1

Discipline Courses-I
Paper: Indian Writing in English
Lesson Developer: Shashi Khurana
Semester-I
Lesson: Kamala Das: ‘My Grandmother’s House’
College/Department: Fellow in ILLL, University of
Delhi
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Kamala Madhvikutty (Born 31 March 1934)

http://beyondthedrama.blogspot.in/2012/10/the-truth-behind-conversion-of_8029.html

Kamala Das (Name after marriage at the age of 15)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/My_Story_Kamala_Das.jpeg
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Kamala Suraiyya (Name after embracing Islam in 1999 at the age of 65 till her death in 2009)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Kamala_das.jpg

KAMALA DAS(1934-2009)

Born in Kerala, Kamala Das began her literary career, like her mother, as a short story writer in
Malayalam. She, however, achieved wider recognition as an Indo-English poet with her widely read
works like Summer in Calcutta (1965) The Descendants (1976) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems
(1973). Reflecting a feminine sensibility and feminist understanding , the writings of Kamala Das reflect
the tensions of modern India and a quest for fulfillment . She questions, asserts and defies through a
poetry of polemics and emotional intensity foregrounding a body of woman-specific experience. Her
conscious rejection and adoption of various identities and names reflect an impassioned search for a
comfortable persona in a highly divisive society .

If I had not learnt to write, how would

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I have written away my loneliness

or grief? Garnering them within, my heart

would have grown heavy as a vault, one that

only death might open; a release then

I would not be able to feel or sense.......

7.1.1985 (The Anamalai Poems)

Unstructured lines of a poetic composition capture the compelling need for self expression and
confession through the medium of the written word. Can the lines be attributed to a particular gender?
Or do these lines speak of a common urge to transcribe the void of incomprehensible angst and
alienation the sheer burden of which is unbearable. Chekhov -like, the grieving heart seeks a receptacle.
The lines shift from a sensual conjunction between craft , freedom and the inevitable numbness.
However, what the lines do capture is the characteristic spirit of women's writing--the medium of
unburdening and exploring. Is the women's poetry a distinctive genre within the larger genre of poetry?
The question elicits contentious answers and thus invites a foray into women's poetry without losing
sight of and ignoring the specific historical, cultural and ideational circumstances in which the poetry
has been written. Jo Gill shares many a misgiving which sees women's poetry as encouraging differences
between women and men poets ,collapsing the differences between women poets but asserts the need
to "...recognise heterogeneity and to remain alert to the multiplicity of contexts, experiences and forms
evidenced in women's poetry....(and look ) for areas of common ground which, however narrow and
meandering, are shared by women's poetry of different periods, cultures and modes. (Thus) the
suggestion that such common ground might be found in the self-reflexivity or self-consciousness
evidenced in women's poetry....It is here....that we see unity within diversity."

If I had not learnt to write, how would

I have written away my loneliness

or grief?

Women's resistance to domestic and social restrictions imposed on their acquisition of literacy and
education are well documented now to understand their struggle in eradicating the gendered access to
education and formal learning. Gynocritical writing thus enriches the larger genre of poetry through its
subject, style and purpose.

Contemporary women's poetry

 5

C.S. Lakshmi (b. 1944) better known as Ambai stresses the need to transcend cultivated beliefs in one's
writing referring to the re-defined images of iconic women characters in the writings of women. Isobel
Armstrong notes that the way women write is a pertinent point of departure and exploration into
specifics of women's poetry. "Poems themselves reflect on their own 'processes of production and
reception'. They are committed to enquiring about their own authority, their own status, their own
place in a cultural context which has, historically, tended to find them aberrant". (Linda Hutcheon) What
emerges as an important theme is women's writing itself. The self-consciousness and discovery of
writing as a powerful tool of self-expression as a writer is expressed as a sense of relief for the self, in
the Anamalai poem above. Writing appears in the form of a saviour, a means of relief and clarity.

my heart

would have grown heavy as a vault, one that

only death might open; a release then

I would not be able to feel or sense.......

