Do geographical demarcations define each person's identity? This question is particularly poignant for people in postcolonial countries exiled from their home countries. A recent article on the diaspora asserts that “the diaspora has brought about profound changes in the demographics, cultures, epistemologies, and politics of the postcolonial world” (Silva 72). The effects of diaspora and exile are exposed in Jhumpa Lahiri's short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Many of the stories in Lahiri's collection are set against the backdrop of the Indo-Pakistani War and the Partition of India in 1947, during which India and Pakistan were geographically divided into two separate nations (Keen) . In particular, the stories "A Real Durwan" and "When Pirzada Came to Dine" show the significant impact that war and division had on the identities, culture and relationships of the people of India and Pakistan at the time. While both stories dramatize the diaspora experience, Lahiri also shows how each character's experience is unique to their specific context. For example, in “A Real Durwan,” the main character, a poor woman named Boori Ma, stays in India and shows the “uneasy relationship between the people of Calcuttan and the frontiersmen” (Mitra 242). Unlike Boori Ma, Mr. Pirzada is an educated, upper-middle-class Muslim living in the United States and conducting research on New England foliage. In "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dinner," Lahiri demonstrates how Indians and Pakistanis stuck in the United States are able to find "acceptance and comfort beyond the barriers of nations, cultures, religions and generations” (Rath 73). However, despite their different situations, Boori Ma and Mr. Pirzada endure the distance from their country of origin. As such, both characters experience a similar sense of alienation, loss, and nostalgia for their homeland, which is central to the experience of diaspora and exile. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay After July 1947, India would never be the same. In August, India broke free from Britain and its apathetic treatment, whose colonial rule had lasted almost three hundred and fifty years (Keen). As Bates argues, despite India's attainment of freedom, a religious division existed between Muslims and Hindus, leading to continued conflict due to supposedly irreconcilable differences. In 1943, the Muslim League decided to withdraw from India; this resulted in a detached Muslim state, which would eventually become known as Pakistan (Keen). Their desire for separation can be attributed to the British system of classification based on religious beliefs as well as the ideological differences that existed between India's Muslims and Hindus. While some still hoped to keep India united under a three-tier government, Congress's rejection of this plan led the Muslim League to believe that partition was the only option. The successful division of India into separate entities, India and Pakistan, was achieved at great cost (Bates). The riots resulted in the deaths of a million people as well as countless rapes and looting. With new borders designated based on religious beliefs, fifteen million people found themselves displaced from their homes and seeking refuge in areas completely new to them, in the largest mass migration ever known. In 1971, a civil war in Pakistan led to further divisions andthe emergence of Bangladesh. According to Keen, “several years after Partition, both nations are still trying to heal the wounds left by this incision on the whole of India. Many are still searching for an identity and history left beyond an impenetrable border. While Muslims managed to separate themselves from Hindus, this war took its toll on millions of people, including Boori Ma and Mr. Pirzada. A refugee after the partition of 1947, Boori Ma experienced "the rigors of reconciliation as well as insertion into the disturbing labyrinth of a new life” after losing everything, including her husband and four daughters (Rath 73). Going from wealth to poverty after being expelled from her homeland, like many others, Boori Ma unwittingly assumes the position of a “broken immigrant woman” living in a stairwell (Rath 73). With “her voice: brittle with sorrow, as tangy as curdled milk and high enough to grate the meat of a coconut,… she details her fate and the losses suffered since her deportation” while she sweeps the cage daily staircase, fulfilling its functions as a durwan - despite this. that “under normal circumstances, it was not a job for a woman” (Lahiri 70, 73). Often reflecting on her past in which she lived a life of luxury and extravagance, she nostalgically shares with residents: “A man came to pick our dates and guavas. Another cut hibiscus. Yes, there I tasted life. Here I am dining in a pot of rice. » “Did I mention that I crossed the border with only two bracelets on my wrist? However, there was a day when my feet only touched marble. Believe me, don't believe me, you can't even dream of such comfort” and “Our sheets were muslin. Believe me, don't believe me, our mosquito nets were soft as silk. You cannot even dream of such comforts” (Lahiri 71, 74). The wealth she enjoyed before the diaspora contrasts sharply