I know that I said in a previous post that my favorite book that we read for this class was Self Help by Lorrie Moore, but now coming up on the end of the semester, I would have to say that my favorite book was Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. While I thoroughly enjoyed the second person point of view that Moore used, something about the simplicity of which Lahiri wrote drew me into the stories.
I also felt as though I could relate more to the stories Lahiri wrote. Even though I was born in this country — I even admit that I have never even been to India — I could relate to the struggle of balancing between American and Indian culture that was presented in some of these stories.
The first story that comes to mind when I think of this struggle is "A Blessed House." In the story, Twinkle finds these Christian posters and statues all over the house. Twinkle wants to put them on display, however Sanjeev doesn't. While I agree with the point brought up in class about how the little statues don't really matter that much, I can see where Sanjeev is coming from. The specific detail that made me sympathize with his point of view was when we were told that it was the first thing that you see when you enter the house.
When I read this, I thought about my own home. If you enter through the main door, you will see two statues of Indian gods, and if you walk through our house, you will see decorations that my parents brought from their hometowns in Africa. A home is a reflection of yourself. I could tell throughout the story that Sanjeev seems more tied to his culture than Twinkle did. One details that really solidified this conclusion was that when Sanjeev goes to introduced Twinkle he uses her real name, Tanima, she immediately tells them to call her Twinkle. I saw this as an attempt for her to separate herself from the Indian culture and become more Americanized. The two seem to be connected to their culture in different ways and because of this I could see why Sanjeev didn't want the statue to be front and center. I can see Sanjeev wanting to stay connected to his roots and his culture.
We never hear Sanjeev's reason for not wanting the statues, posters, etc. around the house. This is my justification for his reasoning. What do you think his reasons were?
