1

POEMS OF MEENA KANDASAMY AND MAMTA KALIA – A COMPARATIVE STUDY

It is a famous saying that a pen is mightier that a sword. The Greek Poet Euripides used

to say, “The tongue is mightier than the blade”. At present, the poets who stand against

oppression use their pen as a mighty weapon. Meena Kandasamy is one such young, energetic

and rebellious woman. She uses her poetry as a weapon on the evils prevailing in the society.

Her approach is towards fighting patriarchy and the caste system. Meena views caste oppression

through a feministic lens and present her opinions through her writings including columns for

different magazines and social media. Her poetry is focused on the pains, passions and

difficulties of the marginalized people. Thus, as a poet she gives voice to the voiceless. The

female community are underestimated and looked down for ages but until then they try to

withstand the stones hurled at them and also create an identity for themselves.

In the beginning of Indian Writing in English, men express the problems of women. It is

argued that it would be better and appropriate if women express their problems, since it will

imbibe with their personal touch and make works more authentic.

Freidan identifies the real problem of feminine as the desire for something more than the

domestic ideal. Madsen states:

To face the problem is not to solve it. But once a women faces it… She begins to find her

own answers’. So when she starts thinking about her status. What is her real position in

society? Besides being someone’s daughter, wife and mother she is something more. She
 2

has her own individual personality, her liking disliking. She has to search her identity.

(44)

The gender difference is the foundation of a structural inequality between a man and a

woman. The issues of marginalization and the gender inequality are inseparable. Meena

Kandasamy’s poetry is against gender inequality and subjugation of Indian women. Her poetry is

not a result of reading or acquired knowledge but an outcome of her own personal experience.

‘Sex’ is a biological term whereas ‘Gender’ is a psychological and cultural term. It is widely held

that while one’s sex as a man or woman is determined by anatomy, the prevailing concepts of

gender, of the traits that are conceived to constitute what is masculine and what is feminine in

temperament and behaviour are largely, if not entirely, social constructs that were generated by

the pervasive patriarchal biases of our civilization. Pointing out this terrain of women’s poetry

brings forth the lust, sexuality, anxiety, loss of belonging, suppressed desires, and the search of

one’s self and gestational experiences of women.

One important aspect in the poetry of Meena Kandasamy is the discussion and

resentment directed at the sexual exploitation of woman. Women in general are already viewed

as the “Other” and the dalit women as “Others within others”. The exploitation that these women

are subjected to deprive them of the very basic right to survive with dignity. They are a constant

subject for torture and abuse both within as well as outside the domestic sphere. They are

always seen as silent sufferers lacking the power to resist, to assert and to live by choice. Meena

Kandasamy however, emerges as an open rebel refusing to surrender to the dictates and

constructed norms. She speaks as a lover. “When you called me to light up your life, I could

never refuse… love I can’t be a candle for I know it’s an ancient lie. The candle is for the

solemn… for those who yearn a slow and tenderness/ not for us”.
 3

Mamta Kalia’s poem “Oh, I’m fed up off being a woman” from her collection Poems ’79

pours heart of a woman. The protagonist says that she is fed up of being a woman, Oh, I’m fed

up off being a woman/ This all time bewareness of my body”.

A woman is always cautious about her looks, whether she looks beautiful or not, fat or

thin. She loves appreciation. She has to massage her body to remain young and beautiful

because her body is a weapon through which she pleases everyone. She is a thing to please

everyone. All the beauty pageants depend upon woman’s beautiful body because this show is

exclusively related to the female body and its display in various forms and dresses. A woman is a

thing of show and everyone gets enjoyment through that but it is a woman’s fate that she

becomes an object of appeasement. No one bothers about her feelings. She gives everything but

in place of respect she gets abuses and tortures.

