Diasporic Concerns in A. K. Ramanujan’s Writings

Abstract

Ramanujan appears to be poised and perched between two worlds. The world in which he is born and the other which he has acquired. It then becomes very obvious that the perception of Ramanujan “is not just that of Hindu or merely an Indian in the sense that he sees only those. His perceptive eye roves wider and the limit of his perception is encompassing wider area.” His perception is pluralistic absorbing other culture. This does not Point towards assimilation or integration of the others into the Indian or the Indian into the global. Ramanujan used to describe his position as “being the hyphen in Indian-American Identifying with E. M Forester’s great urge to “connect” Ramanujan also makes his greatest work out of disconnections. His life's mission seems to be “to keep the dialogues and corals alive and to make something of them.” His aim is to achieve a synthesis between warring cultural coordinates, “It looks as if I live between things all the time two (or more) languages, two countries, and two disciplines. In all his writing translations, critical essays or poetic compositions, there is an invisible thread which lends homogeneity to his writings. In his encounter with different cultures, Ramanujan feels “himself translated a little in each encounter” and learns “a good deal about myself and about Indian arts”.