Mona Dash |
- Mona Dash
The question may be simple to articulate
but the answer, surely never that simple.
Diasporic literature seeks to explore and answer this in its many forms.
Post-colonial theories try to understand the behaviour of the colonised and the
colonisers. I don’t need to however think of the history, the geography, and
the various opinions and views: when asked the question, forgetting my many characters
in the stories I’ve written, forgetting my words in my own poems, let me try to
answer.
But in trying to answer, I find it is
easier to ask more questions. Another country, a foreign country? For how long
does it remain ‘another country’? Will it always be so, even if you have lived
a significant part of your adult life? Have had children and are raising
children in this other country? Even if you speak the language? Does the country
of birth always mean more than the country you live in? maybe even die in? Are the ties with this other country, meant
to be as easy to sever as easily as a climber’s thin roots, easily uprooted,
growing elsewhere? Is the family you are born into always more important than the
family you have created? And is it that impossible that you can love both
fiercely?
The other country I live in, and which I moved
to was out of my own free will. No husband in an arranged marriage who booked a
one-way ticket and forced me to live in a cold, grey country, no employer sent
me away to complete a project. The only reason
was a desire to move somewhere else, and that was brought about a big change in
personal circumstances, which is another story.
When you come to this other country, not by
force, but by choice, you will see things you like. A sense of freedom for one.
The much maligned west does offer a
stronger individual sense of freedom and identity, more so when you move,
without any prior ties, there is no community, no society. If you are a married
woman, then a sense of fresh air, away from the voices and relations you had
acquired, weighing on your shoulders, demanding what you do not wish to
give.
You may also like the beauty of the
countryside, the beauty of the city. Diversity, a huge variety of cultures and
people to meet, a feeling of the world suddenly becoming your oyster.
While the sense of self is heightened when
you are away from the roots which bear you down and away from the voices in
your own head which tell you things to do and not to; and brings with it a
sense of accomplishment, there are things you don’t like as well, living in
this other country. The sense of a question; from everyone those you live with
and those you have lived with: who are you after all? Are you one of us, or one
of them? Will you ever be one of us? And
if you become one of them, remember you can’t be one of us anymore.
And a sixth sense develops quickly enough.
Comparing, contrasting what is here and what is there, asking of yourself, of
others; sometimes leading to a sense of disillusionment and anger, usually with
the country one lives in; sometimes with both. And sometimes, just sometimes,
leading to a balance, where the other
country one lives in and the country one is born in, are both complementary,
accepted and loved at least in your own heart.
Never mind what others think of you.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
As
an immigrant,
I
am expected to behave in a way
a
certain way.
Colour
the walls with turmeric,
fill
my soul with lament
for
the land whose shores I have left
to
become richer economically
poorer
emotionally.
Fold
oil into long black hair,
dream
the stars of the eastern skies,
in
this land, the land I call my own,
but
never to be my own.
Wrapped
in sarees, sapphire blue, sindoor
red,
meant
to be nostalgic about the
monsoon
spray dazzling my eyes
calming
my burning skin.
Instead, my mind
soothed
by the nourishing cool green
of
the land I live in,
energised
by the glowing orange sun
of
the land I come from,
decorates
ice cubes with spice.
With
silver anklets, red stilettoes,
the
shortest, blackest dress,
I
sip prosecco, spear olives expertly,
pile
plates with rice and chicken curry
while
in the garden
lavender,
jasmine, clematis, and marigold,
spread
their roots, dance their petals
into
the pale grey wet skies
and
the searing sunshine.
Uproot,
grow, take root
parallel
truths, a little of this,
a
little of that.
For
an immigrant,
there
is no certain way to be.
(From the poetry collection : A Certain Way,
Skylark Publications UK)
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