The difference between men and women have been interpreted in various stages as

childhood, young girl, married woman, mother and the woman in love. In the “Second Sex”

Simone De Beauvoir she asks

‘What is Woman’ “Tota Mulier in utero” says one ‘Woman is a womb- She is a womb an

ovary: She is a ‘female’ the word is sufficient to define her. In the mouth of a man the

epithet-female has the sound of an insult, yet he is not ashamed of his animal nature, on

the contrary he is proud if someone says of him, ‘He is male”. The term ‘female’ is

derogatory not because it emphasizes woman’s animality but because it imprisons her in

her sex. (35)

The identity of women is always in question. When it is understood by the women it is

immediately is ridiculed and she becomes the laughing stock. Hence Simone De Beauvoir
 4

quotes “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman…Only the intervention of someone else

can establish an individual as an other.”(295)

Mamta Kalia feels suffocation in such a society and repents that she is a woman. She is

fed up of being a woman. She closely observes and understands them and writes about their

experiences. She voices forth the emotional experiences and the cries in the lives of women

along with the physical and psychological torture experimented by the women by using proper

diction and technique. Her poetic output is suffused with her wit, irony and feminine sensibility.

Hence, her poetry is psycho-dynamics. She depicts woman as a struggler and an emergent

winner in her writings.

A woman is considered as a chattel by the male dominated society. In one of her poems

in Touch (2006), entitled “Songs of Summer” Meena Kandasamy rebukes the patriarchal society

for treating the woman as its slave and a desire object.

To make her yours and yours alone,

You pushed her deeper into harems

Where she could see the sunlight

Only from the lattice windows

Domesticated into drudgery she was just

Another territory, worn out by wars. A slave

Who maintained your numbers.”

 5

The poet also criticizes the society for not treating a woman as a woman. The male-

dominant society recognizes a woman as a sister, a wife, a mother, and also a goddess, but never

as a woman herself. A woman’s goodness is graded upon her degree of submission and

servitude to her father, husband, brothers, sons and almost every other man in her family and

society. She targets the society thus:

Your society always makes

The spoon-feeding-the-man

The pot-and-an-banging.

The-sweeping-the-floor

The masochist women

As goddesses.(130)

She vehemently condemns the stereotyped male biased custom of girl seeing practiced in

the Indian society, intended for judging her in order to asses her potential of being a possible

bride to a man. A girl would be bride is judged on accounts of her feminity, education, beauty,

physical fitness, her character, her submissiveness and list is infinite. On the other hand, the boy

who wishes to get married who comes to her house with his family and the girl is required to

behave in a certain way in order to project herself as expected by the groom’s family which

underpins the ideology of the patriarchal society. The poet enunciates her views about this unjust

treatment imparted to woman in the following lines:

But, when they come to see you

 6

For a possible bride, look at the floor

The fading carpet and the unshapely toes

Of the vision who will inspect the weight

Of your gold, the paleness of your complexion

The length of your hair and ask question about

The degrees you hold and the transparency of your past.”(127)

“He Replaces Poetry” is one of the poems from Meena Kandasamy’s poetry collection in

which she expresses the pain of a woman from the birth till her last breath. In her childhood, she

is given lessons about how to appear good including, the way of dressing, combing hair, using

stickers and all others things. When a couple gives birth to a female child, they started to worry

about marriage. And with this in mind they prepare their daughter for her future. Once the girl is

married off, they will be at merry. Happiness of a woman depends on where she is. In her

parental home, “I try the mad-woman’s antics: I have pulled my hair and / Bruised my twin

wrists and bit the Insides of my cheeks till”

And After marriage her happiness is decided by her husband. Her part in her marriage life

is just nodding her head like a Tanjore doll for her husband’s wishes.

Have the words that once made me the sad lone woman

I was, and pretended to be I am happy and

I nod, like a tanjore doll in breeze, reply in cloying tones

 7

This is happiness.

She feels that the whole world become hollow for her and all her dreams eventually die. She

longs for a lot even for passion but still longing to fulfill her desires. Her life is full of hurt and

pain. She tries to overcome the tangles since birth. But everything results in screaming and

weeping. She has no one to share finally she feels that her only way to express her inner

emotions is to write.

Mamta Kalia is always behind every middle class woman. She very well projects the

mind set of her comrades through her poems. She usually takes a light theme to depict the mental

agony of the middle class woman.

That I was happy on Tuesday

I was unhappy on Wednesday

I was happy one day at 8 O’ clock

I was most unhappy by 8.10. (26)

Woman’s life is full of compromises. She has to make compromise in every walk of life.

