The language I speak Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest, It is as human as I am human, don’t You see?

 The language I speak 

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness 

All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half 

Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest, 

It is as human as I am human, don’t 

You see? 

Ans – The narrator asserts that the language with all its distortions of grammar, structure or pronunciation belongs to the users, no matter what nationality they may belong to. The narrator explains that the language is ‘as human’ (liable to error) as the narrator is human. She makes her case to use English very strong by claiming that ‘it is useful to her as cawing/Is to crows or roaring to the lions’. English comes so naturally to her that in it she can voice her ‘joys’, her longings’ and her ‘hopes’. The narrator is so vexed with the suggestions regarding her use of language that she further illustrates her point with a series of images to clarify what the writing in English is not like. She says that English …not the deaf, blind speech/ Of trees in storms or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the/ Incoherent muttering of the blazing/ Funeral pyre…’

The poem shifts to another topic when the narrator begins to speak about her early marriage and her consequent psychological hurt:

‘…he drew a youth of sixteen into the/ Bedroom and closed the door. He did not beat me/ But my sad woman-body felt so beaten./The weight of my breast and womb crushed me. I shrank/ Pitifully…”.The above lines are remarkable in their candour and clarity. The whole picture of the distasteful experience of sex that a young, innocent girl has, becomes vivid and the last two lines create the true picture of its consequence. As a mark of protest, the poet resorts to donning western male attire:

‘…Then… I wore a shirt and my/Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored/ My womanliness…’

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