This is to certify that the project entitled DIASPORIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN

ROHINTON MISTRY’S SUCH A LONG JOURNEY submitted by THAZINA.I to

M.M.E.S. Women’s Arts and Science College, Melvisharam-632509 in partial fulfillment

of the requirement for the award of the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in ENGLISH is a

record of bonafide research work done by the candidate during the period 2018-2019

under the guidance of Dr. N. Harit Portia., MA., M.Phil., Ph.D., Assistant Professor,

Department of English. The project has not formed the basis for the award of any degree,

diploma, associateship, fellowship or other similar title to any other candidates and the

project represents independent work on the part of the candidate.

…………………………………………… …………………..…………

Mrs.Siddiqa Parveen M.A., M.Phil., B.ed., SET Dr. N. Harit Portia M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.,

Head, Department of English, Research Supervisor, Asst. Professor,

M.M.E.S.Women’s Arts and Department of English,
Science College M.M.E.S. Women’s Arts and
Melvisharam-632509 Science College,
Melvisharam-632509

Date:

Submitted for the Viva-Voce Examination on:

Examiner: ………………………………………
 DECLARATION

I declare that the project submitted by me for the degree of Master of Arts in English, is

the work done by me during the year 2018-2019 under the guidance of Dr. N. Harit

Portia.,M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Assistant Professor and it has not formed the basis for the

award of any degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or any other similar title.

Place: MELVISHARAM THAZINA.I

Date: (Researcher)
 CONTENTS

Chapter Title Pg. No

I Introduction 01

II Narrative Techniques of Rohinton Mistry 11

III The Expatriation and Identity Crisis in such a long Journey 16

IV Alienation and Displacement in Such a Long Journey 21

V Conclusion 27

Works Cited 31
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I thank the Almighty God who is my confidante and a positive source

of inspiration.

I owe my deepest thanks to my parents, sister and friends who have been more

understanding and supportive throughout this undertaking.

It is my duty to show my gratitude and indebtedness to the management and the principal

Dr. Ms. Freda Gnanaselvam, for the support and encouragement to take up this research.

I wish to record my sincere thanks to Mrs.Siddiqa Parveen M.A., M.Phil., Head,

Department of English for her continuous efforts and valuable guidance which helped me

in completing my project successfully.

I extend my profound thanks to all the staff members of the Department of English for

their help and advice.

I thank the Librarian who helped me in collecting the necessary documentation without

which it would not be possible for me to complete this project.

 ABSTRACT

As a writer of Diaspora, Mistry has become one of the prominent writers in the

field of Indian writing in English. As an expatriate Indian writer he has handled the theme

of hybridity and creates the characters that are caught between culture of the original

homeland and the culture of the adopted country. The main objective of this study is to

trace to diasporic elements in Such a Long Journey. Thus the novel aptly communicates

the feelings and apprehensions of minority community. The picture of anguish, the

apprehensions, and the insecurity the sense of alienation and displacement is strongly feet

by the Parsis. The prefatory chapter “Introduction” seeks to place Rohinton Mistry as an

unreliable narrator in the realm of Indian writing in English.

The second chapter “Narrative Techniques of Rohinton Mistry” analyses Mistry’s

cunning use of language and varied stylistic device. The flashback technique is another

characteristic of Mistry style and he narrates and renarrates, through the flashback

technique to correlate various events. Further this chapter highlights the characters,

emotions, thoughts, feelings, motives and so on, directly or allows the characters to

reveal themselves through their deeds and actions indirectly.

The third chapter “Expatriation and Identity Crisis” highlights the identity crisis

of Parsi community in Indian Society. Further this chapter argues that the ambiguous and

ambivalent lives are the consequence of identity crisis and conflicts faced by the

diasporic people. In the novel, the characters struggle to create their own space in the

West as well as in India and the industrial conflict of being a parsi and the member of an

exile community comes before their assimilation.

 The fourth chapter “Alienation and Displacement” analyses Mistry’s experience

of double displacement as he had experienced national exclusion not only in Canada but

also in his Indian homeland. As a consequence they lose their aspirations, hopes and

ambitions and become marginalized in both places whether in India or in a foreign land.

In such a long Journey the author has depicted the pangs of betrayal and alienation by the

Parsi community and the dominance of the native people who throw the diasporic or

exiled persons into the margin.

The fifth chapter Conclusion sums up the previous chapters. The fictional world

Mistry has created in Such a Long Journey contains all the forms of a dark world.

Corruption, Knavery, treachery, tyranny, moral turpitude and Greed are the features of

the novel. Further the researcher argues that the novel Such a Long Journey is not only

the expression of the author’s feeling about his community but moreover it is an endeavor

to regain and retrieve the loss of dignity and grace that the Parsis lost in this case.
 Chapter I

Introduction

Mistry as a diasporic writer has become one of the prominent writers in the field

of Indian writing in English. Critic has glorified Mistry’s growth as a writer and his

transparent style, reproduce inconsistent ideological tensions, which repeat their

subconscious as well as cultural commitments. Without linguistic trickery, without

games, without the use of fantastical devices or caricature, Indian writer Rohinton Mistry

with three novels, established himself as one of the world’s finest living novelists. His

fiction is immensely human, his prose graciously formal and his vision realistic, not

romantic. The novelist uses a special kind of narrative technique where politics also

plays a major role in his novel. Mistry in his novel brings out impressive scenes in

which reality is furnished and presented to its zenith. Mistry tangle hindi words in his

narration to carry the flash of his narrative. His works seek to contribute the process of

change and investigate of minorities, their rights and status, and radical restructuring of a

social thought. Mistry refined as a convincing and notable literary figure during the

contemporary periods.

