Comparative Study
Agha Shahid Ali and Imtiaz Dharker
The present blog is the outcome
of their ‘comparative study of their diasporic consciousnesses.’ The term ‘comparative literature’ was used by Mathew Arnold; he
made a farsighted declaration when he said that no particular literature could
be effectively understood unless and until it has not relation to other events
and other literatures. Comparative study gives confirm to surpass the traditional
obstructions and creates important difference and similarities. Both Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali were born
in Indian subcontinent in Muslim families i.e. Dharker in Lahore Pakistan and
Ali in Delhi India. Dharker was brought
up in Scotland, where her family had relocated when she was less than one year
old. Shahid was brought up in Kashmir, and after completing his graduation he
joined his masters in English literature at Hindu College, Delhi University and
became a lecturer at the same college.
Dharker went to a Protestant school, but also had a religious upbringing
in a Koranic school where she went at weekends. Ali was sent to Irish Catholic
School, an elite institution in Kashmir, where he was taught by Irish priests.
When his parents moved to the USA for their doctoral studies, he spent three
years at a school in Muncie Indiana.
Dharker was awarded an M A in English Literature & Philosophy from
Glasgow University. Ali was awarded a Ph. D degree in English from Pennsylvania
State University. Dharker lives her life
in London, Wales and Mumbai. She eloped to marry an Indian, a Maharashtrian
Hindu Anil Dharker who lived in Mumbai. Her family has been shocked by her
decision and for this reason they cut all the relation with her for at least
fifteen years. Her second husband, Simon Powell, was a Welsh poetry
entrepreneur. He died in 2009 after an eleven-year-long battle with cancer;
Ali’s mother Sufia Ali Nomani also died with cancer in 1997. They spend most of
their life in self-exile in West. She presently spends her life in United
Kingdom and Mumbai. She frequently depicts herself as a ‘Scottish Muslim
Calvinist, born in Lahore and adopted by India’. Ali divides his time between
U.S.A. and Delhi and Kashmir. Their life and work were similarly affected by
their state of being ‘exile’.
There are so many
social, political and religious inequalities that have existed since the dawn
of civilization. As a result, all human beings did not take pleasure in a pleased
manner on the earth. There are some great personalities, among them writers are
at top, who fight against these discriminations. They were not trying only the
same human rights and like position, but they also opposed the hazardous supremacy
of the literature that required them to curb their feelings. They claim that
major portion of literature has been written from the dominant point of view
either by ignoring or suppressing common masses point of view. Literature
reflects the private as well as the social life of a writer. Writers started to write on these topics of
discrimination under a new form of literature called ‘Resistance
literature’. So the writers of ‘Resistance literature’ have started a freedom association trying to
get equal human rights and equal position for all human beings devoid of any distinction
on the bases of religion, region, race, sex, cast etc. Thus, impartiality, independence
and honesty are vital topics to these writers for bringing about a major change
in the whole society. Two of the Asian
writers of Indian subcontinent namely Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali, form
a witty pair of victims of different types of discriminations on the basis of
society, politics and religion etc; and they express the same with the help of
‘Resistance literature’ in their poetry. They express their feelings and
emotions through poetry with the help of different techniques of literature
such as: confessional mode, disapora, feminism, religiosity etc. All these techniques are interconnected with
their diasporic consciousness, as both of them spend their life in exile and
they express nostalgic feelings in their works. Both Ali and Dharker have
always been in exile, ever since they started writing poetry and which has been
recorded through their diasporic consciousness. Most of their poems are marked
by the sense of sorrow and of loss. Exile is always an undesired state for
every human being; exile causes grief. They were two among the members of few
Islamic families who used to write poetry in English language. Nobody likes to
live away from their homeland and from their loved ones; but sometimes
circumstances compel one for exile life in one way or other. The same is the
case of Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali, as former had left her motherland
Pakistan for her freedom, and later for his academic carrier. It is this diasporic experience that frames
their poetry. They both are poets as well as editors but Dharker also draw
drawings while as Ali made translations from other language into English. They
have command upon so many languages mostly upon Urdu but both of them write in
English. They describe beautifully
exile, home, and childhood, and journey, political and religious conflict even
in exile life by their poems through diasporic consciousness. Their poems deal
with a complex and revolutionary journey. They surpass the society, politics,
religion and gender. They represent the issues of private life, homesickness,
urban violence, religious turmoil, political activities and women empowerment
in a very simple and artistic way.
