This whole motherhood thing.

It started with a simple question posed during my birthday sushi lunch with the (now mostly) ex-publishing gang. "What is it that you really want to do?" I don't even remember how we came to the topic; it was just one of the many nondescript, slightly mind-boggling conversations we often have. Learning to dance, getting a driver's license, signing up for Spanish lessons, taking a break to do nothing... When it came to my turn, my answer took everybody at the table by surprise, myself included. "I want to be a mother. Eventually."

Dasada, January 2008. No, this is not Pangi!

I'd never thought I would want children. I don't mind them in measured doses, but I've never particularly liked them, and you're unlikely to find me cooing, starry-eyed, at a toddler in the train. And well, I really don't know how my flighty nature would take to such a lifelong responsibility.

I can't then even begin to explain the certainty that backed my unexpected statement. It wasn't an urge to marry, settle down and start MAKING babies – hell no – it was merely an awakened need to... nurture and make a difference to a little life. On hindsight, it was an urge to mother, not be a mother, but either way, I attributed the weird notion to hormones and quarter-century jitters, and stowed it away.

About a month later, while discussing my trip to Mumbai over coffee, a new friend let slip that he was sponsoring the educations of two young girls via Project Nanhi Kali, an Indian non-governmental organisation that strives to provide education opportunities to underprivileged girls. His statement struck a chord in my heart, but while I felt that it was something I wanted to do, I also wanted to make sure that I wasn't signing up on a whim because of my lingering infatuation with the country. So I read up on the foundation, sat on it, thought about it some more and then hopped on my plane to India.

I didn't quite fulfill my lofty plan of popping by the Nanhi Kali Mumbai headquarters, but upon my return home, I knew that I was ready to make the commitment. So I did, on the first day of 2012, and remained hopeful that I would feel some sort of connection with the girl my pledge was allocated to (you don't get to choose). Last night, I received an email link to a picture of a slightly grouchy seven-year-old from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Pangi is slight, but she stands tall and unsmiling, with piercing black eyes that seem to bore into your very soul.

Everything makes sense now.

Click here to find out more about Project Nanhi Kal and/or to make a pledge.