The most towering of all the modern Indian English novelists is Rohinton Mistry,

a Parsi, who was born in Bombay in 1952. He later immigrated to Canada in 1975. For

ten years, he worked in a bank, studying English and Philosophy as part time at the

University of Toranto. Mistry has well studied the History, Social and Political condition

of India during his stay in Bombay and has adapted it in the novel, which is interesting

and traditionally significant. His first short story fetched him a Hart House Prize for
fiction in 1983. His stories have been published in major canadanian literary journals and

anthologies. His three works of fiction Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987), Such a Long

Journey (1991), A Fine Balance (1996), and Family Matters (2002) are famous and

acclaimed to the extent of the last named work being nominated for the Booker Prize

Award 1996.

Indian English literature is the body of work by writers in India who write in the

English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous

languages of India. It’s early history began with work of Michael Madhusudhan Dutt

followed by R.K.Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao who contributed to Indian

fiction in the 1930’s. It is also relate with the works of members of the Indian Diaspora

who are of Indian declination.

Indian English Literature in English has attracted a widespread interest recently

both in India and abroad. It has come to occupy a greater significance in world literature.

It is now realized that Indian English literature and commonwealth Literature are in no

way inferior to other literatures. The writers in Australia, Newzealand, West Indies,

South Africa, Canada, Nigeria and India have contributed substantially to the modern

English literature. It is generally agreed that the novel is the most acceptable way of

expression of experiences and ideas in the context of our time. The Indian Fiction in

English has been attracting worldwide attention. One can wonder whether it is a part of

the Indian tradition or the European or the English tradition. A thorough analysis can

work out the solution to the problems of tradition and modernity.

 Fiction, having been the most powerful form of literary expression today, has

acquired a prestigious position in Indian English Literature. It is generally agreed that the

novel is the most acceptable way of expression of experiences and ideas in the context of

our time. The Indian Fiction in English has been attracting worldwide attention. One can

wonder whether it is a part of the Indian tradition or the European or the English

tradition. A thorough analysis can work out the solution to the problem of tradition and

modernity.

Contemporary Indian writers use themes to reflect the stroke of events and its

effect on the ordinary people that mainly focus on socio-political issues like war,

violence, displaced communities and marginalization. Rohinton Mistry is one among

these writers whose works repeat the contemporary social and political life. There are

some contemporary writers in Indian literature. They are Arundhati Roy, Amit

Chaudhuri, Shashi Deshpande, Romesh Gunesekera, Nayantara Sahgal, and Sir Ahmed

Rushdie

Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best for her novel The God of Small Things.

She has won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the biggest - selling

book by a non –expatriate Indian author. She is also the political activist involved in

human rights and environmental causes. She employs post modern and post colonial

devices like magic realism, allegory and goes back to history, myths and traditions. She

focuses on the identity crisis and records the unrecorded. Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist,

poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, singer, and music composer. He was elected as a

fellow of the Royal society of literature in 2009. He is a professor of contempory

literature at the University of East Anglia. And he won the Sahitya Academic Award.
The Immortals (2009), Friend of My Youth (2017), Freedom Song (1998), The Origins of

Dislike (2018). Shashi Deshpande is one of the eminent novelists of contemporary Indian

literature in English. She lives and writes in India, and she explicitly addresses Indian

readers, not the International market place. Deshpande was born in 1936. That Long

Silence (1988), Dark holds No Terrors (1980).

Nayantara sahgal (1927) is regarded as an exponent of the political novel, but it

appears that politics is only one of her two major concerns. Besides political themes her

fiction is also preoccupied with the modern Indian woman’s search for sexual freedom

and self-realization. She fails to establish a clear relationship between the political

turmoil outside and private torment of broken marriages robs most of her novels of a

unified effect of her five novels, A Time to be Happy(1958), This Time of Morning(1968),

Storm in Chandigarh(1969) are popular.

Sir Ahmed Rushdie is British Indian novelist famous for this novel “Midnight’s

Children (1981),” which won the Booker Prize in 1998 and the controversial The Satanic

Verses (1998). In his novels, Salman Rushdie deals with several national and

international themes, but his main focus is his homeland and its subcontinents of

Bangladesh and Pakistan. His major themes are nationalism, multiculturalism, dualism,

migration, alienation and Diaspora. Thus, his novels become true representatives of

postcolonial fiction. Rushdie’s novel, Shame (1983), portrays the troubled and violent

political situation in Pakistan.

Rohinton Mistry first novel, Such a long Journey (1991) gives a massive

recognition among the readers. This novel won the Governor General’s Award, and won
many prizes which established him as a writer of repute. Then the novel has been

translated into German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Japanese and has been made

into the 1998 film Such a long Journey.

Mistry’s novels Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance are scathing in their

attack on the self- serving politics of the national as well as the regional parties and

political classes and the failure of the administrative and justice systems to safeguard the

political and civic rights of the poor and the marginalized in the post- independence

India. However, Mistry’s fictional world is not limited to a particular community and in

these two texts the critique goes well outside the world of Parsi families and enclosures.

The reasons for this vituperative disapproval of the postcolonial socio- political society

can be traced to several factors like the perception of politically unjust regimes,

persecution mania in a climate of religious fundamentalism and communalism, socio-

economic changes in Parsi community, political corruption, political appropriation of the

idea of secularism and continuance of chronic forms of class and caste based

discrimination.

His second novel, Fine Balance was published in 1995 which won several awards

including the commonwealth writer’s prize, the prestigious Giller prize, the Los Angles

Time book prize for fiction, and The Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Hotly award.

It was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in November 2001 and sold hundreds of thousands

of additional copies throughout North America as a result. It won the commonwealth

writers prize and was shortlisted for the Booker prize. In this novel one of the strongest

themes running throughout the novel is power and it can easily be corrupted. The author
uses this initial corruption of the Prime Minister to show how quickly people will abuse

power if they know they are able to get.

Mistry’s third novel, Family Matters, was published in 2002 and was received

internationally as its predecessors, nominated once again for the Man Booker and won

the “Kiriyama Pacific Rim” Book prize. Mistry’s latest book, The Scream (2008), has

been illustrated by the famous Canadian artist Tong Urquhart. It is in Canada to raise

funds for their organization. His latest book is a story, The Scream, illustrated by Tony

Urquhart (2008). In 2011, he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for

Literature. The novel presents the backdrop of a national emergency. It focuses on the

issues of ethno-religious strife, communalism, fundamentalism, and bigotry. It also

discusses the theme of alienation and immigration. It laments over the disillusion that

becomes a part of life when children leave, families disintegrate, and love slips away.

