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  Daughter Of The Ganges

  ePub ISBN 9781742745800

  DAUGHTER OF THE GANGES

  A BANTAM BOOK

  First published in the United States by Atria Books in 2006

  First published in Australia and New Zealand by Bantam in 2006

  Original title: Las dues cares de la lluna

  Las dos caras de la luna copyright © 2003 by Asha Miró

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2003 by the personal archive of the author

  Castilian edition copyright © 2003 by Editorial Lumen, S.A.

  English translation copyright © 2006 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Summersdale

  Original title: Filla del Ganges

  La hija del Ganges copyright © 2004 by Asha Miró

  Interior photographs copyright © 2004 by Anna Soler-Pont, Mikele López, and Francis Waghmare

  Castilian edition copyright © 2004 by Editorial Lumen, S.A.

  English translation copyright © 2006 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Summersdale

  The translation of this book has been supported by the Institut Ramon Llull.

  Originally published in Spain in 2003, 2004 by Editorial Lumen, S.A.

  Translation by Jamal Mahjoub

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Transworld Publishers,

  a division of Random House Australia Pty Ltd

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  www.randomhouse.com.au

  Random House New Zealand Limited

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  Transworld Publishers,

  a division of The Random House Group Ltd

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  Random House Inc

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  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Miró, Asha, 1967–.

  [Filla del Ganges. English]

  Daughter of the Ganges.

  ISBN 978 1 86325 510 3.

  ISBN 1 86325 510 9.

  1. Miró, Asha, 1967–. 2. Adoptees – Spain – Catalonia –

  Biography. 3. Adoptees – India – Biography. 4.

  Intercountry adoption – Spain. I. Title.

  362.734092

  Cover image courtesy of Getty Images

  Cover design by Sandy Cull

  Publisher’s Note: Daughter of the Ganges is an English-language compilation of two books, La hija del Ganges and Las dos caras de la luna, originally published as separate editions.

  To Sitabai Sansare, the woman who gave me life.

  To Radhu Ghoderao, for having wished me to have hope.

  To my sisters, Sakubai Jagtap and Asha Meherkhamb, with all my love.

  To Francis Waghmare, for his great help.

  To my parents, Josep Miró and Electa Vega.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Imprint Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Dedication

  BOOK ONE: DAUGHTER OF THE GANGES

  1. My First Trip Back to India

  2. Bombay

  3. Nine Instead of Five

  4. The Bread of Necessity

  5. The Spiral Staircase

  6. Something to Offer

  7. Mary

  8. The Rear Entrance

  9. An Object of Attention

  10. Films and Injections

  11. Nasik

  12. Back from India

  BOOK TWO: THE TWO FACES OF THE MOON

  13. Returning to My Origins

  14. Everything in Its Proper Place

  15. Seeing Mumbai with New Eyes

  16. Usha and the Sacred City

  17. Daughters of the Godavari

  18. Sitabai and Sakubai

  19. My Sister Asha’s Story

  20. Leaving the Land Behind

  A Message from the Author to the People Included in This Story

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary of Indian Words

  BOOK ONE:

  DAUGHTER OF THE GANGES

  1.

  MY FIRST TRIP BACK TO INDIA

  Six thirty in the morning and I can’t have slept for more than two hours. I leap out of bed, switch off the alarm, and jump straight into the shower. I gaze at the swirling water as it washes away, looking for any trace of the images in my dreams, the nervous buildup to the journey, and the worries I have about how it might affect the life I have become accustomed to, a way of life that continues out of simple habit. Hot water and soap are not going to be enough to make a clean start. The time has come for me to turn back, to relive my early childhood years, to go forward by breaking with my life as it is now. It is time to go back to India.

  I am returning to India because that is where I was born, on November 7, 1967. I lived there until the age of six, when I was adopted by the two people whom I know today as my parents. I know that I came into this world at a place called Nasik, in the west of the country. I know too that I spent my early years in an orphanage in Bombay. Apart from that I know little for certain. That is the reason for this journey, to try to address a long series of questions.

  The days prior to my departure have been an endless succession of good-byes. More than one person has brought up the million-dollar question: Are you sure you are ready for this, Asha? Each time, I nodded my head silently with the same instinctive gesture, so as not to give any sign of the doubts that have been nagging at me. The two people I could never fool—I wouldn’t even try—are my parents.

