The characters of Jhumpa Lahiri?s latest collection of stories ?strike their roots into unaccustomed earth?. The epigraph from Nathaniel Hawthorne?s The Custom-House about how ?human nature will not flourish, anymore than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil,? provides the setting for the drama surrounding even the most ordinary of lives of her many-hued men and women.
What?s even more interesting is that though Unaccustomed Earth talks about the immigrant experience, like The Namesake, it goes beyond the incidental into the heart of the characters, drawing out deep, dark secrets people usually put a lid on. Take the title story, about a father-daughter relationship after the mother?s death. ?She knew her father did not need taking care of, and yet this very fact caused her to feel guilty; in India, there would have been no question of his not moving in with her.? Yet, Ruma, a law graduate who gives up her job to care for her son Akash and a second child on the way, can?t help being shocked when she discovers that her father is in love again and thus won?t be her added responsibility.
She can?t read the letter he has written to his new-found love for it?s in Bengali ? ?her mother had once tried and failed to teach Ruma when she was a girl? ? but the sentences are final proof that her mother no longer exists. Over 59 pages, we get the whole experience of a family coming to terms with loss and trying new beginnings. Lahiri fleshes out everyday existence with touching detail. For instance, the father is visibly moved on seeing a plate of Nice biscuits Ruma offers. ?He associated the biscuits deeply with his wife ? the visible crystals of sugar, the faint coconut taste ? their kitchen cupboard always contained a box of them.?
In ?Only Goodness?, a sister tries to shield and save her brother from alcoholism after she introduced him to beer and Lahiri explores the toll it takes on the entire family. At one point, the sister feels accused, ?simply because her life wasn?t broken in the same way?. She finally banishes him, unlike her parents, who even after everything they had been put through by a child who had failed didn?t renounce him. In ?Nobody?s Business?, a 30-year-old single Bengali, Sang, short for Sangeeta, and her housemate Paul connect after she falls for the wrong man. As Paul runs into the wrong suitor, there are some funny-sad scenes.
But the best is reserved for the last. Part Two of Unaccustomed Earth is the story about Hema and Kaushik and how their lives cross again and again as they are growing up, leading to love and despairing loss.
It?s reminiscent of Isak Dinesen?s beautifully etched Out of Africa. Kaushik and his family leave the US for Bombay and then move back when his mother is diagnosed with cancer. He was nine when he left the US, 16 when he moves back. Hema is three years younger and already half in love with Kaushik. But when Kaushik?s mother passes away and his father chooses to marry someone who has none of the elegance of his mother, he leaves home, ending up as a photo-journalist. Years go by and Hema, taking a break from teaching at Wellesley, lands up in Rome where her paths cross with Kaushik ? again. Nothing will prepare you for the tragic denouement, though. The weakest story is clearly ?Hell-Heaven?, about a bored Bengali housewife in Massachusetts falling in love with a family friend, not least because it seems an extension of The Namesake. But that doesn?t take away anything from this collection ? yes, they are the finest she has written yet, even better than the Pulitzer-winning Interpreter of Maladies.