You Bring the Distant Near

As the Das women navigate their complex family dynamics and cultural identities, they encounter strife and find solidarity. In the novel’s first four chapters, Ranee and Rajeev’s fighting rattles the Das family. The factors that feed into their disputes are a complicated combination of money problems, personal losses, and Ranee’s lack of agency. In Chapter 1, Sonia postulates that her parents’ marital woes can be traced back to the fact that her mother had no say in the match: “Maybe it’s because she was only eighteen when her parents married her off. Baba got to pick her out of three possible brides, but she had no choice” (16). However, Chapter 10 suggests that arranged marriage, which is a traditional institution in Bengali culture, is not the deciding factor in their marital strife: Ranee recalls that Rajeev was a “sweet man she had begun to love after their wedding, before the pregnancies, the miscarriages, the moves, and the money worries” (170). The Das family moves from country to country because of Rajeev’s work. By the time Sonia is 15, she has lived on four different continents. These moves lead to unstable finances and make their cultural identity, in Sonia’s words, “complicated” (12). Another effect of the family’s moves and the parents’ fights is that Tara and Sonia must become each other’s dearest friends and most loyal defenders. When the sisters’ lives feel unpredictable and tense, they offer each other unwavering understanding and love. While Ranee and Rajeev eventually find domestic bliss thanks to Sonia’s diary and their tranquil New Jersey home, their fights have a major impact on their relationship and their daughters.

Another major example of interpersonal conflict in the novel is Ranee and Sonia’s dynamic. They are both fiercely argumentative people, and their similar personalities lead to frequent confrontations. Much of the tension between the mother and daughter stems from their opposing perspectives on culture and race. While American feminism is a cornerstone of Sonia’s values, her mother is dismissive toward the movement and tells Sonia, “Indian women could teach your American bra-burners a thing or two” (82). Another subject on which they clash is race. Ranee sees an acceptable reflection of the colorism she saw in India in the racism experienced by Black Americans, and Sonia is appalled by her mother’s prejudice. Many of her classmates, her friends, and the man she falls in love with are Black. Ranee chooses to sunder her relationship with her daughter after Sonia and Lou’s marriage, but their bond is rebuilt and becomes stronger than ever after Ranee embraces Chantal, her Black and Bengali granddaughter. After decades of blistering arguments and years of frigid silence, Ranee and Sonia achieve a healthy dynamic.

In Part 3, Perkins further develops the theme of family dynamics and cultural identity by introducing a new generation of Das women. Cousins Anna and Chantal have very different upbringings. Chantal and her family live a full but frugal life in New York: “[T]he Johnsons are about thrift stores, grocery store coupons, public transportation, and the old, black Catholic church full of people who put food stamps in the offering plate” (247). Meanwhile, Anna, the only child of a movie star and a banker, grows up in Mumbai and has “[s]ervants to press [her] school uniforms and a cook to make any snack” she wants (209). Geographical distance and years of listening to relatives praise the other leads to jealousy between the cousins. Culture also plays a part in their initial resentment. For example, Chantal’s insecurities and frustration about not seeming “Indian enough” for some people play into her initial envy toward her cousin, whom she thinks of as “Little Miss India” (188). Throughout Part 3, they bond as Chantal helps Anna with the culture shock of adjusting to life in the United States. In the end, the cousins become “as close as sisters,” as Anna’s father predicted (209). Despite the cultural differences between them, Chantal and Anna come to share one of the closest familial bonds in the novel. By exploring he connections between three generations of Das women, Perkins offers a vibrant and nuanced portrait of the relationship between family dynamics and cultural identity.