The story starts as Raj is on the verge of his retirement and now he wants to spend more time with his family comprising of wife, children and grand-children. Raj and Pooja spend forty years together. They are very compatible. In their whole life they tried to give their sons a comfortable life. As for example when Aman needs a loan and Raj readily offers it to him even though he is retiring. He does this because he believes that his successful sons will do anything to take care of their parents. But as a matter of fact fate has stored something else for Raj and Pooja.
Raj takes early retirement from the bank to spend some more quality time with his wife Pooja. They couple think that now it is their children’s responsibility to take care of them. But unfortunately none of them are actually agreeable to do so. At the time of retirement Raj has no money and that is why his children are indecisive to take their parents. The avoid eth whole case Malhotra children decide some ridiculous thing. They say that the mother would reside with Aman, who is the eldest one. They also decide that father will stay with the second son i.e. Samir. After six months, they would shift to the third and fourth sons i.e. Sahil and Nasir respectively. The reason behind taking this decision by the children was something else. They thought that their parents would never be ready to live without one another. But as Pooja requests a lot Raj could not deny them even if he does not like the whole idea of separation with Pooja. Raj eventually agrees with the decision taken by his four sons.
When they go with them in their respective houses, their children as well as maids start ill-treating them. Raj and Pooja feels exhausted and wants to get rid of this loneliness. While living with the second son, Raj used to go to a cafe, run by Paresh Rawal and Lilette Dubey. They use to call him ‘couch potato’ i.e. big brother. To kill his leisure time Raj starts looking upon the cafe’s account and also writing a book on family values and thoughts.
The limit of their tolerance breaks down when the sons forget their parent’s anniversary and scheduled for their parents journey to the alternate sons. Raj and Pooja meets in a place where they met at their first anniversary.
Roy asserts that people’s fears of upsetting the power balance based in the caste system often leads to a blind acceptance of the status quo and a continuous sense of self-deprecation by individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy. When Velutha’s father fears that his son’s affair with a Touchable will have potentially disastrous consequences for him, he serves his own self-interest and is willing to endanger is son. He exposes the affair to the grandmother of the woman his son is having an affair with, revealing the extreme degree to which caste and conforming to societal norms drive the behaviors of individuals in Indian society; “So Vellya Paapen had come to tell Mamamachi himself. As a Paravan and a man with mortgaged body parts he considered it his duty…they had made the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible really happen…Offering to kill his son. To tear him limb from limb” (242). His fear of disrupting the status quo (i.e. the Indian social hierarchy) is so great that he is willing to sacrifice his own son’s life to protect his own. Rather than considering the genuine...
The average person wants one thing more than anything else, and that thing is to belong. Usha, a young girl from Calcutta, is no different. Already trying the find her place in the world, Usha must now assimilate into cultural society within the United States. Usha’s uncle, Pranab Kaku, came from Calcutta as well having first come to America, his experiences start off worse than Usha’s, which causes him to join the family in an act of social grouping. With the Old World trying to pull them back and the New World just out of reach, both must overcome tradition and develop their own personal values.
The main character is Mrs. Das whom is flirtatious, careless, and needy. She and her husband take their family to see the country India for the first time. The tour guide Mr.Kapsi whom is curious, understanding, and quite aware. He sees something unusual at the beginning of the trip, but does not say anything. As the children continue their site seeing, the husband takes picture with his camera as if he lost in his own world. Meanwhile the wife gets to know the driver instead of site seeing. Mr.Kapsi is aware that the family is not like most Indians which lead him to be attracted to Mrs.Das. It states, “The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors (29). This quote shows the difference in cultural clash as well the difficulty of communication. Mr.Kapsi tells Mrs. Das that he is an interpreter for a doctor which makes her believe she can discuss her personal business without him telling anyone. It states, “He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, “Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?”(39) Made the wife realized what she was truly feeling about her mistakes. After the conversation Mr.Kapsi did not look at the Mrs.Das the same way. The unusual
...ind a way to redeem themselves. The relationship between Amir, Hassan and Baba has shown so much neglect and disregard to the fatherly love that Amir and Hassan needed from Baba as it stands in comparison to Amir and Sohrab’s growing relationship. The appreciation of the unselfish actions are demonstrated as they give up their career, life, and pride for the betterment of their sons. The book itself demonstrates the development of the characters as they got more mature to which this bad past they had causes them to reinforce a more effective functioning father and son relationship. A neglect of a father may lead to bad decisions as a father should be there to ensure and reinforce a lesson to his son, acquiring the happiness of the son which is necessary for a fatherly figure.
