I have this memory of sitting in Class 5A. It is the first day of school in the new term and my first day in secondary school. My brothers are in Class 8 and Class 10. I see a teacher pointing at me whispering to another teacher. I realise that she is saying that I am my brothers’ sister. I really hated it then. Not being my own person. R was naughty, P was quiet. I would spend the rest of my secondary school with teachers wondering who I was more like.

Whenever I tell someone that I have two older brothers, they say, “You must have been so pampered.” I laugh. I wasn’t. My brothers were the first harbingers of fairness in my life. I demanded to be treated like a boy and they made sure I was. If I picked a fight with them, I would be beaten till I eventually hid behind my mother. I remember in college a friend showed us pictures of a family vacation where she and her brother were laughing. She would tell us how amazing her brother was. I was confused. Were all brothers not the same?

When I was younger, I always felt like I was standing outside looking in. They were brothers. I was my mother’s daughter. Most of my childhood, I remember being angry with them. They were either disciplining me or stealing ice cream I had saved for later. They were also boys so they could stay out later and got away with more (or so I felt). They were closer in age and had things in common. They both loved football and Chelsea. They liked Eminem. I tried to like the things they liked - so I learnt footballer names and looked up Eminem lyrics.

R was rebellious, had a lot of friends, teachers found him charming and my mother was always worried about him. Most of my childhood, I remember fighting with him. But as the elder brother, he was the designated negotiator. If I needed to stay out late or go on a trip, I would tell R and he would convince my mother.

P was quiet, good at school and knew everything about American culture. The desktop computer that we shared had a folder with every show, movie and song imaginable. If it was released, P had somehow managed to get it. Both of us usually lost the battle for the TV remote to our parents or R, so reading became entertainment. Because of P, I read Harry Potter and Game of Thrones much before anybody else my age had.

We all have our own families now. We see each other a few times a year. But in a less than ideal childhood, the thing I am happy to have had is my brothers. For keeping me sane, for giving me part of their personalities, for growing up with me. Eminem released a new single recently and turns out I do like Eminem. And the teachers were right, I am my brothers’ sister - a hybrid, borrowed, improved version.