CHAPTEE - II
Multiculturalism in the Short Stories of Bharati Mukherjee Chapter II: Multiculturalism in Bharati Mukherjee’s short stories
2.0 Bharati Mukherjee: Life and Work
Early Life and Education
2.1 Bharati Mukherjee: Literary Career
2.1.1 Short Stories
2.1.2 Novels
2.2 Multiculturalism in
2.2.1 Cultural Encounters
2.2.2 Familial Ties
2.2.3 Generation Gap
2.2.4 Nostalgia
2.2.5. Maladies of Migration
2.3 Multiculturalism in ^The Middleman and Other Stories’
2.3.1 Cultural Encounters
2.3.2 Familial Ties
2.3.3 Generation Gap
2.3.4 Nostalgia
2.3.5. Maladies of Migration
2.4 Summary
Works Cited
42 Chapter II
Multiculturalism in Bharati Mukherjee’s short stories
2.0 Bharati Mukherjee: Life and Work
Bharati Mukherjee was bom on July 27, 1940. She belonged to an upper-middle class
Hindu Brahmin family in Calcutta, India. Her father, Sudhir Lai was a chemist, and
Bina (Baneijee) Mukherjee, a housewife. She lived in the joint family until the age of eight. The three daughters of Sudhir Lai got excellent schooling because of good family background and financial condition. Her father’s short stay in England during
1947-1951 helped her lot to get English language acquaintance and competency.
Mukherjee earned a B.A. with honors from the University of Calcutta in 1959. She and her family then moved to Baroda, India, where she studied for her Master's
Degree in English and Ancient Indian Culture, which she acquired in 1961. Her ambition to be a writer since childhood drove Mukherjee to the University of Iowa in
1961 to attend the prestigious Writer's Workshop. She planned to study there to get her Master degree in Fine Arts and then return to India to marry a bridegroom of her
father's choice from their class and caste. However she married Clark Blaise, a
Canadian writer, after only two weeks of courtship. She received her degree and proceed to obtain in her Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from the
University of Iowa in 1969.
In 1968, Mukherjee immigrated to Canada with her husband and became a naturalized
citizen in 1972. Her 14 years stay in Canada was an unforgettable span of her life. She
was ill treated as a member of the "visible minority." She confessed in many
interviews of her difficult life in Canada, a country that she refers as hostile to its
immigrants and one that opposes the concept of cultural assimilation. Although those
years were challenging, Mukherjee penned down her first two novels. The Tiger's
Daughter (1971) and Wife (1975), while serving professorial status at McGill
University in Montreal. During those years she also collected several sentiments
found in her first collection of short stories, D arkness (1985), a collection that in
many ways autobiographical.
43 Mukherjee shifted from Canada to the United States in 1980. She led a life of exile for long 14 years in Canada, Mukherjee applied for permanent citizenship of US. She continued to write. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She justified several posts at various colleges and universities, she ultimately settled in
1989 at the University of Califomia-Berkeley in 1989. Mukherjee had various experience as an immigrant, a survivor and an adapter in the foreign soil. She utilized her several lives and backgrounds together with an intention of creating a "new immigrant" literature.
Mukherjee is known for her playful and live language. Mukherjee rejects the concept of minimalism, which, she says, is "designed to keep anyone out with too much story to tell." She considers her work a celebration of her emotions, and herself a writer of the Indian diaspora who cherishes the "melting pot" of America. Her main theme throughout her writing discusses the condition of Asian immigrants in North America, with particular attention to the changes taking place in South Asian women in a new world. Her characters in all her fiction are often victimized by various forms of social
oppression; she generally draws them as survivors.
Mukheijee has often been praised for her understated prose style and her ironic plot
developments and witty observations. As a writer, she has a crafty eye to view the
world, and her characters share that quality. Although she is often racially categorized
by her thematic focus and cultural origin, she has often said that she strongly opposes
the use of hyphenation when discussing her origin. In order to avoid otherization and
the self-imposed marginalization that comes with hyphenation. Rather, she prefers to
refer herself as an American of Bengali-lndian origin.
Bharati Mukherjee and Canada
The life in Canada is an account of conflict between the native people and
newcomers, between the charter groups and the later arrivals, between the retainers of
the old culture and advocates of a new one, among the imperialists, nationalists and
annexationists and even between the immigrant and his offspring. This conflict is the
conflict of an attitude of people. Underneath the current of chaotic process of
integration runs for the search of an identity.
44 Canada like US was peopled by waves of immigrants coming from the various parts of the world. Canada was always the fascinating destination for immigrants due to freedom, employment opportunities, and rich available land. In the initial stage, maximum numbers of immigrants were peasants arrived to pursue their dreams to own their farms. The immigrants left their native home due to either push factors or pull factors. The immigrants were visible distinct from the large city around them.
They live in sections of the city that were not quite ‘Canadian’. Such neighborhood existed as a response to the prejudice of the receiving society.
Immigrants were treated as outsiders by the native Canadians. They used to live in outsider area populated by the people identical in language, nationality or race. The
"ghettos’ is the term associated with such inhabitants.
Unlike the United States, Canada did not accept the 'melting pot" theory, but believed that each distinct group could maintain its identity and hence it would be a ‘mosaic’ with each contributing to the fabric of the country.
Canada posed new hazards and challenges to such immigrants. The difference in taste, customs and language bring about conflicts. Eyes, height and skin color become a highly inalterable and visible identity badge. Therefore, it is easy to plan and carry out discriminatory practices.
Broadly speaking, there were two kinds of newcomers to Canada, those who saw themselves as immigrants and those who were migrant, not uprooted but deeply committed to their home village, their family.
Bharati Mukheijee noticed such patterns of discrimination. She has first-hand experience to face brutal discrimination on the part of immigrants. She was refused service in stores; she would be followed by detectives in the department stores for she was considered to a shoplifter or treated like a prostitute in hotels.
As a result of the influx of South Asian immigrants into Canada, frightening outbursts of ’pakibashing’ and ’dot-busting' towards Asians by white Canadians started taking place.
45 Bharati Mukherjee discovered that in polite company she was an ‘’East Indian' and in an impolite company she was ‘a paki\ a British slur unknown in America. She was a part o f‘visible minority’.
Most Indians face violence, physical assaults, the spitting, the name calling, the bricks through the windows, the pushing and shoving on the subways. The government gave implied consent to racism. Expressing her deep agony, the author said;
I cannot describe the agony and the betrayal one feels,
hearing oneself spoke of by one’s own country as being
somehow exotic to its nature- a burden, a cause for serious
concern. In that ill-tempered debate, the government itself
appropriated the language, the reasoning, the motivation that
had belonged - to disreputable fringe grounds.
(Tendon, 2013:22)
Mukherjee came to Canada in the late 1960s with the desire to be accepted as a
Canadian writer. She published her two novels namely The Tiger’s Daughter and
Wife. Unfortunately, she was still treated as an outsider. On the contrary, she was questioned about her claim and identity as a Canadian writer. The Canadian interviewer objected the content and intent of the writer in the context of these two novels. Later on she was insulted by Canada Council letters.
Mukherjee had a major public breakthrough through these short story collections. It placed her into the galaxy of diasporic writers. She was awarded the National Book
Critics Circle Award for her short story collection, The Middleman and Other Stories.
Mukherjee acts as a middleman linking disparate worlds. She becomes a mediator between develop the country like Canada and undeveloped Third World nations. She has multi-dimensional perspective in telling her tales, with a sharp eye for the contrast between self and the larger society. She wrote this collection in a lighter, more celebratory tone, with characters that are adventurers and explorers, rather than refugees and outcasts, and are a part of a new. changing America. Her characters in short stories are victimised, pathetic creators in the initial stage of the story. However they emerge as successful survivors and adventurers to combat with the hostile surrounding
46 2.1 Bharati Mukherjee: Literary Career
Bharati Mukherjee has a splendid literary career of seven novels and two short story collections exploring complex, touching and adventurous experiences of immigrants.
1. T he Tiger’s Daughterl 971
2. Wife 1975
3. Days and Nights in Calcutta 1977 (nonfiction with Clark Blaise)
4. Darkness 1985 (short story collection)
5. The Sorrow and the Terror; The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy 1987
6. The Middleman and Other Stones 1988 (short story collection)
7. Jasmine 1989
8. The Holder of the World 1993
9. Leave It to Me 1997
10. Desirable Daughters 2002
IL The Tree Bride 2004
2.1.1 Short Stories '
There are two short stories collection on account of Bharati Mukherjee. She explored her self-experience and observation with sensibility and sensitivity through her stories. She dealt with various diasporic issues like an identity crisis, sense of belongingness, generation gaps and cultural conflicts between east and west ideologies.
1. Darkness (1985)
Mukherjee's short stories explore the struggles of immigrants living in United States and Canada. Her popularity as a writer was increased dramatically with the publication of her tlrst volume of short stories. Darkness in 1985. Darkness, her t'lrst short story collection focuses on South Asian immigrants in Canada who strive for success and stability there, but are burdened by their histories and encounter various
47 difficulties of prejudice and misunderstanding. This collection was a transitional work for Mukheijee that was reflecting back on her dark years in Canada. This short story collection can be better understood only in the context of Bharati Mukherjee’s stay in
Canada. Her biographical experience is the foundation of these stories.
