Memory, Desire and Alienation: Diaspora Issues in Rohinton Mistry’s “Swimming Lessons”

Abstract

Diaspora authors are disparate, but project some common themes in their works. In delineating the realities of diaspora people they use their first hand knowledge of migration and relocation. The diaspora people are constantly shaken by two opposite pulls—that of the past coming from the nostalgic yearning for the lost homeland and that of the present born out of the newly adopted life. In fact, they live an in-between life, constantly subverting their national identity by hybridity and hyphenated identity. Among the diaspora authors from Indian Parsi background, Rohinton Mistry has adequately dealt with the various realities of migration. Even amid the upheavals of migrations, Mistry has been sharply recalling his city of birth and youth and has provided a fine blend of fiction and autobiography through recreating his lifelike situations in his fiction. His first commendable work of fiction, Tales from Firozshh Baag (1987), is spread with such examples, though he has refuted to have any deliberate intention at adding autobiographical elements to his fiction. “Swimming Lessons”, an important story in that collection, well exhibits his employment of autobiographical elements through the means of memory. The present paper seeks to explore the author’s engagement in the diaspora issues, especially the tendency to indulge in memory of the native land, within the short span of this very story.