She does not go anywhere near him while he stands in front of the mirror in his towel to shave and then go in for his bath in the mornings; she keeps away from him, right at the very end of the room while they all have dinner together. She cannot eat banana anymore, and Bombay duck, its white wetness makes her feel ill. But she eats everything else, more than she should and can, specially sweets and chocolates which find hidden places in her to nestle and deposit. Slowly, methodically, miserably, she eats.

Now she is very fat and with the thickest spectacles.

‘Who will marry her?’ wonders dadi aloud.

Mummy speaks to daddy, mummy speaks to dadi. The alcoholic uncle is sent to live with them instead.

Mummy picks up plates of food as he flings them drunkenly around. Together, mother and her eldest daughter wash the lemon yellow walls with soap and water where the khichdi mixed with dahi has splattered and oozed down.

Mummy opens the door late every night when he bangs, and abuses, and leans on the bell. She cannot bear to clean up his vomit, the smell makes her vomit too, ma cleans it all up.

Mummy gets pregnant, it should be a boy this time they all tell her. Mummy stands in the sun, downstairs, because in the house the uncle is in an alcoholic stupor and partially undressed. It is only noon and she has come home from school because her uterus is mocking her. Ma tells her that this has been happening often. She stands downstairs on the road, in the blazing sun, numb, while heavy lorries laden with steel girders and double-decker buses crammed with people rumble past her. She phones her daddy from the grocery shop downstairs, they do not have a phone upstairs as yet, and she phones him at his neighbouring shop because he does not have a phone in his own. Her daddy is out on money collection because he needs it to feed such a big joint family. What kind of message can you leave in someone else’s shop, in what kind of words which would convey your agony, your urgency, your utter helplessness?

Her mummy gives birth to a dead son.

I am sorry ma, so very sorry that you lost your son because of me.

Something has gone wrong with her. She does not recognize herself any more. Or is this the girl she is actually supposed to be? ‘Bad blood,’ as dadi has sniffed. ‘Bad blood, it cannot be from my own family’s side, of this I am sure.’

She cannot stop eating, she has become so fat that her thighs rub, and burn, against each other. She talks loudly, she screams, she swears, she is disrespectful, she is not interested in her studies when earlier she was among the highest scorers, she has just slapped a girl in school and threatened to break a bottle over the head of a teacher.