The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - In this post you will get all the information about ‘The Inheritance of Loss’. The proper and easy explanation of the novel is written below, i hope will read the summary and know everything about ' The Inheritance of Loss '.
Introduction
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - The
Inheritance of Loss is the second novel by Indian author Kiran Desai. It was
first published in 2006. It won a number of awards, including the Booker Prize
for that year, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007, and the
2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award. It was written over a period of seven years
after her first book, the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.
Among its main themes are migration, living between two worlds, and between
past and present.
Characters
- The Judge / Jemubhai
- Sai
- Biju
- The Cook
- Gyan
- Nimi
- Noni
- Lola
- Father Booty
- Uncle Potty
- Saeed Saeed
- Harish-Harry
- The Judge’s Father
- Bose
- Sai’s Father (Mr.
Mistry)
Summary
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - The novel opens on the judge and
his granddaughter Sai sitting on the veranda of their home, Cho Oyu, while
their cook makes tea and the judge’s dog, Mutt, sleeps on the porch. A set of
boys from the Gorkha
National Liberation Front (GNLF) arrive and demand that the judge hand
over his guns, threatening them with a rifle and stealing anything of value they
can find in the house. The judge then sends the cook to the police station. The
police return home and accuse the cook of having a hand in the robbery. They
tear apart his meager hut and read letters from his son, Biju. Biju works at
Gray’s Papaya in the heart of Manhattan, but is asked to leave when the manager
of the restaurant is instructed to do a green card check. Biju then cycles
through a series of restaurants, but the situation is often the same. Biju is
fired from a French restaurant when customers complain about the smell of the
food.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - The narrative jumps back to Sai’s
arrival at the judge’s home nine years earlier, at age eight. She had left St. Augustine’s convent,
where she had grown up with English customs, because her mother and father had
recently been hit by a bus. The nuns then found the address of her grandfather
and returned her to him. When Sai arrived, she and the judge exchanged few
words, but the judge was pleased that they seemed to be accustomed to similar
cultures. The judge remembers when he had left his own home at age twenty. He
had been accepted at Cambridge to study for the Indian Civil Service. He had
also just been married to a fourteen-year-old
wife, Nimi. At Cambridge, he was treated like an outcast and a
second-class citizen, and barely spoke to people. He began to find his own skin
color odd, and his own accent strange. He spent most of his time studying. The
morning after Sai arrives, the cook takes her to meet her new tutor: Noni, who
lives with her sister Lola. They pass the houses of Uncle Potty, Father Booty,
the Afghan princesses, and Mrs. Sen—all of whom are upper-class and
well-educated. Biju’s second year in America begins at an Italian restaurant,
where he is once again fired because the owners believe he smells bad. He then
takes a job at a Chinese restaurant, delivering food on a bicycle. In the
winter, it is freezing, and he is fired because the food he delivers becomes
too cold by the time he arrives. Biju returns to a basement in Harlem, where he lives with other
undocumented immigrants in destitute conditions. He then gets another job at
the Queen of Tarts Bakery. Over the years the cook had become ashamed of the
judge’s poor treatment of him, and he began to lie to other servants and Sai to
exaggerate the judge’s wealth and social standing. In reality the judge had
been born to a family of the peasant caste, but his father saved up money to
send him to the mission school.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - He had studied hard and risen to the top
of his class. He attended Cambridge, passed his exams and was admitted to the
Indian Civil Service. He was placed in a district far from his home and toured
around India, even though his knowledge of regional Indian languages was
minimal. When Sai turns sixteen, Noni realizes that she will need another tutor for math and
science, because her own knowledge has been exceeded. The judge asks the
principal of the local college if he can recommend a teacher or graduate for
her. Twenty-year-old Gyan, a recent graduate who has not yet been able to find
a job, is hired. He and Sai quickly become entranced by one another. At the
