When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

Mr. Pirzada, a botanist, is living in America away from his homeland in the region of Dacca. Mr. Pirzada is a married man, and has a family, but is living alone. During his stay away, a violent and bloody civil war breaks out in his homeland. Mr. Pirzada's wife and seven daughters are still in the area. Feeling lonely, and longing to be with a family, he frequently visits a girl named Lilia and her family. Lilia has "no memory of his first visit, or of his second or his third, but by the end of September I had grown so accustomed to Mr. Pirzada's presence in our living room that one evening....I asked my mother to hand me a fourth glass from a cupboard still out of my reach" (Lahiri 24-25). Mr. Pirzada longs for his family so much that he becomes very attached to Lilia. He presents her with a gift everytime he shows up "He reached into his suit packet and vave me a small plastic egge filled with cinnamon hearts" (Lahiri 29). He worries for her safety, for he wanted to go with her on Halloween to keep her safe. "Perhaps I should accompany them" (Lahiri 38). Eventually Mr. Pirzada returns to an independent Dacca, and is reunited with his family. He writes Lilia and her family, informing them that everyone is perfectly fine. As Lilia recalls him, she thinks, "Though I had not seen him for months....it was only then that I knew what it meant to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away" (Lahiri 42). She had come to love Mr. Pirzada as a family member. This event re-inforces the theme that family love is an unbreakable, intangable, universal force.