• Indian Diaspora in Manju Kapur’s Novel The Immigrant

    Globalization plays vital role in the twenty first century. Nowadays everything is judged and appreciated on the global platform. Migration of the people from one country to other is easy in transportation but hard to adjust in alien culture, far from one’s homeland. The home and identity are very important for everyone. The people who live in alien culture are very connected to their root and to their respective native countries. They have a separate room for their home country in their mind. These people cannot forget their own tradition and culture. Indians are living in many countries of the world like, USA, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, etc. These all Indians who are living outside the India, have created mini India in their home. They celebrate all Indian festivals, follow the traditions, and participate in cultural rituals.

    Manju Kapur, the most prominent and popular contemporary novelist of Indian English Literature, deals with the theme which is famous among the major popular writers not only of the Indian English but from the writers of all over the world, the theme of diaspora and immigrant issues, in her fourth novel The Immigrant, which was published in 2008.However Manju Kapur deals with the issues of feminism in her previous novels Difficult Daughters, A Married Woman, Home. As title depicts, Manju Kapur presents the immigrant issues of Indians in Canada inher novel, The Immigrant.Indian Diaspora is the subject which is practiced by major Indian English writers who live outside the India like, Anita Desai, Bharti Mukherjee, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul, Jhumpa Laheri, etc. Diasporic experience of the characters is major thematic pre occupation of the above writers. Bill Ashcroft and others define diaspora:
    "Diaspora,the voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their homelands into new regions, is a central historical fact of colonization "(Ashcroft 2004).

    Prof. A. K. Singh rightly says about diaspora:
    "The diaspora is always forced. In one sense, each of us is in a state of diaspora" (Singh 2004)

    The term diaspora suggests, one's own room ofhis /her origin culture, history, tradition in the host country. It means, a particular or unchanged mental set in new geographic and social atmosphere of one's own. While commenting on diasporic situation, Julian Wolfreys makes it more explict by saying :
    "Setting of various peoples away from their homelands; often apporgated with the notion of the Jewish Diaspora in modern Israel, but extended in cultural studies, post colonial studies and race theory to consider the displacement of peoples by means of force such as slavery." (Wolfreys 2005)

    Manju Kapur chose the Canada as the background for her novel The Immigrant and discusses the Indian diaspora in Canada. In this paper I will discuss about the treatment of diasporas by Manju Kapur inThe Immigrant. Manju Kapur exemplifies the Indian Diaspora in three major parts in this novel. Which are:

    1. Indians as general mass living in Canada.
    2. Ananda and his uncle, representative of male class, who are busy in their work in Canada.
    3. Nina, as a woman, as a wife at home.

    India has great heritage of culture from the classical age. At abroad, Indians are connected with Indian culture and traditional way of life accordingly with their social system. In literature too, we find Indian culture is most important part for Indians, who live outside the India. Naipaul presents such Indians in West Indies and Britain. Jhumpa Laheri, Kiran Desai and Chitra Banerjee discusses about Indian immigrants in America. Salman Raushdie and other major writers present the Indians in Britain and other countries of the world.

    Sankaran Ravindran rightly observers about these Indians:
    "Indian abroad are not just people abroad. They are bundles of attitudes, convictions, anxieties, shared nations, fears and anticipations, all of which are Indian in their very texture."(Sankaran 2004)

    Manju Kapur depicts Indian in this novel with their very texture in Canada. In Canada, Indians are connected with their country and culture through India Club. By the medium of India Club, these people gather in Canada occasionally to celebrate the Indian festival like Holi, Diwali, and many more. This celebration provides them cultural and homely atmosphere by their language, dresses and very attitudes toward rituals and traditions. As Manju Kapur introduces India Club and its activities of celebration of Indian festivals in Canada in the following lines:
    "Diwali and Holi. Every year their dates change, but around the beginning and end of winter come the festivals that make Indians think with longing of celebrations in the mother country. Halifax was on exception. Home to four hundred Indian families, Home to India Club whose main aim was to ensure that expatriates did not feel deprived during festive occasions and to expose the next generation to Indian traditions." (IM- 27)

