Kamala Das as a Confessional Poet

Kamala Das is pre-eminently a confessional poem and , in this respect , she

may be regarded as an outstanding Indo-Anglian poet . A confessional poet
is one who takes the reader into confidence about his or her personal and
private life , and reveals those facts of her life which an ordinary person ,
even if that person be a poet , would keep strictly to himself or herself
because of the delicate nature of those facts. A confessional poet has shed
all his or her inhibitions and to write frankly , candidly ,and in an
outspoken manner , thus defying the restrictions and restraints which the
social code and the conventions of society impose upon him or her .

ABSTRACT
Confessional poetry can be broke down as an expansion of the continuous flow method created
and altered by present day writers. It is a part of present day poetry there is no spot either for
religion or morals in this poetry. Her poetry is concerned both with the outside and inside world.
Confessional comprises an intriguing component of women's composition, in which the poets
reveal confidentialities that bond her private and open circles together. This paper is an
examination concerning the poetry of Kamala Das (1934-2009), the productive Indian lady
essayist of the twentieth century to explain confessional components in her poetry. Das obtains
this style of composing from her contemporary American writers and utilizes it as a methods for
verbalization, exchange and obstruction through anticipating oneself.

KEYWORDS
Confession, Poetry, Confessional, Women.

I. INTRODUCTION
Confessional poetry is a part of current poetry. There is no spot either for religion or ethics in this
poetry. The writer does not anticipate any recovery or reprisal as there is no regret. It is only, that
they open up about their inner feelings to get a mystic alleviation. It is of some remedial esteem.

These confessional poems are seriously close to home, exceedingly abstract. There is no
'persona' in the poems. 'I' in the poem is the writer and no one else. The themes are in an exposed
fashion humiliating and concentrate too only upon the agony, anguish and offensiveness of life to
the detriment of its pleasure and magnificence.
The confessional poets were named as despondent people by the general public, as they didn't
pursue any tradition nor regarded any shows. They needed to be remarkable and not a piece of
the conventional social set up. This contention with the general public leads them to
thoughtfulness. In the course, comes a limit when they couldn't bargain with themselves. They
free themselves defenselessly in the fight and begin looking for the lost self. This contention has
brought forth various excellent poems. The delicate artist can't underestimate disappointment. At
this point, life ends up horrendous and the call of death ends up overpowering. They are more
than persuaded that passing can offer them more comfort than life (Das, 2009).

II. KAMALA DAS: AS A CONFESSIONAL POET

Kamala Das is pre-prominently a confessional poem and, in this regard, she might be viewed as
an exceptional Indo-Anglian artist. A confessional artist is one who brings the pursuer into
certainty about his or her own and private life , and uncovers those actualities of her life which a
customary individual, regardless of whether that individual be an artist , would remain quiet
about carefully or herself due to the fragile idea of those realities. A confessional writer has shed
all his or her hindrances and to compose honestly, authentically, and in a candid way, in this
manner challenging the limitations and restrictions which the social code and the shows of
society force upon the person in question.

Even more starting late, especially among the American poets, like John Berryman and Robert
Lowell, there has risen a poetry which gives off an impression of being less stressed to total up
its investigations and articulations of the writer's very own interior state. It is a kind of poetry
which M. L. Rosenthal has called "Confessional." Here the word 'Confession' ought to be
explained. As shown by the Oxford English Dictionary 'Confession' would imply "recognizing
that one has messed up, make known one's transgressions to a priest." It is plainly a religious
definition. In criminal law, 'confession' involves "a verbal affirmation by a reprimanded
individual for facts which, nearby different substances, will in general exhibit coerce yet are not
in themselves sufficient to support a conviction, or which show indiscriminating conduct tending
to set up guilt.'" Confession has its own one of a kind tradition: Long tradition in religion and
life. The association of confession is Christianity. In Christianity it is orally made assertion of a
bad behavior to a clergyman to get direction and possible abatement. Confessional writers in
their own chronicles have told the truth in regards to their past presences with all of the
frivolities and waywardness of youth. Figuratively speaking, by conceding all of their
transgressions, they endeavored to exorcize themselves. They expected to discard the heaviness
of blame. The purpose behind confessional writers was to experience their past, separate the
waywardness and debasement of their youth and by suggestion free themselves of the blame
squeezing upon their inner voice. By conceding their careless activities and shortcomings, these
writers went for purging themselves of each and every existent negative behavior pattern inside
(Rosenthal, 1959).
The intermittent theme of her confessions is her unfulfilled love, communicated through her
self-perceptions. The contemporary feminists, actually, want women writers to be confessional to
express their requirement for love transparently. Helen Cixous feels that a lady's self-governance
is her factuality and Elaine Showalter underlined gyno-analysis, since they feel that the female
innovativeness, her realness lies in having solid relationship with the other that she is a body for
the other, as the other is the body for her. This relationship of mutual objectification lies in the
core of her poetry.

