The Theme of Diaspora in the Novel of Jhumpa Lahiri

The paper aims at throwing light on the Indian Diaspora, discussion of multiculturalism in relation to the theme of alienation, identity in the novel of Jhumpa Lahiri. The term of “Diaspora” is used to refer such people or population to leave their own homeland and settle down to another place which is so far from their own traditional homelands or indigenous territories. Jhumpa Lahiri writes about Diaspora and alienation, between the memory of homeland and the new strange land. The theme of psychology also plays a crucial role to decide the framework in the realm of Diaspora. The immigrants are in a permanent mental and emotional war between the myth and customs of the old world to which they are connected closely and freedom of the new one. In her novel, The Namesake (2004) she writes about the generation gap between immigrants, conflict of east-west beliefs, nostalgia, cultural displacement, loss of identity, alienation and despair.


Introduction:
Jhumpa Lahiri is one of the most famous Indo-American writers who is one among the Diaspora writers. She belongs to the second wave of Diaspora community or in other words, we can say that the existing stream of Diaspora. The main purpose of Diaspora writing is not specific but it reflects the inner psyche of writers highlighting surroundings and circumstances in which they live and breathe leaving their native place and a sense of comparable scenario between their native land and existing strange land. "Diasporic writing often deals with a shared identity of being dislocated and is an important theme in postcolonial literature especially writings from Caribbean, Asian American and other countries. It means that national, ethnic or communal identities are constituted in the absence of a territory." (Abraham, 3) The conflict can be come across sometimes found through nostalgic sentiments and memories spent happily with dear ones. Jhumpa Lahiri writes about the deracination and displacements of the immigrants in an unknown land and outbursts her feeling expressing that Americans cannot connect all levels to a family background. Lahiri always talks about the cultural clashes and the questions of identity. She also describes some proper native characters by means of her portrayal skills with a wonderful message. The characters delineated by Jhumpa Lahiri relate the message properly what she wants to convey her readers. Sometimes these characters are inscribed with individuality and sometimes they come before us as just role player but recalling the memory and feelings for their own native people as well as nostalgic experience is the key factor which is centred round the Diaspora writers.
As a Diaspora writer, Jhumpa Lahiri has also chosen to write about the major issues of Diaspora deliberately considering and depicting the immigrants crisis of identity, cultural and racial divergence, alienation of the mind and the loss of the sense of belongingness and it seems the history of immigration is the history of feeling taken out and astray in a different  The novel is about the Ganguly and story of assimilation into the foreign land.
Ashoke Ganguly came into US like so many professional Indians who are in the waves of the early sixty went to the US, as a part of the brain drain. The novel we get to see the trauma of being turn between two worlds by the role of the protagonist Gogol Gangoli, he is not proud of his origins. He tries so many times to escape his root to the Bengali culture. In the novel we get to see how Lahiri beautifully portrays the changes in the mind of Gogol who eventually develops sensitivity towards his family, culture and mostly with his name and also we get to see how Ashima ganguly evolves from beings a homesick housewife to a confident woman comfortable in her circumstances and finally she begum to feel home at Boston.
"The bad news is that they are told by Mr. Wilcox, compiler of hospital birth certificates, that they must choose a name for their son. For they learn that in American, a baby cannot be released from the hospital without a birth certificate. And that a birth certificate needs a name." (Lahiri,27) Name is a sign of identity in life. It helps to connect and communicate with one another and plays a vital role for people to know themselves. The title of Lahiri's novel "The Namesake" is a mirror to the problem Gogol Ganguly goes through just because of the name he inherited by birth. The problem of identity becomes hard when a person is ousted and cannot relate himself with any of the worlds he is living. Gogol was adapted the pet name but his parents did not know that the American system needs a particular name of the child just after the birth to register at the birth certificate and that is way due to the less knowledge of the foreign culture Ashoke and Ashima were forced to give their new born baby a name justifying the reason that Ashoka his son with the pet name Gogol with that he had an emotional attachment. After that Gogol finds it is very hard for him to continue with name which he thinks an embarrassment for him and he searches the uncommon nature of his name which creates issues in his life. According to him. "Smith"! They holler. "Collins"! "Wood"! Gogol is old enough to know that there is no Ganguli here. He is old enough to know that himself will be burned, not buried, that his body will occupy no plot of earth, that no stone in this country will bear his name beyond life. (Lahiri,66) Jhumpa Lahiri is of the opinion that Immigrants fiction is something different from that of Diasporic writing because it has some motives borne with the agonies and problems of existentialism. She raises questions to system and thinks why one would get marginalized for writing about a specific theme. She thinks and writes that the writers have always tendencies to write about their own world they come from and it just happens that so many writers begin spaces can establish the positivity in the lives of the immigrants. We should not forget that past is our master and it will not be exaggeration in relating that somehow our present and future are decided by our past.

Conclusion:
The conclusion of the paper highlights the fact that Diaspora not only leads to the crossing of borders but it also signifies the journey across the little visible boundaries of time, space, ethnicity, traditional values, language etc. The Diaspora creates something a fresh and new entity. They (migrants) cannot easily renounce their past lifestyle and traditions and slowly get shifted to the past land and also play their roles between the best and worse situations. Here psyche becomes the instrument to turn the decision because our inner state of mind and heart paves the path for our future life.