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What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?

Bharati Mukherjee

[On her writing agenda:] Make the familiar exotic; the exotic familiar.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Agendas Exotic Writing
But, Christ, there’s a difference between exotic and foreign, isn’t there? Exotic means you know how to use your foreignness, or you make yourself a little foreign in order to appear exotic. Real foreign is a little scary, believe me.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Believe Mean Real
The traveler feels at home everywhere, because she is never at home anywhere.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Feels Home Traveler
I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta:
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Father Home Writing
She would have in tow one or two slower-footed, sari-clad young Indian nuns. We thought her a freak. Probably wed picked up on unvoiced opinions of our Loreto nuns.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Probably Runs Unvoiced Young
My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Definitions Littles Madness
We do things when it is our time to do them. They do not occur to us until it is time; they cannot be resisted, once their time has come. It’s a question of time, not motive.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Motive Time
I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta, up to age 20. I had never handled money.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Couple Growing Notebook Up
I have to put down roots where I decide to stay. It wasn’t enough for me to be an expatriate Indian in Canada. If I can’t feel that I can make social, political and emotional commitments to a place, I have to find another place.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Commitment Emotional Roots
I’m very moved by chaos theory, and that sense of energy. That quantum physics. We don’t really, in Hindu tradition, have a father figure of a God. It’s about cosmic energy, a little spark of which is inside every individual as the soul.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Energy Father Soul
The picture of Mother Teresa that I remember from my childhood is of a short, sari-wearing woman scurrying down a red gravel path between manicured lawns.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Childhood Mother Two
I’m sorry, this is too much work, I’m going to try applying for call center jobs. The pay is better.’
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Better Pay Sorry Work
What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Children Mind Poetry
What was the duty of the teacher if not to inspire?
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Duty Inspire Teacher Teaching
I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Citizens Government Mean
In traditional Hindu families like ours, men provided and women were provided for. My father was a patriarch and I a pliant daughter.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Daughter Father Mother

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?

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What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?

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