language constructions can remain "new."  This epistemological theme comes out of how the two stanzas connect to one another.  I don't think that Bhatt is rejecting the modern condition, but rather is asking how one can reconcile past forms of communication and lexical clarity with the modern vision that is so fundamentally different from that which is past.  This becomes a questioning of how human beings construct what is and what can be from what was.  This theme becomes central to the poem's understanding.

 "A Different History" is about language as well as history. Sujata Bhatt is said to write in Indian-English rather than Anglo-Indian. In other words, she positions her Indian culture and language in the primary position in opposition to the cultural effects of the historical British colonization of India. The two stanzas could represent India before British imperialism and then India during and after the British presence there.

In the first stanza, the "gods roamed freely" and to kill a tree is a sin. Their cultural and spiritual ideas were free: not subject to any outside law or regulation. And sometimes, the colonizing country would suppress the occupied country's language and impose their own as a way of enforcing their (the colonizer's) culture. There is a reverence for language, books and the Indian culture they represented. Therefore it is a sin to be violent and/or destroy the sanctity of that culture and the knowledge from those books and ideas. (Sarasvati is the goddess of knowledge).

You must learn how to turn the pages gently

Without disturbing Sarasvati,

Without offending the tree

From whose wood the paper was made.

In the second stanza, we see the clash of the two cultures and therefore, the clash of two languages. In this stanza, the speaker asks how future generations can grow to love the language of the historical oppressor. By presenting these two contrasting histories, the speaker reluctantly acknowledges the modern, Post-colonial India, but implores the reader to have a historical awareness of the peaceful India before colonialism and the colonization that led to the integration of British and Indian cultures.

The poem "A Different History" by Sujata Bhatt, at its heart, is a poem about the power of language in general and words in particular. The poet conveys the message in the first stanza of this poem that books are something special; they are to be respected, savored, as well as enjoyed.

Concerning books, the poet talks of how it is...

a sin to toss one carelessly

         across a room

She, in essence, relates that literary works - and by extension the authors of them - should be treated with a type of reverence and honor. In fact, the poet says that the whole process of making a book needs to be respected, even honor and respect should be directed towards the origin of the actual physical book - the tree from where the paper came from.

Furthermore, the poet talks of how language is powerful and can be used for good or bad. She indicates that oppressors throughout history have used oratory - words - to beat others down. However, no oppressor can dampen someone's love for language, words, and the messages they can convey as relates to freedom and respect for the individual in society.

I think that one of the strongest feelings to emerge from reading Bhatt's poem is the collision between theory and reality.  Bhatt's poem is read in two stanzas, with each being almost the opposite of another.  The first stanza reveals the perfection of the divine, a world in which divine realization has permeated being.  In this realm, the Hindu goddess of learning has been fully realized and acknowledged.  The knowledge and books emanating from Saraswati is honored throughout a social realm via a spiritual perspective.  The first stanza articulates a world of what can or should be.  The second stanza is a harsh departure from this, discussing how the language of the oppressor becomes appropriated by the next generation.  The "unborn grandchildren" embody and speak the language of "the oppressors."  I think that one of my most immediate feelings is to try to understand a condition where both realities exist. Certainly, I think that Bhatt is trying to bring out the condition in which India finds itself as a world of the divine as well as one where the language of the oppressors has become embedded in its own state of being.  In bringing out the pain and glory that is intrinsic to India, Bhatt's poem evokes complex and intricate feelings in trying to reconcile that which is opposite of one another.

As the title suggests, the key element to grasp in order to understand this poem is to see it as envisaging a different kind of history, which is accomplished in the first section of the poem. In this section, the speaker imagines that Pan, the god of the countryside in Greek mythology, didn't die, but simply moved over to India, which he describes as a place where "the gods roam freely" and books are respected. This rather confusing opening to the poem is explained further in the second section, which reflects on the way that all languages that are spoken nowadays at one time were the "oppressor's tongue," and comments on the way in which children come to accept the "oppressor's tongue" as their own:

And how does it happen
that after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped
with the long scythe swooping out
of the conqueror’s face –
the unborn grandchildren
grow to love that strange language?

The poem asks some very hard questions about colonialism and dominance, and explores the way in which all history is based on one people group oppressing and annexing another and instilling their own culture and language upon that people group. The irony of this poem written by an Indian is that this is precisely what has happened to him: the poet writes in English, which is for him "the oppressor's tongue" rather than in his own indigenous language. "A Different History" imagines a world where history is not built out of a whole series of cultural cullings, but one where original cultures are allowed to survive and thrive, whilst at the same time acknowledging that this could only ever be a dream. The poem is thus a meditation on how history is really made, becoming "A Different History" both from the point of view that it not only imagines a different history but also places emphasis on what really occurs in history, thus challenging the dominant view of what happened to a people or a nation.