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Kamala Markandaya has portrayed the agony of Indian women immigrants through the character of Vasantha. Being an expatriate she has witnessed the Indians in foreign land and their anguish of alienation. The Nowhere Man is Markandaya’s only novel which sets in London, while the rest set in India. The novel represents the life of Srinivas in a foreign land, here the novelist highlights the sense of alienation and racism commenting on the assimilation and rupture in East-West confrontation. Srinivas’s wife Vasantha rejoices in her imaginary homeland; on the contrary she had to undergo the detachment from her children which leaves her alone in the alien land. Markandaya’s novels depict the colonial India and the conflict of tradition and modernity amidst the east-west cultures. The domination of the British over the poor Indian peasants, tribals and fisherman are minutely described by the novelist. Inclination towards the west and, human desires and the power to possess and its aftermath are drawn by Markandaya to bringforth the picture of the pre-independence era. Being a student of history and later journalist, Markandaya had the exposure to visit various locations in India and study the lives of people. Her novels do not confine to the East and the West encounter; but they also depict the history referencing to the colonial period. The diasporic cultural identities are a vindication of the notion of multiplicities and hybridities of the third space. The exodus constantly dithers between the cultures of their home and host country. They are bound to their shared cultural values and historical experiences on native culture and country. As the notion of ‘being’, in Stuart Hall’s (1994) term, the first-generation immigrants try to sustain the native cultural practices and partially let the host culture to intrude in their life. However, the second-generation in this regard is contrasting to the first generation. Though they are exposed with native cultural practices by their parents at home the social milieu grooms them with the culture of the host country. Hence, the second generation is relatively more prone in adopting cultural practices of host country. Both generations are negotiating in hybrid space of diaspora which is ‘becoming’ in Hall’s term. Both ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ synchronously enhance in the formation of their cultural identities. The Nowhere Man discusses the family of Srinivas and their attachment towards the host country, it depicts the in-between space of Vasantha and Srinivas. The homely feeling in the country diminishes with the victimization of racism. As the diasporic elements and alienation in the novel have been studied by many scholars, this research attempts to explore the character of Vasantha and her involvement throughout in the alien land.

From initial peruse, author have mentioned here on the current topic the following relevant works by different critics and researchers . An article, Diasporic Elements in Kamala Markandaya’s The Nowhere Man by Dr. Kumari Reman was published in Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research. It depicts how social prejudice against Indian in England of 1960s alienates the character and aggravates their sense of displacement. Dr Chakreswari Dixit and Dr Yougesh Kumar Gautam published The Anguish of Alienation in Kamala Markandaya’s The Nowhere Man in IJELLH. The article examines the theme of alienation and loneliness which comes out from the East-West confrontation. It depicts how the host country make them have contrasting feelings and finally leaves them an anguish of alienation. An article, Sartorial memories of a colonial past and a diasporic present in Kamala Markandaya's The Nowhere Man by Noemí Pereira-Ares was published in In Journal of Commonwealth Literature. It represents an anthropological and sociological studies on dress, this article connects the characters’ diasporic present in Britain with their previous past in colonial India, showing how their diasporic experience is affected and haunted by the memories of a colonial past.

A constant negotiation between the first and the second-generations and an interaction of host and native cultures proffering hybridity in their life. Therefore, their identities become unstable, agonized and remain in constant flux. Moreover, their identities may bear traces of the culture of origin and host country. Locating the traces of origin in retrospection is not sufficient in conceptualizing their identities. These traces are rehistoricized and reappropriated in new context. A constant process of formation and reformation goes on as these traces equally belong to the past, present and the future.  Thus, their evolving cultural identities are in the third space of cultural negotiation and transformation. Vasantha’s, the first generation diaspora evolves an identity in the third space in the process of assimilation and rigidity to her native culture at the same time.

Homi Bhaba in The Location of Culture propounds,

The theoretical recognition of the split-space of enunciation may open the way to conceptualising an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of culture's hybridity. It is the inbetween space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture, and by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.

Bhabha argues that all social collectives, nation states, cultures or small-scale ethnic groups, are moving in a continuous process of hybridity. They all have developed in relation to a larger context and therefore consist of elements of different origins which they, to varying extent, have in common. Bhaba puts forward that hybridity goes beyond any binary operation and direct cultural domination and oppression.

The Nowhere Man deals with the cultural dualism which emerges through a dimension of human reality and the process of rendering hybridity becomes evident throughout the text. Srinivas and his family try to feel the Indianness on English soil. Vasantha, his wife, is Indian in essence, she tries to create her little India by holding sandalwood box with Indian soil and the Ganges water which later are immersed with her ashes in the Thames River become a cultural metaphor. Srinivas has settled in England and he tries to assimilate the acquired culture into his life. But final he becomes a victim of racism.

 Though Vasantha tries to retain her Indianness, she welcomes the changes that occurred in her cultural life and it is suggestive of  her firm ground of rationality and reason that she has adopted without hesitation. She enjoys being amidst the crowds and gatherings, however the absurdity questions her within. She rejoices welcoming strangers, offering tea and snacks and showcasing her Indian values to them. She adhered to the Indian concept of hospitality and the domestic life became confluence of the East-West cultures. Srinivas speculates:

Was this the girl he had married, who in her early London days would have trembled to make a dentist’s appointment a week ahead…. She was no longer the girl she had been at their wedding, but a woman of thirty-one. A practical woman who acquired and discarded with some finesse.. (NM 21-22)

Being a mother she never wants her son to join the war, it is the anxiety within her; but she could not help.

Many things, in fact, turned out different. They slipped out like shapeless blancmanges, for all that some care had gone into preparation, reinforcing old views that it was presumptuous to plan. Only, they had taken to the ways of the West, and the habit had become too strong to succumb entirely now. (NM 25)

 Her displeasure at her son, Laxman’s intention to marry an English woman, Pat, indicate that she has not yet shelved her Indian cultural traits. Vasantha’s unhappiness based on religious life, she is a brahmin and her daughter in law is a Christian. It is true that she herself has gone through some changes to adjust herself in tune with the modes and fashions of British life, but it cannot be denied hat she could not be indifferent to her own religion. Indian tradition and belief system bind a human being into some cultural traits, which cannot be denied for the mere satisfaction of others. Vasantha as the name suggests, tries to accommodate herself in the foreign land, so that spring in Srinivas’s life never fades away. Being a mother, she assist her children in every possible way, but their choice were a result of Indo-English mixture, whereas Vasantha is restricted to the Indian sense and tradition. It creates a conflict of the east and the west. The agony within her to confront the English lifestyle in association with Pat haunts her throughout her life.

When she was on her death bad, she asked her husband to perform her last rites according to Hindu custom; and Srinivas in compliance with her last wishes took the casket of her ashes and her sandalwood box bearing earth from India. Under the influence of Vasantha, Srinivas lived the life of a Hindu:  in his house his habits resembled those of a Hindu, and in his house thought and felt like a Hindu. But with the happy and necessary entry of Mrs. Pickering into his life, the west culture came to sway his life.

Markandaya’s Vasantha is constantly trying to assert her Indian identity, however she blindly follows her husband to London and constitutes a family there, she never leaves her tradition behind. Srinivas is compelled to perform the possible ritual rites even on her death.

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