Book Excerpt: Loveless Neighbours, Heartless Bombs, Callous Govts — A Poetic Lens On Human Struggles
Book excerpt: Pallavi Padma-Uday's 'Lola in Belfast' explores themes of patriarchy, inequality, and immigration through poetry that reflects on her experiences in India and Northern Ireland.
Pallavi Padma-Uday, an India-born writer now based in Belfast, has come out with her new book, ‘Lola in Belfast’, her second poetry collection published by Writers Workshop. In 'Lola', the purpose of her poetry — tentatively explored in her debut collection, 'Orisons in the Dark' — takes a firmer shape as she straddles continents and finds common threads and aching differences between her country of birth and the country of residence.
With ‘Lola’, she returns to themes of patriarchy and gender inequality, but on an expansive note.
‘Lola’, which Padma-Uday dedicates to Belfast where she now lives, is a summation of her immigrant life in the capital city of Northern Ireland, which demands to be seen, not just in its immediate context but in the varied rich contexts of her life experiences. Her journalistic influence is palpable in the themes she tackles, from political insurgencies of both countries she has lived in to sexism and gender inequality.
In Lola, the poet in her uses oneself as a witness to life in Belfast — swinging between isolation and community, racism and familiarity, alienation and homophobia — and often reflects on the themes in comparative contexts. 'Lola' asks some uncomfortable questions as much as reflects on those itself.
Through themes that traverse urban chaos, emotional turmoil, societal inequities, and global disparities, the poet invites readers on a journey that is emotionally resonant.
The book was launched at Belfast Book Festival in June this year.
Here are five short poems from Pallavi Padma-Uday's new collection, 'Lola in Belfast'.
1. Traffic signal
We are crossing roads.
You honk. Big red car.
Your porcelain face
resting on the steering.
I am used to honks.
I will tell myself,
you did not just yell,
you helped me see
the red light
before it turned red.
2. Explode
Do not let anyone know
of your sadness, write
chits to yourself.
They might fly.
Hold on to them
like searing secrets
buried deep within
until you explode
3. Peace walls
Sobbing strips of land
embossed with boundaries,
iron gates, signposts, warnings,
opening hours, shrieking walls, cautious steps,
turned into fertile patches.
Young men and women,
escaping from homes,
religion, darkness, war,
loveless neighbours, heartless bombs, callous governments,
met and found each other.
Like a greenhouse of plants
like strangers on Bumble
like nature in pandemics
like creepers in a marsh,
hearts warmed up to living
and found doors in walls.
Unforgiving crusts of history
have continued to crumble since,
One car, one cargo, one family at a time.
4. White
Let us see white in a new light.
Like human flesh posthumously,
flaking like dandruff, scavenging,
resolutely merciless, stoic as the pride
that grounds us, rigidly, in ghettos,
in reluctant salutations,
unfit for civilization.
White can be pure, but
white is sometimes sorrow,
sometimes a sulk when it sees
black, sometimes too clean
for refugees, shrinking space
for strangers in foreign lands.
When white knows only white, is it not
then just the shroud that covers the dead?
5. Suntan
Snowflakes mingle with the Sun,
castle ruins are sold as heritage,
there can be four seasons in a day,
after long gruelling workdays,
there are weekends and boat rides,
weeks in fasted state can be a choice,
not starvation, in their world.
Harsh Sun, dust and dirt,
poverty, the squalor in
poor countries is unbearable,
they come here for the suntan.
Excerpted from ‘Lola in Belfast’, Pallavi Padma-Uday, with permission from Writers Workshop.
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