Tara Bhadbhade (nee Pandit), born in 1930, has had many avatars over the past eight decades. She has been a lawyer, a lecturer, a sportswoman, a writer, a travel enthusiast, a loyal and loving daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. She is able to juggle all of them and give of her best from every facet of her personality. She is now taking classes in painting and music. She retired as a professor of English in 1989. Throughout her adult life, she has enjoyed writing and continues to write. She is the author of two published books Light &\; Shade in Life's Glade and To Mummy with Love.
It was March 1947 in Belgaum.
I wait for the marker at the union Gymkhana tennis court on a Sunday afternoon. Two young men come down the steps. Madhu Pitre, my classmate in college in 1947, walks like a man with a mission. "This is Madhu Bhadbhade, my friend," says Pitre. The young man with him is tall, fair and freckled. He sports a green shirt, which reflects in his light eyes. "He is looking desperately for a partner in table-tennis," Pitre adds.
Why me? I wonder\; besides, why does his friend need an interlocutor?
Madhu Bhadbhade. As Tara first saw him. 1947
