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Roots and shoots

Sivasankari's "Portable Roots" delves into two generations and two cultures

BUILDING BRIDGES Sivasankari

All things are determined and validated by context. Sivasankari's Tamil novel "Eni" (Hereafter) was written in 1993 and dealt with a combination of circumstances under which some Indians lived in the United States at that time. When her adolescent daughter Gowri announces her intention to go on a date with an American boy, it comes as a shock to Mythili. What mother and daughter grapple with is not the usual lack of harmony between one generation and another, caused by minor differences of taste and outlook. The two represent not only two generations, but two cultures.

"Portable Roots", a trans-creation of the novel by Rekha Shetty, lands at a time and in a milieu where most Indians can be expected not to be shocked by American values. Television largely has fostered the idea that the world is a village and a lot of cultural exchange is happening silently in drawing rooms.

Mythili's anxiety is probably still the anxiety of many who have spread their branches across the land of opportunities, but feel rooted in an Indianness that has failed to assimilate cross-cultural influences. Their conflict often reaches its highest point when their children don't share the same attachment to these "roots". In Sivasankari's novel, parent-child relationships are strained because the children think of America as home and they seem to display a distressing (in the parent's eyes) lack of understanding of (and even disgust for) the traditions that give Indian culture its uniqueness.

When Mythili tells Gowri how women were kept in isolation during their menstrual period, the explanation leads to touchy topics — "respect for elders" and "Indians are Nosey Parkers".

"That is totally stupid, mom. Just because someone is older than you, you have to listen to them even when they are wrong?" Mythili kept quiet. Gowri continued, "Thank God, I'm not in India. Every time you describe this stuff, I have less and less desire to go to India. You know, not too many people in India seem to be believe that it's wrong to be nosy about other people's business or to comment about them or make decisions for them."

Mythili gains the ability to empathise with her daughter when she remembers Anandam Paati.

This old woman is in a state of bewilderment, even distress at times, when she is exposed to a new cultural environment, totally foreign to her being.

Mythili and her husband Venkat realise that roots is where the heart is. And the conflict is resolved in favour of the children.

PRINCE FREDERICK

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