HOME IS WHERE THE FEET ARE: A STUDY OF GOONERATNE’S …



HOME IS WHERE THE FEET ARE: A STUDY OF GOONERATNE’S A CHANGE OF SKIES

-- J.Muthulekha, Research Scholar, GRI, Gandhigram

The term diaspora has evinced an interest among the literary readers as it brings forth the voice of colonized people to the international forum. Etymologically, the word ‘diaspora’ is derived from the Greek term dia and sperien which means ‘to scatter or throw seeds’. Issues of cultural confrontation, acceptance, assimilation and acculturation are the predominant features in diasporic writing. It deals with the themes of migration, exile, expatriation and conquest for identity and a sense of loneliness and need to belong. Though the theme is similar, the writers differ in their outlook and style. The well-known diasporic writers are V.S.Naipaul, Amitav Ghosh, Kazuo Ishiguro, Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander, and Yasmine Gooneratne and so on. Yasmine Gooneratne‘s personal experience as an Australian immigrant is one of the factors that have contributed to the success of her first novel, A Change of Skies.

Srilankan by birth, British by education, Australian by choice Yasmine Gooneratne has had opportunities to know the best and worst of both the worlds – the world of colonizers and that of colonized. The Foundation Director of the Post-Colonial Literatures and Language Research Centre Dr.Gooneratne is a critic, poet, creative writer, bibliographer and editor. She has published sixteen books that include critical studies of Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, and contemporary novelist and screen writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Her novel A Change of Skies won the Marjorie Bernard Literary award fiction in 1992 and was short listed for the 1991 Commonwealth Writers prize.

A Change of Skies describes in tragic-comic fashion the experiences of a SriLankan couple who come to reside in Australia. The novel centers on the life of a SriLankan couple – Bharat Mangala Devasinha, a solemn young Asian Linguistics expert and his wife Navranjini who migrate to Australia as Bharat takes up professorship in Southern Cross University on a five year contract. They eventually fall in love with the country and decide to stay on.

In a very deft manner, Gooneratne weaves into this narration the experiences of Bharat’s grandfather Edward and later published by Bharat as Lifeline: The Journal of an Asian Grandee.1882-1887, edited by his grandson. The parallels in the experience of Edward with that of Bharat and Navaranjini suggest continuity. Navaranjini perceives “a link, a firm (though hidden) connecting line between past events and future possibilities (A Change of Skies, 9)”. The novel thus attains a kind of universality.

Bharat’s first idea of Australia shapes out of a map in, which Australia was “a black pink space shaped like the head of a scotch terrier with its ears pricked up and its square nose permanently pointed westwards, towards Britain”(A Change of Skies , 11) . The novel abounds in such subtle humor. Despite their ignorance of the country, both Bharat and Navaranjini are strongly determined to make a great success of their five-year stay in Australia. Navaranjini tries to equip herself for the stay by taking driving lessons and obtaining a driving license. Marina, one of her former schoolmasters reminds her that Australians are fond of swimming. She therefore takes swimming lessons at the Colombo

Swimming Club because it seemed to her that “an ability to swim would be as important to us in Australia as an ability to play bridge or tennis had been to my parents in their outstation days; it was, obviously, a social necessity”( A Change of Skies , 64-65).

Like all expatriates Bharat and Navaranjini undergo various phases of cultural assimilation. The first phase cultural shock and confrontation occurs soon after they land in Australia. The Asians always choose to occupy the back seat of the taxi either through ‘self importance among men’ or ‘modesty among women’ (A Change of Skies, 59). But in Australia,

WHEN IN A TAXI ,ALWAYS SIT IN FRONT NEXT TO THE DRIVER AND TALK PLEASANTLY TO HIM AS IF GO AN EQUAL , NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT THIS MIGHT BE FOR YOU TO DO (A Change of Skies, 59).

Bharat duly notes this down so that he does not repeat his first mistake, having tried to occupy the back seat out of such habit.

