Nation and Re-Narration: A Post Colonial Reading of Rohinton Mistry’s Novels Synopsis submitted to Madurai Kamaraj University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English By S.MARISAMY Reg.No. P 4825 Under the Guidance and Supervision of Dr. M.P.GANESAN M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of English Sourashtra College, Madurai MADURAI KAMARAJ UNIVERSITY (University with Potential for Excellence) MADURAI – 625021 INDIA SEPTEMBER 2019 1 SYNOPSIS Nation and Re-Narration: A Post Colonial Reading of Rohinton Mistry’s Novels Indian Writing in English holds a unique identity in the world of English literature. Early Indian writers like Raja Rao, Rabindranath Tagore, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand used English without the influence of mother tongue to convey an experience that was essentially Indian, They were followed by the significant novelists like Kamala Markandaya, Manohar Malgonkar, Anita Desai and Nayantara Sahgal who captured the spirit of an independent India and established a unique identity. The middle of twentieth century Indian Writing in English witnessed the emergence of poets such as Nissim Ezekiel, P. Lal, A.K. Ramanujan and Dom Mores, and writers like Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga. The writers live either in India or abroad, but continue to enrich Indian literature through their writings. These writers have written on a variety of themes which include independent struggle, problems of the oppressed, gender differences, social issues like caste discrimination, economic inequality, political oppression, ecological issues and so on. All such themes are well documented in various literary genres like poetry, drama, short stories, novel, novella and non-fiction. 2 Literature of the Indian Diaspora is a significant division in Indian Literature in English which is gaining importance day by day. It is important to know the origin of Indian diaspora to understand the nature of diasporic literature. The postcolonial and academic diaspora has its own representative writers in the North America such as Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra and Bharati Mukherjee. Diasporic writers suffer from severe identity bewilderment and alienation from homelands. Thus, the writers of this kind show an intense desire to assimilate and belong to their present place of abode. This is reflected in the literature they produce. Diasporic Indians like other diasporic people have strong links to their homelands and show a keen yearning to assimilate and a sense of belonging to their present place. This creates counter pulls in the psyche of the diasporic writers and is reflected in the literature they produce. The modern Parsi face is identified by the literature written by Bapsi Sidhwa, Farrukh Dhondy, Rohinton Mistry, Firdaus Kanga, Dina Mehta and Boman Desai. It is not only a part of the resurgence of Indian English Writing but also the display of ethno-religious attributes which was not seen in the writings of colonial Parsi writers. Rohinton Mistry, the socio-political novelist, has emerged as a significant literary figure during the recent century. Rohinton Mistry was born in Mumbai on 3rd July 1952 to Behram Mistry and Freny Jhaveri Mistry. He was the second son of the three and he also has a younger sister. Cyrus Mistry, well 3 known playwright and short-story writer, is his younger brother. He did his schooling from Villa Theresa Primary School and then St. Xavier‟s High School. He graduated from St. Xavier‟s College in Bombay. He completed his degree in Mathematics in 1974. His craze for music was such that Polydor released an EP, Ronnie Mistry, on which he sang his own compositions and traditional folk songs. Later on, he migrated to Canada and there he married to Freny Elavia in 1975. In Canada, Toronto, he worked as a clerk in the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. In 1978, Mistry and his wife enrolled for evening courses at the University of Toronto. He was financed by his bank. He completed his second degree in English Literature and Philosophy in 1982. He wrote his first short story One Sunday in 1983 and won Hart House Prize for it. Next year he won it second time for Lend Me Your Light. In 1985 Auspicious Occasion won the contributor‟s award of Canadian Fiction. Thus, in 1987 Penguin Canada published his collection of stories entitled Tales from Firozsha Baag and later in Britain and USA under the title Swimming Lessons and other stories from Firozsha Baag. It was short-listed for the Canadian Governor General‟s Award. Mistry published his first novel Such a Long Journey in 1991. It was short- listed for the Booker Prize and The Trillium Award. It won the Governor General‟s Award, the Smith Books/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writer‟s Prize for the Best book. His second novel A Fine Balance appeared in 1995. