i care and why am i ashamed to admit that i care

writing this at 11:26pm,
apr 21, 2025 from santa lucia airbnb
medellin, colombia

i was debating for a while if i want to share this story. but then i also debated why i was second guessing myself. why was i second guessing my intentions and my kindness. why do i not accept that i want to do kind things, for the humanity and this comes from the place of deep deep love for the world. why do i think society would think i am trying to show off, that i am being too much if i do an act of kindness.

i do agree we should do the right thing when no one is watching. show kindness, in silence. but in this world, its becoming so hard to even be kind to ourselves, we hardly have energy to show some love and patience to a stranger. and we choose not to help a stranger, because we think someone else might. universe presents us with an opportunity to care, to put our love somewhere. it offers us a way to mend our own hearts, to give purpose to the love in our hearts, which suddenly has no where to go.

we ignore that signal. we ignore our body telling us that yes, we do want to care. yes, we want to do something about it. yes, we want to help this person. yes, we want to go back to our room, get the mattress and give it to this man sleeping on the road, in freezing temperatures of montreal. i get to sleep in my heat of my room, i am grateful for what i have.

yes i want to spend hours with the girls who sell roses outside metro station at 18th sector in Noida. I want to make them feel loved and that they can still get to be kids, even if they are being asked to work when they should be playing and learning. i wonder where those girls are today. they would tell me that i looked very pretty. my best friend at that time, would come with me sometimes. probably also from a place of worry as it wasnt a very safe area to be in. i remember we once bought 10 thalis, went to the park and had a picnic talking about what their life looked like. they were just probably 10 or 11 year old. selling roses by the metro station. they had to work because mom was taking care of the kids. the family had too many mouths to feed. and they had to work to feed those mouths, at 10 years old. when they should be dancing, playing, creating, exploring, learning. it doesn’t feel good. and i know i can’t change the world but i can make one chica happy. i can feed one person. i can make someone smile. that’s enough. it’s something. no?

and yes, you don’t know what’s going on beyond the scenes, mafia and all. yes, i get it. but no, i don’t get it. those are just babies. they deserve to have what i was privileged enough to get without even asking.

so yes, i care and why am i ashamed to admit that i care.

today while walking to la parceria, a new cafe i am starting to enjoy a lot in laureles. the lighting is perfect for some journaling and deep thinking/linking and their malteada da cafe, uffff. although the last 2 times i went there, they didn’t have it. i was sad but frappe esta no mal.

so while walking to the cafe, i met a woman on the street, with her 4 year old son in a worn out stroller. she asked for something. i didn’t have money so i looked at her and said, lo siento, no efectivo and continued walking. the image stayed in my mind. i couldn’t shake it off.

i reached the cafe, but walked right past it. i don’t know why my body didn’t go in. i had every intention to order a malteada de cafe and start my journaling. it was me time. but no body walked, and walked, turned out, walked around the block and passed the lady with her kid again.

she asked me again. as if we were meeting for the first time. this time, i said, no tengo efectivo but i didn’t leave. she started saying something, but also signalling with her hands that she just wants to eat. la comida para nino. i picked up the words. i understood the feeling. she started saying something again. i didn’t understand what she said. i asked her to wait, espera, un momento. took our my phone, opened the translator and asked to to repeat - repitir por favor.

and she says thats shes from venezuela, came here 4 days back and she hasnt found a job and she doesnt have money to eat. he rent is 300 something and she wants to feed her son. something at that moment tells me that your job now is to take care of this lady right now. you have to love her unconditionally in this moment. she needs this love. focus on the specifics later. trust your intuition. trust what your body is telling you.

and so we start walking to head to la parceria to grab some food. we pass through la carulla, i ask her necesita groceries? pointing to the supermarket. siii . and for the next hour, we pick up stuff she needs - she hesiates to start picking up items to put in the basket. i ask her to tell me what she needs and let me pick it up. we start with yogurt para nino. some body soap, some toothbrush, some milk, cheese, just basic necessities i don’t even think about. i push her to get something for herself too, not just the kid. we get the bags, i call her taxi, two of her friends join. they will all go to san antonio. they share their names. mind you, i am talking to them in my broken spanish. somehow we make the plans to meet again on sunday. and this time, we will probably learn some english too. the lady with the kid asks if i have some clothes. i say i don’t but i will see what i can do. i don’t know where those words come from, who made those plans, i am seeing them again on saturday. i didn’t consciously decide any of this, my body just allowed me to do it. and that’s when i knew. i knew what i was meant to do.

it has always been there. this constant nudge to care about the world. to do my part, whatever that may be. however small or insignificant it may be. it’s something me and my siblings have taken from our mom and dad. they were annoyingly kind to our relatives , when we were kids. even today. at the expense of their own. we were so fed up of them. like, mi madre y mi padre, can you live for yourself for once?

but i get it. i get their why. but ofcourse, i also know now that you don’t have to show up for the world from the place of emptiness. you actually can’t. it is impossible to continue showing up with love when you have not given that love to yourself. that’s how you burn yourself out and are left feeling empty.

