|
GaramChai.com
>>
Success
>>
Jhumpa Lahiri ...
Who
doesn't like to hear about Indians who have made it big in
life due to sheer grit, determination and hard work on their
part? Since our main focus is on Indians in the US, we are
presenting a special feature on Indian Success Stories in
the US from February 2000 onwards. We hope that these stories
would inspire many of you to climb higher mountains
in life. If you would like to contribute to this section,
please e-mail to us at webmaster@garamchai.com
// Click
here for Success Stories Archives
About
Jhumpa
// My
Two Lives // Links
Jhumpa
Lahiri - Interpreter of Immigrant Life 
She
is London-born, raised in America and looks for inspiration
to Calcutta.Toasted by critics across the globe, Jhumpa Lahiri
knows that she has finally arrived.Lahiri's debut work, Interpreter
of Maladies which is a collection of nine short
stories,chronicling the immigrant experience in the U.S, has
left readers craving for more from this gifted writer.
Her
writing is smooth -flowing and gentle .The stories are "on-the-face"
direct and embrace you in their warm folds without you even
being aware of it.Lahiri has helped in throwing clearer light
on an Indian's perspective of life in an alien land.However,the
book doesn't reek of ethnocentricity - it has a universal
flavor and appeal that an immigrant from any corner of the
world would be able to relate to.
Her
style is simple yet smart,sparing in words yet divinely eloquent,weaving
visual images for the reader in a startlingly realistic manner.What
is remarkable about Lahiri is that although she has never
been an immigrant,she is able to step into the latter's shoes
without a stumble or a shoe-bite.Call it uncanny or intuitive
but one can't ignore the fact that this lady has a gift for
tucking away memories and observations in the back of the
beyond of her literary mind and churning them into a mixture
of sensitive and thought-provoking stories.
About
Jhumpa
Now
37, Jhumpa drew inspiration for her writing from her frequent
visits to Calcutta in the formative years of her childhood
and also from the observations that she made about her immigrant
Bengali parents' Indian friends in the U.S.
Her
varied experiences in Calcutta, enabled Lahiri to form closer
ties with India and the country's rich cultural heritage while
simultaneously coping with the pressures of everyday American
life. Perhaps this exposure to both the cultures - Indian
and American is what assisted Lahiri to tread through cross-cultural
currents with amazing ease in her book Interpreter of Maladies.
The
path taken:
Jhumpa
Lahiri defined her dreams to become a writer after she enrolled
in a writing program.The path to success was intially riddled
with obstacles.Her graduate application was rejected by several
schools and Lahiri was left debating about her next move.Not
the one to give up,she succeeded in gaining acceptance into
a creative writing program in Boston University and then went
onto join a PhD program.
Lahiri’s
creative juices were flowing as she pursued higher studies.
She continued to submit stories for literary magazines although
she didn't have a clue as to how to sell her work.Opportunity
presented itself to her in the form of a fellowship into the
Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Things
started rolling from there.She found an agent ,sold her work
and had a story published in The New Yorker. "I've been
extremely lucky. It's been the happiest possible ending.",Lahiri
says. That paved the way for greater things to come for Jhumpa.Her
award-winning work Interpreter of Maladies came out in early
1999 before which three of her stories appeared in The New
Yorker.
The
Rewards of Success:
- Jhumpa Lahiri
has been named by The New Yorker as one of the "20
best young fiction writers in America under the age of 40".
- Interpreter
of Maladies has been selected for the O.Henry award and
the Best American Short Stories.
- Lahiri is
the recipient of the Tranatlantic Review Award from Henfield
Foundation.
- Lahiri is
also a recipient of the Fiction Prize from the Louisville
Review.
Lahiri
is halfway through her second novel, details of which are
under cover now.She plans on continuing penning short stories
alongside larger projects.We wish this promising young writer
of contemporary fiction the best of luck in her future endeavors
and hope that her next novel will enthrall us as much as her
first one did.
Jhumpa
with writer Marina Budhos,in a meeting organized by Diasporadics
& SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association)at Maharaja
Restaurant in Manhattan.Marina Budhos is the author of the
recently published novel,The Professor of Light.
