The Reality of the Immigrant Dream in Ayub Khan-Din’s East is East and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices.
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
Rudyard Kipling, Ballad of East and West
Kipling’s opening stanza of his Ballad of East and West quite accurately sums up the immigrant consciousness and experiences of Eastern diasporic communities in the West. While Ayub Khan-Din’s play East is East and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel Mistress of Spices may both vary slightly in context and background, the thread of the South Asian immigrant experience runs in both texts. They treat the difficult issues these immigrants grapple with in their host countries that belie the rosy immigrant dream that many are in pursuit of. This paper will show how both texts represent the immigrant dream and in the process expose the consequences of this, shedding light on the often harsh realities that underlie it.
Writers and Context
In order to ground the paper, it is helpful to consider the writers’ backgrounds and their contexts. This will also help reveal their motivations behind the texts.
Ayub Khan-Din
Ayub Khan-Din was born in England and was originally from Salford. He came from a relatively big family with him being the eight of ten children. Khan-Din is of mixed descent himself as his father is Pakistani while his mother is British. With a passion for acting, he was surprised that he was stamped as a black actor and had tremendous difficulty seeking out “a company that enforced integrated casting”. Bhatnagar reveals, “As a tribute to (his mother) and in an attempt to understand his past, Khan-Din decided to delve into the complexities of his childhood by writing East is East”. This was later produced as a screenplay. Khan-Din’s work, however, has been critiqued by “more traditional members of Asian society for what they believe to be a somewhat derogatory depiction of Pakistani culture.”[1] Given his hybrid parentage, it becomes easier to see how and why East is East was created. Gaining inspiration from his own upbringing, the play highlighted the realities of the migrant’s life. While it was considered to be a ‘slice of life’ of the Pakistani British, because of the way it pulls the audience “right into the jumbled, fretful flow of one family’s daily life” (The New York Times 1999), East is East is also “as much about clashes between generations and expectations as about clashes between Pakistani and British culture” (The Observer). Such generational clashes are a consequence of immigration that will be discussed later.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
As another diasporic writer, it is of little surprise that Mistress of Spices also deals with clashes of generations and expectations. However, instead of the conflict between the cultures of Pakistan and Britain, her work deals with that between India and America. Unlike Khan-Din who is of the second generation diaspora in Britain, Divakaruni was born in Calcutta, India. In 1976, when she was nineteen, she “left Calcutta and came to the United State where she continued her education in the field of English by receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.”[2] Patel also reveals how she had juggled a variety of odd jobs in order to earn money for her education. Mistress of Spices, published in 1997, weaves in stories of the Indian immigrants into the protagonist’s, Tilo’s, narrative. Merlin succinctly surmises the premise of the novel:
“Tilo appoints herself counselor to a group of people living the contradictions of the American immigrant experience and blends their stories with her own: Lalita, beaten by her frustrated husband; Haroun, savagely attacked bv a thief; American-raised Geeta, who risks losing her family when she refuses a marriage arranged by her grandfather; Daksha, nurse on an AIDS ward, worn out by the demands of work and home.”
(Merlin 207)
When these characters approach Tilo with their problems, the illusion of the immigrant dream is vividly shaken, revealing the underlying realities.
Between Khan-Din and Divakaruni, their migration circumstances are quite different, with their texts as testimony. While Khan-Din’s work is a play and Divakaruni’s a novel, the use of their respective narrative structures allows the texts to surface important issues. Being a play, “East is East” allows the reader (or the audience) to experience the daily conflicts that a family may face while the novel structure of Mistress of Spices, allows exploration into the psyche of a variety of characters and surface a spectrum of issues that these characters face.
Although their texts are structurally different, East is East being a play and Mistress of Spices a novel, both these texts appear to be targeted at a Western audience and readership. This reveals that the texts are instruments in voicing out the immigrant experience. While East is East is filtered through a male, Pakistani British consciousness, Mistress of Spices is filtered through that of a female, Indian American one. Through the different perspectives, both texts ultimately expose the underlying difficulty of the immigrant dream and the consequences that follow, including the problematic negotiation of identity. Migration is not valorised, instead its harsh favourable realities are depicted.
