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Chapter-V Projection of Diasporic Experience
Chapter-V Projection of Diasporic Experience
CHAPTER-V
PROJECTION OF DIASPORIC EXPERIENCE
Let one also examine the case of Jhumpa Lahiri whose Interpreter of
Maladies took the literary world by storm. Bill Buford, the literary editor
of The New Yorker catapulted her into limelight when he included her in
his list of “the twenty best young fiction writers in America today.” Bom
in London, raised in Rhode Island, Connecticut and presently living in
New York, Jhumpa set some of her stories in Calcutta because of “a
necessary combination of distance and intimacy” and in an interview
confessed to Radhika S. Shankar:
All migrants leave their pasts behind although some try to pack
it into bundles and boxes — but on the journey something seeps
out of the treasured mementoes and old photographs, until even
their owners fail to recognize them, because it is the fate of
migrants to be stripped of history, to stand naked among the
scorn of strangers upon whom they see the rich clothing, the
brocades of continuity and the eyebrows of belonging.
Secondly, the zone of marriage and family has altered a lot in its
internal structure resulting in varied interracial and intercultural social-
sexual relations and has left its mark in the racial, cultural and sexual
aspects of diasporic lndian-English writing. Interracial marriage in the
diaspora mediates the work, for instance, of Bharati Mukherjee, Meena
Alexander and Sujata Bhatt, among women writers, and of Salman
Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh, among male writers, and its sexual and
familial boundaries are ruptured by the thematization, for example, of
homosexuality in Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry, of bisexuality in Vikram
Seth’s poetry' and fiction, and of lesbian identity and queer politics in
Suniti Namjoshi’s verse and prose.
Since the last quarter of the 20th century, South Asian writing has
increasingly received greater acclaim all over the world. “The success of
Rushdie, Roy, Desai and Adiga enormously boosted the entir corpus of
Indian writing in English. There has also been a tremendous change in the
patterns of publishing and distribution of Indian writing in English over
the last two decades. A remarkable feature of the 21st century writers is
that they are not only involved in the process of creative writing but are
also involving themselves in advertising, publicity, pricing, sales and
follow-up of their books” (Vinai 33). The benefits an Indian English
writer enjoys is enormous: like prestigious awards, world-wide audience,
huge-prize-money, translations and film- adaptations. This has made both
writers as well as publishers very enthusiastic. Within the faction of
Indian English writers, there are rifts and clashes between home based
writers and the diasporic writers, between regional language writers and
Indian English writers. And unfortunately, this ‘insider-outsider’ debate
has been raging across literary circles for more than three decades now.
Till the present century, the diasporic writers have been dominating the
literary firmament, and the success ratio mostly remains tilted towards
that of the diasporic writers. However, the most contested issue in this
remains as to how a writer occupying a privileged position in the West
can write about the East.
Ironically, Anita Nair, who is not an exile, does not choose to settle
down in the land of her dreams in spite of its excellent topography. The
reason behind this is the economic gains the host state provides and the
fact that social reality of Kerala is quite depressing. The most literate
state which has a unique higher female ratio is also unfortunately the state
with highest suicide rates, highest liquor consumption, and mad-houses
overflowing with people having psychiatric problems. (Jacob 176) The
politics of the state leaves a lot to be desired. One half of party tickets are
given to older generation (grand-old men and women in their late 80s and
90s) who contests and re-contests till their death-bed. The other half goes
to candidates who have a criminal background. (Outlook 40-41) In an
interview with William Wolok writer Anita Nair voices the divide
between the real and imagined Kerala, “to live there is to be
disenchanted, because it’s a beautiful place with a lot of ugly things”. (P
19)
Anita Nair’s perception of the “ugly things” becomes clearer in her
Introduction to Where the Rain is Bom whereby she says that when
Kerala is offered to the world it is “a package wrought of colour,
traditions, dainty foods, coconut lined lagoons and ayurveda. . . .What of
the total lack of industry, high unemployment, a competitive and
conspicuous consumerism, bureaucracy, corruption, or the stifling
conservative attitudes.” (ix)
As for me, I’m pulling on in this place. I’m slowly getting used
to village life. Believe me; it is nothing like what you see in all
those Malayalam movies you like to watch on the video. I can
understand your curiosity as to what I do all day. Actually,
come to think of it, there isn’t any fixed pattern to my day here.
It is very different, and very often I wish I could return to an
office routine. It gave a structure to my existence. (P 121)
So is that what it has been reduced to? That as a native you have
certain rights, and as a settler I don’t. I love this village, this
land, more than anyone else in the village does. I love it as if it
were a living being. But because I am not a native I’m
dispensable. How am I going to make you or anyone else
understand what Kaikurussi means to me? What can I say to
you who see this land merely as mud.grass and trees, of the
bonding the land and I share? (P 311)
On the one hand she adores her native land Kerala, but on the other
she seems to be disturbed by the inherent politics of the place. Within the
parameters of her own hometown, she is an outsider who makes a few
sporadic visits. And it seems very likely that the cottage built by her in
Mundukottukurrussi is to battle this deep insecurity within the recesses of
her heart and perhaps reinforce this link to her roots and foster a sense of
belongingness. It is the impending diasporic consciousness and insecurity
of being thrown out of the host state that makes a person invest in one
handful of soil (Kerala Kaumadi interview) in the land of their
forefathers. A similar sentiment of joy is expressed by Salman Rushdie in
his collection of essays Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism
1981-1991 on being claimed by his land of birth, Mumbai. “I felt as if I
was being claimed, or informed that the facts of my far away life were
illusions, and this continuity was the reality.” (154) It is the same need to
reclaim her identity in Kerala which is depicted in Anita Nair’s fiction
through characters like Mukundan and Koman. And perhaps it is the
same longing for one’s own land that has compelled Nair to stay back in
India rather than choose any other foreign location to comfortably
emigrate to like most of the Indian English writers do after attaining their
initial bouts of success in the literary world.
