Psychological Dilemma of Trans-Border Migration in Moyez Vassanji’s novels The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Gunny Sack

Psychological Dilemma of Trans-Border Migration in Moyez Vassanji’s novels The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Gunny Sack

Denilson Mairura Onsengo, Remmy Shiundu,
Department of Languages and Literature, Kaimosi Friends University, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Discourses of displacement, dislocation and uprootedness of diasporic communities especially among the immigrant Indian community in East Africa have attracted a great deal of debates as well as scholarly contribution in the last three decades. However, the psychological and spatial dilemma in which various characters find themselves in has little scholarly attention. This paper conceptualizes this dilemma in form of journeys, paradoxes as well as experiences of the immigrant Asian as fictionalized in M.G Vassanji’s two novels n The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Gunny Sack. The novels were purposively sampled to meet the objective of the paper. The discussion was arrived at through close reading, analysis and interpretation of the selected novels. The discussion in informed by postcolonial theory as propounded by Homi Bhabha. The paper finds that the immigrants’ trans-border journey is marked by psychological and spatial dilemma as well as emotional incubuses.

Keywords:  Psychological, dilemma, trans-border migration, post-colonial, Asians community.

INTRODUCTION

In The In-Between World of Vikram Lall the Indian immigrant family –the Punjabi Hindus, named the Lalls is trying to find their niche in postcolonial Kenya for better economic opportunities. This already demonstrates that the migration has occurred, more specifically, of people between former British colonies of Kenya and India. Vikram Lall’s grandfather, Anand Lall, migrated from India to Kenya as an indentured worker in the construction of the East African railway. The Gunny Sack also traces the trans-border migration of the people from South Asia in the late 19th century to the territory of East Africa. Again, this fits within the tenets of postcolonial theory in looking at the movement of people both during and after the colonial era, by taking stock of entangled mobilities where the dispersion of a people is not within a given uniform trajectory (Wyss & Dahinden, 2022). The novel celebrates the aspirations and determination of Dhanji Govindji an Asian pioneer who migrated from India to East Africa in 1885 with the hope of escaping biting economic instability in his native village in Gujarat. This paper analyses the transborder journeying of indian families to east Africa and the psychological dilemma they find themselves in because of the unique skin colour.

THE CONCEPT OF HOME AND AWAY BY TRANS-BORDER IMMIGRANTS

The concept of home to diasporic people is about the notion of identity and belonging. It is associated with a place held in high self-esteem that provides comfort and a sense of belonging. The loss of home involves displacement from the original homeland, nostalgic attachment to it, inability to return, making of a new home and the crisis of double identification with the original homeland and new home. Postcolonialism captures this by trying to locate the historical origin of a people and articulate a sense of “belonging in diasporic contexts” (Kläger & Stierstorfer, 2015). Raj (2014) feels that home is inevitably bonded in physicality, the homeland. Homeland corresponds to imaginary boundaries of nation-states (Král et al., 2019). Diasporic citizens substantially invoke the notion of home which is real or imagined.

On the one hand, home is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination and a point of return, even a place to visit the territory of origin. In The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, Vikram’s mother experiences psychological and spatial dilemma and desire to return to India, her original homeland. She is emotionally attached to her native home and what kept her in Kenya were her children. The narrator observes that she had visited India twice “Mother had visited her homeland India twice since her father’s death” (270) to reveal the bond she holds for a place she calls home. She is ready to end her ties with Africa and go home as the narrator observes that India was calling her and she was ready to end African loneliness and finally return home. She emphasizes that what kept her in Kenya were only “her children Deepa and I (the narrator)” (270)

According to Vikram though, India has been always a fantasy to him, he says that “I have never visited my dada’s birthplace” (13). On the same note, he wonders about the circumstances which made his grandfather leave his home to venture into an alien land across the black water to make another home in the diaspora. The motivation behind migrating from one’s homeland to unknown destination, the quest to maintain their identity and the intention to cope with the challenges in the host community is an embodiment of diasporic challenges in postcolonial times.

