RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL.

2, ISSUE II, 2011

Cultural Hybridity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies

Shashikant Mhalunkar, Dept. of English, B.N.N. College,Bhiwandi The presence of Diaspora in Indian cultural context of her stories: Jhumpa Writing in English across the continents has been Lahirisstories tell the lives of Indians in exile, elegant visible the last three decades and it has, in of during people navigating between the strict recent triggered a new consideration of the traditionsinherited and the baffling New World times, theyve cultural of nation, race and identity. The writers they theories must encounter every of day.(R.S.Gnanamony,79). not merely ethnic Indian origin who have settled in countries such However, these stories are as US, Canada, England, Australia, the as the they transcend to touch literary exoticism. Caribbean, other parts of the globe are widely She Africa and accomplishes this with subtle characterization read their diasporic experiences. They also and for meaningful details. She is like an artist attract popular and critical acclaim on the who captures likeness with two or three strokes, international scene. Writers like V. S. Naipaul, M.G. but keeps sketching until the face begins to Vassanji, Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa breathe. Jhumpas characters live in two Rohington Lahiri, worlds, Farrukh Dhondy, Sunetra Gupta, one within, one without and the past Uma keeps Parameswaran, Neil Bisoodath and intruding into their present. Most of her stories Bharati Mukherjee, with their prolific writings have in text in reference stress the dichotomy the provided of a space for diasporic literature, by growing up in two cultures (Suman Bala effectively 25). dealing with the diasporic problems like Though Jhumpa was brought up in the US, exile, immigration and cultural hybridity. Among her stories are imbued with Indian culture these writers, Jhumpa Lahiri with her significant and sensibilities. She herself is not fully integrated works, a special intellectual space by rendering withUS culture; therefore, it is not wrong occupy the the to expatriate experiences in a new trajectory. consider her stories semiThe present paper is an attempt to analyse autobiographical. first story in her Lahiris Jhumpa Diasporic characters of her collection Interpreter of Maladies is A Temporary collection Lahiris of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies who Matter. The temporary matter in the story is the struggle occupy the transnational space and unusual hard to power-cut for an hour in Boston which to also create new images and understanding symbolizes the married life of a couple of cultural Stories of Interpreter of Maladies try Indian as well. Lahiri suggests that for an hybridity. origin to American map the identity crisis of a bunch of couple the first marriage usually fails in a Indian year or immigrants in the US and tell us how two and that the second marriage lasts cultural negotiation and the eventual hybridity take longer. The Indian immigrant couple in the place in story, such a Shukumar and Shoba, has long location. Lahiri took the literary world by abeen Americanised. Still at times they behave storm like when she won the coveted Pulitzer Prize Indians. Shoba gives birth to a stillborn baby for Fiction in 2000 for her Interpreter of when husband was away for a paper her Maladies. was born in London to Bengali presentation become a traumatic moment for Jhumpa and it had parents and grew up in Rhode Island in the US. Shoba. she was taken home after delivery, When Her mother transferred to her certain aspects of she started avoiding her husband. Eventually, the Indian culture, especially the Bengali when the power supply cut-off, Shoba remembers traditions, culture at home, when Jhumpa was about frequent rituals and the power-cuts at her a grandmothers child. The blurb of her book announces the 10 6

RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL. 2, ISSUE II, 2011 house in India, thereby connecting to her Indian she is not aware of developments that split the past Indian subcontinent, like the issue of Partition, : remember during power failures at my Civil War in East Pakistan, the fleeing the I refugees grandmothers house, we all had to say and the frequent communal clashes. Mr. Pirzada, something. (I M 12). a Botany lecturer from Dacca has come to study Further, this memory underscores an the new foliage of New England in America. He of Indian way is keeping a house and relations intact always anxious for the safety of his wife and through talks. seven daughters in Dacca during the Bangladesh Lahiri attempts to portray the marital War of Liberation. In order to gather news of his boredom that is typical of American society native land from