Unaccustomed Earth

A woman named Hema narrates this story in the first-/second-person, addressing a “you” who is revealed to be a man named Kaushik. Hema seems to be an adult of indeterminate age, recounting a specific stretch of time during her childhood. Her parents’ names are not given in the story, but Kaushik’s mother is named Parul, and his father is referred to as Dr. Chaudhuri. 

Hema tells Kaushik that she and he were acquainted when they were young, but that she especially remembers the goodbye party that her parents threw for his parents when Kaushik’s family decided to move from Cambridge to India. The party was at Hema’s home in Inman Square. The year was 1974, when Hema was 6 and Kaushik was 9. Hema remembers the occasion vividly, especially the outfit that she wore, sent to her from Calcutta by her grandmother: a pair of “white pajamas with tapered legs and a waist wide enough to gird two of [her] side by side, a turquoise kurta, and a black velvet vest embroidered with plastic pearls” (223).

Hema remembers protesting against the purple-lettered stamps that dotted the pajamas’ inseam, and her mother insisting that the kurta would cover them. She remembers that her mother fretted about the snow that was expected that night, as most guests would be arriving on foot. Hema’s mother then quelled her own worry by assuring herself that Kaushik’s father, Dr. Chaudhuri, could always drive guests home in his car if needed.

Kaushik’s parents were slightly older than Hema’s, and more cosmopolitan travelers. Kaushik’s parents immigrated to America in 1962, prior to the change in laws regarding foreign students. While Hema’s father was still in school, Dr. Chaudhuri had already secured his PhD and a fancy car. Parul and Hema’s mother became friends when Hema’s mother was pregnant with Hema. Hema’s mother, not realizing she was pregnant, had taken ill in a park, and Parul, recognizing her as a fellow Bengali, had walked Hema’s mother home, with Kaushik in tow, and suggested that perhaps Hema was pregnant. The two women then became fast friends, although their differing class backgrounds would have prevented this in India. Parul, convent-school educated and the daughter of a famous Calcutta lawyer, came from wealth and privilege, while Hema’s grandfather was a clerk at the post office. But these differences had become negligible in Cambridge, “where [the two women] were both equally alone” (225). They developed a warm friendship in which they kept each other company while undertaking their feminine duties to their respective families.

Kaushik’s family was the only one that came to the hospital when Hema was born. As Hema grew, she inherited many things from Kaushik: his old stroller and highchair, for example. Before the Chaudhuris departed for India, they gave Hema’s family many household items, which would perpetually be referred to as “Parul’s frying pan,” or “Parul’s toaster” (225). Hema also inherited Kaushik’s heavy winter coat, a boy’s coat she absolutely hated. Her supplications for a new coat, to match the “puffy pink and purple jackets” that her female classmates wore, fell on deaf ears, in favor of practicality and thrift (226). 

Gradually, all of the things that the Chaudhuris passed to Hema’s family were outmoded and replaced, so that no traces of Kaushik remained in Hema’s home. The two families, not being family after all, fell out of touch for a number of years. The Chaudhuris had moved to Bombay, a city that Hema’s family never visited, and it was assumed that the two families had gone their separate ways until, in 1981, the Chaudhuris moved back to America. Hema’s family agreed to lodge them while they settled in and purchased a new home.

The arrangement animated Hema’s parents, who bustled for several days as they made room for the Chaudhuris and upgraded various household items. As Hema listens to her parents’ conversations, however, she understands that they view the Chaudhuris’ return as a defeat, and their initial return to India as a fool’s errand. Hema’s parents felt themselves superior, as the Indian family who had toughed it out in America.

Hema recalls that she was initially indignant at having to relinquish her room to Kaushik. This feeling was layered with her own feelings of shame about her sleeping arrangements: her mother, finding the American style of sleeping cruel, had insisted that Hema sleep on a cot in the master bedroom until an age that was socially-unacceptable in America. Hema, feeling the condemnation that would inevitably fall on her should her classmates find out about her sleeping on a cot in her parent’s bedroom, had broken the habit herself, only to now have her room taken away from her, and a return to the cot ordered.

