The Reality of the Immigrant Dream in Ayub Khan-Din’s East is East and Chitra Banerjee...

Meera Gopalkrishna. 2008.

The Reality of the Immigrant Dream in Ayub Khan-Din’s East is East and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat;But there is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed, nor Birth,When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends ofthe earth!

Rudyard Kipling, Ballad of East and West

Kipling’s opening stanza of his Ballad of East and West quite

accurately sums up the immigrant consciousness and experiences

of Eastern diasporic communities in the West. While Ayub Khan-

Din’s play East is East and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel

Mistress of Spices may both vary slightly in context and

background, the thread of the South Asian immigrant experience

runs in both texts. They treat the difficult issues these

immigrants grapple with in their host countries that belie the

rosy immigrant dream that many are in pursuit of. This paper

will show how both texts represent the immigrant dream and in

the process expose the consequences of this, shedding light on

the often harsh realities that underlie it.

Writers and Context

Meera Gopalkrishna 2

In order to ground the paper, it is helpful to consider

the writers’ backgrounds and their contexts. This will also

help reveal their motivations behind the texts.

Ayub Khan-Din

Ayub Khan-Din was born in England and was originally from

Salford. He came from a relatively big family with him being

the eight of ten children. Khan-Din is of mixed descent

himself as his father is Pakistani while his mother is

British. With a passion for acting, he was surprised that he

was stamped as a black actor and had tremendous difficulty

seeking out “a company that enforced integrated casting”.

Bhatnagar reveals, “As a tribute to (his mother) and in an

attempt to understand his past, Khan-Din decided to delve into

the complexities of his childhood by writing East is East”. This

was later produced as a screenplay. Khan-Din’s work, however,

has been critiqued by “more traditional members of Asian

society for what they believe to be a somewhat derogatory

depiction of Pakistani culture.”1 Given his hybrid parentage,

it becomes easier to see how and why East is East was created.

Gaining inspiration from his own upbringing, the play1 http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Khan1.html


highlighted the realities of the migrant’s life. While it was

considered to be a ‘slice of life’ of the Pakistani British,

because of the way it pulls the audience “right into the

jumbled, fretful flow of one family’s daily life” (The New

York Times 1999), East is East is also “as much about clashes

between generations and expectations as about clashes between

Pakistani and British culture” (The Observer). Such

generational clashes are a consequence of immigration that

will be discussed later.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

As another diasporic writer, it is of little surprise

that Mistress of Spices also deals with clashes of generations and

expectations. However, instead of the conflict between the

cultures of Pakistan and Britain, her work deals with that

between India and America. Unlike Khan-Din who is of the

second generation diaspora in Britain, Divakaruni was born in

Calcutta, India. In 1976, when she was nineteen, she “left

Calcutta and came to the United State where she continued her

education in the field of English by receiving a Master's

degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a


Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.”2 Patel

also reveals how she had juggled a variety of odd jobs in

order to earn money for her education. Mistress of Spices,

published in 1997, weaves in stories of the Indian immigrants

into the protagonist’s, Tilo’s, narrative. Merlin succinctly

surmises the premise of the novel:

“Tilo appoints herself counselor to a group of peopleliving the contradictions of the American immigrantexperience and blends their stories with her own: Lalita,beaten by her frustrated husband; Haroun, savagelyattacked bv a thief; American-raised Geeta, who riskslosing her family when she refuses a marriage arranged byher grandfather; Daksha, nurse on an AIDS ward, worn outby the demands of work and home.”

(Merlin 207)

When these characters approach Tilo with their problems, the

illusion of the immigrant dream is vividly shaken, revealing

the underlying realities.

Between Khan-Din and Divakaruni, their migration

circumstances are quite different, with their texts as

testimony. While Khan-Din’s work is a play and Divakaruni’s a

novel, the use of their respective narrative structures allows

2 http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/CBD.html

http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/CBD.html


the texts to surface important issues. Being a play, “East is

East” allows the reader (or the audience) to experience the

daily conflicts that a family may face while the novel

structure of Mistress of Spices, allows exploration into the psyche

of a variety of characters and surface a spectrum of issues

that these characters face.

Although their texts are structurally different, East is East

being a play and Mistress of Spices a novel, both these texts

appear to be targeted at a Western audience and readership.

This reveals that the texts are instruments in voicing out the

immigrant experience. While East is East is filtered through a

male, Pakistani British consciousness, Mistress of Spices is

filtered through that of a female, Indian American one.

Through the different perspectives, both texts ultimately

expose the underlying difficulty of the immigrant dream and

the consequences that follow, including the problematic

negotiation of identity. Migration is not valorised, instead

its harsh favourable realities are depicted.

