I was born eighty years ago, halfway across the world, in a small town in what was then Malaya. Three hot meals a day, a real mattress to sleep on — I didn’t dare to hope for more. Oh, I was not immune to pointless and unrealistic yearning, but I knew my station in life.

My sister, Parimala, was the apple of everybody’s eye. The long-awaited princess. When we could afford a chicken, the upper thighs were saved for Pari. When Amma made kolukattai, Pari got the first one, hot-hot out of the steamer. When Amma scraped out the cheenachatti with hot rice — oh, that oily rice, flecked with crusted bits of curry! — the first mouthful would go straight from Amma’s hand into Pari’s mouth. If we boys felt hard done by, we never discussed it with each other. Anyhow, we weren’t all in the same boat. Even if my parents frequently said what a blessing it was finally to have a daughter in the house, Anandan was still the firstborn son. So he got his share of special treatment: a gold chain and ring that had been made for him at birth, and which he was allowed to wear for exams and other special occasions; pocket money; a bicycle; fortifying tonics before hockey matches. My second brother, Selvaraj, did not have that status, but he was blessed with the kind of disposition that notices only good things. Forever placid and good-tempered, he would have been no sort of ally for a brooding boy like me. Not only did he seem to accept Pari’s place in the family with cheerful equanimity, he appeared to have so thoroughly internalised the hierarchy ordained by our parents that he went out of his way to maintain it, bowing down to Pari as though she were a small goddess, saving his share of special treats for her, bringing her offerings whenever he had a few cents of his own. A plastic bangle from a market stall, a fresh notebook, a marble. If some generous visiting auntie had sweets to distribute, he would say as he held out his hand: for Pari. He chose not to see that my parents appreciated him not for himself but because he pampered Pari in this way. He was that rare phenomenon: a genuinely good person, a human blessed with a spirit as sweet and clear as coconut water. Of course sweetness comes more naturally to those who have an easy life. Selva was only the second son, and my parents must have been quite happy to have two boys. It’s not until they have three of a kind that most parents start to worry. Perhaps worry is too strong a word, but my birth must have been met with inaudible sighs, at least, an air of weariness that settled over everything.

• Tags: fiction, Issue 15, Malaysia, Preeta Samarasan