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Chapter 7

Season’s of Flight

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Life and works of Manjushree Thapa

7.3. Season’s of Flight: An Introduction

7.4. Critical study of parameters

7.5. Conclusion

Works Cited

7.1. Introduction

Season’s of Flight is a novel written by Manjushree Thapa who is a novelist of

Nepali origin. Nepali language evolved from Sanskrit. Most of the early scholars of

Nepali literature wrote in Sanskrit language. However, in Post-Revolution era in Nepal,

i.e. after 2006, Nepali scholars are rapidly migrating around the globe and many books of

Nepali literature are published from different corners of the world. Diasporic literature

has developed the new ways of thinking and it is emerging branch in the Nepali literature.

Hom Nath Subedi's Yampuri Ko Yatra and Pancham Adhikari's Pathik Pravasan are

some of the famous works by the writers of Nepal which illuminate visions of new

models of identity. In an interview at Swanet, Thapa comments on Nepali literature thus:

I've also found it very important to be involved in Nepali literature

through translation. Though Nepali literature is relatively young, it can be

very sophisticated. It has been enriching for me to be able to take it to a

wider readership through translation. And as a writer I have learned from

the work of Nepali writers. The challenge of Nepal's English literature, as

I see it, is to come to par with its Nepali-language literature. (Manjushree)

Thapa says about Nepali literature and the literature in other languages. There are great

similarities in the literature of Nepal and the literature in the regional languages of South

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Asia. They tend to focus on social issues, and are often the most visionary documents of

their times. But Nepali literature is younger than many South Asian literatures, and

consists of a fairly small body of work. They don't have the cultural traditions and

institutions that sustain say Urdu or Hindi literature.

7.2. Life and works of Manjushree Thapa

Manjushree Thapa is a Nepali diaspora writer. She was born in Kathmandu in

1968. She studied in St. Mary’s School at Kathmandu, the National Cathedral School,

Washington DC, and then completed her B.F.A. at Rhode Island School of Design, where

she majored in photography. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of

Washington, which she attended on a Fulbright scholarship. She grew up

in Nepal, Canada and the USA.

Thapa’s first book Mustang Bhot in Fragments was a travelogue published in

Nepal in 1992. The Tutor of History is her debut novel. Her best known book is Forget

Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy published just weeks before the royal coup in

Nepal on 1 February 2005. The book was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award in

2006. Tilled Earth is a collection of short stories. A Boy from Siklis: The Life and Times

of Chandra Gurung is a biography of a Nepali environmentalist. In 2010, her novel

Seasons of Flight was published. The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal

is a non-fiction collection by Thapa.

I. Mustang Bhot in Fragments

Manjushree Thapa made her trips the remote corner of Nepal viz., Mustang Bhot

in 1990. Mustang Bhot in Fragments is published in 1992. It is an account of her trips and

the story conveys the life of a Nepali woman confronting the schisms in the communities.

Till quite recently, Mustang Bhot, the region behind the high Himalaya, had been isolated

from the rest of the world through a strict policy of restriction.

Thapa provides an insight into the dynamics behind the changes that have taken

place in Mustang in ten years since the government lifted its ban on foreign travelers. 

Mustang District is in the north of Nepal, near Pokhara. It is described as being on the

other side of the Himalaya from the rest of Nepal. Ethnically, linguistically, religiously,

geographically Tibetan, the Bhot people of Mustang share little with other Nepalis, yet

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they are part of the Nepali state. Thapa describes the extreme poverty of the Mustang

region.

II. The Tutor of History

Manjushree Thapa's The Tutor of History is a novel published in 2001. It depicts a

bustling, gossipy town in the Nepali heartland at election time. A violent Maoist

insurgency has altered life in the Himalayan kingdom. It is a story of ordinary people in a

changing society, living one day at a time and trying to figure out what to do about their

craving for intimacy and meaning. The novel is set in the roadside bazaar of Khaireni

Tar. A young widow, Binita Dahal, runs a teashop. Giridhar Adhikari is the alcoholic

chairman of the party's district committee, for whom the campaign is a chance to rekindle

his lost sense of usefulness. Rishi Parajuli, the "tutor of history" arrives in Khaireni Tar

from Kathmandu.

Thapa is the daughter of Bekh Bahadur Thapa, former ambassador to the US. She

has spent all her life around people who think politics are important. Maoists appear in

Thapa's novel as shadowy figures in the background. With the increased violence and the

king's recent dissolution of the elected government, the setting of The Tutor of History

has already passed into history. Yet it remains a perceptive and memorable portrayal of a

more-or-less contemporary Nepal, coloured by the permanent unrest of those who moved

unseen through the land. The Tutor of History provides  rare insight into the politics of a

nation and of human relationships. The Tutor of History gives a significant new voice

from the subcontinent. 

III. Tilled Earth

Tilled Earth is a book of short stories, published in 2007. In the stories, the

pressures of life and love lead characters to experience the tension between tradition - the

way of “families, friends, and society”, of caste hierarchies and unequal gender relations -

and modernity, with its idea of the individual as free to choose what is best for his or her

own life.

In "Solitaire", the aged government clerk Hit Bahadur Thapa, is shown having

discovered the pleasures of playing solitaire on his office computer in the last year of his

working life. “The Secretary of the Student Union Makes a Career choice” narrates the

ambitious and self-involved student Ramesh who is shown riffling through a dozen career

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options. “The Buddha in the Earth-Touching Posture”, is the best story of this collection,

depicts a retired bureaucrat travelling all by himself to Lumbini, the birthplace of the

Buddha. The bureaucrat thinks of himself, as a man apart from the masses, sage and

rational while they are credulous and servile. There is an element of truth in his

reflections. The bureaucrat considers his wife as “driven by passion, the kind who

supplicates to every god” so he left his wife. For him the Buddha is indisputably a

historical figure, a wise man iterating the need for reflection, not devotion.

Thapa is less sympathetic to her protagonists in a story entitled “The European

Fling”, which is about two middle-aged people, a Nepali woman and an American man,

who meet in Europe for a fling. Sharada and Matt are both in thrall to radical ideas - that

is what brought them together during their university days. But, meeting after several

years, they find they have less patience with each other. Matt has turned vegan, and

spends all his time in bookstores obsessing over various injustices. Sharada is pursued by

a handsome Tibetan youth. She feels a little odd to be flirting so shamelessly, even

needily, with him when she is "a leading gender specialist". Thapa's irony in the story is

crushing.

