Transnational Identities in Contemporary South Asian Diasporic Poetry

By:

Inaas Mughis

American University of Sharjah

ENG 490: Senior Project

Spring 2018

Supervised by:

Dr. Jana Fedtke

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Introduction: Of Transnationalism and Diaspora

“The warm naan is you” (Dharker 46). The warm naan is every South Asian. The warm

naan is every diasporic, transnational South Asian. The warm naan serves as a way for

diasporic South Asians to feel close to “home” while residing in another “home.” The

consumption of this warm naan in a land that is far from its origins serves as a medium

for these individuals to embrace their transnational identities. John Docker (2001) writes

of diaspora in ​1492: The Poetics of Diaspora​, defining it by un-defining it, “diaspora can

be minimally defined… as a sense of belonging to more than one history, to more than

one time and place, more than one past and future” (vii). The diasporic experience of

each immigrant is unique, and each individual’s ways of expressing it, too, is unique, as

Anupama Jain mentions in relation to what transnationalism comprises of, “[w]hat

assimilation to the nation symbolizes, what and who constitutes it, shifts with each group

and with the groups’ interactions with one another as well as their engagement with

immigrant histories that already exist” (3). One common product of the diasporic

experience is transnationalism, and transnationals are often viewed as “a subset of

migrants” (Bradatan et al. 173). At the same time, Noemí Pereira-Ares (2018) in ​Fashion,

Dress, and Identity in South Asian Diaspora Narratives​ writes that “[o]f course, the

transnational and transcultural side of contemporary societies…is not the sole result of

diasporic movements,” and yet, diasporas “have largely contributed to shaping a world of

multiple modernities” (1). A transnational person, by definition, is “a person who

participates equally in two [or more] different national communities,” (Bradatan et al.

174) but who can, at the same time, also be “someone without a homeland” (Waldinger
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& Fitzgerald as cited in Bradatan et al. 174). A more rounded definition of a transnational

person then becomes someone who is initially the latter half of the above definition:

someone having no “homeland,” or having one but being away from this “homeland;”

which then leads to the transnational person fulfilling the former definition: someone who

assimilates one or more culture(s) and traditions of a society or societies into their own

preexisting one(s), and is able to possibly find another “homeland.” Most importantly,

however, a transnational person is one who then identifies with each of these cultures and

communities simultaneously. Patricia Duff in “Transnationalism, Multilingualism, and

Identity” (2015) lists the fundamental factors of transnationalism, “the crossing of

cultural, ideological, linguistic, and geopolitical borders and boundaries of all types but

especially those of nation-states” (57). This entire process and situation is, in fact, far

more layered and intricate, far more “complex and distributed than this…binary ([of]

origin-settlement) suggests, with multiple intervening (and subsequent) points of

dwelling” (Duff 57). Amit Sarwal (2017) in ​South Asian Diaspora Narratives​ sums up all

of the above, simply, concisely, and aptly describing transnational individuals as those

“who are moving in and around the metropolitan centres of the world, resisting a precise

definition” (1). It is, therefore, almost futile—and ironic—trying to define a transnational

individual. In doing so, their very identities become constricted and concrete, two

characteristics that are precisely the opposite of the rather fluid and multifaceted

transnational individuals.

This paper focuses on the desi diaspora—that is, the South Asian diaspora. It

centers on how transnationalism is represented in these texts, predominantly in

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contemporary poetry. It showcases how the diasporic South Asians in these texts deal

with their transnational identities and how the ways in which they reflect on their ethnic

identities are addressed in the poetry. In particular, it explores how the emphasis that is

put on certain specific cultural elements such as food and clothing, and slightly broader

cultural aspects such as language and accents, are illustrated in the texts. In doing so, it

also investigates how these instances relate to and are reflective of their transnationalism

and the South Asian diaspora. These common components in the texts become recurring

symbols of a way for South Asian diasporic people to express their transnational

experiences in contemporary literature. They allow for a closer understanding of the

specific cultural elements that these South Asian diasporic poems tackle, as well as the

particular literary elements that are used to portray these. All of this then echoes the

experiences of the diasporic South Asian community.

The contemporary South Asian diasporic texts that serve as the primary study

sources in this paper are Imtiaz Dharker’s “At the Lahore Karhai” (2003), “immigrant”

and “accent” from Rupi Kaur’s book of poetry, ​The Sun and Her Flowers ​(2017), and

Moniza Alvi’s “Presents from My Aunt in Pakistan” (2004). The predominant purpose of

and product each of these poems establishes is that whatever conflict a transnational

individual may face—or simply an experience they may go through—as a result of their

diaspora and transnational lifestyle is, in fact, intricately multifaceted. While the

diasporic South Asians with transnational identities in these poems do mourn the loss of

the South Asian “homeland” they have left behind along with several elements of that
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culture, they simultaneously explore, accept, and eventually celebrate their transnational

identities and the multiplicity of perspectives they now have access to.