The poem foregrounds a personalised experience of a crushing state from which the narrator has found
release. The personalised experience brought into poetry touches upon larger issues of women's own
emotions, denials and sufferings and their courage to publicly delineate these emotions. The lines also
reflect the historical juncture when women acquired or appropriated the tools of empowerment.
Positioned to express the personal, kamala Das uses the medium to build a critique of legitimised
patriarchal institutions and in a daring voice and tone asserts :

I have cut myself adrift from those who professed

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to need my love, and can now have freedom even

if it be that insecure one of the boat,

bereft of rowers, oars or sails. Yes, only

the blood's moorings have any relevance, but

they rest in ancient graveyards, now turned into

municipal play-grounds, where over layers and layers

of brittle bones, the booted legs

of adolescents kick a football around,

or, in the southern wing of the ancestral

estate where the coconut trees have nailed down

the matriarchs' bosoms with thirsting roots.

No, not for me the beguiling promise of

domestic bliss, the goodnight kiss, the weekly

letter that begins with the words 'My dearest;'

not for me the hollowness of marital

vows and the loneliness of a double-bed

where someone else lies, dreaming of another mate,

a woman, perhaps

lustier than his own.......

13. 1. 1985 (The Anamalai Poems)

The opening lines of the poem reveal the narrator's new knowledge --the duplicity , pretensions and
lack of love those who professed to need my love in the institution of heterosexual marriage and the
personal resolve to cut myself adrift. The knowledge of duplicity and hollowness shifts from the
personal to the general in a society which is structured on patriarchal notions of women's roles
especially in marriage.

No, not for me the beguiling promise of

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domestic bliss, the goodnight kiss, the weekly

letter that begins with the words 'My dearest;'

not for me the hollowness of marital

vows and the loneliness of a double-bed

where someone else lies, dreaming of another mate,

a woman, perhaps

lustier than his own.......

The narrator seeks the bodily and emotional freedom from institutionalised bondages but indulges in
the blood's moorings which time and place have transformed into new realities deny the privileges
once experience. The concern is clearly with the constitutional elimination of traditional cultural
practices of matrilocal residences after marriage and an overpowering sense of nostalgia for established
kinship patterns which eschewed dislocation. The poem reverses the passivity associated with a woman
poet's voice, because this poem is both demanding and assertive in its choices and explores the way a
woman poet developed her own muse.

The Readers

The postructuralist approach to a text brings out the

importance of the role of readers in determining the meaning
of a text. For Antony Easthope, "the meaning of a text is
always produced in a process of reading." The power of the
language allows multiple readings - a perspective explained
by Alison Mark who says that poetry works "through the
power of poetic artifice to manipulate syntax so as to allow
many readings, many naturalisations, narrativisations and often with little or no certainty of which is to
be 'preferred' meaning: for there is no ultimate authority. There are
only readers-who are also writers." The growing readership of women
readers contributes significantly to an increased output of published
women 's poetry. Women's poetry provides a richness of experience
even if there is no direct identification and this is made available
through prolific publishing given the fact of prolific writing , once was
acquired through surreptitious (Rassundari Devi 1809--?) or direct,
vehement means (Pandita Rama bai 1858--1922)) (Mary Wollstonecraft
1759--1797). Reading and interpreting women's poetry is also a way of
tunneling into those cultural practices which excluded women from
access to education and literary practices or occluded their work and
writings in a way which conformed to mainstream interests. Instances of anthologising women's poetry
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as poems/lyrics/rhymes for children to be sung or recited were some of the best tributes made to
women poets across cultures. And yet regardless of the readership and what is 'made available' for
reading, there is a hidden body of writing which becomes paradoxically, both the barrier and the
release for the writer and a field for gynocritical research and exploration. Both women poets and
women readers would ideally write and read androgynously and yet this may not preclude their own
experience as women. in cultures where the practice of patrilocal residences is the norm, women'
poetry would be more evocative about the anguish of displacement and women readers would be
possibly more receptive to such poetry.

