Every day I have to decide what’s right for Smrithi, she thought to herself. What was right for her daughter? She felt a boundary inch its way inward. She shook her head, trying to banish the thought.

‘Soon there’ll be boys and maybe drinking and then who knows what these white children do?’ she asked Nala. ‘I hate being the one that says no but I have to do it.’

‘No, you have to stop stopping them. You’ll only push them towards the things you’re trying to protect them from. You have to let some things go—’

‘We let go of our home, Amma. I don’t regret that, the way you do. I am happy I’m here, I don’t regret that for a moment. But I can’t let go of everything. You have no idea what my life is like. I’m working and raising my children without the back-up of an Ayah or an entourage. I’m exhausted from it all. Most of all, I am exhausted from being different. You’ve never had to live in a place where you’re different, where you are the “other”. You don’t know what it’s like,’ she repeated.

‘I don’t know what it’s like?’ Nala echoed. ‘I spent the best years of my life being forced to the edge of my own country. I was a fool and didn’t see it happening. Your Appa and I—we were the other and it got so awful we had to leave. But I’m here now and I’m learning from so many different others. Being extremely Tamil won’t protect the children, mahal. I think being extremely comfortable about who you are might help them, though. Our culture should enhance your life, not limit it.’

Priya refused to look at Nala. Dhara was the comfortable one.

‘It’s too late now anyway. I’ve paid for the Bowling Club already and the caterers. One hundred and seventy people have said they’re coming. What am I going to do with thirty litres of frozen aubergine curry?’

She turned the cooker off. ‘I’m done,’ she said to no one in particular. She didn’t know what else to say—she wanted Smrithi to have her age attainment ceremony, the way she and Dhara had. She just couldn’t explain why, to her mother and especially not to her daughter.

•

That night, Priya called her sister.

‘How are you, Acca?’ Dhara asked.

‘Tired.’

‘The Samathia Chadangu?’ Dhara asked nervously about the ceremony. ‘How is the vote?’

‘Split—Nala against; Smrithi against. Siva and me—for. You?’ she asked Dhara.

‘I’m abstaining on the grounds of conflict of interest. I agree with Nala mami, but I understand what you want, Acca,’ she answered.