Homeless Bird
In the book Homeless Bird Koly travels through a lot of bad situations and a few good ones. I think the worst of all bad situations is when Koly’s sass leaves her in Vrindavan, and she doesn’t know where anything is. Koly doesn’t know that sass had left until a person, who gave her a ride on a rickshaw, tells her she saw her sass had gotten on the train. If I start listing situations from the beginning there is a lot of bad situations, like when Koly believes that she will have a wonderful husband and a kind in law family but that is all a dream. When Koly sees her bridegroom on her wedding day she sees that he is very ill. Koly’s sass and sassur only wanted Koly for the money and the dowry. Soon her husband Hari gets extremely ill and they all get a ticket to Varanasi, except Chandra, her sister in law. Once they all get there Hari soon dies, but on page forty-six and Forty-seven Koly says, “There was happiness that the death had taken place in Varanasi.” I think what was mean of sass is to give Koly a cheap white sari and say “Here this is what widows where.” Once they go back to the house everything was lonely, and on page forty-eight, Koly said, “When Chandra mourns for her brother we put our arms around each other.” I think even though Koly didn’t know Hari a lot they still feel the same way. As you can see Koly always sees the best of things
Throughout the book there are a couple themes. I think one of them is perseverance. I think it is perseverance because Koly goes through death, and being homeless but she still sees the world like a glass half full. Like when her sass leaves her in Vrindavan and Raji takes her in to Maa Kamala’s house which is for widows, Koly still keeps a smile on her face because she is around people that are willing to help her find a home. Also like in Bud Not Buddy one of the themes could be “One door opens when another door closes.” An example of that is when Sassur dies Koly and Sass get to go to Vrindavan. Although once they get there Koly gets left so that door closes. When the other one opens Koly gets invited to stay at Maa Kamala’s home. This theme is important because it travels all throughout the book. The last theme I could think of is courage. Koly has a lot of courage and bravery to stay strong when half of the Mehta family dies, Chandra leaves and when Sass leaves her too. Koly is a strong person to be able to go through all of those tragedies.
Throughout the book Gloria Whelan wants this book to not be upbeat, and to be sad. I think maybe Gloria went through some tough times or saw some where she lives. I think she compared the pariah dog to Koly on page 82. The pariah dog is homeless and is starving and Koly becomes homeless and she already is hungry. On page 77 Koly compares her marriage to Chandra’s marriage. Koly says, “Instead of a frightened gawky girl and a young doomed bridegroom, there were a handsome young man and a happy beautiful bride.” Koly is happy that Chandra can have a family of her own, but it brings tears to Koly’s eyes because it reminds Koly of her terrible marriage. Koly also is sad because Chandra will leave and won’t come back to dance in the rain, or laugh late in the night. Also when Maa Kamala says, “You wallow like pigs in mud.” Gloria is comparing a pig that is lazy pig to a sorrow story about how someone became a widow. One similarity I found was when Koly says, “My last doubts about the marriage flew from me like a flock of birds starting up from a field to be lost in the distance” on page 177. Koly thinks her doubts are similar to a flock of birds flying away. All of her worries about being scolded or accused can fly away like the birds, and she can live a wonderful life on the farm with a family of her own.
