Sahitya Akademi

Paradigm Shift in the Reading of Kamala Das's Poetry

Author(s): Bijay Kumar Das
Source: Indian Literature, Vol. 54, No. 1 (255) (January/February 2010), pp. 240-248
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23344205 .
Accessed: 17/07/2014 12:19
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sahitya Akademi is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Indian Literature.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Paradigm Shift in the Reading of

Kamala

Das's

Poetry

Das

Bijay Kumar

Das

a pioneer of Post-Independence
Indian
her
book
of
Summer
in
Kamala
first
English poetry published
poems titled,
Calcutta in 1965. Together with Nissim Ezekiel, 'a founding father' of
(1934-2009),

Indian-English poetry (Bruce King's coinage) and A. K. Ramanujan, who

published his first collection of poems The Striders in 1966, Kamala Das
gave as it were, 'a local habitation and a name' to Modem Indian-English
poetry. Her successive books of verse include The Descendants (1967), The
Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973), Collected Poems Vol I (1984), The Best
of Kamala Das (1991), Anamalai Poems (1992), and Only the Soul Knows How
to Sing (1996). She won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Collected Poems
Vol 1 for the year 1985. Because of her Autobiography,
My Story (1976),
her poetry is often interpreted as confessional and feminist poetry. True,
even confessional, but it
part of her poetry may be autobiographical,
is much
the paper

more than thatdefying any particular label. The purpose of

is to show how her poetry has attained canonical status in

Indian-English literature.
Kamala Das's poetry, like the poetry of Shiv K. Kumar, begins in
and
pain
anguish caused by her loss of freedom to live her life, the way
"An

she liked.

Her best known poem,

her poetry and reveals her mind.

sets the tone of

Introduction"

I was child, and later they

Told

me

I grew,

Swelled

and

I asked

for love,

For,

he

Bedroom

drew
and

one

for I became
or two
not

a youth
closed

places

knowing

tall,

door.

hair.

sprouted
what

of sixteen
the

limbs

my
else

into
He

did

to

When
ask

the
not

beat

me

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

But

sad

my

felt

woman-body

so

beaten

The weight of my breast and womb crushed me. I shrank

Pitifully. (Only the Soul Knows How to Sing 96)
The above

quoted lines suggest the pain and anguish that crushed

the poet. Later on, she wrote poetry of human love like John Donne
positive poems, negative poems and neutral poems. In positive poems
love is fulfilled leading to orgasm but in negative poems love remains
largely unrequited. In neutral poems she tells womankind how to conquer
men through loveobjective,
impersonal and detached.
Kamala

Das's love poems are rooted in her defiance of the patriarchal

of our country and especially against male dominance.
Her
frankness in expressing the desire of a woman to fulfill her love makes
tradition

her a feminist in the western

well known

Shiv K. Kumar, the

in the following

sense of the word.

poet and critic, makes

an apt observation

lines:
It seems

that the past

two

or so have

decades

witnessed

an unprecedented upsurge of longing for freedom in

our women's
with

outlook.
but have

men

have

They

vehemently

not only

claimed

parity

certain

questioned

age

old social practices and prejudices. This is the predomi

nant

theme

in Kamala

Das's

chauvinism,

its persistent

the 'stronger'

sex. No

which

poetry
endeavour

exposes

to play

the contemporary

wonder,

male

the role

of

woman

writer is never tired of articulating her disgust for the

insensitive, aggressive male. If there is, therefore, a
element

recurring

of sex in her work,

it is more

to expose

it as a form of male dominance than to glorify it. All

that Kamala

Das

is trying

woman

from

husband

or lover.

Freaks",

she

arouses

He

'the

talks,

cheek
cavern,

to

the

In one

turning
me;

where

his

is to salvage
the Indian
of
her
man,
exploitation

of her early

her

portrays
skin's

to do

sexual

lazy

lover

willed

"The
who

a sunstained
a dark

mouth,

stalactites

to race

titled

someone

hungers'.

of uneven

teeth

hand on my knee, while our minds

are

poems,

as only

towards

gleam;

his right

love;

but they only wander, tripping idly over puddles of

desire... Can this man with
nimble finger-tipsunleash
nothing more than the skin's
lazy hungers?

Bi/ay Kumar Das

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

/ 241

Obviously, the answer is no, but then Kamala Das also suggests 'truthfully,
that in this game of love and hate, the woman is as much to blame
as her male

because

partner,

she too

is driven

by her sexual

urges.

