Looming Diasporic In-Betweenness: A Critical Study of Hybridity and Culture in Agha Shahid Ali’s Poetic World

Hybridity is an outcome of consistent movement and interaction of two different aspects of human existence. The forces of nature when confluence each other cause hybrid existence bringing the traces of both into it. It may by and large cohabit the space and time, race and culture, philosophy and religion etc. It encompasses the divergent modes of existence, thinking patterns, behavioral norms, socio-cultural ethos, political and administrative ambience. Diasporic Hybridity is pertinent discourse. It is cause of anxiety in the early stage of migrant experience whereas settling base of later stage of existence of diasporic community. Present paper is an attempt to trace the threads of looming diasporic in-betweenness as reflected in the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali.


Introduction
Hybridity is an outcome of consistent movement and interaction of two different aspects of human existence. The forces of nature when confluence each other cause hybrid existence bringing the traces of both into it. It may by and large cohabit the space and time, race and culture, philosophy and religion etc. It encompasses the divergent modes of existence, thinking patterns, behavioral norms, socio-cultural ethos, political and administrative ambience. Diasporic Hybridity is pertinent discourse. It is cause of anxiety in the early stage of migrant experience whereas settling base of later stage of existence of diasporic community.
Present paper is an attempt to trace the threads of looming diasporic in-betweenness as reflected in the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali.
Hybridity became one of the vital issues emerging due to diaspora. Diaspora culture gives birth to the cultural, linguistic, national, ethnic and racial hybridity. Homi Bhabha in The Location of Culture explained the hybridity as "… the historical movement of hybridity as camouflage, as a contesting antagonistic agency functioning in the time lag of sign/symbol, which is a space in-between the rules of engagement" (193). It explains the changing nature of hybridity and its adjustment to the surrounding atmosphere of culture, nation, and state. It shows a positive significance of hybridity. Hybridity shows intercultural or multicultural newborn identity. It also has some negative aspects of mixed identity. John Hutnyk gives the definition of hybridity in his essay Hybridity as: In its most recent descriptive and realist usage, hybridity appears as a convenient category at 'the edge' or contact point of diaspora, describing cultural mixture where the diasporized meets the host in the scene of migration. (Knott and Mcloughlin eds. 59)  When someone speaks as an Asian-American, who is exactly speaking? If we dwell in the hyphen who represents the hyphen; the Asian or American, or can the hyphen speak for itself without creating an imbalance between the Asian and American components…True, both components have status, which has the power and potential to read and interpret the other on its terms? If the Asian is to be Americanized, will the American submit to Asianization? (211) Hybridity thus leads to the problems in the life of migrants. It severely affects the second generation of migrants. The issues of marriage, maintaining culture, identity will be the result of hybrid identity. Society did not accept these types of mixed population. Children suffer a lot because of the mixed identity. They have to face society, school, surroundings, and many places they visit where identity crisis became crucial.
Thus, hybridity is taken into consideration with the race, language, culture, religion, national identities. It has vast area of circumference and encompasses the globe. Diaspora became one of the reasons for hybridity as major issue.
Overall, one can say that diasporic reality is altogether different from the expatriate's imagination. This confrontation with new reality brings cultural shock and manifestation of being alien in the new context. It also brings out the sense of uprootedness. Diasporic reality and problems of identity crisis brings various changes into the mental and behavioral patterns of diasporic community. These changes and adaptation of new patterns brings sense of being hybrid or being in-between. This being in-between-ness can be celebrated positively if community wants to survive and grow in the host land. It leads to formation of new identities, which may wipe out old ones or overlap them. But this adaptation and assimilation with new diasporic realities bring synergy into the lives of diasporic community.

Hybridity in Agha Shahid Ali's Poetic Expression
Agha Shahid Ali is a Kashmiri-American poet. He expresses his diasporic, hyphenated, and hybrid identity.

Ali's journey from his birth in Delhi and childhood in Kashmir was mentioned in The
Half-Inch Himalayas as given in the above poetic lines. Agha Shahid Ali's father belongs to Muslim community while his mother has Hindu cultural heritage as mentioned above.
Therefore, Agha Shahid Ali is a combination of Hindu-Muslim cultural heritage. It reflected in his poetry. It is an example of cultural hybridity. Ali's poetry is a literary feast and example of hybridity in different forms as explained above.
Agha Shahid Ali is a Kashmiri-American poet. His hyphenated identity is an example of hybridity. His poem also expresses the hyphen that create a connection or link between two nations. A migrant's experience in a foreign land is a link between his remembering of motherland and its comparison with a foreign land. Here, Calcutta is acting as a link to connect America and India. At the temple and the mosque the rose petals lay all night perfuming the stunned water. (55) Offering of flowers as a ritual at the temple and the mosque is an example of cultural hybridity. In both Hindu and Muslim culture flower plays an important role in the prayers. It