Quote 4
The name alone, when she'd first learned it, had been enough to seduce her. Dimitri Desjardins. (10.48)
Uh oh. Unlike Gogol, the name "Dimitri Desjardins" is totally sexy. It's got a French, Russian, sophisticated thing going on, like a name from a romance novel. Gogol is a Russian name too, but it's not as romantic sounding as Dimitri.
Quote 5
The shameful truth was that she was not involved, was in fact desperately lonely […] Sometimes she wondered if it was her horror of being married to someone she didn't love that had caused her, subconsciously, to shut herself off. (8.169)
As a young woman, Moushumi is unable to have relationships because of her fear of turning into her mother, a woman who entered an arranged marriage and didn't marry for love. She is afraid of the example that has been set for her by her culture.
Quote 6
And yet the familiarity that had once drawn her to him has begun to keep her at bay. Though she knows it's not his fault, she can't help but associate him, at times, with a sense of resignation, with the very life she has resisted, has struggled so mightily to leave behind. (9.17)
Gogol's intuition isn't off base. We know that Moushumi really wanted to distance herself from her parents, and now, with Gogol, she resents the fact that her marriage is the perfect example of what her parents wanted for her.