Malliga Homes

The primary setting for the story is Malliga Homes, a retirement community and nursing home located in Southeast India. Malliga Homes is built on "the outskirts of a midsized city" (2), making it difficult for the narrator – who comes from the large city of Chennai – to adjust. Malliga Homes is outfitted with luxurious amenities and benefits from being a relatively new facility. However, the narrator sees Malliga Homes as a place where parents, abandoned by their children, come to die. She maintains a bleak outlook on Malliga Homes throughout the story, envying Renuka Swaminathan whose husband's death allows her to move out of Malliga Homes and back to Chennai.

Chennai, India

Chennai is a large city in Southeast India. It is where the narrator has spent most of her life, and she only leaves Chennai after her husband dies and her daughter insists that she cannot live alone...