|
Summer – 2006 | Volume – 21 |
| Review | ||
Perspectives of Diaspora : Indian Fiction in English
Editior: Dr. Tejinder Kaur Jalandher: Nirman Publication, 2005, Page-198, Rs.200.
Dr. Gurdev Singh Chandhi , DCC , Punjabi University, Patiala -India
The book, Perspectives on Diaspora Indian Fiction in English, is edited by two eminent scholars of English Literature, Dr. Tejinder Kaur, Professor of English at Punjabi University, Patiala and Dr. N. K. Neb a Senior Lecturer in the department of English, D. A. V. College Jalandhar. Both the editors are well versed with the contemporary trends of literary criticism and creative writings. The book includes fourteen articals of renowned English Scholars based on the diasporic experiences portrayed in the fictional works of V.S.Naipaul, Anita Desai, Itwaru, Farida Karodia, Bharti Mukherjee, Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lehri, Kavita Daswani and Hari Kunzru.
In the preface, Editiors have defined the term diaspora, which initially was used for the scattering and exile of the Jews from their homeland. The term diaspora represents people’s displacement which results in isolation and alienation in cultural spheres in new lands. The exile or displacement is mainly based on the three types of phenomena: forced, half forced – half willed and willed consequences. The Jewish community was forced to exile, where as during the colonial period people were uprooted to serve the British Empire in different parts of the world and they settled there half forced-half willingly because option was given to them after the war, but the third dimension of expatriation is the willed choice of migrants from the third world countries for greener pastures in the developed countries. Whatever the reasons may be but the reality is that the immigrants experience a sense of uprootedness and unbelonging in the foreign countries. The editors aver that inspite of the attempts of the immigrants of acculturation; they do remain at the periphery and are treated as ‘others’. The literature, product of such sensibility, foregrounds the life and experiences of this ‘Trishanku’ community belonging to nowhere. This kind of literature presents the yearnings, anxieties, confusion and aspirations of diasporic people. All the fictional works included in this book exalt this fact but the analysis given by the critics in the articles also makes it explicit that inspite of the yearnings, anxieties and aspirations, all the diaspora are not inclined to return home but at the same time culture, customs, tradition, religions, and languages of their native lands remain and even become dearer to them. The writers, themselves, experiencing diasporic, problimatics are portraying different aspects of sensibilities and concernes, although these vary as per their generations, perceptions, attitudes and specific identities but the dominent factors are displacement, rootlessness, discrimination, marginalisation, identification, inter and cross-cultural conflicts faced by diaspora.
In the article,” Contemporary Diasporic Discourse”, Dr. Manjit Inder Singh has contributed detailed information about the complex situation of diaspora. With the support of various authentic thinkers, he has formalized the different and new shades of diaspora. In his opinion; “What one observes as a new feature in diasporic imagination and human space, is to find a new conversion, to engage in intellectual energy to find a new utterance in a new territory, or allegiance to replace a lost one which would do away with difference and contradiction.” He further adds that with globalization and proliferation of Internet, the people of diaspora have forced their native countries to extend the area of national belongings such as the grant of dual citizenship. In fact the Third World Countries now are developing frameworks on how best diaspora can be re-incorporated, whereas the First World Countries are formulating policies to check immigration.
Swaraj Raj, in his article “Theorizing Diaspora Poetics and Diaspora Literature”, presents his concern over the ambivalent nature of literature depicting diaspora and the novel ways of considering communal identities and generational differences, how new and old diasporas relate to the culture of their native land and host country. Raj identifies that the element of nostalgia and the quest for roots mark the theme of diasporic fiction. According to him ‘home’ is a mythical place in the diasporic imagination now. In the strife of theorizing diaspora poetics, Raj realises;”Inspite of the commonality of themes of diasporic fiction, the differences between all diasporic writers are so vast that it is not possible to find an easy notional fit of writings in a convenient formula.” Raj puts forth the historical and socio-cultural development of the diasporic experiences.
