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CHAPTER 4

INFLUENCE OF INDIGENOUS
LITERARY TRADITIONS

4.1 POSTCOLONIAL NOVEL

The Indian novel in English is an inheritor of two traditions the

genre and the English language are a legacy of colonialism and its content and
aesthetics influenced by the native literary canon. The hybrid nature of the
text has been a source of strength to the diasporic writers, who negotiate
between the demands of two different and opposing cultures. This chapter
examines the indigenous influence on the Indian diasporic novel.

The novel, which assumed a distinct generic identity in eighteenth

century Europe, spread to other parts of the world during the European
expansionist movement. Being a dynamic, flexible and elastic genre, it
accommodated itself to the local cultures to which it was transferred and
underwent a process of nativization and acculturation. Therefore, to treat the
Indian novel in English as a mere legacy of the imperial rule would be to
overlook its complex, cultural and ideological determinants. An exposure to
English literature through the spread of English education in India, was
responsible for the introduction of the novelistic genre into the Indian sub-
continent, where it has been influenced by several indigenous narrative
traditions. These influences have not only helped to shape its literary growth
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but have also lent it an ideological slant. It is imperative to understand the

literary aspect of the colonial encounter before attempting an analysis of the
Indian diasporic fiction.

English literature in the postcolonial context is fraught with

ideological and cultural implications. Most postcolonial theorists take their
cue from Saids Orientalism (1978), which treats European colonialism as a
discourse, to argue that texts, more than any other social and political product,
have been the most significant instigators and perpetuators of colonial power.
Ngugi wa Thiangos (1986) pithy comment sums up the argument: The
bullet was the means of physical subjugation, language was the means of
spiritual subjugation. Some theorists have gone a step further to affirm that
English education was instrumental in confirming the hegemony of English
colonialism. They reinforce their argument by citing Macaulays infamous
Minutes of 1835, which defends the introduction of English education in
colonial India on the grounds that a single shelf of a good European Library
was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. Gauri
Viswanathans (1987) influential book Masks of Conquest, for instance,
highlights how the British administration used English education as a strategic
weapon to ward off any kind of a threat from native insubordination. She
writes, A discipline that was originally introduced in India primarily to
convey the mechanics of language was thus transferred into an instrument for
ensuring industriousness, efficiency, trustworthiness and compliance in native
subjects.

This textual offensiveness has to be met and challenged. Ashcroft,

Griffiths and Tiffin (1989) have identified abrogation and appropriation
as the two processes by which postcolonial writings adapt the English
language to the colonized space. They write,
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Abrogation is a refusal of the categories of the imperial culture,

its aesthetic, its illusory standard of normative or correct
usage, and its assumption of a traditional and fixed meaning
inscribed in the words. It is a vital moment in the de-
colonizing of the language and writing of english, but without
the process of appropriation the moment of abrogation may not
extend beyond a reversal of the assumptions of privilege, the
normal, and correct inscription, all of which can be simply
taken over and maintained by the new usage. Appropriation is
the process by which the language is taken and made to bear
the burden of ones own cultural experience.

They have extended these techniques used in the acculturation of

language to other kinds of cultural interactions as well. By privileging
appropriation over abrogation they have professed that cultural
syncreticity is a valuable as well as an inescapable feature of all postcolonial
societies and is the source of their peculiar strength.

This insistence on cultural hybridity finds its fine exponents in the

diasporic writers. The journey to the Western world opens out to the diasporic
writers a whole new world of imagination and opportunities but
simultaneously they are hedged in by social restrictions and political servility.
Their attempt to define a textual strategy of resistance against Western
dominance has been aided by the rich, indigenous narrative traditions, their
concepts and techniques.

4.2 CYCLIC NARRATION

A part of the power of the Western nations lies in their scientific

knowledge and rational thinking. This has always been the basis of their
domination. During the Enlightenment period, European scholars began to see
an organic quality in the process of history, with one state being formed out of
another. The development of the English novel coincided with the emergence
of this dynamic view of time and its structure was indirectly based on the idea
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of a linear and sequential progression of events. While the Western thought is

conditioned by the linear view of life, the Asians see life as a cycle: birth-life-
death-rebirth. This has influenced the structure of the Indian novel which
adapted the Western genre to suit its own needs.

Vidhya Niwas Misra (2001), while discussing the structure of the

traditional Indian narrative in her paper titled Structure of the Traditional
Indian Narrative, points out that according to Sanskrit poetics katha is
defined as a narrative based on a plot imagined by the writer. This is
contrary to mimesis or imitation which forms the basis of the Western
novels. The Persian word daastan, later carried over to Urdu, denotes cycles
of medieval tales of heroism, where a succession of episodes follow one
another in endless profusion. Influenced by these indigenous traditions, the
Indian novels do not adhere to the Aristotelian plot as in Western poetics.
Thus, the Indian novelists had substituted linear development of plot with
cyclic narrations long before the postmodernists made such techniques
popular.

Meenakshi Mukherjees (1985) book, Realism and Reality: The

Novel and Society in India and Viney Kirpals (1992) paper, Has the Indian
Novel Been Understood?, both argue that the structure of the Indian novel is
different from its Western counterpart. In Chapter I titled Purana to Nutana,
Mukherjee explores the origin and development of the Indian novel, all the
while emphasizing that the novelistic genre is culture specific. She concludes
that the influence of the native traditions is inevitable and that it accounts for
the difference between the Indian and Western forms. She writes,

Mythic time is necessarily different from historic time. While

the latter operates in a novel, the narrative structure of
conventional kavya works reveals all time as part of a cosmic
cycle. Not much emphasis can however be given to this
contrast in a study of the novel in India, because nineteenth-
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century Indian writers were influenced largely by Western

concepts. Their conscious models were Scotts and Thackerays
novels rather than Brihatkatha or Kadambari,
Dasakumaracharita or Kathasaritsagara. Yet the unconscious
influence of these works, of the puranic tradition of oral
narratives and memory of episodes from Ramayana and
Mahabharata on which the imagination of most Indian writers
was sustained, cannot be ignored altogether (Mukherjee 1985).

Kirpal while reiterating Mukherjees views, also stresses the

digressive nature of Indian fiction. She writes,

The Indian world view, which is cyclic and non-linear, has

persisted through the centuries despite recent changes in
attitude towards time measured by the clock. Brought up on the
cyclical, episodic, digressive, exile-return pattern stories of The
Ramayana, The Mahabharatha, the Puranas, the
Kathasaritasagar, the Panchatantra, the Jatakas and the
folktales the Indian persons world view gets so structured
that he/she responds almost spontaneously to the digressive
mode of narration and thinking (Kirpal 1992).

Here it would be interesting to note that T. S. Eliot in his brilliant

essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, while discussing the literatures of
Europe outlined their lines of influence and descent from Homer through
Virgil, down to the national literatures. Similarly Indian writers, especially
diasporic writers for whom their heritage is a source of great strength in the
alien lands, draw extensively from the body of Sanskrit texts and the great
epics.

Shauna Singh Baldwins What the Body Remembers is a typical

example of a cyclic narration. It opens with a prologue in which Satya, as a
new born child, bemoans her fate for being reborn as a female. The novel then
focuses on the problems she encountered as a woman in a patriarchal society.
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Unable to tolerate the injustice meted out to her by her husband, she takes
away her life and the text ends with an epilogue in which Satya is again born
as a girl child and the narration assumes a cyclic structure.

The prologue, though brief, dwells on the Indian view of life. Satya
enters the world with her eyes open, fully conscious of her previous life in
which she had spent lavishly on priests, visited temples and led a life of
worship and expiation to avert being reborn as a woman. But her karma
overtakes her and she is forced to repeat the cycle. Karma, as destiny, is not
fixed by an omniscient deity but shaped by ones past life. Baldwin compares
life to an ancient Indian board game inscribed with snakes and ladders. To be
born a woman is to fall on the snake, slide down and resume the torturous
journey all over again. The prologue is also a telling comment on the life of
women, who are born into a pre-destined pattern, conditioned to contain and
stifle them.

As Satyas past, present and future lives are juxtaposed, time spirals
within the novel lending it a cyclic structure. Since Satya had come into the
world with her eyes wide open, she never lowers them, not even in the
presence of her husband. Her quarrelsome and argumentative nature
displeases him and he uses her barrenness as an excuse to take a second wife.
Even when he spurns her, Satya is unflinching in her resolve to remain strong
and self-willed, not only in her present life but in the lives to come. She tells
herself:

Let him spurn me, I grow stronger. I dig within me and when
I clear away weeds and leaves and loose earth, I hit bedrock,
smooth as the truth I am named for, elegant. Heart-solid,
extent unknown. This is mine, this simple harness that moves
from life to next life, impervious to any mans whims (Italics
is authors) (Baldwin 2001).
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Satya had been reborn as a woman to atone for the liberated views
she had entertained in her previous birth. She is aware that if she does not
change her ways she would be jeopardizing her chances of breaking the cycle,
as she herself acknowledges, If you do not learn what you were meant to
learn from your past lives, you are condemned to repeat them (Baldwin
2001). Yet, she refuses to be intimidated by such punishments and continues
to remain opinionated and outspoken which infuriates her husband. He leaves
her behind to languish alone at their ancestral home in Pindi, while he leaves
for Lahore with Roop and the children. Satya overcomes the ignominy thrust
on her by voluntarily courting death, only to be born again as a female child,
doomed to yet another cycle of suffering.

Before entering the world Satya remains as a djinn for two years a
formless spirit, neither a man nor a woman, writhing at the junction of the
past and future, waiting for the world to change, hopeful that there would be
an attitudinal shift in the treatment of women:

Here I wait to roll the dice again, wait for a time when just
being can bring izzat in return, when a woman shall be
allowed to choose her owner, when a woman will not be
owned, when love will be enough payment for marriage,
children or no children, just because my shakti takes shape
and walks the world again (Italics is authors) (Baldwin
2001). .

In the epilogue, when Satya is again born as a female child she is

struck by the scientific advancements and the sophisticated luxuries the world
had witnessed during her absence. But the euphoria transforms itself into
agony when she realizes that the changes have been effected at the
materialistic level and that the basic realities remain the same. The hesitancy
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with which, she, as a girl baby, is received forces her to cry in silent anguish,
But men have not yet changed (Baldwin 2001) and with these words the
novel comes full circle.

