When Mr Pirzada Comes To Time By Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, “WHEN MR.PIRZADA CAME TO DINE”, tells a tale of the interactions of an Indian family (living in Boston) and their Bengali friend who comes to spends most of his time in their house. The story is narrated by the Indian daughter, Lilia, and revolves around the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971). Lahiri’s writing makes the assumption that the leader is ignorant of the events in this story and forms her character to respond to this idea; she uses her characters to represent aspects of American society, to show that it is too egocentric and lacks understanding and concern for other ethnicities and countries. Lahiri uses her main character, Lilia, to represent the mindset of a majority of Americans and the reader. Despite

Lahiri introduces the topic when Lilia’s father asks “what is she learning” (Lahiri 616). What they learn is “American history” and “American Geography”, and “this year and every year… we began studying the Revolutionary War” (Lahiri 616). The repetition of “American” reinforces the idea of the self-centered attitude of American culture, they are not learning about the history of other countries, or where they are located. Lahiri also points out the redundancy with the learning of the American Revolution. The keep learning the same American centered history again and again, when they could be learning about other countries. The egotistical attitude of the American education system revels itself again when the teacher, Mrs. Kenyon, catches Lahiri reading and learning about Pakistan. Seeing the book was not affiliated with Lilia’s upcoming report on the Revolution, the teacher says “I see no reason to consult it” (Lahiri 619). The teacher serves as representative of the American education, and we see a repression of a search for knowledge and understanding of a different nation. Lilia is trying to gain an understanding of another culture and its history, but because it’s not about America she