Darkness is a collection of twelve stories depicting difficulties that South Asian immigrants have in adjusting to life in Canada and United States. The issues discussed in this work are linguistic, cultural, racial differences of the immigrants. These immigrants often become the victims of racial prejudice and violence that limit their freedom and opportunity in this new land. Racism in Canada is depicted as severe and overt in comparison to America.
Mukherjee gave expression to the memories of her stay in Canada. No longer had she used a mordant and self-protective irony in describing the situation of her characters.
2. The Middleman and Other Stories (1988)
The Middleman and Other Stories was published in 1988. It presents multicultural worlds of America and Canada. The female protagonists’ ceaseless efforts to assimilate with this new world are the core part of these stories. The title of the collection is very catchy. All the characters including the protagonists of these stories are 'middleman’ in respect to their position in the new world. Mukherjee is very particular to understand the psyche of the third world woman. After all Mukheijee experienced the trauma of cultural conflicts in her real life. She successfully presented woman’s anxiety with depth.
It includes 11 short stories of variant characters facing inner and external conflicts.
2.1.2 Novels
1. The Tiger’s Daughter (1971)
This is the first novel by Bharati Mukherjee. The story revolves around Tara who was
raised in Calcutta, educated at Vassar College in New York and married to an
American man. The novel explores a sense of culture shock when she travels back to
India.
48 2. Wife (1975)
This is the story of Dimple Dasgupta who gets married to Amit Basu by traditional way of arranged marriage. They shift to United States and experience the cultural conflicts. The migration also affects their married life.
3. Jasmine (1989)
This is the most popular novel by Bharati Mukherjee. It is a trajectory of young Indian woman destined to wander through different cultures and geographical locations. She acts as a cursor to explore different cultural variations she came across throughout her journey.
4. The Holder of the World (1993)
The novel is spread over space as well as time, locating itself in 20*'' century Boston and 17'*’ century India during the colonial period.
5. Leave it to me (1997)
This novel is based on the mythological use of the Hindu mother Goddess, Durga.
6. Desirable Daughters (2002)
‘Desirable Daughters’ follow the diverging paths taken by three Calcutta-born sisters as they come of age in a changing world. Tara, Padma and Parvati were bom into a wealthy Brahmin family presided over by their dothing father and their traditionalist mother. Intelligent and artistic, the girls are nevertheless constrained by a society with little regard for women. Their subsequent rebellion will lead them in different directions to different continents and through different circumstances that strain yet ultimately strengthen their relationship.
7. The Tree Bride (2004)
A brilliantly woven, thoughtful and intelligent story of three upper-class Calcutta,
India-born Brahmin sisters, renowned for their beauty, brains wealth, and privileged position in society. It was an eloquent, lovingly painted portrait of a family steeped in ancient culture and conservative tradition that adapt to all that modem education and technology can offer.
49 2.2 Multiculturalism in '‘Darkness'
2.2.1 Cultural Encounters
Culture is an integral part of everyone’s life. Culture constantly accompanies you wherever you go. Culture is a set of values. The process of migration cannot change these values. The long stay in a foreign land does not replace the original culture. The migrated people constantly miss their own culture.
A Father
'A Father realistically depicts the cultural clash of the first generation and the second generation of the immigrants. The first generation tries to preserve their cultures. They have still strong ties with their motherland which are not easy to forget.
The relationship between the father of Indian values and daughter of American culture are skillfully presented in this story.
His religiousness is ridiculed by his wife and daughter. Babli is twenty six years old, an Electrical Engineer. Both of them, make fun of his unshaken religious faith and
‘annoyance' created by him through the prayers. She strongly represents the second generation Indian immigrants in America. The first generation migrants clearly memorize of their past whereas the second generation is either bom or brought up abroad. So the second generation does not show strong believe in customs, rituals and values carried on by their parents. Babli does not believe in Hindu mythology. She makes the fun of it in the following way;
"The cosmos balanced on the head of a snake was like a
baseball balanced on the snout of a circus seal."
(Mukherjee, 1990; 65)
She comments on Hindu mythical figures to her American friend,
"This Hindu myth stuff," he'd heard her say. ’is like a series
of super graphics."
(Mukherjee 1990; 65)
50 One day, he comes to know that Babh is pregnant. He hears his daughter gagging in the bathroom. He is not only shocked but also stunned to know the fact. Being a father, he finds her deed as an assault to his family reputation. The family prestige will come into danger. He immediately thinks of abortion as the only way or a remedy to save the family reputation.
Mr. Bhowmick starts cursing his wife’s idea to settle in America. Even he reviews his marriage as a blunder. Another reason for his settlement was to get rid of constant plotting and bitterness of India’s middle class. He tries to defend his daughter to fix the blame on his wife.
“Girls like Babli were caught between rules; that’s the point
he wished to make. They were too smart, too impulsive for a
backward place like Ranchi, but not tough nor smart enough
for sex-crazy places like Detroit."
(Mukherjeel990; 72)
He tries his best to guess her suitor. He did not rule out possibilities of rape, a married suitor or a black man, etc. He keeps watch on her for four long, tedious weeks to invesfigate the fact. The dream of a typical Indian father is ‘Kanyadan’ is shattered into pieces. He used to dream that he is playing with his grandson who looks like
‘BalKrishna’. Now everything is finished.
At last, Babli reveals the secret of her pregnancy after a hot discussion with her parents. Her awful expression is very shocking. Babli says very bluntly,
"Who needs a man?"
"The father of my baby is a bottle and a syringe.
Men louse up your lives."
(Mukherjeel990; 72)
Her idea of artificial insemination is a strong blow to her parents’ expectations and their tradition. Her mother strongly remarks her decision and action as 'animal behaviour". For the first time, her mother becomes violent due to her daughter's betrayal. The parents' dream is thrown to air by Babli's action.
51 On the contrary, Babli rebukes the ideas of Indian marriage as mere matching. She fiiriously mocks at the marriage system prevaihng in India. She defends her decision by criticizing Indian marriage system.
He starts attacking his pregnant daughter with a rolling pin.
“The eruption of violence in him is due to his inability to
reconcile the wistful expatriate in himself with the immigrant
in his militantly feminist daughter. Thus, the inadequacy of
the expatriate and his inability to cope with immigrant life
has been fully brought out in this story.”
(Kumar Nagendra, 2001; 75)
At the end of mayhem, Mr.Bhowmick holds a rolling pin above his head and brings it down hard on the dome of Babli’s stomach. This act of a father is originated from his worry of family reputation. The physical violence is an outcome of the cultural conflict at the mental level. Throughout the story, a constant cultural conflict can be witnessed through incidents, characters, dialogues, and monologues.
Visitors
“Visitors” covers the journey of an old fashioned Calcutta girl into a modem housewife in America. The process of cultural shifting is full of hurdles and quite uncomfortable. This painful joumey is depicted beautifully in this story.
The cultural interactions are more intense in Indian housewives than men in America.
They constantly compare and contrast the difference between the East and the West, homeland and the new land, original and adopted culture. Vinita is also one of them.
She shows her courtesy, hospitality to all three visitors of that day. Vinita tries to preserve the same value in the foreign country. She has not forgotten her original culture so instantly. She tries to combine both the cultures up to some extent.
One of the visitors is Mr. Rajiv Khanna, a young educated neighbor of Vinita. He knocks at her door in the absence of Sailen Kumar. He introduces himself to her. He also infonns her about the dance programme in the city. It is common among Indian women to have some taste in dancing. Vinita is caught in two minds by allowing him to enter her home in the absence of her husband. No woman in India would allow a
52 stranger to enter her house especially when she is alone. It does not matter in
America. Her Indian mind did not want Rajiv Khanna to be there. Her American mind did not have any objection to his presence.
Mr. Rajiv Khanna loves his Indian pet name “Biloo” rather than its American version
“Bill”. It indicates that cultural roots are undeniable. Vinita offers him a cup of Indian tea made in Indian style. While serving the tea, Vinita draws the loose end of her sari over her right shoulder to cover her breast. Her feelings of shame are quite natural and
Indian too.
Vinita’s hospitality is misinterpreted by Khanna as an invitation to friendship. He thinks of her as a whore. Khanna thinks of her at Vinita as a partner whereas Vinita considers him as a looter of American culture. He attempts to tease her physically.
Vinita just can not tolerate it.
She retorts, “I have not lost all my manners because I have
moved to a new country. I know some Americans won’t even
give you a glass of water when you drop in.”
(Mukheijeel990; 172)
Vintia does her best to look good and cook well for Kumar as any other Indian housewives. She is cautious of her reputation as a good wife in the Indian community in America.
“While her husband treats her like the queen of his heart, she
is never really involved in his life, and his relationship with
her is based on the erotic rather than the passionate love.”
(Kumar Nagendra, 2001; 73)
The Lady from Lucknow
The immigrants attempt to follow the native American lifestyle unsuccessfully.
Nafeesa Hafeez is the narrator and "The Lady from Lucknow'. Nafeesa tries to get assimilate with American culture irrespective of her religion, culture and origin. She
53 experiences two extreme cultural contexts. One is highly orthodox, regulated atmosphere at Rawalpindi and other is equally liberal, the free culture at Georgia.