Of Homelands and Hostlands: Problematic Terminology in the Transnational

Context

Several terms in this context prove to be problematic in some sense, and this

paper will therefore address each of these terms in quotation marks. The entire concept of

transnationalism in relation to identity is a very fluid one, and some terms that are often

used casually, frequently, and in a rather definitive manner in the transnational context

are, in fact, fluid terms themselves. They are difficult to define wholly, just as using them

to define other phenomena is difficult and somewhat problematic. The most commonly

used and perhaps the most problematic of these terms is “home” or “homeland.” A

“home” and a “homeland” often become one, with the belief that “home,” the sentimental

home, is where the “homeland” is. This is problematic because people often consider the

homeland to be the place of “origin,” or the place that defines one’s ethnicity or “roots,”

another problematic term that is commonly used interchangeably with “ethnicity.” This,

however, is not necessarily always the case, because in this globalized world, despite

their ethnicities, people are born in different parts of the world. Often, these are countries

that will officially be known as their “hostland,” simply because the individual does not

share the same ethnicity as those in this “hostland.” This “hostland” may very well be the

individual’s “homeland” since it is, in a way, their place of “origin”, and because they
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have known nothing else to be a “home.” Sarwal comments on the “home” as a “place of

origin,” highlighting the problematic belief that the “[h]ome (real, imagined, and

mythologized), as a place of origin, becomes a key site of a displaced migrant’s

experiences and connections with past” (5). He then goes on to explain why this proves to

be problematic, part of which is because the “[h]ome, the domestic and public space, also

constructs the attitudes and behaviours of migrants towards ‘Others’—people of the

homeland and hostland” (5). These attitudes and behaviors might be adopted from the

“hostland,” or they might be of the “homeland,” either way Othering the individual, or

encouraging the individual to categorize people from the home/hostland as Others.

Sarwal thus encourages readers to simply refer to the “idea of home” as a “cultural

reference point” (5). Anne Kershen (2006), in “The Migrant at Home in Spitalfields:

Memory, Myth, and Reality,” also regards “home” as a complex concept, one that is

multi-layered and fluid, writing that for migrants, the “homeland,” or the idea of “home,”

is a

…contested metaphor, a carpet bag of memories, emotions and experiences. It is now but
it is then. It is over here yet over there. It is days filled with laughter, love and
sunshine but it can be also darkness and threat. Real and tangible yet imagined
and mythologized, home is deconstructed on departure and then constantly
reconstructed as the migrant experience and life cycle evolve. (97)

“Home” is thus an ever-changing thing, relative and never entirely concrete, and a cyclic

phenomenon, as is a “homeland” and a “hostland,” with the two more often than not

being transposable.
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Of Immigrants and Pilgrimages: The Losses and Gains of a Diasporic,

Transnational Life

Transnationalism entails both gain as well as loss. Assimilating a second or even

multiple other cultures into one that an immigrant is already accustomed to can

sometimes lead to the loss of one that possibly existed first, or simply to the assimilation

of others without the loss of one. This, however, is relative because transnationalism is

exemplified through fluidity, and for many transnational individuals, there is no one

“original” culture. Salman Rushdie writes in ​Imaginary Homelands a​ bout this

phenomenon of loss and gain that an immigrant often experiences, “It may be

that…emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim,

to look back” (10). He compares the life of an immigrant left behind to a fragmented

mirror, stating that nonetheless, there is something to be gained from this loss, “But there

is a paradox here. The broken mirror may actually be as valuable as the one which is

supposedly unflawed” (11). Rushdie elaborates on this extended metaphor, claiming that

“the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our

common humanity” (12) and that the transnational individual “who is out-of-country and

even out-of-language may experience this loss in an intensified form” (12). This loss that

the individual experiences “is made more concrete for him[/her] by the physical fact of

discontinuity, of…being in a different place from his[/her] past, of…being elsewhere”

(12). However, this loss can very well lead to assimilation into and acceptance of another
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culture, “[t]he broken glass is not merely a mirror of nostalgia. It is also…a useful tool

with which to work in the present” (Rushdie 12). The loss can be the vehicle driving the

individual towards gaining, rather than solely losing, and allows for the versatile

experiences that are a part of a transnational lifestyle.