Bharat and Navaranjini have been well informed that there is nothing in Australia except kangaroos and sheep and “oh” tennis courts (18).”Australians are drunken foul mouthed and crude” (18). The meeting with Sandra Coquella comes as a pleasant surprise; Sandra is an Australian refined and genuinely interested in SriLankan and its history. Bharat’s sister Vera also writes to him from New York “there is nothing there but kholas and kangaroos and sheep and I think they called them Wombats” (A Change of Skies, 33).

There is also a passing reference to White Australian Policy. Alarmed with such data, Bharat and Navaranjini already ‘know’ what to expect in Australia and their first encounter with Australian leaves Navaranjini breathless. The fast traffic, the stickers on the rear windows of the vehicles, being winched at by the ‘ginger-haired driver of a monster truck’, the slogans “ASIANS OUT” and “BASH A PAKI A DAY” startle them and add to their unease.

Hence the hailstorm they experience for the first time becomes “stoning” against them by the Aussies. When their neighbour appears with ‘Glad Wrap’ to mend their broken windows they realize that Aussies are not brutes, not is Australia a “cultural desert”. They cross the first phase and enter the phase of acceptance and aware of reality.

Acceptance, in exile writings, refers to adjustment with the new culture, new land and new language. Individuals respond in various ways when they are exposed to new culture. When Bharat is being persisted by sense of ‘belonging’, he tries to adopt the new culture. In one of his letters to his mother, Bharat readily admits his problem “how to maintain our cultural identity in the face of displacement and expatriation?”. He has to change his image and the process starts. In seeking ways to be assimilated in their new surroundings, a change of name seems to be the first to Bharat.

Bharat changes his image and Navaranjini blames it on Prof.Blackstone and his radio talk. The comic encounters between Prof.Blackstone and Navaranjini is the beginning of cultural assimilation. Mangala Devasinha which poetically combines words meaning “wedding day” with a complimentary description of the person being an all-conquering lion is first shortened to Mangal Dy and then Mundy, thus retaining neither the sound nor the sense of the original name. Bharat which means India was named thus retaining neither the sound nor the sense of to commemorate his grandfather’s scholarship in Indian languages becomes Barry and the musical Navaranjini is chopped to Jean. But there is a sense of loss-loss of identity. More so, because ‘Barry’ in Sinhalese means “impotent” and Mundy is the “remains or dregs”. From Mangala Devasinha, Bharat ‘degenerates’ to a Mundy to suit the American climate. Any long name is almost a short story to Australians. Edward also shares a similar experience. He arrives at Kanngara station at Badagini in Australia. Badagini, an Australian name is “Fire in the Belly “translated into Sinhalese. Names are unique feature in a person’s identity and culture and hence untranslatable.

There are many similar experiences shared by Bharat and Edward. Bharat writes to his mother one may change his name and image “but there are certain things which can never alter and among them are devotion….I feel for homeland and family. Edward writes in his diary. “He who crosses the ocean may change the skies above him but not the colour of his soul”. Nostalgia for their homeland remains unerased in the expatriates.

Usually assimilation depends on the economic, education and cultural background of the people. It is often thought to be in the interest of the elites more than the interest of the weak and consequently results in the conflict between the traditionalist and assimilationist among the scattered community.

The traditionalist dreams of their past life in their ancestral land and resists accepting the adopted land. They dwell obsessively on the rich memories of the past. When Edward goes to Australia, he has been alarmed by cultural confrontation. He is not able to adjust with the new culture. Even though he lives there for a brief period, his acceptance is only a passive acceptance. When he has been entangled between two worlds, he chooses his homeland to Australia. He leaves Australia and leads a prosperous life in Sri Lanka. Similar experiences had been felt by Bharat and Navaranjini but they prepare to lead a better life in Australia. He leaves Australia and leads a prosperous life in Sri Lanka. But Bharat recognizes that he lacks the easy acceptance of another culture that characterizes both Navaranjini and Edward.

Bharat responds to his alienation by strenuous endeavours to become an insider. Central to these is his decision to change his name, so that he and Navaranjini become Barry and Jean Mundy. Yet it is Jean, the more adaptable, who resists this acculturation most violently and effectively, accepts her new name while ascertaining her native identity.

