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agarwal.html

Level III Winner - Amol Agarwal
Valley High School, West Des Moines
"Clothes" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Dear Ms. Divakaruni,

            I write this letter to you during one of the busiest times of the year for me.  Concerts, assignments, rehearsals, games, and tests pack my schedule in the month before winter break.  Yet I feel I owe it to you to write you this letter about a story very close to me.  Rarely will a story cause me to remain frozen in shock, or rock me so much that I can't help but be sincerely thankful for life, or cause me to momentarily forget all of my worries and problems.  Your story "Clothes" has made me do all of these things, and I thank you for that.

            One of the reasons why this story appealed to me so much is that I, too, am Indian.  I come from the same background as Sumita, so I can vicariously experience her pain almost to the same degree.  And though I can't say I know how it feels when someone close to me dies, I do know how Sumita must have felt when she came for the first time to America.  My parents were immigrants to this country, and they have told me several stories about when they first arrived.  The plots of those stories do differ with "Clothes," but the experiences and feelings are much the same.

            Though your story is relatively short, it is literally packed with dozens of lines and quotes that reverberated within me.  You put life into perspective when you wrote:

"That's when I know I cannot go back.  I don't know yet how I'll manage, here in this new, dangerous land.  I only know I must.  Because all over India, at this very moment, widows in white saris are bowing their veiled heads, serving tea to in-laws.  Doves with cut-off wings."

Sumita's growing determination really glows in that passage, and it proved contagious for me.

            Perhaps the most important thing I gleaned from this story is how simply the status quo can change.  One night, Sumita goes to bed with the knowledge that she will see her husband in the morning.  When she wakes up, Somesh is gone.  It always surprises me how quickly things can change, but, as I've learned from this book, that's just the way life is.

            Throughout my life, a single principle has always guided me:  hope.  In my opinion, hope always prevails, because nothing can defeat hope.  I am thrilled to see that a story of such caliber as "Clothes" reinforces this idea.  In the last two sentences of the story, when you write "In the mirror a woman holds my gaze, her eyes apprehensive yet steady.  She wears a blouse and skirt the color of almonds," I get a sense of hope for Sumita's future, and for my own as well.  This theme of hope runs throughout the story, like when Somesh keeps reminding Sumita that they will move out as soon as they have enough money, or when, on the plane to America, Sumita realizes that her clothes from home are only a few feet below her in the luggage holds-and it rings true with me, as I am sure it does with many others who have read it.

            I have changed since reading this story.  Of course, no single story can alone change my life so drastically, but this is definitely a good first step.  I know that I can learn from the stories of others, even if those others do not exist.  People of the imagination should not be taken any more lightly than real people themselves.  It seems that sometimes, imagined people prove more genuine than people I meet on the street.  And such is the case with "Clothes."  I know I can rely on characters much like Sumita to teach me more about myself, and I find great comfort in that.

Sincerely,

Amol Agarwal

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