Homecoming (19 page)

David Matthews in the
Australian Book Review
called it ‘a significant novel…a novel of ideas with a fully Australian focus…It is
bold, often convincing and always readable…expertly told’. And in
Good Reading
magazine, Gareth Beal found that ‘while his subject matter is by no means new, Khan is able to suffuse it with unexpected shades of meaning…This is the sort of novel that makes you wonder whether anyone comes home from a war. Highly recommended.’

David Ellery in the
Ballarat Courier
felt that ‘Adib Khan has created a unique everyman. Much more than a book about the post-Vietnam experience,
Homecoming
tackles universal themes explored in books such as Sartre’s
Nausea
and Camus’
The Plague.’
The
Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin
called the book ‘a true literary breakthrough in its study of contemporary Australia…Khan weaves the threads of Martin’s life—father, comrade, lover, unwilling conspirator and reluctant spiritual searcher—into a seamless, stunning tapestry.’

And in the view of the
Weekend Australian
’s Matt Condon, ‘Khan’s writing is so beautifully polished and restful, and his handling of his primary characters so restrained and expertly turned, that he manages to sidestep cliche and evoke a gentle wisdom that permeates the novel like a pleasant fragrance…What gives Martin’s story its power and resonance is its sheer ordinariness…This is a very Australian story, told with a refreshing simplicity and a convincing self-deprecation. Khan’s character couldn’t have summed it up better. This is soul writing. Too many books about Vietnam? Not in this case.’

ADIB KHAN SAYS
, ‘In
Homecoming,
I am trying to answer the question: What is moral responsibility? After I’d written the first draft I thought it’s really all about making a Uturn in life and walking into your problems without hoping to solve all of them. It’s an anti-war novel that uses a Vietnam veteran as the central character, but it doesn’t focus exclusively on the war itself. There was certainly one predictable element I wanted to avoid. I had no wish to construct a conventional love story that underpins so many war novels: a passionate, torrid affair with one person eventually getting killed, thus highlighting one of the tragic dimensions of war. We have enough of those stories.

‘It’s too early to tell what the legacy of the Vietnam War is. Until the generation of Vietnam soldiers passes away, objectivity is very difficult to attain. I’m a great believer in The Uncertainty Principle—that truth is a matter of perception…The only authenticity I’m concerned about is how honest I am to my imagination…how well I can mould available facts into fiction. If imaginative integrity is compromised, then I’ve failed as a writer.’

Elsewhere he has said, ‘I am becoming accustomed to questions about why I, of all people, would write a novel in which the Vietnam War has such a central role. But you have to remember that I grew up in what was then East Pakistan, only a few doors away from Vietnam, far closer to the centre of action than Australia…so the interest was always there. Furthermore, I came to
Australia in 1973, a time when the Vietnam War was rushing towards its inevitable conclusion. Thirdly, and perhaps from a creative point of view, I wanted to get away from writing about the subcontinent for a while.’

In an essay on identity, Khan muses on how his identity as a migrant affects his writing. ‘The question of identity has been a complicated issue for me, long before I accidentally stumbled into writing…Undoubtedly my attitude has much to do with cultural fragmentation…Those of us who have reluctantly experienced displacement, or willingly shifted our cultural base, find our private ways of locating and perceiving ourselves beyond the obvious coordinates of a street, a suburb, a town or a passport. I am no exception in this quiet search, and my vehicle of travel is writing fiction…

‘The migrant’s voice tells me what it is like to be a stranger and yet be at home, to live both inside and outside of one’s immediate situation, to be permanently on the move, to think of one way return journeys but to realise at the same time the impossibility of doing so…’

Of
Homecoming,
he explains, ‘I figure that if a Japanese could have written a novel about an English butler, then a Bangladeshi can fictionalise a white Australian’s experience. I don’t have a problem with pulling down artificial barriers. That is one of the supreme advantages of not being weighed down by a single identity.’

The 8RAR in Vietnam

‘
VIETNAM IS LIKE AN
archaeological dig. The deeper you go, the more you unearth.’
—
Homecoming,
Chapter Twelve.

The 8RAR, the Eighth Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, comprised both regular soldiers—men who had joined the army knowing that overseas service was a distinct possibility—and some of the more than 15,000 conscripted men sent to Vietnam.

‘I can remember it like it was yesterday. Seventeenth November, 1969. Hamilton Wharf in Brisbane. I was waiting to board HMAS
Sydney
on the way to Vung Tau. We behaved as if we were on our way to a harmless adventure
…’—
Homecoming,
Chapter Nine.

The main body of the 8RAR landed at Vung Tau on 28 November and were moved by road to Nui Dat, where they were trained in mine warfare, booby-trap familiarisation, infantry–armour cooperation and fire-support procedures. They didn’t have their first ‘operational contact’ until 12 December, when they ‘engaged two enemy,’ according to the Battalion’s official history, ‘one of whom was wounded’.

‘
I have never seen a finer group of men. I have never fought with a finer group of soldiers.
’—United States Commander General Westmoreland, of the Australian troops in Vietnam.

One of the soldiers joked afterwards that he found it ironic that all through their training they’d been taught that the Viet Cong wear black pyjamas and a panama hat. When they got off the boat in Vung Tau, everyone seemed to be wearing black pyjamas and a
panama hat. Another wrote home that there was red mud everywhere, and that Vietnam must be the only place in the world where you could be bogged in mud up to your neck, and still get dust in your eyes.

