How we cite our quotes: (Abbreviated Title.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He was getting nowhere with her, with this woman whom he had known for only four months and whom he had married, this woman with whom he now shared his life. He thought with a flicker of regret of the snapshots his mother used to send him from Calcutta, of prospective brides who could sing and sew and season lentils without consulting a cookbook. Sanjeev had considered these women, had even ranked them in order of preference, but then he had met Twinkle. (TBH 62)
She does cook, even if it's not in a traditional way. Seriously—what's not to like?
Quote #8
Within a month Bibi had recuperated from the birth, and with the money that Haldar had left her, she had the storage room white-washed, and placed padlocks on the window and doors. Then she dusted the shelves and arranged the leftover potions and lotions, selling Haldar's old inventory at half price….In this manner she raised the boy and ran a business in the storage room, and we did what we could to help. (TBH 52)
You would think that getting raped and then getting pregnant from the rape would be more than enough reason for Bibi to check out from the world or complain, for the rest of her days, about her life. But Bibi totally surprises—she does the opposite of what you'd expect. Instead of griping, she gets down to business—for real—and makes a solid life for herself and her kid.
Quote #9
I was not touched by her words. We had spent only a handful of days in each other's company. And yet we were bound together; for six weeks she had worn an iron bangle on her wrist, and applied vermilion powder to the part in her hair, to signify to the world that she was a bride. In those six weeks I regarded her arrival as I would the arrival of a coming month, or season—something inevitable, but meaningless at the time. (TFC 78)
Here's our last narrator, at first emotionally unaffected by his new wife, Mala. Maybe starting out dissatisfied is actually a good thing? Maybe if you have no expectations, like our narrator, there's a higher likelihood of things turning out better than you expected?