the pain.

 Amidst all the grief, I had also the misfortune to witness the deceitful actions of some ill-intended people, in both business and personal life. The deaths, the deceit and the associated disappointments made me go quiet.

 And in this quietness, I had only one thing to keep me going... Lurnable.

 I put every waking minute of my conscious energy into working for Lurnable. There were days when breathing by itself was difficult, let alone planning the way forward in times when everything about the future was unclear. In spite of all this, something kept me going –whether it was just a spark of energy from a team member or a question, an idea, a thought, a design or a piece to write about – all of it kept me positive and hopeful.

 Not too sure when it happened, but eventually I found my peace in a simple word – a single word that justified all my experiences thus far and reinforced my faith in the spiritual force – ‘uncertainty’.

 We think we control our destiny, that we have a say in our life or death, but what we fail to realise is that we are mere puppets to a larger force that controls every move of our lives.

 We believe that we are working towards a plausible future, but we fail to realise that we are only recreating a version of our past through our present with the hope of having a better future.

 Caught up in our thoughts and beliefs, we fail to realise that our lifetime is limited, our options are limited, and our work is the only way we could be limitless. It is our work that is going to be a part of this world even when we are gone.

 The most memorable people, the ones we remember long after they are gone, are not known for who they were, but for what they did with being who they were within the limited time they had in the world.

 You reach a point in your life when you realise that goals don’t enthuse you, milestones don’t amaze you much, but purpose, the sheer force behind you wanting to wake up every single morning to express yourself, that is what pushes you to show up despite all the chaos going on in your life.

 That purpose to me is all about enabling children to make better educational decisions. This was why I started Monkey Baba in 2009, and this is what keeps me going despite the odds stacked against us, whether it was Covid or other bad experiences in the past.

 Today, thanks to the efforts of a team that has kindly accompanied me on this journey, we are working on our collective dreams of making the idea a reality. Lurnable as a business is now doing everything in its capacity to cater to this idea, the purpose of its existence – to enable children to make the right educational decisions!

 And how are we achieving this?

 By developing EdTech search portals and tools, designing bespoke and unbiased advisory services and solutions, and delivering top-notch training to students, particularly the ones aiming for international education.

 So, come what may, for as long as we breathe we are going to continue to march past all the odds. We are going to stay focused on our purpose. We are going to stay true to our time, talents and gifts. We are going to keep churning new ideas and experimenting with different perspectives, with the hope that it would help at least one child in their educational pursuits.

 With prayers and love to all, I, along with my husband, our girls and all members of team Lurnable, welcome the year 2022 by embracing uncertainty, accepting our shortcomings as humans, thanking the supreme power for the opportunities that lie ahead of us and, above all, hoping – hoping that we all find the strength to move on. That we all find a way to move past the losses endured in our personal lives, at work and in our communities, and find the strength to face a new tomorrow, a new future.

 Godspeed!

 Nithya Prabu.