For both Iyer and Pham, the feeling of belonging somewhere is discovered at the end. In the story Catfish and Mandala, Pham is seen traveling around the world to find his real identity and at the end he breaks out of Iyer’s definition of global soul and finds his real true identity. During his travelling, Pham felt scared and thought of his past always which is why he could not figure out the future for himself or even his roots. However, at the end when he traveled along multiple paths searching around possible identities, it taught him that he was actually American, nothing else. One of the reasons why he was able to find his true identity was that he stopped looking into the past and moved on towards the future. Keeping his vision towards the future made him decide what root he really should choose and he said “I feel like I am a real American” (Pham, 327). Andrew Pham no longer remains a global soul at the end and when he fully agrees that he is American, he says, “Right, but do you FEEL like an American? Do you?” Andrew Pham replied “Yes, Yes! Yes, I do, I really do…” (Pham, 327). In the case of Pico Iyer, after his house burnt down and all his possessions turned into ash infront of him, he went to Kyoto to live a life in the Zen temple without possessions and without a home. He failed in that experience and came back to California. After all this, it was confirmed to him that home is something inward for an increased number of us people, after the fire he smiled and told himself, “Well, now I do have the chance at last to live a life differently”. According to him after his life long journey, home has become invisible, portable and he believed that we carry our homes around us everywhere we go. “A city that is truly holy is as contrary and multidirectional as any charismatic human, and draws people almost regardless of their faith or origins” (Iyer, Maximum India,
For both Iyer and Pham, the feeling of belonging somewhere is discovered at the end. In the story Catfish and Mandala, Pham is seen traveling around the world to find his real identity and at the end he breaks out of Iyer’s definition of global soul and finds his real true identity. During his travelling, Pham felt scared and thought of his past always which is why he could not figure out the future for himself or even his roots. However, at the end when he traveled along multiple paths searching around possible identities, it taught him that he was actually American, nothing else. One of the reasons why he was able to find his true identity was that he stopped looking into the past and moved on towards the future. Keeping his vision towards the future made him decide what root he really should choose and he said “I feel like I am a real American” (Pham, 327). Andrew Pham no longer remains a global soul at the end and when he fully agrees that he is American, he says, “Right, but do you FEEL like an American? Do you?” Andrew Pham replied “Yes, Yes! Yes, I do, I really do…” (Pham, 327). In the case of Pico Iyer, after his house burnt down and all his possessions turned into ash infront of him, he went to Kyoto to live a life in the Zen temple without possessions and without a home. He failed in that experience and came back to California. After all this, it was confirmed to him that home is something inward for an increased number of us people, after the fire he smiled and told himself, “Well, now I do have the chance at last to live a life differently”. According to him after his life long journey, home has become invisible, portable and he believed that we carry our homes around us everywhere we go. “A city that is truly holy is as contrary and multidirectional as any charismatic human, and draws people almost regardless of their faith or origins” (Iyer, Maximum India,