(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
The apartment in which Ashoke and Ashima lived was a three-story house and the top two floors were occupied by their landlords, the Montgomerys, a Harvard sociology professor and his wife. The Montgomerys had two children, both girls, Amber and Clover, aged seven and nine, whose waist-length hair never braided, and who used to play on a swing in the back yard for hours during warm days. The professor preferred to be called, by Ashoke and Ashima, Alan, not professor Montgomery as they had first addressed him, had a wiry rust-colored beard that made him look much older than he actually was. They used to see him walking to Harvard yard in a pair of threadbare trousers, a fringed suede jacket, and rubber flip-flops. The Montgomerys had a dull green Volkswagen van covered with stickers: QUESTION AUTHORITY ! GIVE A DAMN ! BAN THE BRA ! PEACE ! They had a washing machine in the basement which Ashoke and Ashima were permitted to share, a television in their living room which Ashoke and Ashima could hear clearly through the ceiling. It had been through the ceiling one night in April, when Ashoke and Ashima were eating their dinner, that they had heard about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and of senator Robert Kennedy on another day.
Alan's wife, Judy, used to always wear blue jeans, torn into shorts, during summer seasons, and a necklace of small seashells around her throat. She was working for a women's health collective in Somerville a few days a week. Judy's daughters were born at home, with the help of midwives at the collective. Some nights Judy and Alan used to go out, leaving Amber and Clover unsupervised at home. Ashima always used to find the residence of Judy and Alan piles every where, piles of books and papers, piles of dirty plates on the kitchen counter, ashtrays the size of serving platters heaped with crushed-out cigarettes. Instead of cereal and tea bags, there used to be whiskey and wine bottles on top of the refrigerator. Just standing there had made Ashima feel drunk.
They arrived home from the hospital courtesy of Dr.Guptha, who owns a car. For a few days she found it very difficult to manage the daily chores of the house in American way, with baby crying in her arms, her breast swollen with milk, her groin still so sore she could scarcely sit, it was suddenly unbearable.
When she expressed her inability to continue in America with the problems that she was facing without a help from elders and people who assist her manage day-to-day activities associated with the delivery, "I'm saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country, I want to go back," she said. He consoled her with what all that he could say to comfort her. He looked at Ashima, her face leaner, the features sharper than they had been at their wedding, but aware that her life in Cambridge, as his wife, had already taken a toll. On more than one occasion he had come home from the university to find her morose, in bed, rereading her parents' letters. Early mornings, when he sensed that she is quietly crying, he put an arm around her but could think of nothing to say, feeling that it was his fault, for marrying her, for bringing her here.
A soft knock on the door interrupted them: Alan and Judy along with their daughters, Amber and Clover, were there to see the baby. Judy was holding a dish covered with a checkered cloth in her hands, saying she had made a broccoli quiche. Alan set down a garbage bag full of Amber and Clover's old baby clothes, uncorked a bottle of cold champagne. The foaming liquid splashed onto the floor, was poured into mugs. They raised their mugs to Gogol, Ashima and Ashoke only pretending to take sips. Amber and Clover flanked Ashima at either side, both delighted when Gogol wrapped a hand around each of their fingers. Judy scooped the baby out of Ashima's lap. "Hello, handsome," she cooed. "Oh, Alan," she said, "let's have another one of these." Alan offered to bring up the girls' crib from the basement, and together he and Ashoke assembled it in the space next to Ashima and Ashoke's bed. Ashoke went to the corner store and brought a box of disposable diapers which replaced the framed black-and-white pictures of Ashima's family on the table. "Twenty minutes at three-fifty for the quiche," Judy said to Ashima. "Holler if you need anything," Alan added before they disappeared.
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