Don't Choke, It's Sexy

About Post-Colonial Love

In both short stories, “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and “Sexy” by Jhumpa Lahiri, there are clear parallels, as these are what can be described as post-colonial love stories. The first, written by a Nigerian-born woman, was published in April 2009.¹ This story presents the experience of an African woman who migrated from Lagos, Nigeria, to Maine, America, and the complex relationship she had with a white American man. As for “Sexy,” which was published in 1999,² the protagonist, Miranda, a white American woman, has an affair with an older, married Indian man. These two stories, published only ten years apart, inextricably explore how the idea of multiculturalism and interracial relationships become skewed when one’s cultural identity becomes fetishized through the ideals of romanticism.

In “Sexy,” Miranda is introduced as a young woman straight out of college at an entry-level job in a new city. She works at a public radio station with Laxmi, an Indian woman, whose cousin’s husband left her for a young English woman. Due to the direct parallel, Miranda omits information about her affair with Dev, a married Indian man, from Laxmi. Miranda meets Dev at a store called Filene’s in one of her favorite sections that “she liked walking through the cramped, confined maze, which was familiar to her in a way the rest of Boston still was not.”³ This familiarity and comfort she got from this part of the store is what makes Dev stand out. To Miranda, his exotic sensibility contrasted with the space that she related so much to. This becomes clear when Miranda sticks around the area Dev is in to observe him, “Miranda wondered where he was from. She thought he might be Spanish, or Lebanese. When he opened another jar and said, to no one in particular, ‘This one smells like pineapple,’ she detected only the hint of an accent.”⁴ Dev’s cultural identity immediately piques her interest and foreshadows the way she perceives their affair.

Miranda’s main attraction to Dev is his age and cultural identity. As an older man, he is more experienced, educated, well-traveled, and complements her. The combination of these attributes in Dev created a smokescreen of romance that clouded Miranda’s judgment. And in conjunction with her fetishization of his Indian culture, Miranda is only able to view their affair in a somewhat childish manner,

Now, when she and Dev made love, Miranda closed her eyes and saw deserts and elephants, and marble pavilions floating on lakes beneath a full moon. One Saturday, having nothing else to do, she walked all the way to Central Square, to an Indian restaurant, and ordered a plate of tandoori chicken. As she ate she tried to memorize phrases printed at the bottom of the menu, for things like ‘delicious’ and ‘water’ and ‘check, please’⁵

Miranda’s attraction to Dev relies solely on her stereotypical view of his ethnicity. Although she learns more about his culture through him (and her exploration), her perspective is limited. Their romance makes what frightened her as a child seem beautiful and fulfilling, but she only further objectifies Dev by viewing India in this way. The thoughts of animals and spending time in Indian restaurants only enable her view of Dev as exotic. This also makes the affair seem more extraordinary for Miranda and allows her to accept the position as Dev’s mistress.