1999, Jhumpa Lahiri.

PLOT SUMMARY

Lilia reflects on the autumn of 1971, when she

was 10 years old and living with her parents in
a small suburb of Boston. During this time, a
man named Mr. Pirzada would come to her
family’s home every night for dinner. Mr.
Pirzada, a botany professor, came to New
England for work, but he was originally from
Dacca, the capital city of Bangladesh. At the
time, however, Bangladesh was not yet its own Alberto Cristofari/contrasto/Redux

country but was under Pakistani rule (where it

was known as East Pakistan). Lilia explains
that in 1971, East Pakistanis in Dacca were
fighting an increasingly brutal conflict for
their independence from the Pakistani
government.
Around the time Mr. Pirzada starts to come
over, the Pakistani army violently invades
Dacca —rendering him unable to contact his
wife and seven daughters back at home.
Because Mr. Pirzada’s rental place does not
have a TV, Lilia’s parents invite him over to eat
and watch the news; her parents are also
grateful to have another South Asian friend, as
they often miss Calcutta. One night, however,
Lilia learns that even though Mr. Pirzada shares
the same language, taste in food and sense of
humor as her parents, he is not technically
considered “Indian.” Lilia’s father explains
Partition: in 1947, soon after India gained
independence from the British, the nation split
into two countries, India and Pakistan, along
religious lines. Even decades later, many
Muslims and Hindus still find sharing a meal
together “unthinkable”—but Lilia’s Hindu
parents continue to dine with Muslim Mr.
Pirzada.
CHARACTERS
MAIN CHARACTERS
Lilia → narrator
Mr. Pirzada → friends with the family
Lilia’s mother → works at a bank
Lilia’s father → University professor
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
Dora → Lilia’s friend and colleague at school
Mrs. Kenyon → Lilia’s and Dora’s teacher
THEMES
FAMILY
“It was a small campus, with narrow brick
walkways and white pillared buildings, located
on the fringes of what seemed to be an even
smaller town. The supermarket did not carry
mustard oil, doctors did not make house calls,
neighbors never dropped by without an
invitation, and of these things, every so often,
my parents complained. In search of
compatriots, they used to trail their fingers, at
the start of each new semester, through the
columns of the university directory, circling memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
surnames familiar to their part of the world.” (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kahling.

YOUTH AND INNOCENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

“It made no sense to me. Mr. Pirzada and my https://www.litcharts.com/lit/when-mr-
parents spoke the same language, laughed at pirzada-came-to-dine
the same jokes, looked more or less the same.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/0
They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate
6/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple
rice every night for supper with their hands.
Like my parents, Mr. Pirzada took off his shoes https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jhump
before entering a room, chewed fennel seeds a-Lahiri
after meals as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0
dessert dipped austere biscuits into successive 206200114.htm
cups of tea. Nevertheless my father insisted that
I understand the difference, and he led me to a
map of the world taped to the wall over his
desk. He seemed concerned that Mr. Pirzada
might take offense if I accidentally referred to
him as an Indian, though I could not really
imagine Mr. Pirzada being offended by much
of anything.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jhumpa Lahiri has said that her biggest literary

influences are Alice Munro (famous for short
stories like “Boys and Girls”) and William
Trevor (who writes darkly comic
contemporary novels such as Felicia’s
Journey). Both are realist writers, renowned
for using simple language to articulate complex
emotions and characters — qualities that critics
have also attributed to Lahiri’s writings. As an
Indian American, Lahiri is also part of a rich
tradition of South Asian American writers,
many of whom similarly focus on the theme of
navigating a dual cultural identity. Lahiri’s
debut novel “The Namesake” (2003) also
narrates a story about a family with dual
cultural identities. Examples of South Asian
American literature include the play Disgraced
by Ayad Akhtar, the novel Gold Diggers by
Sanjena Anshu Sathian, and the comedic