Exploring memory and nostalgia as survival mechanisms: Analyzing displacement in Mistry’s tales from Firozsha Baag and Lahiri’s interpreter of maladies

This paper explores how memory and nostalgia function as powerful survival mechanisms for individuals experiencing displacement in Rohinton Mistry’s Tales from Firozsha Baag and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. Both collections vividly portray characters caught between geographical, cultural, and emotional borders, grappling with the challenges of migration, identity crises, and cultural fragmentation. By analyzing selected stories from these works, the paper demonstrates how acts of remembering and longing for the past help characters anchor their identities and maintain a sense of belonging in unfamiliar or alienating environments. Memory serves as a bridge to the homeland, while nostalgia becomes a coping strategy that transforms loss and dislocation into continuity and resilience. Placing the texts within a post-colonial and diasporic context, this study argues that Mistry and Lahiri illuminate the subtle ways in which the recollection of home, community, and tradition empowers individuals to navigate the psychological and cultural complexities of displacement.