The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh impact Essay

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh portrayed the postcolonial subjects like homelessness and displacement of indigenous people from their native land very efficiently by moving back and forth from historical past and the present reality. He also attempted to remap the history of the three crucial South Asian countries Myanmar (Burma), India and Malaysia, which were the major sites of the Empire through the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Moreover, he tried to delve into the past by depicting people from history, especially those people who were troubled by The British in the land of Burma, and to know the true faces of British in South Asia.
Similarly The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri spoke about the difficulties and obstructions faced by a Bengali couple from India, and how they became a part and parcel of the American culture by acclimatizing themselves in a new milieu among strangers all around. It delineated the foreign identity and the distressing experience of cultural dislocation. It is a story about a couple, native of Calcutta, India, who tried to assimilate the American culture, due to which they experience cultural conflict and loss of identity. It also explores a pull between the two worlds, which are poles apart India and America.
In the novel The Glass Palace the protagonist Raj Kumar was completely at his wits end as his family was scattered in various parts of the Asian continent and he experienced a feeling of loss and exile as he was completely ignorant of his origin, thus creating an identity crisis. Later, he confronted humiliation due to his bleak origin moreover he was addressed as 'kala', (Indian alternative for the word black) a foreigner in an alien territory, which made him feel like a fish out of water. Further, he also participated in the turmoil when the British tried to occupy Burma, followed by another wild experience in grand India and his incursion into the Malayan forest resources.
On flip side in The Namesake Gogol Ganguli the protagonist is out and out bewildered after he faced an identity crisis torn between Indian parents and American friends. The story began when the couples Ashima and Ashoke made up their mind to leave Calcutta and settle in America in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ashima and Ashoke succeeded in adapting themselves among the Americans, except Gogol. He became totally distressed, trying to create a balance between the culture he was nurtured and his present culture. Later he graduated from Columbia and was successful in getting a good job. By this time he was in an affair with a girl name Maxine who was an Anglo American and, because of her he started ignoring his family. To make matters worse, his father died. In the end, he dumped Maxine and married an Indian American girl named Moushumi. Later he divorced her as she had an affair with a guy named Dimitri Desjardins. Ultimately, Gogol became close to her mother and in the end he is found reading the book Gogol.