Journal of Critical Reviews ISSN- 2394-5125 Vol 7, Issue 5, 2020 Review Article RECOLLECTING THE MIGRATION MEMORIES OF RUSKIN BOND Dr. Diya Panjwani, Assistant professor, Humanities and Science department, KL university, Hyderabad. Email: [email protected] Received: 01.01.2020 Revised: 15.02.2020 Accepted: 25.03.2020 Abstract There are reminiscences of British Imperial history when white man migrated to new lands. Life in India gave Britishers a challenge due to extreme weather condition. As a result, they made hills as their luxury homes. After ‘the order of the day’, when British Raj came to an end, the white man lost their shikar, fashionable teas, polo and horse riding. After enjoying from diamonds to grain, poor whites migrated back to England. Living lavish lives of sahibs, they naturally looked back in anger at what they had lost. This time they struggled to make their identity in their own homeland. British Raj gave birth to another community called Anglo Indians, people who were racially mixed and people of British descent who chose to stay in India. Ruskin Bond’s family was one of them. He was in his teens when his father died serving the Raj as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force. In the cohesive era of doubts and political unrest, Bond got solace in the lap of nature. When he left for England, he realized that he is rooted in the soil of India. Not only did he reject to settle in England, but also to earn money by writing about India’s poverty and politics. His ‘self’ is visible in his works where he declared India as his home. He confesses ‘Race did not make me an Indian. But history did. And in the long run, it’s history that counts’. (qut.in Bhatt 103) Ruskin Bond is one of those rare people who dare to go back to their homeland and settle. Keywords: Ruskin Bond, British descent, Royal Air Force. © 2019 by Advance Scientific Research. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.05.116 INTRODUCTION movement started and they were asked to go back to their Why to migrate? is a thought-provoking question. Man’s life country. So after ‘the order of the day’, movement of is not set apart from land. Human migration or relocation in Britishers from various colonies took place as they all went search of opportunities is as old as human civilization. back to the empire for shelter. After enjoying from diamonds Migration is the topic of intense concern not only among to grain for almost 200 hundred years in India, the white researchers but also among policy makers and planners of man migrated. Living lavish lives of sahibs, enjoying shikar, contemporary era. fashionable teas, polo and horse riding, they naturally looked back in anger at what they had lost. This time they struggled It is an integral part of social, cultural and economic to make their identity in their homeland. After independence development. One less explored aspect of British empire is both colonizer and colonized were searching their identities. the vast amount of movement of people. The people of The poor whites were called to England where they had no Britain were fond of long passages and migration. East was prospects. Their identity in India as well as in native land always the centre for them to explore. During renaissance was questionable. This identity crisis was the state of many exploration of new lands was on its height. Empire started colonial children. The Concept of Home became a big its journey with a handful of people who moved out from concern in free India and the partition made it more home to town and town to countries and land hunger of complex. Travel or journey are important element specially empire took him across the globe. Search of identity took the in post colonialism. empire everywhere. Through one such effort, Britishers migrated to India to flourish their trade. People of under developed countries usually migrate to developed countries for job opportunities. But in history if My paper seeks to explore (sub-theme) home, identity and we see, nations used to attack each other and one who migration specially in the context of Ruskin Bond. In the defeated other, became the ruler. It is a little-known fact that present scenario, how the meanings are changing will be British citizens also lived in poverty. They used to migrate a discussed. The first section of the paper provides an lot due to opportunities in British colonies willingly. For the overview of the migration. The aspects of migration in survival of British empire many people migrated throughout specific context of Ruskin Bond are discussed the World. During World War I and II, mobilization of simultaneously. In second section, various features of imperial armies increased. There were huge movement of migrants are discussed. At the same time, the analysis is people who sacrificed for British empire. Empire had lost his done on how migration helped Ruskin Bond to realize his sons and didn’t even know where the body of his son lay. identity when he moved away from India. India during this period is described by Gomathi Narayanan Thereafter, the run through the paper are Migration, Anglo who calls 1947 the ‘annusmirablis’ in the introduction of his Indian, Identity, Home, Ruskin Bond, Ambition, Love for book The Sahibs and the Natives. Narayanan describes the adventure, Insecurity, Nostalgia and Cultural conflict. The forties in the following words, “The decade of tumult and objective of writing this paper is to provide knowledge and change, misery and hope, victory and anguish that was the understanding of the psychological state of migrants. They forties in India” (1). We get the best description of this experience different mental conflicts and adapt a new period in literature which is full of political relationship country by will or by force. The experience of Bond is between the ruler and the ruled. They convey the theme of collected from various sources that may provide guidelines guilt and pride of Sahib and native. British injustice was to the contemporary generation who flee very often from mostly depicted in literature. Cross culture encounters are native land also found in literature during this time. Britishers who colonized India for centuries and were For many who had lived all their life in India, going back to thinking India as their home, were shocked when freedom Britain became difficult. A few who had become habitual to Journal of critical reviews 559 RECOLLECTING THE MIGRATION MEMORIES OF RUSKIN BOND culture of India resisted the transition and stayed in India. defines Colonialism as a process of settlement by Europeans So British Raj left behind a split community who was racially in non-European (Asian, African, South American, and culturally mixed and who rejected to migrate back to the Australian) spaces. Dr.Nayar writes in the same book, Empire. In India such mixed community is called Anglo “Colonization often destroyed native cultures, or altered Indian. There were two kinds of Anglo Indians who were them significantly, often producing new (hybrid) forms” (3). racially mixed and people of British descent who chose to Thus, migration brings lot of cultural changes. stay in India. In history if we see when young Britishers used to receive an Ruskin Bond was one of such British lineages. His father and Indian appointment, they felt happy to explore the new land, grandfather died serving the Raj as a soldier. And Bond was although they were doubtful and anxious as they would not the result of hybrid generation as he was born in the twilight settle down due to seasonal changes. Initially Indian life period of British Raj in India. When India got independence, seemed interesting but after arrival they found the he was on the threshold of adolescence. His mother circumstances by a state of things probably quite different remarried with a punjabi boy and didn’t agree to leave the from the picture formed in their imagination and in every place and to start a challenging life in the empire’s state. So aspect strange and new. So English officers who worked for his mother’s family were among such whites who settled in the empire faced excruciating conditions of the tropical the peaceful town of Dehra and rejected to migrate. The planes which told heavily upon health. Due to this in India, condition of Anglo Indian is quoted in Bond autobiography the hill station on the Himalayas became the main centres Scenes from a Writer’s Life, for British officials. “The exodus of British and Anglo- Indian families was Migration schemes and precautions were given as the new beginning even as the war ended. For some the choice was a lands were geographically, ethnically, culturally and hard one. They had no prospects in England, no relatives linguistically different. The common guidelines given to there. And they had no prospects in India unless they were migrants include changes in clothing, diet according to very well qualified. For many Anglo Indians and poor whites weather, precautions from insects and ants. assisted passages to England were the order of the day. By the time 1947, the year of Indian Independence, came Hardship of migration includes cultural adjustment too. around, most of these people had gone to make some sort of British migrants not only got adjusted with weather living in the U.K.” (46) condition but also advised to keep the social security issues in mind and make the necessary changes in life style.