Studying Diaspora Through Lilia And Eliot In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter Of Maladies

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American Diasporic writer, was born in London and grew up in Rhode Island to Indian immigrant parents from Calcutta. Her focus is mainly on Indian Bengalis and their diasporic experience. She writes about the first- and second-generation immigrants where the migrant parents try to maintain their original culture and expect their American-born children to abide by their traditions instead of adapting to the foreign culture. Her characters undergo a situation where they cannot cut off their ties with their cultural homeland and also experience the dilemma of adapting to their new culture. The uncertainties and insecurities in the foreign land are represented well in her works. The stories guide the characters toward the possibilities for cross-cultural communion among the Indians and Americans. Lahiri thus deciphers the places and times, individuals and families and traditions in her books. This article analyses the diasporic experience through the eyes of Lilia in When Mr Pirzada came to Dine and Eliot in Mrs Sen in Interpreter of Maladies.