Be Indian, Study Indian

There was a time when educated Indians wishing to show off their knowledge of the English language began writing about the English countryside.

- P. Raja

Their purpose was also to reach a wider audience. A politician poet too began to use the English language as her mode of expression. She wrote about the meadows, lawns, and woods of the English countryside. She also wrote about the cuckoo, giving passing references to English myths and legends. Before she could gain complete confidence over her way of writing, an Englishman gave a rap on her head and said politely "write about the things you are familiar with." It is true that she studied at London and Cambridge for three years, sailing to England when she was sixteen. She was familiar with most things English. But she was Indian by birth and domicile.

Those words of genuine advise "to be a genuine Indian poet of the Deccan, not a clever, machine-made imitator of English classics" played a turning point in her poetic career, developed under the influence of the Rhymers' Club of London. She began to write about bangle sellers and palanquin bearers. By writing on such topics she was more familiar with, she was able to introduce India not only to Indians but also to the outside world, for she preferred to express herself not in her mother tongue Bengali but in English, an international language.