Happy Father's Day, Papa!

Dear Papa,

Today is father's day and I miss you so much. Earlier, I used to mock the tradition of father, mother, and other such days. But today I cannot help feeling sad about not having you around me. Your fatherly figure, your smile, your voice, your presence, your ideas, your teachings, your virtues, and just about everything about you was so good, so true, so pure, and so virtuous that you being no more is too surreal to be true. It's been a year since you have been gone and I am getting to miss you more and more every single day. Somehow life has been very unpredictable and disorganized since then and I just don't seem to get back on my feet. Things keep getting twisted and complex in one way or the other. I keep regretting my decisions and keep wondering what you would have done or suggested to do instead. My practical guide and my moral compass are completely missing and I don't seem to be able to think straight. I have also been realizing that I don't have anyone to talk to about my problems, someone who would understand and empathize with the way you did all these years. But coming back to father's day, I had a pretty interesting day today with lots of thoughts coming to my mind.

First of all, I could not help but appreciate the precious moment between father and children. My kids were so excited and they gave me such amazing gifts today. I made extra effort to spend the time with them and make their day special in the little ways possible. We rode bikes, made lemonade, went to the park, played football, baked pizza, and did a whole bunch of small talk. Both Aakhya and Aashya are now chatterbox and they love spending time with me. I was so glad to spend a quality Sunday with them and could not help but wonder about your emotions and feelings whenever you got a chance to spend time with Jiji and me.

Second, the unpredictability of life doomed me yet again in my mind. It feels strange to me how we keep pushing through our lives without knowing when it will all come to an end, just like that, and then nothing is going to matter. Nothing at all. After that, we turn into memories to remember and wall pictures to stare at. Like a vivid dream that gets fuzzy over time. It just makes me wonder what is the whole point of everything. I know this sounds very negative and defeatist, but it does make me rethink our lifestyle that is so consumed in daily pleasures without looking at the big picture.

Towards the end of the day, ironically, I began thinking that perhaps I worry too much. You did not raise me to be a scared and diminished soul, but rather to fight out the best and hit the nail on the head. You did everything in your powers to make us chase excellence in whatever we do and to think of ourselves as any less would be insulting your upbringing and your whole life's worth of struggles and progress. Rather the better way of looking at myself is a solid product of great ideas and principles and to build on top of them and take me to the next level. I should not be shy about being bold, ambitious, unapologetic, and just being myself in everything I do and seek out.

Finally, I yet again realized the importance of making more friends and more relationships that are lasting and that could help tide through the waves of life.

To conclude, father's day was yet another reminder of everything that you stood for, Papa. Your values and your principles will always be the guiding star of my life and I will do everything in my power to make you proud, today, tomorrow, and every single day!

Yours,
Udit

The years as they go by ...

As we approach a new year and speculate what this year will mean to us, here I look back at what the past years have meant to me.

2023 -- Startup

After several years at Microsoft and one year at an early stage startup, Keebo, I finally mustered the courage to start my own. I soon realized that I knew very little of starting a business, including raising capital, building from scratch, and getting customers. The year taught me some tough lessons and was my first unpaid period of time in 17 years. While I still remain unpaid, I finish the year with a strong team, our first paid customer, and a finalized seed round. The road ahead is going to be very challenging with a lot of financial pressure, yet I am glad to get out of my comfort zone and hopefully make my father proud. 

2022 -- Chief Architect, CTO, US Citizen

A year of bigger roles that brought in more power and responsibility. After years of climbing corporate ladder Microsoft, I joined an early stage startup as its Chief Architect and build some of the foundational things there. I later also picked up CTO and board member roles and got exposed to new dimensions of business and company matters. Finally, I naturalized as US Citizen this year. USA is my home now and I am proud to be building a life and raising my family here. I am committed to upholding its values and principles. I will also be giving up my Indian nationality which is an emotional moment, but then these are the trade-offs we make and live by every day.

