Daak Weekly: On Identity and Belonging
Our need to belong runs deep; often touted as an evolutionary need, it indicates safety and connection. However, the business of life is rife with many dangers, both real and imagined, and isolation seems to have become the hallmark of our modern condition. While this might appear to be a product of our devices and technology, this problem is not new. Being human is to question our place in the world, and many poets have grappled with questions of the self, identity and personhood.
Eunice de Souza (1940 - 2017), one of India’s most well-known modern poets, was born and brought up in Pune, in a Goan Catholic family. After completing her education, she taught English at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, where she was loved and feared in equal parts. With her sharp tongue and trenchant views, de Souza could reduce even the boldest personalities to a bundle of nerves. In her razor-sharp, no-nonsense style, she articulated a fiercely independent code of survival that defies convention. In fact, her poetry not only invited, but also celebrated the misfits — boisterous children and snarky adults who resist being moulded into the mundane.
Born to the illustrious anthropologist Iravati Karve and the granddaughter of the social reformer D.K. Karve, Gauri Deshpande (1942 - 2003) had big shoes to fill. Unlike her family members, however, she chose the medium of literary expression and excelled as a Marathi and English poet, writer and translator. She also taught at Fergusson College and later at the then University of Pune. Deshpande bared it all in her autobiographical poems and stories: experiences of womanhood, tensions and frustrations with men, and strained relationships with her own children. Although she wrote about the mundane, Deshpande had a distinctive voice which was strongly feminist. She tackled themes of love, abandonment and loneliness with a curious mix of self-critical humour and lyricism.
We hope their musings bring you reflections and comfort in the knowledge that perhaps, we never fully belong anywhere but to ourselves.
Love,
Team Daak
Need a home for your outpourings? Check out this notebook we’ve curated for writers, with quotes and poetry from literary greats of South Asia!
