wake of contemporary globalization in a diasporic context, to point out the ambivalence within the notion of ‘homing desire’; second, our central point is to link our reading of Hamid’s “Exit West”—with its focus on diaspora space—as a hybrid site which intersects with the notion of border and politics of location as hyper-real Hybridity and the Politics of Location: A Study of Diaspora Space in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

1. Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Multan Campus, Punjab, Pakistan 2. Assistant Professor, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan 3. Lecturer, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan PAPER INFO ABSTRACT Received: January 17, 2021 Accepted: March 15, 2021 Online: March 30, 2021 Diaspora, in Postcolonial context, refers to the notion of ‘dispersion’ which entails the connotations of a center or a locus from which the dispersion occurs. It takes into account the homing desire, which is not the same as the desire for ‘homeland’. Hybridity, in conflation with diaspora studies, refers to dismantling cultures from their totalizing specificities of cultural situations. This cultural decolonization leads towards an ambivalent space called the ‘Third Space of Enunciation’. The present study deals with Mohsin Hamid’s “Exit West” (2017) as it attempts to reveal how colonial subjects are positioned not only in relation to the Colonizer but also in relation to one another. Hence, the colonial identity is always in a state of flux and anxiety due to multi-locationality, as the home is a slippery space in the diasporic imagination. Moreover, the study deals with Hamid’s engagement with the arbitrariness of borders, as borders are discursive narratives, which further leads towards deterritorialization as dislocation and displacement of meanings and identities. Hamid, in the “Exit West”, significantly maintains the ambivalence of diaspora space where binaries of exclusion/inclusion, belonging/otherness, us/them are contested in a global context.


Introduction
This paper has two focal points: First, it takes as starting point Hamid's "Exit West" (2017) as an emblem of the absence of the unified construct 'home' in the wake of contemporary globalization in a diasporic context, to point out the ambivalence within the notion of 'homing desire'; second, our central point is to link our reading of Hamid's "Exit West"-with its focus on diaspora space-as a hybrid site which intersects with the notion of border and politics of location as hyper-real constructs where Third Space for articulation functions in order to give voice to identities of diasporians v/s natives.
First, we have given a concise sketch of the theoretical ideas used in the analysis of Hamid's work, followed by textual analysis with instances from his work, and finally we tend to maintain a stance that how modern-day civilization is facing a global crisis, which Bhabha (1994) calls "international culture". Brah (1996) defines the term "Diaspora" as dispersion from center or "home" which entails dislocation and displacement with an image of multiple journeys. For her, diasporas involve "settling down" or putting roots "elsewhere" which Ashcroft and Griffiths (2002) call "the phenomenon of the extraordinary and accelerating movement of peoples throughout the world". In this context, she takes binaries as a socially constructed category as all diasporas, according to her, are "differentiated, heterogeneous contested spaces even as they are implicated in the construction of a common 'we'" (Brah, 1996, p. 181). Through this, she implicates the presence of multiple others embedded within a certain diasporic context. Moreover, Brah significantly problematizes the concept of 'home', which according to her, is a "lived experience of locality". It deals with both inclusionary and exclusionary practices as it takes simultaneously the narratives of origin and displacement.

