“But Father has no sisters.”
She nodded quietly, letting the implication of this sink in. “I suspect the wolves took them,” she said finally.
The answer was so terrible that I was silent for several moments. I couldn’t imagine looking into the perfect face of a child, then tainting its milk with opium. It seemed too cruel, even for Grandmother. “Does Father know this?”
“Yes.”
“So he was her fourth child?”
“No. After giving birth to her third child, your grandmother’s sister died in childbirth with a boy. By then, your grandfather despaired of ever having an heir, so when your grandmother suggested they adopt her nephew, he agreed. Her sister’s husband preferred drink to work. So the adoption benefitted everyone.”
I fell silent again, trying to absorb this. Grandmother wasn’t my grandmother, but my great-aunt. My real grandmother was dead! I fantasized about all the things my real grandmother must have been: beautiful and sweet and patient and kind. This was why Dadi-ji didn’t love me.
“It was two months after the adoption,” Avani continued, “that your grandfather took sick and died. Your grandmother went from the most envied woman in Barwa Sagar to one of the most pitied.”
“But she didn’t have to commit sati,” I pointed out. “Her father took her back.”
Avani folded her hands in her lap. Her eyes looked very tired. “It’s a hard life, Sita, with no friends, or money, or anyone to love you.” She was speaking of her own experience.
“But I love you.” I wrapped my arms around her as tightly as I could. She smelled like jasmine blossoms, the same as Mother, and I felt an overwhelming need to go on hugging her. Still I pulled away. If Grandmother saw us, there would be trouble. Avani was a maid.
She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I pray to Durga that you will never understand what it’s like to go from great wealth to poverty, Sita. It was very devastating for your grandmother.”
“Buddha was a Hindu prince,” I said. “A Kshatriya, like us, and he found freedom in casting off his position and embracing poverty.”
“Because he chose it. And—more important—he was a man. A man can change his life anytime he wishes. A woman can only change her appearance.” Avani stood and handed me a white sari. Now she and I would look the same. Except I would only wear white for thirteen days. Avani was forbidden color for the rest of her life.
I wrapped the white sari around my body, and Avani made sure it fell in neat folds to my feet. Outside, the sun had already risen, and a flock of birds were making noise in the rice paddies. It was terrible to realize that life was simply carrying on while Mother lay on her funerary litter. It made me think of the scene in King Lear when the king discovers his beloved daughter’s body. He asks the gods how it’s possible that a dog, a horse, even a lowly rat can have life, and thou no breath at all. It felt like a betrayal to Mother that the birds outside should still be singing. Shouldn’t Lord Brahma silence them in sympathy?
I stood at the window and looked out over the rice paddies. The priest was coming not just to write my sister’s Janam Kundli, but also to bless my mother’s spirit, which was already on its way to Svarga, where souls go before their next reincarnation. I tried to imagine her there, as a spirit, but since her body was still lying in the next room, I found it difficult.
Eventually, Grandmother came to the door and demanded to know why Avani hadn’t brought me to our puja room, where we made our daily prayers. “The priest is already here,” she said.
“Sita’s feeling upset,” Avani explained.
“We’re all upset,” Grandmother replied. “And we’ll be more upset if this baby girl ends up manglik.”
Avani and I both gasped.
Manglik is the worst thing a person can be. If a priest determines that you are manglik, it means you are cursed. There are all sorts of repercussions for people whose natal charts read this way, and marriage becomes extremely difficult. Most mangliks marry other mangliks, so that the bad luck can be canceled out.