Personal Cosmos

Prologue

Um.... I know you are waiting for me to start but- OKAY! WHATEVER! I'LL START!

I am Andy, a 23 year old female, in case you were thinking. And... This is the story of my life. Not the whole of it, but of the nine defining months of my life.

Now, before I go on and spill the beans, I must explain how my life was going around the time I was 21.

~°~

I was a serious 21 year-old aspiring poet, Andy, living in New York, believing I was a total New Yorker, having a chill life with friends, a fun family life and a void romantic life- a life most people should be familiar with.

All was well - or at least that's what I thought - until, one day, I was told that I was adopted. Cliche much? Tsk. Tell me about it.

Anyways, I was told by my parents that I came from a very poor Indian family. Ouch. That was a little harsh.

They said that they had gone to India for a vacation of two weeks, 21 years ago. They were to stay the night in Delhi before their departure. However, when they got to the airport, they confronted this huge protesters' rally. They said, it was regarding the exploitation of the peasants by the moneylenders.

This sounded pretty bizarre to me since Delhi is a national capital! Why would peasants protest in front of a national airport?

Turns out, they were part of a nation wide campaign. I felt kind of guilty for my orthodox opinion at that.

I was told that a young couple in some tattered clothes approached my parents and handed them a baby pleading them to take care of their baby as they were poor farmers, not having enough money to raise a daughter and that too, in perfect English. Surprising, isn't it?

Turns out, I'm that daughter. (What?)

So, while my parents kept hesitating and refusing, they (I mean my real parents) suddenly collapsed and started foaming at the mouth (literally). (I had to check if I was still alive at that.) That's when my parents had to call the ambulance. They also faced some problems with the police. During their police custody of half a day, they remained pretty much unharmed and were taken good care of (which I was grateful to know) but were informed that the couple had died due to poisoning and had absolutely no identity.

They didn't have names, didn't have a property, didn't have relatives or even acquaintances. They were literally incognito.

And... Then, my parents came up with this wonderful idea to steal me. (Let's just say they lost it when they saw my charisma?) My mom had endometrial cancer and thus, had to get her uterus removed. So, I guess you can say she was infertile for life. She had always wanted a daughter and therefore, desire got the better of her and she (and dad too) took me to New York leaving the police to do their homework without the most important piece of information about the dead couple.

I admire her courage. Instead of taking some time off for a vacation to Hawaii or becoming a saint in the Himalayas, she took me to New York, got all the fake biological proofs done through a close family doctor and raised me.

And kept it from me for 20 years.

Of course, I was sad at the news of my real parents having deceased, but I was angrier at the moneylenders and my parents not helping with the investigation about their deaths. But it was much later that I realized, they were trying to save me. However, I was glad that my real parents wanted me to breathe till their very last breaths even when they themselves were too poor to live.

When I heard that I was adopted, somewhere in my mind, I was scared that I was abandoned and all. I just wouldn't accept it. But as of now, it's a confession.

Now, you must be thinking why they told me only then but- OKAY! WHATEVER! YOU AREN'T!

Apparently, a certain someone claimed to be my brother now- Real brother. My parents showed him in the next day and sadly enough, our family doctor had to just casually state he indeed was my brother. I didn't expect that for sure.

I mean, you suddenly being adopted at least makes some sort of twisted sense but an elder brother popping out of nowhere certainly doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Now, I know you really want me to explain how this guy came into being and all but- OKAY! WHATEVER! I'LL EXPLAIN!

So let's start with his so-called name. It's Suraj. Now that's a relief. I didn't want him to have a long-ass complicated Sanskrit name, half of which would include the entire animal population on Earth and the other half, half of Bhagavad Gita. So you know.

He is tall, unlike me. He has black hair, dark brown eyes and an average physique, like me. Also, he's four years older than me.

On his first day, it was very awkward. I mean - you get what I mean, right?

So, anyways, we spent some time together, got to know each other and after about a week, we were on normal terms.

I never asked, for what reason he had shown up or how he could even show up. I kept waiting, but as it would seem, the cat was murdered by curiosity.

One fine (sarcasm intended) rainy morning, I decided to spill my guts and ask him what had happened. And as it would seem, his answer completely left me speechless (sarcasm intended part 2).

He said that he had known where I was, all along. Not exactly, but for the last 21 years, he had known that I was in America. He had only come to know about my exact location by contacting my parents personally.

Thing is, my last poem, 'The Woods Forgotten' was all over the media at the time. I had gotten two national and three regional awards for that poem and earned almost 5000 dollars (honestly, credit goes to my website host). So, because of its popularity and my brother being a publisher/editor, he came to know about my confirmed existence. I had uploaded my picture and my parents' phone numbers on the website too (I'd never bothered to change the information, actually) and that was from where he contacted my parents.

He said that he still remembered that he had a sister when he was five. He said he remembered me holding his thumb with my whole hand and the distinct brown birthmark on my nose. He said he remembered the time after two days of my birth that the landlord came and threatened our parents, soon after which came the moneylender's demands.

He said he remembered how my birth had exhausted them of their financial resources. He said he remembered the anxious looks that they had at that night and how they travelled all the way to Delhi to participate in the rally, the next day. He said he remembered how he got separated from his parents that day and how he found them again, only to see them die before his very eyes. He said he remembered how he followed my parents around and could only make 'America' out of their conversations. He said he remembered how helpless he felt when he couldn't find the courage to follow me to America- he said. But the touching part was - 'he remembered'.

He said he would often have sleepless nights, replaying the events of that day and imagining how I might have grown to become.

The prospect of him lying never even crossed my mind once.

And that's probably why my story really starts.