IV. Season’s of Flight

Published in 2010, Season’s of Flight is a story of a young woman named Prema,

adrift in war-torn rural Nepal, with little to bind her to her family, village and country,

she wins a green card in a US government lottery and immigrates to Los Angeles. In this

unfamiliar metropolis she struggles to invent a life she can call her own, even as love and

sexual awakening transform her. She tries to get her identity in America. She works with

commitment as care taker to an old woman named Esther. Prema develops passionate

relationship with her American lover Luis. Later on she also involves herself with the

endangered EI Segundo Blue butterfly which gives her a fragile sense of belonging.

V. Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy

Forget Kathmandu is a nonfiction work by Thapa published in the year 2005. It

narrates the Kathmandu palace massacre that happened in June 2001. Thapa writes about

the history of Nepal, interweaves it with her own history. She writes about her inner

turmoil and despair. Thapa compares between the pre-1990 monarchist, panchayat

system of government and the communist one party government in other parts of the

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world. In the second half of Forget Kathmandu, Thapa leaves behind the materialist

middle class of the capital and heads to the countryside in search of the origins of Nepal's

Maoist insurgency. Thapa courageously describes what has gone wrong in Nepal.

She points out the struggling democracy and bad politics of Nepal. The work is a highly

sensitive piece of the contemporary political turmoil in Nepal. The first chapter, on “the

coup that did not happen,” is a lively and personal account of how she and her friends in

Kathmandu experienced the “royal massacre” of June 1st, 2001. Thapa gives a vivid

picture of a memorable period.

The second chapter is on Nepal's history and summarizes how the nation came

into being during the latter half of the eighteenth century elaborating details of intrigues

and power games. Although this is not a new attempt at re-interpreting history, the

argumentation is nevertheless convincing.

In the chapter, “The wind, the haze”, Thapa expresses fascinating history of the

emergence of the political party landscape of Nepal, particularly the phases of the fight

for democracy during the late 1940s and its rapid end in 1960. She narrates the recent

period of postmodern democracy and parliamentary politics in the next chapter. The

following chapter, “The massacre to come”, is a rather personal account by the author. It

is a lengthy description of the author's trek with an American companion through the

country’s Maoist districts during a ceasefire. While looking out for Maoist women she

tries to obtain some firsthand information about, and understanding of, their involvement

in the movement. Thapa has narrated the incidences in first person. She has also used the

techniques of writing in a dialogue form which makes her account of the events more

authentic and lively. (Miller)

VI. A Boy from Siklis

A Boy from Siklis is published in 2009. Thapa writes in about the boy from Siklis

named Chandra Gurung who teaches to conserve nature and its flora and fauna. Chandra

Gurung, is a member of the Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation. The book is meant

to be a biography of Chandra Gurung who met his tragic end in a helicopter crash in

2006. In the process of tracing the life and deeds of Chandra through the places he lived

in and the people he interacted with, Manjushree Thapa tells Nepal’s conservation

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movement as a whole. In the process, Chandra ceases to be a mere environmentalist and

becomes a metaphor for the people’s willingness to herald democracy.

Manjushree met Chandra after her return from the US with a bachelor’s degree in

photography. She is an avid storyteller and has narrated the events of Chandra’s personal

life with such a skill as if her readers are witnessing the events. She writes about the

Nepali society and its structure.

VII. The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal

The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal is a nonfiction work of

Manjushree Thapa. It was published in 2011. The book narrates the dramatic

transformations witnessed in Nepal during the period 1990 to 2009 spanning the dark

years of the atrocity-ridden Maoist insurgency and counter-insurgency, the dilemma

caused by the disarray of the democratic political parties, King Gyanendra Shah’s

military coup and subsequent overthrow, and the launch of a thorny peace process fraught

with uncertainty, led by India and the United Nations.

7.3.  Season’s of Flight: An introduction 

In Season’s of Flight, Manjushree Thapa narrates the story of a Nepali girl Prema

who wins a green card lottery and goes to America. In the very beginning of the novel,

Thapa mentions the irony that her country Nepal is not famous or even recognized as a

separate nation by many Americans. The story begins with Prema settled in America and

her past is recollected through memories. Prema does her primary schooling in a village

and then comes to Kathmandu and studies forestry. At the age of seventeen, she leaves

her family living in a small village. Her home in village was sturdy, two-storied, of stone.

After schooling in her village, she goes to the capital city Kathmandu where she finds

that her life in a village was full of poverty.

Prema’s early years were full of sorrows. Her mother died after the birth of her

younger sister Bijaya.i.e end of her childhood. There is a Maoist rebel in Nepal. They are

recruiting one member from each family and Bijaya joins it. Prema’s father is a

progressive man who supports her to make her career and he allows her to go to college

and so she joins forestry. A Hindu ascetic who came wandering through Prema’s birth

village had given an ammonite to Prema’s mother. Her mother used to worship it at the

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centre as a Shaligram, an avatar of Vishnu. Prema takes this lustrous stone, Shaligram,

with her as a memory and a symbol of belonging of native. Initially, Prema joins NGO

for save forest environment conservation programme and works with a senior forester,

Trailokya, to offset the carbon footprint of a British corporation. The NGO gives interest

free loans to poor for rear chickens and goats, vaccination, health camps, non formal

education classes etc.

After completion of her college, Prema’s friends suggest schemes to migrate to

India or further to Australia, Europe, Canada, and America for development. So, one day

on insistence of Kanchha, a Gurkha, she enters her name in the American green card

lottery. She visits cyber café and fills the form. Thapa mentions about political unrest in

Nepal as reflected in Newspapers: “Two clashes between the Maoists and the army had

claimed fourteen lives. A curfew had been imposed in a border town…” (10).

Prema gets attracted towards Rajan, who works in the poverty-alleviation

programme of a non-government organization. She spends night with him in secret. In

the hill bazaar Prema lives a spinster’s life. As a student, Rajan has joined a communist

student union, organizing demonstrations and strikes, fighting face-to-face with

policemen, courting tear gas, beating, and arrest. Rajan has visited many countries

including Mongolia, Poland and Russia. Through dialogues between Prema and

Trailokya, Thapa mentions about political unrest and Maoists rebels in Nepal. One day

Prema gets information that she has won lottery and now may go to America. After

winning the lottery, there is a confusion in Prema’s mind whether to go to America or not

and how to manage for money and where to stay in America. The middleman named

Harihar-dai, who is a friend of Rajan, has helped for money and getting job

recommendations for Prema in America. The middleman gives contact number of his

nephew Narahari Bohora who lives in LA, America and informs that he may help Prema

for job and getting settled. The middleman charged fifty thousand for it. Prema starts

learning English language, makes efforts for driving car and from the bookstalls reads

about the United States. She also visits cyber- café and reads Los Angeles Times online.