2021 -- Losing my Father

My parents were a constant since I was born, but that changed this year. I lost my father this year and it was the most painful period of my life so far. He was my true pillar of strength, providing me the motivation, the purpose, and the meaning in life and I suddenly seemed to have lost all of that. Now I need to grow up to take care of both my mother and my father's legacy. This is a new phase where I feel the value of life and its vulnerabilities all the more and am constantly trying to find ways to distract myself and keep things moving.

2020 -- People Manager

This year I got the opportunity to start managing a team of people. People management is a job that is often a much sought after and after several years of professional experience, I finally got the chance to experience it. While I got more power and visibility in this new job, there was also more politics, more randomization, more overheads, and more stress. My learning was steep, especially as we started working from home a week after my promotion to manager!

2019 -- Principal at Microsoft

Turning principal at Microsoft was a career milestone. I dare say it is a bit similar to getting tenure in academia in terms of reaching a level where people start taking you very seriously. Several things had to fall in place for my principal promotion to happen and it was really satisfying to see it come through. Needless to say, those were moments of true joy for my entire family. 

2018 -- Getting publishing mojo back

This was the year I got back into publishing with new zeal and gusto. Publishing had become boring the last few years primarily because of a lack of real problems, but things changed this year with several exciting problems and several top tier publications in the same year. In fact, I was already looking at a healthy pipeline of exciting projects and accompanying publications coming up.

2017 -- Second child

Aashya was born and while we always wanted a second, we were never sure of the perfect timing. But seeing her melted all our apprehensions. She is a beautiful gift to each and every one of us. She looked identical to Aakhya when she was born, but over time we realized they are as different as siblings could be. This was a year of warm family togetherness, now that we were four.

2016 -- First home

We got our first home in Kirkland. The feeling of ownership after so many years of nomadic dwelling across cities, countries, and even continents, was exhilarating for both of us. It was a very bold decision for us to buy right as we were moving into Washington state and to take such a big loan. But we went through trusting our instincts and we never regretted it as our first one.

2015 -- Industry researcher

I got a scientist position at Microsoft. Given that I was seriously considering academia for a while, this was not really planned or expected. However, I was very much intrigued by industry research and a place like Microsoft, with all the famous academics on its payroll, seemed just perfect. This was also my first real job after seven years of back-to-school and seemed a pretty good start.

2014 -- First-born

We had our first-born, Aakhya. This was truly an anxious time for us given that we knew so little about so many things. The world just seemed too overwhelming in every possible direction. There was also uncertainty in terms of my future career. But Aakhya was the tiny little angel that made our lives shine and things just got easier. Cambridge was also the most amazing community we lived it.

2013 -- MIT dream

Finally, we reached MIT. This was a rollercoaster with the most unexpected turn of events. We had been stuck with visa processing for over six months and it was pure luck to finally get through. MIT was an ocean of the smartest people I have ever met and it was a privilege working with them. It was also an experience settling in the US, after years in Germany, with Mansi making some great friends.

2012 -- Doctorate

I was a doctorate. After my father and mother, I was the third doctorate in the family. I felt pride and humility at the same time. My Ph.D. was pretty accelerated and so it ended without seeing the blocker phase that many researchers go through. My research was on the current hot topics and I was able to land a Postdoc position with the database group at MIT.

2011 -- Finding love, finally

Mansi and I got engaged towards the end of the year. This was a new, exciting, and a nervous time. Getting to know someone, care about someone, and plan your life with someone was very new. Getting to do things together, as a team, and creating a world of our own, was exciting. And suddenly gaining a lot more responsibility was nerve-wracking. A new life to look forward to.

2010 -- Early research success

I started my Ph.D. and got early success in our projects. This was super encouraging as a new student. The VLDB publication in 2010 remains my top cited paper to date. Full credits to both my advisor and the postdoc in our group to nudge us in the right direction. The year was full of confidence and creative ideas, all thanks to the early success.

