21 Diasporic Play

Mr. Mohaiminul Islam

About the Module:

The study discusses the various definitions of the Diaspora. It explores how the diasporic people represent their lives and their negotiation in Canada. It also explores how the diasporic people maintain their diasporic identities, traditional cultures in the multicultural society. In addition, the study explicates the relationship between diasporic people and homeland. Moreover, it examines diasporic playwrights and their writings in order to make sure the valuable contributions of diasporic writers in the Canadian literature. It also examines how the playwrights represent the themes of the homeland, memories of kith and kin, struggle for livelihood and position of the self as belonging to the oriental world in their writings. The study observes the nationalism, multiculturalism and racism in the diasporic plays.

Definition of Diaspora:

The word diaspora comes from Greek word διασπορά (two words Dia and Speiro) literal meaning scattering or sowing of seeds, used to describe the Jewish exodus (Dr Amit Kumar Mishra, Coursework Class Notes, UoH). It is first used in Septuagint (Hebrew Scripture). Jewish Diaspora is an archetype of the diaspora. Etymologically, the Diaspora means the scattering of the Jewish population, but in the contemporary world, the word signifies the people who have left their homeland and settled in the foreign land. According to Sandhya Shukla, the diaspora is:

“The subject of diaspora immediately elicits basic questions of origins and locations. Where do people come from? Where do they pause, rest, live? What routes have they travelled? And yet the real and imagined worlds of all peoples, especially migrant people, have proven far too complex and contradictory to be easily serviced by any attempt to respond in the singular to such compelling questions.” 

Shukla, 2001

The notion of diaspora is to understand the nation, identity, ethnicity, culture, globalization and so on in today’s world. David Carment and David Bercuson “argue that today’s diaspora differ from previous generations of ethnic migrants because late 20th century telecommunications advances and cheap travel allow for a new type of hyper-connectivity between diaspora and their home communities

(Berns-McGown, 2007, pp.5).

Current definitions of “diaspora” – definitions used by the academy and policymakers alike – contribute to the marginalization of immigrant, minority, and ethnic communities, in terms of both societal inclusion and inclusion in the foreign policy process. They, therefore, serve to undermine the stated goals of the Canadian multicultural project and to skew foreign policymaking as policymakers seek to protect it from the “special pleading” of ethnic minorities.

Berns-McGown, 2007, p.3

There are many diasporic writers like William Safran, Robin Cohen, Steven Vertovec, Walker Connor, James Clifford, Vijay Mishra, and others have allocated their ideas to define the Diaspora in ways that made sense for particular frameworks. According to William Safran diaspora as referring to a community which was historically dispersed and share a common desire to return to the homeland (Safran, 1991). Robin Cohen says the diaspora is referring to different communities of people who are living together in a ‘new country’ by often thinking of their homelands (Cohen, 1997). Further, Steven Vertovec defines diaspora as “any population which is considered deterritorialized or transnational” (Vertovec, 1999, p277). In addition, he portrays Martin Baumann’s explanation of diaspora to explicate his definition. Baumann has created “three quite different referential points with respect to the historical Jewish experience ‘in the Diaspora’: these are (a) the process of becoming scattered, (b) the community living in foreign parts, and (c) the place or geographic space in which the dispersed groups live” (Vertovec, 1997, p.278). Moreover, According to Walker Connor, the diaspora defines “Segment of people living outside the homeland” (Connor, 1986, p.16).