Tsagarousianou (2004) observes that the notion of home is much more complex than the approaches to diasporas premised on the psychological power of nostalgia as anyone would want us to believe. This is intrinsically motivated by the forces of inclusion or exclusion of diaspora by the host community. This situation is intimately related to the complex political and personal dynamics the diasporic people are confronted with as they struggle to claim a sense of belonging. It calls for an exploration of diasporic tourism in the ideas writers advance in their articles (Palomino-Tamayo et al., 2022). As such the novels, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Gunny Sack amplify the concept of home orientations. The Gunny Sack portrays characters like Salim as people live at the periphery of the host country and dreaming of a utopian place to call home. Being homeless and in a foreign land, they owe allegiance and loyalty to the authorities in the host societies for their survival. For instance, the lives of Indian traders solely depended on the policies of the government of the day because a diaspora person is depicted as homeless. The narrator remarks:

For immigrants, loyalty to a land or a government, always loudly professed, is a trait one can normally look for vain. Governments may come and go, but the immigrants only concern is the security of their families, their trade and their savings. (52)

Diaspora people are alien members of the host society and do not influence the government of the day. They are depicted as fragmented people whose sole role is loyalty to their safety and security. Nervertheless, many governments will be formed and the presence of immigrants will always be there. This shows that with the inception of globalization in the postcolonial period, migration is inescapable.

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall also complicates the notion of home and homeland as a trans-border migration concern in the postcolonial dispensation thereby contributing to both psychological and spatial dilemma. The elusive sense of belonging and claiming Kenya as his home keeps on changing and disorientating him though he assertively proclaims that they are the third generation Africans (16). Though he claims Kenyan identity, he feels that his family or imaginary homeland is in India but he bluntly asserts that “India was always fantasy land to me. To this day I have never visited my dada’s birthplace (13).

Nevertheless, he strongly believes that his home is where he was born, and that is, Nakuru. The two novels question the concept of home and home orientations to the diasporas who are confronted with the dilemma of an imaginary home. Home is, therefore, a complex premise to the diasporic self as it is the overture for social inclusion or exclusion in claiming a sense of belonging.

Leetsch (2019) posits that for a person who’s gone away from his roots, memory is of crucial importance. Hence, The Gunny Sack happens to be ‘memory’. From the novel, Vassanji is not only configuring to remember but to go beyond- what to do, and how to cope with memory. The narrator asserts “Memory, Ji Bai would say, is this old sack here” (3) to denote that postcolonial diasporic consciousness is brought into perspective through memory. Through memory, the narrator explains how Ji Bai perceived the old sack to be intimate to the history of Asians in East Africa. As he rummages through the sack, he is able to understand the fragmented history and arrange it chronologically.

Barnes (2022) note that racial identity is deeply connected to one’s home and homeland as an individual’s identity is associated with a particular physical place. The idea of home plays a significant role in the formation of the identity of diasporic citizens. This consciousness about ones identity informs their various diasporic engagements including their socialization. An individual identity is configured by where he comes or originates from. In Vassanji’s, texts some characters like Vikram Lall in The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and Salim Juma in The Gunny Sack are in a relentless search for a place to call home. Vikram affirms his loyalty to Kenya where he was born. Being a descendant of Asian origin, he belongs to the third generation of Indians in Kenya. From the discussion with his childhood friend, Njoroge, he asserts that Nakuru was his home and never knew or wanted to go to India “And would the Asians go home to India? I didn’t want to go to India […] I knew of no world outside my Nakuru, this home, this backyard.” (49).

In addition, Vikram Lall’s paternal grandfather claims responsibility in the contribution to the construction of the railway in postcolonial Kenya. Anand Lall inscribes his name against the railway line to serve as a reminder of the painful experiences that indentured Asian immigrants who have lost their birthplace. Anand Lall has lost his birthplace, home and homeland through migration and has the quest to take up and claim a sense of belonging to the new “home” far in Africa. To claim his racial identity in Africa just outside the Nakuru railway station, he, engraved his paternal grandfather’s name on one of the rails “Anand Lal Peshawari” in Punjabi script (16). Postcolonial immigrants such as Anand Lall have the urge to establish themselves in a foreign land in the hope that they can claim a sense of belonging in their new home in the diaspora. The narrator is a third-generation immigrant who feels that Kenya is his home since he was born there. Nevertheless, to elucidate the sense of in-betweenness the narrator’s paternal grandfather inscribes his name and the name of his original birthplace in India. This illustrates their double consciousness and dilemma in a promising country, kenya far away from India, their original home.

