Kamala Das

KAMALA DAS
 Kamala Das was born on 31st March 1934
 She was born in Kerala into a family of writers
 Her mother Balamani amma was an acclaimed critic
 Her uncle Nalapat Narayana Menon was also a poet and translator
 She spent her childhood split between her ancestral home in Kerala
and Kolkatta where her father worked
 Kamal began writing at a very young age

Post –independence Indian English poetry has witnessed so many female
voices.
Kamala Das is the most outstanding among post-independence women poets
“a fiercely feminine sensibility that dares without inhibitions to articulate the
hurts, it has received in an insensitive largely man-made world.” (Iyengar, 1985]
School was a disillusionment and a miserable place
Felt distanced from her family as well
Explored full time writing instead
She was married off at the age of 15 to an older relative, Madhav Das
She wrote and spoke across languages [English & Malayalam]
Kamala Das along with other poets such as Parthasarthy, de Souza, Vikram
Seth are among those who moved Indian English poetry into new dimensions
According to Das, when she started writing in English there was no modern
poetry in Malayalam.
Focused on the actuality of personal and family life by Kamala Das and
Ezekial in the early 1960s
Increased perception of details and memories of Indian social reality
She gave herself various names;
she took on the name ‘Das’ after marriage,
as Kamala Suraiya, the name she took after
converting to Islam in 1999,
Also known as Madhavikutty, the pseudonym
she gave herself while writing in Malayalam
Also known as ‘Ami’, a pet name she
reserved for herself in her memoirs
o Kamala Das’s life and works point out to one major aspect – that she was a
woman always looking to reinvent herself
o She is credited with unravelling the complexities of childhood, marital life,
love, sex and desire with her book My Story (1976) [originally published in
Malayalam as Ente Katha]
o This work thrust her into a fierce public gaze
o She was among the first women in India to speak frankly about sex and
negatively of marriage in a deeply conservative society
o The work was considered ‘obscure’ and designed to encourage adultery
o Themes portrayed in the book spilled into her poetry too
Her writings reveal –
Her own disgust and failures have led to a frantic search of the mythic Krishna,
the ideal lover, to establish bond
There is emotional intensity, mastery of phrase and control over rhythm in her
language
BANGLE SELLERS - Sarojini Naidu
Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair...
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.
Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,

Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves
Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.
Some are purple and gold flecked grey

For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.
THE FREAKS (1965) - Kamala Das
• He talks, turning a sun-stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love;
But, they only wander, tripping
Idly over puddles of
Desire. .... .Can this man with
Nimble finger-tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin's lazy hungers? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love? The heart,
An empty cistern, waiting
Through long hours, fills itself
With coiling snakes of silence. .....
I am a freak. It's only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust.
THE OLD PLAYHOUSE (1973)
You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her
In the long summer of your love so that she would forget
Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left behind, but
Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless
Pathways of the sky. It was not to gather knowledge
Of yet another man that I came to you but to learn
What I was, and by learning, to learn to grow, but every
Lesson you gave was about yourself. You were pleased
With my body's response, its weather, its usual shallow
Convulsions. You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured
Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed
My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices. You called me wife,

Contd….
I was taught to break saccharine into your tea and
To offer at the right moment the vitamins. Cowering
Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic loaf and
Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to all your

Questions I mumbled incoherent replies. The summer
Begins to pall. I remember the rudder breezes
Of the fall and the smoke from the burning leaves. Your room is
Always lit by artificial lights, your windows always
Shut. Even the air-conditioner helps so little,

All pervasive is the male scent of your breath. The cut flowers
Contd…
In the vases have begun to smell of human sweat. There is
No more singing, no more dance, my mind is an old
Playhouse with all its lights put out. The strong man's technique is
Always the same, he serves his love in lethal doses,
For, love is Narcissus at the water's edge, haunted
By its own lonely face, and yet it must seek at last
An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will the mirrors
To shatter and the kind night to erase the water.

Themes in ‘The Old Playhouse’
Failure and frustration in love and

marriage
Loss of freedom
Nostalgia for her past sweet memories
In search of true love and affection
 Kamala Das’s poems are replete with imagery and symbolism
 Her imagery covers a wide range; it is not monotonous or boring
 It is suggestive and functional
 Images drawn from the familiar and the common place; they speak about the poet’s own life
 They support the themes she explores in her poems
 Examples of the common range of images in her poems –

the sun, heat, house and window,
objects of nature, sleep, sea…
 Dominant image – the human body
 Sexual imagery – egs: The Freaks/ The Old Playhouse
 Imagery of nature
 Imagery of the urban milieu
SYMBOLS –
Sparrow
Window
Style in Kamala Das’s Poetry
Evolves from a rudimentary poet using traditional verse methods to someone with a highly
personal voice
Natural poet with an excellent feeling for sound, rhythm, phrasing, image, symbol, word play and
drama
As a poet using the confessional mode, her tone is conversational and her diction is often colloquial
Eg: Cowering [b]eneath your monstrous ego I ate the
magic loaf and became a dwarf”
Very subjective/ individualistic voice

CONCLUSION
Change brought about by Kamala Das’s poetry
- Personal experiences
- Her diction and sentiments were more contemporary and less
artificial
- Subject matter – treat love within a broader range of themes, more
realized settings, and with deeper feelings

Kamala Das

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KAMALA DAS

 Kamala Das was born on 31st March 1934

 She was born in Kerala into a family of writers

 Her mother Balamani amma was an acclaimed critic

 Kamal began writing at a very young age

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,

Some are purple and gold flecked grey

In the long summer of your love so that she would forget

Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless

Pathways of the sky. It was not to gather knowledge

Of yet another man that I came to you but to learn

What I was, and by learning, to learn to grow, but every

Lesson you gave was about yourself. You were pleased

With my body's response, its weather, its usual shallow

Convulsions. You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured

Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed

My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices. You called me wife,

To offer at the right moment the vitamins. Cowering

Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic loaf and

Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to all your

Begins to pall. I remember the rudder breezes

Always lit by artificial lights, your windows always

Shut. Even the air-conditioner helps so little,

No more singing, no more dance, my mind is an old

Always the same, he serves his love in lethal doses,

For, love is Narcissus at the water's edge, haunted

By its own lonely face, and yet it must seek at last

An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will the mirrors

To shatter and the kind night to erase the water.

Failure and frustration in love and

 Her imagery covers a wide range; it is not monotonous or boring

 It is suggestive and functional

 They support the themes she explores in her poems

 Examples of the common range of images in her poems –

 Sexual imagery – egs: The Freaks/ The Old Playhouse

 Imagery of the urban milieu

Very subjective/ individualistic voice

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