“Sacrifice thy name is woman”. This concept was introduced by the great Hindi poet Jai Shankar

Prasad in Kamayani. In his poetic utterances he says that womanhood is the ideal and she is an

epitome of sacrifice and endurance. She is full of motherly love and her eyes brim over with

tears due to the great sufferings. It is fate that a woman’s birth is for suffering and enduring.

There is no alleviation or escape from it as she is destined to show forbearance. Feminism stands

for woman’s struggle against their continuing circumscribed existence at work in society and in

the culture of the country. Women are set to fight for emancipation and liberation from all forms
 8

of oppression by the state, by society and by men. A women’s identity is defined by man’s world

and it revolves around providing him all comforts. It is an irony. She does not own her own life.

There are set of rules or norms which dictate her life.

This same idea was posed by Meena in her poem “He Replaces Poetry”. Thus, the

problem of a middle class woman is the same and reflected in all the poems of the poetess. She

says, “Have the words that once made me the sad lone woman / I was, and pretended to be I am

happy now”.

The poem “Tribute to Papa”(1970) is an ironical collection, which depicts the clash

between her ideas and her father’s. “Tribute to Papa” is a title but there is no tribute, only revolt

against patriarchal establishment. Her father is an upholder of traditional values and wants his

daughter to follow the same. The poet is quite in contrast with her philosophy than her father’s.

She is attracted towards modernism in which there is no human value or ideals. The poets are

increasingly conscious of their identity crisis at various levels and try to express their gender

related crisis. “Tribute to Papa”, Mamta Kalia has discussed about a rebellious daughter. As she

says:

‘Who cares for you papa?

Who cares for your clean thoughts, clean words, clean teeth?

Who wants to be an angel like you?( 9)

The daughter questions the authority and concerns of the father in her upbringing. She is

in the words of Virginia Woolf, “Killing the Angel in the house” She criticizes her father as an

‘unsuccessful man’ who could not provide her a luxurious life due to his self righteous moral
 9

values. She challenges her father that in the modern world there is no room for his traditional

values and prayers. She does not mind defying the ideals of her father in order to be happy. In

the modern world, prayers are considered as concealment for inactiveness and the lack of

aptitude of a person. She interrogates and rejects her father’s idealism and sanctimony as his

inability and weakness.

When you can’t think of doing anything

You start praying,

Spending useless hours at the temple. (9)

She terms prayers as useless to which a person resorts when he/she is not able to do

anything. Mamta Kalia in the poem represents a modern, frank, awakened woman who dares to

question, judge and even revolt against her father and his values. She wants a change in the

traditional values and beliefs and is bold enough to speak against the repressive patriarchal

values. Mamta Kalia seems to be frustrated and depressed at the same time dissatisfied with the

given social order. So in her poems there is a cry and an inner desire to transform this society,

which is denied to her, so leaves her perplexed and baffled resulted in schizophrenic behavior in

her poems. She asserts as “These days I am seriously thinking of disowning you, papa/You and

your sacredness.”(9) These lines depict her as a serious critic of patriarchy. This poem is about

the struggles for autonomy and independence by the daughter. In the Indian society, daughters

have a great ‘responsibility’ for honoring the family values and any wrong step by them can

dishonor the whole family. In a patriarchal culture daughters are emotionally compelled to

sacrifice their feelings and emotions for the sake of the family. So Kalia ends the poem with an

ironic cautious note as, “But I’ll be careful, papa/ Or I know you’ll at once thing of suicide.” (9)
 10

The poet totally defies the established patriarchal standard imposed upon her father’s

feelings. It is quite a contrast to feudal times as Simon de Beauvoir says,

She owns nothing, woman does not enjoy the dignity of being a person; she

herself forms a part of the patrimony of a man: first her father then of her

husband. Under the strictly patriarchal regime, the father can from their birth on,

condemn to death both male and female children; but in the case of former,

society usually limits his power, every normal new born male is allowed to live

whereas the custom of exposing girl infants is widespread. (114)

Her father wants her to be like Lakshmibai, but she does not want to be like the heroic

female warrior like Rani of Jhansi. The comparison of Rani Lakshmibai is very satirical. In

actuality of woman who cannot fight to improve her own status. She has to prove her ability and

make her presence felt everywhere; she is a slave and the second sex. As Beauvior says,

“Women has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave, the two sexes have never, shared the

world in equality.” (?)

