BECOMING THE BRAND: AN ANALYSIS OF CONSUMER CULTURE IN INDO-AMERICAN CHICK LIT

This paper examines the construction of consumer identity in Indo-American chick lit, 
arguing that the genre foregrounds the transformation of the self into a marketable brand 
within the frameworks of globalization and diaspora. While early Western chick lit texts such 
as Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding and The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger 
center on urban consumerism and romantic aspiration, Indo-American narratives extend these 
concerns into questions of migration, cultural hybridity, and neoliberal self-fashioning. 
Through readings of texts such as The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Sister of My Heart by 
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the study explores how consumption—of fashion, space, career, 
and romance—operates as a strategy of belonging within the diasporic condition. 
The paper argues that Indo-American chick lit simultaneously celebrates and critiques 
the logic of consumer capitalism. Commodities become symbolic markers of assimilation and 
cosmopolitanism, yet they also expose the pressures of gendered labor, cultural performance, 
and ethnic commodification. The protagonists’ journeys from consumers to self-brands 
illuminate the tensions between empowerment and market conformity in neoliberal 
multicultural societies. Ultimately, the paper positions Indo-American chick lit as a significant 
cultural site for understanding how identity, gender, and diaspora intersect with global 
consumer culture.