The Migrant Dream and the Reality
In both “East is East” and Mistress of Spices, venturing into the shop-keeping business seems to be an option open to the migrants. In “East is East”, George is from Pakistan (however, when he had initially left, Pakistan was still part of India). The setting of the play reveals that George, with his wife Ella and his children, runs a Fish and Chip shop in Salford. “The set is made up of a fish and chip shop, a parlour, living room and a kitchen with a shed for entertaining” (Khan-Din 3). However, it is clear that the family is living in less than favourable economic conditions and the play hints that George is not content.
GEORGE. You bloody lucky go to college. I come to this country with nothing. Now what I got?
MEENAH. You’ve got a chip shop, dad.
GEORGE. I got own business see. You better chance than me see, go a college.
(Khan-Din 12)
Similarly, Mr Shah was also caught in difficult circumstances when he first arrives in Britain. He tells Ella, “Very degrading work I assure you Mrs Khan, very degrading. […] First I swept the floor in a mill, then I worked on the buses. While Mr Shah has managed to climb up the social ladder, which appears to be an exception rather than the norm, George is still trapped in his social circumstances. The dream that he would make it big in Britain has not unfolded as grandly as George might have hoped. Although he may be in a better position than his family who is caught in the unstable political atmosphere in Pakistan, the realities of his dream is much harsher than he may have imagined. It is because of this that he urges his children to go to college, knowing that educational empowerment would be the only way to climb up the social ladder and break out of their working class. For George, he is trapped in the working class as he is unskilled, uneducated and poor. His only hope for his family is through education for his children.
A similar scenario plays out in Mistress of Spices. On the surface level, there is Tilo, a spice mistress from India who is mystically moved to America where she uses the magic of her spices to help other immigrants. It is interesting that in “East in East”, it is the male who has the ability to up and leave Pakistan in order to seek better fortunes for himself while here, Tilo owns a spice shop where she sells traditional Indian spices. Mohan, another character, sells his wife’s Indian sweet and savouries from a small push cart. He is then forced to fold up and return to India after he is at the receiving end of a violent racist attack.
Haroun is another case in point. He came to America and first works as a driver under a wealthy Indian woman. He soon realises that he not escaped his class. Haroun, from Kashmir, tells Tilo, “All these rich people, they think they’re still in India. Treat you like janwaars, animals. Order this, order that, no end to it, and after you wear out your soles running around for them, not even a nod in thanks’ (Divakaruni 29). However, he attempts to break out of his predicament and joins his friend’s fleet of taxis, saying “nothing like being your own master” (Divakaruni 29). Further in the story, Haroun falls victim to a vicious robbery. While there is a lack of racism and violence in “East is East’, beneath the surface, some of her customers who visit her shop are also trapped in similar class and economic circumstances as George.
George, Mohan and Haroun are chasers of the migrant dream. First generational migrants, they have voluntarily displaced themselves from the East to the West. Despite migrating to America and Britain, they experience the flipside of migration. There are further consequences that arise, especially those that involve the second generation.
Consequences of the Migrant Dream
Assimilation and Racism
On the surface, this may not be clearly seen in “East is East” as George seems to have assimilated smoothly, marrying a British wife. The entire family is not shown to have any problems with assimilating with the British culture. However, at some points, the play hints at a difficulty in a complete assimilation.
GEORGE. You see puther, this country not like our peoples, I been here since 1930, I
try to make good life for my family. That why I always try to show Pakistani way to live is good way, parent look after children, children look after parent. English people not like this. All my family love each other. Bradford, Pakistan. All same, nobody different.
(Khan-Din 43)
It becomes apparent that he is not as fully assimilated and comfortable with the British society even though he has been living there for almost thirty years. Although he is married to Ella, it is evident that George (and others like him) turn to religion in order to forge a community that they feel more comfortable with.
GEORGE. Son, you not understand ’cause you not listen to me. I try to show you how a good way to live. You no English, English people no accepting you. In Islam, everyone equal see, no black man, or white man. Only Muslim, it special community.
(Khan-Din 55)
The children, who are second generation Pakistani British, also seem to have assimilated smoothly. Meenah has British school friends Judy and Mary, Tariq has flings with presumably British girls while Nazir “go with bloody English girl” (Khan-Din 55). However, the issues with assimilation and belonging seem to surface themselves in Abdul. After a night of drinking with his friends, he tells Tariq, “When I got home, me dad was here praying, I watched him Tariq and it was right, to be here, to be a part of this place, to belong to something’ (Khan-Din 57). Again, it seems that like George, Abdul is well aware of his hybridity and his inability to blend seamlessly with the British society, finding a sense of calm only when he sees his father partaking in a religious ritual. Maneer is also aware of their place in society when he tells Tariq, “No one round here thinks we’re English, we’re the Paki family who run the chippy…” (Khan-Din 45).
