They only wondered how England would cope.
Mahadevi is a very strict and foreboding woman. She is feared and respected by everyone in her household. The only reason she is travelling to London to prove a point to her cowardly son, who is so terribly afraid of flying that he couldn’t come back home to India after he went to London for studies. She has never studied English but decides to learn the foreign language for one month before leaving. Due to her disdain for anything foreign, along with lack of knowledge of British culture and her frail age, one would automatically worry for her being in a foreign land. However, her sons know how strong she is and so have no doubt that their mother would get by in the foreign land, they are in fact, worried for the British people who would have to bear her nature.
It is best to do it yourself, then you can be sure of quality.
The four women, Meera’s three aunts and the stranger, don’t take very well to each other when they first meet, but slowly develop an empathy for each other due to their various ailments. They all are also deeply religious and suspicious of their children and fear that they won’t perform the rituals that are required after one’s death as these are expensive. So, she says that she has already performed half of these rituals for her death when her husband died, while she was still alive, to make sure that only pure things were used and appropriate alms were given for the peace of departed soul.
Tomorrow, I’ll buy a kite.
R.C. had spent all his lie abiding by strict discipline and rules. He was left almost bankrupt when his father died, leaving him with too much responsibilities. Before he dies, R.C. was a young man who was carefree spoiled by his father. He remembered himself when he was younger and flying kites on the banks of Yamuna. They had bathed happily in muddy, weed-filled water for a long time. For R.C., that represented a time when he was happy and did not had to think of a rule or timetable to ensure productivity of his days. After seeing his mother, wife and daughter enjoy for the first time in their lives, he realizes how he had been pulling them back from living their lives by enforcing his fears on them. He decides to buy a kite next day and let go of his fears.
It is shameless for a woman to be so tall.
Roopbala and her husband were married when they were little children, so no one could anticipate that Roopbala would grow to be at least six inches taller than her husband. The vast difference in their heights became an issue for Gajanan, her husband, who felt humiliated and slighted when she walked behind him. The marriage could not be annulled since his family had already spent all the money Roopbala’s family had given as dowry, so they had to make do with her as a daughter-in-law but to blame the humiliation of his son on Roopbala, her mother-in-law would proclaim that it was shameless for a woman to be so tall as if a woman could control her height.
No daughter-in-law of mine is going to sing and dance like a bazaar woman.
Gita had been submissive since she was a little girl. Her parents had insisted on her to learn to play sitar and sing so that she would get a good husband as these were considered as good qualities for a woman seeking a husband. She promptly complied by learning these arts. But, her in-laws being strict and orthodox ordered her to not sing and dance as these were considered vocations of harlots who worked in the bazaar and earned money by performing these arts. Thus, it was feared that Gita would bring shame to the family if she were to sing or dance.