BOX

Feminism

....feminism is a political perception based on two fundamental premises: (1) that gender difference is
the foundation of a structural inequality between and men, by which women suffer systematic social
injustice, and (2) that the inequality between the sexes is not the result of biological necessity but is
produced by the cultural construction of gender differences. This perception provides feminism with
its double agenda: to understand the social and psychic mechanisms that construct and perpetuate
gender inequality and then to change them.(. Pam Morris, 1993)

Over time the term 'feminism' has acquired a plurality. Pioneered as a movement for equality in
education and suffrage in Britain, the movement redefined itself to imply gender related deprivations
and denials, representations and invisibility and became both universal and specific. A feminist
perspective therefore takes into account the time, place , and specific context in which the writer
articulates and thus one is faced with comparative models from different cultures, such as the French
feminism, the English feminism, the Australian feminism, the New Zealand feminism, Black women's
feminism, Indian feminism etc. The origins of feminism cannot be traced to a single source but are
located in a number of traditions. It is believed that it originated in the Enlightenment and French
Revolution, in the drive for the abolition of slavery and in the American Civil Rights Movement. In
Indian English Literature, feminism may be looked at as a by-product of the western feminist
movement. However, the contribution made by the freedom struggle, Independence and spread of
education, employment opportunities and a greater awareness of socio-cultural issues have had their
impact on women's writings.
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Feminism in the Indian Context

Vina Mazumdar (1927-2013)

A necessary place to start would be the early 1970s which marked the first major turning point in the
social and political history of post-independent India. The ethos of legitimacy that accompanied the
creation of the new nation state had worn thin in two decades with growing criticism and public
protests, in many places and in many forms. In 1971 the Government of India set up a Committee on
the Status of Women in India (CSWI) by a resolution of the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare.
Members of this Committee were given the task of putting together a comprehensive review of the
rights and status of women, with a special focus on education and employment, against the backdrop of
constitutional, legal and administrative provisions available. The aim was to provide recommendations
'which would enable women to play their full and proper role in the building of the nation.' (Towards
Equality 1973) A new level of political engagement became palpable with students, professionals and
housewives and many others joining hands to protest against governments. Gandhian-inspired activism
took the form of the first organization of women workers--the Self-Employed Women's Association
(SEWA) in Allahabad in 1974. Middle class and working women participated in large numbers in
alternative development activities. Towards Equality showed that--with the important exception of
middle class women's entry into education, which had expanded enormously after independence--the
condition of the vast majority of women had been deteriorating since the 1950s. The first discovery of
the declining sex ratio, women's exclusion from the processes of capitalism and modernisation, the
status of legislative reforms among different communities, the picture of the status of women that
emerged was grim. Women (Vina Mazumdar( 1927-2013) Neera Desai (1925-2009) who believed they
were carrying forward an uncontroversial legacy of reform experienced an identity crisis. The findings of
Towards Equality provided a forum for realising that women's lives themselves, needed recognition and
transformation. In response to this realisation a research unit of Women's Studies came to be
established. (SNDT Women's University, Bombay, 1974). A fundamental shift was initiated --from
women as subjects to be educated to 'women' as new subjects of investigation and study. "A theoretical
view of systemic women's subordination was not yet on the horizon, but women's studies was already
being identified as an instrument of change.'(Krishnaraj 2004)
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The other development was that women had emerged as significant force in politics. The 1980s saw the
emergence of vocal and visible autonomous women's groups which placed feminist issues firmly on the
public agenda--dowry, rape, violence against women. At the same time it was clear that women were
underrepresented on representative bodies. Vina Mazumdar ( Member secretary , Committee for the
status of women in India) points out how as 'daughters of independence' her generation had been
critical of special representation/reservations, but gradually 'we have found our understanding of
nation-building changing radically(1997). By 1996 the 'daughters if independence' had come to
acknowledge that abstract citizenship was only a cover for privilege and that difference had to be
acknowledged.

The established link between the women's movement and feminist scholarship in India is possibly
closer than in the United Kingdom the United States and Canada, countries where the rights of working
women and demand for suffrage were first articulated. "This is a distinct advantage and could bring to
Indian feminism a stamp of uniqueness." ( Introduction in Signifying the Self: Women and
Literature,2004) Some of the early books on feminist consciousness are " primarily by women who are
academics and activists--sensitive to literature and language and language and with an ear for the
ground reality which mires India in poverty and concomitant deprivations caused by the economic lack.
...The awareness of the 'lack' is high in the social development sectors, which is why domestic violence
against women instantly raises marches and protests in the public sphere by women belonging to all
segments of society.....The same issues are discussed and written about through interdisciplinary
programmes in humanities and social sciences." (Signifying the Self: Women and Literature). Indian
feminism emerges from within a model of integrated learning. "....the complex matrix of
interdisciplinary approaches, allied to a vast field of live, feminist concerns in the socio-political forum of
a vibrant nation is what gives the plurality of Indian feminism its rich tenor."(Signifying the Self:Women
and Literature) "The moment we talk we talk about male/female nature, we delimit nature. Latr we are
unable to transgress. To transgress, to go beyond female limits and male limits--this I believe-- is an
aspect of feminism." (Ambai)

