Hardship of Life in Nepal
The hardship of life in the Nepalese diaspora is the central theme of the book, and each of the stories references this in some way. The main stories that emphasize this theme are The Cleft, and No Land Is Her Land, as both revolve around characters who come to realize that if their lives are ever to amount to anything other than pain and difficulty then they will have to flee to the West. The refugee girl in No Land Is Her Land has already tried leaving Nepal for a better life but has found out that life in Bhutan is really no different, and that in order to have any quality of life she will need to leave the region behind her.
The theme is further explored in the story The Immigrants, which focuses on two Nepalese immigrants in New York City, who tell of their new lives in the West, and however difficult they have found it to find their place in their new world, there are no difficulties facing them like those they experienced in their homeland.
Relationship Between Father and Daughter
The theme of the relationship between father and daughter is focused upon in two of the book's stories, and in both stories the relationships are not without their struggles. The relationship in A Father's Journey is told mostly from the father's perspective, whereas the relationship between father and daughter in the title story of the book is more from the daughter's point of view. In both stories, the relationship is shown to be complicated, and there is also a disconnect between the parent and the child in that one is almost always incapable of understanding the other.
Dilemmas
Many of the characters in each of the stories are having dilemmas and are conflicted within themselves. An example of this is the recently retired woman in Passing Fancy. She is bored, because now she is not working any more she has nothing to do and she is also starting to feel differently about herself. She contemplates having an affair because it is something different but she is also very conflicted about it.
Similarly, the shopkeeper in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is hopelessly conflicted about what his next move should be regarding an issue that he cannot decide whether to leave well alone or to dig up again. He is suffering through an emotional tug of war with himself and is having difficulty seeing a way through his confusion.
