My Grandmother's House- Kamala Das

The Poem-
There is a house now far away where once

Kamala Das

I received love……. That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books, I was then too young
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 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 and beg now at strangers' doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?

Summary-

“My Grandmother’s House” is a constituent poem of Kamala Das’s maiden publication Summer in Calcutta. Though short, the poem wraps within itself an intriguing sense of nostalgia and uprootedness. In her eternal quest for love in such a ‘loveless’ world, the poet remembers her grandmother which surfaces some emotions long forgotten and buried within her-- an ironical expression of her past which is a tragic contrast to her present situation. It is a forcefully moving poem fraught with nostalgia and anguish.

The poet says that there is a house, her grandmother’s home, far away from where she currently resides, where she “received love”.  Her grandmother’s home was a place she felt secure and was loved by all. After the death of her grandmother, the poet says that even the House was filled with grief, and accepted the seclusion with resignation. Only dead silence haunted over the House, feeling of desolation wandering throughout. She recollects though she couldn’t read books at that time, yet she had a feeling of snakes moving among them-- a feeling of deadness, horror and repulsion, and this feeling made her blood go cold and turn her face pale like the moon. She often thinks of going back to that Old House, just to peek through the “blind eyes of the windows” which have been dead-shut for years, or just to listen to the “frozen” air.

The poet also shows the ironical contrast between her past and present and says that her present has been so tormenting that even the Darkness of the House that is bathed in Death does not horrify her anymore and it is a rather comforting companion for her in the present state of trials. The poets says that she would gladly (“in wild despair”) pick up a handful of Darkness from the House and bring it back to her home to “lie  behind my bedroom door” so that the memories of the Old House and its comforting darkness, a rather ironical expression, might fill assurance and happiness in her present life.

She wraps up the poem saying that it is hard for one to believe that she once lived in such a house and was so loved by all and lived her life with pride. That her world was once filled with happiness is a sharp contrast to her present situation where she is completely devoid of love and pride. She says that in her desperate quest for love, she has lost her way; since she didn’t receive any feelings of love from the people whom she called her own, she now has to knock “at strangers' doors” and beg them for love, if not in substantial amounts, then atleast in small change i.e. in little measure atleast.

The poet has intensified the emotions of nostalgia and anguish by presenting a contrast between her childhood and her grown-up stages. The fullness of the distant and absence and the emptiness of the near and the present give the poem its poignancy. The images of “snakes moving among books”, blood turning “cold like the moon”, “blind eyes of window”, “frozen air”’ evoke a sense of death and despair. The house itself becomes a symbol - an Ednic world, a cradle of love and joy. The escape, the poetic retreat, is in fact, the poet’s own manner of suggesting the hopelessness of her present situation. Her yearning for the house is a symbolic retreat to a world of innocence, purity and simplicity

Sindhi Woman- Jon Stallworthy

The Poem-
Barefoot through the bazaar,

Jon Stallworthy

and with the same undulant grace
as the cloth blown back from her face,
she glides with a stone jar
high on her head
and not a ripple in her tread.

Watching her cross erect
stones, garbage, excrement, and crumbs
of glass in the Karachi slums,
I, with my stoop, reflect
they stand most straight
who learn to walk beneath a weight.

Summary-

“Sindhi Woman” by Jon Stallworthy is the poet’s description of a Sindhi woman and his appreciation for the way she endures the hardships and boundations of the conservative societies such as the Middle-East, and India. The poet has described the scene in the populous city of Karachi whose slums house people on rather magnanimous levels.

The poet describes a Sindhi woman walking barefoot through the Bazaar. The term bazaar immediately places the reader in a third-world, Middle Eastern market. She walks through the streets with an undulant grace, much like the wave-like motion of the cloth wrapped around her face as the breeze sets it into gentle motion. The women from regions like Sind, were strongly traditional and pertained to orthodox beliefs such as covering their faces when they move out of the house. She glides through the market gracefully with stone jar held high over her head without even a slight ripple in her walk, which amazes the poet. The poet cannot expect her to be well-off since she doesn’t even have slippers in her feet, and still after bearing such compromising situations in her life, that grace on her face fills the poet with utter admiration for the lady.

As he watches the lady cross erect stones, garbage, excrement, and crumbs of glass in the Karachi slums, the poet notices that he has started to stoop, perhaps to get a better view, or because he is tired and unaccustomed to the climate of the country, but the Sindhi woman walks past perfectly straight bearing the load over her head. Amazed by the fact, he reflects that “they stand most straight, who learn to walk beneath a weight”. The poet here means that people who suffer unimaginable hardships in their life, and are crushed by the circumstances and the society, learn to walk straight in the most negative of situations. They have an endurance far more powerful than normal people like us who have lived a far more comfortable life and are truly worth admiring.

Mort Aux Chats- Peter Porter

The Poem-

There will be no more cats.

