A Multidisciplinary Research Journal - Devanga Arts College

Caribbean, (his) roots, all (his) traditions” (59), since he is taken for an intruder in his native land
where communism is spreading fast, and is oppressed by “thoughts of being in a prison… locked
up in a small cell (62). Similarly, at Ottawa, a Jewish New York born Professor, trained in
Jungian psychology, proclaims that he must lose touch with the “tribe” (the place where I come
from) (48). As these two immigrants belong to the category of settlers who are all eager to reach
out to the new culture, combining, synthesizing and compromising with its oddities and
eccentricities, they construct the ‘melting pot’ where margins wield their clout and power neither
authoritatively, nor menacingly.
On the contrary, in the same short-story “Jogging in Havana” Deidre, the New
Yorker in Canada, often mutters about her childhood ,reverting herself to her past when she
could skate in Madison Square Garden as a child. Further, Dr. Slokan Charles, the Cuba born
intellectual, now an academic at Illinois State University, after his countless visits to his
motherland over the past years, affirms, ”I will go back to Guyana, after Havana; I should be in
touch with my roots”(51). The guide at the dining table of the conference site “who has never
traveled beyond Cuba”, when questioned, snaps “ there are many Cubans coming back to our
island because life in Miami, in America, failed them”; “It was a dog-eating dog society, and the
dope, gambling, unemployment alienation… it was too much for them (56). Here is a man who
declines to suffer the trauma of uprootedness for he is a member of the “Salad Bowl’/’ Mosaic”
group which is animated by “history and heritage” (30), and hence his allegiance to the native
culture.
In the story titled “Places” the parents are eager to send the little Anil to Canada
with his uncle. Anil, not at all tempted by the alleged prospects of the distant green land, exhibits
his defiance: “Do you want to go back with me to Canada? No, he replied”. As the story
concludes, the boy who all the while reluctantly refined his manners and gestures in order to join
his sophisticated uncle at Canada bursts out in laughter and excitement in the crowd of his
friends. In the little boy’s exultation one can sight “a new joy… squashing everyone … the
politicians and their systems….(12). The situation further connotes the way-ward and repentent
son’s home-coming and his fratenity embracing him with renewed warmth and love.
In “The Puja Man “the crippling and vicious influence of the new soil looms large. The
central motif of the story spinning round the expatriate who runs from pillar to post in order to