My dearest daughter,

You are standing at the edge of young adulthood now – a place where the world begins to show you its more complicated layers. Caste. Religion. Identity. The fault lines that run quietly beneath the surface of Indian life.

I want to say something honestly: because of where you were born, and the privilege that comes with it, you may not encounter the uglier face of these divisions. The Indian upper/middle class has a quiet way of keeping such things under the carpet – and their children, for the most part, get to grow up without being asked certain questions. Even if people are curious, they tend to guess rather than ask outright. And by the time it becomes relevant – if it ever does – the world will have moved further still.

So I will not write to you today about caste or creed. That is a longer, harder conversation for another time, when you are ready to understand it fully.

Today I want to write to you about something quieter. Something more personal.

I want to write to you about faith.

Our family follows Hinduism. Your father also follows a Satsang – a path he has walked since he was very young, and even my parents also believe in. When you read the literature, most of it points to the same idea: that to truly find your way to the divine, you need a guru. Someone who can hold your hand and guide you on that path. Papa has seen this from the inside and it has shaped how he moves through the world.

And then there is me.

I am simpler in my belief. I do not claim to have it all worked out. What I know is this: I believe there is a supreme power that runs this world. Something larger than us, older than us, beyond what our minds can fully hold.

When I visit a temple, I do not stand there thinking about which god I am bowing my head to. I simply acknowledge that supreme presence. I let the acknowledgement be enough.

And there have been a few specific moments – at certain temples, certain places – where something happened that I cannot explain in any other way.

I closed my eyes. And I realised, almost by surprise, that tears were flowing on their own.

No particular thought. No particular sadness or joy. Just an overwhelming sense of standing in the presence of something vast and gentle at the same time. Every part of me went quiet. And in that silence – I felt, for a moment, completely held.

Every fibre in the body felt it.

I hope you experience this someday. Not because I am telling you to – but because when it arrives on its own, it is one of the most alive you will ever feel. An instant connection that does not need words, does not need explanation. It simply is.

Now. What is faith, really?

In our good times and our bad times – and there will be both, always – we all need an anchor. Something that stabilises us when the ground shifts. Something that points us toward a direction when everything feels unclear. Something that holds hope on our behalf, on the days we cannot hold it ourselves.

That is what faith is. Not a ritual. Not a checklist. Not the tikka you put on every morning or the aarti you do every evening – though those things have their own beauty and meaning if they come from the heart.

Faith is the quiet belief that there is a plan larger than what you can currently see.

The world will tell you many things. Some will say it is all hard work – that luck does not exist, that outcomes are entirely in your hands. Others will say surrender everything and leave it to the divine. I sit somewhere in between, and I think most honest people do.

Here is what I believe: the supreme power watches. Protects. Is present. But the effort – always – has to come from your side. Faith is not a substitute for action. It is what sustains you while you act. It is what keeps you going on the days when the effort feels thankless and the results feel far away.

And when things go wrong – as they sometimes will, despite everything – faith is what keeps you from falling into despair. Not because it promises you a good outcome. But because it reminds you that you are not alone in it. That something larger is also present. That this chapter, however hard, is not the whole story.

One more thing, my darling – and this one always brings me a quiet smile.

God is not an accountant.

He does not sit with a ledger, keeping careful track of your good deeds and your bad ones, totalling up the columns to decide what you deserve. I know the folklore suggests otherwise – that somewhere there is a Chitragupta maintaining the records – but I choose not to relate to the divine as a transaction. As a system of rewards and punishments.

I think the supreme power is far less interested in your tally – and far more interested in your becoming.

So do not live your life trying to earn divine approval through the right gestures and the right rituals. Live it with sincerity, with effort, with kindness – and let faith be the thing that holds you steady through all of it.

Faith can move mountains, they say.

I believe this. Not because mountains literally move. But because faith moves something inside you – and a person whose interior has shifted can do things that once seemed impossible.

Find what you believe in. Let it be genuinely yours – not inherited blindly, not performed for anyone’s comfort. It may look like your father’s path. It may look like mine. It may look like something entirely different that you discover on your own.

But find it. Because life is long, and there will be days when the only thing that carries you forward is the quiet certainty that something larger is also present.

And on those days – that will be enough.

With all my love,

Mumma