ABSTRACT

The ancient human migration, the medieval resettlements of warring groups and
the modern globalization are the different phases of human quest for the creation of
the new civilization and also their need for progress and development. Such human
movements have generated the concept of diaspora which means human
settlements away from their original home land.

Thus diaspora signals an engagement with a matrix of diversity of cultures,

languages, histories, people, places and times. The literature of the Indian diaspora
comprises an important part of the burgeoning field of Anglophone postcolonial
literature.

Uma Parameswaran is one of those playwrights who have migrated from

India to other country but India continues to live in their thoughts. Whether it is
Sons Must Die or Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees, India dominate
Uma Parameswaran’s vision as a playwright.

In Sons Must Die the reference is to Kashmir, the Indian region, where
thousands of lives are lost but there is no visible solution to its problem yet. The
playwright is of the view that the Kashmir issue may be taken from any angle, but
the fact remains that the youth is dying – whether one dies as a terrorist or as a
soldier it is the loss of India. This loss of the sons of India perturbs the playwright
sitting in Canada. On the other hand, Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees
refer to the Indians who have migrated to India with the hope of better future.
Physically they have left India but psychologically they could not.

As a result, metaphorically speaking, their leaves may look green but, in

fact, they are rootless. First generation that migrated with the hope of bright future
of their sons and daughters are caught between two different cultures- Indian
culture which they cannot leave and Canadian culture which they cannot adopt.
This clash of two cultures tortures them: Indians they are not now, Canadians they
cannot be.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Uma Parameswaran is Indian born Canadian writer. She was born in India and
settled in Canada. She has published poetry, novels, drama and short-fiction. She is
an expert in Diasporic literature but all her novels and fiction concentrate on
feministic issues. She was born in Madras, India in 1938 and brought up in
Jabalpur. She completed her BA at Jabalpur University and received her post
graduate in English from Nagpur University, an MA in creative writing from
Indiana University and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. She immigrated to
Canada in 1966 and settled in Winnipeg. She is a retired professor of English at
University of Winnipeg and she has a special interest in the area of South Asian
Canadian Literature. She has received so many awards for her contribution towards
literature. Her main works are A Cycle of the Moon, Mangoes on the maple tree,
Riding High with Krishna and Baseball bat and other stories, Sons Must Die,
Trishanku, Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Tree and What Was Always
Hers. She mainly focuses on Diasporic literature but all her novels and works
concentrate on Feministic issues and most of her protagonists are women. And all
her works suggest a positive solution for women’s problems. In What was Always
Hers she explicates women’s issues and Lesbian relationships with the Feminist
and Lesbian theories.

There is a distinctive progression in Parameswaran’s works. This

progression can most easily be seen through both her choices of subject
matter and in her increasing fluidity in language. Sons Must Die and Other
Plays provides an excellent example of her progression. “Sons Must Die”
centers on the experiences of three women in 1947 India. “Their maternal
sensibility transcends political boundaries and sees what Wilfred Owen calls
the ‘pity of war.’” The play is influenced by Parameswaran’s interest in Greek
tragedies, containing a chorus and stylized language of the verse. “Meera” and
“Sita’s Promise,” on the other hand “set out to celebrate Indian art tradition
and at the same time to educate the outsider about our culture.”
 INTRODUCTION

Sons Must Die was written much earlier in 1962. It was published in 1998 as a part
of South Asian Canadian Literature Series (SACLIT), of which Uma
Parameswaran is the general editor. In the early 1960s, she was living in Nagpur.
The India-China War of 1962 had an impact on her, as it did on almost every
young person of the time. She also had an impact of Tennyson and Macaulay’s
patriotic outburst in poems. In ‘Author’s Statement’, Uma Parameswaran says:
“There was an outburst of patriotism. Old preindependence marching songs were
revived; “Khilenge phool iss jagah mein watan ke naam shahid ho.” Women’s
organizations mobilized help in, all kinds of ways.” 1 Newspapers passed form
hand to hand and were read over shoulders. Many people went at least once to the
railway station to cheer our khakLclad jawans who packed the trains on the Grand
Trunk tracks that carried them from the South to the battlefront.

