How does Rajiv’s melancholia manifest itself in Antiman, and how does it compare to his father’s attitude toward his Indo-Guyanese culture?
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Rajiv’s melancholia manifests in Antiman through his connection to his Aji. He claims that she represents Sita, a beautiful woman who was once married to a man named Ram, who abandons her while pregnant after she followed him into fourteen years of exile—much like when Aji was widowed at the age of forty-four with her fourteen children.
Through storytelling and songs, Rajiv finds a way to hold on to his heritage, despite not being as in touch with his home country or language as he would like. Instead, he feels obligated to live a life of pretending and performing whiteness. Rajiv’s experience exemplifies what we discussed in class regarding second-generation migrants—the melancholia of not knowing exactly what is missing, but feeling deeply that something vital is absent.
Through stories, Rajiv copes by linking metaphors of colonization, indenture, and sugar servitude to British rule. His Aji is where his melancholia is most palpable, as she symbolizes the culture the family once had but lost to Western influence. She represents the colorful villages and languages that Rajiv longs to understand, embodying the erasure of culture that her own family imposed on her out of fear of not fitting in—especially when Rajiv himself knows the desire for acceptance all too well.
On the contrary, Rajiv’s father has a different perspective. As we discussed in class, first-generation migrants tend to be less melancholic, as their focus is often on quick assimilation. They wish for their children not to be burdened by what they themselves are missing. Rajiv’s father exemplifies this, insisting on learning “useful” languages instead of their own, adopting Christian names, and refusing to teach Rajiv about the Ramayana—the one tangible link Rajiv had to his cultural roots. After Rajiv was accepted into university, he recalls: "I remember him later that evening cleaning the ashes into a gray plastic bin, a kind of cremation ceremony for his previous life."
This text highlights the generational divide in immigrant experiences in the West. How much time in one's home country is too much to assimilate later on? And how long in the host country is too long before you lose access to your own language, stories, and songs? What happens when you're caught in the middle—wanting to assimilate, but feeling unable to? –"Ma, what are you teaching Raimie? The Ramayana is for Hindus, not us." "Not for us?" I said. "This is your own mother singing the song that her mother taught her. How is this not us?"