Communality, Culture, Culinary Fruits and Communication in Noor Unnahar’s South Asian Gastropoetics

Abstract

This article explores how food, particularly fruits, functions as a form of emotional and cultural communication in the insta poetry of Noor Unnahar. Drawing from the interdisciplinary field of literary food studies and gastro poetics, the study examines how culinary imagery becomes a medium for expressing love, memory, grief, and familial bonds within South Asian collectivist cultures, where emotions are often communicated indirectly rather than through explicit verbal expression. Focusing on selected poems shared on Instagram, such as “Fathers”, “Persimmons”, and “Lemons”, the article analyses how everyday fruits become symbols of affection, remembrance, and inherited emotional understanding across generations. Through close reading, the article demonstrates how Unnahar transforms ordinary food items into powerful affective markers that communicate care, nostalgia, and belonging.

The study also situates Unnahar’s work within the context of contemporary insta poetry, highlighting how the brevity, visual elements, and confessional tone of social media poetry enhance emotional immediacy and communal resonance. In essence, this article argues that Noor Unnahar’s gastro poetic representations of culinary fruits create a space where personal memory, cultural identity, and familial communication intersect, revealing how food becomes a subtle yet meaningful language of love in South Asian communities.