Abstract: 

Indian English poetry often betrays an ‘anxiety’ – on the one hand, it cannot escape contemporary demands of culture; on the other it is unable to forget its colonial past and the inheritance of the language of the rulers. R. Parthasarathy’s poetic venture into English confirms this socio-cultural dilemma. His poetry strives for native roots and attempts to reconnect the fractured bonding of the poet with Tamil culture. His Rough Passage shows in three distinct stages the poet’s traumatic experience in an alien land: initially the poet speaker is in painful banishment; then love and human relationships are shown to be providing some solace; finally the celebration of returning home brings about a harmonious fusion of the Tamil culture and the English language. The growth and development of Indian poetry in English is a result of many experimentations and struggles for a tradition, imitation and innovation with imitation. Right from its beginning, almost all Indian poets of English are found to be continuing these two strains, foreign influences (mainly British) and Indian elements in their poetry. Whether the pre-independent Indian English poetry imitated only the British literature, the post-independent Indian English poetry has imitated world literatures. Indian English poetry, as a post-colonial genre, certainly marks a departure from the traditional notions of poetry and introduces some new ideals. The present paper is an investigation of the growth of the genre vis-à-vis alien influences and individuality which are reconciled in the genre in reciprocal internal commerce.