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize once again. It won the Governor General‟s Award once again, the Giller‟s Prize. It also 4 received the Royal Society of Literature‟s Winfred Holtby Prize and the 1996 Los Angeles Times Award for fiction. Family Matters was published in 2002 and won several award including the seventh annual Kiriyama Prize for literature of the Pacific Rim and the South Asia Subcontinent. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and IMPAC award. His fictional world deals with his home metro-polis Bombay. His brother Cyrus is great influence on his literary career, who advised him to write about his home city as “Bombay is as viable a city for fiction”. His books are re- fashioned from memory. Mistry himself said: “Writers write best about what they know. In the broad sense, as a processing of everything one hears or witnesses, all fiction is autobiographical- imagination ground through the mill of memory. It‟s impossible to separate the two ingredients” (Lambart, The Guradian). In 1996, Mistry was awarded an honorary doctorate of the Faculty of Arts at Ottwa University. His main concern in his fictional world is the representation of his microscopic community under the various political phases in India and its subjugation by majority. He portrays the various problems faced by his community in the present time. Apart from casteism which constitutes a major part, several other issues such as communal riots, politics and corruption are highlighted in the same novel. K.C Belliapppa observes regarding A Fine Balance: “Rohinton Mistry‟s second novel, A Fine Balance is a significant landmark in recent Indian Fiction 5 in English. It not only spans a period of about forty years of free India from the time just before India attained freedom to the year 1984, when Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated but is also a work that gives a richly comprehensive account of the goings-on in the country. (201) Mistry draws his inspiration both from sharply recalled childhood experiences and from the upheavals of migration. Mistry‟s fiction focuses on the Parsi identity. It also indicates how Parsis are learning to cope up with the reality of postcolonial India and how they are coming to terms with their new lives in the west. Like other postcolonial Indian writers, he also uses the form of unconventional narratives and employs anti-realist modes of narration. Rohinton Mistry conveys his message of shunning exploitation of people to the world through his works. He doesn‟t stop with attacking the social evils in his respective society. He also conveys better solutions to those social inequalities and evils through his writings. Chapter one “Introduction” traces briefly the history of Indian Writing in English especially the Indian Fiction in English and fixes Rohinton Mistry in his social, political and literary context. Chapter two titled as “Representation and Resistance” looks into the post-colonial counter-discourses in the novels of Rohinton Mistry. Resistance literature uses the language of empire to rebut its dominant ideologies. The researcher has explored how adequately the texts represent an indigenous people or how the texts react to the oppressing colonizers. In other words, the colonized nation is “writing back,” speaking 6 either of the oppression and racism of the colonizers or the inherent cultural “better-ness” of the indigenous people. The four novels selected for exploration, exemplify different aspects of representation with the intention to preserve the ethnic community, highlighting the contradictions inherent in the national imaginary, depicting social contradictions of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and language and re-locating the text within its historical and ideological context. Resistance literature uses the language of empire to refute its dominant ideologies. The researcher explores how adequately the texts represent an indigenous people or how the texts react to the oppressing colonizers. It means, the colonized nations are „writing back,‟ stating either of the repression and racism of the colonizers or the inherent cultural „better-ness‟ of the indigenous people. Mistry foregrounds the alternative history that defies the authorized description of history and exemplifies how the weak and feeble have the potential to resistance. Mistry‟s first novel Such a Long Journey (1991) brought him national and international recognition. It is a socio-political novel which narrates the life- story of a middle-class Parsi protagonist Gustad Noble against the backdrop of the political events in India during the 1970s. Characters like Gustad, Dinshawji, Bilimoria, Peerbhoy and the pavement artist are the vehicles of conveying ethnic, communal and to the extent, national consciousness. There is a change in the consciousness of the characters which denotes a 7 corresponding change in the consciousness of the community. Mistry has endeavored to re-think and re-narrate about his community and country through the various narratives woven in the novel.