Our tribulations began when Mummy began to lose weight. Suddenly she had to wrap her sari twice more than normal, and her petticoat hung low since it did not fit her small waist anymore.
Nani asked Mummy if she was eating—if there was enough food. “Are Asya and Amla getting enough, too?” she whispered in the kitchen while I helped Mummy knead the roti dough for that evening’s dinner. “They are fifteen and still so skinny.”
“Yes, of course, I am just feeling more tired lately. I don’t know. Maybe it’s an infection. But please do not worry; we boil the water. I do not have a fever. It will pass . . .”
Nani looked uneasy as she helped Mummy carry her pots to the stove.
We had heard of many neighbors getting a stomach infection that summer. Mostly it was the families who brought water from the river, where the new American company let their factory’s pipes empty. They said the waste was healthy—that it was leftover drugs for American families, helping them to have healthy hearts and to fight their infections.
Puppa didn’t believe it. At breakfast one morning, when we were eating roti and mango pickle, he said the Americans were so plump, how could they need anything else to be healthier? Mummy asked him if he had ever seen an American.
“What kind of question is that?” he had shouted at her, throwing his thali in her face.
Luckily, he missed, and the plate of food landed on the floor. We hated when he was angry. While Asya and I cleaned it up, I asked him again, for Mummy: “But have you, Puppa?”
And for a minute he looked at me like he would throw the rest of his breakfast, but he kept his eyes on his cup. “No, but I have heard that they are very healthy, not scrawny like you and your sister.” He tore the roti that remained in his hand, dipping it into his cup of steaming chai. I looked at my sister, who raised her eyebrows as if to say, “That’s enough.” To me, these were the small wins I held inside. It felt better than staying silent.
I knew it was not this way for Asya. She preferred to stay out of trouble. While we looked the same, my sister and I, we were quite different. Everyone always confused us, even with the brown birthmark on her forearm and the small mole next to my ear, which my hair always covered.
When we were born in our small village in Madhya Pradesh, our nani, who helped the nurse birth us, told Mummy, “Two girls! His family will curse you. Give them names with meanings so they can carry their heads high.”
When Puppa came into the room, Nani began to fold the blankets she’d placed around each of us so Puppa could hold us, but he said, “I do not wish to hold them.” Asya turned her head to Puppa, and I put my hand on Mummy’s heart, and he walked out, unable to scold our mother in our presence.
Mummy said she was at her childhood home, lying on the hemp cot, holding us, one in each arm, as she recovered from the delivery. The birthing nurse was a Dalit who would not normally look Mummy in the eyes, yet when she saw our mother’s tears, she held a wet towel to Mummy’s forehead.
That is how we got our names. Amla means “pure love,” and Asya is “strength and grace.” These were the qualities Mummy saw in us early on—Asya’s kind heart, even in the face of such disdain from Puppa, and my compassion when I held my hand up to my mother’s heart, as if to soothe her, even though I, too, was being rejected. Mummy said we were her devis, her angels from Rama.
Everyone in the village looked at Mummy with pity when they heard the news of her twin girls. She walked in the village openly, often wearing both of us in a wrapped cotton cloth around her small torso. They were surprised when she would smile at us, cooing at our almost white faces.
We inherited our golden, tawny skin from our nana, along with our mother’s jet-black hair and almond-shaped hazel eyes. Mummy also said he passed his strong voice to me, while Asya had his quiet understanding.
Mummy later told me that she was sure everyone could hear my strong voice when I cried. “Beyond the walls of our small village, into the mountains and all the way up to the skies,” she would say, holding out her hands dramatically. But I always quiet down when I was placed next to Asya.
It did not take long for Puppa and his parents to find love for us, despite the double burden we had brought on our family. Our nani would walk from her home nearby to rub sesame oil on our skin to keep it from darkening. Dadi would tell Nani to use coconut oil instead, and the bickering would start.
Mummy said she did not mind them fighting over what they thought was best for us. She was grateful for it—for the love we brought into her home, and for the ability to see her own mother every day. There was also the matter of our redirecting Dadi’s attention so that her critical eye didn’t wander to Mummy’s daal, how she prepared rice pudding, or how she folded towels. She had not planned on becoming a mother at age nineteen.
Our grandfather had not raised our mother for housework. Nana had wanted her to be a teacher, and planned to send her to college. But he passed away when Mummy was only seventeen, so Mummy’s journey was over far too soon; they could no longer afford her schooling. Even though she truly wanted her daughter to have a higher education, Nani didn’t think it was practical; they would never be able to afford it. She insisted it would be better for Mummy to get married.
Suitors came from neighboring villages when they heard of how beautiful she was, but only Puppa’s family promised they would allow Mummy to finish her schooling after marriage. So, despite their low income, despite Puppa’s crooked teeth and large nose, she agreed to marry him. It was her only chance of becoming a teacher.
When I was ten years old, I asked Mummy, “Why didn’t you finish your dream? Was it because we were born? Was it because Puppa lied?”
Mummy’s eyes became wet with tears, and Asya pinched me. She hugged Mummy and told her that when we were older we would make sure she finished her schooling and assured her that she could even teach our kids in school—her future grandchildren.
I bit my lip as I listened to my sister’s assurances and wondered if we would be able to fulfill them in a world where girls were lied to. How many lies had Mummy heard in her life?