Squatter: Short Story and Extremely Intelligent Man

Squatter by Rohinton Mistry is a short story depicting the challenges faced by immigrants in foreign countries. He is very clever in trying to get the message of this story across. Mr.Mistry shows the issues faced by immigrants in a humorous yet attention-grabbing manner. For example, Sarosh’s difficulty in adapting to the toilet is a sarcastic way of showing some issues faced by immigrants. Sarosh was so used to squatting he could not adapt to toilets. This clearly shows that, what you have been brought up on and your culture is hard to forget or get rid of. Also, due to the fact that Sarosh is unable to adapt to using toilets makes other areas of Sarosh’s life difficult, such as being late for his job every day and eventually getting fired. Thus, it is clear that one problem can lead to a chain reaction of problems. Rohinton Mistry himself was born in Bombay, India and migrated to Toronto, Canada to continue his education in the University of Toronto. Hence, he is familiar with the challenges faced by immigrants. Most of Mistry’s literature reflects his Indian culture, background and religion. His stories mainly deal with issues concerning with immigration and family disputes. Squatter is one of these types of literature among many from the “Tales from Firozshah Baag”, which was published in 1987. Furthermore, themes in Rohinton Mistry’s stories illustrate that no matter how hard you try to adapt to foreign cultures, there will always be a part of you that will retain your true ethnicity. “What does it mean to be truly Canadian?” this question is raised in Squatter. The characters in Squatter are very significant. The narrator, Nariman, is a very important character. He is an extremely intelligent man who is full of wisdom. Nariman brings the outside world into the children of his community with his stories. Another symbolic character is Sarosh. He is a man who keeps his promises and one that does not easily give up. He represents many immigrants out there.