Happy
Birthday,
Vaish.

The first time your dad held you, you gave him a wet surprise. The whole room burst out laughing.

He still calls it one of the most cherished memories of his life. The first grandchild in both families, with the undivided attention of every aunt and uncle in the room. It wasn't all ease, though: a brutal colic in your third month had you in real pain, the kind that worries everyone around a tiny baby. You came through it the way you came through most things after, quietly, and kept right on wanting to play.

You had a cough as a baby in Saudi Arabia that only ever came at night. Your dad recorded it on a tape recorder and played it for the doctor, just to be believed. That is the kind of attention you were raised inside.

At two and a half, your mum was sick and alone at home. You walked over, placed a banana in her hands, brought water, and sat with her. Nobody taught you to do that. "I can't forget that loving gesture," she still says.

Eight years old. Already five cities deep.

Trichur to Kochi. Mumbai. Jamnagar. Back to Mumbai. Saudi Arabia. Your dad calls these his "crazy moves." You just lived up to every one, without complaint. He sent you alone on a flight to Kochi at five years old, to stay with your grandparents. "It breaks my conscience now," he says. "Were we proving that a bold child was in the making?" The answer turned out to be yes.

You were a slim, picky eater, curd rice, or plain dosa, and not much else, and it caused your young mum real stress at mealtimes, the kind new mothers get from elders and other mothers watching too closely. Decades later, it still makes her laugh: some things never moved, even while everything else did.

You longed for a sibling. Your parents noticed. Then Achu arrived.

You were eight. Your dad remembers how you'd leave for school excited just to come home to her. A nickname a Rajasthani waiter gave you both on a family trip stuck for life: Chinky and Minky. "I don't think I could ever survive a family outing without her," Achu says now. "She is truly just a ball of joy and the cure to my boredom." You were, and you are.

You said nothing in the interview. Then walked back in alone and got the admission.

The principal asked questions. You wouldn't open your mouth, not even for the chocolate he offered. He nearly refused to admit you. Your mum took you outside and asked if you'd try once more. You agreed. You walked back in by yourself. You spoke beautifully. You got in. Nobody coached you on what to say. You just decided to go back.

Mid-term of fifth class, and you moved again.

Walking down the hill to school in Muscat with your friends, your bag weighing more than you did. One night, a drive home through flooded roads and hills in pouring rain, with Achu and your mum in the car, that your dad still calls unforgettable and dreadful. Six months later: pack up, back to Qatar. Another adventure, another move. You just lived up to all of it.

Eight years in one place, the longest stretch you'd ever had. You loved it. In class 7, or maybe 8, a group of classmates ganged up against you. You stood your ground without running to anyone. You just handled it. "That is something I am proud of," your mum says. "You were brave." In class 11, something shifted; you became vocal. You started talking to everyone with the kind of ease that, your mum says, only a few people ever really have.

Off to engineering school. You became a mechanic for one summer, basically by accident.

Bangalore. Built a go-kart in university. Tested pepper spray on a public bus and made the whole carriage cough. Asked your dad to take you to malls to use the toilet more times than either of you can count. "Are you still?" he asks, already knowing the answer. Achu would drag you to paint, certain you'd resist. You'd resist, sit down anyway, and produce something that made everyone stop and look. Reluctant to try. Brilliant anyway. It is one of the most Vaish things about you.

Surprises ran both directions in your family. Your dad once kept it secret that the three of you already had tickets to Baku, only revealing it after you'd landed back from Tbilisi. And more than once, you and Achu turned the tables and surprised your mum the moment you came home from Bangalore, just to see her face. Nobody in that family could ever quite resist a good surprise.

That toilet-stop habit from the malls had a darker cousin: when your dad couldn't reach you at college, more than once, he called the police, or campus security, just to check you were alright. You responded, eventually, by changing his ringtone to an ambulance siren, so at least the panic would sound appropriate. (Years later, you'd do the exact same thing to Achu, for the exact same reason. Apparently it runs in the family now.)

One ordinary day, you walked your mum into a shoe shop and bought her a pair of shoes she still calls the best she's ever worn. No occasion. No reason. You just noticed, and you did it. It's the same shape as the banana at two and a half, just grown up.

A lockdown hit you like a truck. You responded by throwing a community into existence.

