Saga of Inner and Outer Racial Turmoil of Migrants in the Vein of Postcolonial Studies in the Selected Works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Kamala Markandaya

Abstract

The present paper is an effort to understand the conflict of racial prejudice before the first as well as the second generation of Indian Diaspora with special reference to The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and The Nowhere Man by Kamala Markandaya. This paper explores the sufferings and pains of Indian migrants to the different nations of the world. The Indian diasporic writers have explored the psychological insights of migrants in their works. This study is about racial turmoil of migrants’ identity in post colonial context as reflected in the works of the selected writers. The primary data in this study is The Namesake novel and The Nowhere Man novel and the secondary data source is other material related to these novels. Jhumpa Lahiri and Kamala Markandaya’s characters are aliens, rootless, outsiders from society and prone to racial prejudice. The search for identity, racism, sense of belongingness, nostalgia for nativity, aimless wandering, search for assimilation and alienation are the common-place themes in modern diasporic fiction.