Kanchha has been suspected by army as an agent of the Maoist and he has been beaten

and then he has been arrested by the police. His father approached Amnesty International,

Human rights commission and the Red Cross, but his disappearance has remained a

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mystery. The Middleman asks for money to get whereabouts of Kanchha. As Prema’s

sister joins the Maoist and her father asks her not to visit the village, so she goes directly

to America without meeting her father.

At LA airport the middleman’s nephew comes to receive Prema. He makes

arrangement for Prema in Little Nepal, a ghettos where Nepali immigrants live. Prema

lives in a rental room, Sushil and Neeru as her neighbour. Prema starts working with

other people who have come from Nepal. Neeru and other ladies work in the restaurant

named Shalimar. Neeru cooperates and guides Prema at an initial level viz., how to get

credit cards etc. Neeru teaches her where to buy phone cards, where to check e-mail, how

to get a State of California identity card. She explained social security to Prema, and

health care and unemployment benefits. She gives her the names of lawyers and social

workers to turn to in case of crisis. On her advice, Prema opens an account at a Citibank

branch in the neighborhood. Gradually, Prema thinks to leave this Nepali ghettos and

goes to live with Meg and Susan. She comes in contact with Andy and has had sex with

him. Prema has American relationship with Luis.

In the USA, Prema feels that she is very far from native. She works as a homecare

attendant for an old lady, Esther King in Los Angeles. Esther’s granddaughter Natalie, a

lawyer, has hired Prema after the briefest of interviews. Esther has the symptom of

dementia. Prema has been guided through written instructions on the kitchen board how

to take care of Esther. Prema lives in a house with two young women- housemates. Thapa

narrates the air port of Los Angeles, metropolitan city and the luxurious life of people of

America. Prema, who spent her childhood in Nepal, has never visited a sea beach. But

now she visits the beach near Los Angeles frequently with Esther. Esther’s husband Tim

worked for an oil company. He had been posted abroad for many years in Alexandria,

Egypt, Tangiers, Morocco, Romania, and Philippines. The married life and social life in

America is described through Esther’s life. Her husband Tim had died long ago. Her

stepson Theo-who is Natalie’s father, is Tim’s son from a previous marriage. He is a

stock broker at New Jersey. His wife is Mary.

The condition of working people is narrated through Prema’s housemate Meg

Williams. She is an African- American. Meg has a committed relationship with a man

named Luke. Meg wished to marry him and have lots of kids after finishing her nursing.

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Prema’s other housemate is Susan Kitterow, is in her forties, originally from Idaho, and

lived in Seattle, in the state of Washington. Most evening she goes and dates, staying out

all night or bringing back a man who would invariably leave early the next morning. She

works in a health food store.

There is a mention of pollution created by America and how the government cares

for the old. Esther has been enrolled in the Assisted Home Living Program here, which

covered the cost of her check-ups. If her health deteriorated, she could be upgraded to the

Live-in Independence Program and moved to a flat on the premises. It’s a pricey asylum.

At Meadowvale, Prema meets Luis who is from Mexico. He is the general

administrator of the nursing home. Prema develops friendship with Luis. Luis, who is

thirty three years old, talks about his ex-wife and daughter July. He works as a General

Administrator in a company. He says that at least Prema works with and for a live person

Esther where as his life is empty. During her company with Luis, Prema makes efforts to

adapt American culture and so she buys a red bikini of $24.99 and flip-flops for $4.47.

She goes to LA beach. She visits various places with Luis and both of them become close

friends. They exchange each other’s past. Prema has had sex with Luis and she learns

new techniques of making love and sex. On their dates, Luis takes her to Thai, Mexican,

Indian, and Korean restaurants all over the metropolis. After spending some days with

Meg and Susan, Prema leaves and goes to live with Luis at his flat. She goes at Luis’s

mother and step father Ron’s place on Thanksgiving. Prema gets herself involved in this

family gathering at Luis’s parent’s home. Prema goes to Luis’s ex-wife’s residence for

Christmas. Luis works as Meadowvale’s Head of Human Resources as one man quit from

there to join rival group. Prema tries to learn Spanish and Luis tries to learn Nepali.

Prema knows about Guatemala through reading of books. Thapa narrates the history of

Guatemala. Luis has to struggle economically as he has to pay various loans.

Though a person may get material luxury, the ultimate achievement of peace is

very difficult. Luis feels that after divorce with Tina, he is the looser. He plans to visit

Christopher’s guru Mata Sylvia and finds interest in meditation. Prema too thinks to go

for regaining her sense of belonging. She goes in Little Nepal area. In the diaspora text,

Thapa mentions about how immigrants retain their culture and religion. At Mata’s home

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Prema finds books on The Bhagvad Gita, the Mahabharata, The Ramayana, on Osho,

Krishnamurti, Vivekananda, Ram Das, Sai Baba , Aurobindo , Maharshi Mahesh Yogi.

Though making efforts to assimilate in America, sometimes Prema feels

nostalgia. She recollects the time she has spent with her parents, sister, Rajan and at the

Hill Bazaar in Kathmandu. She goes at Meg and Susan’s place and thinks that Asians are

conservative in comparison to Americans. Though Prema attempts to forget Nepal and

the Nepali ghettos, she visits little Nepal and likes her language. She finds that Neeru and

Sushil have left their earlier abode. Prema eats momos with Neeru. Prema hides truth

from Luis about her visit to little Nepal. She longs for her root and so emails Trailokya

and Rajan in Nepal. Thapa mentions about the Maoist ceasefire in Nepal. Prema feels

nostalgia and she calls her father for the first time after arriving in America.

Prema and Luis quarrel on the point of going to Steve and Camilla, his friends.

But Prema denies going there. Luis insists her to take him to her world and friends, to

which Prema replies, “I do not have a world! I left the world I had, and do not belong in

the one I am now-your world. I do not have any place to take you, Luis. I do not have a

place in the world”(186). Prema leaves Luis’s home and takes her belonging –ammonite

etc. and goes to Long Beach with Neeru and Sushil. She quarrels with Luis on phone. At

the end there are some rapid developments in the plot. Prema continues her job at Esther.

Luis gets promotion in job.

Prema likes to visit wetland and enjoy beauty of nature with plants and animals.

On the way to Esther’s home near chain-link fence, Prema meets a woman Fiona- an

environmentalist, searching butterfly El Segundo Blues-a butterfly on the federal

endangered list. She informs Prema that Life Corps tracks the presence of pesticides in

Southern California’s marine life. At one time Prema thinks to leave Esther but then

emotional attachment does not allow her to leave. After death of Esther she lives at Neeru

and Sushil’s home. Neeru and Sushil tell Prema that any boy from Nepal who has settled

in America may not mind if a girl has relationship with a boy in the past, so they advise

Prema to select a Nepali boy and get married, but Prema denies. Prema has already found

her company with the environmentalist. She feels contented in the group with activities of

her choice. She sees Luis at Bangkok airport during her journey to Nepal but avoids him.