The Migrant Dream and the Reality


In both “East is East” and Mistress of Spices, venturing into

the shop-keeping business seems to be an option open to the

migrants. In “East is East”, George is from Pakistan (however,

when he had initially left, Pakistan was still part of India).

The setting of the play reveals that George, with his wife

Ella and his children, runs a Fish and Chip shop in Salford.

“The set is made up of a fish and chip shop, a parlour, living

room and a kitchen with a shed for entertaining” (Khan-Din 3).

However, it is clear that the family is living in less than

favourable economic conditions and the play hints that George

is not content.

GEORGE. You bloody lucky go to college. I come to thiscountry with nothing. Now what I got?

MEENAH. You’ve got a chip shop, dad.GEORGE. I got own business see. You better chance than

me see, go a college.(Khan-Din 12)

Similarly, Mr Shah was also caught in difficult circumstances

when he first arrives in Britain. He tells Ella, “Very

degrading work I assure you Mrs Khan, very degrading. [...]

First I swept the floor in a mill, then I worked on the buses.

While Mr Shah has managed to climb up the social ladder, which


appears to be an exception rather than the norm, George is

still trapped in his social circumstances. The dream that he

would make it big in Britain has not unfolded as grandly as

George might have hoped. Although he may be in a better

position than his family who is caught in the unstable

political atmosphere in Pakistan, the realities of his dream

is much harsher than he may have imagined. It is because of

this that he urges his children to go to college, knowing that

educational empowerment would be the only way to climb up the

social ladder and break out of their working class. For

George, he is trapped in the working class as he is unskilled,

uneducated and poor. His only hope for his family is through

education for his children.

A similar scenario plays out in Mistress of Spices. On the

surface level, there is Tilo, a spice mistress from India who

is mystically moved to America where she uses the magic of her

spices to help other immigrants. It is interesting that in

“East in East”, it is the male who has the ability to up and

leave Pakistan in order to seek better fortunes for himself

while here, Tilo owns a spice shop where she sells traditional


Indian spices. Mohan, another character, sells his wife’s

Indian sweet and savouries from a small push cart. He is then

forced to fold up and return to India after he is at the

receiving end of a violent racist attack.

Haroun is another case in point. He came to America and

first works as a driver under a wealthy Indian woman. He soon

realises that he not escaped his class. Haroun, from Kashmir,

tells Tilo, “All these rich people, they think they’re still

in India. Treat you like janwaars, animals. Order this, order

that, no end to it, and after you wear out your soles running

around for them, not even a nod in thanks’ (Divakaruni 29).

However, he attempts to break out of his predicament and joins

his friend’s fleet of taxis, saying “nothing like being your

own master” (Divakaruni 29). Further in the story, Haroun

falls victim to a vicious robbery. While there is a lack of

racism and violence in “East is East’, beneath the surface,

some of her customers who visit her shop are also trapped in

similar class and economic circumstances as George.


George, Mohan and Haroun are chasers of the migrant

dream. First generational migrants, they have voluntarily

displaced themselves from the East to the West. Despite

migrating to America and Britain, they experience the flipside

of migration. There are further consequences that arise,

especially those that involve the second generation.

Consequences of the Migrant Dream

Assimilation and Racism

On the surface, this may not be clearly seen in “East is

East” as George seems to have assimilated smoothly, marrying a

British wife. The entire family is not shown to have any

problems with assimilating with the British culture. However,

at some points, the play hints at a difficulty in a complete

assimilation.

GEORGE. You see puther, this country not like ourpeoples, I been here since 1930, I

try to make good life for my family. That why Ialways try to show Pakistani way to live is good way,parent look after children, children look after parent.

English people not like this. All my family love eachother. Bradford, Pakistan. All same, nobodydifferent.

(Khan-Din 43)


It becomes apparent that he is not as fully assimilated and

comfortable with the British society even though he has been

living there for almost thirty years. Although he is married

to Ella, it is evident that George (and others like him) turn

to religion in order to forge a community that they feel more

comfortable with.

GEORGE. Son, you not understand ’cause you not listen tome. I try to show you how a good way to live. You noEnglish, English people no accepting you. In

Islam, everyone equal see, no black man, or white man.Only Muslim, it special community.

