The Analysis of The Rohinton Mistry’s Short Story "Squatter"

Rohinton Mistry’s short story “Squatter”, takes place in the Firozsha Baag of India. The story is centred around an old man, Nariman, who is known by the neighbourhood children of A Block as a slightly unpredictable, albeit entertaining storyteller. He recounts to the children the story of Sarosh, a Parsi man who immigrates from their very neighbourhood to Toronto, determined to become a Canadian in just a decade. However, once that ten year mark approaches, he finds himself unable to claim he has fully transitioned due to his lingering routine of squatting on the toilets.

The squatting is significant in this text considering both the physical position and allegorical meaning are employed by Mistry to convey a sense of being trapped by an ideal. The squatting symbol affirms the text’s negative view of multiculturalism and presents Canadian emigrants as feeling unwelcome if they cannot full adhere to the customs of their new home. Mistry utilizes Sarosh as a vehicle to present a distrust in cross-culturalism in the text.

The title of Mistry’s short story is ambiguous in the sense that Sarosh is physically squatting when using the toilets, and also feeling like he is metaphorically squatting in Canada. This physical symbol manifests itself symbolically in more than one way. Firstly, in Sarosh’s inkling that he is unwelcome due to him being unlike born Canadians— he sees himself an intruder due to his peculiar habits. There is never any overt reaction or display of feelings from said Canadians that suggest he is unwelcome, Sarosh simply fabricates this impression based on his beliefs and opinions about himself. For example, “poor, unhappy Sarosh too could detect something malodorous in the air: the presence of xenophobia and hostility”.

Sarosh literally feels like an alien in a country which he has every legal right to be in. Mistry has taken the harmless, physical action of squatting and given it new meaning for him. The more he finds himself unable to relieve himself like a “true Canadian”, the more his sense of alienation increases. As his sense of alienation increases, he feels more and more like a true squatter, in every sense of the word. Eventually,Sarosh gets fired from his job due to the increasing amount of time he spends in the bathroom, locking himself in his house, ceasing to be an active member of society, essentially becoming what he feared he already was.

Interestingly, at this moment, Sarosh’s story cuts out and the story returns to A block, where an angry neighbour is interrupting Nariman’s storytelling to convey his displeasure at the gathering of the children. By no coincidence, he yells “this is not a squatters’ colony” (Mistry, 168). The author uses subtle and specific ways such as these to drive home the overall negative sentiments toward multiracialism. The squatting analogy is integral to show that Mistry wants to convey a sense of unreceptiveness toward immigrants under the veil of pluralism. Such is evidenced in the text: “…ensure that ethnic cultures are able to flourish, so that Canadian society will consist of a mosaic of cultures — that’s their favourite word, mosaic — instead of one uniform mix, like the American melting pot.

If you ask me, mosaic and melting pot are both nonsense, and ethnic is a polite way of saying bloody foreigner.” At points such as these, the negative attitude toward diversity turns toward outright dismissal due to the pressure placed on emigrants toward either complete conformity or being known as an outlander.Sarosh’s all-or-nothing way of thinking reinforces the text’s disbelief in ethnic inclusiveness by showing that if emigrants cannot fully integrate, then they are somehow unwelcome, there is no intermediate state possible in his mind, you cannot be an emigrant with remnants of your upbringing, nor can you return to your home country and truly belong there after a stint abroad. Interestingly, Mistry applies the squatting position also as a emblem for Sarosh’s routine of seeing things in a notably unequivocal way.

He sees no other option than either returning to India, because he “failed” at fully acclimating, or staying in Canada as a result of his “success”, hence when he squats on the toilet, one of his feet is firmly planted in his habits, the other in his new identity as a Canadian. He cannot simply accept that he may not fulfill his own expectations of a perfect Canadian or a perfect Parsi boy. That attitude is shown here “There had been a time when it was perfectly natural to squat. Now it seemed a grotesquely aberrant thing to do. Wherever he went he was reminded of the ignominy of his way. If he could not be westernized in all respects, he was nothing but a failure in this land — a failure not just in the washrooms of the nation but everywhere.” Mistry employs Sarosh to show that western cultures, although they centre their identity around multiculturalism, do not genuinely feel welcoming.

In conclusion, Mistry’s usage of squatting as both a symbol and physical action presents the ethnic mosaic as a false ideal that makes newcomers feel trapped and excluded. In particular, the recurring language of squatting shows that he feels unwelcome and like he has failed if he cannot blend in. This notion that he cannot blend in and fear of failure feeds his black and white thinking— if he is to succeed, he must stay, if he fails, there is no other option but to leave. These two aspects are tied together nicely by the literal stance Sarosh takes as he squats; sensing that he cannot fully settle in as a newcomer, having part of him planted firmly back in India, while the rest of him is desperately trying to blend in in Canada.