Diaspora in Canada:

Canada is a county where different types of races are living in a society. Officially, this country became a multicultural society in 1971 when the government began to recognize the value and dignity of Canadians of all races and ethnic groups, all languages and all religions (Richter, 2011). Most of the Asian people went to Canada, but rare from some European countries. The process of Asian people migration to Canada started “when Indians passed through Canada in 1897 to attend Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Celebration” (Sharma, 1997, p. 3). Further, Kavita A. Sharma says in his book The Ongoing Journey: Indian Migration to Canada that:

Again in 1902, a small contingent of eighty three officers and men both Chinese and Punjabi mainly from the crown colonies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Rangoon and Shanghai went to join the coronation celebrations of Edward VII, passing through Victoria on board the Empress of Japan. They were given a rousing welcome in Vancouver and, as Buchignani points out, the newspaper coverage was positive. On their way back they once again passed through Canada, but shortly after their return to Hong Kong, their regiment was disbanded. This event initiated the first Indian migration to Canada as Indians who had transited through it had already perceived it to be a land of economic opportunities. Up to 1905 and 1906, Indians settled in small communities mainly in British Columbia where the climate was more temperate than in the rest of the Canada.

Sharma, 1997, p. 3

At 1903-08, around 5000 Indians arrived in Canada to work on Railways. In 1961 (around 3360), 2001 (around 850,000) came to work and for a better life. However, in the city Toronto (346,000), Vancouver (142,000) and Calgary (56,000), the Indians are living joyfully. From 1998 onwards, the Indians migrated for education, doing high salary job (75%) and family reunification (only Punjabi 85%). Nowadays, especially Indian Punjabi is living in Canada. They may be around 468,670 people and almost 1.4% of Canada’s population (Wikipedia). Now, Punjabi is the third language in Parliament of Canada after English and French. There are around twenty Punjabi-speaking MPs represent almost six percent of the House of Commons. But, in 1914, the ‘Komagata Maru’ is an unforgettable incident for Indians (especially Punjabi). Around 376 Punjabi passengers were immigrated from Punjab by Komagata Maru Steamship. But all the passengers were escorted out of the dock by the Canadian military and forced to sail back to India. Later, Canadian Military killed some Punjabi passengers. And from that incident, the Indians were stopped to immigrate. But, after apologized to the Canadian government in the parliament, the immigration from India has again started.

Moreover, in 1858, the Chinese started to immigrate and it marked on ongoing immigration to the regions of British North America that would later form present-day Canada. The first wave of Chinese immigrants to arrive in Canada were motivated by various push and pull factors (Wikipedia). Not only that, there are many Japanese, Koreans and others part of Asian people used to immigrate and permanently settled in Canada.

Multiculturalism:

Multiculturalism is a term which is used in both sociologically and politically in the society (Wikipedia). Stuart Hall is used this term in his writing. He is called the ‘godfather of multiculturalism’ (Adam Sherwin, 2014). It may mean a cultural pluralism in which the various ethnic groups collaborate and dialogue with one another without having to sacrifice their particular identities. Moreover, the multiculturalism is described to the many different religious traditions and cultural influences that in their unity and coexistence in Canada make up Canadian culture. The definition of multicultural is something that incorporates ideas, beliefs or people from many different countries and cultural backgrounds. When people of different cultures come together to celebrate and share their different traditions this is an example of a multicultural celebration (www.yourdictionary.com/multicultural). It is accepted and celebrated the diversity of culture by homeland people. It is not imposing of  one (majority) over the others (minorities). It is all cultures, which have developed in interaction and intermingling with the other and have something to offer something to the other. It is like a ‘Plate of Salad’. By the way, the Canadians have been stirred the culture in the ‘melting pot’.

Diaspora in Canadian Literature: 

The diversity of Canadian voices is something that we’re always excited to know. With that in mind, the Study is sharing some authors and books from a range of Asian- Canadian voices (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India and more). Among their writings, a few of the talented authors adding the richness of their experiences and cultures to the Canadian literary landscape. In this juncture, the study finds the history of the internment of South Asian-Canadians; a graphic novel tackling suicide, depression and self-discovery; coming-of-age stories and short stories that weave together a variety of characters and experiences to depict what it means to be Canadian (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/06/22/asian-Canadian-authors-books_n_10210336.html).

