EXPOSITIONS OF EXPATRIATE ENCUMBRANCE IN UMA PARAMESHWARAN'S ROOTLESS BUT GREEN ARE THE BOULEVARD TREES

Abstract

Uma Parameswaran was born and brought up in India and currently lives in Winnipeg. She received her Master of Arts Degree and Diploma in Journalism from Nagpur University, a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Indiana University and a Ph.D from Michigan State University. She has been working as a faculty for three decades at the University of Winnipeg. She has written several plays, poems and several scholarly books on post colonial literature. Uma Parameswaran, a multifaceted personality has won several awards and acclaims for her literary and scholarly pursuits. This paper focuses on elucidating the dilemma of dislocations, an awareness of being an alien in a particular society with the lived experience of immigrants. Uma Parameswaran’s work tries to give a positive orientation in ascertaining the identity of the dislocated rather hyphenated individual, to use her own words it is seeing a half-filled glass of water as, “half full or half empty.” In the process of psychological adaptation the immigrant finds himself in a paradoxical situation of convergence and divergence between two cultures. Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees was published in 1987 but the play is set in 1979. This poignant play dramatizes the life of an Indian immigrant family in Winnipeg struggling to balance between their tradition, culture, nostalgia and assimilative tendency. Sharad and Savitri are nostalgic for their past and often wonder whether they would feel at home in their adopted country. Daughter Jyoti has a white boy friend Andre and their son Jayant is planning for a trip to Montreal with his friends. Sharad’s sister Veejala resigns her job as the Professor at the University and announces that she is going back to India leaving her family at Winnipeg. Vithal her son feels alienated and is a member of extremist Indian politics. Jayant answers the existential anguish of all the characters in the play; the plight of being rootless in an alien soil is answered through his philosophy. He says: Yeah, rootless. Let’s face it, Jesus, no one, but no one has roots anywhere because that’s the way things are in 1979b A.D. But we can stand tall, man, and live each day for all its goddamned worth and ours. (54-55)