Unaccustomed Earth

My question is "Why did Ruma mail the letter?"

I thought of this question because I expected her reaction to finding out her fathers relationship to be a lot more severe. A majority of this story focuses on her father's attempt to hide it from Ruma, and with how anxious Ruma had been throughout the story about her father's visit and potentially living their made me expect a much more angry/upset outburst rather than Ruma choosing to mail the card.

Part Two: Hema and Kaushik

Part One of Unaccustomed Earth contains 5 unrelated stories of family and relationships- this shifts in Part Two, which consists of three connected stories of Hema and Kaushik, whose mothers met coincidentally one day at the park. The first two stories are written in the first person, and use "You" liberally to describe one another- although disconcerting at first, it helped immerse me in the story. These three stories together had the most emotional impact on me out of all of the others in Unaccustomed Earth- when I finished, I had to sit and absorb what had happened for a few minutes. Hema's story deals with growing up and her crush on Kaushik, which interestingly foreshadows their later relationship in Rome. Kaushik, in the second story, is revealed to be the "You" mentioned in the last story, and his story focuses on dealing with the grief and healing process following his mothers passing, and dealing with his new step family- helping and hindering his healing process simultaneously. The third story is from Hema's point of view, and discusses a relationship she had with an older man, her time in Rome, her impending marriage to a man she does not love her short relationship with Kaushik, and eventually her marriage. The very intimate tellings of  Hema's meeting of Kaushik and Kaushik's story of running away from his step family draw the reader into the story, and the third weaves in all the loose ends- the setting of Rome comes after all of Hema's discussion of it with Kaushik's parents in the first story. Kaushik's runaway foreshadows his vagabond journalist lifestyle. Hema's seemingly pointless crush as a young girl actually comes into fruition. When I started the first story, Once in a Lifetime, I was thoroughly confused, but the knowledge of the family and the characters continues to build, which turns into a crystal clear image when finished. The tragedy that is the story, combined with the use of first person and a direct object "you", and likable, although sometimes frustrating characters, make Part Two definitively my favorite section of the book- and, the reason I'd recommend this novel to others to read.

Bengali vs. American Culture in Unaccustomed Earth

Unaccustomed Earth is the second novel I've read by Jhumpa Lahiri (The first one being The Namesake, which I also enjoyed) - both focus heavily on the experiences of Bengali immigrants/expatriates. As an American whose family has a history in this country hundreds of years back, I tend to think of America's culture in raising kids, marriages, and dress as the default- and since I have not traveled much outside of America and Europe, I'm not exposed to many noticeable differences in cultures and mannerisms. Unaccustomed Earth, besides carrying eight insightful, beautiful stories, also does a wonderful job of portraying Lahiri's perception of her family's culture- A large trend I noticed is that all of the parent's in the stories were married through an arranged marriage, which is not common if at all practiced in the states. In Once in A Lifetime, Hema's mother's practice of having Hema sleep in a cot in her mother's room up until 5th grade- while reminiscing on how she shared a bed with her parents until she married shows another cultural difference, assuming how plainly she stated this implied the normalcy of it in Calcutta. Dress is another difference portrayed in the book: Most often the mothers of the main characters in the stories moved to America after being married, however, retained their traditional dress, wearing Saris, bindis, and using vermillion powder in their hair- a practice I learned through research shows a woman's married status. Aside from a ring, there is no obvious way to tell if an American woman is married, and the cultural difference is shown in this projection of marriage status. There are several more differences portrayed in the book, and this only describes a few- after all, a whole culture cannot be summed up in a single paragraph.