TV, he makes frequent visits to marriage itself turns into a temporary the narrators house. Though Mr. Pirzada wherein and the In case of Shoba and Shukumar who are narrators father are persons of separate matter. national Americanized, the insecurity and identities, they are at once preoccupied with clearly their uncertainty of a staggering relationship add to the respective countries and the neo-cultural realities life in exile. in America. They also get along well as unstable Mr. This story also throws light upon the Pirzadas Muslimness has not even once clash ofclashed two cultures and also the alienation and with the Hinduness of the narrators family. She loneliness that the immigrants face in a host remembers how they come together in the US nation. The marriage bond which is still fashioning a new cultural affinity: the three of considered sacrosanct in India is gradually them (her father, her mother and Mr. Pirzada) down under the pressure of American were operating during that time as if they slithering werestyle. Shukumar and Shoba regard India as single person, sharing a single meal, a life a single the land of their parents, ancestors and have a body, a single silence, and a single fear ( IM 41). memory of this country. But it is the power- The narrator, Laila does not find faint any the temporary matter, which makes them to difference between her parents and Mr. cut, Pirzada. India and Indian ties strongly. She thinks that Mr. Pirzada is an Indian remember like her Eventually they come to the awareness that as parents; it is her father who corrects her by saying continental immigrants identity is subsumed in the that Mr. Pirzada is a Pakistani and not an Indian. cultures and finally they come up with a She cannot understand how Mr. Pirzada clash of could be cultural hybridity they decide to put different from her parents. She shares redeeming her past and bitterness away, ironically in their bewilderment with the readers and it their amplifies the intimacy in darkness. The darkness cultural and ethnic uncertainties of a new found second block their visual distractions force them to generation migrant which subject: eventually, to cure their marital malady. It made no sense to me. Mr. talk and Pirzada and The darkness also represents the twilight of two my parents spoke the same language; laughed at it turns into a metaphor of cultural the same jokes, looked more or less the cultures and same. hybridity as they find in this darkness an Indian They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate for a troubled American family. rice every night for supper with their talking cure hands. Like Cultural hybridity is brilliantly highlighted my parents Mr. Pirzada took off his shoes before in the story, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine. entering a room, chewed seeds after fennel meals The story brings the Indian-American life of a as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for dessert and of their scholar friend from East dipped austere biscuits into successive cups family of Pakistan, Mr. Pirzada. The narrator of the story is tea. Nevertheless my father insisted that I a ten-year-old girl, Laila. As she is born in Boston, understand the difference ( I M 25). 10 7

RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL. 2, ISSUE II, 2011 Lilias innocent mind cannot understand who reclaims her cultural past through how a history geographical space can be divided single books. into two countries. She articulates a doubt that When Mr. Pirzada flies home after division and exclusion. Further, she also completing his project, there is no news from resists him understands that in a host nation such divides for a couple of months. Later, he sends a letter tothe South Asian immigrants are artificial: the narrators family describing how among he has I noticed that there were two distinct parts reunited with his family members. He also thanks to it, one much larger than the other, separated by the narrators family for their hospitality. Mr.expanse of Indian territory; it was as if Pirzada and the narrator realize that had an they California and Connecticut constituted a nation been located in the respective geographical U S (I M 26). spaces of India and Pakistan, they apart from the may When the Civil War breaks out in East considered the other as an enemy, but Pakistanthrown in 1971, Lilia observes Mr. Pirzada together in a third space of the host nation there isa habit of wearing his watch with the Dacca absolutely no enmity, only love, concern makes and set on it. This setting of Dacca time is an prayer for the other. This story brings out time cultural indication of his cultural hybridity of a hybridity that is born out of necessity, despite of migrant who lives in the US and apparent difference of religions and Bangladeshi