The shape of ‘Presents my Aunts sent from Pakistan’ is unfixed along one side, there are seven stanzas and they are in free verse. Moniza has done this to emphasise how her thoughts are unfixed between the two cultures. Her thoughts move between the two cultures, wandering in and out. ‘Search for my Tongue’ is laid out in 3 sections. The first part is an introducing you to what the poem is about, loosing her mother tongue; it is laid out as Sujata Bhatt is replying to a question you have asked her. The second part of the poem is in Gujarati, it is where she is in a dream and recovers her mother tongue. This part of the poem is written more patterned and lyrical. The last part of the poem is in English again however is in a different style; it shows the Gujarati has asserted itself over the ‘English’ style of writing. I think Sujata Bhatt put the Gujarati in the middle of the English because it’s trapped between the two English verses. Also, its central position emphasises its importance to her. Sujata Bhatt also, might have placed the Gujarati in the poem to give the readers a sense of alienation that Sujata Bhatt feels all the time.
Moniza Alvi uses images of clothes to bring in how she feels towards her two cultures. She feels as if a part of her is missing, as she knows very little about her Pakistani background. She says that the objects from Pakistan are exotic, colourful but on the other hand are very impractical. In a striking simile the writer suggests that the clothes showed her own lack of beauty “I could never be as lovely...as those clothes”. She uses words such as glistening and embossed to emphasise the exotic, colourful nature of the clothes. You can tell Moniza Alvi thinks of the Pakistani clothes to be impractical as she says, “Candy-stripped glass bangles snapped, drew blood.” She isn’t used to the bangles so they appear strange to her. The bright colours suggest the clothes are burning 'I was aflame...I couldn't rise up out of its fire' a powerful metaphor for the discomfort felt by the poet who “longed...for denim and corduroy” plainer but comfortable and inconspicuous. Another object from Pakistan that she mentions in the poem is her parents camel skin lamp. Although she admires the lamp she is put off by the cruelty implicit in it’s manufacturing, this is another object that appears alien to her. She also mentions the beautiful, delicate Indian jewellery getting stolen from the car. Again, the hold on this part of the culture is very tenuous. Also she notes that where her Pakistani Aunt Jamila can 'rise up out of its fire' - meaning to look 'lovely' in the bright clothes, but she felt unable to do so because she was “half-English.” She contrasts the exotic garments and furnishings sent to her by her aunts with what she saw around her in her school and with the things they asked for in return.
Later on in the poem Moniza tries to remember arriving in England. She can remember the heat in Pakistan and then suddenly been in a cot in her English grandmother’s dining room playing with a tin boat. Moniza cannot remember much about Pakistan, all she knows is things that she has saw in old photographs and newspapers. She imagines what Pakistan is like but still finds her still clueless about what it’s like. She can imagines her aunties in Pakistan in shaded rooms, screened from male visitors, wrapping presents.
The last part of Moniza Alvi’s poem shows exactly what she is feeling. That is that she doesn’t have one nationality and is just watching other people of a fixed nationality, she feels isolated from the rest. Moniza Alvi mentions feeling 'alien', 'half-English' and having 'no fixed nationality' which are direct statements about her conflict of identity.
Sujata Bhatt uses her language, Gujarati, to show how she feels towards her culture. Sujata Bhatt uses the metaphor/image of the bud and blossoming flower, as a way of representing the mother tongue re-emerging.
Sujata Bhatt realises she can’t forget Gujarati, as it is part of who she is at the end of the poem. She feels her identify is constantly changing, not frozen. It exists in layers. She celebrates that she has more than one culture at the end of the poem.
Both of the poems are very similar, both involve the poet trying to find there identify and roots. Moniza Alvi’s poem shows how torn she felt between her two cultures. Also how she was finding difficulty belonging anyway and felt like an outsider on both cultures. Sujata Bhatt’s poem is about loosing your mother tongue and then regaining it. The two poems both use imagery, in different ways Moniza with clothes and Sujata with language, to put across their views and feelings about their identity.