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Prema gets a chance to meet Luis at the beach decides to meet him at hotel. At last she

decides not to marry anyone or have kids.

7.4. Critical study of parameters

The researcher has carried out extensive narrative analysis to study various

parameters to understand the elements of diaspora in the novel. The same are discussed

as under.

I. Time and type of migration

As a narrative of the immigrants, Season’s of Flight describes the story of

migration of the protagonist from a small village in Nepal to Kathmandu and then to Los

Angeles (LA) in America. Prema spends her childhood in a small village in Nepal. She

has younger sister. Her father is a progressive person and allows his daughter to go to

Kathmandu for further study. Here, this is an internal migration for Prema within her

country. During the final year of her study of forestry in Kathmandu, Prema finds her

friends have hatched elaborate schemes to migrate to India, or further, to Australia,

Europe, Canada, and America. Thapa writes, “There is so little in Nepal, everyone just

wanted to leave. And also, for those who felt they were from a shabby third- world

country, it was hard not to believe that life in a richer land was more-proper, solid” (6-7).

Finding this much eagerness of the people, at a certain stage Prema wonders whether she

should go abroad. America announces various schemes of lottery for the aspirants to

migrate and settle in America. Prema comes in contact with Trailokya. One day she fills

the American lottery form with Trailokya, on insistence of Kanchha, a Gurkha. Kanchha

is an agent for filling the forms for lottery to get visa for America Kanchha advises

Trailokya to migrate to America. He says, “You could make money saving Americane

trees!” (8) Later on she wins the lottery and goes to America. So in the case of Prema, her

migration is a voluntary, for better economic opportunities. She finds her homeland as

captured in the Maoist activities. The time of migration is very young age of the

protagonists. She gets help from the middleman and initially lives in the Nepali ghettos in

Los Angeles.

Apart from Prema’s immigration, Thapa mentions that people from other

developing countries including her neighbouring nation India have settled in America.

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Sushil and Neeru and other Nepali are living in ‘Little Nepal’ and work in Shalimar

restaurant. They all are first generation immigrants who migrated to America for better

opportunities. Thapa has depicted migration of the first generation immigrants from the

developing country viz., Nepal to a developed country viz., America. Here the migration

is a voluntary. Thapa has mentioned the migration of people to America from other

countries like India, Africa and Latin American countries. Luis is a second generation

immigrant, his father migrated from Guatemala. The environmentalists come from

various countries, but theirs is not immigration for settlement.

II. Glimpses of homeland in the novels under study -its

geography, polity, economy and locale

As a writer of Nepali origin, Thapa gives minute details of the locale, polity,

society and life of people in Nepal. The novel provides glimpses of the homeland, here

Nepal. At the very beginning, through the dialogue of Prema with an American in Los

Angeles, she clarifies the geographical location of Nepal as a country surrounded by the

Himalayas and it is the place near the Mount Everest. When Prema was child there was

no electricity and telephone in Nepal. Thapa vividly describes the home village of Prema.

Her family home- which she still thought of as hers, though she had not

lived in it since she was seventeen- was sturdy, two-storeyed, of stone. It

had felt sheltering, and safe, when she used to run through bamboo grove

past the Shiva-Parvati temple that bordered the terraced rice fields, to

school. Only later, when she had left the village, to go to high school, then

college, in the capital, Kathmandu, had she discovered that her family had

been poor. The house, the grove, the temple and the terraced fields were

perched at the foothills of eastern himals. A silver mist rolled in all year.

Prema had shivered through all her childhood. (2)

There is a mention of frequent tremors in Nepal in the Himalayan region. It concerns

about global warming and environment. Thapa writes:

There was no movement on the ridge. There seemed to be no movement at

all in the universe. On the surface everything was still. Beneath, though,

the tectonic plates were pushing against each other, causing the land to

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churn and the soil to shift, setting off earthquakes, folding and buckling

the land into hills and mountains, adding inches to the himals every year.

The thin crust of human habitation-the hill bazaar-could be swept away in

one convulsion. (10)

Thapa also mentions about the awareness among the people in conservation of

energy and use of non conventional energy sources. In the contemporary era, awareness

among the people to save environment has become very persistent and Nepal is not an

excuse from it. The British company is engaged in Carbon footprints. Prema works with

senior forester, Trailokya, to offset the carbon footprint of a British corporation. They

provide fuel-efficient stoves so that they use less firewood for cooking and interest free

loans. Rajan heads poverty–alleviation programme. This shows progressive initiative by

the developing country.

The communication system of Nepal is mentioned. Access to telephone is not

possible like today. The caller has to call at the telephone operators and wait for the

person to whom s/he wants to talk. In the era of IT, access to internet is badly required.

Kanchha’s father runs cyber café. The misuse of internet for watching porn websites by

youngsters is mentioned in the novel. “In one booth three schoolboys were ogling a

screen showing a bare-breasted blonde, her thighs splayed for exposure. They quickly

blocked the screen as the others passed by” (8). So the misuse of Internet is not only the

problem in developed country, the human psyche remains same everywhere.

The novel depicts the Maoist rebel and the political upheavals occurred in Nepal

thereafter. The Maoist recruits one member from each family and Prema’s younger sister

Bijaya joins it. There is a mention of political unrest in the newspaper: “Two clashes

between the Maoists and the army had claimed fourteen lives. A curfew had been

imposed in a border town…” (10). When Rajan was a student, he had joined a

communist student union, organizing demonstrations and strikes, fighting face-to-face

with policemen, courting tear gas, beating, and arrest. He had spent two months in jail

during the last movements for democracy. Then the party had been rocked by corruption

scandals. Thapa mentions that there may be possibility of ceasefire. The Maoist rebels are

in favour of it, their troops are wearying and they want to initiate peace talks. But the

king, backed by the army, is refusing: “They’ve got India, America giving them M-16s.

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Ten thousand people have died, but they want more bloodshed. The king and the army

are using the war to keep themselves in power” (23). It is general belief that the centre

has always exploited the peripheries.

