Sample Solution

Bengali couple displays the tendency of typical Diaspora where the characters carry different geographical identities with them.

The story “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar,” also deals with the displacement and alienation in the native milieu. Bibi Haldar was an orphan since childhood and was diagnosed with epilepsy. She was staying with her relative in Calcutta, given a storage room on the roof that proves her pathetic condition as the text writes, ‘A space in which one could sit but not comfortably stand, featuring an adjoining latrine, curtain, one window without a grille, and shelves made from the panels of the old door’ (Page 159, IoM). The line, ‘When Mrs Sen said home, she meant India, not the apartment where she sat to chop the vegetables’(Page 116, IoM), tells it all. For Mrs Sen, India is the home. Also, her urge to get back to her homeland is clearly evident when she asks Eliot, ‘Could I drive all the way to Calcutta? How long would that take, Eliot?’ (Page 119, IoM). Mrs Sen clearly is homesick. She keeps on telling the stories of Indian marriage ceremonies to mentally relive those moments and feel home at the same time, tries to regain her cultural part in a foreign land. Mrs Sen is traumatised due to the crisis of identity. Her intention behind learning to drive a car isn’t to move around but to escape. Displaced from home and dazed, she finds American life very irritating. These are her means of claiming her cultural identity in an alien land. The other story, “This Blessed House,” talks about a young Indian immigrant trying to adjust to foreign land and culture. It records the emotional and cultural clash between a Hindu husband and his Christmas-artefact-fascinated wife. The cultural gap between the eastern and the western world is clearly penned through the understanding between Sanjeev and Twinkle. Sanjeev has a lot of Hindu values whereas his wife has her brain embedded with Christian values. The description of food and paintings give the native feel. Sanjeev, a recent immigrant has deep touch with his roots unlike Twinkle. Sanjeev’s stance is clearly seen as he keeps on reminding his wife, ‘We’re not Christians’ (Page 137, 146, IoM). He’s an immigrant, yet, trying to keep his culture etched deep within him. Twinkle, in her habits, is more American than Indian. The cultural alienation and differences are clearly pictured through these close living beings. Sanjeev’s character evidences that an immigrant’s experience in a foreign land is often painful. Twinkle’s affinity towards western accessories disturbs Sanjeev to the core. Sanjeev rethinks the circumstances of his marriage and understands that he’d have preferred a more traditional wife. He has a