This cycle of loss and gain is illustrated in some of Rupi Kaur’s poems that

encapsulate both the bitterness of loss and the blessing of gain—and the confusion and

conflict of experiencing both simultaneously. Her book of poetry, ​The Sun and Her

Flowers​ includes several diasporic poems under a section appropriately entitled

“rooting,” a fitting play on words since it not only serves as part of the extended natural

metaphor of the process of a flower’s life cycle that runs through the book, but also plays

on the themes of diaspora and “roots” in the ethnic and cultural sense. In her book, Kaur

describes that section to be about “honouring one’s roots” (254), and it is in this section

that the speaker of Kaur’s poems turns to writing about the struggles of immigrant life

and about embracing a transnational identity as a result. The first poem in the section

“rooting” titled “immigrant” plainly lays out the prospect of grave losses for an

immigrant. The speaker’s speculative point of view of a non-immigrant who is not aware

of “what it is like/to lose home at the risk of/never finding home again” (Kaur 119) is

brought to light with the repetition of the word “home.” The use of the word is twofold,

the first implying the home the immigrant leaves behind in the “homeland.” The second

usage of the word has the fluid characteristics of transnationalism of playing the role of

either, the home left behind (or a variation of it), or the new home the previous one has

been left behind for. Since it could be the latter—the new home—, it has deliberately
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been termed “home” and not a more distant or cold term for a new living space, thus

connoting that the forming of transnational identities that migration leads to can be

forgiving and ease the pain of loss. This fluidity is, however, almost instantly countered

with the somewhat harsh and binary imagery of “homes,” “…to have your entire life/split

between two lands and/become the bridge between two countries” (119). The speaker

very decidedly splits the immigrant’s life into two lives here, with each life being lived in

a different land. The repetition of the word “two,” first paired with “lands” and then with

“countries,” along with the harsh sound created by the alliteration in the last line with the

letter “b,” “become the bridge between two countries” concretizes this sharp binary, and

the fluidity that the speaker achieves earlier, is challenged.

Imtiaz Dharker’s poem, “At the Lahore Karhai” does something similar as it plays

around with transnationalism as a product of diaspora. The speaker of the poem holds an

interesting position as a mere observer of and simultaneously an active participant in the

immigrant experience. The poem maintains a reminiscent tone throughout as the speaker

relays the details of the trip they take to a Pakistani restaurant and remembers their land

of origin predominantly through the food, but also through the geography of South Asia.

The title may at first suggest to the readers that the poem is set in South Asia, in Lahore,

Pakistan in particular, but the speaker quickly ascertains the multifaceted setting in the

first stanza, “a pilgrimage across the city,/to Wembley, the Lahore Karhai” (Dharker 4-5).

The readers are told that the speaker and those accompanying them are actually in

Wembley, an area in London. This deliberate fusion of settings—a South Asian

restaurant in England—immediately establishes a certain degree of transnationalism

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through the physical setting. What makes this physical setting even more significant is

the act the speaker and their family carry out to get there: “a pilgrimage.” The word

choice is symbolic of the speaker’s acknowledgment of their perpetual immigrant status

and of the journey they have just taken to the restaurant to be able to reconnect with their

roots more closely in the country where they are an immigrant. In reference to their

diasporic past and transnational present, the speaker also states rather nonchalantly that

“This winter we have learnt/to wear our past/like summer clothes” (37-39). The speaker

juxtaposes seasons and their past, and even turns this past into a simile, comparing it to

clothes. The blatant allusion here is that the past is something that can simply be

discarded; it is seasonal; it comes and goes. This relates to the loss and gain one

experiences as a transnational individual, and John Docker in ​The Poetics of Diaspora

(2001) writes in reference to this cycle of loss and gain that comes with diaspora,

Diaspora suggests belonging to both here and there, now and then. Diaspora suggests the
omnipresent weight of pain of displacement from a land or society, of being an
outsider in a new one. Diaspora suggests lack and excess of loss and separation,
yet also the possibility of new adventures of identity and the continued imagining
of unconquerable countries of the mind (vii–viii).

The speaker then shifts the current, physical setting to one that stems from their

memory: “On the Grand Trunk Road/thundering across Punjab to Amritsar/this would be

a dhaba/where the truck-drivers pull in/…just like home” (Dharker 12-18). The reference

to the Grand Trunk Road is noteworthy and it is a significant choice for an alternate

setting. It is a famous and old road that goes through the Subcontinent, connecting it from

Bangladesh through to West Bengal and then Northern India through Amritsar, towards
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Lahore and Peshawar in Pakistan, ending finally in Afghanistan. Not only does it tie

much of South Asia together, but this setting allows for the speaker to be able to relate

their current setting in England to this particular route that is lined with road-side

restaurants where truck drivers, who are always on the move, making pilgrimages much

like the speaker of the poem, make pit stops to eat the food similar to what the speaker is

eating, such as “karhai,” “tarka dal,” “gajjar halwa,” and “naan.” Much like this one,

