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English - II

Notes time inDacca’ that Lilia comes to realise that, while Mr Pirzada is physicallypresent in America, his
experiences there are no more than ‘a lagging ghost of where [he] really belonged’ – with his family
in Dacca. Gradually Lilia, through her contact with Mr Pirzada, is brought to understand the
significance of other cultures and other people’s fight for independence. Her colourless American
history lessons seem unremarkable when set against the history being created in the here and now,
and the anticipation of the ‘birth of a nation on the other side of the world’ . Lahiri subtly uses the
persona of Lilia to filter the cultural differences between India/Pakistan and the reality of the American
culture that Lilia is born into. She dutifully learns the history of her birth country but is drawn
inexorably towards that of her parents. For Lilia, as war looms in East Pakistan, the details remain ‘a
remote mystery with haphazard clues’ that she is somehow excluded from; she knows only that Mr
Pirzada and her parents operated as ‘a single body’ with ‘a single fear’ . After the war, Mr Pirzada
returns home to his family, which has survived. He will never revisit America, but Lilia has learned
through this stranger what it means ‘to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away’.
• What role do the children in the title story play?
• How does Lahiri use these child characters to underline the other characterisations in the story?
• Through these child characters, certain truths are revealed to readers about the adults, their
relationships and the cultural divide between Indian Americans and their American counterparts.

9.4 Themes, Ideas and Values

Tolerance
Lahiri sees tolerance as essential both to cultural harmony and within relationships. Through ‘This
Blessed House’, she explores both the complications of an arranged marriage and the adjustments
that must be made to accommodate a couple’s disparate personalities within any relationship.
Sanjeev obviously prefers his bachelor existence ‘when he would walk each evening across the Mass.
Avenue bridge’ (p.138) and need not consider anyone else in his solitary evenings. He and Twinkle are
completely mismatched: he prefers an orderly existence, while Twinkle is lazy, slovenly and careless of
convention. Further, she was ‘excited and delighted by little things … as if the world contained hidden
wonders’ . These qualities make Sanjeev ‘feel stupid’, because he does not understand her zest for life.
When Twinkle becomes obsessed with the Christian artefacts left behind by a previous owner in
their new house, Sanjeev becomes even more uptight wondering what the ‘people from the office’
will make of these Christian symbols in a Hindu house. He hates the fact that Twinkle is fascinated
with them, but in the face of her refusal to abandon them he concedes that he ‘will tolerate’ her ‘little
biblical menagerie’. This is a further sign that he will accommodate Twinkle’s excesses for the sake of
harmony. He continues to clear up after her, but their differences become obvious when he plays
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony as a romantic gesture only to have Twinkle advise him that if he wants ‘to
impress people’ he should not ‘play this music’ . The charms of the ‘tender fourth movement’ are
completely lost on Twinkle.
The couple had met ‘only four months before’ , and were brought together by the wishes of their
parents. This is the situation at the heart of their story, for their obvious differences soon become
apparent: Sanjeev is the son of parents who live in Calcutta, while Twinkle is a second-generation
American. This basic cultural difference is a further obstacle to their establishment of a successful
relationship. Sanjeev had been lonely in America and Twinkle had recently been abandoned by an
American man. Brought together by the parents, they believed they had some things in common
such as a ‘persistent fondness for Wodehouse novels’ . With this comment, Lahiri shows her sense of
the absurd. To make a marriage work, especially from culturally diverse backgrounds, she shows
that a great deal of adjustment and compromise must take place on both sides, and also that tolerance
extends beyond a mere shared passion for an author. Twinkle is not interested in the complications
of Indian cookery which, she complained, ‘was a bother’ , preferring a more American style of food.
Sanjeev’s admission that her cooking is ‘unusually tasty’ suggests that he is prepared to tolerate her
differences. Twinkle, for her part, tolerates Sanjeev’s fussiness and, happy that she has salvaged the
Christian artefacts, declares ‘this house is blessed’. Sanjeev does not know if he loves Twinkle, although
he has chosen her above all the other Indian brides that were suggested to him. He is clearly mesmerised

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