Name Journeys

• ''Like Rama I have felt the wilderness''
• ''but I have not been blessed''
• ''with a companion as sweet as she,''
• ''Sita; loyal, pure and true of heart.''
• ''Like her I have been chastened''
• ''through trial by fire. Sita and I,''
• ''spiritual sari-sisters entwined''
• ''in an infinite silk that would swathe''
• ''Draupadi's blush. My name''
• ''a journey between rough and smooth,''
• ''an interlacing of banyan leaves with sugar''
• ''cane. Woven tapestries of journeys;''
• ''travelling from South''
• '''to North, where the Punjabi in my mouth''
• ''became dislodged as milk teeth fell''
• ''and hit infertile English soil.''
• ''My mouth toiled to accommodate''
• ''the rough musicality of Mancunian vowels''
• ''and my name became a stumble''
• ''that filled English mouths''
• ''with a discordant rhyme, an exotic''
• ''rhythm dulled, my voice a mystery''
• ''in the Anglo echo chamber-''
• ''void of history and memory.''