'My body's wisdom tells me,' she says in another poem

('A Relationship') that "I shall find my rest, my sleep,
and

my peace/

even

death

nowhere

else

but here

betrayer's arms...' (6-7)

in my

Kamala

Das's revolt against male dominance

in love makes her
but
In
"The
Stone
not
ironical.
only negative
poetry
Age" she compares
the husband to an 'old fat spider' and dramatizes wife-husband relationship
with a tinge of irony:
Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,
A libertine, ask me the flavour of his
Mouth, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like
A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts
And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is
Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price...
(Only

The

dissatisfaction

the Soul

with the husband

Knows

How

to Sing

67)

and the desire for another

man

prominent in "The Stone Age".

Kamala Das is not only a poet of love, she is the poet of body.
Her emphasis on the satisfaction of the body finds support in the work
of the Queer theorist, Judith Butler, who maintains that it is the body
that determines one's nature and character. Our fate lies not in the stars
becomes

but in the body. Betrayal in love breaks the heart of the poet. In order
to save the love relationship, she advises women to gift all to men in
Glass":
a poem called, "The Looking
Gift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of
Long

hair,

the

musk

of sweat

between

the

breasts

The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

Endless female hungers.
(Only

the Soul

Knows

How

to Sing

55)

not save the relationship, she advises women, 'Don't

cry
embarrassingly loud when /jilted in love'. Her poem, "The Suicide" reminds
us of John Donne's
"Aire and Angels" in which the latter lays emphasis
If that does

242

/ Indian literature: 255

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

on body. Das begins her poem

body and the soul:

on the dichotomy

playing

between

the

Bereft of soul
My body shall be bare
Bereft of body
My soul shall be bare...
If love is not to be had
I want to be dead, just dead.
the Soul

(Only

Knows

How

to Sing

86-87)

This poem reminds us of the imagery employed by the confessional poet

Anne Sexton. Devendr Kohli makes an apt comment on the similarities
between Das and Sexton in the following:
The

the

between

analogy

lover

and

water

is a vehicle

of the poet's symbolic swimming in the foreverchanging

and elusive realities of life. In its sexual connotations
the image
by

the

can

same

be compared
name

to the nude

Anne

by

swim

in a poem

Sexton:

I lay on it as on a divan
I lay on it just like
Matisse's Red Odalisque
Water
One

was

Without
On

my

must

strange

a toga

a couch

as

flower

a woman

picture
or

a scarf

deep

as

a tomb.

Indeed, one might link Kamala Das not only with Sylvia
Plath,

but

with

Anne

Sexton

who

"is a truer

example

of the confessional mode." (Kulshrestha 195-196)

Vrinda Nabar

makes a comparison
Plath as confessional
poet. She writes,

between Kamala

Das and Sylvia

A comparison with Sylvia Plath at this point may be

relevant.

No

matter how

much

is written

about

the content

of Plath's confessions, all her critics agreed that she

transforms

them

into

poetry

of the most

extraordinary

complexity and variety. It is ultimately the poetry that

matters,with all its direct and metaphorical implications.
In Kamala, on the other hand, it is the confession that
matters,

and sometimes

it seems

that poetry

is incidental,

. . .The overwhelming majority of her Indian readers

respond largely to her personality. (104-105)
Bijay Kumar Das

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

/ 243

Not

of
only in sexual imagery but in the choice and collocation
Kamala
Das
makes
innovation
in
words,
Indian-English
poetry. Words
like warm shock of menstrual blood' 'the musky sweat between the breasts,'
'the jerkyway he urinates,' 'my pubis,' 'lesbian,' 'frigid,' 'queer,' 'sandal,' 'scent,'
'lipstick,' 'breast,' 'flesh,' 'lips,' 'kiss,' 'embrace,' 'honeymoon,'
'bloodstain,'

'womb,' 'eunuch,'

'eczema,' 'anaemia,' 'isehernia,' 'urine,' 'cabaret,'

'schizophrenia,'
and the likening of husband's hand to a hooded snake that 'clasps my
pubis' suggesting violence, and the likening of heart to an empty cistern
'waiting through long hours fills itself with coiling snakes of silence' and
love, to a 'swivel door' 'when one went out, another came in' are certainly
uncommon
in Indian-English
poetic diction. This is Kamala Das's con
tribution to Indian-English
idiom.
Apart from love, family becomes
Like

A.K.

a major concern in her poetry.

deals with the theme of family

Kamala
Das
Ramanujan,
in
a
number
of
"The Old
relationship
poems such as "Composition",
Playhouse", "A Requiem for My Father", "My Father's Death" and "Blood".
Her

grandmother and great grandmother

the family. In "Blood"
she says,
For

I love

this

house,

it hurts

remain for her the centre of

me

much

To watch it die
When I grow old, I said
And

very

very

rich

I shall rebuild the fallen walls

And
My

make
great

new

this

ancient

house

grandmother

Touched my cheeks and smiled.

