What is Diaspora Fiction?

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Namesake

Diaspora fiction s dwell on/focus on alienation, nostalgia, displacement, loneliness, assimilation, acculturation, and quest of identity, it also deals issues related to existential rootlessness or disintegration of cultures. An individual has to relocate himself afresh on migrati on for which he has to go through atonement such as readjustment, adaptation, participation .

When an individual migrate from one place to another, from one country to another, the borders change and the identity of an individual takes a new shape. A person who has migrated always desires to return to what has been left behind. When an individual enters into an unknown world, he is removed from an amiable and cherished world, and this dislocation brings in a sense of nostalgia and the individual becomes prey of nostalgia.

The sketches of their past always remain with them. Jhumpa Lahiri spectacularly carves out the acculturation, alienation and nostalgia of Indian immigrants in her novel “The Namesake”. Jhumpa Lahiri herself belongs to the second generation of Indian immigrants. The characters live in two worlds simultaneously, one is the American culture and the other is their native culture , and the first generation always longs for their home which is left behind and becomes nostalgic. They remain torn between the past and present. It really troubles the marginalized gentry of the Diasporas to live in an alien land. The bewildered and vague memories of the homelands seem to stimulate a skimpy desire for “home,” to go back to “the lost world”.

A cultural dilemma of sorts stares the denizens of the Diaspora when their cultural practices are ridiculed and their ethnic and cultural identity is in peril....

... middle of paper ...

...ew views, ideas and values which keeps on unmasking her past.

Jasmine dwindles between the past and the present in an attempt to deal with the two worlds, that is the native world and the host world.

A lot of families migrate from Pakistan to India and from India to Pakistan after the partition between the two nations.

Her family is also one among them who are forced to move to India after partition. Her father always feels nostalgic about Pakistan particularly about Lahore and he is unable to give up the memories of his past. He has deep attachment with Lahore and his past. He always talks about his past life in Lahore. He listen Pakistani programs on Radio. This shows his deep rooted nostalgia for his past. He keeps on comparing India with Pakistan, Punjab with Lahore. He feels happy living with the memories of past. He finds peace and solace in his past.

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