Malti Agarwal

Manju Kapur’s The Immigrant: A Gynocentric Text With Diasporic Issues

Manju Kapur, a Delhi base fictional writer, has five novels to her credit till date. The very first reading of her novels gives an impression to the readers that the author is a feminist. In all her novels, Kapur emerges as a great supporter of woman cause – voicing the tales of middle-class women who struggle hard to find their identities. Whether it is Virmati in her maiden novel Difficult Daughters or Astha in A Married Woman or Nisha in Home or Nina in The Immigrant or Ishita in her latest novel Custody, all come up as the spirited women who have learnt to live for themselves. They dauntlessly march towards their liberation and often while fighting for themselves, they challenge the false notions of the conventional middle-class society. They crave for recognition for their work and when society seems apathetic and uninterested toward their work, they do not leg being in defying the long-established traditions of the middle-class Indian society.

Since in all her novels, the story revolves around the female protagonists, Kapur is often called a feminist. In an interview with Deepa Diddi, once Manju Kapur clearly asserts and confirms this claim of the critics. She says, ‘‘Yes, I am a feminist writer in the sense that my works are woman-centric. My novels focus on the needs and desires of women from different backgrounds and in different situations’’. She further adds, ‘‘Women yearns for recognition for their work, particularly since domestic labour so often goes unappreciated. They want concern and a sharing of responsibilities’’. (159) Virmati in her debut novel Difficult Daughters becomes the unmarried mother of her siblings and does not get that warmth and love which makes children confident and imparts a feeling of security within the four walls of their homes. Eventually Virmati opts for morally aberrant course of life when she develops illicit relations with the married professor. Astha in A Married Woman,despite of living apparently a comfortable and somewhat luxurious life supported by all amenities, longs for recognition and personal care in her married life. When failed to receive this from her husband, she develops lesbian relations with Pipeelika. No doubt, there may be women like Sona in Home who feel suffocated when are subjected to domestic drudgery yet they lack morale to stand against any injustice done to them.

Like her earlier novels, in Kapur’s The Immigrant, published in the year 2008, the central figure is a woman-Nina who is an English teacher at Miranda House, New Delhi. Nina lives in a one room apartment at Jangpura Extension, Delhi with her widowed mother. The novel opens with a detailed description of the physique of thirty-year-old spinster whom a fiasco in love forced to live in loneliness. See how the novelist introduces her to her readers, ‘‘Nina was almost thirty. Friend and colleague consoled her by remarking on her radiant complexion and jet black hair but such comfort was cold. Nina’s skin knew it was thirty, broadcasting the fact at certain angles in front of the mirror. Her spirit felt sixty as she walked from the bus stop to the single room where she lived with her mother. Her heart felt a hundred as it surveyed the many years of hopeless longing it had known’’ (1). Nina is financially self-reliant yet like all other Indian daughters she is a burden on her mother, she is a liability, a responsibility. Hence, Nina’s mother, like all Indian mothers, has a one point programme that is how to get her daughter married . Marriage in India is supposed to be a sacred institution and also mandatory at least for every female. Virmati’s mother in Difficult Daughters, like other orthodox Indian women, thinks that a girl is born to be married. Likewise in A Married Woman, Astha’s mother is anxious to get her daughter married. In Home also, the prime concern of Nisha’s parents and grandparents is to find a suitable match for Nisha and marry her. Nina’s mother in The Immigrant is also looking forward to her daughter’s marriage though she knows that after her marriage she would suffer loneliness (8). True, ‘‘the major topic of discussion in the last eight years had been Nina’s marriage – who, when, where, how ?’’ (3) Friends and neighblours’ greetings on her birthday irritate Nina. She knows that ‘‘every marriage is (not) a good news’’ (8) for Indian men (are) mother-obsessed, infantile, chauvinist bastards’ (9). Ultimately search of Nina’s mother of a bridegroom takes her to the door of an astrologer whose advice harnesses new hopes in the mother’s heart. At last, an NRI match is found and Nina after the courtship of a few months is married to a Canada based Indian dentist. The mother like all other Indian mothers is now relieved of the burden of her unmarried daughter.

The immigrant can be read as a text with two clear cut sections. In the former section, the life of unmarried Nina as lived in India in a conventional orthodox society, has been presented. The latter section describes in detail the life of married Nina, the wife of an NRI Dentist husband as she lived in Canada amid Western values. If the first half of the novel seems to be a passage to India, the other half is certainly a passage to Canada. (Guin, Ursula K Le Review : The Guardian, http://www.guardian. Co. uk/books/2009). While the other female protagonists of Manju Kapur struggle against the Eastern rigid social set-up, Nina’s struggle is a bit different from her predecessors. She, at home, has to stand against the patriarchal set-up of the Indian middle-class society, but she, on the other hand, has to fight against her loneliness, frustration and the western ethos.

