Live India, Love Football

There’s something about Gujarat. I’ve travelled across India quite a bit now, and every state has its own personality, its own rhythm, flavour, and identity. But Gujarat… Gujarat always feels different. Not just interesting. Personal. ----------  I’m Gujarati. Which is funny, because for most of my life, that identity felt more inherited than experienced. I grew up in Southern California, in a very Gujarati household. My parents spoke Gujarati at home. The food was Gujarati (much to my childhood resistance). Most of the Indian families around us? Also Gujarati. In fact, for a long time, Gujarati culture was my only reference point for India. So naturally, I assumed… that this is what India is. -----------  Then came 2006. My first trip to India. I landed in Delhi. And within hours, that assumption shattered. This wasn’t the India I had grown up around. The language, the energy, the social dynamics, it all felt unfamiliar. Almost like I was discovering India for the first time…...

I’m now in the fourth month of having the blessed opportunity to be Leela’s father, and I continue to notice how deeply parenting mirrors sport. This most recent insight came as a consequence of my travel over the past few weeks. A little context. A few weeks ago, Avantika, Leela, and I flew from Mumbai to Delhi for a wedding. It wasn’t an easy decision. Leela was just two and a half months old and hadn’t travelled beyond the Bombay suburbs. But the people getting married are incredibly dear to us, and so we made the trip. We arrived in Gurgaon, three humans, all in one piece (at least physically). Given that I was going to be travelling on and off for work, we decided that Avantika and Leela would stay on in Delhi with her parents for some time.  Part of me was excited. I hadn’t been on my own in Mumbai for as long as I could remember. There was a sense of freedom waiting to be explored. And yet, there was also a quiet heaviness. A knowing that I would miss out on the daily rhythm...

Time truly is one of the most precious commodities we have. And sometimes, it takes a trip somewhere unexpected to be reminded of that. I was invited to speak to students at the National Sports University in Imphal, Manipur about career opportunities after graduation. I was excited for a couple of reasons. I had never travelled to Manipur before, and my previous experiences in the northeast of India have always been something special. Add to that the fact that I genuinely love every opportunity to speak with young people about building careers they care about, and I was already looking forward to the trip before I even packed a bag. My three-hour interactive session on "How to Create a Dream Career" went well. I went into full self-expression mode and, fortunately, the students responded positively, attentive, curious, and most importantly, engaged. But this post isn't really about the talk. It's about time and hospitality.  Flying from Bombay to Imphal is quite a jou...