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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Blessed House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marriage and Social Expectations
Control vs. Whimsy
Multiculturalism and Identity
Conflict and Compromise
Summary
Analysis
Sanjeev and Twinkle are newlyweds moving into their first home. Twinkle discovers Christian icons, starting with a small porcelain statue of Christ in a kitchen cupboard next to an unopened bottle of malt vinegar. She shows both to Sanjeev, who tells her to throw them away. He points out that she has never cooked anything with vinegar. He feels the need to point out the obvious to her by reminding her they are not Christian. She protests, saying that she will use one of their new cookbooks to find a recipe for the vinegar and that she admires the statue, which might be valuable. She places the statue on the mantel, which Sanjeev notes needs to be dusted.
The beginning of the story sets up the power struggle between Sanjeev and Twinkle through their opposite reactions to the porcelain Christ. Sanjeev’s command that Twinkle discard her discovery shows his desire to control the home as a reflection of his image. It also shows that he expects Twinkle to serve his self-image by obeying his command. In his view, his rational justifications are obviously superior to her whimsical appreciation of the statue. He fails to see the moment as an opportunity to connect with Twinkle by engaging with her whimsical way of seeing their new home.It is worth noting that this opening suggests the story’s title is ironic. Hardly a blessing, the porcelain Christ signals trouble for the newlyweds and suggests that their new home will be a battlefield between their potentially incompatible personalities and worldviews. Readers see immediately that this marriage is unlikely to be happy.
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Days later, the undusted mantel holds their growing collection of Christian found objects, including a Saint Francis postcard, a wooden cross keychain, a paint-by-number painting of the three wise men, a trivet featuring a blond, beardless Christ, and a snow globe with a Nativity scene. Twinkle wonders if the people who lived in the house before them were born-again Christians. Meanwhile, Sanjeev organizes his engineering textbooks in alphabetical order. He recalls moving from MIT to Hartford for his job, where he has been very successful. Now 33, he recently learned he might get promoted to vice president. Twinkle interrupts his fond recollections of his college days by wondering if the house’s previous occupants were trying to convert them. Sanjeev replies that this plan has worked on Twinkle, who shakes the snow globe in response.
As time passes, the rift between Sanjeev and Twinkle deepens. The home’s mantel displays Twinkle’s delight in kitsch and whimsy while demonstrating Sanjeev’s loss of the illusion of control over his home and his new wife. The objects have activated Twinkle’s curiosity—she wonders about the house’s previous owners and their intentions in leaving so many of these objects behind. Sanjeev’s thoughts and memories suggest that as he has relinquished control in his home, he has also begun to withdraw from his marriage. His thoughts about his professional accomplishments allow him to cling to his successes outside of his home. And his memories of the simple pleasures of college life suggest his nostalgia for a time when he could be happily alone without feeling pressured to be married.
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Twinkle’s collection puzzles Sanjeev, who finds each object distinctly silly and unsacred. He wonders why they appeal to Twinkle, who usually has good taste. He realizes they are important to her, but they mean nothing to him. He suggests they call the Realtor and demand he come take them away. Twinkle resists and says that removing the items would feel sacrilegious because they were important to the previous owners. She ignores Sanjeev when he points out that the previous owners would have taken the items with them if they valued them and asks him what he thinks they will find next.
A week passes before they find the next item, an enormous poster of Christ wearing a crown of thorns and weeping that Sanjeev thought was a window shade. He tells Twinkle that he has tolerated her discoveries but refuses to have this poster displayed in his home. As Mahler’s Fifth Symphony plays dramatically from the stereo on the first floor, Twinkle lights a cigarette and tells him that she will hang it in her study. When he reminds her of their upcoming housewarming party for people from his office, she tells him she will hang it behind the door out of view from the hallway.
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Twinkle leaves, and Sanjeev stoops down to pick up ashes that had fallen from her cigarette. The intensely emotional third movement of Mahler’s Fifth ends and the tender fourth movement begins. Sanjeev remembers reading in the liner notes that Mahler sent his wife the manuscripts of this part of the symphony when he proposed to her. He recalls the liner notes explaining that this music mostly conveyed love and happiness. Twinkle disrupts these thoughts by flushing the toilet and yelling to him that the music is putting her to sleep and if he wants to impress people at his party, he should play something else.
