Stephen Gill’s Immigrant: Building Bridges through Cultural Configurations

*DR. G.A. Ghanshyam

Professor of English

Govt. M.L. Shukla College, Seepat, Bilaspur (C.G.) India

Email: gagshyam@gmail.com

**Devasree Chakravarti

Asst. Professor (Adhoc)

Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur (C.G.) India

Email: smile_devz@yahoo.com

A paucity of bridges

thickens the darkness of doubts

and the negation

of the pastures for harmony

raises armies of spiteful robots

who isolate further

the suffocative islands of tensions.

(Gill Shrine 82)

Migration has been a phenomenon that has existed since centuries, influencing and transforming the world. The resultant Diaspora is a community of people who are displaced from their homeland and striving to strike their roots anew in a new land and environment. The struggle to adjust to an alien land and culture, the nostalgia for the familiar and the ‘home’ makes the process of adjustment and assimilation more difficult and tricky. The most significant prerequisite of this globalized world is a common ground of association and assimilation based on mutual understanding and acceptance; the requirement of a bridge of cultural configuration that blends all differences and variations into harmony and peace. But the path that leads to this bridge is not an easy and smooth one but is wrought with pain, struggle, and contradictions of loss and gain.

The writers belonging to the diaspora represent the struggle and anguish of the immigrant with great sensitivity, having undergone the experience themselves. Through their works they depict the duality of experience that characterizes the immigrant ethos; the dual pull of the home and the host.

. . . however ambiguous and shifting this ground may be it is not an infertile territory for a writer to occupy. If literature is in part the business of finding new angles at which to enter reality, then once again our distance, our long geographical perspective, may provide us with such angles. (Rushdie IH 18)

Stephen Gill, an Indo-Canadian writer very deftly portrays the trials and tribulations of his own experience as a member of the Diaspora in his novel, Immigrant (1982). Cultural shock, discrimination, racism, frustration and alienation mark the life of his protagonist Reghu Nath when he arrives in Canada from India. The aspirations and dreams with which an immigrant arrives soon shatter under the weight of reality.

Within weeks, Reghu found himself surrounded with many different problems. Financially, his position was not sound; educationally, he did not know where he was headed; psychologically, he was yet not adjusted to his new environment. At the university, he found himself in a mess . . . As far as his social life was concerned, it was almost non-existent. (15-16)

Hostility and unfamiliarity with the new culture and customs makes assimilation into the new life quite difficult for Reghu. The atmosphere at the university is not very warm and friendly and he finds himself alienated and alone without any companions. His situation on arriving at Canada very strikingly resembles that of Malik Solanka, an immigrant to England. The protagonist of Rushdie’s novel Fury, Malik hovers precariously over the edge of a nervous breakdown and is saved by the timely intervention of a friend.

…in 1963, the eighteen-year-old Solanka had needed rescuing. He had spent his whole first day at college in a state of wild, over-weening funk, unable to get out of bed, seeing demons. The future was like a open mouth waiting to devour him…., and the past – Solanka’s links with his family were badly eroded – the past was a broken pot. Only this intolerable present remained, in which he found he couldn’t function at all. (Rushdie Fury 20)

The cultural shock does not wear off easily and Reghu finds himself alone in alien surroundings and culture. Difference in attitudes and cultural norms leave him further confused as for instance holding hands, a common gesture amongst friends in India is considered inappropriate for men in the West, and is taken to be a likely sign of the men being homos. The situation of the immigrant is unstable and insecure, dangling between the twin polarities of home and host. Some adjust, assimilate and survive while some succumb to the pressures. Babu Khemka in Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner represents the struggle of the immigrant trying to strike a balance between the two but surrendering to the anxieties of his existence by annihilating his own self.

Reghu is unable to cope with the education system in Canada that is further aggravated by the insensitive and indifferent attitude of the university professors. Left to the whims and fancies of his teachers, Reghu’s studies suffers and he is ultimately forced to take the decision of leaving university without a degree.

Millions of people every year leave the security and warmth of their home and hearth to arrive at the land of opportunities; the ‘West’. America, Canada, Australia are the various places they pin their hopes upon as the vistas for success. The naiveté of these first arrivals is best represented through the scene at the Visa Office in Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss. There is a long queue of hopefuls, awaiting their chance at the Visa office for their chance to get a passage to the land of opportunities.

