Reading Cultural Representations of the Double Diaspora by Maya Parmar

Author:Maya Parmar
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030180836
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The draping styles outlined here are fairly typical. The execution of these methods once again draws out an affiliation with India; however, I argue that there is a mixing of traditions in the diasporic Navratri space. Lynton explains that whilst the nivi style is popular amongst a certain class of Indian women, there are other varying ‘draping styles’ that signify the wearer’s ‘regional, ethnic and tribal communit[y]’ (2002, 14). These fashions are evidenced in my primary material, as discussed above. The preference for these styles does not, however, appear to have any distinguishing features in respect to Lynton’s comments. The region from which a family descends does not here dictate the participant’s draping style. In short, these participants are not wearing their pallu to the front because their roots are in Gujarat or the northern areas of India, nor do the bodies wearing the nivi style belong exclusively to the opaque category of ‘middle-class’ women. There is an interchange between these styles and the wearers, and once again the signifier no longer contains its signified: just like the patterns I explored earlier that once symbolised the rural work the wearer undertook, the gendered female garments worn in the Navratri diasporic space do not indicate their original meaning.

Now, rather than being deliberately worn to signify specific geography or class, the sari in particular is instead deployed to simply perform ‘Indianness’. Sometimes there may be a discriminate employment of the Gujarati draping style, to signal this regional identity; however, in the mixed, ethnically undefined space of HLC, where Fig. 3.4 is captured, the styles appear to be deployed in a more ad hoc fashion. Whilst previous meaning is largely lost, I contend that the sari, and the multiple styles in which it is donned, today mediates a new signified, relevant to the diaspora. In the diaspora, where a migrated community is the minority enveloped by the majority, the sari and its various draping styles generally manifest the need to mark oneself out as simply ‘Indian’. This need here supersedes the previous desires to mark out other aspects of identity. Of course, alongside this necessity to maintain ties with the homeland is the inevitability, particularly in the diaspora, of the passing of some of the meanings once prolific. Something that was once significant in the subcontinent might naturally decline in importance with the passing of time and increase in distance.

This is arguably also the case for the auspicious dandiya stick in the diasporic space, an object of Navratri paraphernalia. Historically, dandiya were made from bamboo, and other woods, which were lacquered: Fig. 3.5 shows two men holding these types of simple sticks. Whilst wooden dandiya are sometimes used during diasporic play, now other more ostentatious instruments are often employed. These include brightly-coloured dandiya, with glitter, bells or tassels, where the material of the stick is metal, over wood. The metal dandiya, when compared to their wooden counterparts, produce a louder reverberation during play, advancing the lively, hedonistic complexion of Navratri.

Fig. 3.5Dandiya players with dandiya, Vijay Parmar and Vinod Chauhan (Leicester, c.

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