It was a bright and sunny day with just that slight nip in the air. ‘Airconditioned’Bengalooru at its best. I woke up with an unfamiliar knot in my stomach. Looked around. What was I nervous about? And then I remembered and leapt out of bed and headed straight to my computer, which had been my lifeline for the past fortnight or so. I logged on. Excitement and exultation for a minute. THIS WAS THE DAY! MAYBE THIS WAS GOING TO BE OUR DAY! The knot came right back as the cardiac monitor stared back at me from the screen. There were still five agonizing hours to go and the tinny beats of the monitor on screen were no match for the fast paced tango my heart was playing. This was just not happening!! I got straight back under my quilt and decided to stay there till it was time. I was being a coward and not ashamed to be one! Came twelve pm and came the time of reckoning. The same computer screen, the same pit in the stomach, only much tighter and much, much more tense. This time I saw the familiar scrabble tiles on screen again and tentatively, slowly, hesitantly I began clicking on them one after the other. Maybe this was the one. No it wasn’t. Maybe the next, or the next or the next. Agonizing moments passed. Our names did not appear. I had already come to the last row, right to left. Then just when I was beginning to lose hope, on the very last tile, on the very last row, our names appeared, almost as an anti-climax because I was beginning to reach out for the tissues by then. But I still reached out for a tissue because I was crying for joy. The journey till here has been in turns, exciting, challenging, excruciating and absolutely wonderful. It has given flight to my wings which I had kept securely tucked in. It has also given credence to my favourite saying and made me walk the talk. Rabindranath Tagore said, “Whenever there is the least sign of the nest becoming a rival of the sky, my mind, like a migrant bird, tries to take…flight to a distant shore.” And never before have I had the chance to live out these words… Thank you TGDC. You have given my wings flight. I know there are miles to go before I can sleep but I’m ready and raring to go!! In fact I’m ready to soar!!