Hybridity and Diaspora Space
Hybridity provides a category of analysis which intends to describe cultural mixture and where the displaced comes in contact with the host in the context of migration and dislocation from origin. Bhabha (1994), in this regard, challenges the notion of purity in terms of hybridity, which take all cultural statements and systems constructed in an ambivalent space called the "Third Space of enunciation". For Bhabha, this Third Space is productive as it contains traces of both colonial and postcolonial realities. According to him, it tends to conceptualize an "international culture" which seems to voice "culture's hybridity" free from esotericism of "multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures". It is the Third Space, which "carries the burden and meaning of culture" (Ashcroft and Griffiths, 2006). Bhabha's notion of hybridity and Third Space is significant in a diasporic context as it calls for "creative invention" which negates the possibility of totality and calls for plurality of experiences. He talks about the concept of "unhomeliness" as Brah (1996) calls it "homing desire" which is "the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations" and also "to feel not at home even in your own home because you are not at home in yourself" (Tyson, 2006) which signifies diasporic experience. Moreover, he engages himself with plurality of cultural enunciation, which pertains to diaspora studies. Bhabha (1985) in order to problematize the notion of fixed identity, which in turn conflates with diaspora, significantly engages himself with Fanon's concept of colonial identity who tends to make an interstitial space like Bhabha's notion of "inbetween" or "Third space for enunciation" to transcend the binary of "Colonialist Self" and "Colonized Other" as "colonial otherness" is addressed through an ambivalent space between them. For Bhabha, it is impossible to attain an image of totality and the only possible way to attain an image of identity is through the negation of identity as unified as identity, according to him, can be taken only in a metonymic fashion as a "sign of absence and loss". Hence, identity is in a continual process of "evacuation and emptying of the 'I'" as "hybridity is better conceived of as a process rather than a description (Kalra and Kaur, 2005, p. 71). Moreover, Bhabha's notion of mimicry, in a diasporic context, involves double consciousness, which puts migrants in an unstable sense of self, torn between two antagonistic cultures. Mimicry suggests "double articulation" which deconstructs the discourse of representational politics as mimicry is making of "almost the same but not quite" (Bhabha, 1994). Thus, Bhabha's notion of hybridity and mimicry provides a genealogy of essentialist notions of a unified identity and significantly intersects with diasporic studies, which challenges totalitarianism associated with the notion of pre-given and unchanging identity. Brah (1996) in this regard, takes diasporic identities as both "local" and "global". Brah (1996) contends with the construct of borders in order to point out its significance in relation to diasporic studies. She takes borders as metaphors, which signify power and politics. Each border, according to her, is embedded with a narrative of psychic and territorial realities. She states that metaphor of borders also signifies power because through borders the "Overdeveloped" countries exercise their hegemony over "Underdeveloped" countries through keeping a tighter check on human infiltration across the globe. According to Brah: "Borders: arbitrary dividing lines that are simultaneously social, cultural and psychic; territories to be patrolled against those whom they construct as outsiders, aliens, the Others; forms of demarcation where the very act of prohibition inscribes transgression; zones where fear of the Other is the fear of the self; places where claims to ownership-claims to 'mine', 'yours' and 'theirs'-are staked out, contested, defended and fought over" (Brah, 1996, pp. 194-195). Balibar (2006) talks about global deterritorialization in terms of permeability of borders. He states that the globalized world has become homogenized as course of information and capital influence each other rapidly. He further problematizes the issue of virtual v/s real world as "every individual is virtually in contact with every other individual through a whole variety of channels" (Balibar, 2006, p. 105). According to him, this virtual reality is more real than reality itself as it has a "quasihallucinatory consistency" as "Each local individuality is thus associated with the image of the place it occupies in the 'whole'" (Balibar, 2006). Moreover, he calls on the need to democratize borders, as borders in a globalized world exist in a political space creating ideological tensions between states and nations. Brah (1996) significantly engages herself with the notion of politics of space, which according to her, refers to position of multi-axial locationality with multiple subject positions. This position entails situatedness within a set of a particular race, ethnicity and gender and also dislocation in terms of travel across "geographical and psychic borders". She takes multi-axial politics of location as: "…how the same geographical space comes to articulate different histories and meanings such that 'home' can simultaneously be a place of safety and terror" (Brah, 1996, p. 204).
Moreover, Brah (1996) talks about diaspora space, which lies at the intersection of diaspora, border and politics of location. This intersection generates various economic, political, cultural and psychic tensions as diaspora space, according to her, is a site where "multiple subject positions are juxtaposed, contested, proclaimed or disavowed; where the permitted and prohibited perpetually interrogate; and where the accepted and transgressive imperceptibly mingle even while these syncretic forms may be disclaimed in the name of purity and tradition" (Brah, 1996, p.205). The notion of diaspora space further entangles itself with the notion of culture in a continuous state of travel, which not only denies the possibility of purist culture but also contests the "subject position of the native". As diaspora space contests the binary oppositions of inclusion/exclusion, belonging/otherness, us/them, so the subject positions of both native and indigenous are in a flow and a flux and hence, not fixed. Thus: "The diaspora space is the site where the native is as much a diasporian as the diasporian is the native" (Brah, 1996, p. 205).