The word ‘Diaspora’ derives from the Greek, meaning ‘to
disperse’. It is the dislocation of a person from his or her ‘original’
motherland. In the sphere of literature diasporic writers are those who
constantly resist, complement and vivify the pain resulted from the enforced or
willing diasporic condition. The exile in case of Imtiaz Dharker and Agha
Shahid Ali is self-exile and intentional, and frequently have clear impression
of the difference amid fondness and requirement. Both of them travel to the
different places, not only to Asia but
also that of West, devoid of detaching the pain of holding left ‘home’ to which
revisit is possible only in imaginings,
remembrance, and writing. For them displacement and shift attain the honest and
metaphorical proportions of change. Both
of them elegize or remember the places and languages of Asia left in the wake
of the places and language of West to which immigration have happened. Their sincere
attempt is to find out the relation and distinguish between their motherland
and the country which they are separated. The sense of loss, the memory of
‘home’ and the pain of being separated to a new land and culture disturbs them.
Thus due to the fear of losing the socio-cultural individuality in their newly
displaced Western society they make conscious efforts to affirm their Indian
national individuality and at the same time to absorb with the new culture of
West. They are studied on the basis of the wide range of experiences which they
gained not only from their exile life, but also from their motherland by
different means which help to grow their diasporic consciousness. Both of them
face different cultures in their life: as Hindu cultures from Ali’s birth land
and Dharker’s adapted land i.e. India; Islamic culture from their common
ancesterial religion Islam and Christian culture from their diasporic land of
West. Culture is that composite whole which includes information of belief,
art, morals, customs, etc. This is applicable for both of them as they have
information of belief, art, morals, customs, etc. of three religion cultures:
Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, which help them to develop their own
consciousness which they expressed through diaspora type of poetry. So, they
did the exchange of cultures, and values; the transmigration from one culture
to another also from one nation to another. So, as Muslims from Indian
subcontinent in West, they owned three major world cultures. There is no doubt
in it that they spend most of their life in far off West but mentally they were
haunted by their mother land. Both Agha Shahid Ali and Imtiaz Dharker can positively
be judged against other ‘regional’ writers from around the world who attained
fame especially after the disregard and rejection of Western civilization and
acceptance as foreign language on the cost of mother language. All these
writers face the same problem of rootedness in place and inhabitant background.
In one of the original critical explorations of the concept of diaspora, William
Safran defined the diasporas as emigrant marginal communities who regard their inherited
mother country as their factual and model home and the place to which they or
their children should sooner or later revisit. This definition of William
Safran about diasporas is applicable for both Dharker and Ali, as both of them
belong to minority in their exile life. As Alii’s ancestors had migrated to Kashmir from
Central Asia, and live in Kashmir in minority as Shia sect among majority Suni
Muslims, then in Delhi in minority as Muslim among majority of Hindus and finally in minority in USA in minority as
Muslim among Christians. Same is the case with Dharker, as her parents had settled
in Scotland in minority as Muslims among the majority of Christians, also
Dharker’s migration to India as minority Muslim among majority of Hindus, again
her migration as Muslim to Londan as Muslim in minority among the majority of
Christians.
The main themes of
Dharker and Ali’s poetry are: alienation and banishment, the disaster of
individual identity and of cultural identity, childhood memories, familial
relations, homesickness for the past, cultural traditions, political disturbance,
female empowerment and broad vision in religion. In most pomes, the common
sense of separation from the family or the community becomes so vast that they
turn totally inward. The result of such inwardness is a highly personal poetry,
confessional in quality and absorbed with isolation and angst from which the
flight is sought either in the erotic fantasies or the self- inquiring of a distress
soul. Their poetry thus exposes their
diasporic consciousness of raw Indian identity. The poetic sensibilities are leaning
along three different possibilities: the modes of verification in terms of story
and history search for the self in and through love, modes of refusal in terms
of desire for delay and death. In other words, their poetry has centered itself
around self in relation to society, history with family as the core unit and in
relation to self, its own pushed emotions and feelings of diaspora life. Although they spent their exile life happily but they never
stopped thinking about their motherland so always lived in the memories of
Indian culture with their haunted diasporic consciousness. Their potry show
that they were pulled by their motherland again and again. Their poems prove
that they were not only emotionally but also physically alienated from their
mother land i.e. Ali from New Delhi and Kashmir, and Dharker form Pakistan and
adapted land Mumbai. This is the reason that they write most of their poems
both about Pakistan or India than for their exile land of West. Their poetry
proves that their hearts were deeply rooted in Indian culture and society. It also
proves that they faced a lot of identical problems in West and that’s why they
felt alienated. Keeping all these things in view, it is very essential to see
how they were alienated from great Indian culture, how they felt rootlessness
in a foreign country and how they proved themselves as faithful children of
their motherland Indian subcontinent. Their diasporic consciousness about
Indian society and culture brought them recognization all over the world.
