Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness

Don't write in English, they said,

English is not your mother tongue...

...The language I speak

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness

All mine, mine alone, it is half English, half

Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human...

...It voices my joys, my longings my

Hopes...

(Kamala Das, 1965:10)

GARGESH, R. South Asian Englishes. In: KACHRU, B. B; KACHRU, Y.; NELSON, C. L. (Eds.). The Handbook of World Englishes. Singapore: Blackwell, 2006.

A poetisa Kamala Das, como muitos escritores indianos, escreve suas obras em inglês, apesar de essa não ser sua primeira língua. Nesses versos, ela