2009 -- Back to school

I was back in school after a gap of almost three years and had to adjust to the new lifestyle. The college rigor came back after three years of corporate luxury. Fortunately, I made friends who helped me go with the flow. The year was filled with a lot of upheavals -- living on limited means, deciding courses for future careers, thinking about the Ph.D. option -- the thoughts were never-ending.

2008 -- New hope, foreign land

After a couple of years of indecisiveness, I finally decide to pursue my Master studies at Max-Planck in Germany. This was after I considered MBA, startup, and even civil services for a brief moment.  Germany was indeed very daunting, cold, and lonely at first. Later, it turns out to be the place I will always remember with a lot of warmth.

2007 -- Wandering

This was certainly a year of wandering without any definite purpose or goal. My sister constantly kept pushing me into doing more and my parents continued supporting me in whatever I tried. I worked as crazy in my first job, then changed jobs for no apparent reason, then again worked as crazy, and then again had moments of pondering, still in search of a purpose.

2006 -- First job

The mist of IIT was finally over and I was in the real world with a real job. I was nervous and a bit afraid of the harsh realities about to come my way. The first manager, the first project, the first paycheck, the first savings, the first shared apartment, the first landlord, and the working bachelorhood are all never to be forgotten. Bangalore will always remind me of so many firsts.

2005 -- What's next

As we entered the final year of our undergraduate program, the single biggest talk was "what's next". People were trying for Masters/Ph.D., MBA, Civil services, or simply to land a good job. Even in each of these groups, there were so many choices and so much discussion. I ended up going for a job to get some experience and was lucky to land a job with BT within the first week of placement.

2004 -- Electrical engineering

This year was filled with much of the core courses of our electrical engineering program. The breadth of sub-fields in our branch -- from power to electronics to communication to computer architecture -- makes electrical engineering perhaps the most diverse branch at IITK. However, I also found it very tough to score, given the relative grading and the agonizingly hard-working "batti" junta.

2003 -- Rigor and mayhem

The academic load at IITK was serious and I spent much of the year managing the rigor and the mayhem. On top of that, there were numerous festivals and events going on that solicited active participation. I was hardly active anywhere. However, I did waste a lot of time doing "bulla" --- talking to people, arguing on weird topics, or picking up random games of table tennis.

2002 -- The IIT dream

This was a year of dreams, most importantly the dreams of my parents and their years of sacrifice. Getting into IIT gave my parents a sense of unmatched pride for having raised a worthy child and a confirmation of having done the right things all these years. It also gave me a humbling experience and a cut-throat competition into a world of very high achievers.

2001 -- Top of the school

The highlight of this year would definitely be me being at the top of my school in board examinations. After standing at third and second places respectively in the previous two internal examinations, coming at the top was especially satisfying. Even though I did not do well in any of the entrance examinations, I will be leaving SJC at the high mark.

2000 -- Lacking confidence

Our class sections were re-organized for class 11th and 12th, and I moved to the supposedly tougher A-section. This was a year when my self-confidence was all over the place. I was intimated by the tougher section, didn't appear in top-3 positions in any of the examinations, lost many of my former friends, and my sister got busy in her college. Only good thing: Y2K came and we all survived.

1999 -- Early signs

My first public examination and I stood third in my college. I felt great joy and there were celebrations all around. My secondary school had been great so far and I was looking forward to senior secondary with great hopes and expectations. There was also a sudden change in how friends saw each other in terms of grades, something that I hated.

1995-1998 -- The happy bubble

My secondary school years from class 6th to 9th were like a giant happy bubble. I made great friends at school, did well in academics with a consistent 1st in almost all these years, and had a very active friend circle in our neighborhood at home. I was young, feisty, competitive, and almost like a star kid in every department of my life, never knowing that this period will come to an end.

