The punishing rains continued to pound down into July, the fountains of the deep split open pushing upward the soggy landfill of our amphibious city only newly emerged from the sea, still conflicted between wet and dry. You took upon yourself to rise earlier to say your morning prayers before heading off to school with Manika sloshing in your wake waving down a cab. You declared yourself 100 percent strictly kosher now, refusing to partake of the hot school lunches I had prepaid in full with no refund forthcoming, packing a bunch of bananas in your rucksack instead to sustain you through the day. At home, since we were confirmed vegans, you agreed to share some of our foodstuffs but only after I bought a new set of personal tin thali bowls and utensils for you at the local bazaar, which you hauled to the Chabad ritual bath and immersed before using, reciting the designated blessing. “I’m twelve years old,” you announced, as if this would be news to me. “I’m a woman now, I’m responsible for my own sins. Until I turned twelve, my sins were on your head, Mommy, sorry about that.”

How had such ideas seeped into your brainpan? This was precisely the kind of mindset, defined by sin, that I had struggled so hard to escape, this was why I had come to India as a seeker of true meaning and spirituality and union with the divine, to shield you from such destructive guilt trips and to purge myself as well from the authoritarianism of the original Abrahamic faith that had messed so negatively with my head. Later, when Manika came into my room for our nightly wrap-up, she corroborated that what I was hearing was yet another example of Malkie’s brainwashing, as I had of course surmised. What sins could such a blameless child like you possibly have committed before you turned twelve that were likely to fall on my head? I demanded to know from Manika, not that I wasn’t ready, willing, and able to take on any and all of your sins at any time of your life. Manika looked down at her feet. I’m sorry this has happened to you, she was mumbling. What can we do to make it right?