Sonu

A dear friend’s mother left this earth in September 2025, just as the autumn leaves began to turn and the chill of winter whispered its arrival. Across all my visits to their home, one word always echoed in my ears: "Sonu." It means "Gold"—and that is how she always addressed him.

Her passing, and his unwavering commitment to be by her side, touched me deeply. He cared for her during her final years with the dedication of a saint—taking no vacations, never leaving her side.

To the world, a man is just a man—sometimes wanted, sometimes unwanted; to some a nobody, to others a somebody. But to her, he is always just "Sonu."

My friend remains single. His mother always hoped he would marry, simply because she wanted him to be cared for. But I have no doubt that the strength of a mother's will is enough to bend the universe. I know he will always be cared for when he is needed, whether he marries or not.

I wrote "Sonu" in Tamil and English, and collaborated with Google to translate it into Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Please pardon any errors in the languages I know little —I would love to know the correct phrasing if you spot a mistake!

Here it is for you.

Best,

Citizen KK

in English: https://vimeo.com/1149680623/6bfcb1563e in Tamil: https://vimeo.com/1149681168/2826c91c19

in Hindi: https://vimeo.com/1149683406/26c6c0a75f

in Telugu: https://vimeo.com/1149688278/ea89f5a640

in Kannada: https://vimeo.com/1149843240/01150004e8

in Malayalam: https://vimeo.com/1149842787/6b4371d418

THE OUTLIER

Flight

The garage on the northwest side of Chicago was not an engineering lab. It was cold, cluttered, and utterly silent, save for the hum of a 12-year-old girl working a welding torch.

While her peers navigated the social hierarchies of middle school, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski was engaged in a two-year negotiation with aerodynamics. She wasn’t building a model; she was constructing a Zenith Zodiac airframe from a kit intended for adult mechanics. By age 14, she didn't just understand the theory of flight—she lived it, throttling up her creation and soloing over Lake Michigan before she possessed a driver’s license.

She had bypassed the simulation and gone straight to the reality.

The Glitch

When Sabrina applied to MIT, she offered them something rare: tangible, irrefutable proof of capability. She offered them a literal airplane.

But the machinery of elite admissions is calibrated for test scores and standard extracurriculars, not garage-built aviation. The system blinked. It placed her on the waitlist. It was a classic case of an institution failing to recognize an outlier because she didn't fit the shape of the rubric.

Her application sat in limbo until Professors Allen Haggerty and Earll Murman viewed her documentation. They didn’t see a "student"; they saw a peer. The footage of Sabrina installing an engine wasn’t just cute; it showed the intuitive mechanical empathy that defines the world's best engineers. They petitioned the admissions office with a simple reality check: If we turn away a kid who builds airplanes, the failure is ours, not hers.

Road less travelled

Once inside the gates, Sabrina didn’t just validate their decision; she dismantled the curve. She graduated in three years with a perfect 5.0 GPA, tying for the top spot in the physics department—a feat no woman had accomplished in two decades.

This is where the typical success story ends: the prodigy gets the degree and the high-paying job. Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) and recruiters from NASA came calling. The path to wealth and aerospace celebrity was paved and waiting.

Sabrina walked the other way.

She realized that building planes was only the beginning. She didn't want to engineer vehicles to travel through space; she wanted to deconstruct the math of space itself. She turned down the billionaires to pursue a PhD at Harvard, diving into the esoteric world of high-energy physics.

Recognition

Her research moved into the abstract realms of quantum gravity and black holes. She began working on "Celestial Holography"—the mind-bending hypothesis that our 3D universe is a projection of 2D information encoded on its boundaries.

The ultimate nod didn't come from an award committee, but from the field’s giant. In 2016, Stephen Hawking, writing on "soft hair" on black holes, cited the work of Pasterski, S.G. It was a torch-passing moment: the master of cosmology acknowledging the student who had once been told to wait her turn.

Student of the Universe

Today, as a professor at the Perimeter Institute, Sabrina Pasterski remains elusive. She carries no smartphone. She avoids the "influencer" scientist circuit. She rejects the "Next Einstein" label, insisting she is just a student of the universe with much left to learn.

But her journey remains a warning to the gatekeepers of the world. Brilliance is often messy. It doesn't always check the boxes. It doesn't always wait for permission.

Sometimes, it’s just a girl in a cold garage, building wings while the rest of the world sleeps.

