My first skiing experience was a brief stint in January 2001 in the slopes near NewCastle, UK. My main take-away from that was painful muscles and soreness for the next few days. Fast forward to December 2009 in the Poconos region in NJ, USA. A few times up and down the snow-covered mountain and my biggest take-away then was that I was six weeks pregnant! Life happens and somehow it took another ten years before I could go back to the slopes which was last year. That is when I actually enjoyed this winter recreation. I have my dear husband and peers to thank for in this venture for sure. It was thus time to take this effort one notch higher and start investing in the process in order to maximize the season this year. The timeline of picking up this activity also aligns with the way I have indulged in my philanthropic enterprise since a year now and here are some key take-aways of this shared experience:

• Investment: To begin with, engaging in this activity has been investment-heavy right from the amount of time, energy and effort as well as all the tangible equipment to go with it – skis, poles, boots, hats, gloves, warmers, balaclavas, pants, jackets, helmet, goggles and so on. To me, this itself is a testament to anyone’s patience, financial obligation and commitment to keep at it. Similarly, starting Social Echoes involved that right balance of patience and mindset. While one can continue with their day-to-day operations, consistent engagement in the social sector is a matter of longer-term investment.
• Momentum: One of the key beginner lessons they teach you in skiing is “do not get over your skis”. The moment you get over your skis at the beginning, you are bound to lose balance and fall. In order to build control and impetus to philanthropy, it is prudent to take a more staged approach – such that eventually the skis would do the skiing for you (I haven’t reached this stage in either of my initiatives!).
• Metrics: One of the most valuable aspects of my work is establishing key measures of assessment. How do I know that the results are creating a positive impact to the communities/organizations they benefit? Being a small pebble in the pond, how does one measure the effectiveness of the programs and that the positive waves of change can be seen? The bunny, greens, blues, blacks, diamonds – these are some clear indications of advancement in skiing. Yes, you can be comfortable with the greens. At the same time, for an avid skier, the real progression is seen as you move through these varying levels of difficulty in the slopes with the right balance of all of the above, and more importantly, a strong belief in seeking the unevenly distributed terrain.
• Freedom: With the ability to ski through nature, it gives you a sense of freedom and acts of giving create a sense of humility and freedom. That humility comes with the feeling that we are merely dots among heaps of evergreens and snowy carpets. My instructor aptly put it, “these mountains have an ability to humble you” – indeed!

May 30, 2020 – the day when the world witnessed the launch of SpaceX Dragon into space with two US Astronauts; that same day US witnessed nation-wide rioting and protests.

While on one hand the country was shooting for the stars, on the other, the country’s stars were being shot at. As noted in so many of the posts and articles, the past week has clearly displayed the nation’s deepest cracks of racism in the system. We are all still grappling with the effects of the Covid19 pandemic when this even larger systemic pandemic of racism has hit us.

Today as I reflect on the time when I moved to the US from India way back in 2007, I had always visualized (and still do) America as being the world’s melting pot of cultures and ethnicity. To see how far people of color and race have made it here – in Business, IT, Medicine, Science, even Politics – despite the suppression, despite being broken down by the very systems they would want to uphold and despite such deep-rooted racist treatment in the white-dominated world, and still rising to the top! It isn’t easy and a huge applause to them!

Being a brown-skinned immigrant, there were times when I was faced with questions around my accent, my ‘knowledge’ of English, my religious practices. Clearly, there were implicit biases I have been faced with and it stays with you. At the same time, this adopted country has done us good – to my family and me – and I cannot help but feel privileged to be shielded by that belief. And with that same feeling, it is also impossible not to feel the pain of so many black Americans whose lives have been shattered right now through injustice and segregation.

Yesterday, I, with my family, participated in the peace protest with fellow community residents in this small town of Vienna, about 15 miles from the D.C. epicenter of the protest. People had gathered around, on their one knee, exercising their constitutional right to protest peacefully against this racial discrimination pandemic. Cars drove by, honking loud and clear in support of the crowds. Maintaining the six-feet distance with the crowd, we could see all kinds of signs being held high:

I. Can’t. Breathe

Racism. Is. The. Bigger. Virus

Prejudice. Is. An. Emotional. Commitment. To. Ignorance

“Mama” – last words by George Floyd was the most painful sound that no mother should ever reconcile with.

For the first time, I truly understood the deep meaning behind the phrase – Black.Lives.Matter.

As a parent, an educator and an advocate for social change, I do not know at this point what to make of all of this for now and what the right actions ought to be. We may have come a long way as a race, at the same time, I realize how far behind we as humans are in embracing the power of diversity and inclusion; that there is an urgency to unteach this level of exclusion and an even stronger need to promote giving that strengthens equity.

The talk at our home is about how fortunate we are – and lets do more than be comforted by it.