The question about home becomes a crucial subject in The Gunny Sack. All events happening to a postcolonial diasporic person revolves around what happens back in their original homeland. For instance, the unfortunate murder of Mukhi Dhanji in postcolonial East Africa is thought to have a close connection with events that happened in India where the Shamshi community was torn apart by strife. Many fundamentalist parties sprung up with divergent positions resulting in the strife in Bombay and Zanzibar: “And now it seemed, in Matamu … Mukhi Dhanji Govindji, Sharrifu to the Swahilis was buried with full honours by the village of Matamu” (42). Dhanji’s murder is closely related to the strife in India where money is a central issue and his murder is a result of failing to send money back to India to support the Shamshi community.

Raj (2014) notes that while the diasporic communities share sentimental affection for the homeland with an eagerness to maintain their cultural identities and boundaries, some uphold the urge and the desire to return to their original homeland. This is compounded by the cultural and political exclusion of the host communities. In postcolonial realities, trans-border immigrants are characters living in psychological dilemma at the fringes of society and feeling displaced in alien lands. They are consumed by the nostalgic and sentimental feeling about home to which they have an emotional attachment and owe allegiance. For instance, in The Gunny Sack, the narrator gets the difficulty to owe loyalty to a foreign land. Loyalty to the government is loudly professed but the immigrants attach more importance to security for their families, trade and savings (52). The concern of an immigrant is the survival of their families regardless of their countless migrations. This is an emotional dilemma that results to alienation and sense of fragmentation of the diasporic people in the postcolonial period.

Meanwhile, Vikram knows nothing about India which is affecting the consciousness of his family, especially the father and the mother who never give up thinking about India. To his mother, the motherland, India, remains alive in her memory and always wants to go back to Peshawar, her birthplace. She struggles to connect herself with Kenya which is a foreign and hostile alien land for her. She feels that Kenya is a home of marriage, the country of her husband and children and feels in exile as the narrator admits that from their birthplace, the mother and brother had a lasting connection of a shared notion of exile in Peshawar (85).

Even though racial identity of trans-border immigrants is fluid, their search for their origin and the past is crucial. This is a moral responsibility of immigrants to know and have links towards their prosperous future as the history of their people elevates them to the next level. It is a necessity for the knowledge and survival of a diasporic community. Salim nostalgically recasts in The Gunny Sack and recollects that Ji Bai opened a small window to him to know his dark past as an immigrant. He is aware that his “great-grandparents left India with his great-grandmother who was an African (135). This relation hints at a mixed race which is neither African nor Indian, an in-between generation nor individual born by Indian and African parentage. This situation leads to a psychological dilemma when the individual begin to ask themselves about who they are and where they came from.

From the novel, it is evident through Ji Bai that the narrator can recast the past and history of Indians in East Africa. The contact between the Indian immigrant and an African woman led to a marriage in which a half-caste (Huseni) was born. Huseni suffers from racial identity crisis and a sense of unbelonging and this makes him run away from his home never to return. Hence, Vassanji unravels the images and dilemma of a postcolonial immigrant who is yearning for his place, identity and social completeness. He is passionate about the politics of displacement, settlement and post-colonialism which have made the concept of home elusive to the diaspora citizen who is caught up in a cross-road cultures and places.

 IN-BETWEENNESS AMONG TRANS-BORDER IMMIGRANTS.

Debates and discourses on migration, dispersion and in-betweenness have gained significant attention in the literary world in the recent decades. The notion of being an immigrant renders an individual carry the status of ‘foreigner’ ‘outsider’ or ‘other.’ In postcolonial situations, this definition constructs the undesired political and discriminative boundaries which lead to contested aspirations of the diasporic community to remain pure from the threats of hybridity. Regardless of the constant movement of people across the region and nations, the diaspora’s aspirations and configurations are intimately connected to the idea of boundary maintenance and in-betweenness in the host nations. The notion behind this is to ensure that the unstable cultural identity of the diaspora is not contaminated by the dominant culture in the host country.

 Cohen (2008) observes that migrants can be dispersed to one, some or  an infinite number of destinations. Diaspora people can settle someplace in the host community or continue moving or regrouping in search of a habitable place creating new waves of outward migrants from homelands and altering their major behavioural traits as the diaspora community. Hence, members of the diaspora are by definition mobile people. In the process of hopping from one location to another, they are prone to undergo traumatic situations of hybridity as they seek new opportunities to emerge, re-emerge and survive in unique locations.

