Notes on a Thought

  Close reading family memoir - the psyche and the stage In this blog series, I want to share a few writings from my time at university. For the module, Telling Lives , we read selected family memoirs and wrote short blogs on our interpretations. Each piece was written along a certain theme, with the aim of highlighting a unique viewing lens for the text. Studying English in Leeds, it was apt that we read Armley’s Alan Bennett. A Life Like Other People’s conveys a difficult upbringing, swaddled in English politeness. Like many playwrights, Bennett’s history informs the drama he writes, but goes beyond just drawing inspiration. In the process of his work, he displaces traumatic events from the psyche on to the stage, and creates a coping mechanism.  Alan Bennett, A Life Like Other People’s (London: Faber, 2009): Alan Bennett describes ‘our lives’ as ‘our drama[s]’ (p. 155). In his memoir, he highlights how his family’s lives inform the dramas he writes. For example, he descri...

During my time at the University of Leeds, I studied a module titled ‘Telling Lives’. Our professor, Dr Jay Prosser, was in the midst of writing his family memoir, as he took us through the various forms of the genre. In the end, we were tasked with writing an extract of our own family memoir. This is mine. Water and Oil ‘When it comes to identity, names matter.’ Afua Hirsch Jeevan came from India, from two villages in the Punjab. From her grandmother being carried into her arranged marriage. Now, she only exists outside of India, with the colonisers. She is a stranger, but home runs, diluted, through her veins. She speaks the languages, Hindi and Punjabi (everyone speaks Hindi because of Bollywood), she understands the culture. She can use magic words to talk to her grandparents. She speaks in tongues. She knows the warmth, the smells, the colours of India. With exotic eyes she can see the faraway land. Georgina was born here, is from here. Her English grandparents met the normal way;...

    Close reading family memoir   - death and the photograph In this blog series, I want to share a few writings from my time at university. For the module, Telling Lives , we read selected family memoirs and wrote short blogs on our interpretations. Each piece was written along a certain theme, with the aim of highlighting a unique viewing lens for the text. On Chapel Sands explores the relationship between death and photography. In this extract I close read a photograph of the speaker's grandmother, Veda, taken by her grandfather, George. The physical image has outlived the both of them and will outlive the speaker. Laura Cumming, On Chapel Sands (London: Vintage, 2020):      On Chapel Sands presents the immortality of the photograph. Cumming describes a photograph of Veda (p. 114), in which George and Veda are ‘both there together, united, breathing the same warm air’ (p. 114). These two, now dead, are impossibly alive and ‘breathing’ in the present te...

  Close reading family memoir   - Culture and trauma In this blog series, I want to share a few writings from my time at university. For the module, Telling Lives , we read selected family memoirs and wrote short blogs on our interpretations. Each piece was written along a certain theme, with the aim of highlighting a unique viewing lens for the text. First up, a text exploring Chinese American existence through a captivating mesh of reality and myth, with a loving focus on the version of womanhood that it grows. Maxine Hong Kingston, Woman Warrior (London: Picador, 2015)      Woman Warrior demonstrates a struggle with separating Chinese culture and inherited family trauma. Kingston questions, ‘how do you separate [...] your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese?’ (p. 6). Both ‘No Name Woman’ and the ‘child born without an anus’ (p. 102) are inherited, traumatic ‘talk-stories’. Kingston writes, ‘My mother has given me [...] nightmare...

Infographics, Empty Voices and Redundant Actions: Thoughts on Performative Activism on Social Media Disclaimer: I want to be careful here to not insert myself as an overbearingly loud voice in an extremely important issue. This article has its basis in my own experiences, and that is all I have grounds to discuss. It may be an understatement to say that summer 2020 brought vital social issues to the forefront of conversation. The murder of George Floyd, at the hands of U.S police, prompted much support for the already established Black Lives Matter movement. People took to the streets and to social media to protest. At the height of lockdown, activism was limited for some individuals due to concerns about Coronavirus. With individuals spending even more time on social media, one of the only forms of social interaction or access to the outside world, virtual activism gained more traction than I have ever seen. Information, shows of solidarity, expressions of compassion, all flooded soci...

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to invalidate anyone’s experience with racism and race identity struggle. I understand that as a mixed person with lighter skin my experience will not have been nearly as bad as other POC. I intended only to share my thoughts on what being mixed race has meant for me. Much of my identity consists of names. Names are a strange thing. We use them as a means of address and a means of understanding. Once we know the name of something we can allocate it to a specific space, a specific category and thus understand it better. The same can be said for people and for racial identity. People love to know “where you are from” so you can be put in your box, understood. My names are confused and contradictory because my identity is split. My mother’s family is from the Punjab in India and my father is from Suffolk, England. I am both a minority and a white person. I am part of two distinctly different boxes, or as my white cousin once called me, in a strange...

Since age 12, when my best friend introduced me to indie music, I have felt the urgent need to be different, to stand out. Over time this has mutated, eventually becoming a paradox of deep insecurity and raging superiority complex. In many ways, the need to be different has served as a driving force for character development. In my search for originality, I have discovered authentic interests which I may not have done otherwise. But at the same time, this need has caused frequent, debilitating self-criticism. Wanting to be different, for me, results, in the constant comparison of myself to my peers. Comparison refers to appearance, style, music taste, hobbies and lifestyle. If I like something someone else presents, for example an outfit they wear, I can’t just appreciate it. Instead, my brain decides that this is a direct attack on my sense of self. If I am not doing what others are doing or doing it better, then they are better than me and I am no longer good enough. In the age of so...