K. Srilata

Srilata’s work has been published in various publications, including The Bloodaxe Anthology of Indian Poets, Fulcrum, The Little Magazine and Penguin India’s First Proofs. Her poem, ‘In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Homesick’ won the first prize in the All India Poetry competition (organised by the British Council and the Poetry Society, India) in 1998. She has also been awarded the Unisun British Council Poetry Award (2007) and the Charles Wallace fellowship for a writing residency (2010). Her debut novel Table for Four was longlisted in 2009 for the Man Asian literary prize.

While there is obvious skill and assurance in Srilata’s poetry, what makes it distinctive, to my mind, is its lightness of touch. This is evident in her poem, ‘Bionote’, on the city of Chennai – or Madras – included in this edition, in which she affectionately ironises her own “middle class and very Madras” identity: “My idea of a holiday,” she confesses, “was rolling down the hillsides/ of Ooty/ dressed in white/ like Sridevi” and “my idea of arctic winter/ twenty-six degrees centigrade”.

My personal favourite, however, is ‘Arriving Shortly’, a poignant and textured poem about a mother from Chennai visiting her daughter in New York City. There are several skeins of feeling here: a daughter’s embarrassment at her mother’s sartorial oddness in a foreign land; a mother’s anxiety to “blend in” by donning monochromatic salwar kurtas; and the obvious aching intimacy of the relationship. A climate of cultural unease is captured through the vivid image of “uncles and aunties” in “unisex Bata sneakers”, shuffling past Air India counters, looking for “quarters and payphones”. The closing image is beautifully understated and tender:

I catch the edge of amma’s saree
sticking out
like a malnourished fox’s tail
from underneath
some other woman’s sweater
meant really for Madras’ gentle Decembers.