I. Y. KOTIN

Doctor of Historical Sciences, MAE RAS (Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg), St. Petersburg State University

literature of the Indian diaspora Keywords:, Great Britain, India

For a long time, when they found themselves outside India in search of a better life, Indians created songs and other works of oral genre that reflected the sad experience of hard forced labor in the colonies (kangani* and narak**). However, these numerous songs, tales, and other traces of "oral history" and "oral creativity" have yet to be found and collected by researchers. One can speak more specifically about the literature of the Indian diaspora in connection with the spread of the medieval epic poem in Avadhi "Ramacharitamanasa" Tulsidasa ¹ - an adaptation of the Sanskrit "Ramayana" and the adjacent poem about the exploits of the companion of Rama - the divine monkey Hanuman - "Hanuman-chalisa". These are also actual Indian texts that have become widespread in the diaspora. Writing, the creation of literature proper for the Indian diaspora, first of all began in the" sugar colonies " of England - in the West Indies and Fiji.

Image of plantation life-mitha hun - "sweet blood". Sugar gives life to "sugar colonies" and enslaves Indian plantation workers in "sweet captivity", and sometimes - brings disease and death to those who produce this sugar and who consume it. This theme is found in the works of Samuel Selvon "The Bitter Reed" (1957) and David Daybidin "The Song of a Slave" (1984, based on folklore). A rare account of the life of a plantation worker in barracks near sugar cane plantations is given in the memoirs of Totaram Sanadhya, who arrived in Fiji in 1893 on the ship Jamna and spent 21 years on the island-first as a laborer, then as a farmer, and finally as a priest-and returned to India in 1914. This biography was published in Hindi in 1994 under the title "The Story of the Cursed Street".

The book describes the horrors of communal life in cramped "cursed" barracks. It also talks about evenings over a hookah in a kind of hangout club "Hanuman-dhoka" (lit. Hanuman's Squash), and the public reading of the Ramayana (Ramacharitamanasa) among the Indian workers. Literary critic Vijay Mishra, who has researched the novel, notes: "In the text ("Ramayana") there is, of course, everything that is consonant with the girmit worker (agreement, from the English "agreement". - Y. K.): 14 years of exile of the epic hero Rama, trials in the black forest of Dandak, theft of his wife by the demon Ravana. Finally, a return to the mythical Ayodhya " ².

In these and other works, the theme of the motherland sounds. In a Hindi poem by the Indo-Mauritian Somdatt Buhori, India appears to the author as a small village in his native Bihar:

  
  
 India,  
 First of all,  
 For us,Biharans,  
 From the north 
 Is  
 Small village. 
  
 

Collected and published in 1985, the memoirs of Trinidadian Indians, entitled "Still Life", contain the same themes: hellish labor and hellish living conditions, homesickness, the dream of returning, fear of the unknown and the dangers associated with this return.

In the 1940s and 1950s, in Trinidad, Suriname, and Guyana, works by Indians who made their way into the ranks of the local elite, usually journalists, lawyers, doctors, and teachers, appeared. These Indians were often Christians, often educated in Protestant mission schools. They are not too inclined to criticize the society in which they have found their place. The second generation of the Indian intelligentsia is already making itself known more loudly, playing up local "colonial" stories, but without closing in on them, it also turns to the topic of the historical homeland. Vidyadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, a second - generation writer and writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, is an example of such an entry into world literature.

V. S. Naipaul was born in Chaguanas, Trinidad, the son of an Indian Brahmin. Naipaul's ancestors came from the United Provinces. The writer's father worked for the newspaper "Trinidad Guardian" and was engaged in writing himself, although during his lifetime he did not receive reader recognition. At his father's insistence, Naipaul went to Oxford to study. The Trinidadian government has awarded a talented young man from an influential Hindu family a scholarship. After completing his studies at Oxford, V. S. Naipaul began to work with various newspapers and chose the writing profession. At the same time, he maintained ties with his homeland, traveled a lot, and lived mainly in England.

Naipaul was best known for his novel Home for Mr. Biswas, ³ which, like Mystic Masseur (1957), tells the story of Indo-Trinidadians ' search for their own identity. The Biswas family, left without a breadwinner, is not able to cope with problems on their own. Her

* Kangani - forced labor under contract.

