Diaspora_Writers

The Contribution of Indian Women Writers: Indian fiction in English from Raja Rao to Jhumpa Lahiri is a long road – arduous, but exciting & exhilarating. Its expansion is both vertical and horizontal. The history of women writers dates back to mid-nineteenth century when Toru Dutt, (1857-77) produced some extraordinary work at a very young age. She was not only the first woman novelist in English, but perhaps the first Indian novelist in French. Since then there has been no looking back and the journey though full of ups and downs has been fruitful. Krupabai Satthianandhan, Shevantibai Nikambe, Rajalakshmi Debi, Cornelia Sorabji, Swarnakumari Ghosal, Sarojini Naidu who have made their presence felt on horizons of Indian English Fiction. Their themes confined to relationships, society, identity, conflicts, loss, patriotism etc. Since the beginning of the civilization every society had lived by certain human values and beliefs. But with the advent of science and technology, human mentality changed. Under such state of affairs what could the Indian writing in English today reflect other than the irony and the suffering of the common man caught in social contradiction. It made the writers sad but then they were exploring the present time in the perspective of not only in the context of Indian tradition and history, but for the entire world. This has come into affect because of the fact that world s fast changing into a global village. As such traversing across the national boundaries became a common and a natural because of increased need of communication. The opening up of new vistas and avenues indeed led to the migration and settling abroad. Migration is not a new phenomenon. It was there when colonialism had gripped the entire world, but the process of migration became more prominent in the postcolonial times. As a result we find many Indians migrating to countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Holland, Germany etc. for some or the other specific reason. Thus emerged the never-ending problems associated with migration viz. adjustment, alienation, issues of identity, displacement, struggle due to multicultural upbringings and environment. Such and many more related issues have been taken up by Indian fiction writers, who have studied this phenomenon of crossing the boundaries and settling down in some other land, from various perspectives. This has resulted in the formation of valuable work in the form of novels, short stories, plays, poems etc. These writers can be categorized into two broad categories; firstly, those writers who are born and brought up in India and then have settled abroad at some point of the time and secondly, those writers of Indian origin, born and brought up broad. An important question arises why female writers or why women writers have been emphasized, is, for the pertinent reason that the women writers of the diasporas “tell stories from a perspective that is seldom fully explored.” Some writers of the diaspora tell their own stories. Another powerful reason for the success of female writers has been given that for many writers the literary journey will take place outside their home, but for a female writer, typically the story takes place in the content of a family. And women readers love to pore over such books and see how these writers explore, not only multiculturalism and culture clashes, but also such taboo subjects as incest. It is not in sheer number that women writers of Indian writing lead their male counterparts but they also excel in establishing connection with women’s group. A cursory glance at the state of affairs obtaining in Indian fiction may convince that it has traversed a long course of journey. The contemporary Indian fiction is already standing at the cross roads and it has to make cautious move to pull itself through. Keeping in view the international standards, it has to strive consistently to arrive at a safe destination. We have only to ‘wait and watch’ for a better future of the Indian Fiction, realizing the truth that ‘the best is yet to come’. However there are quite a few women short story tellers of Indian origin who have excelled in the art of story telling and in creating an aroma of Indian setting and environment. For instance Lakshmi Persaud, Indian British writer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Indian American writer, S Mitra Kalita, Indian American are some of the notable writers who have written continuously on sensitive issues related to immigration such as discrimination, job insecurity, inter religious marriage, self identity and many more. These writings have been supplemented by rich and varied writings of well known personalities like Bharati Mukherjee, an Indian American writer, Uma Parameswaran, an Indian Canadian writer, and Meena Alexander, an Indian American writer, who have given a vivid impression of the sub-continent and its diverse diasporas. This has resulted in many writings on South Asians. The crucial part played by the growing number of immigrants who read such books that serve as a bank of knowledge on immigrant subcultures, cannot be ignored. There is an outburst and all of a sudden there have come up such writers who have said in loud print