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[REVIEW] “Adaptation and the Illusion of Home: Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight” by Abhinav Tulachan

Manjushree Thapa, Seasons of Flight, Penguin India, 2011. 226 pgs.

“The flap of a butterfly’s wings measures the brief span of its life.”

Such is the existence of the El Segundo Blue (Euphilotes allyni)—an endangered butterfly species native to a fragile ecosystem in Southern California. To the human eye, their life cycle passes in but a blink: they hatch beside a cluster of coastal buckwheat, grow to adulthood, lay their eggs, live, and perish—all within a matter of weeks.

What is most remarkable about these delicate creatures is that, though their lives are fleeting and their very survival imperilled by urbanisation, they endure. They exhibit a quiet resilience in the face of change, continually seeking ways to adapt to their displacement—much like Prema, the protagonist of Seasons of Flight, who searches for belonging after her dislocation from Nepal to America.

Each chapter of Manjushree Thapa’s novel traces Prema’s flight: from the political turmoil that rends Nepal apart, to the seductive promise of renewal—of liberation—that America seems to offer, albeit at the cost of ceaseless reinvention. It is a journey in which, like the El Segundo Blue, Prema’s very existence is called into question with each metaphorical beat of her wings. An identity is discarded, a bond dissolved, a memory laid to rest—all in pursuit of a place that might finally feel like home.

At first glance, it is difficult to discern precisely what compels Prema to leave Nepal.

Disconnection? Perhaps. Prema’s decision to leave Nepal feels less like an escape and more like the natural culmination of a life adrift. Her mother’s early death severed her first tether to home, and her only true connection—her father—himself encourages her to spread her wings and reach for a world just beyond grasp. Then comes her work as a forest conservationist which, though noble, gradually morphs into a hollow, repetitive cycle—a “preservation of a landscape she feels no love or longing for”, as it were.

And speaking of longing—mayhap it is that instead? A yearning for something greater, a hunger for possibility. Prema enjoys a respected career, has a partner in Rajan who offers steady companionship, and lives a life more stable than many in Nepal might dare to hope for. Yet despite all she has—despite Rajan, whom she genuinely values—she continues to crave something more.

So, when she wins the green card lottery, it feels inevitable, almost natural, that she would seek greener pastures on the other side.

Could it also be the war? Her sister, Bijaya, abandons her family to join the Maoist insurgency that rages between the people and the monarchy. Her departure remains a bitter, painful memory Prema tries to bury. But when the conflict seeps into her own home—when she witnesses a young boy beaten and taken to a military encampment under suspicion of being a rebel—she comes to a chilling realisation: home is no longer a safe place.

Readers, there are many interpretations—many lenses through which one might understand Prema’s departure. The complexity of themes surrounding identity and longing are so intricately woven by Manjushree Thapa that each re-reading of Seasons of Flight reveals a new layer of meaning. In the end, what these layers collectively reveal are the many reasons why so many Nepalese are compelled to leave their homeland. Prema, in similar fashion, takes flight from her motherland.

However, even in America, Prema’s flight does not cease. The narrative from this point centres on her pursuit of an “ideal America”—despite the fact that she has already been physically present there for four years. She chases a land that exists only as a mirage: a place where she believes the past cannot reach her, where belonging is effortless and unconditional, all the while treating the real America around her as little more than a temporary backdrop. And so, she struggles.

Prema’s tragedy lies in the wilful blindness she chooses to wear like a veil. Time and again, she is offered the chance to begin anew. A Nepalese family—green card winners from the year before—generously hosts her, yet she leaves them after only a few months to live elsewhere, in an effort to fully sever ties with Nepal. This choice, while understandable given her motivations, is repeated when she again abandons her new apartment.

Such is the central tension in her character arc, the reason she remains unmoored in this world: she is unable to forge a lasting identity because she is perpetually in flight.

She continues to cycle through job after job—from restaurant work, to sorting items in a small store, to serving as a domestic helper to an elderly woman (all roles commonly undertaken by Nepali immigrants upon first settling). She is in a constant state of “drifting away” (as Thapa herself phrases it in the narration)—leaving behind friends, and even her new lover, Luis, who accepts her as she is, yet from whom she, inevitably, begins to drift, as she does from everything else around her. Thapa poignantly reveals the paradox of displacement through Prema, who, like the butterfly, may adapt endlessly, but never truly inhabits.

It is only when Prema has nowhere left to flee that she grants herself the space to confront her dilemma. At the close of her flight—near the very habitat of the El Segundo Blue, first invoked at the novel’s opening—she discovers the purpose she has been chasing all along. Ironically, it emerges from a rekindled passion for nature conservation, once dismissed by her as empty routine.

She finally allows herself to see the America she has lived in for so many years—to see her friends, to see Luis—and, at last, to move toward new beginnings rather than retreat from them.

In the end, the butterfly survives by learning to alight, however briefly, in the stillness between flights.

How to cite: Tulachan, Abhinav. “Adaptation and the Illusion of Home: Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 22 Jun. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/06/22/flight.

Abhinav Tulachan is an undergraduate student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University. He loves reading, writing, and sharing the knowledge he has gained through his academic journey. [All contributions by Abhinav Tulachan.]