Read Part 1 of Abha Sharma’s story here.

Me Mo was only eleven when she lost her own mother and thirteen when our father remarried. A year later, I was born.

“My new ma was only a step away, and we got along famously,” Me Mo told me. Pausing briefly, she continued, “Mujhey Mummy key haath pein apna sir rakh kar sona achha lagta tha. Aur Mummy ko bhi accha lagta tha.” “I liked to lay my head and fall asleep on Mummy’s hand. And Mummy liked that too.”

Mummy may have been the stepmother, but Meena was the one she leaned on, especially in her early days of marriage. Meena helped Mummy raise me, and Meena was the one Mummy praised relentlessly.

“Meena was the only one who didn’t cause trouble. Give her a good book, and she was happy. She could be cooking semolina halwa and reading a book, that girl. Twice, maybe thrice a week, we dropped her off at the university library in Pune in the morning. She studied hard, that girl. Very hard. And that was how she achieved a very high second class in her master’s. Not easy. Not in those times. Not when you are home-schooled.” Clearly, Meena was our mother’s favorite, and Me Mo knew that.

“If it weren’t for you, baby sister, I really would be Mummy’s top favorite,” Me Mo often teased me.

It couldn’t have been easy for Me Mo. A large family of several siblings and aged grandparents, the tragedy of losing her mother, a new step-mother, Daddy’s frequent relocation between states and limited availability of schools pertaining to her choice of subjects (Me Mo wanted to take the sciences) were enough reasons for anyone to feel discouraged and even cease their studies. Not so for this tenacious teenager. If anything, she actively pursued her education, come what may, in sciences and the arts, and excelled at both.

Daddy was Me Mo’s favorite mentor. Notwithstanding the fact that he usually forgot to order coursework study books at the opportune time, Me Mo sought every opportunity to study with him throughout her three years of high school and bachelor’s degree. A few months of home study, notes checked with Daddy, forms filled and filed timely, and Me Mo was ready for her examinations.

Affiliated with the Aligarh Muslim University, examinations were usually held during the hot summer months in Dehra Dun and some other cities in Northern India. This meant that every year Me Mo left home for a month or two. She didn’t just fly out; she travelled by train, in a second-class compartment, the hot, dusty, slow-crawling trains of the sixties. A two-day journey across the Western Ghats from Pune to Delhi was followed by a bus trip to Dehra Dun. Here, she lived with Kusum Jijo, our eldest sister, and her husband at their home, took the exams, and returned home via the same tedious route. 

The results spoke for themselves. Me Mo scored a first division with distinction in English in high school and a very high second class in her BA.

But each time Me Mo went to Dehra Dun, she left me behind. Bewildered by her unexplained absence, I sobbed my heart out.

In Mummy’s words, “You were so attached to your sister. How you would cry! ‘Hai, Meena Jiji! Hai, Meena Jiji!’ If anyone said anything, off you would march, sprawl outside her study room, and bawl for hours. You would complain to her about everything and everybody in her absence.

“You were such an energetic child. A chatterbox too. You just wouldn’t listen and ran up and down the stairs. Of course, your legs hurt from all that running about, and at night, you cried from the pain. Who held you? Meena did! She comforted and rocked you to sleep in her arms for hours and hours together!”

Growing up as a young child and as a teenager, I often heard these lines from Mummy.

At twenty-one, there were no more exams for Me Mo, no more trips to Dehra Dun. Instead, she got married, an arranged marriage, as was common for the times. Me Mo went away again, but this time to build her new home with her husband, Dr. Satish Kulshrestha, in New Delhi. I was only eight. Feeling lost at her wedding, I wept and clung to the car that carried her away. The memories are vivid.

In time, there were other dreams to pursue, and Me Mo and my borther-in-law or Jijaji,as I called him, left New Delhi for Nigeria. Of course, there were these occasional visits to our parents’ home in Pune. There were descriptions of their lengthy walking outings to the Ajanta-Ellora caves in Aurangabad. There was that lovely embroidered kaftan for me, and the local bus trips that Me Mo and I undertook to get her saree blouses stitched at the tailor’s shop in Khadki bazaar.

Mostly, however, my memories resonate louder from when the couple finally returned for good to New Delhi after a fourteen-year stay in Nigeria. There are no single favorite memories, but yes, every visit to their home in Delhi was meaningful for our family and especially for me.

