The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

‘Shirina,’ Jezmeen whispered. ‘Are those guys looking at us?’ Shirina followed her gaze and saw a group of young men sitting cross-legged and staring at them, their lips twitching into smiles. ‘They are, aren’t they?’

‘They’re looking at you,’ Shirina said, which was true but it was also what Jezmeen wanted to hear. Shirina adjusted her dupatta again, this time so it obscured her profile.

‘Do you think people here would mistake me for Polly Mishra?’ Jezmeen wondered aloud. ‘Or does that happen more in the UK because there are so few Indian women on television?’

‘You do look alike,’ Shirina said.

‘That’s the problem,’ Jezmeen said with a sigh. ‘There can only be one actress with our looks. She’s had better luck than me, getting such a great break with The Boathouse.’

Sure, luck had some small role to play in Polly’s success but Shirina had watched several episodes of The Boathouse and thought Polly was brilliant in it. She knew better than to say this to Jezmeen, who was sensitive about the whole rivalry. She had once read a celebrity blog site referring to Jezmeen as ‘the poor man’s Polly Mishra’.

Jezmeen was considering something now. ‘Do you think, if I went up to those guys now and pretended to be Polly, they’d know the difference?’

‘Jezmeen, this isn’t the place to be impersonating actresses,’ Rajni said.

‘What is a place to be impersonating actresses, Rajni? I’m curious.’

‘People come here to worship,’ Rajni reminded her.

‘Does it matter?’ Jezmeen asked.

‘Of course it matters.’

‘We’re not exactly sitting here praying. I’ve spent the past ten minutes mentally revising my Christmas party invitation list.’

‘It’s July,’ Rajni said accusingly.

The guy in the middle said something to his friend and grinned. He took out his phone and pointed it at Jezmeen. The flash went off. ‘Now that’s just rude,’ Jezmeen said. She sprang to her feet and marched across the prayer hall. ‘Oh my god,’ Shirina said. She glanced at the bearded granthi serenely reading from the Holy Book, his cadence as hypnotic as a gentle tide. Now would be a good time to take up prayer.

Rajni went after Jezmeen, muttering something about inappropriate behaviour in the temple. One of the tabla players looked up and met eyes with Shirina. She gave him an apologetic smile. He shut his eyes, tipped his face towards the ceiling, and let out a string of melodic drumbeats. She got up and followed her sisters.

‘Hello there,’ Jezmeen said when they approached the men. She smiled sweetly. ‘I noticed you took a picture of me and I thought you might like a close-up.’

The men exchanged looks and two of them were suddenly sheepish. Shirina noticed that they were younger than she’d thought – just boys. One had the patchy beginnings of a beard on his bony chin and the other was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt.

‘So?’ Jezmeen pressed. She placed one hand on her hip. ‘Let’s not be shy now.’

People were beginning to stare. Shirina tugged her sister’s sleeve. ‘Jezmeen, this is embarrassing.’

‘Jezmeen Shergill,’ one boy said. He was the one wearing the Star Wars shirt. ‘So it is you.’

His British accent took Shirina by surprise. Jezmeen said nothing. The boy kept watching her, a slow grin spreading on his face. His friends were hiding their smiles behind their hands. The tabla thumped like a heartbeat.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ Jezmeen said. ‘Just because I’m on television, it doesn’t give you the right—’

‘I’m a huge fan,’ the boy continued.

Shirina caught the boy with the patchy facial hair discreetly pulling his phone from his pocket. When he noticed her looking, he dropped his hands.

‘Really?’ Jezmeen asked.

The smirk on Star Wars boy’s face made Shirina nervous.

‘Can we get a photo with you?’ he asked.

Rajni poked her head between them. ‘She’s not Polly Mishra.’

‘They know, Rajni,’ Jezmeen said. ‘He said my name. Are you boys fans of the show? Here, let’s take a quick selfie together, and—’

The boys began to snicker and nudge each other again. ‘Do it,’ Star Wars boy whispered to the boy with patchy facial hair.

The boy let out a theatrical sigh. ‘Oh, Jezmeen Shergill,’ he said, ‘I was dying to meet you.’ And then he stuck out his tongue, crossed his eyes and flapped his hands. The other boys collapsed into laughter.

What the hell was he doing? Shirina stared at the boys, forgetting for a moment where they were and how much disruption they were creating. The boys scrambled to their feet and out of the hall. Jezmeen’s face was ashen.

