“It’s a free country……..Unless no one wants you.”
Fictions endorse empathy and compassion, the powerful
emotions that truly makes us human. It can help us discern certain subjects
that are clearly far from our life experience and spectrum of realization. In
this vein, Canadian author Sharon Bala’s debut novel The Boat People (published
January 2018) looks at human suffering on a micro scale, which often gets
drowned among the cacophony of impassive headlines and crooked politicians’
battle cry. With the ongoing refugee crisis, Western and European nations have
found it hard to express their sympathies for the displaced asylum seekers
(from war-torn, famine-afflicted countries), partly the result of the cordially
received yet acrimonious, parochial views of the extreme political right. Furthermore, the
bureaucratic limbo and the politicized fear of ‘the others’ beclouds common
people’s views, shunning greater clarity so as to tackle the crisis. Bala’s
Boat People, based on actual events, smartly uses the tools of storytelling to
expose the layers of hidden truths and propagandized falsities, snuggled behind
the uni-dimensional official reports. Moreover,
the book provides dense context to contemplate the refugee mindset, which we
(the privileged) are likely to ignore.
The novel opens with the arrival of around 500 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees (in
2009) in a rickety boat near the coast of British
Columbia. Canadian authorities intercept the dingy freighter and take all the
emaciated passengers into custody, placing woman and children in a separate
facility, splitting the families and adding more to their trauma. The hard-line
decision was taken by the government (particularly by Minister Blair) to show
the world that the horde of asylum seekers (who are termed as ‘terrorists’) can’t
exploit the certified Canadian kindness. Connections are made between the boat
people and the LTTE, the militant Tamil organization which was engaged in a
prolonged, ruthless civil-war with the oppressive Sinhalese government. For
decades, the LTTE ran a de-facto state in the areas controlled by them (mostly
in North Sri Lanka), generally hailed as ‘Tamil Eelam’ (the official
declaration of an independent Tamil state was the primary demand of LTTE).
The Boat People unfurls from the perspective of three
individuals, who are all positioned at different levels in this developing
crisis. The first is Mahindan, a mild-mannered Tamil mechanic who has reached the Canadian shores with
his six-year-old son Sellian. Mahindan is initially delighted to see the
Canadian helicopter and flag ‘welcoming’ their boat. But his relief proves to
be premature as Sellian is separated from him (the boy placed in the woman’s
quarters). Taken into detention, Mahindan awaits the hearings, which stretches
into weeks and months. The next significant character is Priya Rajasekaran, a
second-generation Canadian-Tamil articling student, hoping to specialize
on corporate law. But circumstances bring her to represent Mahindan and some
other claimants from the ship. Priya doesn’t even speak her family’s language,
but the case and the revisit into the family’s past increases her allegiance to
the damned Tamil refugees. The third perspective is that of adjudicator Grace
Nakamura, a third generation Japanese-Canadian who is a long-time associate of
the Minister of Public Safety (Mr. Fred Blair), the stubborn politician demanding
a hard-line to be drawn on the issue. Although Grace is slightly influenced by
the minister’s admonitions, she grapples the ramifications of her decisions.
Grace’s conflict is further stoked by her Alzheimer-stricken mother Kumi, who
woefully talks on the subject of her family’s relocation to an internment camp
(the harsh North American practice during World War II). Grace is bothered by
how her rebellious, teenage daughters eagerly listen to their grandmother’s
story, who all ascertain that the mistreatment of asylum seekers as a proof of
‘history repeating itself’.
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| Sharon Bala |
The novel’s outline is based on the MV Sun Sea Incident, the
cargo ship that brought 492 Sri Lankan Tamil migrants to Canadian Waters on August
2010 (after traveling for at least three months). Nevertheless, what’s
interesting about Newfoundland-based author Sharon Bala’s narrative is the way
she explores the myriad of layers making up the immigrant story, from the
abstract political, bureaucratic lingo to the compassion-filled individual perception.
Like every good fiction writer, she does the opposite of bland news reports;
profoundly detailing the wide spectrum of human experience that gets submerged
under the statistics. The Boat People, which promotes the importance of empathy
while accessing the plight of the refugees and disenfranchised, is not exactly
a very subtle novel. But at the same time, Bala never veers into melodrama or
offers neatly packaged resolutions. Bala does stack the three narratives with a
bit of convoluted conflicts, although thankfully she keeps everything
open-ended and eschews false optimism.
One aspect I loved about Bala’s three characters is their
perpetual attitudinal shifts. Mahindan, Priya, and Grace are shown to have
resolute belief in things, but over the course of the case they are plagued
with uncertainties. And despite getting to know a different (unpleasant)
reality the characters never give up their hope. Mahindan’s character arc
clearly is the most haunting (and wholeheartedly wins our sympathy) as he
reminisces about his last months with wife Chitra (2002-2003). More distressing
are Mahindan’s flashbacks on the things he had witnessed and did before leaving
his blood-soaked nation. On the contrary, it was easy to despise Grace, but
slowly as the narrative lays out her fears, stress, and other inner conflicts, I
was able to empathize for her (even though we don’t always agree with her). She
is a good example of observing how people are easily influenced by solely depending on
their (limited) experiences. The themes
of identity are superbly explored through Priya’s character, a person
constantly negotiating between her two identities.
Bala often excels in bringing a sense of viscerality to her
taut prose, pulling in readers to the distinct setting. Two particular scenarios evoked plethora of haunting images in my mind: Mahindan, confined to the detention center,
watching and commenting on the glitzy TV game show; the chaotic atmosphere at
the hospital while Mahindan admits his wife in labor pain, which is juxtaposed
by the alarming news report regarding a deadly suicide-bomber attack. Apart
from the familiar themes related to refugee crisis, Bala’s narrative
relentlessly touches on the theme of parenthood. Mahindan, Grace, Kumi, Priya’s
father, and Hema epitomize the sacrifices inherent in parenthood in order to secure
their child’s future. The verdict of Mahindan’s hearing might be left obscure,
but he has succeeded as a parent by just bringing Sellian to Canada and enabling a
fresh start for the child. Bala also offers a different take on the
romanticized view of Canadian benignity. She shows how the nation despite being
less critical of the refugee flow (compared to the USA and Western European
countries) is also swayed by alleged (unfounded) threats to national security
and impaired by bureaucratic indifference. Overall, The Boat People succeeds in
bringing into view (in micro and macro scale) the realities of displacement and
the deceptive nature of unrelenting political ideologies.
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