The title of the novel, Such a Long Journey has been taken from the poem The

Journey of the Magi by T.S.Eliot.

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey. (1)

The novel of Rohinton Mistry portrays the spirit of the cultural identity in the

feeling of alienation felt by the Parsi community. The Parsis had to face economic losses,

lowered social status and personal suffering. Such a long Journey is a brilliant novel

written by Rohinton Mistry and is an important contribution to the compilation of Parsi

fiction in English. The novel is an individual in the sense that it is based on particular

events. On the surface, the novel deals with the Gustard’s and the Parsi community but in

presence, it covers the major events of post – independent Indian history. In Such a Long

Journey, Mistry takes responsibility as a representative and mouthpiece of the Parsi

community, in order to realize how the post – colonial conditions affect the community’s

identity. Mistry records the anxieties, uneasiness, problems and the unambiguous

identity of a Parsi community within the termination of India.

Such a long Journey is a fine novel set against the backdrop of political events in

India during 1970s. As a writer in a new country and in a different social and culture

milieu, he faces many challenges. Mistry set this novel at a very crucial point in

contemporary Indian history. In period 1962-1972, India had to take on three successive

wars, with china, Pakistan, and for the liberation of Bangladesh. This period also

witnessed the rise of communal politics, the emergence of new political policies, politics

of votes by the dominant Hindu or Brahmin community of India.

The novel deals with the contention like fear and sense of insecurity which

Gustad, protagonist, feels throughout the novel. The theme of Such a long Journey

revolves around history, politics and the common anxieties of a middle – class man

Gustad Noble. This main interest of this novel lies in the real – life scandal relate

sohrab Nagarwala, the state bank cashier, who was at the centre of the sixty – lakh rupees

scam, which had shook the government of Indira Gandhi. Through the execution of the

Nagarwala case, Mistry not only succeeds in making an important political statement, but

also in giving an effective portrayal of the main character that Mistry presents the

transition and progression of the Parsi mind.

 This novel deals with the life of Indian who suffers from communal disharmony,

religious chauvinism, ethnicity and cultural diversities. The novel mainly presents

realistic picture of the minority community like Parsis who became the victims of the

political uncertainties. Mistry raises some problems of community and cultural crisis

which are the main issues under the subaltern studies. The drift between ethnic culture

and majority culture often gives rise to unrest in the national life as well as social

structure.

“Alienation” is also observed as a major theme in Mistry’s Fiction. Alienation is

as a term has got wider significance in modern literature. It can be exists in the

disciplines of philosophy, history, psychiatry, sociology, Anthropology, economics,

political sciences, education and literature. It is incidental to human experience in which

man has feeling of separation or estrangement from the governing environment. It is

generally accompanied by a feeling of loveliness mixed with pain and suffering with the

growing complexity in living condition of in modern age, the feeling alienation has

increased in men and women the entire world over.

Such a Long Journey is one of the remarkable and best works by Rohinton Mistry

which portrays the realistic conditions and political history of the Indian society

especially the life of the Parsi community before and after independence. Being the

diasporic writer he deals with migrant experience and his works depicts Paris culture

ethos, dilemma of migration, love for the homeland, hybridity and quest for identity.

Mistry has a deep concern for this Parsi community in India and the development of post

colonial India in general.

 The meaning of the term, “diaspora” has been extended in the recent year. It can

be described as the experiences of the Jewish community as outside from the homeland.

In recent times, it is also referred as the displaced of the communities, which has been

dislocated from their native homeland.

The nature of the Diaspora depends on the nature of the host country. Diaspora,

despite their common origin, may behave in a totally different manner depending on the

country of their re-location. Rohinton Mistry is the best example of presenting different

narratives of diaspora while residing in Canada. The narrative of Diaspora is essentially

a narrative of the “self.” In the modern context, the word “home” not necessarily

connotes as “self” of belonging and an individual sometimes seems to dwindle between

“home” and homeland. Living India behind is his own choice for better perspectives in

life. At the same time being a Parsi, the historical experience of double displacement

imbibed with the author’s sense of “identification” with an alienation from his new and

old homelands.” The scattering or movement of people from one nation to another with a

common origin, background and beliefs may be termed as “diaspora.” A critic, Jasbir

Jain says in that:

Rohinton Mistry work raises a whole lot of other questions specially

related to the “homeland” and political memory. Neither nostalgia nor

memory in itself can account for this rootedness and preoccupation with

the homeland and the environment boundaries of the city of birth. (42)

The main objective of this study is to trace the diasporic elements to explore the

identity and voice of the surviving diaspora in India. In the novel Such a Long Journey,
as it Mistry, aptly communicates the feelings and apprehension of minority community

and exploited history to explore into broader concern of Parsi community. The picture of

anguish, the apprehension, and the insecurity, the sense of alienation and sense of

displacement is strongly felt by the Parsis. As a writer of Diaspora, Rohinton Mistry

always portrays the identity quest. He has written on the identical struggle of the Parsis.

The culture baggage that the Diasporas carry is characteristic of the region that they come

from. The way Rohinton Mistry describes Parsi habits and customs is unique.
 Chapter II

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES OF ROHINTON MISTRY

Narrative is an art not a science, technically, a novel, like drama follow various

structures such as plot, settings, narration, characterization, language and theme. Every

story is written for a purpose. Some writers write to entertain; others may be disloyal to

sensitize the people with social issues through their works. Some other writers fill their

works with the historical aspects. So based on their purpose and theme the settings and

techniques are used by the writers. The novelists sometimes analyze the characters,

emotions, thoughts, feelings, motives and so on, directly or they allow the characters to

reveal themselves through their deeds and actions indirectly. The novelist makes

pansophical narrators, to narrate the story or may be a first person narration or it may be

exposed through a series or account or documents. However the point of view may shift

from scene to scene, thus the novelists uses various techniques to tell his story.