‘You alright?’ Shirina asked, still puzzled. She reached out but Jezmeen’s shoulder flinched at her touch. Jezmeen turned away, pulling her phone from her bag and tapping away rapidly.

‘I wonder where their parents are,’ Rajni remarked, looking over her shoulder at the boys. ‘I’d like to have a word with them.’

‘Just drop it,’ Jezmeen said, not looking up from her phone.

‘They’re obviously here on holidays with family – you’d think their parents brought them here to get some spiritual enlightenment, not sit around—’

‘I said, “drop it”,’ Jezmeen said. Her eyes were blazing. ‘Oh my god,’ she whispered. ‘A hundred thousand.’

It meant nothing to Shirina. She looked at Rajni, who looked just as perplexed.

They stood for a while in tense silence. A pair of women walked past, looking at them curiously. Shirina was conscious of the scene they were probably presenting to passers-by – three sisters at an impasse in a terrible family argument.

‘Why don’t we just start our work at the langar hall?’ Shirina suggested brightly, eager to dismantle this tableau.

‘I’ll join you both in a few minutes,’ Jezmeen said. Shirina and Rajni watched as she turned around and pushed her way out through the stream of people entering the prayer hall.

‘Should one of us follow her?’ Shirina asked.

Rajni shook her head and sighed. ‘It’s Jezmeen,’ she said. A sufficient explanation for Shirina. Jezmeen existed in her own sphere, and trying to understand her crises was like walking late into a house party where all the other guests had already become friends. Over the past few years, Shirina’s sense of solitude had grown more profound as Jezmeen chased auditions and pined to be noticed. Sometimes she forgot that they used to talk to each other more, because every conversation that Shirina could recall having with Jezmeen in adulthood was about Jezmeen: what she was doing, where she was going, what she wanted. Jezmeen never really thought about the consequences of her actions for other people. They were a long way now from when they’d been little girls, staying up so late into the night playing and chatting that Mum more or less gave up on setting a proper bedtime. When was the last time Shirina went breathless from giggling with Jezmeen? You two, knock it off and go to bed now, Rajni would call from downstairs, so much sterner and scarier than Mum. They would pretend to oblige, reducing their voices to whispers, which inevitably became louder until Rajni marched up the stairs to tell them off again.

This wasn’t a good start to their journey. Mum believed that whatever happened in the morning set the tone for the rest of the day – all of her rituals were completed by the time the sun rose. If Mum were here, she wouldn’t be happy. The morning wasn’t even over and they were already down to two.

The langar hall throbbed with the same noise and energy of a Delhi street, but the scene was surprisingly organized. People sat on the floor in rows and ate with their hands from metal trays. Servers roamed up and down the lines, refilling plates with rotis and ladlefuls of dal. ‘Of course you already know that in the Sikh religion, we believe in serving food to anybody who comes to the temple, regardless of their creed, gender or income,’ Mum had written in her letter, after explaining the significance of this temple. ‘They don’t have to worship here. They don’t have to offer any services, or money. This is a very good system, and one that helped our family after your father died.’

Shirina was aware of the temple’s welfare from the meals that Mum used to bring home from the morning service, usually at times when the cupboards were bare. ‘We’re still okay,’ Mum would say, looking at a full plate before her. Her tone was never convincing enough. Shirina would look at the plate and see the thinness of the roti, the watery dal, and sense that there was only so much charity they could ask for.

Shirina and Rajni entered a wide back kitchen, which bustled with activity. Along one wall, enormous steel pots were being stirred slowly by young turbaned men with ladles the size and shape of oars. In the corner, a cluster of older women kneaded balls of dough. The serving line was being set up and there were young children pushing for a chance to put out the plates.

Rajni wandered off to the vegetable counter and, with a few quick nods and smiles with the other women there, she was handed a knife, a chopping board and a tubful of carrots. Shirina considered her options more carefully. There was a counter dedicated to roti-making but those women were experts – just look at how they were flattening the dough into such perfect circles with the flick of their wrists. They were deep in conversation as well; Shirina would be intruding. She almost turned a full circle considering her options before she felt somebody gripping her by the shoulders. She turned around to see a small elderly woman standing before her.

‘Looking for something to do? Can you take my place kneading dough for a while? Young thing like you would do a faster job than these.’ The woman held up her hands and showed Shirina her curled arthritic fingers. Shirina felt a pang of sadness, remembering the way Mum clutched the edges of her letter, her voice shaking slightly as she read it to them. Grief came to her like a series of aftershocks – every time she thought she had moved on, something new reminded her of Mum.