Don’t write in English, they said,
English is not your mother tongue…
…The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness
All mine, mine alone, it is half English, half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human…
…It voices my joys, my longings my
Hopes…
(Kamala Das, 1965:10)
GARGESH, R. South Asian Englishes. In: KACHRU, B. B.; KACHRU, Y.; NELSON, C. L.
(Eds.). The Handbook of World Englishes. Singapore: Blackwell, 2006.