My parents’ unusual lives in India and Africa

In September of 1945, two months before they left for Nyasaland (now Malawi), East Africa, my parents Mangal and Madhav Thorat got this photograph taken in a photo studio in Poona (now Pune) by a photographer named Patwardhan. As the photograph may reflect, my parents liked to dress up well. What it also holds is a story of their unusual pasts, and future together.

Outwitting Destiny For Love

Just before their marriage, a respected family astrologer and priest was called in who went through Dadaji’s horoscope with a fine tooth comb. It seems that he predicted that Dadaji would marry twice. The planetary positions could not lie, he proclaimed, and it was unavoidable destiny.