Sukrita Paul Kumar (Diaspora Dual Identities)

Sukrita Paul Kumar

Long Drives

 

Often at sundown

after school and homework done,

anxious and bouncing on the back seats

 

of the blue Morris Minor

 

driving for letters to the post office

yearning for magazines

in envelopes with Indian

or Pakistani stamps tearing at corners,

dry sticky gum shining clumsily across

 

On long highway drives

whizzing pass the bushes and animals,

long slender giraffe necks

rising from the wavy savanna

swinging in nippy breeze

 

windy thoughts blowing

unchecked

 

mirages on tar highway

flip-flops on muddy sidetrack

 

black women chuckling;

pots resting on mama’s hips

little heads peeping out of

cloth humps on their backs with

totos* drooping heavy with sleep

or twinkling in cheer;

 

bits of past come visiting

through open windows

even today

 

our arms stretched out

 

across seven seas

 

the darkness of Africa

melting into black nights

 

lullabies and fairy tales

passing on to children

and then grandchildren

 

tizzy with dreams of

homeland                   

                                                                       

·       Toto means little children/babies in Swahili

 

 

 

Parting Again

 

 

Sadness sits like

a snake in my belly

turning and twisting

 

giving me hysterics

 

hissing subtle threats

of yet another severance,

 

emitting warnings

through my glassy

half-closed eyes

forcing them open

to

stone stillness,

snow silence,

and a reptile alertness

 

Sadness travels down my spine

reaching my womb…

 

your own home

where I held you tight

till you

pushed your way

into a world of

 

Self, identity and

the angst

of alien lands

 

 

Sukrita Paul Kumar was born and brought up in Kenya. She has published several collections of poems, translations and critical books; her most recent collections of poems are Yellow, Salt & Pepper and Vanishing Words. An invited poet at the International Writing Programme (Iowa, USA) and a poet-in-residence in Hong Kong, she is a former Fellow of the IIAS, Shimla. She held the prestigious Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Delhi University. Currently she is the Guest Editor of the journal Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi, and Series co-editor of the “Writer in Context” volumes published by Routledge UK. She is the recipient of Rabindranath Tagore international award, 2024.

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Setu, April 2025