Several families lost sons and Uma Parameswaran felt all this horror when
young women at her college lost brothers. All this has a great impact on
Parameswaran’s mind. N. Kallamani writes: “The idealism and romanticism of war
was shred to pieces when the author had the first-hand experience of meeting
several families in India who lost their sons. Many 2 young women lost their
brothers, as some lost their young husbands.” Sons Must Die has been read and
criticized on different levels. S. Ganesan observes that the play portrays the
conflict between romantic idealism and the survival instinct. It portrays the sad
reality of the loss of scores of human lives in an armed conflict. Uma
Parameswaran herself admits in her preface: the play deals with the pity of war”.
Some critics still view the play in terms of two sides to the issue.

Sons leave their mothers (or mother country). Diaspora studies have pivoted
the experience of the sons. What surfaces in diasporic experience is the underlying
trauma in the act of displacement. When one dives in deep, the play appears to be
rich, questioning the need to sacrifice of sons and the predicament of the mother.
Anjana Trivedi says, “Sons Must Die exposes the experiences of three women in
1947 India. The plot structure, technique and style of the play depict
Parameswaran’s interests in Greek tragedies.”
 The human reaction to war has always been ambivalent. War has been
praised in some ofthe greatest classics of the world and at the same time, decried
by thinkers and writers like Bernard Shaw. Still, from time to time, countries resort
to war to expand their territories and to protect their sovereignty. The researcher,
with this perspective in mind, would like to restrict herself to the main
interpretations of the play

Sons Must Die is set against the backdrop of Kashmir and the India-Pakistan
War of 194748. The play exposes the experiences of three women in 1947 India.
The three women from different parts of India; a Tamil Brahmin, wrapped in
conjeevaram silk, Zohra Begum, a Muslim mother wearing a salwar kameez suit
with gold embroidery on the blue valet and Prem Behn, a Punjabi mother, all meet
at Kashmir in search of their sons.

Sons Must Die is set against the backdrop of Kashmir and the India-Pakistan
War of 194748. The play exposes the experiences of three women in 1947 India.
The three women from different parts of India; a Tamil Brahmin, wrapped in
conjeevaram silk, Zohra Begum, a Muslim mother wearing a salwar kameez suit
with gold embroidery on the blue valet and Prem Behn, a Punjabi mother, all meet
at Kashmir in search of their sons. These hands labour at them night and day and
the trader takes them away for princesses leaving him no more than a day’s broth.
His eyes have grown deem at the handicrafts and the man watches at distance the
figure coming close.

Kashmir is an enchantress who lures people and it is also the valley, beloved
of the Gods. But “Is this enchantress worth sons’ lives?” asks the author, as one by
one the mothers come and bemoan the death of their sons. Meenakshi, calling her
son cries for his loss. She reminds her son’s childhood. Her son ever wished to fly
high into the clouds and in Kashmir the clouds girdle the vale below. He becomes
a pilot.
 The moving story of the sons’ great sacrifice forms the theme of he play. It
has no Acts or Scenes in it. It flows from the first line to the last line (total 707
lines) portraying the conflict between romantic idealism and the survival instinct. It
portrays the sad reality ofthe loss of scores of human lives in an armed conflict.
Prem Behn’s son at his dying moments craves that his life may be spared. He
wants to drink life to its lees; hence, he is unwilling to die prematurely. He dies a
broken young man, being unable to understand his mother who wants him to
accept his death calmly. There is no suspense in the play. The dialogues between
Hari and his mother Meenakshi; and Prem Behn and her son, Nand Kishore are
very touching. Parameswaran uses spoken English when she is critical ofthe cruel
consequences of war; she composes powerful dialogues of a serious nature.