Usually, our family took the bus down to Delhi from Dehra Dun, a tedious eight-hour long journey alleviated by a fabulous high tea at their home. Me Mo liked to serve tea the traditional way. Water boiled merrily in the stainless-steel kettle set on the gas stove in the tiny kitchen. Milk boiled and was set separately in its own steel container. Meanwhile, you chose a cup from amongst their collection of different designs, sizes, and styles, arranged tastefully in the glass-paned wall cabinet by the dining table.

Unbeknownst to us, Jijaji would have already slipped away to the nearby local market and returned with sweet gulab jamuns and piping hot samosas. An assortment of biscuits, dal moth and, in season, rose-petal fragranced petha added to the feast on the table.

Mornings were equally memorable. Around 8 or 8:30 am, old Bollywood songs wafted from an old transistor set up near the cabinet while Jijaji laid out small plates for a hearty breakfast. Bread was toasted and laid out on a steel holder- a stand for the crisp, browned slice, the like of which I have never seen anywhere else. Toppings were numerous and Jijaji made sure that we knew about them all: from simple Amul butter, or malai (good old cream skimmed off from the top of wholesome boiled and cooled milk), orange marmalade, grated Amul cheese, to different cheese spreads or simply warmed up leftover vegetables from last night’s dinner.

Then there were the gujias, a famous Holi delicacy: a sweet empanada, filled with cooked milk solids (khoya) and chopped dry fruits that Me Mo could whip up for me to eat within thirty minutes of my arriving at their home. I just had to ask for it.

Sharp in my memory is that calm face and the ice-cold, formidable voice Me Mo used to reprimand the orthopedic surgeon after he had messed up my knee arthroscopy surgery. That was NOT the voice she used to help me exercise my knee at her home.

And that warm feeling after Me Mo and I had cuddled up at her home, followed by her gentle admonition. “I know you do a bunch of things at home. I know you enjoy staying at home with the children. But life is slipping away. Do something, will you?” Her tone was serious. Her words already ingrained in my brain.

Theirs was the home from where I undertook my first international solo plane trip for a conference in UK, and my first trip to the US with my two young children. And again, theirs was the home from which our family returned to the US and launched our own American dream in 2000.

For a long time, theirs was also the home for our first stop-over in Delhi each time we returned for a visit to India. It was from there that I informed all my extended family, living in different states across the country, of my safe arrival in India. It was also where I bade adieu to everyone before departing back to the States.

Each time, a little after the initial excitement of meeting and settling down in their living room, Me Mo would hold out the land phone. “Okay Abha, let’s call the other sisters. You need to let them know you have arrived safely.”

Me Mo dialed the numbers and handed over the phone. The landline rarely allowed me to hear clearly, and after a while, I would simply nod my head in a gesture of not understanding, and hand back the phone to her. Nevertheless, one by one, we called everyone. The experience was repeated, but Me Mo persevered. We blamed the poor connection, the static in the lines. Everything, but not my hearing loss.

Me Mo was and continues to be my favorite sister. The two of us have had some very intense and close conversations that lasted for hours into the night. The poignant time after our father passed away remains firmly entrenched in my mind, her voice raw with immense grief and pain. “Hey Bhagwan! Mujhey anaath mat bana dena.” Oh God! Please don’t make me an orphan.

Every time I visited Me Mo, it felt like coming home. It felt like I was at my mother’s home. Essentially, she is my mother figure. Being a favorite, however, did not make her a close sister in the way people often mean as someone you grow up with. I never grew up with Me Mo; I grew up without her. An age gap of twelve years does that. The older sibling leaves home early. She did. I accepted it, but then yes, maybe I was aggrieved?

Me Mo knew me as that talkative chatter box toddler who ran up and down the stairs and had to be held all night long in her arms. She witnessed that young, confident thirty-year old adult who left her three-year-old son behind for a UK conference from her home, the mom accompanied by a toddler and a seven-year-old enroute to the US, and the middle-aged woman who dared to aspire to the American dream for her family. She had no idea of the extent of my hearing loss struggles at work or at home. She didn’t even know the story of how I was diagnosed with hearing loss in Miraj.  

How could Me Mo know if I didn’t tell her? How could she be aware of the need for communication strategies for me to enjoy a group conversation if I didn’t speak with her about them? How could she know that I was so good at the pretense game I could be a nominee for an Oscar?

