Response to "This Blessed House"

To fully understand the thoughts behind “This Blessed House” one must look at the differences between Sanjeev and Twinkle, the two characters in the story. 

 Sanjeev’s and Twinkle’s personalities are very different.   This is easily seen throughout the story.  Sanjeev is very meticulous and neat about how he lives.  Going as far as how he organizes his books in alphabetical order to the way he listens to music, there is always a method or an order to the way he does things.  It is easy to gather that he is a very smart man, the story stating that he had attended MIT, as well as logical and full of reason.  While Twinkle herself is smart, she is more whimsical and not so methodical in her way of living, able to find meaning in things, such as the vast Christian paraphernalia that she discovers in the house.  Having just been married, and being that it was arranged by their parents, the two did not know each other that long or very well.   Their differences are revealed throughout the story as Twinkle embraces the idea of keeping all the Christian relics and is as Sanjeev puts it, “charmed.”  Sanjeev not only rejects this, but is “puzzled that each relic, in its own way, was so silly and clearly lacked a sense of sacredness.” Furthermore the tension heightens as Twinkle remains unconcerned her actions of dropping cigarette ash on the carpet and wearing whatever was in front of her closet.  All the while as the struggle continues, Sanjeev expresses his thoughts of being married to Twinkle, and his doubts about their future. 

What I took from this story is the idea of conflict.  Sanjeev and Twinkle are forced into a marriage where their personalities clash.  This is ultimately represented in the conflicting theme of Hinduism and Christianity.  Although Sanjeev is against the idea of the Christian relics in their home, Twinkle keeps them anyway.  Either way it offers an example of the conflict between forcing two differing personalities to live with each other.