Let us not invoke daughters. I implore you, Shmelke.

For my part, though, these two, our first best beloved devadasis, would always remain Devamayi and Mahamaya, and, whenever possible (preferably out of the hearing of others so as not to give the appearance of flouting my brother’s ukase), I would call them by their true names—Devamayi, Mahamaya—in order not to traumatize them even more by cutting them off so radically from their roots, discarding even ownership of their given names.

But the truth is, my daily involvement with them and the pod was limited, my responsibilities did not permit me to interact with the devadasis full time or to keep on top of every detail of their lives. Sleeping in the pod was not for me a caregiving assignment. It was in reality another aspect of the austerities along with fasting, chanting, meditation and additional practices that I had taken upon myself in anticipation of the day when my brother no longer would need me and I could be released to set out as a sannyasini, emptying my life totally. My main duties were above all as Rebbie-ji’s counselor and confidante, his chief of staff as it were. There was no one on earth he could trust more than me, his sister, his twin, his didi—his feminine emanation.

With regard to the prepubescent pod, I along with Rebbie-ji were of course the two major players in the making of the big decisions but not hands on in implementing them. That was left to Manika, she was the one who made things happen. It was she who managed its day-to-day operations, with the assistance of other low-caste Indians to carry out the menial work, sorely needed since the devadasi population at HHH was not only growing exponentially thanks to Buki’s shopping sprees, but also turning over constantly. New girls were arriving all the time, old ones disappearing. One even gave birth at the ashram not long after she had been purchased, an eleven year old, though within a few weeks the baby swelled up, stopped feeding, and died. Three of the devadasis also sickened and died during the first year alone soon after they arrived, an unfortunate event that at the time some of us attributed to the occasional gifts of surplus prepackaged frozen kosher meals in compartmentalized aluminum foil trays shipped to us in trucks from the Goa Chabad.