CHAPTER III

The Plays of Uma Parameshwaran:

A Critical Study
 CHAPTER III
The Plays of Uma Parameshwaran: A Critical Study

03.01: Introduction:

It is an accepted and acknowledged fact of the literary history of North America

in general and Canada in particular that ‘Immigrant Writing’ or ‘Diasporic Writing’ is
fast emerging as a distinct category. Canada is largely inhabited by the immigrants from
all over the world of which migrated population from Indian subcontinent forms a
significant section. The writers of Indian origin writing largely in English have developed
a category of their own which can well be designated as CIDW i.e. Canadian Indian
Diasporic Writing. Uma Parameswaran is a significant contributor to this category. As an
expatriate writer, she attempts to ‘grab the best of two worlds’. Most of her one-act plays
(short plays) recall an Indian past with its mythology, legend and the Gods and
Goddesses. She has portrayed the dilemma of the Indian community whose effort is to
transport an ancient culture, which is of theirs to their new homeland. The present chapter
makes a modest attempt to explore various such aspects of Uma Parameswaran’s plays.
In this chapter, the researcher aims at unfolding various themes of her plays with a
critical study. The study is basically text-oriented.
By focusing on the Indian values, morals, mythology and other cultural links in
her plays, Parameswaran wants to reestablish the same in her new homeland.
Parameswaran enables the reader to understand the agony and trauma of the immigrants
and bring home to the reader the sense of uprooting and alienation felt by the characters.
Living on margins, trying to perform the role of an ambassador and a refugee, the
diasporic writer seeks affirmation and reaffirmation in a new perspective. Being an
immigrant of 1960s, Uma Parameswaran, an Indo-Canadian writer, fulfils both the
requirements of diaspora. She relates more positively to Canadian culture while revealing
her distinctive Indian identity in her writings. Her plays reflect epic India, Indian music
and dance drama tradition as well as her embracing a larger immigrant community with
their fears, dilemmas and hopeful assimilation. The researcher would like to study all her

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five plays included in the book Sons Must Die and Other Plays (1998). The plays
included in this volume are as follows:
1. Sons Must Die (1962)
2. Meera: A Dance Drama (1971)
3. Sita’s Promise: A Dance Drama (1981)
4. Dear Deedi, My Sister: Performance Piece for Voices (1980)
5. Rootless bid Green are the Boulevard Trees (1987)
The present study highlights various themes and techniques of Parameswaran’s
plays with critical perspectives. Her plays represent different phases of her writing career.
Sons Must Die, the first play was written in 1962 and after a long period in 1971, she
wrote her second play, Meera: A Dance Drama. After a decade in 1981, she wrote Sita’s
Promise: A Dance Drama and Dear Deedi, My Sister: Performance Piece for Voices was
composed in 1980. The only full-length play, Rootless but Green are the Boulevard
Trees, where she openly speaks out on the discrimination practiced against the
immigrants was her last play. The researcher would like to analyse all her five plays one
by one in this chapter.

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03.02: Sons Must Die (1962):

Sons Must Die was written much earlier in 1962. It was published in 1998 as a
part of South Asian Canadian Literature Series (SACLIT), of which Uma Parameswaran
is the general editor. In the early 1960s, she was living in Nagpur. The India-China War
of 1962 had an impact on her, as it did on almost every young person of the time. She
also had an impact of Tennyson and Macaulay’s patriotic outburst in poems. In ‘Author’s
Statement’, Uma Parameswaran says: “There was an outburst of patriotism. Old pre­
independence marching songs were revived; “Khilenge phool issjagah mein watan ke
naam shahid ho.” Women’s organizations mobilized help in, all kinds of ways.” 1

Newspapers passed form hand to hand and were read over shoulders. Many people went
at least once to the railway station to cheer our khakLclad jawans who packed the trains
on the Grand Trunk tracks that carried them from the South to the battlefront. Several
families lost sons and Uma Parameswaran felt all this horror when young women at her
college lost brothers. All this has a great impact on Parameswaran’s mind. N. Kallamani
writes: “The idealism and romanticism of war was shred to pieces when the author had
the first-hand experience of meeting several families in India who lost their sons. Many
2
young women lost their brothers, as some lost their young husbands.”
Sons Must Die has been read and criticized on different levels. S. Ganesan
observes that the play portrays the conflict between romantic idealism and the survival
instinct. It portrays the sad reality of the loss of scores of human lives in an armed
conflict. Uma Parameswaran herself admits in her preface: . .the play deals with the pity
of war” (p. 8). Some critics still view the play in terms of two sides to the issue. Sons
leave their mothers (or mother country). Diaspora studies have pivoted the experience of
the sons. What surfaces in diasporic experience is the underlying trauma in the act of
displacement. When one dives in deep, the play appears to be rich, questioning the need
to sacrifice of sons and the predicament of the mother. Anjana Trivedi says, “Sons Must
Die exposes the experiences of three women in 1947 India. The plot structure, technique
and style of the play depict Parameswaran’s interests in Greek tragedies.” The human
reaction to war has always been ambivalent. War has been praised in some of the greatest

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classics of the world and at the same time, decried by thinkers and writers like Bernard
Shaw. Still, from time to time, countries resort to war to expand their territories and to
protect their sovereignty. The researcher, with this perspective in mind, would like to
restrict herself to the main interpretations of the play.
Sons Must Die is set against the backdrop of Kashmir and the India-Pakistan War
of 194748. The play exposes the experiences of three women in 1947 India. The three
women from different parts of India; a Tamil Brahmin, wrapped in conjeevaram silk,
Zohra Begum, a Muslim mother wearing a salwar kameez suit with gold embroidery on
the blue valet and Prem Behn, a Punjabi mother, all meet at Kashmir in search of their
sons. The play opens with the description of the beauty of the vale of Kashmir in 1948 A.
D. Chorus of Old Men wearing traditional Kashmiri dress admiring the land say:
“Kashmir! Valley beloved of the Great!
Many have been the wars fought here
These two thousand years.
Fratricidal wars for all wars are fratricidal,
No hollow platitude- all men ARE brothers.
Many were the hands that held your scepter
Varied the faiths of your rulers”.
Uftia Parameswaran traces the whole history of rulers of Kashmir from the Kushans,
Noble Harsha, Karkato, Utpalan, Gupta- the long line of Hindu kings to the Muslim
warrior Shah Mirza, who seized it from them. The description of Kashmir is realistic and
very beautiful. She gives studious history of the rulers of Kashmir. For her, Kashmir is
too beautiful to suffer the violence of war; and yet suffering has been the lot of Kashmir.
The Kashmiris were exploited by traders from the plains. The mountain tribes of Kashmir
have wandered with their herd to find grassy meals to feed their flocks. The chorus
5
wonders; “ay who will not fight for so fair a land?”
Kashmir is rich in treasures, nature’s favourite realm where she has unstintingly
showered all her splendour on land and man. Man from here has skillful hands to weave
shawls and fabrics, beyond compare. These hands labour at them night and day and the
trader takes them away for princesses leaving him no more than a day’s broth. His eyes
have grown deem at the handicrafts and the man watches at distance the figure coming

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 >4

close. The woman enters with slow steps, looking all around the snow-capped peaks, the
valley, the sky. She a Tamil Brahmin called Meenakshi. She says:
“Kashmir? This, the valley beloved of the Gods?
Likely so for ’tis beautiful, aye a pity ’tis so beautiful
For its beauty causes war....
The playground of the Gods she is called.
Ye Gods, why do you not keep her for yourself?” 6

Kashmir is an enchantress who lures people and it is also the valley, beloved of
the Gods. But “Is this enchantress worth sons’ lives?” asks the author, as one by one the
mothers come and bemoan the death of their sons. Meenakshi, calling her son cries for
his loss. She reminds her son’s childhood. Her son ever wished to fly high into the clouds
and in Kashmir the clouds girdle the vale below. He becomes a pilot. Meenakshi calls the
land of Kashmir a ‘siren’- (a woman who attracts men and causes their destruction), an
enchantress who has killed her son. As she sobs, the chorus says:
“.... Poor woman
Who cannot see beauty for her tears. But forgive her
For it is her mother heart that cries.”
Meenakshi loves her Tamil land which is fair, too. She admires Madras which showers
fruits like mangoes, oranges, trees like neem and peepal under whose shade our Gods are
worshipped, tall coconut palms bearing nectar, eucalyptus that whisper sweet lullaby and
cool the sun rays into soft breeze. The chorus at this time admires the beauty of the snow­
capped peaks of Kashmir whereon glimpses eternity. But Meenakshi is blind to this
beauty as her son’s love and pain of his death has made her so. She reminds the days
when she sat by her son on the warm beach where he built moats in the sand. Meenakshi
is a pacifist. She thinks that India is wide enough, plenteous enough and rich enough so,
we need no more. Crying for the loss of her son, she asks:
“O what amounts we stake for this!
Lives, human lives, sons’ lives, O India
g
Is this enchantress worth sons’ lives?”
As she slumps down, weeping, Zohra Begum appears there, she too, looking out for her
son. The Muslim woman with a tinseled chunni covering her head is greeted by the

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Chorus in Muslim fashion bowing with their right hand raised to the forehead. She
returns the greeting and stands silent for a moment staring at the slope of Kashmir land
where her gallant sons and her husband have fallen. She remembers them with pride. Her
husband returned for evening prayer with a son on either side, discussing deals, planned
or made. She remembers her tall and handsome sons with straight nose, bold eyes below
broad forehead, beards clipped neat. She is proud that she has sent her two sons and their
father to the Warfield, who went there willingly. Though the mother is crestfallen, she
does not fall to weeping but sorrowfully proclaims:
“O Ineffable Name, pardon me
And those with me
Who have failed in duty towards thee
Send us not such mournful punishment.
Allah, Ho Allah!” 9

Retiring to a comer, the mother kneels facing Mecca and starts praying.
Last of all, comes the Punjabi mother, Prem Behn, a woman of thirty six who
sees her lad, a young son in perfect health who becomes a victirii of the onslaught. She
too, admires the wonderland of Kashmir - the Valley of Flowers. She wishes to die
willingly for such a land and is proud that her son is fighting there. She says:
.. Lovely vale, had I a hundred sons
P d send them all to fight for thee, and consider it
Scant sacrifice for such a treasure.”10