First she has to liberate herself free from the bonds and restraint imposed upon her by this

society then she can fight for some other causes. Rani of Jhansi fought for the cause of

independence and died. But in the case of the queen she could not maintain her own identity. Her

real name was Manu but after marriage her husband changed her name and called her Rani

Lakshmibai. She lost her name and her identity for her husband. A woman becomes great if she

sacrifices herself for her husband and children in this man made world. The problem arises when

she starts thinking about herself. So the rebellious daughter does not want to be like Rani
 11

Lakshmibai. She gives two donkey claps for her father’s greatness and three for Rani

Lakshmibai.

After marriage women takes her husband’s name, his religion, family and class. Before

marriage she was brought up by her parents and after marriage she is guarded by her husband

and in later days by her sons. In the poem “Matrimonial Bliss’ she expresses that after years of

separation that poet returned to her husband but the question is why she is away for such a long

time. There may be various reasons. She might have left her husband due to some conflict;

misunderstanding or she was emotionally away from him. There is not any emotional bonding

between her and her husband. After hearing this she feels all disjointed. Her whole image is

divided and scattered here and there. Nothing belongs to her and she belongs nowhere. A double

life is the fate of a married woman. As her husband arrives, Mamta Kalia pretends to be happy.

Society has made her so. She is hanging between her own inner desires and expectations of the

society. This situation even compels woman to spend her life, the superficiality of living with a

husband with whom she has a relationship devoid of love and understanding and feeling

separated while together. There is nobody to share her feelings. She feels lonely but pretends to

be happy in order to please her husband. “I feel all disjoined inside / But the moment I hear your

footsteps, /I put all of me together and give you my best smile.” (30)

She is confused and depressed with regard to love and matrimony. Kalia presents how

she is subjugated internally by the patriarchal society against her will and desire. So although she

is in misery and broken totally from inside, she still waits ‘anxiously’ for her husband. She is

willing to suffer only to please her man. Thus she presents the predicament of a woman as, “I

keep hanging on to you like an appendix/ but you, don’t mind.” (30) In this poem she presents
 12

the typical Indian tradition where women are forced to show concern more for their domestic

bliss and completely ignore their personal problems and miseries.

Meena Kandasamy in her poem “Fleeting” laments that she lost her whole history after

marriage and adds that she is in sorrow when she thinks of her personal identity. Meena utters

that “We move about, measuring our ages in sorrows/ But when can we get to live our lives in

retrospect?” (?) This shows how successful her marriage life is.

There are various stages and complexities of married life. Her marriage becomes a

salvation. In the poem “Work is Workship, or so they said” Meena has presented how this family

system in India proves to be a catastrophe and disaster for a woman. Meena Kandasamy and

Mamta Kalia discuss the attitude of a woman and her unhappiness. While talking about her work

she points out,

Six thirty in the a.m..

And you still have not

Gone to bed

It is three days

Since you have

Combed your hair

It is a week

Since you had a bath”

 13

These lines are highly pathetic expressing how the lower middle class woman suffers in

their day to day life. Even, how she is dedicated to her life, neglecting her “self”. It shows

generally women are considered to be a domestic animal. In “After Eight years of marriage”,

Kalia writes how a woman lives a life of hypocrisy for when her parents inquire about her

married life, she gives a ‘smile of great content’ as she does not want to hurt her parents by

narrating the miseries of living in a joint family. In poem “After eight years of marriage”, she

writes about woman’s compulsions. She is not at all satisfied with her marriage and in a large

family of the in-laws her future marriage. When they asked her whether she was happy, which

she thought to be an absurd question, but like an accommodating Indian wife she tries to swallow

everything and hide behind a shielded smile of great content. She describes her personal

suffering and believes that traditional large joint family causes trouble which she can never

forget. The poet puts it poignantly as,

I want to tell them how I wept in bed in all night once

And struggled hard from hurting myself.

