This is a story of an Indian woman who recently moved with her professor husband from India to the small New England town. This story begins with Eliot, an eleven-year-old boy whose mother is trying to find an acceptable babysitter for him. During the previous year, a university student Abby took care of him. But she always refused to prepare any food for Eliot containing meat. Before that, Mrs. Linden took care of him. She always drinks coffee with whiskey from a thermos. When Abby received her degree and moved off to another university then Eliot’s mother appointed Mrs. Sen as her Eliot’s babysitter. Mrs. Sen, who advertise being responsible and kind, does not need to work. She wants to be Eliot’s babysitter because she is only looking for a way to fill up her lonely afternoons. As a babysitter, she has to fetch Eliot from his house and back. But Mrs. Sen doesn’t know how to drive a car. So Mrs Sen was forced her to learn car driving for the sake of this job, Mr. Sen teaches mathematics at the university, he teaches all day so whole day Mrs. sen live alone at home. Eliot is only person who becomes aware about Mrs. Sen’s loneliness. Eliot becomes Mrs Sen’s companion. Mrs. Sen expresses her joy and loneliness and shares her Indian memories with Eliot.
Through the story, gradually we came to know that how lonely Mrs. Sen is. In Indian society, Mrs. Sen has always felt well connected and well cared for not only by her parents, but also by her whole community. One could say the whole village was a single joyous family that looked after each other. One day Mrs. Sen told Eliot, in our country on a large celebration women sit in an enormous circle on the roof of our building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through one night. They do lots of fun in those nights; though it is impossible to fall asleep those nights but Mrs. Sen loves the crowd. These kinds of celebrations are not present in this country. Here if you want you can sleep but Mrs. Sen says, “I can’t some-times sleep in so much silence.†Silence is connected with loneliness and this silence represents Mrs. Sen’s loneliness. She becomes bored with this loneliness.
Mrs. Sen always feels that she is alone and if she face any no problem no one came to help her, one day she asks Eliot “Eliot if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?†Eliot replied, “May be.†That time Mrs. Sen think about her home where not everybody has a telephone but if someone just raise his/her voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind whole neighborhood come at once.
Mrs. Sen has no work so every afternoon she is waiting for Eliot. When Eliot gets off the bus at the edge of the complex, he saw that Mrs. Sen is already there. Mrs. Sen face the loneliness of having no family to care for them. There is no one who pours sorrows and happiness with Mrs. Sen. Every day, she routinely cooks for her professor husband, who apparently shows no affection towards his wife, not even a simple a kiss or wave of hello. The relationship between Mrs. Sen and her husband is similar to a servant and master situation. Where Mrs. Sen just serves Mr. Sen. Without a husband to bond with and no friends to chat with, Mrs. Sen is truly alone in this foreign country.
Two things made her happy; one thing is the arrival of a letter of her family. Therefore, every day she checks out the mailbox. The other thing that made her happy was fish from the seaside. Mrs. Sen always request her husband to take her to the fish market although her husband always remain busy and become angry with her constant request. Once, she and Eliot take a bus instead and on the way back a passenger complains to the bus driver about the smelly bag that Mrs. Sen carries. But Mr. Sen doesn’t like fish so he said, “No more fish for a while. Cook the chicken in the freezer.†After that, Mrs. Sen avoid fish and for the next few days freezer.†After that, Mrs. Sen avoid fish and for the next few days the man who ran the fish market called Mrs. Sen, called because he assumed that Mrs. Sen wanted the fish. This man told Mrs. Sen there is only one Sen in his telephone book. Mrs Sen feels how alone she is in the telephone book also that’s why she questioned the man that, “Do you know how many Sens are in the Calcutta telephone book?â€
Relatives of Mrs. Sen wrote her that, “Send pictures of your new life.†But she doesn’t know what picture she can send to them. Because her relatives think that, she is very happy in America. They do not know about the loneliness of Mrs. Sen, they don’t know how painful it is for her. They think life is very easy and enjoyable here. Day after day Mrs. Sen becomes bored and frustrated about her life. Eliot and his mother noticed that. All at once, Mrs. Sen stopped driving, calling in the seashore. She started listening to Indian music that reminds her India. Eliot knows the reason after a week; Mrs. Sen informs that her grandfather was dead.
Mrs. Sen’s loneliness creates a fear in her mind that what will happen in the upcoming days. That is why she asks Eliot, “Will you put your mother in a nursing home when she is old?†Mrs. Sen knows that one day she will also become a mother and her baby grow up in America. If her son/daughter sends her nursing home, her old age also spoiled and passed with loneliness. Therefore, she become worried and Eliot’s answer make her more apprehensive.
Eliot is very important character of this story and he is the only person who fills Mrs. Sen’s loneliness. However, when the accident occur Eliot’s Mother has brought him from Mrs. Sen’s house. Again, Mrs. Sen become lonely.
