The year was 1989, Solapur, then a small town in India. I’m about 4 years old attending one of the kindergarten years at St. Joseph’s Highschool. The days feel endless and everything has a sheen of significance. During recess me and a friend haunt the area just off from the main playground. This was an area that we’re not exactly allowed to go to, but not exactly forbidden either. What makes this place worth the apparent risk is that it’s full of pebbles. This is a place where treasure is to be sought. You see, a few days ago I had found a particularly interesting shiny stone and given it to my mom, who said she loved it. I won’t know if she meant it or it was just a thing to be said to little boys who bring home random things while the newborn sister is fussing. It was now my mission to give her more of the same.
The first few days I took home just a few, and collected my love. One day however, I wanted to go all out. I decided with my unnamed accomplice that I would collect at full capacity. Two whole pocketfuls. That recess we skipped the food and dedicated ourselves to collecting the shiniest, the sparkliest, the best of all the stones in that infinite sea of gravel. Soon the large brass bell was being rung by a peon and it was time to go back to class. We had succeeded. Our pockets were as full as they could be.
This turned out to be a problem as we attempted to sit down at our benches. The full pockets wouldn’t allow it. Being moderately intelligent munchkins, we of course promptly emptied out all the shinys into the little shelf below our desk. Then as the teacher asked us to pull out our books, we pulled the desk towards ourselves. All the stones rattled. Loudly.
We were asked to dump the stones. My friend did this most willingly, his love for the things was apparently a borrowed thing. Not me. I said no. I pleaded. Explained how they were just for my mom, and that I would be careful to not make the noise again. To no avail. Tears and all, I threw them all away. We were forbidden, expressly, from going to that part of the school again.
I don’t remember anything of what happened afterward. What is deeply etched is the deep sorrow of being denied, for reasons out of my control, the opportunity to give something out of love.
It’s fall 2023, in Carlsbad, a small town near San Diego. My son is almost 4. His teacher, Ms. Emily, in school ran a project over a few weeks asking the kids to collect interesting leaves and twigs and sticks as the trees prepared for winter. He was the first to get some to class and got much love and appreciation in return. He was hooked.
Over the next several weeks, he diligently took a stick or a leaf to class everyday. Full of pride, and joy, and love. Some days Ms. Emily wasn’t in class and there were tears, but the leaf collecting persisted. Then over Thanksgiving, while we were away visiting family, Ms. Emily was moving away. We and Ms. Emily explained it to him in the days leading up, hoping to shield the little heart. However come the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, he rushed to the nearest tree to pick up a lovely crisp and complete dried leaf. There was of course no hand to place that lovely leaf in, there were plenty of tears.
It’s been a few days, the leaf collecting continues. The tears are now sad little pouts. Deeply etched in his little furrowed brow, is the sorrow of being denied, for reasons beyond his control, the opportunity to give something out of love.
It’s 2014, Singapore, I’m now towards the end of my PhD and proficient in image analysis. So good that I write code for friends so that it may save them weeks of manual analysis time. I do it for fun, I do it out of love for them. Soon I pick up machine learning, and apply that to do more faster, better. I enjoy transforming biological problems into computational ones. I love seeing happiness in the faces of my friends. This love took a meandering path and was poured into my first proper startup. I wanted to give this gift of automated analysis to those who could use it as a lever to change and save lives.
A startup isn’t a lab though, I take on and learn new things everyday in the service of that love. Fundraising, sure I’ll do it. Finance, easy. HR, headache, but will do. Translate between different domains and make everything make sense, that’s a core personality trait now. But, after leading the startup for 6 years, through multiple countries, and funding rounds, I decided to stop. The company of course goes on, led by the best I could hope for. Doing anything new is always difficult, my ability to do and give my best, both for the company and my family, was hampered by stress and health.
Deeply etched in that little strategic game theory decision, is the sorrow of being denied, for reasons beyond my control, the opportunity to give something out of love.
We want to make and give good things to people. Collecting, building, and inventing are all forms of the same love.
Nowadays Mr. Almost 4 uses leaves he finds to make wings. Perhaps there’s something to that.
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Pair with: Butterfly Net by Caroline Polachek
Aneesh Sathe 
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