Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri has returned with another emotionally jolting masterpiece Unaccustomed Earth after her Pulitzer Prize winner Interpreter of Maladies. Unaccustomed Earth is a brilliant collection of short stories and one aspect of Jhumpa Lahiri’s talent lies in the fact that she can get you to intimately connect to the characters even in a short story. Jhumpa Lahiri uses commonplace language and style to create a emotionally chilling effect. Personally I felt an individual and markedly depressing character in each of her stories.

Unaccustomed Earth is a case study of human nature specifically focussing on her characteristic Bengalis-living-abroad setting. Unaccustomed Earth has close correspondence with Jhumpa Lahiri’s life if only in the little things. The stories deal with issues which the second generation of emigrating Bengalis face abroad. Jhumpa Lahiri herself was caught in the same situation, born in London to emigrating parents and then moving to Long Island at the age of three. Her stories deal with the stigma she faced, torn between being brought up in western culture and her mother’s constant nudging to stay in touch with Bengali culture. Also, this review would be incomplete without the mention of a recurring sub-theme in Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories which is that of marriage and relationship of an Indian with a foreigner and how their parents or elders react to the situation. It was present in most of her stories in Interpreter of Maladies, in The Namesake, and also in Unaccustomed Earth.

My personal favourite would be the trio of stories Hema and Kaushik. It is written in second person, distinguishing it from her other stories. Hema and Kaushik is a collection of three short stories linking the fate of two Bengalis, whose family’s only connection is by the virtue of their coexistence in a strange land. The second person narrative creates a completely different atmosphere and one can relate intimately to the characters and their tragedies.

Nobody’s Business is another brilliant work exploring a complex love triangle.Paul, a shy literature graduate has a repressed infatuation with his roommate, Sang who is already involved in a relationship with an eccentric Farouk. Meanwhile another vertex is added to this triangle as Paul find out that Farouk, Sang’s boyfriend is also involved with another girl, Dierdre. I think that this story was all about how Paul handles the power he now holds over the couple. Should he tell Sang, leading to Sang and Farouk’s break-up and him having a chance with Sang but leading to her heart-break or keep it to himself. At these crossroads, Paul (owing to Jhumpa Lahiri’s creativity), does neither. But the rest is best explained by reading the story itself so I’m just going to stop here.

I found Unaccustomed Earth, the short story, interesting because it looks at several things from a viewpoint which was completely new to me. After her mother’s death, Ruma thinks that she will have to look after her father and her own nuclear family would suffer from the added responsibility on her. This, I believe is a direct consequence of her maternal instinct. Ruma cannot jeopardize her child and family’s future to take care of her father. On some level, she blames her father for issues like opposing her marriage to a non-Indian, not even being in touch with her for the last 38 years etc. But the real surprise comes when at the end of her father’s short visit, she discovers that all the while He was taking care of her family and now she wants him to stay. Another thing which caught me off guard was the concept of one getting into a relationship just because one had “gotten used to the companionship”. This is the reason given by Ruma’s father for what he felt for Mrs. Bagchi, a lady he had met on his tours of Europe.

Hell-Heaven, the second short story of the book, is about a housewife’s one sided love with a younger family friend. Aparna, the narrator’s mother had had an arranged marriage to Shyamal, the narrator’s father. Soon afterward’s Shyamal had left India to complete his studies and finally landed in Massachusetts as a Researcher. Aparna and the narrator’s meeting with Pranab Chakraborty a lonely Indian student also living in Massachusetts results in his becoming a close friend of the family. During his regular visits to the narrators house, Pranab began to look upon Aparna and Shyamal as his mentors but Aparna developed an infatuation with Pranab. Hell-Heaven is a well-narrated story of how Aparna reacts to heart-break after nurturing hopes which she new would be broken.

A Choice of Accommodations is the story of a couple’s rekindled love after a strained night attending Amit’s High School crush’s wedding. Amit and Megan are a Married couple with two daughters. This is a story in which years of pent up jealousy and insecurity leading through a day of misunderstanding lead in a moment of truth to a passion unexplored in the most intense of relationships.

In Only Goodness, a sister frees herself from years of guilt and repentance in a moment when she realizes that her fledgling family had been at stake for what she considered her fault as a sister. She had been the one who had introduced her brother to alcohol and after he became an alcoholic, started blaming herself for it.Years later, she didn’t even telling her husband because she thought he would hold her responsible for it. It is an emotionally charged tale: parents broken-hearted on seeing their brilliant son losing his grip on a meaningful life, a guilt-ridden sister and her new family still in infancy and at its core : a boy destined for greatness falling into a self-destructive pattern and affecting everyone around him as he falls.

All in all, Unaccustomed Earth is a great book exploring human nature at its best and its worst. Certainly not a recreational pass time but a serious book to be pondered on and thought over. Indeed one can feel the weight of the emotions dripping through the pages as the stories weave on through dark alleys and great planes of human nature.

Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri a.k.a. Jhumpa Lahiri