Mistrys First Person Narrative Indian Nationalism...

Rohinton Mistry’s (38) first person autobiographical narrative of his trip to the Himalayan city of Dharmsala is on the surface a quaint, visual, biographical account of a journey to an Indian town that helps the author come full circle: His childhood visions of the city he dreamt of visiting and its reality as he sees it in adulthood are different in many ways, yet his childhood and adulthood converged in serene moment that epitomizes Mistry’s glorification of his native India: â€Å"To have made this journey, I felt, was to have described a circle of my own. And this understanding increased the serenity of the moment† (51). However, a rhetorical analysis of the speaker in the essay, which as mentioned is a first person autobiographical narrative lead us to an agenda that is hidden below the surface: Indian nationalism and pride. This is not to insinuate that the author has some hidden, malevolent agenda to thrust Indian nationalism upon the reader. Rather, the tools of rhetorical analysis reveal the subtle undertones of the essay in a manner that perhaps even the author is not full conscious of. Rhetorical analysis depends on part in gauging what effect a text has on its intended audience (Leach 218). Thus, the strength of rhetorical analysis lies in the textual evidence that is presented as proof of an analytical claim and that is what is attempted throughout this analysis. The essay starts off with an account of the Dalai Lama and how he found political refuge in India.