Landscape as an Overriding Component in Diasporic Writing:

A Metaphoric Study of Uma Parameswaran’s Engaged Novel Mangoes on the Maple Tree

Abstract

Uma Parameswaran, an Indo-Canadian writer of plays and fiction presents her firsthand observation of diasporic life. She is of the opinion that there are writers who have “a tendency to exaggerate, a leaning towards the over-idealization of nostalgia or towards satire” (2007, 27-28). They are expatriates who refuse to let go of India that makes them “The Nowhere Men, or Trishankus… Trishankus can neither wholly repatriate themselves nor can they wholly impatriate themselves into their adopted country” (2007, 27). Ultimately, the challenge of commonwealth literary critics is in the exploration and understanding of the bicultural vision of writers. On the other hand, Parameswaran maintains objectivity in portraying the several facets of multicultural Canada. She lives in Manitoba, Canada undergoing the third phase of expatriation where the policy of the government is multiculturalism in a bilingual framework. She represents ethnic minority writers in Canada “whose cultures are neither English nor French and whose heritage languages are neither English nor French” (Pivato 2000, 3).