Hello everyone and welcome back to another
lecture on postcolonial literature. Today
we will again pick up the notion of belonging
simultaneously to multiple cultural traditions
which we discussed in our previous lecture
while talking about cosmopolitanism. And,
in today’s lecture, we will explore this
idea of multiple cultural affiliations with
reference to what is called diasporic literature.
And this category of diasporic literature
has come to form an integral part of the broader
category of postcolonial literature. And in
order to understand this concept of diasporic
literature, what this umbrella termed as diasporic
literature signifies, I think we should start
by defining for ourselves the term diasporic
itself, that adjective. Now, diasporic is
an adjective that is derived from the noun
diaspora. And this noun diaspora has its roots
in the Greek language.
Now, the word in its Greek form means dispersion
and scattering of seeds during the process
of sowing. So, it primarily, in its original
form related to the field of agriculture.
However, today the primary understanding of
diaspora has changed. And today it relates
to the dispersion of people rather than seeds.
And this specific association of the concept
of Diaspora with the dispersion of people
rather than with seeds can be traced back,
for instance, to the Book of Deuteronomy in
the Old Testament of the Bible where in Chapter
28 verse number 25 we find the use of the
Greek root word for diaspora. And there it
is used to describe how if the commandments
of the god is not followed then the god will
cause the disobedient people to be defeated
by their enemy.
And the god will cause them to be dispersed
from their homeland and to be scattered among
all the kingdoms of the earth. Now, while
looking at this occurrence, early occurrence
of this word diaspora in the Old Testament
which is used to mean a dispersion of people,
we need to keep in mind that here the idea
of diaspora is closely associated with the
notion of exile or of being removed from one's
homeland as a form of punishment.
And this connection between exile and diaspora
most strongly resonates in the history of
the Jewish community which was banished from
its homeland in the 6th century BCE after
the holy city of Jerusalem was sacked and
the temple of Solomon was destroyed by the
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Now, this
exile, this 6th century BCE exile and the
memory of this exile still informs Jewish
identity and is an integral part of the cultural
memory of the Jewish Diaspora.
That is, the Jewish people who live in different
parts of the world dispersed from their homeland.
And this sense of exile within the Jewish
community is closely entwined with a sense
of nostalgia. A sense of nostalgia for the
lost homeland and a desire to return to it.
Now, all these emotional and cultural associations
that I have just described to you referring
back to the Old Testament, to the Jewish history,
all of these shape our present understanding
of the term diaspora. And let me, before I
proceed any further, let me reiterate the
main points again with regards to diaspora
so that we know that we have clearly understood
the term diaspora and its various connotations.
So, what is diaspora? Firstly, diaspora refers
to communities of people living away from
what they consider to be their homelands.
Secondly, this state of living away from their
homeland bears the negative connotation of
being in exile. And thirdly and finally, the
feeling of being in exile evokes within the
diasporic community a sense of nostalgic longing
for a lost homeland and a desire to somehow
return to that homeland which has been lost.
Now, keeping in mind this general characterisation
of diaspora and diasporic identity, let us
now try and see how it relates to postcolonialism
and postcolonial literature. Because ultimately
that is our main concern in this course. Well,
as discussed at the very beginning of this
lecture series, colonialism connects the two
distant spaces of the metropolis and the colonial
periphery through a constant traffic of goods
of capital but, most importantly. of people.
So, in other words, human dispersion and formation
of diasporic communities are integral to the
process of colonialism itself. Now, in our
previous lectures we have already discussed
a bit about the white man who is removed from
his homeland in the metropolis and who comes
to the colonial periphery to the colony of
the metropolis. And here, I am thinking about
our discussion of characters like Marlow in
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, someone
who comes to Congo, the colonial periphery
from the metropolis Belgium.
And I am also thinking, for instance, of the
Christian missionaries as depicted in Chinua
Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart who again,
are people who have come to Nigeria, the colonial
periphery from the mother country in Europe.
But today in our lecture we are going to discuss
an opposite kind of migration, an opposite
kind of dispersion that the colonialism gave
birth to.