‘There are exploded bits of Vietnam embedded in us. Sure, the war is over. But the strife inside will not cease.’
—
Homecoming,
Chapter Nine.

The main body of the 8RAR shipped back from Vietnam on the HMAS
Sydney
on 31 October 1970, arriving in Australia on 12 November. Australia had begun winding down its military effort by this time, partly because of the gathering momentum of anti-war protests and public feeling against the war. Almost 60,000 Australians had served in Vietnam since 1962, and 520 had died, with some 2400 wounded.

Since the end of the war, studies have found that Vietnam veterans die at a rate seven per cent higher than that of the general population, and have even higher cancer rates. Veterans are fifty per cent more likely to take up smoking than the average person, according to a 1997 report in the
Herald Sun,
and suffer correspondingly higher rates of illnesses such as lung and throat cancer. A 1998 study for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs found that among the children of veterans the occurrence of spina bifida, cleft palate, ‘absent limbs’, suicide and psychiatric problems were three to ten times the level of the general population. Studies have linked these to the effect of dioxin-based defoliants, such as Agent Orange, used by the US Army.

Seasonal Adjustments

(Allen & Unwin, 1994)

Iqbal Chaudhary is fortyish, but the midlife crisis he faces is more complex than many would confront. His marriage in Australia has collapsed, his past surfaces to bother his conscience and he feels a compulsive need to go back to the country he left immediately after the war with Pakistan, eighteen years earlier. But his reception from family and friends is deeply mixed.

‘
A startling, heady novel about the sticky web of attachment and belonging. Adib Khan knows too well the fearful strands of nation, family, faith and love.
’—Tim Winton

‘
Thoroughly absorbing…Khan’s imagery transcends culture, sex and faith, pulling readers into the heart of a character who is an alien in both his native land and in his adopted country.
’—Publishers Weekly

‘
A bittersweet tale about the dislocation and cultural fragmentation of the immigrant from the subcontinent…The writing is flawless, switching from a humorously ironic tone to one of lyricism and tenderness.
’—South Asian Women’s Forum

Solitude of Illusions

(Allen & Unwin, 1996)

Plagued by a terminal illness, Khalid Sharif leaves his home in Calcutta to visit his son, Javed, who has migrated to Australia. Javed is confounded by the old man’s rebellious idiosyncrasies, which contradict a lifelong impression of a dull, predictable father. What Javed does not know is that, as a young man, Khalid Sharif fell in love with a courtesan, Nazli, and asked her to marry him. An
outraged family pressured him into breaking his betrothal. It is this broken promise that has haunted Khalid Sharif for the rest of his life. As he gets closer to death, memories of his youth become more vivid, and his imagination reinvents the past to achieve a fulfilment denied to him in his younger days.

‘Solitude of Illusions
confirms Khan’s gifts and promise…he is far too good a writer to remain predictably “exotic”.
’—Andrew Riemer, Sydney Morning Herald

The Storyteller

(HarperCollins, 2000)

Vamana is a dwarf, abandoned by his parents and adopted by Maji, a woman who sees beyond the child’s deformity to the human within. As Vamana grows older, he realises that he is always going to be an outcast, despite his magical gift for storytelling. Drawn to the dark, seedy and dangerous underworld of Delhi, Vamana makes himself at home alongside the pimps, pickpockets, prostitutes and
hijra
s (eunuchs) who populate its depths. With his unique storytelling skills, he achieves a level of fame amongst this motley cast of characters.

‘
This book has a great energy about it…a very colourful evocation of Delhi, of the street life and the way people make a life and find entertainment amidst this terrible destitution.
’—Sian Prior, ABC Radio

‘
A strong, brave book which makes big demands on its readers, and…opens a window into a world about which most Australians know nothing.
’—Margaret Jones, Sydney Morning Herald

Auguste Rodin’s sculpture
The Thinker
(1880, bronze) (see www.musee-rodin.fr)

Albert Tucker’s painting
Army Shower
(1942, oil on composition board) at the Australian National Gallery, Canberra (see www.nga.gov.au)

The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg
, Harcourt, New York, 2003

Tears on My Pillow: Australian Nurses in Vietnam
by Narelle Biedermann, Random House, Sydney, 2004

Vietnam: The Australian Experience
by John Rowe, Time-Life Books Australia and John Ferguson, Sydney, 1987

Satyananda Yoga Retreat Centre–Ashram
Ballan–Daylesford Road, Rocklyn, Victoria Phone (03) 53 457 434; fax (03) 53 457 566

[email protected]

[email protected]

Australian War Memorial

Treloar Crescent, Campbell, ACT

Phone (02) 6243 4211

www.awm.gov.au

Vietnam Veterans Museum

57 Phillip Island Road, San Remo, Victoria

www.vietnamvetsmuseum.org

Dedicated to preserving and exhibiting memorabilia from ‘Australia’s longest war’.

I am indebted to Harcourt for permission to quote an excerpt from Carl Sandburg’s poem, ‘Murmurings in a Field Hospital’, on page 39.

There are several versions of the story of Kisagotami. The one I have used is an amalgamation of what I have heard in the Indian subcontinent.

My thanks to the two Vietnam veterans, who prefer not to be named, for their narratives that sparked the ideas for this novel.

I am also indebted to the administrator of the ashram in Rocklyn for permission to set part of the novel there.

A
DIB
K
HAN

Seasonal Adjustments

Solitude of Illusions

The Storyteller