Diversity in Hybridity: A Quest for (Re)Locating the Self in Kaushik Barua's Windhorse

Every ethnic group has a unique identity as an essential element of their existence – an identity which evolves anthropologically, culturally and topologically. While for the members of a diaspora community the very identity becomes further crucial for the existence and for their functioning in discrete cultural/political/social milieu of foreign countries. The notion of identity plays the pivotal role in the lives of displaced communities, as it prevents them from assimilation and acculturation. This paper on Kaushik Barua’s Windhorse would attempt to illustrate the plurality of identity present among individuals of the Tibetan diasporic community, scattered over different parts of India. The paper would also seek to throw light on its diverse manifestations, evolution, alteration and adoption. It would also aim at interrogating the role of identity, as one of the constitutive parameters of ‘nationalism’, deftly portrayed through the movement and their participation in it. The paper scrutinizes the life and experience of three young Tibetans bringing them on same temporal and spatial scale, thereby, making them interact with each other while carrying forward their own personal as well as cultural paraphernalia.