Ghanshyam
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.
Ghanshyam
(The
Poem)
Ghanshyam,
You have like a koel
built your nest in the arbour of my heart.
My life, until now a
sleeping jungle is at last astir with music.
You lead me along a
route I have never known before
But at each turn when
I near you
Like a spectral flame
you vanish.
The flame of my
prayer-lamp holds captive my future
I gaze into the red
eye of death
The hot stare of
truth unveiled.
Life is moisture
Life is water, semen
and blood.
Death is drought
Death is the hot
sauna leading to cool rest-rooms
Death is the last,
lost sob of the relative
Beside the red-walled
morgue.
O Shyam, my Ghanshyam
With words I weave a
raiment for you
With songs a sky
With such music I
liberate in the oceans their fervid dances
We played once a husk-game,
my lover and I
His body needing
mine,
His ageing body in
its pride needing the need for mine
And each time his
lust was quietened
And he turned his
back on me
In panic I asked
Don’t you want me any longer don’t you want me
Don’t you don’t you
In love when the snow
slowly began to fall
Like a bird I
migrated to warmer climes
That was my only
method of survival
In this tragic game
the unwise like children play
And often lose
At three in the
morning
I wake trembling from
dreams of a stark white loneliness,
Like bleached bones
cracking in the desert-sun was my loneliness,
And each time my
husband,
His mouth bitter with
sleep,
Kisses, mumbling to
me of love.
But if he is you and
I am you
Who is loving who
Who is the husk who
the kernel
Where is the body
where is the soul
You come in strange
forms
And your names are
many.
Is it then a fact
that I love the disguise
and the name more
than I love you?
Can I consciously
weaken bonds?
The child's umbilical
cord shrivels and falls
But new connections
begin, new traps arise
And new pains
Ghanshyam,
The cell of the
eternal sun,
The blood of the
eternal fire
The hue of the
summer-air,
I want a peace that I
can tote
Like an infant in my
arms
I want a peace that
will doze
In the whites of my eyes
when I smile
The ones in saffron
robes told me of you
And when they left
I thought only of
what they left unsaid
Wisdom must come in
silence
When the guests have
gone
The plates are washed
And the lights put
out
Wisdom must steal in
like a breeze
From beneath the
shuttered door
Shyam O Ghanshyam
You have like a
fisherman cast your net in the narrows
Of my mind
And towards you my
thoughts today
Must
race like enchanted fish...
Analysis
This
poem appeared in Kamala Das’s fourth volume of poems in 1977 under the heading
of ‘Stranger Time’. Ghanshyam, as every Hindu knows, is the other name of Lord
Krishna of the Mahabharata fame. As a boy and as a young man Lord Krishna used
to play with girls, who used to feel delighted and thrilled by the sweet strains
of music which he could produce from his flute. In course of time stories
became current that a girl by the name of Radha had fallen deeply in love with
him; and centuries later, a woman by the name of Mira Bai fell in love with him
though she could love him only in her imagination. Mira Bai composed a large
number of poems and songs in celebration of her love for him. It is against
this background that Kamala Das, after having felt frustrated by the failure of
her marriage and then by the total un-satisfactoriness of her many sexual
relationship with men, sublimated her sexual desire by visualizing herself as a
seeker of Lord Krishna’s love.
The
poem is addressed to Ghanshyam. Kamala Das tells Ghanshyam that he has built a
nest in the garden of her heart and her life, which was till now a silent and
sleeping jungle, is now stirring with the sounds of music.
Ghanshyam,
You have like a koel
built your nest in the arbour of my heart.
My life, until now a
sleeping jungle is at last astir with music.
You lead me along a
route I have never known before
Ghanshyam, she says,
has been leading her along a route which she had never known before,
142
and that every time,
when she is about to come close to him, he simply disappears.
But at each turn when
I near you
Like a spectral flame
you vanish.
The flame of my
prayer-lamp holds captive my future
I gaze into the red
eye of death
The hot stars of
truth unveiled.
She
goes on to say that life is moisture, that life is water, that life is semen
and blood, and that death is the want of moisture and water, that death is the
hot sand bath, and that death is the last sob of the relative of the person who
lies dead. She then says that she is using words to weave a garment for
Ghanshyam and that she is composing songs to produce music which would have the
power to make the oceans dance.
Life is moisture
Life is water, semen
and blood.
Death is drought
Death is the hot
sauna leading to cool rest-rooms
Death is the last,
lost sob of the relative
Beside the red-walled
morgue.
O Shyam, my Ghanshyam
With words I weave a
raiment for you
With songs a sky
With
such music I liberate in the oceans their fervid dances
Kamala
Das described her married life which was a failure because her husband wanted merely
to satisfy his lust and was unable to give her any love or affection in any
real sense. She had found that the only way in which she could survive was to
reconcile herself to her desolation and her loneliness. She has been trying to
imagine that, whenever her husband indulged in the sexual act with her, it was
Ghanshyam who was making love to her. She consoles herself with the thought
that Ghanshyam appears to her in many shapes because he has many names. When
any other man, beside her husband, makes love to her, she thinks that it is
Ghanshyam making love to her.
Kamala
Das next says that she seeks peace so that wisdom can come to her silently.
Ghanshyam has, like a fisherman, cast his net in the depths of her mind and her
thoughts are rushing towards him like a fish which briskly enters the
fisherman’s net under some mysterious urge.
Thus,
this poem reveals to us Kamala Das’s spitirual longings which have been dormant
in her and which have come to the surface as a consequence of her sexual
frustrations. At first, she kept thinking that every man with whom she
performed the sexual act was Ghanshyam in disguise. Then she began to feel
confused as to the real identity of the men with whom she performed the sexual
act next she felt disillusioned about those casual lovers of hers. Finally, she
feels cleansed of the desires of the flesh and wants only Ghanshyam as her
lover. These are the stages by which Kamala Das sublimated her sensuality.
In
this poem Kamala Das speaks not only of physical evolution but also of
spiritual evolution. Kamala Das’s poems on the Radha-Krishna myth, namely
Ghanshyam, Radha, the Maggots etc., are specifically representative of her
faith in the spiritual evolution of man. In the poem Radha, Kamala Das speaks
of spiritual love and spiritual evolution by means of surrender. Radha in that
poem represents the spirit of surrender, which is the very first step towards
spiritual evolution. For the consummation of spiritual love, Kamala Das mingles
her complete self with the self of Lord Krishna.
We
feel inclined to regard this poem as one of Kamala Das’s masterpieces because
of its content and also because of the manner, in which she had dealt with its
theme. There are a number of excellent similes and metaphors in this poem; and
it is characterized by a felicity of word and phrase which really evokes our
admiration.
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Ghanshyam by Kamala Das (Analysis)
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