DIASPORA, MULTICULTURALISM AND THE WORLD OF GLAMOUR IN KAVITA DASWANI'S SALAAM PARIS

Kavita Daswani is one of the contemporary Diaspora writers who is mobile in international space. Her association with the major cosmopolitan cities around the globe due to her profession of a fashion correspondent for the leading magazines and publications brings forth the world of fashions and glamour in her narratives. Generally, her writings are considered and categorized as chic-lit but when one reads them seriously, understands that Daswani proliferates the struggle of younger generation—the teenage Indian females or newlywed girls who struggle in the international space to create theircomfort zone and identity. The present paper attempts to explore a diasporic narrative, Salaam Paris by Daswani in the light of the changing locations and identities.
The paper touches upon the geographical cultural, national, lingual, ethnic, social, religious locations. Anaya Shah, a young, beautiful Muslim girl, a resident of Mahim from one of the suburbs of Mumbai, develops a fetish for fashions and modeling which she gradually obtains through her beauty, risk, flight and plight. In her itineraries as a model she explores variant national and international locations and also her ‘self’. Being born in an orthodox Muslim family, she faces an array of restrictions, accusations and labels as she enters the world of fashions and glamour. Daswani epitomizes the www.aarhat.com Nov-Dec 2014 Impact Factor 0.948
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psychological trauma that Tanaya experiences due to the shift in geographical locations which provide her fame and identity but at the same time her ethnicity and religion pinch her. Also, it touches upon the issues of Gender Studies, Migration Studies, Diaspora and Culture Studies.