In less than ten days, I will be twenty seven. Seven and twenty. Twenty and seven. Two followed by seven. Either way you look at it, I will be apparently one year older, one year wiser and one year more mature? Lord knows I feel a whole lot responsible. But is that the definition of mature and wise? Not too sure on that me is.

How was last year? A plenty mixed bag I say. Things went wrong, but they go wrong every time and all the time. Things went right - not too many. A few here and there. But I am more satisfied than I have been in a long time. And more confused and aggravated too. Yes yes it is possible to feel those at the same time. Very much possible. Ask me or read on.

Last year saw papa being sick, fights with the manager, total disillusionment with work and then being done with it. No, I do not miss it even a single tiny itty bitty bit. But I do miss the money :) Work wise, there were also two patents filed [pat on the back and a bow, thanku thanku] which makes me feel a whole lot better. THat is what I am. The ideas person. I am not too great at implementation, of either my ideas or others. Way less of others. I am much better at communicating what the ideas are to one and all. Much better at talking and hearing and listening [or pretended to at the very least]. I am good at staging events, at organizing things and at using words. I love it when I can get two people to understand each other. Code be damned.

I also got into three universities in the Land of Oz. And one of them ranked 16th and the other 37th in the world. And I picked the one which was ranked 187? [I am pretty sure but not certain]. Why? Simply coz I loved the course much more, I preferred the campus and the networking and professional ties it gives to me. Also coz it is Sydney and the course is so darn me! And a chance to live near brother dear. No I am not sure I will live with him, but near him is most awesome.

My father's heart attack brought to fore the fact that he is old and that everyone is prone to sickness. Nani's cancer further cemented it. I see her and I can not help but choke a bit. She is the woman, one of the three women who brought me up. SHe is the one who taught me how to make rotis and make them round and make them rise. She is the one who listened to me without a questions and would give me santare ki goli and kishmish. The woman who made moongfali ki chikki for me and would wait for me to come home from school/college to feed me fresh washed angoor. The woman who wore the sari Gujju style and put sindoor in her mang. The one who never called Nanaji by name and let everyone walk over her. But she brought me up and made me hardy and strong. She told me to not let anyone use me and to let no one screw me over. She is a woman who is still crushed emotionally between the men in her life - her sons and her husband. She taught me Malwi and sang to me when I was a kid. She is the one who I wanted to be with at nights and throw tantrums and make my parents take me to her place. She loves me without a question. She is now sick. Everytime I see her, I wonder when next. SHe is frail. Her hair is growing back after her chemo treatment and she no longer wers her cottons saris. She wers gowns now, the one thing she used to frown upon. Her skin has blood clots and her eyes are clouded with pain. One of her eyes is blind and I feel tears welling up every time I think of her. I feel helpless. Her pain - I can not make it go away. Her cancer - I can not make it go away. When she tells me of her treatment, I can't cry. But I am sure I die a bit inside. I can not afford to lose her. She still calls me Gullu and means it. Her love is unbound and I feel sometimes why me rather than why her. Even today, she wants to feed me. She still brought out the kishmish and gave me some. And I feel like I can not eat because it will eat into her ration. I don't know what has come over me. I just can not reciprocate that love. More like show the love. Is it helplessness? Is it pain/fear? I know not. All I know is I hate GOd for doing this to her.

My father... everytime I see him, I feel like his back is bent even futher. The person who was always strong seems a little less so today. Yes, we still have fighting matches, that is what we Purva's family do. But I get scared. If he bends down to pick up something, I feel like he will keel over and never get up. This fear... this madness... I sometimes stay awake at night and worry about him. I remember going to my parents' bedroom to see my mother breathe when I would be scared shitless. I can't afford to go there again. I feel like I am responsible for his situation. Me not being married... it bothers him. He is a father, an Indian at that. He worries about his little daughter. The one who he used to carry in his arms and the one for whom he went to the shop at 7 am yesterday to get rasgullas. But he is happy with the to-be-bahu. With the to-be-bahu's family. And I tease him endlessly for that and enjoy his goofy happy smile. He is simple and bhola. And that one bhola property of his taught me to be nothing but. He acknowledges my frank and forthright nature and calls me the motor mouth. But he seems to object it less. He still wants me to wear a shirt rather than a tank top and I will give enough concession to not wear shorts and wear PJs. But he still gets on my nerves, already wrought nerves. But my worry about his health seems to have overcome my other stupid reflexes. Just hope it stays that way.

