We are now citizens of General Electric. In this country, there are no new words for exile. And if you have nothing to sell, you have nothing to say that this, or that, is indeed you. Kumar is too clever to offer a simple solution to this predicament. But it is clear that his hopes are set on a range of progressive movements, both in the first and the third world, and solidarity between them.
Immigrants are, of course, usually good activist-material.
It is perhaps appropriate that Passport Photos ends with a list of immigrant organisations, many of which are at the forefront of the struggle for other ways of arranging these realities. The tidal wave of diasporic South Asian writing is no longer news. What is surprising is that the first literary event bringing together a host of South Asian writers took place in 2000. At the same time I was being taken around town by this photographer, who had done an extraordinary series of photos about the razing of Lanasia, which was the whole Asian settlement. He took me through one of them, and said, I knew this family and this is where they lived , and I had tea here, and you see half of a house.