Nafeesa is basically from Lucknow. She is bom and brought up in a very rigid social- cultural atmosphere of Lucknow. Nafeesa shifts from Lucknow to Rawalpindi after the partition of India. She gets married to Iqbal just at the age of seventeen. Her early marriage especially her arranged marriage indicates the strong social, cultural and religious hold. Iqbal works for IBM. The nature of his work compels him to shift his family from Rawalpindi to Lebanon, Brazil, Zambia, France and now in Atlanta,
Georgia. Iqbal’s views about America and Americans are not good. He considers them ‘crazy for sex’.
The story beautifully exhibits the failure of the immigrants to follow the native culture blindly. Most of the time, an individual behaves as per social, cultural norms. Certain desires remain hidden due to social censorship. These suppressed desires suddenly burst out in the free atmosphere. The same case is of Nafeesa. As she is brought up under the strict religious and social observation, love affair is to be considered as a rebel. She could not dare to fall in love because of social obligations. She still recalls her neighbour Husseina’s episode which she witnessed in her childhood. Husseina is beaten to death by her father as a punishment for falling in love with a Hindu boy.
Now Nafeesa wants to live a new and thrilling life in the free atmosphere of America.
She wants to enjoy all those things which were prohibited in the past. Nafeesa becomes successful to catch the attention of a ripe, white, married American man of
sixty five, James Beamish. Her step to entertain this post-marital relationship is an
attempt to live a free life. America provides her this freedom which she used to
dream. This intrigue can be seen as a strong reaction to suppressed past values and
desires. In other words, Nafeesa decides to be “The Lady of Atlanta” by rubbing out
the past.i.e. "The Lady from Lucknow'". Nafeesa always contrasts and compares the
past with the present. She finds nothing troublesome in her involvement in a white
man, James. As she wants to enjoy the thrill of romance which she could not dare in
her youthful days.
The ideas of romance or love making are influenced by culture. Indians or South
Asians enjoy secretive relationship whereas foreigners enjoy openness in their
54 lovemaking. So the boldness of James is catching to Nafeesa. She does not hesitate to accompany him in her own house. She does not bother about neighbours because...
“Aduhery in my house is probably no different, no quiter
than in other houses in this neighbourhood.”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 30)
Nafeesa discards the social, moral and ethical norms to enjoy and experience this new way of life. However, her love affair is unable to raise the jealousy of Kate, James’ wife. She catches them in her own bedroom. Kate did not show signs of violence and jealousy. On the contrary, she makes Nafeesa to feel a matter of pity. Her cool reaction on her husband’s adultery is unpredictable to Nafeesa.
At the end, Nafeesa realizes her own exploitation as a mere sexual object. She fails to raise the jealousy of James’ wife.
Mitali R.Pati comments on this cultural complexity,
"The conflict in the social codes of the East and the West, the
old and the new shows the hopelessly binary nature of all
human desire. For the diasporic Indians, love symbolizes the
anarchy of the self.”
(Pati Mitali., 1993; 198)
2.2.2 Familial Ties
A Father
Mukherjee skillfully presented the patterns of family in Indian context as well as
abroad. She deliberately compared the changing geographical location in relevance to
cultural transformation took place after migration. The family in this story can be
observed in this direction.
Mr. Bhowmick is a successful employee in one of the reputed companies in Detroit.
However he is targeted in case of his habits and likings by his wife and daughter. The
Indian woman is supposed to be a good housewife and a loyal devotee to the God. But
in case of Mrs Bhowmick is exactly opposite. She gets annoyed by her husband's
55 Sanskrit prayers. She is very ambitious and does not believe the God’s grace. She used to say, “There'd no peace in the house until she hid Kali-Mata in a suitcase.”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 60)
The significance given to the Indian male in family structure is totally ignored in this family. His wife is dominating in decision-making and regulating the family. She also makes fun of her husband and his thinking. She used it to cook dishes belonging to other nations especially French sandwich toast.
The family life of Mr. Bhowmick is stunned when they get the news of their unmarried daughter's pregnancy. The shocking news is treated as a stigma to the reputation of their family. Mr. Bhowmick blames his wife as responsible for the shame. This incident is evident to realise the existence of family and familial ties in
American context.
The Lady from Lucknow
The story is all about an immigrant who revolts against her native culture and family pattern. Nafeesa Hafeez is the female protagonist of the story. She gets married at the age of 17 only. She married Iqbal from Islamabad. She has a good family settled in
Georgia. Iqbal has negative opinion about Americans. So He says,
"You’ll distract the golfers. Americans are crazy for sex, you
know that. ”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 24)
As Iqbal has long tours for business. He has little time to spare for his family. Nafeesa develops an extramarital relationship with James Beamish. This action of Nafeesa can be interpreted as a revolt to traditional family life. She ventures to form a sexual union with James without any guilt.
2.2.3 Generational Gap
Bharati Mukherjee focused troubles of immigrants belonging to South Asia in her
writing. Her short fiction aims to present the realistic picture of all types of
immigrants struggling in America to fulfill their American dream. The migration to
America has the history of several years. It is subdivided into time phases and types of
56 immigrants. Mukherjee gave little attention to highlight the generation gap in her short stories.
The Imaginary Assassin
The story deals with the woes of Sikh immigrants settled in California. The earlier phase of migration was full of peasants and farmers from Punjab. The story recalls the dreadful period of partition. As the title indicates, it is an imaginary assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi by the narrator’s grandfather.
The narrator is the third generation Indian-American who has least knowledge of his mystic past. His grandfather is one of the strongest bond with his Homeland. His grandfather expresses contempt for the Sikh community settled in America in the following way,
"All the chicks in America, Grandfather'd complained were
knock-kneed and weekly. They’d lost their dim , their zest, as
soon as they’d landed overseas.”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 180)
The narrator records his observation about his father. His father is aloof fi'om the Sikh comm unity. ■'He must have been a progressive Sikh, because we wore no turban and his hair had a jagged, raw, freshly chopped-off look to it.” (Mukherjee, 1990; 183)
Thus the story presents the intergenerational gap in physical appearance as well as mindset of immigrants. The next generations attempt to erase their cultural and religious appearance to assimilate with the mainstream of the host nation. It is commonly observed that the third generation immigrants are almost Americanised not only in their appearance but also in their thoughts.
57 2.2.4 Nostalgia
Nostalgia
Dr. Manny Patel in “Nostalgia” presents the homesick Indian American. He is a
Psychiatrist working at a State Hospital in Queens, New York. He is professionally a successful person and living a peaceful life. He marries Camille, who is a nurse. His decision to marry her was the remedy to extend his expiring visa. His marriage with
Camille was a well-planned strategy. In other words, it was the marriage of compromise. He is not fully involved with his wife. It is just a kind of solution to the problem of documentation. Marriage is considered as one of the best solutions to solve the matter of citizenship. Here the concept of marriage changes completely. The decision is taken on the practical ground rather than sentimental.
It is a popular and useful trend that the immigrants get married with the permanent citizen or Native American. He considers his greatest achievement in his life is to have a green card. However, Camille does not share his ideas. She makes fun of his decision to vote for President Regan. His eagerness and discussions over president's poll are ridiculed by Camille.
The fiiture plan of Dr. Patel includes taking retirement in India. He is planning to buy a condominium in one of the developed colonies of New Delhi. He counts his earnings and belongings in dollars. It is habitual to him, to calculate his assets in terms of dollars and later on change it into the Indian rupee. It gives him a great pleasure. This pleasure relieves him from the painful remembrance of his hardships and toil in America. It also helps him to forget the stings of dissatisfied married life with Camille.
In spite of all the riches, Manny's homesickness is notable. His memories of his motherland and his old aged father are fully reflected in the following lines.
"He lived with the fear that his father would die before he
could free himself from the crazies of New York and go
h om e.”
(Mukherjeel990; 99)
58 He is not at home in US. He refers to these days and activities in America as crazy.
He is running after money very hard. He has a planned to return to India and take care of his father. Then he will feel pretty relaxed. His responsibility as the only son of his parents makes him restless. As a son, he is expected to look after his parents in their old age. The cultural values are distinguishing factors between Camille and Manny.
Camille was not on good terms with her mother. Camille does not bother to take note of all these sentimental things.
Manny’s problem is that he cannot explain this homesickness to his wife. The loss of home and homeliness is deeply buried in his heart. Manny is the only child of his parents. He was bom because of the blessings fi'om goddess Parvati. His moral sense of duty constantly suggests him to visit India and his parents.
“He should go back to India. He should look after his parents.
Out of a sense of duty to the goddess, if not out of love for
his father.”
(Mukhei3eel990; 100)
In this nostalgic mood, he comes across Padma in “little India" shop. Padma seems to be his dream girl. He gets fascinated towards her. He finds a typical Bollywood heroine in her beauty. In his very first meeting, he invites her on a date. In the form of
Padma, Manny's hidden sexual desires get awaken. He wishes that Indian girl like
Padma should have been his wife. His nostalgic memories about India and Indian beauty arise suddenly. Padma unexpectedly accepts his invitation. Manny has never imagined that such a beautiful Indian girl will accept his invitation so easily.
Dr. Manny Patel has two selves; one is public or social as a Psychiatric, and other is of private and interested in fulfilling hidden sexual desires. After his marriage, he burned his India society Membership card. This act tries to show his loyalty to the host land. At the same time, he wants to cut off his ties with India, which he could not. He knows it very well that perfect assimilation is impossible. The problem with these uprooted Indians is that they cannot get peace of mind. They want to be
American which is denied by the mainstream and they want to forget their origin which they cannot. So it is the destiny of these immigrants.
