Nostalgic Feelings and Adherence to National Identity in Diasporic Writers

Abstract

The present research paper explores the concept of ‘Diaspora’ regarding the nostalgia or the feelings of homesickness while living abroad. The concept of ‘Diaspora’ emerged in 1990 and it is as old as post-colonial Theory. It has been prevalent since the 3rd century B.C. and was first used in Hebrew Scriptures in Alexandaria to describe the Jews away from their homeland. Thus, diaspora had a purely religious connotation. Later in the 16th century A.D., the term was applied to the Africans who were exported to new lands in order to populate as well to serve as bonded labourers. Analysing the word ‘Diaspora’, there comes two morphemes – ‘Dias’ which means ‘cross’ and ‘pora’ which means to sow seeds. The definition of a true diaspora as ‘One who, for a long period of time, has been separated from his home land (Birth place) to his karm bhumi (work place) which is not his chitt bhumi (place of mind). Now the question arises, who is a diaspora? Diasporic are people who have a land but no home. In the works of diasporic writers, we look for pains of separation, the karun rasa when one hankers for one’s home but there is a helplessness of coming back. The research paper proposes to establish how the diasporic writers have to adhere to their national identity. This has clearly been illustrated and supported from Sujata Bhatt’s poem ‘Going to Ahmedabad’, Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Family Matters’ and Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘The Namesake’.