Prem Behn is greatly patriotic and truly loves Kashmir. She believes that Kashmir is a
paradise, the loveliest spot in the universe. She considers herself fortunate for giving her
son for this land. By now, Hari, a young Indian pilot crawls in slowly, pistol in hand. He
is the son of Meenakshi, and in his last moments reminds the childhood memories. It was
his dream to be a pilot and fly high. His dream was fulfilled but he flied high literally,
seeing the lovely high land of Kashmir. Meenakshi, looking at her badly injured son, who
has lost his left leg, cries to do something to ease his pain. Her son is in his last moments,
reminding the beautiful seashore of Madras, babbling as if boozed up and then dies.
Just then, Lieutenant Nand Kishore, the son of Prem Behn appears on the stage,
who is too young to die. Happy to see his mother, he pitifully cries out that he does not

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want to die. He asks his mother to prevent his death. His implorations to his mother are-
painful. He refuses to be dead in his twenties. He says:
“I want to live ....
To race over the fields, to swim across the Sutlaj,
To see Spring’s first spring,
To join harvest songs and dances ....”11

As he was dying, pictures of his boyhood games passed before his eyes and he
remembered die happy days- marbles, kites, tops and then the youth. He wanted to live to
taste the youth and so he implores his mother to give him life. His yearning for life on the
death-bed in the battlefield is agonizing. This youth of twenty had loved India and the
beautiful Kashmir, but they have killed him.
The chorus and the other characters foreground the atrocity of war. The poet, the
dacoit, the Christian nun and the Indian Sadhu provide perspectives on the horrors of war.
The poet is the first to see the ravages. He witnesses the green splendor of the valley
transformed into a stream of blood and wailing mothers, of whose ‘sons must die’.
Whereas the poet is disillusioned with humanity, a nun appears there and she is closely
followed by a dacoit.. The nun is a European, in the attire of the Order of St. Joseph,
murmuring the prayer with her fingers rolling the rosary. Engrossed in her prayer, she is
startled on seeing Zohra Begum, wondering whether she is a Pakistani. Seeing her fright,
the Chorus assures her that there is nothing to fear. They tell her that all fez cap wearers
am not Pakistanis and all Pakistanis are not ravagers. They assure her safety, but the
imprint of fear on her heart is deep.
As if an answers to the fears of the nun comes the dacoit to waylay her. He is a
blasphemous. The episode of the dacoit is satirical of the institution of religion- Hindu or
Christian or Muslim. He laughs at the story of Hiranvakashipu, Virgin Mary, the Vedas
and the Amamth and Badrinath ‘lingam’- God Siva.
At this moment, a Sadhu, clad in leopard-skin enters. He had a brass jug in one
hand and a trishul in the other, looking like Siva. The dacoit is puzzled and exclaims
whether it was a World Conference of Religion shaping out here. The Sadhu’s words to
the dacoit are paradoxical. Yet they communicate the central message of the play. He
tells them that he too, has often wondered if there was a God. Fasting, praying and

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mortifying himself in the icy caves, learning self-control, detachment and yoga, he waited
for God to see Him face to face. But he did not come. Then he saw “a mother and her
babe” and knew that it was here that God lived. But yet he has a question:
“They give birth to sons
Are proud and jealous for them.
But when the sons leave
What can the mother do?” 12

Thus, Sadhu throws light on mother-son relationship. He also suggests motherland and
sons of land relationship. The play ends with Nand Kishore’s demise.
The moving story of the sons’ great sacrifice forms the theme of the play. It has
no Acts or Scenes in it. It flows from the first line to the last line (total 707 lines)
portraying the conflict between romantic idealism and the survival instinct. It portrays the
sad reality of the loss of scores of human lives in an armed conflict. Prem Behn’s son at
his dying moments craves that his life may be spared. He wants to drink life to its lees;
hence, he is unwilling to die prematurely. He dies a broken young man, being unable to
understand his mother who wants him to accept his death calmly. There is no suspense in
the play. The dialogues between Hari and his mother Meenakshi; and Prem Behn and her
son, Nand Kishore are very touching. Parameswaran uses spoken English when she is
critical of the cruel consequences of war; she composes powerful dialogues of a serious
nature. The last dialogue between Prem Behn and Nand Kishore1 is the best example in
this sense:
Prem: I am left alone with only my ideals
To support me. Leave me my ideals,
Illusions if you will....
And live with love in my heart
Not hate.
Go my darling, go.
Nand: I go mother. I don’t know why
For I cannot understand you.
But the pleading in your voice
Comes straight to me and I know
s'

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 T . 13
I must go.
There isn’t much use of stage property. However, Parameswaran’s competency in
language has the capacity of presenting the whole scenes before the eyes of the readers /
audience. The dialogues between the Chorus and the dacoit are thought-provoking.
Sometimes, the playwright cannot fully overcome her temptations to use excessively
literary dialogue. However powerful the theme, die way in which Parameswaran deals
with it, makes the play lack suspense; and the entire action looks like a series of
incidents. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the beauty of Kashmir and the geographical
knowledge of the writer are astonishing.
All the characters in the play have their own importance in the play. There are
three mothers - Meenakshi, Zohra and Prem Behn. They are the mothers of the sons who
went to fight for the sake of safeguarding Kashmir from the enemies. Meenakshi and
Zohra consider the fighting meaningless. According to Meenakshi, fighting is needless in
the present context. There is no need to spill the precious blood of young men for a
dubious cause. Commenting upon the character of Zohra, S. Ganesan says: “For Zohra as
long as the people of the land happen to be Muslims there is no need of war; to her, it is
the religion which matters and not the ruler.” 14 Meenakshi and Zohra are first the

mothers. Prem Behn’s perception differs from these two. She is proud of her son fighting
for Kashmir. Her admiration for the beauty of Kashmir, her feelings of patriotism and
valour, all make her feel that the fight for Kashmir is a just one.
Speaking of the sons- the other main-characters of the play, Hari dies ‘a satisfied
young man’. It was his childhood ambition to fly in a plane. It was fulfilled and he was
happy. He had nothing to do with a sense of duty or glory and public acclamation. Prem
Behn’s son, Kishore, dies a broken young man who craves for life.
There are other characters, too. The nun is prejudiced against Muslims due to her
past, unpleasant experiences. The dacoit is a cynic, ‘godless’, ‘heathen’ and utters
blasphemous words. When everyone is blaming him, he scores a point when he says:
“And so with one voice you dismiss me,
You who so fanatically kill each other
For your faiths, slaughter women and children
Where I but steal their gold.”1S.

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Thus, the dacoit opens the eyes of the audience and makes them introspective.
Then there is a poet, romantic turned disillusioned soul. Once he sang the green
splendour of the valley and the majestic might of the mountains. But now, he is the
commentator of the nightmarish reality of Kashmir. He has seen the stream of blood from
the bloody sun flooding the vale of Kashmir. He is pained to see the sufferings of the
three mothers. In an act of extreme sympathy for the dying Kishore, he, in an emotional
moment, stabs himself saying:
“Take my life, friend, and live.
Take it, Allah, ha Allah!”16

Then, the last but not the least is the character of the Sadhu. Parameswaran uses this
character to present her view upon spirituality. He searched God into the Himalayan
ranges, in self-control, detachment and yoga; but found Him in the form of a mother and
her babe. All these characters reveal their views on spirituality, religion and patriotism.
The characters are well-portrayed. Through them Parameswaran has tried to expose the
conflict between patriotism and attachment for life, between life and death. There is not
much scope for the characters to unfold themselves here and the play remains a very
simplistic presentation of a significant theme..Parameswaran uses chorus in the play. It
consists of Old Men wearing traditional Kashmiri dress. The cut qf their beards and their
caps show that two of them are Hindus; one, a Sikh and the other eight, Muslims. It
reminds us of the Chorus in Mahesh Dattani’s play, Final Solutions. The chorus in his
play too, consisted of Hindus as well as Muslims. However, exchanging the masks, the
same men represented Hindus and Muslims as per the requirement. Here the chorus is
restricted in observing the action and commenting on it or on the major characters. The
dialogue of the chorus is in the form of short lines. “There is a Chorus of Old Men, larded
with several “Ye God”s, “Ah me”s and “Aye”s, which immediately betrays the pseudo-
17
romanticism of the play”.
The play could be called as a poetic drama and has hardly any plot. It has no acts
and scenes in it. The action is impeded by excessive doses of dialogue. What the
audience can enjoy is the only description of the vale of Kashmir as an enchantress. The
plot seems to be mainly concerned with the three mothers in search of their sons and their

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comments on war either acclaiming or protesting against war. Futility of war is apparent,
in the play.
The title of the play itself suggests the theme. It is first of all used by the poet in a
prophetic manner. He sees the stream of blood from the bloody son flooding the vale of
Kashmir and he says: “And mothers such as these wailing for their sons, / Sons who must
die”. Prem Behn proudly wishes that if she had a hundred sons, she would have sent
them all to fight for the land of Kashmir to ‘die and deem themselves fortunate’. The title
is extremely provocative of the patriotism in the audience. Wien Hari dies before the
eyes of his mother- Meenakshi, the Chorus utters ‘Sons must die’ (p. 29). Nand dies
dissatisfied and says that India killed him; but his mother thinks that the death of her son
is a blessed one; it is the death at a fullest moment. Her words assure her son that his
death was meaningful if his mother said so.
To conclude, the play Sons Must Die tries to expose all the evils of war as well as
the conflict between romantic idealism and the survival instinct. It portrays the sad reality
of the loss of scores of human lives in an armed conflict. The play assumes special
significance in the post-Cargill scenario. In Kashmir and elsewhere, even in many parts
of the country, Mother India is losing her sons continuously due to war and terrorism.
There are many fresh touching stories, of the lost sons so the play is paeifistic and
prophetic in tone. The characters of Meenakshi, Zohra Begum and the poet represent
pacifism in the play. The comments of the Chorus as well as the dying sons and their
mothers are brainstorming. It subtly advocates the need of finding alternatives to end the
chronic conflicts which the country is facing now. The sons leave their mothers and
combat for their survival in an alien land. The land may be beautiful, but what is it to a
mother when the sons she had guarded zealously have left her shores? Is this the price of
expatriation? The play is open-ended. Finally, a question that troubles file readers or file
audience is - ‘Should sons die?’ Though there are no face to face dialogues, no acts, no
scenes, no logical development of the characters, no appropriate development of the plot,
no conventional setting, this play becomes successful in winning the hearts of the readers.
It is quite innovative and a kind of experimental play for which Parameswaran should be.
praised.

