NO NEW LAND: A STUDY
What distinguishes Vassanji’s work
from that of other diasporic writers is its vibrant, affectionate depiction of
the double migration of his South Asian characters? At the centre of Vassanji’s
fiction is the Indian Shamsi community. The members of this community make
their first voyage to East Africa in the late 19th century as part
of the labour mobility within the British Empire, working as semi skilled
labourers, small traders, and junior colonial functionaries. Starting out as
shopkeepers and businessmen settling on the coast of British East Africa and
German East Africa, they possessed the necessary linguistic and political
inside knowledge to assist the colonial administration in ruling an
inaccessible and unruly hinterland. Their role as marginal men lent them the
flexibility to operate as cultural translators and function as “a buffer zone
between the indigenous Africans and the colonial administration.”1
In postcolonial times, the position of
the Indian communities in East Africa became untenable. The postcolonial regime
marginalized the Asians of East Africa. With the nationalisation of rental
properties, the Asians of East Africa were forced into the international
diaspora. The second voyage begins in the sixties from postcolonial Africa
toward Europe and North America. As vassanji’s narrative indicates, this second
wave of migration by his characters is prompted by racial tension (between
native Africans and those of South Asian ancestry) and socio-economic changes
as the now mostly South Asian community finds its privileges radically
curtailed or threatened with the rise of African nationalism.
This saga of global uprootedness and
unstable migration is dramatised in Vassanji’s No New Land. Here the
novelist illustrates the fate of the Asian Africans in Canada. The characters
of this novel try to chase the mirage of a world that has walls of gold,
pillars of silver and floors that smell of musk. But the reality they face is
very harsh and awful, and finally they realise that Canada cannot appear as a
new land. Like a keen observer Vassanji portrays how the immigrants are
victimised; still they have no option except to keep on living there and
discovering something more of Canada everyday, but finally they feel:
We
are but creatures neither of our origins, and however stalwarts we march
forward, paving new roads, seeking new worlds, and the ghosts from our pasts
stand nor far behind and are not easily shaken off.2
In No New Land Vassanji,
portraying different incidents caused by racial discrimination, explores
through the characters the psyche of rootless, frightened and insecure minority
immigrants who are pitted against the hypocrite fanatic majority. He wants to
draw the attention of the readers on the themes of exile, alienation, memory,
nostalgia, identity, race, culture, tradition and community.
The novel, No New Land, opens
in Canada, with the Lalani family shown in the grips of a big tension and panic
because Nurdin Lalani, the head of the family, has not come back home from
work. Nurdin and his family had come from Africa and settled down at Toronto.
The family of the protagonist Nurdin Lalani is a double immigrant family --
Asia to Africa to Canada. The novel moves in flashback of incidents and events.
After Hazi Lalani had died and his
business sunk, someone whispered the word -- Canada. Many families were flying
to Canada for better prospects and to become rich. Roshan, the sister of
Nurdin’s wife, urges the Lalani family to come to Canada. And the family takes
a flight to London. The situation of Nurdin in the plane becomes an objective
correlative and also it predicts the predicaments he has to suffer in Canada.
With his family Nurdin is on the night plane. The plane has magical lights. The
magical light of the plane is but the light of Nurdin’s mind and the night
serves as the prediction of the problems he is going to face in Canada. At
London airport, the immigration officers shatter their dream to halt and see
London. At this Nurdin could do nothing except calling them “The bastards?”
3
At Toronto airport, Roshan and her
husband receive the Lalanis. Roshan gives them a pack of chewing gum saying,
“This is Canada.”4 In a way Roshan tells all about the
‘multivulturalism’5 of Canada in a symbolic way. You go on struggling
against the problems that never come to an end like a chewing gum. If you want
to get rid of this chewing gum you cannot throw it out of your mouth.
After Nurdin comes in this
multicultural Canada, he struggles hard to find a descent job. But his efforts
become futile. He remains unemployed for a long time that adds to his misery.
Zera, Nurdin’s wife gets a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s clinic. So to
reduce the economic pressures they put up with the family of Zera’s sister. But
as the children of both of the families land up fighting most of the times, a
severe quarrel between Zera’s family and Roshan’s family arose. One Friday
evening, when Roshan was ironing her husband’s pants, the children of Zera and
Roshan started fighting. Both the mothers ran to pacify the quarrel.
