“Remember, it’s an in-between space.
neither here nor there. It is dangerous.” (Badami 110)
Diasporas overtly or covertly are always burdened with the pangs of nostalgia and regret
that results from a ‘hyphenated identity’. This ambiguous identity fails to clearly demarcate
the place in which diasporas can settle themselves and look at the things and relate to
them. The term ‘diaspora’ has never been approached with a universal, conventional idea
but is always seen with different perspectives based on the treatment of diasporas in
specific places and periods. Consequently, some critics celebrate the whole idea of
migration across nations holding it responsible for opening areas and cringing boundaries
which increases trans-national …show more content…
Not all the stories in ‘Interpretation of maladies’ very much like Lowland (2003) or Namesake (2013) offers a diasporic reading but some of them like When mr. Pirzada came to dine, a real durwan and the third and final continent do. Lahiri has weaved her own ‘India’ in her stories reflecting it as she imagined it to be. Most of the stories as she herself put it is inspired by people she knew in her own life, the protagonist of the concluding story The third and final continent being inspired by her own father. Lahiri’s parents migrated from Bengal to London where she was born and when she was of two years of age they shifted to America which lahiri considers her ‘home’. Despite being born and brought up in London and America , Lahiri was familiar with the bemoaning and loss migrants feel because of her immigrant parents and some Bengali families she knew in America. Her own experiences have shaped Interpretation of maladies which reflects an autobiographical tone. Jhumpa’s mother wanted her children to know Bengali so that she could see some glimpse of roots of her ‘own culture’ in her children. Such kind of dilemmas are often faced by the most of diasporic parents who gets uprooted, voluntarily or in-voluntarily from their native lands struggling to forge new-identities in host-lands yet looking back at their homelands with a yearning, trying to mirror some of their ‘home-cultures’ in their children to show solidarity with their roots. Diasporas often confront a sense of alienation in ‘other-nation’ which threatens their connection to their home-lands every now and
neither here nor there. It is dangerous.” (Badami 110)
Diasporas overtly or covertly are always burdened with the pangs of nostalgia and regret
that results from a ‘hyphenated identity’. This ambiguous identity fails to clearly demarcate
the place in which diasporas can settle themselves and look at the things and relate to
them. The term ‘diaspora’ has never been approached with a universal, conventional idea
but is always seen with different perspectives based on the treatment of diasporas in
specific places and periods. Consequently, some critics celebrate the whole idea of
migration across nations holding it responsible for opening areas and cringing boundaries
which increases trans-national …show more content…
Not all the stories in ‘Interpretation of maladies’ very much like Lowland (2003) or Namesake (2013) offers a diasporic reading but some of them like When mr. Pirzada came to dine, a real durwan and the third and final continent do. Lahiri has weaved her own ‘India’ in her stories reflecting it as she imagined it to be. Most of the stories as she herself put it is inspired by people she knew in her own life, the protagonist of the concluding story The third and final continent being inspired by her own father. Lahiri’s parents migrated from Bengal to London where she was born and when she was of two years of age they shifted to America which lahiri considers her ‘home’. Despite being born and brought up in London and America , Lahiri was familiar with the bemoaning and loss migrants feel because of her immigrant parents and some Bengali families she knew in America. Her own experiences have shaped Interpretation of maladies which reflects an autobiographical tone. Jhumpa’s mother wanted her children to know Bengali so that she could see some glimpse of roots of her ‘own culture’ in her children. Such kind of dilemmas are often faced by the most of diasporic parents who gets uprooted, voluntarily or in-voluntarily from their native lands struggling to forge new-identities in host-lands yet looking back at their homelands with a yearning, trying to mirror some of their ‘home-cultures’ in their children to show solidarity with their roots. Diasporas often confront a sense of alienation in ‘other-nation’ which threatens their connection to their home-lands every now and