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03.03: Meera: A Dance Drama (1971):

Meera: A Dance Drama (1971) is a mythical play revealing to the Western World
certain culturally significant details about Krishna’s life and the music and dance
traditions of India. Acknowledging this fact, Uma Parameswaran says: “Meera is a script
that evolves around our artistic resources, and set out to celebrate Indian art traditions and
at the same time to educate the outsider about our culture.” 19 It is the smallest play in the

collection with a very simple story line that takes us through Meera’s life with all its
familiar episodes. It gives us the pleasure of the familiar, while telling outsiders basic
details about Krishna’s life. It was produced in 1972 by Rubena Sinha who had studied
dance with Uday Shankar for the fledgling Hindu Society of Manitoba, which sponsored
the stage production.
Dance drama is a performance that combines dance, drama, music and song.
Early drama was similar to dance drama combining narrative, song and dance. Modem
Bengali dance drama is prominently the contribution of Rabindranath Tagore. His dance
dramas such as Chandrika, Shyama, Chitragandha use dances set to beautiful songs to
convey Tagore’s humanism. Uday Shankar modernized the Tagore tradition towards the
middle of the twentieth century. Tagore’s dance drama is essentially based on songs
while Uday Shankar’s dance drama is dominated by background music. Up to the
Partition of the subcontinent in 1947, Bengali drama was influenced by the Tagore
tradition and Uday Shankar’s modem technique. The creation of Pakistan did not
eliminate the influence of Tagore, although the attempt to portray a ‘Pakistani’ culture led
to the creation of dance dramas such as Shashi Pannu based on a love story from West
Pakistan, Omer Khaiyam based on the life of the famous Persian poet, and Anarkali,
based on the story of Prince Salim and Anarkali. The growing Bangladeshi nationalism of
the sixties, however, soon started to make its impact on dance drama, with themes being
drawn from social and political issues.
Dance dramas have also been performed on a variety of themes including the
theme of liberation, folk tales, and social issues. Western ballet is also gradually
influencing dance drama. On this background, Uma Parameswaran’s Meera is set out to
celebrate Indian art and culture tradition with the flute-player, Lord Krishna on the alien
soil of Canada. The researcher here attempts to focus the play as a dance drama with a

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mythical theme exploring Indian cultural tradition of devotion through the character of
Meera. At the outset of the play, Meera is seen kneeling before the black-marble statue of
Krishna, die flute-player. She washes his feet, puts tilak on his forehead, decks him with
garlands, makes her offering of fruits, flowers and milk and lastly, picks up her tampura
and a pair of cymbals in her hands, and starts singing to the accompaniment of these
musical instruments. Meera, the wife of Rajput Prince Bhoj, who is the heir to the throne
of Chittor, is devoted to the service of Lord Krishna. She declares herself the handmaid
of Lord Krishna. She says: “I am Meera, handmaid of Lord Krishna now and forever. I
have sat thus many a happy day, singing the Song of Songs, the song of Krishna’s life
here on earth.” She lives in the ever-present Now because Krishna dances in her heart,
the dance of joy from which alone love and laughter spring. She knows that the ordinary
people around her are trapped in the coils of time, talking endlessly, hoping to make
Meera live like the world around her. However, to Meera, their voices seem to come from
afar, remote and meaningless, because her ears can hear only the sound of Krishna’s flute
that he played in Brindavan. To Meera, the earthly enjoyments and physical pleasure
become meaningless when she finds Krishna dancing in her heart. Nand Kumar observes:
“The playwright successfully projects the mythical personality of Krishna through
Meera’s utterances.” Though a bom princess and wedded to Prince Bhoj, she became
mad for Krishna. All her kinsmen feel that she had betrayed the great family honour by
leaving the palace for the garden, Brindavan. She doesn’t matter anything what they say.
She sits waiting for Krishna and remembers a lot of things. When her husband, Prince
Bhoj died a warrior’s death, his brother became the king. He makes a travesty of the
Rajput code of royalty, the code of troth and honour, courage and compassion that his
father followed. He spends his days and nights in the company of courtesans and
flatterers. He hates Meera to the extent of offering her a cup of poison. However, she
expresses her, gratefulness to him because, because of him Krishna came into her very
being and absorbed the cup of poison meant for her. There was the great suffering till
Krishna came, but greater far the fulfilment when she felt her Lord’s soothing touch upon
her burning breast. She is thankful to Rana for this suffering and bliss. Taking poison
offered by Rana to her as wine - Meera dances exultantly and with her hands raised in
rapturous celebration she says: “Yes, I quaffed off the poison and dance. The tyrant did

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not know that for my Krishna who sucked dry the poisoned breasts of the vampire-nurse
sent by Kamsa, for my Krishna who killed the venomous serpeiit Kalinga, the cup of
poison was as mere smouldering fire to the monsoon floods.”
Thus, by referring to the myth of Putna, the vampire-nurse, and Kalinga from the
Srimad Bhagavata, Uma Parameswaran confirms Meera’s faith in Krishna on the one
hand, and Krishna’s Godly powers, on the other. In a way, by giving her poison, Rana
gave her the chance to seek the help and company of Krishna. To Meera, the suffering
caused by poison is nothing in comparison to the bliss she enjoys dancing with Krishna
and singing of Him, who is an Eternal lover. It was the greatest joy for her to sing of him,
Infinite Love.
Through the myth of Krishna’s birth, Parameswaran reveals to the Western World
the spiritual grandeur and glorious culture of India. Meera is so much emotionally
attached to Krishna that in Scene II, she takes herself for Devaki - the mother of Krishna.
Meera appears before the audience as Devaki laying on a bare wooden bench in the
prison of Kamsa, her brother. There was a time when he whom men call Kamsa the
tyrant, loved her as intensely as he hates her now. She remembers when that love turned
into hate. It was on that day Kamsa joyfully charioted her bridal carriage through the
sunlit streets of Mathura. It was at the moment the voice from heaven ceased, the voice
that said: “Lo! The tyrant’s rule shall end at the hands of Devaki’s eighth child and He
shall be the light of the world.” Since this moment, Devaki and Vasudeva are put under
tight security in his prison by Kamsa, who has so far slain seven fair infants brought forth
by Devaki. On the eighth night of the waning moon in August, the Divine Child is bom,
but the mother is worried that Kamsa’s sword would come closer to her babe. The Child
is bom and a voice from Above solves her problem saying: “Vasudeva, rise and take this
Child across the river to the hut of Nanda, cowherd chief of Gokula, and bring away the
girl child that has been bom to Yasoda this night.” Vasudeva acts likewise. The doors
of the prison open automatically and all the hindrances of the way are overpowered by
the grace of the Divine Being on the head of the father. Soon he returns with the girl
infant from Gokula. Devaki refuses to accept her but Vasudeva reasons with her by
saying hat a child is always heaven-sent, no matter who begets and who bears it. Soon
Kamsa’s voice is heard and the huge wooden door is pushed open. Devaki rashes to the

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child and clasps it to the bosom in an agony of love. The voice from above reveals:
“Kamsa, thy destroyer lives in a village across the river, and he will come here as
foretold.” 25 Thus, through the myth of Krishna’s birth, Parameswaran reveals to the

Western milieu the spiritual grandeur and rich culture of India. It is also suggested that
Kamsa - like evil forces cannot do any harm to the infant representing virtue. Indian
culture is based on the power of belief and devotion. It believes on the victory of truth -
which is eternal. By bringing this incident on the stage the playwright has presented
Indian values that believe in goodness.
The third Scene is very short, where Meera becomes Yasoda - fond foster mother
of Krishna. She sees Krishna’s boyish pranks, playing hide-and-seek, teasing the gopis,
stealing butter and mischievously protesting like ordinary children. Krishna is depicted as
playing game with children and stealing butter from earthen pots hung from the ceiling.
4

As Krishna pulls at the second pot, it breaks and the butter is' spilled on the ground.
Krishna and his companions scoop up the butter along with mud and stuff it into their
mouths. They run and hide as Yasoda comes and catches several of them. Then she
searches for Krishna and pulls him out of his hiding place. She spanks him on his hands
and bottom when he refuses to let her wipe his face. At last, she succeeds in opening his
mouth to clean it of the mud. In his mouth, she sees the universe and swoons away. By
referring to such miraculous episodes related to Krishna, Parameswaran repeatedly
emphasises the mythical character of Krishna, the saviour of mankind and killer of
Kamsa.
In the Fourth Scene, Meera is in her alcove, in exactly the same pose in which she
had been as Yasoda. Here, she projects Krishna as “the total incarnation of Vishnu,
Preserver of the Universe, come on the earth to re-establish justice”. Meera very
significantly refers to the teachings of Gita. Parameswaran writes: “Whenever there is
decay of righteousness, O Aijuna .... then I Myself come forth. For the protection of the
good, for the destruction of evil-doers, for the sake of establishing justice, I am bom from
age to age. ” Through these lines, Parameswaran depicts the philosophy of India’s
spiritual traditions.
In Scene V, Meera becomes Radha, drawing extreme satisfaction and delight in
dancing with Krishna. Along with them, the ‘gopis’ also dance and then they leave one

233
by one. To Meera, this love-play between the ‘gopis’ and Krishna is actually an attempt
of Finite to reach the Infinite, that is, aspiration of the ‘Atman’, the soul within, to merge
with the ‘Paramatman’, the soul Above. The three roles given to Meera - Devaki, Yasoda
and Radha symbolize the tireless effort of the finite to reach the infinite. The final speech
of Meera is the essence of spiritual love. The Divine Love for her Lord has no beginning
and no end. It is the pure love without any selfishness. Radha and Krishna become one
with the power of devotional love.
Meera, the dance drama combines the dance of Meera in various forms. The
dance of ‘gopis’, Meera and Radha covers the play. Parameswaran has made abundant
use of music in the play. The music of flute, tampura and cymbals add to the devotional
atmosphere of the dance drama. She has skillfully merged dance, songs and music
together which were the inseparable parts of Meera’s life. Anjana Trivedi writes: “... an
outsider has to stretch his imagination to grasp and comprehend the three roles given to
Meera as Devaki, Yasoda and finally as Radha, and Meera’s faith in Krishna, her infinite
love for Him.” Though this is true, Meera is a successfully stageable dance play with
several techniques and modes of dance and abundant references to myth related to the
birth and miraculous personality of Lord Krishna. Myth runs throughout the play as its '
main theme and background. To highlight the myth of Krishna, the playwright very
significantly introduces Meera in three roles as Devaki, Yasoda and Radha. Gurucharan
Das has written a play Meerabai, which too, is centred round the historical and religious
character of Meerabai. It was also presented through dance and music which was
evocative of Indian and Western forms. However, there was no interaction between
characters and they did not become them. Even the dialogue was in die third person. On
the contrary, Parameswaran’s Meera speaks herself in all the four forms. She is the only
speaking character on the stage for that we can call it a dramatic monologue.
All the characters are played by Meera herself. Rana, attendants and the courtiers
are present in the play, but their actions are declared in the narration. The court dancer,
the children, Krishna, gopis and others appear on the stage as required for the incidents.
The only person who speaks on the stage is Meera - sometimes as Yasoda, Devaki and
Radha. Parameswaran has experimented with a new technique of dance drama making a
single character to perform various roles. However, on the whole, the play handles the

