With my daughter 🥰

The other day as I was buying my lunch at our cafeteria, I get a message on our family group from my daughter Rhea. She is in her office today.

Her office is 3 minutes from mine. I said “come over and let’s have lunch”. Then she said she wanted to see where I work. Ok Why not? I am legit 😁

She wants to know why this time in my career all of a sudden I found revived enthusiasm about work. I go to office some days as early as 6 AM. What is making me do it.

It is because I love the people I work with. How do I convey that to her?

I got her a vistor badge and she came to see where I work.

The first thing she noticed coming up to my desk is a banana peel I had forgotten to throw into the waste basket and the total disarray of my desk. Books, pen, tissue, cups and so on.

She looked at my desk and then at me and shook her head. I said “I feel so much at home at work” 😄

She agrees.

But then I find that all my team mates were in meetings, my manager was travelling. She asks me..

“Dude… Where are all your homies…”

Now I had to prove I knew people around there. that I belonged here. that my existence was well acknowledged and appreciated here.

I took her around the office. We walked around. Father and Daughter. luckily some people I work with came around as we walked and I introduced her.

“Hey this is my daughter Rhea.” their face brightens up… and they ask what she was doing and I tell them

“She works at NVIDIA”

I felt good.. very good. It is a surreal feeling.

That little girl who one day in her first grade came home and told us that some kids in her class were taunting her that she could never read chapter books and will have to just settle with picture books.

And now she works in a company next to mine. It feels good. It feels so complete.

I then took her to meet some of my colleagues.. I found them. I introduced her to them. And then I introduced her to the person who hired me at my company.

I wanted to show her how important it is to say ‘Thank You’ in ways that words can never do.

And then she left. A day we remember and will cherish…. Rhea…I wish you all the best in your life and career. and I will quote a few lines from Carl Sandburg‘s poem A father to his son… But it is so much for a daughter..

I made a small change to make it for a daughter.

“Let her seek deep for
where she is born natural.
Then she may understand
Shakespeare and the Wright brothers,
Pasteur, Pavlov, Michael Faraday
and free imaginations
Bringing changes into
a world resenting change.
She will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
she knows as her own“

As I was leaving office one of my team mates said. “it is good that you connect well with your daughter”

I said. “It is not me, it is her“

Thank You Usha… Rhea has learned to see and communicate in this world through you. I still remember you asking her to spell ‘that’ and she would say ‘there’.

Thank You