ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author explains resistance by presenting the example of Siraiki poet Aslam Ansari’s book, Lotus and the Sandwaves (LSW). She discusses his work against the background of his credentials as a Siraiki creative writer who has been educated in three languages — Urdu, Persian and English — but not in his mother language, Siraiki. In Part I of LSW, Ansari has used ‘self-translation’ to climb the ladder of linguistic hierarchies in Pakistan, first, by choosing to express his poetic identity in English and, second, in order to establish himself as a bilingual poet. This link between folk culture, history and poetry can be used in understanding the ways in which Ansari or Siraiki writers in general use folk art as a cultural and political symbol. Ansari’s ‘adaptation’ of Khwaja Ghulam Farid’s kafi, ‘The Peeloon Pickers’, is an adaptation of Farid’s famous Siraiki kafi beginning with the words: Peeloon Pukian Ni, literally meaning, ‘The Peeloons are Ripe’.
