Diasporic Indian writers move over nostalgia, loss

Maya has only three days left to live. She has important decisions at hand: dividing her sarees and her coveted jewelery among daughters and daughter-in-law, cleaning the house, placing order for her coffin, ensuring she is looking good at the time of her death and the like. As she goes about in a mechanical way preparing for her death she learns to live again.
Maya is the central character in British writer Divya Mathur’s story Antim Teen Din (Last Three Days). While the story breathes of Indian culture, the character is European in its bearing.
Nostalgia and loss no longer define the experience of the green card holder. The Indian diaspora has stepped into a far more complex jumble of existence. This was also the dominant opinion at the recently concluded three-day seminar in Toronto, organised to bring together the Hindi diasporic writers of Canada and Britain.
Organised by Katha UK and Hindi Writers’ Guild, the Toronto event discussed approaches to story writing and the modern idiom. Speaking at the event, noted writer and general secretary of Katha U.K. Tejinder Sharma, stressed on the need for the writers of the diaspora to emerge from the morass of nostalgia and assimilate the local concerns.
In an email interview, Sharma explained that the workshop discussed aspects of writing in view of the writer of a changing social setup. "Today’s writer does not just reveal what happened after. He justifies whatever happened, why did it happen? He works hard to show the story rather than narrate it," Sharma says.Till the turn of the century no writer of Indian origin had any Hindi work of fiction published in UK. Over the decade the growth has been tremendous with the Hindi diasporic writings boasting of writers like Tejinder Sharma (UK), Deepti Achla Kumar (Canada), Archana Pennuily (Denmark), and Krishna Bihari (UAE).
But it is a tough road for the writers of this literature. While most of the writers and readers are first-generation immigrants, the second and third generation immigrants merely have a working knowledge of the language. So the writer looks towards the reader and critics back home in India and the Indian diaspora abroad for readership.
"Procuring Hindi books abroad is not easy. Mostly the writer gives free copies to his friends and readers. There are hardly any outlets for Hindi Books. In London we have one store run by India’s Star Books," says Sharma. The first edition of most of the Hindi books is only 350 copies. These books are dumped in the government purchases or the writers are forced to buy their own books.
In UK, the Indian high commission started a scheme about four years ago to provide assistance to the upcoming Hindi writers in UK. Organisations like Geetanjali Bahubhashi Samaj, Asian Community Arts and Katha UK sponsor collections of poetry and short stories from time to time.
"Otherwise, the exploitation of the author by the publisher is complete and absolute.
Barring a few established names, every writer has to pay money to the publisher for getting his/her book published. Royalty is a distant dream for immigrant writers," Sharma adds.
Aren’t the writers put off by the bleak situation? Isn’t the lure to move into English too hard to resist? Sharma doesn’t think so. Some of the stories of Usha Priyamvada, Susham Bedi, Shail Agrawal, Ila Prasad, Archana Pennuily, Krishna Bihari, Divya Mathur, Gautam Sachdev, Usha Verma, Zakia Zubairi can compete with the best written in India. Tejinder Sharma’s story Qabra ka Munafa has been cited among the 20 best short stories in Hindi in the past 25 years.
With over 80 per cent of Indians who cannot speak English and the continuous stream of immigrants, Hindi diasporic literature is only beginning to find it voice. Sample The Colour of my Passport by Tejinder Sharma:

Meri chamdi ka rang aaj bhi wahi hai
Mere seene mein wahi dil dhadakta hai
Jann gan man ki awaz, aaj bhi
Kar deti hai muje sawdhan!
Aur mein, aram se, ek bar phir
Bith jata hun, sochna jaise tal jata hai
Ki passport ka rang kaise badal jata hai

(My skin has the same colour
The same heart still beats in my body
The sound of the National Anthem
Still alerts me to attention
And I pause for a while
At ease, and I postpone the quest to find an answer
Why does passport change colour?)

To My Daughter

“How the stars made?

nd how grass grows

so tall? Tell me papa

Cause u ave lived

nd u know all.”