The novel is set in the 1970s when Nina after marrying Ananda, reaches Halifax, Canada. She sacrifices her job of a lecturer which in reality is her loss of identity. Actually Kanpur in The Immigrant focuses on the NRI marriages where men and women both are uprooted and move to live in some alien land. Consequently both suffer from frustration, disappointment and nostalgia. Both are found engaged in their search for their lost selves. Andy (Ananda-as popularly known in Halifax) does some courses in dentistry and finally establishes himself as a dentist. But to Nina, the picture is quite dismal as her teaching degree is useless in Canada. Moreover, their marriage fails to give them children. From here begins a woman’s struggle for her existence. Her reading habit fails to keep her engaged and she like other aliens feels alienated and caught in the flux of eastern and western values. Once Ananda rightly called her as “the perfect mix of east and west” (86). Kanpur also writes, “Her devotion to her mother and her willingness to consider an arranged introduction proved her Indian values, while her tastes, reading, thoughts, manner of speech and lack of sexual inhibition all revealed western influences.” (86)

All immigrants want a better life but the realization that east is east and west is west and never shall twain meet  shatter their dreams. Every person in his first trip to a foreign country feels lost and confused. Living among strange people, unknown surroundings and new culture keeps them on the rock. They long to breathe the air of their native place, to view the parks, trees, the harbour of their own. Like other immigrants, Nina also feels isolated. She has lost her home and her job. She cries, “I miss home — I miss a job — I miss doing things. I feel like a shadow. What am I but your wife ?”(237) Nina’s feeling of loss takes her to a group of women who work on feminist principles. Her distress resulting from her being without job in a foreign country and also her failure in conceiving make her to wail before Beth. “Everything is very strange”, she said in a rush, “I used to be a teacher, in fact I taught for ten years before I came here. And now I do nothing. I have not even been able to conceive. Am I locked into stereotypical expectations? I don’t know”. (232) Just because she could not get pregnant, she feels quite helpless. For her present mental state, her long cherished and deeply ingrained notions of Indian motherhood are at work as Gayatri speaks out,” We are conditioned to think a woman’s fulfillment lies in birth and motherhood. Just as we are conditioned to feel failures if we don’t marry” (233).

Assimilation or acculturation is the only remedy which can help the immigrants to find themselves in the comfort zone. Some immigrants constantly try to adopt quickly the alien culture. But gender bias or racial discrimination which they are subjected to makes their stay in a foreign country unpleasant. After her marriage with Ananda, Nina goes alone to Halifax and her first experience at the Toronto airport has been very unpleasant where she passes through a rigorous process of close examination. She had been asked various questions by the immigration women which she thought were all irrelevant. To Nina, her first experience to this new world was unpleasant. She being a teacher was used to respect but here a different yardstick is used to judge her. She feels humiliated. Kapur vividly describes her mental state. She writes, “Rage fills her. Why were people to silent about the humiliations they faced in the West? She was a teacher at a university, yet this woman, probably school pass, can imprison her in a cell like room, scare her and condemn her. Though she was addressed as ma’am, no respect is conveyed (108). Despite of having all papers in order, she is treated badly just because she is an Indian whereas “they would not treat a European or American like that”(111). The cross-examination Nina gets at the airport agonized her and she resents the injustice of her treatment. She is treated like a criminal simply because she is of ‘wrong colour’ and comes from ‘the wrong place’. In a state of exasperation, she voices her resentment by writing a note to her husband — “This is not your country. You are deceived and you have deceived me. You made it out to be a liberal haven where everybody loved you. This woman is looking for a reason to get rid of me. I am the wrong colour, I come from the wrong place. See me in this airport, of all the passengers the only one not allowed to sail through immigration, made to feel like an illegal alien.”(108)