And this is the dispersion of the colonised
subjects, not the representative of colonial
power like Marlow or the Christian missionaries,
but the dispersion of colonised subjects from
their homelands and the migration of these
people from the colonial periphery to the
metropolis. However, before we deal with that,
it is again important to remember that not
every dispersion of colonial subjects from
their homelands meant a gathering in the European
mother country or in the Western metropolis.
Many people were simply displaced during colonialism
from one area of the colonial periphery to
another, from one colony to another. And here,
for instance, we have already discussed this
when we discussed Derek Walcott. But I am
thinking, for instance, of the dispersion
of slaves and indentured labourers during
colonialism from places like India, for instance,
and Africa.
And these dispersed labourers and slaves and
sort of bonded labourers, they were gathering,
they were being dispersed from colonies like
India and Africa. But they were gathering
not necessarily in the metropolis. But they
were gathering in another part of the colonial
periphery, like for instance, the Caribbean
where these bonded labourers, these slave
labour was necessary to run the sugar plantations,
for instance.
Now, as I said, we have already discussed
this particular kind of migration when we
talked about Derek Walcott. And Walcott, if
you remember, is the legacy bearer of the
African diasporic community who gathered in
the Caribbean during the days of slavery.
After slavery was banned, during the early
19th century, indentured labourers took their
places.
And the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh in his
Ibis Trilogy, especially in the first novel
in the Ibis Trilogy, Sea of Poppies, he describes
in details how these indentured labourers
were gathered from various parts of India,
for instance, using different degrees of coercion
and persuasion, and then they were shipped
to distant Colonies, distant Colonial plantations
to work as bonded labourers.
And to give you an example, the ancestors
of the Nobel prize winning Caribbean author
V S Naipaul, they migrated from India to Caribbean
in this similar fashion to serve in the plantations
there. And in fact, Naipaul in his writings
give a very vivid glimpse into the ways of
life of diasporic community of Indians that
started taking shape in the Caribbean from
the 19th century.
However, these dispersions of colonised subjects
within the colonial periphery was also supplemented
by significant waves of migration that reached
from the colonies to the metropolis. And let
us take for instance the relation between
the metropolitan Britain and the colonised
India. Indians started arriving in Britain
from different parts of South Asia really
as early as the 17th century.
And they were, these people who were arriving
in Britain during the early days, were primarily
servants employed by British households but
they were also sailors diplomats and savants.
One the most interesting Indian migrants to
Britain during this early period was a man
called Sake Dean Mohammad.
And Dean Mohammad was born in Bihar in 1759.
And he migrated to Britain in 1782, and there
he introduced what he referred to as shampoo
baths. And he also introduced Indian cuisine
in Europe while becoming the first Indian
author to publish a book in English. And this
book, which was published in 1794 under the
title The Travels of Dean Mahomet, is simultaneously
regarded as the first major work of Indian
English writing, Indian English Literature,
as well as the first major work of Indian
Diasporic Literature in English.
Now the group of servants, sailors, and diplomats,
were soon supplemented and then almost overshadowed
by the population of Indian students who started
arriving in Britain from India from around
the 1840’s. And this migration that started
during the 1840’s has not stopped yet. And
it is interesting to note that many of our
Indian nationalists like M K Gandhi, for instance,
Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, B R
Ambedkar, they all went to Britain for their
higher studies.
So this connection between India and Britain
and the migration of students from the colonised
India to the colonial metropolis in Britain
has played a really very significant role
in the history, both of Britain and of India.
Now, these various waves of migration from
the colonial periphery to the mother country
established a number of diasporic communities
within the metropolis.
And the category diasporic literature refers
to the literature produced by these displaced
people who migrated from the colonial periphery
in the global South and who gathered in the
metropolitan centres in the global North.
And we need to note here that these metropolitan
centres that we are talking about not only
includes places like Britain or France or
Spain but it also includes America today.
Because America in many ways have inherited
the mantle of the colonial West.