Manju Jaidka in her article,”Travelling With Walls”, reveals that the first step out of one’s country is a bold one and one has to take risk, because without it, one cannot hope to gain anything. The adventurist according to Salman Rushdie, who takes this risk, is a migrant, the ‘man without frontiers’. Many migrants walk behind the walls of old culture they have both brought along and left behind. Jaidka analyses that in the process of migration one leaves a certain geographical space behind, but one also carries it with in one’s memory. She also deals with psycho-social problems, that the immigrants have to face during the expatriation.
In this book, V.S. Naipaul has been discussed by two critics, Rama Kundu and R.S.Jhanji. Both of them have first given vast account of different aspects of diaspora and then the personal views and experiences of the writer under consideration, about expatriation and exile. Rama Kundu writes,”The creative spectrum of Naipaul’s works repeatedly brings out his inability to leave India behind him and to integrate his ancestral past with his diasporic present”. R.S.Jhanji highlights Naipoul’s opinion by quoting Naipaul’s own lines,” India and England are the two poles facing the ‘placeless’ Caribbean man. Apparently, self-definition and self-improvement can only occur through reference to those poles.”
G. Manoja, in the beginning of the article, “War Within War”, describes the history of exile and diaspora. Then she explores the reasons and results of the bewilderness of the protagonist of Anita Desai’s ‘Baumgarton’s Bombay’ a sustenance within humanity. Itwaru’s ‘The Unreturning’ and Karodia’s ‘Daughters of the twilight’ are the subjects of study in the article written by Jasbir Jain, who has evolved the paradoxes and complexities of diasporic life in multicultural societies. She emphasizes on the need to grow out of and transcends the negative environment as both Itwaru and Karodia record the trauma, the pain and the loss, which individuals experience as part of a community. Jagroop Singh discusses Rohinton Mistry’s novel ‘A Fine Balance’ by focusing on the socio-political scenario regarding Parsee community’s existence and foregrounds the problems against Indian political subjectivity particularly during the backdrop of Emergency.
N. K. Neb and Swaraj raj both tend to explore the new dimensions of problematic facing diaspora in Bharati Mukherjee’s novels ‘Desirable Daughters’ and ‘Jasmine’. Neb concentrates on Mukherjee’s concerns regarding multiple aspects of life in exile and favor to assimilate in the alien land, because home is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination—a place of no return, and eventually from a metaphysical existence, human being turns out to be eternal exiles. Neb also juxtaposes B. Mukherjee’s thesis that emigrants, particularly woman, suffer from a ‘sudden freedom syndrome’. According to Swaraj Raj, Mukherjee rejects stasis, inertia and identity politics, we tend to associate with expatriate and exilic perspective.
P.S.Ramana focuses on Jhumpa Lahiri’s predicament by quoting Julia Kristova “Rather than formulating a new discourse, women should persist in challenging the discourse that stand,—by rejecting everything finite, definite, structured, loaded with meaning, in the existing state of society.” Ramana in ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, a collection of short stories and Poornima in Lahiri’s novel, ‘The Namesake’ emphasise on Lahiri’s presentation of matrimonial problems, cultural alienation and changing patterns of human relationships of Indians settled in the U.S.
In Kavita Daswani’s novel, ‘For Matrimonial Purposes’, Tejinder Kaur concentrates on the diasporic consciousness, where the transformation and in the subjectivity of diasporic women is possible only by her living on the border zones of two cultures and this border zone is termed as ‘third space’ or ‘Trishanku’. This ‘new persona’ who inhibit the third space, live the third culture and shape the third history. Hari Kunzru’s ‘Transmission’ upsurges a debate on the effects of globalization and Sangeeta Handa’s analysis raises some questions, asking, whether the hi-technology could make possible to bring people closer really? Handa has discussed new issues confronting the diaspora in new perspectives. Rajesh K. Sharma in his article, ‘The Politics of Cinematic Representation’, on the diasporic experiences portrayed in the filim,’American Desi’, exhibits how a film narrative has experienced diasporic images so incisively
This book embodies a valuable knowledge relating the issues pertaining to diaspora and the analysis of specific texts by prominent scholars is a commendable attempt. It would be better whether more space is given to film art, presenting diaspric themes. Some articles are lacing the technical aspect of narrative relating diaspora . Nevertheless, this attempt is a big achievement. The book will prove a great help to the researchers interested in the field.
