An Introduction
by
Kamala Das
(Poem & Analysis)
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Ghanshyam by Kamala Das (Analysis)
An Introduction by Kamala Das (Analysis)
Kamala Surayya (31 March 1934–31 May 2009),
popularly known by her name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well
as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based
chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English,
written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit
autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics
including women's issues, child care, politics among others.
Her
open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt,
infused her writing with power and she got hope after freedom, but also marked
her as an iconoclast in her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a
hospital in Pune.
An Introduction
(The
Poem)
I
don't know politics but I know the names
Of
those in power, and can repeat them like
Days
of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I
amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,
I
speak three languages, write in
Two,
dream in one.
Don't
write in English, they said, English is
Not
your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me
alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every
one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any
language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes
mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All
mine, mine alone.
It
is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It
is as human as I am human, don't
You
see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes,
and it is useful to me as cawing
Is
to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is
human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here
and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is
aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of
trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent
mutterings of the blazing
Funeral
pyre. I was child, and later they
Told
me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled
and one or two places sprouted hair.
WhenI
asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For,
he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom
and closed the door, He did not beat me
But
my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The
weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I
shrank Pitifully.
Then
… I wore a shirt and my
Brother's
trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My
womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be
wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be
a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong,
cried the categorizers. Don't sit
On
walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be
Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still,
be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose
a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.
Don't
play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho.
Don't cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted
in love … I met a man, loved him. Call
Him
not by any name, he is every man
Who
wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman
who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste
Of
rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless
Waiting.
Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The
answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere,
I see the one who calls himself I
In
this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword
in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks
at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It
is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And
then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With
a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I
am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed.
I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches
which are not yours. I too call myself I.
Analysis
This
poem first appeared in Kamala Das’s very first volume of poem which was
entitled Summer in Calcutta and which was published in 1965. This poem is
wholly autobiographical and may also be labelled as a confessional poem. It is
confessional in the sense that Kamala Das here takes the reader into her
confidence with confessional poems, this one shows Kamala Das’s candour in dealing
with sex, with bodily functions, and the like. At the same time it shows Kamala
Das’s capacity for self-assertion. Furthermore, we have here a poem of revolt
against conventionalism and the restraints which society has been imposing upon
women. Kamala Das’s feminism or her advocacy of the rights of women clearly
appears here. Thus, this poem reveals to us several aspects of Kamala Das as a
poet.
Kamala
Das begins this poem by telling us, that although she does not know much about politics,
she knows the names of those persons, beginning with Nehru, who have wielded
political power in this country. She then describes herself as an Indian, of a
very brown complexion, born in Malabar, having the ability to speak three
languages, writing actually in two languages, and dreaming in the third. Next,
she speaks sarcastically about the many relatives and friends who used to
advise her not to write in English because English was not her mother tongue.
In fact, she takes such advisers to task for having given her this advice
because she claims the right to speak and write in any language she likes.
I
don’t know politics but I know the names
Of
those in power, and can repeat them like
Days
of weak, or names of months, beginning with
Nehru,
I am Indian, very brown, born in
Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two,
dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said,
English
is not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me
alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins
Every
one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any
language I like? The language I speak
Becomes
mine, its distortions, its queenesses
All
mine, mine alone. It is half English, half
Indian,
funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It
is as human as I am human don’t
You
see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes,…………
Kamala
Das goes on to tell us that, as she grew up form a child to an adult, her limbs
swelled, and hair sprouted in one or two parts of her body. Then she asked for
love, and what she got was a husband who performed the sexual act with her in
the crudest possible manner. The husband’s way of performing this act made her
feel miserable.
Everybody
wanted to give some of the other advice to her. Her advisers urged her to do
some embroidery or cooking and also to keep quarrelling with the servants. They
told her to call herself Amy or Kamala or better still Mahdavi kutty. They
urged her not to pretend to be a split personality suffering from a
psychological disorder, and not to become a nymphomaniac or a sex-crazy woman.
Dress
in sarees, be girl
Be
wife, they said. Be embroidered, be cook,
Be
a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong,
cried the categorizser. Don’t sit
On
walls or deep in through open lace-draped windows.
Be
Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still,
be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose
a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t
play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho.
Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted
love.........I met a man, loved him. Call
Him
not by any name, he is every man
Who
wants a woman, just as I am every
Woman
who seeks love. In him.....the hungry haste
Of
rivers, in me..........the oceans tireless
Waiting.
Finally
Kamala Das describes herself in the following words:
I
am sinner
I
am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed.
I have no joys which are not yours, no
Aches
which are not yours. I too call myself I.
What
she here means to say is, that she is no different from other human beings,
that like every other human being, she is sometimes sinful and sometimes pious,
that she is sometimes loved and sometimes betrayed in love, that she has the
same joys in life which others have, and that she suffers the same
disappointment which others suffer.
In
this short poem, Kamala Das has given us a self-portrait and the anatomy of her
mind, recounting the major incidents of her life and the experience which had
affected her most till the time of her writing this poem. The poem is
remarkable for its compression and for the compactness of its structure even
though it contains a diversity of facts and circumstances. The rules of
punctuation have been fully observed; all the lines are almost of the same
length. The words used and the phraseology show Kamala Das’s talent for
choosing the right words and putting them in highly satisfactory combinations.
Indeed, the poem contains many felicities of word and phrase. Her brief picture
of her husband’s rough treatment of her is an outstanding example:
He
did not beat me
But
my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The
weight of my breasts and womb crushed me. I shrank
Pitifully.
Then.........
These
lines also show Kamala Das’s uninhibited manner of speaking about sex and about
her physical organs.
The
poem is written in free verse form.
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Ghanshyam by Kamala Das (Analysis)
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