My sister is a year older today. A year wiser, and no doubt a year grumpier! If there is one thing Modha’s do better than anyone else, is have a good old moan. No doubt, when she woke up this morning, she was probably grizzling about being a year older. I always find it strange that my mum is so optimistic, yet her offspring and husband can be a right cranky bunch of turds. She must often wonder where she went wrong.

But in my sister, give or take, my parents went pretty right. Sure, she is a godless wonder, stubborn as the proverbial mule, who married out of the faith, and didn’t become a lawyer / pharmacist / house wife or any other suitable role for a young Indian woman. Instead she became a fierce Modha woman. An independent woman, with her own thoughts and opinions. Anyone who has met any of the Modha daughters will know what I mean.

This makes her sound terrifying, but she isn’t, unless you annoy her, then she is.

But what she is, above all the little jokes above, is someone who cares for those she loves, like few others. Very much my father’s daughter, she does things in a quiet, and understated way. She is 100% reliable, and will never let you down. She never looks for anything in return, other than the respect and care she shows others.  

I love her very much, and she has looked after me a lot. Since I was a kid, through summers, when she would make Maca-bean-a-ghetti (a mixture of macaroni, backed beans and spaghetti….sounds disgusting, tastes like a hug would). When I went to university she helped pay for me, with money from her first job. When my dad was sick, and I felt massively alone, she was there for me, pointing out how close we were. When my mother was exhausted during this time, she looked after her too.

I was glad that this summer we got to see They Might Be Giants together, something I know she has wanted to do since 1989. I got her a signed Alan Partridge biography for her birthday. But all these things will never be able to make up for all she has done for me.

I remember once, I had called a cousin a ‘privvy and a pranny’, who then went and grassed on me to my dad. He got angry, and ordered me into the living room to get a caning. I don’t honestly believe he was going to do it, for starters because he formed an audience of some of my other cousins, and because he had never hit me before that. Then  my sister, four years older than me, can’t have been more than 11, stood in front of my dad, declared he wasn’t going to hit me, grabbed the bamboo from him, ran into the back garden and threw it over the fence.

That is my sister, and I will love her always. Because whenever I have needed her, she has been there in a heartbeat. That and she has given my life the wonder that is my nephew Sachin.

Happy Birthday Kiran

- Anand