The markers of Indian Feminism

The late seventies and early eighties saw a spurt in feminist writing which condenses and explores the
'exploited female' against the 'male dominion' that characterises both the Western and Eastern
patriarchal cultures. Such writing initiated an attempt to reinterpret women's status in the world and
critique structures that have marginalised women. Feminist consciousness has added an important
dimension to Indian English writing. Critical writings sought to identify and highlight the "wide
spectrum of important contemporary issues in Indian feminism and its expression not just in literature
but also in autobiography and film." Krishna Sobti (b. 1925) eminent Hindi writer and fellow of Sahitya
Akademi , says, "it feels good to know that as a woman and an individual I am my own person, and being
a writer I enjoy the freedom to grow....Writing in Literature has ceased to be a special category pursued
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largely by men only. It is also said that creative writing as a profession has been mostly the monopoly of
men. Now women are also being accepted but as a minority."

The onward journey of Indian feminism has now become well-documented. "Feminist critics identify
three discernible phases in the writing of women: initation, protest and self-discovery. The decades
between 1970 and 1990 can be regarded as the period of 'naribandi' or feminist writing in Bengali,
though such writing appears sporadically in the 1960s as well. A brief survey will reveal that texts
sometimes overtly but more often covertly have debated feminist issues but these debates have been
ambiguous and embarrassed, lacking conviction and confidence. From the 1970s protest, anger and
alienation have been voiced in the poetry of women with the purpose of interrogating, destabilising,
deconstructing and reconstructing the traditional images of women projected in poems written by men.
" (Signifying the Self: Women and Culture) . Over time there was a distinct shift in evasive expression to
"truthful" and courageous expression " about themselves, their desires, ambitions, fears and
frustrations;"It is important to note that the shift is not only from evasiveness to openness but also a
transcendence to Euro-centric criticism. In Freud Ke Khola Chithi (Open Letter to Freud)1990, Mallika
Sengupta writes:

During my childhood I felt no penis-envy.

My self-identity was total.

Even today I am a confident and complete woman.....

The story of 'Indian feminism'

Recasting Women(Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, 1989) traces the backdrop and trends of how the
Woman's Question was perceived at different junctures of history. "Through the nineteenth century
different versions of female emancipation came to be slowly tied to the idea of national liberation and
regeneration... .The recovery of tradition throughout the proto-nationalist and nationalist period was
always the recovery of the 'traditional' woman -- her various shapes continuously readapt the 'eternal'
past to the needs of the contingent present."The process of 're-adaptation' continued into the twentieth
century writing , whereas the anxiety , discomfiture and questioning the "popular' image became a
concern of feminist writing. "The formation of the public and private spheres is a differential process
which takes place on several levels, the discursive, the linguistic, the political and the economic, and
usually in relation to other classes." (Sanghari and Vaid) In most societies there has been a clear
demarcation of the public domain--of war, production and politics-- and the private domain--family,
culture and religion. Being in the public domain men have been able to move upwards or outwards,
whereas, in the private sector women have remained where they are. Moreover, women have always
culturally and ideologically accepted the power and control of their men however powerless or
oppressed the latter may be outside the home. Yet, the silent acceptance has from time to time been
broken in various forms at various levels, in different times. While the Nationalist Movement concerned
itself with the woman’s question, women’s groups were formed across most regions to articulate their
own ideas and assert their identity. Hindi journals like Maryada, Grahlakshmi and Stree Darpan (1910-
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1920)carried articles which were defiant and mocking. In one such article Hridayamohini ( ) retorts to
the concept of the idealised woman who should stay home and not hanker after public life,

Rather why is it necessary for you to be public men

Acquire knowledge and stay like gods at home

We shall set you up as idols on the shelf and worship you

If you confine yourself to the pleasures of the home

You will spare the Lats all anxiety and tribulation.

