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A home away from home: A mere wish in Diaspora Literature?

“Oh east is east, and west is west,

And never the twain shall meet.” (The Ballad of East & West

By Rudyard Kipling)

Migration refers to the act of moving from one country to

another to settle down. People often leave their homelands in search of better job opportunities, freedom and even security from unstable political conditions. Many times this moving may not be voluntary like in case of slaves or people deported as laborers to other countries or even a woman married outside her home country. These migrants set up their minority community in the host country, though they are very much aware of being ‘minority’. That is why; many migrants illustrate the unending desire to retain the memories of their past and a sense of belonging to the home country. Memory is understood to be a vital part of one’s life, as important as ones identity, without which one can be stripped off his roots. Migration and memory has an interesting but a complex relationship as memory is always ‘a memory of loss’1 for migrants. Once settled in another country, migrants are forced to or expected to give up their pasts and accept new culture and roles in that country which can be both tormenting or liberating at the same time. They often face ethnic prejudices, language problems, cultural and traditional differences and longing for the ‘home’. As Geetanjali Singh Chanda says in one of her works,

“Old homes becomes blue-print for the new ones. But the lack of a guiding arrow or an orienting device for memory can render one homeless- both literally and emotionally.”2

One of the main problems is the acceptance of the identities of migrants either by the people of home country or the new one. As Appadurai puts it, “migration tends to be accompanied by confusion about what exactly has been lost, and thus of what needs to be recovered or remembered.”3 Thus, there are apparent mental aberrations and sufferings which are due to the displacement resulting to which one becomes conflicted.

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It is quiet difficult to actually cling on to the customs of the previous society and to adopt the new ones at the same time. In this process of managing the two simultaneously, the customs of the old home gets altered. A very fine example of this can be seen in Naipaul’s essay ‘East Indian’ where he says that Hindus who settled in the west (Trinidad),earlier were not allowed the open-air cremation by the health authorities and so the Hindus living there were buried and not cremated. (Though now they are permitted to do so but still the ashes are scattered in a stream of Caroni rather than Ganges). This price and the ‘trauma of self-transformation’4 as Bharati Mukherjee says is something an immigrant willingly pays. Therefore, this oscillation between the cultures and practices of the new land is present in a migrant’ life and the foundations of these new homes are built on nothing but nostalgia, betrayal of the old, sense of loss and an unending desire for the old.

Since 1980s there has been much debates and discussions about the cultural hybridism and multiculturalism which has led to an increasing interest in the new genre of writing called Diaspora Literature which explores the lives of the migrants. As Andreas Huyssen says,

“self is remembered in a variety of recent texts, fictional, non-fictional, memory that does not lie dormant in the past, awaiting resurrection but collaborates between past and present, negotiating between remembering and forgetting, between destruction and creation of the self.”5

Thus this literature is an attempt to understand the conflicts these people face in life and their quest for individuality. There are certain central issues which almost every such writing deals with like the question of identity, first generation settlers v/s second generation, use of metaphor of food, image of journey etc. In this paper I’m going to focus on two such texts namely, ‘The Namesake’ by Jhumpa Lahiri and ‘East Is East’ by Ayub Khan-din. Through these texts I would further delve into the issues of haunting past memories and the subsequent quest for identity among migrants. I will basically emphasize on the two generations with conflicting ideologies and characters’ journey of the self.

The Namesake (2003), a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri deals with a Bengali family living in Massachusetts, United States. It

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describes the lives of Ashima in an alien land and that of Gogol, her son, who struggles with his hyphenated identity. It is quintessential an immigrant novel, written with a great deal of sensitivity for both the parent and children’ generation. The element of nostalgia and longing for ‘home’ comes across from the very beginning when Ashima is set to deliver her first child and is missing crowd of relatives eager enough to tell her what to expect. She at once gets worried that her child will be brought up in a ‘lonely’ environment and will be a “stranger to the tradition and hence to her.”6 His birth marks the start of a straddling journey for Gogol where he strives to get a clear picture of his identity in his own mind.

