Sister of My Heart

Content Warning: The source text contains references to arranged marriage, abortion, and pregnancy loss. 

At eight years old, Sudha and Anju listen to Abba Pishi tell the story of the Bidhata Purush, a deity who comes down to earth on the first night after children are born to write their destiny in invisible letters on their foreheads. The girls live with their three “mothers”: Pishi, their widowed aunt; Gouri, who is Anju’s biological mother; and Nalini, who is Sudha’s. Sudha’s favorite among the servants is Singhji, their chauffeur, whose face is horribly burnt and who told her that he used to have a child like her. On the night when Sudhu and Anju were both born, their mothers received news of their fathers’ deaths. Pishi admits that the offerings that were left for Bidhata Purush that night remained untouched. Sudha casts her mind back to their birth and imagines what the deity would have written on their foreheads. For Anju, she sees courage, intelligence, and determination, with a future of travel and happiness. For herself, she sees “beauty,” “goodness,” and a third word, one that caused her infant self intense distress and pain and of which she remains unsure.