breeding. emotional investment in Dacca. There is Jhumpa Lahiris Interpreter of keeps his Maladies an immovable expression on Mr. Pirzadas face is another story that explores the themes ofsix-thirty news reader says, expatriation and cultural hybridity. Jhumpa when the aims, I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, in this story, at showing the trauma of loss of and fallen buildings, and forests of unfamiliar trees identities in clash of cultures. The influence of two into which East Pakistani refugees had fled, different worlds and their cultures on the American seeking safety over the Indian border (IM 31). born Indian couple can be seen in Mr. and Mrs. The little girl, Lilia prays for the safety of Das. The family has come to India on a holiday to Mr. Pirzadas family when she hears that Dacca find the traditional grandeur in Orissa. The been invaded, torched by the Pakistani army, narrators nostalgia for traditions and for the has native are dragged onto the streets and shot, language can be seen through the use of teachers Indian and women are dragged into the barracks and words and phrases like Astachala which means She thinks that in all probability Mr. setting sun, Hanuman a monkey, and so raped. on. Pirzadas family members would have been wiped Mr. Kapasi is a tradition-bound tourist guide who From that time onwards, she gets obsessed takes them to Konarak Temple in Orissa. The out. Das the history of India, Pakistan and Partition. family looks as Indians but is with dressed as This obsession with the past is her mental strategy Americans. The parents of Mr. and Mrs. Das live to keep her cultural roots alive, though she knows in Assansol in India. Like Americans, Mr. Das this culture is not free of violence. Lilia is refers to his wife by her first name while that speakingred-handed by her teacher when she to the little girl. Mrs. Mina Das, like the caught American browses trough the pages of Asian History instead women, has clipped her hair short and her dress is of writing an assignment on American history in also exactly like them. On the way to Konarak, library. Her act of reading Asian history when the children see some monkeys, they the school shout American history class is another silent monkeys, but Mr. Kapasi corrects in an them of her longing for cultural hybridity and her immediately, We call them hanuman gesture (IM 47).change from an Americanized second Such instances focus upon the cultural gradual gap generation migrant to an Indo-American subject between the visiting Indian-Americans and the 10 8

RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL. 2, ISSUE II, 2011 native Indians. Cultural ambiguity can also be comes to Miranda like an animal without speaking a Bobby asks his father, observing Mr. word. Miranda realizes her mistake and seen when decides not sits on the right side of the car and to ruin the marital happiness of an Indian Kapasi, who woman.it, Daddy, why is the driver sitting on the She finally ends her extra-marital steers relationship in this car, too? (IM48). Dev, and finally returns to her traditional wrong side with values Having known that Mr. Kapasi is an symbolized by the church (IM 110). The story interpreter to a Gujarati Doctor practicing in that validates the need traditional values in keeping the part of Orissa, Mrs. Das looks for some private institution of marriage alive. Mirandas belief in the moments to unburden a guilt that has been church and the Indian concept of marriage bring nagging her for the past eight years. Mrs. Das together a practical cultural hybridity that finally confesses to Mr. Kapasi that her isolation and saves Devs marriage. the symptoms of American In Mrs. Sen, Jhumpa Lahiri tells boredom, the unhappiness, have made her fall prey to the lust of readers about the psychological upheavals and husbands friend, giving birth to Ronny. She reactions that an immigrant has to face in an her alien indicates that it is her American part of identity that land with constant collisions caused by cultural to take an extramarital affair lightly. But transplants which ultimately lead to urges her cultural her Indian consciousness keeps her haunting, alienation and later on, cultural hybridity. Mrs. Sen, reminding her of the sanctity of marriage which a Bengali housewife looks skeptically at her newher sick in exile. Her dilemma and homeland, as an outsider, with a makes feeling of psychological trauma are the results of her something being lost. She is a Hindu woman who confused bicultural entity. She is also well aware struggles to become an American in her pan- fact that social norms in India are different American situation but at the same time she of the is not from those in America. Her problem her guilt is ready to leave her inherited Indianness. For Mrs. compounded once she is