Jacob David Marries Namita Patel

By Jawahar Malhotra        

HOUSTON: Love often finds you in the most unexpected ways, when you aren’t even looking for it. And when love hits you late in life, well, it takes a little getting used to the attention you get from the other person. In the case of this couple, all it took was a little nudge from friends of both to get the ball moving.

It was at the gala for the Indo American Charity Foundation in 2014 which Jacob David was covering for his paper, the Voice of Asia. A Board Director had asked their friend Namita Patel to attend and sit at their table. That evening, during a lull in the event, this reporter, who was then also an IACF Board Director and knew both, casually introduced them to each other. I later suggested to each that they might want to meet over coffee someday.

A couple of weeks later, Jacob and Namita each called to say that they had met and would be meeting again. A few months later, they were hanging out at different places and Jacob had met Namita’s parents in Sugar Land. They began dating, though Jacob, as a single dad was mindful of his son’s needs as he finished high school.  Midway through life, each wanted to take it slowly to get used to each other. And of course, there were many ups and downs along the way.

This past Saturday, September 22, Namita Patel and Jacob David were married in a no-frills ceremony at a Gazebo Garden by Radha, a Fort Bend County Courthouse Judge in Richmond, with only her parents, her sister’s family and his mother as witnesses. The next day, on Namita’s 50th birthday, the couple celebrated in an intimate lunch reception for all their close friends at Maggiano’s on Post Oak.

“The arc of life connects people in mysterious ways,” remarked this reporter as he spoke at the reception. “I have known Namita since she was 4 months old and Jacob used to work for us at Indo American News in 2004 where I mentored him in graphic design. I am overjoyed in helping them find one another.” Namita’s close friends and her younger sister Neha wished the couple well on their nuptials.

Jacob David, 48, was born and raised in Pondicherry, India to a Christian family which had settled there as his father David for Cummins, an engine manufacturer and his mother Saramma, worked as a nurse at the JIPMER Hospital. He received his bachelors in English Literature from Trichy, Tamilnadu, then a Masters in English Literature and another Masters in Philosophy from Pondicherry University, receiving two gold medals, and came to the US in 1995. In 2002 he received his second Master’s in English Literature from the University of Houston.

Jacob has worked in several companies, notably for Voice of Asia twice, for a total of eleven years and currently is a Realtor with Champions Real Estate. He has a son, Nicholas, 20, who is completing a Masters in Forensic Science at University of Houston, Victoria.

Namita Patel, celebrated with her 50th birthday cake and her wedding cake at her reception. She was born and raised in Houston where her father Ramesh Patel, who came to the US in 1964, was a sales engineer with Dresser Rand and her mother Vidula is a homemaker. Namita received her Bachelors in Economics from the University of Texas in Austin in 1991 and also has a Master’s in Elementary Education in 1994 from the University of Houston. She currently works at the School of Science and Technology in Richmond.

The day after the reception, the couple went back to work and to taking care of their parents and being with Jacob’s mom who is visiting from India. They will make their home in Sugar Land, where Namita owns a house.