“migrant narratives need to be understood as inherently and essentially ‘spatial

stories’—stories of movement and stories of different ​homes”​ (Sarwal 5). These truck

drivers become a symbol of the now extended metaphor, and descriptions of their job are

paralleled with the metaphorical actions the speaker has performed to make this

pilgrimage, “Hauling our overloaded lives/the extra mile/we’re truckers of another kind”

(19-21). The extended metaphor of being an immigrant continues with the truck drivers

being the tenor, now implying that the speaker and their companions as immigrants on

this pilgrimage are almost as nomadic as these truck drivers constantly on a pilgrimage

because of their job. “Hauling” their “overloaded lives” also suggests that the speaker

and her/his companions’ transnational identities are a heavy burden to carry, and “the

extra mile” that they have to haul their overloaded lives implies that their almost nomadic

lifestyle is far graver than that of the truck drivers. The speaker and their companions are

“truckers of another kind”—the kind that have to carry a heftier weight around all their

lives.

The speaker of the poem makes their immigrant status more explicit with a clear

admission of the physical distance s/he has from their “native land” in parenthesis,
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“(years away/from Sialkot and Chandigarh)” (22-23). Coupled with the parentheses that

separate these lines from the rest of the poem, the enjambment present in these lines also

reflects the emotional and physical distance the speaker experiences from their “native

land,” with “years away” breaking off and carrying over onto the next line that then

names the cities of Sialkot and Chandigarh. The speaker also calls themselves “the

Lahore runaway” (27), again explicitly stating and accepting their immigrant and

transnational identity, and it is at this line that the readers are given a hint at what is very

likely an autobiographical account since Dharker’s “hometown” is Lahore, from where

she migrated to England. The speaker does the same with all the other customers present

at the Lahore Karhai, giving each one a specific attribute that illustrates them as

transnationals. Some of these people are “the Sindhi refugee” who has a “wife/who prays

each day to Krishna” (28-30), the “girls with silky hair,/wearing the confident air/of

Bombay” (34-36). These are all very markedly transnational individuals living in

England, all of whom in some way retain parts of their “previous” national identities.

Of Warm Naans and Karhais: Finding Identity through Food

Food is a crucial component in articulating and expelling the melancholy that

often arises from diaspora. As Anita Mannur writes in ​Culinary Fictions,​ “…when it

comes to thinking about South Asian diasporic bodies, food is never far” (3). The Lahore

Karhai serves not only as a place for all the transnational people—the Sindhi refugee and

his wife, the girls of Bombay—to come to and rediscover or connect to pieces of their
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identities, but it does so through the food served at the karhai. Another person the speaker

notices at the restaurant is “the Englishman too young/to be flavoured by the Raj”

(32-33). This is a reference to colonialism: the British Raj in the subcontinent. This

almost seemingly trivial colonial reference in fact carries profound significance, in that

the

South Asian diaspora in Britain constitutes a (post)colonial diaspora, and therefore

engaging with its literary tradition requires, almost unavoidably, taking into
account the vocabulary of postcolonialism. Yet it also demands the incorporation
of new approaches such as transculturalism, approaches able to articulate the
representation of diasporic subjectivities that show plural affiliations and multiple,
multi-layered identities (Pereira-Ares 1).

The play on words with “flavoured” is significant since it not only acts as a verb for the

indoctrination of colonial practices and ideologies, but also as an adjective for the food,

aptly fitting into the contextual setting: the Lahore Karhai, where this Englishman has

come to eat since he apparently does not have any biases against South Asia(ns). The

mention of this Englishman is particularly noteworthy because although he is still in his

own “homeland,” he is performing a transnational identity by consuming South Asian

food like every other transnational, diasporic person present at the restaurant. The

specific naming of all the different dishes the speaker and those accompanying them to

the restaurant in “At the Lahore Karhai” in particular also serves a profound function in

depicting the speaker’s homesickness and her/his diasporic state through food, because

not only is food a direct connection to their “homeland,” but also a way for them to
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remember their family. The speaker lists various foods, and with each one, pairs a

relative from back “home”:

A feast! We swoop

on a whole family of dishes.

The tarka dal is Auntie Hameeda

the karhai ghosht is Khala Ameena

the gajjar halva is Appa Rasheeda (41-45).