4.3 DIGRESSIONS

Having dispensed with the linear narration, What the Body

Remembers assumes an amorphous structure. As the diasporic writers are
more preoccupied with the problems of their community rather than those of
the individuals the plot expands centrifugally from the microcosm to include
the macrocosm. Though the central concern of the novel is with Roop, whom
poverty forces to accept the status of a second wife, and Satya, who
undergoes endless suffering because of her unconventional attitude, the plot
digresses to accommodate the lives of other minor female characters, who
exemplify the lives of most Indian women. There is Roops docile Mama,
who dies during child birth because her mother did not permit her to be taken
to the hospital and exposed to the stares of strange men. At her demise, her
mother, Roops Nani, inflicts wounds on herself with a large lock and in the
process meets with her death because she has no other child to tend to her.
There is Kusum who is brought up to believe that Roop and her sister,
Madani, are her real sisters and that Bachan Singhs home her real home
because her mother had told the family that she would be Jeevans bride,
since before she was born. Groomed to say only yes to the elders demands,
during the partition riots when the Muslim men try to establish their territory
over her body, she accepts Bachan Singhs suggestion and surrenders to his
sword without a murmur of protest.

A similar type of digression is apparent in Bapsi Sidhwas An

American Brat. The main plot is concerned with Feroza, who had been sent
to the US to broaden her views. Having imbibed the liberal Western culture,
she expresses a desire to marry a Jewish American. This unexpected
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development shocks her family and every possible effort is made to avert her
marriage to a non-Parsee, for such an event would ultimately lead to her
expulsion from all community matters and bar her from her faith. Sidhwa uses
this situation as a paradigm for discussing the question of inter-religious
marriage, an issue of vital importance to the Parsees. She herself
acknowledges that the subject was much larger than just Ferozas marriage
to an American. Mixed marriages concerned the entire Parsee community and
affected its very survival (Sidhwa 1994).

The Parsees follow a tradition of not allowing either conversion or

marriage to a non-Parsee, which has serious ramifications and implications on
the community. The rigid proclamations of the Parsee religious leaders
impose a strict ban on inter-faith marriages. A Parsee man who marries a non-
Parsee is allowed to practice his religion and bring up his children as
Zoroastrians, while his wife is not permitted to convert. It is a widely debated
issue within the Parsee community if the children would adhere to the tenets
of a faith denied to a mother. The codes are more stringent in the case of a
Parsee woman who marries outside the community. She is forced to give up
her faith and is prohibited entry into the fire temple. The high priests of the
Parsee religion justify their actions stating that the Zoroastrian faith forbids
intermarriages as mixing physical and spiritual genes is considered a cardinal
crime against nature (Sidhwa 1994). The laws had been formulated to
preserve ethnic purity.

That Sidhwa attaches much importance to this issue is evident in

that she introduced it even in her first novel The Crow Eaters. Though she
did not deal with it in great detail, through the speech of Faredoon, who
refuses to grant his son permission to marry an Anglo-Indian, Sidhwa presents
the reasoning behind traditional Parsee opposition to inter-community
marriages. He explains that a tiny spark is carried from parent to child through
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the generations, a kind of inherited memory of wisdom and righteousness,

reaching back to the times of Zorathustra, the Magi, the Mazdiasnians but in
an inter-community marriage when the spark meets something totally alien
its precise balance is scrambled. It reverts to the primitive (Sidhwa 1980).

In An American Brat, Sidhwa expresses an anxiety concerning

such orthodox thinking. Her apprehension springs from the fact that the
Parsees being very few in number, numbering about a hundred and twenty
thousand in the whole world and already considered as an endangered species,
may become extinct owing to the rigidity and insularity of the religious heads.
With the change in life-style and more and more youngsters being sent abroad
and exposed to strangers, mixed marriages become inevitable. Under the
circumstances, it becomes necessary to bring about a revision in the
established viewpoints.

But the elders within the community do not approve of changes and
the dissenting voices among the younger generation are immediately stifled as
is illustrated when relatives gather to discuss Ferozas impending marriage to
a non-Parsee. Acrimonious arguments ensue when youngsters urge their aunts
and uncles to broaden their views and press the stuffy old trustees in the
Zorastrian Anjuman in Karachi or Bombay to move with the times (Sidhwa
1994). When young Bunty empathizes with Feroza, she is severely
admonished for hurting the feelings of Ferozas parents. The tirade that
follows Buntys remark, For Gods sake! Youre carrying on as if Ferozas
dead! Shes only getting married. For Gods sake (Sidhwa 1994), quells any
kind of a rebellion.

The elders then list out examples of young Parsee girls who had
married outside the community and had to face unpleasant consequences.
They narrate the story of Perin Powri, who had married a Muslim and died of
hepatitis within four years of her marriage. Though she had contracted the
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disease through an infected blood transfusion, they perceive the hidden hand
of Divine displeasure. The Parsee priests refused to perform her last rites and
she had to be buried in a Muslim graveyard and the orthodox Parsees believe
that her soul must remain in limbo, for without a proper ceremony it can reach
neither hell nor heaven. Yet another incident that is quoted to discourage
deviation is that of Roda Kapia, who having wed a Christian, was not allowed
to attend her grandmothers funeral. Taking her cue, Khutlibai, Ferozas
grandmother, indulges in blackmailing her other grandchildren emotionally,
until they solemnly promise that they would never marry a parjat or an
outsider.

Zareen had all along accepted the rigid codes of her community
because she had grown up with these precepts. Threatened by the inevitable
ostracism of her daughter, she is shaken out of her complacency and begins
questioning and analyzing the issue. She finds the Parsee prohibition of
marriage to a non-Parsee illogical. She begins to understand and even accept
the logic of the youngsters who opposed the prohibition: Perhaps the
teenagers in Lahore were right. The Zoroastrian Anjumans in Karachi and
Bombay should move with the times that were sending them to the New
World. The various Anjumans would have to introduce minor reforms if
they wished their tiny community to survive (Sidhwa 1994).

Simultaneously, Zareen is also aware of the power and authority

wielded by the fundamentalists and realizes that the warning from the
Althoran Mandal and the Notice from the Bombay Zoroastrian Jashan
Committee pose a threat to the dissenters. Hence, she goes to the US and
wangles a break between Feroza and David, not out of a conviction in the
rightness of her cause, but because she dreads the inevitable
excommunication
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that would be thrust on her daughter. It pains her to think that by conforming
to the obdurate orthodoxy, she is no better than the Islamic fundamentalists in
Pakistan whom she had condemned.

The unease expressed by Zareen is actually Sidhwas. As a Parsee

writer, Bapsi Sidhwa does not endorse the traditional Parsee code on inter-
community marriage. Yet, she does not adopt a rebellious stance against the
dominating ideology of her community. Instead, through Zareens reactions
she hints at the need for change. Novy Kapadia (1996) succinctly sums up
Sidhwas position. She writes, Bapsi Sidhwa cleverly highlights the sensitive
issue of inter-community marriages amongst the Paris. On the theme of
marriage, she maintains a clever balance, implicitly opposing the rigid code
but not appearing overtly rebellious.

Sidhwas diasporic vision enables her to re-evaluate and reassess

from the vantage point of the outsider, issues that beset her community. The
novel is thus deviated from its prime concern, which is Ferozas growing up
pangs and her subsequent adjustments to the American society, to dwell at
length about the Parsee religious codes and its effect on inter-faith marriages.
This movement from the delineation of an individual character to the public
sphere lends the novel a whirlpool like structure with one episode arising out
of another.

Digression is an important constituent of diasporic fiction.

Digressions are employed to depict ceremonies, festivals and rituals that have
cultural significance. To the diasporic writers these are reassuring bits of the
homeland, which become a source of strength during their residence in alien
lands. Descriptions about food are a recurring motif in most of these novels,
with native spices and flavours wafting through the pages. Suleris statement,
Expatriates are adamant, entirely passionate about such matters as the eating
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habits of the motherland (Suleri 1991) makes explicit the diasporic

communitys tendency to cling onto its native traditions and cultures.

Both Suleri and Shamsie indulge in detailed descriptions of food, as

Ramzan, the month of fasting for the Muslims, is ironically associated with
sumptuous eating. Officially the month of fasting, Ramzan has always
seemed to me synonymous with feasting. Through the first eighteen years of
my life, abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset had less to do
with devotion than it did with culinary devotion (Shamsie 2000), says Aliya
the protagonist of Salt and Saffron echoing Suleris words, Ramzan, the
Muslim month of fasting, often recollected as the season of perfect meals
(Suleri 1991).

In Meatless Days, Suleri captures the mood, the excitement and

the zeal that accompany the Ramzan fasting and celebration of Eid. She
detects an aura of slight and pleasing dislocation (Suleri 1991) in the very
occurrence of Ramzan, which does not arrive at the same point of time every
year because it follows the lunar movement. Suleri then goes on to describe
how, on the appointed evening, people assemble together and expectantly
scan the sky to spot the crescent moon which signifies the beginning of
Ramzan. On sighting the moon, whole neighbourhoods come alive with
minarets humming and old air-raid sirens blaring to make the city cognizant
of the fact that the moon had been sighted and the fast begun. People wake up
an hour before dawn to have the pre-fast meal known as sehri meal. Suleri
points out that the food is usually rich and intense enough to sustain the
penitents from dawn to dusk and to highlight her statement she presents a
vivid description of the food, which consisted of bread dripping clarified
butter, and curried brains, and cumin eggs, and a peculiarly potent vermicelli,
soaked overnight in sugar and fatted milk (Suleri 1991).
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At dusk, after the mosque had rung the call for the maghrib prayer,
the iftar is taken to end the fast. Suleri again describes in detail this twilight
meal. She writes,

Wed start eating dates, of course, in order to mimic

Muhammad, but then with what glad eyes wed welcome the
grilled liver and the tang of pepper in the orange juice. We were
happy to see the spinach leaves and their fantastical shapes,
deftly fried in the lightest chick-pea batter, along with the
tenderness of fresh fruit, most touching to the palate (Suleri
1991).

