Indian Poetry in English – a British Indian overview
Indian Prose in English has always enjoyed
Western attention. Writers like R.K.Narayan,
Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand and lately, Salman
Rushdie, Arundathi Roy and of course Nobel
Laureate, V.S.Naipaul have all been fashionable
in the West, at some point or another. However,
it is disappointing to see that Western
attention directed towards Indian Poetry
in English has been minimal. Indian Poetry
in English is nearly 200 years old. It
began with Henry Derozio in the first half
of the nineteenth century. Preceding Derozio,
the British servicemen in India are said
to have laid the foundation stones for this
genre. Today, Indian Poetry in English
has been exported back to the West, in the
form of Indian poets living in the West.
Although a nominal amount of Indian Poetry
in English is being taught at School and
University levels in the West, the critical
possibilities of this much mis-interpreted
genre have not been fully exploited, here.
An average western reader would unite Indian
Poetry in English under a single umbrella.
The heterogeneity of Indian Poetry in English
is completely overlooked. The genre embodies,
inter alia, a variety of styles,
symbols, folklore, myths and themes and
unfolds a sequence of cultural, linguistic,
political, regional and etymological differences.
To understand and appreciate this genre,
a brief history needs to be traced and the
pioneering poets like Rabindranath Tagore
and Sarojini Naidu re-read in the light
of post-colonialism. Following this, the
work of later poets and Indian poets settled
in the West should also be considered. Tagore
and Naidu lived and wrote during the transition
of the colonial era to the post-colonial.
Both these poets were part of the Indian
resistance against the British Raj and their
poetry can be seen as a milestone in the
evolution of Indian Poetry in English. Their
work defines the relationship between history
and culture, by exposing the conflicts and
contradictions of the East and the West
in the colonial era and by providing insights
into the dynamic syntheses that resolve
these conflicts.
Rabindranath Tagore, (1861
– 1941), in spite of his Nobel Prize for
Gitanjali in 1913 has long been forgotten.
He still lives in the English translations
of other writers, while his own English
translations from Bengali lie forgotten.
Although Tagore primarily wrote in Bengali,
he proceeded to translate his work into
English (the Nobel Prize was awarded to
the English version of Gitanjali)
and later wrote in English. The poetry of
Tagore reflects a kaleidoscope of cultures.
The Indian marga (classical) and
desi (folk) traditions rub shoulders with Western literary doctrines. Tagore’s
poetry incorporates Sufi mysticism, Hindu
philosophy, Indian myth and folklore and
Western literature and philosophy.
Gitanjali epitomises all things
Tagorean. It synthesises the diverse elements
in Sufism and Hindu philosophy into a multicultural
whole:
…thou who art the King of kings hast
decked thyself in beauty to captivate
my heart. And
for this thy love loses itself in the
love of thy lover, and
there art thou seen in the perfect
union of two. 1
Tagore's mysticism and the contemplation
of the nature of God, the unification of
the personal and cosmic aspects of Divine
Nature are all a result of Islam-Hindu
synthesis. Tagore’s projection of Mother
Nature and the female force can be interpreted
as the poet’s championship of women and
his desire for equality and justice for
women, as echoed in the words of Chitra:
No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet
an object of common pity to be brushed aside
like a moth with indifference 2.
Tagore's poetry may be innately Indian
but it has a universal appeal and his concerns
range from women's and children's rights
to individual liberty and internationalism,
especially in poems like "Africa":
The savage greed of the
civilised stripped naked its unashamed
inhumanity.
You wept and your cry was
smothered,
your forest trails became
muddy with tears and blood,
while the nailed boots of the
robbers
left their indelible prints
along the history of your
indignity. 3
Here Tagore has questioned the Western
ideas of democracy and freedom in the light
of imperialism. Tagore's poetry could be
re-examined in a contemporary pacifist and
human rights' context as he has addressed
these factors in his poetry.
Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949)
is another of India’s pioneering poets in
English. Sarojini Naidu was one of the first
poets who explored the Indian sensibility
within the framework of traditional Western
poetic forms.
If you call me, I will come
Swifter than desire
Swifter than the lightning's feet
Shod with plumes of fire.
Life's dark tides may roll between,
Or Death's deep chasms
divide-4
Her poetry has certainly paved the way
for the subsequent multicultural inter-weaving,
which is a trend seen even in contemporary
Indian poets. Like that of Tagore, Sarojini's
poetry too has elements of Sufism, Bhakti5
philosophy, Christianity and Metaphysical
Poetry. Sarojini exemplifies the exotic
India as opposed to the poverty-ridden,
black hole portrayed in the Western media.
Her Snake Charmers, Bangle Sellers, Fisherfolk,
the Weavers and Palanquin Bearers are not
the remnants of Kipling's India; but in
fact, reflect an India of hard working people,
who blend their simple lives into the colour,
culture and traditions of the land. The
"exotic" lies not in their attire
or surroundings, but in their thoughts.