The novelist provides realistic picture of political condition in Nepal through the

characters. Prema and Rajan move to the royal palace to a broad avenue where a peace

movement is being staged in those days. There is a daily gathering of labour union

members, students, political activists, human-rights defenders, teachers and lawyers to

press the king and the army accuses these activities of abetting the rebels. Sometimes

there are crackdowns. The police would fire tear gas to disperse the crowds, and the

demonstrators would respond by hurling rocks or burning tyres. One day Army came to

the village, suspecting everyone to be Maoist. They search school teacher and Prema for

Maoist. While Kanchha is at Cyber café, the army suspects him to be a Maoist, beat him

severely, arrest him and throughout the end of the novel, Kanchha’s whereabouts

remained a mystery.

Thus Thapa has described the geography, economy and political condition of

contemporary Nepal.

III. Glimpses of hostland in the novels under study -its

geography, polity, economy and locale

As the protagonist migrates to America, Thapa provides microcosm of America in

the novel. The society, geographical locations and polity of America are discussed at

various instances in the novel.

Prema reaches at LA air port and the middleman’s nephew comes to receive her.

On the way to ‘Little Nepal’ with him, she is fascinated by the broad roads and lights and

traffic system in America. She finds that there are telephone directories at every

telephone booth in America. On TV programmes there are many advertisements of car

races, court cases, news of celebrity couplings and separations, ads for colonic irrigations,

weight-loss breakthroughs and reverse mortgages with tax-free proceeds etc. During her

stay with Neeru and Sushil as well as later on her meeting with Andy and Luis she visits

many places of America and describes the rich life style and luxuries. Prema reaches

Esther’s home by bus is mentioned thus:

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To reach Esther’s house each morning, she had to catch the No.2 on a

dishevelled boulevard near the Hill. Then, downtown by the skyscrapers,

she had to transfer to the No.33, which coursed as avenue of small

business: Computer Systems and Coin Laundry, a neon NAILS sign, a red

shop named Carniceria.(13)

She goes to Thai, Mexican, Indian, Korean restaurants all over the metropolis and

Cineplex at LA. Through Prema, Thapa narrates the cosmopolitan city of LA, life style of

the people in America and the developed economy of America. At Los Angeles beach,

Airplanes are constantly landing at or taking off from LAX-one at a time, two at a time so

the airport is very busy with traffic.

Thapa has also depicted the poverty stricken people in America. Hollywood is not

as glamorous as she thought. The exploitation of human being, workers and poor is same

everywhere, as in Nepal, in America also, Prema find slogans WAL-MART NO.

Boycott Coors. There are advertisements, “for tutoring, furniture, phone sex,…

babysitting. Apartment for lease: 2 Bdr Victorian in Los Feliz No Smokers Call Stan. Lrg

brt 1 bdrm, D/F , FP, Patio, 2+1, upper, stove, blinds, carpets. Tile flr, refig,1 cr sec

prkg…Shared house Available Immediately .400/month! Women only!”(99)

The novelist highlights the concern for environment and how even the developed

countries damage environment. Prema observes, “An industrial water treatment plant

loomed nearby, its stacks spewing fumes. A drainpipe lay at the centre of the beach,

gushing muddy liquids- waste water?-into the ocean. Nevertheless, Americans lay on the

sand, tanning their fit, toned bodies”(15). The Los Angeles coastline has been polluted.

“Wasn’t the water polluted? Didn’t the chemical run-off of the metropolis end up here?

Nobody seemed bothered by the drainpipe at the centre of the sand, spewing brown

liquids. A pier had been laid on top of the drainpipe” (32). At the end of the novel

through the team of Fiona, Thapa mentions about the environment issues in America and

how NGOs are involved in conservation of environment and protection of endangered

spices, here, butterfly. Fiona informs Prema that Life Corps tracked the presence of

pesticides in Southern California’s marine life. There are still lots of DDT in the fish in

this area, though its use was banned in seventy-two. There was a plant here, Montrose, it

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is used to be a big dumper, now it’s a Superfund site. But other companies still use DDT,

and they’re still using it in Mexico.

The novel depicts the national and international scenario. And role of America in

some policy decision at international level. In BBC national service, the news is: “The

British prime minister had said something controversial that day. An oil agreement had

been signed in Venezuela. The United Nations had voiced concern over Haiti. A group of

lawyers was challenging Guantanamo Bay. There had been unrest in Hungary, South

Korea, Bolivia…”(12)

In America Prema finds cosmopolitan society and the family system is very much

different from her homeland Nepal. In the family of Esther and Luis, divorces with

spouse and re-marriage and step relations are very commonly found. The married life and

social life in America is described through Esther’s life. Her husband Tim had died long

ago. Esther’s husband Tim worked for the oil company, named Shell. He had been posted

abroad for many years in Alexandria, Egypt, Tangiers, Morocco, Romania, and

Phillipines etc. Her stepson Theo-who is Natalie’s father- is Tim’s son from a previous

marriage. He is a stock broker at New Jersey. His wife is Mary.

Thapa narrates free life style in America. In Nepal, she has relationship with

Rajan, but she has to keep secrecy of that relationship. But here in America the situation

is very different. Prema’s housemate Meg Williams is an African American. Meg has a

committed relationship with a man named Luke. Meg wishes to marry him and have lots

of kids after finishing her nursing. Prema’s other housemate is Susan Kitterow, who is in

her forties, originally from Idaho, and lived in Seattle, in the state of Washington. Most

evening she goes on dates, staying out all night or bringing back a man who would

invariably leave early the next morning. Susan does not have any form of attachment

with these men; she has only casual sex with them.

In American society Prema finds that not only the civilians but even the

government also concern for the old people. The novel conveys that in the USA the

government cares for the old. At every week, Esther has to be taken for a check-up. The

driver would strap in her wheelchair, help Prema in, and tear at top speed through the

freeway to Meadowvale, a nursing home on a southern peninsula. Esther is enrolled in

the Assisted Home Living Program, which covers the cost of her check-ups. If her health

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deteriorated, she could be upgraded to the Live-in Independence Program and can move

to a flat on the premises.

IV. Attitude of the diaspora group towards other migrants and

the homeland

The novel narrates incidences of the attitude of the immigrants towards other

migrants and towards their homeland after their migration. When a poor girl like Prema

gets visa through lottery scheme, she gets confused whether to go to America or not. At

an initial stage, Prema thinks, “ Should she not leave? This shabby, third-world country.