It is customary for families in Pakistan to buy goats and sheep

months ahead of the Eid festival, to fatten them up with delectables. On Eid,
the animals are offered as sacrifices and neighbours graciously exchange trays
heaped with raw and quivering meat and have them cooked before the men
return from the mosques. Suleri quips, shortly thereafter rush out of the
kitchen, steaming plates of grilled lung and liver, of a freshness quite
superlative (Suleri 1991).

The narration acquires a personal touch when Suleri relates an

incident, where her Dadi brings home a baby goat months in advance of Eid
and feeds it with tender peas and clarified butter to soften the texture of its
flesh and make it a delicacy for Eid. Contrary to her plans, the children amuse
themselves with the goat and it becomes their favourite pet forestalling any
question of killing it. A few years later, to compensate her disappointment,
Dadi disappears on the eve of Eid and much to the annoyance and
embarrassment of the family, returns with a goat tethered to a rope. Her
efforts seemed to have been in vain for the goat had not been fattened and it
did not taste as good. Suleri concludes the anecdote with the witty remark:
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The goat was killed and cooked: a scrawny beast that required much cooking
and never melted into succulence, he winked and glistened on our plates as
we sat eating him on Eid (Suleri 1991).

In Salt and Saffron, Masood, the family cook, plays an important

role and Shamsie makes use of this opportunity to present the results of his
culinary expertise. She describes the Iftari meal with an elaboration that
matches Suleris. She writes,

And oh! the meals that resulted. We started with the requisite
date, of course, to symbolize fidelity to the first Muslims in the
deserts of Arabia, but on to gluttony! Curly shaped
jalaibees, hot and gooey, that trickled thick sweet syrup down
your chin when you bit into them; diced potatoes drowned in
yogurt, sprinkled in spices; triangles of fried samosas, the
smaller ones filled mince-meat, the larger ones filled with
potatoes and green chillies; shami kebabs with sweet-sour imli
sauce; spinach leaves fried in chick-pea batter; nihari with large
gobs of marrow floating in the thick gravy, and meat so tender
it dissolved instantly in your mouth; lassi that quenched a day-
long thirst as nothing else did and left us wondering why we
ever drank Coke when a combination of milk, yogurt and sugar
could be this satisfying; an assortment of sweetmeats gulab
jamoons, ladoos, burfi (Shamsie 2000).

In What the Body Remembers references to food are scattered

through the text, as when Baldwin, describing special occasions mentions
savayan, noodles boiled in sweetened milk or when she writes that boys are a
pampered species to whom egg bhurjis are served while girls are made to eat
rotis with daal and lentils or when in a humorous vein she writes about how
Roop as a young child is bribed with churi, which is roti crumbled with
brown sugar and butter or when she talks about Sardarjis affluence which
affords him to have almonds soaked in milk to loosen their jackets or when
she points out how Satya tried to ensure her husbands affection by preparing
 171

his favourite pinni sweets. Thus, for the diasporic writers food becomes one
of the important cultural items to capture the flavour of their native culture.

Baldwin and Sidhwa have introduced into their texts painstakingly

painted tableaus of wedding celebrations and religious rituals which are
important cultural pointers. Baldwin even goes a step further to present a
graphic picture of mourning. In describing these ordinary, everyday
occurrences within the social fabric of a community, they aim to recreate the
lived realities of their homelands. But such digressions have slowed down the
pace of their narration and lent it a meandering structure.

While presenting the twin marriages of Roops siblings, Madani and

Jeevan, Baldwin not only manages to capture the essence of the celebrations
but also sensitizes the readers to the turbulent passions of desires, longings,
frustrations and agony that infuse the internal landscape of a woman on the
threshold of matrimony. Marriage is a social commitment in the lives of
Indian men and women and is arranged purely on the basis of mutual
understanding between two families. Unlike in the West it is not a personal
affair, where the individuals concerned exercise their choice. This is
illustrated through the manner in which Madani and Jeevans marriages are
conducted.

Madani, the daughter of a poor farmer, also has rabbit teeth, which
makes the task of finding her a suitable groom arduous. Hence, when the
wedding is ultimately finalized, she only rejoices at the prospect of being
married but evinces no interest in who the man is. Even after the marriage is
solemnized, her future remains an uncertainty until her father manages to
meet the dowry demands of the grooms family. In the case of Jeevan, he
marries the plump, docile and ever-obedient Kusum to whom he had been
betrothed since before Kusum was born because their mothers had been
friends and had promised to get their children married. Bachan Singh honours
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the promise and accepts Roop, though she comes without a dowry. He
considers her Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and reasons to himself thus,
he doesnt need any dowry when a good-good sweet-sweet Lakshmi is
coming to live in his house (Baldwin 2001).

Through a series of episodes Baldwin emphasizes the suffering and

silence implicit in gender politics. The preparation for the wedding
commences with Madani meticulously embroidering the dresses and
household linen because her father could not afford to give her the expensive
Manchester embroidered items as part of a trousseau. She forgoes all social
activities and sits cross-legged and hunched over her work for days on end.
One day little Roop joins her, and during the course of their conversation,
wants to know the grooms name, to which Madani professes ignorance. At
Roops shocked reaction Madani replies, So? Am I going to pickle his name,
right to his face? Huh, Im not so shameless (Baldwin 2001). Implied within
this reply is the servility which is the established condition of most Indian
women.

In yet another incident, carpenters busy themselves refurbishing an

old palanquin which would be carrying Madani to her new home. Roop, in all
her childishness, wonders as to how the men in her family, all of different
heights, would be able to balance the palanquin with Madani within it. She
expresses her doubt to her sister and asks if she would hold on to something
to prevent herself from slipping, to which Madani explains that she would be
crying profusely at leaving her home forever and hence, not notice that the
palanquin is lopsided. Roop is rather bewildered at the explanation and
innocently suggests that she could always come back. Madani enlightens her
saying, No I cant come back, not to live here, just to visit for a few days
sometimes or when I have a child (Baldwin 2001). This statement is a
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significant comment on how a young Indian girl is conditioned to accept her

husbands home as her real home. She becomes an unwelcome guest at her
fathers.

During the wedding, when the dowry is displayed on the manji for
all to view, Madanis meticulous embroidery remains unnoticed. Instead, the
meagre display of items infuriates the grooms father, who vents his rancour
on Bachan Singh. Madanis future hangs in a balance until Bachan Singh
makes arrangements with a money-lender to augment the dowry. After all
this, Bachan Singh comments that the grooms father is the most sincere man,
an indication of the compliance that is forced onto the brides family.

Baldwin portrays not merely the doubts, uncertainties and agonies

that accompany a womans life but also deviates from the main narration to
capture the indulgence and excitement of being a bride. For the first time in
her life Madani is in possession of money, and takes pleasure in purchasing
the wedding kameezes of red and turquoise silk, lehanga skirts and ivory
bangles, which she will have to wear for a year to ward off evil. When the
bangle seller arrives, Madani has her hands filigreed with brown henna paste.
Through Roops musings Baldwin presents the vibrant picture of a bride in all
her finery:

She will wear Mamas lehanga skirt on her wedding day,

Mamas gold jhumkas in her ears, Nanis gold hoop-nathli
fastened to her nose, its weight supported by a gold chain
pinned high in the parting of her hair. Nanis gold panjebs will
meet around her ankles (Baldwin 2001).

The actual ceremony too is presented in detail, as when Baldwin

writes that Madani and the groom would have to exchange garlands and circle
the holy book of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib, while the musicians sing
 174

shabads. The Sant would join them together as husband and wife after which
a knot would be tied between Madanis chunni and her husbands silk shawl,
symbolic of being married.

The novel not only describes the joyous occasion of a marriage

ceremony, but with the same precision reveals the pathos during the mourning
rites called siapa. At the death of Roops mother, the women from the
neighbourhood, all garbed in white, crowd into a room and sitting cross-
legged beat their breasts, rock, cry and lament in a chorus. Their loud crying
is a purging of their sorrow, for as Baldwin writes, They cry from their
wombs, they pant and howl out all the pain in this life and their past ones,
they give tongue to the silent sorrow of men too manly to cry (Baldwin
2001). Roops Nani leads the siapa, shrieking loudly, moaning her fate and
the other women join to endorse her suffering, as if with one voice.

The slow, deliberate narration that infuses What the Body

Remembers is discernible in Sidhwas An American Brat too. The Parsees
have always exhibited a tendency to preserve their ethnic-religious identity,
and hence, attach immense importance to their unique traditions. Sidhwa
introduces into her text lengthy descriptions of religious rituals and wedding
celebrations. Like other diasporic novelists quoted above, she too indulges in
detailed presentation of items of food. On the eve of Ferozas departure to the
US, the family arranges for a get-together of relatives and friends and the
menu for the dinner is scrupulously described. Sidhwa writes,

It was the usual auspicious-occasion fare: sweet vermicelli

sprinkled with fried raisins and almonds, thick slices of spicy
fried salmon, and fruit. Round stainless steel platters contained
yogurt as firm as jelly, upon which a thick skin of clotted cream
had formed. The yogurt had been sweetened the night before
and strewn with red rose petals just before the dish was carried
out. Deep silver dishes heaped with plain white rice and the
special-occasion yellow pureed lentil the combination known
 175

as dhan-dar formed the main course. The aroma of the fried

fish and spices hung in the scented air, whetting appetites
(Sidhwa 1994).

Before her impending voyage Feroza visits the agyari or the fire
temple and it becomes a motivating impulse for Sidhwa to write about the
Parsee religious rituals. The Zoroastrian priest, known as mobed, who usually
resides on the campus tends to the astash, the consecrated fire considered a
manifestation of Gods energy. It is never allowed to die down. Devotees
place logs of sandalwood in the fire as an act of offering to the Lord. The
Tandorsti prayer, during which the priest recites the names of the devotees
family members, is a form worship practised by the Parsees. Feroza liked to
hear the priest perform this rite for, he recited the prayer slowly and with a
solemn majesty that caused each word to resonate with sacred significance
beneath the dome of the inner sanctum and the soaring vault of the hall
(Sidhwa 1994).

