Part 3: The Clues, The Hint, and The Revelation

Just when we thought the marriage portal search had hit a permanent standstill, the wind began to shift. It didn't happen with a sudden surrender; instead, it started with a series of curious questions that left us wondering if the "Great Wall of Resistance" was finally developing a doorway.

It began with a subtle shift in Pratyusha’s line of questioning. One day, she casually asked, "Why are we limiting the search strictly to Telugu profiles and within our specific community and sub-sect?"

For parents who had grown up with a certain traditional blueprint, this was a major moment. Realizing she was opening up to the idea of a match, I immediately took action. I logged back into the platforms and extended our parameters. We opened the doors to all South Indian states—still keeping it within the broader community, but completely dissolving the boundaries between all sub-sects.

Then came the curveball. A few days later, she dropped another hint that caught me completely off guard: "How about including Saurashtra people too?"

I admit, my first reaction was to brush it off. "Saurashtra? I don't know enough about that community or their customs," I replied. In my head, it sounded like a community from Gujarat, though a vague memory tickled the back of my mind that a segment of the Saurashtra population had migrated and settled in South India generations ago. Still, it felt like an outer-orbit request, so we kept our focus on the expanded South Indian filters.

We thought we were playing a game of strategic matchmaking. As it turned out, Pratyusha was just dropping breadcrumbs.

The Ride Home from Dance Class

The mystery finally unraveled on an ordinary evening that we will cherish forever. My wife and I were picking Pratyusha up from her regular Bharatanatyam class. As the car navigated the familiar streets of Singapore, the casual chatter in the vehicle suddenly took a historic turn.

With the same calm independence she carries through life, Pratyusha dropped the real announcement: she was seeing someone, and she really liked him.

Now, knowing our daughter, we were neither completely surprised nor dumbstruck. We had a feeling that her sudden interest in expanding cultural filters wasn't entirely hypothetical!

Instead of reacting with parental panic, throwing out a million questions, or slamming the brakes, we deliberately kept our composure. We didn't let out a single knee-jerk reaction. We completed the journey in a state of zen-like calm, letting the silence hold space for what we knew was going to be a monumental conversation.

The Living Room Interrogation (With Love)

The moment the front door closed behind us and we were safely inside the comfort of our home, the "zen calm" transitioned into active parental curiosity.

We made her sit down later in the evening, took a deep breath, and began asking for the real details. The mysterious hints about sub-sects, geographic boundaries, and the Saurashtra community suddenly all clicked into place. The stage was set, the curtain was up, and it was finally time to meet the young man who had managed to win her over.

Part 2: The First Crack in the Armor

 

As anyone who has raised a daughter knows, you don’t win these battles with force; you win them with a mix of infinite patience, subtle emotional appeals, and understanding the world through their eyes.

One of our biggest stumbling blocks wasn't just internal resistance; it was peer reality. The vast majority of Pratyusha’s school and college friends were nowhere near ready to settle down. 

When your entire ecosystem is firmly single, jumping onto the marriage bandwagon feels like stepping into a different universe alone. During those quiet moments of parental panic, my wife would always ground me with a bit of maternal wisdom: "Don't worry. Once she starts hearing news of her own friends getting engaged or married, she will naturally change her mind."

But the peer barrier was only half the battle. The deeper hurdle was a profound lack of faith in the traditional arrangement process itself. To the Gen-Z population, the idea of an "arranged marriage"—where Indian parents play the role of matchmakers—is not just unpopular; it is frequently ridiculed.

To Pratyusha, the concept of meeting a life partner through a sterile matrimonial website template felt deeply unnatural. How do you trust the most important decision of your life to a process that feels like a corporate hiring pipeline? It was hard to argue against her skepticism when the modern narrative completely favors organic, serendipitous love.

When she finally gave us a cautious, conditional green light to start searching, we immediately hit a geographic brick wall. Living in Singapore, we quickly realized it is a very small pond. The local diaspora on matrimonial platforms is incredibly limited, leaving us with very few compatible profiles to explore.

Naturally, the next logical step for us as parents was to widen the net. But expanding the filters opened up a whole new box of anxieties:

• The Fear of India: If we looked at profiles based in India, a deep-seated worry cropped up. Having spent most of her formative, growing-up years abroad, how would she assimilate into a traditional household in India? The cultural gap felt like a risky leap.

