Abstract
This essay takes up the two meanings of the word ‘burden’—a cross to be borne as well as a mainstay, the rhythm of music, the refrain of song—and its interaction with culture. This analysis is specifically placed against the concept of multiculturalism which tends to camouflage issues of identity and belonging against the parallel flow of diverse cultures. Culture in itself is an abstraction and comes alive only when represented through language, custom, tradition and inherited memories, all of which contribute to the making of individuals and nations. It further problematises the diasporic relationship with home culture and the way in which they negotiate their location between filiation and affiliation. Taking Edwards Said’s concept of ‘travelling’ ideas, the argument engages with the travels of men and women who carry their cultural affiliations with them. Another issue that needs to be addressed is the dialectic process which governs the relationship of home culture to host culture—does it allow adaptation or does it withdraw into fixities. Most of the writers discussed are of Indian origin and are now in Canada either directly or via the Caribbean. These writers also adopt theoretical positions with reference to postcolonialism and diasporic identities.
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- 1.
Edward Said, ‘Traveling Theory’, The World, the Text and the Critic (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1983), 226–247.
- 2.
Vivek Dhareshwar, ‘Fortunate Traveling: Location, Theory and Post-colonial Identity’, Journal of Contemporary Thought (Baroda, 1992).
- 3.
Ibid., 39. Dharweshwar quotes from Fanon’s essay ‘On National Culture’ from The Wretched of the Earth.
- 4.
Bissoondath, (Toronto: Penguin, 1994).
- 5.
Ibid., 134. ‘… The largest and the most dangerous pitfall would be the adoption of a ghetto mentality. To forget that there is a world beyond the community to which we belong, to confine ourselves within narrowly defined cultural frontiers, would be, I believe, to go voluntarily into that form of internal exile which in South Africa is called the “homeland”’.
- 6.
Himani Bannerjee, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender (Toronto: Scholars’ Press Inc., 2000), 68–70.
- 7.
Spivak, (New York: Routledge, 1988).
- 8.
Mukherjee, (Toronto: Tsar Publications, 1994).
- 9.
Translated by Mukherjee (Calcutta: Samya, 2003).
- 10.
For further elaboration, see Jancy James’s essay on Parameswaran in Writers of the Indian Diaspora. Ed. Jasbir Jain (Jaipur: Rawat) 1998. 199–208.
- 11.
Refer ‘Ganga in the Assiniboine: Prospects for Indo-Canadian Literature’ and ‘Ganga in the Assiniboine: A Reading of Poems from Trishanku’, both included in her recent collection of essays. Writing the Diaspora (Jaipur: Rawat, 2006). 70–91.
- 12.
Ibid., 325.
- 13.
See ‘Home is Where Your Feet Are, and May Your Heart Be There Too’, Writing the Diaspora, 208–217. 210.
- 14.
Gandhi in Hind Swaraj (1909) discusses this, while Tagore also debates this in several essays on culture and civilisation, specifically ‘Crisis in Civilization’ and ‘Civilization and Progress’, Crisis in Civilization and Other Essays (New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2003).
- 15.
Ramabai Espinet, The Swinging Bridge (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004), 83.
- 16.
Interestingly enough, V.S. Naipaul in his acceptance speech of the Nobel Award also talked at length about history—of the family, of his origins, of migration and culture. See Internet sources.
- 17.
Ondaatje, Running in the Family (London: Picador, 1984). The English Patient (Vintage Books, 1993) and Anil’s Ghost (New York, Random House, 2000).
- 18.
See Anisur Rahman, ‘Versions of Subversion: Running in the Family’ Writers of the Indian Diaspora, ed. Jasbir Jain (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 1998), 145–155.149.
- 19.
Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason locates itself initially in a village before moving abroad, In An Antique Land to Egypt, Calcutta Chromosome to the States, The Glass Palace to Burma and Malaysia and the Sea of Poppies, and The River of Smoke to China. All these novels travel across space, cultures and histories. The Hungry Tide (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2005) brings in the world of politics.
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Jain, J. (2017). The Burden of Culture. In: The Diaspora Writes Home. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4846-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4846-3_3
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