Another task that Nair has taken upon herself is bursting the myth
of Kerala as a development model. The international acclaim of the
Kerala model of progress as the ideal developmental formula for the
Third World has put that State in an enviable position. Nair shows the
true visage of caste and material culture which has mushroomed as a
consequence of which ordinary people gasp for a breathing space.
Mistress highlights the marketing gimmicks adopted by the hoteliers and
tourist agents in Kerala (which can be extended to its writers too) who try
to promote their business ventures. For instance, when Shyam sets up his
Near the Nila resort, all the staff who worked there, including his wife
Radha are given strict instructions to learn by heart, information about
Ayurveda, kathakali, kalaripayattu, Kerala cuisine, the Thrissur Pooram,
Mangalore tiles and the Ambassador car (the popular mode of transport in
Kerala until recently). He goes to the extent of bringing an elephant to the
resort just to give the resort a Kerala ambience. On being questioned by
Radha as to why the elephant is brought to the resort, he audaciously
answers: “I fixed this deal with the elephant’s owner. My guests will get
to see an elephant really close, perhaps even feed him a handful of
bananas. It all adds to the atmosphere.” (19) I would like to mention here
that this type of exposure of vulgar commodification of the Kerala culture
has rarely been attempted by any of the regional writers of repute. The
regional writers are more involved in popular local issues concerned with
the region like plight of Malayalee community in the Persian Gulf,
corruption within the State, gender issues and so on.
How does one harmonize a literary life with a family life? Both
require involvement. Both demand dedication. Both need the
luxury of time. If she chooses to be a good housewife, the writer
in her suffers. And if she chooses to put her writing above all
else, she is seen by family and society as a cold, wilful and
selfish woman. She can expect little support and hardly any
encouragement. And yet she continues to write because as all
writers or creative people will tell you, the need to create is
paramount. (Nair 131)
In terms of characterization, her characters are subversive and they
delineate human plight in all its naked reality projecting their desires,
manipulations, fears, inhibitions, ruthlessness and hunger for power. Her
characters, thus, go much beyond the traditional roles assigned to women.
Her ideal of strong woman is not the one who fights against the world and
opens the pandora of feminist platitudes, she is someone who has the core
of steel to fight the vagaries of life. But her strength lies in painting the
canvas with the new picture of the contemporary woman who withstand
the storms which destiny inflict on her without falling apart. Meera in
Lessons in Forgetting is one character who seems to gain admiration
both of the author as well as Prof. Jak. It is very much evident in Prof.
Jak’s line of thought “something in her manner, filled your admiration.
You approved of women who didn’t give way to their weight of their
disappointments. Women who held themselves together.” (140) Her
women characters do not fit into the stereotypical good or bad woman
images. They are grey characters who fall a prey to temptations, make
mistakes and finally live their life on their own terms, after a period of
introspection. Meera and Kala Chitti in Lessons in Forgetting, Radha
inMistress, Valsala in The Better Man and Akhila in The Ladies Coupe
are unpredictable. They subvert the very structure of the patriarchal
society. The male characters too are subversive in the sense that they are
shown possessing characteristics stereotypically associated with women
like being weak and vulnerable at times, being emotional, jealous etc. We
find Mukundan, a well-educated government servant in his fifties going
weak in his knees when he is confronted by his patriarchal father
Achuthan Nair.
Indian English writers like Anita Nair are now more accurate about
the detailing and recording of the places, historical facts because they
know that once the book is out, it would be under close scrutiny of the
critics who would review the book considering all these aspects. And of
course who isn’t aware of rich economic rewards a good review can fetch
in terms of soaring up of the sales of the book. A lot of these writers
spend a lot of their hibernating periods researching topics extensively for
their book, which is well reflected in their works. It took Anita Nair
almost six months of intensive research on the dance form of kathakali,
the various bhavas and rasas in the dance form to gather enough
materials that she could transmute into her fiction. In her nonfiction book,
Good Night and God Bless (2008) she gives a brief account of her
discussions on the kathakali techniques with the Late Asan
Gopalakrishnan, Assistant Professor in Kerala Kala mandalam before
actually incorporating the Kathakali techniques in her novel Mistress. She
writes of how “the months spent under his tutelage was my introduction
to how a master can shape one’s thoughts. Not just in his sphere of
expertise but in all of life.” (PP 255-56) Ironically, it is difficult to find
the regional writers working into so much of graphic detailing of the
locale because they invariably write for a home-audience who are already
familiar with the sounds and sights and tastes of that particular
environment