Even though there are only memories left, her thoughts and feelings about Smita are so rich, that from death they have given birth to something new. As is evident from Manya's work with the Smita Patil Foundation, which is is doing just that - nurturing good cinema while keeping alive the memories of her sister. At the recently-held Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) Film Festival, one of her pet projects - India as location and link...View from Abroad - came under the spotlight. Four films by Indian directors living abroad were screened and Manya is still excited by the response. ``I have been very ill these past few months, so the other concepts I had been working on were put on hold. But I will never give them up - I know they are good,'' she says.

Manya started working with the Foundation after she got back to India from New York, five years ago. She had gone to study fashion there when she was 22. After marriage, her husband's work kept her in the USA. But once the knots of her marriage with Janak Jethmalani started to unravel, Manya returned to India. Except for an occasional glimmer of pain that flashes in her eyes, there are no traces of her rocky past.

Thirty-eight now, she is going through a divorce with remarkable resilience. ``Right now, I feel as if I am standing at a point where life is just beginning. And I know that the internal struggle will be less from now. Maybe I am just a late bloomer,'' she laughs.

But on a more serious note, she says that she hasn't yet found her mission in life. ``I haven't achieved much, at least not in the worldly sense as I did not follow any one profession. I have done what I wanted to do and have enjoyed it,'' she says. And this off-the-cuff itinerary has included weekend cooking, backstage work for fashion shows and charity among other things. ``Though I love working for the Foundation, it is not something I want to do full time. And right now my priority is my health,'' she says.

What is also on top of her list is her 10-year-old son Kail. When he is not `checking his stocks' on his laptop, he is busy ribbing his mother. More like friends than mother and son, Manya says their easy relationship is something she has worked hard to achieve. ``It took a lot of effort to establish this bond especially as my husband and I had just separated. Kail was seven and I made sure that the relationship between his father and me remained amicable.''

She is not ignoring what is the best for her either, even though she has just been through a rough patch. Checking out various alternative healing techniques to work on getting her health on track, she has also let go of her past to regain her peace of mind. ``Once when I had gone to Bali, we were sitting in this restaurant there run by a man who had been all over the world. He was a well-known figure in the area. It was then that I suddenly realised how all of us think we are kings and queens of little kingdoms, all of our own making. But does this tiny space that each of us take matter outside? You shouldn't give too much importance to yourself. Life is too short for that,'' she says.