When Akash goes to his weekly swimming lessons after breakfast, Dadu insists on accompanying him. Once again he makes a video, of Akash in the swimming pool. During their drive to the pool and back, her father tells Ruma of the need for her to begin working again — she is a lawyer by education and had worked a few years before Akash was born. She tells her father she plans to take it easy for a while more, at least until the new child was in KG.
Her father tells her strongly she is wrong about it — it is now for her to begin working again, she is already thirty-eight, a few more years and it would be too late for her to begin again. Tomorrow, who knows? That night he shows them the videos — the ones he has made of Akash and of the conducted tours that he has been going on. She is Mrs. Bagchi, a Bengali woman he has met on the tours, and the two of them have been friendly.
They have no plans to marry, but they have decided on their next tour, to Prague, they would share a room and then later that year, they would go on a cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. The next morning Ruma discovers to her horror that her father has disappeared. She sees his rented car is gone too. She is thoroughly confused. All kinds of disturbing thoughts come to her. Just then she hears the sound of gravel cracking under tires.
It is her father. He had gone to the nursery some six miles away — to buy what he needs to grow a garden in her backyard. But then she tells herself her son is too young to see the note on top of the bureau and to read it.
Soon her father makes a second trip to the nursery, to fetch more things, and this time Akash tugs along with him. An hour later they return, with bags of topsoil, a rake, a shovel, a hose and plenty of flower plants. He works in the garden without stopping until noon, and after a light meal at noon, again until the evening.
Akash plays with him all the time, enjoying himself in a growing mountain of soil. The next morning another trip is made to the nursery, for more things needed for the garden. He makes a separate small garden for Akash along with the garden he is making for his daughter — the smaller one the size of a spread open newspaper.
For the first time in months, Ruma is free from the need to constantly watch and care for Akash. She starts doing things that have been pending ever since they had moved into the new house.
Although it may seem trivial to others, however it can greatly impact on the lives of their family members. The sense of not being able to fit in a strange community is also a major theme of the story.
In the Unaccustomed Earth, Ruma is forced to accept the fact that she is a citizen of a community she does not belong to. Furthermore, at times the people we have difficulties accepting are the ones that we have the most similarities in. However, by picking up the pieces from the past, Ruma and her father eventually realized themselves are the ones who share the deepest ties, and are the only people who can help them move on.
Stamp - Without stamps, letters that are full of writing are still useless. Here, stamp serves as the symbol of. Posted by audreylee at PM. No comments:. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments Atom. Amit begs Megan for forgiveness, and the two have sex in the dorm room. At the beginning of the story, she reveals that she was the one who introduced her younger brother, Rahul, to alcohol while she was home from college one holiday.
They also began a ritual of hiding the alcohol from their parents in their rooms during those years. Rahul is more academically-gifted than Sudha during their youth, and begins his undergraduate education at Cornell. However, he soon becomes increasingly depressed and withdrawn, his alcohol abuse grows, and he is ultimately dismissed from Cornell. He eventually writes to Sudha after Sudha has given birth to her first son, Neel.
Rahul states that he has reformed and gone to rehab; Sudha invites him to London to meet her son and stay with her family. During his visit, Rahul strikes up a warm, intimate rapport with Neel, and convinces Roger and Sudha to let him watch Neel so that Roger and Sudha can enjoy a movie together.
Sudha agrees. When she returns, she finds Neel unattended in the bathtub, and Rahul passed out—he has found the stash of alcohol that Sudha has hidden and had a relapse. She lives with two white American roommates, Paul and Heather. Paul has a sexual and romantic fascination with Sang, and begins to keep close track of her movements, and of her 3-year-long romantic relationship with an Egyptian man named Farouk.
Sang also periodically receives cold calls from strange Bengali men who have heard of her through the Bengali-American network that Sang and her family belong to. When Sang goes to London to visit her sister and new nephew, a woman named Deirdre begins calling the house. During her first call, Deirdre asks Paul to ask Sang to call her back; in the ensuing days, Paul and Deirdre end up having several conversations, during which Deirdre reveals that she and Farouk have been engaged in a serious relationship for the past year.
Farouk soon feeds Sang the false story that Deirdre is an old college friend who was reaching out to Farouk in order to invite him to her wedding. She promises that she will call back that night. During the call, Paul gets Deirdre to reveal the extent of her relationship with Farouk, while also omitting the details of the lengthy conversation that she also had with Paul.
When Farouk opens the door and discovers both Paul and Sang there, a physical altercation ensues between Paul and Farouk. Paul eventually pins Farouk to the ground, but then lets up. Farouk and Sang enter the apartment, closing the door on Paul. A loud commotion and confrontation ensues, and the neighbors call the police.
When the super arrives to unlock the door, Sang has broken a vase and beaten herself with flowers. The police arrive and Sang tells them that Farouk did not assault her. However, she must be physically removed from the apartment, as she has become hysterical. Sang quickly departs for England and does not return. Paul passes his doctoral oral exam, and is taken to a fancy hotel by his professors afterward. After sharing drinks, he makes his way to the street, where he sees Farouk with a woman.
The woman is revealed to be Deirdre. The story recalls the time in her life when the Chaudhuris lodged with her family, when Hema was The Chaudhuris were close to her family some years before, while both of the families lived in Cambridge.
0コメント