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hagiological theme in a very superficial manner. It seems possible that the Western
audience may feel die talk of Meera superfluous. There is not much scope for action.
Also there is not much suspense in the play. Nevertheless, the play has gripping dialogue.
The theme is suggested in the very title of the play. It is lofty and it affirms the
power of faith. Meera is at the centre of the play as a devotee of Krishna. Her love for
Krishna is many-sided. As a devotee, as a mother and as a beloved, she is presented
skillfully by Parameswaran. The dramatic monologues of Meera shed light on her divine
character as a true lover of Krishna. They reveal Meera’s thoughts about Krishna in much
greater details. Parameswaran has made skillful use of lighting design to focus the
character of Meera as a great devotee. Her detached life is contrasted with the pleasure-
loving life of the later king Rana, her brother-in-law to state the difference between
spiritualism and materialism. The plot is developed through various scenes unfolding the
devotion of Meera in various forms.
To conclude, Meera is a hagiological dance drama which puts forth Meera’s faith
and devotion for Krishna. Meera suffers in her life as the society criticizes her devotion.
The society expects that a woman especially from a noble family should live a royal life
of a princesses or a queen. It is the identity, the society forces upon her. Meera’s seeking
pleasure in the songs of Krishna is out of frame for the society. Society thinks that Meera
is bom to enjoy the earthly pleasures as a queen. According to them, her extraordinary
devotion to Krishna is madness, a kind of betraying the family honour. However, Meera
is not a hedonist. She seeks immense pleasure in the unique devotion to Krishna. Krishna
is ever and everywhere present for her. Meera’s life is a superhuman type of life which is
difficult to understand to the ordinary people around her. One more point is to be noted
that, the contemporary society always despised the saints. Moreover, the field of
saintliness was supposed to be the field of men and not women. Women saints like
Meera, Venabai, Janabai and Kanhopatra had to suffer during their lives. Compared to
them, being a princess and the daughter-in-law of a king, Meera was greatly criticized by
the people. The playwright in the play has successfully explored the fact that a woman
from a stately family is not accepted as a saint by the society. Parameswaran has used
limited resources for the script, as at that time, as a small community she had not many
resources with her. It was mainly created for presenting at various community events

235
organised around India’s Independence Day, Republic Day, Holi and Deepavali
celebrations. Considering this point, the play is a successful stage production. The play
presents Meera as a great devotee of Krishna and the contrast between the spiritual and
the material in Indian cultural tradition is exposed by the playwright in an unconventional
way of dance drama.

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03.04: Sita’s Promise (\9%l):

The play Sita's Promise is another dance drama which consists of eleven scenes.
It was written for the ‘Arangetram’ of the first graduates who have undergone
Bharatnatyam dance lessons in the town Winnipeg when Uma Parameswaran’s daughter
was also one of the graduates. It was first staged in April 1981 at the Winnipeg Art
Gallery. It belongs to the first collective phase of indo-Canaclian experience, though in
the personal chart, it falls in the third phase, namely, the phase in which a well-settled
immigrant turns to contribute to the intersections of one’s community - affiliations and
one’s larger Canadian identity.
Parameswaran describes it as a play that links India with modem Canada through
myth and dance. The critics too, view it with only this perspective in mind. However, R.
Vedavalli observes that the problems and the various stages in the process of
acculturation and assimilation are clearly portrayed by Uma Parameswaran in the plays
Sita’s Promise and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees. When one dives deep,
die play appears to be rich and plentiful in its message of humanity and the philosophy of
human life. The researcher with this perspective in mind would like to explore the
various interpretations of the play.
The plot is divided into eleven scenes. Though the leading characters of the play
are Rama, Sita and Lakshmana, like the Ramayana; the plot is purely imaginative and full
of bold digressions. Rama, the prince of Ayodhya was banished for fourteen years and he
leaves the kingdom with Sita and Lakshmana. They travel far and wide, destroying the
demons and helping sages and saints on the way. During their forest exile, they find a
wounded Arctic tem that has lost its way in its northern migration. As Sita insists on
taking it back to its home; they travel northwards through India to the Himalayas, where
Jatayu, the sacred eagle (mentioned in the Ramayana) carries them to the tern’s home by
the shores of the primeval ocean that we now call Lake Agassiz. The native children
dance for Sita and ask her to stay with them. Sita says she must go but promises them that
she will come again.
The play opens with an invocation dance “Vara Veena” followed by Alarippu. As
the dancers do their ‘namaskaram’ the narrator salutes and glorifies Lakshmi as ‘Veena
holder’, ‘lotus-eyed’ queen who has the unparallel beauty of virtue, Consort of Vishnu,

237
giver of boons and mother of lotus-seated Brahma. The First Scene opens in the forest
with large-trunked trees and two huts. The narrator in short, describes how the ten years
of exile passed. There is the beautiful description of Dandakaranya. Lakshmana comes
carrying the bird in hands, eager to show it to Site. Rama complains that Lakshmana and
Sita are as playful as children. He says that Lakshmana, the sages and their students as
well as he himself - all of them have pampered Sita. He says: “A queen must have the
majesty of die Goddess Shakti, the compassion of Goddess Sri; she should be a mother to
the highest and the lowliest...Lakshmana, taking the side of Sita says that when the
time comes, they will wear their crowns as naturally as they now wear their forest weeds.
Sita is now in twenties and has the naivety of an unspoiled girl. She is delighted to see the
strange bird.
The Second scene opens with the same scene where Site is sorting berries. The
Hermitage girls come in and show their new dance dresses to her. Rama, Sita and
Lakshmana now think of visiting sage Agastya before returning to Ayodhya. This is a
peaceful place, where years have flown too soon. Sita is eager to see the new world,
many lands, different people, many skies and so many birds. Now Rama tells her about
the teft that divides its time between the North and the South poles, making its flight of
twice ten thousand miles every year. Site feels pity for the poor, lonely, lost little stranger
bird. At the end of the scene, it is revealed that all the three are happy in the forest and
they are not enthusiastic about returning to Ayodhya.
In the Third Scene, a Gypsy Queen along with some Gypsies appears. They
convince Sita that their fortune telling is never wrong. Site wants to get her palm read by
them but Rama forbids her saying: “No, dearest, it is not for man to know his future. Man
has been given memory so he can learn from the past, but he has not been given eyes to
see into future because it is best he accepts each day as it comes, that he works with hope
30
and prayer, not with some knowledge that would make him laze or despair.”
It is here through the dialogue of Rama that Parameswaran speaks about the
philosophy of human life. Man should learn from the past and accept his lot without
peeping into the future is the message given by the playwright. It is reflective of human
life which encourages man to work with hope and prayer. Parameswaran should be
admired for such reflections of human life scattered all over the play. The Western

238
audience might have been greatly influenced and pondered about this philosophy of life
in Indian culture.
Scene IV, too, begins with such pondering upon human life. When Sita asks why
they had climbed up the steep hill; generalizing the fact, Rama replies that it is human
nature to accept challenges of climbing high hills and swimming every deep river that
comes across. There is something in human beings that drives them to undertake more
than seems possible. Sita’s inclination to know of her future from the gypsies still
continues. However, Rama reminds her of the Savitri in Indian myth who suffered for the
knowledge of future. He says: “But only God can see steadily into the future, for He
alone is Lord of Time.” Only God exists beyond time and if the veil of ‘Maya’ is ever
lifted from us, we shall see as God sees for we shall be in Eternity. The sages with yogic
power can reach that spiritual level of lifting the veil of ‘Maya’. In the meantime a poor
girl, beautiful and sad, singing certain songs, expressing her love for Lord Vishnu
appears. Explaining her predicament, Rama tells Sita that such an open display of one’s
emotion is objectionable. Self-control is a cardinal virtue. Parameswaran represents Rama
as an ideal man, who always keeps himself conscious of ‘Duty’ and ‘Maya’. The
character of Lakshmana is portrayed as a person trying to maintain the golden mean
between ‘human’ and ‘Divine’. Parameswaran’s spiritualism peeps through such
dialogues of Lakshmana also. Looking at the poor lamenting girl, he says: “(Softly) She is
all human souls crying in anguish at being separated from God!” 32 In Indian spiritualism,

it is believed that human soul is a part of the Divine Soul. In the concept of ‘Madhura
Bhakti’, the devotee is trying to seek oneness with the Divine Soul. In a way,
Parameswaran has poured down her knowledge of Indian spiritualism, before the
Western audience. Parameswaran seems to have enough knowledge of various ‘yugas’
from Indian mythology. She mentions mythical references of Harishchandra from the
Age of Satya Yuga, Krishna from Dwapar Yuga and Rama from Treyata Yuga. She must
have a great impact of the Indian epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. In this play, the
writer has portrayed Lakshmana as a more sensible, dutiful and loving brother than
Rama. The audience respects him for his wisdom. The dialogues about duty and love
between Rama and Lakshmana in this scene are remarkable. Parameswaran shows great

239
competence of language as well as a smart ability of philosophical argument in this
scene.
The next Scene opens in Brindavan. The narrator tells that Rama, Sita and
Lakshmana journeyed northward and came to Brindavan where in later days Krishna., the
incarnation of Lord Vishnu would be bom. He mentions the famous episode of the divine
flute-player, who hides the clothes of the gopis. As in Meera, in this play, too,
Parameswaran deals with the ‘balleela’ the mischief of Balkrishna. In this scene, the last
dialogue between Rama and Lakshmana are again reflective. Rama’s thoughts are now
very close to that of Lakshmana. For example:
Rama: ... And God is all these and more but our finite human
perceptions can understand him only through human
relationships.
Lakshmana: (.Exaggeratedly) Is it Rama who speaks thus? .... One
of these days he might even seek man’s essential divinity,
33
that we are all God within.
The dialogues are witty and have a flow that leads the play ahead.
In the Seventh Scene, Rama, Sita and Lakshmana reach the northern mountain of
the regions. They seek the way to the summer palace of King Himavan. The playwright
introduces a character named Valli to refer to several myths in the play. Valli is in search
of Lord Muraga, who rides on the dancing peacock and who is the brother of elephant-
headed-Ganesa. Muraga is Satgurunathan, the Supreme Teacher of Ultimate Truth, who
imprisoned Brahma for misleading him and then on finding Truth gave a discourse to his
father Lord Siva. Rama then takes Valli to show the path. Sita and Lakshmana talk about
nature, the majesty of the mountains, the lash of the breeze, the tingling needle of water
from the falls, etc. Sita tells Lakshmana that she feels sad and guilty that she has her
whole world with her and her sister has nothing at all. To relieve her of her guilt and
sadness, Lakshmana tells her that Urmila comes in his dreams to him and the dreams are
often more real and satisfying than actual sight of touch. As Sri is to Narayana, as Shakti
is to Siva, Urmila is to him. He feels at times strength surging through his body and he
knows that Urmila is thinking and praying for him. He feels her embrace, too. Sita does
not understand his words. However, he expresses that Urmila and Rama - both of them