She was really simple.
Fed on God for year.
(Only

the Soul

Knows

How

to Sing

72)

Kamala

Das anticipated the Diasporic writers when she dealt with

of 'home' in some of her poems. In "Home is a Concept",
Kamala Das describes the plight of expatriate, immigrant and diasporic
An
writers for whom the concept of home has become burdensome.
the theme

immigrant or diasporic writer may accept another country as his home

but does that country accept him as its own on par with the natives?
Some are torn between the country they left behind and the country
they adopt as their own. Hence, they are suspended
never at home, here or there.

244

between two worlds

/ Indian Literature: 255

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The

unwanted

wait

here,

and

there

for aeroplanes

clutching at heavy briefcases that hold

the

to

papers

be

read

at seminars,

passports, visas and photographs of laughing

children. The unwanted carry heavy bags
and

overcoats

they

but

the

is pain.

tote

heaviest

If home

they shall not know it...

(Only

luggage

is a concept

the Soul

Knows

How

to Sing

105)

Having discussed the poetry of Kamala Das, the question that lurks
in the mind is that how to rate her as a poet. Paul Valerey once said
that a poem is never complete but abandoned.
This applies to Kamala
Das's

poetry. Most of her poems end with three dots which invite the
readers to expand them.
E.M.W.
Tillyard divides poetry into two types: direct poetry and
oblique poetry. Direct poetry is that in which the surface meaning is the

same as deep meaning but in oblique poetry one thing is stated in terms
of another. Though Kamala Das has written a few oblique poems, she
excels in her direct poems. The strength of her poetry lies in her frankness
to say the ordinary things of life without ambiguity. Clarity of thought
and felicity of expression go together to make her poetry immensely
readable.

Supremely confident of her ideas about love, lust, body and

man-woman relationships she knows that she can come closer to readers
by revealing

her life poetically.

I know

it is no

use

or feeling ashamed
I also

know

that

by

Thus,

she writes:

regretting

now

confessing\

by peeling off my layers

I reach

closer

to

the

soul

and
to

the

bone's

supreme

indifference.

Only those who like to listen

listen
what
events

I narrate
of

are

the

ordinary

an

ordinary life.
("Composition")
What

is significant in her poetry is that by speaking for herself,

she speaks for womankind
as well. If she expressed her disappointment
male
in
some
of her poems, she also accepts the value
against
hegemony
Bijay Kumar Das

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

/ 245

of wife-husband
are expressed

relationship as a norm in family-life. Both the attitudes

in the same poem, "A Widow's
Lament":

My man, my sons, forming the axis

while I, wife and mother,
insignificant as a fly
climbed the glasspanes of their eyes.
He

'was

I walk

(Only

the Soul

he

naked

as

Knows

was

home,

my

a babe.

How

to Sing

125)

This reminds us of
poetry has social implications.
assertion that 'texts are worldly.' In The World, the Text and

Kamala
Edward

a sunshade,

now

Das's

Said's

the Critic, Said

says,
is that texts are worldly,

My position
are events
are
and

and

even

a part

nevertheless,
of course

when

they

moments

degree

to deny

appear

of the social

the historical

to some

world,

they

it, they

human

in which

they

life
are

located and interpreted. (4)

Kamala Das's texts are worldly. They are about contemporary reality.
about women who are discriminated
against by men in
the society in our time. Hence,
her poems can be termed topical
She

writes

poems. She was disturbed by the riots in Delhi in 1984 and the killings
in Sri Lanka. Poems like "Delhi 1984", "If Death is Your wish" , "After
and "The Sea at Galle Face Green" reveal
July", "Smoke in Colombo"
for suffering mankind and anguish for senseless violence.
love
is variety in her poetry. If in some poems she denounces

her concern
There

that becomes

the other name

becomes tender. If love becomes

poems,

in her positive

poems

of lust, in others she accepts it when it

'skin-communicated
thing' in her negative
she feels the absence of the husband. She

writes;
Do I miss him?
Of course, I do, for larger than life
was

he.