In the
mean time, the iron burnt a leg of the pant. Abdul became furious, and in
anger, slapped his wife. Seeing her sister being slapped by Abdul, Zera could
not control her rage and she lunged at Abdul with the hot iron. Nurdin came in
between to block Zera’s way and Abdul was saved. A loud quarrel ensued. Threats
and abuses were exchanged, and the two families separate. The Lalanis move to
sixty-nine Rosecliff Park, in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto.
Through a party where new Canadians
meet the old, the Lalanis come in contact with other inhabitants of Sixty-nine
Rosecliff Park. They meet Jamal, the lawyer, Esmail, the baker, and several
other people from the East Indian community. Gradually, Nanji, a young professor,
becomes a very good friend of Lalani children – Fatima and Hanif.
One day, when Nurdin was returning
from the corner store with milk for the next day, he meets an Indian couple
from Guyana, Mohan and Laxmi. Their car breaks down and so they were not able
to go ahead. As Laxmi was pregnant, Nurdin feels pity for the couple and brings
them home to stay overnight. Next day Romesh, Mohan’s brother, comes and takes
them away. It is Romesh who finally helps Nurdin to get a job in Ontario
Addiction Centre. The companionship of Romesh gives him confidence, which he
had lost during the period of job-hunting in Toronto. He felt a sense of
enjoyment in the company of Romesh. He starts adopting himself in the
unfamiliar environment. Romesh helps him in searching his familiar place. Thus
the relationship with Romesh makes him confident and acquainted with the
unfamiliar surroundings.
In the Ontario Addiction Centre,
Nurdin meets Sushila, the daughter of Narendas, for whom his elder brother,
Akbar had an amorous feeling in adolescence. She had played with Nurdin because
he was much younger to her. Gradually, Nurdin develops a clandestine
relationship with Sushila. He makes it a point of meeting everyday at her house
in Kensington Market. Nurdin finds a satisfying companionship with her.
One day when Nurdin was wrapping up
his work in the Ontario Addiction Centre, he sees a white woman in distress. He
puts his hand forward for help. But unfortunately, he was arrested with the
charge of sexually assaulting this white woman. Thus throughout the novel,
Vassanji focuses the struggle of the Lalani family in multicultural Canada.
Their struggle, however, takes a different and bizarre turn when Nurdin is
charged with sexually assaulting a white woman. The novel ends with an optimistic
note. The white woman drops the charge of rape against Nurdin. Once again the
Lalanis start living a smooth life. But it remains dilemma whether such things
will not happen again.
No New Land deals with the
story of Shamsi community. Here Vassanji gives voice to a Canadian immigrant
experience. He illustrates the fate of this community in Toronto where Nurdin
Lalani emigrates with his family. The snow that Nurdin and his family encounter
on entering Canada becomes metonymic of Otherness. The hostility of the weather
anticipates that Canada is a country causing alienation and isolation for
Nurdin and his family. After their arrival in Canada, Nurdin and his family
have trouble finding accommodation. Eventually they move to Don Mills where
various members of the community who have migrated to Canada before now live
under appalling circumstances, cherishing the “illusion of home and shelter
from an alien society.”6 It seems that “the tension between
assimilation and acculturation to mainstream Canadian culture, versus
maintaining some kind of racial or cultural integrity brought over from the old
land.”7 Disappointments and humiliation that Nurdin experience bring
about unwillingness to adapt culturally. A new land profoundly alienates him.
For him Canada is not different from Africa. This place turns out to be ‘no new
home’ and ‘no new land’ because the same experience of disillusionment in the
home left behind in Africa gets repeated in the new home in Canada. In Africa
he was in trouble and in Canada also he is in an uneasy position. But in the
hours of distress time and again he remembers his homeland, Tanzania. He is
always hanging between these two lands. It seems that he in neither neither
here nor there. Thus No New Land can be said to detail, “the ironies,
the pathos and the hardships of having to live between two worlds, neither of
which provides the harmony of a life that the mind imagines and craves for.”8
As we know that diasporic writings are
invariably concerned with writers’ attachment to their homelands, it is quite
evident in Vassanji’s No New Land. Here we get an elaborate description
of East Africa in the second chapter. In this context Vassanji can be compared
with Rohinton Mistry who also describes his homeland India in his novels like Such
A Long Journey and A Fine Balance. But this attachment by diasporic
writers is countered by a yearning for a sense of belonging to their current
places of abode. Caught physically between the two worlds, the diasporic writer
are “transitional being” or “liminal personae”9 that is they are in
the process of moving from one cultural state of existence to another. In this
state of transition, some respond ambivalently to their dual cultures or
societies. For others, the liminal or transitional state is too prolonged to
cope with, and they may withdraw to their ancestral identity or homeland.