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 ■t

and God may not be separated. He proudly says: “My brother is blessed above all human
kind with God’s perpetual presence within him.” Here Lakshmana reveals that Urmila, -
Rama and God are equal to him. He has great love and respect for them. In this scene, the
narrator tells that all of the three are welcomed by the King Himavan. He escorts them
still higher, leaving them in the slopes of Parvati’s sacred land. The small scene ends with
‘Natesa Kavuthuvam’ dance.
In the Scene VIII, they reach the grove where Siva will keep his promise to the
sages by raising his divine foot in cosmic dance. In this scene the temple comes on the
screen and Siva in Natraj pose appears. It ends with the dance ‘Natanam Adinar’.
In the Scene IX, Jatayu, the sacred eagle, carries them to the showers of the
primeval ocean, called Lake Agassiz. Here Sita leaves the Arctic tern carried so carefully
through their journey. Slide shows a flock of Arctic terns.
In the Scene X, they are encountered with Adishesha, the snake of primeval
existence on whose ancient coils lay Lord Vishnu. Here Vishnu and Rama meet each
other as father and son. Vishnu calls Rama: “My beloved son” and reminds him of
returning to Dandakaranya to visit Sage Agastya. Parameswaran has made a bold
digression here. She presents Rama as the son of Vishnu; but according to the original
myth, Rama is known as an incarnation of Vishnu. However, we cannot object her for
this as in ‘Author’s Statement’; she has acknowledged that the story is purely imaginary.
In the last Scene, Sita comes in surrounded by Native children who state that
flowers grow wherever Sita walks. They request Sita to stay with them for more time and
make for them more grass, more flowers and more of everything she told them about.
When the children insist her on staying there, she promises them that she should come
again to the lovely land of lakes, blue skies and snow. She says: “I, through my people,
shall surely come again and we shall build our temple and sing our songs with all the
children of all the different lands who make this their home.” Thus, the play ends with
Sita’s promise to the children to join with them again. The end seems unexpected and
ambiguous. It seems comparatively abrupt where the reader / audience are not satisfied
with its epilogue. The play ends with ‘Todiya Mangalam - Jaya Janaki Ramana’ dance
by ensemble.

"x

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 Like Meera, the play, Sita ‘s Promise also refers to Indian mythology, but is not
purely based on the real myth. In Meera, Parameswaran uses several myths associated
with Krishna very significantly. Compared to it, the present play lacks this significance.
R. Vedavalli interprets the play in the following words: “Sita’s Promise constitutes
testimony to Parameswaran’s cultural rootedness. Perhaps the best way .to survive the
pressures of hybridity is to keep contact with one’s roots.” 36 However, it would be better

if Parameswaran would have used the Indian myth in its original purity. Use of such bold
digressions in myth could create confusion about die original myth among the young
generations of the immigrants. It seems unreasonable to use age-old myths in a perverse
way. Sita’s character here stands in sharp contrast to the ideal image of Sita as depicted in
the Ramayana. Her remarks suggest that she has followed Rama to the forest more for
fun and enjoyment forgetting that she is the daughter-in-law of a royal house of Raghu.
Similarly, the arguments of Lakshmana with Rama also do not at all coincide with the
mythical character of Lakshmana. Lakshmana seems more heroic than Rama in his
arguments. Moreover, Parameswaran has mentioned that Sita calls Rama by his name,
which will never be acceptable in the tradition of the royal house of Raghu. With some
detailed study of the original myths, the play could have achieved sustainable value as a
piece of mythical reproduction. It is obvious that the playwright concentrates on dance
rather than the mythical references of the epic Ramayana. However, she has declared her
aim of popularizing Indian mythology as well as dance and music traditions among the
Western countries. Indian philosophy of life and culture is repeated everywhere. As a
bom Indian, she feels it her duty to introduce the principles of Indian culture to the
Western world.
To conclude, the provoking dialogues between Rama and Lakshmana abundantly
reveal the age-old precious principles of love, duly and above all humanity. The narrative
in the play is rich with beautiful descriptions of forests and northern mountain regions
including Dandakaranya. Her geographical descriptions are wonderful and poetic.
Parameswaran has intellectually associated the bird (tern) with the journey of Rama and
Sita and the bird Jatayu, Lord Vishnu and Adishesha with a view to acquaint the people
of the West, particularly the Canadians, with Indian mythology. The end is suggestive of
the plight of the immigrants and the pangs of alienation are depicted symbolically

242
through the sufferings of the wounded tern. The title of the play refers to this plight of the
immigrants. The play, as a dance drama, concentrates on dance rather than on the
mythical characters of the epic Ramayana. The play abounds in references to various
mythical characters like Goddess Lakshmi, Shakti, Sri, Lord Vishnu, Narayana, Siva,
Parvati, Panchali, Krishna, Muraga, Ganesa, Jatayu and King Himavan. Casually
referring these myths, Parameswaran concentrates only on the types and techniques of
dance with which she concludes each scene of die play. She has undoubtedly achieved
her aim of acquainting the Western people with Indian myth, dance and music tradition
by taking them to the Canadian audience through this dance drama. This is her
commendable contribution to Indian dance drama.

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03.05: Dear Deedi, My Sister: Performance of Voices (1989):

Dear Deedi\ My Sister is a short play, composed in the 1980s, though it was in
draft from much earlier. In 1980, Uma Parameswaran spent much time working on
women’s issues. She was on the Board of Immigrant Women’s Association of Manitoba,
and the Margaret Laurence Chair of Women’s Studies, and various other committees. As
an active member, she had many experiences which she portrays in the play Decor Deedi,
My Sister as the problems that ravaged the larger immigrant community in Canada. The
play won the first prize in ‘Caribe’ Playwriting contest of 1989 and was published in
‘Caribe’ (April 1990).
Many critics agree that, the play brings to light the multiculturalism which is
prevalent in Canada, and its effects on various immigrants. S. Indlira observes: “Like the
poems in Trishanku, these poems, too, address the issues of racism, adjustment,
adaptation and the hopes and despairs of the immigrants.” Through it, Parameswaran
poses many problems, faced by the immigrants. As an expatriate writer, she reveals
various immigrant experiences and the problems of the immigrants confronted with the.
situation of living in the midst of an alien culture. With this perspective in mind, the
researcher would like to explore the cultural issues of the immigrants and their
predicament in the new land, through the study of this play.
The play is about the middle class people who immigrated to Canada from
various ten countries - India, Nicaragua, Kenya, Philippines, Nigeria, Pakistan, Hong
Kong, Sri Lanka, Japan and Somalia, and they are represented by Sapna, Mariella,
Wamuhu, Iiago, Sekoni, Aziza, Chio Chan, Chandri, Yokio and Guuled and Sagal,
respectively. The place of action is the living room of Sapna’s house in Winnipeg. Sapna
is a woman from India, in her late twenties dressed in a silk saree, seated at the dining
table when the play opens. Being the main character of the play, she narrates everything
to us. She is writing a letter to her sister - Deedi in India. For a woman who is settled in a
foreign country, it is natural to expect letters from her motherland. The mailman’s daily
visit is her lifeline. She sits by the window, waiting for the letter thinking of her relatives
in India. She carries a little Indian in her heart. It is apparent in the following lines: “For

244
though the land around me is cedar and fir, in the landscape of my memory, there are
38
other smells and sounds - of mango blossoms, monsoon rains, temple bells.”
Sapna is living in Canada, surrounded by the beauty of Western nature. From the
window of the house she feels the breeze lazily blowing fine snow across the front yard,
and sees the needle pines that stand green against the white snow. But from the window
of her memories, it is the Indian nature she feels and sees and longs to be in. She longs to
walk to the temple bearing flowers and the incense for Parameswara in Indian temples. In
the role of Sapna, Parameswaran presents her attraction for Indian routine tradition.
Temple bells, worship, an evening walk to the holy temples is an inevitable part of Indian
scenario. Sapna longs for all these things and to live a bit of such type of life in Canada;
she rises from the chair and table and dances an invocatory hymn to Nataraja
Parameswara. As she resumes her seat, one by one the ten people from ten different
£

countries, the immigrants to Canada, speak out his or her mind. The playwright has done
a good job by allowing them speak for her. As India is a land of many cultures, Canada
too, is a land of many cultures. Each one has his or her issue to face and deal with. Their
stories depict the struggle to negotiate into a new space and culture.
First come Mariella, a young woman from Nicaragua, who remembers her loving
city Puerto Cabezas, She remembers the city’s broad beach road where the polished tar
flings mirages that vapour on the speeding cars. The sands are stretched out beside the
sea where her feet laps Eternity. She remembers that sullen sky, the sweltering air and her
flashy rich and even the blind beggar’s stare, too. She has experienced the wreck of thirty
ruinous years when the hungry sheep looked up at her face. She hopes that the previous
land would one day call her, her own.
“Though pledged now to the land
39
Which my love has made our home.”
Then there comes Wamahu, a young warrior from Kenya who has to face the
language problem here. In this multilingual land, she finds herself ‘alone’ amid masks
that speak an ‘alien tongue’. Her feeling of isolation and intense nostalgia is apparent.
When she says:
“Far far those I loved and love
And far the fragrance of my native flowers