  In my room, I brush out my long black hair in front of the mirror. I put a touch of mascara above my black eyes, just as I do every morning. It is going to be a long journey and I want to be sure I’ll be comfortable. I pick out a long skirt with blue and white flowers, a white T-shirt, and my old sandals. Actually, it’s the best skirt I have, and I want to make an impression when I arrive back in my country. While I am dressing I run a mental check over everything that I have packed in my rucksack: a pair of loose, lightweight trousers and a pile of T-shirts and underwear so as not to give away how inept I am when it comes to laundry. I also have a pair of sandals with thick soles, so that I can do as much walking as is needed, and a collection of recommended pharmaceuticals, tablets with impossible names that I have to take to avoid malaria and other illnesses. I also have mosquito repellent. In another, smaller rucksack I have my camera, a notebook, pens, paints, sketchbook, passport, vaccination certificate, and dollars. The notebook I shall use as a diary. I have never kept one before, but I want to be sure to write down everything that happens to me, all my impressions. I don’t want anything to be left out.

  I say farewell to my apartment, the balcony full of geraniums, and the spires of the Sagrada Familia sticking up between the opposite buildings. Fatima is going to take care of the geraniums for the month that I am away. Fatima is my sister. She too was born in India, th
ough at the other end of the country. She arrived in Barcelona a few months ahead of me, at the age of only a year and a half. We are truly sisters, united not by the bond of sharing the same biological parents but by something that is equally or more indestructible: the affection of parents, who brought us together and raised us as they would have done their own daughters. Our parents converged our separate paths into one, allowing us to share the adventure of belonging to the same family.

  Four weeks from now those spires will not have moved. One or two geraniums might have withered and other, new flowers will have sprung up in their place. I, on the other hand, will no longer be the same. I have a feeling that something inside me will change forever.

  Twenty years after that first journey—which brought me from Bombay to Barcelona—I am aboard a plane that will take me to where I hope to find the answers to a huge number of questions, to shed a little light on the uncertainty, to fill in the missing pieces of my reality.

  Destination: Bombay.

  The engines are warming up and the aircraft starts to roll forward as we pick up speed for takeoff. A prayer rises from deep inside me as we climb up into the sky, so close to heaven, touching the one who has singled me out and guided me to precisely this point. I ask for the strength to see me through this task and for the courage to go on, to stay the course, to follow it through to the end and not fail; to find the inner peace that I want so much and finally to set aside the doubts that have been bothering me.

  Beneath us everything grows smaller and smaller until it resembles one of those pointillistic paintings that I love so much. I can still make out the pinnacles of the church spires. Seen from the air, my beloved Barcelona looks even more beautiful. The distinctive lines of the Eixample are perfectly defined. The leaves of the trees that follow the Rambla lose themselves in the waves, the blues and greens flowing together into a single tone in the pale sun, dissolving the distinct outline of the contours into a gentle silhouette.

  Sitting in the turquoise-blue seat of the Air India plane, I am a bundle of nerves as I try to recall what that little girl of six (almost seven) might have been thinking, sitting in a turquoise seat just like this one, as she made that journey in reverse—the journey that dropped her into the arms of a family that, up until then, had only been a sense of longing to her, in the shape of a black-and-white photograph. I feel sure I must have passed the long hours scribbling in a drawing book with the crayons given to me by a hostess—as elegant in her sari as the one who now comes to serve me lunch.

  At home, we always talked of India, my country, the place where I was born. Whenever there was a program on television about it we would all get together on the sofa—Dad, Mom, Fatima, and I—and sit there glued to it. A documentary that gave some insight into a stunning landscape and the people who lived there, the poverty they were fated to live in, would often lead us to talk about our childhood and how my sister and I had arrived in Barcelona from the same country but at different times; what it had been like for my parents to adopt two children; how they had managed to get through all the paperwork, all of which had to be written in Spanish and then translated into English, a language neither of them spoke; and of the anxiety they had felt throughout all the preparations. Looking back, I know that it was very brave of them. They adopted us in the early 1970s, when it wasn’t a common choice to make. They must have felt very much alone, unable to share their worries with anyone. This is another reason why I shall always admire them. Those evenings spent on the sofa gave us an ideal opportunity to talk about the adoption. It was done in such a simple way that it became another facet of our life together. Those talks always arrived at the same conclusion: Since we could not remember much about the country we came from, we always agreed that one day we would all go back there together. For us girls it would be a return to our country, while for them it would be a chance to get to know the country that had given them two daughters.