Before entering the temple certain religious customs will have to be

observed. With the head covered, the devotees will have to perform kusti. It is
performed by Parsees to purify themselves of thoughts, words and deeds that
might otherwise pollute them. A sacred thread tied around the waist is
unwound and the knots are retied at the back and front. Through this act a
Parsee girds the loins in the service of the Lord. Feroza goes into the temple,
lights the lamp and lays her head on the marble threshold of the inner sanctum
to invoke the blessings of the Almighty for a safe journey. Having solicited
His blessings she takes a pinch of ash from a ladle placed on the marble step
and daubs it on her forehead.

At the end of it all, Feroza feels overwhelmed by a spiritual energy.

Sidhwa writes, she felt the spiritual power of the fire reach out from its
divine depths to encompass her with its pure energy. She was at once
 176

buoyant, fearless, secure in her humanity. And as the lucid flame of the holy
vision illumed her and was absorbed into her heart, she felt herself being
suffused with Gods presence(Sidhwa 1994). It is this implicit faith in ones
religion, traditions and culture that acts as a sustaining force to the diasporic
people floundering in an alien clime. The writers repeatedly turn their gaze
towards their native lands to re-energize themselves.

Marriage in India being more a social institution, each community

adopts its own mode of conducting it. Sidhwa outlines in detail the Parsee
wedding ceremonies. With Maneks wedding in the offing, the household
enters into a flurry of activities. A tailor is engaged to stitch scores of sudras
from the finest muslin. Here it would be interesting to mention that it is
customary among the Parsees to wear an undergarment called sudra which
has a small pocket at the V of the neck, believed to be the repository of good
deeds. A child first wears the sudra and the kusti at a navjote ceremony.
Sidhwa writes about the shopping sprees and how the family could not travel
to Bombay, the sari and jewellery Mecca (Sidhwa 1994) as the wedding
had been fixed at short notice and owing to the paucity of time, were unable
to procure a visa to travel across the borders. The attention paid to such
minute descriptions illustrates the tendency of the diasporic writers to present
graphic pictures of their traditional mores even at the price of forgoing a well-
knit plot.

In Zareens harangue to David on how Parsee weddings are

conducted, Sidhwa gives a comprehensive account of the ceremonies. The
rituals commence with the madasara ceremony during which the groom
plants a mango tree to ensure fertility. This is followed by the adarnee and the
engagement, when the families exchange gifts. Adorned with garlands round
their necks and vermillion marks on their foreheads, the bride and the groom
 177

are made to sit on thrones under a canopy of white jasmine flowers. The
priests chant prayers for an hour and shower them with rice and coconut
slivers, symbols of blessings and good luck.

From these extensive illustrations, it becomes evident that the

indigenous tradition of digression has had an immense impact on diasporic
writings. These digressions, that do not have much bearing on the
development of the plot, serve to capture the cultural ambience of their
homelands. Yet another characteristic of the Indian fiction in English is the
method of narrativizing events by adopting the indigenous model of
presenting them through stories. It helps to dismantle the Western form of the
novel and achieve the meandering structure, which the freedom of oral
narration confers.

4.4 STORY-TELLING

Indian literature has a rich oral tradition. To quote Misra (2001)

again: the oldest word in Sanskrit for narrative is akhyana meaning an act
of making something well-known through oral transmission. The tradition
could be said to have begun with the Vedas and grown with the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which have been handed down to
posterity through recitation. It is popularly believed that the Mahabharata was
narrated by Suta Ugrasravas before an assembly of Rishis in Naimisa forest.
Moreover, in the Indian culture, during the oral recitals of the puranas and the
kathas, the telling of the story and the listening to it are considered ritual acts.
The native literary tradition also comprises the folk tales from the different
linguistic regions of the country, which exist as oral narrations.

The early exposure to this literary tradition of India is clearly

discernible in the contemporary Indian writings. To the diasporic writers
storytelling gives a sense of continuum. It is used as an important literary tool,
 178

which not only helps them to establish links with their past, but also to apply
that knowledge to make the present meaningful. Here it would be pertinent to
indicate that Maxine Hong Kingston, a woman novelist of the Chinese
diaspora in the US, has extensively used the technique of storytelling or talk-
story as she terms it. In The Woman Warrior, she relates the stories of her
female relatives that she had heard from her mother. The narrator recalls,
Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep(Kingston
1989). Through talking story, the mother extends and continues the Chinese
traditions into the lives of her American born children. The narrator begins re-
telling these stories to cope with a society permeated by racial and gender
oppression.

Kamila Shamsies novel Salt and Saffron is replete with stories

and anecdotes which the writer makes use of to chronicle the history of the
Indian subcontinent from the Muslim invasion through the British rule to the
Partition. But the main preoccupation of the text is with shapes stories can
assume to affect ones life. Most of the stories are told and retold by the Dard-
e-Dil clan to perpetuate the myth of misfortune associated with the not-quite
twins. Imbued with these stories, Aliya conceives herself as another not-
quite twin cosmically connected with her aunt Mariam in a way that is
foreboding.

Aliya herself is a born storyteller and the novel begins with her on a
flight entertaining the co-passengers with stories of her ancestors. As a
talented storyteller she infuses life into the stories circulated by her garrulous
relatives. She describes her prowess thus,

At college I was famous for my storytelling abilities, but I

never told anyone that my stories were mere repetitions, my
abilities those of a parrot. Oh, they are talking people, my
relatives, and I have breathed in that chatter, storing it in those
parts of my lungs (the alveoli, the bronchi) whose names
 179

suggest a mystery beyond breath and blood. And yes, when the
need arises I can exhale those words and perpetrate the myth
(Shamsie 2000).

Here it would be interesting to quote Trinh Minh-has explanation of the

rejuvenating nature of storytelling, which seems an appropriate comment on
Aliyas view. In Woman, Native, Other, she writes about the power of
words and an unending circulation of energy activated and animated by the
very act of storytelling:

A story is not just a story. Once the forces have been aroused
and set into motion, they cant simply be stopped at someones
request. Once told, the story is bound to circulate; humanized, it
may have a temporary end, but its effect lingers on and its end
is never truly an end (Trinh T. Minh-ha 1989).

Stories help to keep a culture dynamic and alive. To the diaspora,

stories of their homeland are like the ballast that keeps them afloat while
floundering on foreign shores. This, together with the influence of indigenous
oral literatures have prompted the Indian diasporic writers to accord a place of
prominence to stories in their texts.

The very title of Shamsies novel Salt and Saffron is related to the
art of storytelling and the novelist makes this apparent during the course of
her narration. To Aliya, the narrator, saffron stands as a code for affluence,
for the rich use it to garnish their food. Yet, salt, the hidden ingredient, taken
for granted when handing down recipes is essential for food to taste good.
This is illustrated with an anecdote. Once when Masood, the family cook,
speaks with devotion about the dclass seasoning, salt, Aliya laughs at him.
Offended by her scoffing, that night he serves the family unsalted food to
teach Aliya a lesson. Later she uses this incident as an analogy to emphasize
the importance of details in a story. She realizes that just as the absence of salt
 180

can alter a meal, the absence of detail can alter a story. Hence, Aliya, who
narrates other stories with gusto, fumbles while telling Mariams story
because the essential details are missing. She never says it in one go but only
in fragments halting to revise it frequently to suit her moods. She herself
admits:

I had the opening line of Mariams story ready for a long

time: In all the years my cousin Mariam, lived with us she
only spoke to order meals. The next line varied, according to
my mood. Usually it was: Strictly speaking, she was more
aunt than cousin, though I always called her Apa. But when I
was feeling more fanciful I sometimes replaced that with: She
taught me the texture of silence, the timbres of it, and
sometimes even the taste (Italics is authors) (48).

As the Dard-e-Dils apprehension of the catastrophe associated with

the not-quite twins is the focal issue of the text, and as their fears are based
on five hundred years of empirical evidence(Shamsie 2000) the situation
becomes conducive for introducing a number of stories into the plot of the
novel. Instances of the not-quite twins depriving the family of fame, wealth,
power, freedom and unity are transmitted orally down the generations and
when Aliya finds her name starred along with that of Mariams, identifying
them as not-quite twins, she recalls to mind these stories and in the process
endows them with a fresh lease of life.

Zain and Ibrahim were one of those not-quite pairs, remembered

for denying the Dard-e-Dils the chance to rule over India. Nawab Assadullah
had two wives, one of royal lineage and the other his favourite. By a quirk of
fate both wives delivered the Nawabs heirs at the same time. As it was not
possible to deduce which of the two babies was born first, the Nawab declared
Zain, the son of his favourite wife, as his heir. After the Nawabs death, Zain
ascended the throne. Around this time, Babur, who had lost his Samarkand
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kingdom was establishing his rule in India. Zain, learning that Babur was not
too happy in his new kingdom, sent an envoy to convey the message that he
would help Babur to recapture Samarkand, provided he allowed him to
administer his lands in India. Babur agreed to the proposal. Unfortunately,
before the messenger could return to Dard-e-Dil, Ibrahim had assassinated his
not-quite twin and become the ruler. By the time he had consolidated his
position and renewed the pact, Babur had established himself in India and
evinced no interest in the proposal. Hence the Dard-e-Dils blamed the not-
quite twins for depriving them of a kingdom.

Aliya, a seasoned storyteller, embellishes the story with a sense of

suspense and a touch of humour. She conveys the urgency and excitement
that prevailed at the court when the two women were expecting their babies.
The atmosphere was rife with rumour, speculation and gambling as to who
would deliver a son, and if both, which son would be born first and become
the heir apparent. Cliques formed around each wife. Midwives were consulted
about when it would be possible to induce the child without greatly reducing
the chances of its survival. Amidst all this, the high born wifes father, who
was also the Nawabs Vizir, unable to tolerate the suspense, attempted suicide
by swallowing a diamond. Aliya lends humour to the situation when she
writes that he waited for the sharp edge to lacerate his insides but nothing
happened. So he reasons that his father, addicted to playing cards, must have
gambled away the family jewels and replaced them with fake ones. When the
babies were born and his grandchild was not named as the heir, the Nawab
compensated his Vizirs disappointment by showering him with money and
jewels. Aliya concludes the story with a tongue-in-cheek comment: when the
old man tried diamond suicide again he died smiling (Shamsie 2000).

