The disruption and transformation in the synaptic space between home and location: Bharati Mukherjee's women in diasporic condition

Bharati Mukherjee through her female protagonists expresses her concern for the problem of dislocation and assimilation, the assimilation of traditional Indian mode of living with new materialistic values encouraged by American society. Fear, constant anxiety, the obsession of not belonging, the panic of the New World, consciousness of Indian spiritualism and assimilative fusionism are the recurrent motives in the novels like Jasmine, The Tiger's Daughter, Wife, Desirable Daughters and The Tree Bride. She is the voice of the immigrants from all over the world, writing about them in tradition of immigrant experience rather than expatriation and nostalgia. To avoid ‘otherness’ she strongly opposes hyphenation in her national identity as Indo-American or Asian-American writer. Hence it is necessary to interrogate the nature of her work. It is also to examine the strategies she adopts in order to negotiate the boundaries. Instead of hyphenation, exilic or mere immigrant status, she focuses on the immigrants’ true search for empowerment, dignity, their identity and a successful survival in the settled country. Her staying on in America and cherishing the ‘melting pot’ metaphor of America made her a writer of immigrant literature and a writer of Indian diaspora literature.