1988-1994 -- Elementary bliss

I was very shy and reserved in my elementary. My teachers always had the perfect quiet boy image of me even though I was very active at home. My mother used to help me with my studies and I was doing reasonably okay, without having any pressure whatsoever. Elementary life was nothing short of bliss without having to care much or do much.

1982-1987 -- Childhood

My memories of this time are a mix of what I have been told and what I faintly remember. I indeed remember having attended a preschool in Allahabad and another one in Hapur, before getting coached for admission into St. Joseph's College. 

Life As It Blooms

Ten years ago, in the cold January winter of 2011, I was shaking with fever in a tiny apartment in the University town of Saarbruecken in south western Germany. I had just returned from India after having visited my sister in Bangalore and celebrated my nephew, Harshit's, first birthday. I got sick with flu just a day before my flight and spent the entire journey in total disarray. I was having fever, couldn't eat anything, and could barely stay awake. I was supposed to land in Dusseldorf at 6pm and then catch a train to Saarbruecken, my place of residence for my doctoral studies. Unfortunately, the flight got delayed and I missed my train. What followed was an even more harrowing ordeal over an extremely cold German night. I managed to first reach Stuttgart, which was rather a detour, at 11pm in the night and then got boarded a night express en route to Paris at 1am. I spent the time in between on the freezing platform and had to buy a few cups of hot water from a vendor to keep myself standing. Unfortunately, the night express had sleeping coaches while I only had a chair seat ticket. I had a hard time finding my seat and an even harder time squeezing in my luggage. The train arrived at the Saarbruecken station at 5:30am in the morning and I finally managed to reach my apartment after what seemed like a neverending journey full of cold and discomfort. Sadly, it took me another excruciating couple of weeks to get over my flu.

Just before visiting my sister in Bangalore, my parents had arranged for me to meet with a girl. Her name was Mansi. The meeting was brief in the midst of a whole bunch of family members, as is typical in India. However, Mansi's mother later called me a few weeks later and put me on the call with her. Mansi shared her number and told me that I can call her. Coming back to Germany, I was mostly in bed trying to recover from the flu. I was hardly eating anything and lying alone all day, sifting through my various conscious and subconscious thoughts, and pitying my sorry state of health and loneliness. Somehow, out of nowhere, I thought of calling Mansi. This was unusual since I had never had much female interaction in my life. More unusual was how her number was carefully stored on my phone. I called her number and waited, but it was not picked. I wondered what could have happened, or what could it mean. I thought for a few moments and then tried again. Still no answer. I thought again and realized that perhaps it was not meant to be. I immediately deleted her number from my phone and gave up on her, a bit rather too soon.

This week in the October of 2021, more than ten years since that cold and harrowing German winter, I was again sick with flu and was in similar discomfort. But this time, there was my beloved wife, Mansi, by my side to take care of me, to feed me with medicine and food, put me in a clean bed, and give me all that love and warmth that I craved for so much a decade ago. I am grateful to God for bringing me together with such a lovely companion who makes every moment of my life worth living and worth remembering. Life for me has come around such a big circle in the last decade that I sometimes smile back at all those cold days and frosty nights. I have also come to feel vulnerable to losing everything, or not doing enough to justify my good fortune, or not being able to give back as much as I got. Yet, I feel lucky to be able to keep going with my dear wife, weaving our paths as we go and creating our own little safe havens of love and wonder and everything that people can wish to see, feel, and cherish in their lives. And all happened because even though I gave up so soon in just two phone calls, something somewhere did not give up on me just so easily!

