1.

PHALLUS I CUT - Kalki

2. PUNISHMENT IN KINDERGARTEN- Kamala Das

Today the world is a little more my own.

No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace,
“Why don’t you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!"

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my schoolmates sipping

Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at other’s tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.

The words are muffled now, the laughing

Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving

Sadly on. My mind has found

An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.

2. PUNISHMENT IN KINDERGARTEN- Kamala Das

In the poem Punishment in Kindergarten, Kamala Das recollects one of her

childhood experiences that were quite painful for her. The poem is in three parts. In the first
part, the poet discusses how her teacher scolded her and termed her weird. In the second part,
she recollects her schoolmates hurting her by laughing at her and in the final part she says
that there is no need for her to remember any of those humiliating experiences in her
adulthood now.

The poem begins with the poet’s childhood incident that had a negative impact on her
emotions. Kamala Das narrates that in her Kindergarten, she went to a picnic with her class
students. When the other kids were having fun and enjoying together, Kamala Das had
preferred to stay alone. The teacher had bluntly scolded her for not socializing with the other
kids in her class and called her a peculiar creature. The poet’s pain and anger are quite
evident in her reference to her teacher as a ‘blue-frocked woman’ throwing words at her like
pots and pans. The teacher did not realize the damage she had caused to the little kid with her
careless words.
 When the teacher scolded her, the other kids, who were sipping sugarcane started
laughing at her. The sweetness they were consuming only spat sourness. It made her
otherwise beautiful day bitter. Kamala Das sees the other kids as funny creatures, who laugh
at others’ pains. They had hurt her without the slightest concern for her delicate feelings. Out
of humiliation, she had hidden her face in the sun warmed hedge and smelt the flowers and
the pain. She was deeply hurt by this incident.

Though she claims that she need not get stuck to that painful experience any longer,
she does remember it very clearly. She is still unable to forget the hurt caused by her rude
teacher and the other students. Though a childhood experience, it still has a toll on her mental
well-being.

Kamala Das’ poems have an autobiographical element. This poem is no exception to

it. In this poem, Kamala Das hints at how the seemingly careless words of a few leave a
permanent scar on sensitive people like her. Once words are thrown, they can never be taken
back.

3. OBITUARY – A K Ramanujan

Father, when he passed on,

left dust
on a table of papers,
left debts and daughters,
a bedwetting grandson
named by the toss
of a coin after him,

a house that leaned

slowly through our growing
years on a bent coconut
tree in the yard.
Being the burning type,
he burned properly
at the cremation

as before, easily
and at both ends,
left his eye coins
in the ashes that didn't
look one bit different,
several spinal discs, rough,
some burned to coal, for sons

to pick gingerly
and throw as the priest
said, facing east
where three rivers met
near the railway station;
no longstanding headstone
with his full name and two dates

to holdin their parentheses

everything he didn't quite
manage to do himself,
like his caesarian birth
in a brahmin ghetto
and his death by heart-
failure in the fruit market.

But someone told me

he got two lines
in an inside column
of a Madras newspaper
sold by the kilo
exactly four weeks later
to streethawkers

who sell it in turn

to the small groceries
where I buy salt,
coriander,
and jaggery
in newspaper cones
that I usually read

for fun, and lately

in the hope of finding
these obituary lines.
And he left us
a changed mother
and more than
one annual ritual.

3. OBITUARY – A K RAMANUJAN

A.K.Ramanujan is a famous literary writer in Indian Writing in English. He is well

known for his poems and translations. He has used poetry as a tool of criticism of the self and
of the world around him.

The poem “Obituary” was written by A.K. Ramanujan. It is a vivid, emotional, and
intense poem that looks back on the life and times of a dear loved family member. An
obituary is usually a tribute to the person who has passed away. The poem is written in first
person narration- the son is the narrator of the poem. The son points out all of the things his
father left undone. His bills were unpaid, and he left unmarried daughters. His grandson, a
bed wetter, was named after the grandfather. The house in which the narrator grew up leaned
against a tree. Apparently, the father was short-tempered which may be part of the son's
unhappiness.

In the Hindu custom of cremation, bodies are to be cremated within 24 hrs. After the
cremation, the sons dug through the ashes to find hot coals to throw into the river. The father
would have no headstone with the dates of his birth and death. From his birth to his death, the
son feels that his father did many things incorrectly or incompletely.

He hears that his father’s obituary took two lines in a local newspaper four weeks
after his cremation. In the beginning, the son says that he looks for the paper for fun, and then
he says he would like to have the obituary.

Since the narrator is the oldest son, he will be responsible for any ancient rituals that
the culture requires. There is little mourning when a Hindu dies because they believe that
once a person is born he or she never dies. The son does not show any strong feelings for the
father’s death which may be due to the Hindu custom or his irritation with his father. Despite
the displeasure with his father voiced by the narrator, he still respectfully wants to have the
paper with the father’s obituary.

4. APOLOGIES FOR LIVING ON- Meena Kandasamy

I am living on
because providing apologies is easy
once—
I was making choices
with insanely safe ideas of
fleeing-madly-and-flying-away

I was a helpless girl

against the brutal world of
bottom-patting-and-breast-pinching

I was craving for security

the kind i had only known while
aimlessly-afloat-and-speculating-in-the- womb
now—
I am locked away
a terrified princess waiting
for-death-and-not-any-brave-prince

I don’t dream or think

i just remember and wince
at-voices-of-the-past-smirking-in-sarcasm
once—
I ran away in the darkness
nothing beaconed me more than the
prospect-of-solitude-and-the-caress-of-a-million stars

I ran into the arms of the ravishing night

nothing pulled me back: not even the memories
of-love-I-had-once-known-&-stolen-kisses-savored-for-so-long.

I ran until terror stopped my tracks

for, trembling I turned and saw that the moon was
another-immodest-ogler-and-lecherous-stalker.

APOLOGIES FOR LIVING ON- Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy is a poet, novelist, feminist, translator and an activist. Her poems deal
with issues of caste and gender and how society puts people into stereotypical roles on the
basis of these categories. Although discrimination on the basis of caste has been outlawed in
India, it still exists in the community to certain extent. She focuses on the gender relations
that suggest being a female in a patriarchal society is another form of being a part of minor
social group.

In “Apologies for living on”, there is a firm and ferocious search of “I” by a female with
various assertions of self. There is a poignant note of misery in these poetic lines.

The torture of any young female is abominable in any society, any country and in any soul. It
is too disheartening to see a girl who is compelled to apologize for living on. It is highly
challenging to survive in a world that puts the individual down for being a female. She is torn
between holding on to life and giving up. She apologizes for living on in a world that
condemns her and demeans her very existence.

When a culture keeps women inferior to men, it does not progress into a civilized world. The
brutality of the male-dominated world and the subjugations of women eat away the dignity of
a female. The poet says that the security she once experienced in her mother’s womb is found
missing in the outside world. Her insecurity shooting out of the physical and mental abuse
drives her mad and to the verge of death.

The patriarchal society does not give any one license to brush aside decency and respect for
others. The society is possessed by the ghosts of the past culture. No matter how much a
female tries to seek comfort and escape in darkness or in light, the barbaric ogles of the
society does not let her to survive peacefully.

Meena Kandasamy feels enraged by the casteism and prejudices of the society towards
women. This is reflected in many poems wherein she expresses the feminist approach and
offers valuable thoughts on the question of social identity of the females.