IMOW - You Bring Out the Sri Lankan in Me

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You Bring Out the Sri Lankan in Me
Sharanya Manivannan

Sri Lanka

GALLERY

CONVERSATION

Culture informs my everyday life in very prosaic ways, and this bleeds into my creative life in what I hope are more profound ways.

I vouch for no Sri Lankan experience but mine, and remain neutral on the nation's political situation despite what might appear to be insinuations of partisanship (these are in the interest of lyricism). I have chosen to not have a glossary primarily because I don't like the exoticization of a great deal of women's writing from my culture.

I write not to show off or even to share my culture - I write because I am my culture, and because I believe that if I am sincere in this, the spirit of the work is conveyed regardless of linguistic differences
***
You bring out the Sri Lankan in me.
The glint of tigress eye.
The monsoon of memory.

You bring out the Sri Lankan in me
The craze of poya night in me.

The dipping ginger biscuits in hot plain tea in me.
You are the one I would surrender other loves for,
share the sucking of the pulp off manga kotte with
screw the fashionable guilt over sura meen puttu with,
listen to the Kantha Shasti Kavasam with.
Comb my hair with olive oil. Call me Kannamma.
Make love to me with all the poems of red earth and pouring rain.
And I will be yours.

Maybe. Maybe.
For you.

You bring out the Sri Lankan in me.
The accent like the surprise of sweet in mango pickle in me.
The lion emblem on all the embassy cutlery in me.
The dreadlocked snake charmer under a dreadlocked banyan in me.
The reheated idiappom and potato sothi at midnight in me
The waking up to the thud of a thalagoya on the roof in me.
The Mahavamsa in me.
The navaratna of desire in me.
The love of the coast in me.
See Full Story »

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