The first issue of Manushi (Cover: charcoal sketch by Ira)

A re-surgence of feminist articulation appeared after Independence during the seventies when the
status of women acquired an image of new-found contradictions. The increasing incidence of bride
burning, dowry demands, anti-woman laws and judgments, were addressed in various ways. The need
to raise consciousness was impelled the birth of Manushi (1978) considered to be the first feminist bi-
lingual journal of post independent India. Subsequently, Kali for Women (1981) was the first feminist
press providing a forum and space for publishing writing on women and by women. Manushi and Kali
were both symbolic of and responsive to the empowerment and marginalisation off women
respectively. The seventies added another chapter to the story of Indian feminism which saw more
published works by women as also shifts from ‘imitative expression’ to ‘writing the self.’

An interview with Ambai (‘On Wings Unbroken: An Encounter with Ambai’) brings out the writer’s
experience and evasion of oppressive controls integral in a traditionally patriarchal system. As a writer
and as a woman she made her life free of encroachments and went into a marriage of comfortable
compatibility after a mutual agreement about shunning conventional expectations and demands. As a
dancer Ambai was critical of Bharatnatyam, of which she was an exponent because ‘…Sringara Rasa is
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given prime place. The focus was always on a Nayaki (heroine) waiting for a Nayak(hero) highlighting
her feelings during the period of waiting. I found these emotions very remote from reality. I had great
difficulty emoting them.”(Many Indias, Many Literatures, Rptd.2011). Ambai's is one among many
gynocritical voices in post independent, regional and Indian-English Literatures.

Western Influences

Simone de Beauvoir Kate Millet Susan Brownmiller

Simone de Beauvoir's (1908-1986) The Second Sex (1953) was a major resource book for the Indian
feminists. The question raised by her in the introduction of her book remains relevant today: "Enough
ink has been spilled in quarrelling over feminism, and perhaps we should say no more about it. It is still
talked about...Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its
adherents who will whisper in your ear...woman is losing her way, woman is lost: One wonders if
women still exist, is they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should, what place
they occupy in this world, what their place should be, 'what has become of women?' was asked recently
in an ephemeral magazine." Further discussions by Simone de Beauvoir about women has universal
significance and applicable to Indian women as well. "They are women in virtue of their anatomy and
physiology. Throughout history they have always been subordinated to men, and hence their
dependency is not something that occurred...they have gained only what men have been willing to
grant, they have taken nothing, they have only received." Kate Millet's(b.1934) Sexual Politics
(1970)Germaine Greer's (b.1939 ) The Female Eunuch , Susam Brownmiller's (b. 1935) Against Our
Will(1975) Shulamith Firestone's (1945-2012) The Dialectic of Sex: The case for Feminist Revolution
(1970) are among some other impacting resources of the time. A critical analysis of the Indian situation
ascribes to Indian feminism the aim of spreading education, economic self-sufficiency, preservation of
human rights and in the awareness of the desire for liberation from mythical and social values which
constrain women as well as men, socially, psychically and physically. However, such ideas of
emancipation are prevalent among the educated elite. According to Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990)
"Do the exclusionary practices that ground feminist theory in a notion of 'women' as subject,
paradoxically undercut feminist goals to extend its claims to representation?" In the Indian context
'representational feminism' is perceived as the means for women to redefine their secular identity and
work towards the preservation of their rights as human rights.
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Elaine Showalter's tripartite diachronic phases of the Western women's writing into the Feminine
(consisting of a prolonged phase of imitation of the prevailing modes of the dominant tradition),
Feminist (consisting of a phase of protest against these standards and values, including a demand for
autonomy) and Female (consisting of a phase of self-discovery) may not be very useful because there is
no such historical linearity in the evolution of the Indian female consciousness. In the light of this Vrinda
Nabar observes that there are factors such as caste, class, economic deprivation, female foeticide,
sectarian marginalisation, growing fundamentalism the sway of superstition , the essential nature of
what is broadly termed as Hinduism combine to defy any easy solution to an overarching sexism which
is a threat to women. Endorsing the 'feminist osmosis thesis' , Chandra Talpade Mohanty observes that
females are feminists by association and identification with the experiences which constitute women as
females.