what the South Asian immigrants wanted to say for a long time. Such books have been written from a perspective that is not available to a writer who has lived in Indian or China for most part. This helps in a better understanding of their own community. These writers find themselves more easily linked with South Asian women’s groups as many of them articulate in their books the deepest fear and trauma faced by women in India and in other countries around the world. The writings show them as emerging at least in many cases, as stronger and self-reliant women. Writers like Lakshmi Persaud and Jhumpa Lahiri are different from the other Indian writers, writing in English, who have born abroad and brought up there. Their point of view is universal. Most of the Indian fiction writers writing in English are born and brought up in India, although the writers like Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, Jhabvala, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie are living either in England or America. Jhumpa Lahiri Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London of Bengali parents, grew up in Rhode Island, U.S.A. Naturally, her connection with Indians may be through her parents and grandparents, books and newspapers. Jhumpa Lahiri writes about the Indians who have settled either in the U.S.A. or England and does not comment on something that she is not well versed in. The Indians who have settled abroad feel themselves exiled, as they are in their consciousness unable to cut off completely their umbilical chords that still bind them in their emotional crisis. Jhumpa’s Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories, her maiden venture expresses maladies both accurately diagnosed and misinterpreted, matters both temporary and life changing relationship in flux and unshakeable, unexpected blessings and sudden calamities and the powers of survival – these are among the themes of Jhumpa Lahiri’s extraordinary, Pulitzer Prize winning debut collection of stories. Travelling from India to New England and back again, Lahiri charts the emotional voyages of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations’ cultures, religions and generations. Her second work, The Namesake is also about characters between Americans or Indians and Americanised Indians in America. Lahiri charts the emotional voyages of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations, cultures, religions and generations. Infused with the sensual details of both Indian and American cultures they also speak with universal eloquence and compassion to everyone who has ever felt like an outsider. Jhumpa Lahiri is sensational because of her manner, which is anything but sensationalist in describing the psyche of Bengalis, who have settled into North American cultures unlike the propensity of recent purveyors of ‘ethnic exotics’, Lahiri writes with a depth and honesty that require no melodrama. Jhumpa Lahiri is an exceptional. With each story she draws believable characters in both ordinary and extraordinary situations, making the tough scenes sweetly effortless in the process. The range of her talent and imagination is immense but never loses focus in its execution. She has the unique ability to point the worlds of both immigrants and the native in multicultural, allowing for immersion in detail while simultaneously placing them in a grand sweeping perspective of universal truth. Lahiri has given a stimulating fusion of authentic, emotion, ironic observation, and revealing details. The fine collection of nine stories, the author’s first, all provide rich description of the details of the Indian life, and cultural values and customs. While the domestic routines (for example, Indian food and cooking provide an important banking in several stories) may be unfamiliar to American readers, the style and themes of Lahiri’s writing are highly accessible, absorbing, and moving. Lahiri wrote with the grace and poise of a master, patiently spinning tales of family life among Indian and Indian immigrants to America. Her technique worked as it won her the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. Her style is compelling because it tells the story of a simple human life, a life shaped by no unusual tragedy, adventure or exceptional good fortune, a life not unlike the lives that many people lead, whether they are the children of immigrants or not. The underlying themes of Lahiri’s stories and novels are the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. These are not only the themes but also the major problems and issues represented in her work. The question of identity is always the difficult one, especially for those who are culturally displaced, as immigrants are, or those who grow up in two worlds simultaneously. She herself faced the same problems for she knew hence the answer to question, “Where are you from'” Although as she grew up, she seemed to be less bothered, but she always had a feeling that there was not a single place to which she fully belonged. This autobiographical element has been the core of her collection. Lahiri abstracts the temporal canvas of the Indian well as emigrant life into an elaborate picture made luminous in the consciousness of as single