Contemporary Parvasi (Diasporic) Punjabi Stories: Presentation and Dissemination of Migrant Consciousness

The history of Punjab is stained by invaders, trauma of partition and agriculture crisis. All these factors to a great extent were responsible for the migration of the younger generation of Punjab to the foreign lands. The dream of a better life, better job opportunities and to create a new identity different from the shattered one in the native land becomes the reason behind their uprootedness from the cherished motherland. However, this migration and the dream of a new life are not without the cost, as an individual has to experience physical and mental traumas of various kinds. Therefore, diasporic Punjabi literature is laden with the theme of quest for identity, nostalgia, and sense of guilt for forsaking the native land and family. It can be apparently observed in the psyche of the Punjabi diasporic writers. These writers often turn to their homeland for a number of reasons such as continual search for their roots, to immortalize the history of motherland, sometimes to re-energize ones’ aching soul and to relive old memories. This literature initiates the emergence of a new cultural synthesis also called hybridity which has its own unique identity as it reflects not only the homeland but also the foreign land. The psychology of the diasporic Punjabi writers is predominantly pervaded with the elements of nostalgia as they try to search themselves in the ambience of a new culture. Such literature is written in the backdrop of the cultural traits of their native land and an endeavour to adjust into the cultural space of the other land.