Not only is a relative juxtaposed with each dish, but each relative ​is​ a dish. The food

serves as a symbol of identity so loaded with significance that it becomes the equivalent

of people. The speaker then adds “The warm naan is you” (46), and this line is separate

from the stanzas before and after it; it stands alone as a single line. The “you” that the

speaker addresses could, in fact, be anyone—their companions on this trip, the readers, or

the speaker themselves. The naan is a metaphor for South Asia, and the speaker puts an

ironic twist to this metaphor as they say that they are all “bound together by the bread we

break/sharing out our continent” (54-55). It is this particular piece of food that connects

the speaker and their companions and family, especially since they all share a single

naan, but it is also that particular piece of food that they are breaking up into pieces, and

the naan thus becomes an important symbol of a bond to the “homeland” and its people,

as well as of their diaspora, and transnational and scattered identities. In addition, the

physical shape of the naan that is usually served in karhais such as the one the speaker is

at is triangular, which is similar to the rough shape of the subcontinent. It can thus be
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inferred that the naan provides not only an emotional connection for the speaker to their

“native homeland,” but a physical connection as well. The speaker ends the poem with

“These/are ways of remembering./Other days, we may prefer/Chinese” (56-59), declaring

that food is a way of remembering their homeland for them, as it is for most diasporic

South Asians. The enjambment in the lines “These/are ways of remembering” (56-57)

puts an emphasis on “these,” manifesting the significance of food for diasporic South

Asians. The enjambment in the last two lines, on the other hand, “Other days, we may

prefer/Chinese,” (58-59) marking their transnational identities, with “Chinese” [cuisine]

standing alone indicating that these individuals have adapted (explicitly in this context

their taste buds, but on a deeper level, themselves) to a little bit of everything their host

country has to offer, making them transnational individuals, especially since they “may

prefer,” implying that they make conscious choices.

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Of Saris and Denim: Conceiving Identity through Clothing

In “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” by Moniza Alvi, the speaker uses clothes

as the specific cultural element that are used as the focal instrument to depict the

speaker’s diasporic and transnational background and conflicted ethnic identity. Clothes

can hold colossal power over and influence on one’s identity, since it is “[t]hrough dress

[that] we project our identity, whether real or contrived,” and the “study of dress

therefore also has important implications for the study of identity” (Pereira-Ares 1). In

her book, ​Fashion, Dress, and Identity in South Asian Diaspora Narratives,​

Noemí Pereira-Ares elaborates on the significance of clothing in regards to identity,

especially for a diasporic, transnational individual:

A powerful signifier, dress might be capable of determining pronouncements of

belonging and not belonging, inclusion and exclusion. It might become a ‘means
of policing a minority identity’ (Donnell 1999: 495), a device used to reinforce
the imagined boundaries of a diasporic community, or the site where the
emergence of rhizomatic, hybrid and transcultural identities might first become
visible. Dress is ‘an extension of the body’ (Wilson 2010: 3), and as such it adds
new layers of meaning to the body, sometimes ‘marking’ the body in powerful
ways. (1)

In this particular poem, it is evident that the speaker is a woman because of the kinds of

clothes she receives from her relatives: these are clothes and accessories such as saris and

bangles, which women in South Asia wear. It is of certain importance that the presents

the speaker’s aunts send are traditional South Asian clothes, and not perhaps because

“[i]n their diasporic journeys to different parts of the globe, South Asians have taken with
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them their clothes and a myriad of sartorial memories from the Indian subcontinent”

(Pereira-Ares 2) in order to keep that part of their identity alive. Although the speaker has

not taken the clothes to the “host country” herself, she receives them from her family in

the probable hope of keeping her Pakistani identity afloat as she resides in England. The

speaker starts the poem by addressing these relatives who have sent her presents from

Pakistan as “they” (Alvi 1). The impersonal pronoun “they” immediately creates distance

between the speaker and her relatives, which is reflective of the distance from and lack of

relation with her mononational South Asian relatives that the speaker feels. The form and

spacing of the poem also corroborates this distance, since each line starts with randomly

spaced indentations, as well as by the fact that the speaker only refers to these relatives as

“my aunts,” a more personal reference, at the end of the long stanza.