“It’s a funny world Navvya

For years we live

Knowing nothing at all

Neither today

Nor years hence

I can tell you, how

grass shoots up straight

Story of how stars

were made and trivia

around us sprayed…

But I do not know

The truth and

live years in

the loop of

honourable dark.

Do not learn

from me doll.

Weave your own truth

And maybe at the end

You will have lived.”

सपने का जन्म

वो अन्दर था 

जब हम पत्थर

बजा रहे थे

त्रिश्नाएं वो  

बटोर रहा था

जब घास हम 

सुलगा रहे थे 

विछेद रहा था

असंभव, वो  

जोड़ रहा था

अद्भुत

कई साल तक

हम आग 

सुलगते रहे

वो रहा

अन्दर गुम

फिर एकदिन

उसकी रचना,

थी तैयार

सपना उसदिन

हमने देखा

जो कुछ भी

हाथ में था

गिर गया

जो बरसों से

नहीं जली थी

उसदिन

वो आग

भभक उठी 

January 32

‘Why this date?'

‘You won’t understand’

says your smile

‘That’s my day, or

will be…,’ you add

with stylish silence.

With him the jazz

doesn’t help,

‘Whaayyy?’ he’s earnest.

‘We all do it,

Mine is a date.’

‘But its never coming!’

‘It always is,

wooling winters

with anticipation

then summers silently

sweltering in disappointment.’

He throws up his hands.

He won’t last long.

‘But you see,’

you tell him,

‘Jan 33 will last forever.’

‘What is forever?

…,’ you miss the rest

then something

you let slip

is not heard either.

Pathetic fallacy?

Clap and snap,

then countless snaps

Snaps, dampening

the clothes she

set out to dry,

she thinks they

don’t mind though.

Another day

The snaps would

have annoyed,

but not today.

They always

mess the doorbell

but today, it’s

a naughty tickle,

‘What a pathetic

laugh’, she giggles .

Its all different,

They would’ve

snaked through

her skin and

sickened her soul

but not today.

‘There is no reason

for most of the

things in life,’

she says,

‘We just invent it.’

हममे कुछ नया नहीं

और ना ही हो सकता है

उस आदम से

इस मानुस तक

हमने यही किया है

और ताज्जुब है

हरबार सोचा की

कुछ नया किया है

फिर एक दिन

उस सच से

होता है साक्षात्कार

की ये तो नया

है ही नहीं

और तब होती है

जंग शुरू,

सच बनाम विश्वास.

उस संकट में

काम आते है

बड़े बड़े नाम

बताइए एइन्स्तिएन

ने नया नहीं किया?

बताइए जो पहले

चाँद पे गया, क्या

उसने भी नया नहीं किया.

पर सच

जवाब नहीं देता

सच तो बस

होता है

आप खुद ही

वितर्क खोजते हैं

जो खोजते है तो

तर्क को भी

आस पास ही पाते हैं

अंततः अपनी जिरह में

आप हरा देते हैं

खुद को

और वो सच

भाग निकलता है

छुपता फिरता है

सालों तक

तर्कों की पुलिस से

फिर होता है प्रदर्पित

जब आप किसी

चोटी पे खड़े

कर रहे होते है

सीना चौड़ा

और दोहराता है

वही सालों पुरानी बात

'इसमें नया क्या है'?

कैसा हो अगर

खो जाये

हम सबकी याददाश्त?

हर किताब जल जाये

हर अक्षर मिट जाये?

तब सब नया लगेगा

शायद.

इसीलिए मैं

मंदबुद्धि होना चाहती हूँ

सब हो चूका है

इस निष्कर्ष को

खोना चाहती हूँ.

So Quiet!

But its too quiet

for sanity

too many words

imprisoned in paper,

too many thoughts

bottled up in a brain,

too many lonely smiles

for solitude,

too much of me and

too much of them

too little of us.

Too much peace

to be at peace.