The Poems in Context
Remains of the Dig was written after a visit to the vast archeological site at Vijayanagra in Karnataka. The unprocessed archeological objects reminded me of my own locked-away emotions.
Women know Ceilings, written at a time I was struggling to re-invent myself, acutely aware of my own limitations. I had not heard of the ‘glass ceiling’ but seem to have anticipated it instinctively.
The Portable Self was written on my third evacuation from Pakistan. In the one suitcase I was allowed I packed a dowry bag from Sindh to remind me that some are even without suitcases. Calligraphy and crochet were my companions on this forced march to enlightenment.
Nosce te Ipsum - Know Thyself- was the motto of the Hoërskool Rustenburg where I went to school. This motto together with that from my Primary School, ‘Niks sonder Arbeid’ - Nothing without Labour - have subconsciously guided me throughout my life. Their secular nature pleases me.
My southern hemisphere sensibilities still find the definite change in the seasons in the North amazing. Hence the imagery in Inner Shape.
We crossed the fast flowing Jhelum in a Landrover and ate lamb birjani in the shade of a dusty palace wall while goats looked on. No National Trust or historical conservation society here; not even a single vendor selling postcards. The deserted ruins of Rohtas Fort were wrapped in an uninterpreted past. That was how the whole country felt to me.
I have seven different CDs with interpretations of John Dowland’s pavans from the Seaven Teares. I regularly pull them over me when I feel like ‘cultivating melancholy’ and indulging sadness about the past. Old Tears - Lachrimae Antiquae - have a way of coming back
On the Way to Recovery, Reflections on the River of Lust and Permissive Experiment are from a time between husbands. Reflections was part of a poetry presentation to Seniors at the International School in Islamabad. Afterwards I ran into one of the students in the girls’ washroom. She looked at me in the mirror and gave me a wide soul-mate smile. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said.