59 “But he knew he would forever shuttle between the old world
and the new.”
(Mukheijeel990; 105)
Indian names are marketed skillfully in America. The hotels are named after Indian kings, emperors and famous personalities. The Indian dishes are served here, and an artificial Indian atmosphere is created with the help of Indian music. All these are the ways to recollect the Indian memoirs. Manny chooses “Shahajahan” on Park Avenue for his illicit meeting with Padma. He selects “Shahajahan” hotel only to get Indian atmosphere for his fantasy. To Padma, he regrets his marriage with Camille. He also wishes that he would have married an Indian woman selected by his parents. He considers his marriage as mere compromise and demand of the then situation.
HINDUS
The migrated people are always on the horns of a dilemma, as they can not belong to a singular identity. Their past constantly follows them like a shadow. They cannot get rid of their histories. A large baggage of nostalgic memoirs is carried on by these immigrants throughout their lives.
Leela Lahiri is the narrator in the story, ‘Hindus’. She reveals an immigrants’ fluid identity. Her sense of belongingness is always in a dilemma. She has a dual identity.
One is American and other is Indian especially Bengali Brahmin. The first is related to the present, and other is associated with the past. Leela is not the only immigrant to
face this identity complex. She represents the large class of immigrants who
encounters this psychological trauma.
The story focuses on the distinction between immigrant and expatriate. The minute
observations are recorded through the characters like Leela and Pat. An immigrant is a
person who comes to a country where they were not bom in order to settle there
whereas expatriate is one expel from a country. One is voluntary and other is
involuntary. Being immigrant Leela has no personal grudges against India. She is
equally proud of her being American as well as her Bengali Brahmin past. She does
not like to call her as Pat’s niece as Pat is from a lower caste in Indian social
hierarchy.
60 I disdained all kinship to H.R.H. I was a Bengali Brahmin;
maharajahs- not to put too sharp a point on it- were frankly
beneath me, by at least one cast......
(Mukherjee, 1990; 133)
Pat is of Indian origin. His full name is H.R.H. Maharajah Patwant Singh of Gotlah.
He stands for expatriate ideology. He abbreviated his name as ‘Pat’ in an attempt to assimilate American society and culture.
Leela’s father is still living in his ancestral place, Ranikhet. So her ties with India are unbreakable. She realizes the significance of the glorious past in the following way.
“No matter how passionately we link bodies with our new
countries, we never escape the early days.”
(Mukherjeel990; 139)
On the contrary, Pat shares his bitter memories of the past. He recollects the memories of Indian days with contemptuous note. He recalls the memories of Leela’s watchman as “short, nasty and brutal”.
His negative attitude towards India' and the Indians is often seen in his expressions.
“The country’s changed totally; you know ...... crude rustic
types have taken over. The dhotiwallahs... they would wrap
themselves in loincloths if it got them more votes. No
integrity, no finesse. The country has gone to the dogs, I tell
you.
(Mukherjee 1990; 135)
Pat could not forget his humiliation and ill-treatment given to him. The communists treated him like a common criminal under the charge of selling family heirlooms to
Americans. He realizes that America is better evaluator in comparison to India. He holds India responsible for compelling him to migrate to America.
“The country has no respect anymore. The country has
nothing. It has driven us abroad with whatever assets we
could salvage.”
(Mukherjeel990; 135)
61 Leela does not support his perspective about India. Pat’s nostalgic memories are not fully negative. He remembers his golden days of hunting huge Bengali tigers with
Leela’s father. He ironically contrasts the melodies of the palace ballroom with singing of Jackals. Pat records his Indian memoirs in the form of a book. In other words, his nostalgic recollections get immense significance and a way of income in the form of book royalty.
A Father
Mr. Bhowmick is a middle-aged, married man. He is a religious man by nature. He is working as an officer in General Motors, Detroit. His day begins by reciting prayers of goddess Kali in Sanskrit. The migrated people carry their religion along with them.
He reserved a place in his well furnished flat for Kali, the goddess of violence as well as power.
Mr. Bhowmick tries to preserve his cultural values, rituals in the materialistic world of Detroit. His ideas, dreams and lifestyle constantly reflect his original, native culture. He has not forgotten the memories of his mother, her chullah, and her recipes in his American well equipped kitchen. His mother gave a whole bedroom to her collection of gods and goddesses whereas he could provide a small comer to his patron goddess. Kali Mata in his flat.
He still believes in Hinduism and hidden meanings behind omens. A sneeze is more than a sneeze for him. He believes a sneeze at the start of a journey brings bad luck.
So he stops at sneeze of his neighbor, Al Staznaik. At the same time, he does not want his daughter to know his superstitious nature. As he lives in America, to follow omens is something odd.
Visitors
It is a common tendency among migrated characters to revive memories of their homeland whenever they get an opportunity. The community gets together either to celebrate or to commemorate memories of their motherland.
The characters like Shailen Kumar and others live in America as a necessity. Actually they are missing their homeland severely. So whenever they get together, they discuss
62 local politics in India, cultural activities in Calcutta. They request Vinita to sing poems of Rabindranath Tagore to recapture Indian heritage.
Kumar purposefully decorates his two bedroom condominium with Vishnupuri clay horses. These working males try to balance their dreams and their homesickness by creating Indian atmosphere at home. They want to relax their stress and try to feel at home by maintaining Indian miliu at their furnished flats in America. It may be one of the ways to compensate the loss of homely feelings and homeland.
2.2.5. Maladies of Migration
"Darkness’’ reveals a new world created by the transformations of the United States by new faces from all over the world.
Mukherjee’s short stories reflect her own life as an Indian immigrant in Canada and later the United States. Many of Mukherjee’s characters are Indian women who are victims of racism and sexual assaults. They are often victimised by desperate acts of violence. They cannot relate themselves neither to the culture of the West nor the
Indian society, they lef^ behind.
Isolated Incidents
In 'Isolated Incidents', one comes to the issue of racial and colour discrimination in the multicultural society of Canada. The ill-treatment given to the immigrants is
clearly visible. The nation has accepted the multiculturalism agenda only on the
documents, but in the practical life, these migrated people have to face atrocities and
injustice. These cases of ill treatment are deeply rooted in superiority complex of the
dominant group in the society. Instead of quality and eligibility, race becomes an
eminent factor for employment. Multiculturalism expects equality in opportunity
which is completely denied by the dominance of the white race. Rejection on the basis
of skin, colour and race is very common experience in case of these migrated people.
Dr. Supariwala is a young, enthusiastic and eligible candidate for the post of a
teacher. She is interviewed by the white racist interviewers. They make fun of her
look and accent patterns. Her interview becomes a long episode of humiliation and
sarcasm for her. The nasty remarks passed by the interviewers vividly present the
63 hidden contempt for coloured people. The contemptuous attitude of the white racist interviewers ceaselessly forced her to leave the claim on the said post. eg-
“She belongs to the world of research, not of the classroom,
wrote one chairman, adding shyly, “like many of her
countrywomen,” “She should apply to Stats Can” said
another, “Sing-song accent”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 79)
Though Dr. Supariwala is a Canadian citizen, her candidature is denied only on the basis of her South Asian origin. Even the citizenship granted by the government could not bring her equal status. It shows that acceptance of these people is document and not socially. Dr. Supariwala is not a single case. She is the representative of a large group of migrated people in Canada.
Ann is a personnel working in the Human Rights Office situated in Toronto. The office and the personnel are examples of hypocrite nature of Canada towards the immigrants. Her duty is to note the cases of Human Rights violations. However, she insists on rejecting the complaints of the suffered people by defending the Canada government and the Canadians. Her attitude is insensible. Her involvement in the job is worth questionable. A complete disinterest and dryness are clearly visible in her conversation with the affected people. She just records all these cases for the sake of record only. These cases are referred to as “fodder for Royal Commission”. Racial discrimination is one of the strongest reasons for assaults on immigrations.
The contrast between Canadian and American society’s outlook is magnified through the following conversations held in the office of Human Rights, Canada. When a suffered immigrants burst out,
Canadians are mean as hell;”
“Life is hopeless, man, no justice, no redress.”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 84)
64 But Ann does not agree with all such allegations made on Canada and the Canadians.
On the contrary, she tries to prove Canada better in comparison with America."1 don't know about that,” said Ann(Mukherjee. 1990; 84)
Police treat these cases of assaults as 'Isolated Incidents'. The title of the story itself explains the lack of seriousness of the government towards migrated people and their sufferings.
Tamurlane
''Tamurlane” gives an account of South Asian illegal immigrants and their problems.
It’s a pathetic description of these people living in hell like situation in Canada.
Mr. Aziz runs a restaurant in Toronto named “Mumtaz Bar B-Q”. His personnel are illegal immigrants from South Asian countries. These people came from different countries to brighten their futures abroad. In order to raise their financial condition, they work hard. This restaurant exhibits the world of illegal immigrants constantly under the fear of being caught and punished by Canadian police squad. They live very miserable life with no comforts and peace of mind. They work and rest in the same place.
The narrator is one of these immigrants; he reveals the woes and fears experienced by them .