person who either happens to be the narrator or the lives narrated etc. endowed with special gifts of lyric insight, image and encompassing sympathy. Through this narrative emphasis on the individual’s inner psyche, we are launched into existentialistic wilderness where we find the images and glimpses of our true nature. Most of the stories are written from a perspective that is between cultures. The characters are not traumatized refugees but are negotiating a path in a country (America) that seems to provide opportunities or they are the Americanised children of such Indian families. Ties to the Asian sub-continent may be strong or weak, primary text or subtext but they are ever present. Living between cultures lends an extra layer of complexity to situations and relationships that are difficult in and of themselves. The immigrants are usually not able to feel at home. They are fearful and suspicious of America. They may feel at home after a period of 20 – 30 years, but they shall always feel like and be treated as foreigners there. The Indians and the Americans remain curious about each other’s society. This provides a mysterious environment at the same time. Lakshmi Persaud Lakshmi Persaud was born in 1939 in the small village of Street Lodge, Tunapuna, Trinidad. Her father was a shopkeeper and her home was secure and increasingly prosperous. It was a devout Hindu home where pujas, kathas, and other observations were held regularly. Lakshmi Persaud is a multifaceted personality and her changing attitude with the changing times, went a long way in shaping her thoughts and opinions. This is reflected well in her five novels written on varied themes. Her experiences are deep rooted which have been passed to her by great-grandfather who arrived in the Caribbean, with other agricultural laborers, from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar (India), between 1890 – 1905, with lure of being able to own land. Lakshmi Persaud is not an early writer. She started writing quite late around 1980’s. Her inspirations for her novels are Mahabharata, her teaching for several years at different schools and colleges at Trinidad and around. Her novels are based on different and mature themes. Her first novel Butterfly In the Wind began its life in the mid 1980s and it deals in an imaginatively autobiographical way with the first eighteen years of her life. Her second novel Sastra followed it. Both novels explain the tensions between the somewhat puritanical, patriarchal forms orthodox Hinduism took in the Trinidad of her childhood and youth and its talent capacity for a sensuous embrace of life. Her third novel, For the Love of my Name, launched in December 1999, is a complex, multi voiced and many layered, and its essential subject is tyranny and political corruption. The theme of this novel expresses political repression and ethnic conflict that go hand in hand. Her fourth novel, Raise the Lanterns High, is a dramatic page turner full of intrigue and strong characters who’s life ad death dilemmas. It underlying themes are age – old conflict between modernity and long – honored traditions but also explains the strength and limitations of each. The style followed by Persaud is a very mature one. As her themes not only relate to relationship, but is more than that. Her novels are dramatic, full of intrigue. Her approach and attitude is not one of uncertain or ambiguous type. She is openly ever rebellious onward with attacking and pulverizing the colonial corruption as she redefines and expresses the self of the Indians living in Trinidad. Her narrative embodies in attempt to her world in a profoundly different way. Her text has acquired greater depth as she expresses the validity and worth of the apparently humble lines of the Indian women in Trinidad who labored, suffered and preserved to make achievements possible for the women of future generations. All it can be said about Lakshmi Persaud is that she has an open style and identity. She has a strong narrative skill through which she has brought out powerful ideas expressed in powerful language. Lakshmi Persaud is not a first time writer. Before starting new carrier as a fiction writer, she was writing articles on socio economic concerns for Newspapers and Magazines for many years. She has authored several books in Philosophy, Economics and Literature. Thus when she took up her fiction, her novels reflected such issues as may concern the society as a whole; the age-old conflict between modernity and long honored traditions, the old age and scrupulous customs of North India, such as self-immolation at the pyre of the dead husband. She has not been afraid to challenge the politics of development. Her novels throw light on tyranny, political corruption, the abuse of power by the powerful nations. She has raised “complex contending opposites such as fate and free will tradition and modernity; love and duty; prophesy and possibility; community and individual; security and risk; reason and passion; now and tomorrow; the past and the future.” She has also highlighted the struggle of women to find their own identity. She has also explored the tension within Hinduism. Lakshmi Persaud has talked about different themes. Since her narrative