For Anjar, a metalworking town that lost a generation of schoolchildren in 2001 and rebuilt anyway.
A town that carries 2001 differently
Anjar makes utensils, hardware and metal goods, in workshops that have passed through families for generations. But any account of this town that skips the earthquake is dishonest. Anjar lost a very large number of children on 26 January 2001, in the middle of a school parade. The town rebuilt its industry. The other thing is not rebuilt so much as carried.
Why that belongs on a coaching page
Because it shapes how people here relate to planning. Where other towns treat the future as something to be optimised, there is a wariness here about counting on it - a superstition, almost, about naming what you want.
That is not irrational. It is a conclusion drawn from evidence. It also quietly caps what people allow themselves to build, decades later, in ways they rarely connect back to its source.
What the work is, and is not
It is not grief counselling, and I would not present it as such. If what surfaces is bereavement, the right professional is a qualified therapist and I will say so plainly. What coaching can address is the present-day pattern: the deferred decision, the unnamed ambition, the plan that never gets written down because writing it feels like tempting something.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati or Kutchi-inflected Gujarati.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this therapy?
- No. Coaching is forward-looking. Where something clinical surfaces, the correct step is a qualified mental health professional, and I will say so rather than continue.