The novelist however uses a special kind of narrative technique where politics

also play a major role in his novels. Mistry in his novel brings out poignant scenes in

which reality is served and presented to its zenith. Mistry mixes hindi words in his

narration to reinforce the impact of his narrative, and his close aborption to ordinary

details bust the illusion of reality. He draws upon different culture- specific narrative

styles to tell his tale of the Parsi community. His use of the western tradition of realism is
tangled with the eastern oral tradition of storytelling in the way Arbian Nights is written.

His narration and administration of characters is like the Indian “Sutradhaar’’ who

controls the characters, manipulates the action and leads the spectator or reader through

the story.

Mistry’s novels Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance are scathing in their

attack on the self- serving politics of the national as well as the regional parties and

political classes and the failure of the administrative and justice systems to safeguard the

political and civic rights of the poor and the marginalized in the post- independence

India. However, Mistry’s fictional world is not limited to a particular community and in

these two texts the critique goes well outside the world of Parsi families and enclosures.

The reasons for this vituperative disapproval of the postcolonial socio- political society

can be traced to several factors like the perception of politically unjust regimes,

persecution mania in a climate of religious fundamentalism and communalism, socio-

economic changes in Parsi community, political corruption, political appropriation of the

idea of secularism and continuance of chronic forms of class and caste based

discrimination.

Sometimes Mistry puts whole phrases in the foreign language into the mouths of

his characters, letting them rephrase in English right away. Hirabai, in Squatter aptly

comments: “Chaalo ni, Nariman, it’s time” (151). Or Sarosh’s mother asks her son

“Saachoo Kahé, what brought you back?” (167). As the meaning of the foreign words is

clarified immediately, their function cannot be shifting the power balance between the

colonizer and the formerly colonized (75). Instead, these instances seem to lend a sense

of authenticity to the character.

 It is interesting that Mistry not only uses code switching in his writing, he

also schematizes the issue in the story Swimming Lessons, when he describes Berthe

and how the English word booze “clunks down heavily out of the tight-flying formation

of Yugoslavian sentences” (237). He even relates her broken English in form of direct

speech: “Radiator no work, you tell me. You feel cold, you come to me, I keep you

warm” (244). The author dedicates several lines to describing her accent and uses a

wealth of metaphors to do so, thereby stressing the fact that language is alive and

represents an important issue in cross-cultural encounters.

The flashback technique is another characteristic of Mistry’s style. The author

takes the readers into the past which is marked by nostalgia and the sense of a better

quality of life. The past highlights the deteriorating quality of the present. The English

language that Mistry uses is hardly rigged to represent an Asian identity. But Mistry as a

“double outsider” has used the language of the colonizer to represent an emerging

decolonized people. He can fruitfully use the language that is culturally fantastic yet

“fluid” and “global” sofar as the Diasporic experience is concerned. His use of hindi and

Parsi words mixed with English makes the reader interesting. Mistry language is

evocative and vividly conjures images through the power of words.

Rohinton Mistry is one among the serious diasporic writers who, reproduce

contradictory ideological tensions, try to make out a medium which reflects their

ideological as well as cultural commitments. When post-colonial writers like Salman

Rushdie prefer to experiment with new method of narration such as “magical realism,”

Mistry chooses to follow the classical form of the novel and reasserts its value in telling

real tales. Hence his preferred style is realism. Post-colonial critics like Edward said,
Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and Frantz Fanon have analysed in detail this ideological

structure and standpoint of diasporic writers. In fact many critics have freak out on

Mistry for his growth as a writer and have correlated his transparent style to that of

Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and Thomas Hardy. Mistry’s First novel Such A Long

Journey (1991) deals with multiple person of narration as the novel connect three

historical background, of the national issues. It brings out the three wars, through three

different characters of parsi, multiple attitude are presented. All three narratives meet

one another in a location and recreates Bombay geographical landscapes in slices. Thus

through the narrators of the story, the author tries to bare handful expression of political

circle. The narrators also convey out various social issues like geographical, religious,

legal, economic crisis, historical aspects and of parsi community and culture.

The second novel A Fine Balance (1995) brings out the necessity situation of

the political unrest. In fact the novelist narrates and re-narrates, through the flash back

techniques to correlate various events. Mistry take up such techniques, makes the

narrator to describe the events with the benefit of hindsights. In the novel , the first,

third and fifth chapter deals with the past, the remaining deals with present.

Though the characters end with negative remark or tone, yet it brings out the real face of

the society. So in this fashion the novelist makes the characters to narrate forward and

backward and thereby imagine interest upon the readers. Mistry in his third novel Family

Matters uses the association of ideas technique. Through this technique Mistry tries to

bring out the inner minds of the characters. The novel has twenty chapters, each

representing with an epilogue. Even in epilogue, the author has used narrative device.

Family Matters revolves around the story of four generation of a Parsi family.
 The narrative techniques used by Rohinton Mistry in the creation of his short

stories are narrative voice and focalization, structure as well as his cunning use of

language and varied stylistic device. The narrative situation in Swimming Lessons

differs from that in Lend Me Your Light in so far as the first-person narrative is frequently

interrupted by passages of third-person narrative, which are set apart from the rest of the

text by formatting. They unfold in India and focus on how Kersi’s emigration affects his

parents’ life. The use of the words “Father and Mother” to refer to the protagonist’s

parents lets us assume that this part of the story is told from Kersi’s perspective.

Therefore, focalization seems to change to an omniscient point of view or it is the

protagonist’s future self who finds out about how his parents fared during his absence

after his return and uses this information to write the story. Rohinton Mistry’s style

differs strongly from section to section. At times, it is very concise and characterized by

an economic use of words. This is considered typical of the short story genre, given its

limited word count. The following paragraph is striking

I drop the Eaton’s bag wrapper in the garbage can. The swimming trunks

cost fifteen dollars, same as the fee for the ten weekly lessons. The

garbage bag is almost full. I tie it up and take it out. There is a medicinal

smell in the hallway; the old man must have just returned to his apartment.