skills are very powerful, her characterization is strong as well: thus making her works dramatic page-turner, full of intrigue and strong characters who face life-and-death dilemmas. Her characters are all intellectually and emotionally well developed. Though her characters may stand out weak in the beginning, but slowly they gain enlightenment in their own situation. Persaud’s novels are profound. They have universal appeal. They bring about the qualities and values that should characterize human societies in the future. She has thrown into light tyranny and political corruption. Not only this, she has also given the social and economic consequences of such actions. She has generously explored the existing violence, the sophistry, the vote rigging, the power-games; the asset-stripping etc. thus unmasked the societies and the governments thereby. Most of the novels written by Persaud are complex, multi-voiced and many layered novels. Lakshmi Persaud explores the psychological, spiritual and personal dimensions of the prevailing tyranny, both for the victims and in terms of the distorted perceptions of the tyrant himself and those around him. The traumas of ethnic prejudices which are allowed to go unchallenged have also been dealt with. Bharati Mukherjee Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940 to wealthy parents. From her early childhood, she knew that she wanted to become a writer and had written numerous short stories. She has done her B.A. from the University of Calcutta, M.A. in English and Ancient English Culture from the University of Vadodara (formerly known as Baroda), done her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature in 1969. She has settled in U.S.A. after getting married Clark Blaise, also a writer, in 1963. Together the two writers have produced two books along with their independent works. She has also won National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Fiction. Mukherjee’s works focus on the “phenomenon of migration, the status of new immigrants, and the feeling of alienation after experienced by expatriates” as well as on Indian women and their struggle with identity, first as an exile from India, then as an Indian expatriate in Canada and finally as an immigrant in the United States has lead to her current contentment of being an immigrant in a country of immigrants. Mukherjee’s works can be categorized into three phases. Her earlier works, such as the The Tiger’s Daughter and parts of Days and Nights in Calcutta, are attempts to find her identity in her Indian heritage. The Tiger’s Daughter is a story about a young girl named Tara who ventures back to India after many years of being away only to return to poverty and turmoil. This story parallels with her own venture back to India with Clark in 1973 when she was deeply affected with the chaos and poverty of Indian and mistreatment of women in the name of tradition. These experiences have been well narrated in Days and Nights. The differences of opinion, her shock and her husband’s owe for myth and culture that surrounded every part of Bengal are seen in one of their joint publications Days and Nights in Calcutta. The second phase of her writing encompasses works such as Wife, the short stories in Darkness, an essay entitled An Invisible Woman, these works reflect primarily her own experience of racism in Canada. In Wife, Mukherjee has dealt with suppression by such men on a woman who attempts to be the ideal Bengali life, thus causing her mental instability, Darkness also deals with similar stories of immigrants and women. In the third phase, Mukherjee is described as having accepted being “an immigrant, living in a continent of immigrants.” She continues writing about the immigrant experience in most of the stories in The Middle Man and Other Stories, Jasmine and essays, where she has explored the meeting of East and West through immigrant experiences in the U.S. and Canada. Mukherjee has been an ardent writer of immigrant experience along with her husband Clark Blaise, from the time she had settled in U.S. She has tried to highlight certain bare facts through her works, her achievements all through these years, such as the biased Canadian view towards immigrants that she encountered, the role of government agencies in handling assaults on particular races. The world may have advanced manifolds; we may have conquered the highest point on earth, landed on moon and other planets, but what a pity, the life-giving source on earth, the woman still maintains a miserable condition. The mistreatment of women, her suppression, the atrocities borne by her, her struggle in search of her identity, all reflect what an unhealthy society we are living in. The realities are really painful and heart rendering that even a well-educated woman like Mukherjee felt humiliated due to racism in Canada. It only shows that our society is not still free from the evils such as rape, suppression, mental torture, which damages the chastity and self-respect of a woman. Conflict prevalent between the different cultures and adjustment as time goes on as a part of our society has been well disclosed and dealt with through her works. Meena Alexander Mary Elizabeth Alexander, born in Allahabad on February 