Diaspora, Alienation, and Loss Theme Analysis

Lilia, the narrator of “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” grows up in a suburb of Boston. At school, she is taught exclusively American history and traditions, but at home, Lilia’s parents—who emigrated from Calcutta—try to educate her about the food, neighborly traditions, and family members they left behind in India. Lilia’s curiosity about her cultural roots increases when she meets Mr. Pirzada, a man from East Pakistan (now known as Bangladesh) who begins coming to Lilia’s home most nights for dinner. And when the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 breaks out, causing Mr. Pirzada to fear for his wife and daughters’ lives, Lilia starts to realize how painful it is to be disconnected from one’s homeland and to be caught between two cultures. As Lilia and Mr. Pirzada each struggle with the distance between the U.S. and South Asia, the story suggests that although living in diaspora might bring new opportunities and exciting cultural exchange, it also means accepting feelings of alienation as well as a certain measure of cultural and personal loss.

Unlike most of the people she knows, Lilia has dual cultural knowledge: at school she learns about the country she lives in, and at home she learns about the region her parents left behind. At school, Lilia is given map quizzes on the Thirteen Colonies that would become the first U.S. states. At home, on the other hand, she has “a map of the world taped to the wall,” with lines drawn on it to mark her parents’ travels in South Asia. These two types of maps signify the difference between Lilia’s two worlds: her world at school focuses on only a narrow sliver of the U.S., while her world at home is more global, with a focus on the Indian subcontinent. The difference between these two maps emphasizes the fact that Lilia inhabits two distinct cultures, giving her a more diverse perspective of the world than her peers. And because of her dual worlds, Lilia understands things that the other people in her life do not. For example, when Mr. Pirzada sees pumpkins on stoops around Halloween, he does not know what to make of it. So, Lilia explains jack-o’-lanterns to him, and she even shows him how to carve one, “like others [she] had noticed in the neighborhood.” Because she has been raised in this American suburb, Lilia is able to pick up on “neighborhood” knowledge and customs that her parents and Mr. Pirzada sometimes struggle to make sense of. Similarly, while the TV news is always on at Lilia’s house, Lilia is surprised to find that this is not the case for many of her classmates—her friend Dora’s family, for instance, keeps their television turned off. Since TV is how Lilia and her family learn about what is happening in other parts of the world, the lack of TV playing at Dora’s house signals that Lilia has a deeper understanding of global events than her peers do.

However, as Lilia becomes increasingly close to Mr. Pirzada—and as the violence in East Pakistan escalates—she begins to feel that she does not fully belong either among white Americans or among South Asian immigrants. One example of Lilia feeling alienated in her predominately white community is when she and Dora go trick-or-treating, and they both dress as witches—prompting many of Lilia’s neighbors to comment that “they had never seen an Indian witch before.” Lilia is excited to participate in Halloween traditions, but the people in her suburb make her feel that she is somehow abnormal because of her ethnicity, even though she and Dora are dressed the same and doing the exact same thing. Lilia sometimes feels alienated in her family, too. Though Lilia adores Mr. Pirzada, his “ease” with her parents makes her feel like “a stranger in [her] own home.” Lilia’s parents and Mr. Pirzada have a firsthand understanding of South Asian culture, geography, and politics that Lilia, by virtue of growing up in the United States, does not possess. In fact, Lilia’s father often worries that she is not getting the education she needs. “What does she learn about the world?” he presses. And as the conflict in East Pakistan worsens, Lilia increasingly feels her lack of knowledge, as she is unable to participate in the adults’ conversations—or to understand the “single fear” that they all seem to share for their loved ones on the other side of the world.

Even more painfully, Lilia comes to realize that living in diaspora often means being separated from loved ones and cultural heritage. Lilia sees that Mr. Pirzada, though he comes over every night, is never fully present with her family: “our meals, our actions, [are] only a shadow of what had already happened [in Dacca], a lagging ghost of where Mr. Pirzada really belonged.” Separated from his wife and daughters—and unable even to contact them—his real life is happening thousands of miles away, without him. Just as Lilia feels caught between worlds, then, Mr. Pirzada also struggles to “belong”—suggesting that there is a measure of isolation inherent in the experience of diaspora. When Mr. Pirzada leaves, Lilia is then forced to experience the pain of separation firsthand—only then does she know “what it mean[s] to miss someone who [is] so many miles and hours away, just as he had missed his wife and daughters for so many months.” Lilia realizes here that her feelings of loss are not unique, as they are shared by anyone who has loved ones a great “many miles” away. Moreover, Lilia’s use of the phrase “hours away” suggests that the challenge of diaspora is not just spatial but temporal—she is also separated from her family’s ancestors and history (she mentions, for example, a grandmother she never knew). Thus, even as Lilia’s experience of diaspora is largely an exciting and educational one, she comes to understand that living between two worlds also entails feelings of isolation and loss.