Conceptualizing ‘Transnational Homes’ In Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine” and “Mrs. Sen’s”

One of the diasporic writers, who carry exceptionally genuine Indian feelings abroad, is Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri’s first book, a collection of nine stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was published in 1999. Her writings are described as “diaspora fiction” by many Indian scholars and was named “immigrant fiction” by American critics. Thus, it can be said that Lahiri’s fiction is a unique addition to the existing Asian-American Literature. This study examines the sense of home in Lahiri’s fiction from different perspectives in relation to human relationships and to the sense of place. A focus on the varigated meanings of “home” enables us to examine questions which are concerned with the human, social and personal costs of displacement and dispossession. Thus, this paper attempts to highlight important issues relevant to the human relationship with home, and to examine the ways in which the idea of home is present or absent in the stories analyzed. It poses several questions: What is the difference between the literal and the metaphorical sense of home? How does making a physical surrounding “home-like” help immigrants? And how can an immigrant turn a house into a home? These questions will be examined through an analysis of Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine”, and “Mrs. Sen’s”. In conclusion, the paper aims to assess whether Jhumpa Lahiri succeeded in conceptualizing the sense of home in diverse ways and to what extent she managed to allow her readers to understand psychological and physical senses of home in relation to everyday life.