(Khan-Din 55)

The children, who are second generation Pakistani British,

also seem to have assimilated smoothly. Meenah has British

school friends Judy and Mary, Tariq has flings with presumably

British girls while Nazir “go with bloody English girl” (Khan-

Din 55). However, the issues with assimilation and belonging

seem to surface themselves in Abdul. After a night of drinking

with his friends, he tells Tariq, “When I got home, me dad was

here praying, I watched him Tariq and it was right, to be

here, to be a part of this place, to belong to something’

(Khan-Din 57). Again, it seems that like George, Abdul is well

aware of his hybridity and his inability to blend seamlessly


with the British society, finding a sense of calm only when he

sees his father partaking in a religious ritual. Maneer is

also aware of their place in society when he tells Tariq, “No

one round here thinks we’re English, we’re the Paki family who

run the chippy...” (Khan-Din 45).

In Mistress of Spices, there is a more graphic depiction of the

violent racism that is faced by the characters. Mohan is

beaten up by two white men who taunt him saying, “Sonofabitch

Indian, shoulda stayed in your own goddamn country”

(Divakaruni 170). In the description of the attack, the

narrative voice refers to Mohan as “the Indian”. This

technique distances the character Mohan and depersonalizes

him. The resulting effect emphasises his position as the

‘other’, a foreign immigrant in a Western land. A lawsuit

against the perpetrators is dropped and they are let off

without presses charged against them. This is the last straw

for Mohan and his wife Veena and it is then that neighbours

pool money to send them back to India because as the narrator

questions, “for what else is left for them in this country”

(Divakaruni 172). In Mohan’s case, his immigrant dream has


come crashing down and left him with nothing but bitter

experiences. Jagjit, a young Punjabi boy who has come to

America learns the realities of being an immigrant fast.

“Jagjit with his thin, frightened wrists who has troublein school because he knows only Punjabi still. Jagjitwhom the teacher has put in the last row next to thedrooling boy with milk-blue eyes. Jagjit who has learnedhis first English word. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. [...] Shy-eyedJagjit in your green turban that the kids at school makefun of [...] In the playground they try to pull it offhis head, green turban the colour of a parrot’s breast.They dangle the cloth from their fingertips and laugh athis long, uncut hair. And push him down. Asshole, hissecond English word.”

(Divakaruni 38)

The dramatic depticion of Jagjit’s first introductions to the

English language laced with swear words emphasizes his

position as an unwanted foreigner. The violation to his

culturally symbolic turban further ‘other’s him and sheds

light on the stripping of his culture. On a metaphoric level,

the violent undoing of his turban may also be allegorical to

the way migration causes culture to be slowly diluted. It is

an inevitable consequence of leaving one’s place of origin.

The loss of culture and the resulting negotiation of identity

are processes that most immigrants may not be fully prepared


for. It is these consequences that both Khan-Din and

Divakaruni treat in their works.

Loss of ‘Pure’ Culture

Reitz contends that in East is East, the Khan children are

not victimised by a white racist society but by their father

who cannot accept that his children live in two cultures

(Reitz 51). The confluence of the cultures of the East and the

West is seen in the interaction between the first and second

generation diasporic South Asians. In East is East, George himself

marries Ella, a white British woman. His children are then

biologically hybrid. As a result, his children straddle two

different cultures and the expectations that come with them.

For George, it is a matter of retaining what he deems as pure

Pakistani culture, one that focuses on the family rather than

the individual. With miscegenation, there is a perceived loss

of this culture. This can also be seen in Mistress of Spices in the

relationships between Geeta, Mohan and their relationships

with their respective families. Although there appears to be

no miscegenation in their generation, there is a real

possibility of them marrying outside their race.


In East is East, George’s children are clearly torn between

the culture that they have grown up in and the oppressive

culture that their father imposes on them. This is evident in

the conversation between George and his children.

SALEEM. I’m not saying it’s not, I just think I’ve got aright to choose for myself.

GEORGE. You want choose like Nazir, han? Lose everything,go with bloody English girl? They not good, go withother men, drink alcohol, no look after.

(Khan- Din 55)

George imposing marriage between his children and other

Pakistani children is a way of ensuring that that his culture

would be retained. This depiction is also not too far from

reality. Werbner points out a report commissioned by the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office that indicates a trend among

some Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents in Bradford and the

East End of London to “try to force apparently deviant

children (girls with boyfriends, boys on drugs or in trouble

with the police) into rushed marriages in order to ‘save’

them, marriage being seen as guarding the proper sexuality of

daughters and bringing with it responsible behaviour” (Werbner


903). Nazir is seen as a deviant for having run off and

listening to a “pansy hairdresser”.