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Sanjeev goes to the bathroom to throw away the ashes and spends some time looking at his reflection in the mirror and thinking. He wishes he had a distinguished profile and wonders if his long eyelashes and plump cheeks that Twinkle teased him about undermine his appearance. He wishes he were an inch taller than his average height and that Twinkle would not insist on wearing high heels. He recalls their date night in Manhattan days ago, when Twinkle wore high heels, had too much to drink, dragged him to a bookstore for an hour, and insisted he dance the tango in front of strangers.
Sanjeev considers what Twinkle does all day when she tells him that she wears heels because she is at her desk at home all day and wants to dress up. Sanjeev doubts her—he recently found her in bed because she was bored. He thinks about suggesting she work on unpacking or cleaning the house but decides against it.
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A few days later, Sanjeev returns home to hear Twinkle telling her friend in California—whom she has called long-distance during peak hours, he notes—about her discoveries in the house. She remarks that every day is like a treasure hunt. Sanjeev opens a pot of fish stew Twinkle has prepared using the vinegar she found when they moved in. He thinks about how little he understands her excitement for unpredictable events, which makes him feel “stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see,” and how in their second month of marriage, he finds some of her habits annoying.
Sanjeev remembers when he met Twinkle four months earlier and how they came to be married. Their parents (his in India, hers in California) are old friends and arranged for them to meet at a 16th birthday party for a mutual acquaintance. They bonded over their shared reaction to the bland food, their fondness for Wodehouse’s entertaining, witty novels, and their distaste for the sitar. Sanjeev charmed Twinkle by refilling her teacup as they talked. Their relationship began with phone calls and then progressed to cross-country visits. The timing was right for them: Twinkle was 27 and had recently broken up with a failed actor, and Sanjeev was lonely and made enough money to support a family. They married in India. Sanjeev barely remembered any of the hundreds of people there from his childhood. He remembers the red and orange tent where they married on Mandeville Road.
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As they get ready to eat the fish stew Twinkle made, Sanjeev asks her if she swept the attic. She hasn’t, but she promises him she will get to it. Their meal consists of the stew and the prepared food she purchased from the supermarket. She finds cooking Indian food to be a burden, so Sanjeev prepares curry for them on the weekends. Sanjeev remarks that the stew is especially tasty and asks her how she made it. Twinkle improvised the stew and when Sanjeev tells her she should write down the recipe so she can make it again, she replies that she will remember it. Sanjeev notices that the towel covering the breadbasket has the Ten Commandments on it. She smiles at him, squeezes his knee, and tells him that the house is “blessed.”
Sanjeev and Twinkle prepare for their housewarming party on the last Saturday in October. They expect 30 guests, a combination of Sanjeev’s acquaintances, his co-workers, and local Indian couples who invited him to dinner regularly when he was single. He wonders why they included him and notes that none of them have met Twinkle, who knows no one in Connecticut and is completing her MA thesis at Stanford on an Irish poet that Sanjeev hadn’t heard of before. He recalls finding the house, admiring its elegance and the local school system, and deciding before he married that he and Twinkle would live there forever. He realizes that he did not notice the switch plates covered with biblical stickers or the transparent decal of Mary on the master bedroom window. When he tried to scrape off the decal after they moved in, he scratched the glass.
A week before the party, Sanjeev and Twinkle are raking the yard when she finds a plaster Virgin Mary that comes up to her waist. Sanjeev finds her shrieking with laughter and jokes that she will want to place it at the end of their bed. She responds seriously that they must keep the statue outside. She notes how many of their neighbors have similar statues and that they will fit right in. He tells her that they are not Christian. Sanjeev remembers all the women from India who would have been better traditional wives interested in domesticity. He forgot them all when he met Twinkle. She questions why he is so concerned about what others think of him when he says he cannot have his coworkers see this statue in their yard. He does not respond as she drags the statue to the spot she has chosen for it.
