By Shankar Iyer
HOUSTON: Longtime Sugar Land resident and former National Table Tennis Champion of India, Jay Kabad, has published his first book, a kaleidoscopic memoir titled “The Unseen Hand: Stories for My Grandchildren” — a project that quietly took shape over fifteen years before finally reaching readers.
The Unseen Hand: Stories for My Grandchildren traces Jay Kabad’s life from a childhood in Bangalore, where he was raised by his mother and grandparents after losing his father at age four, through his rise to become India’s National Table Tennis Champion, representing India in world championships.
It follows his move to the United States with two postgraduate degrees and a heavy loan to repay, only to find an economy in double recession rather than the opportunity he expected. Looking back, Jay reflects on the people and moments that arrived at just the right time– the “unseen hand” that, in his view, guided him toward a life of purpose and hard-won significance.
Many have known Jay to be an introverted and humble man, not someone naturally inclined to
talk about himself. But over the years, people kept asking the same kinds of questions: How did you become a Nationally ranked table tennis champion? What was it like to come to America and start your own wealth management business from nothing? With that inspiration, Jay began writing the stories down. A memory here, a family anecdote there — slowly, over a decade and a half, he compiled these fragments alongside old family photographs and yellowed newspaper
clippings from his table tennis days, preserving not only his story but his family’s history.
In 2023, he decided the collection deserved to become something more permanent, and began working formally with editors to shape it into the finished book. The title, The Unseen Hand, reflects something Jay has come to believe deeply as he looks back on his own life: that certain people appeared, or certain events unfolded, at precisely the moment he needed them most — each one quietly redirecting the course of what came next. Some might call it divine intervention.
Others might call it serendipity or plain luck. Jay doesn’t try to settle the question. Instead, the book is his way of acknowledging and expressing gratitude for that unseen hand, that seemed to guide him through the twists of his journey. On Saturday August 22nd evening, friends Indira Vishnampet and Sharma Anupindi organized and hosted a release celebration to mark the book’s publication, at their Sweetwater area residence.
Jay was genuinely overwhelmed by the turnout of friends, family, and community members. He was touched by the warmth of the response. Guests told him that his story felt like their own — the ache of leaving parents behind in India, the grinding early years of hard work, and the stubborn refusal to give up that carries so many immigrants forward. For a man who spent a lifetime rarely speaking about himself, seeing so many people moved by his story was, in itself, unexpected.
That response is really the reason this story is worth sharing beyond the circle of family and friends who already know Jay. Few of us sit down and write out our own histories, even though most of us have lived through our own version of the ups and downs, the hard choices, the quiet turning points.
The Unseen Hand is a reminder that these stories are worth preserving for the future generations who will want to understand where they came from. Jay’s book is now available on Amazon. The Unseen Hand: Stories for My Grandchildren is available for purchase on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Unsen-Hand-Stories-My-Grandchildren/dp/B0HDMF-BQPR.