  The years went by but the right moment never seemed to present itself; if it wasn’t one thing it was another. Finally, I reached the point where I felt that I was ready, that I wanted to go back to my country. However, for me, the return itself was as important as the way in which I made the journey. I couldn’t just fly out there like an ordinary tourist. I couldn’t quite see myself walking into a travel agency to flick through the holiday brochures and pick out the nicest hotels and choose a promising itinerary. No, that wasn’t the idea at all. Knowing the reality of India, I wasn’t going to settle for just passing through the country, passively taking in the view. I wasn’t going to India to visit majestic palaces and temples, to cross valleys and mountains, or to try my hand at bargaining while shopping for souvenirs. In Barcelona, in my second life, I had been given everything: a family, friends, an education—all in all, a life of complete freedom. I couldn’t go back with my hands empty. Inside I was torn between my feeling of belonging to India and the equally intense feeling of alienation. I was expecting to arrive in a country that would reflect my character, yet a place where destiny had decided I was not to grow up, because I had been chosen out of millions of other children. I have always been aware that I was privileged to be singled out. This thought is constantly present and often has me asking: Why me? The answer has always been an overwhelming silence. Fate took a hand in the game and I felt like a tiny piece on the board marked for preferential treatment. Unless you have decided to ignore the world around you, this is not an easy label to bear. I have always avoided the gazes of those Indians you meet on the street or in restaurants, trying to sell you a rose. In all these years, whenever I come face-to-face with that familiar, dark, penetrating gaze, I never know where to look. I am never able to look them squarely in the eye. It is especially at these times that the question of why I was chosen comes back to me, and the feelings of disquiet make their presence felt even more powerfully.

  Fate was to play its part again when I came across the information folder of an NGO called Setem that described a volunteer work camp in India. The same hand of fate ensured that, in the vast country of India, this project happened to be located in Bombay, the city where I lived in an orphanage from the age of three until I was six. To make it even more perfect, I discovered that there was also a Setem work camp in Nasik, the city washed by the sacred waters of the Godavari, where I had first opened my eyes. It was my dream, presented on a silver platter. But since I have never had much luck winning anything, I filled in the form without getting my hopes up too high. A couple of months later I received a letter telling me that I had made it through the first round and would be required to attend an interview. It was all beginning to come together. Up until that point I had kept it all secret, dealing with my anxiety alone, convinced that nothing would come of it. I didn’t want to worry my parents unnecessarily. All I had was the complicity of my boyfriend, who supported me with whatever I did. Once I had completed the interview and it was confirmed that I could join the work camp, I realized it was time to tell everyone at home.

  My parents sat on the sofa and I on the small wooden stool. It was always the same when we had to discuss something really important. I came out with it all at once, anxious but excited, attentive to every gesture, to each reaction. I needed those eyes, fixed on me with concern, to give me their blessing, to assure me that they would be with me no matter how far away I was. Their little girl was going to India, all on her own! My parents had always assumed that this would be a family project, involving all of us; they didn’t think that it might awaken something in me, that I might take the initiative without them. In fact, however, my decision did not take them completely by surprise. Deep in their hearts they were sure that I would follow my own path and would have to learn about the place that had given me this brown skin. But their concern never led them to express their feelings aloud, for fear that this might make it come true. Despite their worries, I was very much aware of the adventure I had embarked upon. I would need to be determined if I wanted to fill the gap of those first seven years, w
hich I had left so far behind me.

  Questions and more questions, fired off with such speed that I didn’t even have time to answer. All at once I flung myself between them and they both put their arms around me. I felt safe there between the strength of my father’s arms and the calm of my mother’s, just as I had so many times before over the years. Wrapped in my father’s arms, I would play that game all children love: to reach up and touch an infinite imaginary heaven, even if only with the tips of my fingers. He doesn’t know this, but even today, when no one is watching, I stand on my balcony and raise my hands toward the sky, up toward the seagulls flying over my beloved Barcelona. I ask them to lift me up for an instant so I can touch heaven.

  My mother’s arms taught me the laws that rule the heart and the spirit. To love, to offer consolation, to cry for your own pain or that of others. To soothe hatred, while allowing the best of oneself to flow. Neither of them spared an ounce of effort in trying to give us, my sister as much as myself, everything we needed and more. They may not have given us the breath of life, but they had given us the essentials, and, with the same care as a potter molds his clay, they had formed us into people. I am often shaken by the excessive importance many people place on being related by blood. Obviously, it has a certain importance. But so does everything that comes afterward, all that my parents have given me, a legacy that goes beyond blood.

  My parents were worried about me; they didn’t like to think that they would not be there during my journey to lend a hand, to soothe me when I was overcome by sadness, to help me understand everything I was going to encounter. At the same time, they realized that the process of bringing me up had been completed, that everything they had given me had formed me as a person and that, consequently, I would be prepared to deal with anything. To them, I would always be their little girl, but now they could see that I had grown up.