Nine-month-old Nyra

Anjali rocked Nyra gently, watching her turn her head away from the spoon again. The mush dribbled down her soft chin, untouched. Her tiny body felt weightless in Anjali’s arms.

“I’m worried, Prakash,” she said, voice low. “She just won’t eat.”

Prakash glanced up from his journal. “She’s active. Some babies are like that. Her metabolism is probably high.”

Anjali nodded, relying on her doctor husband’s words. But her gut clenched.

Three-year-old Nyra

Nyra just wouldn’t close her eyes, even though it was well past midnight. Her giggles bounced off the walls like echoes in a cavern. Sleep-deprived, Anjali watched her daughter wrestle with bedtime as if it were a monster. She hadn’t touched her dinner—again.

“She neither likes to eat nor sleep,” Anjali muttered, exhaustion creeping into her voice. “How am I supposed to handle her tantrums?”

“She’ll be fine,” Prakash said, brushing past.

Anjali pressed her lips together. Her instincts disagreed.

Four-year-old Nyra

With five-month-old Smit nestled in her lap, Anjali watched as Nyra burst into the room—shoes flung, arms flailing, her voice rising in nonsensical shouts. Smit blinked calmly, completely unfazed. The contrast was unmistakable. One child cooed and cuddled; the other stomped and snapped.

“I think something’s wrong,” Anjali whispered to herself.

Seven-year-old Nyra

“NO!” Nyra screamed, slamming the door. Her voice echoed through the house.

Smit looked down at his plate, untouched. “Do I have to eat veggies?” he asked.

Anjali felt the quiet sting of watching her younger child mould himself in Nyra’s image.

“She’ll be fine,” Prakash said again, not looking up from his phone.

Strangely, Nyra behaved sweetly around outsiders. No one suspected her disruptive nature at home. Anjali began wondering: Is this a behavioural disorder?

She sighed. No one else saw what she lived with.

Nine-year-old Nyra

Nyra’s teacher’s note came home again: “Unfocused. Books incomplete.”

Smit, now in first grade, had stopped reading his books. His bright spark dimmed.

Anjali turned to Google. The words ‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’ lit up the screen. Her chest tightened. It had a name.

“She’s completely fine!” Prakash shouted, furious, when she showed him.

Undeterred, Anjali took Nyra to counselling. Weeks passed without any improvement. The counsellor finally said, “She needs psychological evaluation.”

Anjali hesitated. Medications meant confronting Prakash again.

“She’s not going!” he roared.

Tears welled in Anjali’s eyes. “She needs help. Smit is picking up her habits. We’re losing both our children.”

Twelve-year-old Nyra

Nyra sat slouched in the waiting room of the psychologist’s clinic—arms crossed, eyes blank. Smit clutched Anjali’s hand, curious but anxious. Prakash, for once, didn’t argue. He just stared ahead, silent and pale. 

Twelve years. Twelve years of storm before he acknowledged what Anjali had sensed when Nyra was still in onesies.

Now that the treatment had begun, Anjali’s heart brimmed with cautious hope.

Yet, a gnawing concern troubled her. Was it too late? Had silence and denial already done their damage?

If only he had chosen to discern—when she did!