ABSTRACT
The chapter unfolds lives of three Indian American female immigrants as represented in The Lowland. The three immigrants develop their identifications within the host land in diverse ways. Their interactions with diasporic house space shed light on emotional cultural academic and sexual choices and compromises that they make in different situations. In this novel, Gauri, a first-generation young adult, matures into a learned professor of California. Bela, her daughter, a second-generation Indian American, undergoes a series of transformations—from an infant to a happy child to a depressed adolescent to a reckless college girl to a nomadic environmentalist to a caring daughter and responsible mother. Bela’s daughter Meghna, Lahiri’s only third-generation Indian American girl, grows from an infant to a sensitive child. For all three characters, maturing is a strategic positioning and negotiating between diasporic house(s) and host land. Curiously, Gauri and Bela are complete foils to Lahiri’s pre-existing first and second-generation woman immigrants, though all of them pertain to almost similar timeframe. A close reading of Gauri, Bela and Meghna’s responses to house space provides deep understanding of how individual subject positions redefine diasporic space. Gauri’s rejection of the Rhode Island house to accept the California house space mirrors her desire to realize her true self, both academically and emotionally. Bela’s relationship with the Rhode Island house, contrarily, mirrors her desired space wherein her familial and eco-conscious self is realized. Meghna’s response to the house space is more spontaneous and unstrained emphasizing the need to connect to house space with a positive mind and a childlike faith.