After her encounter with Prof. Blackstone, Navaranjini decides that Australians deep down are really Asians. Their appearance of insensitivity merely conceals their true nature. By acting on this assumption, Navaranjini now Jean, breaks through the superficial conviviality of her husband’s colleagues to reveal their deeper prejudices and doing so, discloses her own.

She sells the edition of Kamasutra and earns a profit for the English department but confirms her opinion that a common humanity unites Asians Australians. The mark of this common humanity is the similar and salacious curiosity shown by both parties in a particularly detailed illustrated centre of the Kamasutra. Encouraged by these successes, Jean accepts the role of supporting her husband while recognizing that she is the one who brings into the new land the old stories that can make sense of the common experience of people of different origin.

The assimilation of Australian culture is complete when Barry resigns his job as Professor of Linguistics to help Jean who makes herself a career. Jean and her husband Barry together own and run the newest and most exotic dining experience to tempt the Aussie palate; Baba-G and Baba- Q where Barry presides expertly over the finest Barbecued seafood. The food served the “wholesome synthesis of East and West”.

At the end of the novel, when Barry chooses to set up a school to teach English to other newcomers, Jean provides the true meeting point of cultures by establishing a restaurant and school of cuisine. The change of her own skies has changed her soul and she is now ready to change the skies or at least the horizons, of her new compatriots. Edwina, the daughter of Barry and Jean is like her mother, “practical and down to earth”; not sentimental but interested in reality she chooses to be an Australian after her brief visit to Sri Lanka.

On the invitation of Mr.Koyako, Barry Mundy starts writing a book for the use of Asian migrants in Australia. Barry is of course, the fittest person to write The Guide. Earlier, Barry had published the biography of his grand father Edward in book form entitled Lifeline. By writing The Guide now, Barry feels he will be carrying his family’s traditional pursuit of translation and interpretation into a new country.

A Change of Skies, which began as a light-hearted hilarious description of the acculturation process of Barry and Jean, towards the end becomes a profound reflection of deeper aspect of change, identity and adaptation. The dubious nature of people has been clearly visualized by the writer. Koyako, another Sri Lankan expatriate is a subtle portrayal of people who outwardly cling to customs and traditions of their own homeland, at the same time try to become part of their chosen land and in having the best of both the worlds.

The mythological story that has been told in the prologue and the epilogue also plays a vital role in this novel. The prologue narrates the story of a prince who marries a beautiful daughter of a merchant. Her beauty is inexplicable yet she remains dumb before her husband. The prince doubts at her mysterious behaviour and tries to find out the truth. One day, he pretends to be asleep and watches her wife’s doings.

The latter part of the story has been told in the epilogue. The lady goes to the palace of Indira Saba and sings so sweetly before him. When Indira gives her an option to choose either her husband or his celestial palace, she prefers to stay with her husband rather than the eternal palace. The story concludes with the deliberate acceptance of the lady.

Though the story has been told in a light –hearted manner, it has far-reaching implications. Mobility is essential to every individual but when he or she is uprooted from their native place, they undergo an inner conflict between the past and the present. To lead a happy life in this ‘global village’, one should adapt one’s new culture. The princess’ choice to live with her husband sets out a typical model to all the human beings. Acceptance is the better solution to the expatriate to escape from their sense of alienation and it is visualized by the writer through her characters Barry and Jean. Being a realist, Yasmine Gooneratne has given us a chance to understand that an expatriate can have the best of both the worlds and literature is a vehicle, a bridge

WORKS CITED

Driesen Cynthia Vanden and Adrian Mitchell. New Directions in Australian Studies.

New Delhi:Prestige Books,2000. Print.

Gooneratne, Yasmine. A Change of Skies. Delhi: Penguin, 1991. Print.

Jain, Jasbir ed. Dislocation and Multiculturalisms. Jaipur: Rawat Publication,2003. Print.

---. Writers of the Indian Diaspora. Jaipur: Rawat Publicatrion, 2003. Print.

McLaren , John. States of Imagination:Nationalism and Multiculturalism in

Australian studies. New Delhi:Prestige Books,2000. Print.

Dr. S.Lakshmi .“A Change of Skies as an Expatriate Novel”. Journal of Extension

Research. 5. (2003):65-68. Print.

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