Current Issue - Fall 2010

In addition to its usual wide variety of poems, essays, and fiction, the current edition of Connecticut Review features a special section entitled Veterans of War. The section contains stories and poems by vets from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Vietnam and World War II.

We Are Not Same Egg Twins

Nimisha Ladva
If we were same egg twins, things would be different, I know. Her eyes, like our mother's, are amber-brown with overly thick lashes. People say I have my father's nose. Pictures of him remind me that it was crooked. And big. She is Priya and I am Pushpa. This year, we turned thirteen. Lucky us. In her name, the "y" dangles and teases. It's tucked between vowels, curved like a finger of invitation: look at me. What am I supposed to do with "Pushpa"? Push off? Push far away? There is no invitation.

When we were born, dad called India, and his family's guru read astrological charts to figure out what letter should start our names. What were they thinking? "Priya" means "the beloved," no further explanation needed. "Pushpa" means "an offering of flowers." Not bad. But then people have to say it out loud, and it's basically a grunt jammed between a "p" and an "a."

(Continued on page 153 of the Fall 2010 issue of Connecticut Review.)