Kaam ke Chakkar

Mummy kehti thi apna kaam karo

Teacher kehte the kaam ka gyan dimaag mein bharo 

Dost kehte the kaam ke bajaye mauj karo

Papa kehte the kuch kaam karne ke layak bano

College mein kaha kaam ki field choose karo

Pehle job mein kaha kaam dhyan se seekho

Naye shehron ne kaam peshi hona sikhaya

Akelepan ne kaam mein doobna bataya

Videsh mein kaam ki nayi paribhasha mili

Research mein kaam ki nayi disha mili

Advisor ne kaam ko disruption bataya

Aur shurati success ne kaam ko yaadgar banaya

America mein kaam ke doosre ayam dekhne ko mile

Kaam mein utar aur chadav dono jhelne ko mile

Saath hi kaam ka jeevan yapi hona samajh mein aaya

Aur phir kaam corporate america mein lekar aaya

Microsoft ne kaam ko impact se jodna sikhaya

Naye kaam pakadna aur purane chodna sikhaya

Kaam ko interesting banana aur sell karna sikhaya

Apne kaam ka samrajya badhana sikhaya

Sehkarmiyon se kaam mein hod rehti hai

Apni team ki kaam mein madad karne ki apeksha rehti hai

Khud ka kaam karne ke liye samay bahumushkil hai

Phir bhi boss kuch bada kaam karne ki umeed karta hai

Research community kehti hai kaam namcheen karo

Industry kehti hai kaam hot topics par karo

Career kehta hai kaam anya companies ko dhyan rakhte hue karo

Aur samaaj kehta hai apne kaam se kisi ka bhala karo

Patni kehti hai kam bahut karte ho

Apna kaam theek se manage nahi karte ho

Bacche poochte hain kam kyon hi karte ho

Dost kehte hain kaam mein kaafi busy rehte ho

Tan kehta hai kaam ek rog hai

Mann kehta hai kaam ek jog hai

Dhan kehta hai kaam se hi mera bhog hai

Aur naseeb kehta hai kaam ek sanjog hai

Sochta hun kaam ke bade chakkar hain

Kuch suljhe kuch uljhe se hai

Anttah Kis kaam ki hai ye duniye 

Kaam ke bina na kuch diya na kuch liya

Sabko apne kaam se kaam hai

Aur phir ek din ram ka naam hai

Kashipur wale Tauji

We were returning from Home Depot after buying two big bags of soil and lots of seeds (cilantro, basil, mint, etc.). There was a lot of excitement about the new garden areas that we have cleaned up in our house. We wanted to grow all kind of plants -- flowers, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. As I was pulling the heavy soil bags into the trunk, I heard a faint phone ring in my pocket. I missed it but saw that it was from my father-in-law's cell phone, a bit puzzling because he typically uses Skype or WhatsApp. As soon as we got home, I took out the phone to call him but now there was an even more puzzling message from him. Mansi's tauji has left us. While we were busy planting new saplings, a tall tree, that was the strength of the family, fell down.

Tauji was the family head in Mansi' side of the family. He was the guiding figure in all keys family decisions and rituals (including the ones in our marriage). In spite of not having his own children, he loved and cared for every children in the family. He had an aura that made respect for him come naturally. When we decided to get Papa's book released at Aakhya's first birthday, Tauji was the obvious choice to do the honors. Tauji was significantly older than Mansi's father, and so I never felt like an in-law kind of relationship with him; rather it was more like a warm and jolly grandfather-grandson kind of relationship. And it was not just me; I am sure everyone who ever met him found it easy to connect with him. This is why I am writing this blog in his memory.

There were three distinctively peculiar things that made Tauji the person he was.

First one was his smile. Its hard for me to recall Tauji in any conversation without picturing his ever-present smile. Sometimes I wondered whether it was just his face structured that made him seem to be smiling. At other times, I thought that it was his voice which makes it appear as if he is chuckling a bit in every sentence. But perhaps in reality he was a genuinely happy person and this happiness radiated through his smiles. The impact of those smiles was not just the aesthetic appearance, but how they acted as invitation to people: invitation to open-up, invitation to talk, and invitation to connect. And so it is not surprising that Tauji was able to connect with people across gender and age-groups, professions and interests, or even richness and poverty. Mansi was very close to her Tauji and felt strongly for him, sometimes even more than for Taiji; my mother-in-law was able to talk many things to Tauji and in fact in his last days he visited her just before a major surgery of hers; Tauji's elder as well as younger siblings were both very closely attached to him, even the worker families in his farm took their problems to him. Smile as a mechanism to open-up and invite is today taught in many professions, including human resources, hotel management, sales and marketing, and customer facing services such as tourism and medical services. Tauji already knew this better.

