Grandfather of the pictures

This photograph was one of many on a similar wall, and I had seen it all my life growing up. Albeit for some odd reason, what should have been so obvious in this photograph, was a blind spot to me; and it took a school friend to gasp and point out that, “that is a German Swastika!” in the background.

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.