Perhaps this is why the protagonist of No New Land, Nurdin Lalani, and
other immigrants try to circumscribe themselves within their own land. They
remain attached to their ancestral customs, traditions, languages and
religions. Throughout the novel, No New Land, Vassanji embellishes the
characters with their ancestral traits. The cultural identity that the
characters of No New Land try to formulate is an ambivalent conflict
between traditions and cultures of their places of abode and homelands. Due to
this conflict the Asian African community gets segregated. Therefore, this
community feels alienated from the mainstream of the Canadian society. So
Vassanji has described this community in segregated apartments in the building,
Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park.
The quest for identity is one of the
important issues in the writings of diasporic writers. Vassanji’s No New
Land is not an exception. In this novel Vassanji attempts to explore the
quest for identity through the character of Nurdin Lalani. Lalani endeavours to
establish an identity of his own. The family, the community and the society
obstruct his endeavours. The displacement, racial discrimination and the
generation differences put hindrances in the way to formulate an independent
individual identity.
Throughout the novel, Nurdin tries to
formulate an identity for himself. He is obsessed with the negative feeling
that he has now lost his identity due to the displacement from Africa to
Canada. He starts developing a feeling that the new identity -- an African
immigrant of Asian origin -- has been imposed on him due to his displacement.
Whether he likes this new identity of his or not, is of no significance. As
everything around Nurdin is new and unfamiliar, the feeling of alienation
envelops him poignantly. He indulges in memory. He remembers that back in
Africa, he had some identity of his own. He knew a lot of persons there. A lot
of persons also knew him. They had honour and respect for him. But in Canada he
has no recognition. Thus he attempts to locate an atmosphere of familiarity in
the vast and unfamiliar city. In this attempt he visits Sixty-nine Rosecliff
Park. There he finds the members of his own community. This attempt offers him
relief. He feels that he is not an alien in the new place of settlement. The
sense of security develops in him. It shows his innate attachment to his
community.
It is essential for each culture to
have its own distinguishing identity in a multicultural state. But when a new
identity is imposed on the basis of race, colour and religion, the cruel
brutalities become rife with reality. The characters of No New Land feel
that a new identity has been imposed on them due to displacement. This
imposition is very dangerous for them. It challenges their original identity.
The brutal fact of imposition of the new identity on them is that it arises in
the context of discrimination. In No New Land the discrimination based
on colour is projected powerfully in the following observation:
The
black kicked us out, now the whites will do the same…
Where
do we go from here? 10
Through this observation, M.G.
Vassanji attracts our attention not only to circumstances under which the
people belonging to Indian origin left their Africa but also to the fact that
they have lost their sense of a secure identity. Now they have to adopt and
adapt to an atmosphere of an unknown, unfamiliar environment. There identity
now will be clubbed together with the people belonging to India. Something that
Hazi Lalani, the father of Nurdin, had lost when he had migrated to Zanjibar,
East Africa, in the first decade of the twentieth century. He had laboured hard
to establish himself there. He knew that it was impossible to return to the
land of his birth. So he had built a home for himself, where he could breathe
an air of security. He felt that his family would no longer suffer from
uprootedness. He died “believing he had
found a new country for his descendents.”11
But very soon Hazi’s belief shattered.
After his death the political scenario changed in East Africa. It became
independent. With the Black coming to power, the era of the White domination
came to an end. As Indian people did not belong to either of the groups --
neither whites nor blacks -- they were treated with discrimination. After the
Africans obtained political independence, superior authorities often took
decisions unfavourable to Indians. Their Citizenship was taken away and they
were expelled out of the country. Hence when Nurdin Lalani and his family were
thrown out of Tanzania, he had an option of going to Canada. But Canada does
not appear as a new land. The black and horrible face of discrimination is
visible in an incident that takes place in the subway tunnel in Canada. This
incident clearly shows that the discrimination rules the roost here as well. At
this tunnel three white youths attack Ismail, an Asians immigrant from Dar es
Salaam. They joyfully abuse him. Pointing to his package of meat pies, they
shout, “what do you have there, Paki? Hey, hey? Paki-Paki-Paki.”12 They
punch him in the stomach. The bystanders cannot do anything. Nanji is one of
them. The three youths force their domination over others. They have a feeling
of superiority because they are born whites. They expect that people around
them should acknowledge the superiority of their colour.