(236)

Another prominent feature of Mistry’s style is his tendency to employ metonymy

to represent different cultures. It has been argued in that the formal requirements of the

short story genre foster the deployment of stylistic devices which allow the author to

spare lengthy descriptions and use the limited scope of the work efficiently.
 Chapter III

THE EXPATRIATION AND IDENTITY CRISIS

Mistry’s Such a Long Journey is dealt with some of the diasporic elements in a strong

way. He gives important to identity of people in their living circumstances. Identity

crisis is powerfully portrayed by the author in this novel. It expresses the Parsi people

feeling to get identity in Indian society. After the Independence of India, Parsi people

have a doubt in their future life. Many members of the community felt that an acceptable

position within Indian society would become difficult. So most of them decided to leave

India for better life. They see that they are a lot of risky situation to get their unique

identity in postcolonial India. It makes them aware of their present condition. The Parsi

people encounter the problem of identity crisis in their settled territory especially

Bombay in India. They think that they face displacement and marginalization in their

new settled country. In their early life they are dominated by the colonizers and now they

are dominated by the new political Parties in India. The Parsi community also touches

alienation in Indian Society. Though the Parsis are living in India at present they are not

the native people of this place. But they are the settlers in India for many centuries. It

gives them the feeling of different in the India. They cannot adjust with the customs and

tradition of the native people in India. Therefore they are searching a new identity for

their own in India like other minority communities in Bombay.

Identity is never very important in a life until the identity is lost. It is the search

to understand other cultures, to know their struggles, and to acknowledge their suffering

that makes the study of colonial and postcolonial literature interesting. While it is true
that the struggle for identity is a universal struggle, the postcolonial identity is certainly a

struggle with extenuating circumstances. The study of colonial and postcolonial

literature inherently involves the study of identity. They all seem to suffer a crisis of

identity in the absence of a strong traditional culture. This crisis of identity, while not

uncommon in other literature, is most severe when viewed in postcolonial literature. It is

the idea that the identity of an individual is so malleable that postcolonial literature

focuses on. Identity becomes an overwhelming emotional force in the character’s lives

that begins to drive every action that the characters take. This search for a true identity

forces their decisions and guides their lives in directions that seem almost irrelevant.

In this novel Such a Long Journey Gustad and his friends try to get a new identity

in the post- independence India. They struggle a lot to achieve their dreams and

expectation to obtain their identity in the Indian society. But it is too difficult for them to

fulfill their dreams. The terrible circumstances do not allow them to get their respectable

identity in India. Instead the Parsis are dominated by other Hindu communities.

Therefore they are longing for their independent and satisfying identity in India. Mistry

describes the life of Gustad. The whole story is concentrating on Gustad family and his

office. This novel mainly emphases on the whole Parsi community’s search for a new

identity through the middle class Parsi families living in khodadad building. Mistry

expresses the Parsi people’s misfortunes and their loss of identity through the major

characters. This novel is one of the evidences of Parsi and other marginalized people’s

longing for identity and their suppressed and oppressed state in India during seventies

and eighties.
 Through Gustad, Mistry narrates the troubles and sufferings of middle class Parsi

people in Bombay. He is the one who is searching his identity among other people till

the end of the novel. The changing circumstances lead him to face identity crisis in the

society. He has met a miserable life after his father’s bankruptcy. He wants to create a

specific identity for his own. He tries many things to get his identity in the society. He

thinks that through education he can attain a decent identity in the society. So he wants to

study as his wish in his life. But he cannot get what he likes. Instead he is forced to

leave his dreams and has to adapt the pathetic events occurred in his life. This is the first

failure in life to acquire his identity.

The protagonist is longing for self- identity in Such a Long Journey. He often

encounters lot of problems in his life. He tries to succeed all his problems in each and

every occasion. He does not feel satisfied in his life because of his lack of identity in the

society. He often envies on his neighbours. He usually thinks that his identity has

vanished in present days. He trusts that one’s identity is tied up with economic

development in the society. Therefore it leads him to think about his father’s day

constantly which gives him the feeling of nostalgia. He remembers his grandfather’s fine

furniture shop. He believes that his entire family is identified with his grandfather’s

furniture shop in the beginning.

Then the novel Such a Long Journey deals with the identity crisis of middle class

Parsi people in another way. They are separated from other communities in the Indian

society. Khodadad Building is the domicile of this small ethnic group. It is called as a

Parsi Building where all inhabitants are Parsis. The Parsis who reside in the Khodadad

Building are Gustad Noble and his family, Miss Kutpitia, Major Jimmy Bilimoria,
Inspector Soli Bamji, Mr.Rabadi, Tehmul Lungraa and Cavasji. These middle class Parsi

people face identity crisis in India in numerous ways. One of such problem is the

demolition of a great wall. Khodadad building is covered with a great wall and it stands

as an emblem to the Parsis. The Parsi people are identified by other people only with this

wall. The Parsi community also accepts that the wall signifies their identity in the city.

But they cannot hold their identity by this wall till the end of the novel. The wall is

destroyed by the corporation to expand the road. They oppose to destroy the wall but

they cannot get success. Instead they have lost some souls in that fight.

In this novel, Parsi community’s longing for identity is revealed by the words of

the Parsi characters like Gustad and Dinshawji. They give the voice for the identity of

the Parsi people. They also disclose the questionable and pathetic life of Parsi

community in India. They mention that the Parsi cannot run their life successfully. In

another hand, the Parsi people Identity is threaten by the political party in Bombay.

Mistry shows that Parsi community is suffered when the Shiv Sena party takes its

authority in Bombay city. They are dominated the Parsi community very often. The

Shiv Sena in this novel is a real threat to an individual Parsi identity.

