Sitara Meenakshi Ranganathan, daughter of Madhu and Ramaswamy Ranganathan, spent most of her life in Saratoga, California. She graduated from Saratoga High School and, for many years afterward, made her home at the Cambrian house run by Life Services Alternatives (LSA).

Sitara lived with many health-related challenges, but they never kept her from living a full life, nor did they diminish her joy. Her everyday life was shaped around what she loved — her home-cooked South Indian meals, her Braille books, her piano, and chanting all the prayers she learned from her grandmothers. She never wavered amidst the toughest medical challenges, and her grit, resilience, and calm in the face of these obstacles will always be an inspiration to all who knew her.

Challenged by blindness, she had a keen ear and an even keener memory - not just for her own tasks, but for everyone around her. If she had a corporate job, she would have been the perfect manager. She could hear the quietest conversation from a distance and keep track of everyone with perfect detail: when they left the house, the moment they returned, when they needed to shower. Yet her compassion for others was second to none; she always offered an acute concern to anyone going through their own distress, and remembered the smallest details about the relatives she held dear, no matter how long it had been.

What Sitara loved most of all were the small trinkets of life - colorful socks, beanies, and bead necklaces, or Indian mixture with Bournvita or Ovaltine, a uniquely joyful combination that could only be attributed to her.

Sitara is lovingly remembered by her father Ramaswamy, mother Madhu, grandmother Andal, brothers Kailash and Adarsh, sister Pooja, and the LSA family.