III. CONFESSIONALISM IN KAMALA DAS’ POETRY:

The confessional poets are film their feelings laying on manuscript, craft and development. They
are enormously basic to their exertion. It is a division of contemporary refrain. There is no
position planned for conviction just as standards inside this stanza. The versifier may not
envision some liberation or retribution. This is on the grounds that there is no distress. It is
promptly that they endured their soul to look out an extraordinary discharge. It is of different
useful significances.

Confessional poetry speaking to the poets claim conditions experience and feelings, Kamala Das
broadens her poetry as a test against the standard male organization. The poetry reveals private
or cold marriage issue about the person in question including sexual experience, mental anguish
and ailment. She communicates her longing through her beautiful words. In the realms of Swati
Guleria, [ 3]

Confessional element also help to expose how patriarchy assigned only sexual identity to women
and that too not independent of patriarchal will as well as bring out the major difference that
mark a great void between men and women. According to this difference, men hanker after
pleasure, whereas women crave for an ideal niche full of love, care, mutual respect and a sense
of thankfulness for what she does for the man instead of taking it for granted.(Guleria)

A. The Confession in the Poem Entitled The Sunshine Cat

That there is a poem entitled 'The Sunshine' cat which she complains about the pain and the
suffering which, first her husband, and then the many other men with whom she had a sexual
experience, caused to her. She accuses her husband of having been a selfish and cowardly man
who neither loved her nor used her properly but who was a ruthless watcher of her sexual act
with other men. She had tried her utmost to please her sexual partners by clinging to their hairy
chests, but they all told her that they could only gratify her sexual desire but could not love her.
The consequence was that she lay in bed sexual desire but could not love her.

Confessional poetry sounds so appealing and so convicting. It frequently takes resorts to personal
failures and mental illness of its composer. ‘The Sunshine Cat’ is a poem of her mental illness in
the company of a cruel husband, in it we have:
“Her husband shut her in,

Locked in a room of books

With a streak of sunshine

Lying near the door . . . ..

When He returned to take her out she was a cold and

Half dead woman know of no use at all to men.” (Das, 1965)

Kamala Das as a confessional writer has rendered some important support of the female sex
making them aware of their torpid sexual wants and their smothered discontent with their
spouses from the sexual perspective. She has subsequently given a kind of impetus to women to
stand up for themselves or if nothing else not to smother themselves. In these confessional poems
Kamala Das shows up as a feminist, in a roundabout way upholding the freedom of women from
the conventional social limitations and taboos.

B. Confession of Motherhood in Her Poems

Two of Kamala Das poems contain her inclination as a mother. The poem entitled Jaisurya
communicates her sentiment of exultation when she in going to bring forth a tyke and her
sentiment of pride when the chind coes out of the haziness of her belly into this splendid world
lit by daylight . Amid the labor, Kamala Das felt that to her around then neither love was
significant nor lust, and that the man or men, who had been selling out her by satisfying their lust
and afterward spurning her, did not make a difference to her at all. She observed labor to be a
superb marvel. The other poem about her motherhood has the title of The White Flowers.