Ananda, like Nina, also passes through the same horrible experience. When he goes to stay with his maternal uncle at Halifax. He learns that when in Rome do as Romans do. He learns to eat meat and drink alcohol. He tries to be a Canadian. No doubt, he had times when he felt very lonely and isolated. The novelist describes, “Weekends were the worst, and he had much time in which to relive his parents’ deaths. His isolation pressed upon him and numbed his capacity to break his solitude.” (35) Ananda recalls how when he was in “India whether at home or in the hostel he had always been surrounded by people, his life open to inspection, comment and group participation” (35). Eventually, like his uncle Ananda also learns to break his solitude. The immigrants like Andy try to merge and mingle and try to move from east to west. They try to adopt bit by bit and forget all which they have left behind. To them, need of the hour is ‘‘to forget the smells, sights, sounds you were used to, forget them or you will not survive. There is new stuff around, make it your own, you have to’’ (123). Their long working hours prevent them from remembering what they have left behind. They actually are in a fix. Apparently they adjust well but their hearts remain divided. They work hard in order to get into the alien society and also to establish their own bank account. No doubt, they proceed to fulfill their dreams of better life but they are not able to break the charm which binds them with their country. Their process of assimilation often finds some set backs whenever they suffer on account of their race and native place. Nina also shares the same feelings when she thinks,”What assimilation when your body, stamped you an outside’’ (157). But at last these immigrants learn how to merge and mingle. See how minutely and also analytically, the novelist portrays the immigrant psyche, ‘‘Work is an easy way to integrate. Work engages the mind and prevents it from brooding over the respective merits of what has been lost and gained. Colleagues are potential friends’’ (124). It is not that men do not suffer in a foreign land, but women suffer much more intensely and go through greater humiliation. Thus the scene changes if an immigrant is a wife who finds herself at a loss in a foreign country. Kapur rightly comments, ‘‘The immigrant who comes as a wife has a more difficult time. If work exists for her, it is in the future, and after much finding of feet’’ (124). Nina in Halifax also passes through the same dilemma as “at present all she is, is a wife, and a wife is alone for many many hours” (124). All luxuries or facilities which the place provide loose their charm and she feels that she is an immigrant. She, like other immigrants, becomes nostalgic and longs for a home. “She longed to breathe the foul air, longed to sit in a scooter rickshaw and have every bone in her body jolted” (179). Nina feels stressed and not ready to welcome changes which were so thorough that she feels ‘rootless’, ‘branchless’. She then begins to cry and feel homesick and forlorn. Kapur gives a very lively description of this forlorn self, “The minute she gets up she is at a loose end. Languidly she approaches her homework, dishwashing, bed making, cleaning, stretching every task out, slow, slow. She keeps the radio on, listening to music, advertisements, the CBC and its take on Quebee separation and Pierre Elliott Trudeau” (124). She cannot approve the amorous activities of a young couple who in a movie hall make love publicly. She wonders at their kissing each other unabashedly in a public place. Truly, Indians born and brought up in conservative and restrictive environment are not accustomed to the display of such erotic passion.

Eventually like Andy Nina also tries to assimilate her self with Western culture. She learns to break her solitude. She buys books from the grocery shop to fill her time. But reading books also fails to distract her. It seems her mundane and boring. She, in order to find herself out, begins to wear jeans and eat meat. She joins a library course so that she could remain engaged. But here she enters into an extramarital relationship which ends on a date rape. At the outset, Nina feels guilty after the first sexual encounter with Beth. She begins to ponder what she had done. But soon she rationalizes herself when she says that she has done what she likes. She thinks “That she like, she had lived. Who can feel guilty about living ? Judging from the evidence, and the sexual therapy centers, every citizen in North America regarded good sex as their unalienable right. It was her right too” (263). On the other hand, Andy in his affair with Mandy is also caught in a flux of traditional and modern values. In his masculine efforts of being a westerner he begins to believe that one woman is a prison and wishes if he were born in an earlier age when even Hindu men could marry as many times as they pleased. But ultimately he is not able to turn his back against the oriental values. He cannot ignore his family. His family honour does not allow him to abandon the woman who was selected by his sister and brother-in-law for him. Thus, men in immigration adapt themselves to the new system yet it is true they fail to change themselves completely because they come with old world values (285).