Exit West and Diaspora Space: Hybridity, Borders and the Politics of Location
"Exit West" (2017), a novel by Mohsin Hamid, written in third person omniscient narration, is set in a war-torn city. The novel is embedded with experiences of displacement and dislocation with an image of home as a utopian construct never to be fully acquired in a globalized world. In this context, Hamid starts his novel from an unnamed city, a city under a threat of militant radicals on one hand, and the government on the other. In the wake of war and extremism, Hamid, in his narrative, significantly portrays the postcolonial condition in a globalized world where individuals have to maintain a hyper-real of everyday existence in the midst of conflict and war. Hence, the residents of the unnamed city in the novel are engaged in normal everyday life activities despite of the war threat their city encounters. Hamid, in this regard, maintains a sense of ambivalence, which encapsulates the entire novel as the city is in a state of both "war" and "peace" which is symbolic of the current state of the globalized world where there is plurality and multiplicity in terms of human existence, having both refugees and natives which, in turn, negates the possibility of a pure nation or culture.
"In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war" (Hamid, 2017, p. 1). Hamid (2017) in "Exit West" tends to dismantle the unity of a discourse termed as home through pointing out the desire of a home in the minds of two main characters of the novel, Saeed and Nadia. The two characters for the desire of their home which Brah (1996) calls "homing desire" engage themselves in multiple journeys across the globe which is not only a representation of plurality but also signify the absence of a unified "homeland". Saeed and Nadia, in the beginning of the novel, show their "homing desire" in the form of yearning to travel multiple sites across the globe. They want to travel because the home of their origin does not give them a sense of "homeland" as home stands for safety and security in a general sense. The narrator tells that the place where Saeed and Nadia meet, has been disowned by a Chinese couple in order to escape the city. Moreover, Saeed and Nadia want to escape their city because their "homing desire" compels them to follow a journey, which finally leads them towards a safe haven. Nadia shows her desire to go to Cuba because "of music and beautiful old buildings and the sea". Saeed shows his desire to move to Chile because of the natural beauty of Atacama Desert. The way Saeed describes Atacama Desert is also symbolic of globalization as the Earth is described as "moving" which is a reference towards the diasporic experience of Saeed and Nadia and the movement of people across the globe in a diasporic context. The word 'spinning' is prophetic of the traumatic experiences of Saeed and Nadia during multiple journeys across the globe. Saeed describes his homing desire as: "The air is so dry, so clear, and there's so few people, almost no lights. And you can lie on your back and look up and see the Milky Way. All the stars like a splash of milk in the sky. And you can see them slowly move. Because the Earth is moving. And you feel like you are lying on a giant spinning ball in space" (Hamid, 2017, p.21). Hamid (2017) contests the binary of home/exile through bringing out the traumatic experiences of Saeed and Nadia at the place of their origin and also in their multiple journeys across the globe. Moreover, the novel also brings out the tendency of diaspora as being replete with feelings of hope and change. Both the characters, during the course of the novel, are caught between the feelings of being/not-being at home. Every journey of Saeed and Nadia has its own experiential reality accompanied by the feeling of "no-return", though they have the capacity to return to the place of their origin. Before leaving for Mykonos, Saeed and Nadia both have opposite reactions towards their migrancy. Saeed takes it as "temporarily, intermittently, never once and for all…for he doubted he would come back…amounting to the loss of a home, no less, of his home" (Hamid, 2017, pp.89-90). Saeed also confronts moral dilemma to leave his father behind as his father refused to leave because of the grave of Saeed's mother in the city. Saeed, in this context, proclaims: "when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind" (Hamid, 2017, p.94). On the other hand, Nadia has mixed feelings regarding her first journey to the outside world. For her, it is "…the prospect of something new, of change" and also being "…at the mercy of strangers, subsistent on handouts, caged in pens like vermin" (Hamid, 2017, p.90).
When they reach Mykonos, they do not feel completely safe in the refugee camp and show their urgency to leave Mykonos when they come to know that there is a way out to escape this island. Despite of the extremism of "nativist backlash", both characters in the back of their minds know that "returning to where they had been born was unthinkable" (Hamid, 2017, p.134). But in the midst of violence and terror at Mykonos and London, the refugee house in London is portrayed as partly ideal because the people from various regions find "a proper roof over their heads" after a long time (Hamid, 2017, p.128). Hamid (2017) maintains the ambivalence within the binary of home and exile through the description of London's refugee house.
"Outside the house much was random and chaotic, but inside, perhaps, a degree of order could be built. May be even a community" (Hamid, 2017, p.129).
