After marrying into a multigenerational family in Varanasi, I noticed something strange: every child had the same birthday and identical schoolbags. No one found it unusual—until I was ordered to call each child by name, following the exact order written behind the door.
Part One: The Pandey House in Assi
I am Ananya Tiwari, twenty-eight years old, Assistant Professor of Hindi Literature in a private college in Lucknow, and till last January I thought joint families only existed in Premchand stories and in Ekta Kapoor serials.
My marriage to Abhishek was not arranged-arranged, it was half-arranged. He was doing his PhD in History from BHU, I had met him at a seminar on Kabir. He spoke very less, but when he spoke about Varanasi, he spoke like the city was his mother. When his family came to see me in Lucknow, his Bauji — retired Sanskrit teacher from a pathshala — asked me only one question, “Bahu, can you teach children to read Hindi properly?”
I said yes. I thought he meant future children, our children. My mother thought the same.
I came to Varanasi in the second week of December, after the wedding. The Pandey house is in a lane behind Assi Ghat, where scooters cannot go and you have to walk. It is a two-floor house, blue colour, with tulsi in the middle aangan and a hand-pump that still works. On the ground floor lives Bauji and Amma, and Abhishek’s Chacha-Chachi. On the first floor, Abhishek, me, Abhishek’s younger brother Deepak who is preparing for PCS, and four children.
The four children were introduced to me on the very first day as “hamare ghar ke bacche.” No one said whose children they were. There was Guddu, about ten years, very serious. Bitto, about eight, with spectacles too big for her face. Chikki, maybe six, who holds everyone’s saree pallu. And Munna, the smallest, four years old, who does not speak much but follows Chikki everywhere.
I assumed they were Chacha-Chachi’s. Chacha-Chachi are childless, I knew that. So I thought, okay, maybe they are from some cousin.
The house was noisy in a good way. Morning aarti, then tiffin making, then children running to catch e-rickshaw for school. Amma would keep saying, “Bahu, you also eat, you only keep serving.” Abhishek would leave early for BHU library. I was happy. For two days, I was happy.
On the third day, I started noticing small things. All four children wore the same school dress — not just same colour, same size altered slightly — from Saraswati Shishu Mandir. That is normal in joint family. But their water bottles were identical, steel, with same scratch on the lid. I thought, Chachi must have bought from same shop in Godowlia, bulk discount.
Part Two: The Common Things
I am a teacher, so I notice notebooks. I had bought new name slips for them as a new bhabhi gift. I asked for their diaries to stick them. Guddu gave me his diary. Name: Guddu Pandey. DOB: 14 February 2016. I smiled, Valentine’s Day baby.
Bitto gave hers. Name: Bitto Pandey. DOB: 14 February 2016.
I thought she had copied from her brother as a joke. Then Chikki’s diary — same date. 14 February 2016. And Munna’s — same date, same year even though Munna is clearly only four years old. Four children, ranging from four to ten, all born on 14th February 2016. On the same day.
I went to Amma and said, “Amma, Bitto’s diary me date galat likha hai shayad.”
Amma did not even look up from cutting methi. She said, “Nahi bahu, sahi hai. Sabka ek hi janamdin hai. Ganga Maiyya ka din hai. We celebrate together only, expenses kam hota hai.”
I laughed a little, waiting for her to say it was a joke. She did not. Chachi who was sitting there said, “Haan bahu, sabka bag bhi same hai na, isliye koi ladai nahi hota.”
It was true. In the evening, when they returned, all four children had the same faded blue VIP school bag, same zip broken in same way, same small peacock stitched by Amma on the front pocket. I had thought earlier that it was passed down from elder to younger. But Guddu, the eldest, had the same faded bag as Munna, the youngest, both looking equally old.
I told Abhishek at night, “Suniye, ye bacche — sabka birthday same kaise? Bag bhi same?”
He was removing his socks. He said, “Are, Bauji ka hisab hai. You don’t worry. You are new, you will take time to understand. Family me aise hi chalta hai.”
