POST-COLONIAL DILEMMAS IN THE NOVELS OF JHUMPA LAHIRI

The Namesake is about this perpetual dilemma faced by immigrants in the form of Ashima , Ashok Ganguli as they struggle to maintain their identities while trying to shake them off at the same time. The first generation's story was about adaptation, learning, culturing, and discovering new things about themselves. The second generation of Gogol, Sonia… find itself presented with two conflicting realities and cultures and sets of expectations - one of the host countries through the socio-cultural surroundings and the other of the home country through their parents. Her next novel The Lowland is the most ambitious book, in which she moves out of her comfort zone- the academic world of New England and plunges into a controversial chapter of recent Indian history- the Naxalite movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Lahiri has broadened her novel begins in the land left behind-0 Bengal-during the turbulent decades when Naxalites destabilized the state. The Lowland starts with snippets of the shared life experiences of two teenage brothers Subhash and Udayan. Born fifteen months apart, these children of Bengali parents settled in Calcutta are immensely friendly with each other.