HUMANISM IN ROHINTON MISTRY’S SUCH A LONG JOURNEY

Abstract

Rushdie, the most representative writer of postcolonial literature, had a desire to become an actor and dreamt of appearing in Hollywood movies from his early childhood. He collaborated with Deepa Mehta for the cinematic adaption of his second novel Midnight’s Children (1981). Visual feast with the use of word images, pictures and mythology, Cinematic motifs and intertexts is a super technique in his artistry. Dramatic opening of the novel and narrative techniques of the most controversial and contemporary author present the visual effect of author’s  diasporic consciousness and historical connections as he is a migrant and  places himself in a critical position of bearing two cultures, one to which he has a sense of  belonging and the other to which he feels alienated. The plot and structure of Rushdie’s postcolonial fiction Midnight’s Children reveals the cross cultural crisis in an inevitable scenario which has become a globalized phenomenon in the postmodern world literature. The presentation of the independence of India and Pakistan and the related issue of partition by Rushdie recreate the contemporary social milieu and cultural crisis in independent India. The author attempts to redefine nation and culture with reference to history in the emerging post-colonial context with an analysis in terms of synthesis of cultures, hybridity and hybridization.