Dharmesh Ba

Source: Moneycontrol: moneycontrol.com/news/busine… The Hindu: thehindu.com/sci-tech/techno…

The phone call It was a night like any other. I had gone to bed late, after another long day. I had barely slept for three hours when my phone vibrated. A WhatsApp call from a distant uncle. It was unusual. My first thought was that his son, who lived in Bangalore, might need some help. I picked up. His voice was muffled. "Dear, your dad has met with an accident. A bus accident. Someone called me. I tried calling your chacha, but he isn't picking up. Please call him." I couldn't make sense of what he was saying. What accident? Which bus? Where? When? A million questions rushed through my head. My father and I have never been particularly close. Our worlds have always been miles apart. After I left home for college, the distance between us only grew. I knew he loved me deeply and cared about me. But my mother had always been the bridge between us. I knew he had travelled to Ahmedabad to spend a week with his brother. I didn't know his itinerary. I didn't even know he was travelling that night. And suddenly, I felt two things at once. Guilt that I knew so little about his whereabouts. And fear that something terrible had happened to him. "What trip? What bus? Where did he go?" I asked. My uncle explained that my father had travelled to Shirdi to visit the Sai Baba temple. On his way back to Ahmedabad, his bus had overturned on the Nashik highway. Someone from the ambulance had called my uncle because my father remembered his number. "The man was speaking in Hindi. I couldn't understand much. Please call your chacha." My father is around 65. He doesn't speak Hindi. He had travelled alone, to a place far from home, and was now being taken to a government hospital in Nashik. I called my chacha. He was already on his way to the airport to fly to Mumbai. I called the number that had contacted my uncle. They confirmed my father's name and said he was being taken for emergency scans and treatment. That was all I knew. I had no idea how badly he was injured. The only information I could gather was that he might have fractured his arm. I started pacing around my living room. It was around 2 AM. Being an only child has its disadvantages. One of them is that when something like this happens, there is no sibling to share the panic with and I did not want to call my mom. No one who knows your parents as you do. No one to divide the decisions with. I had never dealt with anything this serious. There was no playbook. I had thousands of contacts on WhatsApp. I spoke to dozens of people every day. Yet at 2 AM, I realised I couldn't think of even a handful of people I could confidently call, panic in front of, and ask what to do next. The only person I could wake up was my wife. "Should I wait until chacha reaches there and calls me? Or should I leave now?" "Leave," she said. That was all I needed. Within 30 minutes, I had booked a flight to Mumbai, arranged a cab from Mumbai to Nashik, packed a backpack, and left home. Now I was hoping someone I knew in Nashik could be with my dad and tell him that he is safe. He did not have his phone as it was lost in the accident site. On the way to the airport, one thought kept bothering me. My father was alone. He didn't have his phone. He didn't speak the local language. He had just survived a bus accident and was somewhere inside a government hospital. I desperately wanted someone to reach him. Not to arrange treatment or make medical decisions. Just to sit beside him, tell him he was safe, and let him know we were coming. I opened WhatsApp and searched for "Nashik." A few chats in the groups appear but nothing useful. I searched LinkedIn. A few random profiles. Nobody I knew well enough to call at that hour. Nashik was a city I knew mostly from work. When we classified Indian cities into Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 markets, Nashik would occasionally appear on a spreadsheet. I knew it was famous for wine. That was about it. I had never visited the city. I didn't know anyone there. As a last resort, I posted on Twitter, WhatsApp Status, and Instagram. 'Someone close to me had met with an accident. If anyone was in Nashik, I needed help.' I had almost zero hope. I didn't even know what I would ask if someone responded. Three minutes later, at almost 3 AM, someone replied to my tweet. "Check your DM."

But today neither path stays pure. Arranged path tries to find intimacy among couples before wedding Love path strives for belonging in families to win family hearts. Winning legitimacy and winning intimacy have become non negotiable for marriage.