17, 1951, officially changed her name to Meena, shifted to Khartoum with her family when her father took up a job with Sudanese government. She received her degree from Khartoum University and her Ph.D. from Nottingham University, worked at Delhi University, Central Institute of Hyderabad and Hyderabad University. Alexander is now settled at New York with her husband David Lelyveld and two children. She is currently a professor at Hunter College, the Graduate center of the University of New York and keeps visiting Kerala annually. Meena Alexander’s poetry might be her best-known work; her works span a variety of literary genres. Her first book, a single lengthy poem entitled The Bird’s Bright Wing, was published in 1976 in Calcutta. She has published seven volumes of poetry including River and Bridge, two novels: Nampally road (1991) and Manhattan Music (1997), a collection of both prose and poetry, The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience; a study on Romanticism: Women in Romanticism and her autobiography, Fault Lines. Fault Lines, being Alexander’s autobiography, is quite close to her heart. It’s not only an unraveling of her past; the book also highlights themes that occur in her poetry. The kind of life she has lived, travelled between Sudan and India, has given her varied and rich experience. However Alexander struggles in Fault Lines to forge a sense of identity, despite a past full of moves and changes. Thus, this work revolves around the theme of establishing one’s self, an identity independent of one’s surroundings. It is due to her relocations that she was not able to settle down early in her life. Her multiple migrations weakened and she had nothing to connect or relate to her work. Through her work, Alexander has suggested questioning of lines, boundaries, and definitions of oneself. Her work reflects her search for her own identity and self-creation amidst a world that strives to define, identity, and label people. In Manhattan Music she has dealt with the experience of immigrant Indian women in New York learning to cross the lines, fracture between one cultural tradition and another. Alexander emerged from a postcolonial country; thus her work deals with personal as well as national concerns. According to her, a society never accepts nothingness. A clear-cut definition or identification is always sought after by the society. Alexander’s own experiences where her own son was asked whether he was an American or an Indian. It is always difficult to answer such questions and satisfy the all time inquisitive society. The surrounding environment or what we called society always wants an identity be it Indian or any country. Uma Parameswaran Uma Parameswaran was born in Madras and grew up in Jabalpur. She got her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English. She received M.A. in Creative Writing from Indiana University in 1972. She is currently a Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, has lived in Winnipeg, Canada since 1966. She is married to a Mathematician and has one daughter. Parameswaran’s areas of research are English Romantic, Post Colonial Literatures, Women’s Literature, and South Asian Canadian Literature. Her works include plays, short stories, and poems. They include among others; Trishanku, Sons Must Die and other Writings; At the Gates, etc. She was awarded the 2000 Canadian Authors Association Jubilee Award and the 1999 New Muse Award for the best short fiction collections for her book What was Always Hers. Parameswaran’s themes consist of the immigrant experience in the Indo-Canadian context nostalgia for the old homeland struggles in adjustment. Her works also extend to relationship, sorrow of separation etc. Hers is a strong literature, an activist literature, and women empowering fiction deeply bringing out all the configurations of human relationships and revealing human nature in all its intricacies. Uma Parameswaran has tried to bring forth the changing face of society in the form of realities of racial discrimination, pressure of settlement and struggle to strike roots, scum bring to the final affirmation that “Home is where your feet are, and may your heart be there too.” However she has also hinted with the help of witty insights, rich imagination and vivid descriptions of human behavior, the availability of understanding, social support and legal change with the passage of time. This presentation has been done beautifully. Parameswaran gets into the minds of people of different ages, cultural backgrounds and genders and portray them in first and third person quite convincingly. Lakshmi Persaud and Jhumpa Lahiri – A Comparative Study: Lakshmi Persaud and Jhumpa Lahiri though belong to the same background, in the sense that both were born abroad and brought up there. There links with India are not direct, they have not spent much time in India, although they have made certain visits, their introduction with India is mainly through the stories and legends passed to both of them by their parents and their ancestors. However both of them belong to different time periods, there is almost a generation gap between the two writers. Lakshmi Persaud began her career as a fiction writer as late as in 1980’s