47 pages • 1 hour read
The Lowland
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Part 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5, Chapter 1 Summary
From Bijoli’s perspective, we learn about the pollution that has overtaken the lowland, the two ponds becoming more like septic tanks as they are used for illegal dumping. Every evening she walks into the polluted water to bring flowers to Udayan’s memorial; many in the neighborhood think she has gone mad.
Her husband has suggested they leave their life in Calcutta, to escape the bad memories, but it is important for Bijoli to remain close to Udayan. One morning when her husband doesn’t appear for breakfast, she sends the maid, Deepa, to awake him; she finds him dead. After Bijoli’s husband’s death, Deepa starts to take care of everything around the house; she also sleeps in the house and makes sure that Bijoli is cared for.
Bijoli installs a phone line and calls Subhash to tell him that his father died. Since Udayan’s death, Bijoli hadn’t connected with her husband; they had never discussed Udayan’s death, slept in separate rooms, and rarely spoke. Bijoli reminisces about buying the house with her husband, fixing it up, and raising her two sons. She knows that Subhash won’t return to live in the house: “He should have been a comfort; the one son remaining when the other was taken away. But she was unable to love one without the other. He had only added to the loss” (186).
Remembering their childhood, Bijoli recognizes the differences between Subhash and Udayan. She acknowledges that despite Udayan’s defiance throughout life, that she had loved him more. She acknowledges that she disliked Gauri, and Subhash for marrying her; Bijoli had forgiven Udayan for marrying Gauri, but Subhash was too much.
In addition to bringing flowers to his memorial, Bijoli starts to clear trash from the area once a day. She wades through the refuse, picking up unsanitary things and placing them in her basket. One day when she is picking up trash, it is the trash from a wedding. This angers Bijoli as she never celebrated a proper wedding with either of her sons; she feels like it was a deliberate act against Udayan and starts yelling in the street: “Who has desecrated this place? Who has insulted Udayan’s memory in this way? (190). Deepa comes to get her, cleans her, and returns her to the house.
A letter arrives from Subhash: He is coming to visit with Bela. He tells his mother in the letter that he is her father, the only father that she knows.
Part 5, Chapter 2 Summary
Subhash and Bela arrive in Tollygunge at the beginning of the rainy season. They participate in a ceremony to honor Subhash’s father, next to a shrine with a photo of her grandfather and a young boy. Bijoli tells Bela that the young boy in the photo is her father.
Bela is uneasy being left alone in the house with her grandmother and Deepa while Subhash goes to lectures at the university. Bela can’t eat rice with her hands, can’t drink the water without boiling it, and can’t speak Bengali; she is out of place.
One afternoon when her grandmother goes to put flowers on Udayan’s memorial, Bela asks her what she is doing. Bijoli tells her that she is talking to her father down there. Confused, Bela tells Bijoli that her dad is taking a nap upstairs.
Looking at photos of Bela throughout the years, Bijoli asks why Gauri isn’t in any of the pictures. Subhash tells her that Gauri doesn’t like her picture taken, but the truth is that Gauri is always commuting to her doctoral program or locked away in her room studying. Bijoli doesn’t want to keep the photos: “I’ve seen them already, she said” (201).
Gauri prefers studying to any other activity, even spending time with her daughter. She also worries that her dissertation will get lost or stolen, so Subhash buys her a filing cabinet to keep it in.
Bijoli is getting old, and Deepa is worried that Bijoli will leave the house when Deepa is not there; Deepa chains the staircase when she’s not home to prevent Bijoli from leaving.
When Bela asks how old Subhash was in the photo next to her grandfather, but Subhash explains that the boy in the photo was his brother who died of an illness. Bela reminds Subhash that Bijoli had told her it was her father. Subhash responds, “She’s getting old, Bela. She confuses things, sometimes” (205).
Shopping in town with Subhash, Bela sees a wedding and asks about Subhash and Gauri’s wedding. She learns that instead of an arranged marriage, Subhash and Gauri decided themselves to get married.
For her 12th birthday, they go to the golf club to spend the day swimming, riding ponies, and celebrating. Bela feels comfortable at the Tolly Club. While walking around the grounds with Subhash, he tells her about the day when he and Udayan broke into the golf club when they were children.
Part 5, Chapter 3 Summary
Subhash and Bela return home to Rhode Island after six weeks in India. Gauri is not home; she left them for a job in California. Leaving a note, written in Bengali, she apologizes and leaves Bela to Subhash. Bela comforts Subhash: “I’ll never go away from you, Baba, she said” (212).
Bela tries to find items of her mother’s to remember her; she sees a shadow in her room that reminds her of her mother’s profile: “Each day the image disappeared as the sun traveled around the house; each morning it returned to the place her mother had fled” (213).
Part 5, Chapter 4 Summary
As Bela starts seventh grade, she becomes moody and distant from Subhash. Bela displays typical teenage behavior, but Subhash blames himself for giving Gauri the opportunity to leave while they were in Tollygunge: “You have left her with me and yet you have taken her away” (216). He learns from a guidance counselor that Bela is not doing well at school and is alienating herself from the other students.
Subhash starts taking Bela to a psychologist, Dr. Grant, once a week.
By eighth grade, Bela becomes social again. She joins the nature studies club, her grades improve, and she joins the marching band. Bela is not into material objects and enjoys working at gardens or homeless shelters.
Subhash’s mom has a strok
e, and he decides to travel to India without Bela. Bijoli is confined to the upstairs, unable to move around much. Subhash and Bijoli don’t get along any better, perhaps even worse than before: “He sat beside her, reading newspapers, drinking tea with her. Feeling as cut off as Bela must have felt, from Gauri” (220). Subhash increases his visits to Tollygunge to once a year. Bijoli has a heart attack and dies at the hospital while Subhash is sleeping at the house in Tollygunge.
Bela goes to an alternative liberal arts college in the Midwest where she majors in environmental sciences. Instead of graduate school, Bela starts work on a farm as an apprentice. She is aloof with her father, moving to different jobs regularly without telling him where she is going. Bela becomes socially conscious and tries to pick jobs that would make an impact on disadvantaged populations. Subhash misses the closeness they used to share but tries to honor her space and new lifestyle.
Part 5 Analysis
This is the first time the narrative switches to Bijoli's perspective. In her narrative, we learn that Subhash’s feelings of inferiority compared to his brother are accurate. Bijoli confides that she has always loved Udayan more than Subhash, despite trying not to.
The distance that Subhash felt as a child becomes worse when Udayan is gone; it is as if his mother doesn’t know how to talk with Subhash. While Subhash visits India more often, he and his mother talk less, spending much of their time in silence. As the ponds permanently separate, this is indicative of Udayan and Subhash’s separation, as well as Subhash’s separation from his parents and Gauri when she leaves.
Death has both literal and figurative connotations in the novel, from the death of Udayan to the death of Subhash’s marriage to Gauri. The emotional distance that always existed between Gauri, Subhash, and Bela becomes physical as Gauri abandons Subhash and Bela for California. For Gauri, pursuing her education is a way to escape from the duties of her home life.
There is juxtaposition between Bela and her late biological father, Udayan, in how they view the Tolly Club. When Subhash and Udayan were children, they used to sneak into the Tolly Club to play; they were outsiders. As a university student, Udayan discussed the horrors of the golf club and its symbol of colonization and imperialism. When Bela visits Tollygunge, she spends her 12th birthday at the club as a paying member, swimming and eating. Bela feels comfortable at the Tolly Club; she is not an outsider. While Bela doesn’t know her biological father, or his ideology, she is contradicting his beliefs.
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