When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine

When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine

Introduction

The year is 1971, and Lilia is ten years old the year Mr. Pirzada comes to visit. He is studying in the U.S. on a government grant while his family, his wife and seven daughters, remain in Dacca in east Pakistan. What makes the distance all the more difficult is the fact that Dacca is fighting for its independence and then add to that a war between Pakistan and India. Lilia watches the news each night alongside her parents and Mr. Pirzada. She does not fully understand what is going on, but knows that it is bad.

At school, she is learning about American history and it seems worlds away from the current day horrors that has her family on edge. Her father tells her about the Partition of 1947, about the country being "sliced up", and about the animosity between the Muslims and Hindus. She learns all this when her father explains to her why Mr. Pirzada is not Indian, which is how she has always thought of him. This isn't something she easily understand. He looks the same. He eats the same types of foods, and he speaks the same language.

Discussion

The main reason Mr. Pirzada comes to Lilia's house every night for dinner is because, her parents; "In search of compatriots, they used to trial their fingers, at the start of each new semester, through the columns of the university directory, circling surnames familiar to their part of the world. It was in this manner that they discovered Mr. Pirzada, and phoned him, and invited him to our home."

2. Some objects that Lahiri uses to associate with Mr. Pirzada is; his lime scented coat with blue and gray checkers, his older apperance, he misses his daughters in Dacca and ...