There isn’t much use ofstage property. However, Parameswaran’s

competency in language has the capacity of presenting the whole scenes before the
eyes ofthe readers / audience. The dialogues between the Chorus and the dacoit are
thought-provoking. Sometimes, the playwright cannot fully overcome her
temptations to use excessively literary dialogue. However powerful the theme, die
way in which Parameswaran deals with it, makes the play lack suspense; and the
entire action looks like a series of incidents. Nevertheless, the descriptions ofthe
beauty of Kashmir and the geographical knowledge ofthe writer are astonishing.
All the characters in the play have their own importance in the play. There are
three mothers - Meenakshi, Zohra and Prem Behn. They are the mothers of the
sons who went to fight for the sake of safeguarding Kashmir from the enemies.
Meenakshi and Zohra consider the fighting meaningless. According to Meenakshi,
fighting is needless in the present context. There is no need to spill the precious
blood of young men for a dubious cause. Commenting upon the character ofZohra,
S. Ganesan says: “For Zohra as long as the people ofthe land happen to be
Muslims there is no need ofwar; to her, it is the religion which matters and not the
ruler.” 14 Meenakshi and Zohra are first the mothers. Prem Behn’s perception
differs from these two. She is proud ofher son fighting for Kashmir. Her
admiration for the beauty of Kashmir, her feelings of patriotism and valour, all
make her feel that the fight for Kashmir is ajust one.
 Parameswaran uses this character to present her view upon spirituality. He
searched God into the Himalayan ranges, in self-control, detachment and yoga; but
found Him in the form of a mother and her babe. All these characters reveal their
views on spirituality, religion and patriotism. The characters are well-portrayed.
Through them Parameswaran has tried to expose the conflict between patriotism
and attachment for life, between life and death. There is not much scope for the
characters to unfold themselves here and the play remains a very simplistic
presentation of a significant theme..Parameswaran uses chorus in the play. It
consists of Old Men wearing traditional Kashmiri dress. The cut qftheir beards and
their caps show that two of them are Hindus; one, a Sikh and the other eight,
Muslims. It reminds us of the Chorus in Mahesh Dattani’s play, Final Solutions.
The chorus in his play too, consisted of Hindus as well as Muslims. However,
exchanging the masks, the same men represented Hindus and Muslims as per the
requirement. Here the chorus is restricted in observing the action and commenting
on it or on the major characters. The dialogue ofthe chorus is in the form ofshort
lines. “There is a Chorus ofOld Men, larded with several “Ye God”s, “Ah me”s
and “Aye”s, which immediately betrays the pseudo17 romanticism ofthe play”

The play could be called as a poetic drama and has hardly any plot. It
has no acts and scenes in it. The action is impeded by excessive doses of dialogue.
What the audience can enjoy is the only description ofthe vale ofKashmir as an
enchantress. The plot seems to be mainly concerned with the three mothers in
search oftheir sons and their.

The title of the play itself suggests the theme. It is first of all used by the
poet in a prophetic manner. He sees the stream of blood from the bloody son
flooding the vale of Kashmir and he says: “And mothers such as these wailing for
their sons, / Sons who must die”. Prem Behn proudly wishes that if she had a
hundred sons, she would have sent them all to fight for the land of Kashmir to ‘die
and deem themselves fortunate’. The title is extremely provocative of the
patriotism in the audience. Wien Hari dies before the eyes of his mother-
Meenakshi, the Chorus utters ‘Sons must die’ (p. 29). Nand dies dissatisfied and
says that India killed him; but his mother thinks that the death of her son is a
blessed one; it is the death at a fullest moment. Her words assure her son that his
death was meaningful if his mother said so.
 CONCLUSION

The play Sons Must Die tries to expose all the evils of war as well as
the conflict between romantic idealism and the survival instinct. It portrays
the sad reality of the loss of scores of human lives in an armed conflict. The
play assumes special significance in the post-Cargill scenario. In Kashmir
and elsewhere, even in many parts of the country, Mother India is losing her
sons continuously due to war and terrorism. There are many fresh touching
stories, of the lost sons so the play is paeifistic and prophetic in tone. The
characters of Meenakshi, Zohra Begum and the poet represent pacifism in
the play.

