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.