The Spiritual Sense of Alienation in Diasporic Life: Reading Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Sunetra Gupta and Jhumpa Lahiri (original) (raw)

PERSPECTIVE Exile Literature and the Diasporic Indian Writer

2015

The essay takes a holistic view of the word “exile ” to encompass a range of displaced existence. It illustrates through John Simpson’s The Oxford Book of Exile the various forms of exiles. The essay then goes on to show that diasporic Indian writing is in some sense also a part of exile literature. By exemplifying writers both from the old Indian diaspora of indentured labourers and the modern Indian diaspora of IT technocrats, it shows that despite peculiarities there is an inherent exilic state in all dislocated lives whether it be voluntary or involuntary migration. More importantly, a broad survey of the contributions of the second generation of the modern Indian diaspora in the field of Indian writing in English depict certain shift in concerns in comparison to the previous generation and thereby it widens the field of exile literature. Displacement, whether forced or self-imposed, is in many ways a calamity. Yet, a peculiar but a potent point to note is that writers in their ...

IMMIGRATION AND ESTRANGEMENT IN INDIAN DIASPORA LITERATURE A CRITICAL STUDY

AABS Publishing House, Kolkata, 2019

The anthology Immigration and Estrangement in Indian Diaspora Literature: A Critical Study attempts to study diasporic sensibilities in writings of Indian Diaspora writers. The book mainly focuses its study on the sense of displacement and dislocation rising due to immigration from homeland to hostland as found in writings of Indian Diaspora writers. Authors have tried to give their best outputs to reach this anthology to its intended goal. Hopefully this book will be helpful to both students and scholars alike.

Revisiting Diaspora Spaces in India: A Contemporary Overview

Vernon Press, US and Spain, 2023

This volume, edited by Joydev Maity and a 'Foreword' written by Dr. Sayan Dey is a detailed and critical study of Indian diaspora writings and their diverse themes. It focuses on dynamics and contemporary perspectives of Indian diaspora writings and analyzes emerging themes of this field like the experience of the Bihari diaspora, migration to Gulf countries, the relation between diasporic experience and self-translation, uprootedness and resistance discourse through ecocritical praxis and many more. With the aid of a subtle theoretical framework, the volume closely examines some of the key texts such as 'Goat Days, Baumgartner's Bombay, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, The Circle of Reason', and authors including Shauna Singh Baldwin, M.G. Vassanji, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, V.S. Naipaul, and others. The book also explores diaspora literature written in regional language and later translated into English and how they align with the fundamental Indian diaspora writings. A significant contribution to Indian diaspora writings; this volume will be of great importance to scholars and researchers of diaspora literature, migration and border studies, cultural, memory, and translation studies.

Revisiting Diaspora Spaces in India: A Contemporary Overview (Vernon Press)

Edited Book published from Vernon Press, 2023

This edited volume is a detailed and critical study of Indian diaspora writings and its diverse themes. It focuses on dynamics and contemporary perspectives of Indian diaspora writings and analyzes emerging themes of this field like the experience of the Bihari diaspora, migration to Gulf countries, the relation between diasporic experience and self-translation, uprootedness and resistance discourse through ecocritical praxis and many more. With the aid of a subtle theoretical framework, the volume closely examines some of the key texts such as 'Goat Days, Baumgartner's Bombay, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, The Circle of Reason', and authors including Shauna Singh Baldwin, M.G. Vassanji, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, V.S. Naipaul and others. The book also explores diaspora literature written in regional language and later translated into English and how they align with the fundamental Indian diaspora writings. A significant contribution to Indian diaspora writings; this volume will be of great importance to scholars and researchers of diaspora literature, migration and border studies, cultural, memory, and translation studies.

Diaspora in the Novels of Salman Rushdie Shyam Prasad Subedi

isara solutions, 2021

Salman Rushdie is the author who inaugurated the field of postcolonial diasporism with his debut novel Grimus, which was an experiment to show the plight of estrangement and alienation. The story deals with immortality, generated worlds, surreal things, other scopes both interior and exterior, and castaways. The story follows Flapping Eagle, a young Indian who receives the gift of immortality after drinking a magic fluid. Flapping Eagle, an Axona Indian, is ostracized from the society because of his fiairer complexion. His mother perished just after few moments of his arrival in this mortal world. His sister Bird Dog sheltered him and offered him with the preparation of interminable life and after that, she evaporates mystifyingly from the terrestrial of the Axona. INTRODUCATION Quest for identity and home constitutes a significant factor in diasporic discourse in so far as it involves the movement of people across national boundaries resulting in cultural confrontation and identity crisis. Diasporic identity is a complex but dynamic concept which in the recent years has become a subject of constant debate in the aftermath of globalization and postcolonial migration. The moment one becomes an expatriate, he/ she needs to define himself/ herself in the alien environment that compels him to search for his/her identity. In this attempt for selfdefinition and quest for identity, one may either search for identity in the host country with a desire for negotiation/ assimilation thereby breaking all the relationships with the native country or may see the people around him/ her as 'the other'. While oscillating between cultural assimilation and 'cultural alienation', the diasporic writer/ person tries to adjust and in turn experiences a confusion of life and living, loss of values, fellow feeling and trust and surrenders to the new environment by adopting the strategy of 'excessive belonging'. Traditionally viewed, identity, location and citizenship are static and fixed. But in the present diasporic context, it is not a fixed essence; it is rather articulated from a particular space and time. In other words, given the postcolonial and postmodern condition, identity and home are subjected to a constant process of 'becoming' rather than remaining as 'being'. At the same time, identity is based on transformation in different situations and under changing circumstances. Stuart Hall (1993) rightly states, 'Identity becomes a 'moveable feast'; formed and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or addressed in postmodern societies'(Hall,120). In this regard, hybridity constitutes an important concept in post-colonial discourse because it is celebrated as a kind of superior cultural representation owing to the advantage of inbetweenness, the straddling of two cultures and the resulting ability to negotiate the difference. In Bhabha's discussion of cultural hybridity, he has developed it from literary and cultural theory