The Problem of Immigrant and Nastalgia in the Novel of Uma Parameswaran’s "Dear Deedi, My Sister"

Abstract

This research paper focuses on Indian women’s experience of immigration, nostalgia, culture, language and tradition in the literary works of Uma Parameswaran. The author focuses on one novel: Dear Deedi, My Sister. In this novel, Sapna did not have the feelings of nostalgia, because she could visit India through letters written and received to her dearest ‘deedi’ or sister. The feeling of nostalgia also grasps the immigrants from India as well as other countries in Parameswaran’s works, particularly in Dear Deedi, My Sister. Sapna, a woman from India, writes to her sister living in her native country. The feeling associated with ‘deedi’, cannot be conveyed through the English word ‘sister’. Sapna continues to write depicting a contrast between Canada and India; a contrast, which throws into respite her nostalgia for a land that she left; a land that continues to live in her memory.

Keywords: Nostalgia, immigration, native land, diasporas, personal letters, Uma Parameswaran.