Transcendental Journey, Universal Empathy and Humanism: A Study of Imtiaz Dharker’s Postcards from God

Abstract

Did I create you in my image
or did you create me in yours?

—     (Postcards from God, Question 2)

Imtiaz Dharker, 31 January 1954, an acclaimed Pakistani-born British poet, artist, versatile diasporic Muslim poet, a painter, and a documentary filmmaker, refers to herself as a ‘Scottish-Muslim Calvinist.’ Her poems are the evolutionary perspectives of lived and experienced stances of an itinerant lifestyle traversing between Glasgow, Mumbai, London, and Wales, framing her cross-cultural cosmopolitan point-of-view. The synchronization of her pen-and-ink drawings absolutely evidences her profound sensibility as a poet and an artist. Her poetry comes to life on paper, and her drawings reflect her poetic passion, establishing her as a ‘Universal Empath’ who embraces the religion of Humanism. The present research paper seeks to investigate the origins of her transcendental journey of the soul, which is revealed through mapping the roots of this journey in a world fractured by religious fundamentalism, cultural disparities, economic boundaries, and social and political displacement. Postcards from God (1997) serves as frantic proof bridging the significant gap between an ideal heaven and a suffering earth. Dharker’s modus operandi exhibits her inclusiveness in the chaotic, violent, fragmented, and suffering humanity by sensitising readers through her poems. Her soul persistently aches, and her verses act as doorways into the lives of children, the oppressed, and slums like Dharavi. Dharker crafts poetry as a weapon to fight for the cause of humankind and human rights. Her poetry has transformed her from a fragmented, powerless wretch to an empowered, enlightened being, hoping for an unprejudiced and secular world, where love and mercy will be the religion. Dharker propagated 'humanism' as an idealistic belief in the goodness of human nature and the creation of a sound society. The mushroom growth of the materialistic, commercial, and selfish world should be replaced by simple human values like love, tolerance, equilibrium, humanity, truth, and dignity.