245
 O’er which bees murmur homeland tunes.” 40

You may be lying in countless joys and material comforts; the longing for the fragrance
of the flowers of native land is an inevitable thing to an immigrant.
liago, a little boy from Philippines, playing with crayons on the floor, likes school
very much. Singing songs in French and finger-painting give him a lot of fun. He is
happy in the school in Canada, enjoying a lot of fun in the recess time, too. He has no
memories of the land left behind. However, he too, does not escape from the feeling of
isolation there, as he has to face racist discrimination there. So he asks his mother
whether she can change his name to Jim or David or something that would match with a
Canadian name. He innocently says:
“When the snow-comes, Ma,
I’ll get less brown, won’t I?
It would be nice to be white,
More like everyone else, you know?”
The little boy wishes to be white, to be more like the natives there. He doesn’t know what
is being brown and what is being white, but the racist discrimination is apparent in his
words.
Then we meet Sekony, a young man from Nigeria, seated in a bus. He too, is the
victim of the racist discrimination. In the bus, he feels humiliated by the natives’ swift
and complete glances. They stare at his face and Sekony feels that they are asking him
‘Why are you here?’ Immigration raises a number of issues which are difficult to face.
Now comes Nayana, a young woman from Gujrat, India. She meets Chandri
Deedi and tells her the story of her heart. It is difficult for her to speak in English. This is
one of the main issues that the immigrants face. Another issue is related with food. When
Nayana returns from the big street after buying the vegetables, she is shocked to see the
whole hunks of animals hanging from hook. She remembers how bananas are hung in
India. Her stomach chums and she rushes out from there.
Next, we see Aziza, an older woman from Pakistan. She complains the tradition
of closing the windows and locking the front door all the time. She is used to free air in
and out of the house. It gives her joy to see her son settled in Canada with a lovely house
and car and all, but her hair stand on end when she sees her daughter-in-law holding

246
hands with men and her son with other men’s wives. She disapproves the cooking
methods in Canada. She praises the cooking method of her motherland and longs to go
back to the sun and open air.
After that we meet Choi Chan, a middle-aged man from Hong Kong. He doesn’t
find any comfort in the thorny spruce that grows bleak against the white snow. He
remembers the fire from his motherland which gives warmth. He is in search of a place in
this alien land -
“Where’s the friend who’ll lend a hand
42
So we stand tall in our own eyes?”
He finds it difficult to get a true friend in Canada who can come to one’s help with a
single call. True friendship also becomes an issue to the immigrant.
Then we meet the Indian woman, Sapna who at last gets a letter from her sister in
India. The letter brings heavy news to her. it gives Sapna the record of hardships faced by
her sister in India. Heavy work, attending on the children, the men folk and the parents-
in-law, makes her exhausted. She beam the cruelty of mother-in-law. Her letter reveals
the woes and sufferings of women in a joint family in India. She writes: “Sapna, my
sister, you are lucky to be far away from all these burdens that womankind must bear in
this our ancient land. Be happy in your new home...” Upon this, Sapna says that in
Canada too, women suffer, for being women. The burdens are different, but the pain is
the same. Throughout the character of Sapna’s sister, Parameswaran brings to notice of
the Canadians, the picture of patriarchy in Indian joint family.
Now, Uma Parameswaran introduces us to Chandri, a woman from Sri Lanka.
She lists the issues one after another. She is sensitive to the problems of the people round
©
her. All the apartment people need something more than only an apartment. She becomes
restless to do something for them. She sees Haqit, harassed by his school mates. Pritam
bruised by a drunken father, Bihari, driven to suicide in his basement bachelor suit, Lata,
caught between love for her half-witted daughter and her egoistic husband. Azhar’s
mother homesick for windows and Usha’s blind daughter wasting away like die moon.
Her heart aches to see the sufferings of the people in the apartment. Through the
character of Chandri, Parameswaran gives us the glimpses of ‘little Canada’ in an
apartment; where people are not free from the clutches of ill-fates.

247
 Next, we see Yokio, a woman from Japan who has her own tale to tell. They took
her new bom blind son in a white-lid jar and carried him away. They threw him down the
incinerator perhaps, saying that it is nature’s way to throw out those, who are unfit to see
the light of the day. The cruelty and heartlessness in Canada is focused by Parameswaran
which is juxtaposed clearly on the backdrop of Indian values.
Next to Yokio, again comes Sapna who is replying her sister’s letter. Now in this
letter, she mentions the death of one of their dearest friends. She says: “No matter how
long we live here, our heart still yearns to touch the waters of the Ganga before it can go
m peace to its eternal rest.” That dying friend asked for Gangajal and Sapna took down
a cup-size copper pot sealed at a temple beside the holy river. His hands were trembling
i

as she placed it there and he died. His death brought all of them together. Then onwards,
two hundred and more, these people lived together with love and more compassion.
Parameswaran highlights the affection and oneness among the immigrants, who have left
their motherlands.
At the end of the play, all the speakers come together as chorus. They call
themselves as ‘New Canadians’, come from many races black, white, olive, brown - all
alike and one at their hearts. They say:
“Same as the old, we grew
Ten moons in our mother’s womb” 45

They express their integrity and equality as human beings. They can read what is written
on their children’s faces furrowed with tears because of “our race or colour, or tongue
that stumbles over words so alien to the many places from which we’ve come.” Hie
patents are anxious about their future^ As immigrants, they are distrustful about the
natives of Canada. They sense the scorn and closed fists and closed hearts of the
Canadians towards them. However, the play ends with an optimistic note of an old couple
from Somalia and Sapna. They are hopeful about the future and so Sapna assures her
sister, “And we shall bring Ganga, as Bhagirata did of old to ouf land, our Assiniboine
47
and here shall be the groves where Uma shall dance with ParamesWara.”
To sum up, Sapna is the chief protagonist of the play. We cannot devide the
characters as major and minor as it has not a particular story to tell. All the characters,

248
one by one come on the stage with their immigrant voices which register their nostalgic
feelings and feelings against discrimination and the denial of their rights. Iiago, Sekony
and Chandri speak out clearly on the discrimination practiced against them. A single tune
is reflected through all their speeches and it reveals that life in the new land places them
in uncomfortable conditions. All the time these immigrants go on comparing and
contrasting their land left behind with this new land. .
Parameswaran has not so succeeded in sustaining the epistolary method
throughout the play. As a stage play, it lacks structural significance and fails in building
the dramatic tension. However, it maintains the relevance to the overall thematic pattern
through the characters.
To conclude, the play is in the mode of correspondence between two sisters, one
living in Canada and the other in India. The main concern of the playwright here becomes
centred on the cultural issues and the predicament of the diasporic people in an alien land
where they could not hush away the sweet memories of their motherlands. Issues of racial
discrimination, anxieties about the future of their new generations as jobs are denied to
immigrants, problems regarding religious and cultural identities, problems related with
language and the discrimination of women are quite skillfully brought forth by the
playwright. She brings together the cultural spaces of the two apparently diverse rations,
India and Canada through the characters of Nayana and the dying Indian friend of Sapna.
As the play comments upon the expatriate feeling of many immigrants, it has a universal
significance. Every immigrant loves his / her original culture, land and yearns to belong
to her once again. Parameswaran wants to focus this love and yearning of their lands, left
behind, throughout the play. She should be indeed, praised for her concern for
multicultural aspects and her expatriate sensitivity that the audience finds in the play. To
sum up, Dear Deedi, My Sister is a short play embracing a larger immigrant community
but the impression it leaves is really powerful.

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03.06: Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees (1987):

Uma Parameswaran’s most achieved play, Rootless but Green are the Boulevard
Trees is the only full-length play. It was written without a specific community stage in
mind. It depicts real life, the people in the different events, situations and experiences of
the Indo-Canadian community. It is a social play with a modem setting presenting the
problems of the immigrants in Canada around 1979. Coming with her Indian background,
Parameswaran writes about the immigrant experience in Canada drawing very much on
her first hand experience. She highlights the problems of immigrants confronted with the
situations of living in the midst of an alien culture. She has depicted the anxiety of this
immigrant community that has undergone the difficulties of Diaspora in the post-
Independence India. The characters represent different responses to the question of
alienation. The playwright from her own experiences of migration focuses on the life of
average Indo-Canadian family in this play. The family has migrated to Canada for better
prospects.
Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees is a much discussed play. Many
critics have admired it for it reflects several factors related to the recognition and
acceptance of the immigrants has been raised in the play. It displays the predicament of
the immigrant working within the polarities between the question of belonging and not
belonging. Some critics believe that the play presente multiple viewpoints as
multiculturalism, racism, problems of assimilation, alienation and nostalgic trips. In the
present study, the attempt is to look at those aspects of immigrant experiences that stand
in the way of enrooting in the foreign soil and create a sense of rootlessness in the
immigrants. The researcher proposes to study those aspects which are relevant for an
understanding of the rootless conditions of the immigrants, they sense in the alien soil. In
fact, they shuffle between both physical and psychological borders of two different
cultures. This “in between” position as Parameswaran calls it ‘trishanku’ invests
expatriate writing with the tension of binary polarities as dislocation versus relocation,
domicile versus diasporic consciousness, heritage versus hybridity, uprooting versus
enrooting.
The theme of uprooting and enrooting is an age-old issue pressing the minds of
the native population and the settlers, ever since man started travelling from place to

250
place. The term ‘uprooting’ literally refers to man’s scattering in an alien soil, loosing his
roots far away from homeland. It implies a cultural travel, a nostalgic reminiscence of
home-culture, the culture of origin. The term ‘enrooting’ literally refers to man’s
anchoring in the new world - the culture of adoption. While enrooting in this adopted
land, the immigrant faces many problems like culture clash and racial discrimination.
Displacing himself / herself from the own culture and finding in a very new environment,
he / she develops the sense of uprooting.
The play is set in Winnipeg, in the Bhave home, during March-April 1979. The
lives of the members of the two families of Indian origin - the Bhave family and the
Moghe family are presented in the play. The members of the Bhave family are: Sharad,
the father, Savitri, the mother, and their three children - Jayant, Krish and Jyoti. The
Moghe family has: Veejala, Sharad’s sister, Anant, Veejala’s husband and their children
Vithal and Priti. Other characters of the play are Aran, Dilip, Rajen and Sridhar, all Indo-
Canadians and friends of Jayant and Vithal. Andre, Jyoti’s boyfriend and Laura, Priti’s
friend are non-Indians. The play presents a couple of days from the lives of these
characters. Through these characters, Parameswaran explores their life style, their
problems, their predicaments, their experiences, their past and their hopes. Belonging to
the diasporic community in Canada, they often feel that they are not fully accepted by the
natives in Canada.
In the play, the Bhaves, a Maharashtrian family from India, migrates to Canada,
leaving a well-settled pattern of life back home. The play centers around the family living
in the suburbs of Winnipeg. Sharad, who was comfortably placed at home as an Atomic
Energy Scientist, migrates to Canada to ‘live without tension and yet with dignity’. He
wishes to give his children good food, a liberal education and healthy environment. But
in Canada, he couldn’t get a suitable job and ends up as a real-estate broker and
encyclopedia seller. He left India with great hopes, but he has to come across many
unpleasant situations. Displacing himself from his own culture and finding himself in a
very new environment, the ideas of dignity and healthy environment are shattered.
Though he has been here to enroot, while facing the world of conflicting values, he feels
dislocated and alienated. This is the seme of uprooting. For all his optimism behind his
migration, he has to come across many unpleasant situations. His life represents the state

