thefeministwriterwhogoesmeh

Hi, lovely people! I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything substantial, but here I am! I’ve finally got enough time to write something nice.

I’ve written stuff about my mom on this blog and I had a lil’ tidbit about my dad too, but I wanted to write something more generous about my dad. He’s a cool guy.

I’ll give ye a little background on my dad: his name is Manish, he’s educated in the field of chemical engineering, he’s done jobs in that particular field for 3 years, and then switched over to IT and did that for almost 18 years. Now he’s an entrepreneur with a business called Zigyasaw, which focuses on creating educational aids like floor puzzles, flashcards, etc. He also has a blog on wordpress, but he’s a newbie, hehe.

Wow, I read this through and it sounds so crappy, (no offense, father) but it really misses out on the essence of who he is. Funny how that sometimes happens, innit?

Nah, he deserves better. Alright, I’ll start over. My dad, Manish Joshi, is probably the one of the happiest people I know. Like, it’s hard to find so much optimism nowadays. He loves his daughters very, very much. He loves what he does, puts his entire soul into it. Never met a more hardworking man. He’s the kind of dad who doesn’t have a steady supply of dad jokes, but can make one up on the spot. He’s a very cool guy, as a dad and as a human being. Y’all ain’t gonna meet a lot of dudes like my dear daddio.

The past few years have been mixed with the brainchild of my phather, momeh and mon oncle, called Zigyasaw. It’s been quite a journey, with its fair share of twists and turns (I read over this again and I have never seen anything so damn cliched, but it’s alright). Our entire family has been invested in the progress of Zigyasaw, and frankly, it’s been really fun!

We started with only floor puzzles, coz my baby sister was super into them. She was always a late sleeper, so she’d be staying awake, doing all these puzzles with my dad. The next morning, the floor would be completely covered with them! She’d even learn stuff from the puzzles; we had a puzzle of the map of the USA and she memorized all of the names of the states.

This pushed my parents to create designs for large floor puzzles that were easy to clean and more durable. The very first floor puzzle design was of a map of Maharashtra. It was a crude design, but when it was printed on the board and cut into the puzzle pieces, my dad was probably the happiest person in the world! He was grinning from ear to ear, just so excited about having his small idea turned into something tangible, something unique.

We are much further along than that hot afternoon, having expanded the products to flashcards, wooden toys, and other games. We have more than 40,000 customers around the world, and there are about a thousand orders coming in every month. But no matter how big the company may get, the look on my dear daddio’s face when he sees a positive comment on amazon or a 5 star review always takes me back to that first time he saw the Maharashtra puzzle. Satisfied, content with his work and how it’s going. Amazement at how far he’s come. Pure glee. That’s always a beautiful thing.