Essay on Comparison of "Monsson Wedding" to "Heat and Dust"

The film I have chosen is “The Namesake” by Jhumpra Lahiri. A traditional Bengali Indian family, the Ganguli’s, are moving to New England and are trying to stay engulfed in their unique cultural identity. Ashoke Ganguli brings his new wife, Ashima, to a strange new world, leaving her lonely and confused of a culture outside of her own. Ashima needs to learn to love a man she does not know, to customize herself to a country she is unfamiliar with, and to hold true to her values in a culture foreign to her traditional beliefs. In this paper I will inform the reader of the Family structure, social class on gender as well as material culture and nonmaterial culture pertaining to the Ganguli’s and how they made a place in American society. I

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is comprised of eight short stories about different Indian families’ struggles in America, many of them going through the immigrant experience. The conflicts are with friends and family, and also with themselves, as each of them attempt to find their own identity along with fitting in with the rest of society. One of the causes of these struggles that because the families in the stories are mixed in terms of generation. Many of the adults in the stories were first generation immigrants from India, while many of the children were raised in the United States, which is the second generation. This led to blending of culture and at the same time, clashes between the immigrant mentality of living and the American mentality of living. In Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri demonstrates to the reader the important influence of environment, specifically culture and how it impacts parental teachings, on the personality and development of an individuals’ identity, and how the actions and development of characters can affect one’s family and friends; the impact of environment and culture is shown especially by the characters and stories “Hell-Heaven” and “Hema and Kaushik”.

There are many notable moments in Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The Indian cultural faces many obstacles and are constantly discriminated against because of who they are. The Indian culture is looked at as poor and because of this are not given the same opportunities as others who are white. In one of the most notable moments of this novel Arnold reflects on this idea that Indians are just poor. This moment gives insight to the reader of how people in society look at those who are not the same as them.

The dominant idiom of Indian writing today is firmly entrenched in pain, anxiety of displacement, nostalgia, yearning to belong to roots, and so on. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss are two such novels that explore the tragedy of man on several levels using different perspectives. Both the novels are about averted culture-clash tragedies, homogeneity vs. heterogeneity, and about Indian sensibilities.

The heat wave of the summer of 1952, Djinda wiped her hands against her dress. Her mother would kill her, it was dirty and the pink had faded. Her feet were bare and she hurried across the burning sand toward the small house her father had built. They’d both compromised each of their cultures; her father could do whatever he wanted that involved his culture but as long as he built her mother a house. This had been before she was born; her mother had also wanted to go to the hospital for her birth but had compromised to let the women of her husband’s tribe in there with her – much to the doctor’s protests.

She hatefully turns down the white sari of widowhood and its associating paraphernalia and decides to stay single in the dangerous alien land America after her husband’s fatal demise for racial violence. She perceives in India “...widows in white saris are bowing their veiled heads, serving tea to in-laws. Doves with cut-off wings” (ibid, p. 33). She gathers her mettle, “straighten her shoulders and stand taller, take a deep breath” (ibid, p. 33) and is out for the work at the store where she rarely went before her husband’s death, instead of returning to India with her husband’s family.

Husband and wife, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, are expecting their first child who the reader later finds out is named Gogol. As the novel progresses the reader is able to discover trials and tribulations the new parents will soon face. The novel takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts although both Ashoke and Ashime are from Calcutta, India. Throughout the novel, the reader is able to see the many withdraws and emotions that Ashima endures. Firstly, Ashoke and Ashima were placed in a arranged marriage with one another, a traditional Bengali custom. Of course, Ashima has withdraws and concerns about moving to another country with someone she is not particularly familiar with. Ashima emotions are expressed and displayed through the text. In the novel,

When adapting to a new culture, many find it hard to assimilate into their new world while still holding on to their past life. Finding yourself in a new place with a new language and unfamiliar faces is challenging for immigrants. Jhumpa Lahiri, an immigrant herself, sheds some light on the Indian culture in her book, Interpreter of Maladies. She conveys many challenges that immigrants face when moving away from their homeland in a myriad of short stories. These short stories introduce similar themes of immigration and adaptation through different experiences. Two of Lahiri’s short stories, “A Temporary Matter” and “Mrs. Sens”, do a great job in showing similar challenges of cultural differences in two different ways. They introduce characters

