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.

Best Husband Ever! : The Gift of Time

The Eternal Gift of Time

Amid the noise of a crowded metro, one truth stilled me: whenever someone does something for you—cooking a meal, washing your clothes, folding the laundry and packing your food—it is never just a simple, mundane act. It is the literal saving of your time, and therefore, a gift of your life back to you. Every such act creates space for you to live differently, to do something else, to breathe. When that gift is given not out of obligation but out of love, it ceases to be ordinary. It becomes the most profound offering one human can make to another. My wife, in her quiet, steadfast way, gives me this gift every single day. And I, inspired by her, do my best to give her time back.

A Heart of Logic and Tenderness

She is a paradox—a mind grounded in logic, yet wrapped in a tenderness so deep she doesn’t even see it herself. I’ll never forget a simple walk with our golden retriever puppy. He tugged at the leash, chasing something risky, and her worry made her pull too tight. When he later vomited, she blamed herself and wept—not in the moment of panic, but only after ensuring he was safe. That’s her essence: duty first, emotions second.

She teases me for being the “sensitive” one, and maybe I wear my heart on my sleeve. But beneath her calm exterior flows a river of care and depth I can only aspire to match.

The Silent Strength That Inspires

Her strength is a quiet force, unyielding even in the face of her own struggles—illness, fatigue, or the weight of life’s demands. She never pauses her care for me or our daughter.

When I battled a month-long fever after a grueling dental procedure, I still walked our pup, vacuumed, cleaned the house, ran errands, and drove our daughter to her classes. Why? Because my wife had already shown me what it means to keep going.

She is the standard I strive for—the caregiver who never falters, the worker who gives her all in every moment. And that strength became the spark that changed my life forever.

The First Spark of Forever

I often say, half-joking but wholly sincere, that I stopped searching for the woman of my life the moment I met her. That was her first gift of time to me—freeing me from the endless quest for love.

What began as attraction deepened into something sacred when I saw her attention to life’s smallest details. We finish each other’s sentences, hum the same tunes, and often, before I can ask her to do something, she’s already done it. She leads me in this dance of love, often without realizing it.

She sees the ordinary in me as extraordinary. When her uncle passed away, I sensed her need to be with her family in India and offered to book her tickets without hesitation. Later, I overheard her sharing that gesture with her mother, sister, and cousin, her voice filled with gratitude. It humbled me.

Over time, she has become my mirror—reflecting the best in me, revealing what I must cherish, and gently showing me where I can grow.

The Value of Time and Love

She works tirelessly at her job, yet still finds ways to remind me of the value of my own time. I once lived with a “Coolie” mindset—freely giving my hours without thought of their worth. There’s beauty in that generosity, but also a risk in undervaluing life’s most precious currency.

My wife taught me that time is sacred, and through her, I’ve learned to cherish it.

Money, too, is just stored time—a way to exchange our efforts, our lives. Its misuse by some doesn’t diminish its power to connect us. My wife’s care reminds me to use both time and resources with intention, to honor the life they represent.

The Mug That Sparked Reflection

In the midst of these thoughts, I stumbled across a simple mug online: “Best Husband Ever.” It was unused, a steal at $10. But to me, it wasn’t just a mug—it was a mirror, daring me to live up to its promise.

It reminded me of the men in my family, each generation striving to be better partners, better humans. And it challenged me to ask: How can I refine my conduct? How can I live up to the title of “best husband” for this incredible woman who walks beside me?

Love isn’t just in grand gestures; it’s in the quiet labors, the unseen sacrifices, the tender moments that go unnoticed.