Women and Sensorial Hegemony in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices

This essay reads Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's novel The Mistress of Spices in the context of the hierarchies of human sensoria that often entail the othering of certain races, classes, or genders associated with "lower senses." The diasporic protagonist of the novel, Tilo, uses her psychic power to choose spices of certain smells and tastes that rid people of their troubles and diseases, but the power comes with inherited restrictions that she cannot touch any of her clients or leave the premises of her shop. However, Tilo ultimately overcomes the haptic prohibition but retains her association with the spices of "lower senses" which, this essay argues, is how she overpowers subjugation and attains her desired identity with chosen sensory associations. Keywords: Sensorial hegemony; diaspora; identity; haptic prohibition