If the Dard-e-Dils lost their chance to administer what later came to

be known as the Mughal empire because of the not-quite twins, Zain and
 182

Ibrahim, yet another pair of not-quites, Inamuddin and Masooma, denied

them an opportunity to fame. Once again the beneficiaries were the Mughals.
Inamuddin and Masooma were twins born on either side of midnight and
hence considered not-quites. Their uncle Hamiduzzaman, aware of the curse
associated with such an occurrence, ordered the royal physician to poison the
babies and ascribe the deaths to natural cause. Aliya exercises her privilege as
a storyteller to accentuate the situation by comparing Hamiduzzaman to the
Greek tragic hero, Oedipus and the Shakespearean character Lady Macbeth.
She says, Someone should have told Hamiduzzaman the story of Oedipus.
Or of Lady Macbeth perhaps. Because after the deed was done, old Ham
could not sleep. He could not sleep and he could not pray and he could not
peel the taste of poison from his lips (Shamsie 2000).

His problems persisted until a holy man offered him redemption. He

was advised to raze to the ground Dil Mahal, the mausoleum, he had started
building for the bones of his clan and convert the plot of land into a holy
shrine for pilgrims. The family had a strong hunch that the keeper of the
archives had secretly handed over to Shah Jahan the plans of the mausoleum
in exchange for gold. Shah Jahan had the plans executed but changed the
name, and thus came into existence the architectural wonder, called the Taj
Mahal. The not-quite twins, Inamuddin and Masooma, were blamed for the
misfortune.

Yet another story of not-quite twins involved the children of

Fariddudin, the ugly Nawab. When his wife delivered twins, one was in the
spitting image of Fariddudin and the other the spitting image of her handsome
brother, Askari. Fariddudin concluded that Askari must have taken what was
forbidden to him and fathered the child. So he decided to kill both Askari and
his son. Contrary to his plans, Askari played into the hands of the British and
with their help got rid of Fariddudin and usurped the throne. The British
 183

exploited the situation and ended the Dard-e-Dils aspirations to be powerful

rulers by annexing their lands. Once again, the prophecy that the not quite
twins brought ill luck to the family was proved.

Aliyas versatility as a storyteller comes to the fore while narrating

the story. Attributing Fariddudins assumption that the beautiful twin must be
Askaris son to his sounder knowledge of Greek mythology than Biology,
Aliya goes on to draw a parallel between Fariddudins twins and the twin
eggs that Leda, the swan, laid. According to Greek mythology Tyndareus was
Ledas husband but she had a tryst with Zeus, the Greek God. Nine months
later she laid twin eggs. One egg encased the mortal children of Tyndareus
from which came Castor and Clytemnestra. The other egg incubated the
immortal children of Zeus from which emerged Helen and Pollux. Just as
Castor and Clytemnestra were twinned with twins who bore no relationship to
their father, Fariddudins son was twinned with Askaris, making them not-
quites. The tone of a veteran storyteller can be detected when Aliya
concludes the narration with the query, Has anyone asked what became of
Fariddudins wife? Fariddudin killed her. Though some say Askari killed her
when she shielded her husband from Askaris drawn sword. This, at least, is
incontrovertible: she died. So much for movie rules (Shamsie 2000).

Another story of the not-quite twins is related to Kulsoom and

Shahrukh. Though Aliya has partial knowledge of the story the important
details are supplied by Baji, an old relative she meets in London. Moreover,
as it is one of the oldest stories of not-quite twins involving the two wives of
Nur-ul-Jahan, the founder of the Dard-e-Dil dynasty, the authenticity of
certain details seem unacceptable to some of the Dard-e-Dil members and
Aliya tries to quell their doubts with information garnered from other sources.
 184

Thus, through Aliyas narration, Shamsie very subtly traces the process by
which stories are transmitted orally, assuming new shapes and undergoing
metamorphosis all the while.

Aliya is aware of how Kulsoom came to be Nur-ul-Jahans wife.

Kulsooms father, Qadiruddin, scion of an old royal line from Persia, was
ambitious to restore the lost glory of his ancestors but lacked the means and
ability to do so. However, he detected in the Central Asian marauder, Nur-ul-
Jahan, the potentials of a conqueror and determined to establish links with
him. So he dressed himself up in the ceremonial garb of the kings of Persia
and presented himself before Nur-ul-Jahan, who being impressed by his
manners and deportment, offered him the post of advisor and later married his
daughter, Kulsoom.

The younger generation of Dard-e-Dils doubt the veracity of the

story. They argue how Nur-ul-Jahan, descended from the royal and cultured
family could be taken in by a man masquerading in some old Persian robes.
Aliya reasons that though Nur-ul-Jahans grandmother was Tamburlaines
daughter, she married a man who was courageous but lacked finesse. Brought
up in these tribal surroundings, Nur-ul-Jahan might have lacked the insight to
see through Qadiruddin. This illustrates how old stories undergo subtle and
gradual transmutations through narration as they are passed on from one
generation to another.

Aliya, aware of only part of the story, expresses surprise when she
sees Kulsooms name starred along with that of Shahrukhs making them
not-quite twins. Baji noticing Aliyas confusion launches on the story.
Storytelling seems an exciting and pleasurable pastime to her. Aliya
describes her action thus, She leant back in her chair and smiled, and I knew
from her expression that she was about to tell a wonderful story(Shamsie
2000). She enlightens Aliya on how Kulsooms mother had died at childbirth
 185

and baby Kulsoom was suckled by a wet-nurse. Rather surprisingly, this wet-
nurse had a daughter called Shahrukh, born on the same day as Kulsoom and
both the girls were so alike in appearance, voice and mannerism that nobody
could tell them apart. Though it was rumoured that Qadiruddins brother was
Shahrukhs father the report remained unconfirmed.

Baji continues that after Nur-ul-Jahan married Kulsoom,

Qadiruddins enemies had told him that Qadiruddin had sworn he would
never taint his bloodline with that of a barbaric marauder and hence had given
Shahrukh, the illegitimate daughter of a wet-nurse, to Nur in marriage. This
information incensed Nur and in a fit of rage he poisoned Qadiruddin. But
Nur needed Qadiruddins lineage to bolster his own claim to power and he
decided to marry his wifes foster sister. Since he could not confirm whether
Qadiruddins enemies spoke the truth or not, he could not know who the
daughter of Qadiruddin was. The foster sisters too refused to divulge any
details and the mystery remained unsolved till the end. Thus the first pair of
not-quites brought disrepute to the Dard-e-Dil family by raising doubts about
their lineage. There remained a fair chance that they could belong to a tainted
stock, descended from the illegitimate child of a wet-nurse.

That details are important to a story becomes evident when the story
of the not-quites, Akbar and Sulaiman, though of contemporary interest,
fails to evoke a favourable response from Aliya. She herself confesses, Only
that of all the twin stories, Akbar and Sulaimans was the one I never told to
entertain crowds Akbar and Sulaiman left no great mark on my psyche.
Their story was just, well, boring. Judge for yourself ( Shamsie 2000). She
conceives of it as the story of two brothers who disagreed politically. Akbar
aligned himself with Jinnah and the League, whereas Sulaiman believed in
Nehru and the Congress. When a quarrel ensued between the brothers the
entire family was drawn into a battle and forced to take sides, with Akbars
 186

supporters opting to leave with him for Pakistan. They thought it was the
curse of the not-quites raining down on the Dard-e-Dils yet again, except this
time, instead of losing land, wealth or architectural plans, they were losing
each other.

But the same story assumes a dramatic significance when her Meher
Dadi furnishes her with some incredible facts. Pointing to a photograph which
revealed the physical and emotional proximity of the brothers, Meher
comments, You think Nehru or Jinnah could have ripped these boys apart?
Theyd have left the country together, moved to Timbuktoo, if they thought
national politics threatened to make enemies of them(Shamsie 2000). With
these words she launches on yet another story that takes Aliya completely by
surprise.

Meher takes Aliya back to an evening on the first of July, nineteen

forty six. The Dard-e-Dil family had gathered to celebrate the Nawabs
birthday. Sulaiman had just returned from a European holiday and Akbar was
happy to be re-united with his brother after a separation of three months. The
brothers retired to a portion of the verandah, away from the crowd, and Meher
inadvertently overheard the conversation and became witness to an event that
had far reaching consequences. Akbar expressed a desire to settle in Pakistan
when the nation came into existence. Sulaiman shocked at his brothers
impulsive decision, mocked at him when he said that he might even find
Taimur, his long lost brother, there. Meher claims that precisely at that
moment, Akbar, while trying to flick off an insect, accidentally brushed aside
Sulaimans hands. Sulaiman mistook it as an act of insult, the quarrel
escalated leading to a permanent rift between the brothers. His statement that
Taimur might return once he left clinched the issue and Akbar flew to Karachi
to accept a long standing offer to join a British company.
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About half a century after this incident, Taimur and Akabar having
died, Sulaiman crosses the India-Pakistan border to visit Aliyas ailing Dadi,
Abida. The story that Sulaiman relates fills in the gaps in Mehers story. He
tells Abida that both Akbar and Taimur had loved her. He confesses that he
himself adored her but kept his feelings buried for he knew that he could not
compete with his brothers charms. Akbar, having found a page which Abida
had filled with Taimurs name, was crestfallen but happy to sacrifice his love
for his brother. Meanwhile, through a quirk of fate Taimur mistook Abida to
be in love with Sulaiman and absconded. Years later, after Abida had married
Akbar, he visited his ancestral home to see his dying mother and met
Sulaiman. On being told that Akbar and Abida had married, in order to avoid
further complications, he left home once again. Taimur left because he loved
Abida, and stayed away because he loved Akbar(Shamsie 2000). These
melodramatic details augment Aliyas interest in the story of the not-quites,
Akbar, Taimur and Sulaiman. She revises her earlier opinion that the story
was boring, to admit, These stories, this salt How could we ever exert
ourselves to the simplest physical action when all our lives were so dependent
on this seemingly passive act of listening(Shamsie 2000)?

