Oleander Girl: A Magnum Opus in the Coming of Age Genre Novel!

Oleander Girl is the latest novel by the revered third generation IWE author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.It was published on March, 2013 by Simon & Schuster, the revered American Publishing House. It is elegant and highly evocative. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has already earned the reputation of a silver-tongued story teller. She is hailed as a gifted storyteller by Abraham Varghese while the People magazine acclaimed her as a skilled cartographer of the heart. She has already established a secured place in the annals of Indian writing in English with her handful of stories and novels. Like most of her fellow brethren, she also takes Kolkata as her favourite locale. And like most Indian writers, her characters also shuttle between USA and India. Most of her protagonists are Indian girls from middle-class or lower middle class background. A struggle for creating her space acts as the theme in most of her novels. Her female protagonists suffer the twist of luck more acutely than their counterparts. Interplay of good and bad luck takes the shape of light and shade in many cases. However, in the basic story line, she has not been able to overcome the pattern set by R.K.Narayan and her stories bear an undertone of mental infliction evoked out of the complexity of social and familial relationships. Professor Shyam K.Sriram calls Oleander Girl a South Asian American novel. Its a genre that straddles the line between the American and Indian experiences, blending the two, but
1

also allowing the reader to savour traditional Indian culture and the drama that goes with not just being Indian, but exporting the culture across the seas.(shyam K.S) The Title: The title of the novel Oleander Girl is very significant. It conveys symbolical meaning to the theme. Oleander is an Indian flower---beautiful but toulf. In Bengali it is called Raktakarabi. Originally it was a native of India and the Mediterranean but now a day available in almost all parts of the globe. These are often, but not always, sweetly scented. The flowers grow in clusters at the end of each branch; they are white, pink or yellow, 2.5-5 cm diameter, with 5 petals fringed at the base.

Here, the protagonist is Karobi and everything revolves round her. Significantly she encapsulates many characteristics of the flower in her eventful life. The author has chosen the title very judiciously. The first word of the title may, well, be called the symbolic subtitle of the novel. "Oleander Girl is a coming of age novel in the best tradition. Here the readers witness the growing up of a child into a woman." The authors main purpose here was to project India in its real colour before the western and American eyes. Almost all the contemporary Indian writers are trying this but with little success, because it is really very difficult to encapsulate and project the complex as well as multicultural Indian ritualistic society and the prevailing prejudices and superstitions therein in its true colour.But, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has made the impossible act possible with her deep and sensitive word-pictures. In this regard she has won over almost all the

contemporary IWE writers. It would not be incorrect even if we say that she has presented India in a far better manner than Rushdie or Ghosh, the two giants of IWE today. The main assets used here is the authors command over language and a clear knowledge of social customs.

The story :: The story is of two familiesthe Roys and the Boses.Koroby Roy is an orphan girl of 17. She is looked after by her aristocratic and rich grandparents. Her mother died at her child birth. Her father also died shortly after. Her marriage is settled with an elite and well established Youngman named Rajat. The novel begins with a vivid description of the typical Hindu (Bengali) marriage rituals. Eventually the grandfather dies and Korobi begins to suspect that the story of her fathers death might not be true. Her suspicion develops through an overhearing of a phone conversation of her grandmother. Soon she decides to go to America to find out the reality. She wants to know whether her father is really dead or there exists something else. In this way the locale of the story is shifted from India to America. After his grandfathers death, Korobi's grandmother acknowledges some bitter truths: Not only is Korobi's father alive, he is an African-American whom Korobi's mother met while studying at Berkley, but he and Korobi's mother were not yet married when Korobi's mother died. Despite the potential scandal that she is illegitimate and half African-American, Rajat still wants to marry Korobi, but she becomes obsessed with finding her father before marrying. Although his patience is understandably strained, Rajat stands behind Korobi's decision to travel alone to America for a month on her quest. In America, the innocent--to the point of being nave--Korobi faces
3

challenges she has never imagined and takes increasing control of her life as she searches for clues about her father with the help of a kindly Indian private detective. She and Rajat, who has shielded her from his own worries about his family's increasing financial problems since 9/11, begin to drift apart. She is tempted by a new attraction; he is pursued by a former lover. Both must find a balance between old and new values. However, it is ultimately revealed that her father is an African American named Rob. Her mother met her while reading in Berkley and she was not married when she died of child birth. Comments: The novel has been acclaimed because of the issues of class caste; class; religion; race and politics in modern India and immigrant America. It has earned a cross-cultural appeal. It reminds us Dickensian novels. Divakaruni embraces the complexity of social class and allows the reader into a multilayered world of money, status, education and the choices one makes as you climb the social ladder. Other issues make an appearance religion, politics, immigration, ancestry and race but the focus of Oleander Girl is very much on class. Divakarunis writing is gorgeous and calls to mind a different time, a different era when indeed life seemed simpler. You fell in love with the person who was chosen for you. Indeed my paternal grandparents have said so on more than one occasion that the notion of falling in love was so Western, so American; rather they believed in falling in love over time, writes Shyam K. Sriram A few eye-itching problems: Although the language of Chitra Banerjee is very lucid and her ideas are transcribed in a very translucent manner, the small (i) s instead of normal capital (I)s is really a disturbance to the eyes. What made the author to use small (i) s all through the novel is really a query. Deliberate use of small letters at the beginning of the sentences is too bold a challenge to the rules of English Grammar. It cant be accepted as a new style. And if it is so, its a very bad style. It simply causes degeneration of the language as well as a gives a faulty signal to the native users of English. She would do better if in the next edition these erroneous usages are corrected. After all, literature is not advertisement and whimsicality is not a matter to be
4

patronized. Secondly, the girls nostalgic yearning to meet her mother taking shape in a Hamlet like appearance of her mothers ghost in her room is too imaginative in this postmodern era. It made the narrative weak. The ghost episode might have been cut shorter. An anecdote: Most Indians pronounce the term Ghost as Ghost; but the actual pronunciation is Gost. As such one of our teachers used to say (humorously): There is no Ghost in English. Most probably the author used the ghost episode to reflect the superstitious Indian mind irrespective of ones education and social position even in this postmodern age. However, it works as a very apt satire to the collective irrationality of the superstitious Indian mind. Lastly, it is to be acclaimed as a coming of age genre novel. Coming of age is an understanding that the world does not revolve around us; that the world cannot be forced to conform to our version of it; that the adults we revered make mistakes; and that what endures is what we have given of ourselves to others. (Wikipedia).In that sense Oleander Girl is out and out a novel belonging to the coming of age genre novels. [1422] References; Credits; and Acknowledgements:i.
ii.

Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's 'Oleander Girl' Captures the Complex, 'Real' India by Shyam K.Sriram.

iii. iv. v. vi. vii.

www.goodreads.com www.popmatters.com www.chitradivakaruni.com www.dallasnews.com www.thatswhatsheread.net