Sublime

When I saw her with all her makeup off, I felt a little better. On the platform, I felt like I wasn’t even seeing my own sister. What a relief. I’d thought she was a walking skeleton, but she wasn’t half as skinny as I’d thought. She’d worn the wrong foundation, and way too much of it. No wonder she looked pale. Maybe she hadn’t really changed that

‘In our family, we knew how to care for other people, but not each other. My parents just weren’t equipped. And I wasn’t built to play the part of the neglected son. So we split up. I’ve never had much reason to question it. I can only remember one real conversation with him. He told me about the Yorkshire Ripper. Honestly, he sat me down and told

‘But I am going to the United States,’ I said, quickly. And he looked at me. ‘I mean, I’m certainly going to go back there one of these days.’ ‘One of these days,’ he said. ‘Everything bad will happen—one of these days.’ ‘Why is it bad?’ He smiled, ‘Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home any more. Then you will really be

I do love carrying the Good and Holy Name of a man who might have looked like any man. I can better explain all of the ways I have disappeared. I thought I was in love enough to stay, but then the sky opened up and I became a kaleidoscope of butterflies. I thought I might live a life in which I let no one down, but that was the other man who is not

You think of your child as your dependant. Then, as he starts to pull away, you discover that you are a dependant too. It had always cut both ways.

They were afraid because we were new models, and they feared that before long their children would decide it was time to have them thrown away, to be replaced by AFs like us.

Slowly we became—all four of us—American. For Bhupendra and Bhanu this would become clearer with each visit to India or Fiji. Although they tried to blend in, to do as the locals did, the mask was less and less perfect. The changes were physiological: they could not drink the water, had to be careful about what they ate, were bothered by pollution.

As long as Mumma was alive, she knew that some small part of herself had remained a child, cherished and adored. Perhaps you never completely grew up until your mother died.