In memory of Ramananad (Bob) Savur 14 Jan 1936 to 19 Aug 2010

When I was young, my father told me, “You can be anything you want”. As a child, it felt like a gratifying affirmation of my capabilities. Only as an adult have I realised how lucky I was, an Indian woman of my generation, to have the kind of freedom I had – to travel alone at a young age, to read whatever I wanted, to think and behave independently, to make my own decisions, to never even imagine that boys could be valued more than girls. I inherited a lot from my father, including my features and life attitudes. One of his most precious gifts was to be told I could be anything I wanted, the subtext of which was that I never needed to do something just because other people were doing it.