Dispersion does not only lead to the separation of immigrants from their families and communities but also leads to cultural alienation in a foreign location. Reji (2017) notes that cultures are never static, they evolve through history. The self-conscious constructed nature of living is revealed through migration processes. Cultural production transforms the familiar into something strange. To the postcolonial immigrant in East Africa, hybridity exhibits features that manifest scars that are anchored in their migration histories which percolate through their skin colour, mind and souls. As such, the Indian community, though trapped in alien land, endeavours to maintain its cultural ethos and identity. It does not shed its Indianness and members of this community live an Indian life in Africa. In The Gunny Sack, the narrator comments that they live in two worlds. They navigate through African terrains carrying heavy Indian trunk which symbolizes their identity. The narrator says:

“… Indians have barged into Africa with our black trunk and every time it comes in our way. Do we need it? I should have come with a small bag, a rucksack. Instead I came with ladoos, jelebis, chevdo. Toilet paper. A woollen suit. And I carried them on my head like a fool” (204).

For Indian immigrants in East Africa the close ties and affiliation to India proves troublesome and poses a psychological dilemma. The situation makes it difficult for Asians in Africa to integrate or assimilate with host communities because of strict cultural dictates and the fear to bring forth a hybrid generation. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall reinforces the desire of Indian immigrants to maintain their Indianness boundaries in postcolonial Kenya; the shopping centre in Nakuru town is a zoned area where each community occupies its territory as the narrator observes “the Asian development in which we lived consisted of four rectangular buildings on either side of a small street, every two adjoining homes and servant quarter at the back” (23). Alternatively, the area where Lall‘s shop is situated is a dominantly European zone. The Indian community have their territorial niche to the opposite end of the mall marked by opulent stores, a depiction of social cohesion in the Indian community. Compounded by the segregative policies perpetuated by colonialists situates every community to its boundaries. The shopping centre only serves as a convergence zone where children from the three races can meet to at least interact.

In The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, Vikram becomes an influential figure in the new government under Jomo Kenyatta and feels that he has a claim in the new postcolonial Kenya. The paradox is that his claim for citizenship is elusive to him as the powerful individuals in post-independent Kenya side-line him to maintain the status quo. What seems that Vikram Lall has finally constructed his Kenyan national identity later comes to haunt him. Paul Nderi, a corrupt minister uses Vikram to legitimize fraudulent money transactions. He is framed in a gemstone scandal and sacked by the government. In demonstrating that Vikram is not a Kenyan citizen, Paul Nderi asserts “…you people have your feet planted in both countries, and when one place gets too hot for you, you flee to the other.” (314) Vikram replies rather angrily: “we people …don’t have a place anywhere, not even where we call home” (314). In The Gunny Sack during the brief engagement between Salim and Amina the barriers to claiming citizenship and class become insurmountable in a post-colonial nation. The derogatory and exclusionary discourses that “Africa is for Africans” after Tanzania’s independence psychologically disturbs the Indian immigrants and Asians are forced to intermarry with Africans out of emotional dilemma. Juma feels that his community is discriminated against and maligned at the fringes of the new postcolonial regime. The Asians are regarded as the “other”. In his conversation with Amina, Salim protests: “Why do you call me an Indian? I was born here. My father was born here-even my grandfather!” she accusingly answers, “And then? Beyond that? What did they come to do, these ancestors of yours? …Perhaps you conveniently forgot—they financed slave trade!”(211). Vassanji foregrounds the notion of nationhood and citizenship as a contested ideology that destabilizes the emotional frame of the affected characters. An immigrant is neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’ in the face of the host communities who regard immigrants as illegitimate citizens. It is on this ground that Salim contests and claims his citizenry in Tanganyika where he and his father were born though have they their roots and connection to India.