Peter Porter

Cats spread infection,

Cats pollute the air,

Cats consume seven times

their own weight in food a week,

Cats were worshipped in

decadent societies (Egypt

and Ancient Rome); the Greeks

had no use for cats. Cats

sit down to pee (our scientists

have proved it). The copulation

of cats is harrowing; they

are unbearably fond of the moon.

Perhaps they are all right in

their own country but their

traditions are alien to ours.

Cats smell, they can't help it,

you notice it going upstairs.

Cats watch too much television,

they can sleep through storms,

they stabbed us in the back

last time. There have never been

any great artists who were cats.

They don't deserve a capital C

except at the beginning of a sentence.

I blame my headaches and my

plants dying on cats.

Our district is full of them,

property values are falling.

When I dream of God I see

a Massacre of Cats. Why

should they insist on their own

language and religion, who

needs to purr to make his point?

Death to all cats! The Rule

of Dogs shall last a thousand years!

Summary-

“Mort Aux Chats” by Peter Porter is a rhetorical monologue where the poet tries to persuade the authors that “cats” are undesirable creatures. It is a political poem and uses a persuasive tone and when considered in depth, the term “cats” actually refers to a human race that a poet detests or dislikes. “Mort Aux Chats” meaning “Death to All Cats” is actually a prejudice poem and the word cat might refer to a number of denominations, all of which are interestingly those races which the Whites considered inferior to their own and uncivilised. Peter Porter has very cleverly kept his point in a very passive tone and thus the reader is never sure if the views of the writer are actually racist or is it just the tone of the poem.

The poem begins with a line saying-- Death to All Cats-- perhaps hinting the strongly negative views that the poet has for that particular race of men. He considers them so useless and irritating that he says that all of them must die at once. The poet goes on to exemplify his point saying that cats spread infections, pollute the air with their stink, eat seven times their weight in a day, and were worshiped in morally and culturally declined societies like Egypt and Rome. Societies whose foundations were based on Science like Greeks had no use for cats. While the points presented here by the author are factual and scientific, they have a hidden meaning of their own. The poet tells us the reason why he hates that race saying they are uncilvilised and spread infections, pollute the environment, eat in an unhygienic way, and are only considered important in societies that are backward and unscientific. Though the hidden meaning might clearly refer to an allusion to the Blacks or the Jews, we have no means of predicting the same. The poet goes on to say that cats sit down to pee, which if at all referred to a race shows a gross level of uncivilised behaviour. He says that mating of cats is a distressful sight, and they are unbearably fond of moon, another gross and idiotic behaviour.

The poet when saying that they might be right in their own country, but their tradition is alien to ours, perhaps hints, that he is writing for a race of humans that his race, the Whites, finds alien to theirs in terms of tradition and civilisation, more clearly than anywhere else in the entire poem. He says that though they might be important and justified in their activities in their own country, they have no use in his country. He further says that cats smell and they themselves can’t help it. They watch too much television and can sleep through storms. Again, through factual behaviour of cats, the poet tries to point the inferiority of the other race by terming them as lazy and lackadaisical, generally laid back in everything they do. They continue this behaviour even in times of turmoil.

The next line that the poet says--“they stabbed us in the back last time”-- is a very clear allusion to the Jews and the views presented here by the poet are strongly Nazi that it was because of the treachery of the Jews that they lost World War II. The poet even goes on to say that there have never been any great artist belonging to this race and that their contribution to the civilization of today have been so nominal and unproductive that they don’t deserve a even a capital letter at the beginning of the name of their race (here referred to as C for Cats) except at the beginning of sentences which makes it as common a word as anything else. The poet says that these cats are the reason behind his headache and the death of his plants, perhaps referring to the social decay of the Modern World. They are nothing more than a headache to the World. The poet even goes on to say that when he dreams of God, he sees a massacre of cats. These are the words of Adolf Hitler himself referred to the Jews wherein he justified the extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust. The poet then says that they have no right to claim for their own religion and language been given a status parallel to his own, because their language is as insignificant as the purr of a cat. He concludes by proclaiming Death to All Cats yet again and saying that the rule of dogs, a race far more superior and intelligent than cats, perhaps referring to his own race, shall rule for a thousand years.

The poem has a strongly racist inner meaning wrapped around in light-hearted and sarcastic humour, therefore rendering the actual meaning of the poem rather invisible and saves the poet from explicitly proclaiming himself as a racist.

Money Madness- D.H. Lawrence

The Poem-

Money is our madness, our vast collective madness.

And of course , if the multitude is mad
The individual carries his own grain of insanity around with him.

D.H. Lawrence

I doubt if any man living hands out a pound note without a pang;
And a real tremor , if he hands out a ten-pound note.
We quail, money makes us quail .
It has got us down , we grovel before it in strange terror .
And no wonder, for money has a fearful cruel power among men .

But it is not money we are terrified of ,
it is the collective money - madness of mankind.
For mankind says with one voice : How much is he worth ?
Has he no money ? Then let him eat dirt , and go cold -

And if I have no money , they will give me a little bread ,
So I do not die,
but they will make me eat dirt for it .
I shall have to eat dirt , I shall have to eat dirt
if I have no money

It is that I am afraid of .
And that fear can become a delirium .
It is fear of my money-mad fellow-man.