('Larger than Life')

In "Anamalai

Poems"

she likens herself to mountain

to realize the

significance of love. 'At times I feel that I hide behind my dreams I

as the mountain does, behind the winter's mist,' she writes and then goes
on to say,
246

/ Indian Literature: 255

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

is a love

There

than

greater

all

know

you

that awaits you where the red road finally ends

(Anamalai Poem X)
whole oeuvre
apt observation that, 'Kamala's
thus becomes a declaration of the greatness of love that even while being
the
expressed through the body also transcends the body:' ('Transcending
Body',
Only the Soul Knows How to Sing) seems to be valid.
K. Satchidanandan's

poetry defies exact classification. She is the feminist

at once, all these
poet, a confessional poet, a poet of body and soul
and much more. Writing her obituary in Front Une (July3, 2009), K.
Kamala

Das's

has underlined

Satchidanandan

Das

Kamala

denounced

as she could
that

create

the extreme

not imagine
male

replacing

would

this aspect:

a world

of her difference

with

hegemony

an egalitarian

world....

as woman

but

of feminism

forms

without

men

female
She

would

or think

hegemony
aware

is deeply
see

it as natural

rather than glorify it (118).

To conclude, I wish to seek an answer to two questions: (i)What
significance has Kamala Das for contemporary Indian-English poets? and
(ii) Can she continue to be a source of inspiration to poets in the twenty
first century? To my mind, Kamala Das's significance as a postcolonial
closer for
poet lies in her ability to bring feminism and postcolonialism
Both
women
and
the
colonized
were
new
themes
and
images.
exploring
by men and colonialists respectively. She brings them together
by speaking for them and showing them the way. The key word of
her poetry is resistancebut it is resistance leading to reconciliation, not
oppressed

confrontation.
the following

Eunice

de Souza

underlines

this aspect of her poetry in

words:

Women

writers

mapped

out the terrain

owe

us what

in some

a special
debt to Kamala
for post-colonial
women

Das.

She

in social

and linguistic terms. Whatever her vernacular oddities,

she has spared us the colonial cringe. She has also spared
circles,

nativist

and

expatriate,

is still

considered mandatory, the politically correa 'anguish' of

writing in English. And in her best poems she speaks
for women,

certainly,

but also for anyone

who

has known

pain, inadequacy, despair. (8)

Kamala

Das has attained canonical

She has successfully

assimilated

status in Indian-English poetry.

women's attitude to

the contemporary

Bi/ay Kumar Das

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

I 247

live in the texture of her poetry so that it ceases to appear strange to

us. In his well known book, The Western Canon, Harold Bloom ponders
over the question, 'What makes the author and the works canonical?'
and says, 'the answer more often than not, has turned out to be strangeness,
a mode of originality that either cannot be assimilated or that so assimilates
us that we cease to see it as strange' (Bloom 3). In a way Kamala Das
assimilates us and we take her poetry as authentic representation of women's
problem of coming to terms with love in contemporary patriarchal society.
That

is the hallmark

of her originality.
Das will always be a source of inspiration for Indian-English
poets and writers in the twenty-first century for her daring portrayal of
love and body in straightforward language. It is her emphasis on body
Kamala

an eye-opener for Indian-English

writers who openly and
frankly describe the contours of body in their work. She knows that 'life
is too short! for absolute bliss'. Hence, we should explore more and more
that becomes

to understand

and experience it in the world going beyond the dictates

of the society. We should live our lives to the full. That seems to me
the message of her poetry.

Works Cited
1995.
The Western Canon. London:
McMillan,,
Bloom, Harold.
DC
Knows
How
to
Das, Kamala.
Only the Soul
Sing. Kottayam:
1996.

Books,

"Kamala
Das".
Kohli, Devendr.
Contemporary Indian English Verse: An
Evaluation. Ed. Chirantan Kulshrestha. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann,
1980.
Kumar, Shiv, K. ContemporaryIndian Literature in English. Shimla: Indian
Institute of Advanced Study and New Delhi: Manohar Publications,
1992.
Nabar,

Vrinda.

The Endless Female Hungers: A Study of Kamala Das. New

Delhi: SterlingPublishers,1994.

Said, Edward.
1983.

The World, the Text and the Critic. Harvard

University

Press,

K. "Transcending the Body." 'Preface.' Only theSoul Knows

Satchidanandan,
1996.
How to Sing. Kottayam:
DC
Books,
- - -.
the Body". Front Line 26: 13 (June20- July3, 2009).
"Beyond
Souza, Eunice de. Nine Indian Poets: An Anthology. New Delhi: Oxford
University

248

Press, 1997.

/ Indian Literature: 255

This content downloaded from 115.248.45.78 on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:19:43 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions