Aspects of Diaspora Reflected in the Writings of Jhumpa Lahiri and Rohinton Mistry: An Overview

In the present paper attempts will be made to define the term ‘Diaspora’, etymology of the term Diaspora, a very brief history of the word diaspora and its reflection in the select works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Rohinton Mistry. The word “diaspora” is being used very extensively in many of the fields including journalistic writing, political and academic discourses taking the themes of migration and cultural, emotional and other walks of life of the immigrated people from one country to the other. ‘In the twentieth century, the meaning of the term gradually expanded to cover the involuntary dispersal of other populations, especially Armenians and people of African descent since the 1980s diaspora has proliferated to a remarkable extent, to the point where it is now applied to migrants of almost every kind’(Kevin,1). In the beginning, it would be used in the context of Jew dispersal and exile, but later it very commonly used in other fields. The Greek noun diaspora derives from the verb diaspeirein a compound of “dia”(over or through) and “speirein” (to scatter or sow) The word emerged from the proto-Indo- European root spr , which can be found today in such English words as “spere”, “sperm”, “spread” and “disperse”. In all of its various uses, diaspora has something to do with scattering and dispersal. To the ancient Greeks, diaspora seems to have signified mainly a process of destruction. (2) However, diaspora and the Jewish History have a very close connection. Later, the term diaspora was connected theology. The Jews, according to the Bible disobeyed God’s law, therefore, as a punishment they were exiled and their only hope was ‘repentance’