his mother mainly took pleasure in the strange fact that he had not married in America, as all her neighbors had warned her he would, because wasn’t that what all Indian boys went abroad for? Instead he agreed, almost without argument, to marry a girl she had chosen for him in her own village - a plump and uneducated girl, it was true, but so calm and obedient that she just became another daughter of the house, seemingly too lazy even try and make Rakesh leave home and buy his own house, as any other girl eould probably do. What was more, Veena was pretty—really pretty, in a plump, way that only turned to fat after she had their first baby, a son, and then what did it matter?