Confluence of Cultural Contours: Convergence of the heterogeneous cultures & languages and hybridization of diasporic identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth

Abstract

Diaspora is a state of transience where an individual constantly wavers between whether to imbibe the culture of a nation, usually a new one where one has immigrated or to retain the culture of one’s homeland which one has forsaken for reasons varied and innumerous. The immigrants who are displaced from their homeland face the most difficult challenges of life beginning with heart rendering feeling of being uprooted, dilemmas of multiculturalism, identity crisis, a constant sense of alienation and the hardships of being exiled. Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing is a case in point. The Indo-American diasporan Jhumpa Lahiri narrates the traumatic stories of exile of the protagonists in her ‘Namesake’ and ‘Unaccustomed Earth’. The writings display the convergence of the heterogeneous cultures and languages and hybridization of identities.