The Museum of Failures

The phrase “museum of failures” is an important motif in the book. It first appears when Remy is reflecting on how happy he was to receive admittance into his Master of Fine Arts program in the US, as it allowed him to leave Bombay behind. Remy thinks of Bombay as the “museum of failures” (17), and he could not wait to escape it.

However, over time, the term evolves to mean more than just this city. When Remy imagines Cyrus talking to him, Cyrus advises Remy to leave the past behind when he returns, as the only way to escape the “museum of failures” is to burn it down (242). Here, the museum of failures is equated with memories and the past, deriving from the literal meaning of the word “museum.” Just as a museum is a space in which artifacts of history are archived, Remy’s past and memories, too, are housed in Bombay. This includes the things about his past of which he is conscious, like his relationship with Shirin, as well as those of which he is unaware but have nevertheless influenced his life, like Cyloo’s existence and Cyrus’s decisions.

In Remy’s case, the museum of failures also highlights The Disparate Threads of the Immigrant Experience. For Remy, Bombay is a city he wanted to escape partly because of his painful past and partly because he believes that India always disappoints. He thus moved to the US believing that it would give him a better life. His visit back home, however, showcases that things are not as different in both places as he always believed; the US is not the utopia he first thought it was when he arrived there. Thus, Remy begins to reconcile the Indian aspect of his identity, with respect to both his culture and his family, with his life in the US. Accordingly, he discards Cyrus’s advice to leave the “museum of failures” behind; instead, he accepts everything it houses and integrates it into his worldview.