Hamid (2017) takes a fragmentary stance towards the narrative in "Exit West", which is a strong implication towards the plurality and multiplicity of the globalized world. In this context, Hamid has interspersed various narratives into the diasporic experience of Saeed and Nadia, which take the readers to various parts of the globe. Every narrative signifies the diasporic Other of Saeed and Nadia. Hence, multiple others are embedded within a diasporic experience of the main characters. The very first narrative is about a woman in Australia who is fast asleep in her bedroom and her husband is away on account of some business. She forgets to turn the alarm system of her house on and then a man with "dark skin and dark, wooly hair" emerges from a dark space which is symbolic of the entrance of the non-whites into the white world. The "dark" man struggles hard to get through the dark space and enters into the bedroom of a woman, which is symbolic of the hardships of diasporic experience. His only desire was "not to be heard" (Hamid, 2017, p.7) and he means no harm, which is a strong reference towards the desire of the non-whites to enter into a new world without any feeling of hostility towards whites as the dark man in the narrative escapes through a window without creating any harm to the woman "dropping silkily to the street below" (Hamid, 2017, p.8). The second narrative is an extension of the first one as it signifies nativist reaction on account of various migrations across the globe. Hamid (2017) takes the reader to the "Tokyo district of Shinjuku" where a man notices two Filipino girls emerging from a dark space. The reaction of the young native man is emblematic of native hostility and violence as he recalls his past when he had beaten a half-Filipino boy in his junior school badly. He shows his dislike for Filipinos as: "He disliked Filipinos. They had their place, but they had to know their place… And slipped into a walk behind them, fingering a metal in his pocket as he went" (Hamid, 2017, p.28).
The narrative from chapter six also entails nativist prejudice and bias towards the migrants. The narrative is about a young woman who works in contemporary art gallery at Vienna. The militants from Saeed's and Nadia's country doing "massacres in the streets" intend to "provoke a reaction against migrants from their own part of the world" (Hamid, 2017, p.104). The young woman being a supporter of migrants "wearing a peace badge on her overcoat, and a rainbow pride badge, and a migrant compassion badge" (Hamid, 2017, p.105) faces a strong reaction from the natives. Despite of the native belongingness of the people who surround her during her journey towards the place of protest in the favour of migrants, they do not show any respect towards the woman because of her loyalties towards the migrant community. Hamid (2017), through the title of the novel, establishes the notion of "Third Space for enunciation" as there is a significant absence between "Exit" and "West". The reader cannot decide whether it is 'Exit to West' or 'Exit from West' as the novel starts with an unnamed city with unspecified location. This absence creates a sense of articulation for diasporians or migrants that no matter it is Exit to West or Exit from West, the experience will be not without trauma and anxiety. The writer, during the course of the novel, gives the symbolic description of "Third Space for Enunciation" in the form of description of the mind of Saeed's mother. This space for articulation is replete with danger and thus, a paradox of voice and voicelessness is there as a negation of purity in a globalized world. Moreover, the mind of Saeed's mother is portrayed as a map or a location with multi-axial divisions and fragmentation lacking in unity. "Saeed's mother's mental map of the place resembled an old quilt, with patches of government land and patches of militant land. The frayed seams between the patches were the most deadly places, and to be avoided at all costs" (Hamid, 2017, p. 66).
"Exit West" (2017) revolves around the diasporic experience of two main characters: Saeed and Nadia. The two characters meet while taking adult education course in the midst of war and peace. The writer, in the beginning of the novel, gives us certain identity markers pertaining to Saeed and Nadia. Saeed is shown to have stubble like beard and Nadia dresses herself in a 'black robe'. Ironically, Saeed belongs to a liberal family as his parents read and smoke together on the balcony but Saeed tends to be conservative as Saeed continuously rejects Nadia's proposal of having sex together before marriage and claimed that, "I don't think we should have sex until we're married" (Hamid, 2017, p. 53). On the other hand, Nadia seems to be conservative because of her black robe but she gives a different reason to attire herself in this fashion, "So men don't fuck with me" (Hamid, 2017, p.16). Nadia belongs to a conservative family because when Nadia decides to live independently, she incurs a reaction which involves "…hard words on all sides, from her father, from her mother, even more so from her sister" (Hamid, 2017, p.18). Despite of their strong inclinations, the identities of the two characters remain in a flux throughout the novel. Saeed and Nadia articulate two antagonistic cultures: East and West. The characters show a strong tendency towards the imitation of Western culture despite of the fear accompanied by the extremism of militants in their city. Saeed and Nadia take 'shrooms' together "on the night they first became physically intimate" (Hamid, 2017, p.38). Nadia has a physical relationship with some musician before Saeed with whom "…she had shuffled off the weight of her virginity with some perplexity but not excessive fuss" (Hamid, 2017, pp.30-31). The two characters strongly exhibit "double consciousness" through belongingness with East as their place of origin and West as their place of desire and an object of mimicry, as both characters want to go to 'Latin America' as mentioned above. Moreover, Saeed in the beginning of the novel does not pray but during his stay at London Halo "he prayed more regularly, every morning and evening, and perhaps on his lunch breaks too" (Hamid, 2017, pp.186-187) which signifies his strong ties and a pull towards his own place of origin. Thus, the writer nullifies the existence of unified and purist identities.
