Mythical Homes and Violent Realities: Reading Gujarat in M. G. Vassanji's A Place Within

Abstract

In this essay, I read M. G. Vassanji's travel-memoir A Place Within: Rediscovering India, as a diasporic traveler's personal journey and search for the self, and as a political critique of postcolonial India. I argue that as Vassanji, a diasporic traveler removed from his original homeland by many generations and geographies, searches for his roots seeking affirmation of his mythical memory, and as he tries to come to terms with the differences between the imagined and the real Gujarat, he represents the angst of the diasporic subject. Finally, this paper explores how Vassanji uses the travelogue not only as a way of recording his cultural memory, but as a means of challenging simplified visions of India's past.