Indian Diaspora Literature: A Critical Evaluation | Literary Theory | Ed. by Dr Dipak Giri | Malik & Sons Publishers & Distributors (2024) | ISBN: 978-93-92459-50-4 | Paperback | Pp 215 | ?800
 

A microscopic view of the experiences of immigrants

The anthology Indian Diaspora Literature: A Critical Evaluation is a precise compilation of twenty enlightening articles edited by Dr Dipik Giri, underscoring the concept of Diaspora. The twenty insightful articles provide a bird’s-eye view of the struggles faced by immigrants. The characters in all the listed articles faced voluntary and compelled migration, which led them to be separated and displaced from their native homeland to an unfamiliar host land. Overall, the anthology provides a microscopic view of the experiences of immigrants.

The first article in this anthology is “Multi-Cultural Immigrants as Strange Bed-fellows in Adversity: A Study of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s One Amazing Thing”. Written by Prof D Amalraj, it elegantly analyzes the themes of cultural isolation, identity, and emotional salvation in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's One Amazing Thing. The earthquake in the novel is a classic example of adversity. It shows how adversity breaks down those social barriers and brings people together across race and social standing to empathize. Prof D Amalraj has used a lot of literary and philosophical references, highlighting the redemptive feeling and shared suffering that comes for characters who endeavor to redeem themselves from their regrets. This series portrays the novel’s message of resilience and unity in adversity by linking personal confessions to universal human connections.

The second chapter in this anthology, “Embracing the Diaspora: An Analysis of Githa Hariharan’s Short Stories in Contemporary Indian Writing in English” by Dr Priyanka Singla, aims to explore the significance of the diasporic theme and its relevance in contemporary society. The diasporic experience is a complicated one that Githa Hariharan’s stories delve into with themes of alienation, identity, and cultural marginalization. Stories such as A House for Mr. Misra and Almost Home show the ordeal of such concepts through the protagonists’ way of living, which includes displacement and the conflict between home and host cultures. Dr Priyanka Singla has examined how food is used by Hariharan as a symbol of cultural identity when she uses it to enrich her exploration of hybridity. Especially important for the body of diasporic literature are her nuanced portrayals of emotional challenges that diasporic individuals have to go through.

In her chapter “The Human World of Mistry: An Evaluation of Such a Long Journey”, Dr Monika Malhotra describes the hardships faced by the Parsi community in the novel Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry, which follows Gustad Noble, a middle-class Parsi living in 1970s Bombay.  He attempts to survive the tumult of his career, financial losses, and personal troubles. In the novel, the issues of cultural identity, displacement, and the clash between tradition and modernity are dealt with by eschewing systemic social and political corruption, and the Parsi community challenges. Mistry provides a powerful reflection on moral turpitude, family, and the fight for dignity.

The following is the chapter by Dr S Mahalakshmi on “Transcultural Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake.” Dr S Mahalakshmi analyzes Jhumpa Lahiri’s portrayal of the novel’s central character, Gogol Ganguli’s sojourn, in trying to make sense of his Indian heritage and American identity as a first-generation Indian-American. As Gogol’s name symbolizes, themes of assimilation, identity crisis, and cultural displacement emerge. The novel critiques family dynamics and generational differences through a powerful exploration of the immigrant experience and the nuances of living between two cultures.

In the next chapter, “Dislocation and Displacement: Diaspora in Shauna Singh Baldwin's English Lessons and Other Stories,” Dr Sapna Dogra examines Shauna Singh Baldwin’s 1996 collection of short stories and explores the immigrant experience and mainly focusing on the experiences of Indian women who leave India for life. Rawalpindi 1919, Devika, and Montreal 1962 are stories about identity, family bonding, and heritage issues. Baldwin's humorous, vivid storytelling captures and intermingles traditional values with the pressures of assimilation that did not exist, those that challenged the soul within itself.

Dr Ashish Kumar examines the fundamental relevance of folklore in human culture and its crucial role in forming and conserving cultural legacy in his chapter “Perplexity of Mobility in ‘Girmit Diaspora’: (Re)interpreting Migration and Separation through Folksongs.” This chapter explores Bideshiya Folk Culture and shows how songs and oral traditions express the emotional suffering of the Girmitiya diaspora during colonial migration. The chapter also showcases migrants adapting to the culture of folk songs, which helps them to express grief and separation. This tendency has finally evolved into a cultural identity that has helped them cope with the pain of leaving their home country. These folk songs finally form a medium to keep the memories and culture of those labouring in foreign lands at bay.

