Unaccustomed Earth 6

Kaushik's story continues, how he is at home with his father, step mother Chitra, and two younger step sisters Rupa and Piu. He is not super welcoming to the new family members because he believes, "My presence was proof that my mother had once existed, just as they represented the physical legacy of their dead father" (282). He ends up leaving in haste, after he catches Rupa and Piu looking through old pictures of his mother. He travels alone, and likes it. "No one in the world knew where I was, no one had the ability to reach me. It was like being dead, my escape allowing me to taste that tremendous power my mother possessed forever" (290). Then comes the story of Hema all grown up, and how she is about to marry Navin, a nice guy; too nice. She is in Rome, on vacation, and will soon be leaving to marry Navin. All of the sudden, unexpectedly, Hema and Kaushik meet once again at a mutual friends' apartment for dinner. They hit it off again and immediately become attracted to each other. However, they each had to leave at the end of the month. They spent all of their remaining time in Rome together, and before they had to leave Kaushik asked Hema to come with him. She politely refused, saying that she couldn't let down Navin and others. He got really upset, and they parted ways. Once they were officially seperate, they couldn't stop thinking of each other. At the end of the book, Hema found out that Kaushik was dead. This was a really sad book, because every story had a sad ending. It was like Lahiri took all bad problems in the world and devised them into short stories that compiled into a book. Overall I liked the book because it made me appreciate and value things that I have in my life that aren't troubled like some of these stories turned out to be.

Unaccustomed Earth 5

Now in the book, Lahiri is telling the story of two very close families. She first tells it of the point of view of the only girl of one family; and how these families' relationships affect her. The next chapter is about the other family's boy all grown up in college, and life after their families grew apart from each other. Hema's family was average class, and lived in Massachusetts. Kaushik's family was best friend's with Hema's family, but moved back to India for awhile. They came back suddenly, asking if they could stay with Hema's family for a little while. Something seemed different about Kaushik's mother. "There were complaints about how your mother did not help clean up after dinner, how she went to bed whenever it suited her and slept close to lunchtime" (245). One day Hema and Kauhshik were in the woods together when Kaushik told Hema that his mother was dying of cancer. Soon after that, Kaushik's family found a new house, and started to grow apart from Hema's family. In Kaushik's story, he is telling it from his point of view grown up about how much he misses his mother. Throughout the book, I have seen common similarities in all of the stories; all of the characters are Bengali and how Lahiri seems to characterize that, "She told me that she had slept in the same bed as her parents until the day she was married and that was perfectly normal" (229). In each of the stories there is some hard ship that the main characters have to overcome, and they all have to deal with trusting other family members. Usually the relationships between parents and children are not the best.

Unaccustomed Earth 4

Sudha's story ended badly. Rahul wrote her a letter telling Sudha he was clean and that he wanted to come visit her and her husband and her new baby Neel in London. She agreed, and he came. He seemed different; very sober, and considerate like he used to be. Her trust for him was on very thin ice, but one night he told her that her and Roger needed a night to themselves, and that he would babysit. Sudha and Roger came home to Neel alone in the bathtub where he could have drowned, and then walked into the study with Rahul passed out and a glass of alcohol beside him. The next morning, Sudha told Rahul he had to go. She started to cry, and after he left, "..thinking of the husband who no longer trusted her, of the son whose cry now interrupted her, of the fledgling family that had cracked open that morning, as typical and as terrifying as any other" (173). Next comes the story of the beautiful Sang, who lives with two other roomates in an apartment. Everyday suitors call asking for her hand in marriage but she politely refuses them. Her roomate Paul says, "You're like Penelope" (176). !From the Odyssey!; since Sang always turns the large amount of suitors down. Sang has a boyfriend who is not really social with her roomates, he just comes and goes when he pleases. One night when Sang is out, a woman calls the apartment crying. She says that she is having a relationship with Sang's boyfriend Farouk. Sang does not believe Paul at first, but then Paul gets the woman back on the phone so Sang can hear what she said. Sang goes to Farouks place, makes a scene, breaks up with him, and then fleds to another country. A lot of these stories are upsetting, and I hope that one will come and be SOMEWHAT happy.