ROOTING THE ROOTLESS: A STUDY OF ROHINTON MISTRY’S SUCH A LONG JOURNEY AND BAPSI SIDHWA’S THE CROW EATERS (36-46) by Sanju Choudhary in THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SPECIALIST / ISSN: 2350-1499 (Online); 2350-0751 (Print)

Rohinton Mistry and Bapsi Sidhwa are contemporary Parsee immigrant writers of international repute writing in English. They both have won accolades for their fascinating portrayal of traditional Parsee society. Their commitment to their own community is woven around contemporary issues, diasporic concerns, revisiting partition, exploitation of women etc. Since both of them belong to an endangered ethnic community so concerns regarding perpetuation of their beliefs creep in naturally in their literary works. Both the writers are consciously aware about their distinctive identity. So through the fictional representation of their cultural markers they have evinced their apprehensions about preservation of their community. The representative use of culture specific rituals is a vehicle to affirm the richness and variety of an ethnicity that is on the verge of disappearance. The present paper is an attempt to explore how writers like Rohinton Mistry and Bapsi Sidhwa interrogates the established notions of self and cultural identity. Parsees being an endangered minority are threatened in a multicultural mosaic like India. Sidhwa and Mistry have tried to preserve their cultural customs and traditions through their writing. This paper also explores how the writers have suggested new ways of belonging and constructing a new community in this borderless new space. They both are writers of international repute not only due to their excellent representation of post-colonial scenario but also because they play a crucial role in asserting identity of the Parsee community and creating awareness among the Indian people about the existence and relevance of this community in India. The ethnic anxiety and cultural rootlessness deeply impacted their literary writing. The past is used as a vehicle to affirm ethnic identity. Keywords Parsi, diasporic concerns, ethnicity, identity, anxiety, culture, rituals, minority, multicultural mosaic etc