Bubba:
I call my maternal grandfather Bubba. It comes from Aba, which means grandfather in Marathi. However, when we were babies, all of his grandkids started calling him Bubba — and the name stuck.
He is 75 years old and is a practicing dentist in Pune, where he lives with my grandmother.
This year, he will complete 52 years of private dental practice. He studied at the prestigious Nair Dental College in Mumbai. During his college years, he frequented Irani and Parsi cafés and even taught himself to cook some of their recipes. One particular dish he loves to make for us is egg salli or salli per eedu.
I love eating my Bubba’s egg salli for breakfast — he makes it for us every time we visit India or when he visits us here in Singapore. It’s eggs on a bed of thin potato straws, with onions, tomatoes, and a mix of spices. It’s delicious.
Bubba is a man with many friends across the world and countless interests. He used to be an avid badminton player. However, in the 1990s, while on his way to his dental clinic in Pune, a pedestrian suddenly ran across a traffic light and into oncoming traffic. In an attempt to save the man (who was jaywalking), Bubba tried to stop, but fell — and his Kinetic scooter landed on his knee. He had to undergo emergency ligament surgery. At the time, ligament repair procedures were not as advanced as they are today.
Despite the pain, he didn’t stop working — he continued going to his dental clinic on crutches for a couple of months until he recovered fully. He is not someone who gives up easily.
Even though he could no longer play sports that required running or heavy knee movement, he decided to take up golf. He realized it was a sport that would keep him active and social, while also being gentle on his knee.
He became quite good at it — in fact, he once scored a hole-in-one at the Poona Club Golf Course! He still loves golf and has many fond memories of the sport he picked up later in life — including playing a round with the great cricket legend Kapil Dev.
If you visit his clinic, you’ll see a photograph of him with Kapil Dev, taken at the Poona Club Golf Course.
I love that photograph.