As for the story of Mariam, Aliyas not-quite twin, it lacks the

essential details. There is no clue as to where she had come from or where she
had gone to. Yet, when Aliya is able to view her actions in the right
perspective, she recreates her story to find meaning to her own life. This has
already been dealt with in detail in Chapter III. If storytelling in Salt and
Saffron has been used to perpetuate the family history and myth of the not
quites, in Indira Ganesans The Journey, storytelling becomes a cathartic
experience for its protagonist, Renu. Unable to meet the challenges of two
opposing cultures she succumbs to nightmarish visions. When pressed by
Manx and her American friend, Freddie, to recount her vision dreams, Renu,
instead, feels an inexplicable compulsion to retell the immigrant experiences
 188

of her uncle Adda and his Spanish wife Alphonsa: From Aunt Bala and the
cook, shed found bits and pieces of the story and made up what they left out.
She didnt know why she wanted to tell the story; she just felt like it. Clearing
her lungs, sitting cross-legged, she began(Ganesan 2001). The narration of
the story enables Renu to view her own problems as an immigrant with the
objectivity of an outsider.

Renu learnt from Aunt Bala the extraordinary experience that Adda
had when he was about eighteen and Pi was still being ruled by the British.
One day, while walking down Victoria Fountain, Adda had noticed a white
hand emerging out of a horse-drawn carriage. Even after the carriage had sped
into the distance he stood transfixed to the spot as if he had seen a demon. A
month later, much to the annoyance of his parents, he undertook a tour of
Europe. After ten years he returned to Pi with a Spanish wife. On rare
occasions, when Aunt Bala spoke of it, she would end the story thus: One
white hand and Adda fell under that womans spell. Then he left us to marry a
foreign woman(Ganesan 2001).

Renu takes the liberty to appropriate the story handed down to

her.She ascribes reasons and assigns interpretations to mould it to suit her
needs. Contrary to Aunt Balas description, the white hand, to Renu, becomes
a symbol of decadence. She says,

to him, the arm seemed to symbolize everything rotten in the

world. Preserved, perfumed, smooth when it ought to have been
wrinkled and sagging it disgusted him. It represented a power
that ought to have been on the wane instead of in full strength
(Ganesan 2001).

Renu then goes on to point out that what prompted Adda to

undertake the journey to Europe was his intention to find the cause to his
islands problems. He was curious to know why a man would leave Europe to
 189

enslave another country. So Adda left his birthright, his family, left a country
full of heavy-hipped, purple-lipped women and paan-chewing men(Ganesan
2001), to explore alien lands. Renu visualizes Addas travel across Europe
and his encounter with Giuseppe Lombardo Alvirez, a Spaniard who evinced
much interest in Indian sculpture. Adda soon realized that Alvirezs interest in
India sprang from the fact that he was an exporter of ivories and it served to
explain that the motive behind European conquest of India was financial
gains. Alvirez also introduced Adda to drinking. Owing to financial
constraints, Adda gave up his religious orthodoxies to take up odd jobs, thus
becoming the first member of his strict Brahmin family to search for manual
labor (Ganesan 2001). Ultimately when he reached Cadiz in France, he lost
sight of his original mission to find a solution to his islands problems, and
instead, got romantically involved with Alvirezs daughter, Alphonsa, and
married her. Renu comments, For the second time in his life, Adda was
enraptured by a womans gesture, but this time, instead of being repulsed, he
resolved to marry her (Ganesan 2001). In marrying Alphonsa, Adda
surrenders to the lure of the Western world.

As for Alphonsa, an accomplished mathematician, she mistook

Adda to mean a metaphor for the transcendental ratio when he promised to
take her to Pi. Her disappointment turned to prejudice and she found adjusting
to the culture of the island impossibility. Moreover, Addas mother received
her with contempt, fixing on her a gaze so full of wrath and loss that
Alphonsa lost the power to communicate. For the rest of her life she spoke to
none except her husband and his friend, Amir. Finally the relationship
between her and Adda faltered and she met with a lonely death at a convent.

Recreating the Adda-Alphonsa story helps Renu to comment

impartially on the failings of an immigrant. Both Adda and Alphonsa were
unable to synthesize two different cultures and that proved to be their tragedy.
 190

In the process, she succeeds in initiating a purging of her afflictions. Thus, for
Renu, storytelling becomes a means to exorcise the doubts and fears that
assailed her.

The importance of storytelling is reiterated in Divakarunis Sister

of My Heart. Though the text is about the lives of the two cousins, Anju and
Sudha, the mysterious death of their fathers, the pivot on which the novel
hinges, is narrated in the form of a story. Of the two girls, Sudha evinces great
interest in knowing the circumstances under which they lost their lives,
hoping that it would throw some light on her fathers past to which she had no
clue. Her source of information is Aunt Pishi, for as Sudha herself admits:
But most of all Pishi is our fount of information, the one who tells us the
stories our mother will not, the secret delicious forbidden tales of our past
(Divakaruni 1999). It required a great deal of persuasion on the part of Sudha
to make Pishi agree. After much trepidation and with a sense of foreboding
Pishi consents to relate the story. Pishis anxiety is not baseless, for, as she
fears, at the end of the tale Sudha feels shocked, shamed and shattered.

Pishi begins the story as though she had been preparing for this
inevitable moment all the time: Very well, says Pishi, and her breath is
ragged and resigned. Come sit close to me and I will tell you. It is your right
after all, this story about your father. And your mother, yes for it is her story
too (Divakaruni 1999). With this preamble, Pishi tells Sudha how her father
came to be a member of the Chaterjee household. He had come to their house
with a small trunk, a flute and his newly wed bride, claiming to be Gopal, the
only son of their long lost uncle who had left home years ago and had lost his
life in the partition riots. Gopal said that he had come to honour his fathers
last words, which had been, to go back to his ancestral home and tell his
people his story (Divakaruni 1999).
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Anjus father, Bijoy, took an immediate liking to him for on the

night of Gopals arrival there was a heavy downpour, ending a year long
drought. The crop was saved and Bijoy considered Gopal as the harbinger of
good luck. He was a charmer and could mesmerize people with his flute. But
his business ventures were all a failure and a drain on Bijoys resources.
Desperate to improve his finances, Gopal left home to try his luck. Three days
later, he returned with a precious ruby and an incredible story.

Gopal told them that he had met a man who knew of a cave deep in
the jungles of Sundarbans, where a million rubies grew from the walls. The
man was prepared to undertake the journey provided he found the right
companion, a man of honour, adventure and one who could raise a hundred
thousand rupees. On an impulse Bijoy agreed to fund the money, on condition
he was allowed to accompany them on the expedition. The deal was struck
and both Gopal and Bijoy left home. Pishi concludes the story saying that a
few weeks later the news of their death was received. Though engulfed by
grief, Sudha senses that Pishi had broken her promise and had kept back a
secret. After much coercion, Pishi tells her that before he left, her brother,
Bijoy, had received a letter in response to his enquiries about Gopal.
Accordingly, their uncle had no male heir, which meant that Gopal was an
impostor. This revelation leaves Sudha utterly inconsolable.

Pishi narrates the events with the details available to her. Pishis
story presents Gopal as a fraud and a murderer. Before boarding the aeroplane
to join Anju in the US, Sudha finds a letter tucked into her carry-bag, which
lays bare the hidden truths in the story to absolve her of the guilt caused by
her fathers deception. This reiterates Shamsies observation that details are
the most important ingredient to lend authenticity to any story.
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Sudha is puzzled and bewildered to learn that her father is still alive
and the letter is from him. The letter discloses that he is the illegitimate son of
Bijoys uncle, and having been subjected to humiliation on this account he
had avoided revealing the information to the Chaterjee family. But later,
while returning after having obtained the rubies, Gopal had acquainted Bijoy
of the truth and had felt elated when he accepted him as his cousin. The letter
reads, Something changed in me when Bijoy put his arm around my
shoulder. The great burden of pretending to be someone I was not fell from
me, and with it a certain bitterness (Divakaruni 1999). Yet this relief was not
to last long.

The man, who accompanied them to the Sunderbans, being

avaricious by nature attempted to murder Gopal and Bijoy. The latter, when
thrown into the sea, drowned but Gopal swam back and got involved in a
tussle with him, during the course of which, his face got mutilated and
distorted by a lighted lantern that was flung at him. Though Gopal had
escaped after killing the man, he lacked the courage to return home and face
the family. He once again impersonated but this time as a Sikh refugee and
entered into the Chaterjee household as their driver and in his limited capacity
rendered all services to them. As his face had been burnt beyond recognition,
his identity remained undetected. Sudha is stunned to realize that their driver
Singhji is actually her father. However, this story enables Sudha to begin her
life in the US with a sound conscience.

Baldwin in What the Body Remembers succinctly elucidates the

essence of telling stories. Bachan Singh recounts to Roop how he beheaded
Jeevans wife and his daughter-in-law, Kusum, with his kirpan to save her
honour from the Muslim men during the partition riots. After listening to his
narration, Roop realizes that she is duty bound to pass on the story to
posterity. Baldwin writes, Roops shoulders hunch beneath the weight of
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Papajis story, for his telling must be repeated to Jeevan, Roop knows. His
telling is the telling that she will have to tell Jeevans sons one day
(Baldwin 2001). Hence, stories are narrated to keep family customs, traditions
and history alive. This aspect of storytelling is especially significant to the
diasporic writers who wish to retain their links with the Indian heritage. This,
together with the influence of the indigenous oral traditions, has made
storytelling an integral part of diasporic writing.

4.5 USE OF MYTHS

Yet another important component of diasporic writing is the use of

myths. Cultures are given tangible forms through their exclusive myths.
Mythical narratives give coherence to a culture but they also consolidate and
affirm hegemony. When women writers handle myths they view these old
stories from a new and critical angle thereby challenging the gender bias
infused into them. For diasporic women writers myths also serve as cultural
markers. DuPlessis (1985) comments on how re-invention of accepted myths
empower women to confront dominant cultures. She writes, The contention
of authenticity or truth finally unburied helps give power to the retold tale and
authority to the teller, both necessary for confronting the cultural weight of
Western civilization.

