IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCES IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE’S 'DESIRABLE DAUGHTERS' (Pages 07-16) by Dr. M. Suresh in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Bharati Mukherjee is an American Indian writer. Her work typically dealt with themes of post-colonialism, multiculturalism, and immigrant narratives. Her novel Desirable Daughters(2002) tells the story of three sisters as they find their very different paths in life. It uses autobiographical elements to explore the South Asian immigrant experience. The three sisters, who are the daughters of Motilal Bhattacharjee and the great-grand daughters of Jaikrishna Gangooly, belong to a traditional Bengali Brahmin family. They part ways taking their own voyages towards their destiny. They are a blend of the traditional and modern outlooks. Padma and Parvati have their own trajectories of choices; the former an immigrant of ethnic origin in New Jersey, and the latter married to a boy of her own choice and settled in the posh locality of Bombay with an entourage of servants to attend on her. In Desirable Daughters Mukherjee focuses on the alternative ways to belong, cultural hybridity and the „third space of enunciation‟ which are markers of the post-colonial condition of existence. The paper aims to analyse the immigrant experiences of three sisters, their individual attitudes and sufferings. Keywords: Immigrant existence, Indian and American, Diaspora, Brahminic culture, Alienation, Postcolonial displacement.