Page 309 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

Unit 23: Jhumpa Lahiri’s “This Blessed House”: Detailed Study

“Call me Twinkle.” Notes
“What an unusual name,” Nora remarked.
Twinkle shrugged, “Not really. There’s an actress in Bombay named Dimple Kapadia. She even has
a sister named Simple.”
Douglas and Nora raised their eyebrows simultaneously, nodding slowly, as if to let the absurdity of
the names settle in. “Pleased to meet you. Twinkle,”
“Help yourself to champagne. There’s gallons.”
“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Douglas said, “but I noticed the statue outside, and are you
guys Christian? I thought you were Indian,”
“There are Christians in India,” Sanjeev replied, “but we’re not.”
“I love your outfit,” Nora told Twinkle.
“And I adore your hat. Would you like the grand tour?”
The bell rang again, and again and again. Within minutes, it seemed, the house had filled with bodies
and conversations and unfamiliar fragrances. The women wore heels and sheer stockings, and short
black dresses made of crepe and chiffon. They handed their wraps and coats to Sanjeev, who draped
them carefully on hangers in the spacious coat closet, though Twinkle told people to throw their
things on the ottomans in the solarium. Some of the Indian women wore their finest saris, made with
gold filigree that draped in elegant pleats over their shoulders. The men wore jackets and ties and
citrus-scented aftershaves. As people filtered from one room to the next, presents piled onto the long
cherry-wood table that ran from one end of the downstairs hall to the other.
It bewildered Sanjeev that it was for him, and his house, and his wife, that they had all gone to so
much care. The only other time in his life that something similar had happened was his wedding
day, but somehow this was different, for these were not his family, but people who knew him only
casually, and in a sense owed him nothing. Everyone congratulated him. Lester, another coworker,
predicted that Sanjeev would be promoted to vice president in two months maximum. People devoured
the samosas, and dutifully admired the freshly painted ceilings and walls, the hanging plants, the
bay windows, the silk paintings from Jaipur. But most of all they admired Twinkle, and her brocaded
salwar-kameez, which was the shade of a persimmon with a low scoop in the back and the little string
of white rose petals she had coiled cleverly around her head, and the pearl choker with a sapphire at
its center that adorned her throat. Over hectic jazz records, played under Twinkle’s supervision, they
laughed at her anecdotes and observations, forming a widening circle around her, while Sanjeev
replenished the samosas that he kept warming evenly in the oven, and getting ice for people’s drinks
and opening more bottles of champagne with some difficulty, and explaining for the fortieth time
that he wasn’t Christian. It was Twinkle who led them in separate groups up and down the winding
stairs, to gaze at the back lawn, to peer down the cellar steps. “Your friends adore the poster in my
study,” she mentioned to him triumphantly, placing her hand on the small of his back as they, at one
point, brushed past each other.
Sanjeev went to the kitchen, which was empty, and ate a piece of chicken out of the tray on the
counter with his finger because he thought no one was looking. He ate a second piece, then washed
it down with a gulp of gin straight from the bottle.
“Great house. Great rice.” Sunil, an anesthesiologist, walked in, spooning food from his paper plate
into his mouth. “Do you have more champagne?”
“Your wife’s wow,” added Prabal, following behind. He was an unmarried professor of physics at
Yale. For a moment Sanjeev stared at him blankly, then blushed; once at a dinner party Prabal had
pronounced that Sophia Loren was wow, as was Audrey Hepburn. “Does she have a sister?”
Sunil picked a raisin out of the rice tray. “Is her last name Little Star?”
The two men laughed and started eating more rice from the tray, plowing through it with their
plastic spoons. Sanjeev went down to the cellar for more liquor. For a few minutes he paused on the
steps, in the damp, cool silence, hugging the second crate of champagne to his chest as the party
drifted above the rafters. Then he set the reinforcements on the dining table.

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