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9.16
Joyful Chaos
How Our House Filled Up With Wheels, Books, Cards, and Noise
When Diti arrived on 14 March 2013—delivered by caesarean section in our own hospital—something shifted quietly in our lives. Till then, our home had the predictable rhythm of two working professionals: early mornings, hospital hours, the usual fatigue, the usual order. With one baby, it turned into something else altogether. A house that once valued silence began to tolerate toys. A home that ran on schedules began to run on giggles.
Diti did not arrive gently. She arrived with energy—pure, restless, unstoppable energy. Even as a toddler, she seemed permanently in motion, as if she had been born with a small motor inside her.
Diti and the Bicycle
In 2016, I discovered long-distance cycling, and Diti—then five—fell in love with it the way children fall in love with new worlds: completely. Her father bought her a small bicycle. Soon she was weaving through the staff quarters and gardens of Sevagram, ringing her bell with authority, as if she owned the campus.
By the time she was seven, she became my riding partner.
During COVID, when schools shut down and the world shrank to the four walls of home, cycling became our escape. We would pedal to Pavnar—a six-kilometre stretch that offered everything a cautious adult dislikes: steep underpasses, sudden cattle, and stray dogs that appear out of nowhere like examiners in a viva.
Diti tackled them with a fearlessness that amazed me. Twice she cycled twenty kilometres non-stop. On those rides she asked for stories, as if the rhythm of pedalling opened the mind to listening. I told her about my childhood in Arvi, about Gandhi, and about the history of the land we were riding through. Those wind-swept mornings, with the road empty and the air clean, remain among the happiest of my life.
A Child Who Lives in Books
If Diti’s legs belonged to wheels, her mind belonged to books.
She became a voracious reader. She began with The Jungle Book, moved to Enid Blyton, and by the age of nine had devoured all seven Harry Potter books. She read at the dining table while her food went cold. She read in the car. When the house became too noisy, she discovered the one place nobody disturbs a child for long: the bathroom. Many chapters were completed there, in peace.
I introduced her to Greek mythology videos, and she was captivated by Odysseus and his treacherous journey. She could visualise Scylla and Charybdis, and she was genuinely outraged by the cruelty of Greek kings—as if she were reading the news, not a legend. Diti doesn’t merely read stories. She moves into them.
Nivi: The Naturalist
On 18 November 2016, Nivi joined the team.
If Diti is the intellectual adventurer, Nivi is the grounded naturalist. She has her sister’s stamina—she managed an eight-kilometre cycle ride through Sevagram at the tender age of five—but her true element is nature. She watches trees the way some children watch cartoons.
Nivi went to Anand Niketan, a Marathi-medium school in Sevagram. At first, she struggled—as newcomers do—then she did what she often does: she adjusted quietly and mastered the language. By her second year she spoke Marathi with ease, as if she had always belonged to it.
She loved walking with her Dadi, Bhavana, near our home, observing plants with intense curiosity. She notices small things: a new leaf, a fallen flower, a bird call. She is also our fruit connoisseur. A fruit vendor makes her eyes light up. She can move from strawberries to mangoes with devotion, and—true Sevagram child that she is—she also loves baingan ka bharta with equal enthusiasm.
Uno, and the Art of Outwitting Dadi
Nivi’s favourite pastime, however, is Uno with Bhavana. She plays with a sly intelligence that is both charming and mildly alarming. She often outmanoeuvres her grandmother with a mischievous grin and the confidence of someone who has studied her opponent carefully.
During the long anxious days of the pandemic, their daily hour of Uno became a ritual—part entertainment, part therapy. It kept the house sane. It kept all of us smiling.
As the girls grew older, they began sleeping in our room. Their breathing, their clutter, their presence—everything that would have once felt like disturbance—began to feel like comfort. In the middle of busy professional lives, they reminded us that the most important title we held was not “Doctor” or “Professor,” but “Dada” and “Dadi.”
Krit: The Firecracker
Then came Krit, born to Amrita in December 2020.
Krit is different. He is rowdy, boisterous, and utterly charming—one of those children who can turn a quiet house into a festival in five minutes. Living in Chandigarh, he started crèche at the age of one, joining thirty other children at PGI. By the summer of 2021, he had become a character.
On a flight with Amrita, he entertained the entire cabin with his antics. When they visited us in Sevagram, the house became a playground in full rebellion. Diti described him best, with the sharpness of an elder cousin who watches closely:
“He’s funny, smart, determined, and happy. Like Nivi, he loves food. And like me, he opens any book he can find—even though he can’t read yet.”
Even as a baby, he had a strong will. He rarely cried, but he always made his presence felt.
Samanvi: Born on a Birthday, Raised Across Continents
The family grew again on 14 March 2024—coincidentally, Diti’s birthday. Samanvi was born in Chandigarh. In a beautiful twist of fate, she was delivered by Dr Riti Narang, a “Sevagram girl,” an MGIMS alumna, and the daughter of our faculty colleagues—now an accomplished obstetrician. As promised, it was a natural delivery.
Bhavana rushed from Sevagram to Chandigarh as soon as the news arrived. Naming the baby, however, took its own sweet time. For six months, the child remained nameless while Amrita scoured lists, school registers, and the internet with the seriousness of someone selecting a lifelong identity. Finally, half a year later, she became Samanvi.
In December 2024, the story took a transcontinental turn. Amrita, along with Krit and Samanvi, moved to Richmond, USA, to join Sahaj, who had secured a faculty position in Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
The first year in a new country is never easy. It is a trial by fire—viral infections, new schools, unfamiliar systems, and the absence of the Sevagram support network where a doctor is always one phone call away. Bhavana travelled to Richmond twice over the last year, helping Amrita set up home and settle the children.
Watching them adjust to life in America, I realised something that made me both proud and slightly wistful: our roots in Sevagram had grown wings. The family that began in a small quarter in Wardha was now spreading across the globe—still connected, still familiar, just farther away than we had ever imagined.