Previous
Deirdre Frain
Hema is one of the two protagonists, along with Kaushik, around whom the final three stories in Unaccustomed Earth are centered. Appearing most prominently in “Once in a Lifetime” and “Going Ashore,” Hema’s story is one of a first-generation Bengali American immigrant who spends her life straddling the cultural expectations of Hema’s parents and the pull of her American surroundings. As a professor with a passion for classical languages and history, she’s highly introspective and cautious, driven by a desire for stability and control—especially in her adulthood. After years of being “the other woman” in her decade-long affair with Julian, she chooses to marry Navin, seeing him as a reliable partner who, despite his traditionalism, could provide the family life she longs for. Still, Hema remains unfulfilled in this relationship, yearning for a connection that is less predictable and more profound. When she reconnects with Kaushik—who in many ways represents her unfulfilled childhood dreams—she’s drawn to him not only because of their shared history but because of his inherent understanding of her feelings of cultural disconnection and displacement. With Kaushik, Hema feels free, momentarily shedding her fears and throwing caution to the wind. Though she ultimately chooses to follow through and marry Navin, Kaushik teaches Hema about the preciousness of life, and the unexpected cost of letting go.
Hema Quotes in Unaccustomed Earth
The Unaccustomed Earth quotes below are all either spoken by Hema or refer to Hema. 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:
).
6. Hema and Kaushik: Once in a Lifetime
Quotes
“They should have known it’s impossible to go back,” they said to their friends, condemning your parents for having failed at both ends. We had stuck it out as immigrants while you had fled; had we been the ones to go back to India, my parents seemed to suggest, we would have stuck it out there as well.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“It makes me wish we weren’t Hindu, so that my mother could be buried somewhere. But she’s made us promise we’ll scatter her ashes into the Atlantic.”
I looked at you, confused, and so you continued, explaining that there was cancer in her breast, spreading through the rest of her body.
7. Hema and Kaushik: Year’s End
Quotes
But there were too many pictures, and after a few I, like my father, could no longer bear their sight. A slight lessening in the pressure of my fingertips and the ones I was holding would have blown away into that wild sea, scattering down to where my mother’s ashes already resided. [...] so I put them back in the box and began to break the hardened ground.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
8. Hema and Kaushik: Going Ashore
Quotes
It was her inability, ultimately, to approach middle age without a husband, without children, with her parents living now on the other side of the world, and yet to own a home and shovel the driveway when it snowed and pay her mortgage bill when it came [...] to abide that life indefinitely that led her to Navin.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
His work depended wholly on the present, and on things yet to come. It was not the repeated resurrection of texts that had already been composed, of a time and people that had passed, and it made Hema aware of the sheltered quality not only of her life but her mind.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It would be replaced tenfold in the course of her wedding. And yet she felt she had left a piece of her body behind. She had grown up hearing from her mother that losing gold was inauspicious, and as the plane began to climb, [...] a dark thought passed through her, that it would crash or be blasted apart in the sky.
He wanted to swim to the cove as Henrik had, to show his mother he was not afraid. [...] The sea was as warm and welcoming as a bath. His feet touched the bottom, and so he let go.
And yet without his even realizing it, firmly but without force, Navin pulled me away from you, as the final gust of autumn wind pulls the last leaves from the trees.
Get the entire Unaccustomed Earth LitChart as a printable PDF.
Hema Quotes in Unaccustomed Earth
The Unaccustomed Earth quotes below are all either spoken by Hema or refer to Hema. 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:
).
6. Hema and Kaushik: Once in a Lifetime
Quotes
“They should have known it’s impossible to go back,” they said to their friends, condemning your parents for having failed at both ends. We had stuck it out as immigrants while you had fled; had we been the ones to go back to India, my parents seemed to suggest, we would have stuck it out there as well.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“It makes me wish we weren’t Hindu, so that my mother could be buried somewhere. But she’s made us promise we’ll scatter her ashes into the Atlantic.”
I looked at you, confused, and so you continued, explaining that there was cancer in her breast, spreading through the rest of her body.
7. Hema and Kaushik: Year’s End
Quotes
But there were too many pictures, and after a few I, like my father, could no longer bear their sight. A slight lessening in the pressure of my fingertips and the ones I was holding would have blown away into that wild sea, scattering down to where my mother’s ashes already resided. [...] so I put them back in the box and began to break the hardened ground.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
8. Hema and Kaushik: Going Ashore
Quotes
It was her inability, ultimately, to approach middle age without a husband, without children, with her parents living now on the other side of the world, and yet to own a home and shovel the driveway when it snowed and pay her mortgage bill when it came [...] to abide that life indefinitely that led her to Navin.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
His work depended wholly on the present, and on things yet to come. It was not the repeated resurrection of texts that had already been composed, of a time and people that had passed, and it made Hema aware of the sheltered quality not only of her life but her mind.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It would be replaced tenfold in the course of her wedding. And yet she felt she had left a piece of her body behind. She had grown up hearing from her mother that losing gold was inauspicious, and as the plane began to climb, [...] a dark thought passed through her, that it would crash or be blasted apart in the sky.
He wanted to swim to the cove as Henrik had, to show his mother he was not afraid. [...] The sea was as warm and welcoming as a bath. His feet touched the bottom, and so he let go.
And yet without his even realizing it, firmly but without force, Navin pulled me away from you, as the final gust of autumn wind pulls the last leaves from the trees.
