East Is East and West Is West: A Study of Sudha Murty’s Dollar Bahu

Abstract

This paper examines Sudha Murty’s Dollar Bahu in contrast to Rudyard Kipling’s famous line, “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” While Kipling framed the East–West divide as a colonial assertion of civilizational difference, Murty reworks this binary within the domestic and cultural sphere, showing how migration and material wealth reshape but do not erase inherited traditions. The research purpose is to explore how Murty’s narrative critiques the illusion that Western affluence can replace indigenous values, while simultaneously engaging with postcolonial debates on identity, cultural nationalism, and hybridity. Drawing upon Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of the “third space,” Ashis Nandy’s notion of cultural self-consciousness, and Partha Chatterjee’s idea of the “inner domain of sovereignty,” the study situates Dollar Bahu as a postcolonial text that reaffirms the uniqueness of Indian cultural identity. By juxtaposing Murty with Kipling, the paper argues that East and West, while interacting in a globalized world, remain distinct in their core values and systems.