Gynocritical Approach

This approach explains the conscious effort reflected in women-centred, writings by writers with the
purpose of making them more visible from a feminist perspective by demolishing myths generated by
patriarchal world-views. Proposed by Elaine Showalter (1985) as a more self-contained and
experimental concern with developing a specifically female framework for dealing with works written by
men and with feminine subjects written by women and also with an attempt at specifying the traits of a
woman's language.

With the rise of feminism in India in the seventies, feminist literary critics came to believe that women
had to create a literature of their own, in which the feminine sensibility could consider and confront the
peculiarly feminine issues and experiences. This was considered to be essential , because a large part of
the feminine experience remains out of reach of the male psyche . Thus, an authentic and sensitive
portrayal of the conflicts and traumas, in all their nuances, ambiguities and contradictions, could be
achieved only by women writers.

In the West the 1960s and 1970s witnessed a surge of feminist critical writing which reviewed ways of
thinking about women as subjects and objects, producers and consumers of the literary text. Women's
representation in literary texts juxtaposed with their exclusion as publicly visible writers became the
subjects of works like Thinking about Women (1968) and Sexual Politics.This marked the beginning of a
growth of studies which focused on the pertinent role of the woman as writer and voice for the
experience of her gender in a largely patriarchal culture. Recouping women's writings and recovering
women writers by women researchers was part of the gynocritical exploration of the sixties and the
seventies which led to 'French feminist' criticism with its focus on language, specifically the language of
the body. This emphasis on the language of the body contains a distinct position from which women
poets write their subjectivities in resistance to the mainstream cultural production.

However, the availability of the Western feminist theory should not lead to its indiscriminate application
because of different cultural contexts, different forms of social stratification and patriarchal domination
 15

and if we need a feminism specific to our social situation, K. Satchidanandan observes, "a feminist
literary theory specific to our own creative and critical situation by which is not meant an unconsidered
abandonment of shared patterns of reading and writing. "The Laughing Medusa or the Raging
Draupadi," Indian Literature, No. 157(Sept.-Oct. 1993), 8 . The liminal or boundary positions along with a
new consciousness acquires the form of new poetic expression therapeutic , empowering in its outreach
and self defining.

If I had not learnt to write, how would

I have written away my loneliness

or grief?

Women's resistance to domestic and social restrictions imposed on their acquisition of literacy and
education are well documented now to understand their struggle in eradicating the gendered access to
education and formal learning. Gynocritical writing thus enriches the larger genre of poetry through its
subject, style and purpose.

A woman's experiences of life as a member of a gender biased society condition her psyche. Feminist
critics have attempted to understand how social restrictions influence lives of women and how it has
affected their relationship to art and literature.

"Feminist Manifesto" (1914, Mina Loy) concerns itself with the need for women's poetry to "embody"
women's personalities. The social and cultural constitution of women has reduced women to
"parasitism, and Prostitution or Negation" compounding women's impersonality , meaningful only in
relation to men's individuality. Loy insists on women's expression of their selfhood inclined to view the
'fe-male 'body as fatal to women's social power. She closes "Feminist Manifesto" by recommending the
"unconditional surgical destruction of virginity.....at puberty" as means of inspiring "psychic
development". Loy rhetorically violates the body, hoping to control anatomy and thereby to challenge
the cultural and biological imperatives that constitute the female gender identity. Loy prescribes the
gynicritical mode of writing through a consciousness about women's access to selfhood, proscribing
aberrations within women's sexualized bodies."(Lyon, Manifestoes, 1999)

The Self in Kamala Das's poems

The way in which a woman poet traces her own being through female lineage is brought out sharply in
My Grandmother's House .
 16

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Ettukettu.jpg

MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE

There is a house now far away where once

I received love......that woman died

The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved

Among books, I was too young then

to read, and my blood turned cold like the moon

How often I think of going

There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or

Just listen to the frozen air

Or, in wild despair pick up an armful of

Darkness to bring it here to lie

Behind my bedroom door like a brooding

Dog...you cannot believe darling

Can you, that I lived in such a house and

Was proud, and loved...I who have lost

My way now and beg at strangers' doors to

Receive love at least in small change?