Now, as a literature that reflects the displaced
condition of its author, diasporic writing
is expectedly informed by the pangs and pains
of exile. And it is also informed by a nostalgic
desire to reunite with the homeland that has
been lost during the migration.
And this sense of exile and nostalgia forms
the keynote which unites the otherwise mind
bogglingly wide variety of diasporic literature
produced in Britain, France, Spain, America,
by people coming from different parts of the
world like India, Africa, Latin America, the
Caribbean islands. So in our lecture today
we will try and understand this wide variety
of literature that is categorised under the
title of diasporic literature by focusing
on one particular instance.
It is a story by the author Jhumpa Lahiri.
And by focusing on that short story, it is
a very poignant and very beautiful short story,
we will come to that shortly. But in focusing
on that short story our intention would be
to identify the key concepts of exile and
nostalgia for the homeland that informs the
diasporic condition in general and diasporic
literature in particular. But before we move
on to the story let me introduce the author
to you.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in 1969 in London.
And she was born to Bengali parents who had
migrated from Calcutta. But Jhumpa Lahiri
was not really brought up in England, she
was raised primarily in the East coast of
United States where her parents migrated when
she was only two. More recently, Lahiri has
shifted base again. And now she resides with
her husband and two children in Rome, the
Capital of Italy.
And this diasporic identity of Lahiri, this
history of migration and exile has created
for her a unique location in the interstices
or in the gaps of different cultures. And
she identifies herself as writing from a position
of marginality where limits of different cultures
meet, or if they do not meet they leave a
very interesting gap from within which one
can look at these different cultures and combine
various elements and write about them.
But nevertheless, we also need to understand
that this marginality this interstices represents
a gap, a sense of lack, a sense of loss. And
we understand this sense of lack and sense
of loss from Lahiri’s own writings and interviews
about herself where she says that, for instance,
though she was born to a Bengali parents her
knowledge of Bengali is only partial. And
this sense of lack of her partial knowledge
of her mother tongue has informed her cultural
identity.
On the other hand, though Lahiri was brought
up in America, her desire to keep alive her
connection with her Bengali roots has meant
that Lahiri could only partially assimilate
herself within America. And Lahiri’s move
to Italy has only accentuated the sense of
being a marginal entity who does not fully
belong to any one particular culture, and
who cannot firmly identify anyone place as
her home.
Now, this sense of being without a fixed cultural
as well as spatial home strongly informs all
of Jhumpa Lahiri’s works, be it her novels
like The Namesake or The Lowland or her celebrated
collection of short stories like Interpreter
Of Maladies or the more recent one titled
Unaccustomed Earth. But, whereas the state
of being an exile informs Lahiri’s writings
with a sense of lack and loss, it also informs
them with a tremendous sense of multicultural
possibilities.
Again, as I said, the interstices, the margin,
the gap between the culture, it is a gap therefore
it signifies a lack, a loss, a sense of not
belonging to any of the cultures. But again
that gap, that interstices is also filled
with multicultural possibilities. It is a
position from which one can borrow, one can
appropriate elements from different cultures,
right. And this is what happens with Jhumpa
Lahiri too.
Because by freeing oneself from the confines
of one's homeland and one's native culture
the condition of being an exile can make a
person an heir to all cultures in the world.
By not belonging to any one culture you actually
become an heir to all cultures. And that opens
a tremendous amount of possibilities of bringing
together eclectic cultural elements to shape
your own identity.
And such a stance, such a possibility is realised
by Lahiri in her attempt for instance to learn
Italian, the language of the country that
she now resides in. And she is trying to make
both that language, that culture and that
country her own..
Now, and in her latest book titled In Altre
Parole, which is originally written in Italian
but which has been translated in English under
the title In Other Words, gives us an account
of this difficult and rewarding attempt to
appropriate for oneself a language and culture
to which one is neither born nor exposed to
while growing up. Jhumpa Lahiri’s life and
literature therefore shows the cultural possibilities
that the condition of being born and brought
up in a diaspora throws up.
But Lahiri is also keenly aware of the sense
of alienation that this diasporic condition
entails. And the migration from one's homeland
can make one an heir to multiple cultures.