The
cover of Interpreter of Maladies
My
Two Lives
The Pulitzer-winning
writer felt intense pressure to be at once 'loyal to the old
world and fluent in the new.' By
Jhumpa Lahiri, Newsweek
March 6, 2006
issue - I have lived in the United States for almost 37 years
and anticipate growing old in this country. Therefore, with
the exception of my first two years in London, "Indian-American"
has been a constant way to describe me. Less constant is my
relationship to the term. When I was growing up in Rhode Island
in the 1970s I felt neither Indian nor American. Like many
immigrant offspring I felt intense pressure to be two things,
loyal to the old world and fluent in the new, approved of
on either side of the hyphen. Looking back, I see that this
was generally the case. But my perception as a young girl
was that I fell short at both ends, shuttling between two
dimensions that had nothing to do with one another.
At home I followed
the customs of my parents, speaking Bengali and eating rice
and dal with my fingers. These ordinary facts seemed part
of a secret, utterly alien way of life, and I took pains to
hide them from my American friends. For my parents, home was
not our house in Rhode Island but Calcutta, where they were
raised. I was aware that the things they lived for—the Nazrul
songs they listened to on the reel-to-reel, the family they
missed, the clothes my mother wore that were not available
in any store in any mall—were at once as precious and as worthless
as an outmoded currency.
I also entered
a world my parents had little knowledge or control of: school,
books, music, television, things that seeped in and became
a fundamental aspect of who I am. I spoke English without
an accent, comprehending the language in a way my parents
still do not. And yet there was evidence that I was not entirely
American. In addition to my distinguishing name and looks,
I did not attend Sunday school, did not know how to ice-skate,
and disappeared to India for months at a time. Many of these
friends proudly called themselves Irish-American or Italian-American.
But they were several generations removed from the frequently
humiliating process of immigration, so that the ethnic roots
they claimed had descended underground whereas mine were still
tangled and green. According to my parents I was not American,
nor would I ever be no matter how hard I tried. I felt doomed
by their pronouncement, misunderstood and gradually defiant.
In spite of the first lessons of arithmetic, one plus one
did not equal two but zero, my conflicting selves always canceling
each other out.
When I first
started writing I was not conscious that my subject was the
Indian-American experience. What drew me to my craft was the
desire to force the two worlds I occupied to mingle on the
page as I was not brave enough, or mature enough, to allow
in life. My first book was published in 1999, and around then,
on the cusp of a new century, the term "Indian-American" has
become part of this country's vocabulary. I've heard it so
often that these days, if asked about my background, I use
the term myself, pleasantly surprised that I do not have to
explain further. What a difference from my early life, when
there was no such way to describe me, when the most I could
do was to clumsily and ineffectually explain.
As I approach
middle age, one plus one equals two, both in my work and in
my daily existence. The traditions on either side of the hyphen
dwell in me like siblings, still occasionally sparring, one
outshining the other depending on the day. But like siblings
they are intimately familiar with one another, forgiving and
intertwined. When my husband and I were married five years
ago in Calcutta we invited friends who had never been to India,
and they came full of enthusiasm for a place I avoided talking
about in my childhood, fearful of what people might say. Around
non-Indian friends, I no longer feel compelled to hide the
fact that I speak another language. I speak Bengali to my
children, even though I lack the proficiency to teach them
to read or write the language. As a child I sought perfection
and so denied myself the claim to any identity. As an adult
I accept that a bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect
thing.
While
I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this
country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals.
I feel Indian not because of the time I've spent in India
or because of my genetic composition but rather because of
my parents' steadfast presence in my life. They live three
hours from my home; I speak to them daily and see them about
once a month. Everything will change once they die. They will
take certain things with them—conversations in another tongue,
and perceptions about the difficulties of being foreign. Without
them, the back-and-forth life my family leads, both literally
and figuratively, will at last approach stillness. An anchor
will drop, and a line of connection will be severed.
I
have always believed that I lack the authority my parents bring
to being Indian. But as long as they live they protect me from
feeling like an impostor. Their passing will mark not only the
loss of the people who created me but the loss of a singular
way of life, a singular struggle. The immigrant's journey, no
matter how ultimately rewarding, is founded on departure and
deprivation, but it secures for the subsequent generation a
sense of arrival and advantage. I can see a day coming when
my American side, lacking the counterpoint India has until now
maintained, begins to gain ascendancy and weight. It is in fiction
that I will continue to interpret the term "Indian-American,"
calculating that shifting equation, whatever answers it may
yield. © 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
Biographies:
Misc.:
|
