Cultural divergence in Sujata Bhatt’s poem “Search for My Tongue”

Abstract

This research paper deals with the culture object in Sujata Bhatt’s poem “SEARCH FOR MY TONGUE”. Sujatha Bhatt was born in Gujarat and immigrated to the United States. The persons who admire poetry are aware of what’s going around the world which gives muse to write poems, and sometimes they write poem that connect those to their culture. The present study depicts the life of immigrants who experience the specific tension. Like the speaker Sujata Bhatt, they try to adjust their life in a new country, without forgetting where they come from(native). Sujata also explores how immigrants must often negotiate between supposedly irreconcilable cultural identities, their own, and that of dominant culture which they belong. It also slides on how the dominant culture can threaten to erode an immigrant’s identity. People migrate primarily for social and economical reasons that causes a wide gap between the culture and traditions they follow. Being an Indian, the poet tells her trauma of adapting herself to a new culture. “Search for my tongue” is a poem by Sujata Bhatt, here, the poet includes English and Gujarati lines. Bhatt herself as an immigrant explores how hard it is to adapt to a new culture. The pressure of assimilation and the association between the language and identity fades the native culture. The poet tells her second language overtakes her mother language, the loss of native language would be a loss of her heritage and sense of self- identity which can diminish the culture. Towards the finish of the poem, she witnesses herself, that her primary language had a quality to tie a bunch on her second, going to be her local language appears to have revived her. The euphoric finish of the poem reaffirms the association between language, personality, and self articulation proposing that by utilizing her native language, the speaker has recovered a piece of herself from migration and absorption. She likewise proposes other immigrants, to build up another far off character that incorporates both of their social and cultural experiences.