Falling between places

It's surprising that M G Vassanji's name rarely features in discussions of the top contemporary Indian writers. This could partly be because Vassanji has never lived in India and his genealogy is a complicated one (he was born in Kenya, grew up in Tanzania and has been a resident of Canada since 1978), but even so the lack of attention is surprising, for his work "" marked by elegant, lucid writing and movingly restrained characterisations "" can be a very satisfying alternative for readers who complain about common irritants in Indian writing in English: exoticisation, overwrought prose, hackneyed treatments of the immigrant theme.

It isn't the case that Vassanji deals with themes no one else writes about. The idea of "inbetweenness" (exemplified in his beautiful 2003 novel The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, about a man who always feels himself to be on the periphery of things, never in control of his own destiny) is crucial to his work, as it is to that of many other non-resident Indian writers.

But his handling of these themes is careful and nuanced, and ambivalence is key to his writing. Running through his oeuvre is the delicate (and inconvenient) question: What can we ever really know about ourselves, our motivations, our choices, the accumulation of incidents and influences that define us over a lifetime?

His new novel The Assassin's Song begins in 2002 with the narrator, Karsan Dargawalla, returning to his childhood village after the terrible communal riots in Gujarat, but it then takes us to the early 1960s when Karsan, still a child but heir to the Pirbaag shrine, begins to grasp his responsibilities as Lord and Keeper (therefore, an avatar of god) after his father.

Growing up, he struggles with this burden of divinity. His parents are constant reminders of the path he is expected to follow, but other adult figures play equally important, and perhaps longer-lasting, roles: the companionable truck driver who brings him stacks of newspapers and magazines from the outside world; a Christian teacher with African antecedents; an agent of the National Patriotic Youth Party, obsessed with restoring the glories of the Vedic civilisation.

Here as in his other novels, Vassanji is a wonderfully perceptive chronicler of how childhood events and impressions can influence character long after they have been forgotten at a conscious level.

More than halfway through the book comes Karsan's big decision to go to the US to study at Harvard, effectively turning his back on his parents and the shrine. Eventually he does return to fulfil his spiritual calling, but there is no easy resolution, or even a sense of a story coming full circle.

What we are finally left with is a portrait of a life wasted by the struggle between duty and individuality, between faith and pragmatism. Karsan is as much a hollow man, swept along by forces outside his control, as Vikram Lall was.

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The Assassin's Song
Author: M G Vassanji
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 375
Price: Rs 450

Interview with M G Vassanji who was in Delhi for the launch of The Assassin's Song

Why is your work so low-profile in India?

Well, I've always fallen between places "" first as an Indian growing up in a colonised Africa, later as an Indian in Canada. And I write about real people in ordinary situations, whereas some high-profile writers cater to the idea of an exotic India. This is true of African writers also: sometimes there is pressure to play games because we don't automatically have a market in the West.

So you believe some writers just give Western readers what they want?

Possibly. Of course, you have to consider the reader "" you can't say "I'm writing only for myself", which is a line often used by writers who are starting out; perhaps this attitude is a defence mechanism, in case their work isn't appreciated. But you can't let the audience dictate to you. Every writer must be honest to himself.

The Assassin's Song is your first novel to be set largely in India. Do you visit the country often?

My first real visit here was in 1993. The longest I've stayed here was three and a half months "" in Shimla "" but it takes me very little time to feel at ease in this country. It's like the bond I still have with Africa, despite not having lived there for decades. You've spoken and written about being influenced as a youngster by the revolutionary movements in Africa. Could you elaborate on this?

I was influenced by the politics of equality and colonialism. The early 1960s was an optimistic time in Africa "" lots of businesses had just started, there was hope for a glorious future. Incidentally, the language of the media then was not unlike the way it is in India today "" similar sloganeering about the country's potential, et cetera. I'm not making any absolute comparisons, simply talking about the mood.

Africa was betrayed by bad politics and other social factors. I don't believe India will go that way ""it's a more dynamic country, there is more energy here, and if there's corruption there are lots of hard-working people too.

A theme that figures prominently in your work is that of the individual constantly being dwarfed by larger forces...about the suppressing of personal choices and dreams.

Yes, and in The Assassin's Song this takes the form of the protagonist carrying the burden of events that occurred 700 years before he was born. These themes are important to me. But there is also a progression: the crushing of the individual voice can be extended into the suppressing of small communities, and then even small countries. When I was growing up, for example, Tanzania was being bullied by everyone, even West Germany. But Karsan does return in the end.

Yes, because he has to consider his family, his people. I sometimes feel that way with respect to my community: over the years I've moved away from them intellectually (I'm more interested in history than in spirituality), but they are after all my people and I can't turn away from them. There's an ongoing process of self-discovery at work here.