For instance, the "Indian Weavers"6
weave the robes of a new-born child at the
break of the day and in the moonlight chill
" a dead man's funeral shroud".
In this poem, the rites of passage are brought
out along with the participatory elements.
Sarojini's characters live in a real world
but look at life in the light of Indian
philosophy as illustrated by the poem "Coromandel
Fishers":
He who holds the storm by the hair,
Will hide in his breast, our lives.
7
The fishermen's braving of the elements
and their faith in God is brilliantly portrayed
here.
Poems like "Purdah
Nashin" and "Suttee" speak
of Sarojini's longing for the emancipation
of women:
Her days are guarded and secure
Behind her carven lattices…
Who shall prevent the subtle years
Or shield a woman's eyes from tears?
8
Sarojini Naidu has made Indian womanhood
explicit through her poems. Her patriotism
and her incitement of fellow Indians towards
freedom in poems like "Awake"
and "To India":
Waken, our mother! Thy children implore
thee…
Are we not thine, O belov'd, to inherit
The manifold pride and power of thy
spirit? 9
confirms the fact that one cannot designate
Sarojini Naidu to the post of the sub-altern
as she was actively involved in the Independence
Movement and was a feminist, in a traditional
way. For some reason, Sarojini has been
dismissed as excessively sentimental and
simplistic. Her poetry has come under a
barrage of criticism for lack of sophistication
and analysis. Her work with language seems
to be ignored, as does her mysticism:
Life is a Prism of My Light
And Death the shadow of My face.
10
Later poets like Nissim Ezekiel
(1924 - 2004) and Kamala Das (1934- ) depict
the change in the trends of Indian Poetry
in English. The poetry of Ezekiel reflects
the contemporary Indian metropolis. His
Very Indian Poems in English see
the creative use of English, away from a
totally Western perspective:
“What you think of prospects
of world peace?
Pakistan
behaving like this,
China behaving
like that,
It is making me very sad,
I am telling you.”11
It is English, modified and adapted to
suit the Indian sensibility, generating
an Indian-English idiom, which could be
identified as the post-colonial inter-language. Ezekiel's religion, his English education and his native city of
Bombay are all portrayed effectively in
his poetry. One of his well known poems,
The Night of the Scorpion explores
Indian superstition, at work in the poet’s
middle-class, educated Jewish background:
I remember the night my
mother
Was stung by a scorpion…
…The peasants came like
swarms of flies
and buzzed the Name of
God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One….12
His poems show a cultural dichotomy of
Judaic culture and Hindu Bombay. His modern
India is a mosaic of the Indian metropolis,
with its colonial vestiges and the peripheral
rural India, with its traditional Indian
values. He also shows alienation as a member
of a minority community in a predominantly
Hindu India. His poetry displays a highly
private sensibility in relation to the social
and ethical changes in Post-Independent
India. Ezekiel is an example of a ‘post-colonial
hybrid’ integrating diverse cultures and
their dimensions into his poetry.
Kamala Das’s work challenges all Western
interpretations of the Eastern Woman. Her
highly subjective and confessional poetry
explores male-female relationship in the
context of sexual colonisation of women
in their native matriarchal Keralite 13
society. Her treatment of
the love theme is a psychological catharsis:
….Can this
man with
nimble fingertips
unleash nothing more
alive than
the skin’s lazy hungers…
… it is only
to save my face
I flaunt at
times, a grand flamboyant lust…14
Her poetry can be taken as an example
of Indian feminist thought, its effects
and interpretations. Kamala Das’s themes
of extra marital relationships and her intense
and explicit sexual connotations set the
trend for magic realism in Indian
Poetry in English:
I met a man, loved him.
Call
Him not by any name, he
is every man
Who wants a woman, just
I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him…the hungry
haste
Of rivers, in me …the ocean's tireless
Waiting.15
Her poetry challenges the stereotyping
of Indian women and the power imbalance
between the sexes. She shows a restlessness
with the fetters of femininity and rejects
the traditional female image, while defying
the overwhelming Indian male ego:
Be a wife, they said.
Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller with servants.
Fit in. Oh,
Belong…16
Kamala Das’s poetry, like Arundathi Roy’s
God of Small Things, echoes the need for change in the traditional Indian outlook
of women and for breaking the Western mould
of “the long-suffering other".
Over the years, Indian Poetry
in English has migrated to the West. Indian
poets, living abroad work on a wide range
of themes like alienation, marginalisation
and displacement. In the UK, the contemporary
Indian poetic diaspora consists of a number
of well-established figures. Debjani Chatterjee
(1952 -) is one of them. Her repertoire
of themes range from gender issues, multiculturalism
and nostalgia to the very act of an Indian
writing in English There is a distinct Indianness
in her tone, combined with a Western perspective
of the world. In "I was that Woman",
Debjani creates a gender identity for the
subaltern, which seems to be continuously
questioned by the East and the West:
I was that woman who roused a nation
And was burnt so many times at so many
stakes.