251
of rootlessness along with better living conditions and material success. Sharad’s
situation is like that of ‘trishanku’. As ‘Trishanku’, with both the forces working
simultaneously in opposite directions, he could not belong to either place and stayed in
between two worlds. As a father, Sharad finds it difficult to accept his children’s life
style. He cannot reconcile with the idea that his daughter has a non-Indian boyfriend. He
knows a little about the “disco craze” and refuses to acknowledge that his children can do
anything ‘immoral’. Jyoti Jakhar Dahiya observes:
“The second generation Indo-Canadians find it difficult to maintain a
balance between what the society expects from them and what is expected
from them by their families.” 48

Sharad does not enjoy a good status in the foreign land. Sustaining in a new land has not
been very easy for him. Jyoti enumerates the hardships Sharad had faced. He had to
sacrifice a respectable job for securing a comfortable life. Through the immigrant voices
in the play, Parameswaran has registered their protest and their feelings against racial
discrimination, too. Sharad and his sister Veejala speak out on the discrimination
practiced against them. An intelligent scientist like Sharad could not get a suitable job for
he is an Indo-Canadian. In a bus, he finds the alien faces staring at or through him as if
asking him why he was there. It is a strange, eerie feeling he faces when he finds that
there are endless questions in ‘their’ eyes which make him feel alienated. Savitri, too,
goes through the same humiliating experience. That is why; she got herself a car so she
would not have to ask herself questions that perhaps never can be answered.
Sharad’s sister, Veejala is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy in a Canadian
university who has resigned her faculty position. The insipid academic scenario in her
institution and die colour-eum-gender bias practiced against her makes her quit her plum
post. Thus, the immigrants are the victims of racism practiced in Canada. However,
Veejala is ready to waste her life in India than wasting it in the backwoods of Canada as
she knows that the university in Canada where she works doesn’t exist on any academic
map but her name does. She is aware of her abilities and is happy to apply them for India
. instead of wasting away in the new land. Veejala has rebellious spirit in her which Sharad
lacks. She shows her self-respect and rebelliousness against the racial and gender

252
discrimination that exists in Canada. With such instances in the play, Parameswaran
brings to notice how racism taints the lives of the Indo-Canadians there.
As Sharad belongs to the first generation which has spent most of their life in
India and has settled in Canada in their middle ages, the conflict of assimilation is not so
intense for him. Sharad and Savitri carry India with them and their roots are still in India.
But the second generation suffers worse as they think Canada is their land, try to send
roots deep and get assimilated. Supriya Agarwal says:
“Parameswaran’s play presents the mindset of the new generation'that is
grappling with the problem"of dislocation and discrimination. Like then-
parents they do not have memory and nostalgia to fell back upon, nor do
they cherish the comforts of the present life, as they have not known fee
discomforts.” 49

Sharad’s wife, Savitri is a school teacher. Being a traditional woman, she wears a
saree inside fee house, puts kumkum, looks after fee needs of fee family during fee
dining times. Wife her character, Parameswaran shows fee dominance of fee Indian
culture on the Indo-Canadian women. She struggles to keep Indian spirit alive in herself.
However, to certain extent, she changes herself. When she finds an open condom pack in
Sharad’s car, which was taken by Jyoti fee night before, she becomes angry wife her and
warns her not to use her father’s car in fee evening thereafter. She asks Jyoti how long ‘it’
has been going on. She calls it ‘behaviour like beasts’. She is very disdainful while
talking to Jyoti on this issue. After all, she doesn’t prevent her daughter from dating as an
Indian mother would have done. She cannot allow Jyoti’s father to know fee whereabouts
of these things. Thus, Savitri is a Canadian only on fee surface.
Sharad is aware of fee activities fee young Canadians engage in but he is not
willing to accept that his children can be a part of those. He wants his children to be fee
members of fee Canadian society and at fee same time wants them to confirm to his
notion of Indian children. Jyoti has been brought up in Canada and has adopted fee
‘Canadian’ mannerism. However, Savitri finds it difficult to accept that her unmarried
daughter has an active sexual life. She is enraged and upset but instead of persuading her
for discontinuation, she wants her to be safe “on fee pill” and does not want “this to
happen in dad’s car.” Sharad, Savitri and Veejala represent fee first generation of

253
immigrant who suffer more intensely the unequal treatment and injustice and as a result
constantly remind the differences between the native and the alien. They have to face all
this with great patience as they are here with their own choice. The second generation is
caught between two worlds, two cultures and there is a struggle to carve their own
identity to stand firm. Sharad’s son Jayant and Veejala’s son Vithal have an anxious
sense of dislocation. They have to face the pain of being a second-class citizen and the
way to go back is blocked for them. Jayant furiously repents over the thing that his father
Shared would have been a director in India by now; and instead, quitting from there he is
rotting here selling houses. According to Vithal, Jayant is running away like a coward by
blaming his father and resenting his dad. Jyoti angrily says:
“.... Granddad’s house, wow, what a mansion, and here you are
working your fingers to the bone, scrubbing and polishing. (With
sudden passion) I’ll start hating this place the day your hands lose their
softness.” 51

Jyoti doesn’t like that her mother has to work herself and could not afford hire help in
Canada. She thinks that in India, her mom could have all the comforts in her house.
Jyoti herself is not happy in the new land. When Savitri stares at Jyoti’s photograph,
she notices that a still core of sadness veils her eyes and silence pales her cheeks. She
hoped to see brightness in her eyes and to hear the song of the sky in her voice. But in
the flood tide of first love, Jyoti had nothing like this. She belongs to the second
generation of the immigrants who are fumbling in the shifting values. While
accepting the new values and mannerism of Canada, she has the constant fear and
sense of losing the family codes and values. So she is at sea in the sunny days of love.
A

It is clear that the second generation is grappling with the problem of assimilation and
the first generation with the conflicting values.
Thus, the characters in the play belong to three generations. The first is parent
generation. The second is of the children of the two families and the third generation is
represented by the youngest siblings - Krish Bhave and Priti Moghe. By successfully
sketching the migrants of these three generations, Parameswaran has arranged to discuss
many important issues like racism, multiculturalism, mannerism in Canada, the questions
of assimilation and alienation and the feeling of rootlessness. Through these characters,
s'

254
 <c

we come to know the manners of speaking, school manners, dress manners and hobbies
in Canada. In a conversation with Jayant, Jyoti says:
I sure hope it gets into that thick head of yours that we are different,
and no matter what we do, we are never going to fit in here. Take to the
52
road; get high, sleep around but still and all.”
On one hand, Jyoti’s mother and brother are disturbed to discover her
involvement and on the other, her boyfriend, Andre is also not happy with her. Her
rejection of his invitation to go out infuriates him. She represents many others who are
unable to handle pressures from home and friends. That’s why, Shared notices the ‘seeds
of sadness in her eyes’. Thus, the second generation struggles to establish themselves in
their own esteem and in society. And the third generation is protected from the trauma
from the cultural conflicts by the protective care of the second generation. Krish and Priti
are happy children, not much tom by the cultural conflict. They have never been to India
and are exposed only to residual elements of Indian culture as expressed through food,
clothing and language including the mythical stories like ‘Panchali spoon’. They are
deeply immerged in the culture of their peers in Canada. All the three generations of
characters contribute to the richness and complexity of the theme and structure of the
play.
The title itself suggest the theme as we find the aptness of the title in the
conversations among Jayant’s friends - Arun, Sridhar, Rajen, Vithal and Dilip. It is clear
with their conversations that the second generation immigrants identify themselves with
the Canadians and not with the Indians. This second generation suffers the worst as it
thinks that Canada is their land and tries to enroot and get assimilated. Jyoti loves Andre,
but refuses him a date. She is confused when Savitri finds out her sexual relationship with
him. Veejala understands this situation well. So she says: “We are all in one godawful
mess, my darling, but we’ll survive.” Thus, all over the play, it is seen that the second
generation Indo-Canadians find it difficult to maintain a balance between what the
society expects and what is expected from them by their families. There is the mess but
there is hope, too. Jayant sees some hope as he mentions that ‘rootless’ trees can also
grow and flourish. When Vithal shows him a tree and says that the temp goes up to zero

255
degrees midweek that would be the end of the tree. Following dialogue throws light on
this:
Jayant: So what? (Vehemently) What does it matter how long it
stands? The point is that it is there, beautiful and green for
the length of its life. A day, a hundred thousand days, it is a
question of what we do and are, during that time. This
evergreen doesn’t have one Christly use - it isn’t even good
as firewood - but it is there and it is green, it is beautiful.
Sridhar: And rootless.
Jayant: Yeah, rootless. Let’s face it, Jeesus, no one but no one has
roots anywhere because that’s the way things are in 1979
A. D. But we can stand tall, man, and live each day for all
54
it’s godamned worth and ours ....
With many such references, we come to decision that, though there are problems of
different nature in the process of enrooting of the immigrants, they are hopeful of their
survival in the alien soil. Jayant compares the immigrants to the tall Ontario poplar trees
that look evergreen and beautiful though planted in Manitoba. The immigrants hope to
survive in the alien culture being nourished by the strength of family bondage. Sharad
came to Canada after Veejala, his sister came here. Bhave and Moghe families have
bondage of affection between them. These emotional ties between these two family
members are strong enough to keep them green in this alien land. It is symbolically
pointed out by the flourishing beautiful green boulevard trees though rootless they are. It
is enough that it survives. Hence, the title of this play is very apt. It is a long one, but it
fully brings forth the hopeful condition of the Indo-Canadian immigrant. It is
metaphorically used by the playwright. It suggests that an immigrant also has to adopt the
organic process of gradual growth to carve space for oneself - like the Ontario poplar
trees in Manitoba.
Apart from the thematic unity of the play, the unity of structure too, is quite
crucial for our understanding of the play. The play has not any interesting story and
intricate plot, yet the structure is relevant to our understanding and assessment of the