This incident provokes the immigrants
for agitations. People assemble at Esmail’s residence. Once more they are bound
to think of their existence:
What
now? Was this a sign of things to come danger to self and property, to wife and
kids? Have we come to the right place after all? 13
Nanji, a young immigrant professor,
also suffers from racial discrimination. Often returning from the University by
bus, Nanji sits alone on the seat. Many passengers remain standing but do not
sit near him and all the way Nanji thinks about racism:
Racism,
the word kept intruding his mind and kept pushing it back. On what basis
racism? It could be my face, dark, brooding, scowling, and cratered. 14
The novel No New Land opens
with two incidents. Both are the results of racial discrimination. Nurdin’s
daughter Fatima gets admission in art and science instead of pharmacy, the
prestigious one, and Nurdin is accused of raping a white girl. The later
incident becomes central to the novel. Fatima, ultimately, accepts her plight
and decides that art and science was not so bad after all. But Nurdin has to
face many problems in and out of the family. The white lady Mrs. Broadbent
refuses to serve him lunch in the cafeteria. She declares in a hostile tone
that she is not going to serve the rapist. She further adds, “Where he comes
from, both his hands would be chopped off.”15
In African city Dar Nurdin had to face
fierce racial discrimination. He was neglected there for he had fairer
complexion. He had realised that even the peons in Dar rose above him merely
because of their black skins and in the promotions too he saw himself
overlooked and neglected. Even in Canada he has to suffer a lot due to racial
discrimination. In spite of being sufficiently qualified, as a seller of shoes,
he remains unemployed for a long time. In fact, he hunts wildly for the job but
the same story is repeated everywhere if he had a Canadian experience. He is
being discriminated against because of his having a different identity. He
feels that the job market in Canada is made only for a certain group of people
-- the whites. The story of discrimination is at climax in the following
observation:
“I
am afraid, Nurdin,” Mr. Rogers said, “We gave the job to someone else.”
Nurdin exploded, “But my experience! I know shoes, I can give references.”
“I
am sorry, there were many applicants.”
“I
know I do not have Canadian experience,” he breathed hotly and with emotion on
the phone, “but how can I get Canadian experience if you do not give me chance?
I have sold shoes for eight years! Eight years …”
“Perhaps you were overqualified, sir.”
That
was a new one. Overqualified. Good for laughs, and it got many. 16
A feeling of demarcation and
discrimination and a sense of identity have always been in the writings of
writers like M.G. Vassanji. Writing from a “hyphenated”17 space
probably instigates him to manifest his expressions of identity.
In No New Land, Vassanji
discusses the question of culture. Since Canada has a multicultural ethos,
preserving one’s own culture becomes a vital issue. Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park,
the building situated in Don Mills, in the suburbs of Toronto, represents a
cultural identity as a whole. The macrocosmic outlook of this building projects
an amalgamation of different people belonging to similar origins. They interact
among themselves to protect their culture, tradition and customs. They create a
friendly atmosphere through their interaction with one another. This friendly
atmosphere in Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park, avers to the fact that maintenance of
a mixed cultural milieu among all the Canadians is a necessity. Otherwise, the
danger of the eventual annihilation of one’s own culture is very obvious.
The microcosmic view of the Sixty-nine
Rosecliff Park, projects that though the people dwelling there are
distinguished as Indians, but in reality they exist in diversity. They belong
to different parts of India. Some are Goan, some are Madrasi, some Hyderabadi,
some Gujarati, and some are Punjabi. There are Indians not only from India but
from different parts of the world as well. For example, the Lalanis belong to
East Africa. Ram Deen belongs to the Caribbean Islands. Sheru Mama and her
husband Ramju, and Gulshan Bai belong to India. Though there is clear portrayal
of diversified cultures of India, it also prevents at the same time a single
blend of various identities belonging to an umbrella identity called India.
Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park reminds one of Firozsha Baag created by Rohinton
Mistry. This apartment building from Tales from Firozsha Baag
encompasses the exhibition of a unique cultural identity exactly like
Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park of No New Land.
The existence becomes important for an
immigrant in an alien land. When he is surrounded by an atmosphere of
unfamiliarity, he feels that he does not have a proper space to live in. He
experiences that he is being treated as an outsider. He can’t avail himself of
any privileges and adventures in the society because he exists as a member of
the minority. This sense of minority gets deep rooted in his mind and soul,
because of discriminations and inequalities which he faces every moment of his
life. Gradually, therefore, he needs a space for existence. Such a need
troubles Nurdin too.