Thus Mistry’s Such a Long Journey depicts the identity crisis of the whole Parsi

community and the individual in Indian society. It also shows their longing for identity

in each and every moment in their settled country. In Such a Long Journey Mistry

writes: “Diasporic culture Identity is, therefore by its very nature predicated upon the

inevitable mixing of castes and people. The interactions during the lengthy sea voyages

began a process that led to the remarking of culture and ethnic identities” (7). As a writer

of Diaspora, Rohinton Mistry always portrays the identity quest. He has written on the
identical struggle of the Parsis. The culture baggage that the Diasporas carry is

characteristic of the region that they come from. The way Rohinton Mistry describes

Parsi habits and customs is unique. Immigration is a recurring theme in Mistry’s fiction,

from his short stories to the novel Family Matters, where Yezad narrates to his two sons

his unsuccessful experience with bureaucracy in his young adolescent days as he

attempted to go to the west. Thus expectations about the inevitability of immigration are

very strong.

A critic, Nilufer Bharucha has explored the multiple aspects of Mistry’s works

and she states: “Parsis in India feel insecure, experience identity crisis. The Parsi people

immigrated to other countries thinking that the new country would be more favorable to

them, but this sudden immigration to alien land leads to identity crisis” (7). Rohinton

Mistry’s main focus is on the identity crisis faced by the Parsi people as they feel

threatened in the land to which they have immigrated. A critic, Savita Goel in Diasporic

consciousness and sense of Displacement is aptly comments: “As a Parsi and then as a

immigrant in Canada Mistry sees himself as a symbol of double displacement and this

sense of double displacement is a recurrent theme in his literary works” (8).

Thus, Rohinton Mistry as a Diasporic writer has liberated Indian English

Literature from the colonial yoke. Mistry seeks to overcome the stigma of marginality.

Mistry as an expatriate Indian writer has handled the theme of hybridity and creates the

characters that are caught between culture-culture of the original homeland and the

culture of the adopted country. Such a Long Journey is absolute Indianness, without any

trace of the Canadian immigrant experience that the author must have gone through for

fifteen years before the publication of the book.

 Chapter IV

ALIENATION AND DISPLACEMENT

The term, Alienation is defined as an aloof or seperation from the society or group

of people. The term has got wider significance in modern literature. Alienation is also

observed as a major theme in Mistry’s Fiction. So, the alienation has been taken as the

central theme of core subjects in writing’s of theological, psychological, philosophical

etc. It can be a state of man’s incompatibility with his milieu. In this kind of term, the

feeling of loneliness exclusion can existed through works of writers.

“Alienation” also accompanies the behavior in which the person is compelled to

self-destructively. The individuals are forced to manipulate people and situation in

accordance with the social demands, while feeling incapable of controlling their action.

The immigrant writers reflected their attachment with their motherland on one hand and

their feelings are expressed as the alienation and rootlessness. Diasporic writing are

known as “expatriate writings” and it gives voice to the traumatic. The present study is

an attempt to explore the theme of Alienation. It also focuses on universal

dehumanization in the modern globalized world.

Generally speaking, Diasporic literature is concerned with two relationships: one

with the motherland which gives rise to nostalgia, memories and reminiscences, and the

other, the new relationship with the adopted country and its people which gives rise to

conflicts and split personalities. That is why such writers speak of alienation, loneliness,

rootlessness, exile, cultural conflicts and at times of a sense of rejection by the host

country. In literature, alienation is regularly portrayed as the process of social or class

pressures among various social groups where people’s familiarity with their difference

may separate or isolate others from being joined together or included with them.

Alienation is significant to many areas of human existence. Alienation is a social issue in

the works of Rohinton Mistry. Diaspora is an experience of migrants about dislocation

and displacement.

While most minority migrant writers speak of their experiences of alienation in

Canada, Mistry, as a Canadian of Parsi ethnicity, has experienced national exclusion not

only in Canada but also in his Indian homeland. Mistry’s experience of “double

displacement,” as Barucha terms it: “double diaspora” which foregrounds the instabilities

in the national narrative of culture and identity. Rohinton Mistry, an Indo-Canadian

novelist has received acclaim worldwide and depicts the Indian socioeconomic and

political life as well as Parsi Zoroastrian life, customs beliefs and religion in his writings.

He does not attempt to follow fads and fashion. His writing suggests sensitivity to the

beauty and the fragmentation, the failings and the cruelties of his world. He is a socio-

political writer and lived in Bombay. It makes him portraying the life of the Parsis in

India and delineating the corruption of the city. If the person is a first generation migrant,

he is obsessed with the home left behind and haunted by a feeling of alienation.

Rohinton's historical circumstance includes development of new identity in the country to

which he has moved and a complex relationship with the cultural history of the country,

he has deserted. He performs the pangs of alienation. Rohinton's works are intact with

the major themes like religion, community, politics, human relationship, diaspora,

alienation, nostalgia, and homelessness.

 In Such a Long Journey the protagonist Gustad Noble, a teller in the bank, had to

face many trials in his life. His dreams regarding Sohrab, his eldest son are shattered

when he declines to join the prestigious IIT despite clearing the entrance examination.

Not only this he also rebels against his father and leaves his home to try his luck in

music. In utter desperation he states: “Throwing away his fortune without reason. What

have I not done for him, tell me? I even threw myself in front a car. Kicked him aside,

saved his life, and got to suffer all my life. Slapping his hip” (52).

One of the core themes of Rohinton Mystry’s novel is loss. Such a Long Journey

explores the loss of material belongings as well as the loss of death or separation. First

material loss in Gustad’s life is his family’s misery during his father’s bankruptcy. So, he

also endures with the loss of deaths of his friends Jimmy, Dinshawj, and Tehmul.

However, Gustad suffered from feeling of alienation, isolation, confusion, poverty and

many more.

