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Homesick
People’s lives cross over; they are interconnected and interrelated with varying degrees of intimacy. They forge ties that wind and bind. Such is the case for a group of Sri Lankan families living in south London. Their location is the same, origins are similar but destinations different. But for one brief moment, they all occupy the same space, Victor and Nandini’s party ushering in the year 1983 with common hopes and dreams. And their lives and stories veer off from this point, sometimes converging at occasions and celebrations. Roshi Fernando’s award-winning debut novel Homesick charts the fluctuating fortunes of this group of Sri Lankan immigrants in England. Cataloguing their trials and tribulations in dealing with the unpredictability of life with the additional burden of trying to blend and belong in a foreign land. Their stories and recollections are usually sparked by something seemingly mundane which sets off an emotional chain reaction; triggering memories and causing revelations. The book is like a photo album filled with captured moments in time. The pictures aren’t always pretty but are poignant and pivotal. Calling them short stories may be strictly speaking accurate but is devaluing for they all add up to form a bigger picture. Adding to each other, mirroring each other and sometimes completing each other.
These stories catalogue human problems and suffering. A repository of incidents people aren’t supposed to talk about and feelings they aren’t encouraged to have. Their secrets and their shame; their pressure and their pain; their grief and their coping mechanisms. These problems are not always addressed head on, many a time referenced in an off-the-cuff manner, sometimes explicit sometimes implicit. But their problems run the gamut and are not specific to immigrants or Sri Lankans. They grapple with abuse, adultery, alcoholism, depression, discrimination, divorce, isolation, and violence. All of them experience racism and alienation which does varying degrees of damage from a moment of distress to a brutal crime. Sadly, it becomes apparent that even over the decades spanned in the book discrimination and racism still loom large in a so-called civilised society even though the pain, needs and hopes of humanity are universal. Roshi Fernando has a way with words. Her prose is distinctive and expressive, literary yet relatable, poetic yet pop cultured. The parallels she draws and the visuals she conjures up shine a new light on things making the familiar fresh. The author possesses the ability to make her characters very real, rendering them almost unto flesh. There is so much introspection and emotion that sometimes it feels almost intrusive. She successfully captures and conveys the emotional toll of trying to belong in an alien environment while maintaining a sense of self and retaining an attachment to the land of their forefathers. All the characters are introduced at the very onset and are ambiguously described which is detrimental to comprehension. And their lot may be laden with more than their fair share of suffering because for every sliver of hope there is a heaping of gloom. People’s lives and experiences are dictated by their actions and choices and these actions and choices are predicated on their identity and sense of self. For some their identities are fragmented and fraught. While others are determined to assimilate leaving their old lives behind. Then there are those who simply refuse to indulge these notions despite their validity, too tied up in other matters. Yet for most of them their identity is something ephemeral, just out of their grasp and they never quite make their peace with it. So what happens to those people whose identities are fragmented and sense of self in a constant state of flux?
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Victor
and Nandini are hard working people, trying to be good parents and
providers but their efforts, while well intentioned, often miss the
mark. Their insistence for their children to walk the straight and
narrow manifests in an arranged marriage between Deirdre and their gay
son Rohan; which is doomed from the start. Their daughter Preethi
struggles to cope with the harsh demands of personal, social and
scholastic life, leaving her fragile and at breaking point more than
once. Then there is Mr Basit whose job brings him a terrible bounty of
violence and death one night. His daughter Jenny struggles to choose
between her husband and her home. And with each generation they grow
more divided and not just in their beliefs and ideals but also their
bond with their home country which becomes more distant and tenuous.