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May Price
Mayadebi is Tha'mma's younger sister. The narrator describes the two women as being like reflections in a looking glass. Mayadebi is lucky enough to marry the Shaheb, a wealthy diplomat. As such, she travels often throughout her life, including to London in 1939 with the nine-year-old Tridib, her middle son. She has an older son, Jatin, and a much younger son, Robi, who is only a few years older than the narrator. Mayadebi is a beautiful and shy woman, and she worries often about Tridib's safety while they're in London. Though she offers to help Tha'mma when Tha'mma's husband dies, Tha'mma refuses her help. Tha'mma often refers to Mayadebi as somewhat foolish, given that Mayadebi was afraid of scary stories and fully believed her older sister's tale that their uncle Jethamoshai's side of the house was entirely upside-down. However, Mayadebi agrees to take Tha'mma to visit their ancestral home when Tha'mma visits her in Dhaka. For much of the visit and during the riot, Mayadebi is silent. After Tridib dies, she gives the narrator his atlas.
Mayadebi Quotes in The Shadow Lines
The The Shadow Lines quotes below are all either spoken by Mayadebi or refer to Mayadebi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
1. Going Away
Quotes
I could guess at a little of what it had cost her then to refuse her rich sister's help and of the wealth of pride it had earned her, and I knew intuitively that all that had kept her from agreeing at once was her fear of accepting anything from anyone that she could not return in exact measure.
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2. Coming Home
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But you know, the strange thing was that as we grew older even I almost came to believe in our story.
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The price she had paid for that pride was that it had come to be transformed in her imagination into a barrage of slights and snubs; an imaginary barrier that she believed her gloating relatives had erected to compound her humiliation.
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Once you start moving you never stop. That's what I told my sons when they took the trains. I said: I don't believe in this India-Shindia. It's all very well, you're going away now, but suppose when you get there they decide to draw another line somewhere? What will you do then? Where will you move to? No one will have you anywhere.
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Mayadebi Quotes in The Shadow Lines
The The Shadow Lines quotes below are all either spoken by Mayadebi or refer to Mayadebi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
1. Going Away
Quotes
I could guess at a little of what it had cost her then to refuse her rich sister's help and of the wealth of pride it had earned her, and I knew intuitively that all that had kept her from agreeing at once was her fear of accepting anything from anyone that she could not return in exact measure.
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2. Coming Home
Quotes
But you know, the strange thing was that as we grew older even I almost came to believe in our story.
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Explanation and Analysis:
The price she had paid for that pride was that it had come to be transformed in her imagination into a barrage of slights and snubs; an imaginary barrier that she believed her gloating relatives had erected to compound her humiliation.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Once you start moving you never stop. That's what I told my sons when they took the trains. I said: I don't believe in this India-Shindia. It's all very well, you're going away now, but suppose when you get there they decide to draw another line somewhere? What will you do then? Where will you move to? No one will have you anywhere.
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