I was the woman at whom the Vedas,
the Avesta,
The Bible and the Koran were flung;
Their God was the bogeyman
Who kindly sent male prophets
To keep me humble in my place.
17
The theme of writing in an alien tongue
is marvellously illustrated in "Learning
The Imperialist's Language":
Because you were the enemy’s,
you had to be grappled with
and ruthlessly mastered.
Encountering you was all
the delight of illicit romance…
You have schooled me
in strategies to disarm,
as you have fooled me
into owning at last,
that in possessing you,
I become the one-time enemy. 18
Shanta Acharya is another British Indian
poet, who is widely published in Britain
and abroad. She draws heavily from the Upanishads
and other Hindu Literature and transfers
the mysticism into her personal world. In
The Night of Shiva, Shanta explores
her Indianness in the backdrop of British
culture:
Drum in one
hand, trishul in the other,
your rhythmic
dance would be quite an ethnic
performance par excellence in public
with Parvathi break-dancing down Trafalgar
square…19
Here, Shantha has imported her Hindu Gods
into Trafalgar Square and has alluded to
the immigration of the Hindu culture into
Britain. Hers is a highly subjective voice
that comes to terms with her Indianness
and at the same time reflects on the day-to-day
reality of the Western world. This balancing
act between the East and the West brings
the occasional irony into her work:
…If our gods can eat and
sleep,
steal buttermilk, make
love, fall ill…
what's so surprising about
drinking some milk?
…When a community unites
in a willing suspension of disbelief,
experts agree it is acknowledging
a deeper human need…20
British Indian poets, like other poets
living in the West, occupy a unique position.
Their poetry is a dynamic synthesis of their
Indian regionalities and their synchronous
British situations. They are not only “born
into two cultures”, but they also live in
a space, between the multicultural present
and the colonial past. We are brought into
the crossroads of text, context and language
- a text, which is written by an Indian
living abroad; a context, which is bi-cultural
and bi-lingual, in its own sense and a language
that accommodates both the West and the
East.
Indian Poetry in English reflects many
aspects of avant-garde culture viz:
Liberalism, Feminism and Ethnicity:
Liberalism - This can be interpreted
in many ways:
·
Liberalism - Indian poets
chose to liberate themselves from their
mother tongue and write in English, which
they call their first language. In
a sense, Indian Poetry in English is responsible
for the “liberation of the English language”21. The English language has been modified and adapted to suit
the Indian sensibility. Indian Poetry in
English is yet another an example of the
"englishes" described by Ascroft,
Griffiths and Tiffin.22
·
Feminism – The feministic
angle of Indian Poetry in English would
de-stabilise the stereotype of the Indian
woman in the West. It would also come as
a cultural shock to those who question the
very existence of a gender identity in Indian
Writing in English. Feminism can be traced
back to the origins of Indian Writing. Tagore’s
projection of Mother Nature and the female
force can be interpreted as Eco-feminism.
Sarojini Naidu makes the Indian Woman ‘heard’
and Kamala Das ponders about the sexual
identity of the Indian Woman, while Debjani
Chatterjee carves an identity for the subaltern.
·
Ethnicity – Indian Poetry
in English cannot be dismissed under a brand
name. Indian Poetry in English reflects
regional variations such as language, ethnicity
and culture. It should also be noted that
Indian English poets belong to different
races, cultures and traditions.
Looking at the multicultural angle of
Indian Poetry in English, one can clearly
spot the difference in Western multiculturalism
and Indian multiculturalism. In the West,
multiculturalism is a recent phenomenon,
while in India it is an accepted way of
life. Western multiculturalism portrays
resistance against cultural hegemony, search
for identity and struggle for the recognition
of difference. In India, the phenomenon
is more assimilatory, than subversive.
In spite of the cultural, religious, social
and geographical differences, there seems
to be an integration, a Unity in Diversity.
The Indian identity can be called confluent.
This confluent identity is aware
of the differences and at the same time,
maintains its own integrity. This identity
negotiates a space for itself in the multicultural
congregation that is India. This aspect
is evident in not only Indian Poetry in
English but also in other genres of Indian
English Writing. As the confluent Indian
identity migrates West, the trends range
from assimilatory to reactionary, perhaps
in response to the trends in Western multiculturalism
which incorporates different ethnic identities,
from many parts of the World and as a result
face resistance from the host communities.
The representation of female Indian literary
figures, in the West, has been minimal.
