Paper Details

Displacement, alienation and dislocation are documented in many literary works and films, revolving around memories of loss. This paper has an attempt to explore the complex issues of dislocation and unstable concept of nation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dineand Tareque Masud’s film Ontarjatra which epitomize the transformative power that creative representations in literary works or films can offer with regard to a history of communal violence and anxiety. Lahiri’s short story When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dineis set against the backdrop of Bangladesh Liberation War and the diasporic viewpoint of the story traces the traumatic snapshots of partition through the perspective of Mr. Pirzada, who is in US to study foliage of New England, has his family,who are endangered by the terrible conflict in Dacca, and a second generation migrant child Lilia, who sees no difference in the arbitrary drawn line between Hindu and Muslims. Similarly, Tareque and Catherine Masud’s film titled as Ontarjatra( Inner Journey) focuses on a divorced mother Shireen and her son Sohail, who come back to Bangladesh after fifteen years overseas, prompted by Sohail’s father’s sudden death. As Tareque points out, “The story follows the conflicting reactions of mother and son as they, in very different ways, try to come to terms with the loss.” This paper seeks to read these two narratives with a view to understand how the question of belonging and citizenshipare connected and to which extent do they collectively contribute to the question of both national and cultural identity.

The Partition of Bengal, trauma, communal violence, migration, memory, border