When Mr. Pizada Came To Dine

Samantha Sokoloff

Mrs. Baione-Doda

19 September 2008



" Mr. Pizada won't be coming today. More importantly, Mr. Pizada is no longer considered Indian." my father announced, "Not since Partition. Our country was divided. 1947." When I said I thought that was the date of India's independence from Britain my father said, "That too. One moment we were free and then we were sliced up," he explained drawing an x with his finger on the counter top, "Like a pie. Hindus here, Muslims there."...It made no sense to me. Mr. Pirzada and my parents spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, looked more or less the same. they ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate rice every night for supper with their hands. Like my parents, Mr. Pizada took off his shoes before entering a room, chewed fennel seeds after meals as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for desert dipped austere biscuits into successive cups of tea. Nevertheless my father insisted that I understand the difference," (Lahiri 25). This passage uses the point of view of a child to display how silly and superficial decisions made my adults can be. Lilia when being explained partition by her father can not grasp how people who are so similar can have so much conflict over the differences they have created. Because Lilia can not understand the differences and instead can only see similarities it forces the reader to question the validity of the differences her father is describing.When her father explains how and why the country was divided he uses very simple analogies for a complex and painful thing and this is representative of how people attempted to solve the issue of making peace between to cultures by simply diving them up. This passage contributes to Lilias journey of expanding her mind to understand a different culture which in the end she discovers is not so different at all.