LEAVING

“Leaving” portrays Aloo desiring nothing more than traveling abroad and studying in an American university. Vassanji's work deals with Indians living in East Africa. Some members of this immigrant community later undergo a second migration to Europe, Canada, or the United Sates. Vassanji then is concerned with how these migrations affect the lives and identities of his characters. The short story shows the two perspective that people have about the west, while for Aloo its an “imagined paradise” where he can study hundreds of subjects, however for both Velji who has seen many young people leave Tanzania and go to America, and Aloo’s mother it is a land from where her son will never return and might marry a” temptress”. This throws light on the ‘constructed America’ of the immigrants or people of the third world country. Post the colonial period the world has entered a second phase, a period of neo-colonialism where America is the superpower. The story focuses on the hankering for the west, here Aloo does not want to go to Britain, the last of the past colonial masters though he is absolutely impressed by the carefully “tilled fields”, “the earth divided into neat green squares” of London but moves on to the land of the current masters. The story comes together as a generations of new and old, the former looking for a new identity and the latter fiercely holding on to the past. Aloo’s mother definitely consents for she too is impressed by the glossy picture of the American universities in the brochure but she warns him to hold on to his older self. The last image of the bird flying is significant as it represents the new found freedom of Aloo, however just the way Vassanji till the very end keeps the suspense, that is, that the readers are unable to determine whether he will go to America or not, similarly he very subtly warns Aloo’s mother that with his new found freedom Aloo will change, he will no longer just remain Aloo from Upanga.
SHAFIA PARVEEN PG1