Gustad Noble is the protagonist of the novel who is quite content with his

situation. Gustad Noble is faced with his family’s impoverishment in the course of his

father’s bankruptcy. However he also has to cope with the death of his friends Jimmy,

Dinshawji and Tehmul. Moreover loss of Gustad also entails a feeling, of alienation and

dissatisfaction with the present. The semantics of loss imply a dispossession against the

subjects and it leads to poverty, isolation, confusion, disillusionment. It is clear through

the following detail the causes and effects of loss making its impact on the protagonist of

the novel. The past is of special relevance to Gustad in the novel. Two events are

significant in this Context: his father’s bankruptcy and a childhood experience at

Matheran involving a broken bowel. Gustad associates: “sensual qualities with the
memory of his father’s bankruptcy. The destructive character of this event is not merely

conveyed by sound and touch however” (182).

In brief, Mistry’s novels show social realism. Such a Long Journey also presents

truly exemplary characters who provoke our laughter and sympathy, but who like the

protagonist will remain in the minds and hearts of readers for a long time to come

because the writer succeeds in making us “see” and having done so, makes us respond

accordingly.

Thus, at the end the character Gustad, a man with principles and dreams and

aspirations, realized that some compromise has to be reached in life. As a realist novel,

Mistry brings out the reality of life – the novel becomes a telling commentary on social

life, political life and morality. His focus is on the Parsi community and their problems

in life. There is a focus on life in Bombay in the early 1970s – a city in transition with

the backdrop of the war. He uses typical terms- native of the language adopted by the

Parsi customs, food, religious ceremonies all of which contribute to Mistry’s realism.

Mistry reflects the dilemma of his minority community and its identity crisis. Parsis are a

small closely related community who face the feeling of alienation and insecurity. New

Parsi writers maintain their ethnic identity through their creative writing.

In Such a Long Journey the protagonist Gustad Noble, a teller in the bank, had to

face many trials in his life. He has tried to bring home the fact that even after

Independence Parsis’ integrity has been doubted and they are subject to ill-treatment by

the authorities and the government. It is shown through the character of Major Bilimoria,

a resident of Khodadad Building. He has been victimized by the Indira Gandhi regime in
a bank fraud case when he was a cashier of State Bank of India released sixty lakh to one

Mira Obili on the behest of the manager on being allegedly told by the Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi on phone. However it is based on the real life scandal involving Sohrab

Nagarwala, a cashier in the State Bank of India during the 1971. He claimed that he had

received a call from the Prime Minister instructing him to pay the handsome amount of

money to a messenger. This was never accepted by the Prime Minister’s office and

Nagarwala was charged with embezzlement and arrested later to die in a mysterious

circumstance during the trial of the case. This money was also connected with the 1971

war between India and Pakistan which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. In the

novel Major Bilimoria is presented as a RAW agent who has been assigned the task of

assisting the Mukti Bahini of East Pakistan financially in their fight against the brutality

of Pakistani army though secretly. It is for this purpose that the cash of sixty lakh was

drawn by Major Bilimoria.

However this incident drew Mistry’s attention because in his novels the readers

find him to be pioneering the cause of the Parsis whose survival is on the brink. As

Sohrab Nagarwala was a Parsi and falsely implicated by the Indira Gandhi government in

the so-called fraud case, Mistry has defended him and tried to make the Parsis know the

reality of the case through the character of Major Bilimoria in the novel who is supposed

to bear the real-life character of Sohrab Nagarwala. He has reflected the agony and angst

that the Parsis were forced to sustain. This incident symbolizes the fear and torment that

the Parsis of India were gripped by and its repercussion were felt by their brethren across

the globe. This feeling of betrayal and alienation by the Parsi community in general is

vindicated by the confession of Major Bilimoria as expressed here:

 But ... I was mistaken. They came for me ... arrested ... made a case based

on my confession ... Gustad, it has been tried. Everything is in their

control ... courts in their pockets. Only one way ... quietly do my four

years, and then forget about it. (280-281)

Mistry fiction can broadly be understood as one which analyzes the crisis in parsi

life in India. As it becomes clear through the various aspects of his novels, the crisis

facing the parsi community- a religion-ethnic minority of India- arises both from their

altered socio- economic conditions in the new political circumstances coming into

existence in post-independence India.

Rohinton Mistry is known as an international man of stories in diasporic literature

and as a writer in a new country and in a different social and cultural milieu, he faces

many challenges. He has to make sense of the various spaces when he occupies as a

Parsi, Indian and Canadian. The characters represent Parsis at odds with their religious

beliefs and the larger community, and also convey the common human issues of spiritual

questions, alienation, and fear of death, family problems, and economic hardships.

Finally, through his myriad characters, Mistry also shows the awareness of

differences among human beings. He locates innate goodness, which is, at times, gets

diluted or distorted by compelling circumstances, because human beings are not mythical

god.
 Chapter V

CONCLUSION

This chapter gathers and binds up the core chapters. In Such a Long Journey,

Mistry concept of self-identity is seen at many instances. Mistry’s fiction can broadly be

understood as one which analyzes the crisis in Parsi life in India. As it becomes clear

through the various aspects of his novels, the crisis facing the Parsi community – a

religion-ethnic minority of India –arises both their altered socio-economic conditions in

the new political circumstances coming into existence in post-Independence India as well

as from the internal problems of a closed and demographically shrinking or challenged

community facing multiple displacements.

Such a Long Journey gives a massive recognition to Mistry among the readers. In

one of his interviews he says that: “English is technically my mother tongue.” Therefore

he handles English language perfectly in all his works. Postcolonial writers have made

the whole ideas of post colonialism a part of literary culture. Postcolonial literature also

deals with themes like quest for identity, Racial Discrimination, Alienation, Subaltern

issues, Slavery and Cultural Clashes.

First of all the change of name of certain streets seems to be a loss of identity.

Dinshawji, Gustad’s close friend, protests against the renaming of Indian, especially

Bombay streets. For instances, Lamington Road is renamed, as Dadasaheb Bhadkamkar

Marg and Carnac Road is changed as Lokmanya Tilak Marg. Dinshawji feels that loss of

old names is loss of tradition and loss of social identity and even self-identity. These
changes may take away what should remain away in the world. For Dinshawji, life

cannot be lived in any other name. Gustad noble’s character is presented as if it is

created to recuperate the lost identity throughout long journey from beginning to end.

