The Lowland

Gauri is 56; she has a flashback to her second year of marriage with Udayan in 1971. Gauri is haunted in her dreams of her previous life with Udayan, and she is haunted in her mind of fears that Subhash and Bela would come find her in California: “Confronting her, exposing her. Apprehending her, the way the police had apprehended Udayan” (231). She acknowledges that she blamed Subhash for much of her own issues and feels shame, but not regret, for having left Subhash and Bela.

Gauri’s new life is in southern California. As a professor at a small college, she is required to mentor students and have close relationships, something she is not comfortable with but learns how to do. She invites Indian students to her house for the holidays and forges relationships with other professors. Despite trying to give up the past, she holds on to her Indian citizenship and the turquoise shawl from Subhash.

After many years of living a celibate life, Gauri starts to date again. She dates a few men casually. The only person that she becomes emotionally attached to is a female graduate student named Lorna who had sought Gauri out to be on her dissertation committee.