256
play. The dramatic tension in the play for instance is built around a series of conflicts.
These could be summed up in the following sequence -
Conflict between sense of uprooting and assimilation,
Conflict between racial discrimination and the process of enrooting,
Conflict between the old and die new culture,
Conflict between the family norms and expectations from the society,
Conflict between nostalgia and complete assimilation,
These conflicts are vital to the structure of the play but what is fascinating about the play
is Parameswaran’s artistic manner in which she successfully concretizes these conflicts.
The level of the assimilation in the new land gets manifested also in the language
the characters speak in the play. There is the difference between the language of the first
generation and the second generation migrants. The first generation migrants in the play,
like Savitri, Sharad and Veejala, use lot of words from their mother tongue - like ‘beta’,
‘hullaballoo’, ‘yaar’, etc. The second and third generation migrants like Jayant, Vithal,
Krish and Priti speak in English filled with jargon like ‘howdee?’, ‘Jeesus’, ‘bugoff,
bozo’ (p.75), ‘whassa matta?’ (p.123), ‘gonna do?’(124) ‘talkin’, ‘fella’, ‘whew’, etc. The
dialogues between Jayanta and Priti are more interesting. Jayant speaks in a peculiar
childlike manner with Priti, which shows the skill of Parameswaran. It is the sweet
language of children. The following example is enough to illustrate this:
Priti: (Taking it as a game) Promise by the hair on your chinny
chinny chin?
Jayant: Promise by the hair on my chinny chinny chin.
Priti: Cross your heart and hope to die?
Jayant: Cross my heart and hope to die.
Priti: (Totally relaxed) Sounds good, Jay. Only one teeny weeny
snag. You’re leaving.55

This difference in the language of die first and the second generation delineates that the
first generation migrants have assimilated partially. Andre’s language has Canadian
smell. He uses words like ‘goddamnit’, ‘honeybun’, etc. and wants to maintain
connection with their native language and life. However, the second generation migrants
have assimilated in the new environment in a better way. Thus the language of the play

257
introduces us with the manners of speaking in Canada. Through the words like
‘kumkum’, ‘pilav’, ‘masala tea’, ‘nine-yard saree’, ‘Annapumi’, ‘Divali saree’, ‘paneer’,
‘bhau’, etc. Parameswaran skillfully keeps alive the Indian atmosphere in Canada.
The whole play is full of action, but there is an artificial twist given to the ending
where Jayant, once squabbling on his father’s leaving India, hopefully points at the
‘rootless but green’ boulevard trees. While the playwright tries to project the conflict of
assimilation, she fails to associate dialogue with action. She does not seem to bother
much about action. As a result, the whole play looks more like a debate on the dilemma
of immigrant experiences than a real play.
Compared to her remaining plays, Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees is
a compact and neat play in construction. She, however, sometimes is tempted to put long
discussions in the mouth of her characters, but these discussions ate harmonious with the
theme of immigrant experiences. The play is full of suspense and it concentrates on its
theme throughout. The plot is developed in such a way that it reaches the climax when in
the third Act; Veejala explores the bonds of personal relations with Jyoti, Jayant and Prill.
The characters of the play belong to three generations. These three generations represent
the various stages and degrees of change in the merging of two cultures by tiheir
appearance, language and values. The characters in the play voice their resentment and
even have the choice to go back to the homeland as Veejala; the professor does in the
play.
To conclude, the play sensitizes us to the issue of oppression, subjection,
discrimination, and also the dilemma of the immigrant families who feel the pangs of
uprooting and dislocation. The immigrants stand suspended between two lands unable to
enroot in any one of them. They go to the new land for material progress and success; try
to enroot there financially, but the feeling of nostalgia stays with them and develops in
them the sense of uprooting from their old land. It is difficult for them to keep the old
order aside and accept the new one to enroot there. It is the process of transplanting
themselves successfully to enroot in the new soil. However, the new land neither lets
them preserve their ethnic identity nor lets them merge with the cultural mainstream of
the adopted country. In order to save himself / herself from the psychological crisis of
i

identity, the immigrant is compelled to cling to his own traditions and mix and mingle

258
with his own people rather than suffering from total rootlessness and alienation from both
the cultures. As a diasporic writer, Parameswaran remarkably portrayed the dilemma of
the Indian community, whose efforts is to transport an ancient culture which is theirs to
their new land. In doing so, Parameswaran has introduced Indian values, morals,
mythology and other cultural links to the new homeland in the intension of re­
establishing the same there. She has been successful in laying bare the compromising
attitude, the emptiness and exclusion continuously troubling the immigrant, making them
question their identity. The sense of uprooting does not have an individual or a collective
dimension only, but also a generational one. Thus, problem of exclusion faced by the
immigrant and the need to create space has been worked out subtly with an artist’s hand
by putting the question of homeland and lost identity.

259
03.07: Conclusion:
Parameswaran’s plays reveal the voice of the immigrant with the theme of their
struggle to negotiate into a new land and culture. As a diasporic writer, Parameswaran
draws her strength from her own country while assimilating in a new milieu. In her plays,
she unifies an essential Canadian sensibility with that of her Indian historic past. Like
every expatriate writer, Parameswaran attempts to ‘grab the best of the two worlds’, to
use her own phrase. Unlike Mahesh Dattani, her plays are not conventionally written
dramas. She is a versatile writer ~ a poet, a short story writer as well as a playwright. Her
plays are mingled with music, dance and poetry. They reveal that she is a poet first and
the dramatist later. She has founded the Performing Arts and Literature of India (PALI)
in Winnipeg, where she also produces a weekly television show. That’s why,
Parameswaran knows well what to present on the stage. She has always been very
sensitive to the cultural heritage and socio-political issues of India. Indian myths, music
and dance find ample place in her plays. Her Meera and Sita’s Promise are the best
examples of such type of plays. Her first play, Sons Must Die proved to be a remarkable
play set in the backdrop of Kashmir, depicting the horrors of war. With a poet’s pen,
Parameswaran describes the beauty of Kashmir and with a historian’s ease traces the
whole history of the rulers. Prominently, it speaks about the material sensibility of the
three mothers that transcend political boundaries and sees only the ‘pity of war’.
Meera and Sita’s Promise are the two dance dramas based on songs and music.
Though both of these dramas have a simple story line from Indian mythology and set out
to celebrate Indian Art traditions, they indicate the nostalgic passion of an expatriate
writer expecting from the alien audience, love and regard. Dear Deedi, My Sister
encompasses a larger .immigrant community addressing the issues of racism, adaptation,
adjustment, assimilation and hope and despairs of the immigrants. Her last play Rootless
but Green are the Boulevard Trees raises many issues like racism, multiculturalism,
assimilation, alienation, rootlessness and anxieties that haunt the Indo-Canadians.
Parameswaran uses stock characters that reappear in various forms in her plays. In
one of her plays, she has successfully used Chorus. The plot is usually structured with
acts and scenes. However, Parameswaran’s only one play i.e. Rootless but Green are the
Boulevard Trees is the full length play divided in acts and scenes. The other two dance

260
 dramas are divided only in scenes. Sons Must Die has no such division of scenes. Dear
Deedi, My Sister is written in the mode of correspondence; nevertheless, one by one the
speakers appear on the stage and speak in poetic forms. There are no dialogues or the
active conversations in a conventional way. With this play, she has contributed a totally
new experimental non-conventional form of play to the Indian drama in English.
Uma Parameswaran, being a poet at core, has great command of language and
mastery of romantic idiom. Lengthy speeches in verse often hinder the action of her
plays. Her last play Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees show her command of
the spoken tongue which has minimized the artificiality of dialogue on the stage. Her
distinct awareness of the staging of the plays is apparent. As regards models and
techniques, it is quite evident that she is aware of the rich tradition of our folk-stage. She
is aware of the utility of our ancient technique like the ‘Sutradhara’ (narrator in Sita’s
Promise). Parameswaran should be praised for exploiting fully the abundant sources of
our history, epics and legends.

261

’f T ‘* «♦ *. * ’’ ,
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2. N. Kallamani. “The South-East Asian Diaspora in Canada: Uma Parameswaran’s
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5. Ibid., p. 14.
6. Ibid., p. 15.
7. Ibid., p. 16.
8. Ibid, p. 18.
9. Ibid., p. 19.
10. Ibid, p. 26.
11. Ibid.p. 32.
12. Ibid., p. 24.
13. Ibid., p. 36.
14. S. Ganesan. “The Ambivalent Note: A Critical Study of Uma Parameswaran’s
Sons Must Die and Other Plays”, eds. R. K. Dhawan, et. al. India in Canadian
Imagination: A Literary Response, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2003. p. 134.
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16. Ibid, p. 36.
17. M. K. Naik. et. al. Indian English Literature 1980 -2000: A Critical Survey,
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262
19. Uma, Sons Must Die and Other Plays, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1998. p.
09.
20. Ibid, p. 38.
21. Nand Kumar. Indian English Drama: A Study in Myths, New Delhi: Sarup &
Sons, 2003. p. 193.
22. Uma Parameswaran. Sons Must Die and Other Plays, New Delhi: Prestige Books,
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23. Ibid.,jiAl.
24. Ibid., p. 41.
25. Ibid., p. 42.
26. Ibid., p. 43.
27. Ibid., pp. 43 - 44.
28. Anjana Trivedi. “Indian English Women Playwrights”, ed. Neeru Tandon,
Perspectives and Challenges in Indian English Drama, New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors (P.) Ltd., 2006. p. 173.
29. Uma Parameswaran. Sons Must Die and Other Plays, New Delhi: Prestige Books,
1998. p. 48.
30. Ibid., p. 51.
31. Ibid, p. 52.
32. Ibid., p. 54.
33. Ibid, p. 57.
34. Ibid, p. 59.
35. Ibid, p. 62.
36. R. Vedavalli. “Sending Roots: A Study of Uma Parameswaran’s Sita’s Promise
and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees”, eds. R. K. Dhawan, et. al. India
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200.3. p. 121.
37. S. Indira. “Towards the Centre: The Writings of Uma Parameswaran”, eds. R. K.
Dhawan, et. al. India in Canadian Imagination: A Literary Response, New Delhi:
Prestige Books, 2003. p. 95.

263
38. Uma Parameswaran. Sons Must Die and Other Plays, New Delhi: Prestige Books,
1998. p. 63.
39. Ibid., p. 64.
40. Ibid., p. 64.
41. Ibid., p. 65.
42. Ibid., p. 68.
43. Ibid., p. 68.
44. Ibid., p. 71.
45. Ibid., p. 72.
46. Ibid., p. 73.
47. Ibid., p. 73.
48. Jyoti Jakhar Dahiya. “In Search of ‘Roots’: A Study of Uma Parameswaran’s
Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees” , eds. R. K. Dhawan, et. al. India in
Canadian Imagination: A Literary Response, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2003. p.
110.
49. Supriya Agarwal. “Immigrant Spaces: Uma Parameswaran and Sadhu Binning”,
Eds. Urmil Talwar, Bandana Chakrabarty, Contemporary Indian Drama: astride
two traditions, Jaipur, Rawat Publications, 2005. p. 84.
50. Uma Parameswaran. Sons Must Die and Other Plays, New Delhi: Prestige Books,
1998. p. 90.
51. Ibid., p. 106.
52. Ibid., p. 76.
53. Ibid, p. 120.
54. Ibid, p. 127.
55. Ibid., p. 125.

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