My little baby brother got engaged. To the girl he loves. And I am soooooooooooooooo happy for him!!!!! He is also now a Graduate in something [ummm... sorry, don't remember much] and is looking for a job so he can marry his sweetheart. YUck, I think I threw up a little saying that word. But that is how I tease him. Call the to-be-wife wife and ask him to run away with her :) He think I am out to corrupt his sweet Indian bahu. He is the best thing to have ever happened to my father. And her, the to-be-bahu... I am pretty sure that I am thrid after the brother, the to-be-bahu on his love scale. What ever. I am there and it is enough. Oh who am I kidding. Me first!!! Papa listens to him. They say fathers listen to their daughters. It is case reversed here. Follow the son is the motto here. My baby brother is going to be 25 this year. 25... I remember my 25th... My brother... my love for him is weird. I can not explain it. I will do anything for him. We still fight at least once we see each other. No not your verbal fights. I remember fists and tearing hair from last time. Also I hate you and die as if I care. It is as if it is a required ritual. Listen, if you think you need to call the police, I won't blame you. But we seem to be calming down. Sad. I love how he is so earthy and down to earth. We can not talk really, we do not share what is in our hearts. But somewhere, we seem to know it. And it seems like he has taken over the elder sibling role somewhere in the past few years. May be it is me.. a part of me that still remains a kid and refuses to grow up. The part that still goes all crazie when sees gooey chocolate and still dances in the rain. He is the one who is more patient, more careful and the one who is more adaptable. He will become a kid with the kids, they all adore him. He is the one who will impress the elders with his respect. I am more prone to being fidgety. He is the one who I know will stand by me, no matter what side I pick in public. In person, he might berate me and scream and shout. But he will pick up after me and pick me up too. I just hope that his wife learns to love me and me love her. I barely know her. But I know she is a sweet person and my brother won't pick the wrong un. So it should be easy enough.

I, me, myself... Well what do you want to know? Work - well it is well documented. I hated it. A chance has come to me to do what I love and I am going after it. Wish me luck. I just feel it right in my bones and in my bone marrow and the mitochondria of my bone marrow and even the atoms and protons and electrons and the quarks and leptons of those and the further sub sub sub atomic particles of these subatomic particles. I have liked people and told them. And gotten over being hurt. You guys know who you are if you are reading this. Your loss :p There are people who would want nothing better than to marry me. Who want me to give them a chance. But Purva likes to draw herself a nice catch 22. Lately however, I seem to be thinking like a woman rather than a girl. Fellow females out there know what I mean. The males, sorry the other half of homo sapiens. I aint explaining. You won't understand either. I am going to paint something Wednesday onwards. Am off to Delhi for a day tomorrow. My first second class sleeper journey in ages. I have done it before and I ain't bothered. More excited than scared :D I am looking forward to the chaach and tomato soup at the Ujjain station actually. I spent the afternoon at cousin N's place today. And it was a most amazing experience. Family - that unit... that feeling. It is indescribable. And my nephew. Oh lord... those soft cheeks. I could not stop kissing him! I am happy in a confused way. I need to get out of Indore. I am still not done with my memories. But now I can talk about the Ex without a hitch. But I still can not go to the same old bazaars and not think of the time with Ma. That... I don't think I will ever be done with it. I am supposed to get a sonogram to confirm whether or not I have cysts on my kidneys... I am too scared. I don't know if my Nani's uterine cancer will kill me. But these are real concerns. They suggested me to get my genes checked. I refused. So far, I seem to be doing ok. But who knows what will happen even after I finish this post. Or even if I will be able to finish this post. Life is uncertain and it makes you questions and sometimes gives you answers - unexpected at times. Expected if you are lucky. But mostly, it will make you wonder and keep guessing. YOu can only hope that it is all good in the end. I don't believe in it will all work out in the end. But sometimes I need it to keep going. I read it on a Twitter post I follow - Smile till it's real. And I like to think of it as the most honest thing on earth. Smile. And I will smile. May be not every day. But most days. If for nothing else than to be thankful for the food I am getting and the chances I still have.