Second was his curiosity. Tauji was interested in knowing everything, from everyone, and all the time. Since his primary occupation was farming, he was interested to know the kind of vegetables and fruits that were grown wherever we lived after marriage (Germany, Boston, California, and finally Seattle). He would always ask us about the characteristic vegetation there and would even try to replicate that locally. This curiosity of his indeed lead him to innovate quite a bit in his farm. Mansi tells me of instances where Tauji's innovation didn't work (e.g., purple cabbage) and they had to eat all the produce at home. But he never stopped learning and even actively engaged with professors from agricultural universities to learn and do more. His curiosity was not limited to farming; he also asked me about my work a few times and I tried my best to explain computer science to a lay person. The cool thing was that due to his curiosity, conversations with him were very engaging. There was never a blank silent moment, which often happens to us when we meet new people or visit disconnected relatives. Tauji instead was always up to something and the clock seemed to tick faster than it really did.

Third was his warmth. Tauji was a large hearted person soaking up all the negativities around him and allowing just the goodwill and harmony to prevail. I don't think he was ever seen complaining about anything and words like bitter, harsh, angry are hard to attribute to him. Rather he was the congenial soul that was ever comforting and ever peaceful to talk to. The great thing about warmth is that it stays for long, and this is why today when Tauji's conversations and engagements are gone, his warmth is still with us. It is for this reason that when we lost Tauji, everybody expressed regret that they hadn't done enough for him; that they could have cared more for him; they could have shared more with him; they could have treasured more with him. It is for this same reason that when our second child was born yesterday, Mansi remembered Tauji and how we were just six weeks short of having Tauji's blessings for our new baby. Even though his body may be done, there is still a warmth and an ethereal sense of Tauji around us. This I think is his biggest gift to us.

As we wake up to the new reality of the world without Tauji, we must move beyond regret and continue forward on his path. We must remember what Tauji stood for and what he stood against, and rediscover those values and those ideals in our own lives. And we must step up to uphold, nurture, and transform them to newer levels. Because that is how we will truly persevere Tauji's warmth. The tall tree that fell left behind a soil that is rich and fertile enough to grow many more saplings to similar or even greater heights.

May you rest in peace, Tauji!

Aashya, the summary!

Progeny comes from the Latin word progignere, meaning "to beget", or "to give rise to". And this is exactly what it feels when you give rise to your little one: your feelings, your life, your world, and the bigger purpose all just seem to rise up! I find the notion of "rising" particularly interesting because it connects two states of existence, the one before and the one after the rising. And again, this is exactly what our progeny brings: it starts from the remnants of the past (people even match their body parts with the newborn) and goes into the wonders of the future, sustaining the continuity of change and progress. A small new life in the world, but a giant leap in the lives of the family.

We were blessed with a baby girl this morning, or in the terms of British royalty, "Mansi was safely delivered of a baby girl at 9:38 am today". It was a planned caesarean birth and things went as professionally efficient as they could be in this modern world. In spite of being aware of these efficiencies, we spent a nearly sleepless night yesterday and a restless nine-month period before that. No matter how much routine the child-bearing process becomes, giving rise to a new life is still a huge event. There are a number of choices to make and a number of new complications arising each day. The standard medical phrase for this is that each patient is different, and that literally makes it seven billion possibilities. Given all of these, we were super relieved when things went zipping through and within one hour we had the baby in our arms.

