25th July, 2009

Speaking to my sister is always a strain; am being cross examined and questioned all the time. “Did you tell Ma that I said that you are behaving like a spy?” “So is Bua going to buy him a car.” “So you know the lavish house Dada is moving into, don’t you?” “Did you tell Dada to give Ma her stuff back.” She’s dripping with resentment, of an unhappy childhood and a deep sense of being wronged. When she is told about a cousin going to New York to celebrate her birthday, her first reaction is, “Nobody ever sent me to New York.” Its eating her up, it is. This submerged feeling of being denied a luxurious life, where she would shop on Fifth Avenue and walk into the Mandarin for lunch.

 

I wanted to tell her so much: that I excited about the idea of taking up journalism and applying for a scholarship and studying the US; that I am wearing a sari without a bra today, that Dev and I are so excited about his achievements; that he bought me a pair of silver earrings to celebrate the publication of his article in The Indian Anthropologist. Nothing of that ever comes up. Sad.