I am still learning. And at times I feel like my real life has just started. Two of my mentors, people I really respect told me that I will go through a stage and questions what it means to be a woman. May be this is my learning of myself. And I like it. I am young. I am pretty. And yes, hot too at times. Though I still doubt it mostly. But if so many people say it, there got to be some truth to it right? I am smart, intelligent and don't take shit from anyone. I am in good physical shape. I have the love and support of the men in my life. I make mistakes and correct them when I can or when it is good to correct them. I am me and would like to improve on that. Would I trade places with someone? Yeah some parts of it. But not all. Not trade the childhood. The love and the care. The freedom. But I would trade some of the pain. Most of the hurt. But hey, everyone wants to get rid of those so I think I am good. I am a nice human being. A good one at that. I know it. So what that I hate myself when I am upset. I am good and know it and am not ashamed of it most of the time. I am blessed with a lot. But I am not satisfied. I have a lot to offer to myself and to this world. And I know I won't stop.

It will be a good year. I just know it. It can not be all bad all that time. Even the law of averages and the geography of earth tells you that. Me too. Everything turns around. If there is a time-space continuum, things got to go round you see. So I know I will be good. No doubts about it.

Peace out people. Be good - to yourself as well to those less fortunate around you. Remember what goes around, comes around.

Ahem. So quick on the heels on my no, comes this mail:


But mostly, thanks for pointing out that I was saved from the grave mistake of getting hitched to you, so what if even in my father's dreams.

Could do with a friend who would hug me and a shoulder to cry on right now. I hurt my father, by going against his wishes. By saying no to something he had been lookng forward to. And while I know that the no was the right choice, I am not happy. Does it mean it is not the right thing to do? Also, can someone explain the change in my father? From the person who I thought was open, he has turned into this medieval father that I can not reconcile with.

Marriage is like this ugly hydra that keeps rearing multiple heads at the same time. I try to cut down what I can, but then hydra!!! Hello!!! Do I want to marry? Sure. Do I want to settle down or whatever it means in my father's language? Sure. But then if I am pushed into a corner, I do not do well. I do not do well when you keep telling me things either. I need space. Do not rush me. But instead, all this is exactly what is happening. I was being rushed into marrying someone I had never even met. Yeah, I thought that my father was more rational than that too. But apparently not. Also, aren't fathers supposed to be territorial and extremely protective of their daughters? Aren't they supposed to be like I-will-never-let-anyone-take-you-away-from-me? Guess mine missed his class. Or was sleeping through his. God knows I have missed more than enough on how-to-be-a-good-daughter. I said good, not perfect. I am not even aiming for it.

I have way too many things falling apart in my life right now. I am not even lying. I can't seem to reel things in at this time. I feel totally lost and absolutely confused. I know I am the only person who has to deal with these things. I know I am the only person who has to fix these things. But hey, a helping hand is needed. I do need to lean a little. I also need some support. And no, the people I know don't seem to know that I need some help too. According to more than enough people, I am always high on life. Yes, yes I am. But then I do get worn out too na. Like right now, I am trying to figure out the amazingly awful transformation of my father. But it makes no sense to me at all.

Oh whatever. Until next one.

We all hold on to things. We all hold on to things that we love. But we also hold on to things we detest. Or may be hate.

Like me. I do not particularly enjoy what I do. I loved it initially. Then me being me set in and I got all fidgety and restless. And then more of me happened and now I am actually at the point where I can not do this thing anymore. Well I always knew this would happen. But the force with which it happened and worse still the short time in which it happened. That was what shook me.

However, I am no great scientist by brain or heart or mind. I like technology. I like science. But I am romantic enough at heart to know that I need my escapes from there.

There are issues with my visa. I do not know if it can be renewed. Which means that either I find another job which I am trying to do, or move back to India. Now for the longest time, I felt cheated. I felt horrible. This job is my livelihood. My means of sustenance. I cried. I was depressed. I was sad beyond hell. I pigged out. I stopped eating. In simpler terms, was depressed.

