The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Unable to pursue an internship due to visa restrictions, Sonia remains on her empty college campus during the winter break. She spends most of her time working at the library, where she reads the books she is supposed to catalog. These books motivate Sonia to work on her thesis in literature and creative writing, a series of short stories.

Sonia turns to the amulet fashioned by her maternal grandfather, Siegfried Barbier, for consolation. The amulet depicts a faceless demon deity named Badal Baba, Hermit of the Clouds. Sonia’s mother, Seher, had given it to her for protection in the United States.

One day at the library, Sonia meets an older patron named Ilan de Toorjen Foss, who charms her with the admission that he has previously visited India. When Ilan learns that Sonia is, like him, alone, he invites her to dinner.

Over dinner, Sonia learns that Ilan is a painter. Convinced she can overcome her loneliness by impressing Ilan, Sonia talks about her grandfather, Siegfried, a painter who had come from Germany to the Himalayas to study the occult. He vanished before Sonia’s birth.

Ilan asks if Sonia is loved by her mother, insisting that he is not loved by his own. Sonia believes she is, though she admits that her mother has been distant ever since she fell out of love with Sonia’s father. She shares her mother’s theory that evil Indians covet beauty, pushing good Indians away so that beauty can belong exclusively to them. Ilan touches Sonia’s breast and invites her back to his house. Sonia declines and anxiously returns home to relieve her inebriation.

Sonia tells her supervisor, Marie, about Ilan. Marie disapproves of the match because of their wide age gap. Weeks later, Sonia cries on the phone to her parents again. They encourage her to share her sorrows with someone in her proximity, like one of the other foreign students. Sonia bonds with a Filipino student named Armando, who comes out to her as gay. He wants to stay in the United States because he feels he cannot be himself back home. His biggest challenge is qualifying for US residency.

Resolved to seek romance, Sonia goes to Ilan’s house. Ilan shares stories about his mother and her family, who worked for the British colonial regime in India and drove Ilan’s disdain for the wealthy. Ilan also talks about his other home in Mexico, where he believes everything is worthy of painting.

Ilan admires Sonia’s physical form, comparing her to a leopard. He entices her into having sex. Despite her awkwardness, Sonia feels light and playful around Ilan. Ilan, on the other hand, acts helpless because of the cold, which elicits Sonia’s affection for him.

The next morning, Ilan describes how his artistic life has enabled his intuition. He muses that paintings can capture the inner shame of people, making them feel like that their existence has been trapped within the artwork. Sonia hopes that Ilan might paint her one day, though she also recognizes that she is repeating the pattern of her maternal grandmother’s life when she became enamored with Siegfried.

Sonia and Ilan start seeing each other every weekend. Ilan refuses to show Sonia his paintings while they are still in-progress. One morning, Sonia shows Ilan a dramatically lit painting of people hiking through the Alps. When she describes the painting as “uncanny,” Ilan acts offended, though he refuses to explain why.

As Sonia and Ilan grow more intimate with each other, Sonia recalls Mina Foi, who made her feel safe as a child. With Ilan, Sonia feels like a child again, though she also recalls Mina Foi’s warning against men who appear normal.

Early one morning, Sonia peeks into Ilan’s barn studio. She sees an eye looking back at her, which terrifies her. Sonia later acts innocent when Ilan asks her where she had gone. Her dishonesty turns him cold. He claims that their future together is limited.

Marie suggests that Ilan is preying on Sonia. She suspects he has an ulterior motive for coming to Vermont. Sonia ignores her warning, especially since being with Ilan has made her feel more beautiful. However, Ilan starts showing his tempestuous side. On one occasion, Ilan insults Sonia for misplacing his hair dryer. Another time, Ilan forces Sonia to hide under the bed when his Japanese friend visits the house. Later, Ilan indicates that he is leaving Vermont. To reassure Sonia, Ilan makes her promise to meet him in Portofino, Italy. Sonia is reluctant to commit because of her visa situation.

Ilan and Sonia discuss Sonia’s work. Ilan discourages Sonia against writing magical realist fiction, calling it “orientalist nonsense.” He suggests writing about her divorced aunt instead. He offers to connect Sonia with his friend, Leone “Lala” Leloup, who runs an art gallery in New York. Ilan leaves the next day, expressing his affection for Sonia before they part. In Ilan’s absence, Sonia begins to dislike her short stories.

After a difficult journey to New York, Sonia is hired as Lala’s gallery receptionist. The job will secure Sonia a temporary visa, though Lala stresses that she is doing this as a favor to Ilan, insinuating that she understands the nature of his and Sonia’s relationship.

Following an emergency involving Armando and his crush, Sonia longs for Ilan’s affection and calls the Mexican phone number he had given her. She is answered by an angry woman speaking Spanish. Sonia tries calling again at other hours, hoping to reach Ilan.

