Portrait of salad bowl immigrants in the short fiction of Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

People living all over the world belong to different religions, follow different cultures and speak different languages. They have to adapt themselves to the changing situations and places lest they should experience untold sufferings. Life throws all a lot of challenges, both simple and complicated, and it is up to all to rise and perform, take decisions that can be sometimes satisfying, and sometimes disturbing, and walk through it as if none were affected by it. It is not an easy thing to do. Life is not a bed of roses to live easily as well as it is not a bed of thorns also. It is a two sides’ coin. An admiring author, Lahiri belongs to Indian origin, born in London, frequent visit to Calcutta, grew up in Rhode Island, studied later married in New York, shifted to Italy, at present as a Professor in New Jersey. Hence, she has faced a lot of problems as an immigrant which she tries to express in her work. Her immigrants are the examples for both Melting Pot and Salad bowl associated spirits like seasonal beings. She is the great observer of versatile genius of analyzing various cultures.