But then I look back. I have hated this job for a while now. Well maybe hated is too strong a word, but disliked it for ages. I do not like being tied down. I can not stay put at one place. I can not be comfortable. And that is all that this job is about.

So why am I so worried about this visa outcome? I do not like what I do. But I do like my life here. It is all mine. I made it mine. I worked hard at it. I worked alone at it, for it. And I like this place. The mountains. The rolling hills. The green and the brown grass. Even the view of the blue ocean. I like the long drives. I like the people. Most of them at least. I like the dances, the wine and the world cuisine. This is all mine.

I fear the loss of something I am not too fond of. How very me is that? []shrugs shoulders]. I miss the fact that I might not be able to spend time with the guy I love or even tell him that I do. And this is not the ex that we are talking about here. I will miss the sky and the air.

I do not know when I will know whether I am staying or leaving. I have not told my father about it. I have not told too many people about it. Its my issue. But I feel over whelmed now. I have been dealing with this for almost a month and no one quite knows about it. I can not share this with any one either. And this is getting way past what I can deal with by myself.

I am trying to look at it positively. Trying to look at it like maybe now I can do all that I have wanted to do for so long. I am looking at is like may be I can go back to school to do what I have always wanted to do for so long. May be write a book. Learn photography. But how do I do either of these if I can not eat? I mean one does need food to live right? I can not ask any one for money - not my father for sure. Definitely not my brother.

I do not know what to do. There is uncertainty. Which is a good as well as a bad thing. But on the whole, it is super stressful. It is exhausting and I can feel my brain cells going off in a small explosion one by one. It is all beyond my control. Sometimes, it gets to the point where I can not even feel anything.

But one thing that strikes me is why am I trying to hold on with all my energy and effort to something I do not like? Why am I trying to do this? I mean I have been thinking about chucking it all and just starting afresh for a while now. But practicality always won.

I guess what will happen will happen. But I can not help thinking. I can not help worry. I wish some one to share this with. I wish someone to be there for me. But I guess like always, I will have to fight this alone. But I do wish I do not have to.

The realization that you hate someone you thought you loved all your life is so powerful that it kills a part of you then and there. And it can never come back coz hate is such a primitive emotion, yet so evil that once you start hating even one person, the evil takes you over.

Do you know how sometimes there is an image that covers everything else and refuses to go away? Like a patina of dust on unused furniture? I sometimes feel like if you do not share the love you have, then the love from the past comes and haunts you. Again and again. May be it is just me, maybe it is just my thought, my feeling. Or maybe it is the fever speaking. Or do others also feel like they need to share just to feel loved? That giving love is the only way to feel someone else's love?

Anyways, coming back to what has kept me occupied the whole day today. A little reference for it: Ma used to teach in the same school as Bhai and me. Now when we were in junior school, she used to leave before us and come after us. And do you remember birthday celebrations at school? Everyone used to get chocolates. And Bhai and I used to wait for her to come back so that we could search her purse for b'day candy. And she would not say don't rifle through my purse. She would just ask us to be careful of not misplacing her things. The image: my little brother sitting in a corner going through Amma's purse. Him with that stupid plastic pair of glasses falling off that impish face. The eagerness and the anticipatory grin. The beige shirt and that i-can't-remember-the-colour pair of shorts. I remember it as parts of childhood that every kid should have. The innocent childhood that seems to pass the kids of today by. I remember it as the love of a mother who doted on her kids. Times when the father was content to take the backseat to his kids' lives because he had a superwoman for a wife. I remember it because it was happy.

And I remember it coz I still think of my itty bro as itty bitty still. I know he grew up alongside me. I know when his hand turned into the rock that it is today. I know when he shot past me in height. I know all this and still I think of him as my baby. So when my brother takes a step closer to the institution of marriage, and I can not be there, I wonder what happened to that bescepectacled kiddo and how did he turn into marriage material? It also makes me realize that I am also a grown up now. Too late to realize it you would say. I agree. But then the events of the past month just seemed to push it into focus. The fact that yes I m an adult indeed so I better start acting like one. But there is another Purva that is all kid and that part refuses to grow up. The one who still needs to reach out, who still needs to believe in the good in every one. Who still stares at wonder at the stars and even at the phone and who thanks the Gods that be for them. For everything. Who gets frustrated and who will frustrate everyone. With her passion as much as her unpredictability. I do not know how to strike the balance. The world increasingly asks for being practical and to squash a lot that I hold dear.