At the time, she also noticed that the lively parties her parents were accustomed to hosting with other Bengali families ceased in the wake of the Chaudhuris’ arrival. Hema, hearing the word “doctor” and assuming Dr. Chaudhuri to be a physician, also grew irrationally afraid that his profession would bring illness into her home, before being reassured that the “doctor” merely referred to his doctorate. She also piercingly pointed out that although her father also had a PhD, no one called him “doctor.”

Hema’s home was immaculate upon the arrival of the Chaudhuris. Hema, wanting Kaushik to see as few of her belongings as possible, took many of her things out of her room and deposited them into the suitcases reserved for travel to India. She also studied pictures of the Chaudhuri couple, noting Dr. Chaudhuri’s hallmark suit and tie and his singular green eyes, Parul’s glamorous prettiness in her saris, and the obvious intimacy that the two shared. However, Kaushik, about whom Hema was most curious, evaded her in these photographs.

Hema fell asleep on the couch with her mother the night that the Chaudhuris arrived. Kaushik had remained frozen in time for Hema, who was surprised when he arrived as an attractive and intriguing 16-year-old. Hema felt embarrassed that his first sight of her during this new phase was that of her sleeping on the couch. She awoke to find both families happily dining without her. She observed Parul, much changed from the old photographs and now wearing slacks and a tunic, her eyelids dusted with shadow and her lips rouged. She observed that Parul looked incongruously less tired than her own mother, and that Parul had kept her glamorously thin figure, in contrast to her own mother’s age-thickened body. She saw that Dr. Chaudhuri was still handsome, and basically unchanged in his personal style.

Hema recalls that Parul treated her with immediate warmth, speaking to her in English and calling her a lady while fussing over the way that the families had carried on without her. Hema also took note of Kaushik’s deepened voice and his faint accent.

Hema remembers that Parul then marveled over the food that the family had received in their first-class airplane seats. Parul said that the tickets were her fortieth birthday present: “Once in a lifetime, right?” she said, to which Dr. Chaudhuri had replied, “Who knows?...It could become a terrible habit” (233). The Chaudhuris had had a two-day layover in Rome, and Dr. Chaudhuri told Hema’s parents to visit the Pantheon before they died. They had nodded in reply, not knowing what the Pantheon was. But Hema did; she was studying ancient Rome in her Latin class and writing an essay about its architecture. The Chaudhuris also told Hema’s parents about their old Bombay flat overlooking the Arabian sea, with Parul remarking that it was a shame they never visited. Later, Hema would hear her mother grousing that they had never been invited.

After dinner, Hema was asked to show Kaushik around the house. Normally, she would have relished this opportunity, but this time, perceiving Kaushik’s boredom and perturbed by her own attraction to him, her tour was uninspired. It was Kaushik who ultimately led Hema around the house, poking into rooms sullenly. When Kaushik darted out of a window and onto the roof, Hema was paralyzed by her fear of him falling, and of her being blamed for it. She also remembers that he inquired about the woods behind the house. Hema told him that no one is allowed to venture into the woods because a boy two grades below her, named Kevin McGrath, had recently ventured too far into the woods and was still missing. Hema remembers the week-long, fruitless helicopter searches that followed his disappearance. Kaushik was unmoved by the information. Instead, he inquired about the yellow ribbons tied to mailboxes in the neighborhood. When Hema explained that they are for the hostages in Iran, Kaushik sarcastically remarked that Americans had probably never even heard of Iran before the crisis. He also admitted that he missed the cold in Cambridge.

That night, Hema listened to her parents talking to each other in bed, and, knowing firsthand how sound could travel through the wall that divided their room from hers, felt uneasy that Kaushik could probably hear them, too. She remembers that her parents were simultaneously stymied and intimidated by the Chaudhuris: by the way that their move to India had somehow made them more American than themselves, by Parul’s short hair and pants, and by the Johnnie Walker that they both openly enjoyed at dinner. She remembers, however, that it was mostly her mother who spoke, her father “listening and murmuring now and then in tired consent” (236). Hema’s mother used the word “stylish” to describe Parul, which was derogatory in her vocabulary, and passed judgment on the family’s extravagant first-class plane tickets. Hema here notes that her mother’s birthdays always went neglected by her father. Then, her mother smelled smoke. When her father went to investigate, he returned bearing the news that someone had been smoking in the bathroom. Hema’s mother fretted about their failure to leave an ashtray out.

