much their lives are in limbo, or how divided their
sensibilities and allegiances are, they are dignified
and noble in their search for meaning and accep-
tance in both worlds, even without any sense of
belonging in either world.
The Snake Charmer (1998) is set in India and
delves into a variety of themes, through the life,
work, and art of the illiterate snake charmer, Son-
alal. The novel opens at the pinnacle of artistic
perfection when Sonalal plays a perfect note on
his been, but he pays a price for such art: his be-
loved snake, Raju, bites him. Sonalal in fury bites
the snake back. With the snake dead, this strange
vengeance brings Sonalal fame and fortune, but
ravaged with sorrow and impotent with guilt, he
seeks out quacks, prostitutes, mad scientists and
psychiatrists. Finding no cure, he returns to his vil-
lage in search of a new snake and confronts Raju’s
widow, Rani. He wishes for an end to his pitiful,
miserable life, but as he looks into Rani’s eyes, he
sees “the pain of all living things” (186). Finding
forgiveness where he had expected vengeance, he
returns to his profession with renewed vigor. When
history repeats itself and the new snake bites him,
with Herculean effort he refrains from biting the
snake back. The novel exceeds its quaint and exotic
plot by defining the nature of artistic perfection,
the meaning of love, and the significance of life for
even impoverished humans. It also explores the
healing power of forgiving oneself and giving one-
self second chances. Sonalal makes perfect music,
finds love in all the wrong and right places, and
understands his responsibility to his family and his
art, all bound together with the gossamer dream of
a perfect note.
Transplanted Man (2002) makes visible the be-
hind-the-scene workings of the medical profession.
A hospital in the middle of Little India in Manhat-
tan attracts the best immigrants in the field, from
dedicated researchers and brilliant clinicians to
ward assistants, roller-coasting toward fantastic
dreams. As the sanitized, taciturn professionals race
through sleep-deprived frenzies to save lives, they
get embroiled in the personal lives of their patients.
Poised between “hypokinetic man,” a catatonic,
homeless man immobile as a statue, and “trans-
planted man,” a popular Indian politician touting
diversity through multiple organ transplants, is the
brilliant resident, Sonny, trying to save lives both
in and outside the hospital. As the neo-imperial-
ist forces of globalization churn immigrants into
sleepwalking zombies, the degrees of loss of their
native identities are carefully calibrated. The pre-
cariously built identity of the immigrant accused
of too much ethnicity in the United States and too
little ethnicity in the homeland becomes unhinged
at night as Sonny sleepwalks, exposing unnamed
psychological vulnerabilities and illnesses that are
by-products of immigration. The immigrant com-
pelled to erase his/her ethnicity to fit into the new
culture is thus seen as existing in a state of som-
nambulance. Assimilation requires the erasure of
native memory, and this unconscious process ex-
poses the immigrants’ particular vulnerabilities as
is revealed by Sonny’s near misses with hurtling
vehicles during his unconscious nightly sojourns.
Thus, Nigam in all his works deftly captures facets
of human consciousness, especially the vulnerable
facets of the immigrant consciousness.Bibliography
Nigam, Sanjay. The Snake Charmer. New York: Wil-
liam Morrow, 1998.
Sukanya B. Senapati19 Varieties of Gazelle
Naomi Shihab Nye (2002)
A finalist for the National Book Award, NAOMI
SHIHAB NYE’s 19 Varieties of Gazelle was writtten
in response to the events that transpired in the
United States on September 11, 2001. This collec-
tion of 60 new poems opens with an introduction
by the author, who writes about her early life and
reflects upon her desire to connect in some way to
her father’s family in the Middle East. The events
of 9/11 hampered the efforts made by those who
wished to engage in cross-cultural understanding,
and Nye’s book of poems introduces the Middle
East in such a way as to assure the reader that her
Middle East is not the Middle East of violence.
The poems portray diverse Middle Eastern
characters whose voices are rich in tradition and216 19 Varieties of Gazelle