Book Review – Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

Give her a recipe with the following ingredients – NRI families in the USA, especially from West Bengal, neither old nor young, neither settled nor adrift, lives spiced up with emotions, with lots and lots of cooking to be written in between, and you can expect Jhumpa Lahiri to produce palatable stories for satiation. ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ is no exception!

This is the third book by this author and my third interaction with her ideas too. The book is a collection of eight short stories, with the last three deserving to be published as a novella themselves, since they are more of the episodes of the same story, rather than individual stories.

As always, Jhumpa has woven a colorful and lovely tapestry of human emotions, riding on her previous successes of ‘The Namesake’ and ‘Interpreter of Maladies’. These are characters that we might meet in our daily lives and interact on the markets or malls. These aren’t the fictional heroes and heroines of NRI lore, roaming around in costly cars or residing in swanky mansions. These are normal human beings, with loads of emotions and yearnings of their own, trying to come to terms with the fact of being in a stranger in a foreign land but at the same time not having their roots properly rooted in their native land either. With the background of this emotional chaos and their inner loneliness, they go through life and the other surprise packages that Life shares with each and every one of us.

The first story in the book, which shares the same title as the book, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ is the story of a septuagenarian NRI who has recently lost his wife, but found a companion to fulfill the needs of companionship and the deep bond, not to forget the sense of belonging that comes with having a person of one’s own. The story revolves around the protagonist and his daughter and how graciously she accepts his need for a companion.

‘Hell-Heaven’ tells a subtle love story of a married Bengali woman – through her daughter’s words - that finds solace amidst her lonely NRI existence in the form of a Bengali stranger, whom she meets by chance. The person goes on to become a family friend and shares so many interests with the woman and makes her feel special and gives her the care and importance that her husband has not succeeded in giving. The woman develops a deep interest for the man, only to suffer deep emotional wounds when she finds him developing emotions for another woman and settling in life with her. Was the love worthy? Check it out.

‘A Choice of Accommodations’ is a story of an Indian man, married to an American woman 5 years elder than him. The age difference has got nothing to do with the story. It is rather a simple story of how love vanishes a few years into marriage and how routine makes people take things for granted, things which they once found so cherishable. It is a strange story of emotions being rekindled and love being rediscovered with a physical relationship at the strangest of places.

‘Only Goodness’ is the story of a younger brother becoming an alcoholic and losing out in life on more aspects than one, due to the elder sister’s ‘friendly’ offers. It goes on to show how one alcoholic in the family ruins the entire soul of a family and how the woman’s deeply-seated guilt at having introduced her brother to the drinks comes back to haunt and ruin her peaceful family life.

‘Nobody’s Business’ – what would you do when you have a friend, or even an acquaintance, who is being cheated by a philanderer? What would you do when another woman calls up asking for your support in getting her person back, only to brand you as a liar later on? Whom will you support in the game where a man plays with the emotions of more than one woman and uses them as mere pawns for his personal gratification? This story answers it all.

‘Hema and Kaushik’ – This story is split into three segments that could have very much been published as a separate novella. Hema is a young girl in an NRI Bengali family, who goes through life watching her parents accommodate another NRI Bengali family, trying to grapple certain hidden issues of its own. Kaushik is a boy of the other NRI Bengali family, trying to settle once again in the USA, but accommodated into Hema’s house for the time-being. How both of them create tangles of emotions in one another, how Life conspires to bring them back into one another’s lives and how Life decides who will stay with whom is all this segment is about.

As always, I found each of these stories readable and relatable. And, Jhumpa Lahiri’s vivid descriptions make you a part of the scene rather than keep you a mere reader. Her eye for details and the attention to the minutest of information in the scene is both a boon and a bane.

But, to tell something frankly to Jhumpa, it is a little tiresome to read only about Bengalis in USA. I, for one, believe that there are other Indians, from other parts of this country, settled in the USA. I know she is playing to her strength and isn’t willing to dilute her style. But she can’t always be dealing her trump card or delivering her best punch every time. She can do a bit of research about other cultures and inculcate them in her writings. Because, the more she is going to write, the themes and scenes have this risk of appearing repetitive and the zing will be lost with all the stories starting to sound like one another.

Also, I know that she is writing about NRI culture. But I found too much of focus on promiscuity, explicit discussions of sex, fleeting relationships and drinking to be a bit annoying. Paulo became boring when he repeatedly started using sex and wine as the only things to spice up his writing. I am not saying that she shouldn’t be explicitly writing certain things. But rather, if she adds more things like this in every story, it will be more of an erotica rather than an emotional indulgence. And, I, for one, don’t pick up Jhumpa’s works, hoping for any erotic gratification!

Overall, a good book, with its occasional flaws and staggered flows, but worth picking a copy of your own!