A Sister's Promise by Renita D'Silva

the only one left in class, helping his teacher put the reading folders in order in the strangely echoing classroom bereft of the music of his classmates’ voices.
    In his mother’s list of priorities he’s always come last. Now he knows who comes first.
    But why? Why a stranger, a woman his mother hasn’t spoken of or been in touch with in years?
    He wants to find out. And so he turns towards his mother.
    ‘I can believe that you were a self-centred child, yes,’ he says and she laughs, slightly hysterical.
    He understands that she’s nervous about this trip. She’s already dropped their passports twice, causing him to stuff them into his own pocket. She’s misplaced their boarding passes, making them wait for ten minutes at the door to their plane as she riffled through her purse, with the passengers behind them sighing and grumbling in frustration. If she’s this nervous, then why on earth is she going to meet her sister, the woman who has achieved with one phone call what he hasn’t managed in his life?
    ‘I was the most beautiful girl in the village . . .’ His mother says, her voice girlish, and tinged with nostalgia.
    ‘Always so modest,’ he mumbles and she laughs again, less hysterically this time and he can’t help feeling a tad pleased that he’s helped relax her nerves. This is a new side he is seeing to his proficient, distant mum—glimpses of a fumbling, unsure woman who seems to be hidden behind that accomplished façade.
    It makes Raj even more curious about this stranger—his aunt—who is waiting for them on the other side of the world. A woman who has the power to reduce his efficient mother to a clumsy wreck; who, with one telephone call, has cracked his mother’s shell of indifference, made her push aside the work that she lives for, and to embark, at a moment’s notice, on an impulsive journey. His mother, the opposite of impulsive, who likes to plan everything—even their meals—weeks in advance.
    ‘It was the happiest time of my life . . .’ his mother says wistfully.
    And so, as the plane taxies for take-off, Raj pulls his headphones out of his ears and crosses his feet, trying to find a comfortable position for them in this cramped space, and resigns himself to listening to his mum rather than his music.

PUJA—CHILDHOOD
SEEDS FROM A POPPED POD
    Extract from school report for Puja Ramesh, First Standard, Age 7
    Puja is an intelligent girl but she does not apply herself as much as she should. She is easily distracted. She gets into trouble mostly because she is not paying attention and/or talking too much to concentrate on her work, but she is quick to apologise. She is extremely popular and is loved by everyone.

    ‘You are very special,’ Puja’s sister tells her.
    ‘Why?’ Puja asks, a thrill running through her because she knows what’s coming.
    ‘Well . . . when you were born, you were not breathing. Everyone was sobbing and
    then . . .’
    ‘And then?’ No matter how many times Puja hears the story of her birth, she is agog, mesmerised by this bit.
    ‘And then you joined in, a plaintive mewl, threading through the loud cries. It was the most beautiful sound in that sorrowful room. And everyone’s tears turned to laughter as they thanked God for the miracle baby—the answer to their prayers—a special, perfect delight.’ Sharda’s voice is warm as a hug, as sweet as kheer.
    Puja laughs, her joy bubbling over.
    Sharda holds Puja high in the basket of her arms and asks her to describe what she sees.
    ‘I can see way past the ocean to the very edge of the sky, that bit where the sky swallows the sun and vomits the moon, and which sometimes, but only on very precious days, gives us rainbows,’ Puja says.
    Sharda sets Puja down gently and runs inside the house to fetch the cane stool, which is falling to pieces, its threads unravelling like dry brown snakes.
    ‘What are you doing, Sharda?’ Puja asks, puzzled, hopping from one foot to the other. She is