CROSSING GENDER DIASPORA WRITING: A STUDY OF ANITA RAU BADAMI’S FICTIONAL WORLD

Abstract

In the era of globalization, migration has become inevitable for progress and sustenance. The writers of diaspora enable a reader to peep into the culture of both –the hostland and the homeland. The theory of Intersectionality has been propounded by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Intersectionality emphasises on the dynamics of black and coloured women that have often been overlooked in feminist movements and theory. Much like Crenshaw, Collins argues that cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society, such as race, gender, class, and ethnicity.Theories of Intersectionality can be used to explore and understand how different forms of social inequality overlap and interact with each other to create multifaceted minority identities within social groups. It is a concept that is astonishingly relevant in the world in which we live today, with politics and discourses on race, class, sexuality, to name a few, being hugely enhanced and nuanced by the incorporation of an emphasis on intersectional thinking. Indian society as a conglomeration of cultures, communities with diverse ethnicities, religions, ideologies, castes, sub-castes, languages, customs and traditions is an apotheosis of pulsating plurality.The paper focuses to validate the universal applicability of the feminist theory of Intersectionality, by contextualizing the Indian socio-cultural milieu within its framework in the selected novelsviz. Can You Hear the NightbirdCall,The Hero’s Walk and Tamarind Memwritten by Anita Rau Badami, an Indo-Canadian Diaspora writer. Anita Rau Badami portrays “disremembered subjects” (Foreman 316) like widows who remain alienated from the larger social space. In her portrayal of Chinna, the widowed aunt in Tamarind Mem , she presents an image of a woman who finds meaning in her life despite her social invisibility. Shantamma in The Hero’s Walk had suffered a stroke in her sleep, at the age of eighty-two. The protagonist Nirmala had led her life conditioned to follow the path of obedience and subservience.Sharanjeet Kaur in Can you Hear the Nightbird Call? longs to free herself from her family’s penury which had deprived her of a happy childhood, education and comforts in life.The study focuses on perspectives on Intersectionality in Indian society as well as Intersectionality as a heuristic, based on the constructivism inherent in the selected novels.