To many die hard project why supporters planet why is an aberration. I can understand their reaction as at first sight the two may seem totally incompatible. I beg their indulgence and beseech them to keep in mind that both emanate from the same source and have come in much the same way.
If project why saw the light of the day as a result of a chance encounter with Manu when a deafening loud why screamed for an answer that needed to be found, planet why was perhaps conceived more gently as a result of a string of quieter whys in no way less poignant.
Fate has played a curious role in my quest for answers to disturbing questions that have come my way in the bemusing journey called project why. It has set the course of this journey and steered it in directions that I could not have anticipated.
The vision of a man hobbling into my office with the help of a huge stick led us to create our heartfix hotel. At first this new venture of ours did seem to many yet another aberration. Such large sums of money to be spent on saving one child, a child whose future was uncertain, one that would just become one of the many millions barely surviving. Yet we did not give up and today over a dozen such children have had another go at life waiting for their destinies to unfold.
To some our decision of putting Utpal in a boarding school and helping his mom overcome a severe addiction and a debilitating psychological ailment was one more exorbitant deviation, but we again stood by what we believed to be right. To us it was simply a matter of finding the right answer to yet another why, a why that we never went seeking but that came our way as if guided by an invisible hand.
Hence slowly project why took a life of its own, one that often defied all logic, but one that I knew was the work of a far greater force. Time carried its inexorable course. Project why grew from why to why and with it the realisation of its extreme fragility and precarious nature that rested on the failing shoulders of an aging being bringing the inevitable question of its ability to fulfill all the responsibilities that laid upon it. What would become of the Manus that had come its way and of the hopes and dreams so tenderly nurtured.
Yet another answer needed to be found and it was planet why: a place where dreams would be secure. The journey seemed to be reaching its logical end. But fate once again, or the unseen hand, decided otherwise. The sheer magnitude of what was at stake was frightening and yet not accepting the challenge would have gone against everything we had stood for till then and negated the very spirit of project why.
To me project and planet why are intrinsically linked; the only difference being that the later has to have the ability of outlive me, and hence have foundations solid enough to weather any storm that may come its way.
