The Sweet Spot

I wasn’t there to witness this amazing feat. But when I close my eyes, it is clear like it is happening right in front of my eyes! I have seen this happen before, however this time it is more exciting for him. His small frame hunched over the keyboard with keys so worn-out that the letters have disappeared, his glasses that need correction that sometimes he can see better without them when his face is up close to the monitor and keyboard, patiently typing with two fingers as he has no typing skills; but his memories are crystal clear and larger than life, pouring out and filling the empty pages of the document to bring the stories of legendary cricketers, whom he hero-worshipped in his youth, to life. My Dad, (whom I call Baba) at age 82, just finished writing and publishing a book of his dreams. While he wrote about the legends, in my eyes he himself has become a legend! In March 2020, when I wrote about Baba in my post “ The Undeniable Roots ” that “When I read motivational quotes ab...

“It is a love-cum-arranged marriage”, Renu had informed her small, close-knit community in the outskirts of Rajkot, Gujarat. Her nephew was marrying a Punjabi girl, in an inter-cultural marriage, in the US. For those unaware of this Indian parlance, it is called a “love marriage” when the couple meet, get to know each other, fall in love and then decide to marry – before the family is involved. It is “arranged” when the family is the matchmaker and gets the couple together with an intention of getting them married. In India the latter is still a common practice. In the eyes of conservative folks in India, a marriage is a union between two families, and ensuring the couple has the blessings from both families, which culminates in a traditional wedding, is very important. So “love-cum-arranged” softens the jagged edges of the love (read as “youthful foolishness” through the orthodox tinted glasses) with the cloak of family acceptance and blessing! A few years ago, their community in Guj...