In Mistress of Spices, there is a more graphic depiction of the violent racism that is faced by the characters. Mohan is beaten up by two white men who taunt him saying, “Sonofabitch Indian, shoulda stayed in your own goddamn country” (Divakaruni 170). In the description of the attack, the narrative voice refers to Mohan as “the Indian”. This technique distances the character Mohan and depersonalizes him. The resulting effect emphasises his position as the ‘other’, a foreign immigrant in a Western land. A lawsuit against the perpetrators is dropped and they are let off without presses charged against them. This is the last straw for Mohan and his wife Veena and it is then that neighbours pool money to send them back to India because as the narrator questions, “for what else is left for them in this country” (Divakaruni 172). In Mohan’s case, his immigrant dream has come crashing down and left him with nothing but bitter experiences. Jagjit, a young Punjabi boy who has come to America learns the realities of being an immigrant fast.
“Jagjit with his thin, frightened wrists who has trouble in school because he knows only Punjabi still. Jagjit whom the teacher has put in the last row next to the drooling boy with milk-blue eyes. Jagjit who has learned his first English word. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. […] Shy-eyed Jagjit in your green turban that the kids at school make fun of […] In the playground they try to pull it off his head, green turban the colour of a parrot’s breast. They dangle the cloth from their fingertips and laugh at his long, uncut hair. And push him down. Asshole, his second English word.”
(Divakaruni 38)
The dramatic depticion of Jagjit’s first introductions to the English language laced with swear words emphasizes his position as an unwanted foreigner. The violation to his culturally symbolic turban further ‘other’s him and sheds light on the stripping of his culture. On a metaphoric level, the violent undoing of his turban may also be allegorical to the way migration causes culture to be slowly diluted. It is an inevitable consequence of leaving one’s place of origin. The loss of culture and the resulting negotiation of identity are processes that most immigrants may not be fully prepared for. It is these consequences that both Khan-Din and Divakaruni treat in their works.
Loss of ‘Pure’ Culture
Reitz contends that in East is East, the Khan children are not victimised by a white racist society but by their father who cannot accept that his children live in two cultures (Reitz 51). The confluence of the cultures of the East and the West is seen in the interaction between the first and second generation diasporic South Asians. In East is East, George himself marries Ella, a white British woman. His children are then biologically hybrid. As a result, his children straddle two different cultures and the expectations that come with them. For George, it is a matter of retaining what he deems as pure Pakistani culture, one that focuses on the family rather than the individual. With miscegenation, there is a perceived loss of this culture. This can also be seen in Mistress of Spices in the relationships between Geeta, Mohan and their relationships with their respective families. Although there appears to be no miscegenation in their generation, there is a real possibility of them marrying outside their race.
In East is East, George’s children are clearly torn between the culture that they have grown up in and the oppressive culture that their father imposes on them. This is evident in
the conversation between George and his children.
SALEEM. I’m not saying it’s not, I just think I’ve got a right to choose for myself.
GEORGE. You want choose like Nazir, han? Lose everything, go with bloody English girl? They not good, go with other men, drink alcohol, no look after.
(Khan- Din 55)
George imposing marriage between his children and other Pakistani children is a way of ensuring that that his culture would be retained. This depiction is also not too far from reality. Werbner points out a report commissioned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that indicates a trend among some Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents in Bradford and the East End of London to “try to force apparently deviant children (girls with boyfriends, boys on drugs or in trouble with the police) into rushed marriages in order to ‘save’ them, marriage being seen as guarding the proper sexuality of daughters and bringing with it responsible behaviour” (Werbner 903). Nazir is seen as a deviant for having run off and listening to a “pansy hairdresser”.
There is an almost similar scenario in Mistress of Spices in the case of Geeta and her family. She is in love with a Mexican, Juan and has left the house after a heated family confrontation. Geeta’s grandfather laments to Tilo, “Hundred time I told Ramu, this is no way to bring up children, girls specially […] Hundred times I told him, get her married off now she has finished college, why you are waiting for misfortune to knock on your door.” (Divakaruni 87). It appears that marriage seems to be an avenue to preserve culture and keep the girls in control. Her father , Ramu, tells his father, “besides, for my Geeta we’ll find a nice Indian by from here who doesn’t believe in dowry” (Divakaruni 87). The notion that marrying within the ethnic group would retain cultural values and norms is an overriding theme in both texts. The fear that marrying outside this group will lead to her “losing your caste and putting blackest kali on our ancestor’s faces” (Divakaruni 89).
