IRA MATH­UR

This Sun­day Guardian’s Book­shelf takes us to the work of In­di­an-born writer and in­vest­ment banker Shan­ta Acharya, the au­thor of 12 books span­ning po­et­ry, fic­tion and lit­er­ary crit­i­cism of fi­nance. Born and ed­u­cat­ed in Cut­tack, In­dia, Acharya is the first woman from the In­di­an state of Odisha to win a schol­ar­ship to Ox­ford and among the first batch of women ad­mit­ted to Worces­ter Col­lege in 1979.

A Na­tion­al Schol­ar and a re­cip­i­ent of the Vi­o­let Vaugh­an Mor­gan Fel­low­ship, she was award­ed the Doc­tor of Phi­los­o­phy for her work on Ralph Wal­do Emer­son in 1983, af­ter which she was a Vis­it­ing Schol­ar in the De­part­ment of Eng­lish and Amer­i­can Lit­er­a­ture and Lan­guages at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty.

Acharya al­so worked in in­vest­ment bank­ing at the Amer­i­can in­vest­ment bank in Lon­don in 1985, in­vest­ment man­age­ment in the city and the Lon­don Busi­ness School.

Liv­ing on the edge of sev­er­al con­ti­nents, Acharya said in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian that she is “com­fort­able in a state of per­ma­nent ex­ile, of un­be­long­ing …”

“Ex­ile is a state of mind. One can be ex­iled in the place of one’s birth. As both the place of my birth and my adopt­ed home­land keep chang­ing, there is no home I be­long to.”

Acharya be­lieves our search for iden­ti­ty and sense of be­long­ing is “in­di­vid­ual” and not tied up with a coun­try but part of our shared hu­man­i­ty.

Acharya’s cre­ative work ex­plores “iden­ti­ty and the self, which keep chang­ing, re­flect­ing our strug­gle to ‘be’ whole. Defin­ing our­selves through words, this search for self is a con­tin­u­al process as we nev­er feel at home, ex­cept in the re­al­i­ty we cre­ate.”

Acharya be­lieves be­ing “a bit of an out­sider every­where is no bad thing. It lends one per­spec­tive. The na­ture of ex­ile and the role of lan­guage in defin­ing a new per­son­al iden­ti­ty are com­mon among cre­ative writ­ers, per­haps more so among self-ex­iled ones.”

Al­though Acharya be­lieves cre­ative writ­ing is both an act of self-ex­plo­ration and a way to “un­der­stand oth­ers and con­nect with them … For writ­ers in ex­ile, this con­nec­tion is as im­por­tant as breath­ing; with­out it, we per­ish. It is how I ex­plore fun­da­men­tal ques­tions like: Who am I?”

The fol­low­ing po­ems are pub­lished ex­clu­sive­ly in the Sun­day Guardian with the au­thor’s per­mis­sion.

IN SI­LENCE

When fate deals you a los­ing hand, play in si­lence.

Luck favours those who mend them­selves in si­lence.

Re­mem­ber pre­cious lessons learnt in de­feat –

pearls of ex­pe­ri­ence pur­chased in si­lence.

A game of chance, noth­ing in this world is re­al,

our sto­ries shad­ows pass­ing in si­lence.

Be the flame of a can­dle to what blows you –

life is the great­est gift be­stowed in si­lence.

Days are rest­less un­til your heart finds a home,

a sky where you can be your­self in si­lence.

Earth’s grand gar­dens may beck­on you in your dreams,

love’s a patch of green that flow­ers in si­lence –

a shade that shel­ters you in times of crises,

a place you keep re­turn­ing to in si­lence.

To hold, be held the Beloved eter­nal–

be­lieve in the splen­dour of grace in si­lence.

Si­lence is the keep­er of keys to se­crets–

Shan­tih that pass­es un­der­stand­ing in si­lence.

(What Sur­vives Is The Singing)

WORDS

They wake you up, your bed of words,

with­out warn­ing–wild, wicked words, whirling

through waves of as­ton­ish­ment,

a world-with­out-end ec­sta­sy–quick­en­ing

the pulse of your be­ing, breath­ing l

in­to things, mak­ing the or­di­nary ex­tra­or­di­nary,

and you feel the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of walk­ing

in a field of light gift­ed with in­sight,

life’s con­tra­dic­tions tem­porar­i­ly rec­on­ciled,

imag­ine your cre­ations ris­ing like suns

on the shores of con­ti­nents of strangers,

net­works of neu­rons con­nect­ing the uni­verse.

The joy is all yours, noth­ing’s the same any­more–

not the past, present, not even the fu­ture.

(From What Sur­vives Is The Singing)

THE FLY AND THE BEE

I am equal­ly at ease

with the sa­cred or the pro­fane.

I can sit in­dif­fer­ent­ly

on sacra­men­tal of­fer­ings

or on things most foul to be­ings,

at home in both,

bear­ing the good with the evil,

han­ker­ing for nei­ther.

I have that rare op­tion.

The fly boast­ed to the bee

with some ex­ag­ger­a­tion.

I can on­ly sit on blos­soms

ready for pol­li­na­tion,

suck­ing the nec­tar of flow­ers

or in my hon­ey­comb

dream­ing of per­fumed stalks.

Lament­ed the bee, ac­knowl­edg­ing

its lim­i­ta­tions with grace­ful can­dour.

(From Imag­ine: New and Se­lect­ed Po­ems)

SOME­WHERE, SOME­THING

We trav­el not to ex­plore an­oth­er coun­try,

but to re­turn home fresh, bear­ing gifts.

Our lives the air­ports we fly from,

our bod­ies and souls, maps and com­pass­es–

days the jour­neys we make,

past the con­ti­nents we leave be­hind.

Sure­ly there is some­where, some­thing

that jus­ti­fies our com­ing and go­ing?

Isn’t that why we seek a sign from each oth­er

of ex­pe­ri­ences worth dy­ing for

as we com­mune with love un­der starlight

brit­tle with frost and the sharp taste of blood?

Let’s fly free, not nailed to a mast;

see the uni­verse with new eyes,

not blind­ed by shad­ows that light casts.

(From Imag­ine: New and Se­lect­ed Po­ems)

Shan­ta Acharya is a life mem­ber of the Po­et­ry So­ci­ety in the UK. The lat­est of her sev­en po­et­ry col­lec­tions in­clude What Sur­vives Is The Singing (2020), Imag­ine: New and Se­lect­ed Po­ems (2017), and Dreams That Spell The Light (2010).

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org)