When she throws her final festivity at her house on Pemberton Road, she takes on this new attitude towards the Bengali croquettes she prepares for the event. “Normally cooking for parties leaves her without an appetite, but tonight she looks forward to serving herself, sitting among her guests” (Lahiri 277). During Ashima’s first years in America, she attempts to host perfect Indian celebrations for her immigrant friends, spending days slaving over the preparations. She is too focused on cooking food to the exact standard of authentic Indian cuisine, an impossible goal to fulfill, leaving her unsatisfied and too preoccupied to worry about feeding herself. However, by the time Gogol and Sonia have graduated from college and Ashoke has been dead for many years, Ashima’s old life in Calcutta is far behind her, and she becomes comfortable with her new one in Boston.

A joint family always has the issue of sharing of ancestral property as the cause of family dispute. The play skillfully projects this aspect of typical Indian family. The greed of each family member rises when Tatyaji, the head of the family, dies. They accuse each other of the irresponsibility. However, the interesting fact is that the family dispute does not set them apart from each other. They still maintain love and affection for each other and do not carry any resentment for long time. Thus, Sudhir cares for his nephew Parag who is spoiled by bad company and is ready to take him to Mumbai with him. The women in the family have their own issues. Since they do not have any say in the men’s business, they tease each other for trivial matters. For example, Vahini thinks Anjali, younger sister in law in the family, as thrifty in the matter of money. Prabha (Bhaskar’s sister) stands as a typical sister in law of Vahini who interferes in the family issues when she is supposed not

Monsoon wedding”(2007), an award winning movie, directed by mira nair. Features widely known Indian actors, such as Vasundhara Das, Naseeruddin Shah and Vijay Raaz.

For my final essay I plan to write about the filmmaker Mira Nair and how she explores the theme of tradition versus modernity shown through generations. In three of her films Monsoon Wedding, Mississippi Masala and The Namesake this theme is reoccurring. In these three films Nair uses the family to show the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity especially through the different generations presented. Tradition and modernity are addressed in a verity of ways in these different films. Specifically, in Monsoon Wedding Nair discusses arranged marriage versus a love marriage, to do so she uses two couples particularly but shows a range of couples from different generations. In Mississippi Masala Jay has had a rough past with Africans leading to

Laila is lucky enough to be born into a modern Afghan family where her father pushes her to excel in school and become someone in life. She is unlike other girls in her neighborhood, because she has a desire to pursue her education instead of settling for a marriage. She falls in love with her childhood friend, Tariq, who later must leave her behind because he is forced by the dangers of the war to flee to Pakistan. Life during the war was difficult family and friends were separated in order to secure their safety. Before he leaves, Tariq impregnates Laila and after losing her parents to a rocket must marry Rasheed for the sake of her baby because women were not safe out on their own especially during war time. Stories had been told about killings and rapings so Laila settle for the safest choice. She became Rasheed’s prized possession, but when he she bore him a girl instead of a son his attitude quickly changes with her. He now despised her as much as he despised Mariam. Laila isn’t used to the beatings because her father never hit her or her mother, so when Rasheed threatens to hit Mariam she stops him creating a spark for their friendship later resulting in an unbreakable bond. Laila at

The social values and customs of nations throughout the world differ greatly from one another. When a fictional young women named Uma left America and traveled to India for a family member’s wedding, she discovered these differing customs first hand of America versus India. As she spent time exploring India, she learned more about her true roots and how they differ from her current life in America. Along the way, she developed strong opinions about the differing values of the Indian people and how they compared to those back at home. The main character, Uma, in the short story “Devadasi” by Rishi Redd, experiences examples of gender roles and cultural norms that are unexpected and seem unfair to her throughout her

In 1960s, a young beautiful western girl, a daughter of a normal couple from the underclass, is sold to an aged duke to be one of his concubine. She has a person she loves at the moment, they are childhood sweetheart; however, she has no choice to resist her parents’ decision but giving up her happiness, since her family need money to survive. She attends the wedding with desperation and hopelessness. Under the pitiless and contemptuous gaze by those guests, she realizes that there will only be darkness and endless unhappiness left in the rest of her life.