The enforcement of repression, or discipline, on girls and women can also be seen in both Khan-Din’s and Divakaruni’s works. The patriarchal figures who belong to “an authoritarian migrant South Asian older generation” (Werbner 903) in both Meenah’s and Geeta’s families react strongly to the influence of Western culture that they perceive in them. George exclaims to Ella, “Your daughter walking round in bloody short skirt like bloody prostitute!” to which she responds, “It’s her school uniform! What more can the girl do to please you?” (Khan-Din 30). George is evidently uncomfortable with what he deems as a loss of traditional Asian value of modesty. There is a stark parallel in Divakaruni’s novel where Geeta’s grandfather complains to Tilo saying, “I am telling her, Geeta, what did you do, your hair is the essence of your womanhood. […] and the lipstick so shameless bright making all the men stare at her mouth […] I told Ramu, what nonsense is this, she was using your old car just fine, this money you should save for her dowry” (Divakaruni 86). In East is East, Meenah asks her mother if she can “go to the school club tonight with Jude and Mary” to which Ella responds “I don’t know why you’re asking, ‘cause you know you’re going to the mosque later” (Khan-Din 17). The imposing of religion is something that evidently comes from George’s side and there is an implication that George will not react too well to Meenah going to a club. This can also be seen in Mistress of Spices, where such activities are not encouraged even in Indian boys:
“Manu who is seventeen, in a 49ers jacket so shiny red… running in impatient. Angry Manu who is a senior at Ridgefield High, thinking Not fair not fair. Because when he said ‘prom’ his father shouted, ‘All that drinking whiskybeer and dancing pressed up against cheap American girls in miniskits, what are you thinking of.’ Manu poised tiptop inside furious fluorescent Nike shoes…”
(Divakaruni 79)
Apart from the Prom, Western cultural symbols such as the “49ers jacket” and his “Nike shoes” are further evidence of the way Manu has assimilated rather smoothly into America. However, it is also this Western culture that threatens the patriarchal framework that the father/husband figures have inherited from their own culture, causing Manu’s father, Ramu and George to react strongly to what they deem as their respective children’s transgressions.
Family Conflicts
Inevitably, the confluence of Eastern and Western cultures, causes an increasingly widening generation gap that leads to conflicts that plague the families of Geeta and George . As shown, these are two generations separated not simply by age, but also by language, values, tradition and culture. In East is East, it is clear that George’s children feel very distanced from George’s imposing stature. While the play is set against the war between Indian and Pakistan, this war also frames the conflict between George and his children who rebel against him, which is what Reitz terms as “intercultural and intracultural confrontations that shape the lives of the members of the Khan family” (Reitz 49). The older generation show a longing for their culture that encourages the family while the West promotes individuality. This is why Saleem would like a say in who he marries and Geeta too reveals to her shocked family, “I’ve already found someone I love” (Divakaruni 89). Geeta’s grandfather is initially unable to accept this in his granddaughter. Tilo, chants a spell for the family, that is telling of the circumstances that surround most South Asian immigrants. She says, “Geeta who is India and America all mixed together into a new melody, be forgiving of an old man who holds on to his past with all the strength in his failing hands” (Divakaruni 87).
Renegotiation of Identity
Cultural hybridity is a condition that surfaces in East is East, showing the “clashes and pain” (Reitz 51) that is a result of it. Caught between two cultures is the second generation, the fruit of those who dared to pursue the immigrant dream, who are left caught in a situation that requires them to renegotiate their identities. Reitz contends that the new wave South Asian writers are driven by “the desire to resist and shock the South Asian older generation and induct it into the new realities of diasporic life [forming] a dissenting discourse that has as its mission to persuade a younger generation of British South Asians to be less compliant and submissive to their parents than they currently are” (Reitz 903). While Reitz case in point is Khan-Din, Divakaruni may fit this description to some extent. East is East is more shocking because of the way the children transgress the boundaries that their religion sets upon them. For example, the children are seen eating bacon, a traditionally taboo meat for Muslims. It is however, something that is common in the English food culture. In Mistress of Spices, however, it is less shocking and there is a gentle and embracing message that lies in the text. However, both the play and the novel show that in “this politics of the family the message is often assimilatory: to become more anglicised, liberal and individualistic”(Werbner 903). While both texts show that the second generation are inclined to such “assimilatory” behaviour they do not complete neglect nor abandon their family (with the exception of Nazir who seemed to have no other choice).
