An Introduction - poem by Kamala Das in Bengali

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  • čas přidán 10. 02. 2019
  • I don't know politics but I know the names
    Of those in power, and can repeat them like
    Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
    I amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,
    I speak three languages, write in
    Two, dream in one.
    Don't write in English, they said, English is
    Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
    Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
    Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
    Any language I like? The language I speak,
    Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
    All mine, mine alone.
    It is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
    It is as human as I am human, don't
    You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
    Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
    Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
    Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
    Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
    Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
    Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
    Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
    Funeral pyre.

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