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Alcohol and Drinking
Throughout Unaccustomed Earth, photographs represent alienation, loss, and grief. In the collection’s stories, photos preserve special moments of connection while emphasizing the characters’ distance from those happy memories—an idea that mirrors the immigrant characters’ experiences of feeling as though they’re being torn between past and present, home and the unknown. For instance, in “Only Goodness,” the framed photographs in Sudha’s home remind Rahul of his estrangement from his family, which shows him all he’s missed out on due to the alcoholism that rules his life. Ultimately, the pain of seeing these images contributes to his relapse, which only worsens his relationships with his family members—following his relapse, Sudha cuts contact with him.
In the Hema and Kaushik trilogy, photographs make this symbolism even more explicit. Kaushik’s work as a photojournalist allows him to observe life and people from behind the camera, reflecting his inner struggle with emotional intimacy and belonging. Following the death of his mother, Parul, Kaushik never fully recovers from his grief, and he is thus unwilling to get close to anyone. And as a photographer (rather than the person being photographed), he can maintain distance from other people—a coping mechanism that the stories ultimately suggests only alienates him further. Additionally, when he views photos of his late mother, they conjure repressed emotions, emphasizing his unresolved grief and the rootlessness he carries as a result.
Photographs Quotes in Unaccustomed Earth
The Unaccustomed Earth quotes below all refer to the symbol of Photographs. 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:
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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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7. Hema and Kaushik: Year’s End
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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.
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8. Hema and Kaushik: Going Ashore
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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.
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Get the entire Unaccustomed Earth LitChart as a printable PDF.
Photographs Symbol Timeline in Unaccustomed Earth
The timeline below shows where the symbol Photographs appears in Unaccustomed Earth. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
2. Hell-Heaven
...together, picnicking and swimming at Walden Pond as Pranab captures the special moments on his camera. But, when he begins seeing a student named Deborah in 1974, the group dynamics shift....
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4. Only Goodness
...from London to Wayland, Massachusetts before Rahul was born, his youth is carefully preserved in photographs and keepsakes—mostly thanks to Sudha. Six years older, she doted on him from the start,...
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...quickly enamored with Neel. Sudha gives him a tour, and Rahul observes the recently framed photos of his and Sudha’s parents holding their new grandson. He tells Sudha about Elena’s daughter,...
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6. Hema and Kaushik: Once in a Lifetime
...to mind his family’s strange behavior. She dreams about kissing him and secretly keeps his photo in her diary.
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7. Hema and Kaushik: Year’s End
...need and indulging her every whim. Following her death, Dr. Choudhuri removes all of her photographs from their home and places them in a box, and he gives away her clothing...
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...none of whom understand the immigrant experience. The girls mention Chitra has been searching for photos of Parul, but Kaushik explains that Dr. Choudhuri took them all down.
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...Kaushik searches for the box, he recalls the times his mother helped him develop his photographs there, in his makeshift basement darkroom. He remembers her saying she hoped death would feel...
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...he believes is trying to replace his mother. When his father asks him to take pictures, Kaushik explains that he left his camera at school (intentionally, though he doesn’t mention this)....
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...conversation with Jessica, he realizes the girls are missing. He finds them looking through old pictures of Parul, which they found in a box his father had sealed up after her...
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...the Canadian border, he finds a secluded spot and stares at the box of Parul’s photos—the same box Rupa and Piu had discovered. Unable to bear seeing the pictures again, he...
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8. Hema and Kaushik: Going Ashore
...wife, Paola, when they both covered the same bombing in Netanya. His career as a photojournalist began nearly 20 years earlier on a trip to Latin America. Traveling through Guatemala and...
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...grown fond of Rome, he plans to leave Italy by year’s end, having accepted a photo editing position in Hong Kong. Now almost 40, he feels ready for a more settled...
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...Kaushik’s portfolio, she’s deeply moved by the raw violence, desolation, and inhumanity captured in his images. Kaushik confesses that documenting such tragedies has taken a toll, sometimes making him question his...
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