“We sleep in shifts in my apartment, three illegal on guard
playing cards and three bedded dorm on mats of the floor.
One man next door broke his leg jumping out the window.
Fd been whistling in the bathroom, and he'd mistaken it for
our warning tune. The walls are flimsy.”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 114)
The narrator reviews his decision of coming to Canada the regrets his present life. He
questions himself.
"W as this what I left Ludhiana for?”
(Mukherjee, 1990; 114)
65 Other than the narrator, Gupta is a pathetic figure. He is the Indian-Canadian cook who works as a Tandoor Chef in the same restaurant. The narrator does not matter whether the person is legal or illegal irrespective of his caste or religion. All other illegal workers except Mr. Aziz and Gupta are under heavy debts of shifting agent in
Delhi.
Six years ago, Gupta was brutally assaulted by some racist Canadians. Their contempt haired crossed all limits of humanity. They throw him on the subway tracks in the
city. Gupta became crippled forever.
The narrator and others are habituated with the raids of Mounties. They know where to hide. They have bed roles on the — behind the sacks of rice. The Mounties treat
these illegal immigrants brutally and inhumanly. Gupta has Canadian — to defend himself But he was insulted by the Mounties. They forcefully tried to arrest him. But
Gupta attacked when furiously to reach them a good lesson.
Mr. Aziz wants to shift his business out of Toronto because
Canadians don’t want us; it’s like Uganda all over again. He
' can feel it in his bones.
(Mukherjee, 1990; 118)
Dr. Choudhary is another case of racial hatred in Canada. He has to leave his seventy-
thousand -dollar plus practice due to the cultural assault of some Canadian. The court
did not punish those boys who beat up the worshippers at the Durga Puja festival.
"'Tamurlane" presents the most graphic story of Canadian racism. The story’s title is
derived from of the central Asian Warrior king, decisively nicknamed Timur, the
Lame.
The World According to Hsu
This story vividly exhibits the burning topic of racial and colour discrimination. The
citizenship does not assure a good and equal treatment to all irrespective of their
'original race.'
6 6 Ratna is of Indian origin whereas her husband Graeme Clayton is a Canadian professor of psychology. The difference in their point of view is clearly visible in their conversation.
Hyphenated Identity is one of the major issues among immigrants. Ratna is neither
Indian nor Canadian. She expresses this psychological trauma through her dialogues.
Her origin is Indian undoubtedly. India is her motherland. But he left India and settled in a foreign land. She shared two identities; one is her birthplace, and other is the place of current stay. These migrated people cannot rub out their past and at the same time they cannot adopt the foreign culture wholeheartedly. They are caught in the dilemma of not losing the past and desire for the new future.
The world According to Hsu” reveals another face of Canadian racism. Hsu is a writer who dreams the world free from cultural collisions, dilemmas, and separation. But the reality of the world is entirely different. The world is facing strong racism, cultural diversities and a variety of collisions.
Ratna is of Indian origin. She married Graeme Clayton, a Canadian Professor of
Psychology at McGill University, Montreal. They are on a holiday trip to an Island off the court of Africa. They have a plan to enjoy the trip, visit the museum. Graeme plans to convince Ratna to move to Toronto, where he’d been offered.
Due to anarchic condition and social upheaval they have to confine themselves to their suit. The curfew spoiled their plan of wandering. The taxi driver considers her as
Indian, which she denies arrogantly.
Ratna expresses her concern over living in Toronto. Ratna disagrees with her husband on the issue of Toronto’s safety. She quoted a number of incidents to explain
Canadian racism very clearly.
A week before their flight, a Bengali woman was beaten and
nearly blinded on the street. And the week before that an
eight-year-old Punjabi boy was struck by a car announcing
on its bumper: CANADA GREEN, PAINT A PAKI.
(Mukherjee, 1990; 47)
67 According to Ratna, Toronto may be the safest place for a white man and not for her.
In Toronto, she will be treated as ‘Paki’. This metaphor itself is quite disturbing. So she does not complain their stay in such island only to postpone the schedule in
Toronto. The feeling of Taki' or otherness is purely based on racial and colour discrimination. The Canadian racist exhibits their contempt through a number of violent incidents and physical biaitality.
As Clayton already accepts the offer in Toronto, he tries to pacify her agitated mind.
He ensures her that such things will not happen in her case. But Ratna gives an example of an Indian professor’s wife.
“An Indian professor’s wife was jumped at the red light, right
in her car. They threw her groceries on the street. They said
Pakis should not drive big cars.”
(Mukherjeel990; 47)
This incident demonstrates the insecure feelings on both the sides. The immigrants are scared to see the ugly face of the host land whereas the Canadians are also suffering from the same feeling. In the deep heart, the Canadians are feeling the sense of losing their own rights and ground when these pakis are progressing materialistically. These outsiders are doing well in their own country.
So Ratna is worried about the treatment given by the Canadians to her. Above events certainly terrifies her. On the contrary, Clayton is at peace being a white man. The difference in their approach is based on the color discrimination.
The Middleman and Other Stories
The Middleman and Other Stories was published in 1988. It depicts a multicultural world of America and Canada. The female protagonists' ceaseless efforts to assimilate with this new world are the core part of these stories. The title of the collection is very catchy. All the characters including the protagonists of these stories are ’middleman' in respect to their position in the new world. Mukherjee is very particular to understand the psyche of the third world woman. After all Mukherjee experienced the trauma of cultural conflicts in her real life. She successfully presented woman's anxiety with depth.
68 2.3.1 Cultural Encounters
A Wife’s Story
The first wave of immigrants to the New World was of peasants and unskilled laborers. The second wave of immigrants includes skilled labour. But now a day, a large group of immigrants including highly educated people are migrating to the West to obtain further academic excellence and better employment opportunities.
Parma is the female protagonist of the story. She pursues her doctoral degree in
America. She leaves her role of the Indian housewife far away. Panna is a product of the postcolonial situation.
To survive in America, the immigrants have to face all kinds of trials and tribulations.
They have to seal their hearts. They have to forgo all sense of morality, decency and
decorum implied by their native culture. This is the case of Charity Chin, an
"orientar’ model and Panna’s roommate.
“She had her eyes fixed eight or nine months ago and out of
gratitude sleeps with her plastic surgeon with every third
W ednesday”
(Mukheijee, 1988; 29)
As soon as she receives the message of her husband’s arrival, Panna returns to the role
of an Indian wife;
“I change out of cotton pants and shirt I have been wearing
all day and put on a sari to meet my husband at JFK. 1 don’t
forget the jewelry; the marriage necklace 'Mangalsutra’, gold
drop earrings, heavy gold bangles. 1 don't wear them every
day.”
(M ukherjee, 1988; 3 3 )
Her adaptability is in contrast with her husband's mental block when he visits
America. Panna is highly pressurized under the burden of two cultures, and she has to
balance this cultural imbalance meticulously. She mutters,
69 ’’tonight I should make up to him for my years away, the
gutted trucks, the degree I’ll never use in India. I want to
pretend with him (husband) that nothing has changed.”
(Mukherjee, 1988; 40)
Her personality is shuffled in between a liberated research scholar in America and an obedient Indian housewife in Ahmedabad.
Orbiting
It is a first person narrative in which Renata; an Italian-American girl narrates the whole affair. She belongs to the third generation of immigrants and for her italianness is now a metaphor. Renata is her Italian name; now she is Rindy. She had formerly been in love with Vic, but he left her saying;
I’m leaving babe. New Jersey doesn't do it for me anymore. (Mukherjee, 1988; 62)
Her present lover is 'R o'- Roshan from Kabul, he fled fi'om there to take classes at
NJIT to become an electrical engineer. Some immigrants migrate to the new world due to Houston situation in their native place. Roshan is one of them was affected by warlike situation in Afghanistan stop Rindy is an American and by adopting ‘Ro’ as her lover she embraces an exotic immigrant and thinks it her duty to Americanize him so that he can survive there. He comes fi'om a 'macho culture’. Ro has changed her entire perception about America.
When I’m with Ro, I feel I am looking at America through the wrong end of the telescope. He makes it sound like a police State, with sudden raids, papers, detention centers, deportations and torture and death waiting in wings. (Mukherjee, 1988; 66)
As this is the fate of the newly migrated people in America. ‘Ro‘ come from a
'culture of pain.'
The skin on his back is speckled and lumpy from bums, but
when 1 ask he laughs, many villagers whacked him with a
burning stick for cheekiness, he explains. He's ashamed that
he comes from a culture of pain. "Ro‘ reveals he was tortured
in jail.... Electrodes, canes freezing tanks. He leaves nothing
out.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 73)
70 Thanksgiving Day dinner records an awkward moment from Ro’s point of view as he is an outsider whereas for Rindi, an Itahan-American girl as an occasion for introducing her Afghan lover to her family. Here we see cultural confiision resulting from the encounter of immigrants from two different continents. A successful Italian-
American businessman and father of Rindy can never accept a man like ’Ro’ to be a suitable life partner for his daughter. Rindy’s father takes him for one of the refugees in the famine camp and assures him,You won’t starve this afternoon. (Mukherjee,
1988; 68)
But Rindy has no problem in her choice of Ro. She knows,
“Each culture establishes its own manly posture, different
ways of claiming space”
(Mukherjee, 1988; 70)
She loves his emotionality, his way o f appreciating her as she sincerely confesses.
