CHAPTER 3

Summary

• The chapter opens with a description of the new bride waking up in Parambil, her new home, after dreaming about her old home near the lagoon.
• She finds the unperturbable silence disconcerting and misses the comforting sound of water she's used to.
• The setting of Parambil, as described by Thankamma, ranges over five hundred acres, and is mostly wild, hilly, and not cleared, dominated by coconut palms, banana trees, chempaka trees, ponds, and a stream.
• The bride is introduced to the sprawling house atop a hill, quite different from her previous home which sat on a mere two acres near a water body.
• She inspects the teak walls and the layout of the house constructed following the ancient Vastu rules, wondering why the house is located away from the water; something she finds odd and unsettling.
• She also experiences a scary moment with what she initially assumes to be a ghostly snake and an elephant which she later realizes to be real and not spectral.
• The chapter ends with her finding comfort in watching the elephant and noticing her husband, asleep outside their home, and seeing a resemblance in his posture to that of the elephant.