Reading is probably my favourite thing to do. I connect so deeply with characters in whom I find glimpses of myself. I grew up with Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton, JK Rowling. Fell in love with Shelley and Eliot. Discovered myself in Bronte, and Browning, and Blake.
Except, as I touched the spine of each book, not a single one called out a name like mine. Elizabeth Bennet, Leopold Bloom, and Catherine Earnshaw never struggled with belonging in two places. No one ever struggled to pronounce those names. Or those of the authors who penned them into existence. They were outsiders but their skin never told their entire story and their accents never hindered them. Thus, their lives simply could not encompass so many of my lived realities.
My father marvels at my excitement any time I see people like me on a screen or in a book. I think the answer lies partially in perspective. He came here as an adult. After being nurtured in a land where he never had to prove he belonged. After feeling the warmth of a language that never challenged him. I came here as a child. Before I learned my brown skin could burden me. Before I grasped that my heart could belong in Canada and still beat for Pakistan. That is why it matters. We should be actively encouraging young immigrants to connect with their roots as they plant new ones here.
I didn't grow up reading Manto. Or bask in Faiz till I rediscovered him years later. Not because I didn't know South Asian literature and poetry existed. I simply didn't think it mattered as much. Particularly, to those around me. Their names sounded much more like the ones I regularly read. So why would they care about a name that sounded like mine? A name most of them couldn’t actually pronounce. A name I had been content to alter for their convenience. It took my parents resolutely affirming that my name was worth learning for me to insist that people make the effort to pronounce it properly.
On the bookshelves of my bookstores there were no places of prominence for those who sounded different. Their texts didn’t call out from the shelves, beckoning. Showing me that one day I too could be there. That I should confidently share my views. That others would read my stories. That my words could matter in equal measure. That my perspective was beautiful.
Amartya Sen penned it beautifully:
“Kautilya, the ancient Indian writer on political strategy and political economy, has sometimes been described in modern literature, when he has been noticed at all, as the ‘Indian Machiavelli’. It is amusing that an Indian political analyst from the 4th century BC has to be introduced as a local version of a European writer born in the 15th century."
My favourite authors encompass the globe. Jose Saramago wrote with a brutal vividness unmatched. Sahir Ludhianvi entwined politics and poetry in the most powerful ways. Pablo Neruda longed for home in a way I understand. Similarly, I’m lucky to have a mother who shared her love of Russian literature with me. It’s why I couldn’t put down Tolstoy. Why Lolita standing four foot ten in one sock enraptures me to this day.
Over 5 million Canadians belong to a visible minority. Over half the population of Toronto was born outside of Canada. Our curriculum and selection of books needs to reflect as much. Choosing texts that are more representative of our classrooms, will broaden everyone’s scope of exposure. We’ve finally started to see television shows with diverse lead roles, ad campaigns featuring people of all backgrounds and sizes. Literature is unique. The material doesn’t need to be created or re-branded. The richness of words from around the world has existed for centuries! It simply requires access and awareness.
We deserve to be heard. To be read. The spines of our books bear stories worth devouring.
P.S - I wanted to share my favourite poem by Sahir Ludhianvi. The poet of the poor and the oppressed forever changed how I saw the Taj Mahal. This version is an English translation:
Taj Mahal
The Taj, mayhap, to you may seem, a mark of love supreme
You may hold this beauteous vale in great esteem;
Yet, my love, meet me hence at some other place!
How odd for the poor folk to frequent royal resorts;
‘Tis strange that the amorous souls should tread the regal paths
Trodden once by mighty kings and their proud consorts.
Behind the facade of love my dear, you had better seen,
The marks of imperial might that herein lie screen
You who take delight in tombs of kings deceased,
Should have seen the hutments dark where you and I did wean.
Countless men in this world must have loved and gone,
Who would say their loves weren’t truthful or strong?
But in the name of their loves, no memorial is raised
For they too, like you and me, belonged to the common throng.
These structures and sepulchres, these ramparts and forts,
These relics of the mighty dead are, in fact, no more
Than the cancerous tumours on the face of earth,
Fattened on our ancestor’s very blood and bones.
They too must have loved, my love, whose hands had made,
This marble monument, nicely chiselled and shaped
But their dear ones lived and died, unhonoured, unknown,
None burnt even a taper on their lowly graves.
This bank of Jamuna, this edifice, these groves and lawns,
These carved walls and doors, arches and alcoves,
An emperor on the strength of wealth, Has played with us a cruel joke.
Meet me hence, my love, at some other place.
- Translation by K.C. Kanda, appeared in Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm published by Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd.