A few weeks before I turned twelve the terrible thing happened and that was the beginning of the end of my life.
Amma and Appa were on their way home from the market, walking along the side of the street with their baskets slung over their arms, when a strange black car swerved off the road, rammed straight into them and, without even stopping to check the damage, raced off again. Amma died instantly, Appa a few hours later, in hospital. The police wrote it off as a hit-and-run accident – the driver must have been drunk, they said, and there was no chance of tracing him. They had too many serious crimes to solve to bother themselves with this.
Their deaths put an abrupt end to my happy childhood. The death itself was terrible enough and we were all plunged into the blackest grief; if you can imagine a dark mist where you cannot even see your hand in front of you, well, that is how we all felt.
Janiki, my little mother, came back from America where she was now working, her face pale with shock. We cried and comforted each other.
‘What now, Janiki?’ I wept. ‘What will become of us?’
By this time Appa’s younger brother Paruthy Uncle had already moved into our big house, along with his family. He said it was because his own house was too small for all of us, my four elder brothers and one younger one, and his three little daughters.
I had never liked Paruthy Uncle. He was not like Appa at all. He was not kind. And he did not like me. That is why I wept to Janiki, ‘What will become of us?’
‘Don’t worry, Asha,’ Janiki said, wiping away my tears. ‘You have another amma and appa and surely they will come and get you now. Your white amma lives in America – I am sure she will come and get you, and then you’ll be near me. Or else your appa in Dubai. You are a very lucky girl. You must write them and ask them to come and get you. I am going back to California now – I only got one week of compassionate leave – but you will continue to write me and let me know how you are doing. And wherever you are, I will come and visit you one day.’
Those words were a great comfort to me. It is true that I did not remember the people I called Mom and Daddy very well. I had only seen Mom once, when I was five: I remember her pale face and amber eyes and yellow hair, and I remember I was scared of her. But she had written me letters over the years and sent photographs of her and a tall pale man and I knew that Mom means Amma in American. Sometimes I wrote back. Amma told me to. And Amma dictated the letters and then she posted them for me.
I remembered Daddy better. They told me to call him Daddy because I only had one appa and could not call him that. Daddy came once a year to visit me. But I never knew what to say to him and he didn’t know what to say to me. He sent me postcards of mountains and famous places in India. I never wrote him back because I did not know what to say.
But now I had to write to them both, because it was an emergency. So I wrote them both and told them what had happened, two letters. I did not tell them to come and get me because that sounded rude. I just told them that Amma and Appa had died and that we were now living with Paruthy Uncle and that I did not like him.
I did not have their addresses so I gave the letters to Paruthy Uncle and asked him to find the addresses and post the letters. And then I waited for a reply, or for them to come and pick me up and take me to America, or to Dubai. I did not care where, just that they would come for me, one of them at least. Or at least write back to tell me what to do. But they didn’t. I wrote them again but still they didn’t come, and didn’t write. It was plain they did not want to be bothered with me.
I wanted to write Janiki emails every day because it hurt so much, but I couldn’t, because Paruthy Uncle took away my computer and sold it.
‘What is a small girl like you doing with this newfangled stuff? You don’t need it,’ he said.
‘Janiki! I write to Janiki on it!’ I wailed.
‘You can write normal letters like everybody else. I cannot believe how spoilt you are. If you have a letter for Janiki just give it to me and I will post it.’
So I did that. But Janiki never replied.