Devi

Devi was born on 14 April 2003 in Neyveli, in Cuddalore district, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The area sat under India’s elected state and national governments, with ration shops, government schools, and local police stations shaping daily life more than distant politics. Her family was Malayali by origin and spoke Malayalam at home, but Tamil filled the street and the schoolyard. Radha, her mother, kept a small puja shelf in the house: a framed picture of Krishna, a small Ganesha, and a brass lamp. In the evenings she lit the wick with matchsticks, dabbed sandal paste on the pictures, and set a pinch of camphor on a plate. Devi learned the routine by watching.

Ramesh, her father, left early. Radha did not tell stories about him. When Devi asked, she got short answers and a change of subject. The household was Radha, Devi, and whoever could help for a day or a week. Devi spent many mornings with her maternal grandmother, Kalyani, who lived close enough to walk over. Kalyani fed her rice with watery sambar and sometimes a boiled egg when someone brought them from the market. If Radha had an employer who wanted extra work, Devi went with her and sat on a step outside a house with a school notebook, tracing letters while Radha scrubbed floors.

Sreelakshmi was born in 2007. Devi, four years old, started being used as a second pair of hands. She carried a steel tumbler of water, fetched a cloth, and rocked the baby while Radha cooked. She liked the warm weight of her sister’s body against her hip. She also liked the quiet that came when the baby slept. When she was worried, she folded a corner of her skirt and rubbed it between her fingers until it warmed.

School brought structure. Devi did well when she showed up. She read Tamil lessons clearly and picked up English words quickly enough to help classmates sound out passages. Her notebooks looked neat, then suddenly turned sparse. She forgot to bring homework. She misplaced a pen and spent a class period searching her bag, shoulders tight, cheeks hot. Radha scolded her over unfinished assignments, then softened and fed her first at dinner anyway.

In 2016 Kalyani died. There was a short, crowded funeral with relatives arriving from nearby places, loud crying, and the smell of jasmine. After that Radha had no older woman to leave the girls with when she went out for work. Late that year the cash shortage from demonetization hit the small payments Radha depended on. Some employers delayed wages. One paid in old notes and then demanded them back. Radha argued, then came home silent and angry. Devi started going along again, sitting in corners and keeping Sreelakshmi occupied with a slate.

That same year Devi began to change in ways Radha could not manage. Some nights she did not sleep. She sat upright on the mat and talked fast about school, about becoming a nurse, about moving to a better house. She rearranged clothes and vessels before dawn. Then came days when she lay still and refused food. In one stretch she became convinced that a neighbor woman, Latha, was standing outside listening to her thoughts. She would not step out to wash clothes at the tap if she heard Latha’s voice. Radha called it “tension” and tried home remedies—strong tea, extra food, prayer—then shouted when nothing worked.

Even with those swings, Devi kept learning. A teacher, Meenakshi, noticed that Devi wrote good answers when she focused. Meenakshi stayed after school and made her repeat exam patterns. Devi liked the teacher’s bluntness. “Write the point first,” Meenakshi told her, tapping the paper. Devi followed instructions better when they came as short commands. In 2019 she began her final school year. Her attendance stayed uneven, but she passed her examinations. In 2020, at the school function, she walked up to the stage in a borrowed salwar kameez and accepted a certificate for completing the 12th standard. Radha clapped hard, eyes wet, then spent the next week showing the certificate to neighbors as proof that her daughter had not failed.

The pandemic kept everyone inside. With work scarce and movement restricted, Radha stayed home more, restless and worried about food. Devi’s sleep broke again. She talked through the night and then snapped at Sreelakshmi for breathing too loudly. She also spent more time outside when restrictions eased, lingering near the small shops and the bus stop, enjoying the feeling of being among strangers who did not ask questions.

In mid-2020 she started seeing Suresh, a young man from the area who did casual labor. He met her on the road, offered her tea at a stall, and spoke in Tamil while she answered in a mix of Tamil and Malayalam. He liked that she could read and that she did not boast. Devi liked that he paid attention. She kept the relationship hidden. She told Radha she was going to a friend’s house or to buy groceries. She enjoyed sitting on the low wall near the canal in the evening, sharing a packet of lemon rice with him, laughing when he tried to pronounce Malayalam words and mangled them on purpose.

Suresh became possessive. He asked who she spoke to. He checked her phone. When she did not answer quickly he shouted in the lane where neighbors could hear. Once, during an argument, he grabbed her arm hard enough to leave bruises. She covered them with her dupatta and said nothing at home.

Devi became pregnant in 2021. The secrecy collapsed. There was shouting in the house, then days of quiet. Radha’s first reaction was practical: she went to the government hospital, waited in line, and got Devi checked. Suresh avoided them in public and denied he had promised anything. The relationship ended in 2022, with no formal break, just his absence and Devi’s refusal to seek him out again.

Nikhil was born in 2022, a healthy boy. Devi fed him and watched him with a tight, constant attention. She hummed film songs under her breath while rocking him. Some days she handled everything—washing, cooking, feeding, taking him for vaccinations with the local health worker, Sister Anitha. Other days she stared at the wall and needed Radha to take the baby from her arms. Sreelakshmi, now a teenager, learned to mix formula when needed and to distract the baby by making faces.

From the pregnancy onward, the family’s money troubles worsened into a full crisis: debts to a moneylender and a local chit collector piled up, and Radha pawned the small bit of jewelry she had. By 2022 Radha’s health began to fail. She developed bouts of weakness and fever and had repeated clinic visits. She stopped getting steady house-cleaning work. They stretched rice from the ration shop, cooked thin kuzhambu, and counted LPG refills carefully. Devi stood in ration queues with Nikhil on her hip, documents in a plastic cover, and she learned which clerk accepted which photocopy. When she received an overpayment once from an employer’s family for a day’s work, she returned it the next morning even though Radha’s face tightened at the lost cash.

In 2023, during heavy rains that disrupted transport and supplies, prices rose again. Cooking oil and vegetables cost more. The household ate more plain rice and salt. Devi began a relationship with Arun, a man she knew from the neighborhood. He brought small help at first—milk for the child, a ride on his bike to the clinic. When Radha’s illness dragged on, Arun became unreliable. He stopped answering calls and then reappeared as if nothing had happened.

Devi became pregnant again in 2024. There was no marriage, no ceremony, no new household. She remained in the same small place near Neyveli, balancing caregiving for Radha with the demands of a toddler and a pregnancy. In 2025 she delivered her second son, Kiran. The baby stayed alive and fed well. Devi’s days became a sequence of tasks: boiling water, washing cloth diapers, cooking rice, taking Radha to the hospital when she could not stand, filling forms and keeping them dry. Sometimes she sang softly while grinding spices, steadying her breathing. Sometimes she snapped at Sreelakshmi over a missed errand and then apologized by handing her the first dosa off the tawa.

By late 2025 Devi lives in Neyveli with Radha, Sreelakshmi, and her two boys. The brass lamp still gets lit at dusk, a small flame in front of Krishna and Ganesha. Devi can read hospital slips and ration receipts and helps her sister with school letters. Most afternoons she sits on the threshold with Kiran asleep on her lap and Nikhil tracing shapes in the dust with a stick, listening for Radha’s cough from inside and the sound of the ration shop shutters opening down the road.