In Jhumpha Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, ritual plays an important role in both perpetuating and alleviating the loneliness of his characters. Many characters such as Mrs. Sen, Mr. Pirzada, Boori Ma, and Mrs. Croft maintain their rituals in order to connect to the society they miss. However, characters who stick too strictly to rituals, like Mrs. Sen and Sanjeev, find themselves even more isolated. On the other hand, Lilia, Twinkle, the narrator and other characters create rituals to overcome loneliness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayMrs. Sen maintains rituals that resemble his way of life in India because he misses home. Although she is in America, "when Mrs. Sen spoke of home, she spoke of India, not the apartment where she sat cutting vegetables" (116). While Noelle Brada-Williams has suggested that "Mrs. Sen's ritual or daily routine connects Mrs. Sen to India" (459), her ritual also emphasizes her loneliness due to distance from home and to his isolation in America. Sen first appears dressed “in a shimmering white sari with orange paisley patterns” (112), which she “treated” upon hearing the word “India.” Her eloquent and formal way of wearing her sari with a different pattern but "all the same, embedded in a common expanse of wood shavings" (119) highlights her desire for a sense of unity and community that she finds in her hometown. In addition, Ms. Sen takes care of “chopping” abundant ingredients with her bonti. The bonti brought back from India is a recurring motif of the community she lost (Mitra 185). As Ms. Sen cuts the spinach, she remembers evenings when "all the women in the neighborhood... bring blades like this, and then they sit in a huge circle... laughing, chatting, and cutting fifty kilos of vegetables through the night” (115). Lahiri highlights Mrs. Sen's longing for those nights where "it is impossible to fall asleep...listening to their chatter" by comparing them to Mrs. Sen's isolated life in America where "sometimes she cannot sleep in so much silence » (115). . Additionally, Ms. Sen's emphasis on the ritual process of chopping more than the meal itself and her persistence in chopping despite the fact that "it was never [for] a special occasion and she never 'never expected company' (117) reflect his complex character. desire to connect with India. Lahiri depicts an image of Mrs. Sen flamboyantly cutting one of the few fresh fish she finds: “She took the blade out of the cupboard, spread newspaper on the carpet and inspected her treasures. One by one, she pulled them from the wrapping paper, crumpled and stained with blood. She stroked the tails, felt the bellies, separated the eviscerated flesh. With a pair of scissors, she cuts the fins. She slipped a ginger under the gills, a red so bright that it made her vermilion turn pale. She grabbed the body, lined with streaks of ink, at each end, and ticked it at intervals against the blade. (127)Mrs. Sen views fresh fish as a “treasure” that connects her to her life in Calcutta, where she eats fish “twice a day,” and her lengthy preparation of the fish therefore serves to dramatize this connection. However, the rituals that bind Ms. Sen to India also prevent her from feeling “at home.” Laura Anh Williams suggests a 'lack of correct ingredients' in Ms Sen's Indian cooking. The tuna croquette is supposed to be made with bheki fish and the fish and green banana stew does not contain green banana (73). This suggests the impossibility for Ms. Sen to feel like she is in India despite themaintaining her chopping rituals with the same bonti she uses in India. In addition to not being able to fully connect with India, maintaining her Indian rituals, Ms. Sen is also further removed from American society. Madhuparna Mitra commented on Mrs. Sen's ritual of cooking only fresh, whole fish: "if fish is the tool of nostalgia, it is also the symbol of Mrs. Sen's alienation" (185). His desire for fresh fish makes no sense in American society: Eliot's mother grilled "shellfish or fillets" (123) and not whole fish, the employee does not understand why Mrs. Sen wants the head when it is the most precious. is part of Mrs. Sen's culture (127), and the old lady on the bus is bothered by the smells of Mrs. Sen's fish (132). Furthermore, Eliot also notices that Mrs. Sen's formal sari, "more suitable for an evening" (112), contrasts with her mother's "shaven knees and overly exposed