That it was not easy to be happy in a family of twelve

… I swallowed everything

And smiled a smile of great content.” (26)

So like an obedient and accommodating Indian wife she swallows everything. To ask

such a question to a married woman in Indian society is absurd. “I should have laughed at it”

(26) she says, because everybody witnesses the tragic predicament of women after being
 14

married. “Instead I cried/ and in between sobs, nodded yes.” (26) A woman’s life gets

complicated in a patriarchal society as she has to maintain her smile while her heart sobs.

Mamta Kalia in her poem “Anonymous” depicts the state of a middle class woman. The

title “Anonymous” means ‘without any name’. The poem deals with the psychology of middle

class woman, who does not have any specific name. It can be any name. It denotes the whole

feminine world. She expresses the fear of losing her individuality and identity. She speaks in an

ordinary language of an average Indian middle-class woman. “I cook, I wash, I bear, I rear, I

nag, I sulk, I sag, I see” worthless movies at reduced rates. I put on weight every month and feel

happy. It denotes the whole feminine world. Here the poem wants to say that she has lost her

identity after marriage. Before marriage everyone knows her by her name but after marriage she

has become a normal middle class married woman who loses her identity after marriage. Kalia

says that she hate the word ‘adjust’. She quotes that ‘Life of a woman is very difficult you are

bound to adjust everywhere.’ But after marriage woman has to adjust a lot. When she marries a

person she is directly connected to his family also. The motto of relationship is adjustment.

Marriage is an adjustment. It is one sided elastic bond where a woman’s patience is stretched. At

last she laments and says, ‘I am no longer Mamta Kalia’ as

I’m Kamla

Or Vimla

Or Kanta or Shanta

I am no longer Mamta Kalia.

 15

Her routine life has changed her totally. All the time she is busy with managing her

home, saving and working to meet other expenses properly. The depiction of status of middle

class women is pathetic. They are just unpaid servants. Nobody takes care of her. She has to

take care of everybody. Poet wants to show the readers the inner pathos of a woman’s life that

she has to perform her household duties only then she can think of herself. They are much

occupied with their daily routine works and at last they lost even their identity. In this

patriarchal society, it is very difficult for a woman to maintain her own identity. The pressure of

kitchen-work and household task is depressing. She rightly expresses it through the words

“Unmade beds, Dirty linen papers wrong folded, slippers thrown, bulging ashtrays, lidless tubes

of toothpastes, hair cream, unwashed brushes, buttonless shirts, laceless shoes, a sinkful of

plates, and a head full of ache.”

In the writings of men, mostly, woman is considered to be the object. Meena adopts the

same technique in her poem “Elegy to my first keyboard” in which she sketches the life of a

woman to the origin and existence of the Key board. “You entered my life when I was twelve. I

really didn’t/ Have hormones then. I was lost in a different world.” Everything around her made

her to adopt and she started to love even slavery without the knowledge of slavery. Leading a life

is something strange as she has lost her personal identity as they have added some spices

according to their taste. This great mistress is longing for somebody to share her slavery. She

laments “At least, I was, until you decided to add some spice.”

The frustration and disgust with the existing reality, and the mounting desire for

autonomy, forces Mamta Kalia, a noteworthy Indian woman poet, to embark on a quest or a

search for an identity. A woman’s personality within her home gives her no autonomy, it is not

directly useful to society, it does not open out in the future and it produces nothing. This
 16

dissatisfaction results in a sense of nothingness in Mamta Kalia about which she ironically

remarks in her poems. She says that she has nothing in her life except two children and two

miscarriages. She says,

So many things

Could have happened to me

But nothing ever happened to me

Except two children

And two miscarriages.

Kalia shares her sorrows and happiness with her readers by referring two of her children and

miscarriages. She has a good capacity of changing pain, sorrow, wretchedness and dreary

atmosphere into good and jovial atmosphere. Her style is direct, informal and intimate.

