Our deepest condolences to dear friend Harish and his family for the loss of dear Geeta. It is hard for us to accept this reality. She was a very good friend and we will miss her deeply. 

Grieving friends - Pramod and Pravina Jain

My Anchor, My only support system , My best friend , My Mentor ,...

My Everything: Remembering Gita Vaish

**April 15, 2025**

On April 15, 2025, the world lost a beautiful soul, and I lost my North Star. Gita Vaish was more than a friend, a mentor, or a counselor; she was the ground beneath my feet and the air that gave me life.

They say no one is perfect, but Gitaji gave 2000% of herself every single day. She was my greatest motivator and my unwavering pillar. There were so many times when I felt like I was drowning, overwhelmed by the weight of the world, and every single time, hers was the hand that reached down to pull me to safety. She never judged the struggle; she only ever provided the rescue.

Today, the silence feels heavy. To have been wrapped in a love so rare and a care so singular is a gift I know I will never find again. She loved me with a fierce, unconditional devotion that made me feel invincible, even when I was at my weakest.

Gitaji, you were my sanctuary and my strength. The lessons you taught me and the love you poured into my soul are the only things keeping me afloat now. I carry you with me in every breath, and I will miss you deeply, intensely, and boundlessly until my very last day.

I love you, Gitaji. Thank you for always pulling me through.

*I invite you to honor her memory not just with flowers, but by being the "pillar" for someone else in your life—just as she was for me.

😔 😟 Will miss you , Anju Jain

The news of Gita Vaish's passing came as a sudden shock — the kind that reminds us how swiftly the world can change, and how deeply a single person's presence shapes the lives around them. She left quietly, and yet the silence she leaves behind is anything but small.

Those who knew Gita remember her most for her restless, inquiring mind. Nothing escaped her curiosity — whether it was the latest election, a grandchild's progress in school, or the affairs of the wider world. She engaged with life fully, leaning in rather than sitting back, asking rather than assuming. In a time when many turn inward, Gita looked outward.

"She wanted to know everything — and that was the gift she gave everyone around her: the feeling that everything mattered."

Then there was her kitchen. Gita cooked with the devotion of someone who understood that food is not merely sustenance — it is memory, care, and love made tangible. Her Indian dishes were renowned among family and friends for their depth of flavor and the precision of her hand. Among them, her Karela held a special place — bitter gourd transformed, through her patience and seasoning, into something quietly extraordinary.

What made Gita remarkable was also her gift for people. She moved easily between generations and temperaments, finding common ground where others might not. Her son, her daughter, her grandchildren — all are now navigating the particular grief of losing someone who was, in many ways, the thread that held the fabric together.

She will be missed — not as an abstract idea, but in the small, vivid moments: a dish shared, a question asked, a conversation that lasted longer than expected. Her presence was one of those rare kinds that you only fully recognize once it is gone.

The Lunch

For all sorts of reasons, California kept pulling me back. A research project one year, a conference after that, a job, a grieving friend, a sick friend and other reasons. And almost every single time I found myself in the state, I'd end up at Gita and Harish's house — sometimes for a few days, sometimes just a quick visit, but always a visit.

And almost every single time I left, Gita would send me off with a packed meal.

Not a sandwich thrown in a bag. A meal. Neatly portioned into meticulously shaped boxes, nothing spilling, nothing leaking. Food that was easy to eat on the go. Disposable cutlery. Napkins. The whole thing looked like one of those impossibly perfect lunches you see in American cartoons — the kind a kid opens at the cafeteria table and everyone else stares at with envy.

One time, I was heading to San Diego with one of these lunches in hand. I took the train down, and when I got off at the station, there was a homeless man sitting nearby. He saw me — or more accurately, he saw the lunch.

I handed it to him.

Then I just sort of stood there for a second, because honestly, I wasn't sure if I should have. Someone had made this for me, with care, and here I was giving it away. Was that okay? Was it disrespectful? I didn't know.

But the man had already opened it and taken a bite. And then his eyes widened.

"Where did you get this from?" he asked.

He knew I hadn't made it. I guess something about me gave off the vague aura of a guy who couldn't cook to save his life. Fair enough.

"My grandmother made it," I told him.

That wasn't technically true — Gita is actually my grandfather's sister, so she's really my great-aunt. But in that moment, on a train platform in San Diego, "grandmother" was the closest and simplest word I had for what she was to me.

The man looked at me, then looked down at the food, then back at me.

"Well," he said, "you're some lucky guy."

I was. I am. I didn't fully know it then, standing on that platform — you rarely do when you're young and someone is quietly loving you through packed lunches and patched-up boxes and a hundred small acts you barely notice. But a stranger, eating her food for the first and only time in his life, recognized it instantly.

He was right. I was some lucky guy.

The Dibba

I was twenty-two, moving from Illinois to the Bay Area to start my first job. I was kind of stupid — probably still am — but back then I didn't even know how to pack a box properly. You're supposed to pack them tightly. Mine were loose, sagging things, stuffed with whatever I owned and sent off with a prayer.

I shipped two or three of them to Gita and Harish's house.

The mistakes started before the boxes even left. When I called ahead in Hindi to ask if I could send a box over, I used the word dibba — which technically works, but usually suggests something small, something you could hold in your hands. What I was actually sending were enormous cartons. I didn't know the right word. I didn't know a lot of things.

By the time the boxes reached California, they were full of holes. Everything inside had been jostled and crushed and exposed to whatever the journey had thrown at them. Most people, I think, would have taken one look, called me, and told me to come deal with the mess myself.

Not Gita.

She went through every box. Carefully. She separated what was broken from what had survived, threw away what couldn't be saved, and set aside what could. And somewhere in the middle of all that, she came across my used underwear — tangled up in the chaos of a twenty-two-year-old's cross-country move — and gently, without comment, placed it in the salvage pile.

Think about that for a second. Your great-aunt, your grandmother-figure, someone you love and respect, sorting through your dirty laundry from a journey across the country. If that doesn't give you a small existential crisis, I don't know what would.

But she did it graciously. Kindly. Without a trace of judgment. When I arrived, there was no lecture, no teasing, no story she told at dinner to embarrass me. She just welcomed me in.

I don't think everyone would have done that. I'm certain many people wouldn't have. Gita was a unique person — the kind whose kindness was so unshowy and so complete that you didn't fully understand what you'd received until much later, when you were older and you'd met enough people to know how rare it was.

It's hard for me to believe she's gone. But I'll always remember her kindness.