I was 16 when I entered the foster system, and know firsthand the statistics for 'aging out.'

The Heart Gallery premise is very simple. It is a special traveling exhibit of photographs featuring Los Angeles foster youth, designed to highlight the need to find loving adoptive families for waiting children.

The courts don't remove children from their home because the child underperformed at school or required extra long walks or a game of basketball in order to blow off the steam all 5-year-olds have. It's because the parents were unfit, not the kids.

Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.

Unlike most youngsters who have school as their 'second home' where they meet and make friends, for me playtime has been at the Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad. When I am not playing a tournament, my days are spent at the Academy with my coaches, physiotherapists and colleagues, who are like family. We laugh and have so much fun.

I have learned so many things from my mother about the right upbringing, the right values, value for money, value for elders, for family members. I think these things only a parent can teach you.

My family was very unsure, and they told me to have a 'plan B' - until I did my publishing deal at 21 for over a million dollars. Then I tattooed my neck to prove I'll never become a lawyer.