Having received a chance- Having won a lottery. Was this not an opportunity to keep

progressing? America was rich, it was- proper, solid. But wasn’t it also- an agent of

corporate capitalist expansionism?” (51)

Through Rajan, Prema gets help from the middleman, Harihar-dai, who is

working like an agent to the immigrants. He helps for getting job recommendations for

Prema in America, to go to LA. The middleman says, “I have a nephew, an American

citizen. A smart boy, knows everything about the country, he’s helped many compatriots

resettle. He can set you up with a place to live, and a job”(54). The middleman charges

fifty thousand for it. These kinds of activities have become so professional that for the

immigrants, native agents provide services and they charge for it. The middleman gives

contact number of his nephew Narahari Bohora who lives in LA, America and may help

Prema for job and getting settled. At LA airport the middleman’s nephew comes to

receive Prema. The middleman’s nephew makes arrangement for Prema in Little Nepal.

Apart from the help one gets form the person from homeland, Prema gets support

from the people of her own country who have settled in America. She lives in a rental

room, Sushil and Neeru as neighbour. Neeru helps a lot to Prema. In a new land, Neeru

supports Prema emotionally and adjusts her at a job in Shalimar restaurant where women

from India and Nepal are working. Neeru cooperates and guides Prema at an initial level

how to get credit cards etc. Neeru teaches her where to buy phone cards, where to check

e-mail, how to get a State of California identity card. She explains social security to

Prema, and health care and unemployment benefits. She gives her the names of lawyers

and social workers to turn to in case of crisis. On her advice, Prema opens an account at a

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Citibank branch in the neighborhood. Prema learns from other immigrants that to survive

in America hard work is necessary.

V. Attitude of the diaspora group towards the hostland and

citizens of hostland

In America, Prema gets in touch with people from different countries. Initially,

she is scared of these people. She feels that language may be a barrier to her. But later on

she comes in contact with Andy and Luis. She develops American relationship with Luis.

Luis learns Prema’s language, he discusses on meditation and popular games in Nepal.

Prema makes efforts to get into the likings of Luis. There are step relatives in Luis’s

family. Prema goes to the home of parents of Luis as well his ex-wife’s home and meets

his relatives. She likes family gathering on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Prema likes to

be included in the celebration of an American festival. Thapa mentions about the support

that Prema receives from Luis’s family. “The gathering broke up late, with hugs all

around, and promises to meet soon, promises that no one would be able to keep, but

which nevertheless rang warm and sincere. At the door Peggy hugged Prema, Ron

hugged Prema, Ryan hugged Prema…Americans hugged so much” (123). As Prema tries

to accommodate her in the life style of America, she gets positive support from the

hostland people. Maintaining the protocol, Peggy, the mother of Luis, says, “‘namaste’, I

salute the god within you” (123). However, at the later part of the novel, Prema finds

something missing in her life and quits them.

At Esther’s home Prema feels queer and does not like to continue her job. She

finds that Natalie has free life and she is bound in obligations of Esther. At one time she

thinks about leaving Esther and the job. Later on she feels that it would be improper to

quit Esther on humanitarian ground. After leaving Luis’ home and visiting Nepal, Prema

is confused and becomes nervous. But at the end of the novel, the group of people

working on environment makes the life of Prema interesting and she enjoys there.

VI. Search for identity and feelings of alienation

After leaving her village, Prema has to live alone. Prema keeps an ammonite with

her as a god and memory of her dead mother. Initially, in Kathmandu, Prema joins

forestry and meets Trailokya. She has friendship with Rajan. After leaving her father in a

village, Prema finds her as poor, but gradually she finds herself comfortable in the

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environment. She remembers her days in village but she does not find culturally alien

within her country. The Maoist agitation disturbs her, but she gets support from Trailokya

and Rajan.

In America she wants to reinvent herself, she thinks “but-What is there to being

human? The body which desires, persistent and unreasonable; thoughts and

temperaments. Instincts. A capacity to harm. And history, which lingers as a spectre”

(3). Prema makes efforts to relocate herself through her memories of village, temple,

ammonite, language and food. She makes efforts to be an American by adapting

American life style with her Latino- American boy friend Luis but she feels alien,

something is missing. Johann Gottfried Herder, an eighteenth century philosopher, argues

"the foundation of construction of identity rests on the perceived 'wholeness' of a

community derived from the totality of its expressions – language, customs, dress,

architecture, religion” (Kerr 362). After reaching America, Prema disconnects her contact

with her father, never thinks about her sister, further she wants to be Americanized, and

so, she breaks her contact with Sushil and Neeru in Little Nepal in LA. In the condition

of homelessness and alienation, Prema reinterprets her national identity as a person from

Nepali origin following Hinduism. In this regard, Nidhi Singh writes, “The concept of

home gets problematised since it exceeds the limited geographical and physical

association and it also connotes political, social, cultural and emotional territories that are

often transgressed and reconstituted by the diaspora” (107).

One can connect the self with the past, but the most important is remembering.

Remembering the material objects and photographs on display or people we encounter

that are tangible links to the past. In LA, Prema's meets Mata Sylvia, a preacher of Hindu

religion. She recites lines from Hindu scriptures, like the Bhagavad Gita, the

Mahabharata, the Ramayan, and the books about Osho, Vivekananda etc. This takes

Prema back to “Nepali home” away from her “present home”.  She recalls her mother's

bedroom shrine, and idols of the gods: Krishna, Parvati, Shiva, Lakshmi, which her

mother used to keep at her home in Nepal. She recollects her mother with blankets drawn

over her, a coal-fire by her bedside. Here, Thapa mentions that for Prema, memory makes

her fragile sense of belonging on an alien land. Prema, an immigrant woman searches her

fixed cultural identity in America. Stuart Hall in Cultural Identity and Diaspora states,

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“ ‘cultural identity' can be thought in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective

'one true self', hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed

'selves' which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common” (394).  Thapa

depicts the incidences in the life of Prema such that she feels her physical location in LA

but her genealogical and geographical roots lie in Nepal. Prema longs for her new

identity. She feels something which was protected in Nepal has lost in America and that

is her roots, her belonging. Giddens in Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in

the late Modern Age says, “Globalization tends to break down the protective framework

of the small community and of tradition replacing these with many larger, impersonal

organizations. The individual feels bereft and alone in a world in which she or he lacks

the psychological support and the sense of security provided by more traditional settings”

(33). Through a fictional character Prema, Thapa has portrayed an immigrant woman

who has made her life ever-changing and mobile as she is uprooted in LA, from her

original social milieu of Nepal. Prema brings in the images of Hindu religion, Nepali

language and food – Momo – as imaginary coherence on the experience of dispersal and

fragmentation. It is her attempt to recreate a lost sense of cultural identity. Even after

several years of stay in America, living with Luis and serving at Esther’s home, Prema

feels alien. She visits Nepal after the Maoist ceasefire and she starts searching her

contacts and whereabouts of Rajan and Trailokya.