    India Club is ground for all Indians living in Canada to gather at one place and to celebrate cultural activities. India Club celebrates almost all the festivals like Diwali, Holi, and many more. Narrator artistically draw the word picture of the time of Diwali celebration in Canada by the members of India Club, which is also Ananda's first Diwali in Canada.
    "Curtains give the illusion of windows. Tiny coloured winking lights are strung all around. A Pundit arranges prayer materials before small images of Ram, Sita, and Laxman on araised dais. A few diyas lit around them, more being a fire hazard,are not allowed. Myriad women are dressed in saris, Nancy and Lara included. Dr. Sharma and Lenny are wearing new clothes. On the other side of the hall is long table, where the vegetarian feast catered by the Taj Mahal restaurant is laid out. The guests eat, wish each other a Happy Diwali, joyously, festively, wistfully,..........Another hybrid Diwali over." (IM-27)

    Manju Kapur considers this type of Diwali as hybrid celebration. But this is essential and enjoyable to celebrate one's own cultural heritage in abroad, very far from homeland. According to Dr. Sharma who never visit India more than three weeks and considers himself the citizen of world, accept the need of such celebrations. He told Ananda on Diwali evening about identity and need of organizing such celebrations by India Club.
    "...To give the children some idea of their background of course, otherwise how will they know our customs?.......The uncle glanced at his nephew. 'Beta, I was once like you, I too wanted to leave my country behind when I left its shores. Twenty years ago there was no Indian Club. I am one of the founding members. I realised that if I forgot everything of mine, then who was I? When the children came, it became even more important to keep in touch.' " (IM-28)

    People like Anand and his uncle, who keep themselves busy in their job, business and progress in foreign, are also come under the shadow of diasporic experiences. As far as identity is concern, these people are known as Indian among the multi culture land. As later Ananda agrees with his uncle:
    “His uncle’s comments about Diwali now appeared in a more forceful light. If you reject it all, then who are you?”(IM-48)

    Nina experiences the double process of immigration, to leave her mother’s home and to leave India as her husband was settled in Canada. So after marriage she moves to Canada. In the case of woman, especially for the house wife, it is more complicated than man to adjust in the alien culture. Nina, a house wife in Canada feels more alienated and lonely than Ananda as she live in the courtyard area all the day and outside it, all the things and people are from the new world for her. As narrator says:
    “Work is an easy way to integrate. Work engages the mind prevent it from brooding over the respective merits of what has been lost and gained. Coligues are potential friends. The immigrant who comes as a wife has a more difficult time…..At present all she is, is a wife, and a wife is alone for many, many hours. ” (IM-121-122)

    Latter narrator says about the condition of Nina as:
    “ Till Nina came to Canada she hadn’t known what lonely meant. At home one was never really alone. The presence of her mother, the vendors who come to the doors, the half hour gardener who watered their plants, the part time maid who washed and cleaned, the encounters with the landlady, all these had been woven in to her day.” (IM-159)

    Nina, like all women in abroad, represents the India in home, by food, by clothes, by traditions, and by Indian rituals. However as a daughter of diplomat, she observes her mother and other women in abroad. She is living in Canada with her Indian attitudes. Narrator narrates it with the symbol of her collections of saris.:
    “Benarasi, Kanjeevaram, Orrissa patola, Gujarati patola, bandhani; she had fancied carrying all parts of India to Canada in her clothes.” (IM-112)

    The novel is about the failure marriage of Nina and Ananda who later departed but novelist crafty treats the theme of Indian diasporas in Canada very effectively interwoven it with the main theme of the novel. So in concluding line it can be said that Manju Kapur artistically handle the theme of diaspora and successfully highlights the Indians and Indian culture in Canada in the second half of the twentieth century in her novel The Immigrant.

    Work Cited
    1. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth, Griffith & Helen Tiffin. Eds. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. (First Indian Reprint) Routledge; London. 2004. P-68-69, print.
    2. Kapur, Manju. The Immigrant, Random House India, 2010. Print.
    3. Ravindran, Sankaran, “Indian Diaspora and Its Difficult Texts” Theorizing and Critiquing Indian Diaspora, Eds. Kavita A. Sharma, Adesh Pal, Tapas Chakraborti, Creative Books, New Delhi. 2004. P. 131 Print.
    4. Singh, A. K., “From Gunny Sack and Ruck Sack: Proposals Pertaining to Indian English Diasporean Discourse”, “Theorizing and Critiquing Indian Diaspora. Eds.: Kavita A. Sharma, Adeshpal, Tapas Chakrabarti, Creative Books, New Delhi. 2004. P.227. Print
    5. Wolfreys, Julian, Ruth Robbins and Keneth Womack, Key Concepts in Literary Theory, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi – 110 002. P. 26 Print

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    Mr. Yatinkumar J. Teraiya
    Email: toyatin@gmail.com