Queen of Tarts Bakery, Biju meets a Muslim man from Zanzibar named Saeed Saeed,
He admires Saeed because of the way he seems to stay afloat in the underground
system of being an illegal immigrant rather than drowning in it, the way Biju
feels. Biju begins to question his prejudice against people from Pakistan, and
then questions his prejudice against people of many other ethnicities, as they
had never done anything harmful to him or to India, unlike white people. Back in Kalimpong, Sai
asks the cook about the judge’s wife. At first the cook lies and says they
loved each other, but he then remembers that the judge hated his wife. Sai then
questions the judge about her grandmother. He rebuffs her questions, but begins
to remember her for himself. Before the judge had left for England, his family
didn’t have enough money for his travel expenses and so they looked for a wife
for him in order to gain a dowry. One local man named Bomanbhai Patel was
extremely wealthy, and was very interested in the judge because he planned to
enter the ICS.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - Patel offered up his most beautiful
daughter, who was fourteen years old at the time. The two married shortly
after, and she was renamed Nimi
by the judge’s family. The night of the wedding, he had tried to
consummate the marriage, but she was terrified, and so they did not. Before he
left for England, the two shared one gentle moment in which he took her on an
exhilarating bicycle ride. The cook sends letters to Biju asking him to help
others get to America. Biju feels overwhelmed by these requests, and Saeed
empathizes with him because he is experiencing the exact same thing. More than
anything, the two aim to get their green cards. One day, they are swindled by men
in a van who say that they can get them green cards, but in reality simply
steal their money. Shortly after this incident, the Queen of Tarts Bakery
closes. Gyan and Sai’s romance begins to bloom when he is stuck at the house
due to a monsoon. They flirt and play games, measuring each other’s hands,
feet, and limbs. One day, Gyan asks her to kiss him, and she does. They begin
to sightsee together, going to cultural institutions, the zoo, and a monastery.
Gyan tells her a little of his family history, about how they had been taken
advantage of serving in the British Army. Meanwhile, Lola and Noni discuss the
growing political rumblings of the Nepalis living in India, who are demanding a
separate state, more job opportunities, and schools that teach Nepali. Noni is more understanding of
their cause than Lola, but Lola begins to see her own prejudice when her
neighbor, Mrs. Sen, starts speaking about Pakistanis with the same kind of
bias. Biju now works at a restaurant called Brigitte’s, but is unhappy because
they serve steak. He realizes that it’s important to him to retain his values,
and so he quits and goes to work in the Ghandi Café, which is run by a man
named Harish-Harry. Harish-Harry invites the staff to live in the basement
below the kitchen, but then pays them a quarter of minimum wage. Sai celebrates
Christmas with Lola, Noni, Uncle Potty, and Father Booty.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - After New Years, Gyan is in the market
when he sees a procession of young men from the GNLF. He is quickly caught up in the procession
and relates to their demands and complaints, which echo many of his own as a
young Nepali man. The next day, Gyan arrives at Cho Oyu and yells at Sai,
frustrated by her complicity in English cultural elitism. The judge remembers
how his and Nimi’s relationship had turned sour. When he had returned from
England, she had taken his powder puff. As he looked for it, his family
ridiculed him for using it. By the time he discovered that Nimi had taken it,
he was furious, and he raped her. In the following days, he insisted that she
speak English and follow English customs, which she refused to do. He took off
her bangles, threw away her hair oil, and pushed her face into the toilet when
he discovered her squatting on it. He then left her at their home while he went
away on tour. The day after Gyan’s
eruption at Sai, he tries to apologize, but they only return to their
fight about English customs, and Sai accuses him of being a hypocrite for
enjoying Western things like cheese toast with her but making fun of them with
his friends.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - He leaves, and tells his friends
in the GNLF about the judge’s guns, giving them a description of Cho Oyu and
telling them that there is no telephone. The cook thinks about his attempts to
send Biju abroad. For his first
attempt, Biju had interviewed and been accepted at a cruise ship line.