** Narak (Hindi), lit. - hell.

close and distant relatives help - the only support in Trinidad, divided between Indo-Trinidadians and Afro-Trinidadians.

Naipaul reminds us of one of the main themes of Indian literature abroad - the myth of the return. He writes about the Indo-Trinidadians in his novel Home for Mr. Biswas:" They constantly talked about returning to India, but when the opportunity arose, many people refused, fearing the unknown, fearing that they would lose the usual temporality of their stay here. " ⁴

So, India. This is the kind of India that is constantly sought after, but never returned to. This is the India that Tagore says "every Indian takes with him." This is the India that, according to Naipaul, the Indians bring with them, "spread out before them like a carpet."

It is noteworthy that Naipaul's characters follow the paths of the South Asian diaspora. The protagonist of the novel A Bend of River (1979), Salim, a Muslim, opens a shop in an African town on the banks of a river, somewhere in Uganda or Kenya. Salim is successful in his modest business, but he can't do much better in an African country where Indians - "Asians" - are treated like second-class people.

V. S. Naipaul has long lived in England, representing the fate of many Indo-Trinidadians. Born into a family of Indian immigrants in the West Indies, he feels like a" simple person "and a" citizen of the world", and retains the memory of his Indian roots.

The authors of the so-called "old diaspora" - i.e. descendants of indentured labourers brought to the" sugar colonies " of England-Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, as well as to Gaiana-write both in standard Hindi and in its regional variants-Fiji-Hindi, Sarnami (Hindustani), based on Maithili dialects, Bhojpuri, etc., in Creole English and Patois-Creole languages based on the language of the French settlers.

A story written in Fijian Hindi by an Indo-Fijian of Tamil origin, Subramani, is called the Dauka Purana ("The Story of Dauka").⁵. "Dauka Purana" is a story of travel, including pilgrimage, Indo-Fijian with the speaking name of Fiji Lal. Fiji for the narrator is a small India with its own Hindu shrines and caste requirements. The narrator and main character, Fiji Lal, narrates, among others, the family history of the Indo-Fijian Kalu, for whom both Indian and caste identification is important. Kalu proudly holds the rank of Rajput, i.e., a representative of a high military stratum, and makes sure that even a "white" member of the peacekeeping force who is related to the family comes to the house for his bride-Kalu's daughter-on horseback, with a drawn saber, according to caste traditions that prescribe certain behavior of the groom during the marriage ceremony.

Since the end of the XIX century. North America became the dream of many Indians who were eager to improve their financial situation and did not see the prospects for such improvement in India. At the same time, a certain superficiality of the American gloss while preserving the Indian nature was often the theme for humorous works by Indian authors. One of the most famous short stories on this subject belongs to the classic of Urdu Krishan Chandr,"A Flower for a rupee"⁶. An Indian who comes from America is stupid, arrogant, attached to things. Many people from the Indian subcontinent hoped to become such "prosperous" people.

The arrival of Indians in North America became widespread only after 1961. The emergence of a large and influential community, the Amriki Deshi, gave rise to a very rich Indo - American literature in English, created by both Indian - Americans and Indians who have visited the United States and returned to their homeland. One of these interesting novels, Inheritance of the Ruined, ⁷ is written by Ki-ran Desai.

The novel takes place both in a remote Himalayan town near the Nepalese border, and in America, where the son of the main character went for the best share. A young man, Biju, miraculously got to America after a real siege and storming of the American consulate by hundreds of seekers of a better life. However, with no means of support, Biju did not find easy happiness. He had to work in an Italian restaurant, a Chinese diner, an Indian vegetarian cafe. In the end, Biju lost that job as well. With the last savings, he buys a ticket home. All his purchases on the way home go to robbers. Not only did his "great American dream" fail, but his more modest dream of saving up for a rainy day, always expected at home, is under threat. The "black day" has come - in the homeland - riots. And whether it will be possible to save the rest of the savings hidden by him is a question to which the author does not give an answer. But Kiran Desai doesn't just tell Biju the American saga. With bright brushstrokes, the author paints a picture of the diaspora seen by his hero. "Biju has already learned how his compatriots are treated around the world...":