There is an almost similar scenario in Mistress of Spices in

the case of Geeta and her family. She is in love with a

Mexican, Juan and has left the house after a heated family

confrontation. Geeta’s grandfather laments to Tilo, “Hundred

time I told Ramu, this is no way to bring up children, girls

specially [...] Hundred times I told him, get her married off

now she has finished college, why you are waiting for

misfortune to knock on your door.” (Divakaruni 87). It appears

that marriage seems to be an avenue to preserve culture and

keep the girls in control. Her father , Ramu, tells his

father, “besides, for my Geeta we’ll find a nice Indian by

from here who doesn’t believe in dowry” (Divakaruni 87). The

notion that marrying within the ethnic group would retain

cultural values and norms is an overriding theme in both

texts. The fear that marrying outside this group will lead to

her “losing your caste and putting blackest kali on our

ancestor’s faces” (Divakaruni 89).


The enforcement of repression, or discipline, on girls

and women can also be seen in both Khan-Din’s and Divakaruni’s

works. The patriarchal figures who belong to “an authoritarian

migrant South Asian older generation” (Werbner 903) in both

Meenah’s and Geeta’s families react strongly to the influence

of Western culture that they perceive in them. George exclaims

to Ella, “Your daughter walking round in bloody short skirt

like bloody prostitute!” to which she responds, “It’s her

school uniform! What more can the girl do to please you?”

(Khan-Din 30). George is evidently uncomfortable with what he

deems as a loss of traditional Asian value of modesty. There

is a stark parallel in Divakaruni’s novel where Geeta’s

grandfather complains to Tilo saying, “I am telling her,

Geeta, what did you do, your hair is the essence of your

womanhood. [...] and the lipstick so shameless bright making

all the men stare at her mouth [...] I told Ramu, what

nonsense is this, she was using your old car just fine, this

money you should save for her dowry” (Divakaruni 86). In East is

East, Meenah asks her mother if she can “go to the school club

tonight with Jude and Mary” to which Ella responds “I don’t

know why you’re asking, ‘cause you know you’re going to the


mosque later” (Khan-Din 17). The imposing of religion is

something that evidently comes from George’s side and there is

an implication that George will not react too well to Meenah

going to a club. This can also be seen in Mistress of Spices, where

such activities are not encouraged even in Indian boys:

“Manu who is seventeen, in a 49ers jacket so shinyred... running in impatient. Angry Manu who is a seniorat Ridgefield High, thinking Not fair not fair. Becausewhen he said ‘prom’ his father shouted, ‘All thatdrinking whiskybeer and dancing pressed up against cheapAmerican girls in miniskits, what are you thinking of.’Manu poised tiptop inside furious fluorescent Nikeshoes...”

(Divakaruni 79)

Apart from the Prom, Western cultural symbols such as the

“49ers jacket” and his “Nike shoes” are further evidence of

the way Manu has assimilated rather smoothly into America.

However, it is also this Western culture that threatens the

patriarchal framework that the father/husband figures have

inherited from their own culture, causing Manu’s father, Ramu

and George to react strongly to what they deem as their

respective children’s transgressions.

Family Conflicts


Inevitably, the confluence of Eastern and Western

cultures, causes an increasingly widening generation gap that

leads to conflicts that plague the families of Geeta and

George . As shown, these are two generations separated not

simply by age, but also by language, values, tradition and

culture. In East is East, it is clear that George’s children feel

very distanced from George’s imposing stature. While the play

is set against the war between Indian and Pakistan, this war

also frames the conflict between George and his children who

rebel against him, which is what Reitz terms as “intercultural

and intracultural confrontations that shape the lives of the

members of the Khan family” (Reitz 49). The older generation

show a longing for their culture that encourages the family

while the West promotes individuality. This is why Saleem

would like a say in who he marries and Geeta too reveals to

her shocked family, “I’ve already found someone I love”

(Divakaruni 89). Geeta’s grandfather is initially unable to

accept this in his granddaughter. Tilo, chants a spell for the

family, that is telling of the circumstances that surround

most South Asian immigrants. She says, “Geeta who is India and

America all mixed together into a new melody, be forgiving of


an old man who holds on to his past with all the strength in

his failing hands” (Divakaruni 87).

Renegotiation of Identity

Cultural hybridity is a condition that surfaces in East is

East, showing the “clashes and pain” (Reitz 51) that is a result

of it. Caught between two cultures is the second generation,

the fruit of those who dared to pursue the immigrant dream,

who are left caught in a situation that requires them to

renegotiate their identities. Reitz contends that the new wave

South Asian writers are driven by “the desire to resist and

shock the South Asian older generation and induct it into the

new realities of diasporic life [forming] a dissenting

discourse that has as its mission to persuade a younger

generation of British South Asians to be less compliant and

submissive to their parents than they currently are” (Reitz

903). While Reitz case in point is Khan-Din, Divakaruni may

fit this description to some extent. East is East is more shocking

because of the way the children transgress the boundaries that

their religion sets upon them. For example, the children are

seen eating bacon, a traditionally taboo meat for Muslims. It


is however, something that is common in the English food

culture. In Mistress of Spices, however, it is less shocking and

there is a gentle and embracing message that lies in the text.