 17

1976

The poem is wrapped in layers of personal and social images. The Matriarchal home which is reduced
to a state of neglect with the change of lineage, " The house withdrew into silence," creates an image of
lack, a paralysis which muffles the symbol of a culture in which women had houses of their own by
virtue of matrilineal descent. The understanding of loss ironically gains with hindsight when images of
different kinds of love move through contrasting enclosures and the longing into which the poem seeps
itself brings out the disillusionment of a woman living out a socially prescribed life. The poem
reconstructs a childhood and dismantles the present through images of irretrievable experiences and an
easy identity. The poem ends on a note of the most devastating comment on the expectations of love
cherished by a woman divided by time, space and conflicting identities and the conscious expression of
regret. The poem is a glorification of a very special kind of Past which has disintegrated on a social-
legalist plane, though perpetuated in memory leading to new forms of alienation perhaps understood
and expressed more appropriately through women's experience of dislocation and disenchantment.

INTRODUCTION

I don't know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like

Days of the week, or names of months, beginning with

Nehru. I am Indian, very brown, born in

Malabar, I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one. Don't write in English, they said,

English is not your mother-tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? The language I speak

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half

Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human, don't

You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my

 18

Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing

Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it

Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is

Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and

Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech

Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the

incoherent mutterings of the blazing

Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall , and my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair. When

I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask

For, he drew s youth of sixteen into the

Bedroom and closed the door. He did not beat me

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.

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

Pitifully. Then....I wore a shirt and my

Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored

My womanliness. Dress in saris, be girl,

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,

Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, or role. Don't play pretending games.

 19

Don't play at schizophrenia or be a

Nympho. Don't cry embarassingly loud when

Jilted in love...I met a man, loved him. Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

Who wants a woman, just as I am every

Woman who seeks love. In him...the hungry haste

Of rivers, in me.....the ocean's tireless

Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone.

The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself

I: in this world, he is tightly packed like the

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,

It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

And then feel shame, 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.

1962

Written as a dramatic monologue in blank verse, the poem is a vehement critique of socially sanctioned
gender conformities in the autobiographical voice of a woman who looks for her designed place in the
new India of the Nehru era. The contradictions and complexities are rife and bemused transcended by
the persona through the concluding assertion. The underscores the way in which a patriarchal nation
state pushes the woman writer into spaces, roles and identities which would not disturb the gendered
status quo structured around the hierarchical binaries public/private, male/female. The position of
women in the larger social context underwent shifting perceptions--from being one with the national
movement , their post independent position underwent a shift away from the public sphere.
 20

As one of the pioneers in modern feminist poetry, Kamala Das finds writing an instrument of catharsis
and protest: "All the pain unexpressed and the sad tales left untold, made me write recklessly and in
protest." Her poems are involved with the self and its varied, often conflicting emotions, ranging from
the desire for security and intimacy to the assertion of the ego, self-dramatisation and feelings of shame
and depression." (King) Like some of her contemporaries, Kamala Das has "mapped out the terrain for
postcolonial women in social and linguistic terms." An Introduction brings out the poet's defiance of the
stereotype concept of a woman, as described and explained primarily by men. In defiance of this
concept she writes:

Then I wore a shirt

and a black sarong, cut my hair short and ignored all of

this womanliness.

There is also a greater explicitness about sexuality and a writing of their "selves" by "returning to their
bodies" in the terminology of Helen Cixous,( b. 1937) and suggested by Ambai, by glorifying the female
body and female physiological , psychological experiences. The second reading of the poem may be
facilitated by an awareness of the cultural and social inequalities perpetuated institutionally and
systemically.

BOX

The first generation of Malaylee feminists were represented in their heyday, by writers located in very
different fields of Malaylee society in the late 1920s and 1930s, only to be wiped out of collective
memory a few decades hence. Though not all of them were authors, many engaged with the
emergent public sphere in early twentieth-century Kerala on behalf of a collectivity of 'Women',
assuming that all women had in common certain interests , inclinations and so on, which made them
important to society, and certain rights, which society had to concede. Of course some were
remembered, with a curious sifting powerfully in place. Anna Chandy, for instance continued to be
remembered , not as a powerful feminist intellectual, which she indeed was, but as a 'woman
achiever'; Lalitambika Antarjanam continues to be much lauded not for her powerful critique of
individualising modern gender, and her feminist reconstruction of it, but as the epitome of a very
non-disrutive Motherliness. Some of course ,were entirely erased: B. Bhageeraty Amma, who had
edited for twenty years what may arguably be called one of the leading magazines for women in early
twentieth-century Kerala, and was an acclaimed public speaker of those times, is little remembered.