During a dinner party at their friends’ house, Sonia’s parents, Manav and Seher, become repulsed with one another. Manav indulges the other men’s comparisons of women in different countries. Seher shifts the conversation to discuss politics, which Manav hates talking about at social gatherings. This provokes a venomous argument between them on the way home.

The Shahs receive a call from Sonia, who explains the mental health crisis that Armando’s crush experienced. Seher expresses her concern for Sonia’s mental health and urges her to stay with Marie. As Manav sobers up, he feels guilty about his behavior towards Seher, but fails to reconcile with her.

At work, Manav calls Sonia and discusses the possibility of meeting the Colonel’s grandson in New York. Out of resentment for Ilan, Sonia accepts the offer.

Sonia finishes her senior thesis, which includes a short story about Mina Foi. The story narrates the end of Mina’s relationship with her lover, Ernest, who was forced to forsake her to appease his dying mother. Though Mina appealed to her parents to let her marry Ernest because she was afraid of being alone, Mina ended the relationship herself, believing she must prioritize her family.

Sonia feels ashamed of using her aunt’s story to advance her craft. She is also afraid of becoming like Mina Foi. For the critical portion of her thesis, Sonia writes an essay on magical realism and orientalism. After identifying magical realism as a Western concept applied to non-Western literature, she posits that non-Western writers began to reshape their work to meet Western expectations. She asks whether the promise of Western validation distracts writers from capturing the realities of their nation.

Mina Foi thinks again of Ernest, whom her parents disapproved of on religious grounds. Ernest’s family converted to Christianity to escape the caste system. Later, Mina was matched with a lower-caste man who lived in Belgium. The marriage ended when an anonymous letter exposed her husband, who was already married to a Belgian woman.

With the help of his personal assistant, Dari, Dadaji writes the Colonel a letter encouraging the match between Sonia and the Colonel’s grandson. Dari suggests making the letter more honest about Sonia’s shortcomings. They call Manav to ask for a photo of Sonia to attach with the letter, which he claims not to have. Dadaji compensates by offering the Colonel a plate of their family’s famous kakori kebabs.

The Colonel expresses his concerns over the match, suggesting that his grandson, Sunny, is picky and brooding. He forwards the proposal letter to Sunny’s mother, Babita, in Delhi. Ba, unable to sleep that night, claims that she needs to go to Rangoon to examine the ruby that will take the ancestral jewels’ place after they are bequeathed to Sonia.

In May 1997, Dadaji’s proposal arrives in Sunny’s mail slot. Sunny almost misses it, but it is picked up by his girlfriend, Ulla. The envelope also includes a letter from Babita, who calls the proposal absurd with its outline of Sonia’s shortcomings. The letter also shares Babita’s dealings with her mischievous servant girls, Vinita and Punita, whom she was asked to house by their mother in exchange for their labor. The widowed Babita lives on the Bhatia estate of Panchsheel Park, which she refuses to leave even though it legally belongs to her brothers-in-law, Ravi and Rana.

Ulla examines the marriage proposal, which includes a photo of Sonia that Mina Foi had snuck into the envelope at the last second. Sunny refuses to look at the proposal’s contents for fear of offending Ulla. Nevertheless, Ulla presses him to explain whether the proposal is serious. Sunny reassures her that he is ineligible as a journalist with a modest income. Ulla becomes upset because of the implication that his family still doesn’t know about her. Sunny argues that his mother will disapprove of their living situation, then avoids further discussion by hurrying to his job at the Associated Press.

Privately, Sunny is disappointed that he must keep proving his love to Ulla. This is related to a larger feeling that his life in New York doesn’t really belong to him, which is exacerbated by his family’s constant intrusions into his life. He nevertheless feels more affection for Babita while living apart from her.

Sunny and Ulla met at a hostel for international students, though Ulla, an American, was merely living there because she was interested in meeting non-Americans. Ulla competed for Sunny’s attention with her Indian roommate, Mala, who insinuated that Ulla was really living there to spite her wealthy family. Sunny shared Ulla’s resentment for Mala, though he also understood Mala’s position as an Indian immigrant. He explained Mala’s competitiveness away as freedom from the control of the Indian patriarchy. Unbeknownst to Sunny, Mala had also told Ulla that Indian men were insecure of their power status, making them desperate to reassert themselves. For her part, Ulla was happy to be desired by Indian men.

During their early days together, Sunny experienced culture shock with Ulla’s behavior. Ulla is from Prairie Hill, Kansas, though she often lied that she was from New York City, which bewildered Sunny since he found descriptions of her hometown idyllic. Ulla used her cultural expertise to teach Sunny American manners. Despite Sunny’s attempts to shed his Indian cultural identity, it was difficult for him to give it up entirely. After one dinner, Sunny became upset when Ulla told her friends that Sunny put curry in everything he cooked, explaining that the concept of curry was a British invention. They eventually reconciled over their shared admiration for themselves as a beautiful mixed-race couple.