The goal of Dr Subhasshri R’s chapter “From Encumbrance to Emancipation of Immigrants in Uma Parameswaran’s Dear Deedi, My Sister” is to highlight the difficulties of Canadian immigrants via monologues. Identity conflicts, nostalgia, cultural conflicts, and racism constitute the emotional challenges of moving to a new land. The play portrays the characters’ plight resulting from displacement and presents hope and resilience. The novel also depicts how the characters grapple with their new lives while being connected to their homelands.

Relocation, rather than dislocation, is highlighted as the changing nature of diasporic sensibility in Jhumpa Lahiri’s works in Dr Mangesh M Gore’s chapter “The Changing Nature of Diaspora Sensibility in the Writings of Jhumpa Lahiri.” Dr Mangesh examines that many of Jhumpa Lahiri’s works deal with immigrant experiences and often feature themes of identity, assimilation, and cultural conflict involving second-generation South Asian Americans. Novels such as The Namesake and The Lowland explore the emotional complexities of characters caught between two worlds (in terms of cultural hybridity). Lahiri’s insight into human relationships makes for wonderful universal reflections on belonging and self-discovery, as is expected in diasporic sensibilities.

Dr Sanober Kahkeshan’s chapter “Partition and Diasporic Concepts in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Novels” deals with partition and diasporic concepts in Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice Candy. The focus is on India’s partition trauma and the experience of migration and diaspora, which Bapsi Sidhwa, a Parsi writer, took up. Ice Candy Man and The Pakistani Bride are examples of novels that address cultural tensions and consider identity and the effects of mass migration. Sidhwa powerfully represents the effects of partition on women and communities, as well as the effects of the Parsi diaspora, which remains with us in the ravages of partition despite upheavals.

In the chapter by Dr Himakshi Kalita titled “Diasporic Sensibilities in Celluloid: A Study of Select Indian Movies,” the representation of diasporic sensibilities in films such as Pardes, Aa Ab Laut Chalen, and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge is examined. Themes of nostalgia, identity, and cultural clashes are played out in Diasporic literature and Bollywood films. In the mentioned movies, immigrants are forced to balance Indian traditions with Western influences. These narratives wrestle with the wins and losses of cultural preservation, assimilation, and hybrid identities, the emotional labour of migration, and the relationships connecting nationality and race.

The chapter “Cinema and Indian Diaspora Literature: A Multifaceted Narrative” by Dr Shantilal Ghegade examines two potent media: film and Indian diaspora literature that have been crucial in forming the story of the Indian Diaspora around the globe. Films like My Name Is Khan, Bend It Like Beckham, and works like A House for Biswas, The Namesake and Midnight’s Children are referred to in this chapter to depict the common themes and varied experiences of the Indian Diaspora in Indian cinema and literature. A combination of these disciplines is explored through this narrative, which highlights the concepts of identity, migration, and cultural conflict. Both the fields—literature and film—portray global diasporic voices to create cross-cultural understanding on a global platform.

The chapter “Media’s Role in Shaping Indian Diasporic Literature” by Dr Kalyan Sonawane examines the intricate and nuanced connection between Indian diaspora literature and the media. The chapter underscores that the media has mainly created literature on the Indian diaspora from print to digital platforms. Diverse voices are promoted by media outlets with their complex diaspora authors’ identities or more to a broader audience. The media then allows transnational narratives to be discussed along with the progress of transnational participation while shaping the future discussion of the Indian diaspora literature.

In his chapter “Diasporic Longing/Mourning for Homeland: Analyzing the Representation of Kashmir in Agha Sahid Ali’s Poems,” Pawan Toppo attempts to examine how Agha Sahid Ali’s poetry reflects his diasporic yearning for his native Kashmir. The writer observes that Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry is poignant, dealing with exile, loss, and longing for Kashmir. This work is an excellent piece that falls between personal grief and the suffering of a group. However, the writer elegantly addresses this issue with imagery of postcards and post offices about displacement. The poems are a great tribute to his homeland, a call for peace, and the loud voices of people trapped in the turmoil.

“From Multiculturalism to Interculturalism: A Thematic Analysis of Anita Desai’s Bye-Bye Blackbird” by Saleha Ilhaam highlights how multiculturalism helps to preserve the character’s identity even in the West in Bye-Bye Blackbird by Anita Desai. This marvellous piece is another example of the problems faced by Indian immigrants living in England. Moreover, the novel’s central character, Adit Sen, and his wife, Sarah, become a theme of alienation, cultural conflict, and identity crisis. Desai, however, focuses on a critique of Western cultural predominance and his call for intercultural dialogue based on mutual respect for diverse identities.