Yes that is a possibility. But Lahiri realises
that it can also as easily shut one out from
all sense of cultural rootedness. And the
claustrophobic sense of a cultural vacuum
that a migration from the homeland can create
for an individual is beautifully depicted
by Lahiri in her short story that we are going
to read today.
And that short story is titled Mrs Sen’s.
And it is there in the collected book of short
stories which won the Pulitzer prize titled
Interpreter of Maladies. And it is to this
short story that we will now turn. This story
Mrs Sen’s is narrated by an American boy
named Eliot. And it tells of the time that
Eliot spent with his Bengali babysitter that,
whom Eliot only knows as Mrs Sen. Who is Mrs
Sen?
Well, Mrs Sen is a wife of Mr Sen who migrated
from Calcutta to America to take up a job
to teach mathematics in a university. And
this is a very crucial part of her identity.
Her identity, at least in America, refers
back not to something that she is herself
but refers back to her husband who has a job
in an American university. So from the very
beginning we do not even in fact know the
name of this Mrs Sen that we are introduced
to, the first thing of her.
So there is a sense of lack of identity that
surrounds this entity of Mrs Sen making her
slightly mysterious to us. Now, Mr Sen has
a job in a university. He remains occupied.
But the migration from Calcutta to America
has meant for Mrs Sen a painful uprooting
from her familiar Bengali social cultural
milieu and most importantly from her family.
To fill the sense of lack that the loss of
her homeland creates for Mrs Sen she tries
to cling to the memory of the tiniest details
that gave substance to her life back in Calcutta.
And it is Calcutta which she still wistfully
refers to as a home. In America Mrs Sen tries
to recreate that lost home of Calcutta by
repeatedly re-reading the letters that she
occasionally receives from her people back
home. She also listens to the familiar sounds
of Indian classical music and offer relatives
talking, by playing cassettes in a cassette
player. And most importantly she's tries to
recreate her lost homeland through her cooking,
her cooking of Bengali dishes.
Now, this very attempt to live the memories
of Calcutta in America and this attempt to
transform an American space into a Bengali
home creates for Mrs Sen a cocoon of isolation
that is cut off from the immediate reality
outside. And Mrs Sen’s failure to come to
terms with America and her conflict with the
new physical reality of this foreign land
is exposed in the story. So references to
Mrs Sen’s inability to drive on American
roads.
And the tension between the Bengali in a reality
that Mrs Sen creates within her apartment
and the outside reality of the American roads
reach a breaking point when one day Mrs Sen
decides to drive herself with Eliot sitting
next to her. And she decides to go to a fish
shop to buy some fresh fish so that she can
prepare her Bengali dish.
Now, this attempt by Mrs Sen to go and procure
a quintessential item that is needed for a
Bengali dish from the outside American space
ends in a minor accident. And neither Eliot
nor Mrs Sen is very grievously hurt. But nevertheless,
Eliot’s Mother stops sending him to Mrs
Sen’s. And the last thing that Eliot remembers
of his Bengali babysitter is the sound of
crying coming out of the bedroom of her apartment
within which Mrs Sen had locked herself in.
In a way, Mrs Sen with her inability to break
free from them cocoon of memory of a remembered
homeland and her inability to connect with
the outside space resulting ultimately in
a psychological breakdown represents the opposite
of what Jhumpa Lahiri is, the diasporic author
who is confident in her ability to appropriate
and make her own disparate elements from different
cultures.
But the very fact that Lahiri creatively engages
with characters like Mrs Sen shows her desire
to recognise and address the difficulty that
a migrant faces in connecting with the outside
reality following her displacement and uprooting.
The isolation of Mrs Sen’s apartment and
the sound of sobbing that comes out of her
bedroom thus forms the dark underside of the
diasporic condition which is otherwise marked
by the luminosity of eclectic cultural possibilities.
With this exploration of Jhumpa Lahiri and
her work we conclude our discussion of diasporic
literature today. In our next meeting we will
take up the work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,
a very important theorist in the field of
postcolonial studies. Thank you.
