Memories, Tributes & Stories
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We would love to hear your stories, memories, and tributes to our mom, Ruby.
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Email: rdholakia [at] gmail [dot] com
For a while in life Ruby and I walked the same path developing a deep and abiding friendship
Knowing this determined, adventurous, generous Ruby opened my world intellectually, culturally, and not to be underestimated, gastronomically.
I will forever be grateful.
I will mis Ruby terribly but she will always remain in my heart.
— Juel Plotkin,
Dear Friend and Neighbor
I will miss you in my life, Ruby. You’ve been there since we were teenagers. You’ve been a dynamo - a force to be reckoned with.
As I look back over my life and think of all the different stages we passed through, you were always there with friendship, laughter, stories, adventures and great conversations and challenges
My parents were so impressed by you when you came to our house in Hollister at 15 after you arrived from Calcutta… and the educational goals you set yourself and your achievements …and then later my father was so pleased when you helped him celebrate turning 100 in Rhode Island.
We’ve had wonderful marriages with amazing men who have brought great meaning to our lives.
We have always shared our love and our pride in our children … and our frustrations (but that’s a mother’s prerogative, isn’t it?)… but always pride and love. We’ve shared our families and our homes and we’ve shared lives and losses but your’s is going to be a hard one.
You will be forever in my life and I am grateful for that.
— Sandy Pearson,
Lifelong Friend
Within the first few months I joined the doctoral program at Northwestern, Nikhilesh and I became very good friends. He had joined the program a year earlier.
Ruby joined the program a year after I did and my memory is that I met her before Nikhilesh met her. In her beautiful saris and her small frame her huge intelligence and strong personality were so impressive that I immediately told Nikhilesh how impressed I was and introduced them to each other.
Nikhilesh’s memory is that it was the department chair who introduced them. We’ll have to ask Ruby about that when we are having tea all together again!
— Fuat Firat,
Lifelong Friend & Colleague
Ruby will always be my friend, guru, and mentor. It was an honor to be her research assistant and do a directed study with her. I had this impulse to salute her every time we met. Her leadership was rooted in hard work, analysis, and care.
As an international student I was never at a loose end on holidays as I was invited to Ruby and Nik's place.
She had this naughty smile and her eyes lit up when she was teasing someone. Ruby's light shone so bright trailblazing her way through life. I will always miss Ruby.
— Seema Arora,
Student and Dear Friend
Our beautiful and beloved Ruby Bhabhi/Ruby Mami
Throughout our lives, you have been an inspiration, a role model, has been a rock solid family support and a pillar of strength for all of us.
Your Academic & research brilliance, artistic excellence, art connoisseur, Interior Design, Avid Gardening, and enthusiastic travels & globetrotting.
In so many ways and at so many levels, you showed us how to live the life to the fullest, with joy and fervor.
We will Cherish the wonderful memories of the times spent with you and Nikhilda.
You are and will forever remain in our hearts and minds. We love you.
— Hemangi, Shishpal, Tushar, Shruti, Sameer
Dearest Ruby, You were the best!
You outscored thousands of Calcutta students to gain admission to UC Berkeley when only 16 years old. As Peace Corps' best Bengali teacher and ambassador, you enabled me to experience your rich culture and the best times of my life. You became an esteemed, highly honored marketing professor.
As a stroke victim, your tenacity enabled you to recover and enjoy several more quality years. Dhan yabada amara srestha bandhu. Tumi srestha!.
— Ron D Gillespie, Dear Friend from Peace Corps
“Ruby, a fierce feminist, proud Bengali, world traveler, superb scholar, my teacher, and colleague for half a century in the US. A much loved family friend. We will miss her sorely.”
— Anil & Abha Pandya
“Ruby - I can’t fathom, even the thought that you no longer amongst us! You were an inspiration and touched many lives, including mine, both professionally and as a very dear friend. Your spirit to fight in the face of adversity was admirable, and so was your zest for life.
I loved hearing stories from your travels around the globe, your fun house parties in Rhode Island, and seeing your eclectic art collection. I will miss our annual trips to Boston’s Chinatown, and the catch ups over dim sum. RIP. ❤️”
— Sunil Harpalani
“Ruby was a mentor, a friend and a great colleague of mine since my first semester at URI. Her wisdom and light touched and guided my career in many regards, and her memory will continue to shine.”
