The Mimic Man in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Spread over continents, countries and cultures, Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006) takes us on a tour de force into the realms of multiculturalism and hybridity in Indian culture. It focuses on the changing face of India, amidst East West encounter, globalization and glocalization. The novel as a postcolonial text puts forth, the authority politics of cultural imperialism, even after the independence of India. This paper appraises the novel using Homi. K. Bhabha’s theory of mimicry, hybridity and ambivalence. It concentrates on the mimic man of the novel Judge Jemubhai Patel. This paper focuses on the hybridization of culture along with the making of reformed hybrids who are in a constant conflict with their identity, language and culture on account of the praxis between the culture of the colonized and the colonizer during and after colonization of the colonized. This paper recommends proper mapping of mimicry and hybridity with indigenous culture, values and ethics. It advocates sowing and stringing in cultural amalgamation and westernization in indigenous Indian culture and ethos for a better life and better Indian society.