The comments of the Chorus as well as the dying sons and their
mothers are brainstorming. It subtly advocates the need of finding
alternatives to end the chronic conflicts which the country is facing now.
The sons leave their mothers and combat for their survival in an alien land.
The land may be beautiful, but what is it to a mother when the sons she had
guarded zealously have left her shores? Is this the price of expatriation? The
play is open-ended. Finally, a question that troubles file readers or file
audience is - ‘Should sons die?’ Though there are no face to face dialogues,
no acts, no scenes, no logical development ofthe characters, no appropriate
development ofthe plot, no conventional setting, this play becomes
successful in winning the hearts ofthe readers. It is quite innovative and a
kind of experimental play for which Parameswaran should be praised.
 Analysis

Uma Parameswaran is very pragmatic and practical when she faces the
diasporic situation; she is not willing to lionize any particular aspect of the
immigrant dilemma, instead she shows out ways to survive the angst of identity
crisis or racism or sexism, which is both overtly and covertly expressed by the
whites towards the so called usurpers of their nation’s luxuries. The transitional
phase calls for extraneous activities for the immigrants like getting involved in
politics or in community work, voluntary social organizations, or in short efforts to
become accultured. It is not smooth sailing as it entails working in a hostile,
unfriendly environment where the white majority turns up their nose at the so
called cultural inferiority of the coloured. The poet urges the immigrants to
overcome this situation through patience and perseverance and by informing the
other about our indigenous heritage, culture and social values.

Parameswaran has reiterated in her writings that “romanticizing one’s

homeland has a place in immigrant literature as long as it does not paralyze one’s
capacity to develop new bonds within one’s adopted land. The third space that the
immigrant can and has to create; by leaving aside the burden of cultural baggage or
becoming excessively westernized; is a space of cultural osmosis, of give and take,
where the immigrant and the host will be transformed and enriched. This space is
free from the erstwhile unthinking scorn, unfeeling barb, closed fists and closed
hearts of the days of alienation. Parameswaran’s stance as a diasporic writer marks
a slow and steady progress towards a South Asian Canadian female identity. The
immigrant inevitably undergoes severe emotional and mind crunching situations
during the beginning years of expatriation. Hence, her initial poems become
preoccupied with all the questions that diasporic writers face. But the slow
awakening of her female identity makes her realize that human beings everywhere
are racists in one way or other, and since this is a sociological problem,
enlightenment or awakening through education about the plurality of cultures and
races that exist in the world is the viable solution.
 Uma Parameswaran, through her poems, alerts the reader that each poem is a
momentary flare of intense emotions or thoughts and it need not always reflect
societal reality or the writer’s long ranging beliefs. The sense of frustration or a
feeling of loss of dignity experienced by the diaspora results from a bitter
experience of cultural imperialism that unjustly unrecognized ‘others’.
Sociological explanations of migration focus on this of cultural and social capital.
Cultural capital refers to knowledge of other societies and the opportunities they
offer, as well as information about how to actually go about moving and seeking
work elsewhere.

Uma Parameswaran endorses the view that all immigrants should take a
flexible stand to their own and their children’s Canadian realities. Her poems
expose the bluff behind ghettoization proving that most of the time it is self
imposed. Globalization, defined as a proliferation of cross-border flows and
transnational’s networks, has changed the context for migration. New technologies
of communication and transport allow frequent and multidirectional flows of
people, ideas and cultural symbols. The erosion of nation-state sovereignty and
autonomy weakens systems of border control and migrant assimilation