"I sit here writing, for I know that time does not come fluid and whole into my trembling hands. All that is here comes piecemeal, though sometimes the joints have fallen into place miraculously, as if the heavens had opened and mango trees fruited in the rough asphalt of upper Broadway.''
Meena Alexander has written her memoir since her childhood to her present day life. She has poignantly described the experiences which shaped her life and her writing. She has given an account of her life in Tiruvella in Southern India, Khartoum in Sudan and her life in Manhattan. The book begins with her telling an editor about her memoir. She says that some memories came in sequence while she remembers other incidents in the form of fragments. She has compared the memories with mango fruits. The mangoes and cashews have a special affiliation for Meena.
"It is about being born into a female body; and about the difficulty of living in space, moving about so much, living without ground rules.”
Meena has written this memoir in an attempt of self discovery. The book is voyage from her childhood to the present day in search of a homeland. Meena was so much obsessed with the idea of belonging no where. The continuous displacement from one place to another tormented her and she always wanted to go back to her childhood home. This quotation is a reply from Meena to her friend Roshini who asks her "what are you writing about? " She moves back and forth in her past during the narrative.
“The first ocean crossing obsessed me. I think of it as a figuration of death”
Meena's grandfather Ilya had a strong influence on her social and political views. She was so much attached to her family and she didn't want to leave her home in India. She spent the most beautiful span of her life in Kerela and she has evoked the syrong images of her childhood in Kerala. She left Kerala with her mother to live in a place in Sudan which is named as Khartoum. Meena says that when she she moved away from Kerala it was like dying for her.
“My blackness struck out like a stiff halo around me."
While living in Khartoum, Meena faced racist attitudes because of her skin color. She was the only non-white student who was studying in clergy house school. She feels herself inferior to others and the continuous dictation from her mother confused her. Her mother teaches her about femininity, religion, womanhood and its demands. She suffers from dilemma because she wanted to do something which was not accepted by the society owing to her female identity. She started writing poetry and she received much rebuke from the people around her.
