Diasporic Consciousness in the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali  (English, Paperback, Dr Peer Salim Jahangeer)

Shahid Ali is studied based on the wide range of experiences which he gained not only from his exile life but also from his motherland by different means which help to grow his diasporic consciousness. He came across different cultures directly or indirectly. As a Kashmiri Indian writing in West about his motherland and diaspora life, he has three cultures (Kashmir, Indian and West). There is no doubt in it that Agha Shahid Ali spends most of his life in far off America but he was never far away from his motherland mentally. He feels much more feelings of isolation than that of diaspora because his poetry depicts that his consciousness is much more than that of a diaspora writer. He has left his motherland for gaining higher studies, but it was ‘blessing in disguise for him as it is his exile that feeds his feelings and emotions about his motherland and he gives vent to them in the form of diasporic poetry. It gives him the opportunity that his mother land ‘Kashmir’ becomes the imaginary homeland represented by him in his nostalgic technique of poetry. He clearly describes his distinctive viewpoint towards the diasporic space he occupied as an Indian-American, a Kashmiri- Indian, and a Shiite-Muslim. Ali was a man of multiple existences because he has close contact with different cultures. So his poetry is an amalgam of sense of defeat, solitude, and yearning. Through his poetry, he reflects his Muslim, Hindu and Western cultural heritage.