• The Fear of Relocation: On the flip side, if we expanded the filters to other global hubs like the USA, we hit another wall. Pratyusha was deeply reluctant to move out of Singapore. She had built her life, her comfort, and her career there, and the idea of uprooting to a distant country for a stranger was a tough sell.

So there we were: caught between a small pool of local profiles, a complete disdain for the digital matchmaking process, and a set of tight geographic boundaries that made the search feel almost impossible.

Managing this delicate phase required us to step back as aggressive negotiators and instead become empathetic listeners. We had to respect her fears of losing her independence or being forced into a traditional mold she didn't fit, all while keeping our fingers crossed that the right door would open.

And just when the stack of "instant rejections" seemed to confirm our worst fears, the universe decided to prove us all wrong.

The Great Indian Wedding Tug-of-War: Part 1

In the quiet corners of almost every Indian household, there is a clock that ticks louder than any other. It isn’t the one on the wall; it’s the invisible "marriage clock." As soon as a child (girl to be precise) reaches a certain age, a peculiar kind of anxiety begins to ripple through the home—a mixture of parental duty, societal expectation, and a deep-seated desire to see the next generation "settled."

The world today is vastly different from the one I graduated into back in the early 90s. For the younger generation, the institution of marriage often feels like a daunting mountain rather than a natural milestone. With the skyrocketing cost of living, professional uncertainties, and the sheer weight of responsibility, many young people are choosing to step back. They see traditional ideas of family as something difficult to sustain in a world that feels increasingly volatile.

Against this backdrop, we embarked on a mission that felt, at times, like a diplomatic negotiation of the highest order. Convincing our daughter, Pratyusha, to even consider the idea of marriage was a journey of persistent, gentle cajoling that spanned more than two years.

It wasn’t that she didn’t value family; it was that she, like many of her peers, was fiercely protective of her independence and wary of the "traditional" mold. There were long discussions, debates over dinner, and a lot of patience required from both sides.

Finally, when the breakthrough came and she agreed to let us start looking for a suitable match, we thought the hard part was over. We were wrong.

The "Proposal Phase" became a new kind of hurdle. Pratyusha was a master of the "instant skip." Profiles would arrive, full of potential, only to be met with a refusal to even look at the photos or read the bios. It was as if she had built a fortress around her heart, and no amount of matchmaking was going to breach it.

While this internal tug-of-war was happening, the external world wasn’t staying silent. As any Indian parent knows, the pressure from the outside can be relentless - from Grand Parents (simple, emotional wish) and from Peer Circle (FOMO and well meaning inquiries).

We were caught between the traditional values of our elders and the modern aspirations of our children. Little did we know then that this long, difficult road was leading us exactly where we needed to be!

A Journey of Joys: Cherishing the Road to Pratyusha’s Big Day

Life has a beautiful way of gathering momentum when we least expect it. Looking back at the last 18 months, it feels less like a sequence of calendar dates and more like a vibrant tapestry woven with anticipation, laughter, and a few frantic (but fond) moments of planning.

Today, I’m taking a deep breath to finally hit "pause" and look back.

The recent months have been a whirlwind, culminating in the beautiful wedding of my daughter, Pratyusha, to Prashanth. It was a season of profound transitions - not just for the couple, but for our entire family. From the initial excitement of the engagement to the sacred rituals where we welcomed a wonderful new son-in-law into our fold, every milestone has left an indelible mark on my heart.

Before the garlands were exchanged and the nuptial knot was tied, there was a long, scenic road leading up to the festivities. These past 18 months or so were filled with - The Quiet Milestones, watching Pratyusha navigate her own journey with grace; Family Bonds, reconnecting with loved ones, including trips to Hyderabad and the joy of seeing the family come together to support the new couple; The Emotional Build-up, the nerves, the late-night discussions, and the sheer happiness of seeing two people begin their lives together.

I don’t want these memories to simply fade into the "busy-ness" of daily life. I want to savor them. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing a series of posts dedicated to the festivities and the events that led us to this beautiful destination.

This blog has always been a space for reflection, and there is no greater joy than sharing the story of a daughter’s wedding—a true "Grand Finale" to 18 months of wonderful preparation.

