Jaydeep Sarangi

Poetry

Patient Dignity

Bashabi Fraser,

Scotland Street Press, Edinburgh, 2021,

Pp 93 | Rs. 1123

ISBN 978-1-910895-54-2

The literary mosaic of the Indian diaspora has earned accolades in postcolonial literary circles and more widely, when the new world of readers was predicted. Scholars of international repute have researched on these writers in the last three decades and found their work extremely interesting and dynamic.These writers come into contact with other languages and cultures, which they import into their works from their new positions.

Poets of the British Indian diaspora carry unique responsibility on their shoulders: Daffodils and the Thames of the European tradition and lotus and the Ganges of the Indian heritage.Bashabi Fraser landed in Scotland to work on her PhD programme in Applied Linguistics and Literary Stylistics at the University of Edinburgh in the mid 1980s. But, her links with Scotland started ling before her own first visit.  Bashabi’s paternal grandfather was befriended and educated by a Scottish barrister and her maternal grandfather had a Scottish boss.

A seasoned academic and poet, Bashabi Fraser’s   poems maintain the straight forwardness and   honesty of a committed contemporary Indian poet by exhibiting   what the poet discovers inside a rare fabric of poetic thoughts and images. We read Patient Dignity, we step into her poetic whirlpool—mesmerising and worshipful. We arrive at a wonderland of ‘the earth’s call’ where ‘Dolphins return to the Hoogly’.

Linguistic crossing over is the hallmark of the corpus of diasporic literature. Poetry serves as a formidable tool for diasporic concepts. Poets of the British Indian diaspora are prime examples of this corpus. Bashabi writes about hope after the onus of displacement at several levels, “We will meet again”. Displacement is a politically loaded term with many connotations.  Bashabiis an optimistic artist believing in, ‘remember this time will pass’.Hope is the aroma of our survival. Bashabi writes,

“They flew healer skelter

They scampered for shelter

They saw lands they had never traversed.” (‘Displacement’, p. 54)

Bashabi lives in an in-between space; a synthesis of host and root cultures and languages. In the poem ‘The vast city green’ she is lost in deep introspection—her living and longings in Edinburgh and Kolkata:

“It conjures the avenues aflame

In the Meadows, alive and vivacious

Sprinkling offerings  (.)” (p. 68)

The River Tay in Scotland and the Ganges in India are two loved rivers. They foster two amazing civilizations. The poet connects the hearts of these two nations though her symbols and images.

Poems in Patient Dignity accounts for imaginative leaps and her longings for the roots. Many of Bashabi’s scintillating poems tell stories of ‘a dragon and a fairy’ whom we can chase in our dreams,

“I stood under the willow tree

Whose leaves were lost in reverie

I heard them whisper, drip and weep (.)”

For Bashabi, poetry is never pretentious, cryptic, elitist, and futile. It’s not that one needs a master’s degree to understand Fraser’s seemingly simple poems. Her poetic corpus is relevant to the larger culture in India and beyond:

“And now as a virus flies free

And enters our big city

We feel a new rage

Shut up in our cage (.)” (‘Role revered’, p. 55)

We long to return to these amazing poems in different shades of my moods.

Patient Dignity raises genuine contemporary concerns of language, culture and history, highlighting an in-between immigrant space, while negotiating an open  dialogue for the genre. 

Memory is an important aspect in Bashabi Fraser’s poems. Her home thoughts moist the pillows. In the collection, Patient Dignity she journeys down the memory lane to her Kolkata days. In the poem ‘On Bengali New Year’ she recalls how ‘Tagore’s songs resounded’and she relates it to ‘the community spirit lives and grows’.

Bashabi Fraser writes for ‘many magical things’.  ‘When all this is over’ is a sweet poem addressed to little Louie whom she recalls as angelic,

“ And feel your joy of walking

At full tilt on each waking day (.)” (p. 88)

Poems  in this collection are free flow of emotions and longing attached with people, places, things, presences and absences. She goes back and forth by summoning the  sessions of thoughts and empathy to all. Louie points to the pigeons. The poet watches the sky with her. She plan for a meeting where they both can walk together keeping Louie’s hands in her clasp. The poem ends with a rainbow of hope,

“When my Louie and I

Can play once more

And play as we did before.” (p. 90)

Louie is Bashabi Fraser’s sunshine. With this divine vision we step into our smiles, longings and simplicity. Dreams are touched.

An Edinburgh artist, Vibha Pankaj’s paintings give vibrant expressiveness to Basahabi Fraser’s collection, Patient Dignity. Together, it’s a rare and outstanding fabric! A must read!