Dadaji, you have left us with so many memories and strong values that each one of us will always remember and we are where we are because of you. You have left the community with strong principles and morals; you have been an institution.  You have been a mentor for many, a successful entrepreneur, an active contributor to society throughout. You have been a strict father, a loving grandfather, and a caring great-grandfather. You were one of a kind, you were the beloved head of our Bahety family.

Your journey for 93 years has been beautiful. You adapted to technology so quickly, and when I think about it, you would not only use your phone for calls but reading news, short stories and also frequently supervising the production of factories remotely. You have been so sharp with your calculations and your memory was fantastic. You remembered minute details and only a few of us would know what you were talking about. The best part was when you said something like “Waha upar se yeh le aana” and expect us to understand – we were often left scratching our heads and clueless. I feel a lot of us (me included) have gotten this habit from you 😊

You were a social star, everyone knew you, you had a mark everywhere you went. The different places that you traveled and your experiences are inspiring stories for the next generation. It was because of your outstanding personality and your conversationalist nature; you could talk to people of any age for any duration. I can bet that people were surprised to listen to your fluent English. The TTE surely was when we were traveling from Delhi to Surat and you also told him sternly to speak properly as he did not believe you were a senior citizen.

It’s nice to recall how you stayed in touch with everyone, asked how they were doing, and specially made sure you knew where each one of your kids was, what time did they fly, how was their flight, when did they land and made sure everyone knew about it. You connected all of us in many ways, other than being the head of the family, you connected our happenings, encouraged us, and pampered in your own ways (by getting bhindi for our school tiffin, and that too, we had to wait for our turns).

You are one of the strongest persons we have known, you have seen so much in your life, from losing your favorites to building an empire, you have accepted different challenges and always stood firm on your rules. You have been an inspiration and taught us the value of savings. I smile as I think that you never owned a wallet, and you were so reluctant on getting a new pair of trousers. You loved the pieces in your closet and I am happy that the sweater I got from the school trip made it in the list after so much convincing.

You have been independent throughout your life, and seeing that was wonderful. You enjoyed picking up leaves from the garden (and you did it patiently), playing badminton with the youngest ones, basking in the sun and you knew exactly what medicines to take when. You traveled solo for work, climbed stairs till the 4^th floor on grandparents’ day to be with us, and made sure you gave us prizes if we scored well and during festivals and birthdays.

Home is not going to be the same, without you, and as much as we are going to miss your love, teaching, and scolding, we have a new challenge to fulfill and make you proud – TO LEAD A FULFILLING AND PURPOSEFUL LIFE AS YOU DID!