A Caribbean epiphany

Displaced authors are a dime a piece, immigrant angst a common theme. But even in the overflowing ranks of marginalia, the voice of an Indo-Caribbean-Canadian woman writer is unusual.

Here is someone who is "doubly displaced", doubly uprooted, grappling with complexities of race and identity that others making sense of their own alien new worlds can only just begin to glimpse.

More importantly, this is a voice from the very fringes "" a woman making sense of her patriarchal order, seeking a voice. Marginalised even within marginalia.

Chances are you wouldn't have encountered a work such as Ramabai Espinet's before. The most famous import from Trinidad and Tobago into the world of writers at large remains Sir Vidia, of course. But look further and you'll realise that Espinet is an equally illustrious countrywoman.

The Swinging Bridge is a first-time novel by the Toronto-based author, a polished and assured debut that only confirms what her CV lists. An activist, essayist, critic, poet, playwright, scholar and now novelist, Espinet has obviously been used to wearing many hats.

One identity that she continually affirms in all her work, however, is that of an Indo-Carribbean-Canadian-woman. In her essay "Representation and the Indo-Caribbean Woman in Trinidad and Tobago," Espinet writes: "The presence of Indo-Caribbean women has not been felt, in the public sphere...absent from art, from literature, as scholars and thinkers, as doers...They are functionally equipped to operate in the world of work, but once that is done, they revert to the seclusion of the patriarchal culture which has always kept them in women's quarters."

The first novel can be seen as an extension of her endeavour to give the women's quarters a definite voice. An Indo-Carribean-Canadian one. The Swinging Bridge traces the story of an entire race through its protagonist Mona Singh, Trinidadian by birth, now Canadian.

Mona's personal history is an interesting account in its own right. It is a delineation of all dysfunctional relationships, a tough adolescence spent rebelling against a stifling patriarchal and provincial set up, the conservative Indian community at odds with the freer Creoles around her, her quest for independence and dignity and finally her "escape" to the bland urbaneness of Canada to make something worthwhile out of her life. A coming of age immediately identifiable in 21st century India.

But more fascinating than the personal account is the story of the Indian diaspora intertwined with the story of Mona's growing up. As Mona delves deep into her family history, she begins to uncover all its complexities, skeletons, untold songs, unfulfilled ambitions, illegitimate children and sexual secrets "" what emerges is the story of an entire community.

Espinet, a scholar, sociologist in her own right takes us back to the times when the first of her ancestors were crossing the kala pani, literally "black waters", the oceans, a journey banned for higher caste Hindus, and arriving in "Chinibad" to work as indentured labourers in sugarcane plantations.

While all of us know this story, what is not generally known is the fact that it was large groups of single women "" typically widows without any prospects in their homeland turned out by in-laws after the Abolition of Sati Act in 1829 "" who were lured into making the long journey.

The widows who thus arrived were called rand in Trinidadian society. The word meaning prostitute in Hindi but apparently without such connotations in the New World where it only stood for widow.

In the New World, the widows remarried men who were labourers like themselves, the lowest of the low, and thus became the fount of the entire community. But in the orthodox Indian community, its mores tightened by mass conversions to Presbyterianism, the new codes of Christian morality even more narrow and patriarchal, the story was brushed under the carpet.

Mona discovers the story of her ancestor, Gainder, a 13-year-old widow who crossed the kala pani and wants to tell it to the world but is cautioned: "The grand picture is still what everybody wants. The righteous Indian family, intact, coming across the kala pani together. Like the way the migration is presented today. Not this story. Not a journey of young widows looking for a new life."

The second displacement occurs when Mona's family moves to Canada. Trinidad has been home to the protagonist but as she grows up, racial tensions and fissures become evident. Her father, unable to find his way in the changing politics of the island, decides to move the family to Canada, which offers the anonymity of American life but is no resolution to Mona's feelings of exile. It is only when she returns to Trinidad a second time that she begins to piece together her roots and thus her identity.

Espinet, the poet, puts her skill to good use. This is a finely crafted debut novel, a work in which Espinet's felicity with words is evident in each sound and colour of island life that she captures. The lushness of Trinidad, its vibrant colours, songs, smells of food being chonkayed (tempered), calypso rhythms, even the lyrical names (Da-Da and Muddie) are all made immediate to a reader culturally and geographically apart.

For despite the Indian roots, surnames (Beharry, from Bihar), and vocabulary "" words such as roti and sem (beans) and carilee (karela, bitter gourd) "" both Mona and Espinet remain very definitely Trinidadian.

We see Naipaul as our "own" and may be tempted to claim Espinet, a Commonwealth prize nominee, as such. But if you do pick up the book, do so not to for cultural affinities but for the fact that despite social and cultural disparities here is a tale well told that strikes a chord.

The Swinging Bridge
Ramabai Espinet
Penguin
Price: Rs 250
Pages: 301