Stay tuned as I begin to unpack these memories, one post at a time. It’s going to be a nostalgic ride, and I’m so glad to have you along for it.

The Legend of Delta Force: How Chuck Norris Fueled a College Obsession

The recent news regarding Chuck Norris's death —and the inevitable wave of "indestructible" memes that followed—brought a sudden, vivid rush of nostalgia. It sent me straight back to my college days in Guntur, long before streaming or high-speed internet, to a time when Hollywood felt like a distant, glittering myth. Back then, many of us were largely uninitiated when it came to Western cinema. My true introduction came in 1988 at the iconic Leela Mahal talkies. The movie was Delta Force, and the man of the hour was, of course, Chuck Norris.

In those days, Hollywood blockbusters took their time reaching small-town India. By the time a print arrived in Guntur, it felt like a rare artifact. I remember sitting in that darkened theater, completely mesmerized. Seeing Norris take on the world with silent intensity and explosive action was a revelation. What was intended to be a one-time curiosity quickly spiraled into something much bigger.

What started with Delta Force turned into a full-blown obsession. Over the next three and a half years until my graduation, my friends and I became fixtures at the Leela Mahal talkies. We ended up watching hundreds of movies, turning every spare moment of our college lives into a cinematic education.

The way we consumed movies back then was a unique, frantic experience. Most people flocked to Hollywood films primarily for the high-octane action sequences (and, admittedly, the occasional romantic scenes) that were unlike anything in local production at the time. Theatrical runs were incredibly short. A movie might only stay for a couple of days before the posters were swapped out for the next title. On top of that Leela Mahal would play four different movies in four different shows within a single day.

In those days, a ticket cost just 2 rupees and 50 paise, but when you had nothing, that small sum felt like a fortune. Looking back, those years in Guntur - we didn't just watch movies; we hunted them. We navigated the rapid-fire schedules and the fleeting theatrical runs just to get a glimpse of heroes like Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Segal, Harrison Ford, Kurt Russel, Clint Eastwood (yesteryear of course for 80s) and many more.

The "Delta Force" might have been my first taste of Hollywood, but it kicked off a lifelong journey that defined my college experience. Chuck Norris might be a meme to the younger generation, but to us, he’ll always be the man who opened the doors to a whole new world at Leela Mahal.

Bittersweet Farewell

Parting with an old car is often a bittersweet experience, more than just a transaction - that too after 15 long years, partly aided by prohibitive COE in Singapore. For many of us in Singapore, our cars are silent companions through countless journeys – ferrying kids to school, weekend classes to music school, tuitions, navigating bustling city streets, or escaping for a weekend adventure (countless in my case to the neighbouring country, especially the garland trip along the coast of peninsular Malaysia). 

It's the witness to our daily commutes, fights, arguments and tantrums - the keeper of countless memories, from spilled coffee to kids jukebox, and even the occasional backseat ride (kids only got to drive in the last couple of years). There's a tangible sense of its presence, and saying goodbye can feel like closing a chapter. Yet, amidst the nostalgia, there's also a liberating sense of moving forward. 

We embrace the shift to a more sustainable lifestyle 😜, the peace of mind that comes from knowing our vehicle is being responsibly recycled, and the excitement of whatever new chapter awaits, perhaps on public transport, or even just the joy of a simpler, car-free life. It's a "left with no option" decision necessitated by expiring COE, yes, but one imbued with a quiet sense of closure and a hopeful look towards the future.

India is not beautiful - let us face it.

The India of the 1970s & 80s we grew up, became every day an uglier country. It was a place where the very elements of life — earth, water, air — had been poisoned. The land was strewn with garbage, the rivers and urban waterways were choked with plastic bags and white chemical foam. The streets were buckled, the footpaths broken, the air thick and unbreathable. To look out at an Indian city or small town was to be greeted by a bleak sprawl of shoddily constructed low-lying buildings, shrouded in a mantle of brown smoke. It was an apocalyptic landscape with no underlying design save for an ever more urgent need to accommodate greater numbers of people.

Today, India’s environmental problems are among the grimmest in the world. They relate to raw sewage, waste and open defecation, which cause childhood malnourishment, along with diseases like hepatitis, cholera and typhoid fever. The air in the cities is so filthy from factories and cars that middle-class parents now check the levels of PM2.5, or airborne particulate matter, on their smartphones, as people in other places do the weather, before letting their children outside to play.

