I Have Nothing

By Aarushi Sali

“You have it all, don’t you?” my sister asked.

“That’s a pie in the sky,” I stared at the cup of chai in my hand.

The breeze drafted through my loose hair. Her dark brown eyes stared at me. Her effortless beauty mocked me; she was in a sleep gown and yet, she looked right off the runway. Didi had everything I could only fathom. Even on my best days, I couldn’t have what she had. She didn’t understand that. She never would. She would always think of me as better. She would always think of my life as more accomplished.

We sat on the balcony of her apartment. It overlooked a pond with ducks, edged with flowers. The smell of mustard oil from the kitchen laced the air. The voices of her two children fused the air with a sentiment of giddiness.

I remained listening to her talk about how if she had studied more, the way I did, she could have cracked NEETs in the same manner of how I cracked the JEEs. Her long hair dazzled around her shoulders when she talked about wanting to have done better.

Memories of our childhood together trickled into my mind. I remembered Didi sneaking out of our room to go out with friends while I studied in the dark room under a lamp light. I remember the tantrum she threw when our parents let me have a new laptop for attaining 89 percent in twelfth boards while she only got 68. My parents were proud of me, and at the time, I felt superior. I had loved the sentiment of superiority that dripped through all my actions towards her at the time. All our lives, she went out to hang out with friends. She went to sleepovers while I went to night classes. She went on trips with her friends while I joined tuitions. She spent time on shopping streets, and I spent mine in libraries. I remember believing that it was the only way to embed success into my life. I remember assuming myself superior because I simply had higher academic goals than her.

Soon, I went to one of the top colleges of India to study medicine. She, on the other hand, had gone to a local university to get a bachelor’s degree. She went on to become a teacher. Last year, she got herself transferred to a school close to me. “I want to be with my twin,” she had smiled as I helped her set up her room. Once, while we were out on a walk, her students had recognised her. They had gathered around her and talked to her. She had entertained them as if they were her own children. She laughed the way I never did with patients. She had a softness to her that I struggled to find in myself.

“Aunty!” My niece's call pulled me out of my headspace. She came to me with a drawing. “It’s you and ma!” she beamed with her tiny rose cheeks. An idiotic grin plastered itself onto my face as I stared at the paper with two stick figures with cups in their hands. “You’ll be an artist one day,” my sister told her daughter. My niece left the room overjoyed. I looked up to see my sister smiling; I could never be the mother she was. She was a natural provider of nurtured love.

“She’s adorable,” I told Didi.

“She’s just like you meri jaan, she loves to study.”

I nodded, a heavy hammer gnawing at my heart. I hoped the little one wasn’t anything like me.

Didi started conversing with me about children.

My mind rolled back to my memories of Didi and I. She got married a year before I graduated with a medical degree as a neurosurgeon. I couldn’t attend her wedding, I had my final practical exams. I went to bed weeping every night of that week. I yearned to attend my sister’s wedding ceremonies. She called me every morning through the whole week, telling me about every detail so I wouldn’t miss out. After graduation, I finally met Jiju and Didi. They were happy. She had met him in college, they had been together a while before they took the pheras. That day, I had gone to the hospital knowing I had missed out on life. I had no such partner in my life. I had no social life to find such a partner either.

Right now, I watched Didi help her oldest with his trigonometry homework. Her eyes met mine many times. We both remembered the times I had to explain trigonometry to her. She was older yet, I always helped her with all her homework.

She had her son soon after she got married. I had finally gotten a stable job. She would call me over to her place for dinners regularly. I watched her play with her son. I had watched her be happy. She had her daughter a couple years later, around the time I became an associate doctor at the hospital. I saw that she struggled financially at the time. Now, she is a principal and earns quite well. Jiju also got a promotion not too long ago. Even though I had more money at my disposal, they were satisfied. All their needs were paid for and they had home cooked food in their bellies. Every night, they had warm beds to sleep on. More importantly, in the morning they had a warm atmosphere to wake up to. She had built a life that resembled the feeling of sitting in a blanket fort as a child. Her life and home were safe and guarded.

In hindsight, she has never held any resentment towards me. Her envy is nothing compared to my jealousy. I envy her happiness. Her contentment. I envy her bond with her students. I envy that her students will come to see her five years after she taught them just to thank her while I can’t even sustain a conversation with my patients. I envy that she has such precise nurturing instincts while I struggle to keep myself stable. Mostly though, I am infuriated by the fact that she believes me to be successful.

After dinner, I left her home and returned to the hospital for my night shift. I sipped on my coffee as I went over all my patient’s credentials. My ego had taken a hit seeing her happier than I could ever be. My dark circles ridiculed me whenever I looked at her radiance. I had done everything I could to do well in life. In reality, she had truly found success. I only had a hospital and people that only talked to me because I was their doctor. I had spent all my life focusing on getting to this position. Now that I was here, a respected doctor, I was dwelling about all that it cost me. I had none of the happiness I had hoped for. would give me. All my life, I believed that once I had the money, I could buy it all. Now I had the money but I had no real joy. I had a luxury apartment, with no life but mine. In retrospect, I could have chosen to balance things out. I could have studied in groups instead of in solitude. I could have attended a gathering or two in college. I had chosen to be alone. A choice that had torn at my heart and left a null space. A void that I did not know how to heal. A wound that burnt everyday.

I choked on the loneliness of my cabin.

My loneliness evaporated my insides and my pain precipitated as tears. The agony shaking my body as it produced sobs.

I wanted to tell Didi, “I have nothing.”

By Aarushi Sali