Nurdin feels that several individuals
have shaped his existence. He can’t exist on his own. The dominance of his
father in his early life gives birth to a feeling that he has no individual
identity. And thus being unable to formulate his own voice, Nurdin thinks that
he has no space in his family. He is being circumscribed to a particular domain
and someone else is drawing the boundary. The identity that he exists with is
being given to him by the family, the society, the community he lives in.
Nanji, the young professor, and Jamal,
the lawyer, also try to grapple the question of their respective existences.
When one is unemployed, one struggles for one’s livelihood. During this
struggle life becomes too hard to live. The existence is obviously questioned.
The struggle for existence becomes so complicated that one lives an absurd
existence:
“But suppose I use my free will to decide to go on with this absurd existence, as you call it….”
“Well,
if you really choose that….to go on living….then you live with that choice
facing you every moment of your life. You are truly alive. Most people go on
mindlessly of course; they don’t choose to live. That’s because they do what
they are told or made to do….And think of this: when death comes unasked, when
it takes you by surprise, it will rob you of even this free choice, because
when you thought you were choosing to live, it was only letting you live. The
only way you can exercise free will, defeating it, is by taking your own life. 18
Vassanji portrays this question of
existence through the characters of Jamal and Nanji. Their sense of survival
becomes a big question. In fact, the question of morality and ethics, of good
faith and compromise keep on tormenting Nanji. When one is tormented by such
question on life, one feels that surviving is not possible in a society where
one is being categorised as a member of the minority group. His existence
becomes problematic and so to get rid of this problem of life; he likes to live
in a world of dreams and illusion.
Roots play a significant role in the
lives of immigrants. Their behaviour, attitude, and modes of life, seem to be
formulated by their roots. Nurdin has his roots in India. His father went to
Africa many years ago with certain innate Indian characteristics. Nurdin
inherited these characteristics and came to Canada with them. The Indian
characteristics can be seen through its customs, tradition, typicalities and
cuisines that Vassanji portrays in No New Land. It can be observed in
the very beginning of the novel. When Fatima receives envelop from some
University, which may decide her career, she becomes excitedly anxious.
Becoming nervous may be a human trait, but whispering prayers superstitiously
due to nervousness, anxiety and excitement is a typical Indian characteristic:
It
did not occur to her that the decision she awaited had already been made a few
days before, and she whispered a prayer in much the same her mother sometimes
did…19
Nurdin’s wife Zera also shows the
typical Indian traits in her. When the Lalanis immigrated to Canada, Zera had
got with her lots of souvenirs and memories from Africa. But when they settled
down in Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park, most of the things went to the dustbin, except
the photograph of Hazi Lalani. It was the first objecte to go up on the walls.
One may draw a conclusion that this sort of respect for father-in-law may be a
traditional human trait but lighting incense sticks and holding them in front
of the photograph is an Indian trait of respect and devotion for the
father-in-law. Hanif, Nurdin’s son, has also some innate Indian
characteristics. Hanif calls Nanji “Eeyore.”20 Eeyore is an accented
form of the Indian word for friends. This is a typical way of summoning friends
in India. Friends are sometimes called as ‘yaar’. Yasmin Ladha, one of the Indo
Canadian authors, also uses this word ‘yaar’ in her collection of short
stories, Lion’s Granddaughter and Other Stories. She addresses
her readers as “yaar-readerji.”21 Not only the Lalanis but other
people of Indian roots in the Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park also have such inborn
Indian Characteristics. Jamal uses the term “chacha”22 to summon an
aged person. ‘Chacha’ is an Indian word to show respect for the elderly people.
It is an Indian word for uncle.
Through the various characters of No
New Land, Vassanji beautifully portrays some Indian traditions and customs.
Touching the feet of the elderly guests always concludes the welcoming ceremony
in Indian tradition. When the Missionary, the religious man, comes to Nurdin’s
apartment, there was a traditional welcoming ceremony. As he entered the room
the females of the congregation, dressed in white, attempted an elaborate
welcoming ceremony, “with touching of feet and cracking of Knuckles and
garlanding….”23 When one visit someone’s house for the first time,
it is an Indian tradition to take sweets or fruits along. Nurdin does not
forget his tradition. When he and Romesh visit Sushila’s house at Kensington
Market, they take some fruits with them.
While portraying Indian traditions,
customs and typical characteristics, Vassanji talks about the Indian cuisines.
As we all know, the food one takes, affirms the traits of a particular place.
