Quote 37
He has fallen the tiniest bit in love with Lydia and with the understated, unflustered way she entertains. He is always struck by these dinners: only a dozen or so guests sitting around the candlelit table, a carefully selected mix of painters, editors, academics, gallery owners, eating the meal course by course, talking intelligently until the evening's end. (6.54)
During his relationship with Maxine, Gogol is seduced by the way her family entertains: it's an elite, cultured, sophisticated lifestyle, in contrast to the way his parents indiscriminately collect Bengali friends just because they are Bengali. But really, which couple is shallower in the end?
Quote 38
Donald and Astrid are a languidly confident couple, a model, Gogol guesses, for how Moushumi would like their own lives to be […] Their decrees drive Gogol crazy. But Moushumi is loyal. She regularly goes out of her way, and thus out of their budget, to buy bread at that bakery, meat at that butcher. (9.45)
Donald and Astrid are basically younger versions of Gerald and Lydia. They are high-class couples who live lives of luxury and aren't afraid to admit it. Or flaunt it, for that matter.
Quote 39
He knows that the approval of these people means something to her, though what exactly he isn't sure. And yet, as much as Moushumi enjoys seeing Astrid and Donald, Gogol has recently begun to notice that she is gloomy in the aftermath, as if seeing them serves only to remind her that their own lives will never match up. (9.49)
While Gogol has gotten over his infatuation with the Ratliffs, Moushumi hasn't gotten over her love of Astrid and Donald and their lifestyle. This seems like just one more thing to add to our long list of reasons the two of them are growing apart.