That night, after dinner, Bauji called me to the kitchen. The kitchen has a wooden door behind which Amma writes with chalk — today’s sabzi, money for milkman. That night I saw behind the door, there was a fresh list, written in Bauji’s very neat Sanskrit-teacher handwriting, four names in order.
Bauji said, “Nayi bahu, ye ghar ka niyam hai. You have to call them properly at night before sleeping. Otherwise they will not sleep. Padh ke bolo.”
Amma and Chachi were standing there, nodding as if it was completely normal.
By the third evening, I could no longer pretend I was imagining it. All four children — Guddu, Bitto, Chikki and the smallest Munna who never spoke — had the exact same birthday written in their school diaries, 14th February 2016, and all carried the identical faded blue VIP school bag with the same stitched peacock on it. The elders treated it as completely normal, as if it was the most ordinary thing in Kashi. And that night, Bauji stood behind me in the kitchen and made me call each child by the exact names written in order behind the door, pointing with his old wooden stick, “Padh ke bolo bahu, ek ek naam, galat nahi hona chahiye.”
Part Three: The List Behind The Door
The list behind the door did not say Guddu, Bitto, Chikki, Munna.
It said:
- Aryan — Bada wala
- Ansh — Chashme wali
- Avni — Pallu pakadne wali
- Arav — Jo bolta nahi
I read it loudly, as ordered. “Aryan… Ansh… Avni… Arav.”
The children, who were sitting on a chatai in the aangan waiting for their night milk, stood up one by one when their description was called, even though I did not call their nicknames. Guddu stood when I said Aryan. Bitto pushed her spectacles and stood when I said Ansh. Chikki left my saree pallu and stood when I said Avni. Munna — who never speaks — looked at me and stood when I said Arav.
Bauji seemed satisfied. “Shabash. Now they will sleep peacefully.”
That night I could not sleep. My room was on the first floor, and I could hear Amma downstairs crying very softly. Not the loud crying of serials, but that kind of crying which old women do when they think no one is listening.
Next morning, I did what any literature student does — I searched for a story. I opened the steel almirah in our room where old photo albums were kept. Abhishek had told me not to touch them because there was “deemak”. I touched.
In the third album, there were photos of a woman I had not seen in the house. Fair, smiling with big teeth, wearing a red suit. In every photo, she was holding one or more of the children. But the children were younger. And in one photo, dated February 2019, all four children were sitting on her lap at Assi Ghat, holding same blue bags, new then. Behind the photo, someone had written with ball pen, “Priya didi, last Ganga Snan — 14 Feb 2019.”
Priya.
I went to Deepak, Abhishek’s brother. He was the only one who spoke to me in normal language. I asked, “Ye Priya kaun thi?”
His face went tight. He said, “Bhaiya ki pehli wife.”
The air in that small room with PCS books became too heavy to breathe.
Abhishek was married before. No one had told me. Not my parents, not his family, not Abhishek.
I waited till night. When Abhishek came, I kept the photo on his study table. He looked at it for a long time.
Then he sat down on the floor, not on the chair, and said, “She died. Two years back. Cancer. She was thirty only.”
“And the children?” I asked. My voice was not angry. It was just tired.
“Not our children,” he said. “Not blood se.”
Then he told me the second twist, which was bigger than the first birthday twist.
Part Four: The Boat of 14th February
On 14th February 2018, there was a boat accident in Ganga, near Manikarnika. Early morning fog. A big private boat carrying labourers and their families who were going to work at the other side. The boat was overloaded. It toppled.
Four children survived — ages one to seven at that time. Their parents did not. No one came to claim them for three days in the government hospital because their families were from a small basti near Ramnagar and had no papers.
Bauji, who was a volunteer with Ganga Seva Samiti, brought them home. Amma said, “Ganga Maiyya ne diye hain toh hum palenge.” The family tried to find relatives. One aunt came, took money for shraadh, and never came back.