"Exit West" (2017) maintains the ambivalence regarding identity crisis in the form of characters occupying two places at the same time; the Colonized self that is, a desire to attain the place of the Colonizer, and the Colonized Other that is, the position of the Colonized. Saeed and Nadia confront this identity crisis while living in a settlement called London Halo. They live in a worker camp where they work hard to achieve a reasonable shelter comprising of "forty square meters of land and a connection to all the utilities of modernity" (Hamid, 2017, pp.167-168). There is a strong demarcation between natives and the non-natives on the working site. The natives have the position of the Colonizer in the form of "supervisors or as operators of heavy machinery" (Hamid, 2017, p.176). Nadia, in this context, describes the "driver of the digging machine" and his wife as "…the couple a bit like the queen and king of a domain" (Hamid, 2017, p.182) which shows her unconscious desire to achieve the position of her masters. Saeed, while maintaining the subject position of the colonizer/colonized, articulates the 'in-between' nature of his position between his foreman and the other worker migrants, which is a strong implication towards the "Third Space for articulation" of the non-natives in a diasporic context of London halo.
"…he sat next to Saeed as he ate. Saeed also had the added advantage of being among those workers who spoke English and so occupied a status midway between the foreman and the others on the team" (Hamid, 2017, p. 177). Hamid (2017) in "Exit West" significantly makes a diasporic space, a conceptual category, comprising of economic, political, cultural and psychic conflicts. Hamid describes Mykonos as a place with "people of many colors and hues" (Hamid, 2017, p.100) where Saeed and Nadia face financial constraints as "their funds were growing thinner…" quickly (Hamid, 2017, p.110).Saeed and Nadia also encounter some men who chased them along the beach and during this psychic trauma "Nadia slipped and cut her arm on the rocks" (Hamid, 2017, p. 112). Saeed and Nadia also suffered deceit at the hands of a man who assured them to help getting out of Mykonos but that man never returned. Hamid (2017) describes London Halo in political turbulence as London Halo is emblematic of global migrations which Hamid calls "global crisis" (Hamid, 2017, p. 83). London Halo is a hybrid space within a globalized world in order to "accommodate more people again than the London itself" (Hamid, 2017, p. 167) and also establishes a labour market where the bourgeois is the Colonizer, the whites; and the proletariat is the Colonized, the browns as Saeed and Nadia work in one of the "worker camps". This difference creates an economic tension between the migrants and the natives. Ironically, Hamid maintains the ambivalence within the subject position of the Colonizer and the Colonized as both positions maintain the status of the dominating and dominated at the same time respectively. Hamid states: "…some migrants continued to cling to properties they did not own under the law, and some migrants some nativists too continued to detonate bombs and carry out knifings and shootings" (Hamid, 2017, p. 168). Hamid (2017) presents a strong contrast between "dark London" and "light London" in order to differentiate between the existential realities of the migrants v/s natives and also to negate the possibility of a purist culture in the contemporary world of globalization. Saeed and Nadia imagine "light London" as a site of their desire as if "…people dinned in elegant restaurants and rode in shiny black cabs." On the other hand, "dark London" is portrayed as the place where "… rubbish accrued, uncollected and underground stations (were) sealed" (Hamid, 2017, p.142). Ironically, the impact of displacement and dislocation is not only for the migrants but also for the natives because Hamid tends to establish that the massive migrations have not only effected migrants but also the natives. Hence, the subject positions of diasporian v/s native are not fixed as both subject positions are the sites of privilege and loss.