The Western world is not without its evils. The most vociferous of the so called defenders of equality and democracy have within its depths dark, ugly shadows lurking. The legacy of class is not the inheritance of the ‘third world’ alone; in America and other developed countries the inherent racist tendencies exist as well. Biju the son of the cook in Desai’s novel is stuck at the lower rungs of the hierarchal ladder compared to workers from other European countries. The opinion of the wife of the Italian restaurant owner reflects the racial discrimination that every immigrant has to face.

“He smells,” said the owner’s wife. “I think I’m allergic to his hair oil.” She had hoped for men from the poorer parts of Europe – Bulgarians perhaps, or Czechoslovakians. At least they might have something in common with them like religion and skin color, grandfathers who ate cured sausages and looked like them, too . . . (Desai 48)

Gill’s novel also exposes the existence of racism and discrimination in Canadian society. Reghu and the other Asian immigrants, have to work much below their capabilities. They are discriminated against and forced under the prevalent circumstances to do menial jobs or live on unemployment benefit, irrespective of the higher qualifications they possess. Reghu often finds himself jobless on account of his identity. He joins a private high school only to be told that he has been replaced by a ‘Canadian’ teacher; as the principal says, “. . . one who was born here.” (88). For some the situation becomes so terrible that they are unable to cope with it anymore and end their life in frustration and total resignation like Prabha, who in her death reveals so much wastage of human potential, “All waste – everything ended in nothing.” (107).

The situation portrayed being so appalling and unfavourable, it seems a bit unlikely that any bridges can be built whereupon the two cultures can merge into each other harmoniously and enable the immigrant to assimilate into his new life and identity amicably. But life continues endlessly; evolving and adapting itself to new situations and configurations. Only an individual who has been able to imbibe this essential quality of life in himself is certain to survive and triumph over the circumstances, while others like Babu in Arun Joshi’s Foreigner disappear into the oblivion.

Reghu when he arrives finds himself alienated and is drowned into the abyss of frustration. He resigns to his fate and is filled with self pity and disgust. He moves from one place to another in the hope of finding a favourable space for himself but is not met with much success. From Montreal he moves to Ottawa and back again, but the situation is not improved. He finds others like him in the same pitiable situation. In Montreal he meets Queen of Sheba, an immigrant from Trinidad, who laments her deplorable situation; a statistician, she is reduced to washing dishes in restaurants and holds the prejudice of the Canadians as responsible for the discrimination.

At every turn of his life, Reghu has to face failure and disappointment. Alienated and dejected he tries to find solace in a relationship but fails to develop one. “The walls – the silence of the atmosphere – oppressed him. He wished someone, really a close someone, could be with him to share his loneliness.” (107). The Indian girls wanted commitment while he only needed companionship and the white girls preferred to be treated as preciously as “china dolls” (22). He is assailed with the thoughts of his home and family he had left behind but is unable to go back to.

Gill portrays the racial discrimination rampant across Canada in his novel. Various incidents are cited that reveal racial prejudice and hatred against the immigrants. Violence against the Asians fills Reghu with fear and apprehension of the widening, “gulf between the white Canadians and the newcomers . . .” (116).

Stephen Gill has often been criticized for portraying one side of the picture that depicts only the negative side of the Canadian society. But in fact through his novel:

He highlights the plights of the Indian settler-- culture shock, ethnic and racial prejudices, inequality, discriminations and biases in a culturally pluralistic society (which Canada appears to be from a distance), not necessarily to criticize, but to seek a change in a culturally tolerant society, accommodating diverse people and practices. He affirms the need for reculturation of both the individual immigrants and the host society with a sense of mutual `give and take', fulfilment and enrichment, justice, equality, access, and participation. (Singh)

With his unbiased analysis of the human society, Indian as well as Canadian Gill endeavours to represent the presence of the negative and positive aspects in both. It is for this reason that he lets his protagonist Reghu comment on the hypocrisy of democracy in India as well as the ignorance of the Canadians. In fact Gill attempts to build bridges between cultures through his insight that declares men to be the same everywhere.