Confessional composing can be a wellspring of power; it takes solidarity to uncover ones

individual and private experience. Her confessional poetry likewise bargain among satisfaction
and an un-fulfillment love in her life. For her poetry is something profoundly close to home.
Summer in Calcutta has an extensive number of love poems bearing distinctive shades of love.
She herself concedes that in her poems there is an excessive amount of love. In her life account
My Story she communicates that, "Love has a beginning and an end yet lust has no such
faults."(My Story) (Das, 1988)

IV. THE THERAPEUTIC AND CATHARTIC EFFECT OF HER

CONFESSIONAL POETRY
Kamala Das' confessional poetry, as most confessional poetry composed by Nissim Ezekiel,
Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath (Sylvia, 1971) has a therapeutic and catharic impact on the
perusers too s on the essayist herself. Confessional poetry is composed by a writer under an
inward weight so as to offer vent to his or her complaints or feeling of resent mentor a feeling of
the bad form experienced by that person. By admitting what a writer has experienced, the
individual in question can get some help; and such poetry normally conveys some alleviation to
the pursuer too by making him feel that his own feeling of bad form should mean taking note of
when contrasted with the more intense and progressively excruciating feeling of shamefulness of
people significantly more significant and considerably more gifted then he. After all, cleansing
just methods the sentiment of alleviation which an individual experiences After seeing the
display of sentiment of help which an individual experiences in the wake of seeing the scene of
other experiencing the impacts of the worry of conditions or of incidents or from a feeling of
guilt. All confessional craftsmanship, says a critic*. is a methods for executing the brutes which
are inside us, those awful mythical serpents of dreams and experiences that must be chased
down, cornered , and presented so as to be decimated .

What's more, the poetry of Kamala Das unquestionably will in general execute such mammoths
in herself and, unexpectedly, comparative monsters in us. As indicated by another critic, Kamala
Das' poetry is loaded with a powerful power of purge and dissent. This is along these lines, says
this critic, due to Kamala Das' strongly confessional quality and her ultra-abstract treatment
.Kamala Das raises her confessional characteristics to the dimension of a particular widespread
appeal. The battle of herself eventually turns into the battle of all humankind, and thus lies her
strength (or her uncommon power),matter to accomplish a type of triumph over agony and
annihilation. Poems of this sort are shines on the triumph of life. Due to the supreme confessions
made by a gathering of poets in their poetry, especially in America (such poets as Robert Lowell,
Anne Sexton (Sexton, 2004). Sylvia Plath, and John Berryman) they have raised themselves to a
dimension know as confessional poets , and Kamal Das' place is surely secure in the positions of
these poets. Indeed, even suicide is a subject they are prepared to admit. In one of his poems,
John Berryman seems to consider over, and engineer, his suicide; "Everything fixated at last on
the suicide/In which I am a specialist, profound and wide." In the equivalent nein, Sylvia Plath
writes in a well-known poem;" Dying/Is a craftsmanship, such as everything, is unmistakably
consideration suicide as a ways to get out from the dissatisfaction, is plainly thinking about
suicide as ways to get out from the disappointment of life. Kamala Das' poetry has a cathartic
impact in light of the fact that, the more piercing her confessional tone is, in poems like The
Sunshine Cat and My Grandmother's House, the more noteworthy is the cathartic impact.

V. CONCLUSION
The confessional poetry of Kamala Das is a versified response of this author to segregations,
limitations and choppiness that she has experienced in her life. This response frequently goes
past the typical furthest reaches of tradition, show and the set up conviction arrangement of
family, society, religion and culture. If there should be an occurrence of women writers such
responses might be thrown in feminist casings and sounds like a voicing challenge, and
obstruction against man centric codes. Works of experts of this school, including Das uncover
indications of "chaotic psychic situation" of the author (Das, 1988).

As indicated by the investigation of Kamala Das poems we presume that the confessional poetry
originates from her fruitless marriage life. She generally talks about love, love which is identified
with men women relationship, as a confessional writer she is looking for love, she was candidly
broken in light of the fact that she finds no love in for her entire life. Enduring and torment hues
her beautiful structure.

REFERENCES:
1. Das, K. (2009). An Introduction. In Summer in Calcutta (p. 63). Kottayam , Kerala India : D
C. iv Summer in Calcutta 13.

