Indias Abroad: The Diaspora Writes Back
by Rajendra Chetty and Pier Paolo Piciucco
(STE)
I am a foreigner wherever I go. I am so willing to hug everything. But everything seems to be slipping through my fingers.” These opening lines of the introduction to this book sum up the theme of illusion and alienation underlying the writings in Indias Abroad: The Diaspora Writes Back.
By publishing 16 essays on the works of the Indian diaspora by Indian and foreign critics, the editors highlight the longing for the motherland by the dislocated Indian writers abroad.
Dislocation and alienation thus form a dominant theme of these writings. For instance, Meena Alexander in The Poetics of Dislocation reminisces about the place of her birth across the Pemba river on the west coast of Kerala, even as she lives in New York close to the Hudson river. She keeps dreaming about climbing a tree in her native town and viewing the scene from above.
Analysing the stories woven around the partition of India by Sadat Hasan Manto, Alexander points out the symbolic tree as a place of escape for displaced and disenchanted individuals in search of a dreamland.
Federica Zullo and Rehana Ahmed, dwelling on Amitav Ghosh’s writings, also stress colonialism and partition as causes of Indian migration to a foreign land.
Migration and exile cause emotional turmoil in individuals and can lead to a loss of identity. Pier Paolo Piciucco picks out the novels Midnight Children by Salman Rushdie, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh as fine examples of tales where displaced individuals struggle to establish their identity in a foreign land. Compensating for their loss with an affirmation of their Indian cultural identity is reflected in the works of writers such as Shashi Tharoor and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
During colonial rule, many Indians were exiled to Caribbean islands and African countries to work as indentured labourers. Critics name The Book of Secrets by MG Vassanji, Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry, Shanti by Arnold Harrichand Itwaru, Secrets by Farida Karodia, Nuclear Seasons by Ramabai Espinet, Poetic Trilogy by BD Lalla and The Wedding by Imraan Coovadia as some of the works that express the anguish of individuals sent away from their motherland.
As Espinet expresses it poetically, “There is me here / And everything else outside.” Indian exiles feel isolated because of racial discrimination, and cling to their community, customs and traditions in order to survive in a foreign land. Is it only their motherland that can give them a sense of belonging?