Sahabuddin Ahamed’s chapter “Articulating Transnational Identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake” analyses the construction of transnational identities of first and second-generation Indian immigrant characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. In a transnational extension of this, the novel also presents the concept primarily through the immigrant family, the Gangulis. Although the protagonist Ashima’s changing sense of home is a mirror for the shifting fluidity of diasporic identity, characters engage in various hybrid identities forced upon the migrant. The novel details the intricate world of belonging to the time of globalization, which is featured in the adoption and cultural exchange.

Chapter “Diasporic Dilemma and Distance Sisterhood Bond in the Sister of My Heart” by Aisha Haleem explores the themes of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s 1999 novel Sister of My Heart, which explores the long-distance sisterhood bond in the context of a diasporic dilemma and how Divakaruni skilfully combines the tales of two cousins to produce a narrative that captures the complexities of Indian culture and the experience of immigrants. The characters Sudha and Anju are the two cousins who represent the Indian diasporic experience illustrated by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in Sister of My Heart. The work examines the difficulties of indigenous values in cohabitation with newly created identities abroad. Divakaruni’s lyrical writing and rich description of sisterhood portray a profound look at family and home.

In “Cosmopolitan World out of Cross-cultural Contact in Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke,” the writer of this chapter, Sahadev Roy, delves into how the theme of migration in Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke develops a new way of life. Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke explores migration and trade in the cosmopolitan world of 19th-century Canton. The novel speculates on cultural exchange, imperialism (and trade ethics) through characters like Bahram Modi. However, in stressing the potential of cosmopolitanism and critiquing the moral costs of empire and free trade, Ghosh also illuminates how a future threat might come into being.

The issue of exile and displacement in VS Naipaul’s book Half a Life is the focus of Sushanta Sarkar’s chapter, “Immigration and Displacement in V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life.” The central character in the novel, Willie Chandran, struggles with identity and alienation in the postcolonial world of VS Naipaul’s Half a Life. Willie was born to a Brahmin father and a low-caste mother and remains an outsider in London and Africa. Displacement and the challenges of diasporic life are examined in the novel as the protagonist struggles to locate identity within a broken society.

The chapter “Indian Indenture Historiography and the Expatriate Experience: Evaluating the Plight of Migrants through Totaram Sanadhya’s My Twenty-One Years in Fiji Island” by Mansi Bose examines how Sanadhya offers a rich depiction of a diverse world inhabited by Indian, Fijian, and European characters. The evidence of harsh exploitation and abuse of Indian indentured labourers in British colonies is to be found in the narratives of these immigrants. The autobiographies of Totaram Sanadhya and others document these labourers’ trauma, resilience, and struggles for justice. By exploring how these subaltern voices spoke about the emotional and physical toll of indenture and demanding that the memory of cultural loss be preserved, this project explores how they serve as agents of symbolic reparation.

Dr Dipak Giri’s final chapter in this anthology, “Cultural Displacement and Identical Dilemma in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss,” attempts to examine Kiran Desai’s Booker Prize-winning novel as a fictional work that addresses the characters’ dilemma and double consciousness as well as the issues of migration they face. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai explores the emotional and social issues of migration. The novel examines identity loss and cultural assimilation through characters like Jamubhai and Biju. Desai reveals immigrant struggles with native and foreign pressure, alienation, and the cost of cultural displacement.

Overall, this anthology is an indispensable resource offering an in-depth analysis of immigrants’ experiences through the lens of Diaspora. It covers a wide range of issues involved in immigration and includes all genres, ranging from short stories, novels, poetry, and films to folk traditions. Besides this, the book is an irreplaceable source in academics, particularly literature, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies. It is a key source for enthusiastic scholars who want to explore the complexities of the Indian Diaspora. This book also offers a theoretical framework and analyses of various works by famous writers like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, and Kiran Desai, which act as a valuable resource in research. Further, the book is an excellent resource for scholars pursuing research in comparative literature, mainly in comparing diasporic works and films with the diasporic framework. On the whole, Indian Diaspora Literature: A Critical Evaluation is an excellent scholarly contribution that not only provides insights into Indian diasporic literature but also serves as an essential tool for academic exploration and discussion in a globalized world.