Dream of a woman before marriage is wider. In India, a woman is considered to be an

embodiment of sacrifice and silent suffering. She should be virtuous, chaste, submissive,

homely, graceful and devoted to her husband and his family. Finally, unknown to herself she

acknowledges all these qualities to be a companion of sacrifice was expressed by Meena in her

poem “Model” as “Unknown to herself, she inspires- / Love. Hope. Pity. A little dedication. /

One day, grim realization knocks my brain.” A sudden realization within her leads to a kind of

dreary life. She is in immense pain because of her loss of identity and leading her life only with a

batch of somebody’s wife.

 17

Patriarchy idealizes motherhood and forces women to be mothers and also determines the

condition of their motherhood. Patriarchy limits women’s mobility and produces male

dominance. In “Dead Woman Walking” Meena picks up a mythical figure Karaikal Ammayar,

who was in love with Lord Shiva, in different perspective. According to Meena, she is not the

one who deserted her husband to be with her lord but she was a wretched woman deserted by her

husband. Karaikal Ammayar was a beautiful wife of a merchant but her husband become

doubtful of his wife’s talent in serving delicious meals. Instead of understanding “the magic of

her (my) multiplying love”, her husband took her to be a mystic and left her. By leaving her, he

married a “flesh and formless wife”. Meena Kandasamy, defines Karaikal Ammaiyar as a “Dead

Woman” because she is alive by her physic but dead by her heart as this incident keeps on

throbbing in her heart. The pain of a women deserted by her husband is aptly captured by Meena

in “Dead Woman Walking” as, “I wept in Vain, I wailed, I walked on my head, I went to god”

Karaikal Ammayar wept till her weeping turned into wailing. It is common for a human

to worship God with deep effort in case of their recovery from their loss or sorrow, likewise she

turned all her attention to Lord Shiva for consolation, but even that was criticized by the society.

Some called her “Mother” but many considered her as a mad woman which forced her to lead a

life into the “Land of the Living dead” where she lived with “faltering sleep, felted flying hair, /

With hollowed cheeks that offset bulging eyes”.

This poem is an expression of reality in the Indian society particularly throws light on the

hardships and emotional stress of the downtrodden, abandoned women. This same idea was

poured in her poetry by Mamta Kalia as

“She worshipped the Shivalinga all her life

 18

And spurned her husband in bed

She fought against defilement at every step

And her husband eloped with her sister in March”

Both the poems have the resemblance of the practices in India. Injustice to woman is

happening since from the date of origin. Even during the period of Sati women were forced to

fall into the same funeral pyre of her husband but that was not a rule for her husband. Instead, he

was permitted to remarry a young girl for his happy future.

If a thing is repeatedly posed by somebody, it is of much importance and a thing to be

looked into and taken for analyse. Since Meena Kandasamy strongly utters that the only way for

woman is to write, but then even she does favours for the male society though the injustice is for

her is from them. One can find this in the lines of Meena in “Narration” as “How Can I say /

Anything, anything / Against my own man?” Her relationship with her husband is so cold and

devoid of love and understanding. She exposes the cruelty of men towards their wives in the

poems like, “I’m Not Afraid Of A Naked Truth” as “I’m not afraid of a naked truth / Or a naked

knife or a naked drain / In fact I am very much afraid of a naked man. (78) If there is anything in

the world she fears is only the ‘man’ and his oppression on women. A woman submits herself

completely to the will of man and in return he jilts her at any stage of life without any reason.

When Kalia finds no other means to fight against the oppression of men, she moves

towards writing. She finds writing a medium for her emancipation and tries to get rid of her inner

conflicts through it. She expresses her feelings in, ‘In My Hour of Discontent”:

In my hour of discontent
 19

I neither shout nor rant

I simply fill ink in my pen

And spill it with intent. (17)

But she has to be very cautious and self-restrained while writing or she will be dealt with severe

punishment by patriarchal society. The irony expressed by Kalia in following lines. “Using my

pen like sword / Creating at best only verbal discord.” She utters that she gains a kind of hope

through her writing. she may change the traditional ideology against women constructed by

patriarchal forces so that this place will become a better place for women. She concludes her

poem “I Write”:

I write

Because I cannot bite.