Moreover, the diasporic people have nostalgia for their village, culture, language, food, cinema, and so on. Among the diasporic people, there are some educated people who wish to archive their memory in the pieces of paper. That’s why they start writing novels, dramas, short stories and so on. Through these genres, they try to share their experiences, memory and etc. The literature of the diaspora constitutes an important part of the burgeoning field of English literature. Some of the better known diasporic writers in the Canadian Literature  in  this  archive  include  Rohinton  Mistry,  Anita  Rau  Badami,  Shauna  Singh Baldwin, Deepa Mehta, Sugith Varughese, Hardial Bains, Ravi Zacharias, Anita Majumdar, Maxim Mazumdar, Himani Bannerji, Jaspreet Singh, M. G. Vassanji, Shyam Selvadurai, David Chariandy, Anosh Irani, Yann Martel, Carol Shields, Douglas Coupland, Thomas King, Rawi Hage and so on. These diasporic writers are visible in the growing of popularity in the Canadian literature. Most of them have been written travel books and autobiographical novels, plays, screenplays or scripts and short stories.

Diasporic Plays and Playwrights:

Diasporic playwright and writings play an important role in the Canadian Literature. They have developed the diasporic literature in a wide-range. They are basically emphasized in their writings on the homeland’s religious values and cultural norms. They have also claimed the critical attention, theoretical formations and relationships to the culture of origin and adoptions. At the same time, these claims may be contradictory, representing momentary adjustments and impulses and draw attention to the complex nature of diasporic existence and writings (Jain, 2001). But the diasporic writers may try to relate their homeland and culture of origin. Further, they also try to imply the power relations and the relation to the culture of the homeland. To work out the point, the study would like to mention a few lines from a novel written by V.S Naipaul. The lines are:

“In the arcade of Hanuman House… there was already the evening assembly of old men… pulling at clay cheelums that glowed red and smelled of ganja and burnt sacking… They couldn’t speak English and were not interested in the land where they lived; it’s longer than they expected. They continually talked of going back to India, but when the opportunity came, many refused, afraid of the unknown, afraid to leave the familiar temporariness.”

(Mishra, 2008)

The larger narrative of global migration and diaspora have situated in complex ways. In the above lines, the narrator tries to focus on how the Indian diasporic people expose their desire to come back. It also focuses that how they preserve their culture by showing the smoke of ganja in a foreign land and how their memory of homeland forces them to make a desire to come back. In the case of writers, whenever they see the cultural practices of the diasporic people in foreign lands they miss their homeland and archive their activities in their texts. There are lots of diasporic playwrights who archive their individual perception in their respective  texts.  They  are  Anosh  Irani,  Shauna  Singh  Baldwin,  Deepa  Mehta,  Sugith Varughese, Anita Majumdar, Maxim Mazumdar, Carol Shields, Douglas Coupland, Thomas King, and so on. The paper will discuss their concept and theme of the writings.

The theme of the Plays:

There are certain common themes in the representations of the diasporic experience in the writings. The writers from different countries share their own common history, culture and spiritual beliefs. The experiences of rootlessness and immigration and the voice of the hyphenated diaspora are no doubt textured in their writings. They craft their writings into a “variety of moods and voices of nostalgia, hope, frustration, the exuberance that characterize ethnic heritage and the hyphenated identity” (Devi, 2003, p.15). As Nelson puts it: issues of identity, problems of history, confrontations with racism, intergenerational conflicts, difficulties in building new supportive communities,” are some of them (Roddannavar, 2014). Moreover, as Sudesh Mishra observes in his From Sugar to Masala: Writing by the Indian Diaspora, “Panic, nausea, schizophrenia, hysteric, time-lag, estrangement, violence,  nostalgia, madness” and so on are some major themes (ibid). The paper makes an attempt to throw a light on the diasporic themes seen in major diasporic playwrights’ writing.