"…it was now said that between Westminister and Hammersmith, legal residents were in a minority, native-born ones vanishingly few, with local newspapers referring to the area as the worst of the black holes in the fabric of the nation" (Hamid, 2017, p. 126). Hamid (2017) in "Exit West" gives a metonymical representation of the construct called border in the form of description of doors "…that could take you elsewhere, often to places far away" (Hamid, 2017, p. 69). The writer dismantles the construct of border and points out its arbitrariness in a way when Nadia assumes the windows as a border "through which death was possibly most likely to come" (Hamid, 2017, p.68) which also signifies the fragility of human safety in a globalized world. Though window as a fragile construct of border, it acts as a barricade, social and psychological, for Nadia, to protect herself from the militant regime in the city. Moreover, the doors also differ in position and status with respect to power and hegemony. It is through borders that nations in power exercise their hegemony over the nations less in power. The agent told Saeed and Nadia that the doors are everywhere, guarded and unguarded "but finding one the militants had not yet found, a door not yet guarded, that was the trick" (Hamid, 2017, p. 85). The door to Mykonos is described as "like dying and like being born" (Hamid, 2017, p. 98) which signifies Mykonos as an unprivileged place, but the passage allows a safe entrance into the remote island. On the other hand, when Saeed and Nadia come to know of the door to Germany, during their stay at Mykonos, they found the door heavily guarded by the militants.
"…the uniformed men simply stopped the crowd and stood their ground,…so the crowd dispersed and most people headed back to the camp" (Hamid, 2017, p. 108).
"Exit West" (2017) is an attempt to deterritorialize the world not only in terms of permeability of borders but also through their democratization in order to defy the notion of a purist culture which Bhabha (1994) calls "international culture". Hamid, in order to dismantle the purist notion of culture, brings "dark London" under the continuous gaze of "drones and helicopters and surveillance balloons" (Hamid, 2017, p. 142), which divides the existence of the migrants into real v/s virtual world, making the virtual reality more powerful as it happens to be the eye of the natives in power. Hamid, in order to give voice to an "international culture" in a globalized world, personifies the construct 'nation' as a person with "multiple personalities" and having multiple stances on nationality. But this person seems to be shedding his/her "skin" as he/she is in a continuous contact with other "skins". Here, the term "skin" is a metonym for race and colour of which the nations are in a process to get rid off in the era of globalization.
"…this person with multiple personalities was furthermore a person whose skin appeared to be dissolving as they swam in a soup full of other people whose skins were likewise dissolving" (Hamid, 2017, pp. 155-156). Hamid (2017) significantly engages himself with the notion of politics of location through situating Saeed and Nadia in multiple locations in order to problematize location not as a unified construct of "safety" or "terror" but as a heterogeneous site containing the traces of both. Saeed and Nadia's escape from their city of origin serves multiple purposes. On the one hand, the escape is a refuge from the turmoil of their city to the more developed regions of the world. On the other hand, the escape to Mykonos and then to the city of London puts the two characters in a diasporic trauma. Moreover, the writer takes the construct of location as hyper-real where "the doors could not be closed, and new doors would continue to open" (Hamid, 2017, p. 164) which signifies the loss of purist nation and culture in a globalized world. The hyper-reality of location is significantly maintained through a short narrative of woman in Palo Alto, a woman who decides not to change her location nor migrate, despite of massive migrations happening around her. As a result, at a particular moment she notices that she cannot even recognize a single person in the town. The woman at last comes to the conclusion that despite one's resistance towards displacement and migration, we cannot restrain it from happening as "time" makes us migrate to various locations and places.

Conclusion
Hamid in "Exit West" presents fragmentary but a hybrid narrative to mock the purist notions associated with culture and identity. For this purpose, Hamid maintains a diaspora space with multiple journeys of the two main characters. The journeys are embedded with traumatic experiences leading towards identity crisis in a multinational culture and also where the desire of a unified home is impossible to attain in the contemporary world. The doors stand for the metonymical representation of borders from where massive migrations happen which signify diasporic experience of the modern man. Hamid, through keeping the status of Saeed and Nadia between the migrants and the natives, calls on the need to have a Third Space for articulation both for natives and diasporians as the writer not only captivates the dislocation of the migrants but also of the natives as well. Hamid, by giving an easy passage to Saeed and Nadia through permeable doors to various parts of the globe, tends to deterritorialize the world in favour of migration as an inevitable fact in the postcolonial world.