when she was approaching her 50’s, before which she was a freelance journalist, whereas Jhumpa Lahiri began quite early almost in late twenty’s. There is no doubt about the versatility of Lakshmi Persaud as she has taken up themes and issues concerning the society as a whole, she has successfully exposed evils, the abuse of power, the immaturity, the tyranny, the conflicts between different castes, the plight of women who are in search of their identity and many other issues of socio-economic concern. She is a very fearless writer unlike Jhumpa who maintains a very docile attitude throughout her two novels. Persaud has been able to produce very mature literature through her four novels on various aspects. Jhumpa Lahiri, on the other hand is comparatively a young writer. She has chosen a limited canvas for her work, which is restricted to issues such as identities of oneself, relationships, conflicts between cultures and thus their respective adjustments. She is also a sensitive writer like Lakshmi, however lacks the experience, which is very natural. She has very slowly and steadily yet beautifully given a definite form to such questions relating to identities of Indian immigrants. Her themes are restricted unlike Lakshmi. But like her, Jhumpa has drawn realistic characters and her works also involve the presence of India whether in a major or minor way. Jhumpa’s novels although they are page-turners like Persaud’s, still are not very dramatic and multi-layered unlike Persaud. These are some of the similarities and dissimilarities, which can be drawn upon at one instance. Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander and Uma Parameswaran – A Comparative Study Anyone born on Indian soil can very well understand the meaning of relationships, emotions, attachments culture and tradition, the feeling of being accepted and other things. All the three female Indian writers viz., Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander and Uma Parameswaran couldn’t help expressing their first and foremost feelings of the immigrants experience as and when they migrated to different countries at different points of time. In fact it won’t be too much to say that their maiden writings were based on their experiences of settling down, adjustments within a new society, culture, facing new people, striking for their own roots and so on. These experiences have taken the form of short stories, plays, novels, poetry, articles etc. Many other issues have been covered and dealt in with detail as per the respective interests, experience, socio-economic conditions etc. However the immigrant experiences occupy the topmost priority, as these are the feelings right from the bottom of the heart and provide some kind of relief as it is always said, “Joy multiplies and sorrow divides when shared.” Thus with the passage of time, these writers have taken up other social and political aspects but a strong thread of common viewpoint is shared by them in different magnitude and penetration. Jhumpa Lahiri, Lakshmi Persaud, Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander and Uma Parameswaran: Comparative Similarities and Dissimilarities Whether born in India or not does not affect you or makes much difference in perception as far as the immigrant experiences and feelings are concerned for those either born in India and then later migrated to other country, or for those who were born abroad and had been living there since their birth. Questions relating to their identity always keep haunting them. For those who have been living there since their birth, may not feel as stranger as those who migrate after their studies or say for higher studies and settle down there in the process. The society always demands a definition for everything; to be or not to be. It is not satisfied with incomplete explanations or answers. It always follows you like your shadow. One has to struggle, one has to fight or give up and accept the fact that the home is where the foot is/ These and many more such experiences; the above-mentioned writers have put good or bad, realities of racial discrimination together. The binding thread is the same for all of them. However the intensity of the emotions vary, some have taken the path of adjustments, while some are still trying to strike their roots. Sometimes things must have been painful, beyond imagination, at other times they might have been able to find some relief in any cause or way. Individual differences thus lead to differences as well as similarities in opinions and thoughts. All the writings have been the result of such perceptions and judgments. Therefore I wish to explore the crucial and sensitive issues of South Asian immigrants mainly with reference to Indians across the world, study the related aspects such as discrimination, job insecurity, inter-religious marriage, pressures from family at home in India, question of identity, adjustments, the stress of assimilation, finding the roots and settling down, the fear and the trauma faced by the women, ego-fights, misuse of power, other socio-economic problems afflicting the world and about many such people whose stories of day to day remains still untold. The study comprises of work done by some renowned authors