Hema recounts that the Chaudhuris, jetlagged, initially kept an antipodal schedule to Hema’s family, until one day she finds the Chaudhuris awake and occupying the couch she normally sat on to watch The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island after school. She also remembers that Parul was dressed in one of her mother’s saris, looking better in it than her mother did. One of Parul’s suitcases had been lost by the airline, and the Chaudhuris had just received upsetting news that it had mistakenly been sent to Johannesburg. Hema was told that Kaushik was outside in the yard; Hema practiced piano, instead of joining him. When he returned hours later, after his parents’ 6 o’clock ritual of drinking Johnnie Walker, he was wearing only a pullover and had a camera hanging from his neck. Hema writes to him, saying, “Your face showed the effects of the cold, your eyes blazing, the borders of your ears crimson, your skin glowing from within” (237).

Hema then told Kaushik about the stream in the woods behind the house, and Kaushik was quickly warned by Hema’s mother not to go there. The Chaudhuris did not share her nervousness or sense of urgency about the matter. Instead, they asked their son what he had photographed. When he replied “nothing,” it stung Hema, who felt personally slighted by Kaushik finding her suburban surroundings uninspiring. She remembers Kaushik’s continuing coldness, the way he treated her room like it was his own, and that it was not he but his parents who paid her attention, taking an interest in her and complimenting her politeness, her industriousness, her piano skills. Hema recalls that she was still a child at the time, while Kaushik was leaving that phase of his life behind. Dr. Chaudhuri even joked about Kaushik’s manner, saying that, despite the family’s relocation to Bombay, Kaushik had turned into a “typical American teenager” (238).

Dr. Chaudhuri also took an interest in Hema’s studies of ancient Rome, embarking on a monologue—and using his civil engineering credentials—about the structural elements of the Colosseum, which Hema courteously received. He also gifted her with a ten-lire coin.

Hema speaks about a day that she, her mother, and Parul went to the mall. Parul was in need of new bras, something she could not borrow from Hema’s mother. Parul headed straight for the expensive Jordan Marsh, putting Hema’s family’s Sears habit to shame. Once there, Parul accumulated a number of items and never stopped to look at the price tags. Parul also took a liking to a white training bra with a rosebud at its center, urging Hema, who had not yet begun to wear bras, to try it on. They shared a fitting room, with Hema feeling embarrassment at Parul’s “large, plum-colored nipples [and] the surprising droop of her breasts” (239). Parul helped Hema into the training bra while informing her that she would become very beautiful one day. Then, she insisted on gifting Hema with three of the bras. On the way out, Hema bought expensive cosmetics and face creams, having ignored the Avon products that Hema’s mother favored.

A week after that, Dr. Chaudhuri began his new job at an engineering company 40 miles away. He bought an Audi soon after that. Meanwhile, Kaushik stayed in Hema’s home, deferring school until his family settled into their new house. Hema recalls feeling jealous and resentful of the way that Kaushik was not expected to help around the house or clean up after himself.

Hema remembers that she found Kaushik inscrutable. Unlike her Calcutta cousins, who solicitously marveled at Hema’s life in America, Kaushik was completely indifferent to her. One day, she asked him if he hated his new surroundings. He replied that he had enjoyed living in India. Hema did not divulge that she didn’t relish her visits to India because of the geckos and cockroaches, and the way that her relatives insensitively compared her looks to her mother’s and impugned her dark skin. Kaushik, as though telepathic, had then asserted that Bombay was not at all like Calcutta. When Hema asked him if Bombay was close to the Taj Mahal, he acidly asked her if she had ever seen a map.

Hema muses that Kaushik must have been terribly bored by being stuck in a girl’s room, with only women to keep him company during the day. She remembers that he stayed out of the house as much as possible, and that her mother, persistently speaking to Kaushik in Bengali despite his resolutely English replies, warned him that he would inevitably become ill due to all of his pedestrian wanderings.

Once, Hema found Parul smoking in the bathroom, a morose expression upon her face. After putting the cigarette out and pausing to apply lipstick, Parul spoke to Hema in a way that made it clear that Hema was to keep the smoking a secret.