Western feminists have the tendency to look
at Third world women as a “cultural
and ideological composite other”23. This homogenous mis-representation has overlooked important
issues such as differences in race, culture
and class. This stereotype of Indian women/Third
world women paints the picture of a voiceless,
helpless, species of the female variety,
continually subjected to marginalisation
and oppression. Even though the works of
Spivak and others have given voice to the
sub-altern, there does not seem to be a
cohesive understanding about Indian Women
poets in the western academia.
Indian Poetry in English has travelled
a long way, across time and space. It is
the literature of renascence- "a literary
aesthetic and reality based on the emergence
of a third world personality from the privations
of history24 ".
It carries transhistorical
and transcultural significance as it defines
the Colonial and Post-colonial eras of Literature.
Indian Poetry in English encompasses various
post-colonial issues, such as history, language,
culture, displacement and de-colonisation.
The current debates surrounding heterogeneity,
feminism, race, nationalism/post-nationalism
and multiculturalism are all very much a
part of this genre. Even the pioneering
poets bring these debates to light. Certainly
it is time to uncover Indian Poetry in English
in the light of post-colonialism.
End Notes
1. Tagore.R
; Gitanjali Macmillan India Ltd;
1913. Verse LVI. p.37
2. Tagore.R;
Chitra Macmillan; London; 1914. p.57.
3. Tagore.R:
"To Africa2; The Spectator; 7
May 1937; Kalyan Kundu, Sakti
Bhattacharya & Kalyan Sircar (Ed.) Imagining
Tagore: Rabindranath and the British Press
(1912 -1941); Shitya Samsad; Calcutta;
2000. p.545.
4. Naidu.S;
"If You Call Me"; V.K.Gokak (Ed.)
The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry;
Sahitya Akademi; New Delhi; 1992. p.p. 152-153.
5. Bhakti
- Literally meaning devotion. The Bhakti
age is considered the golden era in Indian
Literature. It spans the geographical regions
of India and dates between AD 1100 -1600.
6. Naidu
S; "Indian Weavers"; qtd. K.R.S.Iyengar;
Indian Writing in English; Sterling
Publishers Private Limited; 1984.p.212.
7. Naidu.S;
"Coromandel Fishers"; in Sceptred
Flute; Dodd, Mead and Company; N.Y.
p. p.6-7.
8. Naidu.S;
"Pardah Nashin; V.K.Gokak (Ed.)
The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry;
Sahitya Akademi; New Delhi; 1992. p.p. 149
-150.
9. Naidu.S;
"Awake!"; V.K.Gokak (Ed.)
The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry;
Sahitya Akademi; New Delhi; 1992. p.151.
10. Naidu.S; "The Soul's Prayer";
V.K.Gokak (Ed.) The Golden Treasury
of Indo-Anglian Poetry; Sahitya Akademi;
New Delhi; 1992. p.154.
11. Ezekiel.N; "Very Indian
Poems in English’" in Nissim Ezekiel,
Collected poems 1952-1988 (Oxford
University Press, New Delhi, 1989), p. 238.
12. Ezekiel.N; "Night of the
Scorpion", in Nissim Ezekiel,
Collected poems 1952-1988 (Oxford
University Press, New Delhi, 1989), p. 130.
13. Keralite - native of Kerala
in South India.
14. Das.K; "The Freaks"
in The Best of Kamala Das (Bodhi
Publishing House, Kozhikode, Kerala, 1991),
p.42.
15. Das.K; "Introduction";
V.K.Gokak (Ed.) The Golden Treasury
of Indo-Anglian Poetry; Sahitya Akademi;
New Delhi; 1992. p.p.272 -273.
16. Gokak.V.K. (Ed.) The Golden
Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry; Sahitya
Akademi; New Delhi; 1992. p.
17. Chatterjee.D; I Was That
Woman; Hippopotamus Press; UK; 1989.
18. "Learning the Imperialist
Language". c. Debjani Chatterjee.
19. Acharya.S; "The Night of
Shiva"; Debjani Chatterjee (ed)
The Redbeck Anthology of British South Asian
Poetry; The Redbeck Press; March; 2000.
20. "Of Magic and Men"
c. Shanta Acharya.
21. Devy G.N, In Another Tongue
(Macmillan India Ltd. Madras, 1995), p.p.
107-116.
22. Ashcroft.B, Griffiths.G &
Tiffin.H: The Empire Writes Back;
Routledge; London; 1998.p.p. 38 -59.
23. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, ‘Under
Western Eyes – Feminist Scholarship and
Discourses’ in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths,
and Helen Tiffin (eds), The post-colonial
studies reader (Routledge, London; 1995),
p.259.
24. Michael Dash - Marvellous
Realism: The Way out of Négritude in
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen
Tiffin (Ed) The Post-Colonial Studies
Reader; Routledge; London; 1995.
p. 200.
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