Often literary critics tend to classify, describe and evaluate authors like Rohinton

Mistry under the rubric of postcoloniality, a term that has been much debated. Despite its

wide spread use, the term ‘postcolonial’ or its derivatives ‘post colonialism’ is rather

vague, meaning and implying different locations, ideological positions and visions of

history to different people. According to the critic Loomba in “Postcolonial Perspective”

aptly avers:

Even in the temporal sense, the word postcolonial cannot be used in any

single sense… The term is not only inadequate to the task of defining

contemporary realities in the once-colonized countries, and vague in terms

of indicating a specific period of history, but may also cloud the internal

social and racial differences of many societies. (12-13)

The pain of alienation and the severe identity crisis one faces due to immigration

to distant lands is expressed best by the writers of the Diaspora. Amongst all the writers

who can be categorized as Diaspora writers, Rohinton Mistry is one writer who created a

distinct name for himself because of his brilliance as a writer and also because of his

unique craftsmanship of honest portrayal of the subaltern through his novel. In the novel

Family Matters the protagonist Dina struggles against the social conditions of her

existence could easily have existed independent of long incursion into the life of tailors.

As such they would have existed, within the absurdist frame of an illogical universe, as
events in the novels that tackle the immediate consequences of the city which is

beautification; “Garibi hatao” and family planning shemes. The history of migration is

back at least two thousand years. The term, Indian Diaspora is generally to describe

the people who migrated from their own land.

The term diaspora, diasporic writers deal with psychological as well as emotional

problems. Diaspora experiences such as alienation, immigration, expatriation, exile,

Identity Crisis and Indianness have led writers to expose their talent which is rooted in

the tradition of society and culture. While most of the migrant writers speak of their

experiences of alienation in Canada, Mistry as a Canadian of Parsi ethnicity, has

experienced national exclusion not only in Canada but also in his Indian homeland. They

migrate to places where resources are more easily available. In earlier periods people

migrated from one place to another in search of food, shelter, safely from persecutions.

Today, people tend to migrate in search of better quality of life. Migrants not only take

them their skills and expertise to new locals, but also their culture, living style collective

memories. Over the ages, this has been can man thread irrespective of nationality or

ethnicity, whether it is Irish, Japanese, Italian, German, Chinese, Canadian, Jewish or

Indian.

Mistry’s style is somewhat loose and rambling. It is not a closely knit and well

structured writing. The reason is Mistry wants to include everything about Bombay its

environs. Mistry finds it difficult to escape from his Parsi identity. Parsis are an urban

community and their religion is alien to Indian religious and cultural ethos. The result is

as closed mind set only aggravated by self-protective instincts. To break out of their
besieged mentality and to reach out to other communities requires the will of spirit. In

the Parsi English novel, Jaydip Sing Dodiya remarks about Mistry-

Mistry is sensitive to the various anxieties felt by his community. He

demonstrated this by responding to the existing threats to the Parsi family

and community in particular, and to country in general. He presents his

community through the different narratives of the characters who

invariably express their concern for their community and the changes that

affect them.

Rohinton Mistry as a Diasporic writer has liberated Indian English Literature

from the colonial yoke. Mistry seeks to overcome the stigma of marginality. Mistry as

an expatriate Indian writer has handled the theme of hybridity and creates the characters

that are caught between culture-culture of the original homeland and the culture of the

adopted country. Such a Long Journey is absolute Indianness, without any trace of the

Canadian immigrant experience that the author must have gone through for fifteen years

before the publication of the book.

As a writer of Diaspora, Mistry has become one of the prominent writers in the

field of Indian writing in English. As an expatriate Indian writer he has handled the theme

of hybridity and creates the characters that are caught between culture of the original

homeland and the culture of the adopted country. The main objective of this study is to

trace to diasporic elements in Such a Long Journey. Thus the novel aptly communicates

the feelings and apprehensions of minority community. The picture of anguish, the

apprehensions, and the insecurity the sense of alienation and displacement is strongly feet
by the Parsis. The prefatory chapter “Introduction” seeks to place Rohinton Mistry as an

unreliable narrator in the realm of Indian writing in English.

The second chapter “Narrative Techniques of Rohinton Mistry” analyses Mistry’s

cunning use of language and varied stylistic device. The flashback technique is another

characteristic of Mistry style and he narrates and renarrates, through the flashback

technique to correlate various events. Further this chapter highlights the characters,

emotions, thoughts, feelings, motives and so on, directly or allows the characters to

reveal themselves through their deeds and actions indirectly.

The third chapter “Expatriation and Identity Crisis” highlights the identity crisis

of Parsi community in Indian Society. Further this chapter argues that the ambiguous and

ambivalent lives are the consequence of identity crisis and conflicts faced by the

diasporic people. In the novel, the characters struggle to create their own space in the

West as well as in India and the industrial conflict of being a Parsi and the member of an

exile community comes before their assimilation.

The fourth chapter “Alienation and Displacement” analyses Mistry’s experience

of double displacement as he had experienced national exclusion not only in Canada but

also in his Indian homeland. As a consequence they lose their aspirations, hopes and

ambitions and become marginalized in both places whether in India or in a foreign land.

In such a long Journey the author has depicted the pangs of betrayal and alienation by the

Parsi community and the dominance of the native people who throw the diasporic or

exiled persons into the margin.

 The fifth chapter Conclusion sums up the previous chapters. The fictional world

Mistry has created in Such a Long Journey contains all the forms of a dark world.

Corruption, Knavery, treachery, tyranny, moral turpitude and Greed are the features of

the novel. Further the researcher argues that the novel Such a Long Journey is not only

the expression of the author’s feeling about his community but moreover it is an endeavor

to regain and retrieve the loss of dignity and grace that the Parsis lost in this case.

Further the researcher pinpoints a few avenues of Mistry’s novel where further research

may be conducted in the light of

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Myles, Anita. Thematic Concerns in Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey:
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