  
  
 "In Tanzania, if they could, they would throw them out, as they did in Uganda. 
 In Madagascar, if they could, they would throw them out. 
 In Nigeria, if they could, they would throw them out. 
 In Fiji, if they could, they'd throw them out. 
 They were hated in China. 
 In Hong Kong. 
 In Germany. 
 In Italy. 
 In Japan. 
 On Guam. 
 In Singapore. 
 In Burma. 
 In South Africa. 
 They don't like them. 
 Guadeloupe? Do they like them there? 
 No! " 8 
  
 

It is also not easy for Indians in England, a former colonial metropolis, a country with the largest and most diverse Indian diaspora - a whole series of"small Indies". Indian servants, sepoys and ayyas-nannies, first appeared in Albion together with the" nabobs " - English Nouveau riche. The image of India in Britain

It is inseparable from the image of the Raj* - the British power in South Asia, fabulously rich, but in the Eastern way undisclosed, insidious, corrupt and depraved, a time of success, fame and wealth. And yet, the Indians who come to England see such a rich but depraved and corrupting Babylon in England. Not an exception is the "London - Babylondon", described by Salman Rushdie.

Salman Rushdie is a British writer of Indian origin. His novel "The Satanic Verses" received strong responses throughout South Asia, Iran, and the Arab world. Master of the pen, recognized short story writer and publicist, winner of the most prestigious Booker Prize in England for literary creativity, author of the acclaimed novels "Grimus", "Midnight's Children", "Shame", Salman Rushdie at the peak of popularity published in 1988 a book that could not but cause criticism, controversy, indignation among Muslims around the world and others. scandalous fame ⁹.

The novel "Satanic Verses" is a stylization of the "framed story" characteristic of the literature of India and the Arab East - a long narrative with one main and an infinite number of additional plots. All commentators agree that Rushdie's novel contains a satire on the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran. The name of the prophet is not directly mentioned, but the Mahound ridiculed in the "Satanic Verses" is very similar to the prophet Muhammad. The novel also contains a satire on Imam Khomeini. However, the first negative reviews for the book came not from Iran, but from India, and they concerned precisely the use of the fictitious name Mahound, consonant with the English my hound (my dog).

Rushdie's description of "Babylondon" is " the visible city. But not visible" - a decade after the novel's release, it has already acquired at least two clearly defined, visible and marked with Indian "signs and symbols" districts-Southall ("Little Punjab") in west London and Brick Lane - "Little Bengal" in the east, in the historical area of immigrant residence-the East End. It is no coincidence that the Anglo-Bengali author Monica Ali named her novel Brick Lane.

For this novel, Monica Ali was awarded the Booker Prize. The novel depicts the life of the multicultural London borough of Tower Hamlets, and especially its Bangladeshi enclave on Brick Lane. The plot is based on a description of the life of two sisters, one of whom lives in Bangladesh, and the other in London, because she was married to a Bengali who settled there.

Seen by the main character, Brick Lane is a street with Bengali inscriptions, Indian restaurants, mosques, markets full of hijab-clad housewives, young unemployed guys who are ready to go to rallies and create pogroms out of idleness, but in the name of some beautiful idea. This is a piece of England, and part of Bangladesh (wider - South Asia, historical India), and the intersection of the paths of all peoples, an immigrant paradise and an immigrant hell.

The literature of the Indian diaspora is inextricably linked to the country of origin - historical India. Even if the historical homeland is cursed or deliberately ignored by one or another hero, he is inseparable from it. This invisible but deep connection is personified in the heroine of Salman Rushdie's novel Shalimar the Clown. It was "called India. She didn't like her own name. I've never heard of people being given names like that... Somehow, the name India didn't fit her in any way. It was exotic, colonial, and pretended to belong to an alien reality, and she kept telling herself that it wasn't suitable for her at all. She didn't want to be associated with spaciousness, unusual behavior, temperament, or overcrowding; she didn't want to be ancient, noisy, or mysterious, God forbid. I didn't want to have anything to do with a third-world country. Quite the opposite. " ¹¹

