Ideally, I would have liked Gogol to get back in touch with Maxine because she is his “real” love, and she accepts him for the way he is. I would have wanted Gogol to have spent more time with his father, trying to understand the different facets of his father’s life and much more of bonding with his father while he was alive rather than coming to terms after his father’s death. The ending could also have tried to reconcile some of Gogol’s friends with himself and his relationship with women. Also, the book could have been pruned to a smaller length as one tends to lose interest in the characters by the end of the novel. Also, the ending was a bit “flat” emotionally and could have been handled in a better way.
All said and done, the ending did have some kind of solace to the protagonist in terms of his sensing “freedom” from his ghosts and liberation of the self. The ending was also good for Ashima, who wants to share her time between India and the US. Still, there is no “redemption” for her as she has to hear the news of her son’s estrangement from his wife. There was closure for Ashoke and, to a certain extent, for Gogol, but he did not have closure from his father. We are only left with the image of Ashoke and Gogol when he was a kid talking to him about “going to places beyond which there is no place to go.”