REWORLDING  THE LITERATURE OF THE INDIAN DIASPORA 

Greenwood Press, New York, 1992

Edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson

About the Book:

The book critically examines the literature of the Indian diaspora.  A term that was first used largely in the context of the Jewish experience outside the Jewish homeland and more recently in the contexts of a variety of transnational ethnic experiences (such as African,Chinese and Armenian), diaspora literally refers to dispersal--the scattering of a people.

It is a collection of essays by fourteen academics on writers and poets of the Indian diaspora which includes, among others, Raja Rao, V.S.Naipul, Salman Rushdie and Agha Shahid Ali.

Footnote:  In chapter nine, Kirpal Singh's Staying Close but Breaking Free:  Indian Writers in Singapore, Chandran Nair's poetry and his poem Grandfather is discussed in the following extract:

    Of all the Indians writing in English in Singapore it is Chandran Nair, I believe, who may be said to be the most "Indian" in terms of literary expression.  His two collections of poetry, "Once the Horsemen and other Poems (1972)" and "After the Hard Hours this Rain (1975)",reveal fairly explicit  references to Indian myths, legends, landscape and spirituality.  In an early poem written for his grandfather, Nair clearly  registers the Indian nostalgia felt deeply in contemplation.  The poem is suggestive also of the position Nair himself seems to have adopted in relation to living in an environment which does not always appreciate the commitment becoming of a sensitive soul:

the seventy six years beneath his eyes
burst like rain flood my earth with desolation;
his seventy six years have compromised my eyes
into a hardness that grows on me,
the imprint of his frown I wear
without his laughter

grandfather walks the bunds of seasons
ploughing, sowing and harvesting years.
in drought stricken months
he wears old age as lightly as his beard,
his smile transcends.
to be born from unlucky seeds,
a friend once wrote, is tragedy;
the curse flows unmuted, immutable.

only the hot stars of the gods persuade the proud.
gods bothered him
but temples missed his sacrifice.
he found truth, relief, away from divinity,
spacing out years in padi fields,
unfolding particular nuances, lack of attainment.

like the padi stalk once green, easily bent,
he grew with age, aged to ripened toughness
to resist anger, misfortune of stricken years
with dignity unpersuaded.   (Nair, "grandfather", 8-9)

   The slight cynicism evident in the poet's identification with the grandfather offers an insight into the telling portrait of a man misunderstood.  Loneliness and barrenness feature large in Nair's work, and both find expression in this poem.  The biographical-autobiographical rendition is deliberate and offers depth to an otherwise simple emotion.  Ostensibly there is nothing Singaporean about the poem but the fact that it is by a Singaporean.  However, to those in the know, the "friend" in the third stanza is a reference of Mohammed Haji Salleh, a Malay poet who studied at the University  of Singapore  when Chandran Nair himself was there.  Nair's poem aptly  sums up the twin  paradox suggested by my title;  in wanting to break free, Nair feels very strongly the weight of staying close.  In other poems, such a realisation finds complete expression in the very easy and casual manner in which Nair manages to draw upon Indian myths (as a love poet, Nair relies heavily on the Rama-Sita story) and incorporate them into his poems dealing with themes pertinent to contemporary Singapore. (Kirpal Singh)