— Prof. Shaw K Chen
There are so many memories of Ruby Mashi helping me, giving advice, supporting me throughout my life that’s it’s hard to focus on one thing, because she has been such an integral part of everything.
But one thing I really remember is a party at Ma and Baba’s house when I was almost a teenager and Ruby Mashi came to my room and asked for “rock music” because she wanted to dance. Ritik and I stared in horror (at least on my part) watching all of our parents and others dance to a cassette tape of Heart.
Now I just always remember that joy and fun of that night, Ruby Mashi shaking things up and making everyone dance! I’ll always cherish that memory.
— Simanti Lahiri
I have fond memories of Ruby Dida. I will remember her as a woman of exceptional fortitude, sharp intellect, and kindness. I first met her, when I was a kid at our old place at Harish Mukherjee Road in Kolkata.
The year was around 1977-78. While spending time with me, she drew the solar system and explained why ‘when it’s daytime in my city, it’s bedtime in the USA.’
Many years later, when I came to Canada for my higher studies, I had a chance to interact with her more often. I remember how she enjoyed talking on the phone about Anajn Dutta’s songs and Rituparna Ghosh’s movies.
Ruby Dida was fond of ‘culture,’ and I perceive that as her quintessential Bengaliness. She invited me to visit her place in Rhode Island in 2004. Since I was a student studying on a scholarship, she made it a point that I didn’t pay for that long flight from Vancouver to Providence.
Ruby Dida and Nikhil Dadu visited our place in London Ontario in 2019. We spent a wonderful week together doing local sightseeing and having vibrant adda sessions over food and drinks. I will miss Ruby Dida. I will always remember her as a woman of substance. May her soul rest in peace.
— Anisha Datta
My association with Ruby is via Ronbabu, her Bengali student and friend of 60 years and subsequently mine.
There are quite a few memories and one particularly stands out.
Babu was attending a meeting in Bruxelles and I tagged along. During that time it happened Ruby and Nik was also there.
They popped up at our hotel room for a visit, and although we had forgotten, it was Thanksgiving day and wouldn't you just know it, Ruby reached into her purse pulled out and presented us with a can of cranberry sauce!!!
— Tondalaya Gillespie,
Dear Friend
We first got to know Ruby through our son’s friendship with her son. Strong feminist, warm and generous personality are the words that come to mind when I think of her.
She was proud of her Bengali heritage and introduced the neighbors and her co-workers to Indian culture through the Diwali celebrations at their homes in Wakefield and later in Narragansett. It was something we always looked forward to.
For several years at URI she trained students to dance, choreographing several dances to fit into a 2 hour colorful and exciting program enjoyed by a packed audience.
Later when we formed a book group she brought her unique insights and sense of humor. After their move to CA we formed a video book group and will always remember Monday evenings where 4 women exchanged ideas and had lots of fun. 4 women exchanged ideas and had lots of fun. She showed us her beautiful Jasmine fence and many times the bounty from her garden like the basket of lemons. We didn’t know that April 8th would be the last time the four of us would meet together, online, exchanging serious thoughts and giggling - we miss her.
— Ingrid Yogaratnam,
Dear Friend and Neighbor
What a great academic and family friend. I will remember for ever her straight forward and incisive comments and wit on any thing. The first time the two of us, at very early stage of our career, joined hands on redesigning a highly registration depleted course called Marketing Research and Information Systems (32 registrations to be precise!) at IIMA. This required not only a redesign but also preparation of several technical notes.
It was so satisfying to note that the course became the most successful course in the marketing area and remained so for more than two decades.
The other memorable joint work that Ruby was involved along with three others including Nikhil, Labdhi and me (all at the early beginning of our academic career), was design and offering of a new executive development programme called Product Policy and New Product Management. This too continued till about middle of first decade of this century.
During her short stints with IIMA, she also authored / co-authored several technical notes and cases registered at IIMA Case Center, some of them are still being used.
She was an excellent friend and host to us. Kumkum and I remember her inviting us just after our marriage in 1978 and serving us yam pakoras! This was a delicacy we had for the first time in our life!! Besides we fondly remember taking short strolls with Nikhil and Ruby and little Ritik in a pram on the campus at Ahmedabad.
Our association continued since then and we met all the time Ruby and Nikhil visited Ahmedabad and when I visited at Rhode Island. And every time she visited us a common topic of exchange between Kumkum and her was her daughter Nishita and our daughter Anjali. We will remember her as a great friend and an academic par excellence with a dash of humour.
