Where There Is HOPE, There Is LIFE.

On my wall, the poster reads - There is always hope! :-)

One of my friends showed this poster to me while we were visiting a shop yesterday. There was no space for any deliberation - I bought it and put it up on one of the most viewed walls in my room. Not that my room has many walls, it just has four walls like most rooms, but I wanted to put it up on a wall from where it is always visible to me while I am studying, reading, sleeping or eating.

Then I also have this stone that reads - HOPE, on my desk from the most memorable travel trip of my life.

As I sit down to write this post at 10: 30 PM India time and 5 PM London time on 31 December 2015, I wonder if I am mad and crazy. I only wonder, I am not. Time and again, we have read, learnt, heard and experienced what a little hope can do for us and the world at large. We have seen great revolutions, great stories and great people who have survived just on hope. But I had always wondered what this hope actually is because for many of us it just disappears when we most need it. In times such as these, how do we survive? (May be there is a rush of memories in my head from the entire year right now and that is why I am blabbering or may be I am making some sense)

For me, the first encounter with what hope really is in its most real form was when I first visited a trafficking survivors shelter home in 2013 in India. These women of steel taught me a lot more about what it is to live in just three months, than I would have learnt in the entire 24 years of my existence.

Since then, I have constantly strived to understand - what does it take to gather that little ounce of courage, what does it take to stand up for yourself in the smallest of situations, what does it take to give and receive love, what does it take to possess compassion in its purest form, what does it take to listen a bit more, what does it take to spread joy, smiles and gratitude, what does it take for anything and everything that makes us a little more human, that makes us who we are, that lets us be?

The year 2015 has given me more than one answer to these questions. The one I live up to each moment of my existence is - all it takes is a little hope, all that matters is that little ounce of faith in our being, all that it takes to love is that selfless compassion and all that it takes to live is that little ounce of courage that gives us the strength to write and live our OWN STORY.

No, the year will not necessarily be easy even we possess hope, but it can be beautiful and fulfilling for us to walk the path that we want to carve for ourselves, to write our own story and to live up to it each day against the forces that we may encounter. 

Therefore, before this year comes to an end and the new one begins in all its glory, I heartfully thank every person, friend, family, mentor, guide, teacher, women, children - everyone I have had the good fortune to know and work  with this year; who have not only increased my faith in all of the above but have also made me a little more of me each day and have left their permanent impressions of hope and love.

I am eagerly looking forward to what the new year has in store for me. I don't know what it does but what I do know is that I am going to live it with a little more of each of these every day - compassion, gratefulness, hope, love and faith. Oh and I will be a learner for life and a better listener as well!

Have a hopeful new year 2016!

With a heart full of gratitude and love,
Pankhuri Amal

:-)

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