'The robbery just triggered within me the deepest loneliness and despair.' Kusuma's mother Yashodha says their home had been robbed on that day. Later, I learned my mother had laced the mango juice with pesticide in an attempt to take our lives and her own.'

I woke up in a hospital bed with a tube in my throat. 'I remember my mother was crying, and after we finished our juice, she gave each of us a kiss and told us to go to bed. 'My sisters and I happily gulped it down, ignoring the tingling sensation on our tongues,' Kusuma wrote. 'For years, I had struggled alone, desperate to feed my kids,' says Kusuma's mother, Yashodha.Īfter a long and tiring day, her mother offered all three girls the juice.

The family traveled from village to village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, hiding from money lenders who often threatened them with violence. They lived with their mother, who was raising her 3 daughters on her own. That's how Kusuma started her personal essay when applying to U.S.

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