In the canon of exile literature the place occupied by the works of non-resident Indian (NRI) writers, though small is not insignificant. The reason behind the prominence gained by NRI writers is that they enjoy the advantage of being able to detach themselves from the subject matter of their writing. This detachment is again two-fold; firstly the NRIs have suffered a geographical displacement and hence there is a physical detachment from their country people, and secondly, the NRIs’ sense of being outsiders in an alien land gives them a cultural detachment from Western society. But there lies a conundrum in the above simplification. Physical displacement of the NRIs does not mean that they are also emotionally displaced and being cultural outsiders does not necessarily imply being social outsiders also. The anxiety arising out of these conflicting situations is what that gives NRI literature a distinctive appeal.

The emotional and social attachment that NRI writers find themselves in does not hinder their detachment from their subject matter, for writers do not need compulsive detachment but rather the ability to detach themselves. Writers do not examine a community en masse like sociologists or anthropologists. Writers deal with individuals who can fit into a community that in turn fits into the greater sphere of the world and thereby the universal appeal is achieved. The personal touch while dealing with individuals is brought about by attachment that acts as a telescope to balance the distancing effect of detachment. Such is the case with NRI writers who have explored the themes of exile literature. They have successfully depicted the interactions between NRI characters and native Indian characters vis-à-vis the interactions between NRI characters and Western characters. By doing so they have shown how these two differing relationships are analogous in a wider sense.

Jhumpa Lahiri, who belongs to the second generation of NRI writers, in her debut book of short stories, titled Interpreter of Maladies- stories of Bengal, Boston and Beyond has subtly tread into the territory of exile literature. Her stories uses the relationship between NRI characters with Indian and Western characters as a claw to dig out the universal yearnings of exile. But hers is not a cliché ridden exploration of being lost in a foreign land- rather it is the angst of being an outsider that can be felt both in one’s country of origin or in one’s country of adoption and by both Indian and Western characters.

The title story Interpreter of Maladies is about an NRI couple visiting India with their children. Mr. and Mrs. Das along with their children are on a sightseeing trip to the Sun Temple at Konark accompanied by Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Kapasi is a part-time guide and by profession is an interpreter of Gujarati language in a doctor’s office. Mr. and Mrs. Das interact with Mr. Kapasi for the major part of the trip and there is nothing astonishing in their talks until towards the end of the story when Mrs. Das reveals the shocking secret to Mr. Kapasi that one of her children is not by her husband. The obvious reaction by the reader of the story is more or less the same as that of Mr. Kapasi:

I beg your pardon, Mrs. Das, but why have you told me this information?

Mrs. Das’s answer to the query is that since Mr. Kapasi was an interpreter he could suggest ‘some kind of remedy’ for her ‘feeling so terrible all the time’. The question that Mr. Kapasi was not in a position to ask was how come, for eight long years, Mrs. Das could not find a confidante in the west. The story does not give any evidence that there was no ‘interpreter of maladies’ in the West and as the saying goes that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence the reader is certainly spared from flogging the old horse- the shallowness of the West. The story is not about finding a confidante; it is about a moment of influx of emotion felt by Mrs. Das that is brought about by her situation (in India) and the circumstance (alone with a guide and interpreter) she found herself in. The point raised in the first paragraph explains the condition of Mrs. Das: as an NRI she has had a physical displacement but emotionally she is not displaced from her country of origin.

The NRIs do try to accommodate and adjust themselves in the countries of their adoption but emotionally they are rooted to the place of their origin, especially those who belong to the first generation. In the short story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, which is set in America, Lilia’s parents, who are from India, scourge the university directory in search of people having ‘surnames familiar to their part of the world’ and invite them to their home. They live in Western society and have Western acquaintances but as social beings they still find something amiss unless they interact with people from ‘their part of the world’. So they invite Mr. Pirzada who funnily enough is neither of their faith nor of their nationality. Mr. Pirzada is a Muslim and belongs to East Pakistan at a time when it is in the throes of giving birth to Bangladesh.

