All IS NOT ROSY

K.N. Bhashyam

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*Appeared in The Hindu (India)

15 May 1979

It is not infrequently that one comes across well qualified young men in the country boastfully announcing their intention to go abroad preferably to the West to get a doctorate or secure a lucrative job there.

This book gives an indication to such aspirants that all is not rosy for coloured immigrants in the West. These people are not wanted when something goes wrong with the economy of the land they adopt and love by choice.

The book, in fact, warns that these people become targets of attack for the ills of the adopted country’s economy and growing unemployment. Excuses are soon found to turn out these unwanted elements. These unfortunate victims are termed “a starved Asian, a gold digger and opportunist.”

The novel is just not the story of Reghu Nath, an Indian emigrant to Canada, but the outpourings of a soul trying desperately to settle down in totally different settings and “among people who are not too kind if they cannot be called totally hostile.”

Reghu Nath convinced that the world is an enormous village of people with diverse taste yet basically very much alike decides to go to Canada, make a fortune and remit it back to his ailing mother and only sister in India.

But as soon as he lands in Ottawa, problems which normally harass a foreigner begin to torment him. A stage comes when he begins wondering whether the Canadian Embassy’s proclamation in New Delhi that Canada is a land of opportunities is true. And it does not take long for him to realize that every nation has its own problems and no country is a paradise.

The author also pinpoints an inherent defect in the Indian education system. English gets undue prominence. This makes an average Westerner complain “English” is neither his mother tongue nor of his father’s and yet he competes with us.”

The author has also an interesting comment about private high schools: “They are little more than teaching shops, their sole purpose being to amass wealth caring little for character building and real knowledge.”

Yes, the novel paints the darker side of the plight of immigrants. But yet it sounds true to what actually is likely to confront them. Prospective immigrants can profit by reading this novel which one feels like finishing off in just one reading though interest tapers off towards the end.

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