The California Family

If Christine, Maureen, and Joseph were my bridge to American life, my Indian circle became my anchor to home. Before leaving Sevagram, I had pictured Berkeley as a year of quiet weekends and lonely meals. I imagined myself spending Saturdays in the library, speaking more to books than to people.

I could not have been more wrong.

Once Bhavana arrived in December, we activated what I now call our “Desi GPS”. Suddenly the Bay Area was full of familiar names, familiar accents, and familiar warmth. California stopped being a place of campuses and highways. It became a map of living rooms, dining tables, and cups of tea that appeared before you could even ask.

Madhu and Niki: The First Safe House

It began, naturally, with Madhu and Nikita Pai. They were not just the reason I was in Berkeley. They were my translators. They helped me understand everything, from bus routes to the American grading system, from what to buy to what to ignore.

One Sunday morning, soon after I moved into my apartment, Madhu called. “Come for tea and breakfast,” he said.

“I can’t,” I replied, sounding important. “I’m going to San Jose to meet Bhavana’s cousin, Rajesh Zamvar.”

I pronounced it exactly as it looks: San-Joes.

Madhu paused. Then, very gently, he rescued me. “SP,” he said, “here it’s San Ho-say. The J becomes H. Spanish.”

I felt foolish. I was a professor and could not even pronounce the name of the next city. But I was grateful. That small correction saved me from many future embarrassments.

Madhu and I also bonded over cricket, which in America is as rare as a decent cup of cutting chai. He knew where to find it. We would drive to an Indian cinema in Fremont and watch India play on a big screen, surrounded by hundreds of shouting expatriates. We returned late, sleepy and satisfied, like boys who had stolen an extra hour of childhood.

On quieter Sundays, we played cricket in Madhu’s backyard. After the match, Niki would feed us a breakfast that felt like a reward for simply showing up. For a few hours, Albany became Sevagram.

Sunnyvale: Raju and Uma’s Open Door

My most frequent refuge was the home of Raju and Uma Zamvar in Sunnyvale, about fifty miles from Berkeley. For me, their house was a weekend reset button.

They had a black Honda Civic, which became our little chariot. Raju had just started working at Visa. Uma had joined Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara as an internist. They were young, busy, building their lives, and yet they made space for us with the ease of people who know what it means to be far from home.

We celebrated Diwali 2004 with them. Their son Rohan was a toddler then, wobbling around the house with that proud seriousness toddlers have. Uma was pregnant with their second child, Rishi, who would arrive in February 2005. Even with a demanding job and a growing belly, she hosted us as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Our weekends followed a pattern. Raju would take us to Fry’s Electronics, a giant store that felt like a museum of the future. We wandered through aisles of gadgets and cables, amazed at how Silicon Valley seemed to run on small shiny objects.

And then came the real medicine: Indian food.

We would go to Chaat House on El Camino Real. After a week of sandwiches and salads, a plate of pani puri and pav bhaji tasted like homecoming. In January 2005, when Bhavana visited again, we celebrated Rohan’s birthday at Mayuri Restaurant in Santa Clara. There was even a bird show for the children. It was loud, cheerful, and slightly chaotic, exactly the way birthdays should be.

Today, Raju is a senior professional at Visa, and Uma is Chief of Medicine at Kaiser, leading a large team. But in my mind, they remain the young couple in the black Civic who made sure a lonely student did not stay lonely.

More Homes, More Hands

The circle kept expanding.

Bhavana’s aunt, Nilu Masiji, lived in Palo Alto. Visiting her gave us a glimpse of an older Indian community, settled and steady. We even went trekking in the Palo Alto hills, surprised by how green California could be.

In Fremont, Rahul Asawe and his wife Heena fed us like we were visiting after years, not weeks. And then there was Sanket Khemuka, a familiar Wardha connection. Seeing a “Wardha boy” working in Sunnyvale, confident and settled, filled me with a quiet pride. Wardha had travelled farther than we imagined.

When my graduation day arrived, Raju and Uma drove all the way to Berkeley to attend. Later, they came to my apartment for lunch with my friends. It was a simple meal, but it felt like a celebration with family.

Los Angeles: A Trip of Relationships

During Bhavana’s December visit, we decided to travel to Los Angeles. It was not just sightseeing. It was a tour of people.

We met Subhash Mantri, Deodas Rathi, and Chandrakala Rathi. We also stayed with Shilpa Fattepuria, the daughter of our family friend from Wardha, Ramesh Fattepuria. Sitting in her living room, talking about Wardha names and Wardha stories, the distance between California and Vidarbha shrank to nothing.

Denver: Cricket at 2 AM

My American year had one final chapter after Berkeley.

Before flying back to India in May 2005, I took a flight from Oakland to Denver to visit Ravi Kachaliya and his wife Shyamala.

Ravi came from a Wardha family everyone knew. His father, Bhupatbhai, ran Panchsheel Store, a cloth shop that had dressed half the town. Ravi had built a life in America, earned two Master’s degrees, and established himself in finance. He lived in a large home in Denver, but he carried Wardha inside him.

For four days, Shyamala fed me Gujarati food that tasted as if it had travelled straight from our kitchens: dhokla, thepla, undhiyu. Ravi and I were both night owls. We sat up late, watching India vs Pakistan matches on his big television, cheering and complaining like seasoned selectors. We also spoke about books, swapping authors and arguing gently over who wrote better sentences.

Those nights were the perfect winding down. After months of deadlines and lectures, Denver felt like a long exhale.

What “Home” Really Means

On the flight back to India, I realised something simple.

I had gone to America to study public health. I did learn epidemiology and statistics, of course. But I also learned something else, something quieter and deeper: home is not a building. Home is people.

It was Madhu saving me from saying “San-Joes” for the rest of my life. It was Uma making tea even when she was tired. It was Raju driving us around like we belonged there. It was Ravi watching cricket with me at odd hours and talking about Wardha as if we had never left.

They took a foreign country and wrapped it in familiarity.

And because of them, even when I was far from India, I never felt far from home.