ARRIVAL LOUNGE
FINDING HER FEET IN A FLOW OF WORDS
Bhaswati Ghosh’s first book of fiction, Victory Colony, 1950, has just been published.
Bhaswati Ghosh came to Canada nine years ago, in 2011, from California. She and her husband were in the US for less than two years, immediately following their marriage.
Before that, she lived in New Delhi, the city of her birth.
While living in the US, they were in contact with friends who lived across the border and felt encouraged to make the move, drawn by Canada’s immigrant-friendly policies and high quality of healthcare. The stimulating and rich diversity of the country’s immigrant mix was also a factor.
They were both unemployed for two months after landing in Canada. After this, her husband found work in his field, IT, and a few months later, Ghosh found work in a local South Asian weekly publication. After spending a year and a half in the GTA, they moved to London, Ontario, and found jobs commensurate with their qualifications and experience.
“So owing to chance circumstances, we were fortunate to come across the right opportunities without a lot of the struggle many immigrants have to experience,” she says.
The writer and translator now works full-time as a communications professional in a corporate organization. Ghosh is the recipient of the Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship for her translation of My Days with Ramkinkar Baji .
Her first book of fiction, Victory Colony, 1950, has just been published.
“The seed for the story came to me in an unexpected way,” she says. “I was reading a short story by my maternal grandmother, Amiya Sen, who had family roots in East Bengal. The story focused on a young woman from an economically poorer section at the time of Partition. The story ended tragically and moved me so much that I wanted to imagine what could have happened if she had crossed over to India safely and looked to rebuilding her life there. So I wasn’t necessarily thinking of writing about history or a period in time. I was more interested in telling a human story of struggle and resilience that just happened to be set in a particular point of time.
“The protagonists, Amala and Manas, are completely fictional. I am sure snatches of real people must have coloured the shaping of these characters, but they aren’t based on any one person or even a collage of people from stories. I consciously stayed away from Partition literature from the East lest they influenced my characterization and storytelling.”
Set against the backdrop of the Partition, Victory Colony details the trauma of lives upended, the struggle to pick up the pieces and start afresh. Themes that are very relevant today, as well, when refugees can be viewed as a burden on the host country.
“This perception about refugees isn’t limited to time or place, unfortunately,” says Ghosh. “Refugees are often seen as disruptors, which they are, but not because of any fault of theirs. Arguably, not all disruption is bad. I am not a historian or a social scientist, but I do know from both my reading and lived experience that refugees often boost not only the economy of the country/region they become part of but also broaden the cultural and linguistic horizon of the same.”
The book has many words and expressions in Bangla.
“The Bangla references made their way into the narrative quite naturally, as an extension of the characters and their environment. I wasn’t consciously throwing Bengali words to make a point. I did make an effort to weave them into the text in a way that they didn’t seem too indecipherable to the non-Bengali reader, though. The book and its central theme seem to have resonated with quite a few of such readers in its journey so far, so hopefully, I have been able to make it work.”
Asked for tips for newcomers, this is what Ghosh has to say: “With the disclaimer that every immigrant’s situation is unique to them and there are no standard solutions to our challenges, I would say patience and flexibility are your best allies in this journey. The patience to accept that opportunities might take time and effort to materialise. And the flexibility to look beyond your core area of professional expertise when it comes to employment. Make use of the time you have in the waiting period to connect with fellow immigrants and expand the scope of your work experience. Don’t discount volunteer and freelance opportunities as they all help make your resumé more robust.”
Click here for Bookworm’s review of Victory Colony, 1950.
• If you’d like to share the story of your arrival in Canada, please write to desinews@rogers.com or call 416-695-4357.
