Chosen by Debjani Chatterjee,
Masala/ Poems from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
Macmillan Children's Books, 2005

Ages 9-12+

Masala is an Indian word for spices and is the aptly chosen name for this vibrant anthology of poetry: the poems pulsate with the sights, sounds and yes, even tastes of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  The first poem is a verse from Rudyard Kipling's The Ballad of East and West, which stresses the 'common humanity of people' as Chatterjee explains in her footnote.  This is the springboard for the whole collection.  It takes the colours and flavours of South Asia but the issues it deals with are common to all people and its various sections encourage readers to recognise this.  There are poems about animals, school, families, food, travelling, festivals, legends etc — some are funny, some are serious, some are whimsical.  There is ancient wisdom and contemporary commentary.  There is satire and joy.

The culture of the Indian subcontinent is the essential ingredient, or masala, of the collection where more than half of the poets are also influenced by living elswhere: mostly in the UK but also in America and Canada.  Multi-cultural issues such as immigration and dual-nationality are therefore integral to the collection, and not only from the perspective of those who have undergone the experience: David Hart is simply an observer of human interaction, which happens to be coloured by multicultural vibrancy, during an everyday bus-ride in Birmingham 'and afterwards, at home/ I write the poem/ of this one journey in many/ across the Brum world.'  Locally-coloured poems are the bedrock for universal overtones of growing up and going out into the world or, for example, Ruth Dalton's Sonnemutu Speaking, which deals with attitudes towards disability: 'I jumped for joy./ Just 'deaf' — that's all that was the matter!' 

Language is explored not only in the range of poetical forms to be found here (including ghazal, haiku and tanka, as well as poems shaped on the page), but also in terms of communication and understanding / being understood, ranging from the sobering ('Ere She Said by Gita Bedi) and disturbing (But I Speak English Already by Jeanne Ellin) to the amusing (Mother Tongue by Hamid Shami).  All these are in the 'Mother Tongue — Mind your Language' section, but, as is the nature of poetry, language is essential to the whole collection and young readers will delight in getting their tongues around the words of poems like Kendric Ross' Flavours of Asia or Chatterjee's own Mela Menagerie. 

Chatterjee has included at least one of her own poems in each section and has also translated the majority of those which required it.  Most of the collection is contemporary, including some poems by children, but she has also taken accessible examples from important poets throughout South Asian literature, such as Sunirmal Bosu, Jibananda Das, Muhammad Allama Iqbal, Sarojini Naidu, Taufiq Rafat and Sukumar Ray.  In addition, Chatterjee provides an excellent glossary and foot-notes wherever necessary, which not only opens up the collection to readers everywhere, but also offers an all-embracing introduction to the culture and landscape of the Indian subcontinent.  All this is in an unassuming and affordable paperback, which can be carried around and dipped into at any time.  If it gets crumpled up, it doesn't matter: the poems will still emerge as per Shanta Acharya's Daily Remedies to 'Answer all questions with imagination'.

Marjorie Coughlan
June 2006