Publishers’ catalogues these days are stuffed with diasporic stories: roving reporters with mid-western twangs and hennaed hands searching for a postmodern twist to the old arranged marriage tale, earnest graduates from the home counties seeking to exorcise their bangla bhooths. Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri and a herd of others leap to mind — and leap out again, like so many springbok. Writers such as Amitav Ghosh and V.S. Naipaul weigh in on the other end of the scale: hard acts to follow.
Into this crowded arena comes a journalist from San Francisco who spent seven years travelling to retrace the diverse histories of 75 members of her far-flung family. The result is a book that is by turns revelatory and poetic, informative and touching. Leaving India tells the story of the spread of Indians — which she dates to 1834 with the end of slavery and start of Indian indentured labour — to today’s world with up to 30 million people of Indian origin living abroad.
Hajratwala’s book is highly accomplished, meticulously researched and beautifully written. Her ambitions, however, are apparently small: to tell the story of one family from southern Gujarat, starting with her great-grandfather’s departure to Fiji. This is how she speculates on his thoughts:
“The year was 1909 and he was not afraid.
Or: He was desperate. His father and three of his brothers had died; he was the man of the house; he had to do something.
Or: They had not yet died; he was carefree… and did not think of his own death.
Or: When he took his family’s leave, none of them dared hope to see the other again.”
Hajratwala tells the story of colonialism, apartheid, the Indian freedom struggle, ‘brain drain’: in short, globalisation. There are books in which lives are swept along by historical forces. But there are few where both micro- and macroscopic perspectives are in sharp focus: one illuminating the other in a fascinating dance. If Sea of Poppies is one, Leaving India is surely another.