Once, Ulla had encouraged Sunny to call the police after he had been mugged by a boy. Sunny obeyed but fell short of identifying the boy because he felt guilty about the gentrification of their Brooklyn neighborhood. This caused Sunny to wrestle with his values as someone benefitting from that gentrification, but knew that he was passively antagonizing the area’s Black community. Adding to this was the complication of Ulla’s whiteness, which he took as evidence of his self-respect and proof of his complicity.

Sunny noticed the mutual avoidance he experienced with other Indians in the United States. The only exception was his childhood friend, Satya, a doctor in Rochester who did not feel the same compulsion to shed his Indian cultural identity. Once, Satya accused Sunny of desiring Ulla because she was an American and therefore a convenient outlet for Sunny’s frustrations with Americans and Indians alike. Consequently, Sunny observed that Ulla felt entitled to adopt Indian expressions just because she was dating an Indian, even if they made her sound racist.

The novel flashes back to Babita’s receipt of the proposal letter. Babita is described as someone who covets Sunny’s company as a salve against loneliness. Her love of luxury initially drew her to Sunny’s father, Ratan, but also drove her attraction to Ratan’s father. It is suggested that the latter fact caused the heart attack that killed Ratan. On Ratan’s deathbed, Babita promised God that if Ratan survived, she would love her husband. Now that he is dead, she frequently speaks to his memory, which the novel refers to as her Ideal Husband.

After initially dismissing the matter, Babita writes the letter ridiculing the proposal to defuse its threat. Babita later realizes that she felt threatened by the photograph of Sonia, which she feared would endear Sunny to her. She asks Sunny about his thoughts on the proposal. Sunny accuses her of meddling in his life, then admits that he has a girlfriend. Thrilled by the admission, Babita informs the Colonel that Sunny has declined the proposal.

Sonia becomes accustomed to her work, which is so uneventful that she uses her free time to practice writing, recording her observations of Lala’s racism.

One day, Lala shows Sonia off to an art collector, introducing her as Ilan’s protégé. The collector shows sexual interest in Sonia. Later, Lala scolds Sonia for giving her honest opinion about the exhibit on display, rather than promoting it to entice him. She encourages Sonia to accept the collector’s invitation to sex, claiming that it will educate her and make Ilan jealous. Sonia declines.

Later that summer, Ilan informs Sonia that he is in New York. They resume their passionate romance. Ilan takes Sonia to museums to look at the work of various masters. He buys her expensive food and clothes. She tells him about her near-engagement to the Colonel’s grandson to make him feel guilty for his absence. Ilan affirms her concerns.

Ilan becomes increasingly dependent on Sonia and frustrated when she fails to meet his needs. In the middle of the night, he shares his anxiety about his work, but refuses to discuss what he is working on. Sonia indulges him as much as she can, but is eventually exhausted to the point of tears. He continues to share everything of his life with her, except his work. They have sex multiple times in front of a mirror. Ilan promises to paint her.

Ilan continues to behave in unreasonable ways, forcing Sonia to repress her anger. Ilan reveals that his mother had to resign herself to her husband’s infidelity, which she accepted as a fact of his privileged status. Eventually, she learned to use it to her advantage, transferring his property to her name before he left her completely. Sonia contrasts him against her father, who has never cheated on Seher, partly because he knows how much it would hurt Sonia. Ilan does not believe this. This makes Sonia worry that Ilan is like his father.

One night, Ilan urges Sonia to obey him, which provokes Sonia into insulting him. Ilan becomes so enraged with Sonia that he becomes destructive. She refuses his order to clean the mess up, so he orders her to leave. Sickened, Sonia returns to her apartment and prays to Badal Baba to make her into a ghost.

Three days later, Ilan attempts to reconcile with her, though he claims that Sonia was too needy and dependent on him. While visiting another museum, Sonia misses Seher, who naturally distrusted artists because of her father.

In February, Sonia learns that Marie and her husband will be visiting New York to attend a friend’s wedding. Ilan laughs the news off, which sparks an argument between them. Ilan spits toothpaste in Sonia’s face, leaving her aggrieved.

Sonia promises Ilan that she will return home from the wedding by 9 p.m. She declines his offer to accompany her, fearing he will insult the wedding’s milieu. As the wedding goes on, Sonia becomes anxious about returning to Ilan. Marie urges Sonia to stay longer, which increases Sonia’s anxiety.

Sonia calls Ilan from a payphone. He criticizes her for making him wait for her. Guilty, Sonia chooses to leave. Marie expresses her concern for Sonia’s emotional well-being, believing that Ilan has a mental illness that is causing him to abuse Sonia. Sonia ignores Marie’s concern and returns home in tears. Ilan makes her feel guilty again for being dependent on him.

Sonia says nothing of her relationship to her family, but struggles to hold back her feelings. When Manav informs her of Ba’s passing, Sonia is unaffected, consumed only with grief for herself.