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| Anita Nahal |
Take
the titular poem, “What’s wrong with us Kali women?” where she writes,
"There's
nothing wrong. That's your fear labelling us. We are the Kali women. And all
other female, male, androgynous gods. We don't distinguish. We seek. We learn.
Comprehend. Embrace" Through these lines, she is informing us of multiple
ways in which women are ostracized and shamed and reading the full text will
let one into the canvas of skin color, gender and societal conditioning, and
its generational tenacity that get covered here.
In
“Homo Sapiens and Hindu Goddesses in India and America”, she calls out
double standards allotted to painting women as divine beings culturally and
then trampling them in real life. She yearns to be treated hence as a flesh and
blood mortal. "Fatigued, I drudge along like broken subalterns,
returning from a long war", these lines clearly elucidating the
exhaustion on her and her ilk. Separation from homeland, adjusting to two
worlds and carving out an identity free from polarities of both ends indeed
extracts its toll and this realistic foregrounding in lived experiences colors
her lines.
The
gamut of her choices range from events that have become endemic to us as human
beings, whether it is the poignancy of racist continuum as on “How Easy It Is
For A Black Life To Be Taken and Jazz Vocalist” ("all around
ancestors are beating their chests"), the history of African-Americans
informing the evolution of a musical style that thrives on improvisational tones,
just like poetry or the tenacity of memories embedded in inanimate
objects like clothes, beds and comforters in an special post Covid reckoning as
on “What Happened To Their Clothes?”
That use of the interrogative exclamation is a running thread as regards
the spirit of enquiry always being at the center. This ambivalence of life and
death is also present in “Corona and Love-Life Layers”, the alliterative
title being symbolic and the actual poem touching upon human avarice and
indifference refusing to die down even in the face of this extraordinary
post-modern crisis. As she writes, "layers had collapsed, conflated,
almost disappeared", with the transparency of our muddled lives occupying
her thoughts.
“Greatest
Warrior is Metamorphic Mother Earth”, to me, is a pivotal poem as it's
both a slant on evading our environmental responsibilities as humans and
simultaneously on how we condescend feminist values without deeply caring about
the history of strength and unwavering loyalty to equality that it is borne out
of. Here, Dr. Nahal is divorcing herself and her soul-sisters from the 'abla'
prototype affixed with them forever. She seeks to be taken as an equal, at least
as an individual and not just a sex/ gender.
Her
words touch upon tangible desire in “A Sip of Wine” with lines like,
"the want, the craving, the kneading, like pliable dough of my
sighs" and the freedom sought from yoga as a life-force, "as
she stretched her Namaste hands high above her head, her clothes aviating in
the taxing wind, she knew she could still breathe" in the poem, “Breathe”.
So, a versatility is achieved by Nahal, given her prolific output.
For
me as a reader, she is at her best when she navigates her identity as an
Indian- American, without the excess baggage of being what we term a
'hyphenate'; examples of her expert touch are seen in “Spilt Milk in Native and
Foreign Lands”, "foreign or home spun, a forced balanced
prescription was prayed for, both exultant and upsetting", the lines
here reeking of the way many of our relations seek easy escape from our
problems, such as she herself faced when poised to leave her country. The title
itself powerfully relays the reality of conflicts dividing loyalties. Also, she
makes it clear that escape and eventual settlement in a cozy foreign land can
hardly be a substitute for one's experiences of trauma and pain.
“Paying
my debt to two lands”, captures her legacy across continents, nations,
and cultures. The dual identity is refracted through the placement of the
mighty Ganga and its parallel in Potomac River in Washington, thus the
ambivalent and yet intersecting idea of her life. The truth of an elusive
homeland.
She
is also attuned to the legacy of her parents, as in the life experiences
collected by her father in, “Loner Walks” and her reminisces of her mother's
innocent, pure touch during her childhood while oiling her hair in their
ancestral home's verandah as against the artifice and incessant snobbish
preoccupations of the current era in, “Snoot and Snout”. The poignancy
of her mother's last days hits us with a profound sense of loss in, “I did not
say, I love you, to my Mama”. The point of grief and death intersect
with a pall of guilt when we are away from ageing parents while in, “Teaching
Chair Yoga at an assisted living home”, she encapsulates the isolation
of old age with sensitive, lucid lines like, "among those not able to
connect the dots and lines in their brain too well….I knew I was among those
who'd seen and lived life"
So,
it makes sense that her trajectory comes full circle in poems effectively
chronicling her own life as a single mother and all the joys and expectations
that unique station has brought to her. Take the instance of, “Fallacy of a
Single, Immigrant Mom” where she writes, "that's no
fallacy" or the heartbreaking tentacles of patriarchal customs during
her beloved son's wedding driving home inescapable cultural truths as also how
she has transcended those by dint of her steadfast individuality in, “And, then
the pundit asked for my son's father's family name”. The lines are, "I
had broken tradition that morning when I'd placed the turban on my son's head.
His father stood by without a word. A deep sigh I gave then"- the sigh
signifying pride, relief and the setting up of example by her brave choice to
raise her son on her own. This autobiographical tone is prevalent in her joyful
and grateful words affixed with the same ceremony as in, “My Son's Orange
Wedding Procession.” She is grateful that her experiences and sacrifices
suffused with constant anticipation over the years had brought her to light of
that particularly auspicious day.
Beyond
this, she has meditations on a woman's age ("I carry my age in a
genie's bottle, finally seared with a recipe from wise women's tales"),
the reality of poverty and homelessness in America confounding people back home
in, “Democracy in Decline”, subcontinental paradigms affecting nations
on both sides of the border ("one nation, two hearts beginning to beat
their own drums at a very soiled hour") in, “Gandhi’s Chaadar”, advocating
for teaching boys the stark truths about consent in, “Rape” ("you
shall not touch by force, without consent.... when repelled"), and one on “Phoolan
Devi” emphasizing on the pertinent word 'brutal' as being a defining
factor of her short life. While “Blame” is personified as a passive
spectator to human interactions under duress, “Hope” is exhorted, "get
up, speak, chant again...... please don't let demagoguery pull you into an
unrelenting abyss" and in, “Native”, Native American history is
invoked.
In
this collection, the emotional content is supreme, straddling personal
experiences and those of an universal, global order. Her poems are about
carrying on with a bright purpose in life, free from scrutiny because fellow
humans can hardly understand the creative mindset or gallop on the journey that
a robust or fully formed individual like Dr. Nahal has undertaken. A journey
undertaken with the aid of her life choices and words, most importantly. Her prose style is uncomplicated and
revelatory, fit to be read loudly and hence reach the youngest minds. It's
because they especially need to absorb a frame of mind of someone straddling so
many worlds, not just as an accomplished academic of prolific versatility but
as an 'individual' per se.
I
have had the privilege of reading Nahal’s works in multiple publications and to
review her latest, third book of poetry and imbibe its multifarious essence
gives me joy as I traverse the road to creative freedom, with such experienced
compeers to guide me. This book is a treasure trove.
***
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