At the D’Mello residence in Mahim, Christmas came early this year. It was sometime in September 2020, when Arthur D’Mello, 87, found his Santa’s number on a WhatsApp forward. He remembers calling up immediately, with just one wish: “I need a friend, who works as a lawyer, and can get a laptop along.” It may have seemed like a strange request, but his Santa knew just the person for this. That’s how Gargi Sandu, 27, came into Arthur and his wife Joyce’s life. This Christmas, the senior couple celebrated the gift of this new family member. “Gargi is like a granddaughter to me,” says Joyce, an organist, who has played at St Michael’s Church in Mahim for 66 years. For Arthur, who is a veteran legal expert, Sandu, a corporate lawyer, became the dependable associate he could bank on for activism. “[Ever since we met] I have taken on battles with every possible e-commerce giant [in the country],” says the lawyer. Sandu jokingly adds, “He has not even spared the CM of Maharashtra and the Pope.” The two are speaking about the many formal complaint letters Arthur has dispatched in the last few weeks, courtesy Sandu, who drafted all correspondence on her laptop. “With uncle, it’s like going back to law school,” she admits.

Their Santa aka Shantanu Naidu, who is sitting across us in the D’Mellos’ drawing room, is smiling. Naidu, author, startup founder and business assistant to Ratan Tata, is hoping to share Arthur and Joyce’s happiness with other grandparents as well.