Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > To Meena Alexander (1951-2018)
Mainstream, VOL LVI No 50 New Delhi December 1, 2018
To Meena Alexander (1951-2018)
Sunday 2 December 2018
#socialtagsYour childhood shuttled between India and Sudan,
With your metrologist father, mother and sisters—Anna and Elizabeth;
You chose to live in America,
Homeless, yet at home in three continents.
Your way with words
Walked you towards
Your own way in the world;
Draupadi in my kitchen,
Undraped then redraped
in Manhattan;
Who said Alexander the Great
Conquered the world?
It was you Meena,
With your dark eyes flashing with insight,
Swathed sensuously in a flaming orange sari,
you enchanted the world
With your grandma’s bitter-root tea,
The white-washed courtyard
And kolam designs,
All the while fragrantly invading
The corridors of university
And America’s galleries
With words that would not confine the spirit
And redefined immigria.
Sagari Chhabra
(award-winning author and film-maker)