Diaspora In Sara Suleri's Meatless Days

The writer Diaspora Sara Suleri, originally from Pakistan, has depicted her memories of home in her memoir Meatless Days. Her voracious readings and her academic backgrounds all set in to her choosing the profession of a Professor and the intellectual journalist father Zia Ahmed Suleri and Welsh mother Mair Jones who is a teacher has also created an impact in the life of Sara. Her strong vocabulary and her flair for description have made the memoir rich. The highlight of the novel is the concept of Diaspora within Diaspora i.e. through the Diasporic memories, Sara Suleri voices the Diasporic experiences of her mother. Also she shares her own experiences as an expatriate. In this work Sara Suleri deals with multiple concepts like Post colonial

Sara Suleri has described the Pakistani society as a male dominated one and in fact her father is a representation of the same. Certain impositions have been made by him in the life of his wife and children. Zia Ahmed Suleri had the capacity to suppress the women whoever she may be. His mother has been suppressed by him. In a way he has silenced his mother for an untold reason. He divorced his first wife for an unrevealed reason. He made his wife Mair Jones change her identity by changing her name, the primary identity. He has not given any freedom to maintain the identity of her. But as a wife she has adjusted herself to the new circumstances which naturally lead to suppression. She has succumbed herself to the family and she made it a point to emerge herself out of all the unfavourable circumstances. Sara’s grandmother used to make the statement that supports women, the power of women, “Men! There is more goodness in a women’s little finger than in the benighted mind of man. “And heaven,” she grimly added, “is the thing Muhammad says (peace upon him), lies beneath the feet of women!” (MD

The focus is more on the Diasporic experiences of the mother and also the self realization of Sara that she always empathises with her mother and she has got the self of her mother. Whatever her mother did and taught her has a left a strong impression in the mind of her and she believes that the very impression has helped her in leading a smooth life in New Havens with her husband Austin Goodyear. In fact Diasporic experiences of her mother has made her understand the difficulties of Diasporic life and that made her cope with the new circumstances in the United States when she set her foot to the place for higher studies and for the profession later. Thus the memoir is the feast of various aspects of Diaspora and its features of both mother and