Set in 1970’s England is East is East (1999), a play by a Pakistani writer Ayub Khan-din. The play deals with the immigrant Muslim family living outside their parent cultural society and is trying to balance the two. It is about a father who lives in England insist his children to act as a ‘proper’ Muslims. There is a contrasting variety in the characters of these children. We witness from the hard core rebel Tariq, to a tom boy Meenah, and a devout Maneer. Every child seems to be rebelling in his/her own way. Tariq bluntly rejects his father’ autocracy and Maneer though a follower of Muslim religion recognizes the hypocrisy of his father, Sajid represents an inner conflict which bursts out in the climax of the play and even Saleem opts for art over engineering which was his father’s choice.

Both the texts show the traits of typical Diaspora literature and talk about the family dynamics. They examine how inevitably the children rebel against the traditions and the expectations of the parents. Gogol, in ‘The Namesake’, distances himself from his family and its Bengali heritage. Through him inner and outer conflict is aptly portrayed. He rejects everything that his father represents and belongs to. The marks of this rebellion can be first seen in his rice ceremony where unlike a typical Bengali child he refuses to choose anything from a ballpoint pen(for being a scholar), a dollar bill (for businessman) or soil (landowner). It is a ceremony in among Bengalis to see what a child would make when he grows up. It quickly reminds us of the difference between the Indian mentality which stresses upon the future of the child from the day he is born and the American culture of taking things as they come. As G.S. Chanda postulates,

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“Gogol in many ways typifies ABCD (American Born Confused Desi).”7

He thinks he’s ‘not Indian enough’ and is estranged to the relatives back in India where we see Ashoke and Ashima feeling at home even after so many years of separation. It is as if he feels an obligation to clarify his belonging. It is evident from the way he tells an aunt of Maxine, his white girlfriend, that he is an American and gets sick when they visit India.“We get sick all the time. We have to get shots before we go. My parents devote the better part o the suitcase to the medicines.”8

Through his infrequent visits to his parents he tries to avoid the shame of the ‘indianness’ his parents embody. It seems as if he does not fall in love with Maxine, but the americanness she and her family represents. It is an easy way of attaching himself with the American culture and keep away from the Bengali ways of his parents. Similar engagement of love we see in Bharati Mukherjee’s novel ‘Jasmine’, where the central character Jasmine falls in love with Taylor. She accepts and says, “I fell in love with his world, its ease, its careless confidence and graceful self absorption.”9

Youngsters in ‘East is East’ are no different. They consider themselves ‘English’ while their father insists on imbibing Muslim traditions in them. Whole family tries to balance the two cultures simultaneously. Tariq, the wayward makes it very clear to his father that he is “not gonna marry a Paki”10 and repeatedly tells his father that “dad I’m not Pak, I was born here.”11 He shows hatred towards the Pak music but still insists on Meenah preparing chapattis for him. The duality in his character is brought out by Meenah where she says, “paki enough when you want feeding, aren’t you?”12 This duality is also seen in Meenah’s character. Though we first see her in a saree she looks like a ‘sack of spuds’. She is a tomboy who dances on the tunes of bollywood songs but on the same side mocks them as well. Sajid, the youngest of all seems to be a very carefully drawn character by Din. Although he doesn’t speak much throughout the play, he is one of the most interesting characters. He wears a jacket with a parka which he never takes off until the end of the play. It can be seen as a symbol of his hidden feelings or his attempt to hide his racial identity. He embodies the one who is trapped in the extremities of both the culture.

