Postcard from Kashmir

The poem’s subject is the quest for home. The speaker is in a country where they presumably reside, but it is unclear if this country is a new home. Neither is Kashmir, the homeland of the speaker, their current home. In Line 2, the phrase “my home” refers not to the territory of Kashmir but the postcard, which implies the speaker occupies the shadowy territory of permanent exile. The speaker feels fully at home in neither the new chosen homeland nor the homeland left behind. The speaker’s sense of being unmoored resonates with the experience of many immigrants. Immigrants move to seek a better life, or in search of love, family, or knowledge, or to escape poverty or violence. Even when immigrants are forced to migrate because of conflict or unlivable conditions, their experience in the new homeland is complex. The new country may bring many advantages, but it is not perfect by any measure; nor do its advantages nullify the pain of their separation from the former homeland. For the speaker in “Postcard from Kashmir,” the pain of exile from the homeland is sharper because they see little hope for Kashmir in the near future. Thus, the speaker feels exiled from hope itself.