Therefore, it seems necessary to assess their personality based on their poetry
in this context. They were Indian
English diasporic poets and that’s why Pritish Nandi says in Indian Poetry in English today that Indian English Poets should not only be a
symbol of his age group but should also speaks for it. This definition of
Pritish Nandi is applicable for both Dharker and Ali; as both of them do not
only symbolize their age group but also speak for it. They know that their age
is freak, part and parcel of a prosperous subculture, nomadic, frequently separated
from the normal life of the India.
It is a
fact that diaspora is a state of living in which a man’s inner that means his soul
is dead from his own self, his primary relation that is his mother, father, wife and children etc. It
is also a man’s sensitive sense of remoteness, rootlessness and distress, so
both Ali and Dharker use their poetry for the expression of their alienation
and diasporic consciousness. The
physical, psychological, spiritual and mental alienations have been the powerful
themes in many of their poems. As far as
alienation in their poetry is concerned, it can be understand in many ways
according to its various layers of meaning. Different kinds of alienation can
be seen in their poetry. They were not
only alienated from their motherland but also alienated from their society,
culture, tradition, religion, and also from themselves. That is why they have
written so many poems which prove that they were really alienated from some
basic intuitions of human life. For them
the institutions have lost their importance in world by the misuse of so called
leaders and they are in search of these
basic needs for the citizens of their motherland even in their alienation. Most
of their poems are marked by the sense of sorrow and that of loss. However,
in the land of dreams they had dreamed about their homeland. They are the
Indian English poets, in spite of their migration to West surpasses all artificial
environmental and cultural limitations with the help of their complete poetic power.
They tell the story of their under developed mother land that is India
subcontinent, in a way that only a poet
can do through a breath taking use of language.
Thus being a member of the diasporic group of people the suffering and
pain of homesickness gripped them and encouraged them to create imaginary
homeland in their imaginations and express that through their thoughts in the
form of their poetry. Their poetry is full of diasporic consciousness, with
references to exile and their identity as Indian. So their poetry is mixed with
the scenery of their motherland Indian subcontinent and exiled West.
Imtiaz
Dharker is a Pakistani and Agha Shahid Ali a Kashmiri by birth, so there is no doubt in it that they belong
to the same subcontinent India. So,
they have close resemblance in their confessional style of writing. Also, both
of them express their lives caused by the diasporic crisis of living. They express their diasporic consciousness
through confessional technique of poetry. The term ‘Confessional’ was not
designated by the poets themselves nor did the poets constitute one conscious
group. It is
marked by its intimate autobiographical subject matter that is sometimes
referred to as fantastic which is described by their poetry. All its chief representatives suffered from harsh
personal psychological difficulties as faced by Ali and Dharkr in exile life.
The
confessional poetry of the mid-twentieth century dealt with subject matter that
previously had not been openly discussed in poetry such as: Private experiences
of life, feelings and emotions about past, suffering, depression, suicidal
tendencies, conflict, turmoil, exploitation and relationships etc. All these
elements are found in the poetry of Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali. All these
autobiographical features where discussed by them
in their exile counties through diasporic consciousness. Also both of them allow no veil of
‘Objective Correlative’ or ‘Negative Capability’ like other Confessional poets;
and they employ experience in all its simplicity and honesty allowing it to
acquire meaning and form in the imagination. This type of distributes with a sign
or method for the sentiment and gives the exposed sentiment direct, individually
rather than formally. Like other
Confessional Poets they make an expression of personality rather than an escape
from it; and also neither follow any tradition nor respected any conventions.
Their poetry like other confessional poetry is the poetry which springs from
the personal or private compulsions of a poet. Their poems are intensely
personal, highly subjective like other confessional poets. They deal almost completely and intensely
with their own self. The ‘I’ in their
poems is poet and nobody else; it is the poet’s real self, exposed in the most persistent
and consistent manner. They reveal directly or indirectly their own experiences
about their diaspora life. The innermost melancholy of their soul are laid exposed,
the secrets of their hearts expressed, and the disturbance of their psyche
stated with a confusing, sometimes frightening, honesty. The expression of
personal nostalgic pain has been regarded as a feature of poetry which they
feel through diasporic consciousness.