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The inter-generational conflict is inevitable because according to G.S.Chanda, “the host country and children born in it pull in one direction and the nostalgia for the original homes pull in the other.”13 Hence, the first generation migrants become thrice alienated- from their original home, the new home and even their children. They make new memories and start life afresh but it is a life based on material foreign to them. It is “like anti-climbing paint, it repels their grip.”14 But, for the subsequent generation it is ‘the home’. They find it difficult to relate to the original homes of their parents as they have never had any direct association with those homes and have always seen it through their parents’ lens. For them as Naipaul calls it India is just ‘a word’15 which they visit as a mere tourist. But the parents who are the first generation settlers struggle to keep the threads of their past strong and alive. However, they keep themselves publicly passive in this new home. The Ganguly family in ‘The Namesake’ mixes with other Bengali families only and even if they celebrate American festivals it is for their children. Similarly, George in ‘East is East’ feels at ease when in Bradford (a place with majority population of Asians). It is remarkable that George longs for Pakistan i.e. east while he lives in west (England) and also for Bradford which is in east England while he stays in Salford lying in western England. Thus, this harping back to original home and traditions is unavoidable and so is the insistence of parents in ‘making’ their children loyal to their original cultural heritage. Therefore, the presence of the old is always felt in the new home, be it Ashima’s memory of jhaal moori and the extended family or be it the setting of Khan household with the Islamic pray stickers, picture of Taj Mahal and the use of pidgin English by George.

Another significant feature of the Diaspora literature is the name change. Gogol becomes Nikhil; Tariq becomes Tony when he wants to be a part of the American culture and visit discos; Jasmine-Jane16, Rani-Rosalind17. All these characters articulate that their name change is the trope of identity change. Gogol struggles with the negative connotation attached to the author Nikolai ‘Gogol’ and confusion of having been named after a Russian author when he belongs to the Indian-American lot. By changing his name he tries to be on at least one side of his hyphenated identity. Gogol is his Bengali side while Nikhil represents the American side. Similarly, for other characters as

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well it is a way of getting easily a sense of belonging to the new culture. Moreover, having two names in itself suggests the presence of more than one identity.

But as Naipaul says, “no writer, however individual his vision, could be separated from this society.”18 Thus it is often that writing reflects on the author’s life. It may or may not be completely autobiographical but some echoes are always a possibility. Naipaul admits that his status of an expatriate and his connection with India has always hindered him as a writer. Even Jhumpa Lahiri alike her character Gogol, had two names, Nilanjana and Jhumpa. She is also a second generation Indian-American which she says is problematic because “that’s much harder to write about, it’s much closer to me,”19 delivers Lahiri in an interview. She equates herself with Gogol in his struggle for identity and feels that she has inherited a “sense of exile from her parents.”20 Likewise, Ayub Khan-din admits in one of his interviews that the issues in his play are similar to his own background. It is his ‘personal story’.

“I’m portraying my father; he’s not a Pakistani everyman. To a certain extent, this is a man who abandoned his culture and married an English woman, and then decided that his children should marry Pakistani. So you know there was huge hypocrisy there.”21

This description clearly resembles George, the central figure of conflict in the play. His hypocrisy is highlighted by his own change of name from Ghengis to George and his insistence in his children being ‘proper Muslim’. Also, Ayub Khan sees a figure of himself in the character of Sajid ‘living in a parka’.

In the analysis of this literature, it is noteworthy that not much of these writings give us a clear cut solution to the conflicts. The two texts discussed in this paper follow a similar pattern. Though both the texts end with a reconciliation of the family but there is no sense of how issues are dealt with in future and are relatively open-ended. Ashima decides to keep her stay divided between US and India, six months each. This decision shows that she desires to go back to India nevertheless she could not fully enroot herself from what was her ‘new home’ which isn’t new anymore. Thus as G.S.Chanda says,

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“significance of past is reiterated and new does not arise, phoenix like, from the ashes of the old but rather, old is the guiding arrow that allows one to renegotiate and yet not lose one’s bearings.”22

