The girl describes how life in England differs from life in Pakistan. She talks about the salwar kameez as ‘alien’ but wanting cardigans from Marks and Spencer’s. The way the women live is somewhat different from that of England. For example her aunts were in shaded rooms, screened from male visitors whereas the women in England go out freely.
Last but not least she feels that she has lost her Pakistan identity. There are many words and phrases in the poem that would agree with this statement. Some of which include ‘ I couldn’t rise out of it’s flame, half English’,’ consider the cruelty and the transformation’, and ‘ I was there of no fixed nationality.
The second poem ‘Search for my tongue’ explains what it is like to speak and think in two languages.
The poem is an extended metaphor: explaining that the comparison is developed over the course of the poem. She compares her tongue with a plant. Some examples of the metaphor include: it ties the other tongue in knots, the bud opens, and it blossoms out of my mouth, grows moist and grows strong veins. The metaphor is very effective because it brings out the point more clearly; it makes the readers envision what the poet it thinking. She explains her ideas in Gujarat. She then translates her thoughts in English showing that although her mother tongue dies during the day, it grows in her dreams at night becoming stronger and producing blossoms. She also wonders whether she will lose the language she began with. Since she is in a foreign country, she doesn’t get to speak Gujarati as often as she would like. By the end of the poem, the girl is confident that it will always be part of her identity.
After reading the two poems, I have gained an understanding that although they are very different, the two poems are very closely linked.
Among the similarities, they are both involved in the same aspect, cultures and traditions and searching for true identity.
I have developed interpretation of texts from both poems. In ‘search for my tongue’ the poet’s feelings about her two languages are explored, and in ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’ the writer’s feelings of being ‘half- English’ are also explored.
I have also evaluated structural devices from both poems. ‘Search for my tongue’ there is the effect of interrupting the English words with Gujarati. ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’ shows how the poem is organised into stanzas.
One of the main differences between the poems is that ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’ consists of different images where similes are used whereas ‘Search for my tongue’ is an extended metaphor.
Secondly ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’ reflects on people’s experience of living in one culture but having roots in another. ‘Search for my tongue’ explores the question of language, either the experience of having two different languages or of speaking non-standard English.
‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’ is a sequence of personal memories. ‘I’ is repeated a lot in the poem. When we are remembering things, our minds often drift from one image to another, in the way that the poem does. The second poem, ‘tongue’ has many meanings to it example it is part of the body, the language that you speak and the phrase lost my tongue is used colloquially to mean that someone is tongue-tied and does not know what to say.
Some of the imagery is quite startling, in ‘Search for my tongue’, when she imagines that the mother tongue might rot and die in your mouth, as the second (foreign) language takes over. The final image in the poem, ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’, tends to carry a particular significance – it’s the one image our imagination is left with. The speaker imagines herself there in Lahore – somewhere she has been only in her thoughts. However she is of no fixed nationality. This sounds a slightly threatening phrase.
After thoroughly reading the poems, I have arrived at two main conclusions. Firstly it is important to know where one comes from, which is perhaps what the girl in the poem was lacking as a child and it is also important to know what has gone into one’s making, even quite far back, I think it gives you a sense perhaps of richness.
Secondly it is sometimes very difficult knowing two languages but having to neglect the one that belongs to you. One’s mother tongue is an important link to your family and your childhood.
Last but not least I agree deeply with the statement and I quote ‘ that’s the deepest layer of my identity’ which was said by Sujati Bhatt, the writer.
