The daily life story here is one of quiet sacrifice. Meera wanted to buy a designer handbag for Diwali. She bought a steel pressure cooker instead because the old one was leaking steam. Rahul wanted to go on a solo trek to Ladakh. He took the family to a religious pilgrimage instead.
Rahul and Meera Patel are the "Sandwich Generation." They are squeezed between paying for their daughter's engineering college fees and managing their father's cataract surgery. They are the economic engine of the Indian family.
The grandfather takes the children for their music lessons or to the temple. He is the one who narrates the Ramayana under the stairwell light when the power goes out. In the Indian family lifestyle, the elder’s word is law, though that law is softening. Modern stories often show the tension: the grandmother wants the granddaughter to learn Bharatanatyam ; the granddaughter wants to learn hip-hop. The compromise? The granddaughter learns both, and the grandmother buys her a pair of sneakers.