like Lakshmi Persaud, Bharati Mukherjee, Uma Parameswaran, Meena Alexander and Jhumpa Lahiri. They belong to either of the two categories viz. those who are born in India and then settled abroad at some point of the time (Bharati Mukherjee, Uma Parameswaran, Meena Alexander) and those who are of Indian origin, that is born abroad and brought up there itself (Lakshmi Persaud, Jhumpa Lahiri). These writers have woven their stories around themes such as the struggles within the relationships, interpersonal communication, and challenges experienced by immigrants living in a world away from the familiar warmth and constant company of family, friends and neighbors’ in the homes they left behind. They have addressed themes like conflicts of culture, conflict between the traditional upbringing and the outlook where freedom of rights and choices have been taken for granted when it comes to making decisions about work and relationships. The mistreatment of woman, her suppression, the humiliation borne by her at the hands of so called educated and modern society, her struggle in search of her identity are some of the other prominent issues explored by these writers. In this context I wish to analyze the above-mentioned issues along with the resultant impact within due course of time. I also wish to make a comparative study between the two groups of Indian women writers that is how their upbringing, difference in culture and environment has affected their viewpoint, how far these factors have been instrumental in building up the perspective for the writers individually as well as collectively for their category. Although an ample amount of research work has been undertaken with success in this direction, several corners still remain unexplored because of its global nature. However as this issue continues to remain an area of ever-lasting interest, I wish to attempt and propose to do my research work with due regards to all the earlier research scholars associated with this issue of importance. The proposed thesis will be structured in six chapters. The following format will be followed tentatively. Topic : BEYOND THE BARRIERS OF NATIONS, CULTURES, RELIGIONS AND GENERATIONS: A STUDY OF THE WORKS OF INDIAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN WRITERS Chapter I Indian writing in English with special reference to Fiction and Voices of immigrant writers especially women. Chapter II Jhumpa Lahiri and Lakshmi Persaud : A Biographical Study and Analysis of their works. Chapter III Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander, Uma Parameswaran: A biographical study and analysis of their works. Chapter IV Jhumpa Lahiri and Lakshmi Persaud : Comparative study with respect to themes, style, characterisation, problems and issues, representation of the society. Chapter V Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander, Uma Parameswaran: Comparative study with respect to Themes, Style, Characterisation, Problems and Issues, Representation of the Society. Chapter VI Conclusion: Cross Comparison Between the two categories and Emerging Trends. Primary Sources Jhumpa Lahiri • Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri Houghton Miffin: Mariner (new York) • The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri Lakshmi Persaud • Butterfly in the Wind: Lakshmi Persaud The Postcolonial vision (Peepal Tree Publishers) • Sastra: The Beauty and Terror Lakshmi Persaud of Life (Peepal Tree Publishers) • For the Love of my Name: Lakshmi Persaud The Silent Consent of (Peepal Tree Publishers) Intellectuals to the Death of Democracy • The Dance of Life and Lakshmi Persaud’s public lecture at the Shadow: Seven themes in my Metropolitan University, London, Oct. Novels’. 2003 Bharati Mukherjee • The Tiger’s Daughter Bharati Mukherjee • Days and Nights in Calcutta Bharati Mukherjee • An Invisible Woman Bharati Mukherjee • The Middle Man and Other Bharati Mukherjee Stories Meena Alexander • Fault Lines Meena Alexander • Manhattan Music Meena Alexander Uma Parameswaran • Trishanku Uma Parameswaran • Sons Must Die Uma Parameswaran • What was Always Hers Uma Parameswaran • Mangoes on The Maple Tree Uma Parameswaran Secondary Sources Jhumpa Lahiri • Jhumpa Lahiri: The Master Storyteller , Ed. by Suman Bala • The Lonely Voice: A Study of the H.S. Canby Short Story • Writers of Indian Diaspora Ed. by R.K. Dhawan • Themes in Indo-Anglican Literature M.P. Melwani • The development of American short R.L. Paltee Story • Studies in Contemporary Indian A.N. Dwivedi English Short Story Lakshmi Persaud • For the Love of My name by Lakshmi Reviewed by Anita Anadan Persaud • For the Love of My Name Review by Amit Roy in India Today • The Oxford book of Caribbean short Dr. Steward Brown (Co-editor) stories Bharati Mukherjee • Bharati Mukherjee Fakrul Alam • Bharati Mukherjee A. Nicholas • Interview with Bharati Mukherjee Meena Alexander • Asians and Post Coloniality Ed. Deepika Bahri and Mary Vasudeva. • Observing Ourselves among Others Interview with Meena Alexander • Creating a life through education Chronicle of Higher Education Uma Parameswaran • SALCIT: An Introduction to South East West Books, Madras Asian Canadian Literature • Plays by South Asian Canadian IBH Prakashann, Bangalore