Anosh Irani:

He is an Indian-Canadian novelist and playwright. He was born and brought in Mumbai. Although he has indicated that he personally prefers the city’s traditional English name, Bombay. After working in advertising in India, he moved to Vancouver in 1998 to study and pursue writing (Wikipedia). He has written many novels and plays. His four critically acclaimed novels are The Cripple and His Talismans (2004) a national bestseller; The Song of Kahunsha (2006), which was an international bestseller and was shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; Dahanu Road (2010), which was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize; and The Parcel (2016), which won Trust Fiction Prize and for the Governor General’s Literary Award, this powerful new work, about a transgender sex worker in the red-light district of Bombay. Moreover, The Parcel is chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, National Post, CBC Books and The Walrus. Along with that, he is also known for his best play writings.

Play Writings:

The diasporic plays of Anosh Irani are associated with native culture and background. He also shows respect for his own language, style, literary form and technique which attracts the readers crossing the borders. The paper would like to draw how he portrays his nostalgia for his homeland, which is very notable to the readers. His first diasporic play is The Matka King (2003). This drama was premiered at the Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver, Canada. This diasporic play is talking about a landscape of betrayal and redemption comes to life in the red-light district of Bombay, India. The story pits human nature against love and chance. Further, it is all about one very powerful eunuch, Top Rani, who operates an illicit lottery through his brother. In the story a gambler is deeply in debt makes an unexpected wager; the stakes become life and death. And on the other hand, according to Vancouver Courier’s book review, in the play, “Top Rani’s desire to understand his sexuality is very powerful. And this is perhaps where east meets west in Irani’s intriguing play” (http://www.anoshirani.com/#plays). Moreover, from the Canadian Literature review house, it has said that “Top Rani, in The Matka King, is a barker much like Celestin in Jerome: the top eunuch in a brothel in the red light district, he has girls to sell and bets to take. Throughout, the writing is deliciously biting and the exchanges very clever. Every line is an opportunity to comment and satirize while the images are vivid and unexpected. Despite (or because of) the humour and the harshness, we feel deeply for these characters” (ibid). But, there are two more important characters in the play. They are a fortune-teller and a ten-year- old girl. They always tried to beat Top Rani but they can’t do that with Top Rani at the game.

Anosh Irani’s second play is Bombay Black (2006). It has won four Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play (2006). Along with that, it is nominated for The Governor General’s Award in 2007 and four Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2016.The play sets in present-day India. It was premiered at the Cahoots Theatre Projects, Toronto. This play is a powerful story of vengeance, betrayal, and seduction. It is a love story between a blind man and a dancer Apsara. In the play, in a seaside flat, the iron-willed Padma takes money from men so they may watch her daughter, Apsara, perform a mesmerizing dance. Apsara’s extraordinary beauty and erotically charged dancing cast a powerful spell over her wealthy and famous clientele. One day, a mysterious blind man named Kamal visits for a private dance. Kamal is somehow linked to their past. His secret threatens to change each of their lives forever. According to The Hindu Newspaper, ‘It is a play that proves the strength of love over hatred and the power of dreams over the desire for revenge’. It ‘deals with horrific realities and difficult choices’. It succeeds in being both grotesque and poignant (http://www.anoshirani.com/#plays). The Pioneer expresses their review on Bombay Black (2006) that it has taken the gender war to where it should belong. It no longer considers femininity to be the obliging lump of flesh for male chauvinism to knead, pound and mould into carnal subjugation. In contrast, femininity here is a hissing snake with unadulterated anger, writing and waiting to pounce upon the sinning male for revenge. Bombay Black is a searing play.