Nina’s life passes through certain ups and downs. She lost her mother, she feels defenceless. Only Ananda seems to be her solitary anchor in Canada. But next morning all her dreams are shattered when she finds a wavy blond hair next to her pillow. It now tells the story of her husband’s transgression. She thinks of her transgression which has been against a faithful husband but the discovery of yellow hair makes it clear that their marriage “was based on more than one person’s lies” (328). Nina now feels relieved and enjoys her regeneration. She sets herself free from the yoke of matrimony and social sanction. She decides to be by herself away from her husband, thinking that independence would facilitate her thought processes. She is now an independent self financially self-sufficient and socially acceptable. She goes away from Halifax and thinks of all those who have been quite nice to her but feels that they were all temporary. The novelist describes, “She thought of those who had been nice to her, wayfarers on the path, nothing permanent, but interacting with them had made that stretch easier. Colleagues at HRL, the woman’s group that encouraged her to be angry and assertive. Beth, Gayatri library school; the sense of community was there, warming but temporary — everything temporary” (333).  True “that is the ultimate immigrant experience” (333) where nothing is steady and stable but where if one thing fails, the immigrant tries another. An immigrant cannot go back. The book ends with a message which can make the immigrants’ journey pleasant : “The continent was full of people escaping unhappy parts. She too was heading towards fresh territories, a different set of circumstances, a floating resident of the Western world” (334). The last few words may reverberate through an immigrant self and provide a vintage ground in the hollow land - “When one was reinventing oneself, anywhere could be home. Pull up your shallow roots and more. Find a new place, new friends, a new family. It had been possible once, it would be possible again” (334).

The novel deals primarily with the issue of cultural disparity which the immigrants are subjected to. They have been born and brought up in their native boundaries with specific cultural habits but the immigration compels them to adopt the contrasting culture of a foreign country. This cultural dilemma often causes many emotional setbacks to them. The cultural crisis makes them to pass through fits of nostalgia resulting into dejection and stress. Ananda does not like the celebration of Diwali and Holi in Halifax. He at such occasions is full of reminiscences of celebrations of Janamashtami, Dussehra, Diwali, Ram Navmi, Holi in the mother country when he with his parents used to eat special food. Ananda regards his uncle a hypocrite who in Canada was dressing his women up in Saris and eating vegetarian food only on Diwali. How disgusting it was! His uncle Indian for a day whereas westerner for the remaining days. When asked why he participated in such celebrations, his uncle replies. “To give the children some idea of their background of course, otherwise how will they know our customs?” (28) Like many Indians Dr. Sharma celebrated hybrid Diwali as he could not leave his country behind. He could not detach himself from his native rituals which still allure him.

Gradually Ananda comes in touch with the western code of conduct. The first setback was when Dr. Sharma decided to partition the laundry room to turn it into a cubicle for Ananda. Soon Ananda comes to realize how Westerners love privacy. “Privacy was an important issue in this culture” (29). The picture is just its reverse as people in the native country live in crowd. Nine recalls how at home nobody is ever alone. She remembers the presence of her mother, the gardener working in the garden, the maid washing clothes and above all the encounters with the landlady- all never allow her to feel lonely. Undoubtedly, the bonds of an Indian family are strong.

Another cardinal issue of the Western culture is ‘independence’. Here the word family has different connotations. Like the Indian families, here the familial bonds are not so strong. One day Dr. Sharma tells Ananda to live independently because “family here[there] means different things” (30). The family simply helps one to be independent. It does not cripple one. Gary to whose house Ananda is shifted highlights this aspect of Western culture. He says to Ananda, “You’ll have a much better time on your own, man. One can’t have family breathing down one’ neck” (32). Soon Ananda learns to live on his own.

Western concept of marriage and companionship keeps Andy on his guard. To Indians the idea of going on a date or having a girl friend sounds strange. When asked by Gary about his girl friend, Andy clearly declares”We don’t have this girlfriend-boyfriend concept in India” (37). The girls in India are generally so shy that they don’t even talk to the young boys. Ananda tells Gary, “Lucknow has a small town mentality. Segregation was the norm. Dating was not possible, people would see, talk, the girl’s reputation would get spoilt. Of course, everything was done, but not in the open” (37). Likewise the idea of arranged marriage seems absurd and unacceptable to the Westerners. In India, couples love each other after marriage whereas in a foreign land love between man and woman leads to marriage. As soon as Ananda breaks the news of his arrange marriage, his uncle and his family it is like a bomb shell. They all were at a loss. They all exclaimed and asked Andy a number of questions such as “Was it an arranged marriage “ How long had he known her ? Had they met ?” (84) etc. etc. When Ananda discloses the news of his marriage to his friend Gary he also gets flabbergasted on this average arranged marriage. It is because world over, people regard arranged marriages as barbaric as they are not able to differentiate ‘arranged introductions’ from arranged marriages. The novelist describes the thought process of western people. She writes, “That Indian marriages were barbarically arranged, that strangers were forced to cohabit was a universal perception, and there was nothing Ananda could do to change it. Useless to assert the influence of modernity, to suggest variations, to indicate that in the cities it was just arranged introductions, and where in the world did that not happen ? The Western eye, viewing things from a 10,000 mile distance had no use for trifling nuances” (85). Later, Nina and Mrs. Batra advocate the Eastern system of arranged marriages whereas westerners could not think of marrying somebody one does not know. It seems quite weird to these westerners. To Anton, it’s stupid to confine yourself to one person for your whole life’ (261). ‘What about adventure, what about experiencing differences? Nobody owns anybody” (261), comments Anton. But Nina argues and points out the greatest advantage of arranged marriages which are in practice in Asian countries like India. She comments, “Many people prefer it (arranged marriage) actually. It has the advantage of social and family sanction, you are not alone to deal with your problems, it is more convenient to fall in love after you marry than before” (222). Mrs. Batra also supports the idea of spending whole life with someone ‘one does not know’. She argues, “The parents, the main arrangers, look at the whole thing dispassionately, taking into account family background, likes, dislikes, income, everything. Often these marriages are greater successes that ones made on the basis of emotion” (222).

