Diasporic Concerns in Jhumpa Lahiri's Works
Introduction The word ‘Diaspora’ is derived from the Greek word ‘sperio’ which means to sow, to scatter and the preposition ‘dea’ means over. The term was first used in the context of the experiences and predicament of the Jews who were rendered homeless after the Babylonian conquests. The Roman general, Titus, and his army invaded Palestine, laying siege to all the cities and towns there and conquered Jerusalem in A.D 74. An estimated 1,100,000 Jews died in that conquest and thousands of additional Jews either fled from Palestine or were carried away as salves. The Oxford English Dictionary (2011) traces the etymology of the word ‘Diaspora’ back to its Greek root and to its appearance in the Old Testament. The Dictionary commences with the Judic History, mentioning only two types of dispersal: The “Jews living dispersed among the gentiles after the captivity” and “the Jewish Christians residing outside the Palestine.” The application of the concept of “diaspora” has grown by leaps and bounds in the wake of globalization, and the word has come to be used as an inclusive term which is applied as a metaphor for all displaced people- expatriates, immigrants, exiles, refugees and other ethnic minorities. Thus, today, ‘diaspora’ refers to dispersed populations that, like seeds scattered away from the parental body of the homeland, do not assimilate completely but rather manage to reproduce in new sites of settlement a social formation, a culture, and an identity that remains linked to the homelands. Gabriel Sheffer defines diaspora as a “socio-political formation, created as a result of either voluntary or forced migration, whose members regard themselves as of the same ethno-national origin and who permanently reside as minorities in one or several host countries. Members of such entities maintain regular or occasional contacts with what they regard as their homeland and with individuals and groups of the same background residing in other host
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