1 realize all in a rush how much I love this man with his
blemished, tortured body... Ro’s my chance to heal the
world.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 74)
And now she vows;
I shall teach him how to walk like an American, how to
dress like Brent but better, how to fill up room as Dad does
instead of melting and blending but sticking out in the
Afghan way.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 74-75)
Fighting For the Rebound
The story is dealing with the problem of immigrants. It is a first-person narrative of a young aristocrat immigrant from Asia. The story is revealed from a native American's point of view.
71 Blanquita, the protagonist, is from Philippines. She is one of the strugglers to succeed
in America. She acknowledges the difference between cultures. She dares to adapt herself and believes that the real life began for her at JKF when she got passed the
customs and immigration.
Her relationship keeps on breaking continuously because the institution of marriage holds no water in America. Young couples in America prefer the ‘live-in’ style where
sex is the ephemeral bond. As mutual love and trust is not the foundation of such
relations in younger American couples. These American youngsters have to face
frequent break-ups. Young immigrant like Blanquita is caught in the web of sexual
freedom in the name of liberation in desperate attempts to succeed in the United
States.
Griff and Blanquita also go through the process of breaking up. Griff, the narrator, is
keen to save his relationship with Blanquita and proposes to her truce. But Blanquita
shout at him;
Not just you Griff...... you’re all emotional cripples. All
you Americans, You just worry about your own meshy little
relationships. You don’t care how much you hurt the world.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 85)
This defeats the cultural contradictions a woman from the eastem world to the
‘emotionless', ‘soulless’ practicality of the American culture.
Thus everyone notices that an immigrant's story is not always one of success only. It
is fiall of pain and anguish as it happens with Blanquita.
Jasmine
The story ‘Jasmine" also explores some of the more appalling and grotesque aspects
of the culture collisions. In this story, the protagonist is a young Trinidadian woman
namely Jasmine, who has been entered illegally into the US. Jasmine is proud of her
family in Port of Spain, in other words, her comfort level past. Her quest of identity is
prominent in her exploration of America. Her being nobody in America is better than
being somebody in Trinidad. Here she is free to trace her new identity because "who
would know in Detroit that she was Dr. Vasanji's daughter?”
72 First of all, Jasmine starts working for her fellow Trinidadians the TABOOS. She is an intelligent girl who has come to America for making something of her life. She is ardent and laborious and on Sunday mornings, she helps to unload packing crapes of
Caribbean spices in a shop on the next block.
“This was new life, and she wanted to learn everything”
(Mukheijee, 1988; 129)
“that evening she had a job with the Moffitt. Bill Moffit
taught molecular biology and Lara Hatch Moffitt, his wife,
was a performing artist...... Moffitt had a little girl. Muffin,
whom jasmine was to look after”
(Mukherjee, 1988; 131)
Jasmine is surprised to see Bill cooking, a professor doing this without “getting paid to do it”. It also surprises her “the Moffitt didn’t go to church though they seem to be good Christians. They just didn’t talk church talk” (p.l31). At times. Jasmine suffers feats of nostalgia but even then there is no looking back for her. It is her own choice.
Lara remains away from home for her perfonnances, and she is left alone in the house with Bill and Moffitt. The story concludes with her seduction by her master on the same Turkish carpet which she used to clean every day.
Thus, we see that jasmine is an adventurer, ready to pay the price for realizing her
American dream and the same zeal for absorption in the mainstream of American culture.
The Management of Grief
It is the concluding stunning story of a tragedy and its consequences. The story dramatizes the consequences of a plane crash that actually occurred. An Air India Jet enroots Canada exploded over the sea off the West Coast of Ireland claiming heavy toll of life. Mukherjee remarkably perceptive about the effects of the disaster on the victims' relatives in Canada; the isolation and withdrawal of these Indian families despite clumsy official efforts to help them, and the varying degrees to which they were able to adapt.
73 This story is of bereavement. Mrs. Bhave makes a brave effort to cope with the loss of her husband and two sons killed in an air crash. This was suspected that it was an act of terrorism by Sikh militants. A lot of immigrants, mainly Indians, have lost their family members in this tragedy. The people she encounters are the Irish authorities and the policemen who cannot control their feelings.
The story is all about culture, attitude to face grief in different ways. The writer is not interested in political lies about the tragic incident. She just wants to narrate the pathetic condition of survivors and unbearable sufferings on the loss of beloved ones.
Judith Templeton, the social worker comes to her for support in rescue operations because she is ‘a pillar’. Judith fails to see beneath the skin. Shaila cannot tell her though she wants to say;
I want to say her, 1 wish I could scream, starve, walk into
Lake O ntario, jum p from a bridge...... I am a freak. N o one
who has ever known me would think of me reacting this way.
This terrible calm will not go away.
(Mukheijee, 1988; 183)
Bharati Mukheijee presented the psychological trauma of Shaila in the following touching lines,
I am trapped between two modes of knowledge. At thirty-six
I am too old to start over and too young to give up. Like my
husband’s spirit, I flutter between worlds.
(Mukheijee, 1988; 189)
Shaila’s grief of loss of her husband is heartrending. She tries to overcome the situation with exemplary courage. She sets up a trust in the name of Vikram, her husband, and pathetically shares;
"I wait, I listen and 1 pray, but Vikram has not returned to
me. The voices and the shapes and the nights filled with
visions ended abruptly several weeks ago. 1 take it as a sign.”
(Tondon,2013:126)
74 The clumsy attempt of Judith, the Canadian social worker, whose mechanic and bookish knowledge take the place of sincere sympathy and understanding, as she admits her helplessness;
We want to help, but our hands are tied in so many ways. We
have to distribute money to some people, and there are legal
documents- these things can be done. We have interpreters,
but we don’t always have the human touch, or may be the
right human touch.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 183)
Such situations highlight the cultural differences. For the Canadians, monetary help can compensate the loss of victimized people. They fail to understand the sentiments of aging Sikh parents, as the social worker sarcastically comments:
They think signing a paper is signing their son’s death
warrants, don’t they?
(Mukherjee, 1988; 195)
This uncertainty is the fate of these immigrants and tragedy is a common phenomenon in their life immensely accentuated by the bicultural tensions.
The Tenant
Maya represents those immigrants who adopt the sexual way as a part of
Americanization. It is frequently pointed out in Mukherjee's short stories that the easiest and the best way to join the main flow is to have marital and sexual relations with the American counterpart. Maya is a typical immigrant who has been wandering through many places; Calcutta, North Carolina, New Jersy and finally Iowa, has indulged in sexual encounters with many persons she confesses.
"She has slept with married men, with nameless men, with
men little more than boys’*
(Mukherjee. 1988; 103)
75 She has never slept with an Indian man and now she madly wants to do so and
responds promptly to dubious person ad in the immigrant Indian weekly. She locates
her male counterpart in Ashok Mehta. He is a sexually liberated professional divided between romantic love and sexual promiscuity. Thus, Maya is always on the move
and makes anarchy of her life to find the real sense of belongingness, the real sense of
“wholeness” and “fulfillment” in her life. For Maya, the American dream is her
religion. The eternal enchantress corrupts the ethos of both east and west. She remains
neither an American nor an Indian. The real condition is that Maya is trapped in the
net of two cultures. Her wandering from one place to another is the result of her
insecure feeling and her quest for the sense of belongingness.
Maya resembles herself with her new lover Fred. He is a man without arms. He refers
both of them as wounded. She has been wounded emotionally and spiritually in her
pursuit of the American dream. But she refuses to be recognized as a freak.
Maya's behaviour and lifestyle in America can be taken as a forceful reaction to the
previous life of superstitions and bondage. Sometimes this unlimited freedom and
individualism lead them rather divert them to a life of pain and depression. The irony
is that this refashioning of the self is both painful and exhilarating. In an interview,
Mukherjee asserts;
We immigrants have fascinating tales to relate. Many of us have lived in newly
independent or emerging countries which are plagued by civil and religious conflicts.
We have experienced rapid changes in the history of the nation in which we lived.
When we uproot ourselves from those countries and come here, either by choice or
out of necessity, we suddenly must absorb 200 years of American history and learn to
adapt American society. Our lives are remarkable often heroic.
( sathyakalatiger, 2014)
Mukherjee illustrates this heroic quality through her characters who are filled with a
hustlers kind of energy, and more importantly. They take risks they wouldn’t have
taken in their old, comfortable worlds to solve their problems. As they change
citizenship, they are rebom. Maya is a woman caught in the mingled web of two very
different cultures.
76 2.3.2 Familial Ties
Among all the diasporic authors, Bharati Mukheijee challenges the translucent lives of the outsiders particularly that of the women, who are steady and solid in their characters, however, are candidly not steady.
Globalization has deeply influenced and transformed the old concept of marriage. A marriage is considered as a union between two families and not of two individuals only, as it is in the western countries. The marriage system in India has a long tradition. High value is given to the marriage system. However, the marriage system in America is quite different. In American society, an individual avails full freedom of choice in issues related to selecting a life partner, love, marriage, dating, and interrelationships. Marriage is considered as an agreement. According to American culture, the married couple is a decision-making unit without any involvement or interference of relatives. On the contrary, Indian family believes in joint family structure. All members participate in decision-making. The social pressure in Indian context regulates the marital relationships. So what Indian marriages last long. But the shift in geographical location and cultural milieu affect the thinking way of Indian immigrants. A large number of Indian immigrants choose non-Indian partners out of fascination or situational demands. But such marriages based on compromise often lead to a successful end.