Indian women draw their life models from the great epic
Ramayana. Sita is regarded as the embodiment of womanly virtues and
strands of her story are woven into What the Body Remembers, except that
they are reworked and re-interpreted to demolish the cultural stereotype
popularized and patronized by patriarchy. Most Indians are familiar with the
Ramayana. Roop, though a Sikh, had listened to it being read in temples.
Ram Lila is enacted during the Dusserah festival and people of all religion
enjoy the performance. Roop had heard several times how Ram was exiled by
the wish of his stepmother Kakeyi, how the ten-headed demon, Ravan had
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tricked good-good sweet-sweet obedient Sita (Baldwin 2001) out of her

circle and stolen her away with him to Sri Lanka and how Ram had gone to
Sri Lanka to bring back his wife with the help of the monkey god, Hanuman,
and the monkey army. Under all circumstances Sita is portrayed as a paragon
of virtue, never once having defied the wishes of her Lord, Ram. Nurtured on
such ideas, young Indian girls are tutored to imbibe these value systems.

When Bachan Singh sends his daughters, Madani and Roop, to his
distant cousin, Lajo Bhua, to be trained in domesticity, she imparts to them
important rules to be practised when they leave their home as wives. She
instructs, Rule number one: You want to make a good marriage; you must be
more graceful, more pleasing to your elders. I want to hear only achchaji,
hanji, and yes-ji from you. Never nahinji or no-ji (Baldwin 2001).
She continues with rule number two, according to which they would have to
speak softly. She adds a rule number three, which is the most demanding.
They are advised not to feel angry no matter what happens or what the
husband says. They might be hurt but they should never ever feel angry.

Roop faces the real test of her endurance when Sardarji demands
that she give her baby to his childless first wife, Satya. He explains to her that
women turn sick and quarrelsome when they have no children to take care of.
He says that to satisfy Satya, who has become unbearable, the baby must be
given to her. Roop waits for a chance to decline his suggestion and feels
disappointed when he does not offer her the option to voice her view. Yet, her
grooming helps her to accept that decision making is a male prerogative and
as a dutiful and obedient wife she is expected to comply with his wish: Roop
waits for him to ask her so she might say it, but he does not ask at all, he
assumes she will want what he wants. Sardarjis suggestion is to assist her in
learning his wishes, every woman is a Sita to her Ram, and what Ram wants,
Sita will enjoy doing(Baldwin 2001).
 195

Roop draws a parallel between Sardarjis demand and the

agnipariksha or fire-test that Ram imposed on Sita when he became unsure if
she was worthy to be his queen. Though Sita was innocent, just because a
washerwoman suggested that during her stay in Lanka as Ravans hostage she
might have become impure, Ram makes her take the agnipariksha. Roop
wonders, if she, a mere mortal would be able to emulate Sita, a goddess so
pure, and pass the test thrust on her. Despite her misgivings, Roop honours
Sardrajis wish not once but thrice and hands over all her three children to
Satya. At the end of it all, Roop surveys with satisfaction that she has been as
good as Sita for her Lord: Roop has proven herself three times, before this,
shown Sardarji three times she is good-good, sweet-sweet as Sita, shown him
as Sardarji plucked her children, and gave them one by one to
Satya(Baldwin 2001). Thus, inherent within the myth of Sita is the
subordination of women.

But Baldwin, when tracing the life of Satya, presents the story
of Sita from a gynocentric perspective and creates a new space for women
within the old discourse. After Roop had satisfied Sardarji by producing his
heirs, his leanings are towards her and he rejects Satya. Satya feels hurt by his
indifference and wishes to teach him a lesson but without harming him or his
reputation for she still loved him, the way foolish Sita loved her Ram even
after he spurned her (Baldwin 2001). Ram had turned coward, became afraid
of what people would say and banished Sita on suspicion that she was impure.
But Sita remained undaunted amidst adversity and she shamed him for all
time, outdoing him in performing her duty (Baldwin 2001). After
establishing her innocence, she, who was born of the earth, called upon
mother earth to open up and receive her. Fully conscious of her act and with
her honour intact she left Rams life of her own free will. He had to suffer his
remorse in silence.
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Satya decides to emulate Sita and take away her life. But it should
be made to appear natural so that Sardarjis image would remain untarnished.
At the same time, the act should remind him of his guilt and fill him with
regret for denying her his love. Being a skilled planner, Satya executes her
idea with precision. She invites her cousin Mamta, afflicted with tuberculosis,
and wilfully contracts the disease. She outwits Sardarji through her death.
Like Sita, she makes her presence felt through her absence. Baldwin writes,

Sita, too gave Ram the gift of her absence, called upon the earth
to open and swallow her, called upon death to wake Rams
remorse when she could not speak to it herself. Sita, too,
walked into the earths fiery core, clear-eyed and willing,
offering the finest gift she could give to her lord. Sita, too,
entered the soundless scream of the earth, withholding her
presence at her husbands moment of triumph, countered all
aspersions on her unworthiness with absence (Baldwin 2001).

Thus, Baldwin re-writes the popular myth in a way that is

empowering to the women. Likewise, Divakaruni introduces into her text the
legend of the Rani of Jhansi, which has an invigorating influence on the two
cousins, Sudha and Anju, at crucial junctures in their lives. To affirm the
importance of the legend, Divakaruni has named the second section of her
work The Queen of Swords. Sudha, who had wilfully surrendered herself to
the meek and docile role of a dutiful daughter-in-law, is enthralled by the
story of the widow queen, who led a rebellion against the British in the 1850s
and died valiantly on the battlefield. Despite her mother-in-laws warning that
such acts of bravery are becoming only in queens, Sudha secretly admires the
courage of the Rani who had defied the priests advice to devote her life to
prayer. She had boldly declared that her subjects were her children and that it
was her duty to defend them. Donning a male garb, and with a sword in each
hand, she had led her soldiers into battle. Even when her forces were
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overwhelmed by the British guns, she did not give up. When defeated, she
had courted a heroic death.

The legend wields a powerful influence over Sudha and it is her

unconscious act of identifying herself with the legendary queen which proves
instrumental in her taking the bold decision to walk out of her marriage, when
her husband remains a mute spectator to his mothers compulsion to abort
their female child. This becomes apparent in the tale that she narrates to Anju
over the telephone. The loss of her unborn child has an enervating effect on
Anju, who drifts from reality and sinks into deep despondency. In order to re-
energize her, Sudha tells her the story of a princess who spent her girlhood in
a crumbling marble palace. Guards policed her actions and held up their
spears to her face whenever she attempted to stray from the norms they had
set. When she was old enough, the princess married the king they had chosen
for her without any kind of a protest. She found no difficulty in adapting to
her new home for the rules were the same, only the guards were fiercer and
their spears-tips more poisonous. She faced no problems with her marriage
until it was time for her to give birth to a child. A soothsayer discovered that
it was a girl and the guards, unable to accept a woman as their future ruler,
tried to destroy the baby even before it was born. The king, petrified with
fear, did nothing to protect his queen. Sudha suddenly realizes that the story,
independent of her control, is taking its own form. She claims, This is not the
story I had meant to tell Anju. But it has taken its own necessary shape, and I
must follow where it leads (Divakaruni 1999). The story reflects Sudhas
own life and the rest of it that follows is a clear illustration of the profound
influence that the life of the Rani of Jhansi had on Sudhas major decision.

Sudha continues with her narration and tells Anju that the queen
was terrified by the sudden turn of events but when she placed her hands on
her stomach something conspired between herself and her unborn child and
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soon she was possessed of two flaming swords made of light. Whirling the
swords around her head like the Goddess Durga, like the Rani of Jhansi, the
queen left the palace, and none dared prevent her(Divakaruni 1999). After
the birth of her daughter, the queen wandered ceaselessly in search of a new
home until she reached the oceans edge. Sudha pauses and miraculously,
Anju, who had been listening listlessly, continues in an enfeebled voice that
the queens sister, who lived in the land across the ocean, sent her love in the
form of a rainbow. Sudha concludes the tale saying that the queen and her
child, with the help of the rainbow, hauled themselves onto the new land, thus
signifying that she would begin her new life in America with Anjus support.

Through this incident Divakaruni underscores the importance of

myths and legends in shaping the lives of individuals. It is the indomitable
spirit of the Rani of Jhansi that inspires Sudha to confront her problems
boldly. The legend also serves to re-vitalize Anjus sagging spirit and infuse
her with hope, thus highlighting the message that native myths and legends
act as a sustaining mechanism for a rootless immigrant.

Meatless Days concludes with a narration of the genesis of Islam,

which is also the state religion of Pakistan. Suleris intention in inserting this
religious myth seems to be to subvert the patriarchal overtones inherent
within it. According to the Quran, there are seven skies or seven galaxies
between the earth and heaven. On Shab-e-Miraj or the Night of the Heavenly
Ladder, Prophet Muhammad along with Gabriel used a golden ladder to
ascend to heaven. Muhammad, the best man of the human race, was given a
warm welcome by God, who then offered him water, milk and wine.
Muhammad chose a cup of milk to indicate his preference for a middle path.
God wanted the followers of Muhammad to pray fifty times a day. On the
advice of Moses, Muhammad requested God to reduce the number and finally
 199

it was agreed that Muslims would pray five times daily. God then gave
Mohammad, the Quran. This then is the genesis of Islam.

Having traced the story, Suleri goes on to introduce a personal

anecdote related to an old folktale which disrupts the patriarchal connotation
of the myth. According to the folktale, if one prayed throughout the night on
Shab-e-Miraj, ones water would turn to milk. Suleri says that once when they
were quite young, her sister Ifat, being acquainted with the fable, wished to
experiment. Suleris protest that they did not know how to pray failed to deter
Ifat from her venture. Long after their designated hour of sleep, the two small
girls lay awake reading a translation of the Quran and frequently turning on
the bathroom tap to see if the water had turned to milk. Years later, while
writing about Ifats disappointment that night, it dawns on Suleri that Ifat
herself was milk:to fall asleep on Ifats bed was milk enough, to sleep in
crumbling rest beside her body(Suleri 1991). Suleris suggestion that her
sister herself was a gift from God subverts the popular myth by lending it a
gynocentric twist.

From the above illustrations it becomes evident that myths and

legends form an important motif in the works of diasporic writers.

