(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
Ashima slowly started getting habituated to the new environment and understanding her husband and has come to know his food habits and his routine. By now she has learned that her husband likes his food on the salty side, that his favorite thing about lamb curry is potatoes, and he likes to finish his dinner with a small helping of rice and dal. At night, lying beside her in bed, he used to listen to her describing the events of her day : her walks along Massachusetts Avenue, the shops she visited, the Hare Krishnas who pestered her with their leaflets, the pistachio ice cream cones she treated herself to in Harvard Square. In spite of his meager graduate student wages he used to set aside money to send every few months to his father to help put an extension on his parents' house. He was fastidious about his clothing ; their first argument had been over a sweater she'd shrunk in the washing machine. As soon as he came home from the university the first thing he used to do was to hang up his shirt and trousers, donning a pair of drawstring pajamas and a pullover if it was cold. On Sundays he used to spend an hour occupied with his tins of shoe polishes and his three pairs of shoes, two black one brown. The sight of him cross-legged on news papers spread on the floor, intently whisking a brush over the leather, always reminded her indiscretion in her parents' corridor, that she preferred to keep to herself.
Ashoke used to wear thick-rimmed glasses, fitted by a Calcutta optometrist, usually polished the lenses with the cotton handkerchief he always kept in his pocket, A for Ashoke embroidered by his mother with light blue thread. His black hair was normally kept combed back neatly from his forehead.
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