Bombay Airport August 16, 1996
1996 · 2007 · 2011 · 2026
NetiNeti
Thirty years after Nishant left Mumbai, we are choosing what comes next together.
Not this, not this
Not a monument. Not a performance. Not a claim to know the answer.
Why this name
A question before an answer.
Neti neti is a Sanskrit expression often translated as “not this, not that.” It is a contemplative method of looking past the identities and assumptions that can obscure what is essential.
We borrow that discipline carefully. In giving, it asks us to let go of rescuer, controller, hero, and expert before deciding how we might be useful.
Read the philosophical referenceA letter from both of us
What we have received should widen what is possible for others.
We did not arrive at this choice along the same path. Our histories with education, family, schools, and migration shaped us differently. Since 2011, our decisions about work, place, and resources have been shared.
Neti Neti makes one of those decisions public: to direct our collective will toward children and childhood, through education and health, in India and the United States.
Why children · Why childhood
We do not have children of our own. This is one way we are choosing to give to many.
Our commitment to children comes from different parts of our lives. Nishant has spent much of his professional life as a teacher and school leader, defending children's right to joy, wonder, authenticity, learning by doing, and compassionate hearts.
Neeti grew up in a family that treated education as a promise from one generation to the next. Her parents gave all three of their children opportunities they had not received themselves. She carries their belief that what becomes possible for one child can widen the horizon of an entire family.
For us, this purpose is not abstract. Our histories lead us to stand behind the people and conditions that let many children be fully themselves: safe enough to wonder, healthy enough to grow, supported enough to learn, and free enough to imagine a life of possibility.
“We celebrate our children's right to be children.”Read Nishant's writing on childhood
Our 2026 commitment
US$50,000
Gift of Life
Our 2026 commitment to Gift of Life will fund 30 corrective heart surgeries for children across India.
Neti Neti brings our personal giving and MehtaCognition's Impact Fund together under one name and one direction. This 2026 commitment is part of that continuing record.
This is where our purpose and family history meet: children, health, India, six years of leadership by Nishant's father, and the year his mother serves as president of the Rotary Club of Bombay Airport, District 3141.
- Status
- Committed
- Partner
- Rotary Club of Bombay Airport, District 3141
- Focus
- Children + Health
Why begin now
Give while you are here to see what it makes possible.
Too much giving is postponed until the twilight of a life, or written into what follows it. We want to practice generosity while we can still listen, learn, change course, and remain accountable to the outcomes.
We teach children to save for the future. We should also model how to give toward one.
Continue into Neti Neti
The story, the approach, and the public record.
Each has its own place here: where our commitment comes from, how we intend to make choices, and what those choices produce over time.