2. Rosenthal, M. L. (1959). Poetry as Confession, The Nation, (189), pp. 154-155.

3. Guleria, S. (2007). On the Sub Version of Patriarchy in Indian Women Poetry in English (S. K.
Paul & A. N. Prasad, Eds.). Indian Poetry in English Roots and Blossoms (Part-1 ed., Vol. 1, p.
272). New Delhi: Sarup& Sons.

4. Kamala Das (1965). “Sunshine Cat”, Summer in Calcutta, (New Delhi: Everest Press, 1965)

5. Das, Kamala (1988). My Story. New Delhi: Sterling, 1988

6. Plath, Sylvia (1971). The Bell Jar. New York : Harper, 1971

7. Sexton, A. (2004). Anne Sexton: A self-portrait in letters. Ed, Sexton, L. Gray and L. Ames,
New York: Mariner Books.

8. Das, Kamala (1988). My Story. New Delhi: Sterling, 1988

2. Kamala Das, ‘My Story’ 2.1 About the author Kamala Das (1934–2009)
was a famous Indian poet and novelist who wrote in both English and
Malayalam, her mother tongue. While writing in Malayalam, she used the
pen name Madhavikutty. She was born in Thrissur, Kerala into a fairly
privileged family. Her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma was a well-known
Malayali poet who had published around 20 collections of poems; and her
father V.M. Nair was a senior executive in an automobile company and
editor of the journal Mathrubhumi. Kamala Das has written three
collections of poems in English; Summer in Calcutta (1965), The
Descendants (1967), and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973). In
addition, she has written collections of short stories, two novels, and
numerous essays as a syndicated columnist. Overall, she has published 25
books and collections of poetry. However, it is her autobiography My Story
(1976) that remains her most well-known work. Kamala Das was honoured
with the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (English) in 1984 and nominated
for the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year. On 1 February, 2018,
Google honoured her with a doodle. My Story was originally published in
serialized form in the Malayalam weekly Malayanadu and as a book, Ente
Katha in 1973. Kamala Das’ autobiography caused a sensation when it first
started appearing. Her honest and undiluted depiction of her loneliness in
her marriage, her adulterous affairs and her literary career appealed to
readers, though many were shocked. There are many accounts about how
her own father tried to stop the publication of Ente Katha. In My Story,
Kamala Das traces her life from her childhood in Calcutta and Malabar; to
her marriage to a much older banker Madhav Das when she was just fifteen
years old, and motherhood at sixteen; her loneliness while her husband
remained busy with his work and her dissatisfaction with her marriage,
though her husband encouraged her to write. In her autobiography, she
questions the traditional roles thrust upon women in patriarchal society,
writing openly about her relationships with other men. Kamala Das
influenced an entire generation of women writers in Kerala but her honesty
in depicting her physical desires remains unmatched. It is no wonder that
My Story remains the best-selling autobiography written by an Indian
woman. 2.2 Study Guide: ‘The House on Park Street’ ‘The Park Street
Home’ is the second chapter of Kamala Das’s autobiography. Park Street
was a famous, posh locality in Calcutta in pre-independence India. Her
father was a senior executive at the Wolford Transport Company, selling
luxury cars to princes and their relatives. The family lived above the repair
yard of the transport company. In this chapter she describes her early life in
Calcutta, where she and her brother went to a British school. Neglected by
their parents, the sister and brother find ways to keep themselves occupied.
3 The chapter begins with a description of her parents’ wedding. Like many
educated middle-class people, her father was deeply influenced by
Gandhiji’s ideals of simplicity and nationalism. Kamala Das’ mother
belonged to an upper-class family of landlords without much money, and
when she got married her husband did not permit her to wear any gold
jewellery or expensive clothes. She was asked to wear only khadi and that
too only white or off-white. Read this passage carefully and note the
honesty with which she comments on their relationship; My mother did not
fall in love with my father. They were dissimilar and horribly mismatched.
(p. 4) The author, even as a young child, sensed that her parents’ marriage
was an ‘illusion of domestic harmony’ and that too because her mother
remained timid. It requires immense courage to write so openly about the
shortcomings of the people closest to you, especially your parents. In
another part of her autobiography, Kamala Das writes about her own
marriage; ‘As a marriage, in the conventional sense, mine was a flop.’ (p.
187) In the first chapter, Kamala Das talks about her mother who was