Priya bhabhi, who had just married Abhishek then and had no children of her own, took them as her own. She could not have children, doctor had said. So she said, “If Ganga gave us four on same day, their birthday will be same. Their rebirth day. 14th February.”
She bought four same bags so that no child would feel that one bag is new and one is old. Same bottle, same tiffin. She gave them nicknames — Guddu, Bitto, Chikki, Munna — because she thought Aryan, Ansh, Avni, Arav were too heavy for small children to write. But Bauji insisted on writing their real names behind the door because he was afraid — he has been having early memory loss, Amma later told me — that he would forget their real names, which Priya had chosen so carefully.
The night ritual of calling names in order was not superstition. It was Priya’s invention. Munna — Arav — is autistic, non-verbal. He would get panic attacks at night if he felt he was not called, not included. So Priya made a rule: every night, before sleeping, each child will be called by his real name with love, in order, so Arav knows he is also counted. Bauji continued it after Priya died because if he did not, Arav would cry whole night and hit his head on wall.
Abhishek said, “After Priya died, Bauji and Amma thought this house will become silent. They thought no girl will marry into a house with four adopted children and an old man who forgets names and a husband whose first wife died of cancer. That is why they asked you only one question — can you teach children to read Hindi properly? Because Priya used to teach them. Arav only calms down when someone reads Kabir’s doha to him in same tune.”
I asked, “And you did not think of telling me before marriage that you were married before and you have four children?”
He said, “I told your father. Your father said you have a big heart. I thought you knew.”
I did not know. My father had not told me because he thought if he told, I would say no, and I was already twenty-eight and Assistant Professor and “too much educated for marriage market.”
I wanted to leave that night itself. I packed one small bag.
Then Chikki came upstairs, holding her slate. She had written in very bad Hindi, “Badi Mummy, kal aapne Aryan ko Avni bola. Arav roya. Aap phir se bula do.”
She meant last night I had made a mistake in order. I had called Aryan as Avni. And Arav had cried after I went to my room, and I had not heard because I was wearing earphones.
That small sentence broke something in me. In Priya’s absence, for one year, these children had been corrected by Deepak, who mispronounced their names, by Amma who forgot specs, by Bauji who sometimes called all four as “Arre bacchon.” They needed someone who would read that list properly.
I did not leave.
Part Five: The New Birthday
It has been ten months now.
I still call them every night. Now I don’t need to read behind the door. I know — Aryan is Guddu who wants to become cricketer but is scared of fast balls. Ansh is Bitto who wears spectacles and wants to become doctor and actually tops her class. Avni is Chikki who still holds my saree pallu but now also holds a pencil correctly. Arav is Munna who does not speak but now hums when I sing “Moko kahan dhoonde re bande” in Priya didi’s tune.
Bauji’s memory has become worse. Now sometimes he calls me Priya. At first I used to correct him. Now Amma says, “Rehne do bahu, usko lagta hai Priya wapas aa gayi hai toh khush ho jaata hai.” So I let him. I have kept Priya didi’s photo on the kitchen wall, not hidden in album. I tell the children stories about her.
Last month, we celebrated their birthday. 14th February. Not one cake, but four small cakes, same size, same chocolate flavour, because if one is bigger, fight will happen. Bauji remembered all names that day without looking at door. He cried.
Abhishek and I are still learning to be husband-wife. He still speaks less. But last week, he brought me a second-hand book of Mahadevi Verma from Vishwanath Gali and said, “For your college, and for Arav.”
The final twist, which I understood only this month, is not about the children having same birthday or same bag. The twist is that this house did not need a bahu who could cook or who could produce a blood heir. It needed a teacher who could keep a list alive.
Behind the kitchen door, Bauji has now added a fifth name below the four. Written in his shaky hand, but clearly:
- Ananya — Jo padhke bulati hai
The one who calls out by reading.
I did not ask him to write it. He wrote himself. When I saw it yesterday night, while calling the children, I stopped at the fifth name and read it loudly also.
“Aryan… Ansh… Avni… Arav… and Ananya.”
Munna — Arav — clapped for the first time.
