Kal Penn: It was only after the betrothal that she’d learned his name. One week later the invitations were printed, and two weeks after that she was adorned and adjusted by countless aunts, countless cousins hovering around her. These were her last moments as Ashima Bhaduri, before becoming Ashima Ganguli. […]
Eight thousand miles away in Cambridge, she has come to know him. […] By now she has learned that her husband likes his food on the salty side, that his favorite thing about lamb curry is the potatoes, and that he likes to finish his dinner with a small final helping of rice and dal. At night, lying beside her in bed, he listens to her describe the events of her day: her walks along Massachusetts Avenue, the shops she visits, the Hare Krishnas who pester her with their leaflets, the pistachio ice cream cones she treats herself to in Harvard Square.
Jhumpa Lahiri: The reason her adjustment is more challenging, to say the least, is that she doesn’t come to the United States with a job, you know, a sort of connective tissue as it were, to the world of America, to the public world or America, in terms of being in your environment, in your society. But I think in the case of an immigrant there is a sort of acute isolation that can occur when you don’t have a job to go to in the mornings, nor do you have a social base of friends, neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, whatever mix that happens to be.
Excerpt of "Rag Saraswati" by Ustad Imrat Khan with Shafaat Miadaad Khan, from
Sitar and Surbahar: Indian Music for Meditation and Love (1992), used courtesy of Lyrichord Discs, Inc.
Excerpt of "Tirtha" composed by Vijay Iyer and performed by Vijay Iyer with Prasanna and Nitin Mitta from the album,
Tirtha (2011). Used by permission of ACT Publishing (SESAC) and courtesy of ACT Records.
