Unaccustomed Earth

Unaccustomed Earth is a 2008 story collection by Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. Part 1 contains four stories with distinct characters and plotlines, while Part 2 follows the story of Hema and Kaushik through three different stories. Each story chronicles an important phase or event within the lives of the characters it addresses, and most of the protagonists are Bengali or Bengali-American individuals. Most of the storylines seem take place in the 1980s or 1990s, with the characters viewing their experiences in hindsight. 

Plot Summary

In “Unaccustomed Earth,” Ruma, a 38-year-old Bengali-American woman, has just relocated to Seattle by way of Brooklyn with her husband, Adam, and their 3-year-old son, Akash. Adam’s generous salary at his new job has allowed for the purchase of a large, beautiful home, and for Ruma to stay home to care for Akash. Ruma is also pregnant with their second child. Shortly before the family’s move, Ruma’s mother dies unexpectedly. Ruma’s father has begun a romantic affair with a woman named Mrs. Bagchi, which he keeps secret from Ruma. He composes a postcard to Mrs. Bagchi in Bengali, which Ruma cannot read. Ruma eventually broaches the topic of her father moving in with her, but he declines the offer. He continues to keep his relationship with the woman a secret from Ruma. Ruma’s father begins a garden in Ruma’s backyard, and is happy to entertain Akash. When Ruma’s father departs for the airport, he realizes he does not have the postcard he composed to Mrs. Bagchi. Ruma soon discovers the postcard in Akash’s mock garden plot. Although she cannot read it, she surmises its significance. At the end of the story, she affixes a stamp to the postcard and sends it off to its destination.

In “Hell-Heaven,” Usha, a Bengali-American woman, recounts a stretch of her childhood during which a man named Pranab, whom she calls Pranab Kaku, was an important figure in her life. Pranab recognized Usha’s mother on the street in Cambridge one day, and was quickly adopted by the family as a friend and pseudo-uncle. Usha’s mother, who married her father through an arranged marriage, left her home in Calcutta with her new husband, who relocated to America to pursue his studies. Usha’s mother is unhappy and emotionally isolated within the family, and falls in love with Pranab, although nothing romantic or sexual transpires between the two of them. Instead, they enjoy only a friendship, which is intimate because they share the same hometown. Pranab is a charming, perennially youthful character. He eventually marries a white American woman named Deborah, much to the chagrin of Usha’s mother. Usha idolizes Deborah. Although Usha’s mother predicts a quick end to Pranab’s marriage, the union persists for many years, during which Pranab and Deborah move farther away from Usha’s family and have two daughters. The two families lose touch for a long while, until they invite Usha’s family—along with others that they were close to during their time in Cambridge—for a Thanksgiving dinner. Following the dinner, Deborah allows Usha to borrow some of her clothes, and Usha is happy to change out of the stiff, traditional formalwear that her mother has insisted she wear for the occasion. Pranab later cheats on Deborah with a Bengali woman, resulting in a divorce. At the story’s end, Usha’s mother reveals that shortly after Pranab’s marriage, she doused herself in lighter fluid and nearly set herself on fire in the family backyard.    

In the third story, “A Choice of Accommodations,” Amit, an Indian-American man, is married to a white American woman named Megan. They have decided to take a vacation and are traveling to Langford Academy, a private, boys-only boarding high school that is Amit’s alma mater. The occasion is the marriage of Pam, the daughter of Langford’s headmaster. Instead of staying in a dormitory room on campus for a small fee, Amit and Megan have opted to stay at the Chadwick Inn nearby, in the hopes of having a private, romantic weekend. All of the boys, including Amit, were in love with Pam during Amit’s school days. Amit and Pam also both attended Columbia, and were close friends during their time there. Amit’s love for Pam also persisted during those years—a fact that he has never revealed to Megan. During the wedding dinner, Amit remarks to the stranger sitting next to him, named Felicia, that his marriage ended when his second child was born. When Amit cannot get cell phone service following the wedding ceremony, he leaves the reception party for the hotel room. However, upon his arrival, he cannot remember the phone number for Megan’s parents. Inebriated, he accidentally falls asleep. He awakens the next morning to find an enraged Megan, who was driven home in the early morning by Felicia and Felicia’s fiancée after the grounds were searched for Amit and the hotel front desk was called in order to ascertain Amit’s whereabouts. Amit fears that Felicia has told Megan about his remarks at dinner. Megan wishes to cut the vacation short and return to their home; Amit agrees. However, they stop on campus beforehand to try to partake in the wedding brunch. Finding that the brunch has already ended, Amit and Megan find their way to a dorm room. Amit begs Megan for forgiveness, and the two have sex in the dorm room.

In “Only Goodness,” Sudha is a Bengali-American woman in her early 30s. 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. Sudha continues to earn academic degrees and accolades, and takes over her brother’s role as the family’s golden child. Sudha travels to London for graduate school and meets a Indian–British man named Roger at the National Gallery. The two of them wed in London and have a reception in Usha’s hometown of Wayland. Sudha and Rahul lose touch for many years after Rahul, who had been living with his parents, steals all of his mother’s gold jewelry and absconds, then later relocates to New York with a woman and her daughter. 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.

