I’m always nervous about being too personal in this space, and anyway when you’re traveling with a two-year old your travel experiences tend to revolve around him, so I’ll boil it down to this: Goa sure is nice this time of year. (I’m visiting in-laws, who live here now.)<\/p>\n\n
We were also in London for a couple of days, where I was happy to get to meet Sunny Hundal<\/a>. Again, let’s keep details to a minimum, and say the highlight of our London experience was a restaurant called Imli<\/em><\/a>, serving Indian Tapas (nice idea, huh).<\/p>\n\n In a London bookstore I found a book of poems by Daljit Nagra<\/a>, Look We Have Coming to Dover!<\/em> (the title poem is a postcolonial answer to Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”). My favorite poem so far is “Rapinder Slips into Tongues,” and I hope the poet won’t mind if I share the poem here, in hopes of provoking discussion. It certainly resonated with me:<\/p>\n\n A critic named Ben Wilkinson has a brief take on the poem, and Daljit Nagra’s poetic style as a whole, here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m always nervous about being too personal in this space, and anyway when you’re traveling with a two-year old your travel experiences tend to revolve around him, so I’ll boil it down to this: Goa sure is nice this time … Continue reading Rapinder Slips into Tongues…
\nby Daljit Nagra
\n\nDad and me were watching the video–
\nAmar, Akbar, Anthony<\/em>. It’s about three
\nbrothers separated after the family is parted
\nby gangsters. You can get it with subtitles, Miss.
\nWhen Anthony, who grows up in a Catholic home,
\nbegged Christ for the address of his real parents
\nthen crossed himself, I jumped off our royal red
\nsofa, joined Anthony with his prayer:
\nHail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary<\/em>,
\nfour-quartering myself then curtseying a little.
\n\nDad just stared at me, knocking his turban side
\nto side that I almost thought it would come off
\nwhich it normally does when he’s doing his press-ups
\nand his face goes mauve. Instead he took off
\nhis flip-flop (the one with a broken thong),
\nheld it in the air, shouting in ‘our’ language,
\nVat idiot! If you vant to call on Gud,
\ncall anytime on anyvun of our ten gurus,
\nDo you tink is white Gud’s wife your mudder?<\/em>
\n\nDad’s got a seriously funny way Miss,
\nsometimes he cries, and says he’s going to give me
\nto a Sikh school, a proper school. That’s why
\nI did what my cousin Ashok does at our local
\ntemple — while you were all doing hail mary
\nto end registration, I first locked my hands,
\nknelt down, prayed with this ditty we do on Sundays,
\n\nimagined the Golden Temple and our bearded gods
\nto your up-on-the-cross one, then roared:
\nWahay Guru!
\nWahay Guru!
\nWahay Guru!
<\/em>\nLike that.<\/blockquote>\n\n