The poem is riddled with color imagery describing the clothes, shoes and

accessories sent to the speaker from Pakistan. This detail is significant in depicting South

Asian, and in particular Pakistani and Indian, culture, since the colorful clothes and

accessories present in the cultures define so much of it. One shalwar kameez the speaker

receives is “peacock-blue, while another is “like an orange split open,” slippers that are

“gold and black,” bangles that are “candy-striped,” and a sari that is “apple-green” and

“silver-bordered” (1). This color imagery used to illustrate the clothes is in sharp contrast

with the only other color the speaker mentions present in her house in England: a

“camel-skin lamp,” one that is presumably of dull beige or brown color. The speaker

pronounces the presents from Pakistan “lovely” (2) and “radiant” (4) and “marvel[s] at

the colors” of the clothes that are “like stained glass” (2), the sari tops that are
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“satin-silken,” the shalwar bottoms that are “broad and stiff,” sometimes “narrow,”

slippers that are “embossed” (1), jewelry that is “Indian gold, dangling, filigree” (4). The

rich use of sibilance present in these descriptions such as “stained glass,” “satin-silken,”

“stiff,” “embossed,” coupled with some of the long syllabled words such as “broad,”

“narrow,” “gold, dangling, filigree” add to the delicate and detailed characteristics of

these presents. Contrastingly, she merely associates the camel-skin lamp with “cruelty,”

since the lamp shade has brutally gone from “camel to shade” (3). This short and swift

“transformation” (3), coupled with the short and swift description of it and of the color

and material of the lamp shade, falls drastically short against the intricate and lengthy

descriptions of the materials used to make the Pakistani clothes and accessories and their

vibrant appearance.

Despite these striking contrasts, the speaker still experiences an identity conflict

as a result of her diasporic and transnational lifestyle. She admits that although she

“could never be as lovely/as those clothes/[she] longed/for denim and corduroy” (2).

Although she deeply admires these Pakistani clothes and accessories, she prefers to be in

her “western” clothing because the Pakistani clothes seem too “foreign” to her at this

point. This conflicted longing is enhanced by the extended metaphor the speaker

employs, “My costume clung to me/and I was aflame/I couldn’t rise up out of its fire”

(2). The fire that is the clothes that sets her aflame depicts the speaker’s conflicting

emotions, and this internal dispute stems from the overwhelming beauty of these

Pakistani clothes, and at the same time, the foreignness of wearing them. She declares

herself “alien” (2) in the clothes, and the particular word choice of “costume” accentuates
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this foreignness and unfamiliarity. A costume is worn for a short period of time, usually

for a specific performance, and it is precisely a performance the speaker is pulling off:

she is performing an identity. Pereira-Ares encapsulates the foreignness and the

performance the speaker of “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” brings up in the poem

in her work as she writes about the power that clothing possesses, “…dress might guide

pronouncements of inclusion and exclusion;…dress is intimately connected to notions of

cultural and national identity;…and dress acts as a mechanism through which identity is

performatively staged and negotiated” (2). The speaker of the poem is very conscious of

this, especially since she then describes herself to be “half-English,/unlike Aunt Jamila”

(2). Upon terming herself half-English, the speaker validates her transnational identity,

and upon then comparing herself to her mononational, Pakistani aunt, she sets herself

apart, further alienating herself, but also perhaps more importantly further defining

herself. Pereira-Ares also comments on this notion of consciously choosing what to wear,

and how this moulds an identity, “[f]or many South Asians living in present-day Britain,

negotiating the question of what to wear transcends the cultural–religious sphere, and the

process of choosing a particular style often underscores…identitary, political and/or

ideological messages” (Pereira-Ares 2). The descriptions of the constantly changing

fashion in Pakistan in the first stanza also embody the multiplicity of the speaker’s

constantly shifting identity. The speaker observes that “Like at school, fashions

changed/in Pakistan,” (1) and lists the several different shapes and styles of the clothes

she receives. A shalwar kameez that she receives “glisten[s] like an orange split open,”

slippers that have “points curling,” shalwar bottoms that are “broad and stiff/then
 Mughis 20

narrow” (1), and these continually changing positions and shapes serve collectively as a

metaphor for the speaker’s own dynamic identity, an identity that is sometimes more

Pakistani than British, at times more British than Pakistani, sometimes both, and

sometimes neither.

In addition to comparing herself to her aunt, who is “unlike” (2) her in the sense

that she is not “half-English” (2), the speaker also employs a hint of sarcasm and irony as

she informs the readers of what her aunts in Pakistan have requested as presents in return.

The tone of the poem turns slightly bitter as the speaker suddenly shifts from elaborately

gushing over how the “presents were radiant in [her] wardrobe” (4) to swiftly stating how

her “aunts requested cardigans/from Marks and Spencer” in the very next line (4). Marks

and Spencer is a British brand, and the irony of the speaker’s aunts being able to so easily

request for “western” clothing from one of the biggest fashion brands that is officially

British, but also largely multinational, without even a hint of a conflict or a second

thought while sending her Pakistani clothes is not lost on the speaker. The two rather

flatly stated lines leave a striking impact on the readers: for the aunts to be able to afford

to request clothing from other cultures because they are not diasporic transnational

individuals like the speaker and therefore feel no clash of identities within themselves

makes the speaker’s bitterness at such a request almost palpable. While the speaker

struggles endlessly with her transnational identity, especially as a result of receiving the