in India. Sen, India is the home. Eliot, for whom she acts as Jhumpa Lahiri also presents the family as a baby sitter, is surprised to note that when Mrs. the product of a hybrid identity and mixed cultures. Sen says home she means India: When Mrs. Sen However, Mrs. Dass extramarital affair is due to said home, she meant India not the apartment identities and cultural uprootedness. It where she sat to chop the vegetables(IM her multiple 116). Her analyzed along a cultural matrix, and not urge to go back to her homeland can be seen has to be in the as an individuals behaviour. The story is a following lines, Could I drive all the merely way to analysis of intergenerational cultural Calcutta? How long would that take, Eliot? brilliant (I M dynamics Indian immigrant family. It also 119). scrutinizes the oldest cultural institution, marriage Mrs. Sen and Eliot are poised against wake of transnational mobility and each other in the story to draw out the in the pathetic multicultural identities. loneliness each suffers from. Eliot, an American same issues of infidelity and secretive child seeks hospitality and warmth. That has The to be sex life continue in Lahiris story Sexy too. Devajit provided by an Indian woman, Mrs. Sen who (Dev) a young Bengali is lost in the glamour embodies concern, love, and care Mitra which are and robbed of his character in exile. lacking in Eliots mother, who is caught in of the US the Miranda, an American and Dev are representatives Western lifestyle. of Western social life, which has become almost Mrs. Sen is homesick and always sex-centered. Miranda is a lonely woman who remembers and talks about her country and sexual pleasure to avoid isolation and culture. While referring to weddings in seeks India she Dev, already married to an Indian girl, boredom. says: 10 9

RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL. 2, ISSUE II, 2011 Whenever there is a wedding in the When he is demanded an answer by Mrs. family, or a large celebration of any kind, Croft, an old house owner, the my mother sends out word in the evening for all narrator remembers the past, especially the tones the neighborhood women to bring blades just like of various this and then they sit in an enormous circle on hegemonies: one, It reminded me of the way I was the of our building, laughing and gossiping multiplication tables as a child, repeating after taught roof and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the the master, sitting cross-legged, without shoes night (I or M pencils, on the floor of my one-room 115). By recalling the experiences of an Tollygunge also reminded me of my wedding, school. It weddingIndian Sen tries to reclaim her cultural when repeated endless Sanskrit verses after Mrs. I had past alien land. She uses memory and fantasy the in an priest, verses I barely understood, which as joined my wife. I said nothing. (I M 179agencie to find cultural linkage with me to s 180). The narrator had left India in order homeland her . to Mrs. Sen is emotionally alienated. establish himself in England and from there Even then, her job as a baby-sitter, adjusting with moves to America for his betterment. The story her husband and learning to drive a car shows best focuses upon the rootlessness of an her braving the new world. Thus, she tries in her Indian subject. Narrator talks about a bunch nomadic own to create a cultural hybridity by combining of way Indians, who struggle and try to the establish values of care-giving with those of themselves in the Western modern countries, America I lived in North London, in Finsbury . Park, The Blessed House depicts in house occupied entirely by penniless the insecurity in the relationship of an Indian Bengali like myself, at least a dozen bachelors couple in the USA. Sanjeev and Twinkle, the and living sometimes more, all struggling to educate young in diaspora have their links in India. and couple establish ourselves, abroad.(I M Sanjeev parents in India whereas Twinkle has 173) The narrator works in a library and stays has his her at parents in America. Unlike Sanjeev, Mrs. Croft who has a daughter Helen, aged 79, Christian values are deeply embedded in Twinkles who her mother once a week. Mrs. Croft is visits mind. Americanized This couple encounters a widow and is above hundred years old. Her problems new house proves to be a treasure widowhood make the narrator to think of her age when their and of trove of Christian objects. The description of as mother, who after the death of her husband his Indian paintings, traditions, cultural heritage had food, refused to adjust to life without him. It is and the lifestyle gives a native fragrance to the widowhood that had driven her insane. He story. being a recent immigrant is deeply in recalls children in India always look after their Sanjeev how the touch his