A poem by Meena Kandaswamy for dyerfrank and Spizolli

[SivaRamanathan]

MULLIGATAWNY DREAMS
anaconda. candy. cash. catamaran.

cheroot. coolie. corundum. curry.
ginger. mango. mulligatawny.

patchouli. poppadom. rice.
tatty. teak. vetiver.


i dream of an english
full of the words of my language.

an english in small letters
an english that shall tire a white man’s tongue
an english where small children practice with smooth round
pebbles in their mouth to the spell the right zha
an english where a pregnant woman is simply stomach-child-lady
an english where the magic of black eyes and brown bodies
replaces the glamour of eyes in dishwater blue shades and
the airbrush romance of pink white cherry blossom skins
an english where love means only the strange frenzy between a
man and his beloved, not between him and his car
an english without the privacy of its many rooms
an english with suffixes for respect
an english with more than thirty six words to call the sea
an english that doesn’t belittle brown or black men and women
an english of tasting with five fingers
an english of talking love with eyes alone

and i dream of an english

where men
of that spiky, crunchy tongue
buy flower-garlands of jasmine
to take home to their coy wives
for the silent demand of a night of wordless whispered love . . .

[dyerfrank]

Can't improve, perfect as it is. Is it personal? I hope not, I try not to be personal. Its almost as if you are 2 people Siva, the difference in skill in your poems. This isn't a forum for personality clashes, its for critique... that's all it is and enjoyment of course.

[SivaRamanathan]

frank

This is not my poem.It is a poem by one of our youngsters,Meena Kandaswamy.I posted it only to show you that the English we use is our own,very Indian. It need not correspond with the English used elsewhere.

Siva

[dyerfrank]

Well, Meena Kandaswamy is going to be a great poet if she is not already so.

I encourage everyone to use their own type of English when they write, lingua franka, or Patois if you like with all its peculiar oddities and puzzling delights. Yet English must make sense and I doubt if a genuine Patois will break the rules else be so obvious that it is a Patois. When I write about Ekbert, my long lost Jamaican friend/labourer/mate I try and reflect his way of speaking with all the misspelling and strangeness that he used in everyday speak. But when I return to my discourse in the poem I return to standard English.

Its true that Lewis Carol invented gobbly gook and it worked, its true that some poets can coin a word or phrase, its true that we cna break the rules of standard English usage in our poems... all I am saying is there should be a good reason and it should improve our understanding and enjoyment of the poem.

I am not strictly speaking 'English', I am however a mother tongue English speaker but with a peculiar region that has its own Patois. In some of my work I try to use that way of speaking. Some like it some do not.. that's life.

[SivaRamanathan]

frank
Meena Kandaswamy is a bold and noteworthy poet.
Thanks for the tuition.I agree with you.It is always that my poems have to be edited.

My father said: her spellings are ingenious and her grammar confounding and her writing
sadly passes off as good poetry.

Siva

[mojave]

I know Meena's poems, but seeing MULLIGATAWNY DREAMS here is as startling as welcome.

one early step in freedom is to take back the language with which you are described. native americans, african americans brought awareness to debilitating and other social slurs that are now used only with the scorn of the broader public.

Urdu. I think of Pakistan.

200 million speakers, probably many more. yet english was still a passport to broad success.

add the artistic province of Tamil Nadu, a Southern state in India ---where caste determines so much and her phrase “womanness, Tamilness and low/ outcasteness” becomes a battle cry.

but her ability to speak for girls, for women with no voice, that i often most admire---simple facts of daily life---here the academic practice of writing on a backboard:

Then, there is chalk-dust allergy
that compels me to sneeze. And the chemical after-effect
that spoils the moody brown skin of any glowing goddess.
And the unbearable sounds
of chalk squeak...
(I have erased again.
The fifth time now.)

But, a poet loves
writing blackboard poems.
(So easy, to imagine, an audience)
Yet, how much she dreads
Impermanence...

Meena Kandasamy


Cinquains

Morning Song

Wet pink
And dusty grey
The sky begins to blush.
Some sleepy careless charm welcomes
Daybreak.

Even Song

Azure
And pink gold hues
The smug sky at twilight
A final flush of fulfilment
Night falls.

Meena Kandasamy


for all her defiance, she can address issues of caste and untouchability—something that stems from her being a Dalit, considered the lowest and most oppressed of India’s castes and formerly known as “untouchables”.

She said she embraced her identity as a Dalit partly because there was no way of escaping it. “People will force that label on you so you might as well make the most of it,” said Ms. Kandasamy.

in Tom Stoppard's play Indian Ink, two characters compete to use as many English words of Indian origin, as listed in the Hobson-Jobson glossary, as possible. One line reads: "I was buying chutney in the bazaar when a thug who had escaped from the chokey ran amok and killed a box-wallah for his loot, creating a hullabaloo and landing himself in the mulligatawny"


a curry flavored soup in Anglo-Indian cuisine. Mulligatawny is a combination of Tamil words milagu (pepper) thanni (water). It is similar to rasam from South Indian cuisine.

There are many variations on the recipe for mulligatawny. In the West, the soup typically has a turmeric like yellow color and chicken meat, beef, or lamb meat. Often it is thickened with rice.







bernie

[SivaRamanathan]

mojave

Thanks for the coaching.

Siva