Courtesy - NY Times - http://nyti.ms/1ILjNXL

Technology is a poor substitute for personal interaction

All that I am experiencing mentioned in the article - teenagers hooked to video games & texting by spending hours on smart phones with negative effects on childeren's behaviour, health and academic performance. Reproducing some of the excerpts from the article to reiterate to myself and my childeren in an attempt to wean them off the smart phones. (hoping against hope?)

“If kids are allowed to play ‘Candy Crush’ on the way to school, the car ride will be quiet, but that’s not what kids need, they need time to daydream, deal with anxieties, process their thoughts and share them with parents, who can provide reassurance.” 

"Out in public, children have to know that life is fine off the screen. It’s interesting and good to be curious about other people, to learn how to listen. It teaches them social and emotional intelligence, which is critical for success in life.”

"Children who are heavy users of electronics may become adept at multitasking, but they can lose the ability to focus on what is most important, a trait critical to the deep thought and problem solving needed for many jobs and other endeavors later in life. As children have more of their communication through electronic media, and less of it face to face, they begin to feel more lonely and depressed."

There can be physical consequences, too. Children can develop pain in their fingers and wrists, narrowed blood vessels in their eyes (the long-term consequences of which are unknown), and neck and back pain from being slumped over their phones, tablets and computers.

Manspreading

Exactly as I felt last night travelling economy class on a budget airline, 4 hour journey felt forever from Hyderabad to Singapore. 

Courtesy : Financial Times - http://on.ft.com/1Iigxa1

We are all used to this well-documented phenomenon on trains but coping with it on a long flight is surely a different matter. What was the correct approach to his economy-class imperialism? It was perfectly calibrated, going just far enough to secure extra space but stopping at the point where it could still be excused as thoughtlessness rather than calculated strategy. Tactically, he played a blinder, inching into my legroom and seizing control of the strategically important armrest. I am still unsure as to the correct approach. I know how petty I must look but air travel seems designed to bring out the inner, smaller you. In these circumstances you have only two options: be the trivial bloke who defends every millimetre of space or rise above it and let someone else’s pettiness triumph. 

Cultivate your garden, the inner as the outer.

The Chinese say: “If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk; a week, kill a pig; a month, get married; for life, be a gardener.” 

The below excerpt is courtesy NY Times Op-Ed by Roger Cohen : The Great Unease

There’s a lot of status anxiety going about these days. People live suspended between the anxiety of being deluged in communication and the agony of receiving none. They have always wanted to be liked, but now they must also be “liked.” They exist under the digital pressure of reciprocal judgment, a state that knows no repose. They are either on top of things, a momentary illusion, or overwhelmed, a permanent state intermittently denied. They look around wondering how it is possible to keep up. They have access to everything and certainty about nothing. They zigzag between indulgence and denial, frenetic states and cleansing cures, their busy selves and their better selves. They have nightmares about getting a thumbs-down. They ask themselves how the Day of Judgment became day-in, day-out judgment. They make resolutions that unravel. They amass to-do lists that cannot get done. They are not sure where they stand on the ratings scales, on the lists that proliferate, on the global grading of everything and everyone. This state crept up on them. How such unease came about, who willed it and with what design, was not quite clear, but it must, they thought, have something to do with what is called progress. Where it was headed was equally murky but sometimes the destination looked unappealing, a place where peace had been crowded out by the pursuit of efficiencies.

18 Years

Procrastination

New year resolutions have not kicked in yet, this is why! We have much less concern about our future selves than our present selves — and are willing to sell our future selves down the river for the sake of present ease. But when the present marches into the future, and we are confronted with the work that our past selves refused to do, we pay the price in unmet deadlines, all-nighters and general torment. How true?

Happy New Year 2015

Happy New Year to you and all those you hold dear and we wish you true happiness, joy and success in the months to come. Cheers!

Dhoni - "the detached" lets it go

Borrowing from Harsha Bhogle's article in Indian Express....

