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Judith Templeton
Kusum is Shaila Bhave’s friend and neighbor, whose husband and youngest daughter were killed in the attack. At Shaila’s house just after the attack, Kusum gets into an argument with her oldest daughter, Pam. Pam accuses Kusum of wishing that she was dead instead of her sister, who she says is Kusum’s favorite child. Kusum travels with Shaila to Ireland and identifies her family members quickly before traveling to India to arrange funeral proceedings. Her journey through grief is presented alongside Shaila’s—while Shaila finds herself in shock and turns to Valium to process her grief, Kusum turns to religion. Overlooking the bay where the plane crashed, Kusum paraphrases her swami (a religious teacher in Hinduism) and tells Shaila that fate led everyone to be on the plane that day and that they should be happy because their family members have gone to a better place. Kusum eventually sells her house in Toronto to move to an ashram run by her swami in the Indian city of Haridwar (referred in the story to Hardwar), where she plans to pursue inner peace.
Kusum Quotes in The Management of Grief
The The Management of Grief quotes below are all either spoken by Kusum or refer to Kusum. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Management of Grief Quotes
“Why does God give us so much if all along He intends to take it away?” Kusum asks me.
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Kusum and I take the same direct flight to Bombay, so I can help her clear customs quickly. But we have to argue with a man with a uniform… Kusum won’t let her coffins out of sight, and I shan’t desert her though I know that my parents, elderly and diabetic, must be waiting in a stuffy car in a scorching lot.
“You bastard!” I scream at the man… “You think we’re smuggling contraband in these coffins!”
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Kusum Character Timeline in The Management of Grief
The timeline below shows where the character Kusum appears in The Management of Grief. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Management of Grief
Shaila sits on the stairs with her neighbor, Kusum, whose husband and youngest daughter were on the plane. Kusum’s other daughter, Pam, runs by...
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Four days later, Shaila is in Ireland, where she sees Kusum sitting on a rock overlooking the bay. Shaila thinks of her sons and husband lost...
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Shaila and Kusum, along with other relatives of those lost in the tragedy, have traveled to Ireland to...
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...Ranganathan, an electrical engineer who lost a large family in the tragedy, joins Shaila and Kusum on the shore. He tells Shaila that, with some luck, someone might have survived the...
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Shaila says that Kusum is one of the “lucky ones”: she has quickly identified her loved ones so can...
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From Ireland, Shaila and Kusum travel to India to arrange funerals for their family members. At the Bombay airport, a...
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Shaila returns to Canada. Kusum has put her house up for sale and plans to pursue inner peace in an...
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Kusum writes to Shaila from Hardwar and describes a vision of her daughter fanning the coals...
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