The food that the Indian dwelling in Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park eats shows that
they belong to India. For instance, chappatis is the staple food of people of
Northern part of India. Indians prefer to take it with pickles. They even tend
to put ghee or clarified butter over the chappatis. Sheru Mama and her husband,
Ramju, tend to serve chappatis that way:
Sheru
Mama makes hundreds of chappatis everyday and baby-sits to toddlers at the same
time, while husband Ramju helps with the dishes and puts the required dollop of
margarine over every chappati. Her customers tend to be single men who will eat
a chappati with a pickle, or butter and jam, or curry canned in the United
States.24
“Samosas”25 are one of the
favourite snacks of the people of Northern part of India. They like to take
them with tea, especially; “Tea would fetched and samosas.”26Vassanji
mentions about having Samosas with tea even in one of the short stories in Uhuru
Street. In ‘In the Quiet of a Sunday Afternoon’, Zarina sells samosas to
the Indian people living in Uhuru Street. We can get a sentence like this, “I
have tea and wait for the woman to bring samosas.”27 Indians are
well known throughout the world for a variety of fried and spicy food. Even in
breakfast, they prefer to have fried food. When Mohan and Lakshmi, the Indians
from Guyana stayed back for a night in Nurdin’s apartment, Zera made some
“puris.”28 Uma Parmeswaran, in her Rootless But Green are the
Boulevard Trees, mentions several Indian cuisines. One of her characters
says:
How
about puris? I haven’t had a good Indian meal in ages. Here, I’ll get the dough
ready. Arun, it is time you wash your eyes. Slice some onions for raita’. 29
The literary members of Indian
diaspora use the names of Indian cuisines deliberately. Through this act they
want to affirm their existence and identity. In fact, the cultural identity
that comes up through food is very powerful because it exhibits the everyday
modes of life. This is the reason why Vassanji mentions the names of food in
all his works. It is not only descriptions of about food, but also enumerating
the traditions, customs and typical Indian characteristics that prove the fact
that maintenance of culture is an innate trait of immigrants. Nurdin and his
family of Sixty-nine Rosecliff Park try to maintain their culture.
*
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REFERENCES
:
1. Amin
Malak, “Ambivalent Affiliations and the Post-Colonial Condition: The Fiction of
M.G. Vassanji,” World Literature Today 67.2 (1993), p. 277.
2. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1992), p. 9.
3. Ibid., p. 34.
4. Ibid., p. 35.
5. Ibid., p. 111.
6. Chelva Kanaganayakam, “Don Mills and Dares Salaam”, Rev. of No
New Land, by M.G. Vassanji, Floating the Borders: New Contexts in
Canadian Criticism, ed. Nurjehan Aziz (Toronto: TSAR, 1999), p. 201.
7. John Clement Ball, “Taboos: M.G. Vassanji”, The Power to
Bend Spoons: Interviews with Canadian Novelists, ed. Beverley Daurio
(Toronto: The Mercury Press, 1998), p. 205.
8. Chelva Kanaganayakam, “Don Mills and Dares Salaam”, Rev. of No
New Land, by M.G. Vassanji, Floating the Borders: New Contexts in
Canadian Criticism, ed. Nurjehan Aziz (Toronto: TSAR, 1999), p. 200.
9. Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in
Rites de Passage”, in The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual
(Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1967), p. 95.
10. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1992), p. 103.
11. Ibid., p. 30.
12. Ibid., p. 95.
13. Ibid., p. 102.
14. Ibid., p. 93.
15. Ibid., p. 180.
16. Ibid., p. 48.
17. Arun P. Mukherjee, “Intruduction” in Oppositional Aesthetics:
Readings from a Hyphenated Space (Toronto: TSAR Publications, 1991), p.
vii.
18. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1992), p. 76.
19. Ibid., p. 3.
20. Ibid., p. 6.
21. Yasmin Ladha, “Beena”, in Lion’s Granddaughter and Other Stories
(Edmonton: New West Publishers Ltd., 1992), p. 1.
22. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1992), p. 160.
23. Ibid., p. 185.
24. Ibid., p. 61.
25. Ibid., p. 78.
26. Ibid., p. 78.
27. M.G. Vassanji, “In the Quiet of a Sunday Afternoon”, in Uhuru
Street (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1992), p. 2.
28. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1992), p. 121.
29. Uma Parameswaran, Rootless But Green are the Boulevard Trees
(Toronto: TSAR Publications, 1987), p. 20
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