English
Sujata Bhatt: from Search For My Tongue
Sujata Bhatt was born in 1956 in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat, where her mother tonguemother tongue: A person's first language - the one they learn from their mother. was Gujarati. Later, her family lived for some years in the United States, where she learned English. She now lives in Germany.
She has chosen to write poems in English, rather than Gujarati. But a number of her poems, including this one, are written in both languages.
This poem is part of a longer poem ('Search for my Tongue'), written when she was studying English at university in America and was afraid she might lose her original language.
In an interview, she says:
"I have always thought of myself as an Indian who is outside India."
Her mother tongue is for her an important link to her family, and to her childhood:
"That's the deepest layer of my identity."
You ask me what I meanby saying I have lost my tongue.I ask you, what would you doif you had two tongues in your mouth,and lost the first one, the mother tongue,and could not really know the other,the foreign tongue.You could not use them both togethereven if you thought that way.And if you lived in a place you had tospeak a foreign tongue,your mother tongue would rot,rot and die in your mouthuntil you had to spit it out.I thought I spit it outbut overnight while I dream,
મને હુતું કે આબ્બી જીભ આબ્બી ભાષા(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
મેં થૂંકી નાબી છે(may thoonky nakhi chay)
પરંતુ રાત્રે સ્વપ્નાંમાં મારી ભાષા પાછી આવે છે(parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay)
ફુલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ(foolnee jaim mari bhasha nmari jeebh)
મોઢામાં બીલે છે(modhama kheelay chay)
ફુલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ(fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)
મોઢામાં પાકે છે(modhama pakay chay)
it grows back, a stump of a shootgrows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,it ties the other tongue in knots,the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth,it pushes the other tongue aside.Everytime I think I've forgotten,I think I've lost the mother tongue,it blossoms out of my mouth.
The poem is written in three sections:
Now think about the language that is used in the poem.
How many meanings does the word 'tongue' have in the poem? Consider these:
Read the poem carefully and see where Sujata Bhatt plays with these meanings. For example, she imagines that knowing two languages is like having 'two tongues in your mouth' (line 4).
The poet compares her tongue to a plant, as she develops her ideas. This is called an extended metaphorextended metaphor: A metaphor is a descripton of one thing in terms of another - implicitly comparing the two, but without using 'as' or 'like' - eg 'he was drowning in a sea of troubles'. An extended metaphor keeps going, and likens several different aspects of the two things - eg 'he was drowning in a sea of troubles, buffeted by a storm of misfortune, overwhelmed by waves of despair'.. The lists below describe some of the ways in which her mother tongue is compared to a plant. Try to complete the second list, using the phrases in the first one as a guide:
Mother Tongue
Why it is like a plant
Why do you think this imageimage: A visual representation of something; a mental picture; a persona that is presented to the world. is so successful? Look at the contrasts it includes:
Why do you think that the poem begins in a colloquialcolloquial: Informal spoken language; slang way (using everyday language), but uses such striking imagery towards the end?
Try reading it aloud. The Gujarati script is transliteratedtransliterated: To transliterate means to represent words in one alphabet using corresponding letters from another alphabet. into a phoneticphonetic: Using letters to represent the sounds of speech. English version in brackets, so even if you don't know any Gujarati, you can still have a go.
If the poem says more or less the same thing twice, might it just as well be written in one language only? What do you think would be lost if the Gujarati disappeared?
In what tone of voice do you think the poem should be read?
Select a short quotation to justify your choice.
What do you think the poet wants us to see about the importance of a mother tongue to someone living in a different culture?
Now try a Test Bite
Read this question carefully. It is similar to the type of question you will be asked in the exam
Choose two poems which deal with the experience of living between two cultures, and show how this experience is reflected in the language of the poems.
If you are ready to practise writing a full answer, you should spend 40 minutes on this, and write about two poems. In the exam itself, you will only have 30 minutes for this question.
For each poem:
If you would prefer to concentrate on just Sujata Bhatt's poem at this stage, write for 20 minutes.
In writing about this poem, you could include short paragraphs about:
If you want to practise writing a full answer, you could also write about the poem by Chinua Achebe, Tutamkhulu Afrika, Imtiaz Darker, Nissim Ezekiel or Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
When writing about two poems, you should try to end by making a comparison between the two. In what ways are the poems similar - in the style of language, or in ideas? In what ways are they different?
The poem contains lots of similes and metaphors (imagery), similes is when you use like and metaphors is when you don't use like. I liked the line about spitting it out (tongue) it reminded me of a horror film.
Examiner's Note:
The whole poem is about tongues really, there are lots of images of tongues. Sujata describes her mother tongue as if it was something growing in her mouth, which gets bigger or smaller. She thinks that if she doesn't speak Indian from day to day it will die away. It's like, use it or lose it. But it never actually disappears because at night the tongue 'blossoms out of my mouth', so it's come to life again.
Examiner's Note
In English, we use the word 'tongue' to mean 'language' as well as your actual 'tongue'. The poet compares knowing two languages to having two tongues in your mouth, which she calls 'the mother tongue' and 'the foreign tongue'. She is afraid that the mother tongue might shrivel away ('rot and die') like a plant with no roots. But in the last part of the poem, the mother tongue seems to grow back during the night, and 'push the other tongue aside'. It's like when she dreams, she dreams in Gujarati, and this keeps the language alive for her. It connects her to her memories. The image of two tongues growing in your mouth is weird, and a bit disturbing. You can imagine how it would feel. But then it 'blossoms' which also suggests something beautiful. I thought this was a memorable image.
Examiner's Note