Unlike other two plays, Anosh Irani’s third novel My Granny the Goldfish (2010) has shown different theme and setting. The play is set in a hospital of Canada. It is premiered at Factory Theatre, Vancouver. The play is all about the relationship between a young man and his eccentric alcoholic grandmother. The central character of the play is Nico (Kawa Ada) who introduces himself to us through the direct address. He is a hypochondriac, afraid that he is being exposed to germs everywhere. He left Bombay, where his parents live, and two years ago to study business in Vancouver. Once, Nico is admitted to a hospital for his retreatment and his grandmother arrives at the hospital from the Bombay. Until Act two, the playwright didn’t reveal why grandmother comes to his hospital bed. It is nothing but to tell Nico past history and to take care of her grandson. But, Nico’s parents didn’t come to meet him until his grandmother falsely tells Farzeen that Nico is going to marry a Chinese girl in Vancouver. In this scene, the playwright depicts the torrent of racism. In this matter, Nico’s parents show anti-Chinese remark. His parents say “You can’t tell whether they’re awake or asleep because of their eyes” (My Granny the Goldfish, 2010). It might embarrass the readers but here the reality and the nature of some Indians has taken place. The play could end wonderfully with Nico’s Granny dancing off while singing an Indian tune. But, the playwright adds two more unnecessary scenes that spoil the mood of the audiences and readers. They are:

In Canada, we are lucky that so many immigrants and children of immigrants from India have used the stage to explore life in that country and in Canada. The plays of Anusree Roy, Anita Majumdar and Sunil Kuruvilla come immediately to mind. My Granny the Goldfish in its present form is simply not in the same league as the best work of these authors. If Irani were willing to eliminate the poorly written characters of the parents and turn the play into a memory play involving just Nico and Granny, he could rescue what the core of the play that its own would be both more authentically funny and more touching. 

(http://www.stage- door.com/Theatre/2012/Entries/2012/3/23_My_Granny_the_Goldfish.html)

His last but not the least play is The Men In White (2016). This play has two halves of the story. Half of the story sets in the Vancouver cricket team’s locker room and the other is in a chicken butcher shop in Bombay, India. It was premiered at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage. The story is all about the quest for love and aim. It is Hasan (Nadeem Phillip) in Bombay who is searching for love and meandering through his life as a butcher, working for his adopted father and trying to find a way to explore his dream of being a cricket player. Meanwhile, in Canada, his brother Abdul (Shekhar Paleja) is trying to convince his cricket teammates that his international brother might be the key to solving the team’s game slump because again their cricket team loses the game. And finally, the play shows Hasan comes to Canada and joins with Vancouver team. Moreover, in the play, the playwright depicts some important conversations on nationalism, racism, family priorities, and cultural divide.

Shauna Singh Baldwin:

She is a Canadian-American novelist and playwright of Indian descent (twice diaspora). She has written many novels and short stories. Her first work of fiction, English Lessons and Other Stories won the 1996 Friends of American Writers Award. Her short story Satya won the 1997 CBC Literary Award. Since then, she has written three novels they are What the Body Remembers (2000), which won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Canada and Caribbean); The Tiger Claw (2004), a finalist for the Giller Prize and The Selector of Souls (2012), which received the 2012 Council for Wisconsin Writers Fiction prize. Along with them, she has written short stories We Are Not in Pakistan (2007) and Reluctant Rebellions (2016). She is also the coauthor of A Foreign Visitor’s Survival Guide to America (1992).

Moreover, she has written a play We Are So Different Now. This play is written in 2009 but it is premiered in 2016 at the Sawitri Theatre Group, Toronto. At the beginning of the play, a girl (Sheetal Talwar) is going to suicide herself because she fails to make a fruitful life for her arranged marriage. Meanwhile, an epic character from Mahabharata (Draupadi) comes to rescue her from a suicide attempt. The story of this epic play is all about the battle of the Pandavas and the Kauravas three millennia ago (Mahabharata). However, when Sheetal recovers from that attempt, she comes to thanks, Draupadi. In the meantime, Draupadi asks an expensive and difficult favour question to Sheetal. But, Sheetal tries to evade her obligation to reciprocate and her life begins to echo Draupadi’s. Sheetal means cool, and she believes we are so different now. This is the end of the play. In the play, Shauna Singh Baldwin shows Indian culture on the stage. She depicts Bharatnatyam and the story of Mahabharata.

