1. INTRODUCTION:

Bharati Mukherjee has been referred to as the “grande dame of diasporic Indian literature” (Edwards, Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee, 2009). She occupies a significant place among the contemporary women novelists who are concerned with the problems of women and their quest for identity. Her texts are powerful and significant. They are particularly effective in mapping the contours of the new South Asian community in the United States. They provide a lens with which one can view the struggle for identity amongst women. The present paper attempts to investigate the complexity of diasporic themes in selected novels of Bharati Mukherjee.

2. OBJECTIVES:

The objectives of the paper are the following.

To study the elements of diasporic literature in one of its many nuances. To investigate the complexity of diasporic themes in the selected novels of Bharati Mukherjee.

3. MATERIAL AND METHODS:

The primary data has been collected from different sources like works of the authors, autobiography, interviews, articles in newspapers, magazine, letters etc. Similarly the secondary data has been collected from articles in journals, books, critical books on the author, magazines, e-articles, websites and literary theories. Qualitative research method has been followed. This approach is used for subjective assessment of attitude, opinion, and behavior.

4. THEORY:

Expatriate writings has been regarded as an integral part of Diaspora Studies and not an independent style of literature, like other forms of literature such as African-American Studies, ethnic studies etc. The necessity to identify it as a distinct form of writing has been increasingly felt due to the “marginalization” or “hyphenated” existence of those expatriates who chronicle their shocking experiences of multiple racial discrimination, ethnicity, nostalgia, alienation and like in their writings.

Diasporic literature, particularly Indian diasporic writing in English is the product of colonization and decolonization, the period in Indian history which marks the exodus of large number of Indian people to other nations either because of colonization or search for employment. Diaspora dream, figures prominently in all the fictions of Bharati Mukherjee encompassing numerous temperaments of expatriation like nostalgia, frustration, instability and despondency. In her novels, she investigates the topic of expatriation, movement and transformation.

5. RESULT:

The protagonist of the novel The Tiger’s Daughter, Tara Banerjee Cartright is an autobiographical account of Bharati Mukherjee. Tara experiences a strange combination of Americanness and Indianness in her psyche. She finds her in such a situation that neither she can take refuge in her old Indian self nor within the recently discovered American self. Mukherjee’s second novel throws light on the strange aspect of wifehood in a foreign land. Wife tells the story of Dimple, a day dreamer who feels alienated in America where life as an immigrant becomes unbearable, whereas she is compelled to make attempt towards the process of economic, social and cultural adjustment. The third and most accomplished novel “Jasmine” is an account of adaptation and not a defeat. It narrates the story of a Punjabi rural girl, Jyoti who figures against adverse circumstances, comes out victorious and carves out a new life in an alien country.

6. DISCUSSION:

Tara, the protagonist of The Tiger’s Daughter belongs to a traditional Hindu Bengali family, leaves her homeland for higher studies. In America she falls in love with a native and gets married to him. However, her marriage proves to be a disappointing one for her parents who had in mind of her marriage with an aristocrat Bengali belonging to the same caste.

Tara lands in India after spending seven long years in America. To her surprise she finds only poverty and turmoil back home. This incident is a reflection of Mukherjee’s own experience of arriving in India with her American husband Clark Blaise in 1973, when she was deeply hurt by the chaos and poverty of India. This novel beautifully portrays the theme of conflict between the Eastern and Western worlds. Tara is born and brought up in Calcutta and goes abroad for higher studies and marries an American gentleman. On her return to her home country she discovers a place altogether different from the Calcutta she remembers - full of strikes, riots and unrest. She aspires to reunite the old world of her father, ‘the Bengal Tiger’ – with the recent one of her husband David.

In the novel The Tiger’s Daughter Mukherjee introduces the protagonist Tara with an intense desire of an ‘exile’ for her ‘home’. She finds it difficult to adjust to her friends and relatives in India, even with the traditions of her own family. She feels alienated even in the presence of her mother. Thus, in the first novel one finds the feeling of alienation of Tara.

Mukherjee’s second novel “Wife” narrates the story of Dimple, a seemingly docile young Bengali girl, dreams about her married life. She eagerly awaits her marriage and finally marries Amit Basu. She anticipates a new life for her in America where Amit is planning to emigrate. Being attracted by the culture at home and pulled by the new culture in the adopted land, Dimple gets highly confused to decide how to maintain balance in the conflicting currents. Succumbed to pressure and due to her mental agony she finally takes a drastic step of killing her husband. She is ‘wife’ struggling to break free of her traditions in the USA.

The problem of alienation experienced by the immigrants has been beautifully portrayed by Bharati Mukherjee in her novel Jasmine. The novel narrates the success story of a survivor. Jasmine the protagonist, single handedly fights against all odds, becomes a winner and creates a new life in an alien country. Jasmine decides to fulfill the wish of her deceased husband Prakash, who was killed by the Sikh terrorist group. Since Prakash’s dream of pursuing higher studies in the USA could not be fulfilled, Jasmine sets out to Florida. Her arrival at Florida coast marks the brutal murder of Half Face, the Captain of the ship, who raped her and thus a new chapter in her life starts in an alien land where she feels the need to transform herself for her survival. She finds herself chasing the ‘American Dream’ and becomes Americanised. From Jyoti to Jasmine, Jazzy, Jase and Jane the redefining of herself is an immigrant story of carving out her own space in an alien land.

7. CONCLUSION:

Bharati Mukherjee’s immigrant experiences spells in her writings and evokes the Americans to see the richness of India and Indian, how they create magic in solving the problems of Indian diaspora. Starting from psychological stress or trauma, cultural adjustment, acknowledging roots in order to come to terms with the transformation of identity of the immigrants, Mukherjee’s works cover all these aspects. Immigrant narratives such as Mukherjee’s are primarily diasporic in the discourse of ideology, hegemony and imperialism. In the words of Pramod K. Nayar, “In the latter half of the Twentieth century, the writings of transplanted authors such as Bharati Mukherjee, Buchi Emecheta, David Dabydeen, Caryl Philips and Hanif Kureshi have captured the diasporic, hybridized state of migrant communities” (Post Colonial Literature 187).

8. REFERENCE:

1. Edwards, Bradley C. ed. Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee. Jackson, UP of Mississippi. 2009.

2. Mukherjee, Bharati. Tiger’s Daughter. Chatto, London. 1971.

3. Mukherjee, Bharati. Wife. Sterlings, New Delhi. 1975.

4. Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. Grove Widenfield, New York. 1989.

5. Nayar, Pramod K. Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction. Pearson, Delhi. 2008.

Received on 12.04.2019 Modified on 09.05.2019

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2019; 10(3):754-756.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2019.00123.2