Ultreia!

I wrote this piece below last August, with the first ever Sarvodya awareness campaign underway. It has been quite a journey the last 10 odd months but as we sit down to start planning the second one, I am so grateful for the events that redirected me the Fatima way! I am often told to share more about this social entrepreneurial journey and thought this was the right ‘note’ to begin on! कहानी शुरू से शुरू करें..

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I get all reflective around birthdays and this recent one was a milestone spent locked in, so LOTS of time to reflect! Through the lockdown, I’ve been experimenting with pencil sketching. Don’t really think I am any good at it but I have years of practice being terrible at a bunch of different things and doing them anyway, so why draw the line at some harmless weekend doodling..

This badly done piece is my state of mind today. The last week odd, 80+ of us have been walking / cycling around our homes, across 12 different cities, to breathe life into a project that’s close to my heart! I took a rest day today, and decided to use the afternoon to draw this picture clicked on my Camino last year. I was walking the Portuguese way and coming down a steep hill, saw a teastall / tapri with this sign right by it. Camino Portugues had these all the way, the blue ones pointing to Fatima and the yellow ones to Santiago. It really spoke to me at the time because I had just moved countries to pursue some work ideas and was faced with interesting choices, so I did what any responsible adult would do…pack in some wet wipes and take off on a long solo walk to think it through! These signs though, they seemed to say, that both routes took one on a beautiful journey to a place of meaning, and one could pick at any point on that route which way to head…

So, well, I followed the yellow signs. More traffic that way. Pilgrimage but more mainstream. More company. Better chats. More options? I enjoyed my time in Santiago de Compostela. The cathedral vibes, the pilgrim traditions, the feeling that I had arrived when I heard my Compostela being stamped, the celebratory meal with the Germans I met along the way and that lone friend who came over from London to wave the flag as I arrived in the Square. Everything about it.

But, I also thought about why I turned right coming out of Porto and not left towards Fatima. You see, I started kindergarten in Mumbai in a school called Our Lady of Fatima. And one of my few memories from that young age is of this tall white statue of the Virgin Mary as one walked past the school gates. That and the smell of my new plastic-y raincoat. I didn’t know the significance of the name back then but I thought about my school and wondered about Fatima everyday I walked towards Santiago. I had no hotel bookings or travel tix and was using the days just as I wanted. Or thought I wanted. Or allowed myself to want. You know where I am going with this..

Anyways, back to this afternoon. Here’s me with a blank sheet of paper and instruments that may not be fit for purpose but will do the job. I am pencil sketching this photo and if I had colour pencils, I may have coloured in the blue boot first. Santiago was awesome, and I want to some day go back the English way, maybe del Norte, but for now, I would like to see where the blue arrows take me, so Fatima, here I come!
#ultreia

Learning for me: if there is freedom to choose, to choose freely in that moment.

Question for you: are you following my Fatima adventure on @thesarvdoyacollective?

Question for you: are you following my Fatima adventure on @thesarvdoyacollective?