Papa has been a caring father, an uncompromising mentor, a tough boss, and above all my strongest shield. My greatest learnings of life have been by observing him and his actions. If I had to describe Papa in three words, they would be perfectionist, hardworking, and intelligent.
Papa is a simple man, with little needs and no wants. He has a penchant for good things in life. A complete family person – with love for the parents, respect for elders, and affection the younger ones; super tough on the outside – very emotional from within.
A university gold medalist, Papa is amongst of the best mechanical design engineers, that one would ever come across. With his never-never-never give up attitude, a passion for excellence, patience, perseverance and an extremely creative engineering mindset, he earned the honor of working with the great scientist and former President of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for developments on the Indian missile technology. Papa has been at the forefront of our many prestigious executions for the Indian space program.
Well read, well informed, he carefully chooses words at all times, speaking with an aura, charisma, energy and passion. He has the remarkable ability to convince others with his calm and composed demeanour. It’s hard to win over him in a debate. At the same time, he is a keen observer, a good listener, a quick thinker, accepting the others point of view, whenever communicated with reason and logic. It’s very often that I have received compliments from our customers, professional associates, and friends about his pleasant and unforgettable personality.
Papa is a tough boss and an uncompromising mentor. It’s hard to get praise from him. It took a while for me to realize, that one has done good, when he does not ask questions, and, extra ordinarily well, if he says good. At work, the father-son relationship is limited to lunch time (though I do take some liberties every now and then).
To this day, Papa puts in more hours at work than I do. Inspite of the everyday long hours, and many a times working seven days a week, it’s rare to catch him with an expression of tiredness – you cannot make the difference if he is headed to work or returning back. And when he is back home each day, (by which the half of Mumbai is already preparing to sleep) he still has enough energy and patience in him to listen to the everyday experiences of Shourya and Maahir, and share with them many events and stories from his life.
That’s my father. That’s my Hero.
Happy Birthday Papa