Because all over India, at this very moment, widows in white saris are bowing their veiled heads, serving tea to in-laws. Doves with cut-off wings.
Sumita, in the story Clothes, attaches a particular meaning to every color she wears. She is expected to wear white, for mourning, as her husband is dead now. She is pondering over her fate as she is dependent on her in-laws, however she wants to work in her husband’s store. She comes to realize that if goes back with her in-laws to India, her life would be like the lives of submissive widows left to live a life with no prospects or future. That her life would be of a harmless bird with no wings to fly.
I would rather think only of Aunt, but like the shawls of bride and groom at an Indian ceremony their lives are inextricably knotted together
Jayanti, in the story Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs, compares the complexity of her aunt's marriage to her husband to the knotted shawls of bride and groom at an Indian wedding. In weddings, the bride and groom are meant to sit with their shawls knotted together. This signifies that their lives are entwined, but in the case of her aunt and uncle, Jayanti observes that they have little individuality on their own and most of their existence is dependent on the other.
It is like rain and when you lift your face it, like rain it washes away inessentials, leaving you hollow, clean, ready to begin.
The narrator from the story 'The Word Love' compares love to rain, observing how love for her boyfriend and mother had torn her apart. When a person falls in love, everything inessential to that love ceases to be of importance.She compares love to rain, that it washes everything and leaves the person eager to start a new life.
The ayah, who had recovered by now, stated acidly that it was well known that when ants grow wings, the time of their doom has arrived.
It is narrated in the story The Maid Servant' Story that the maid servant gets vain after wearing the heavy and embellished sari and parrades around the house, inciting jealousy from other servants. This leads to the ayah, the nanny, comparing her to an ant, signifying that the maid servant was as insignificant as an ant and by daring to wear an opulent sari she was reaching beyond her means and it was equivalent to the ant sprouting wings. She predicted that as the ant dies when it grows wings, the maid servant would meey her downfall by fogetting her status.
And, when the door finally clicked shut, she did not know whether it was in the guest room or deep inside her own being.
Preeti, from the story Doors, is obsessed about keeping doors closed while her husband is not. So, after her first fight with him over privacy issues, they sleep apart with him in the guest room. she hears him close the doors, a first. She is so surprised at his act that she begins to wonder if the noise was from those doors or deep inside her as she feels that whatever comfort she enjoyed in being in relationship with him has been lost.
Our husbands are kind and dependable and take good care of us. In the Indian culture, that is same as love.
Anju, from The Ultrasound, is from a conservative Indian society. She has been raised to think that love is not the most important aspect of marriage,so it's acceptable for husbands to not to love their wives, or even abuse the wives if they're not domestic enough. Anjali has come to believe that if a husband is caring enough then his being in love with his wife is irrelevant.
I think of how hard I always tried to be the perfect wife and mother, like the heroines of mythology I grew up on- patient, faithful Sita , selfless Kunti
Asha, from Meeting Mrinal, struggles with her idea of perfection. She has been so lost in making her marriage perfect, she never realizes that she has never enjoyed her life. She had been hell bent on proving herself to be equal in qualities to mythical heroines like Sita and Kunti who are popular for their devotion to their husband and children respectively.
