Thuk patti is not just a temporary fix, it is a spot of amelioration. When my father left his parents’ home, my grandma grudgingly agreed but not without thuk patti: We had to visit every Sunday.

The routine abrasiveness of our family life dissolved in darkened cinema halls. We’ve cried together in the saddest pits of Kal Ho Naa Ho and laughed like close friends during Hera Pheri.

I’ve come to understand that my Sindhi identity is deeper than the bling and the money and the kadhi chawal. Its roots are about being rootless, about restarting life from zero.

Younger millennials will never understand that we once lived in a world where fathers were milder, yet authentic, replicas of Amrish Puri in DDLJ.