I don’t see any difference. Men and women all over the world are the same basically. These so-called cultures are man-made and cause confusion and anarchy. (66)

Reghu transforms gradually from the scared and lost newcomer who is faced with bitter disappointment at every step matures into the global citizen having an unbiased and broad outlook towards life, men and society. This acceptance of life with all its differences and inherent similarities marks the beginning of a new age; formation of a new global culture.

Though his mind is filled with thoughts of vengeance when he learns of his mother’s death; lonely and without any hope, they are temporary and the result of his anguish and loss. The offer by his friend, Mac and the tempting smell of home made Indian food by his girl friend Grace, represent the acceptance of life and adjustment to the circumstances. This however does not mean the death of the native culture but an amalgamation of the two. In an interview Gill has quoted from the Food and Culture Encyclopedia that:

A key characteristic of diaspora is that a strong sense of connection to a homeland is maintained through cultural practices and ways of life. Among these culinary culture has an important part to play in diasporic identifications.

(Agarwal)

In Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Rai represents this acculturation process in his relationship with Mira and her daughter Tara. The assimilation into the host country’s way of life and culture is a symbol of the cultural configuration that broke the old and emerged as the new bridge that connected and linked the cultures together. In fact:

Reghu’s merger with the Canadian culture is symptomatic of his newfound knowledge that home is where the feet are, and we had better place our heart where the feet are. (Parameswaran 39)

Gill accepts that differences existed and anarchy resulted from them but he hardly holds the common people, the average man responsible: it is the men in power whom he blames for the situation; men who are afraid of change for it might shake their positions and displace them. Of other things Gill holds ignorance largely accountable; “. . . hatred, or jealousy, or discrimination, or whatever one may call it, is the outcome of ignorance.” (133).

Ignorance is the basis of all evils and an obstacle in the path of the cultural configuration that can build the bridge between cultures. In his assessment of the situation Gill states that in, “. . . the relationship between Asians and Canadians . . . both formed misconceptions about the other . . .” (134). What is required is a common meeting ground between the cultures where people can meet and know about each other. Ghettoism needs to be replaced by the cultural configuration of acculturation, “The least they could do was to form associations where all could meet.” (134).

A global citizen, Stephen Gill is a firm believer in peace, harmony and equality. He is a true humanist, and a spokesperson for building the bridges through cultural configuration; creation of a new global cultural pattern that encompasses all differences. And so in his works he:

. . . urges abolition of racial, religious, political and economic prejudices and seeks equal opportunities and privileges for men and women, adoption of a world code of human rights and responsibilities, and creation of a world federal government to heal the dissensions that divide people. (Singh & Sarkar)

In his literary endeavours, Stephen Gill has presented his faith in the human spirit. His creed is that of the representative of equality, peace and harmony; a harbinger of humanitarian values. All his works, fiction as well as poetry are replete with his philosophy that braves out all attempts at annihilation of life. Indeed his writings are his attempts at constructing the bridges of cultural configuration that will bridge all gaps, divisions and dissections.

From the ocean

I bring out the meaning of freedoms.

With my strength in diversity

and tolerance

I shall continue postponing

each Armageddon (Gill Shrine 62)

***********

Works Cited

Gill, Stephen. Shrine. Allahabad: Cyberwit.net, 2008.

Rushdie, Salman. “Imaginary Homelands.” (IH) London Review of Books. 7 – 20,

October, 1982.

Rushdie, Salman. Fury (New York: Random House, 2001)

Gill, Stephen. Immigrant: A Novel. Ontario: Vesta Publications Ltd, 1982.

Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 2006.

Singh, R.K., Language Forum, Jan-Dec. 1998, Bahari Publications, 1998. Accessed from

http://www.stephengill.ca/paramswari.htm.

Agarwal, N.K. Interview. “Stephen Gill on his Writing and Diaspora” Mon 13/08/2007.

http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6943.

Parameswaran, Uma. “Here is where your feet are, and may your heart be there too!”

Writers of the Indian Diaspora: Theory and Practice. Ed. Jasbir Jain. New Delhi: Rawat Publications, 1998.

Singh, R.K. & Mitali De Sarkar.   “A Search For Elysium” The Mawaheb International.

June 1998.