“He told us there was only enough money for one and it should be you.”

Last year I was helping Ma clean out the almirah at home and I found my brother's old college admission letter buried under a pile of ration cards and old electricity bills. I didn't even know he had one.

He had cleared his entrance. Mechanical engineering. The letter had a seat number and a reporting date and everything. The date on it was from 2017. I still have it. I folded it back the way I found it and put it in my own bag when Ma wasn't looking. I don't know why. I just couldn't put it back.

I remember that year clearly because I remember him telling Bapa at dinner one night that he didn't want to study anymore. He said it so casually — like he had just gotten bored of the idea. He said he wanted to start working, learn some real skills, maybe open a shop eventually. Bapa didn't argue. Ma looked at him for a long time but didn't say anything either.

So I went to college. He stayed back and started working at a mobile repair shop nearby. I never questioned it. Not once in six years.

I stood there holding that letter and my hands were shaking. I called Ma into the room and asked her what this was. She looked at it, looked at me, and said — "he told us there was only enough money for one and it should be you."

He was nineteen when he made that decision. Nineteen. I was seventeen and I had absolutely no idea. I called him that night. He's in Bangalore now doing pretty well for himself, figured things out his own way. He's the kind of person who remembers everyone's birthday but never mentions his own. He still sends Ma money on the first of every month and tells her it's "extra from work." She knows. She doesn't say anything. Neither does he.

When I brought up the letter he went quiet for a few seconds and then said — "you weren't supposed to find that." Then he changed the subject to something about Ma's blood pressure and that was it and that was the end of that conversation.

I sat with the phone in my hand for a long time after that and kept thinking about what I would have done at nineteen if I had found that letter first. I don't think I would have done what he did. I'm not sure I would have even thought to.

That's my brother. He gave up the thing every kid is told to chase — a degree, a seat, a way out — and he did it so quietly that the person it was for didn't even know for seven years.

He still calls me every night around 10. If I don't pick up he tries again five minutes later.

I pick up every single time now.

— The photograph is representational. The subjects have chosen to remain anonymous.