The New Mother

"Why are you crying?" she asked as she pulled my hair. It was one of the things she did. Even as an adult, I never understood why. But she pulled at them hard every time she braided my hair until I cried.

"Why are you crying?" she yelled again, smacking my head. As a little girl, I didn't know how to answer that, so I cried harder.

Life completely changed when Mom died. I still remember it to this day. I was only six when they came back with her body. I was standing on the porch waiting for her return.

They said she collapsed while working in the field. It was odd since all the grown-ups said she was very healthy.

I looked at my younger brothers; one was three, and the other was barely two years old. I knew it would be painful to live without her.

When they were taking her body for the funeral, my three-year-old brother followed them. We weren't allowed to go, but he knew no better.

As they put her body on the pyre and lit it from underneath, the sight of his mother engulfed in flames sat deep into my brother's mind.

"They burned my mom!" were the only words he screamed for the next few days.

I don't remember how long it took them to mourn, but after her funeral, the grown-ups sat down on the veranda and decided what to do next. I stood behind a pillar, trying to take a peek and listen to what they were discussing.

My father was among them, but he sat in a corner like a child who doesn't have a say in the decisions about his life.

One of the old ladies said he couldn't raise three children alone and should get married immediately. Someone suggested a young girl in the village who was of the age. All the grown-ups nodded and agreed. I looked at my father, and he didn't seem to mind it. And so, within a few weeks, he was married.

When they returned from their wedding, I saw her for the first time. She looked beautiful in her wedding dress. And even though I missed my mom a lot, a part of me was excited to meet my new mother.

A part of me was also relieved because even though we had a joint family, I was the one who was taking care of my brothers. My grandmother told me that girls should know how to cook. So I spent most of the days in the kitchen with other ladies of the house and learnt to cook. I would feed my brothers, change the diapers of the younger one and make sure the older one didn't run off to the field where he saw our mother cremated. So, having the new mother in the house made me feel she would care for us.

But before we could get used to being around the new mother, Father told us one day that we would move abroad. At the time, London sounded like an unusual word. I didn't know where it was, what it was or how far it was from our home. And before I could find out, we were on a plane to London. I had never seen an airport or a plane before, so getting inside was scary. I held onto my brother's hand while the youngest one was in the arms of our new mother. While the child in me was excited to experience something new, the part that had matured rapidly due to the last few months' events was quite sceptical of the change.

London was gorgeous but also scary at the same time. The people looked very different and spoke an entirely different language. The first few months in the new school surrounded by kids who looked and spoke differently was challenging. However, some teachers were very supportive, and I quickly learnt to speak English well.

The more time I spent around our new mother, the more I wanted to be in school. Luckily, schools in London were full-day, and I ensured I never missed a day.

On the weekends, things were very different. I was made to do all the chores in the house while our new mother did nothing.

Whenever she went out with our father, she would unplug the cable box from the TV so that we couldn't watch it. But when my brother grew up a little, he figured out how to put the cable box back to the TV so I could watch it when she wasn't around. Honestly, those were some of the best moments of my childhood. Watching Bionic Woman, Crossroads, and listening to Abba were things I cherished a lot from my childhood.