Yes, that is exactly how, starting from and distancing itself from the past, the abandoned homeland, the Indian diaspora, however, does not become an organic part of the world that accepted it. More precisely, having become an indistinguishable part of this world, the diaspora ceases to exist. In the meantime, it exists and fruitfully creates its own literature. This literature is largely in English, but poems, novels, and autobiographical prose are also written in Indian languages. As the Russian literary critic G. V. Strelkova notes, Mauritius, for example, "has many Hindi writers writing in various genres (from lyrical poetry to satirical novels)" ¹².

The attempts of Hindi writers to appeal to the Indian readership in the UK are interesting. Note that the language situation there is very specific. More than half of the South Asians there are Urdu-speaking and Bengali-speaking Muslims. More than half a million Punjabi-speaking Britons understand Hindi, but only less than half of them are Hindus who recognize and revere Hindi. Hindus teach their Punjabi-speaking children Hindi, but for young people it is already the language of a narrow circle of relatives and family in the vast English-speaking world, which has its own rich literature. However, Hindi literature in the UK exists largely thanks to a small group of intellectuals - professors, journalists, government officials and, not least, already well - known Hindi writers who have moved to Albion, but are counting on a wider - actually Indian audience.

Russian orientalist, a great connoisseur of the literature of the Indian diaspora, L. A. Vasilyeva names some of them. These are: Usha Varma, Padmesh Gupta, Divya Mathur, Usha Raje, Tejendr Sharma, K. C. Mahan, Sheila Agrwal, Kadambari Mehta, Mahendar Devsar Deepak, Goutam Sachdev ¹³. It should also be noted that words in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi are used in poetry compositions in English, sometimes making up up to a third of the vocabulary of poetic works by such authors as Daljit Nagra.

Recently, this talented British author of Indian origin published his translation into English of the Indian epic poem "Ramayana". The theme of separation from the motherland, the hope of returning, which sounds in the parts of the Ramayana dedicated to the years spent by the god-hero Rama in exile, is still clear and close to the Indians in the diaspora who created their own "myth of return".

* Raj (Hindi) - "rule". It also entered Indian English in the meaning of "British rule in India".

^Tulsidas. 1 Ramacharitamanasa (The Sea of Rama's exploits). In Russian. avadhi. Mathura. 1980.

^{Misra V.} 2 Voices from the Diaspora // The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora. Singapore. 2006. P. 120 - 139.

^{Naipaul V.S.} 3 A House for Mr. Biswas. London, Andre Deutsch. 1961.

^{Mustafa F.} 4 V.S.Naipul. 1995. P. 70.

^Subramani. 5 Dauka Puran. New Delhi, Star Publications, 2001. The name " purana "is associated with classical Hindu religious texts with mythological content, letters, and"stories". The word "dauka" means assistant, helper. Here, "dauka" is the nickname of the main character of the book, Fiji Lala.

⁶ In Russian. Urdu: Amrika se vapas anewala hindustani (Indian from America) / / Ek rupaya, ek phul. Lahore, 1960.

^{Desai Kiran.} 7 The Inheritance of Loss. New Delhi, Pinguin // Viking, 2006. Translated into Russian by Y. Balayan, see: Desai K. Inheritance of the Ruined. St. Petersburg, Amphora. 2007.

^{Desai K.} 8 Edict. op. s. 113-114.

⁹ See: Kalinnikova E. The Phenomenon of Salman Rushdie, Russkiy Dvor (Russian Yard). 2009.

¹⁰ See: Ali M. Brick Lane. Translation of e. Skryleva, M., Rosman-Press, 2005.

^{Rushdie S.} 11 Clown Shalimar. Translated by E. K. Brozalina. St. Petersburg, Amphora. 2008. p. 14.

^{Strelkova T. S.} 12 Hindi abroad: current state and prospects // Vostok-Oriens. 2004. N 3. pp. 164-167.

^{Vasilyeva L.} 13 Hindi literature in the UK / / Asia and Africa Today. 2007. N 1. pp. 57-59.

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