thighs" (113). If Eliot's mother represents a typical American woman, then the contrast represents Mrs. Sen's isolation from American culture. Thus, Mrs. Sen's inability to belong to India or America further intensifies her loneliness of being away from home. Alternatively, Eliot's family's lack of rituals also causes Eliot's loneliness. As Mitra suggested, “'Mrs. Sen's' is not only a study of Mrs. Sen's loneliness, but also of that of Eliot and his mother who lived in a small beach house with few relations with the neighbors” (187). Unlike Mrs. Sen whose life revolves around sentimental rituals of preparing ingredients in elegant meals, Eliot's mother does not "break lunch at work" and "pours herself a glass of wine and eats bread and cheese, sometimes so much so that she wasn't hungry for the pizza they usually ordered for dinner” (118). During dinner, Eliot had to “pack up the leftovers” while his mother went “on deck to smoke a cigarette” (118). The feeling of isolation that Eliot associates with dinner is juxtaposed with the sense of community that Mrs. Sen tries to develop through dinner. Yet dinner for Eliot and Mrs. Sen reminds them of their loneliness. Although Eliot is unaware of missing anyone at home because his house is "only five miles away" (116), he shares with Mrs. Sen the loneliness of not having a "home." Together, Mrs. Sen and Eliot construct rituals that help alleviate each other's loneliness. Mrs. Sen and Eliot, who would otherwise be alone in their house, are able to keep each other company during Eliot's daily visit. Every afternoon, Mrs. Sen waited for Eliot at the bus stop “as if looking forward to greeting someone she hadn’t seen in years” (119). Eliot “particularly loved watching Mrs. Sen cut things” (115). Although it seems like an ordinary activity, the two share an intimate bond as Eliot sits at Mrs. Sen's command and watches her use the bonti and share stories about nights spent cutting vegetables with her neighbors in India. Eliot, whose parents have always been absent, feels protected and cared for while Mrs. Sen worries for his safety. Mrs. Sen, who has always been left alone in her apartment, now has someone to express her homesickness to. Mrs. Sen has the courage to practice driving with Eliot because he understands that “she wanted him to sit next to her” (119). Thus, his rituals with Eliot not only build his first human relationship in America but also allow him access to his new life. However, Mrs. Sen crashes while trying to drive to catch her fish. Her life still only revolves around her Indian rituals and is therefore not ready to adapt to theAmerican way of life. Thus, she is “frightened by the horns” of other cars (134). If the car is a reason for her link with America and the bonti, her link with India, the fact that Ms. Sen “gets out of the car” and “puts away the blade” marks her incapacity to belong to any community . The car accident ends Mrs. Sen and Eliot's hopeful relationship. Lahiri suggests unresolved loneliness as Eliot is left alone in his house watching the "gray waves" while Mrs. Sen runs to her room and "closes the door." Like Ms. Sen, Mr. Pirzada also maintains his rituals because he misses his sleep. House. The story "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dinner" is also told from a child's perspective about the rituals of Mr. Pirzada's visit. Every evening at six o'clock, Mr. Pirzada would come to dinner with Lilia's family because she looks like the family she misses. In contrast, in "The Temporary Matter", Shukumar and Shoba establish their separate dining rituals (Shukumar eating in the room prepared for their dead child and Shoba in the living room) so that they can avoid each other. Note, however, that these opposing culinary rituals both suggest Mr. Pirzada's loneliness as well as that of Shukuma and Soba. In fact, Lahiri often uses culinary rituals to describe the loneliness of many of his characters such as Mrs. Sen, Eliot, Eliot's mother, or even the narrator of "The Third and Final Continent" who eats cereal every day before until Mala arrives in America. .During dinner, Lilia becomes aware of Mr. Pirzada's loneliness by observing his rituals in order to understand why Mr. Pirzada and his parents who "spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, were more or less alike." (25) are likely “different”. He took out a plain silver watch without a bracelet, which he kept in his breast