Our prayers to almighty for her soul to rest in peace and give courage to Ritik, Nishita, and all in the family and especially Nikhil to bear the great loss.
— Prof. Abhinandan Jain
Some memories are stronger than others. One that is distinctly etched in my mind is the time that I visited Ruby and Nik in Japan. We did some wonderful sightseeing together, most notably to the large Buddha statue in Kamakura. Against the backdrop of blue skies and dense woods,the temple and its environs were breathtaking.
We then visited one of their friends in Osaka, where I bought my first Obe sash. Upon Ruby and I’s simultaneous love for the sash we immediately decided to divide it in two. I am unsure if she kept her section of the Obe with her in Hollister, but mine has been with me since that trip.
Holding on to this beautiful work of art is like sustaining my friendship with Ruby. The sash is texturally fragile, rich in symbolic value, and rare. It looks as stunning today as it did all those years ago, freshly recalling my connection to Ruby.
— Jamy Joy
I will miss Ruby. She was one of a kind, with a pun on Kind. She was loving, bright, warm, feisty, open, generous, funny and a great cook.
We met as marketing professors in the 1970s and have shared wonderful times over the years -- at marketing conferences, at their home in Rhode Island (when I was living in Massachusetts) in the 1980s, and in Japan (when she was on a long visit and I lived there) in the 1990s; and phone chats over the years.
Several months ago I spoke to her by phone -- she in California and I in Florida. She has always been in my heart, as I know I have been in hers. My life was enhanced because Ruby and Nik too have been in my life.
She is at peace, an angel on the other side, in the spirit world, I will remember her always, will miss her on Earth, and believe our energetic/spiritual connection is forever. Love you, Ruby...
- Larry Rosenberg
A memory is cooking together with Ruby at our house. I cooked tonkatsu in the kitchen and Ruby came in and offered me a hand. She was curious about new things and eager to know about things. We had a laugh while cooking. It was a nice memory for me.
And another memory is her dancing. I can't remember the place but Nik and Ruby were invited to the conference and we went to one of the events which was dancing and she was good at it. We Japanese were too shy to dance but eventually I joined because she encouraged us!
To me, she was energetic, curious about new things, funny and kind. I wanted to meet her one more time.
- Fumiko Usui
I met Ruby for the first time when I visited Nik during one of my trips to US. Very welcoming and with great sense of humor - though most of the times it was challenging to figure it out whether Ruby was joking or not... but I assume we all learned after series of encounters...
I had a pleasure of receiving Ruby and Nik in Moldova for the ISMD conference in 2018 and in Copenhagen for the LNETN conference in 2023.
Always great company, lots to learn from, especially from her passion with marketing...
May you rest in eternal peace...
- Prof. Romeo V. Turcan, Aalborg University
When I met Ruby Dida for the first time around 2006 in Kolkata, I was making plans to join my wife Anisha in Vancouver. As she heard about my plans, she commented with a straight face that “your babu lifestyle and leftism will not work in Canada, life there is quite hard.”
What impressed me from day one was her confidence and the way she made precise and logical arguments. She will be missed. Rest in power Ruby Dida.
— Indranil Chakraborty,
Dear Family
In loving memory of Ruby, we remember her as a source of wisdom, unwavering support for junior faculty, and a passionate advocate for our university.
Ruby's guidance and encouragement uplifted many of us, fostering growth and confidence. Ruby's presence will be deeply missed, yet her legacy will forever inspire us.
- Prof. Bingxuan Lin, URI College of Business colleague
Ruby was indeed a very special person who left the world a better place through her inspiring achievements as wife, mother, scholar, teacher, friend, mentor, colleague, and grandmother.
She may have been small in stature, but she was truly colossal in intellect, scholarship, travel, family, knowledge dissemination, and leadership.
Ruby was one of a kind. We were blessed being in her light. Her spirit lives on.
- Stu Westin & Rebecca Armitage
I still remember when Ruby picked me up from the airport for my campus visit at URI. She was so genuine and kind to me and I felt like talking to my mom.
I learned from her to be confident and speak my mind, which changed me forever for the better. I remember fishing close by her house and thinking to myself that I need to catch a big fish to share the joy with her and then I did.
I will never to able to match her passion for research and teaching but I will always be inspired by her. I am grateful to have her as a colleague, a mentor, and a friend.
- Feihong Xia