Distasteful Hosts in Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting

Abstract

This article, examines Arun's experiences in the U.S., particularly in his home-stay at the Patton house, as a temporary immigrant while he is in Boston to pursue his undergraduate degree. I look, primarily, at consumerism and consumption by situating them within the larger context of cosmopolitan obligation—an obligation that goes beyond traditional ties of family, nation, and ethnicity. Mrs. Patton offers Arun a room in her home, welcoming with open arms, but she alienates him and makes him extremely uncomfortable by her attempts forcibly to nourish him physically as well as emotionally. The Patton family's unhealthy preoccupation with Arun reveals how the myth of the American Dream has been transformed into what I call the inaccessible “cosmopolitan dream” of the twenty-first-century: the self and the Other remain distinctly separate ‘ingredients’ that do not coalesce together to form a cohesive whole or a homogenous amalgamation.