Rootlessness and Identity Formation: A Study of Manjushree Thapa’s All of Us

in Our Own Lives

Kaliprasanna Das

Diaspora is a process of crossing and recrossing multiple boundaries of culture,

language and history and relocating to a new cultural and historical atmosphere. South-Asian

diaspora is constructed by the relocation of the people from the Indian sub-continent to other

nation-states. But within this South-Asian diaspora, the Nepali diaspora is less known as it

has been marginalised because of its lack of representation. Therefore, the Nepali diaspora

literature is marginalised and therefore less discussed. According to prof. Lahiri,“The corpus

of Nepalese, Bhutanese and Tibetan diasporic literary output in English is also not as much

visible as those of other South Asian countries” (69)But Manjushree Thapa, is one of the rare

Nepali writers who, in her novel, All of Us in Our own Lives, bestows her effort to represent

the Nepali diaspora. She also explores the different types of diasporic people in this novel.

This paper intends to examine how Thapa deals with diasporic subject matters like

rootlessness and identity formation in her novel.

Migration means the individual must relocate himself afresh, for which causes

separation from his roots of origin or homeland. This uprootedness from one’s homeland

leads to an identity crisis and this Identity crisis further leads to recreating a new identity.

Thus, the identity of the diaspora is very flexible, the identity of a person changes as he

comes in contact with members of other communities. As Stuart Hall writes “diaspora

identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew,

through transformation and difference” (“Who Needs Identity” 120). At this point, a relevant

question arises, whether adopting a new identity inevitably results in the disposal of the first.

A number of studies have shown that immigrants can feel emotionally attached to the new
country without losing their attachment to their homeland. Therefore, a person can have

multiple identities, which are changing over time.

Manjushree Thapa, a Nepali woman writer, who lives in Canada, feels for her native

people. She was born in Kathmandu and raised in Nepal, Canada and America. Her family

also lived in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Switzerland, and India at various times. Thus, she has

a first-hand experience of a diasporic subject in a foreignland/s. Through her novel All of Us

in Our Own Lives, she deliberately represents the issue that a Nepali person has to face in his

or her ‘Homeland’ and the difficulty and obligations to make a foreignland as Home. She also

brings Nepal’s social and political situation to light in this novel. She is one of the very few

English writers in Nepal who has been published internationally and because of her works,

the people of the world can know about the plight and struggle of Nepali and Nepali diaspora.

“With deft touches she evokes disparate lives both in Nepal and abroad, and conveys emotion

of her characters”(Gowsami) through her novel All of Us in Our Own Lives.

All of Us in Our Own Lives is a novel where the theme of identity and rootlessness

bind almost all the major characters. Many of the displaced characters like; Ava, Gyanu,

Chandra, or even Surya express their lack of direction in life resulting from the sense of loss

they feel once they are in an alien land. All the major characters represent different socio-

cultural background and each belongs to different stages of emotional consciousness. Thapa,

follows each character’s journey in the midst of rootlessness and identity crisis and also

weaves them with the journeys of other characters. Thus, it also discusses various types of the

diaspora in a single piece of work.

One of the central characters, Ava Berriden is a Canadian lawyer but as the narrative

progresses it is revealed that she has some connection with Nepal. When she was still a baby,

she was adopted by a rich Canadian dentist-couple from an orphanage in Kathmandu.

Struggling after unrewarding career for a long time and disgusted by her married life with

Gavin, she feels directionless and uprootedness, she feels that her identity is not completed in

Canada. Therefore, she returns back to Nepal in search of her roots and identity. Coming back

to Nepal she starts working in an NGO hoping to help the country in the grassroot level.

Through this work she tries to free herself from her guilt that she received all the facilities of

a developed country like Canada, while most of her Nepali people suffering from poverty.

This inner feeling of Ava has come out in the words of her brother Luke, “I think, Big Sis,

that you’re going to Nepal because this rich Canadian dentist couple rescued you from the

life of Third World poverty, and you think you don’t deserve it, you think you have to repay

the debt” (Thapa 24). But after coming to Nepal she is disillusioned by the condition of Nepal

and its aid industry. She realises that millions of dollars that come as an aid for the needy

never get them. Instead, a handful of aid workers and government agents make a profit.

Ava’s identity comes into question when she returns to Nepal, her birthplace. Though

she outwardly tries to distance herself from Nepali identity, in her inner self she knew that

she is continuously growing an affinity with her birthplace. Ava does not want to tell anyone

about her real origin. That’s why she did not make much effort to go around the city, to travel,

or to talk to anybody other than her colleagues. However, frequently she has been asked by

the locals about her heritage because she looks like a Nepali. She even tries to know from her

friends what they make of her race/ caste from her appearance. This instance proves how

alienated she feels all the time. She is dangling between her two identities; she is neither

completely Canadian nor completely Nepali.

Though, Ava always tries to avoid visiting the orphanage from where she had been

adopted, she could not help but wonder whether subconsciously she had come all the way to

Nepal in order to find her roots and to redefine identity accordingly. Undoubtedly, a part of

her identity is linked with Nepal and the orphanage. In order to get a grip of her past and
reconstruct a part of her identity which she had suppressed all the time, she needs to first

acknowledge the fact that she is from Nepal and then try to internalize it. Therefore, one fine

day, she finally decides to visit the orphanage. But this time she does not find the orphanage

as a crumble wreck out of Charles Dicken’s novels, as she had assumed it to be. Through this

visit to the orphanage, Ava is searching for her root and identity and tries to establish a sense

of belonging.