Some critics remember these authors as a brave generation that lost out against modern patriarchy.
However, it is important to understand the context in which they lived. The fact that they stayed well
within the framework of modern gender as it was presented in late nineteenth/early twentieth-
century Malayalee society, committed to the goal of sexual complementarity it promised, can broadly
 21

be overlooked. By 'modern gender', one would mean(a) the presupposition of the world into 'public'
and 'private' domains, appropriate for men and women respectively, who are seen to possess
distinctly sexed 'dispositions' that direct them to the spaces deemed right for them; (b) compulsory
heterosexism; (c) a strong claim to represent the 'natural' foundations of human social order, with the
cautionary rider that for this 'natural' aspect of humanity to manifest in society, a great deal of social
activity, ranging from legal interventions to training through modern education is necessary. The
established jati (caste)- based social ordering in Kerala, which valued jamma-bhedam, or difference in
birth, came to be repeatedly denounced in the late ninteenth century, from a range of sites, including
the missionaries, and the newly educated elite.

J. Devika, 'HER-SELF: GENDER AND EARLY WRITINGS OF MALAYALEE WOMEN' in Women's Studies in
India ed. Mary John. New Delhi Penguin 2008

Glossary

Gynocritic/s: Women-centred, writings/writers aimed at making them more visible from a feminist
perspective by demolishing myths generated by patriarchal world-views. Proposed by Elaine Showalter
(1985) as a more self-contained and experimental concern with developing a specifically female
framework for dealing with works written by men and with feminine subjects written by women and
also with an attempt at specifying the traits of a woman's language.

Patrilocal: A sociological term which refers to the custom of a woman shifting to husband's/his family's
residence after marriage.

Matrilineal: The female line of descent or based on the relationship with the mother.

Binary: In the context of women's perspective, involving a system of pairs vested with a degree of order.

Hierarchical: Arranged in order of rank or status.

Institutional: Accepted as an established part of a culture.

Systemic: Pertaining to an entire system which is reflective and conducive to the growth and spread of a
cultural pattern.

Kali: The name of one of the nine sister goddesses inspiring self assertion against injustice by resorting
to action. Depicted as wild and aggressive.

Manushi: Perceived as an appropriate term signifying the female form of 'mankind.'

 22

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1. Chekhov, Anton. Grief

2. Cixous, Helene. "The Laugh of the Medusa," (1976) New French Feminism: An Anthology, ed. Elaine
Marks and Isabelle de (Courtivron, Brighton, 1981)

3. Desai, Neera and Maithreyi Krishnaraj: Women and society in India. Bombay: Ajanta, 1987

4. Easthope, Antony Poetry as Discourse (London and New York, Methuen, 1983)

5. Ellmann, Mary. 'Thinking About Women' (Essay) 1968

6. Gill, Jo Women's Poetry ( Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2007)

7. Government of India. Towards Equality. New Delhi , 1974

8. Joshi, Svati ed. Rethinking English: Essays in literature, language and history. New Delhi: Trianka.
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13. Millet, Kate. Sexual Politics (U.S. Doubleday and Co. 1969)

14. Morris, Pam . Literature and Feminism: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)

15. King ,Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001)

16. Panja, Shormishtha ed. Many Indias, Many Literatures: New Critical Essays. Delhi. Worldview
Publications.2nd Edition.2011

17. Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder ed. The lie of the land: English literary studies in India.: New Delhi: Oxford
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18. Sangari, KumKum and Sudesh Vaid eds. Recasting women: Essays on colonial India. New Delhi: Kali
for Women, 1989
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19. Tharu, Susie and K. Lalita, eds. Women writing in India: 600 B.C. to the present. 2 volumes. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991 and 1993

Web Links:

http:/ www. postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/kamala-das

http://www.rediff.com/news/1996/3i07adas.html