The Lowland

In California, Gauri starts to search the Internet for everyone in her life. She fails to find a trace of Udayan and Bela: “Bela doesn’t exist in the dimension where Gauri might learn something about her. Only that she refuses access. Gauri wonders if the refusal is intentional” (277). Gauri has hope that her and Bela will reconnect.

Gauri’s former student, Dipankar Biswas, asks to see Gauri for lunch. When they meet, he tells her about his oral history project on the Naxalite movement. He wants her to participate, given that she was attending university in Calcutta during the movement. She agrees to talk to him about it but does not want to be included in the book.

Gauri slips on some stairs and sprains her dominant wrist. Gauri reflects that the last time she was in the hospital, she was giving birth to Bela.

Gauri receives a letter from Subhash: He wants to sell the house in Tollygunge, take Gauri’s name off the house as owner in Rhode Island, and “after all this time, he was asking her for a divorce” (286).