Both Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali confess diaspora feelings in their poetry. A ‘confessional’ poet places no barriers between his self and direct expression of that self. Both of them express their private experience in their poetry. He takes the help of an open language for an unrestrained expression of his emotions, and by ‘open language’ is meant free verse or blank verse, as opposed to rhymed verse (which is so much restricted). Furthermore, a ‘confessional’ poet courts death and destruction in order to arrive at a higher level of perception. The protagonist in a poetic piece feels quite alienated from the surroundings. Personal failure as well as mental illness is his favourite theme. These themes are dominated in the poetry of both these two poets. The Confessional poets employ the self as sole poetic symbol in their poetry. They are artists whose total mythology is the lost self. They prefer to live as lost men. Even a casual look at the major Confessional poems will substantiate the statement. A Confessional poem is surely not a mere presentation of losses, but it springs from the need to confess. Each poem is in some way a declaration of dependence or of guilt, or of anguish and anxiety. Thus the writing of each such poem is an ego-centered, though not a self-centered, act. Its goal is self-therapy and certain purgation. These all elements are found in Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid. Both of them represent their unexpressed, inner nostalgic feeling of their upset mental state in the confessional style. It is found to be a suitable form of expression for the two poets who are eagerly sensitive to the delicate. The main aim of the study of comparative literature in relation to the poetry of Imtiaz Dharker and Agha Shahid is an attempt to produce more genuine and more truthful appreciation of their works. They both express their personal lives directly with their own language without hesitation. So their main source of poetry is their own inner self. Their poetry is closely related with their life. Their poetry is their life. They expresses in their poetry pain, confusion, inner turmoil and strict dissatisfaction which was root cause for their pain and anxiety in their diasporaic life. So they are confessional poets since there have all the essential features of a true confessional poet in their works. There are most of their poems in which they make the use of first person “I” which have autobiographical elements and through which they makes use of confession in their poetry.
There is no doubt in it that both of them were born in Muslim family
and follow Islam in their life, but they have broad and secular vision and so
respect other religions also. They came across different cultures and different
religions directly or indirectly in their life; such as Hindu, Islam and
Christianity etc. There poetry
reflects Muslim, Hindu and Western heritage. They narrate their practical life’s so many episodes to make
their poetry religious even in their diaspora life. In their exile life they
remember Indian religion not only Islam but also Hinduism, and they give vent
to their thoughts in the form of religion poetry. They were not only haunted by
their personal memories of Indian subcontinent but were haunted with religious
ceremonies, festivals, shrines, religious personalities, and legends and even
they expose the misuse of religion by so called religious people etc. All these memories are represented by them
through their religion poetry. Ali was born in a broad-minded family who had
social approach toward life and secular type of approach towards the religion
which is represented in his poetry even in exile life through the diasporic
technique. While as Dharker was born in a narrow-minded conservative family
that had strict approach towards life and extremist approach towards the
religion which haunted her in diasporic life. Probably the harsh atmosphere of
her family is responsible for her marriage firstly with a Hindu and then with
an English. Dharker was in search of freedom in life and secular approach of
religion, like that of Ali’s. Even though she married with non- Muslims, she
was strict towards her ancestral religion Islam but she was against the false
preachers and false followers of Islam. Ali had a secular approach towards the
religion and he was the true follower of his religion Islam but likes other
religions also. Majority of the poetry of Dharker elevates her voice against
the traditional and false ways in which Islam is understand and followed by so
called Muslims, while as Ali’s poetry voices against the harsh and terrific
attitude of non -Muslims towards Islam.
Both
of them support women cause and women empowerment in real life as well as
through their works. Dharker, being women is called feminist and Ali being man
is called pro feminist i.e. supporter of feminism, both fight for the weaker
and suppressed sections of society. In their actual life Ali had been brought up in a family
where every member of the family share love with each other and take care of
one another without any difference on the basis of sex. In his family the
female had full freedom and also she is allowed to get higher education; all
his female members such as grandmother, mother, and sisters are able to get the
opportunity of higher education not only from their own country but foreign
countries of West. While as Dhaker had been brought up in a narrow minded and
conservative family where difference was made on the basis of sex; as females and males
were not treated equally. There were some type of restrictions upon the freedom
of females in Dharkers family and they are not even allowed education and
to take participation in some religious functions and ceremonies. They are known as India’s leading poets as
through their poetry they draw in notice the suffering and anxiety of Indian continent women, who are trapped
in the chaos of exaggerated principles of both social and familial. Dharker exposes
her personal unhappiness and grieves that she herself experienced in different circumstances
of her diaspora life; while as Ali represents that he experienced in the
society as a responsive human being.