VII. Nostalgia and Memory and their role in the present

Resistance to alien culture creates feelings of nostalgia. Nostalgia helps in

bridging a gap between the past and the present. Memories of the past help one to escape

from the harsh reality of the present. Prema seeks nostalgically to recapture her "happy

days" of childhood past in her imagination. She recollects memories of food and festive

meals: reminiscences of those culinary delights that brought her such warm feelings of

pleasure, security, and even love as a child. For Prema, an ammonite is a constant support

and memory of her childhood spent with her parents in Nepal.

Thapa, as an expatriate, uses food as a marker of identity. Sometimes it is a tool to

feel secure in an alien land. In this regard, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak says, “In the field

of rational analysis, a feeling of recognized kinship is more desirable than nationalism”

(773). When Luis says: “Hey Prema, know what I had for dinner last night?” “Dull-bath.

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A kind of Nepalese, I mean, Nepali food” (61). She is very happy and says she cooks it

often but “just – the ingredients. I don't know where to buy them” (61). The moment she

discusses about the Nepali cuisine, she feels like eating them and being very near to her

‘home', a secured place. Thapa narrates this universal feeling of oral regression

experienced among every immigrant. Nostalgia emerges as a form of cultural resistance.

Nostalgia can help to maintain and construct cultural identities by connecting the present

to the past, by articulating past experiences and their meanings, at present.

Prema feels extremely happy when Neeru offers her Nepali food. She exclaimed with joy

when she finds two plates of hot dumplings before them: “Momos! Can you believe?

Momos in America!” (171) Thus a rhetoric of nostalgia – a rhetoric saturated with

gastronomic images of food, feasting, and festive dining – is used as a plea for Nepalese

to resist being ushered into an adulthood of western-style capitalist modernity. In this

regard, in an online research paper, it is mentioned, “Juxtaposing the concerns of the

stomach to those of the head or heart, Manjushree Thapa has used food and eating in her

Seasons of Flight as an ‘identity markers’ to reflect, a means of security for the

immigrants”.(“Rediscovering”)  

Prema thinks about her existence. Thapa narrates her predicament thus:

She thought of her movements from her present life with Luis to her life

on the dry, grassy hill, and her life in Little Nepal, and her lives farther

back…Her birth village, her school and her college years, her years in the

hill bazaar. Her attachments to Rajan. The town at the base of the hills, the

bus ride to the capital. Her weeks in limbo in Kathmandu. Her flight to

America. Her time in transit at the Bangkok airport. She had passed the

gates for Osaka, Dubai, Paris, Ankara, Melbourne, Amsterdam. She had

taken the flight to Los Angeles. She had lost her way. (161)

Language is a tool to reconcile the feelings of nostalgia. Prema teaches Nepali to Luis.

She wants to establish her linguistic link with him. Homesteading is a strategy for coping

with homelessness. Homesteading as a strategy means making and shaping a political

space for oneself in order to surpass the life of contradictions and anxieties of

homelessness. In cases of rapid domestic change and real or perceived geographical and

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genealogical inequality, Prema involves joining a local identity-based group that seems to

provide her answers and security. 

VIII. Issues related to alien language, social mobility and politics

of struggle for survival in the hostland

In the novel, the issues of adjustment of immigrants in an alien land are

highlighted. Prema makes efforts to assimilate in American life style. She starts buying

cloths that suits on beach at LA. She mimics American style of dressing. She buys a red

bikini of $24.99 and flip-flops for $4.47. She goes to LA beach. Adjustment is more

difficult for a poor girl like Prema in the house of a rich person like Esther. At Esther’s

house-“All the closets were jammed with appliances: vacuum cleaners, humidifiers, dust-

busters, air purifiers, irons, ironing boards”(14). Esther’s granddaughter Natalie tacks a

list of instructions on the kitchen board: a list of Dos, DONTs and NEVERs. Some days

Natalie also left a shopping list-milk, orange juice, eggs- and a few dollar bills. Prema has

broken her ties with her family back at home and the Nepali community in Los Angeles

in an attempt to assimilate her identity into a vague pluralism of American

multiculturalism. As Appadurai says, “Identities are increasingly liminal and hybrid as

capital, commodities, information, technologies, images and ideologies circulate across

the borders due to "ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescaps, ideoscapes and

mediascapes” (31).

As an immigrant cannot express the self to the other people in mother tongue,

language is one of the barriers in efforts for adapting a foreign culture. Before leaving for

America, Prema starts learning English language, make efforts for driving car, read about

the United States from the books, she also visits cyber- café and reads Los Angeles Times

online so that she may get adjusted in America. In America, Prema teaches Luis to speak

Nepali. She thinks by teaching Nepali, she could establish a linguistic link and possess

him whole heartedly. R. Sigel has noted in his Political learning in adulthood, “There

exists in humans a powerful drive to maintain the sense of one's identity, a sense of

continuity that allays fear of changing too fast or being changed against one's will by

outside forces”(459). As she likes Luis, she creates interest in him and reads about

Guatemala as Luis’s roots are from there. Even at little Nepal, Neeru and other

immigrants are also struggles to assimilate in an alien land. Neeru accept her sons’

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American way of living. As an immigrant, Neeru and Sushil struggle and work hard.

Sushil manages about home loan and gets loan and buy a house where foreigners are

neighbours.

In the era of globalization, when the people are losing their tie and emotional

support from the relatives, individual faces problem of lack of emotional protection.

Here, Prema likes the company of Luis but her sense of insecurity in multicultural

America continues throughout the novel.  Prema frequently dwindles between absence

and presence. In the company of Luis, Prema feels as if she finds herself assimilated to

American multiculturalism but the moment she idealizes her lost realm of culture,

geography, innocence, purity and happiness; she is overwhelmed by absence. Her search

for presence continues throughout the novel. Prema, towards the end of the novel, renews

her relation and reconnects with her national roots by visiting Nepali people in Los

Angeles and by taking a trip back home. Her effort to reconnect with previous relations

revives the ties that had become numb while updating and renewing her cultural identity.

As she feels increasingly uncertain about her daily life, her search for cultural identity

takes on ontological and existential dimensions.

At the later part in the novel, Prema meets a woman Fiona- an environmentalist,

searching butterfly El Segundo Blues-a butterfly on the federal endangered list. Prema

thinks that to serve Esther and work with this environmentalist will bring her sense of

belonging in America. She decides to join this group. People like Prema who find

themselves both structurally marginalized and ontologically insecure often give rise to a

politics of resistance and the growth of local identities. They feel a genuine sense of loss

as expressed in the recreation of a real or imagined past, or through the distant and often

romanticized memory of a home. In the process of identity mobilization, these factors

may become political weapons.  

