This month, there were two news items that caught my attention. Tushar Kumar is the mayor-elect of Elstree and Borehamwood, the youngest mayor of Indian origin in the UK, and Q Manivannan, a queer transperson and activist on a student visa, has been elected to the Scottish Parliament.
I am not quite sure if these are matters to be proud of. I wonder whether these opportunities to articulate their ideas and push for transformative change would even be entertained within the trifecta of caste, gender and religion that often passes for an Indian political ‘party ticket’. The other reason I felt a bit perturbed was wondering about the ‘immigrant’ situation in these lands, and whether the fragile geopolitics of the world has affected, or will affect, the multicultural hubs that some places in the world have become.
Growing up, we learnt that America was a melting pot where everyone eventually became ‘Americanised’, and that Canada is a mosaic where people were free to remain distinct. Countless media representations have talked about how ‘nice’ Canada and Canadians were. At various times of crisis, Americans have considered migrating to Canada, where healthcare is free. I know people currently living in Canada, and I have always deliberately avoided asking them about racism. I don’t want to know.
Lindsay Pereira’s ‘Super’ is a deeply disturbing book. Not only because it talks about the darker side of the politics of immigration and the entire industry it has spawned in parts of India, but also because it vividly presents the sense of claustrophobia and anger increasingly visible online among white males. The novel centres on Sukhpreet, a young immigrant from Jalandhar’s immigration factories, who hails from the nondescript Chukhiara and is now working as an assistant superintendent of a residential building in Toronto.
The sense of loneliness, alienation, fear and the problems of language all compound in the figure of this young man, who has come so far away from home to help his mother recover their land from creditors. There is Harneet in India, whose parents have pinned their hopes on her scoring well in IELTS, getting a visa to study in the UK and snagging a good match. An entire culture has sprung up around migration where the sole expectation is that children will leave home. Pereira, whose works I have closely followed, has brilliantly made each voice stand out.
There are characters such as Deepanshu, Sukhpreet’s cousin in Canada, and Diego, the superintendent of the building, who represent the various rungs of the immigration ladder and whose presence furthers the narrative rather than serving as mere garnish.
The work is extremely engaging and, at 213 pages, is taut and tightly wound. There are two standout aspects of the novel. One is the character of Maynard Wilson, the disenfranchised white male who embodies the dangerous tendencies of those who feel their opportunities are being taken away by immigrants. Pereira gives an interesting shading to Wilson through his ailing dog, Woody, and attempts to present the story through Wilson’s lens as well. The other is the laying bare of the economics of the immigration industry and what it might possibly be doing to Canada’s economy. The issues Pereira presents are now talking points in Canadian politics and society.
There have been some defining works of migration literature in recent times that have been India-centric, such as Sunjeev Sahota’s ‘The Year of the Runaways’, which go beyond nostalgia and discuss migration as a social symptom. ‘Super’ does a 360-degree recon of how young people leave their countries through honest or fraudulent means and come to Canada — a country that has traditionally welcomed immigrants, though the colonial history of its hostility towards Asian immigrants must not be forgotten — in search of better opportunities.
They find empty colleges, no native Canadian students (read white, in the understanding of students like Sukhpreet); they work for less than minimum wage and discover that more of their own ilk have swamped the job market and the housing sector, making everything unaffordable while reducing the value of their labour. And there are more of them every year.
Pereira’s book makes one think: Why are our young people still leaving our shores in such large numbers? Economics, sociological history, politics and much more lie at the heart of the answer. The absolute absence of First Nations people from the novel points to how little they matter. Wilson, at one point, rants about how his father and grandfather built this ‘great nation’, and one cannot help but raise an eyebrow in consternation.
‘Super’ is a brilliant book that leaves one breathless — because of the depth of the calamity it portrays and the indefatigable sadness of what the world has now become.
— The reviewer is the author of ‘No Blushes: Renju Renjimar’, the first biography of a Malayali transperson in English