They had paid eight thousand rupees for the processing fee and the cost of
training before realizing that it was a scam. His second attempt involved
applying for a tourist visa. Despite the fact that it was difficult for poorer
people to be approved for a visa, Biju was allowed to go to America. At the
Ghandi Café, three years after that visa was approved, Biju slips on rotten
spinach. He demands Harish-Harry pay for a doctor for him, but Harish-Harry
refuses and calls Biju ungrateful. He suggests that Biju return to India for
medical care. Father Booty, Uncle Potty, Noni, Lola, and Sai go to exchange
their library books before
the GNLF closes more roads and shops. When they start to walk back to
their car, they spot a procession of GNLF, and Sai sees Gyan there. He ignores
her.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - On the way back, Father Booty
takes a picture of a butterfly at a checkpoint and is stopped by the police. It
is discovered that he is in India illegally, and he is quickly deported. The narration
skips ahead, after the incident in which the boys from the GNLF steal the
judge’s guns. A few days later, the police pick up a drunk and accuse him of
the crime, beating him brutally. Meanwhile, in America, Biju becomes informed
about the Nepalis’ strikes. He tries to call the cook, and they have a very
disjointed conversation. Biju feels even more empty than before. The strikes in Kalimpong
continue, and the Nepalis put up tents in front of Lola and Noni’s
property. The sisters begin to feel that the wealth that always protected them
now makes them vulnerable. Sai goes to find Gyan at his home and sees how poor
he actually is. Gyan becomes angry at her pity, and the two argue before he
throws her in a bush and beats her. Sai returns home and sees the wife of the
drunk who had been beaten by the police begging the judge for money and mercy.
They turn her away. Meanwhile,
Gyan’s sister informs his family of what he’s been doing, and they
forbid him from going to the GNLF protest the following day. The next day, the
cook attends the protest because the GNLF is forcing each family to send a male
representative. Rocks start flying from nowhere, and the protesters and police,
in equal confusion, begin to throw rocks at each other. The police then begin to
open fire on the crowd. Many young boys are killed, and the protesters begin to
wrestle weapons away from the police and turn on them. The police run away and
seek shelter in private homes. Lola and Noni turn them away. Biju decides to
return home to India despite warnings not to. He buys various souvenirs to
bring home to his father, and takes the cheapest plane possible to Calcutta.
When he arrives, the airline loses many bags, and only compensates the
foreigners and non-resident Indians. Biju waits for his luggage, which arrives intact, and steps out
into the street. He feels at peace in his homeland.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - The
incidents of horror continue in Kalimpong. There are many robberies and acts of arson. The woman that the
judge had turned away returns and steals Mutt in order to sell her. When they
realize she is missing, the judge, the cook, and Sai all set out to search for
her. When the judge goes to the police station, he is mocked because this seems
like a minimal crime relative to the atrocities being committed. The judge
thinks back to the family, the culture, and the wife he had abandoned. One day
when he was on tour, a woman had knocked on Nimi’s door and taken her,
unknowingly, to be a part of the Nehru welcoming committee for the Indian
National Congress Party. The judge had returned and been confronted by the
district commissioner. He lost a promotion and had been incredibly embarrassed.
When he arrived home, he had
cursed Nimi, beaten her, and kicked her. Six months later, his daughter
had been born. He never met her. It is then implied that Nimi’s brother-in-law
had orchestrated her death, when her sleeve had caught fire on the stove. Biju
is told that there are no buses to Kalimpong because of the political
situation.
The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai Summary - Biju catches a ride with some GNLF men. They take him most of the way before dropping him off and robbing him of all of his possessions, money, and clothing. He is forced to walk the rest of the way to Kalimpong. The judge grows more and more distraught over Mutt’s disappearance. He blames the cook and threatens to kill him. The cook then goes to the canteen, where he runs into Gyan. Hearing what has happened and growing increasingly guilty, Gyan resolves to find Mutt for Sai. The cook returns to Cho Oyu and begs the judge to beat him. The judge hits him over and over again with a slipper. Sai yells for him to stop, and makes the cook tea. At that moment, the gate rattles, and the cook goes to answer it. It is Biju. The cook and his son leap at each other as morning breaks over the mountains.
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