Homeless+Bird

Koly is a 13 year old girl that lives in India. She is pledged to be married to Hari, who she thinks is a 16 year old guy. She gets there and realizes that he is only 13 or maybe even younger. Hari's family tricks Koli's family. They were surprised to find a man for Koly to marry. The reason they wanted him to marry her is so that they could get money to go to Varandi and heal Hari. Koly finds out that Hari has tuberculosis. He is very skinny and pale and coughs a lot. They get married, but he is really sick. They do all that they can to try to heal him, but finally they take him to Varandi where he will bathe in the sacred river to heal him. He dies the next day in Varandi. They spread his ashes all over the city. Hari's maa and baap return home with Koly. She is now a widow, but she cannot return home because that would bring disgrace to her family. Koly goes on in life, but not joyfully. Her maa yells at her for everything, and her baap is always gone. One day when her baap returns home he goes quietly into his room and dies. Koly doesn't know how she will survive now. One day her maa receives a letter from her uncle saying that they could go and live with them. They travel to Varandi and Koly meets a young man named Raaj. Raaj is a farmer. He is like a taxi in the city. Raaj takes them to the temple. Her maa then sends her to get food and when Koly returns, maa is gone and she is no where to be found. Koly is devastated and she goes back to Raaj, who had given her a ride in his rickisaw the previous day. He shows her a home where the widows are take care of and fed. Koly learns to like it here and she makes a lot of friends. Her friend is Tanu. She works at a flower shop stringing marigolds together for weddings, and earns money. She likes to meet with Raaj every night to teach him how to read. She begins to fall in love with Raaj. One day at the house, the owner came to inspect. She learned of Koly's talent of embroidering and gave her a job with 3 times her previous pay. She loves her work, because she can do something she loves and make money. Raaj takes her down the river frequently at night, but one of the last times he asks her to marry her. She tells him that she will marry him soon when her quilt is finished. Raaj is constantly asking her in letters if the quilt is finished because he is so anxious to marry her.. After a few months she completes the quilt and moves to a village to live and marry Raaj.

India has a lot of different traditions and rituals than we do. First of all, when a woman is widowed, it is disrespectful to return to her home or marry again. Women are mostly disrespected overall. Secondly, when a woman gets married, she doesn't get to choose her husband and she has to live with his family. They also believe that it isn't necessary for a woman to have an education because they only clean, cook, and take care of the family. "Maa" and "baap" are also used instead of "mom" and "dad." I think that the most important difference is lack of money, respect, and politeness they have in India. -Deidra

India is very different than Iowa or the United States. The main difference I noticed in this book was that you don't get to choose who you get married to. It is the fathers choice, and if a man or boys family thinks that the family is decently weathly they will make the man or boy get married to the daughter. The two who are getting married don't meet or even see each other before the wedding ceremony. Another difference is the living conditions. In this book they lived in a poor, small house. Also the food is very different. There were many things I had never heard of, but I did notice that they ate a lot of rice. Women weren't really respected, and it was difficult to find jobs. -Anna

In India, you don't get to choose who you are married to. Their parents choose who their children will get married to, and often the parents of the bride have to pay the groom's family so they can get married. Girls are often chosen to marry someone at a very young age, usually 13 or 14 years old. They don't see their husbands until the wedding ceremony. They say a lot of different words in India. They say "baap" for father and "maa" for mother. A lot of people in India are very poor and cannot afford a decent home. Widows are treated very poorly. Sometimes, they stay with other widows. They have saris that they wear. The saris are different colors. Sometimes the colors of the saris mean different things. They can be symbols of relationship status, for example, you wear a white sari when you are a widow. The colors of your sari can also resemble your mood, like if your relative dies, you will wear a black sari. India is very different from North America in many different ways.Their culture is very unique! -Casey

I really enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and didn't take much time. It was pretty exciting and didn't really have any boring parts. It was really cool to learn about the different culture. -Deidra

I loved this book a lot! I thought it wasn't going to be very interesting because it was so short and the cover didn't look to inviting. But once I got started I realized that it was a love story and it was very interesting to learn about their marriage situations. It never got slow or boring, even though there wasn't a lot of action. -Anna

I thought it was really cute when Raaj took Koly to the river and asked her to marry him. I agree with Anna with the fact that the cover looked boring and uninviting, and the book was very short. Everybody was saying how good it was, and at first I didn't believe them. When she became a widow, I thought the rest of the book would be boring and painful to read. It proved me wrong! I was not expecting her to meet a new guy. I thought she would just embroider things the rest of her life. This book totally overcame my expectations! I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the Indian culture, because it really teaches you a lot about it! -Casey