The Quiet Freedom Within

தமிழில்

It was October 2, 2018 — the day Gandhi was born, and the day Kamaraj, the Black Gandhi of Tamil Nadu — the man I am named after — passed away.

That was the day I landed in India to begin a new chapter of my life.

And it was October 2, 2025 — seven years later — that I returned again on this sacred date.

Seven years of building —

🎬 Filmmaking to tell stories that touch our hearts,

🪶 Writing to express what I value, and

💫 Coaching to help others and myself grow —

all rooted in two inseparable values: Love and Excellence.

To celebrate this journey and to deepen the purity of my intention, I spent October 7, 2025 at Gandhigram, in conversation with Krishnammal Jagannathan, now ninety-nine years old — a woman whose life itself is a living scripture of service and courage.

Gandhigram was founded in 1947 by Dr. T. S. Soundaram and Dr. G. Ramachandran, both inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of rural self-reliance. Among those who helped bring this dream to life were Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, Gandhian freedom fighters who later dedicated their lives to land reform and the empowerment of rural women. Together, they transformed Gandhigram into a living example of Gandhi’s ideals — where education, dignity of labour, and community welfare came together as one movement for true freedom.

Walking for Freedom

Joining her husband Jagannathan, she walked and walked the lengths and breadths of this land, appealing to the hearts of landlords to donate just two acres each so that poor, oppressed women could live with dignity.

She lived and worked alongside spiritual giants like Vinoba Bhave, who carried Gandhi’s torch of compassion into the villages of India. She told me how Vinoba would wake every morning at 2:10 a.m., offer his prayers, and begin his day-long walk — not to protest, but to appeal to conscience.

When evening came, Krishnammal would plead with him to eat something.

Vinoba would smile and say,

“With the Bhagavad Gita — Lord Krishna’s sacred words — my stomach is so full I feel I might burst. I need no food.” Then he would go to sleep.

A thin man who never wore footwear in his life, Vinoba Bhave remains one of humanity’s quiet role models for simplicity, humility, and spiritual discipline. Through people like Krishnammal, he planted living seeds of service — not ideas written on paper, but lives that became his message.

These stories usurped my heart and left me wondering:

How could I inherit even a fraction of that simplicity, that integrity?

Acharya Vinoba

Prison, Poverty, and Purpose

She also recollected another incident — one that revealed the quiet cruelty women endured in those times. She spoke about how young girls were married at a tender age, and when a husband died — often before the girl even understood what marriage meant — she would be made a widow for life. These little girls, draped in white garments, would be seated in a corner during family celebrations — forbidden from joy, food, or laughter, as if life itself had ended for them.

Krishnammal shared how her mentor, T. S. Soundaram, worked tirelessly to liberate these child widows from such horror — giving them education, purpose, and the courage to reclaim their dignity. Working with Soundaram, she said, shaped her profoundly — teaching her compassion in action, and the strength it takes to challenge a society’s silence.

T.S Soundaram

She then paused for a moment — her eyes distant, her voice softer — as if reaching back through the corridors of time. She recollected an incident from their years of toil and sacrifice in the freedom struggle, a story etched not in history books but in the bones of those who lived it.

Together with T. S. Soundaram and another woman, she spent five years in prison under British rule — given only one handful of food to share and one small vessel to pass urine among them.

Imagine five years like that — and yet, she emerged not bitter, but luminous with compassion.

She told me something that still echoes in my mind:

“We called it freedom when the British left India. But as long as there is poverty in India, there is no freedom. If women are given land, they will work their soil, live with honour and dignity, and become self-sufficient. That’s why I work — and so far, I have been able to secure 1,000 acres of land to enable 500 women to build lives of independence.”

Her words carried no self-importance, only truth. They cut through the noise of modern achievement and reminded me what real freedom looks like — not a political milestone, but a moral one.

Love and Excellence

That truth stayed with me. It reminded me why I made two values the foundation on which all my other values stand — Love and Excellence.

Without Excellence, Love alone can make us kind but powerless — pure hearts without strength.

Without Love, Excellence can turn cold — brilliant minds without compassion.

But when they meet, Love refines our purpose, and Excellence dignifies our effort.

Seven Years Later

Seven years later, I don’t feel accomplished — I feel aligned.

Not louder, but clearer.

Still walking… still learning…

toward a freedom that begins within,

and extends through everything I create.

🎥 A short video from this unforgettable encounter soon.