‘Mother and Othering’ in the Diasporic Enclave:A Reference to Uma Parameswaran’s Poems

Abstract

With a population of around twenty million spread across a hundred and ten countries, Indians as entrepreneurs, teachers, researchers, innovators, doctors, lawyers, engineers, managers and even political leaders, serve their host nations with distinction. Every member of Indian diaspora maintains his commitment to ‘bhartiyata’ or ‘Indianness’   and make India to flourish and grow. The South Asian writer desires to preserve the collective tradition even though he/she writes about a particular world. Memory with its recollection of the scenes and elements of the past in the present becomes a central tool in this process and is more often than not the starting point for the process of re-creation of the scenes from the past. Uma Parameswaran is one of the promising writers living in Canada and has an Indian origin. As a writer, woman and diaspora, she had to face a lot of hardship in her life in the adapted land to achieve what she is now. Uma Parameswaran’s poems not only reflect the diasporic experiences of the author but also other Indo-Canadians collectively. Many of her poems are collected and published in two volumes namely, Trishanku and Other Writings and Sisters at the Well.