It was during one of my consulting visits to an insurance company that I met Suresh. He worked in the underwriting department—a meticulous, soft-spoken man who radiated a quiet sort of diligence. He was the kind of employee you’d expect to be a fixture in the company, quietly reliable and entirely uncontroversial.
For much of my life, travel was synonymous with abundance. As my work took me around the world—hopping from bustling metropolises to serene, offbeat locales—I believed in being prepared for every contingency. My suitcase would bulge with “what ifs.” What if it rained? What if the temperature dropped unexpectedly? What if there was an unplanned formal dinner? Each scenario seemed to demand an addition to my luggage, and I’d proudly wheel a behemoth bag through every airport, convinced that I was ready for anything.
And then life decided to teach me otherwise.
It began in the sunlit corridors of a small school tucked away in their hometown. She, with her curious mind, and he, with his wild ideas, were an unlikely pair. She struggled with dyslexia, letters dancing in her mind, refusing to stand still. He, on the other hand, was a terrible speller. His notebooks were a battleground of misspelled words, scrawled with more creativity than correctness.