Storming the snobby bastions

The best thing about Maya Angelou was her courage to break down all sorts of barriers

When one of my favourite poets and cultural icons, Maya Angelou, died last week, I posted on my Facebook timeline 'Still I Rise', her poem that had served as an anthem through some of my darkest days.

The feistiness of its sentiment, its unmistakable inner marching rhythm and the vivid and irreverent power of its imagery had stunned me on my very first reading.

The thing I loved best about Angelou was her courage to break down all sorts of barriers, not just black-and-white prejudices.

As a highly decorated and renowned academic, she refused to exist in the tall towers of academia alone and her poems employed a simple language and spoke of universal emotions accessible to all.

Neither was she afraid of combining the high brow and low brow; not once did she shy away from her past that included night club dancing and prostitution and, in fact, right till the very end she used these experiences to expand her repertoire: she wrote film scripts, TV shows, acted, performed and was not above breaking into a high spirited jig at the drop of a hat.

Not for her the solemn straitjacket of pre- conceived notions and stereotypes, nor trying to fit in to the image of the 'Poet Laureate'.

So, when I read a well-written, but mean-spirited piece on a website making fun of people who had posted their sadness on the passing of Angelou, I was struck by the irony of it all.

"I have no idea how many of my friends have actually read Angelou. Or like her. Or for how many of them an Angelou quote is just a social media must-have fashion statement," wrote Sandip Roy on Firstpost Live, commenting on the 'pandemic' of what The New York Times calls 'faking cultural literacy".

"When a legendary figure dies, everyone, from Jackky Bhagnani to Priyanka Chopra, has to have the Ravi Shankar or Nelson Mandela tribute handy whether or not anyone has asked them for it." he wrote.

And to be sure, even I was surprised by the outpouring of sadness and salutation following my Angelou post from people I hadn't expected.

Perhaps some of them were 'faking it', but I would not for the life of me subscribe to the perilously elitist statement that only a certain type of person had the right to pay tribute to the American.

Take that snobbery to its logical conclusion and it would end up supporting the very constructs that Angelou spent her whole life challenging, of what certain people are allowed to do.

From Saadat Hasan Manto to Jane Austen to Shakespeare, the best writers know that to win the approval of common people is the highest compliment.

Who is allowed to claim a love for poetry; who has enough knowledge to be 'accepted' into intellectual circles; who qualifies to be believed as a true disciple - these are the low cost stratagems employed to protect their own perches by the very insecure.

I say break down such futile barriers, throw out such snobberies. When Angelou died - yes, many friends posted their sadness swearing allegiance to poems she'd never even penned. "Even the stars look lonesome tonight," wrote a friend. "I loved that poem."

And even while I knew the poem did not exist, I knew exactly what she meant: A great woman had died, and from our sterile, mundane un-edifying lives we had taken the time and the effort to salute her greatness.

I am sure Maya Angelou would have been pleased.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com