Diasporic Sensibility In Bharati Mukherjee’s Short Story “The World According To Hsu”

Abstract

The term diaspora means the movement or migration of people from one place to another in search of food, shelter and other essential aspects of life. Bharati Mukherjee is one of the prolific writers in Indian English Literature. She has contributed immensely to the Indian Diasporic Literature. Her literary works reflect the sensibility of the expatriates. Many of her works have revolved around the themes of immigration, alienation, acculturation, identity crisis and so on. Darkness is a collection of short stories in which she portrays the life of immigrants who live in North America. Four of the stories “The World According to Hsu,” “Isolated Incidents,” “Courtly Vision,” and “Hindus” from this collection were written during her stay in Canada. These stories clearly bring out the predicament faced by the expatriates in Canada. From her experience of living both in Canada and U.S.A, she has learnt that America is more favourable destination to Indians. This study aims at an analysis of Bharati Mukherjee’s short story “The World According to Hsu,” so as to bring out the painful experiences of expatriates in an alien land. She highlights the racial discrimination faced by Indians in Toronto. Ratna, the protagonist has felt the alienation in Toronto. Even before she has settled in Toronto, the fear of discrimination is deeply embedded in her mind. She is willing to live as a foreigner in a small island off the coast of Africa rather than living as an outsider in Toronto for rest of her life. She wants to safeguard her ethnic identity and she does not want to allow the alien culture to smother it. Being an emigrant, Bharati Mukherjee brings out the struggle experienced by the settlers in the process of assimilation to the new culture and it has revealed her diasporic sensibility obviously.