Indian marriages are not based on the chemistry of relationships. The Indian marriages are based on something else which is beyond this chemistry. There “the whole extended family has an interest in keeping the marriage going” (223) and that is why the divorce rate in India is not very large. To the Easterners, such marriage is a boon which fills the empty spaces of a man’s life and provides a strong and daily companionship and substance. Thus Westerners have their own concept of marriage and the Easterners their own. There was a time when Nina used to think that the Westerners have their own standards and she has hers and never the twain shall meet and also that a woman’s fulfillment lies in birth and motherhood. Nina, like other Asian women, feels insecure without children. But soon she learns to live for herself and sets herself free from a conservative thinking of motherhood etc. The same Nina who earlier used to see the shadowy figure of her own child in the pre-schoolers, who used to talk of motherhood, infertility treatments, who was anxiously waiting to be pregnant and whom her husband regarded conservative and ‘the true Indian’ adapts herself to the new country’s requirement. Now her library course and job become her priority.

Kapur beautifully portrays the psyche of the immigrants. She minutely analyses their thought process so sensitively that the reader begins to equate her with her characters. Time and again, people in a foreign land languish for their motherland so much so that even things they used to condemn or despise during their stay in their native country often tempt them.

One morning Nina listens to a British commentator reporting the Kumbh Mela, held in Allahabad every 12 years. As she was educated, secular and westernized, she never paid attention to such rituals. But now the British commentator’s words reverberated through Nina. The novelist writes, “From so far however, the crowds, the pilgrims, the piety, the cold river, the morning mist, the sadhus all called to her. Somewhere they beat in her blood and now, in a foreign land, she was guilty of exoticising India as the tourist posters in the Taj Mahal” (175).

Manju Kapur not only in The Immigrant but in her other novels also deals with some parochial and some universal issues, relating to the middle-class Indian society. She in particular takes up the cause of the females who are victimized on account of conservative and traditional mind-set of the Indian masses. Whether it is Nina’s mother who is uneducated, religious and simple woman or it is Nina educated and cultured, they both meet the same oppressive treatment. After her husband’s death Nina’s mother along with her daughter moves to Lucknow to live with her in-laws but there she is treated as an unwelcome guest and her mother-in-law resents her daughter-in-law’s existence. Nina after passing through all ordeals ultimately becomes a lecturer at Miranda House and after her marriage with an NRI migrates to Canada. But for Nina sky does not change. In Canada also she finds herself defenseless. She lacks the warmth of passion and eventually walks out of the nuptial bond. Kapur’s fictional works leaves the readers to find out the answers of some unanswered questions:

1. How long will women be treated as the soft target and will be subjected to all sorts of oppression?
2. Will women not be allowed to choose their future course of action themselves?
3. When will people in India as well as world over pay respect to women which they deserve?
4. When will women stand up and fight against their victimization?
5. Are women safe in India or in the so-called cultured and civilized countries?

 

There are many more questions which can stir a sensitive mind to ponder over the prevalent social set-up in India as well in other countries of the world where people are discriminated in the name of sex, race, nationality etc. As it has become a global issue, the writers specially those who belong to Asian countries have dealt with this issue with all its implications. A number of the authors who are of Indian base have come up to highlight many diasporic issues which are the part and parcel of the immigrants’ lives. Women writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Devakruni write about the diverse aspects of immigrancy. But over all, all the writers are aware of the cultural ambience which gives birth to problems of adjustment in a foreign country.

 

Works Cited

Kapur, Manju. The Immigrant. New Delhi: Random.2011. Print.