Dhoni, while he has finished with Test cricket, he continues with the format he has been far better at. But he has walked away with no fuss at all. Remember the long-haired new captain who had just won India the first World T20? He gave away his match shirt to someone in the crowd and walked away quietly. And the suave captain who won India the 2011 World Cup? Spot him in any of the pictures? He let it be Tendulkar’s moment. He let it be about Indian cricket. It wasn’t about him and he didn’t force himself into every frame. It was actually his evening but he looked at it from afar. I thought it was cool. The sign of a confident man. He made a statement by not being there.

What he did in Test cricket was remarkable. He took his rustic game — the firm jab, the slash over point — and squeezed more out of it than you would have thought possible. An average of 38 is excellent for someone who did as many squats behind the stumps as he did, for someone who had to be in the game always. It is very difficult to be a wicket-keeper, captain and batsman. He did it for 60 Tests — remarkable.

Hyper Parenting

Happy Vijaya Dasami

Dabble in drawing

తాత గారి శత జయంతి

Happy Birthday Little Guy

Burnout

THE way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep.

17 years of Saptapadi

"Sakaa -Sapthapadha -bhava Sakaayov -Saptha padhaa –Bhaboova" 
By these seven steps you have taken with me, you have become my best friend. 

"Sakyam -the' -Ghame'yam Sakyaath -the' Maayosham -Sakyan me" 
I will never move out of this relationship. God has united us in this bondage. 

"Maayosta -Samayaava -Samayaava Sankalpaavahai –Sampriyov" 
We shall perform all activities together with love and affection. 

"Rosishnu -Sumanasyamanov Ishamoorjam - abhi –Savasaanov" 
Let us be friendly in our thoughts. Let us observe our duties and rituals together. 

"Managhumsi -Samvrathaas smu Chiththaani -Aakaram –Sathvamasi" 
If you are the lyrics, I am the music. If you are the music, I am the lyrics. 

"Amooham -Amoohamasmi saa -Thvam –dhyowraham" 
If I am the heavenly body, you are the earthly world. 

"Pruthivee thvam -Retho' aham -retho' Bhruthvam –Manohamasmi" 
While I am the life source, you are the carrier of the same. 

"vak thvam -Saamaa ham asmi -Rukthvam –Saamaam" 
I am the thoughts and you are the speech. 

"Anuvradhaa -bhava Pumse' Pumse' -Puthraaya- Veththavai" 
While you are the words, I am the meaning. 

"Sriyai -Puthraaya -Veththavai ehi -Soonrurute" 
With your sweet words, come with me to lead a prosperous life begetting our progeny with children.

ఆనందామృత వర్షిణి

Truly enjoyed the congregational singing of Tyagaraja's Pancharatna Krithis at SIFAS. 

సమయానికి తగు మాటలాడెనే

విముఖులతో చేర బోకు మనెనె

వెత గల్గిన తాళు గొమ్మనెనె

దమ శమాది సుఖ దాయకుడగు

శ్రీ త్యాగరాజ నుతుడు చెంత రాగ

Culture of knowingness

On Wall Street, as in some other areas of the modern economy that I could mention, this attitude leads to a culture of knowingness. People learn to bluff their way through, day to day. Executives don’t really understand the complex things going on in their own companies. Traders don’t understand how their technological tools really work. Programmers may know their little piece of code, but they don’t have a broader knowledge of what their work is being used for.

These people are content to possess information, but they don’t seek knowledge. Information is what you need to make money short term. Knowledge is the deeper understanding of how things work. It’s obtained only by long and inefficient study. It’s gained by those who set aside the profit motive and instead possess an intrinsic desire just to know.

Courtesy - The New York Times: The Moral Power of Curiosity

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/opinion/brooks-the-moral-power-of-curiosity.html?from=opinion

Fascinating World of Science

Managed to find some time to put together a toy for my son's science exhibition that demonstrates a water pump (Pressure and Energy conversion and transfer).

శ్రీరామ నవమి శుభాకాంక్షలు

సిరికల్యాణపు బొట్టును బెట్టి.. మణిబాసికమును నుదుటను గట్టి.. పారాణిని పాదాలకు బెట్టి.. పెళ్లి కూతురై వెలసిన సీతమ్మ తల్లికి.. సంపంగి నూనెను కురులను దువ్వి.. సొంపుగ కస్తూరి నామము తీర్చి.. చెంప జవాజీ చుక్కను బెట్టి పెళ్లికొడుకైన రామయ్య తండ్రికి..