with her current lifestyle. Sleeping very little, owning very few possessions and lacking friendships, Boori Ma is a complete outsider living a poor life. Mitra's comment that "Boori Ma, a person uprooted by history, displaced by the lines drawn on a map by an imperious colonial bureaucrat, is seen as different", reflects the magnitude of the consequences of Partition in the lives of the individuals (243). The changes to the borders between India and Pakistan left many civilians marginalized, including Boori Ma, as illustrated by the narrator's remark: "Knowing that one should not sit on the furniture, [Boori Ma] instead crouched in doorways and corridors, and observed gestures and mannerisms in the same way that a person tends to watch the traffic in a foreign city” (Lahiri 76). This perfectly describes the feeling of alienation Boori Ma faces. Rather than feeling comfortable in the residents' homes, Boori Ma develops shyness and apprehension similar to that of a "person...[monitoring] traffic in a foreign city", largely due to the treatment that the residents reserve for him (Lahiri 76). having a significantly lower socioeconomic status, Boori Ma is not treated as an equal, affirming the “accurate portrait of the post-partition isolation and helplessness endured by migrants” (Mitra 245). Unsupported in the absence of family and friends, Boori Ma's life in Calcutta stands in stark contrast to her life before the diaspora. Ultimately, the building's residents become so enamored with funding the building's renovations that their already limited hospitality becomes almost non-existent, as Boori Ma reveals: "'Itsmornings were long, his afternoons longer. She didn’t remember her last glass of tea” (Lahiri 80). Everyone was too busy worrying about others' perceptions of themselves and contributing to the materialistic nature of society to recognize their durwan. The residents' lack of appreciation for Boori Ma reaches a new level when she is wrongly accused of being responsible for the disappearance of the building's pool and kicked out of the stairwell. The residents' brusque accusations: "'That's all she does,' one of them shouted, pointing to Boori Ma" and "We shared our coal, gave her a place to sleep." How could she betray us like this? vividly expose their hostilities towards the border crossers (Lahiri 81). Unfortunately, because “her otherness makes the community indifferent to its historical fate,” she finds herself homeless (Mitra 242). Due to border adjustments and resulting religious intolerance, Boori Ma is not only deprived of her family and homeland, but she also becomes lost. The description of Mr. Pirzada's post-Partition experience in "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dinner" differs in several respects from that of Boori Ma. The narrator, Lilia, recounts that “in the fall of 1971, a man came to our house with treats in his pocket and in the hope of learning about the life or death of his family” (Lahiri 23). Even if he also suffers from the separation from his wife and seven daughters who remained in Dhaka, where "the teachers were dragged into the streets and shot, the women dragged into the barracks and raped", the Muslim status of Mr. Pirzada does not provoke the hostility he so arouses. often appeared as a result of the diaspora (Lahiri 23). Lilia's Hindu family defies the typical antipathy expressed toward Muslims, but instead offers Mr. Pirzada companionship as he helplessly watches the destruction of his homeland and the brutal killings of people on the evening news since their family living room. After Lilia, who is only ten years old, refers to Mr. Pirzada as "the Indian man," she cannot understand her father's response that "Mr. Pirzada is no longer considered Indian." Not since the partition. Our country was divided. 1947. Hindus here, Muslims there” (Lahiri 25). Struggling to accept the alleged disparities between her family and Mr. Pirzada, she said: “It made no sense to me. Mr. Pirzada and my parents spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, looked more or less alike. They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate rice every night at supper with their hands… However, my father insisted that I understand the difference (Lahiri 25). Silva comments, "When Lilia tries to understand the difference between her father and Mr. Pirzada, she shows that the organization of work – or the division of people into homogeneous and distinct groups – is not solid and fixed like the structure of a map” confirms the sentiment that geographic boundaries do not define identity (Silva 61). While acknowledging their religious differences, Lilia's parents, unlike many others, do not use them to justify unfair treatment. Despite the thousands of kilometers that separate him from his home, Mr. Pirzada finds some consolation thanks to the warm welcome he receives from Lilia's family. Lilia remembers that while the war was being fought in Dhaka, "all three [operated] during this period as if they were one person, sharing one meal, one body, one silence and one fear" ( Lahiri 41). This proves the absurdity of the dissociation between Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan. United in concern for the safety of Mr.'s family.. 2012.