The word, ‘diaspora’, is derived from Greek – dia-speirein, which means to scatter through. The Indian diaspora can be defined exactly in the aforementioned words. The Indian diaspora is a product of the scattering of the population from the sub-continent over a period of time: from the indentured labourers of the past to the IT technocrats of the present day. It has never been an exodus for that would entail a mass-migration at a particular point of time. Instead it has been a sporadic immigration for a long time and is in perpetual continuance. It is the ever-changing and ever-growing nature of the Indian diasporic community that gives it its uniqueness. Any emigrant gets automatically inducted into the community and helps in raising it without even getting actively involved in its growth. Loneliness, or rather the sense of loneliness, arises from the passivity inherent in such a condition. Even if an emigrant gets actively involved with the diasporic Indian community it simultaneously alienates the said emigrant from the newly acquired nationality due to counter influence of ethnocentrism. To put it simply, the matter is complex. The hegemonic Indian, on becoming a non-resident Indian, gains a new nationality but at the same time also acquires the status of an ethnic minority in the new land of abode. This conundrum gives rise to a crisis of identity, which in turn brings in the sense of non-belonging that makes diasporic life lonely even in the middle of society.

The real question that demands an even more complex answer arises when the lives of second generation non-resident Indians are considered as part of the Indian diaspora. The second generation NRIs are in a dilemmatic position: they have by birth one nationality but by ancestry they can identify themselves with their ethnic origin also. Even if they have little emotional investment in the country of their parents’ origin they cannot deny the fact that their identity is acquired due to their immediate ancestors’ immigration to the New World and the traits they have inherited give them also an ethnic identity. It is this state of duality – when the mind is undecided about one’s place of belonging – that has the germ of loneliness. The sense of rootlessness begets the sense of loneliness. It is as if the sense of loneliness itself is inherited by the second generation NRIs from their former generation. In the introductory essay to the book, Theorizing Diaspora, Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur give a beautiful analogy that befits the NRI perfectly:

reconcile oneself to the fact that the want cannot be fulfilled, that brings about the sense of loneliness. The Indian diaspora, unlike some other diasporic communities, never harboured any hostile feelings towards their country of origin, hence their longing is acute and so is their loneliness. It is an innate human instinct to identify oneself with one’s root and in catering to this basic need events like ‘Prabasi Bharatiya Diwas’, observed on 9^th January to mark Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa, are held. But, despite giving a consolation, they accentuate the sense of loneliness for those who know that they cannot possibly return - that is to say, return for good.

No doubt, diasporic life is predominantly lonely but not in the conventional sense of the term implying solitariness: diasporic life exhibits solitude in the middle of society. Theoretical consideration of the issue raises a mountain of terminology to climb upon, but from a literary artist’s point of view there appears enough props to uphold the edifice of this theory. Jhumpa Lahiri has done commendable exploration in this field through both the mediums of the short stories and the novel. She has sought out loneliness as an inherent part of exile and has raised it top a universal high. Lahiri’s NRI characters are relieved when they adjust themselves to the New World but they also regret the separation from their original cultures. The world as a global village facilitate people coming from differing cultures to assimilate in new surroundings but social and even cultural assimilation does not mean that there will not be a sense of loneliness. It is the evocation of solitude in the middle of society that gives a distinctive quality to Lahiri’s characters in both, her collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, and her novel, The Namesake.

Mrs. Sen and Ashima Ganguli, among various diasporic characters of Jhumpa Lahiri, come to the forefront as victims of loneliness. Mrs. Sen, from the short story, Mrs. Sen’s, is the wife of a mathematics professor and she lives alone in the university apartment while her husband is at the university. So she decides to baby-sit eleven years old Eliot at her apartment. It is in relation to Eliot’s loneliness that Mrs. Sen’s acute sense of loneliness comes forward. Eliot is lonely because he lives alone with his mother who works in an office and comes back only at night. After school he spends his time alone in the beach house because there is no one nearby to befriend. That is until he starts going to Mrs. Sen’s. Everyday Eliot sees Mrs. Sen busy with her cooking, and in Eliot, Mrs. Sen finds a ready audience. Gradually it dawns that Mrs. Sen keeps herself busy by cooking and talking just to ward off her loneliness:

Then again:

"Eliot, If I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?"

And again while practising driving:

It is Mrs. Sen’s naivete allied with her longing for ‘home’ [that is India] that makes the reader feel for her. Later, when Mrs. Sen realizes how lonely Eliot must be, she acknowledges that Eliot is better prepared to tackle loneliness from a tender age.