Anita Majumdar:

She is an actress and playwright. She is best known for her role in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television film Murder Unveiled (2005). She won the Best Actress award at Asian Festival of First Films in 2005. She has written a trilogy of plays. In the plays, she shows the lives of teenage girls who attend the same high school and processes their real-life dilemmas through dance, while exploring the heartaches of youth and the meaning of heritage. Her first play is Boys With Cars. It is premiered at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa in 2014. The play is followed Naznin. She is the protagonist of the drama. She is classically trained Indian dancer. She dreams of getting out of small-town Port Moody to attend the University of British Columbia. But when Buddy causes a stir over Naznin at school, Naznin’s university plans begin to crumble quickly. And the play ends while Naznin is leaving Port Moody. However, the playwright tries to depict the Indian traditional dance in her text. She tries to focus on difficulties of maintaining the ritual dance in the foreign land.

Her second play is Fish Eyes. It was first presented at the Andre Page Studio at the National Theatre School of Canada in 2004. Then it is continuously performed at the  different stages. The play is all about the story of Meena. She is classically trained Indian dancer like Naznin. She is being obsessed with Bollywood movies and her dance career. She just wants to be like the rest of her high-school friends. When she develops a massive crush on Buddy, the popular boy at school, Meena contemplates turning down an incredible opportunity to pursue him, even if he barely notices her. In the play, there is another interesting character Kalyani Aunty, who is a classical dancer. She loves to perform Bharatnatyam. She can easily form her body in a Natraj statue position. However, the play ends when Kalyani Aunty’s gesture for “one with eyes like a fish”. The play completely shows the contradictory of modern and traditional dance. On the one hand Meena represents modern dance and on the other hand, Kalyani Aunty represents classical dance like Bharatnatyam.

The final part of this trilogy plays is Let Me Borrow That Top. It is premiered at the Cultch in Vancouver as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in 2015. This play should never be performed in isolation. The play must always be produced as a companion to Boys With Cars, either in a double bill or in the full trilogy. The story of the play is about a girl Candice. She loves Buddy, for whom she gets pregnant. She appropriates Meena’s Indian dance skills and bullies Naz after a nasty rumour spreads through the halls of their high school. But like her two enemies, Candice shares a passion for Indian dancing and has just been accepted to the Coventry School of Bhangra. She leaves behind the comforts of home to pursue her dreams. The play ends by landing the Natraj statue position with the gesture for one with eyes like a fish.

The Fish Eyes Trilogy is originally published in 2016 in a book form. Anita Majumdar is wildly successful for her The Fish Eyes Trilogy. It is a unique portrait of the intertwining lives of three teenage girls at one BC high school. The play presented together in a single three-act play. It innovatively tackles coming of age, cultural heritage, empowerment, and consent with humour and elegance.

Maxim Mazumdar:

He is an Indo-Canadian playwright and director. He is the founder of the Phoenix Theatre in Montreal, Quebec, as well as the Provincial Drama Academy and the Stephenville Theatre Festival in Stephenville, Newfoundland. He wrote two Indo-Canadian diasporic plays. He is well known for his one-man show, Oscar Remembered (1977). It is a two-act play. The play examines the friendship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas. However, the story of this drama is all about an Irish playwright Oscar Wilde as seen from the perspective of his lover and nemesis, Lord Alfred Douglas. In addition, the play shares Oscar Wilde’s dominant motif and the exposure of a secret sin, followed by humiliation and disgrace. In this play, He performed his monologue across the US and Canada. But finally, he left Phoenix.

Later, he spent some time in New York City. He was becoming a friend and business associate of gay activist Quentin Crisp. He also worked extensively with the Alleyway Theatre Company in Buffalo. Then Maxim Mazumdar continued to write and perform in monologues based on gay history. He wrote Rimbaud and Dance for Gods (1979) based on gay history. Moreover, he wrote Invitation to the dance: The Stephenville Festival production in 1981. It was published by Personal Library, Toronto. However, on the final stage of his life, he wrote and performed his last play, Lupercal, a musical, at the Alleyway Theatre in 1988. In the annual playwrighting competition, his name was on the list of honour in 1988.

