You Bring the Distant Near

The narrative moves ahead to 1998. Tara is now a Bollywood movie star, and Amit is a banker. They and their daughter, Anna, live in Mumbai most of the year, and Ranee lives in their luxurious Manhattan apartment. About once a month, Ranee spends a few days with Sonia and Lou in Harlem. Sonia writes about women’s rights issues for the New York Times and is working on a book about child marriage. Sonia and Lou’s daughter, Chantal Johnson, played a pivotal role in mending their relationship. Thirteen years ago, Chantal toddled over to Ranee during a family gathering, cooed noises that sounded like “didu,” the Bangla word for grandmother, and catalyzed a tearful family reconciliation like a scene out of “a Bengali soap opera” (181). Fittingly, Chantal’s nickname is Shanti, the Bangla word for “peace.”

Chantal’s Grandma Rose teaches drama at her high school. She didn’t approve of her son’s relationship with Sonia at first, but she now dotes on Chantal to the point where the teenager sometimes feels as though her two grandmothers are competing over her. Chantal takes Kathak lessons at the Indian Dance Academy of New York, and she feels proud of “the one Bengali thing [she’s] better at than [her] cousin” (188).