Hema recounts that her family would sometimes accompany Kaushik’s on their outings to look at houses. Parul was determined to have a swimming pool in her new home, and the Chaudhuris, unlike Hema’s parents, were very particular about the design elements they desired in their new home. They made a bid on a house in Beverly, but withdrew it when, upon a second look, Parul rejected the house’s “ungenerous” layout (245).

Hema remembers that her parents felt insulted by the Chaudhuris’ extravagance. Hema’s mother also complained about the amount of time it was taking the Chaudhuris to vacate her home: almost a month by then. Hema’s mother blamed Parul for this. Hema recalls the Chaudhuris being characterized as virtual strangers, having changed so much since Cambridge. Hema’s mother also resented the way that Parul was untidy and unhelpful around the house, the fact that Parul slept until noon, and the way that Dr. Chaudhuri tended to Parul, bringing her a sweater if she was cold and freshening her drinks. Hema’s father responded that the Chaudhuris’ transition must have been difficult, and when Hema’s mother replied that he would never have brooked the behavior that Parul exhibited from her, he told her to drop the matter.

From then on, an invisible barrier arose between the two families as they each begin to undertake their affairs, independent of one another. Parul continued to shop and amass new items for her family’s move, which she stored in the basement. The Chaudhuris sometimes took Hema’s family out to eat at expensive but mediocre restaurants. While this was meant to relieve Hema’s mother of cooking duties, Hema’s mother would later complain about the restaurant food. Hema thus became the only one enjoying the living arrangements as she quietly nursed her crush on Kaushik, contented by the opportunity to merely observe his daily doings. Hema recalls that Dr. Chaudhuri gave Hema a snapshot of Trajan’s Column to impress her teacher, and the way she was both thrilled and troubled by Kaushik’s likeness captured in the corner of the photograph—his looking down, face obscured by a visor. She remembers clipping this portion of the photograph, fearing that if it were to be discovered in her possession, her crush would be revealed as well. She saved the clipping though, hiding it away in between the pages of her diary.

Hema also remembers that the adults would sometimes reminisce about their Cambridge days together, a percolating shared sadness palpable.

Kaushik’s hunger for snow was satiated when winter began. He and Hema enjoyed making a snowman together, and Kaushik finally found the landscape a worthy subject for his camera lens. He then led Hema into the woods, showing her a set of graves he’d discovered there. He told Hema that an entire family laid there, with the last person, Emma, having died in 1923. Hema was stirred by the name’s similarity to her own. Kaushik then revealed that his mother had been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, which was the true reason for the family’s return to America. Parul did not want her parents to witness her demise, nor to be fussed over by her collection of friends and family, who would inevitably end up “trying to shield her from something she could not escape”(250). She had begun to see a doctor at Mass General, which was where she and Dr. Chaudhuri sometimes went when they claimed they were looking at houses. Kaushik also told Hema that Parul had a surgery scheduled.

Hema remembers that she then began to cry, though not out of grief or sympathy. Still addressing Kaushik directly, she writes: “I felt only the enormous fear of having a dying woman in our home. I remembered standing beside your mother, both of us topless in the fitting room where I tried on my first bra, disturbed that I had been in such close proximity to her disease” (250-51). She felt a confusing fury at both Kaushik’s revelation and his previous omission of the information.

Two weeks after, the Chaudhuris departed for their new home on the North Shore. It was a chic and modern space designed by a prominent Massachusetts architect. It had a pool for Parul. On the Chaudhuri’s first night there, Hema’s mother brought a meal over so that Parul did not have to cook, unaware of the depth of her favor: “We admired the house and the property, the echoing, empty rooms that would soon be filled with sickness and grief,” Hema writes (251).

When news of Parul’s illness finally reached Hema’s parents, Hema did not disclose her previous knowledge of the matter. By then, the friendship between the adults had resolutely cooled, damaged by the weeks of forced closeness. Parul’s unanticipated rapid decline precluded her seeing through her invitation to Hema’s family to join hers for a swim, and the Chaudhuris quickly gave up on hosting anyone in their home. Hema’s parents still found quarter to complain about this perceived slight, but Hema, back in her own room, and in the bed where Kaushik had once slept, tuned them out.