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Sanjeev thinks that he isn’t sure he loves Twinkle. He remembers when she asked him if he loved her before they saw a German film he found depressing—he said yes. This made her happy. Now, Sanjeev thinks that he does not know what love is, only that it is not the lonely bachelor life he lived before he met her. He once assumed she loved him too, but he is no longer certain of how she feels. He recalls his mother urging him to marry in the months before he met Twinkle. Now he has Twinkle, who is pretty, educated, and from a high caste. He wonders what’s not to love about her.
Later that night, Sanjeev drinks two gin and tonics while Twinkle takes a bubble bath. Sanjeev enters the bathroom and finds her soaking with a blue mask on her face as she looks at a book of poetry. He tells her that he is going to remove the Virgin Mary from the yard and that he plans to take it to the dump the next day. She drops the book in the water as she quickly leaves the bath and puts on a bathrobe. She tells him she hates him. They argue about who gets to decide whether they keep the statue. She tells him that they both own the house and the statue, and he notices her crying. They embrace and compromise: the statue will go by the side of the house so that it won’t be as obvious.
The day of the party arrives as Sanjeev finishes the final preparations. He hopes the guests will be impressed by the features of the house he admires and not pay attention to the figures on the mantel. The first guests arrive, Sanjeev’s new coworker Douglas and his girlfriend Nora. Sanjeev introduces Twinkle by her given name, Tanima, and Twinkle corrects him. Douglas notes that he saw the statue outside and asks if Sanjeev is Christian. As all the guests arrive, Sanjeev is “bewildered” by the fact that they have all come for him even though they aren’t family and don’t owe him anything.
Twinkle is the life of the party. Everyone admires her. She oversees the jazz music blaring from the stereo and takes center stage, entertaining the guests with her humor. Sanjeev serves everyone and keeps the samosas warm while she gives everyone tours. She tells him that his friends adore the Christ poster in her study. Sanjeev retreats to the kitchen where he eats chicken right from the tray and swigs gin from the bottle. Two acquaintances come in and tell him that Twinkle is “wow.” They laugh, and Sanjeev retreats to the basement for more champagne. When he returns to the party, he hears Twinkle telling the party about the Christian figures. Hearing her compare living in the house to a treasure hunt, they all eagerly join in, looking under chairs and behind curtains for the next discovery.
Twinkle, who never swept the attic, tells the guests that she has never explored up there. She finds the ladder and all the guests follow her into the attic. Sanjeev stands alone and briefly imagines the ceiling collapsing and all their bodies crashing down as he hears them scavenging above him. He sees the mess throughout the house and moves Twinkle’s shoes to their bedroom so no one trips. He enjoys the silence and fantasizes pushing the ladder back into the ceiling, trapping everyone in the attic so he could enjoy being alone. He imagines destroying the Christian items and throwing them all out before cleaning up the mess from the party and listening to his new Bach CD alone.
Sanjeev feels dizzy when he hears Twinkle coming down for a cigarette. He heads to the bedroom and imagines her slipping her shoes on her feet. He is surprised that he feels an intense feeling of anticipation, the way he felt before they married. She hides something from view, telling him that he won’t believe what she has found. It’s a heavy silver bust of Christ wearing Nora’s feather hat. After Twinkle asks him if she can place it on the mantel, he reflects that he hates the bust more than the rest because it is clearly valuable, impressive, and most of all because Twinkle loves it. She tells him that she will move it to her study in the morning, which he knows is untrue.
Sanjeev has a vision of their future: the bust will remain on the mantel as long as they are together, and Twinkle will always be the life of the party, charming guests with her stories. He sees the rose petals in her hair, the striking jewelry she wears, and her freshly painted red toes and realizes this is what made his guest admire her as “wow.” His arms ache from carrying the statue and he tells her that he put her shoes in the bedroom. She tells him her feet hurt and walks back to their guests. Sanjeev holds the bust and its feather cap close and follows her.
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