66 pages • 2 hours read
Kiran DesaiThe Inheritance of Loss
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
The cook escorts Sai to her thrice-weekly tutoring at Mon Ami and drops off his homemade chhang liquor to sell at a restaurant called Gompu’s. In town the cook distorts the truth about the judge to make himself look like a more adored, better-paid servant than he actually he is. The cook tells townspeople that the judge lost his former glory after the martyrdom of his wife, saying, “That’s why he sits by himself all day and every day” (63). The cook also inflates stories about the judge when young Sai joins him to prepare meals in the kitchen.
Hearing the cook, the judge recalls his actual biography. He was born in the village of Piphit to parents of the peasant caste in 1919. His father made a living by finding false witnesses for local court cases. As a child, the judge studied at Bishop Cotton School, and his mother woke him early every morning for a bath and extra studying. The young judge was a prodigy who soaked up every piece of information in school and graduated high school at age 14. The judge’s teachers recommended the civil service to his father. After graduating from Cambridge, the judge’s first placement was far from his hometown in the province of Uttar Pradesh.
The cook, still reminiscing with Sai, tells her that her grandfather would travel with him in a caravan when the cook was only 14 years old. The cook and the rest of the staff repeatedly set up and tore down tents and cooking equipment. The cook mentions that the judge kept the staff to a strict timetable. The judge recalls enjoying the opportunity to treat lower castes harshly, as they had once oppressed him as a young peasant.
On tour, the judge’s routine began with a bath at 6:30 in the morning, followed by surveying fields and trying cases under a tree. Although he didn’t always understand the Hindi or Urdu of litigants, he exerted fearsome authority over his ad hoc courtroom. He followed his cases with tea and hunting, though “he was a terrible shot” (70). At eight o’clock in the evening, the judge ate chicken, and at nine he sipped Ovaltine and recorded his day.
The cook’s father, worried for his son’s employability, bought recommendations for his son before interviewing with the judge for a position. The judge decided to hire the young cook when he heard the impressive litany of puddings the cook could make.
Chapter 12 Summary
On an “overhot” afternoon, Noni attempts a physics lesson with Sai as Lola picks caterpillars off the broccoli in the garden of Mon Ami. The baker makes his daily delivery and asks Sai’s age. Noni considers 16-year-old Sai’s appearance and antisocial behaviors. Noni disapproves of her friendship with the cook, since he is poor and uneducated. Noni feels the same way about Mon Ami’s maid Kesang, but she can’t help but listen when Kesang describes her romance with her husband. The story makes Lola reconsider her relationship with her late husband, while Noni, a lifelong spinster, feels jealous.
Sai, like Noni, is a shy girl who yearns for adventure due to extensive reading. Noni urges Sai to take chances and follow her dreams when she is young. Noni abandons her attempts to teach Sai physics and recommends the judge hire a tutor.
Chapter 13 Summary
The local college’s principal sends a new graduate named Gyan to serve as Sai’s physics tutor. The cook sets up the dining room with a range of supplies for the tutoring session and compares the clinical atmosphere to that of the local medical clinic.
The serious atmosphere of the tutoring sessions belies the growing attraction between Gyan and Sai, who is compelled by the young Nepali man and his curly hair. The cook says coastal people are more intelligent than inland people like the Nepali, but Sai dismisses this stereotype.
Sai stares in the mirror and considers whether or not she is beautiful. She makes a range of silly and beguiling expressions to test the comeliness of her face. Knowing her looks are fleeting, she realizes her chances of escaping Cho Oyu are fleeting as well. Over the following days, she gazes at her changeable face in kitchen pots, lamps, spoons, and knives.
Chapter 14 Summary
Biju travels to Queen of Tarts bakery early in the morning, fearing the police. He considers how everyone, immigrants and American natives alike, gravitates toward Saeed Saeed. Biju feels conflicted in his affinity for a Muslim who is also a black man, two groups he has been taught to hate. Conversely, he likes white people, despite the damage they inflicted on his home country. His own people are hated in countries around the world, as Biju has recently learned.
Women flock to Saeed Saeed, partly for his good looks and partly for their pity for his background. Soon after arriving in New York, Saeed hung outside nightclubs in the middle of the night so that he could be photographed with celebrities. Saeed was deported to Zanzibar two years ago, and men in his village offered their daughters to him in marriage. Saeed returned to New York unmarried, bearing a new name on his forged passport. Saeed’s true love affair is with America. Biju, on the other hand, fears sirens and the thought of his father, “[i]ll. Dead. Maimed” (89).
The cook writes his son to request help with an American job for the son of the MetalBox watchman in Kalimpong. The request affirms to the cook that his son has found success in America.
As an Indian, Biju is prohibited from entering the immigration lottery, but his coworkers from other countries call the hotline every morning from the bakery. They hang up as soon as the representative asks their immigration status. Biju, nervous without a green card, wanders alongside the Hudson River, feeling angry that his father told him to come to America.
Chapter 15 Summary
The cook reads a letter from Biju, which reports his new job at Queen of Tarts, but the cook misunderstands and assumes his son is a manager. The cook visits Tashi the travel agent, who asks the cook to take him to America when he goes. The cook then visits Lark’s Store and shares the news of his son’s new job with a local doctor, whose son also works in America.
As he travels home the cook tells everyone he sees about Biju’s new job, including his neighbor Mrs. Sen (whose daughter works in the States too) and the sisters at Mon Ami. He tells a group of monks, plus Uncle Potty and Father Booty. He stops at a profitable potato stall and sees a pretty young woman he thinks Biju might like.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
These chapters see three men turned into legends: the judge, Biju, and Saeed Saeed. The characters surrounding them idealize the men for various reasons, but the omniscient narrator exposes the truth behind the tall tales.
First, the judge is not the fallen, grief-stricken hero the cook makes him out to be. Rather, he is a harsh employer intent on maintaining control and upholding customs that belong to another world. As a judge, similarly, he holds “his face like a mask that conveyed something beyond human fallibility” (70). His poor upbringing inspires no compassion for the underpaid cook or the litigants in his cases; rather it inflates the judge’s pride even further to offset his humble beginnings.
The cook also depicts Biju as a “fine-suited-and-booted success” (90) to everyone in town. Little does his father know that Biju lives in fear and struggle. He is angry with the cook, in fact, “for sending him alone to this country” (91) where he cannot be a true citizen. Biju in turn idealizes Saeed Saeed for his resilience in the face of immigration raids and deportation. Desai draws one of many parallels between national conflict and romance as she describes Saeed Saeed’s run-ins with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS): “Saeed, he relished the whole game, the way the country flexed his wits and rewarded him; he charmed it, cajoled it, cheated it, felt great tenderness and loyalty toward it” (88). Biju, neither bold nor lucky, feels constant panic over his lack of green card and fears his father has come to harm during their separation.
Sai, a shy girl and voracious reader, longs to explore the world as her father longed to explore space. Gyan presents a new territory on which to exercise her curiosity, as evidenced by her obsessive looking in the mirror between tutoring sessions.
