I was introduced to Jhumpa Lahiri through her Pulitzer and then the book that brought her one. Although I was never into English fiction at that time (I still prefer English non-fiction over fiction), out of my awe and pride in a Bengali woman who is set out to win humongous respect through a few short stories, I made it a point to spend a few hundred bucks for her "Interpreter of Maladies" for one post-exam break, and I swear both of us sharing the same first name did not play any bias in this decision (believe me, few hundred was a lot for my book-budget). I still remember the feeling of being introduced to an alien land and alien's life that I had after reading those stories, leave alone my inability to connect to them.
About 8 or 10 years down the line, when I live in the same country that she wrote about for past four and a half years, and still lead a life that is no way close to the immigrants she portrayed, I can connect to her beyond just understanding the jargon and phrases scattered in her writing that pertained very much to American immigrants' lives. In a bright, placid day like today, just before welcoming another spring in desperation of defying the place I live in and identifying the place I belong to, I set my hands on her post in The Newyorker.
She has a lucid, natural tempo - like an easy-flowing music. But beyond her writing, I could identify myself with her struggle first as a person, then as a person with knack for writing but eluded due to confusion and doubts. Just how she was suffering to find a life that is ordinary and normal, and not crafted with the cultural confusion and insecurity, I had been suffering to find an identity out of the plain life I have. My upbringing, the austere culture, the lack of confusion, the insecurity in something that is so certain as you cannot identify with it have chased me away from every place that I thought I could possibly posses and belong to. I am living a life that is just there because I am given one, and whether or not I see my struggles, I never sought an effective resort to it. I just got so used to playing an impostor that I probably forgot myself, that I have a struggle of identity. We all do - knowlingly or unknowlingly - have a struggle for our belonging and desertion. Through that feeling today, I can identify effortlessly with another Neelanjana (or Nilanjana), that is world-famous and successful and yet so much like me.
~ ND
P.S. Something else eventually got me to read her article. That something else was latent in my mind for long, and is forming shape now discreetly, slowly, yet deeply. That something else is still just for my diary. But there will be a change, one that is bigger in sense, purpose, magnitude and effect that any I have ever had before.
About 8 or 10 years down the line, when I live in the same country that she wrote about for past four and a half years, and still lead a life that is no way close to the immigrants she portrayed, I can connect to her beyond just understanding the jargon and phrases scattered in her writing that pertained very much to American immigrants' lives. In a bright, placid day like today, just before welcoming another spring in desperation of defying the place I live in and identifying the place I belong to, I set my hands on her post in The Newyorker.
She has a lucid, natural tempo - like an easy-flowing music. But beyond her writing, I could identify myself with her struggle first as a person, then as a person with knack for writing but eluded due to confusion and doubts. Just how she was suffering to find a life that is ordinary and normal, and not crafted with the cultural confusion and insecurity, I had been suffering to find an identity out of the plain life I have. My upbringing, the austere culture, the lack of confusion, the insecurity in something that is so certain as you cannot identify with it have chased me away from every place that I thought I could possibly posses and belong to. I am living a life that is just there because I am given one, and whether or not I see my struggles, I never sought an effective resort to it. I just got so used to playing an impostor that I probably forgot myself, that I have a struggle of identity. We all do - knowlingly or unknowlingly - have a struggle for our belonging and desertion. Through that feeling today, I can identify effortlessly with another Neelanjana (or Nilanjana), that is world-famous and successful and yet so much like me.
~ ND
P.S. Something else eventually got me to read her article. That something else was latent in my mind for long, and is forming shape now discreetly, slowly, yet deeply. That something else is still just for my diary. But there will be a change, one that is bigger in sense, purpose, magnitude and effect that any I have ever had before.
No comments:
Post a Comment