In the violent climax of East is East, George finally faces his demons and realises the struggle that his “jungly family of half-breeds” (Khan-Din 71) have been going through. It is Abdul, the oldest son, who is most aware of the internal struggles of each family member who physically subdues his father saying, “No dad, it’s over, alright, it’s finished!” (Khan-Din 72). Through this dramatic gestures, Abdul who has thus far has not disobeyed his father, hints at a future relationship that will not be oppressive on the children and will instead celebrate their cultural hybridity. The hopeful ending is evidence that “if the intracultural pressure can be overcome and if individuality is not ‘squashed’, an intercultural identity can be developed and lived out”, also refuting how cultural hybridity entails only tragic consequences (Reitz 51).
This is also evident in Mistress of Spices, where the different characters seem to receive some form of hopeful closure in the text that hints at a positive future that will celebrate both cultures. At first Geeta deals with this cultural confusion by walking out of the house, blaming her grandfather. She thinks, “He’s the one who turned them against me with all that shit about good women and family shame. They never would have behaved so prehistorically otherwise. Dad, especially. If only he’d stayed in India..” (Divakaruni134)
However, Geeta reconciles with her family later in the novel not only on their terms but on hers as well, telling Tilo that “We didn’t talk of Juan, I didn’t want to spoil the moment, but next week I’ll bring it up” (Divakaruni 240).
In the bigger picture, it is also significant to look at how Tilo’s life is allegorical of the way one has to deal with migration, the dreams and the consequences that these dreams cause, including cultural collisions and a renegotiation of identity. Tilo does not step out of her Indian spice shop so that she does not get contaminated by America, as advised by the Old One. However, she later embraces her own love interest, Raven, the American. The novel ends on a very hopeful note, that speaks of a celebration of cultural hybridity:
Later I say, ‘Now you must help me find a new name. My Tilo life is over, and with it that way of calling myself’
‘What kind of name do you want?’
‘One that spans my land and yours. India and America, for I belong to both now.”
(Divakaruni 317)
Reitz posits that “‘squashed identities’ cannot be freed at the cost of the suppression of other identities, whether they are defined racially, or culturally, or both” (Reitz 53). Similarly, both East is East and Mistress of Spices end on a promising note that the second generation will be able to identify with both the cultures of the East and West. It also appears that while the older generation may have suffered the flipside of the immigrant dream, the younger generation now have access to an education that promises to allow them to climb the social ladder and lead more fulfilling and comfortable lives. Inevitably, it is the sheer determination and courage of the first generation diaspora that allows the second generation to truly live the immigrant dream, or at least to be able to enjoy the financial and social aspect of it more than the previous generation ever could.
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Bibliography:
Ayub Khan-Din. East is East. London: Nick Hern Books, 1997.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Mistress of Spices. New York: Anchor, 1997
Merlin, Lara. “Review: The Mistress of Spices.” World Literature Today. (Winter 1998): 207.
Reitz, Bernhard. “Discovering an Identity Which Has Been Squashed: Interculural and Intracultural Confrontations in the Plays of Winsome Pinnock and Ayub Khan-Din.” European Journal of English Studies. 7.1(2003): 39-54.
Werber, Pnina. “Theorizing Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the South Asian Public Sphere in Britain.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 30.5 (2004): 895-911
Websites:
Ayub-Khan Din. Ed. Tina Bhatnagar. Fall 2000. Emory University. 22 April 2008. <http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Khan1.html>
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Spring 1998. Ed. Nilu N. Patel. Emory University. 22 April 2008. <http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/CBD.html>
I speak English, not Urdu. 31 October 1999. Ed. Harriet Lane. The Observer. 22 April 2008. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/1999/oct/31/featuresreview.review4>
Theater Review; Pungent Life With Father, Serving Love And Chips. 26 May 1999. Ed. Ben Brantley. The New York Times. 22 April 2008. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E2DA1331F935A15756C0A96F958260>
[1] http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Khan1.html