From Alliance to Affection - Celebrating the Man Who Welcomed Me In One of my earliest memories of my father-in-law whom I started addressing affectionately as Mama, is from a visit he and mami made to our residence in Sion Koliwada sometime in 1993. I later learned that the purpose of this visit was to formally discuss the proposed alliance between his daughter Geetha and me - a relationship that would soon be sealed by engagement and later by marriage. I was aware that my mother, through my chithi, had initiated some preliminary discussions with their family regarding this important matter. Although I had certainly seen him at earlier family functions, at the time, he was just another mama to me. As horoscopes were exchanged and matched to the satisfaction of astrologers on both sides, the conversation gradually moved towards fixing a date for the engagement. At that point, my perception of the man who would become my father-in-law was that of a serious, composed individual —...