IX. Issues related to religion, racism in homeland and hostland

In the modern era, there are several issues related to religion, marginalization and

discrimination on many grounds. The Maoist rebel indicates how in a Hindu country the

power fails to understand the issues of people and their solution. While leaving for

America, Prema’s father advised her not to visit her village, as the Maoist may recruit

Prema also. Even in America, the immigrants from Nepal keep distance from the black

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people. There is also mention of America’s policy with Venezuela, Haiti, Mexico. The

United Nations sanctions against various countries have been mentioned.

Rajan talks about his visit top Mongolia. From Nepal, he went to Delhi, to Poland

to Moscow to Ulan Bator. The diaspora novel depicts about the socio-economic condition

of third world countries. Prema asks: ‘Is Mongolia like those parts of Tibet, where girl

marry several men?” (24) In comparison to Rajan, Prema has never been to another

country, not even to India, nearby or to Tibet, China. Rajan considers the US an

aggressor in the world: a country unaccountable for its excess and atrocities, an agent of-

corporate capitalist expansionism.

Thapa has mentioned about the political upheavals in Nepal for establishment of

democracy but there is no racial discrimination or even Casteism mentioned in the novel.

In multicultural cosmopolitan society, Thapa has not mentioned about conflicts because

of diverse religions.

X. Issues of subaltern, especially condition of women in

homeland and hostland.

The novelist has brought the attitude towards the female in the society. Prema’s

mother dies in her childhood. Her father rears both daughters and decides not to remarry

as new mother may not care step children. Prema’s father is of progressive ideas, so he

decides to send Prema at Kathmandu for further study. But he advises her to get married

as a life of a woman is incomplete without getting married and having children. Prema

helps her father financially when she starts earning.

Thapa narrates an incident in Kathmandu. Prema lives in the house of a school

teacher. Though working in such a noble profession of constructing a progressive society,

the couple is very conservative and pseudo progressive at home. They consider

themselves as progressive but their docile daughter of 18 is going to marry and they

pressured her since she was at high school. When this School teacher’s daughter becomes

pregnant, the mother of the girl says, “If it’s a son, her in-laws won’t pressure her to have

more children. It’s not that I wouldn’t want a granddaughter –girl, boy, what difference to

progressives like us? It’s just that her in-laws…”(46). Thus in patriarchy birth of a male

child has remained of prime concern and it continued in the case of the school teacher

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family. Prema has witnessed her parents making love and thinking about getting a male

child. Her mother believes that only a son can open the gates of heaven.

Thapa concerns that in general, a woman is restricted up to her family and duties.

In LA, at Mata’s home, she remembers her own mother thus: “She saw her mother with

blankets drawn over her, a coal- fire by her bedside. Unconscious. And in a flash it came

to her: like her mother she had followed love. And where would it lead? What followed

dating, having a relationship, having a committed relationship, and moving in together?

Marriage, Childbirth”(155).

Here, Thapa brings to the notice of the reader that in some Hindu scriptures,

woman is considered to be an obedient of husband. Luis and Prema talk on this issue.

Prema said, “The Manusmriti. Do you know its message?” To which Luis responds, “Is

that part of the Bag-bad Geeta?” Prema comments, “The book where it says women are-

slaves. You must not listen to them, you must beat them if they disobey you. All

stupid!”(158) In their conversation Prema says the reality of her mother and patriarchal

set up in Hindu religion in general:

Luis, do you know about the reality? I told you, my mother…kept getting

pregnant because she wanted a son! You know how many times? One

baby before me, two afterwards-they all died. And she- All she wanted

was a son! In Nepal they still- People still- All these stupid white people

American Hindus call this Krishna love? (159)

Thus Thapa has narrated issues of women in the novel as deprived in patriarchy.

7.5. Conclusion

Manjushree Thapa’s Season’s of Flight is a novel which narrates many issues of

diaspora. Regarding her challenging work of creative writing in Nepal she says, “The

choice for me was to live in the West and have a settled personal life but boring work; or

to have interesting work but a chaotic personal life in Nepal. Everything I want to write

about, at least now, is in Nepal. There is so much that can be done here, if politics would

stop self-destructing” (Manjushree).

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Away from ‘home’ – Nepal, in the foreign land – Los Angeles, Prema is

disembedded from her root and she lacks the protective cocoons of home. Identity is

newly problematised by changing conditions of Nepalese way of life in Los Angeles.

Identities are increasingly liminal and she feels insecure in the foreign land. To overcome

existential fears and feelings of loss and despair, she visits new Nepal in Los Angeles,

eats Nepali food, visits Mata-Sylvia and recites Nepali bhajan. She joins a local identity-

based group that seems to provide her answers and stability. Prema, an immigrant in Los

Angeles desperately tries to recapture, excavate and bring to light the traces of indigenous

homelands which is constructed and reconstructed in the face of globalization and

cosmopolitanism through culture, language, culinary nostalgia, community and love. The

alternative identity sought out by Prema could be real and yet not real enough to feel

authentic. It only gives her a fragile sense of belonging. Cultural identity depends on

some degree of continuity with the past – the geography, culture and location. Regarding

identity, Referring to Derrida, Vijay Mishra refers Derrida’s notion of the basic problem

inherent in Diaspora:

A critical diaspora theory addresses the following questions raised by

Derrida: Where then are we? Where do we find ourselves? With whom

can we identify in order to affirm our own identity and to tell ourselves our

own history? First of all, to whom do we recount it? In a Socratic answer,

Derrida suggests, “One would have to construct oneself, one would have

to be able to invent oneself without a model and without an assured

addressee. ( Das 418 )

The construction and reconstruction of her indigenous identity through historical symbols

and religion supply her alternative identity to everyday insecurity. It conveys her trace of

security – though elusive – of a ‘home’ safe from intruders. Regarding loss of identity,

R.S. Pathak quotes S. Radhakrishnan, “The loss of identity would make a person a

pathetic figure, his voice being “an echo, his life a quotation, his soul a brain, and his free

spirit a slave to things” (51).

Here, the plight of Prema can be compared with what Nehru says about mingling

of native and foreign culture. Nehru’s opinion about cultural identity, “I cannot get rid of

either the past inheritance or my recent acquisitions. They are both part of me, and,

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though they help me in both the East and the West, they also create in me a feeling of

spiritual loneliness not only in public activities but in life itself” (596). Spiritual

loneliness, cultural in-betweenness, and psychological ambivalence, resulting from

cultural and educational hybridity, made him say, “In my own country I have an exile’s

feeling”(596). It created a cultural limbo in him-neither here nor there.

The novel gives voice to the predicament of an immigrant for assimilation in an

alien land.

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