A CALL FOR A LIFE OF JOYFUL AND MEANINGFUL INTEGRATION: THE BALANCED MODE OF DIASPORIC LIFE IN SACRED WATERS BY MEIRA CHAND

The life of people on the globe is a phenomenon that escapes an easy grasp. People live with a dynamism which enables them to get adopted or adjusted to the new living conditions. Diaspora literature captures the vibrant rhythm of lives of people who happened to be in different countries other than their homeland due to either enforced situations or self made choices. People began to migrate and settle more with the advent of colonialism and its effects on the lives of the people. Thus in the changed living conditions people responded in very many ways and tried to strike a balance among the different meaning giving sources. Some of them lived a life of regret, or at least with a predominance of remorse and alienated feelings whereas some happened to be fully absorbed to the new vistas and continue to live. Here surprisingly, some of them tried to imbibe what is better from the old and new and by integrating them resorted to construct a joyful mode of existence. And this did not invite much remorse and feelings of loss. Rather, they found a more meaningful and dynamic way of life. Meira Chand, in her novel Sacred Waters, portrays the lives of Sita as an attempt for the joyful and meaningful integration which inevitably reflects a balanced mode of diasporic life. Without being fully loaded by the past and avoiding a total absorption, this mode helps to find out an effective and meaningful existence by coming out the barriers. The adopted daughter of Sita, Amita also shines as an embodiment of powerful choices amidst the situations necessitated by the nature of diasporic life.