Uma Parameshwaran:

Uma Parameshwaran is an Indo-Canadian poet, writer, dramatist and critic. She uses the term “Trishankus” or “The Nowhere Men” to indicate the state of the Indian diaspora. Trishanku was a King in the Indian mythology who desired to ascend the heavens in his mortal body. She has written many poems, plays and short stories to describe the life and hardships of immigrants in Canada. She has depicted the sense of modernity and the Canadian experience in her writings. Her plays Meera (1971), Sita’s Promise (1981), Dear Deedi, My Sister (1989) and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees (1998) are expressed her life in Canada. In addition, she won first prize in the Caribe playwriting contest for her Dear Deedi, My Sister, 1989. Before these dramas, she has written a play on the partition of 1947 in India. And she published all plays together into Sons Must Die and Other Plays in 1998 as a part of the South Asian Canadian Literature Series.

“Dear Deedi, My Sister” describes the life and hardships of immigrants in Canada through a variety of characters and the letters were written between Sapna in Canada and her sister in India. As Sapna muses, “Here too women suffer, dear Deedi, for being women. The burdens are different but the pain is the same.” In “Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees,” Parameswaran’s progression of subject matter moves to the new generation of Indo-Canadians — children of immigrants raised in Canada. The relationships and complications of the characters aided by the free-flowing prose of the play reveal Parameswaran’s attempt to capture the South Asian Canadian experience across all boards through literature. 

(https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166297/Parameswaran%2C%20Uma.p

df?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

Moreover, in her writings, she tries to portray Indian art tradition and at the same time to educate the outsider about our culture. she draws Indian tradition from the Hindu paranas and the great Hindu epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana.

Conclusion:

The Canadian diasporic playwrights tend to portray the cultural contradictions and the vicissitudes of everyday life in their writings. In addition, they explicate the themes of the homeland, memories of kith and kin, struggle for livelihood and position of the self as belonging to the oriental world in their writings. These keep diaspora and diasporic writers in Canada perpetually in a dilemma. However, their contributions to the Canadian literature and Canada have given the Canadian mosaic a unique vibrancy. Some writers have won some prestigious awards from the Canadian government for their works. And the Canadians are made their country as a multicultural society. “The multicultural character of the Canadian society comes alive through the narratives with direct references to people belonging to different         nationalities   who     come    to                           the                            country” (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/28167/9/09_chapter5.pdf), it looks like a garden where different kinds of flowers are shining.

The Canadian diasporic plays are a corpus that has resulted from the efforts of playwrights. Among them, many are from first-generation immigrants, some from the new generation. They necessarily detect the narratives of melancholia, trauma, loss, loyalty or interest deemed as defining features of diasporic literature. They also concern about the issues of racism, multiculturalism, job discrimination and violence against women and other marginalized groups that constitute the subject of their writings. There are many playwrights like Anosh Irani, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Anita Majumdar, Maxim Mazumdar, Uma Parameshwaran Rahul Varma, Rana Bose, Ajmer Rode, Sadhu Binning, Surjit Kalsey, and Anusree Roy, among others, are propelling their links to the homeland through their writings.

Summary of the Module:

At beginning of this module, the study defines various definitions of the diaspora to show the different perceptions of the critics. It has summarized the live hood of diasporic people in Canada. Further, it has shown the exact meaning of multiculturalism. The paper has focused on the valuable contributions of diasporic people and playwrights to the Canadian Literature. The study has also summarized the details of diasporic playwrights and their writings. The paper especially focused on Indi-Canadian diasporic playwrights. Finally, it has shown the importance of traditional culture.

Reference

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