Most of their poems give details of their feministic approach in which
they had predictable a new mechanism to free the women from the suffering and anxiety
of slavery. They have painted the different
descriptions and roles of an Indian woman, as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a
mistress and even as a pious religious woman.
They focused their attitudes on the problems faced by a woman in the
name of different institutions of religion and politics etc.
This dissertation examines diasporic
consciousness in the Indian English poetry from a nostalgic perception. It put
emphasis on the ways in which poets discover possibilities of writing across
personal, social, political, religious, and gender borders in the light of diasporic
consciousness. In this research the works of two poets Agha Shahid Ali and
Imtiaz Dharker are dealt with. It is analysed in this research how their
writings depict the diasporic consciousness with the help of their confessional
poetry, the theme of femininity. Ultimately, by this research we argue that
reading these poets can broaden the scope of not only Indian English poetry but
also Asian Western. Both of them actively travel between and mingle
geographies, histories, and cultural traditions into the fabric of their texts
with the help of diasporic consciousness. Their poetry are marked by acts of
moving and resistancy against fixed categorization, as they narrate physical
journeys, make cross-cultural references, translate, and adopt forms from other
diasporic traditions. In their very processes of thematic and formal
border-crossing, the two poets interfere in dominant social discourses on
national history, international relations, gender, racial and ethnic identities
and thus enable a review of Indian subcontinent present India and Pakistan.
They struggle to achieve more than making a place for Asian minorities in
Western countries. Not only do they
explore ethnic identity within the domestic contexts of the Indian subcontinent
through their personal or familial histories of diaspora. But their works also
reference cultural and literary traditions of Asia, West, and beyond and critically
engage with the unequal and fraught relations between Asian and Western
countries. Their geographical and metaphorical travel in real life in multiple
directions makes their writings a particular kind of Asian Western poetry. In
this poetry, Asia, where their parents, grandparents, or they themselves are
from, represents not only a past and a memory but also an important coordinate
that defines their present position in a web of intersecting cultural and
political forces. It appears in a variety of forms as imaginary homeland,
destiny for an exile‘s journey home, nexus of memory and the present, as well
as literary form or literary tradition. West, too, appears as an unstable,
fluid concept expanding to its more comprehensive form and so they feel diasporic
consciousness about their motherland.
Both
of them were popular as poetes who were competent to combine numerous cultural
influences and ideas in both customary forms and well-designed free-verse.
Their poetry reflects their tri-cultural identity that is Hindu, Muslim, and
Western heritages. Their poetry rotates around anxiety and interest,
remembrance, loss, history, relations, ancestors, and self-consciousness about
being poets. Their poems are rich in their use of language: the amazing metaphors,
the amazing juxtapositions and the mix of the real with the strange, remain
poems and don’t decline into sloganeering.
Both the poets Imtiyaz
Dharker and Agha Shahid Ali have mastery to convey the private to the general.
The Ghazals of Ali are the indication to the fact that relations poets and
readers through instance and custom. Ali has his personal grieves, that is grief
of being in diasporic and living at a place that never received him and he also
he was haunted by the diasporic consciousness about his mother; his regrets of losing his mother that about whom
he writes in his verse. His writing has a strong significance on all who ever
reads his poetry experiencing same kind of grieves, they sense one with the
poet, and hence his poetry gives universal massage. Imtiyaz Dharker has a
powerful intelligence for expressing her personal problems as a female in a
traditional and conventional bound society and she expresses her powerful
feelings and emotions through her writings.
Her voice through her art is not only her inner feelings but of the all
women who suffer in the so called civilized and modern society. So their poetry have universal appeal; it is
the story of other people of the world also who are not able to speak their
inner feelings due to different reasons. In short, it is clear that their
poetry has importance from specific and personal to general and universal. So they
have given the tongue to dumb and mute ear to deaf, limbs to lamb and eyes to
blind with the only one weapon in the form of Poetry.
