Lahiri. She Writes.

When I went to Seattle, I had with me “Unaccustomed Earth” without which the delay at Logan Airport (caused not by Logan but my ill-fated proximity to JFK, the flight being that which needed to arrive from JFK but was delayed as usual. Sometimes it seems to me that nothing goes off or on time in JFK) would have driven me crazy.

When I went to Pittsburgh, I had with “Interpreter of Maladies” which made my travel pleasant and enduring (not to mention that I was darn well excited about meeting the qurious quester more than a year later).

I like her books, because they are a collection of short stories and not novels with a plot.

I like her books, because she talks primarily about people in Boston and mostly about those you came from Calcutta and about those who had a short stay in London. And what else could I relate to more, this year.

She writes with a plot simply and characteristic. She writes of second generation Indian Americans. She writes up people trying to grasp anything they can grab that reminds them of their far away lands. She writes about women and she writes about men and she writes about parents and she writes about children. And the young, the old and the middle aged. She writes about love, duty, responsibility, helplessness, need for community and compassion.

She writes about the lives of people.

And she writes beautifully.