What is growing up? Learning to realize the possible? Learning to guard yourself against things? Things that you need to learn to guard against? What is good? The bad? Learn to get up from the hurts. The losses? Not scrapes from falling on your face in the playground. But from falling on your face in the life. Losses to people who you held dear. Of people who you never thought would move away from you. Is growing up realizing that sometimes priorities and precedences may mean that you have to put everything else on the backseat. Does growing up merely mean mending a broken soul rather than mending broken bones? What is growing up?

I am trying to gather my wits. I am trying to convince myself that growing up is what I will make it out to be. But you know me. I do not think I am a pessimist. I am not a complete optimistic either. But I am somewhere along the way becoming into a ping pong ball. Moving from one end of the spectrum to the other.

But that image, that kid. That little brother of mine all grown up now makes me kinda stop in my tracks. Makes me dizzy with fear. Makes me wonder where that time went and where it is flying off to. I want to sit down, analyze [my absolute fav thing to do in the world], to actually take a calming breath.

But mostly, I want to grow up on my own terms. I am not ready to become an adult yet. Not ready to marry because I am supposed to. Not because I want to spend my life with someone. I want to hold back time. So that Papa would not have had that heart attack. So that Ma would still be alive. And that the Ex would still be at least a friend. So that Nani would still be plump and Nanaji would still be as intimidating. Blah! Who am I kidding. Time waits for not even the presidents and the CEOs. I am just Purva. So while I type, time flows past me. But this is time well spent. I feel better getting this out of me. 

J.K. Rowling's speech at Harvard graduation:

Transcript:

Text as prepared follows.
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Dear Purva

Happy birthday. I know how you are. Precisely what you feel. I understand the exhilaration and the anticipation. The fear too. But then, we both know that this is what it is all about.

I like the fact that you are thinking. And not just idle thinking. Thinking things through. Take your time. You have always been the obsessive thinker. Have the ability to see all sides of the things. But tend to focus on the negatives. Take more time to focus on the positives. Or at least on the neutrals. Think of the wind when you are upset. About how you can be flexible too. And as you recently heard, "Don't get sad, get angry".

Purva, I know you have many questions. So do I. But think [which you love to do anyway] what if there were no questions. Boring. I know. I agree, too many questions are a little too much sometimes, but when did you believe in equilibrium?

Put more time into things you like, but also put time into things you do not like. Actually reverse the order. Put so much time into things you do not like that you start to love them. Remember Maths and 8th grade? Same way. Work your ass off on things like tech and work. You might not be the perfect engineer at heart, but you are a damn good one still. You have the ability to look at the bigger picture, to think absurd and to enjoy it. So put it to use. Going deep might not be your forte, but you still surprise me with your depth at times.

One thing I liked about you and that shows me that you are growing up is your appreciation of other people. I like how you now appreciate things in other people rather than just being amazed. You try to incorporate that in your life. And even though you do not like not having a person's skill, you still try. Or you know you don't want it and delegate that part to someone else.

Purva, I know it is hard. You miss family. The concept itself sounds weird to you sometimes. But give yourself and your family some breathing space. Be the bigger person - just stop getting mad for no reason. Stop living in the past and stop over analyzing. Not easy, not entirely possible either. But given the opportunity, take the way out. Or just smile. It does help.

Girl, take time out for yourself. Stop running and work things out. There is only so much that you can handle. I know you think of yourself as Miss Super. But come on, you are only still human.

Retain that child like madness and enthusiasm. Retain the wonder at small things, the merriment. What you crave for will come to you. Just you wait. I know the next question is how long? But then I do not know the answer myself. You have a lot going right and it is easy to overlook that. But how about a dekko?

Have a good birthday Purva. Here's a toast to who you are and a hope that you get what you want.

Love
Purva

Apne hi paani mein pighal jaana baraf ka muqaddar hota hai.
[To dissolve in its own water is the fate of ice]

-  Swades