Much of the writers of this genre believe that there is no true reconciliation possible between two cultures. For instance Salman Rushdie asserts that he and the expatriate writers like himself can only make ‘India’s of the mind’23. He finds it impossible to reclaim “precisely the thing that was lost”24. Even Naipaul in one of his essays affirms that “there is no true return”25. But nonetheless one always has an option to accept things as they are and manage life with its complexities. This thought is reflected towards the end of both the texts. Through the whole process of redefining himself it is ‘within his own skin’ that Gogol finally finds comfort and Sajid’s taking off his parka in the end signifies that he is now ready to face the reality of their existence. Hence I would like to conclude the paper with what Ayub khan said in one of his interviews which works as a succor for the lost migrants. He asserts,

“You have to find a balance. When you decide to move to a country, you’ve to understand that your children are going to be influenced by the culture of that country.”26

References

1. Appadurai, Arjun- ‘Archives and Aspiration’2. Chanda, Geetanjali Singh- ‘Indian Women In the house of

Fiction’3. Appadurai, Arjun- ‘Archives and Aspiration’4. Mukherjee, Bharati- ‘Two Ways to belong in America’5. Huyssen Andreas- ‘Diaspora and nation: migration into other

pasts’6. Lahiri, Jhumpa- ‘The Namesake’, (text) Harper Collins

Publishers ltd. 20067. Chanda, Geetanjali Singh- ‘Indian women in the house of

fiction’

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8. Lahiri, Jhumpa- ‘The Namesake’, (text) Harper Collins Publishers ltd. 2006

9. Mukherjee, Bharati- ‘Jasmine’10. Khan-din, Ayub- ‘East Is East’, (text), Nick Hern Books

Ltd.11. Khan-din, Ayub- ‘East Is East’, (text) Nick Hern Books

Ltd.12. Khan-din, Ayub- ‘East Is East’, Act I sc III (text),

Nick Hern Books Ltd.13. Chanda, Geetanjali Singh- ‘Indian women in the house of

fiction’, Zubaan Books 200814. Randhawa, Ravinder- ‘A wicked old woman’. She uses it

in context of the first generation settlers.15. Naipaul, V.S- essay ‘East Indian’[From the overcrowded

Barracoon]16. Mukherjee, Bharati- ‘Jasmine’. The central character

Jasmine changes name to Jane.17. Randhawa, Ravinder- ‘A Wicked Old Woman’. The character

of Rani changes her name to Rosalind.18. Naipaul,V.S- essay ‘Jasmine’(1964)19. ‘Still Bengali at heart’, Jhumpa lahiri’s interview in

Midday. http://www.mid-day.com/smd/2003/oct/66608.htm20. ‘Still Bengali at heart’, Jhumpa lahiri’s interview in

Midday. http://www.mid-day.com/smd/2003/oct/66608.htm21. Khan-din, Ayub- An interview by Mark Olden in 1999.22. Chanda, Geetanjali Singh- ‘Indian women in the house of

fiction’, Zubaan Books 200823. Rushdie, Salman- ‘Imaginary Homelands’ Granta Books,

199124. Rushdie, Salman- ‘Imaginary Homelands’ Granta Books,

199125. Naipaul, V.S –essay ‘East Indian’[From the overcrowded

Barracoon]26. Khan-din, Ayub- An interview by Mark Olden in 1999.

Bibliography

1. Lahiri, Jhumpa ‘The Namesake’2. Khan din, Ayub ‘East Is East’3. Hussain, Yamin ‘Writing Diaspora’4. Chanda, Geetanjali Singh ‘ Indian women in the house of

fiction’

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5. Berardinelli, James A review of ‘East is East’6. Singh, R.K essay ‘immigrant: quest for cross cultural

communication’7. Baldwin, Shauna Singh speech ‘With contempt or love?’ at

centre for Canadian architecture in Montreal8. Appadurai, Arjun essay ‘Archives and Aspiration’9. Mukherjee, Bharati- ‘Two Ways to belong in America’10. Huyssen Andreas- ‘Diaspora and nation: migration into

other pasts’11. Naipaul, V.S- essay ‘East Indian’[From The overcrowded

Barracoon]12. Naipaul,V.S- essay ‘Jasmine’(1964)13. Rushdie, Salman- ‘Imaginary Homelands’ Granta Books,

1991