It’s the way

The weak ones fight.(15)

Meena Kandasamy in her poem “The flight of Birds” expresses how a woman is adapting

to the environment through the flight of a bird. For birds, flying is an amusement, they compose

mid-air and for woman in their life hardships are amusement and there are no words to write

about it. Archibald Madeish, In “Arts Poetica” states, “A poem should be wordless/ as the flight

of birds”. Woman has a lot and lot to write but their writings are limited. Initially, their writings

are prohibited but they borrow freedom and express their grieves for their freedom. The readers

take it as a song to read and get delighted and fail to look into it. Hence, once again women

content themselves at least the readers take the song to read.

 20

O the birds have lots and lots and lots to write about

O their writings will never be banned.

They borrow freedom

To write poems in the sky

They come back and

Pass it on to us

We take the song only

Brutally

But at least we take the song.

Once again Meena speaks the same what Kalia says that the only way woman satisfy

their wishes is to write. She states

The poems will come

Silent

Wordless

As the flight of birds.

Women in our society are subjected to various atrocities. Sexual crimes against women

are kept on increasing alarmingly. Given that the fear and the shame that women undergo

passiveness of the concerned authorities to record such crimes, many a times the sexual assaults
 21

on a woman by man do not get reported and recorded. Domestic violence and the dowry death

also contribute a lot to the victimization of the women in Indian male dominant society. In the

poem, “My Lover Speaks of Rape” Meena discusses the victimization the women at the hands of

the men.

Green turns to unslightly teal of hospital beds

And he is softer than feathers, but I fly away

To shield myself from the retch of the burns

Ward, the shrill sounds of dying declarations,

The floral pink-White sad skins of dowry deaths. (138)

Words are insufficient to express the inhuman treatment given to women in the Indian

Society. Gender Discrimination is an omnipresent social evil which exist all over the world even

today. Men of all castes and classes come together in making certain rules of behavior and build

the limited scope for female growth.

In “Dignity”, Meena calls the privileged men to be sympathetic and considerate towards

the marginalized women. She believes in dignity and equality of all. She wishes they would not

deprive due share of the oppressed, maintaining their own dignity and faith. As a warning she

tells them not to suppress the marginalized without any reason or deny their dignity. She is

agitated and states,

But, don’t suppress

our rightful share of dignity. It

 22

might even prove helpful

If you ever learnt

That virtue.

It is their fate to bear threats of rape and violence from the hands of the privileged. Even

at their home itself they were dragged into a pitiable condition. Meena Kandasamy is pained to

see the miserable condition of the women. In Indian society physical and mental exploitation of

the girls is very common. It is very rare to read a daily newspaper without an abuse against

women. Most shocking aspect is that the culprits involved in these sexual assaults find escaping

easily. The helpless girl sets herself into fire as a solution to this sin.

The term identity enables the readers to understand the person, as well as the various

roles the person has within each community that she or he is participating in. The concept of

identity describes who they are, what their feeling, their hopes and desires, their interests, the

essence of the person as well as the characteristics of the person are. Identity of a woman is still

missing; they have not got their real position in the society, so they are in search for real identity

or their own. In “Their Daughter”, Meena writes,

Young wife near my father’s home, with a drunken husband

Who never changed; she bore his daily beatings until on one

Stormy night, in fury, she killed him by stomping his seedbags…

We: their daughter.

We: the daughter of their soil.

 23

We, mostly, write.

Feminism in India is good as long as it is a movement, but now it is more of a brand

focused on liberalization of the body. So the search for an identity of a woman is an ‘identity

image’ that means asserting the identities. It is all about women’s search for her independence,

liberalization and her status of equality. It is the search for “asmita” her existence. (Kalia) (?) In

the poem, “Aggression” Meena Kandasamy speaks of an aggressive state of group. They have

been waiting for a longtime to their dream come true. Out of their endless wait their aggressive

state would one day break into wails. The suppressed emotions would one day come to light, but

it is not possible to control all at once. Their controlled emotions (rights) will definitely get into

greater forms. She rightly says, “Sometimes the outward signals of inward struggles take

colossal forms” (5). There their dreams get fulfillment. Therefore she concludes by believing

that the aggression is not just a stressed state, for it leads to a positive change. She points out,

Ours is a silence

That waits. Endlessly waits.

