Personal Identity/ Feminist identity in the poem “An Introduction” by Kamala Das.

Kamala Das published six volumes of poetry between 1965 and 1985. She tells of intensely

personal experiences, including her growth into womanhood, her unsuccessful quest for love

in and outside of marriage, and her life in matriarchal rural South India after inheriting her

ancestral home. Das’s early poetry praised its fierce originality, bold images, exploration of

female sexuality, and intensely personal voice, they lamented that it lacked attention to

structure and craftsmanship. In ‘An Introduction,’ Das wrote in free verse in a colloquial style

that seems to follow writer’s thoughts and her identity. The poem presents in a frank and bold

manner glimpses of the poet’s life, her feelings and thoughts. The Introduction also triggers

off a process of introspection and self-discovery in the mind of the writer. For at the end of

the poem, Das realizes her essential identity with womankind. Finally the poem is an

expression of the poet’s craving for love and of the sense of frustration and deprivation that

arise on being denied it. These themes recur in Das’s verse. “It is I who drink lonely Drinks

at twelve midnight, in hotels of strange towns, it is I who laugh, 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

which are not yours, no Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.” The poetry of Das

must be viewed in the light of her quest for self and feminine consciousness. As a poet, she is

conscious of her creative faculties and tries to break chains and restraints to create her own

identity. She indulges in self-awareness, self-exploration and self-introspection in order to

define herself poetically. She finds herself condemned to play the part, apart from her

feminine self. It is the male society which compels her to choose her roles according to her

convenience. She is forced to act either as a slave or an idol. Her personality reflects the

worse condition of women. According to Eunice de Souza women writers owe a special debt
to Kamala Das as - “She mapped out the terrain for postcolonial women in social and

linguistic terms.”

In the poem the poet declares quite emphatically, that she very little or no knowledge of

politics. However, she is aware of the power structure that prevails in contemporary India. “I

am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar”. She claims to be an Indian and supports her claim

by drawing attention to her brown complexion and to her birth place Malabar. The emphasis

on her complexion is significant as she is asserting her identity as an Indian through this

colour. This in itself is a reaction to the mainstream white hierarchy of poetic thoughts and

conceptions. She establishes her brown skin as a distinctive introduction of her Indianness.

She claims to know three languages and write in two languages, however dream only in one.

There is a poetic beauty in the careful choice of words in these lines asserts that she can

dream about her own country in her native Indian language. She complains that she is often

told not to write in English as the influential heads of the society keeps reminding her that

English is not her mother tongue. She reacts by confirming that she had internalized the

Indianness of the English Language therefore could dare to use that medium for her poetic

expression. Yet again this is her way of rebelling against the predominant white mainstream

culture as she takes their language and converts it to her own Indian English, thus creating

her own unique self hence her identity. She asks her critics, friends and relatives to question

her liberation. She repeatedly asks them as to why they object to her use of Indian English.

Das claims that this language is personal to her and it is entirely hers with all the distortions

and strangeness. It is made to sound different and this adds further quality to the language

hence it is this language which serves her introduction to herself, through which she is

communicating with those who stand beyond her portray. The English language is a medium

that is trans-created from her emotional, artistic and responsive mind, the coherent words that

speak her joys, longings and hopes. She is conscious of her ability to express honestly and
eloquently in a language that was not her native and is thus dismayed that she should be

dedicated not to write in English. Das claims that her expressions are as natural to her as the

roar is to a lion. Here’s is a human speech emanating from her poetic mind, hence, it is the

language of her conscious mind which is intelligent and aware of her surroundings. It is not

just a language, not even just poetic expression, it is her attempt of creating the sense of self

through a unique style, personal and dear to her.

Kamala Das recalls her childhood and how fast she grew up into a full bloomed woman. The

details of her physical development have been quite as a woman. The lines are explicit of the

bodily changes that also impacted her thoughtful mind. Her search for liberty and

emancipation of identity grows more intense with each passing line of the poem. She yearns

for love and reflects upon the emotion of love as the most commencing of all human

emotions. She speaks of fatigue or physical exhaustion her body had suffered after marriage.