However, both the play and the novel show that in “this

politics of the family the message is often assimilatory: to

become more anglicised, liberal and individualistic”(Werbner

903). While both texts show that the second generation are

inclined to such “assimilatory” behaviour they do not complete

neglect nor abandon their family (with the exception of Nazir

who seemed to have no other choice).

In the violent climax of East is East, George finally faces

his demons and realises the struggle that his “jungly family

of half-breeds” (Khan-Din 71) have been going through. It is

Abdul, the oldest son, who is most aware of the internal

struggles of each family member who physically subdues his

father saying, “No dad, it’s over, alright, it’s finished!”

(Khan-Din 72). Through this dramatic gestures, Abdul who has

thus far has not disobeyed his father, hints at a future

relationship that will not be oppressive on the children and

will instead celebrate their cultural hybridity. The hopeful


ending is evidence that “if the intracultural pressure can be

overcome and if individuality is not ‘squashed’, an

intercultural identity can be developed and lived out”, also

refuting how cultural hybridity entails only tragic

consequences (Reitz 51).

This is also evident in Mistress of Spices, where the

different characters seem to receive some form of hopeful

closure in the text that hints at a positive future that will

celebrate both cultures. At first Geeta deals with this

cultural confusion by walking out of the house, blaming her

grandfather. She thinks, “He’s the one who turned them against

me with all that shit about good women and family shame. They

never would have behaved so prehistorically otherwise. Dad,

especially. If only he’d stayed in India..” (Divakaruni134)

However, Geeta reconciles with her family later in the novel

not only on their terms but on hers as well, telling Tilo that

“We didn’t talk of Juan, I didn’t want to spoil the moment,

but next week I’ll bring it up” (Divakaruni 240).


In the bigger picture, it is also significant to look at

how Tilo’s life is allegorical of the way one has to deal with

migration, the dreams and the consequences that these dreams

cause, including cultural collisions and a renegotiation of

identity. Tilo does not step out of her Indian spice shop so

that she does not get contaminated by America, as advised by

the Old One. However, she later embraces her own love

interest, Raven, the American. The novel ends on a very

hopeful note, that speaks of a celebration of cultural

hybridity:

Later I say, ‘Now you must help me find a new name. My Tilo life is over, and with it that way of calling myself’

‘What kind of name do you want?’‘One that spans my land and yours. India and America, for

I belong to both now.”(Divakaruni 317)

Reitz posits that “‘squashed identities’ cannot be freed at

the cost of the suppression of other identities, whether they

are defined racially, or culturally, or both” (Reitz 53).

Similarly, both East is East and Mistress of Spices end on a promising

note that the second generation will be able to identify with

both the cultures of the East and West. It also appears that

while the older generation may have suffered the flipside of


the immigrant dream, the younger generation now have access to

an education that promises to allow them to climb the social

ladder and lead more fulfilling and comfortable lives.

Inevitably, it is the sheer determination and courage of the

first generation diaspora that allows the second generation to

truly live the immigrant dream, or at least to be able to

enjoy the financial and social aspect of it more than the

previous generation ever could.

___________________________________________________________________________


Bibliography:

Ayub Khan-Din. East is East. London: Nick Hern Books, 1997.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Mistress of Spices. New York: Anchor, 1997

Merlin, Lara. “Review: The Mistress of Spices.” World Literature Today. (Winter 1998): 207.

Reitz, Bernhard. “Discovering an Identity Which Has Been Squashed: Interculural and Intracultural Confrontations in the Plays of Winsome Pinnock and Ayub Khan-Din.” European Journal of English Studies. 7.1(2003): 39-54.

Werber, Pnina. “Theorizing Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the South Asian Public Sphere in Britain.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 30.5 (2004): 895-911

Websites:

Ayub-Khan Din. Ed. Tina Bhatnagar. Fall 2000. Emory University. 22 April 2008. <http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Khan1.html>


Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Spring 1998. Ed. Nilu N. Patel. Emory University. 22 April 2008. <http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/CBD.html>I speak English, not Urdu. 31 October 1999. Ed. Harriet Lane. The Observer. 22 April 2008. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/1999/oct/31/featuresreview.review4>

Theater Review; Pungent Life With Father, Serving Love And Chips. 26 May 1999. Ed. Ben Brantley. The New York Times. 22April 2008. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E2DA1331F935A15756C0A96F958260>

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