‘vague and indifferent’ towards her children, spending her time lying on her
bed, writing poems, while her father was busy selling Rolls Royces and
Bentleys. Even as a young child, the author could sense the lack of
appreciation in her parents’ eyes. Without any irony she writes; We must
have disappointed our parents a great deal. They did not tell us so, but in
every gesture, and in every word it was evident. (p. 5) She somehow thinks
that the parents are indifferent towards them because both she and her
brother were ordinary looking and had dark skin. Children in unhappy
marriages often blame themselves for the problems between their parents.
It must have been painful for her to look at herself this way. There’s no
doubt her childhood was lonely; she describes their drawing room as one
where visitors rarely came. At the same time this loneliness nurtured her
ability to reflect and observe. In an interview, Kamala Das once said, “If I
had been a loved person, I wouldn’t have become a writer . . .” The six-year
old Kamala has a special bond with her elder brother and the two children
spend their time playing around the house, which was above the repair yard
of the motor company for which their father worked. Pay attention to the
description of their house; We lived on the top-floor of the repair-yard of
the motor car company. One had to climb thirty-six steps to reach our flat.
Midway there was to the right an opening which led on to the servants’
quarters where night and day a faucet leaked noisily, sadly. There was a
stench of urine which made one pause precisely on that step of the staircase
wondering where it came from. In the space of a few lines, the author
describes sounds and smells; adds irrelevant and unimportant details like
the number of steps, and uses a metaphor as well, ‘sadly’. All these 4
together create a certain mood or atmosphere. Almost all good writers use
this technique to create an authentic picture. Discouraged by the parents’
emotional distance, Kamala and her brother try to stay away from them.
They spend their time chatting with the gardener, the scavenger or the
cook. Otherwise the children look for excitement in little things; like
standing at the window and dangling rubber toys from a thread to surprise
passers-by. However, they do find a friend in Mr. Menon, the store
manager in the office downstairs, who is like a father figure. He is the only
person who listens to them and talks to them. The author remembers his
warmth and attention; We had only one good friend, just one good friend
who liked to touch our hands and talk to us about life in general. (p.6)
Kamala tells Mr. Menon about a doll’s house she saw at a friend’s place and
he makes one for her; taking out the time to carve out little pieces of
furniture and paint it. The children go and look at it frequently, thrilled
with the smell of the red paint on the doll’s house. The cook in their house
is an ill-tempered fellow and shouts at the monkeys who steal food from
their kitchen. He seems to be keen to go and settle in England, telling the
scavenger that Mrs Ross, who is the wife of her father’s boss, will take him
if he asks her to. Remember, the year is around 1941, with a strong British
presence in Calcutta. Kamala notices that the scavenger is served tea in a
cup kept especially for him. It is an innocent child’s observation but points
to the practice of untouchability in their household. 2.3 Summing Up This
short chapter is about Kamala Das’s early childhood when she lived in
Calcutta. Even as a little girl, she could sense her parents’ incompatibility
and felt rejected. Deprived of warmth and affection from the parents, the
brother and sister spend time with the domestic staff. Her only happy
memory from the time is that of Mr. Menon, who sat in the office below
their flat. He was a kind man who made a large doll’s house for the author
even before she asked for it. The two things to appreciate in her writing are
her complete honesty and power of observation. She doesn’t shy away from
writing about the lovelessness she observes between her mother and father.
Her memories of her childhood are vivid, indicating that even as a child she
was a keen and sensitive observer. Glossary
betrothal : engagement.
khaddar : handwoven cotton fabric, symbol of India’s struggle for
independence.
widow’s weeds : black clothing worn by widows in Victorian England;
‘weeds’ is the old English word for garments/clothing.
5 arid union : dry, barren, loveless relationship.
swarthy skin : dark-coloured skin. monthly purgative of castor oil : it was
common to give children castor oil to flush out toxins and remove parasites
from the stomach.
scavenger : person employed to clean.
puny, pale child : thin, unhealthy looking child.
whittled : carved, as with wood.
Vilayat : Urdu for foreign land, a name for England