But occasionally couples from diverse backgrounds are caught up in a stifling relationship. The western concepts throw up more freedom, but eastern concepts hold them back and ultimately the individuals in alien society are tom by these forces.
Angela
Bharati Mukherjee's characterization has a wide range including men and women of different nationalities and of varying ages. The common factor among them is that there is no desire in them to return to the country of their origin, but the new country, while guaranteeing a better livelihood than at home, does not necessarily guarantee happiness.
77 Angela is an orphan Bangladesh Christian, who has been adopted by a Midwest farm family in Iowa. She has stunning past and memories of brutal treatment faced during the war period.
Angela expresses her sordid tale;
When I was six, soldiers, with bayonets cut off my nipples.
Sister Stella at the orphanage would tell me- they left you for
dead, but the lord saved you. Now it's your tum to do Him
credit.
(Tondon, 2013:69)
She is renamed as ‘Angelia’ by Sister Stella. The name she was bom, and the past she lived is lost to her. She became a part of the American family in her later life. She behaves normally and tries to live a life of dutiful Christian. But quietly all the while she remains caged by her history. She is leading a life of physical and mental transformation.
Meanwhile, she is courted by a distasteful successful Indian doctor from Goa called
Dr. Menzes. He offers her intimacy, fellowship. He tempts with domesticity.
The catastrophe, the tragedy which had overwhelmed her in the past- so long ago, so far away- remains at the heart of her world in this country. However in spite of all the temptations of domesticity by the suitor, Angela is determined to resist the offer and chalk out her own career. She is the fighter immigrant Mukheqee celebrates.
Fathering
It is a story of a family affected by an immigrant. Eng, a Vietnamese child, rescued her American father from Saigon, is brought home. Her father Jason is narrating the whole thing;
Vietnam didn’t happen, and I'd put it behind me in marriage
and fatherhood and teaching high school... until Eng popped
up in my life, 1 really believed it didn't happen.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 118)
78 Jase, the Vietnam Vet, is the middleman caught between his American girl friend
Sharon and his Vietnamese daughter Eng. He notices a change in the behaviors of his girlfriend who is not comfortable with the Sagon kid, Eng;
She accuses Eng of spoiling her happy world;
Everything was fine until she got here. Send her back Jase. If
you love, send her back.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 123)
Sharon is looking helpless and pathetic, and Jase is filled with ‘guilt’ not iove’ for her. The tom lover tries to comfort his girlfriend but it all turns out to be fiitile.
Thus, the dilemma of Jase is the dilemma of all the immigrants who are caught
between the promises of the new world and bruises of the old one. Jase's failure at bringing about any kind of reconciliation between his American girlfiiend and
Vietnamese daughter confirms the fact that reconciliation between the two cultures is
not possible. In no way, an oppressor and an oppressed can be fiiends. ‘Blood is
thicker’ and so at last we see Jase moving with his daughter. ’
Fighting For the Rebound
Blanquita struggles to succeed in the American society, but is conscious of the trauma
involved,
“I should never have left manila. Pappy was right. The east is
east and the west is west and never the twain shall meet.”
(Mukheijee, 1988; 62)
She dared to enter into the new world and adapt herself as per situations. Her
relationship continuously breaks up because the institution of marriage is giving way
in America. Young couples prefer the 'live in' style where sex is the ethereal bond.
Real happiness eludes American society because human relations are based less on
mutual love and trust. This trend and practice put American social fabric under stress.
Young immigrants are caught in the web of sexual fi-eedom in the name of liberation
in desperate attempts to succeed in the United States.
79 2.3.3 Generation Gap
The first generation of immigrants has vivid memories and integration of their
Homeland. However the second generation meets their cultural roots either through photographs, narrative is provided by their elders. So the generation gap is resulted out of intensity of feeling, once have for his Homeland.
The generational clashes are very painful for both. The first-generation could not tolerate the formation against their tradition. The second generation ignores these norms as outdated and unnecessary practice. The second generation is culturally confused as they received two opposite environments. That adds more perplexity in their decision. The first generation takes utmost care to preserve Indian scenario to feel at home. However, their children have to face the opposite culture outside the hom e.
Orbiting
In this story, Mukherjee presented the conflict between father and daughter. At a deep level the conflict is in between two generations settled in America. Renata, the central figure is a daughter of established Italian-American businessmen. She belongs to the third generation immigrant. Obviously she cannot have the same intensity of her
Homeland as her father has. Italianness is just a metaphor for Renata. ,
The difference in generation is clearly reflected in the distinction of their thinking.
Renata presents Ro as her lover which is not acceptable to her parents.
2.3.4 Nostalgia
Jasmine
Mukherjee deliberately uses the memory of the past as a device to highlight the desirability of the present and the future in America. In ’Jasmine’, the central protagonist leaves her small town existence in Trinidad, and enters America as an illegal migrant engaging in lowly jobs. Ashamed of her past she declares that:
There was nothing to tell about her hometown that wouldn’t
shame her in front of nice white American folk (...) The
80 place was shabby, the people were grasping and cheating and
lying and life was full of despair and drink and wanting.
(Mukheijee, 1988; 138)
Mukherjee’s fiction thus portrays migration as a process of self-discovery and transformation, rather than an unquestioning clinging to the past. Jasmine’s search for
identity is full of nostalgia memories. However, she prefers her new identity in the
new world. Nostalgia may stress negative or darker sides of past memories or
homeland.
The Tenant
In 'The Tenanf, Maya is ashamed of disclosing her Indian past, with its feudal
restrictions, to her American friends. She is worried that the world that she came from
and the values it upheld would be alien concepts that would not be understood.
Nostalgia in terms of a yearning has no place in this form of remembering. She had
tried to explain the world she came out o f
Her grandmother had been married off at the age of five in a
village (...) Her great aunt had been burned to death over a
dowry problem. She herself had been trained to speak softly,
arrange flowers, sing, be pliant.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 102)
In this story, Maya is clearly tom between which aspects of her past she should relay
to her new friends, who may or may not have preconceived ideas about India and
Indian women.
The Middleman
Mukherjee’s fiction rejects nostalgia in terms of its narrow definition of writing
wistfully about the homeland or a yearning for the relationships and support structures
left behind. In 'The Middleman." the central character, Alfie thinks back to his early
days in Baghdad, but the most striking image he remembers is of a young woman
being stoned to death for adultery and ‘local girls' who 'were for amusement only, a
dark place to spend some time, like a video arcade.'
81 His memory is selective, devoid of sentiment or longing, and honing in only on what was unpleasant.
i realize I am one of the few Americans who knows the
sound of rocks cutting through flesh and striking bone. One
of the few to count the cost of adultery.’
(Mukherjee, 1988; 7)
Buried Lives
Mukheijee’s protagonists perceive ‘home’ as a ‘mythical America’, with its temptation of material comforts, personal transformation and individual freedom. In the story ‘Buried Lives’, for instance, Mukherjee reveals the powerfial grip of an inherited colonial sensibility that shapes diasporic aspiration and definition of what constitutes a better life. Mr. Venkatesan, a modest aspirational school teacher, flees the civil war in Sri Lanka, bribing
‘arrogant junior-level clerks in four consulates (...) but every
country he could see himself being happy and fulfilled in
turned him down.’
(Mukherjee, 1988; 60)
The portrayal of Venkatesan’s plight reinforces Mukherjee’s view of the West as a repository of both wealth and happiness. In his pursuit of a new life in America,
Venkatesan abandons his large family, and allows him to be cheated out of his life savings, choosing a dangerous route via Gennany, to enable him to start afresh in
America. There is no nostalgic pining or qualms of guilt for the country he has left behind.
2.3.5 Maladies of Migration
A W ife’s Story
"A Wife's Story' is a very powerful and realistic manifestation of the survival instincts of an hidian woman. The protagonist here is an Indian Patel, Mrs. Panna Bhatt who goes to America for taking a Ph.D. degree without her husband who works in India.
82 She is a survivor and adaptor who can search for a new aspect of her hfe by
‘refashioning' herself as per American situation.
An Indian wife can never think of making someone her friend who is married to somebody else because she knows that even the memory of other is a sign of disloyalty. But here is a woman who has befriended Imre, a Hungarian fellow who has left his wife and two sons back home. Again Mukheijee has used the technique of first person narrative. Panna transformed herself extemally as well as internally. She gave up her conventional role of a typical Indian housewife by adopting American values. See emerged as a confident, independent research scholar against her cultural, restraint past.
Panna is the one who boldly expedited the experience of being an American, but her
Indian sense of pride carmot tolerate the vulgar comment of the player of David
Manet's play (Glengarry Glen Ross) about Indian women;
There women...... they look like they have just been fucked
by a dead cat’
This comment is enough to upset her nerves ‘Tears come; I
want to stand, scream, make an awful scene. I long for an
ugly, nasty rage.
(Mukherjee, 1988; .26)
Actually her rage is not against Manet’s play; she resists the voice of protest against the tyranny of American dream. As she says:
I don't hate manet. It’s the tyranny of the American dream
that scares me. First, you don’t exist, then you are invisible.
