An Unknown Girl by Moniza Alvi

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An Unknown Girlby Moniza Alvi
page 23
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Overview

• The poem describes the poets visit to India and
  the time she had her hand hennaed by a girl in
  the market place. It has proved to be an
  experience she has never forgotten.

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Themes

• There are a number of themes covered in this
  poem
• cultural identity
• sense of belonging
• loss
• relationship between the familiar and the unknown

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Vocabulary

• Check your understanding of the language used in
  the poem. Write a definition in your anthology
  for anything you are unsure about.

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• In the evening bazaar
• studded with neon
• an unknown girl
• is hennaing my hand.

An Indian market place
a temporary colouring of the skin
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• She squeezes a wet brown line
• from a nozzle.
• She is icing my hand
• which she steadies with hers
• on her satin-peach knee.

Baking metaphor used shows the cultural
contrasts
intimate image shows care and attention
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• In the evening bazaar
• for a few rupees
• an unknown girl
• is hennaing my hand

repetition of first stanza emphasises the
alienation, also gives the poem a chorus-like
simplicity
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• As a little air catches
• my shadow-stitched kameez
• a peacock spreads its lines
• across my palm.

• the tattoo comes alive
• she is absorbing part of the culture

a loose fitting Indian tunic
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• Colours leave the street
• float up in balloons.
• Dummies in shop-fronts
• tilt and stare
• with their Western perms.

personification
vivid imagery Alzi uses these images to create
a sense of wonder and delight. The dummies show
irony why are they not Indian?
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• Banners for Miss India 1993.
• for curtain cloth
• and sofa cloth
• canopy me.

alien to the culture Western influence
she feels covered by these things suffocated
and uncomfortable, or at home and welcome? In
the shade or visible?
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• I have new brown veins.

this is an important line dual meaning a
metaphor for the tattoo she has just received but
also feels as if she has assimilated some of the
culture of India it is now running through her
veins
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• In the evening bazaar
• very deftly
• an unknown girl
• is hennaing my hand.

repetition however, notice the extra detail
very deftly as the narrator is observing all
that is going on around her, the unknown girl
is taking extra care and is an expert
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• I am clinging
• to these firm peacock lines
• like people who cling
• to the sides of a train.

simile she wants to hold on to these memories
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• Now the furious streets
• are hushed.
• Ill scrape off
• the dry brown lines
• before I sleep.
• reveal soft as a snail trail
• the amber bird beneath.
• It will fade in a week.

the streets were harsh and angry note how the
tone changes becomes quiet with night clever
juxtaposition using personification
scrape a harsh verb which contrasts with the
amber bird she is scraping off the excess
gentle simile
she thinks the tattoo will fade like her memories
and the India in her
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• When India appears and reappears
• Ill lean across a country
• with my hands outstretched
• longing for the unknown girl
• in the neon bazaar

India is represented by the tattoo Her memories
will go just as the tattoo will gradually fade
it is not permanent, yet the process can be
repeated Ends in a yearning tone.
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A Few Key Facts

• Moniza Alvi is a Pakistani-British poet
• She was born in Lahore in 1954 and moved to
  England as a child
• She taught in a secondary school in London for
  many years
• She now lives in South West London

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Linked Poems

• This is a poem about a vivid, memorable
  experience from the past.
• It links with Miracle on St Davids Day,
  Mid-Term Break and The Barn

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Questions

1. How many times does Alvi use the phrase an
   unknown girl? Why is this repeated so often?
2. What do the colours in this poem signify?
3. The poem is laid out unusually and has no pattern
   or obvious rhythm. What could you write about
   this?