After her experience of serving the country of her origin could she whole-heartedly

accept the privileged life she led so far: “She’s seen in Nepal how fragile life can be. It’s all

we have, it’s all she has. A chance to be fully alive” (194). Ava could recognize and enjoy her

full life only after coming to terms with her Nepali roots. She found parts of herself in Nepal

connecting to the land through her work.

Gyanu represents the section of diaspora that ventures to the new land as labour.

Without any high education and proper skill, young people from Nepal migrate to the develop

or developing countries of Middle-East and Central Asia. They work on the basis of contract.

They work hard and live under inhuman condition in extreme weather. Gyanu is one among

them. Although his job as a head chef at a five-star hotel is not as bad, he is still treated as

someone disposable. Unlike Ava, he is not looking for his roots back in home, instead he is

willing to move abroad and settle somewhere else with his girlfriend Maleah and her son

from the Philippines. He also feels responsible towards his family back in Nepal but at the

same time, he does not want to stay back. While Ava longs for a direction in life moving

forward as she undergoes personal and professional crises, Gyanu longs for a life that is not

as desperate, because of poverty, social inequality and lack of self-will.

But for a diaspora, no matter how comfortable life may in a foreign land, the longing

for home never subsides. They might get used to living in a new place because they had been
there for a long enough time but their hearts always, long for the home left behind. In the

words of Himadri Lahiri, homeland “is associated with personal and/or ancestral memory”.

And “it generates in the diaspora subject a strong desire for return” (lahiri 46). Gyanu feels

the same way. But the labours diaspora like Gyanu and his friends have to suffer through

everything to earn a living. Gyanu had seen his friends get cheated, raped, killed or go

mentally unstable working in such a harsh-conditions. But still, he could not completely

discard the place and go back home. this is how they become rootless from their own identity

of Nepal.

Gyanu’s life bears resemblance to Ava in one point. After Gyanu was born, his mother

had married his step father whom he refers to as ‘Ba’. But in her deathbed, his mother had

reflected over the fact that she could not give him his own identity because, she left his father

to be with the man she loved. At this point, when his mother and step-father are both dead, he

is at a crossroads. Much like Ava’s situation, Gyanu is also going through a phase of identity

crisis. Like Ava, he has no clue about his biological father and is therefore drifting through

space and time to find his own standing.

Who knew where he would, himself, end up? He, who didn’t even know

where he’d been born: for Ma’s life before Ba had never been mentioned in

their family. Only at the very end, on her deathbed, had Ma acknowledged it.

You had to give up your past so I could live, she’d said to Gyanu. ‘I couldn’t

even give you your own identity.’

Could a man who didn’t know where he started ever know where he‘d end up?

(Thapa 37)
In addition to this two diaspora characters, there is Indira Sharma who is in paris for her

office work. She often visits big cities and tour around the world for work. Her visits, abroad

are professional that include activities like attending seminars, meetings, shoppings etc..

Thus, she experiences cultures of varous countries. But as a Nepali, she always finds herself

comparing the refinement of life in the first world to the life back home that is defined by

hardship and scarcity. This makes her sad for her identity as a Nepali.

Indira always regretted the way she, as a Nepali, had to blunder through life,, without

refinement, without joy, merely getting the needful done. Emotionally it saddened her,

though rationally she understood why this was so. There is no comparing and

contrasting her life with the lives of people from Paris. The developed world was the

developed world, and Nepal was Nepal. (Thapa 8)

Surya is another character who loses her Nepali root and does not come back to her

homeland. Actually, she considers the place of her settlement (migration) as her home.

Desiring to help her family financially and to be independent, she took a salaried job in Delhi

through an agent in Kathmandu. But after the day she left, she lost contact with the family for

years. Considering the fact that Nepali girls are sold in India into human trafficking, everyone

suspected that Surya might have been sold to a brothel in India. Thus, Surya becomes

disconnected or loses her roots from her birthplace. But it is revealed that she has not to face

any such inhuman torture at the brothel. She even encourages Chandra to come to India and

work as a maid. Migrating for work has been a cultural norm in Nepal. They work in menial

jobs enduring unmitigated hardships and discrimination just to make ends meet. Chandra’s

recitation of a poem clearly shows the situation of the Nepali people.

What grows in this still villages

but death. To stay is to die.

 to leave is to die.

Mother! Save me.

I’m fading. (Thapa 117)

Thapa, thus, creates multi-dimentional and all round characters placing each of them in

different realm of life. All these diverse diaspora population are searching for their own roots

and identity. Every individual is trying to assert his/her own Identity. Search for identity is

very personal quest, unique to each individual. In a new land, diaspora thus , tries to construct

his/her own identity. Diaspora are always in a tricky position regarding the construction of

their new identity, while they are constructing new identities for themselves, the older sense

of identity might sometimes need deconstructing. This continuous construction and

deconstruction of a sense of self to create a firm sense of identity is a challenge for every

diaspora. For instance, Ava took the way towards her roots in Nepal, from where she was

adopted and started working for the needy to realise her sense of identity. Whereas, Gyanu

followed his heart away from Nepal to be with the person he loves. Indira, on the other hand,

realised her identity as the first woman director of WDS Nepal doing away with male

dominance and unequal social circumstances for women. Each character followed his/her

own path to realizing the sense of identity.