Reflections
The
Writer’s Visit
Bharati
Mukharjee comes to Dhaka to reclaim her ancestral home--Bangladesh
Nilofar
Khan
Bharati
Mukherjee--the eminent American writer was in Dhaka on a short
visit. Research on her roots in Bangladesh had brought this
gorgeous Bengali lady to this part of Bengal for the first
time about four years ago. The recent tour was her second
trip to her ancestral homeland. Since I had wonderful memories
of interviewing her at Berkley in 1992, I rushed to see her
again despite all kinds of duties and torrential downpour.
I must
admit that during our first meeting I did not fully grasp
or appreciate Mukerjee's political stand as a pioneer immigrant
writer who was claiming her right to change the face of American
fiction. At that point of my academic career I was just discovering
writers of Indian origin who were writing in English. So while
I felt proud of my cultural affinity with these writers, I
also assumed that they must all be very proud of their own
origins and heritage. But when Mukherjee read me out parts
of her manifesto as presented in her essay, "A Four Hundred
Year Old Woman," I began wondering about the need of
writers like her to be absorbed by mainstream America and
American literature. Later however, while preparing for my
Ph.D comprehensives, as I read more of her fiction, I discovered
her endeavours at striking a balance between two opposite
poles. On the one hand, her writings seemed to aggressively
embrace the diverse facades of the New World that she has
been discovering since her arrival at the Writers' Workshop
at Iowa in early 60's. On the other hand, they seemed embedded
in Indian history and her Baligonjian familial past with an
unquestionable certainty.
However,
the impression that our recent meeting has left on my mind
is that despite her praises for pluriculturalism or mongrelization,
her primary agenda is still the need to justify her Americanness.
Perhaps this justification is required not so much by the
white Americans as by the Sub-Continentals who are either
afraid of losing their intellectuals to the Western world,
or who interpret their appropriation of the West as entirely
self-centered and economically motivated. Prepared for such
a tension amongst some of her audience, while Mukherjee reminded
them of her allegiance to the American constitution, she also
made it clear that she is not an uncritical, complicit citizen
of her nation. As with her North American husband in private
life, in her civic life also she practices the art of tactful
assertiveness. Now she does not hesitate to point out the
loopholes of the American essentialist mindset or its Establishment.
In fact she has been trying to muster the art of rectifying
the ways and beliefs of the white male dominated society whenever
and wherever necessary by confidently reminding it that, "even
if your objectives are great, your methodology is not always
necessarily correct."
Another
confirmation that I made from her two lectures I attended
is, for Mukherjee the biggest fights have been against Western
racism. She emphasized the fact that her brown skin has thrown
more ruthless challenges on her way than the fact that she
was born as one of three daughters in a conservative Bengali
Brahmin family. According to the author this is why her major
concerns have been minority issues in America rather than
post-colonial or feminist issues.
However,
the fiction writer has her own qualms with these schools of
thought. Expressing her utter displeasure with that type of
post-colonialism that demands constant referring back to the
colonial heritage, Mukerjee declared that our colonial hang
up is long over. Hence, according to her as an author she
should not be forced to stick to issues of nationalism or
patriotism. Her characters similarly should not be expected
to be mouthpieces for enhancing cultural glory. As a writer
of the postmodern era, and inhabiting in midst of cultures
that are constantly in flux, she demands her right to hybridity
and "impurity". Nonetheless, a hyphenated identity,
as in Asian-American is something she detests. Unlike the
Naipaul types who perpetually carry around a baggage of nostalgia
for "homes " left behind, she has decided to lay
newer roots at the soil of America. Hence like the John Updikes
and Joyce Carol Oateses of America she wishes to be able to
contribute to the collective consciousness of America.
However,
parting ways with mainstream American feminism and it's heavy
adoption of French feminism, she tried to remind her audience
that South Asian feminism as sprouting from the soil of Kolkata
for instance, is far different from the type brewing amongst
the diasporan or immigrant minority of America. After a lot
of what she calls "unhousing" and "rehousing"
that an immigrant woman like her had to go through, Mukherjee
seems to have gained a certain insight into the various faces
of neo-colonialism, which includes a part of Western feminism.
All in all, the sudden short arrival of this controversially
famous author amongst our midst opened many channels for further
debate upon the hot issues briefly touched on above.
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(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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