Against the backdrop of a brand-new liberalized world, Kapur sketches out Shagun’s boredom, Raman’s hurt and the confusion of their children, Roohi and Arjun, who are batted back and forth between parents and across chapters. The two new partners in the equation, boss man Ashok and divorcee Ishita, struggle to woo their step kids while supporting
In spite of the fact that the parents wish that their youngsters would hold their Bengali legacy by keeping alive their dialect and wedding other Bengalis, Gogol and Sonia are hesitant to do as such. They are American, they demand. While living at home, the youngsters are faithful; however, just hardly emulate their parents'
A traditional extended family living in Northern India can become acquainted through the viewing of Dadi’s family. Dadi, meaning grandmother in Hindu, lets us explore her family up close and personal as we follow the trials and tribulations the family encounters through a daily basis. The family deals with the span of three generations and their conflicting interpretations of the ideal family life. Dadi lets us look at the family as a whole, but the film opens our eyes particularly on the women and the problems they face. The film inspects the women’s battle to secure their status in their family through dealing with a patriarchal mentality. The women also are seen attempting to exert their power, and through it all we are familiarized to
Das shows a stereotypical American flaw where she did not care about her children and went and openly started discussing her personal life and also in the process she found guilty for disrespecting the country and the cultural believes, where she believes it or not she still got the Indian heritage in her. Lahiri’s proves us that Mrs. Das is a messy; lazy and over all a bad parent. She simply has no concern for the environment, as she was completely fine after dropping rice snacks all over the floor riling the local wildlife. Mrs. Das simply represents what’s called “Ugly American” who always stands out in the crowd for her own needs and is very narrow minded and only cares about her self. This showed a complete lack of understanding among them shows a complete difference between the family and culture.
The two even find that they are forced from their own culture as the hospital insists Ashima wear a short smock, and name their first born son before he leaves the hospital, traditionally against their culture’s formalities. The couple temporarily names their son, Gogol, while they wait for their family to decide on a formal name years later. When the time finally comes for Gogol’s name to be changed to Nikhil, he tells his elementary school principal that he prefers Gogol, beginning an inner struggle to find his identity. Because Ashima and Ashoke followed their culture’s customs in receiving an arranged marriage, they did not receive the opportunity to love one another first. However they learn to love each other throughout their union, especially because they share a cultural understanding and feel as if they are home in one another’s arms. In private, they are able to express their love to one another, saying “I love you” for the first time, “as the American’s do.” But in the fashion of their culture, and the way love is grown through companionship, the first time they tell one another their true feelings, is when their first child has graduated from High School. Its interesting to see the parallel in the two cultures, as American’s typically say “I love you” before they are married. But many American
In the Indian culture, marriage is different from another culture's point of view. In the film Ravi decides to break a two year relationship from an American woman before he attended his family trip to India, which coincides with
The first difference between American culture and Indian culture is marriage. A wedding is a great social event in our society, which establish a new bond between two individuals and families. Marriage is a joyful occasion with plenty of music, dance, partying and merrymaking. It also brings together a long-lost friends, relatives and acquaintances. In India, the parents choose the mate for their child, which is called an arranged marriage. In most cases, the bri...
To Ashima's disappointment, they move away from the city to a suburban neighborhood. They are the only Bengali couple around and that causes them to feel further isolated. Ashima believes that "being a foreigner is a sort of life-long pregnancy—a perpetual wait, a continuous feeling out of sorts" (Lahiri, The Namesake 49). She constantly awaits a sense of belonging but that never comes for her. Ashima is further agitated by the fact that she is so far away when tragedy befalls her family in India. The first bad news that she receives is that her grandmother has become senile, followed by the news of her father's death. After both incidents, "Ashima is inconsolable for days" (Lahiri, The Namesake 38). One day, she gives Ashoke an ultimatum and tells him, "I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right" and that she wants to go back to India as soon as Ashoke finishes his degree (Lahiri, The Namesake 33). Ashoke looks at Ashima "aware that her life in Cambridge has already taken a toll...feeling that it is his fault, for marrying her, for bringing her here" (Lahiri, The Namesake 33). Despite his awareness of his role in his wife's unhappiness, he does not agree with her desire to leave because he believes that he will live in India with regret if he departs America. As shown, "immigration motherhood is presented not as a means to better integrate into the new land...but,
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy tells the story of the communist state of Kerala and the forbidden love between two castes, which changes the lives of everyone. In the novel an ‘Untouchable’, Velutha is a carpenter and works at Paradise Pickles and Preserves for much less than he deserves because of his status as an Untouchable in the caste system. Velutha falls into a forbidden love with a divorced woman, Ammu who is associated with an upper caste Syrian Christian Ipe family. Marriage was the only way that Ammu could have escaped this life, but she lost the chance when marrying the wrong man, as he was an alcoholic and this resulted in them getting a divorce. Ammu breaks the laws that state ‘who should be loved, and how and how much’, as their affair threatens the ‘caste system’ in India, which is a hierarchal structure and social practice in India in which your position in society is determined and can’t be changed. Arhundati Roy portrays the theme of forbidden love within the caste systems and shows how they are t...
So goes this story and tells us how the poor Rukumani suffers to hide her love from her parents, how she suffers to get away from the arranged marriage her parents are planning for her, how she suffers without seeing her lover Devanayagam and worst of all what happens when she finally tells her parents about her love.
The Das parents’ negligent relationship with their children in Clear Light of Day mirrors India’s independence from Britain. Before their deaths, Mr. and Mrs. Das were preoccupied and inattentive to their four children, Raja, Tara, Bim, and Baba. They spent most of their time at the club, playing “their daily game of bridge” (Desai 50). This pastime is so important to them that they neglect to take care of their kids. For example, Mrs. Das tires of “washing and powdering” Baba, her mentally disabled baby, and she complains, “My bridge is suffering” (103). Mr. Das also does not focus on his children and “he [goes] through the day without addressing a word to them” (53). Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Das are unable to ever form a loving relationship with their children because they both pass away. After Mrs. Das falls into a...