Hospital services have really come of age and it's amazing to see the professionalism at work. Right after we checked in Evergreen hospital at 7:45 am, the nurses and other support staff were working with a robot-like precision yet with human empathy at its best. Their preparation work took 1.5 hours and Mansi was in the operation room at 9:15 am, exactly as scheduled. I was with her in the operation room, and even there, a perfect synergy was evident between various people each handling a specific job. The baby came out in about 30 minutes and the anesthesiologist made us see the baby popping out of Mansi's belly --- not a very pleasant sight of blood everywhere but a great experience as an after thought. Once the baby was out, things went even more quickly and they wrapped up Mansi's belly on one side and cleaned up the baby on the other. Finally, by 10:15 am we walked out of the operation room, Mansi in her stretcher bed and baby Aashya in her crib bed. As soon as we came back to the room, Aashya's pediatric was already present to check her while Mansi's doctor was at work with her. Things went in a flurry throughout the day with doctors, nurses, and other support staff working in a perfect tandem towards the end goal. By evening, Mansi was up on her feet and Aashya had already finished multiple cycles of feed-sleep-pee, all thanks to a great hospital and its staff.

When we found out about the second girl, many people made jolly comments about handling the tantrums of two girls. We already witnessed the first glimpse of that, when Aashya was crying inside the room and Aakhya was rolling outside in the hallway. It was an interesting situation where I couldn't ignore either and yet I couldn't be in two places at the same time. We will now need to cope with two kids, who will compete for our undivided attention. But kids are not just liabilities, they are assets as well. They are the building blocks of a family and a unit of happiness in so many ways: happiness in sharing and caring for each other, happiness in growing and learning together, happiness in surviving the ups and downs of life, happiness in enriching values that we together stand for, happiness in creating shared memories that last lifetime, happiness in the love that exists between us and that transcends life and death, and happiness in the way older identities are carried forward and newer ones are forged through innovation and rigor. With Aashya, we dream of all these happiness to add to our family in the times to come.

I will conclude by raising the following toast to Aashya:

New meaning
New hope
New beginning
New rope
Tying up our world together
Our tiny little isotope!


Welcome to your family and may you create your own world!

Cheers!
MAAA

Clay & Molds

Dear Daughter,

We just came to know about you today. I mean we knew that you were there since the last 20 weeks, but today we came to know that you are a girl. Sometime back I asked your mom whether she loves you and she gave me an interesting answer. She told me that she didn't had many feelings for Aakhya, your elder sister, while she was in the womb but started loving her once she was born. Seems like it is hard to have feelings (and love) for something abstract and we rather develop emotions as it takes a more concrete form. It is like we need a physical metaphor to connect to our emotional construct; and we indeed symbolize every emotions of ours in this physical world: Taj Mahal stands for love, Himalaya stand for bravery, Ganga stands for purity, Cow stands for selflessness, and every Hindu god of ours has his/her power linked to some form of nature. We need concretization to link and express our emotions. Today we learnt about a more concrete form of yours and so I suddenly feel a gush of emotions for you my dear daughter.

One thing you will see in this world is that sometimes people impose a concrete form in order to have the resulting emotions and feelings. For instance, doctor parents may impose their children to be doctors in order to be proud of them; school mates may impose a classmate to be dumb in order to bully her and have fun; colleagues may impose their counterparts to turn for or against them in order to indulge in office politics. This is a sad reality where we constantly cast each other into shapes that we like to see them in, without thinking about the shapes that they would like to be in. Unfortunately, I was guilty of this when we boxed you into a male form and expected to have a balanced girl-boy family. As a result, there was a tinge of unmet expectations when we realized that you in fact wanted to be a girl. But now that I think about it, we were completely unreasonable and this practice amongst Indian families should stop. A cow was not born because we need something selfless, rather we came to know about selflessness because a cow was born. I am looking forward to experiencing a new world with you now my precious dear --- not with precast molds but only with fresh clay for you to carve on your own.

Love you my little baby and welcome to your home!

Yours,
Dad