Essay Example on Indian American author poet and professor Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Thing has currently been optioned by the Hollywood production company Gillen Group to cast it as a movie Her successful work has been reproduced and translated to original languages in several countries including Netherlands Israel Indonesia Bengal Turkey and Japan As of today Banerjee resides and teaches in Texas where she is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing at the prestigious University of Houston in the Creative Writing Department where majority of her work is mainly focused on Indian immigrant women who try to overcome the adversities in order to adapt to a new homeland like she did in her past In July 28th 2008 Banerjee wrote the short story called Clothes where she introduced a young Indian woman who went through a state of transcultural change in America that is symbolized by her clothes and the color of her clothes The story begins as Mita a young Indian lady gets prepared to meet the person who travels from California to Calcutta and will potentially become her husband In Indian culture all women are assigned a husband at an early age without their own consent as this practice takes place her two friends help her get everything ready as the starting setting she appears to wearing a yellow sari that in literature symbolizes happiness and loyalty 

This is where Mita starts off her transition from a young daughter to a wife She is in a way excited to start a new life She then argues with her parents when it came down to the sari she would wear although she insisted she wanted blue for her journey which meant possibility her mom declared it had to have red to represent luck in marriage they finally combined both colors she received a midnight blue sari with red bordering Besides representing possibility and luck this part of the stories shows how Mita starts to be independent has she transitions into her new life After meeting Somesh the Indian American husband secretly introduces her to American apparel jeans blouses and many more he also shares with her that he pictured her becoming a teacher one day shocking was the time it took Mita to see his different intentions but it was because he had come from America where there are different traditions in the culture A week later after the wedding Somesh returns to America with the explanation that he had to work for money at a 7 eleven as he talked Somesh slowly stroked her cheeks and slowly ran his fingers down Mita s throat she admits to have close her eyes and tried not to move away because it was now her duty as a wife In retrospective it is evident that Indian women have to grow to be in a submissive relationship where they have to do what their husband demands and is completely with the wife s parents