The relationship between Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s parents is a friendly one. Mr. Pirzada comes to dine at their house and they talk about the safety of his wife and daughters in his turmoil stricken homeland. The family accompanies Mr. Pirzada in following the news on television and sharing his anxiety about the impending war. At her school, the ten years old Lilia observes that no one talks about the war and when Lilia found a book on Pakistan in the library she was told by her teacher, Mrs. Kenyon, that since the book was not part of her report she saw ‘no reason to consult it’. Lilia, the second generation NRI, will become well-versed in American history but she cannot have a shared history with her American friend Dora. Lilia can adopt Dora’s customs and become her trick-or-treating partner on Halloween and can have jack-o-lantern made of pumpkins hung in front of her house but it would take generations before they could have a common culture and history to some extent. Therein lies the difference between the interactions that Lilia and her parents have with Dora and her parents compared to the interactions they have with Mr. Pirzada. The one is of shared society the other is of shared history.

If in the story of Mr. Pirzada as an Eastern character is central, the story Sexy has a central Midwestern character. It is Miranda, who is having an affair with a married Bengali NRI called Dev. The story starts with Miranda’s friend Laxmi telling her that her cousin’s husband has fallen in love with another woman. Miranda is quite unaffected by the story of Laxmi’s cousin until the day she baby-sits Laxmi’s cousin’s son, Rohin. When Rohin insists that she wear her newly bought cocktail dress, which she never hoped to wear and go to a romantic outing with Dev, she wears it. Rohin remarks, ‘You’re sexy’. On being cajoled by her to say what it meant the boy says,

It means loving someone you don’t know…

It is then that Miranda imagines how Rohin must have overheard the quarrels between his parents and then as Rohin falls asleep she cries. The little innocent conversation with Rohin makes her feel like an outsider in the company of Laxmi, Rohin or Dev as much as they consider Rohin’s father’s mistress an outsider. It is this realization that brings about a painless end to her affair. Quite unawares and through unexpected quarters the NRIs through their social relationships and interactions contribute to the Western society as much as they adopt from it. This in the long run indicates towards the growth of a common culture.

Adoption and acceptance are the keywords; and these should not be concocted to mean getting Westernized or Indianized. The real aim is to humanize. The short story This Blessed House is a good example of the humanizing influence of two differing cultures. Sanjeev, engineering professional from MIT, is a methodical sort of person and on the other hand his wife Tanima is quite a whimsical character. When Sanjeev buys an elegant house and gives a housewarming party for his office acquaintances he finds that it is his wife who is hogging the limelight in the social gathering which makes him feel like an outsider in his own house among his acquaintances. Sanjeev has well adjusted himself in Western society and could never have imagined himself in such a situation. Douglas and Nora are the first guests to arrive and when Sanjeev introduces Tanima to them she says, ‘Call me Twinkle’. The conversation that follows shows Tanima’s naïve self and it is this simplicity allied with her zeal to collect the Christian relics left in their house by its previous occupants that make her gel in a new society. Soon she is found to lead all the guests in her relic hunt into the attic and Sanjeev finds himself alone near the winding staircase. The NRIs and Westerners gathered in Sanjeev’s house under the humanising influence of his wife have become one.

The affinity between people differing culturally and historically is because they are all victims of exile- a human condition. The stories Mrs. Sen’s and The Third and Final Continent are studies in that sphere. If the NRI narrator of The Third and Final Continent finds himself ‘bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept’, his 103 years old landlady, Mrs. Croft is as much an outsider in her own country as he is in a foreign country. Through their interactions it becomes evident that how inconceivable it is for the lady born in 1866 that there is ‘an American flag on the moon’. Mrs. Croft has not traveled any mile; it is the world that has left her behind in exile. Yet it is not only displacement of time and place that brings about a sense of loneliness as is depicted in the character of little Eliot in the story Mrs. Sen’s.

Mrs. Sen baby-sits eleven years old Eliot in her apartment to dispel her loneliness. Mrs. Sen is not exactly a social outsider in Boston but little things like her inability to drive and her use of a word like ‘driver’ for ‘chauffeur’ in conversation with Eliot’s mother gives her a sense of non-belonging. But in her interactions with Eliot it dawns that Eliot infact suffers from a greater loneliness especially when Mrs. Sen tells him about her home in India:

The focus shifts to Eliot whose mother works in an office ‘fifty miles north’, whose father lives ‘two thousand miles west’ and who everyday after school comes home to a vacant beach house that is both literally and figuratively cold compared to the warmth of Mrs. Sen’s apartment. When Mrs. Sen tells Eliot about a letter she got from her family,

she suddenly realises about Eliot’s condition,

Do you miss your mother, Eliot, these afternoons with me?

It is through these little moments of epiphany in their interactions that diverse characters like Mrs. Das, Miranda, Mrs. Croft and Mrs. Sen show how in their differing social relationships they certainly have a similarity- the sense of being in exile.