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Aparna
Pranab Chakraborty is a Bengali man who becomes close friends with Usha’s family after moving to the United States to study at MIT in “Hell-Heaven.” Usha refers to him affectionately as Pranab Kaku, “Uncle Pranab,” while he refers to Usha’s mother, Aparna, as “Boudi,” a Bengali term typically reserved for an older brother’s wife. Friendly, outgoing, and eager to embrace American culture, Pranab initially bonds with Aparna, who quietly falls in love with him over time. His eventual marriage to Deborah, a white American woman, creates a rift with Aparna, who feels personally betrayed by his choice. After he marries, he distances himself from Usha’s family and their Indian culture, assimilating into the western life he shares with Deborah. However, the couple divorces after several decades of marriage.
Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty Quotes in Unaccustomed Earth
The Unaccustomed Earth quotes below are all either spoken by Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty or refer to Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty. 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:
).
2. Hell-Heaven
Quotes
There is only one photograph in which my mother appears; she is holding me as I sit straddling her lap [...] In that picture, Pranab Kaku’s shadow, his two arms raised at angles to hold the camera to his face, hovers in the corner of the frame, his darkened, featureless shape superimposed on one side of my mother’s body. It was always the three of us.
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Explanation and Analysis:
I began to take my cues from my father in dealing with her, isolating her doubly. When she screamed at me for talking too long on the telephone, or for staying too long in my room, I learned to scream back, telling her that she was pathetic, that she knew nothing about me, and it was clear to us both that I had stopped needing her, definitively and abruptly, just as Pranab Kaku had.
Get the entire Unaccustomed Earth LitChart as a printable PDF.
Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty Quotes in Unaccustomed Earth
The Unaccustomed Earth quotes below are all either spoken by Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty or refer to Pranab Kaku/Pranab Chakraborty. 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:
).
2. Hell-Heaven
Quotes
There is only one photograph in which my mother appears; she is holding me as I sit straddling her lap [...] In that picture, Pranab Kaku’s shadow, his two arms raised at angles to hold the camera to his face, hovers in the corner of the frame, his darkened, featureless shape superimposed on one side of my mother’s body. It was always the three of us.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I began to take my cues from my father in dealing with her, isolating her doubly. When she screamed at me for talking too long on the telephone, or for staying too long in my room, I learned to scream back, telling her that she was pathetic, that she knew nothing about me, and it was clear to us both that I had stopped needing her, definitively and abruptly, just as Pranab Kaku had.
