Mistress of Self: Chitra Divakaruni The Unknown Errors of Our Lives: Review of Divakaruni's new collection of short stories
	How America Sees Us: National survey shows many Americans prejudiced against Chinese Americans (in National News) Oakland Cultural Center Changes Name — Again (in Bay Area News) International Showdown: Selling arms to Taiwan (in Business) Mistress of Self: Interview with author Chitra Divakaruni (in A&E) Emil Amok: Busting Stereotypes (in Opinion)

Wherever You Go, There You Are

By Grace Talusan

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Photo by Maurice Ramirez.

In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s latest book of short stories, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, characters grapple with tensions highlighted in her earlier fiction, the critically acclaimed Mistress of Spices, Arranged Marriage and Sister of My Heart. These are characters who are trying to understand how to love, what it means to be happy, and where home is.

Home, as this collection explores, is not necessarily found in a country, or in the blood ties of family. Instead, Divakaruni’s characters discover that sense of belonging and safety through struggles faced negotiating relationships with family, friends, strangers and self. The protagonists must face the disparities between the lives they have and the realities of human existence. They face the limitations of love, the disappointment of dreams, and the consequences of errors that beg to be resolved.

In “Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter,” which was selected for The Best American Short Stories award in 1999, the age-old rivalry between a wife and her mother-in-law is familiar, but Divakaruni explores this trope in a new way. When her son insists she move in with his family in the United States, the widow, Mrs. Dutta, sells everything she owns in India, even her home. Mrs. Dutta can’t stop herself from being helpful, cooking and laundering. But, she senses tension growing between her son and his wife because of her presence; she sees that her grandchildren are impatient and embarrassed by her. Mrs. Dutta has received a letter from her best friend in India, asking, “Are you happy in America?” She writes and rewrites her response, unsure if she can reveal the truth of her loneliness and displacement, even to herself.

Chitra Divakaruni's Book Tour SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA April 26 — 7:30 p.m. Clean Well Lighted Place 601 Van Ness Ave 415-441-6670 April 27 — 7:30 p.m. Fremont B&N 3900 Mowry Ave., Fremont 510-791-1060 April 28 — Blue Stocking Festival of Authors (fest runs from 9 - 3:30; Divakaruni reads at 10:50 a.m.) Pleasant Hill Community Center 320 Civic Drive 925-676-5200 tickets required LOS ANGELES April 29 — LA Times Festival of Books. Held at UCLA. Divakaruni reads at two events: • Poetry reading 11 am to 11:20 a.m. • Fiction of South Asia panel from 1:30—2:30 p.m. Check fest schedule for campus venue April 30 — 7 p.m. Dutton’s 11975 San Vicente Boulevard SAN DIEGO May 1 — 8 p.m. Warwick’s 7812 Girard Avenue La Jolla AUSTIN May 2 — 7 p.m. Book People 603 N Lamar Blvd HOUSTON May 3 — 7 p.m. Brazos 2421 Bissonnet St 713-523-0701 SEATTLE May 5 - 6, 11 a.m. Chaya fundraiser for South Asian women against domestic violence. Reading with Pico Iyer, Abraham Verghese and Pramila Jayapal, at Town Hall, all day event. tickets required PORTLAND May 7 Annie Bloom’s lunch signing 7834 Southwest Capitol Highway May 7 — 7:30 p.m. Powell’s 1005 West Burnside Portland CHICAGO May 8 — 7 p.m. 57th Street Books 1301 East 57th Street MINNEAPOLIS May 9 — 7:30 p.m. Ruminator 1600 Grand Avenue St. Paul MIAMI May 15 — 8 p.m. Books and Books 296 Aragon Ave Contact: Colleen Hettich 305-442-4408 WASHINGTON, D.C. May 16 — 7 p.m. Olsson’s 1200 F Street, NW 202-347-3686 NEW YORK May 17 — 7:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble Union Square Union Square 33 East 17th Street 212-253-0810

How do we act, or not act, when faced with our most difficult emotional challenges? In the title story “The Unknown Errors of Our Lives,” a woman must deal with the consequences of her fiance’s past, and her doubts and questions about their impending marriage.

An Indian woman happily settled in the United States is faced with her estranged and elderly father’s pleading to meet his only grandson in “The Love of a Good Man.”

Caught between her brother’s stubborn silence and her mother’s dying wish, a sister plays peacemaker in “The Intelligence of Wild Things.”

“The Names of Stars in Bengali” lures us into the perfect days of a family vacation in an idyllic Indian village. For the mother, introducing her American-born sons to her childhood home has been surprisingly pleasant. Her husband had stayed behind in California because she knows he is unwelcome in her village; her sons like the person their mother has become on vacation. “She seemed younger and foreign and laughed more than at home…She wasn’t in a hurry all the time, jangling her car keys and saying, ‘Let’s go, boys.’ ” The tone of the story shifts abruptly as the mother recalls a disturbing girlhood memory — “her first encounter with terror,” which manifests into a matter of life and death. One of the young sons has caught a mysterious illness and “is dehydrating right before her eyes.” Fearing the worst, the mother sends an urgent telegram to her husband, with much doubt and trepidation. “Maybe it has gone to the wrong address. Maybe it hasn’t gone at all. Maybe the postal employee only pretended to send it and pocketed the money.” As she tries to adjust to the village that was once her home, she is met with the generous spirit of both her husband and the villagers, a shocking discovery of what it means to belong to a place and to a family.

In each of the nine stories, Divakaruni writes on intergenerational themes set in international places. Mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, not only confront the errors they have made in their relationships, but also navigate the physical boundaries between them. The distance between home in India and home in the United States, between loved ones separated by ocean and land, figures into these stories as a reality, raising the stakes in the choices characters make, and remind us to question the seduction of our memory.