a different history annotations

She highlights her own cultural identity as makes it the main focus of the poem, moving away from conventional poetic themes. it makes this poem stand out and makes it quite stirring.

The highlighting of a cultural identity not normally seen in widespread poems also helps carry across a sense of community. She is Indian and the Indian people have been oppressed by the English since India was at one point part of British Empire. The focus on India turns the tables and it stops India from just being a footnote.

‘A Different History’

• Indefinite article shows this history is one of many. ‘different’ also connotes divergence, especially from what is common.
• Also, often said that ‘History is written by the victors’ and the presentation of a different history implies it is one that was written by a different group.
• It also goes directly against that statement, since if that statement was true, there would only be one history.

‘Great Pan is not dead;’

• The first line directly contests and disputes Plutarch, a Greek and Roman philosopher who said that ‘The great god Pan is dead’.
• Shows how the history we know can and should be challenged since there is always more than one perspective in situations.
• Pan was god of the wild and the suggestion that he isn’t dead suggests that even in this urbanised world, nature hasn’t left.

‘he simply emigrated / to India’

• The use of ‘simply’ demeans Plutarch and implies he was so small minded not to think of something as easy as the fact Pan could’ve moved.
• These lines instantly shift from focusing on a Western philosopher to India. This also implies India is safer for nature and it gives India positive qualities, separating it from just being an English colony, giving it it’s own power.

Poem is in free verse

• This shows how even the poem’s structure won’t conform to a stable metre and rhyme scheme and it instead does something wholly different.
• It makes the divergence from everything conventional even more powerful as it seeps through in the poem’s structure.

She presents a way identity has been oppressed and conformed, which is through language.

By talking about the ways language has oppressed culture and identity she is referencing the oppression of India again, except it is through a lens of language. She pardons English, the language, since it was only used as a tool by the conquerors and oppressors but she still highlights language’s significance in oppression of identity. This is seen with other identities too and how names attributed to them can be used to generalise, stereotype or oppress. (native americans being called ‘Indians’ because Christopher Columbus thought he first landed in India)

‘Which language / has not been the oppressor’s tongue?’

• Rhetorical question.
• It adds to the impression the speaker is directly speaking to the reader and it makes the reader subconsciously search for a language that hasn’t oppressed.
• This question also shows that language can be used as a tool of oppression.

‘after the soul has been cropped’

• ‘cropped’ suggests a violent but precise movement.
• It shows how language can be used extremely precisely to catalogue and cut out parts of history and culture that are deemed undesirable.
• The use of ‘soul’ also evokes pity from the reader, since soul is considered the innermost part of someone/thing. The cropping out of that part would be painful, if not physically then emotionally.

‘grow to love that strange language.’

• The use of ‘strange’ to describe the oppressor’s language turns the tables, as that language is usually considered the ‘normal’ one.
• This line is a conclusion to a seven line sentence and it shows Bhatt’s confusion with how India’s grandchildren can love the oppressor’s tongue (english)
• Full stop at the end of sentence shows how she doesn’t want the answer to the question.

She gives an identity to inanimate objects, which shows how she believes identity isn’t only reserved for people.

This focus on the identity of inanimate objects acts as a reference to Atman, the innermost essence of self which is present in living beings. However, Bhatt’s interpretation extends it to inanimate objects since they were made from a living thing. In this case, a tree.

‘it is a sin / to be rude to a book’

• ‘to be rude’ surprisingly personifies the book.
• Challenges western preconceptions about identity and life, since a western belief would be that books cannot be offended by rudeness.
• Bhatt gives this book a sense of identity and indirectly gives it feelings.

‘with your foot’ , ‘hard on a table’ and ‘across a room’

• The lineation of these phrases makes the actions even more disrespectful and their indentation almost gives them a sense of motion on the page.
• Both of these just emphasises the point that these actions are stigmatised as they cause harm to something with a soul.

‘You must learn to turn the pages gently’

• The direct address, instructive and imperative tone of this line shows how Bhatt believes that only treating it neutrally isn’t enough.
• It is implied objects must be treated with proactive respect as they still come from living beings.
• ‘gently’ contrasts the verbs used earlier in the poem (‘shove, slam, throw’) and it shows Bhatt taking the book into account.