Jhumpa Lahiri evokes Mrs. Sen’s loneliness not when she is alone but when she is with Eliot. She does this to show that Mrs. Sen’s loneliness is not exactly solitariness but something more. It is a manifestation of her inner emotional needs and hence cannot be corrected by external modifications in terms of society or surrounding in a foreign country. Mrs. Sen lives in America but sustains herself on the remnants of the life she left behind in India – cooking Indian food, getting lost in letters that came from India, buying a whole fish to cook, and even not knowing how to drive.

Ashima Ganguli, from the novel, The Namesake, is also as lonely as Mrs. Sen. Like Mrs. Sen she keeps herself busy by cooking Indian meals. She often throws parties on various occasions for the enormous circle of Bengali acquaintances from in and around Boston. But despite having a society whose members are of her ilk, Lahiri evokes a gnawing sense of loneliness in Ashima Ganguli. At first Ashima is lonely because she ‘does not want to raise Gogol alone in this country’. But when she starts taking the child Gogol out to buy things from the supermarket ‘she is repeatedly stopped on the street, and in the aisles of the supermarket, by perfect strangers, all Americans, suddenly taking notice of her, smiling, congratulating her for what she’s done.’ Ashima’s loneliness is averted for the time being in looking after Gogol until they move to the suburbs:

Ashima had somehow felt connected with Cambridge, albeit superficially, after the incident where she forgot her shopping bags in the subway train but everything was retrieved by her husband, Ashoke, the next day from the lost and found department. Her Bengali friends said that such a ‘miracle’ can take place ‘only in this country’. But in the suburbs Ashima feels her condition of being a foreigner as a

Ashima’s loneliness is compounded when Gogol and Sonia grow up and start living away from home either for study or work. Ashima had kept herself busy with her children – inviting guests at their rice ceremony, at their birthdays and so on. But without her children to care for she feels a vacancy in her world and so she employs herself in a library. The real crisis arises when Ashoke has to go to Ohio on a nine months’ research grant. Ashima then has to live surrounded by a security system instead of her family. Even mock busyness cannot prevent her from succumbing to loneliness. She spends her time addressing Christmas cards, re-reading her parents’ letters and crying over them, and at nights double-checking ‘all the window locks, making sure that they were fastened tightly’.

Definitely they all feel the sense of solitude despite being in the circle of their friends and acquaintances but except for Ashima, they ‘claim not to mind’. When Ashoke dies in Ohio, Ashima makes a profound statement:

Ashima’s loneliness comes out in the straightforward narration through the whole length of the novel, whereas Ashoke’s loneliness is evoked indirectly through suggestive incidents. When Ashima is pregnant with Gogol, Ashoke is on his own, as well as he has to take care of his wife, and when Ashima is pregnant with Sonia, he has to take care of little Gogol also. Ashoke does not mind doing these things, but he would have been pleased to share his burden and happiness with relatives. In fact Ashoke’s death, far away from family, friends and home in a hospital where he himself drove to alone, seems like an indictment on the life he chose to live as an immigrant. He dies lonely because he chose to live with a sense of loneliness.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories are filled with suggestive incidents where the diasporic character’s sense of loneliness comes out to the fore. In the short story, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, Lilia’s parents invite Mr. Pirzada, a stranger from the university, to share their meals with. Lilia’s parents harbour a sense of loneliness because in New England the ‘supermarket did not carry mustard oil, doctors did not make house calls, neighbors never dropped by without an invitation’. To allay this loneliness is their kinship with an unknown person who is neither of their religion nor of their country but comes from ‘their part of the world’ – a world where life starts eleven hours earlier than where they live. In the short story, The Third and Final Continent, the first place rented in Boston by the narrator of the story is an apartment whose landlady was a hundred and three years old woman, Mrs. Croft, who lived there alone. Lahiri makes the narrator feel connected with Mrs. Croft because in America ‘hers was the first life I [the narrator] had admired’. Mrs. Croft and the narrator shared something common: the sense of loneliness – though Mrs. Croft’s loneliness had a physical manifestation and the narrator’s an emotional one.

Shoba and Shukumar’s loneliness has a physical manifestation in the short story, A Temporary Matter, because Shoba had a miscarriage and they had lost their child. Shoba’s mother stayed with them for two months after Shoba’s return from the hospital but since her departure they have become estranged. They now ‘systematically’ avoid friends as well as each other because they feel that the persons who gave them company during their happy days are inadequate companions to share their grief with - thus the inevitability of loneliness in their American lives. In comparison, Sanjeev’s loneliness crops up at a happy moment in the short story, This Blessed House. Sanjeev is hosting a housewarming party at his newly bought house for his ‘acquaintances, people from office, and a number of Indian couples in the Connecticut area, many of whom he barely knew, but who had regularly invited him, in his bachelor days, to supper on Saturdays.’ Sanjeev’s wife, Twinkle, is new to all the guests in the party but she somehow hijacks Sanjeev’s party and leads all the guests in a relic hunt into the attic of the new house that has a lot of hidden Christian paraphernalia left behind by its former occupants. Sanjeev at his moment of pride and happiness, hosting a party for his friends and colleagues, finds himself deserted, ‘alone … at the top of the winding staircase.’ Sanjeev’s acquaintances are just a crowd and hence the evocation of loneliness in their amidst.

Lahiri successfully evokes solitude in the middle of society in her diasporic characters because the society the diasporic Indian community associate themselves with is but a replacement for the society they long for. The society acts as a cover from loneliness but the cover is porous in parts and the sense of loneliness seeps in through those pores. Basically loneliness is a common factor in all diasporic lives. In the short story, Sexy, the Midwestern character, Miranda, has an affair with a marrried Bengali NRI, Dev. What brings them together is what they have in common – loneliness. Similarly in the short story, Interpreter of Maladies, Mina Das’s sexual encounter with her husband Raj’s friend happens because of loneliness.

Even in the novel, The Namesake, Gogol and Moushumi get intimate with each other more because of their loneliness than due to their parents’ machinations. No doubt the intimacy afforded by sex is a potent weapon against loneliness but it acts as a temporary shield, until the shine of newness fades off. Moushumi’s is a typical case in point. Living in three different continents since childhood, she is perennially lonely. In her fight against loneliness, she goes to Paris where she loses all her sexual inhibitions. It is here that she gets into a serious relationship with Graham but the relationship sours just before it was to culminate into marriage. She finds herself lonely again. Later she marries Gogol and when their marriage starts gathering dust - plummeting them towards boredom and loneliness - she cuckolds Gogol for Dimitri. Moushumi has learnt her lesson and she will shield herself from being a victim of loneliness further, however transient that shield may be.

Gogol and Sonia also have a sense of loneliness, but unlike their parents, they grow with it since their childhood. As children they visit India as tourists but on returning home

Gogol’s loneliness has an extra dimension because of his first name, which, except for him, no one else possibly has in this world. He does not even share his first name with his namesake. Gogol’s name gives him a unique identity and stands as a metaphor for any identity that impedes one from identifying with anything else. When Gogol is at home with his family and their Bengali acquaintances, his American identity proves to be a hindrance and makes him lonely. When he is with his American friends, his ethnic Indian identity becomes a hindrance and makes him lonely. As Gogol grows up, like Moushumi, he gets involved in a number of relationships, but unlike her, he does not become insensitive at the failure of his relationships. Even when he has a brief affair with a married woman called Bridget, he felt guilty.

Gogol’s two serious relationships with Americans involved Ruth and Maxine respectively. Both the relationships end without marriage but they proved productive in a sense that they gave him nostalgia for a different kind of life spent. Thus the relationships not only helped him to avert loneliness but in their aftermath they left behind nostalgia that prevented him from succumbing to loneliness and waste his life. Gogol’s marriage with Moushumi and her subsequent betrayal would have had a catastrophic effect on Gogol had it not been for his prior experiences of failed relationships that sustained him in the crisis. Gogol’s sense of loneliness comes to the forefront only at the end of the novel when the reader finds him sitting alone, upstairs in a room, and reading a book, which was gifted to him by his father on his fourteenth birthday, while a party goes on downstairs. Gogol reading Nikolai Gogol’s short stories alone is not more lonely than Gogol in the midst of all the guests in the party.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s evocation of loneliness is not a by-product of living in exile for the Indian diaspora. It is the general condition of the Indian diasporic community. Since independence the dispersal of Indians from the sub-continent to the English speaking countries of Europe and the Americas has taken place mainly due to economic and academic reasons. Compared with political, religious and war exiles, the aforementioned reasons for migrations are not enforced but are of choice and opportunity. These reasons give better leverage to the Indian diaspora to assimilate into their new society and culture. With time when their children grow up as products of Western socio-cultural milieu, it is then that they realize that the sacrifice they made in leaving their homeland is still taking its toll on them. The second generation on realizing their parents’ perplexity find themselves in a dilemma. It is in this tantalizing position between the lure of the West and the longing for one’s roots that has the germ that gives rise to the sense of loneliness.