“Of course! That was the anniversary of our first meeting in college. But 2015—ah, that is truly our Golden Jubilee year,” she laughs.
God lies in the details. So does an enduring marriage -one that marks each little memory and cheers on every milestone.
Over to the lady on what it means to be wife to a man who is so many things - industrialist, researcher, philanthropist - but at the end of the day, simply her life partner.
The journey of a lifetime… starts in college
Time setting: The late fifties. A far more innocent and conservative world than the one we know today.
Venue: Fergusson College, Pune; two scholarly students - Jayashree Pathak and Arun Firodia-meet in the same class. Several common values bind them; not the least, making a mark, academically.
Their first real meeting: When he invites her to a canteen party to mark his winning the college gymkhana elections.
Her major concern: “Are there going to be other girls present too ??”
“Things back then were way different than what they are today,” Jayashree smiles at the memory. “It wasn’t the done thing for boys and girls to be seen together.” Friendship blossomed into love. But they never lost sight of their academic goals. Arun went on to pursue his engineering at IIT Powai, Jayashree studied MBBS.
“It was before he went for his higher studies to MIT, Boston that he told his parents about me,” she says.
Despite coming from two different backgrounds—he was a Marwari, she a Maharashtrian, all hell did not break lose. “Both sets of parents were educated and open, and I was easily accepted into my marital home,” she says.
By Kalyani Sardesai