roots and culture unlike his wife old, with widowed mother unlike the Twinkle Americans. who is a second generation Though the narrator is well immigrant. Third and the Final Continent with the acquainted in the US, he feels that he life style is presented as a biographical sketch of a person is a stranger to his wife, Mala, who is in who through three continents in his struggle Calcutta. travels When Mala arrives in the US, the for existence. The story is about an Indian narrator her with utmost care. They eat receives immigrant and his memories of Bengal. The narrator is together, way, with hands. They live together the Indian trying to adjust himself with the West where he lives as husband and wife, still the narrator feels that now. finds life in America different from they strangers. They meet the other Bengalis He are England, of life in North America is different in The pace Massachusetts Avenue and start enjoying their from life a honeymoon couple. They mix up with Britain (I as M174). the 11 0

RESEARCH SPECTRUM: VOL. 2, ISSUE II, 2011 American Culture. The narrator explains how their two different worlds which bring out the postmodern life and culture get chutnified and adaptable in identity at its best the identity that is at once local the host nation: and global. The characters are connected to the We are American citizens now, so that multiple worlds. However, the we canprotagonists collect social security when it is continental tours do not make him quit his time. Though we visit Calcutta every few years, native His conversation with Mala in Bengali self. and back more drawstring pajamas makes bring him break the shell of the acquired self. The and Darjeeling tea, we have decided to grow old story decades later long after his finding a job ends here. I work in a small library. We have a son in Boston, getting married in Calcutta, and who attends Harvard University. Mala no longer finally becoming a father. He feels that he has lived drapes of her sari over her head, or weeps a the end happy superficial life. Their son establishes for parents, but occasionally she weeps for ouran identity of his own to live as a naturalized son. drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring citizen of The story ends with wisdom which So we the US. him for a weekend, so that he can eat rice comes life-long voyage. The story home through with thus us with his hands, and speak Bengali, things foregrounds cultural hybridity and we sometimes worry he will no longer do after Multiculturalism of voyage and that result out we migration. die.(I M One can indeed argue that Jhumpa 197) The son of the narrator represents succeeds in presenting the problems and Lahiri second the generation of immigrants who does maladies of immigrants with artistic observation and skill not for the hardships the parents have taken. in care her stories. Her characters as the The second generation of immigrants embraces representatives work out the postmodern ethnicity of two worlds the American culture as their native culture at best. They are also connected with the its whereas generation remembers each and multiple and multiple cultures, bringing the first worlds every incident that has taken place in their lives. images, metaphors and experiences of cultural The narrator, even after staying for thirty years inhybridity. The stories included in Interpreter of the has the feeling of being in exile. He Maladies to show the life and struggle of US, attempt says, the astronauts, heroes forever, spent exiled who are torn within and who lack While Indians mere on the moon, I have remained in thisviable of articulation of their alienation hours means new for nearly thirty years. (I M and world loneliness. Cultural hybridity becomes in 198) Third and the Final Continent these a personal and psychological strategy stories, presents the struggle of a Bengali graduate, who has to over these throes of exile. It is also tide moved from Calcutta to London and then to Boston. He suggested, as an antidote to the mindless at times, is outsider in the beginning but slowly adjusts materialism an and as a way of securing the institution of with American culture. Mrs. Croft and Mala family. represent Works Cited: Suman. Ed. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Master Storyteller: A Critical Response to Interpreter of Bala, Maladies. Khosla Publishing House, Delhi, 2002. Nila. Crossing Cultural Borders: New Voices in Indian American Das, Literature. Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. New Delhi, Harper Collins Publishers India 2004 O. P. New Critical Approaches to Indian English Fiction. Sarup and Sons, New Delhi. Mathur 2001. S. Robert Gnanamony. Cultural Diversity and Immigrant Identity in Jhumpa Lahiris Interpreter of Maladies. Publishers, New Delhi, GNOSIS 2008. 11 1