DALJIT NAGRA:And so in this poem it's really just about being embarrassed about your mum. OK, there's a couple of Punjabi words. So there's Punjabi north Indian language just spoke in India and Pakistan. Punjabi, and "gora" is a white male.
DALJIT NAGRA:And the mum uses it as an insult to the son, so he's become too westernised. And "sathi" means like, a companion. So the mum wants the son to have a kind of Indian bride so she'll have someone to talk to and I imagine in the west maybe she feels a bit lonely or isolated.
DALJIT NAGRA:And in the final verse I kind of, bring out to the present a much older-- and in a very sort of formal occasion the son would touch the mother's feet.
DALJIT NAGRA:So that's kind of part of the explanation for this poem. So it's called "In a white town".
DALJIT NAGRA:"She never looked like other boy's mums
DALJIT NAGRA:No one ever looked without looking again at the pink kameez and balloon'd bottoms,
DALJIT NAGRA:Mustard oiled trail of hair, brocaded pink sandals and the smell of curry. That's why I'd bin the letters about parents' evenings, why I'd police the noise of her holy songs, I check the net curtains were hugging the edges,
DALJIT NAGRA:lavender spray the hallway when someone knocked, I'd pluck all the gold top milk from its crate in case the mickey-takers would later disclose it, never confessing my parents' weird names or the code of our address when I was licked by Skin-heads (by a toilet seat) desperate to flush out the enemy within.
DALJIT NAGRA:I would have felt more at home had she hidden that illiterate body,
DALJIT NAGRA:bumping noisily into women at the market, bulging into her drama'd gossip, for homework - in the public library with my mates, she'd call, scratching on the windows.
DALJIT NAGRA:Scratching again until later, her red face would be on my red face. Two of us alone, she'd duck at my stuttered Punjabi, laughing she'd say I was a gora, I'd only be freed by a bride from India who would double as her saathi.
DALJIT NAGRA:Nowadays, when I visit, when she hovers upward, hobbling towards me to kiss my forehead as she once used to, I wish I could fall forward."
DALJIT NAGRA:Thank you.
Poet Daljit Nagra performs and describes his poem In a White Town, detailing how it was inspired by growing up in a home that was very culturally different from the life he lived outside with his friends.
He talks about how he was embarrassed by his very traditional mother, and her despair at him turning away from his heritage, but how over the years the two came closer together.
This is from the series Contains Strong Language
Teacher Notes
Pupils could compare how Daljit Nagra describes the poem before reading it, with the final work.
Do they think the poem effectively conveys his intentions? How does the use of language and verse affect the audience?
Does hearing the poem performed aloud change it's meaning in comparison to reading it from the page?
Curriculum Notes
This clip will be relevant for teaching English Literature.
This topic appears in OCR, Edexcel, AQA, WJEC KS4/GCSE in England and Wales, CCEA GCSE in Northern Ireland and SQA National 4/5 in Scotland.
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