3 Review(s)

"Rohinton Mistry, the diasporic writer has painted the picture of post-independence India in his own colour combinations- realistic, diasporic and post colonial being a few among them. His novels and collection of short stories, like Chaucer’s ‘portrait gallery’, preserve the culture and people of India in general and of Parsi community in particular. Dr. Mamta’s interest in the author dates back to her childhood. Prior to the formal academic reading of Mistry’s works, she had had acquaintance with a few works of the author. Even before that, she was fascinated by some of the major themes in Mistry’s works—the sort of lived experience. When she was in her teens, during her visit to her uncle in Mumbai, she was attracted by the life and culture of the small Parsi community in the neighbourhood. That personal interest in the Parsi life and culture later developed into a dissertation. Mistry’s works encompass the individuals from the Parsi community and extend to the various other Indian communities. As a diasporic writer, Mistry focuses on the native community in Canada as well, where he has been living for long. Mistry highlights themes like politics, the overall Indian economic disparity, the alienation of the marginalized communities and cultures, the characters’ pricks and pangs ( most of them, the replica of real people) arising out of distancing from the near and dear ones, the problems of the young and the old, the rich and the bourgeois and so on. The Parsi life and culture is at the center of all. Mistry travels from the local to the universal. A modified version of the dissertation (2011) is appearing here in the form of a modest study, which may be useful to researchers and post-graduate students in their better understanding of the cultural diversity called India. "