She reacts against the colonization of her body and mind. Psychological, social and cultural

proscriptions have unleashed tremendous amount of miseries and hardships to women. When

Kamala Das opts for male clothing to hide her femininity, the guardians enforce typical

female attire, with warnings to fit into the socially determined attributes of a woman, to

become a wife and a mother and get confined to the domestic routine. She is threatened to

remain within the four walls of her female space lest she should make herself a psychic or a

maniac.

“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”. Das expresses how the weight

of her body, specially her womb was more than what she could bear. Her defiance to social

conformity was expressed by cutting her hair short and ignoring her inherent femininity.

Once again she expresses how societal expectations began to influence and subjugate her at

every step. They forbid as she chooses to and ask her to be true to her name and identity.

They remind her that she was born to play a particular role that of a subjugate woman in the

society.

She goes on to describe a time in which she met and loved a man. This person is referred to

as “man,” he is not named. This strips him of some of the agency he is so in control of in the

next lines. Additionally, the name is of little importance as he is meant to represent every

man in the world who uses women as he pleases. At one point, at the height of her emotions,

she asks the “man” who he is. He replies “it is I.” The “I” represents the agency he has in the

world. Men make their own decisions and have the ability to use the pronoun in order to get

what they want. Das throws light upon the role of woman in a permissive society. In a

permissive society woman has unbridled freedom. She drinks, makes love, laughs and also

does not feel hesitant to feel repentant on some occasions. She can visit the strange towns and

can make love to the strangers; what matters is her sexual appeal. She often feels loved,

sometimes betrayed. Thus the poetess demolishes male chauvinism. In the concluding lines

of the poem the speaker focuses on empathy - the caring and sharing that characterise the

lives of the lovers. An Introduction’ begins its conclusion with the speaker acknowledging

the constant presence of “I” around her. In the world, she’s a part of there are “I” men

everywhere she looks. A person of this nature is able to go and “Drinks at twelve” and stay

in “hotels of strange towns.” As the lines continue the division between the speaker and the

“I” is blurred. Eventually, a reader comes to understand that she is trying to come to terms

with her own independence and identity as both “saint” and “sinner.” She is trapped
between her own need for free life and the world which tries to keep her contained. The final

statement is one of protest and resistance. Das states that she has “Aches” which belong to no

one but herself. She too can be “I.”

Kamala Das has played instrumental role in voicing the social transformation. She is a

revolutionary writer. Her voice is authentic, honest, frank, human to core, persuasive, and

above all female. In her poem she expresses her inner pangs caused by marriage. She feels a

sense of loss and suffocation for marriage commodifies her, crushes her soul, her spirit, her

liberty and her essence as a women. Kamala Das has been regarded as a truly authentic

feminine voice of power dealing with “conflict between passivity and rebellion against the

male oriented universe”. Her poetry to Devendra Kohli is “in the final analysis and

acknowledgment and a celebration of the beauty and courage of being women”. As a poet of

love and sex, Kamala Das looks most native, honest, and frank. She in her quest for freedom

and identity in her poetry reflects the artistic identity. It reflects the artistic movement

between utopia and authenticity. She displays feminist ethos in her poems. Her poems present

her fearless voice in condemning the inequalities and injustice in the treatment of society

towards women. The poet as an individual woman tried to voice a universal womanhood and

tried to share her experiences, in her search for female identity and the identity consists of

polarities. She has pictured the women demanding equal social status and even voiced her

emotional demands. She denigrated the tradition- bound, conservative society which was

always harsh on her conventional life style. She has transcended the role of a poet and simply

embraced the role of a very honest woman. To conclude the poem not only establishes her as

an individual woman but also as a poet with a unique linguistic style. She creates a space for

herself, her distinctive self- as a poet, as a women most prominently as KAMALA DAS.
“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of

identity.”-Erik Erikson.