The Lowland

Subhash and Elise are in Ireland for their honeymoon. They spend their time going for walks, looking at historical artifacts, and enjoying the landscape. Even now, Subhash has memories of being back in India. Even though he is in Ireland, he finds similarities in the landscape that remind him of his childhood with Udayan. When he sees stones on the trail, he thinks “of another stone in a distant country” (331)—his brother’s memorial stone. Life and death are weighing on Subhash at the end of his life as he finds another stone: “A marker, toward the end of his journey, of what is given, what is taken away” (332).

The narrative flashes back to the night of Udayan’s death. Udayan hears the police approaching his house and escapes through the back of the courtyard to hide in the lowland. He can only hold his breath under water for so long; when he surfaces, the police have him at gunpoint.

Udayan got involved in the Naxalite movement through friends at college; it was the state of the country that bothered them: “The stagnant economy, the deterioration of living standards.