4.6 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE TONGUES

Texts by diasporic writers are referred to as cultural translations for

it is mostly through them that the Metropolitan centres become aware of other
cultures. In fact, Rushdie (1991), in his Imaginary Homelands, even refers
to those living on the borderlines between two different cultures as translated
men. In this translation language as a cultural construct becomes a
significant medium. But as men and women from the postcolonial nations
situated within the Western Metropolitan centres, Indian diasporic writers are
compelled to use English, the language of the hegemonic society. The
 200

problem that arises from this situation was recognized by one of the earliest
Indian writers in English, Raja Rao. In the foreword to his novel,
Kanthapura, he writes:

One has to convey in a language that is not ones own the spirit
that is ones own. One has to convey the various shades and
omissions of a certain thought movement that looks maltreated
in an alien language. I use the word alien, yet English is not
really an alien language to us. It is the language of our
intellectual make-up, like Sanskrit or Persian was before but
not of our emotional make-up (Rao 1974).

More recently, Rushdie has addressed this problem with regard to

Indian writers settled in Britain but it may be extended to other diasporic
writers as well. He stresses that there is no way by which they can escape the
use of English and goes on to suggest that the language may be manipulated
to forge a transcultural identity. To quote him again:

One of the changes has to do with attitudes towards the use of

English. Many have referred to the argument about the
appropriateness of this language to Indian themes. And I hope
all of us share the view that we cant simply use the language in
the way the British did; that it needs remaking for our own
purposes. Those of us who do use English do so in spite of our
ambiguity towards it, or perhaps because of that, perhaps
because we can find in that linguistic struggle a reflection of
other struggles taking place in the real world, struggles between
the cultures within ourselves and the influences at work upon
our societies. To conquer English may be to complete the
process of making ourselves free. But the British Indian writer
simply does not have the option of rejecting English anyway
(Rushdie 1991).

Through complex manipulations, the diasporic writers mould

English into a suitable medium for their articulations. Dialects, allusions,
narrative intrusions, the refusal to translate key words, the strategic use of
vernacular expressions and switching between languages or code switching
are some of the techniques they have experimented with, to create an English
 201

which would be capable of capturing the particular realities of the

communities with which they identify themselves. Moreover, through using
an English that does not adhere to academic norms, the writers subvert the
capacity of the dominant society to dictate cultural meaning. Ashcroft et al
(1989) coined the term english to refer to the language as it has been used
by the postcolonial writers. A few examples from the select novels would
illustrate the point.

Suleris native tongue, Urdu, exerts a powerful influence and she

scripts her Meatless Days in a Pakistani English spiced with overtones of the
Urdu language. This leaves the readers grappling with a complex series of
verbal acrobats. When mourning her mothers death, Suleri herself
acknowledges the intimacy and comfort that Urdu provides her with. Though
proficient in English, as a foreign tongue it fails to offer Suleri the right idiom
for expressing personal loss. She writes:

When I return to Urdu, I feel shocked at my own neglect of a

space so intimate to make me like relearning the proportions of
a once-familiar room, it takes me by surprise to recollect that I
need not feel grief, I can eat grief; that I need not bury my
mother but instead can offer her into earth, for I am in Urdu
now (Suleri 1991).

This explains that her Urdu background has influenced the use of
the phrase eating grief. Such startling expressions of food are scattered
throughout the text, as when she writes about how she and Ifat attempted to
reconstruct important events in their lives by trying to place them during the
periods of different cooks in the family: Food certainly gave us a way not
simply of ordering a week or a day but of living inside history, measuring
everything we remembered against a chronology of cooks (Suleri 1991).
Once when her sisters make the unusual comment that ants must be very sour
to taste, Suleri marvels at their ability to take the world on their tongues
 202

(Suleri 1991). On another occasion, she justifies her mother compelling her to
eat kapuras as a ruse to make me consume as many parts of the world as she
could before she set me loose in it (Suleri 1991). Learning later that kapuras
are goats testicles she declares, something that had once sat quite simply
inside its own definition was declaring independence from its name and
nature (Suleri 1991).

Suleri also has an uncanny way of using the body as a metaphor for
place. To convey the constraints faced by women she writes, Men live in
homes, and women live in bodies (Suleri 1991), thus, narrowing down a
woman into her own physical self. While commenting on the shifting
borderlines between India and Pakistan she says,

So I looked out in the direction of the borderlines and tried to

picture their perpetual rewriting, teaching myself to think
through and repeat: Your mind is a metropolis, a legislated
thing. The keener your laws the better their breakage, for
civilization will always rise and fall upon your bodys steady
landscape (Suleri 1991).

Yet again, she playfully tells her elusive friend Mustakori, Ive
reclaimed your mind from swampy nothing into land they could build an
airport on you now (Suleri 1991). After the Bangladesh war, Ifats husband
Javed was in India as a prisoner of war. At the end of two years, when he
returned home, he was still preoccupied with the horrors of war. Suleri says
that it was left to Ifat to make his mind a human home again trying brick
by brick to break that prison down (Suleri 1991). After Ifats death Suleri
describes her as a house I once rented but which is presently inhabited by
people I do not know (Suleri 1991).

Suleris other odd expressions include the description of Mustakori

as the etymology of irritation (Suleri 1991) and her American friend,
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Richard, as a narrative device( Suleri 1991). After her murder Ifat had
become the news (Suleri 1991) and when in America, Suleri becomes
historical(Suleri 1991). Suleris English, which reflects the Urdu influence,
deconstructs the myth of standard of English.

Indira Ganesan has introduced into her text a letter written

simultaneously by Renus mother, Rukmani and her sister, Chitra. The letter
is written from Ootacamund, where they had gone to recoup from their grief,
following Rajeshs death. While Rukmani shows signs of recovering from the
tragedy, Chitra continues to flounder in sorrow. By juxtaposing their different
moods in the same letter, Ganesan disconcerts the accepted usage of the
language. The letter reads,

My Darling Girls, My Dearest Nieces, Aunt Chitra and I

went to a lovely bird sanctuary Your mother and I try to leave
our bungalow every once in a while, although my heart isnt
often in it. I know you both are having fun with your new
friends You must both help each other in your sadness, I think
your auntie is looking very well, Your mother tries to be
cheerful for my sake (Italics is authors) (Ganesan 2001).

The diasporic writers re-create their homes in language. They

introduce the rhythm of their native tongue into English to capture the
specificity of their cultural experiences. Marriages in India are more social
functions and arrangements of convenience than personal celebrations. A
conversation among relatives in Salt and Saffron captures the mood:

Kishoo? You mean Kishwar? Lilys daughter? Hanh, I heard

she was getting married. Who to? Quite a catch! Younger
Starch said. The oldest son of the Ali Shahs. He has the family
seat in the National Assembly. Theyre very important
people, the Ali Shahs, Older Starch said. Kishoos parents are
thrilled with the match. After all, why should the Ali Shahs
have settled for a girl who isnt from a political family? They
wont get any mileage from the match. And yet, theyre
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conscious of lineage, they understand these things matter, so

theyre welcoming her with open arms(125).

Though written in English, the rhythm of the native tongue has been
introduced to make it english. The quoted examples reveal the ways and
means by which English has been influenced by the native tongues. This
hybridization of language also serves to dismantle the superiority of the
colonizers language.

4.7 DIASPORIC NOVEL A HYBRIDIZED GENRE

The emergence of the novel in the West is linked to the rise of

capitalism. It is generally agreed that the novelistic genre emerged to
represent the social aspirations of the middle class created by the Industrial
Revolution. Postcolonial critics have given it a new slant by affirming that the
novel was used by the forces of imperialism to consolidate power. These
arguments emphasize the connection between the narrative form and the
specific historical circumstances that shape it. The novel represents an
ideology and a particular interpretation of reality. Hence, it assumes a new
significance in the hands of the Indian diasporic writers. They have fused
their own literary traditions with the Western form of the novel to validate
their native culture and value systems against the hegemonic American
society.

The introduction of the indigenous literary techniques has lent the

Indian diasporic fiction a structure different from the European novelistic
genre. In What the Body Remembers the Western belief in linear
temporality is replaced with the Indian view of life as a cycle, giving the text
a circular structure. Displacement has robbed the diaspora of their homeland
and the writers attempt to locate their national identity within narration. They
evoke the landscape, food and customs of their native land which make
digression an important constituent of diasporic fiction. As the stories have
 205

shifted their focus from individual identity to group identity, issues related to
particular communities are elaborately dealt with, as in An American Brat.
All these features contribute to the loose, cyclic and episodic nature of
diasporic texts.

The writers of the Indian diaspora not only reject the Western
novelistic form but also rediscover and reaffirm the power of their own folk
tales and oral traditions. Echoes and influences from the classical and folk
literatures of India, Islamic daastan tales and the flourishing oral literature
appear in these writings. The absence of a linear plot may be seen as the
influence of the epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana with their
numerous digressive lore. The swoops, the spirals and the meanderings so
characteristic of oral narrative are all present. This, together with the
introduction of myths as value endowed paradigms and the use of English
which is regional and metaphorical, lend the Indian diasporic novel a
distinctively different structure from its Western counterpart.

The diasporic writers insistent backward glance at their own

literary heritage helps to serve them in two ways. It enables them to retain
their links with their homelands which is a source of great strength to them in
the New World and simultaneously, it helps them to escape the universalizing
tendencies of the mainstream culture. Their ability to force a fusion between
cultures is commended by Roshni Rustomji-Kerns (1995) in her introduction
to Living in America, an anthology of South Asian writings in America. She
says that it does not marginalize, DeAmericanize, or exoticize this
literature. On the contrary it stresses the diversity of literary and cultural
traditions and voices of American literature that go beyond a Eurocentric
American literature.

In conclusion, it may be said that the Indian diasporic writers have

introduced their indigenous literary traditions into the Western novelistic
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genre in order to challenge and resist the concepts of cultural purity and
authenticity of the hegemonic American society. Yet again, Baldwin,
Divakaruni, Ganesan, Shamsie, Sidhwa and Suleri have shown that one of the
powerful strategies to negotiate between cultures is to embrace hybridity, the
mixed cultural legacy of postcolonial societies.