“In India today we do share, entirely unawares, a great stock of symbolism and mythology. Most of us writing in English don’t use it. We filter it out, because we wish to write English English. Self-conscious, we write out of a corner of ourselves filtering out our childhood, our obscenities, our bodies, our mythologies, the rich fabric of allusion that a first language is. (Many first language poets are no better; they do the same.) You don’t just write with a language, you write with all you have. When I write in Kannada, I’d like all my English, Tamil, etc. to be at the back of it; and when I write in English I hope my Tamil and my Kanada, like my linguistics and anthropology, what I know of America and India, are at the back of it. It’s of course only a hope, not a claim. I’m less and less embarrassed or afraid of keeping all of these doors open even when it’s dark outside and it’s 3 a.m. inside.”
A.K. Ramanujan. Via Anirudh on Facebook and Neha Viswanathan.

  • January 07, 2012, 5:03pm

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