Janaki

My name is Bhuvan. I'm twelve years old, and until recently, my life was pretty simple. School, video games, cricket with the boys next door, and the occasional family trip when my dad flew down from Oman.

We live in a modest house in Palakkad. It’s just me and my mother, Janaki, most of the time. Dad, Bhaskar, works in Muscat as a senior project engineer. He visits twice a year and calls every other day, but it's my mother who keeps everything running here. The house, the groceries, my homework, and every single PTA meeting.

Janaki Amma, as others call her, is 36. But if you ask me, she doesn’t look it. To me, she’s the prettiest woman around. Voluptuous and soft, like the women I see in those old Malayalam movies my uncle watches. She has long black hair that she ties up most days, but when it…