Summary

In Chapter 1, Dadaji, Ba, and their divorced daughter, Mina Foi, begin the day on the Allahabad veranda, where meals, servants, and family status are discussed with ritual seriousness. They learn that Sonia is lonely in America, and the news triggers both worry and opportunism, because loneliness is treated as a solvable problem if the right household can be connected to theirs. Dadaji’s chess relationship with the Colonel becomes the pathway to a solution, and the family visits the Colonel’s home with kebabs and the idea of introducing Sonia to the Colonel’s grandson, Sunny, who lives in New York.

In Chapter 2, the narrative shifts to Sonia’s winter at Hewitt College in Vermont, where most students leave for internships and foreign students are left behind without options. Sonia works in the library under Marie’s supervision, eats alone in the dorm kitchen...