Then you are funny. Then you are disgusting. Insult, my
American friends will tell me, is a kind of acceptance. No
instant dignity here. A play like this, back home, would cause
riots, communal, racist, and antisocial.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 26)
83 THE MIDDLEMAN
The title story the middleman narrates the experience of Alice Judah, a hustler of
Middle Eastern Jewish descent. He narrates his journey to America in a light manner.
I have seen worse. I have seen Bagdad, Bombay, Queens
and now this smouldering spread deep in Mayan country.
Aztees, Toltees, mestizos, even some rashful fights with
German accents. All that and a lot of Texans, I will learn the
ropes. Presently he works as a middleman and earns his
living” from things that fall”
(Mukherjee, 1988; 3)
He supplies guns to Guerrillas in Mayan Country. Alfie Judah is an interesting person.
He opens his hurt and confesses even his greatest weaknesses;”l must confess my weakness. Its women” (Mukherjee, 1988; 4)
His history is that of an uprooted person. He has been forced to do work that are illegal and dangerous. The title of the story is very apt as Alfie Judah; the protagonist is the middleman in a cultural sense. He is a middleman in two senses- in his profession and in his life also. He has a connection with underworld and supplies them arm sand ammunitions, thus working as a middleman between manufacturer and buyers of the war material. He is used by his master T. Ransome as a middleman between his wife Maria and her lover Bud.
As a result of this, Maria starts loving Alfie, who is not very enthusiastic in his response because the ghost of past always haunts him. At the end of the story Alfie's
client Clovis is killed by one of the guerrillas, a friend of his wife and Alfie is spared because once the girl has loved him.
More probably he wishes to say information about guerrillas to the concerned
authority. He is a real middleman, cunning, opportunist and adaptive. Thus, the story
reveals the hazards of survival for an immigrant in America with its inherent message
that only those can survive who have determination and toughness of mind, who can
snatch opportunities out of tunnoil.
84 Buried Lives
Venkateshan dares to reach USA via India, Russia and Europe. In the way, he happens to meet Queenie, a widow and falls in love with her. In the way, he was made to adjust in a ‘smallish attic room with unventilated smoke, fitted with two sets of three tier bunks’. Everything is right till Queenie’s daughter steals travel documents of the inmates and Lubee calls the police to hand over the illegal. Venkateshan regrets.
He had started out as a teacher, and a solid citizen ad end up a lusty criminal.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 175)
But he was saved by the generous natured Queene, who declared him as her fiance.
The significant point to be noted is that Mukherjee’s message that in spite of having made momentous filial sacrifices, spending hard earned money, endangering one’s life all along the passage to reach the united states, one doesn’t always make it. He falls short of its end, if not its goal, and the dream remains unfulfilled.
The story is of an immigrant’s quest for freedom and passage to the new world is achieved through great difficulties. He has to spend a lot of money and face hardship even before he can reach the land of his dreams. He had paid in full for a roundabout one way ticket to Hamburg and for a passport impressive with fake visas, the travel agent stowed him in the damp, smelly bottom of a fisherman's dingy storage and had him ferried across the Palk Strait. They took him by bus to a tenement building where he saw only Asians and Afiicans in the lobby, and there they locked him fi'om the outside in one room flat on the top floor.
Mr. Venkatesan was made to adjust in a smallish attic room with unventilated smoke, fitted with two sets of three fier bunks. There were no closets, no cupboards and the bunk that pointed out as his had no bed linen. He had four other young men belonging to Asia and Africa, and they shared his small room though he had nothing in common with them except the waiting.
It narrates the quest for the identity of a Tamil school teacher from Sri Lanka, Mr.
N.K.S. Venkateshan. The protagonist leads a buried life in the United States.
85 Fathering
Eng, the child has lived through the trauma of war and killing and got nightmares. She demands attention from the father and very possessive about him and wants him to send away his girlfriend, Sharon.
Jase is torn between his white girlfriend Sharon and his own baby from Saigon. He informs us,
“Once upon a time Sharon used to be a cheerful,
accommodating woman. It isn’t as if eng was dumped on
us out of the blue. She knew I was tracking my kid.
Coming to terms with the past was Sharon’s idea. I don’t
know what happened to that Sharon.”
(Mukherjee, 1988; 80)
Mukherjee skillfully highlights the hostility between the woman and the child. Jase tries to explain to Sharon that love, not spite, makes Eng so territorial. She is sick, frightened foreign kid.
The writer brings out the trauma of the child's war experiences and exile from
Vietnam. The child keeps displaying a variety of bruises. Sharon, on the other hand, has been put on sedative by the doctor. She complains,
■'Everything was fine until she got here. Send her back Jase. If you love me, send her back.” (Mukherjee, 1988; 84)
But Jase is full of pit and concerned for the child. After all ‘Blood is thicker".
'i jerk her away from our enemies. My Saigon kid and me; we're a team."
(Mukherjee, 1988; 88)
Throughout the story, contrast is drawn between the child's anguish and the father's deliberate attempts to play all American dads, trying to present the child’s illness and behavior as ordinary childhood fever and nausea.
86 D A N N Y ’S G IR LS
Mukherjee creates the wily Danny sahib who procures Indian mail order brides in
New York ghetto. The narrator is a teenager of Indian origin who has never visited
India. He discloses the real identity of Danny. Danny is a Dogra boy from Simla.
Danny was working in a marriage- market racket. Danny is a man of opportunity. He began his life in the US by starting out with bets and selling tickets for Lata
Mangeshkar or Mithun Chakravarthy concerts and organizing beauty contests. It is he
who discovered the marriage racket. So he expanded his marriage business to mail
order brides.
The protagonist of the story is very pragmatic and concerned with ethics, without
many difficulties in adaptation, and both opportunistically make the system, work for
them .
The narrator's aunt is a widow who’d developed his uncle's small scale loan-sharking
operation that financed half the Indian-owned taxi medallions in queens.
The real money wasn’t in rupees and bringing saps over. It
was in sell docile Indian girls to hand up American for real
bucks. An Old World wife who knew her place and would
breed like crazy was at least twenty thousand dollars...... M y
job was to put up posters in Laundromats and pass out a flyer
on the subways.
(Mukherjee, 1988; 143)
Aunt Lini is a moneylender in New York ghetto. But the dreams remain simple
dreams. His attempt to find a true identity in a foreign culture through entering
Columbia University remains a distant dream. Now the only dream he cherishes is to
free himself and Rosies from the clutches of Danny.
Thus Mukherjee focuses here on the paradoxes of the life of immigrants— what they
want to be and what they become - they have no will of their own.
87 L O O SE EN D S
The narrator is Jeb Marshall is a Vietnam veteran. He is full of anger and resentment towards immigrants who prosper in America and employ native Americans. His rage is expressed through following statement,
“We’re coolie labor in our own country,” (Mukherjee, 1988; 44)
His resentment is the result of his failure in picking up the threads of life and move on, he particularly resents the immigrants, who, according to him, had crept in by the back door and become prosperous in America during his absence and were now controlling life in America as middlemen.
Marshall is just a representative of the collection who has ant- immigrants’ attitude.
They feel insecure in the presence of immigrants who are growing up in numbers and prosperity. To accept an Indian employer or superior is a matter of shame or humiliation for people like Marshall. He gave way to his wrath in verbal and nonverbal maimer. He rapes the Indian girl in the motel room as revenge. His act is purely sadistic and satisfaction of his rage against immigrants in a brutal way.
It is the story of a Vietnam vet, who is working in Miami as a hired killer describes the details of this job with offhand boredom.
The protagonist feels a certain kind of hollowness within them. There is no real relationship in
“what we have sounds like the constitution of the United
States?”
“We have freedom and no string attached. We have no
doubts. We come and go as we like'’
(Mukheijee, 1988; 45)
Jeb’s past haunts his present as a ghost. Jeb is an immigrant and like other immigrants
also have a survival instinct.
Loose ends test the responses of white Americans to immigrants. Marshall, an
American, is hurt when his Filipino girlfriend, Blanquita leaves him but quickly takes
88 another woman to assuage his lonehness. Thus, M arshall’s acceptance of Blanquita’s
foreignness and his feelings sunnount the cultural gap between them
2.4 Summary
This chapter has dealt with Bharati Mukherjee as a voice of Indian diaspora. Her
literary focus is on the racial and cultural discrimination faced by the Third World
immigrants in America and Canada. Unlike other diaspora writers, she presented a
wide range of characters from different social, cultural, economical classes and
different national origins. Her characters are not confined only to India but to the
entire South Asia. Her two short story collections are the best manifestation of
maladies of migration experienced by the immigrants.
89 Work cited
Kumar Nagendra, 2001, The Fiction of Bhaarati Mukherjee, A cultural Perspective,
New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
Mukherjee Bharati, 1990, D arkness, New Delhi, A Penguin Book Fiction / Short
Stories
Mukherjee Bharati, 1988, The Middleman and Other Stories, New York, Viking
Penguin Incorporation
Pati Mitali, 1993, ""Love and the Indian Immigrant in Bharati Mukherjee's Short
Fiction, in ‘Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives' ed. Nelson Emmanuel, New
York, Garland Publishing
Tondon Sushma, 2013, Bharati Mukherjee's Fiction; A Perspective, New Delhi,
Sarup and Sons
"Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow ISSN 1930-2940." Insert Name
of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2015
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