I’ve been very bad at choosing gifts for Pankhuri, so this year was no different. Every idea felt too small. Eventually I realised the only gift worth giving her is the one I can't wrap: to keep understanding her more deeply, year after year.
To know her better on her next birthday than I do today.
So, this is a start.
Pankhuri is a Kathak dancer (visit her website). If you’ve ever watched a Kathak dancer spin through Chakkars, you’ve probably wondered why she doesn’t fall. She keeps coming back to one fixed point with her eyes. The room blurs and the spins keep going, but she stays steady because she knows where to look.
For our family, she is that fixed point.
She taught me how to live freely.
To make our own choices and pick our own path.
To make our own mistakes, and to still dream big.
With her, I’ve explored the heights of the sky through skydiving and the depths of the ocean through scuba diving. Both were here ideas.
Neither experience changed me as much as she has. She taught me to think beyond the obvious, and she gave me the recipe for a happy family.
That recipe now has two names - Tara and Tashi, who just turned four.
They are independent, emotionally intelligent, wild and free, and that is her vision at work.
Much of what I write about here started as her idea: letting children lead, letting them get messy, trusting them with their own choices.
She sets the direction, and I single-mindedly try to get us there.
I’m lucky to have her by my side as I drive the car (literally and figuratively).
She believes every experience should mean something and be worth remembering.
The SGNP Saturdays (The Saturday Morning Ritual That Changed Everything) was one of her such ideas.
A few years ago, I put together a video of her year. It has her dancing down a garden path, standing in the snow, doing a full split on a yoga mat in our living room, and pulling faces at the camera. It ends with a line I wrote for the year ahead: A new adventure every day.
I meant it as a wish. She treated it as a plan, and we’ve been living it since, with all our heart.
She is also the one person I trust without a second thought.
I had read that from the choice of who you marry “will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.” I’ve carried that line around for years.
The longer we’re married, the more it looks like an underestimate.
Happy birthday, Pankhuri.
I’m still learning who you are and will keep at it.
Of everything we’ve done together, that is the adventure I would choose again.
What to read next:
11 Things Our 3-Year-Olds Can Do (that surprise every adult they meet)
Tara and Tashi turn 3.5 years old this month.
The PI Square Way
At Life of PI Square, we believe children learn best when nobody is forcing it on them. When their curiosity has room to wander. When they are trusted to explore, to question, to fail, and to try again.
We built this for our daughters. Now we are sharing it with families who feel like something is off about the default path, but don’t quite know what the alternative looks like.
Want to join us for a Saturday morning at SGNP? Or curious about how we approach learning at home? Reach out. We’d love to walk with you.
Because parenting is easy. When you trust your children.
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