Without doubt, I needed to be a better advocate for myself even when I was talking to family. And while I am grateful for all those phone calls Me Mo made on my behalf during visits to her home, it was a missed opportunity. Rather than blame the bad phones lines and static, I should have expressed my anxiety. I should have said, “Me Mo, let’s not do this anymore. I get anxious every time I use the landline. I really cannot comprehend what Gita Jiji is saying after the initial hello. Why don’t you convey the message to everyone on my behalf? Less work for you. Me too.”

The arrival of the iPhone and its video feature in recent times should have made my life so much easier. It did. Arriving in and departing from Delhi to the States is announced to the entire family as always, but now by texting. Beyond belief, it’s quick and convenient.

Having a conversation on the iPhone with my sisters, however, is not without its flaws, even when I use the video feature of WhatsApp. Of course, I now make my own phone calls. The Bluetooth connection is fabulously loud and clear. Sometimes, however, I do have to remind them.

“Me Mo, can you please stay in the frame? Can you please place the phone slightly lower? I can’t read your lips.”

 “Can you please switch on the light in the room? It’s dark. Hard to read your lips.”

“Oh, and you need to reduce the volume of the TV, please. Too much background noise at your end.”

“Maybe you can text me this word? I still don’t get it. Sorry, but yeah, please text me on WhatsApp. Can you?”

Due to the 12-hour time difference between US and India, it is mostly mid-mornings when I call any of my sisters now. The best part is that we have a really good conversation together, even as they watch the TV from time to time, and I, with the iPhone placed on the edge of the cooking range against the wall, continue to chop all those greens, cucumbers, broccoli and carrots on the chopping board. Not so finely as Me Mo would have liked, but they will do. Those chopped veggies are not for the freezer; they will go into my lunch salad.

About the Author

Born and brought up in India, Abha Sharma is an Asian American emerging artist, writer and research scientist at the University of Washington, Seattle. She struggled to hear since childhood but was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss only in her early teens. Strongly supported and encouraged by her parents, Abha persevered to educate herself while actively pursuing the arts as well. With a doctorate in Biophysics from a premier medical research institute in New Delhi, she is a scientist by profession and an artist by heart.

Abha married Rajendra and, later along with their two young children, the couple traversed a tough immigration process as bio-researchers in Texas to pursue the American dream.

A recipient of the 2021 Grants for Artists’ Progress (GAP) Award from the Artist Trust, and the Artists Up Mentorly Scholarship from the state of Washington, Abha was a semi-finalist in the She Writes Press and SparkPress Towards Diversity in Publishing (STEP) contest. She has been awarded several scholarships, including the Altman Writers of Color from the Hudson Valley Writers Center New York (2021-2022) and is published in several literary magazines. One of her essays, “Kitaab,” was nominated by the editors of The Touchstone Literary Magazine for inclusion in Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net Anthology.

Abha, along with her husband, has also translated the published The Secrets Hidden Beneath the Palm Tree written by Angeliki Stamatopoulou-Pedersen into Hindi, “Khajoor ke ped ke neeche chupe rahasya” as a print and ebook, 2021. (The links for the Hindi version: https://store.pothi.com/book/angiliki-stamatopoulou-pedersen-khajoor-ke-ped-ke-neeche-chupe-rahasya/; https://www.amazon.in/dp/0984643028?ref=myi_title_dp.)

Other professional activities include being invited to deliver an online talk on disability-related issues in light of her own personal experience, “Your ears don’t listen?” a personal narrative organized by Vivekananda Chair in collaboration with School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India; August 18, 2023, and “Reclaiming the artist in me” for the event “Artists with Disabilities: A perspective on accessibility, opportunities, and celebrating talent,” EastHUB organization, Seattle, WA. April 21, 2022 (http://www.easthub.org/; https://easthub.org/collaborator/abha-sharma/).

Additionally, Abha has served as panelist for The Emotional Impacts of Hearing Loss: Finding Support and Community; HLAA-Washington Annual Community Meeting, April 26, 2025, and for the Endurance Grants, Artist Trust, WA, 2022.

She has also successfully completed UW Professional and Continuing Education: A workshop for women: writing & publishing personal essays Educational Units, January to March 2022.

Abha keeps herself joyous, sane, and alive through writing, crafting, painting, walking the woods with music in her ears (preferably near water bodies, even small ones will do), rediscovering alternative nutritional and water therapies, reviving stories about strong women in her life and spending quality time with her three grandchildren. Also, she is always ready to dance to music if you have the inclination for it.

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