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would look the same. Except I would only wear white for thirteen days. Avani was forbidden color for the rest of her life.
    I wrapped the white sari around my body, and Avani made sure it fell in neat folds to my feet. Outside, the sun had already risen, and a flock of birds were making noise in the rice paddies. It was terrible to realize that life was simply carrying on while Mother lay on her funerary litter. It made me think of the scene in King Lear when the king discovers his beloved daughter’s body. He asks thegods how it’s possible that a dog, a horse, even a lowly rat can have life, and thou no breath at all . It felt like a betrayal to Mother that the birds outside should still be singing. Shouldn’t Lord Brahma silence them in sympathy?
    I stood at the window and looked out over the rice paddies. The priest was coming not just to write my sister’s Janam Kundli, but also to bless my mother’s spirit, which was already on its way to Svarga, where souls go before their next reincarnation. I tried to imagine her there, as a spirit, but since her body was still lying in the next room, I found it difficult.
    Eventually, Grandmother came to the door and demanded to know why Avani hadn’t brought me to our puja room, where we made our daily prayers. “The priest is already here,” she said.
    “Sita’s feeling upset,” Avani explained.
    “We’re all upset,” Grandmother replied. “And we’ll be more upset if this baby girl ends up manglik.”
    Avani and I both gasped.
    Manglik is the worst thing a person can be. If a priest determines that you are manglik, it means you are cursed. There are all sorts of repercussions for people whose natal charts read this way, and marriage becomes extremely difficult. Most mangliks marry other mangliks, so that the bad luck can be canceled out.
    But even Grandmother could not control the stars. It was up to the priest to read them.
    I followed Grandmother to the puja room, where the priest would pray for guidance in reading my sister’s Janam Kundli. I sat down cross-legged with Avani on fresh jute mats. Father must have bought them that morning. I looked across the room at him. He was sitting near the priest in front of our mandir, the wooden temple that housed the images of our gods. I tried to catch his gaze, but even though he was looking at me, he was somewhere else. Next to him,the priest was speaking with our new milk nurse about my sister and how she had come into the world. It was the first time I had seen the baby properly. She was a pretty baby, and I could see at once her resemblance to Mother. She had the same small nose, thick black hair, and a pair of dimples on either side of her cheeks. The midwife had wrapped her in a swath of yellow cloth. I felt a heaviness in my chest because I wanted Mother to be the one cradling her.
    “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Avani said. “Coloring like your grandmother, but darker eyes.”
    “I think she looks like Mother,” I said, to be defiant.
    The priest took his place in the center of the room and we waited in silence while he prepared the puja. A puja is a prayer, the same as you might make in any church. To perform the ceremony you need incense, flowers, ghee, and a round bowl for making a small fire. If you want it to be elaborate, you can add painted oil lamps and large brass bells. With the exception of the priest and the fire, this puja for my sister’s Janam Kundli was not so different from what my family did every morning, when—after our bath—we entered our puja room to stand before images of our gods. I’ve learned over the years that Catholics and Hindus have similar rituals: Catholics light a candle before statues of their saints and repeat a mantra they call Hail Mary; Hindus light a stick of incense and repeat mantras to the gods.
    A puja can be long and intense, or it can be quite simple and short. That afternoon it was long, and since eating is prohibited until the ceremony is finished, it seemed