Mamidala (2017) observes that in the postcolonial period, there are wide varieties of concerns that need to be addressed properly to procure social identity amidst diversity. These concerns are broad in their spreading, deep in their rooting in society, rife in their number, and cool in their temperament, surprisingly. In this context, the cultural identity of Asians in East Africa plays a significant role to postcolonial immigrants in the two novels. The Indian culture is for instance defined as beliefs, thoughts, implementation, customs, traditions, and works created by thought processes by an individual entity or a group of people of a particular ethnicity. Thus cultural maintenance of the trans-border immigrant has been a contentious issue, especially in marriage. In The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Vikram’s mother, Sheila, puts a spirited attempt to preserve the Indian cultural heritage in her family. When she realises that her only daughter, Deepa, is falling in love with Njoroge, a Kenyan black boy, she hurriedly makes arrangements for her to be married by an Indian boy, Dilip, as a hinge to maintain the Asian racial identity. This is to ensure that the Indian heritage is maintained for it was an abomination for an Indian to marry an African. She asserts that she has no cousins, uncles or parents and wants to have a normal family of Indian origin when she asserts:

“I have dreams too, of children and grandchildren – whom I can understand, can speak to … and bring up in our ways. I have nothing against Africans. But we are different. (115)

Deepa, as a third-generation immigrant, sees no apparent reason why she should not marry Njoroge, her childhood friend. According to her, there was no conflict between African and Indian identities and this is not an obstacle to actualize her marriage with Njoroge. Her mother opposes the marriage for the fear of diluting or losing their cultural heritage and bringing forth a hybrid generation which is neither Indian nor African. However, Juma Molabux goes against this notion of maintaining Asian purity and boundary by marrying a Maasai woman, Sakina Dadi, something entirely unheard of among members of the Indian community. The narrator says “the marriage terms agreed on, Juma Molabux went to Nakuru and fetched his friend and fellow Peshawaree, my grandfather, to act as his escort…” (32).

The marriage process takes place with strict observation of the Indian customs and traditions. Conversely, in The Gunny Sack Dhanji Govindji forced by circumstances also marries a slave as the narrator states “…she was called Bibi Taratibu, Gentle One; a slave discarded to an Indian on the slave route from Kilwa. The slave trade was over but the keeping of slaves, especially women, had persisted on the coast” (12). When Dhanji Govindji arrives at Kilwa he walks to the nearest store and asks for a Mukhi, a religious local leader of the Indian community in the diaspora. When he locates Mukhi’s store, Dhanji is warmly welcomed by Mukhi Ragavji Devraj. The narrator affirms that:

There is a Mukhi in London, in Singapore, in Toronto. There is still a Mukhi in Matamu, but there is no longer in Junapur (history has seen that). You could land in Singapore and call up the local Mukhi.” (11).

Vassanji underscores religion and religious practices as core pillars in connecting and strengthening the identity of Asians in the diaspora. The Muhki is regarded as a respected religious Asian leader among the Indian Shamsis and it is his responsibility to welcome the new Indian members in the diaspora and make them comfortable as they acclimatize to the new alien environment.

Trinka (2021) remarks that one’s identity as a postcolonial immigrant can be informed by one’s socio-cultural background which provides means for active engage in their experiences. This takes place in ways that include identity negotiation, repeating religious histories of movement, reimaging and recreating sites of religious importance and self-identification. From The Gunny Sack socio-cultural boundary between the Shamsi and non-Shamsi is evident in Matamu where Govindji settles. The Shamsi character as they negotiate their fluid ethnic identity with the host community, Govindji is forced by circumstances to marry Bibi Taratibu, a discarded African slave but later marries Fatima of Indian extraction. The narrator dramatizes socio-cultural engagements of the people of different ethnic communities living in Kariakoo along the street Kichwele:

“…vendors, hawkers, peddlers, askaris, thieves, beggars and other more ordinary pedestrians making their way in the dust and the blinding glare and the heat, in kanzus, msuris, cut-offs, shorts, khaki or white uniforms, khangas, frocks, buibuis, frock-pachedis…African, Asian, Arab; Hindu, Khoja, Memon, Shamsi; Masai, Makonde, Swahili… men and women of different shades and hues and beliefs. (101)

Thus, Kariakoo society which comprises different shades of people is stratified according to their unique and distinctive socio-cultural beliefs. Hence, Vassanji constructs the dilemma and melancholia of postcolonial experiences of post-independent countries that reflect societies as fragmented, hopeless and disillusioned. Diaspora characters suffer and struggle with the dilemma of discrimination and marginalization in their native host land. In The Gunny Sack, the narrator tells the stories of his convoluted childhood stories in face of social stratification as he explains:

As you approach it [Africa] from the sea, as you enter the harbour, you see the right all these beautiful, white buildings of the Europeans…behind his beautiful white European face of the town is our modern Indian district, every community in its own separate area, and behind that the African quarter going right into the forest” (29)

In this excerpt, the narrator admires the beauty of white buildings for Europeans who have built magnificent buildings to depict their social class and their superiority over other subjects. Behind the Europeans’ building, there is a settlement for Indians followed by African quarters at the periphery of the forest. The narrator underscores the fact that Kariakoo society is stratified according to race and no mixing whatsoever as every community has its niche and native African occupy the bottom strata.