Pakistani clothes, her aunts are in the comfortable—and privileged, according to the

speaker, although not necessarily—position of being able to mindlessly choose what to

wear without subjecting their identities to any sort of ambiguity. The speaker, on the
 Mughis 21

other hand, strives to understand and embrace this ambiguity that defines her identity,

trying to discover herself by narrowing it down. She voices her efforts with this endeavor,

admitting that she attempts to find herself through—and within—the Pakistani clothes,

But often I admired the mirror-work,

tried to glimpse myself

in the miniature

glass circles, recall the story

how the three of us

sailed to England. (5)

Mirror-work is a common element of South Asian clothing, especially of Balochi and

Sindhi clothing in Pakistan, usually in a circular shape that is embroidered onto the cloth.

The mirrors are symbolic of the speaker’s search to find herself through these clothes,

and serve as instruments in doing so literally, too, since they allow for her to physically

view herself. It is also significant, however, that the speaker is only able to catch a

“glimpse” of herself since the mirrors are so small that she describes them as “miniature.”

Although they help her find herself, it is only one part of her transnational identity and

her diasporic past—“the story/how the three of us/sailed to England”—that she is able to

glimpse. Clothes and the specific cultural details on these clothes act as “a ‘kind of visual

metaphor for identity and for registering the culturally anchored ambivalences that

resonate within and among identities’” (Davis as cited in ​Pereira-Ares​ 1). There is a
 Mughis 22

degree of multiplicity surrounding the speaker’s identity that the Pakistani clothes alone

cannot fill up; her transnational self needs the help of her denim and corduroy to do this.

Towards the end of the poem, however, the speaker seems to make certain peace

with her identity. The extravagant imagery of the clothes shifts to harsher, more realistic

imagery of the land, that is, Pakistan, which she merely calls her “birthplace,” (6)

avoiding anything that might be more sentimental or hold more of an attachment, such as

“homeland.” Sarwal refers to Helff (2013) in his work, linking “home” to a birthplace,

establishing that although a birthplace can be called a “home,” it is always to a varying

degree, “…a home—one’s place of birth—is ‘traditionally seen as a static place with a

variety of positive and negative attributes, functioning as a shelter, but that is too narrow

for self-realization’ (Sarwal 5). The distance between the speaker of the poem and her

birthplace is also extended through the fact that she “picture[s]” it from “fifties’

photographs,” (6) and not physically in real time. In reference to the partition of the

subcontinent, she also calls it “a fractured land,” one with “conflict” (6). This depiction is

not one of just the land, but also explicitly reflective of her own fragmented identity. The

speaker then finally addresses this fractured identity in the last stanza of the poem, “and I

was there –/of no fixed nationality” (7). It is at this point, through this rather raw

admission of “reality”, that she accepts and puts into words what she really is: of no fixed

nationality—transnational. The speaker’s transnational and diasporic identity is

highlighted further as she narrates what she sees and imagines through these photographs,

“Sometimes I saw Lahore/…/staring through fretwork/at the Shalimar Gardens” (6-7).

The Shalimar Gardens are a famous tourist attraction in the city of Lahore, and it is
 Mughis 23

significant that the speaker is viewing the rest of the city from this predominantly tourist

destination rather than a more personal space. That she stares on through “fretwork” is

even more symbolic of her diaspora and transnationality, since it not only works as a

border between the speaker and the rest of the city and other Pakistanis, but it is a border

that has holes of specific, intricate patterns in it. It is a semi-permeable border, and

therefore allows for some exchange of identity for the speaker.

 Mughis 24

Of Language and Lovemaking: Hybrid Accents and Languages as a Result of

Transnationalism

Patricia A. Duff in “Transnationalism, Multilingualism, and Identity” observes

that language is “fundamentally concerned with transnationalism,” and that

transnationalism incorporates the “crossing” of “linguistic…borders and boundaries”