Master's at ANU. A pandemic mid-semester, and you, as Deepthi puts it, "cannot sit still or be confined into a small space." So you organised events, walks, dinners, meetups. Went to libraries and cafes just to be near people, despite a global health crisis. Pulled introverts out of their apartments. Made strangers feel like they belonged before they even knew your name. It was here Deepthi met you at a CMA cultural event, introduced as "Meet Vaishnavi, a Tamilian Mallu." Here that Mal became one of your closest friends. A whole community, conjured out of a year when nobody could leave their apartment, simply because you refused to let anyone feel alone.

Lockdown eased. You moved to Sydney and immediately injured yourself in a way nobody could explain.

Stubbed your toe on the bed frame so badly you needed a doctor, who was, in Deepthi's words, "equally surprised on how she managed to injure her toes in a manner that seemed abnormal." First job after graduating, in Chatswood. The first of several roles you'd land the hard way, by getting knocked back and going again.

Deepthi graduated and moved to Sydney too, not just for the opportunities. "Since Vaish was in Sydney and I had someone I could trust, rely on, and hang out with." Her first day, you offered to walk her to the station, through a shady car park, across The Rocks, under the Harbour Bridge, into a dead end, in the rain, with no cabs anywhere. You walked all the way to Town Hall together. She double-checks every route now.

That April, you called and asked if she wanted a vacation, just the two of you, her first ever all-girls trip. A week around Brisbane and the Gold Coast, where she watched you walk up to a stranger and become friends with them in minutes. Two thousand photos taken that week. Three or four ever made it anywhere. You introduced her to deep-tissue massage; she complained about the pain for the entire rest of the trip, then booked another session anyway.

Three girls, lost in the wild west of New South Wales.

A weekend trip to Windy Ridge Garden ended with the three of you stranded at a train station with, in Deepthi's words, "no human, animal, or civilization for miles." Instead of panicking, you filmed reels. You found a phone bolted to a wall and called NSW Trains. You hitchhiked a taxi through Lithgow despite there being no listed cab service for miles. "I don't think I would have taken these risks by myself if it weren't for Vaish in the mix," Deepthi says. "Though it seems sketchy, I trust my life with these girls."

The hardest year. You didn't let anyone see the weight of it.

You gave up your fancy apartment in Ryde, with no train access, for somewhere closer to people, closer to Parramatta. Hosted dinners, events, outings, all while carrying more than anyone around you fully saw. "I came across a different version of Vaish," Deepthi says, "one where she was impatient, skeptical, a little scared and a little withdrawn. But this was also the year I recognised her strength, her persistence, the work she would put in to get to her goal. I admire her."

And then, things fell into place.

"Vaish was happier than I had ever seen her," Deepthi says. "More at peace. More settled. She found her home." Deepthi moved back to India that same year, and even from a different continent, you kept her looped in on everything that mattered.

Late 2025: Aishu found you through a Bumble BFF swipe, both of you having missed that the other had already swiped right. She was in a new country, a low phase, badly needing real friends. "I never imagined I would find my best friend here. But I did." Evening walks. Saravana Bhavan. Game nights that turned into more talking than actual playing. Vishu, celebrated properly, in a new country, because you made sure of it.

You became Australian.

A citizenship ceremony. The end of a journey that started with a newborn who gave her father a wet surprise, who moved through cities she never chose, who flew alone at five, who walked back into rooms she'd been afraid to enter, who built community out of nothing more times than she can probably count. Suhas was there. Aishu was there, invited in a phone call she never expected: "The day you called and asked me to be part of one of the most important days of your life made me feel so special. I never expected to be invited, and I'm so grateful I got to celebrate such a huge milestone with you."

Your dad, writing from afar, the same man who once recorded a baby's cough on a tape just to be believed by a doctor: "Proud of you Ammu, always, for every step, all your way up to being an Australian citizen. Keep up the great work, success will follow." He still remembers being delighted, almost startled, the day you told him you'd chosen your partner. "What a great surprise! May God's grace always keep you shining bright. You still have that innocent loving smile and look since your childhood that keeps us all ignited. Spread that smile and the loving glance always, that brightens everyone around you."

For the first time in your life, the place you call home is one you chose. Every move before this one was someone else's decision. This was entirely yours.