Father of two daughters

  I first met her 17 years ago. Our parents had contacted each other after going through a newspaper advertisement in a matrimonial section. It was four years since I had completed my MBBS and had got into a well-paid government job. Apparently, these are the basic qualifications needed to earn the title of “eligible” bachelor in the matrimonial sections. Luckily, my future in – laws also agreed to this basic premise, and the two families, after a lot of meetings, decided that time was ripe for the “boy” and the “girl” to meet and approve each other. We met over some snacks and a bottle of cold drink, witnessed by two and half sets of families. I did not take any time to show my eager approval, and my future wife was too shocked at the turn of events for a negative response. We got married a year and half later, while she was still studying towards completing her graduation. Aadya came into existence a few months after my wife’s graduation, and Shaivi arrived in time to celebrate

                The monkey looked tentatively as I continued my walk.               For the past few days, I have been getting up early in the morning and been going out for my daily dose of sunshine. While I am frequently on my cycle, I had decided in favour of jogging this morning and had commenced my labored running. I am a moderately fit person who is somehow not used to too much of planned exercise. In fact, I hate exercise, and my morning activities were actually due to an official compulsion, which I had decided to take advantage of in order to improve my fitness. Monkeys lined up for their daily errand on my boundary wall               The route that I take is a favourite playground of a group of monkeys as well as at least seven different tribes of stray dogs, each with well defined and properly marked territories. I am no stranger to inter as well as intra species territorial wars amongst the non – biped primates and canines. Both of them keep trying to expand their horiz

       “Moana’s father had lost a lot of weight,” Aadya told me. “He had taken the entire family of Moana to another part of Motunui which was completely barren.”               “Was it the same island where they lived?” I enquired.               Aadya was telling me about a funny dream she had last night. She normally does not remember dreams, but she surprised herself by vividly remembering every detail of this particular one that she had during her exam days.               Her exams were very interesting. After having completed an online test conducted by the school, the students were informed that the exams should be treated as practice test only and that her unit tests would be conducted in a “multiple choice question” format while using "zoom" for invigilation. Her mother struggled with the concept of split screen which allowed her to use “zoom” app with video for invigilation while the exam portal could be used on another part of the screen. Some other students in