Language and Rituals as Transcultural Motifs in South Asian Novel - Anil's Ghost.

Diasporic fiction works as a wheel to connect the mother nation with the adopted nation in time and space, and as more and more diasporic narratives gain popularity, the nuanced stories from the previously colonised nations are gaining a momentum. Ondaatje who has spent his childhood in Sri Lanka and now is a Canadian citizen, weaves Anil's Ghost as a tapestry heaped with transnational sentiments, he looks back at South Asia as a cultural hub; for writers like Ondaatje, it is extremely important to create space for the unheard stories of their people and connect it with the mainstream literature, as a commitment to the honesty of writing. Having gone through the experience of diaspora such writers have endowed their fiction with the sentiments of hybridity, multiculturalism and globalization in abundance. As these metanarratives speak of the people who were either never spoken about or were subjugated, they attempt to explore the historical facts and dig deeper into the archives to unearth these disembodied voices, perhaps for emancipation and for challenging the disavowal of native cultures. The two major pillars that are indicative of cultural changes for any kind of people are language and religious/ritualistic practices. Language, the basic element of dialogue, is still an inexhaustible source of conflicts and coexistence, which engages with people and can result in the fact that they might be living in different worlds even if they live in the same neighborhood. Intercultural dialogue thus appears a sine qua non of contemporary society enroute to a transcultural future, where the sheer preaching of multiculturalism may echo the evolution of hybridity, new ritualistic practices, and greater tolerance. Ritualistic practices could be social or religious, the blending of practices, for instance in food, clothing and lifestyle have always been the markers for an evolving culture. Moreover, south Asia has been a fecund space for thriving of hybrid cultures with the Indian ocean being the fluid medium for navigation of languages and rituals. The south Asian diasporic author, Michael Ondaatje has enriched the aesthetics of literature by enmeshing his narratives with many cultural instances from countries like Sri Lanka and Canada. This paper has attempted to address language and ritualistic ceremonies (religious and social) as transcultural motifs in south Asian novel Anil's Ghost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]