pocket, briefly held it to one of his tufted ears and wound it with three quick taps of his thumb and index. . Unlike the watch he wore on his wrist, the pocket watch, he explained to me, was set to local time in Dhaka, eleven hours ahead. Throughout the meal, the watch remained on its folded paper napkin on the coffee table. He never seemed to consult him. (30) Observing Mr. Pirzada's eloquent but anxious way of looking at the Dhaka era, Lilia understands that Mr. Pirzada is different not because of the different color of his country's map or his different religion, but because he is alone. He belongs to Dhaka and lives there although he is in America. Lilia realizes that Mr. Pirzada's "life" "was first lived in Dhaka" and that his life in America is only "a shadow of what had already happened [in Dhaka], a late ghost of Mr. Pirzada’s true place.” (31). As Basudeb and Angana Chakrabarti have pointed out, "this sense of belonging to a particular place and culture, while being foreign to another, creates a tension in individuals which happens to be a distinctive trait of Lahiri's characters » (quoted in Brada-Williams 454). Lilia observes how Mr. Pirzara always maintains a posture "as if he were balancing two suitcases of equal weight in each hand" (28), one suitcase symbolizing his current life in America, another being his life at home. Similar to Eliot and Mrs. Sen, Lilia also connects with Mr. Pirzada through their shared loneliness even though she does not understand the feeling of missing someone far from home. Although she is loved by her parents and "has the assurance of a secure life, of an easy life, of a good education, of all opportunities" (26), Lilia does not receive much attention from his parents. Before Mr. Pirzada's visit, her father does not know what she is learning atschool (27) and she finds herself with her book when the adults watch the news (31). Lilia is always “sent upstairs to do [her] homework” (34) alone while she listens “through the carpet” to the adult’s conversations. The fact that Lilia is an only child further underlines her loneliness. Pirzada and Lilia exchange their understandings of each other's loneliness through their own little rituals. While Mr. Pirzada calls Lilia “the mistress of the house” (29) and offers her sweets with “round elegance,” Lilia, who usually does not receive so much attention, is “flattered by the slight theatricality of his attentions” (29). Furthermore, Mr. Pirzada sends comics to his seven daughters but has not heard from them for more than six months (24). Therefore, being able to give Lilia his candy and seeing her joy at receiving it resembles the joy he wishes to see in his daughters. Although she cannot express her concerns about Mr. Pirzada's family or her gratitude for his attention, Lilia guards "each evening's treasure as [she] would guard a jewel [and]...places it." in a little memory box” (29) because she knows how important these candies are to Mr. Pirzada and to her. In an effort to do something to help alleviate Mr. Pirzada's loneliness, Lilia innocently invents her own prayer rituals for her family's safety: "I did something I had never done before. I put the chocolate in my mouth, letting it soften until the last moment, then, while chewing it slowly, I prayed that Mr. Pirzada's family would be safe and sound” (32). The fact that a little girl decides that she should dedicate a piece of her "treasure" each night to doing something that she was never taught to do shows her deep connection and understanding of Mr. Pirzada's feelings. Similar to little Lilia, Twinkle in “This Blessed House” improvises her own rituals. Twinkle does not have nostalgic rituals that alleviate loneliness like Mrs. Sen or Mr. Pirzada, but she is not a lonely character. She is still “satisfied but curious” as she constructs her own meaning from her simultaneous discoveries. As Williams suggests: “the treasure hunts allow for the emergence of Twinkle’s identity” (76). Twinkle knows Mrs. Sen's culinary rituals, but she is able to prepare "exceptionally tasty, even attractive" (144) dishes from the vinegar she finds. However, still after a successful improvisation, Twinkle refuses to write down the recipe just as she refuses to stick to the rituals but is ready to make infinite new discoveries. Additionally, although Sanjeev reminds her that they are not Christians and that he "can't let the people he works with see that statue on [his] lawn" (147), Twinkle refuses to get rid of the statues of Christ that she discovered because “it might be worth something” (136). The incident illustrates how Twinkle sees everything in her simultaneous discoveries as opportunities. In contrast, Sanjeev blindly follows Hindi rituals not because he sees meaning in these rituals but because he is afraid of how others might think of him. By contrasting Sanjeev with Twinkle, Lahiri highlights the difference between not having rituals and not having meaning in life. . Twinkle doesn't have any rituals but the one who is alone is Sanjeev as he sticks to meaningless rituals. Sanjeev awkwardly reads that the Fifth Symphony is supposed to be "music of love and happiness" (140) in an attempt to impress people with his taste, while Twinkle simply feels the music. He is annoyed by the way Twinkle casually stays "in bed in the middle of the day" while he unpacksmundanely boxes, sweeps the attic or touches up the paint in preparation for guests (141). Therefore, Sanjeev misses the opportunity to feel the excitement and contentment of Twinkle's daily discoveries. Despite all the rituals he tries to do to impress his guests, they are more impressed by Twinkle's lack of rigid rituals. While all his guests disappear to join Twinkle's discoveries, Sanjeev finds himself alone. Yet even though Mrs. Sen, Mr. Pirazada, and Sanjeev are lonely characters, they are not hopeless. Mrs. Sen is isolated from both India and America, but Lahiri leaves room for Mrs. Sen to adjust to her life through the unresolved ending of the story. Furthermore, Mr. Pirizada finally reunites with his family in Dhaka. Sanjeev, although rigid and mundane, has Twinkle, hopeful and talented, by his side. Additionally, even the lonely children in Lahiri's stories are portrayed in positive and hopeful notes. Although they don't receive much attention from their parents, Eliot and Lilia still have their family and a secure society to belong to. Some of Lahiri's characters, however, experience tragic loneliness to the point that rituals cannot alleviate their loneliness. Boori Ma in “Real Durwan” and Mrs. Croft in “The Third and Final Continent” are alone and estranged from society with very little hope of reconciliation. Their rituals only allow them to regret their long-lost past. Every day, “twice a day,” Boori Ma scanned the page from top to bottom as she listed “the details of her fate and the losses she suffered... [being] separated from a husband, four daughters, a two-story brick house, a rosewood almari and a number of safes including master keys that she still carried” (71). Her rituals of sweeping the stairs and carrying the master keys emphasize her desire to regain the life she lost. At other times, while Boori Ma swept, she "chronicled" the elegant life she led: "by the time she reached the second floor landing, she had already attracted the attention of the entire building to the menu of his third daughter's wedding night. » (71). Like Mrs. Sen who recalls her time in Calcuatta to Eliot while she cuts, Boori Ma also seems to alleviate her loneliness by sweeping and reminiscing about her "easier times" by attracting the attention of the tenants. Yet, unlike Mrs. Sen and Eliot, the tenants do not share Boori Ma's loneliness but simply like her ritual stories because they are entertaining and like her sweeping ritual because she keeps "their crooked stairwell impeccably clean” (73). So, Boori Ma has no one who really cares about her and she is literally alone in the world. Moreover, unlike Mrs. Sen's memory of her community, Boori Ma's ritual account also seems illogical. This further suggests the futility of her rituals which cause her to live in a past that may not even exist. (15) Similarly, Mrs. Croft lives alone in an irreversible past of the last century. Every day, she sits “on the piano bench, on the same side as the night before (182), remembering how she taught piano and raised Hélène. She wears "the same black skirt, the same starched white blouse" (182) which reminds her of "a world of 1866... ​​filled with women in long black skirts and chaste conversations in the living room" (189). As she longs for a society she has lost, Mrs. Croft demands that the door be “locked” as if locking herself out of reality. Like Boori Ma, Mrs. Croft performs her rituals in order to live in her fantasy world which can only be the distant past. Fortunately, however, Mrs. Croft has a.