“Mrs. Dutta Writes A Letter”

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Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter

This short story “ Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" which is written by an Indian author is a nicely done short story. This story not only describes various human emotions nicely and orderly but at the same time, it is amazing to read that how the author has shown and described the cultural and generational conflict based on the few emotions that are mentioned in this story. While reading the short story Mrs. Dutta, a widow with a son, and she currently moved to America from India to stay with his son and his family. During her stay, she struggles a lot with the culture and also the generation gap between her and her grandchildren. And in this struggle, she experienced the conflict of culture and also the gap by continuously comparing her Indian culture and her son's kids who are born and raised in the United States of America. It is noteworthy that in the entire story Mrs. Dutta experienced various emotions like guilt, shame, sadness, and anger but she was not happy although she tries hard to be happy, the fact that she cannot gel herself in the American culture is quite problematic for her.

In the story, Mrs. Dutta feels the emotion of anger when one morning she woke up late because her son told her not to wake up early in the morning because in this way she was disturbing the entire house. So that day she woke up late and went to the washroom. When she was in the washroom, she was slowly washing her mouth with a brush, but while doing this, she was sad because she used to brush her teeth with the bitter neem miswak back at home. Once she was done doing that then suddenly she started to examine her hair which was quite dense and lengthy than her daughter in law's hair despite the age difference. While she was doing that she could hear the noise her grandchildren were making outside the washroom. They were yelling at her to come out so that they could get ready for the school she was speeding up to wrap herself by quickly splashing water on her face and neck but they were continuously making noise and while they were doing that their mother came there and asked them angrily that why they are late for school, they responded that their grandmother is in there. So her daughter law was quite and asked them to go downstairs and get ready, but the girl refused to do so and said that why the old lady can't go downstairs. Although Mrs. Dutta was expecting that her daughter in law will punish the kid because she was treating her elders in such a disrespectful way. Bt all their mother said was "that is enough going to downstairs and get ready." Mrs. Dutta could hear their footsteps, and when everyone was gone, she finally got the chance to bent over the sink her fists were tight in the folds of her saree. She could feel the anger that was feeling for the kids for their disrespectful behavior; also she was angry at Shimoli, her daughter in law for letting them go without punishing them. She was also getting confused between feeling angry and shame at the same time (Divakaruni, 23).

Next, in the story, Mrs. Dutta felt a feeling of disappointment. She was thinking about the children and their behavior, and during that, a heaviness pulls over Mrs. Dutta's entire body when she thinks of them. Like so much in the country they have turned out to be. And that reality check made her disappointed (Divakaruni, 29).

These emotions are used very purposefully in this short story. They are used to represent the cultural and also the generational conflict between Mrs. Dutt and her family. Cultural conflict is very clear in this entire short story. The older generation was used to respect their elders and disrespecting any elder personality was simply out of the question. If anyone would do that and misbehave with an elder member of a family and society, then he/ she was punished so the child would not do that in the future. But now it is quite apparent that the respect among each other, or for the elders has vanished. It is normal nowadays if a child misbehaves or even hit someone adult, so that is the generational gap. There is a huge difference between the older and the new generations, so many things are lost and missing in the new generation that even if we try hard, they cant be bring brought. The influence of culture is also huge on people. If people are living away from their families and homes and if they have started their families in a different culture then their kids also adopt that culture and the influence of that culture are quite strong on them. Whatever is present in the new culture good or bad the kids adopt it, and they start to behave like that which is quite sad and also it is disappointing at the same time. In this short story, these feelings are used to depict these differences that are now quite apparent in the new generation or the people who are living away from their country.

Work cited

: Mrs. Dutt Writes a letter” by Chitra Divakaruna