In “Nobody’s Business,” the final story of Part 1, Sang, a Bengali-American woman has recently dropped out of a doctoral program at Harvard and is working at a bookstore in Harvard Square. 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. Paul finds Deirdre’s name in the phone book and calls her. 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. Sang, greatly distressed, then asks Paul to drive her to Farouk’s apartment. 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. 

Part 2 of the collection, titled “Hema and Kaushik,” begins with the story “Once in a Lifetime.” Hema recounts a stretch of her childhood. She writes in the first and second person, addressing Kaushik Chaudhuri as “you” throughout the story. The story recalls the time in her life when the Chaudhuris lodged with her family, when Hema was 13. The Chaudhuris were close to her family some years before, while both of the families lived in Cambridge. However, the Chaudhuris relocated to Bombay when Kaushik was a small child, and are now returning to America, which is why they are lodging with Hema’s family. Hema finds Kaushik, now 16, extremely intriguing and attractive, although Kaushik does not give her the time of day. Parul, Kaushik’s mother, treats Hema with engaging kindness. Parul is also much more Americanized and cosmopolitan than Hema’s mother.

One day, Parul shares a fitting room with Hema and encourages Hema to try on her first training bras. Hema also glimpses Parul’s breasts. In the fitting room, Parul tells Hema that she will be very beautiful one day. Later, Kaushik and Hema find themselves in the woods behind her house. Kaushik shows Hema a set of graves he’s discovered there. He then tells Hema the true reason for his family’s relocation to America: Parul has been diagnosed with terminal, metastatic breast cancer, and she wishes to die in America. This is also the reason that Kaushik’s father, Dr. Chaudhuri, has been bending over backwards to meet Parul’s every request and to buy the home that meets with her exacting standards. Hema feels devastated by the proximity to death that Parul’s presence in her home has created. However, she doesn’t reveal this information to her parents, who eventually find out about Parul’s illness. Even with this knowledge, Hema’s parents still find quarter to complain about not being invited to the Chaudhuri’s new home.

In “Year’s End,” Kaushik narrates in the first person, occasionally addressing Hema as “you.” He tells the story of his father’s remarriage to a woman named Chitra, which occurs during his sophomore year at Swarthmore. Parul died during the summer before his freshman year. Kaushik comes to visit his father, Chitra, and her two daughters, Rupa and Piu, that Christmas. Chitra and her daughters have moved into the modernist home that was purchased for Parul before her death. Rupa and Piu are staying in Kaushik’s old room. Chitra, who is from a conservative Indian background, does not like the modernist home, and feels that it is isolated. She is openly afraid of many aspects of American life. During his visit, Kaushik realizes that he harbors a deep hatred for Chitra, and a resentment that she is alive, while his mother is not. He also notices that his father has summarily removed all the traces of his mother’s existence from the house. However, one night, he finds Rupa and Piu rifling through a shoebox full of photographs of his mother, which Dr. Chaudhuri has stashed in Kaushik’s old closet. Flying into a rage, Kaushik tells his stepsisters that their own mother, married off to his father in order to be his servant, will never compare to his beautiful and glamorous mother. Kaushik abandons the home in order to drive the coast all the way to Canada. On a mountaintop near the Canadian border, he buries the shoebox full of photographs of his mother. Rupa and Piu never reveal the extent of Kaushik’s cruelty to either Dr. Chaudhuri or Chitra, and retreat into polite remoteness, their relationship with Kaushik having been permanently damaged.

In the final narrative, “Going Ashore,” Hema and Kaushik’s story is written in the third-person, and focuses on Hema, who is in her late 30s. She is in Rome, taking a small vacation from her teaching duties at Wellesley. She has recently ended a relationship with a married man named Julian, who has strung her along for 10 years while promising to leave his wife. Hema, feeling unable to enter her forties unmarried and childless, is betrothed to a man named Navin through arranged marriage proceedings. By chance, Kaushik and Hema reunite at the dinner of a man named Edo, who is a common acquaintance. They begin a passionate sexual affair. Kaushik has become a newspaper photographer, and leads a largely rootless existence. He is now headed to a desk editorial job in Hong Kong, and plans to stop in Thailand before relocating. On the eve of his departure, he asks Hema to come away with him, instead of marrying Navin. Hema, aware that Kaushik’s proposition does not include a marriage, and that it does entail her leaving her entire life behind, refuses. Kaushik retreats into cold resentment, and the two part: Hema for Calcutta, to meet with Navin and be married, and Kaushik for Thailand. Kaushik is soon seized by regret, knowing that Hema is the only woman who can intimately know him, because she witnessed his mother’s death. Hema, too, finds herself foolishly looking for Kaushik’s face among the crowds in Calcutta. A tsunami strikes Thailand and Kaushik is killed. Hema, freshly married and also pregnant, does not need official word to know that Kaushik has left the earth. She retreats to her bed, where she feels fevered by both the new life growing inside of her and her grief for Kaushik.