not to sound cliche, but you can’t pour from an empty cup

so simple, you have to fill your own cup first. put on your own oxygen mask before you help others. but i also acknowledge that there is a desire to help, to be useful, to contribute to the evolution of the society in a meaningful way, to care about something bigger than myself.

so what do we do?

we hold two truths at the same time. we are capable of that. we have always been.

and we get creative and figure out a solution.

so, i am opening a munna’ and minni’ fund, referring to the values that have been instilled in me by mi padre y mi madre. my mom’s nickname is minni ( i think it means the little one ). my cousins would call her minni’ didi and dad’s nickname is munna ( like little one but a boy ), and my cousins would call him munn’ bhaiya. they are both the youngest in their 6 sublings each ( i think its 6 ).

it’s soooooo freaking cute that both of them have these matching nicknames.

munna’ and minni’
​~the little ones

On the walk towards the cafe, after dropping them off in uber. I felt a sense of calm. not like oh, i felt happy. no, I felt gratitude. those chicas and el nino had taught me something. they touched something in my heart that i had lost touch with. they made me feel like home. they helped me realize a bigger truth i couldn’t see was always in front of me.

it felt like love. but a calm one. the one that grounds you.

and so, in that calmness, i realized three fundamental truths about my existence:

1. i realized where the love me and siblings feel for the world comes from. I had visions of people coming in our homes , asking for help. And whether it was boba or my mom. They would never let them go empty handed. Whether it was a cup of chai and some conversations, some clothes, some food, or some money, the visitors always left with a smile and a heart full of love. Those are the memories I grew up with. that’s where we learned how to love. before all the trauma, or even with all the trauma. and same with dad, yes he would be mad at people at times but that was his protector side coming out. he was always there for his relatives, giving everyone money if ever there was a need and if he could. same with aba, aba was generous. he wasnt kind to mom for 2 decades or so, but mom’s kindness did get to him. i know it did. that’s where i learned to love. that’s the practice i carry forward with me and pass onto the next generation. that’s the work of my ancestors - to spread love. that’s the real generational wealth - love - that has been passed down through our actions, without ever explicitly being taught to us.

we kids would say that our parents keep on trying to collect the points. and i didn’t know where there love was coming from. but now i think they did it, just form the goodness of their heart. expecting nothing in return.

2. today when I had this urge to buy groceries for this lady and her son, it didn’t matter where that money was coming from. ofcourse i can do that because i am privileged enough to be in this country to begin with. i had a lifetime of privilege to not worry about where my next meal was coming from. i could afford to not eat out for a week and help feed a mom and a kid.

3. this also made me realize what could have made mom and dad fall in love with each other. why they fought so hard to get married to each other. who they were before they got married, before they had kids. before the trauma. before the fights. what did mom see in dad. what did dad see in mom. i think they saw glimpses of love in each other. and i like to believe they still see those glimpses of love, no matter how much it has been covered up in layers of trauma.

but they did their part. they found their purpose in raising the kids. in going beyond Shia and Sunni. if you think about it, my parents were rebels from the start. no wonder me and my siblings turned out the way we did. at that time, IN THAT PERIOD OF TIME, they did whatever they could to break that barrier. And we are a result of that union. Now we take that purpose forward. And create something beautiful and meaningful out of it.

so i decided p.s.loveliveshere will have some elements of social justice and collective care in there.

we begin the work now.

love,

your chica 💋

p.s. la casa de saheliya will open its doors soon. it’s a membership container, 99$ a year for first 50 chicas.
it will grow as i grow.
i am firm beleive of starting slow and small. but to dream big. it will contain bits and pieces of who I want to be. intuitive movement, love as a practice, social media, technology, journaling, creativity, self expression, sensuality, lap dance, twerking, full moon, business. neuroscience, quantum physics, energy rituals, shaivism, hamilton, yoga, sufism and when life gives you tangerines. i don’t know. everything. but also with a straight forward, no bullshit goal of helping my chicas, and pushing this collective forward.

in tangible terms, yes, you also get access to all previous random movement courses. everyone who joined garage sale previously get this first year obviously for free.

but here’s the catch, i don’t know yet what value i will be creating. so it’s 99$ just for 50 chicas. I close the doors after 50. spend 3 months building something toegther and reevaluate if it still should be 99 or not.

if you want me to save a spot for you, in one of the 50. send me a “save me a spot” and as soon as the link is open, I will directly email you first.

i love you

p.p.s. okay chicas, i also have to tell you about how i found out about kashmir shaivism. I legit found it while reading through a random Substack that led me down a rabbit hole, to someone mentioning cosmic serpent→ reading an article on that. kinding someone mentioning to look up Rupert Spira and finding that he studied Kashmir shaivism. please tell me how this is not magic. all my life I have been practising something without knowing it had a name. because how do you explain the similarities. OMGGGGGGGG. and it’s literally the practice of MY ANCESTORS. someone please tell me am i trippping 😂

when I tell you I didn’t speak for an hour after that, lol. but this feels like homecoming. the teacher has arrived. time to go deeper in the studies. ooh, and i have to tell you about another teacher universe sent my way. next time.

p.p.p.s ( where does it stop ) its 12:36 am now.