(57). Another one of Kaur’s poems, “accent,” tackles language and its components as

cultural elements that may be lost, assimilated, or both as a result of a diasporic,

transnational lifestyle. The speaker immediately establishes the fact that their “voice/is

the offspring/of two countries colliding” (Kaur 139), and by calling it the “offspring,”

consequently establishes that for such a thing to happen is only natural for a transnational

individual. In fact, the speaker continues to toy with the idea of a hybrid tongue being the

most natural byproduct of being transnational with an extended metaphor, “english/and

my mother tongue/made love” (139). In addition to claiming this process to be an innate

one, it also claims it as an intimate one. The nature of this process is one the speaker is

clearly at peace with, one that they have accepted and find almost endearing. This is

furthered as the speaker takes on an indignant tone, demanding “what is there to be

ashamed of/if english/and my mother tongue/made love” (139). The idea of possessing a

language and an accent that is a mix of the two languages of their “home” and “host”

country is appealing to the speaker, something of which to be proud of rather than

suppress. This acceptance and peace, however, comes after what can be considered an

initial conflict. While the speaker does call their voice the “offspring,” it is the offspring

of “two countries colliding” (139). The choice of the word “colliding” implies a clash,
 Mughis 25

something that is at odds and not necessarily fitting in with each other. The alliteration of

the letter “c,” one that produces a glottal and therefore somewhat harsh sound when

uttered in this line, also reinforces the effect of a clash or a collision.

Conclusion: Of Indefinite Definitions

Food, clothing and language are extremely consequential and significant markers

of defining identity, and yet they fall short in wholly “defining” identity. A transnational

individual is called so because the most fundamental and imperative characteristic of

transnationalism is fluidity and flexibility, and for something even as essential as

clothing, food, or language to add a concrete definition to transnationalism defeats the

purpose and very concept of it. Transnational individuals, many of whom come to be so

as a result of diaspora—although not always—perform a different part of their identities

each day, displaying their multiplicity and variability. This is because for them, much of

what usually helps define a mononational individual’s life is instead uncertain and

contentious, it is vague and inconclusive, it is unsettled and undetermined. “Homes” for

diasporic, transnational individuals are relative. Residing in these “homes” is often

simply a spatial experience, a structural circumstance, and they are unable to identify

with or “discover” themselves in either home, or they are able to do so with both or more.

Language for diasporic, transnational individuals is an indeterminate factor in defining an

identity. They incorporate several languages and accents into their speech, each of which

characterizes their multilingual, multinational, and unfixed identity. Food for diasporic,

transnational individuals is a moot facet in elucidating a single, fixed identity. In fact,

 Mughis 26

food serves as the one cultural component that most easily allows every global citizen to

be transnational, be it a mononational or a multinational individual, because it is such an

inherent part of our survival and food from all cultures is so readily available everywhere.

Clothing for diasporic, transnational individuals is an imprecise feature in classifying

them into a two dimensional identity. One may wear clothing from two or more cultures

and identify with each one just as much, some more than others, some less, but in the end

not allowing just one to label them, and instead having each one determine the

indeterminable: their fluid identity. All of these cultural elements are instrumental in

making up an identity, but this identity is one that is profoundly indefinite. These cultural

elements thus define the indefinite. Although all of this encompasses a certain amount of

loss, conflict and guilt—none of which may ever entirely disappear—transnationalism

also promotes acceptance, tolerance, and allows the transnational individual to celebrate

the diversity of perspectives and multiplicity of layers and indefiniteness that now defines

them.
 Mughis 27

Works Cited

Alvi, Moniza. 2004. “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan.”

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/presents-from-my-aunts-in-pakistan/.

Accessed 3 May 2018.

Bradatan, Cristina, Popan, Adrian, and Melton, Rachel. “Transnationality as a Fluid

Social Identity.” ​Social Identities​, vol. 16, no. 2, 2010, pp. 169-178.

Dharker, Imtiaz. 2003. “At the Lahore Karhai.”

http://www.imtiazdharker.com/poems_3-at-the-lahore-karhai. Accessed 3 May

2018.

Docker, John. ​1492: The Poetics of Diaspora​. London: Continuum, 2001.

Duff, Patricia. “Transnationalism, Multilingualism, and Identity.” ​Annual Review of

Applied Linguistics​, vol. 35, 2015, pp. 57-80.

Jain, Anupama. ​How to Be South Asian in America: Narratives of Ambivalence and

Belonging. ​Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011.

Kaur, Rupi. ​The Sun and Her Flowers.​ New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Kershen, Anne J. “The Migrant at Home in Spitalfields: Memory, Myth, and Reality.”

Histories and Memories: Migrants and Their History in Britain,​ edited by Kathy

Burrell and Panikos Panayi, 2006, London: Tauris Academic Studies, pp. 96–113.
 Mughis 28

Mannur, Anita. ​Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture.​ Philadelphia:

Temple University Press, 2010.

Pereira-Ares, Noemí. ​Fashion, Dress and Identity in South Asian Diaspora Narratives.

Santiago: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Rushdie, Salman. ​Imaginary Homelands.​ New York: Granta Books, 1992.

Sarwal, Amit. ​South Asian Diaspora Narratives: Roots and Routes.​ Melbourne: Springer,

2017.