Grappling the Invisible Roots, Nostalgia, Identity, Home and Nation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: An Interpretation of Imagery and Symbolism

Abstract

Mass immigration is now a part and parcel of globalization in the post-colonial era due existential as well as non -existential reasons. Some migrate for uplifting their economic conditions while some others for intellectual pursuits; in any case this has now become the way of the world and the accepted norm in the present times. On the one hand it has given a booster to man’s living and luxury on the other it has mushroomed a plenty of allied strife’s and struggles in the migrants’ lives like they cross geographical borders to create new history. In the bargain they are forced to embrace the new challenges like loss of identity, cultural dilemma, a constant yearning to search for the invisible and imaginary roots unwillingly. Many diasporic writers have discussed these problems; Jhumpa Lahiri, a second-generation immigrant has dealt with the same in greater depths.