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Essay based on Professor Bertone's class...

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Paper #2 Hell Heaven Jhumpa Lahiri’s Hell Heaven tells the story of a Benhali family living in America who are introduced to a man who goes on to impact Aparna’s life a lot. This short story illuminates the inner turmoil of a married woman who falls in love with a man who she can’t have and gives us an insight on the Bengali culture. As an immigrant from Nepal, I felt a strong connection towards this story. I felt as if the story of my parents was told through the eyes of the daughter. In addition, this short story reminded me of the big cultural shock I got when we first moved to America. In the story, the daughter tells the events of how her mother, Aparna, and she met Pranab kaku at Harvard square and soon , he becomes a family friend. When she juxtaposes Pranab to her actual father Shyamal, we can see how different the two men are. She says “my father was a monkish by nature, a lover of silence and solitude,” (Hell-Heaven, 245). He was a man who preferred to work over anything. He hated conversation, and just focused on his work. On the other hand, Pranab Kaku loved to interact with the ladies. “He appeared without a warning, never phoning before hand...calling out “Boudi” as he waited for my mother to let him in,” (Hell-Heaven, 245). The daughter also emphasizes how different her mother’s relationship was with Pranab than with her own father. Due to the workaholic nature of her father, Aparna never got a chance to enjoy life with him. Also, she points out that “he was married to my mother to place his parents…”(Hell Heaven, 246). Whereas with Pranab kaku, they would go out on picnics, have playful debates about songs and he ends up becoming someone who she falls in love with. In the end, we end up learning how Aparna almost ended up committing suicide because she loses Pranab kaku. This got me thinking about my own culture and how our move to America is changing me.

Paper #2 My parents didn’t have a romantic love story either. It just went a bit like this. My dad saw my mom sitting by the rock right below the waterfalls and thought that she was cute. And just like any other boy, he took his brother to my mom’s house to ask her father for permission to marry her. Yes, really, that's how it went. It’s not like Aparna’s situation where she was an actual victim of an arranged marriage, but there was no dating or “getting to know you” either. As I read on, I realized how similar the marriages are between Aparna and her husband and between my mom and dad. My father chooses to learn and is an actuary, while my mother is more concerned about cooking for the family and being a good wife. Due to the conflicting interest, sometimes my mother would tell me that she regrets marrying my father. Of course I know she doesn’t mean it. My father is a great man, wise beyond words, but one day, if I muster enough courage to ask her whether she really, deep down, loves dad, I wonder what she will say. The same goes for my father. He was “aging” when he saw my mother. He was 27, unmarried, and had a degree of some sort, so basically useless in Nepali standard all because there was nobody to make him rotis. So, really they got married for the sake of getting married. It still intrigues me as to how marriage can cause people to fall in love. Nearly everyone in my family has gotten married through an arrangement, but it's surprising how no one is divorced. Throughout the years, I’ve learned a lot about social interactions. As an immigrant from Nepal, I come from a traditional Nepali family where the men are the breadwinners. Back in Nepal, we used to live off of dad’s income and it’s only after we moved to New York that both of my parents work. I was always told by my mother to finish my education first and then I’ll eventually find a guy to marry. If I was in Nepal, maybe I would have agreed to that because that’s what everyone did. However, over here, I would hear people talk about how they met their husbands back in college, dated for some good 7-8 years then tied the knot. Initially, it was a bit weird for me. What’s the point of dating for so long? After all how long does it take to fall in love

Paper #2 with someone? After 1 or 2 boyfriends however, I figured it out. What you may initially feel is an attraction but it takes a lifetime to fall in love with someone and way more than life time to actually understand who they are. So, how has moving to New York changed me? To begin with, I have become more open minded. Much to the resentment of my grandpa who wanted me to marry some family friend’s son’s kid’s god-knows-what guy, I made it clear that I will only marry a man who I love. The concept of dating and sex before marriage is still taboo to the older generations of my family, but after interacting with people here, I learned how important it is to know someone before making a big decision such as marriage. Hell- Heaven really had be build up sympathy for Aparna. While she may have loved her husband at some point in her life, Pranab kaku became the man who she really fell in love with from deep down. However, we also see that in the end Pranab’s marriage to Deborah fallas apart and he starts hitting up another girl so that begs another question of which type of marriage is more stable? I think love marriages are more stable. In the case of Pranab kaku, it was an unfortunate situation, but generally if you love someone, it means that you know the person down to the core, so even if you separate it’s out of mutual respect, whereas although arranged marriages end up lasting, it’s not necessary that both parties are happy. So, one of the biggest things that I’ve learned and found different from the Nepali culture vs American culture is the outlook on marriage.

Paper #2

Works Cited:

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Hell Heaven . Langara College, 2017....