And then, unable to bear it

Any further, it breaks into vails.”

Kandasamy imagines that the women to be argumentative, persistent, rebellious, fearless

and ready to face all sorts of troubles. “In Millitancy” the protagonist suggests that the militant

spirit can be kept full of life even after losing the right thumbs as one can pull a trigger or hurl a

bomb even with left hand. “You can do a lot of things / With your left hand.” In “A Rooms of
 24

One’s Own” she recalls how she has been prohibited from entering the university library, the

symbolic sanctuary of the male logos.

Meena Kandasamy outwardly depicts the bare truth happening in society against the

fundamental rights and freedom of woman. She poignantly records the miseries, humiliation, and

brutalities experienced by the oppressed women in “Touch” and “Ms. Militancy”. Kamala Das

remarks, “Once again after long years of search I came into contact with the power of honest

poetry when I was reading Meena Kandasamy’s anthology.” She also adds, “Older by half a

century, I acknowledge the superiority of her poetic vision and wish her access to the magical

brew of bliss and tears each true poet is forced to partake of day after day, month after month,

year after year…” Her poetry is an onslaught on the social evils in the society, longing for basic

fundamental rights to women and oppression on women. She champions the cause of the

marginalized and pleads for their liberty, equality, fraternity and justice so that they can live with

honor and dignity.

“Ms. Militancy” is the title poem of the volume by Meena Kandasamy. This poem

centers on Tamil Classic Silapathikaram protagonist – Kannaki. Kannaki is meant for her

patience and tolerance. She has been dedicated and loyal to her betrayal imaged husband

Kovalan even she is aware that he returns from dancer mistress – Madhavi. Though this shows

male chauvinism, the wrath of Kannaki at the death of her husband shows her as a bold

revolutionist. Such a militant woman is the woman that Meena Kandasamy dreams of. She is the

role model for the subjugated women to come out of their nutshell. The very first stanza of the

poem has a pathetic tone:

She taught she was dying – ants crawled

 25

Under her flaking skin, migraines visited her

At mealtimes, her tender-as-tomato breasts

Bruised to touch, her heart forgot its steady beat.

This poem is a call to women to be revolutionary and courageous like the protagonist

herself. Though Kannaki is deeply affected by her husband’s betrayal, she readily accepts him

when he returns from his dancer mistress’s lap. She supports him by giving him one of her

anklets to start a fresh life. Kannaki in the first part of this poem is very devoted and loyal when

judged by the standards of Tamil culture which advocates patriarchal dominance. But the rage,

she displays at the death of her husband’s shows that she is not a passive, submissive Kannaki

but a bold, assertive, revolutionist. She gives the justice which her husband, a patriarch at figure

fails to get. Justice alone can suffice her anger and she burns down the entire city by “a bomb of

her breast”. Such is the faith in her. She has set herself as a model for downtrodden and

subjugated women.

“Princess in Exile” is about “Sita”, who walked out of her (palace) from her husband

Rama, when her chastity was questioned. She indirectly avenges her husband for his act of

suspicion on her. Likewise, Meena wants women not to follow the rules laid by the patriarchal

society. Her Sita has perfected the art of vanishing from the day she was kidnapped. Her

constant walkout is her way of taking revenge on her husband who was not careful enough to

protect her or even to rescue her within a short time span. Meena fearlessly with her bombasting

words attack the superstitious and the age old orthodox beliefs forced upon women by the

patriarchal society. Meena utters

Scorned, she sought refuge in spirituality

 26

And was carried away by a new-age guru

With saffron clothes and caramel words.

Years later, her husband won her back

But by then, she was adept at walkots,

She had perfected the vanishing act.”

Commenting on her poems Meena Kandasamy once said: “I work to not only get back at

you. I actually fight to get back to myself. I don’t write into patriarchy. My Maariamma bays for

blood. My Kali kills. My Draupadi strips. My Sita Climbs onto a strangers lap. All women

militate. They brave bombs, they belittle kings (Kandaswamy, 2010).