In The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Diwali is a holy day to not only Indians in the diaspora but also Indians at home. It is regarded as a day when their Lord Rama returned victorious to his kingdom Ayodha after defeating the ten-headed demon called Ravana. This religious day is strictly worshipped not only by Indians in India but also by Indians in the diaspora. The narrator notes: “Diwali is the day when Lord Rama returned victorious to Ayodhya, an enchanted place in far-off India, having defeated the ten-headed demon Ravana, way South on the island of Lanka.” (69) Being members in the diaspora, the Indians maintain their cultural identity by observing the doctrines of Diwali. Hence, religion as an ingredient of culture unites the identity, community, teachings, and practice of Asians. Patru (2021) notes that religious practice is therefore an essential element that belongs to religion and the followers closely adhere to the teachings to unify the members. Religious practices can express themselves in rites and rituals, in moral behaviour and ethics to maintain the cultural identity of diaspora citizens in the postcolonial era.

The post-colonial climate in which the two novels frame trans-border migration has greatly contributed to language contact and language change among the diaspora citizens who are caught between homes, here and there. The outcome of migration in the two novels continues to haunt the characters. Vassanji attempts to elucidate the dilemma of the Asian diaspora whether to maintain the use of their mother tongue in socialization, switch to the use of words from the host community. As they strive to establish positive connections with the host society and at the same time maintain their cultural heritage, language is the pivotal medium of interaction.

The purity of the English language by a trans-border immigrant in postcolonial scenarios is thwarted by the mixture of Hindi, Swahili and other Indian languages resulting in linguistic hybridity as a tenet in the postcolonial period. In The Gunny Sack the narrator has used many forms of Swahili words like mshenzis, dengu, mchawi, mdachis, kanzu, mswaki, karibu, ‘Maji! Maji! Homa Homa!’ (28). In fact, before the beginning of the novel he uses Swahili with its translation:

enga taa katika pepo

haiziwiliki izimikapo sasa mi

huona izimishiye (iv)

[Behold the lantern in the wind

now beyond help

you see it extinguished]

Indian language is also used extensively in the novel for instance taiya chhie (ready), larkeon ko pasand karte hai (love the girls). Vikram, The In-between World of Vikram Lall, admits that he is able to communicate in English and some rudimental Hindi while at the same time making efforts to speak Gujarati and Cutchi (195). He uses words like daitya (devil), bhaiya (elder brother), kem che (how are you), and are paaga! (you, mad). There are also several Swahili expressions like “nyinyi wahindi wenye adabu, kwa kweli, lakini (you Indians are brought up well but later is not the way). Mahesh uncle also mutters Punjab abusive language: “baadmash sale…kamine…nech…kambakht log…bastards” (33). Language plays a crucial role in the life of a postcolonial immigrant. The use of mother tongue in daily interactions not only creates conformity among immigrants but also enhances the preservation of their culture. Vassanji is attracted to the usage of Indian vernacular languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Cutchi, and Punjabi, among others. Hence, vernacular language helps diasporic people to maintain the strong feeling and emotional bonding and explore socio-cultural, historical and political concerns in the diaspora. Nevertheless, through the socialization process between members of the Asian community and the host community, linguistic hybridity is inevitable for a diasporic person whose very existence is a dilemma of unprecedented proportions.

CONCLUSION

This paper has explored discourses on psychological dilemma on trans-border migration in M.G Vassanji’s novels The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Gunny Sack as experiences of dilemma to diasporic communities. The concept of trans-border migration complicates the notion of home which has a deep and complicated emotional attachment of diasporic people. In this case, trans-border migration between countries has been a crucial feature in postcolonial societies where the question of identity has been constantly invoked by diaspora people. It exposes migrants a forced hybrid of different cultures of the host country. As such, they find themselves entangled in unique and alien lands which lead to emotional as well as physical dilemma.

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