“My aunts requested cardigans from Marks & Spencer’s”
Moniza Alfi is afraid that if she sends them these dull plain English cardigans they won’t like it. This is another dilemma caused by experiencing different cultures. Moniza Alfi thinks that her culture is being stolen and therefore she is an angst person. The society Moniza Alfi is in is also affecting the dilemmas she experiencing from different cultures.
“My salwar kameez didn’t impress the school friends
who sat on my bed, asked to see my weekend clothes.”
This quote shows that her friends are influencing her to be in the western society because the are in England too and like western English clothing.
In contrast her aunts who are in India want to also see her English clothing and requested them and Moniza Alfi is now snagged between these two cultures.
The next poem I am going to talk about is ‘Search for my tongue’ which is written by Sujatta Bhatt and is also facing dilemmas caused by experiencing different cultures. The dilemma she is facing is that the fear of losing her mothers tongue and her for foreign tongue getting stronger.
“if you had two tongues in your mouth,
And lost the first one,
The mother tongue,
And could not really know the other,
The foreign tongue.”
Sujatta Bhatt is facing problems and has fear of her mother tongue being lost.
She thinks that she has lost her mothers tongue, which is the Indian language and she also thinks that her foreign tongue (English) is growing stronger. She also wants to speak her mothers tongue but she cannot because of the society she is in.
“And if you lived in a place
where you had to speak the foreign tongue,
you mother tongue would rot,
rot and die in your mouth.”
This quote shows that she worries about her mothers tongue and she uses her foreign tongue most of the time. This is also one of the dilemmas caused by experiencing different cultures.
In this poem there are extended metaphors used that are compared to a plant and she is thinking very inhumanly because of the images it makes.
Sujatta Bhatt has fear of losing her mothers tongue but she finally realises she cannot lose it and will always be there because your mother taught you it when you were very young.
“Every time I think I’ve forgotten,
I think I’ve lost the mothers tongue,
It blossoms out of my mouth.”
This quote shows that there is a resolution and she hasn’t forgotten her mothers tongue. Sujatta Bhatt realizes that her foreign tongue is for communication, but her mothers tongue defines her culture and also defines her identity.
The next poem I am going to talk about in this essay is called ‘Kittens’.
Kittens is a poem written by Maki Kureshi, who is facing a dilemma caused by experiencing different cultures. This poem is mainly about kittens and on the surface of this poem it seems like it’s talking about there being too many kittens. What this poem is really talking about is culture and which side of it to choose. The dilemma Maki Kureshi is facing is whether to choose the eastern or western culture of killing kittens. This poem is an extended metaphor because it makes you think that it’s talking about how to kill the kittens but its not! It is really a dilemma of choosing the eastern or western culture of killing the kittens.
“There are too many kittens,
Even the cat is dismayed
At this overestimation
Of her stock and slinks away
Kind friends cannot adopt them all “
This quote shows that there are too many kittens, which is the main problem and is causing dilemmas in this poem. ‘Even the cat is dismayed.’
This is telling us that even the mother cannot take care of all these kittens and they were unexpected therefore she is not happy. ‘And slinks away.’
The mother cat decides to abandon them all because she is unpleased and cannot take good care and feed them all. In this poem there is a dilemma of killing the kitten the eastern way or the western way.
“My relatives say: take them
To a bazaar and let them go
Each to his destiny. They’ll live
Off pickings. But they are so small
Somebody may step on one like a tomato.”
This shows that the eastern way of killing a kitten is to let them go and live off unwanted food and leftovers. However, they are so small the poem refers them as being tomatoes. When a tomato is squashed the juice that comes out of it is a red colour. Alternatively when a kitten is squashed the blood is also a red colour. This gives us a very sad image and Maki Kureshi uses powerful similes to give these images.
“The European thing to do is drown them.
Warm water is advised to lessen the shock.
They are so small it only takes a minute.
You hold them down and turn your head away.”
This shows that the western culture is to determine their lives and let them die a quick and painless death. Whereas the eastern culture of killing a kitten is a slow and painful death.
As we know by now culture can be positive however it can also be negative.
Culture can enrich your life and it can also cause dilemmas and problems such as culture shock. From the images we get by reading these three poems it shows us that one day you might face a dilemma of choosing between two cultures. In ‘Presents from my aunt in Pakistan’ there is still no resolution and Moniza Alfi is facing a dilemma of choosing between the eastern and western culture. ‘Search for my tongue’ by Sujatta Bhatt was at first facing a dilemma caused by experiencing two different cultures. Her dilemma was that she thought her mother tongue was lost but then finds out she cannot lose it and blossoms out of her mouth. ‘Kittens’ is an dramatic poem because it is unresolved with no resolution to it. Maki Kureshi who wrote this poem is facing this dilemma of choosing the eastern/western side of killing kittens.
The images that are created by reading these three poems are very powerful and we learn that culture can have a resolution but it can also be unresolved.
We learn from these three poems that the writers have already faced dilemma caused by experiencing different cultures.
