1976: Had two job offers on the same day – Citi and BofA – and on the following morning, a third from another US bank, over a surreptitious, illegal “coffee” date off-campus! (MWJ, I think you know!) I joined BofA in Calcutta – as did KS “Ramu” Ramdas. (Hi buddy!) 

 

Within weeks, I was researching a ‘fiancée visa’ to enter the US, because, by 1976, young women were being overnight, it seemed, appointed as VPs in BofA and elsewhere with as little as 1-2 years’ experience, thanks to America’s 1972 Equal Opportunity Act – and the EOA was not even applicable in India! 

 

Then, Anand came to Calcutta after his Citibank training in Athens to propose marriage, and I agreed. Anand was posted to Delhi, the only Big Four city where BofA didn’t have a branch! 

 

I quit and went home to Bombay, printed invitations and got married. (I heard years later that BofA was totally miffed and didn’t go back to recruit at the campus for a number of years after I bolted for no professional reason. A big belated ‘Sorry’ to myself and to IIMA generations after.) 

 

In the event, my last hurrah was with an American bank, Chase, in NY: somehow I had gotten back, in surprisingly good shape, onto a serious career track, despite Black Monday 1989! 

 

Alas, Chase didn’t survive it really, stuttering by 1995 when Anand quit and moved to Singapore; I followed in 1996, this time calling it quits for real and renewing my professional art interests. 

 

For me, then, with children and all, life was mostly about being ‘accompanying spouse’ to Anand on his career through 8 cities across 5 continents, making 15 homes for us and two kids and pulling them in and out of 8 schools, not counting nursery and kindergarten! 

 

Our girls, Sveta (an award-winning strategist, now with Ogilvy, married to Joe Doucet, an acclaimed product designer) and Amia, (Rhodes scholar, All Souls fellow, PhD, professor at UCL,) have turned out to be joyful, thoughtful, and accomplished, in spite of or because of all this upheaval. So I/we did something right – against the odds, and blessed. 

 

We moved to London in 1999. We welcomed the new millennium unforgettably – in Iceland with the Northern Lights playing an overture in the skies above us. Magical. 

 

I teach theatre & performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London, serve on art-related committees, perform occasionally, write on dance and critique culture, present papers and discussions; I mentor and receive the trust of young performers, and enjoy friendship and standing among my peers as a creative artist and artistic consultant. 

 

I love being in London as I yo-yo between the US and India on family projects, and to see surviving parents and our gorgeous grandchildren, Saana (5) and Simran 

(1), and our sweet step-grandson Roman (12). 

 

I am focussing on staying healthy in body and mind, happily engaged with life, to make more time after 2017 for travel, reading, writing, and for friends & family and celebrations – which brings me to Goa! It is going to be fun!