We must have some money
To save us from eating dirt .

And this is wrong.

Bread should be free ,
shelter should be free ,
fire should be free
to all and anybody , all and anybody , all over the world.

We must regain our sanity about money
before we start killing one another about it .
It's one thing or the other.

Summary-

“Money Madness” by D.H. Lawrence is a critical evaluation of the rush after affluences that is visible all around us in this Modern Day World. Money has become a powerful player in societies of today and holds more importance than anything else in the modern day lifestyle. The poet, through his pen, has tried to exemplify this situation and present the social and moral degradation that such madness for a thing so materialistic renders.

The poet says that wherever we look there is madness for money; infact money can be termed as a metaphor for the word madness. And this madness is not on small or individualistic levels; it is the madness of the multitude, in numbers unimaginable and at levels incredible. And since the multitude as a whole is mad, so every person in this world carries his share of this madness-- his share of this insane race after money. The poet doubts that there exists a human in this world who hands out a pound note to someone without feeling a pang at heart. No matter how  noble he may feel while giving away that note, his heart always wishes if only he could do all that good without having to take out a note from his own pocket. And when that note turns to a ten-pound note, we experience real tremors within us. We tremble from inside while giving away that note, as if we have been robbed. Money makes us kneel infront of itself. It makes us fearful, and a sense of apprehension and stress grips us as we try to overcome a loss as materialistic and small as ten-pounds. It has an exaggerating power to influence our life.

But in the broader sense, it is not the money that we terrified of. But it is the madness that mankind shows for it-- the multitude madness-- that gives money such an undeserved status in the society of today. And from here arises the feeling that money is all that matters today; it means peace, of body and of mind. Every time the society sees the man, no one cares for his moral values and behavior. All that decides his social status is that how much is he worth? If he has no money, then he well deserves all the guilt, criticism and blame that comes with poverty. Let him go cold, says the society.

The poet goes on to say that if one has no money, the World would give him little money, only enough to perhaps buy a piece of bread, in the name of humanity. But even this small offering doesn’t come for free. He has to eat dirt to get it, suffering through pains unheard and criticisms unparalleled. The poet says it is this pitiful and inhumane situation that he is afraid of. He fears that such madness for money might result in the world going completely insane. It is this fear of money-mad fellow-men going into a state of delirium that resides within him.

If we are to save ourselves from humiliations, criticism, guilt, and blames in this modern day world, we must have money. Because money parallels power. And the poet strongly criticizes such a morally and socially degraded state of the Modern day society. He proclaims that bread, shelter, and fire should be free, to anybody and everybody all over the world.  We must regain our sanity when it comes to money. We must replace our madness with logic. Otherwise soon enough we will start killing one another for the sake of money. It is either one way or the other.

An Introduction- Kamala Das

Edit:  An equally beautiful summary of the poem can be found in the following two links below, written by a very talented Ms. Rukhaya MK who is much more accomplished in the field than I am, and apparently has many more well-wishers, for they have stormed my life and also the comments section below with allegations of plagiarism.
http://rukhaya.com/poetry-analysis-kamala-das-an-introduction/
http://www.galaxyimrj.com/V1/n2/Rukhaya.pdf
Writing is about inspiration. And whatever we write is inspired by someone or the other. That being said, whatever we write as a result of this inspiration we have all the right to claim it as our own. I happily say that I was inspired by Ms Rukhaya MK, but certain lines from my summary might have looked more similar to hers than she would have liked them to (I still can't figure out which ones!). Nevertheless, this entire summary is the product of my long, tiring, and dedicated efforts spanning hours, and I have every right to call my original creation. Thank You; Enjoy Reading (whichever you choose to)!
The Poem--

Kamala Das

I don't know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of 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? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? 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
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, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a 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 sarees, 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, a role. Don't play pretending games.
Don't play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love … 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 oceans' 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 that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.

Summary-

“An Introduction” is perhaps the most famous of the poems written by Kamala Das in a self-reflective and confessional tone from her maiden publication Summer in Calcutta(1965). The poem is a strong remark on Patriarchal Society prevalent today and brings to light the miseries, bondage, pain suffered by the fairer sex in such times.

The poet says that she is not interested in politics but claims that she can name all the people who have been in power right from the time of Nehru. By saying that she can repeat them as fluently as days of week, or names of the month, she indirectly states the fact that politics in the country is a game of few chosen elite who ironically rule a democracy. The fact that she remembers them so well depicts that the same people have been in power time and again.

Next, she describes herself saying that she is an Indian, born in Malabar and very brown in colour. She speaks in three languages, writes in two and dreams in one, articulating the thought that Dreams have their own universal language. Kamala Das echoes that the medium of writing is not as significant as is the comfort level that one requires. People asked her not to write in English since isn’t her mother tongue. Moreover, the fact that English was a colonial language prevalent as medium of communication during British times drew even more criticism every time she had an encounter with a critic, friends, or visiting cousins. She emphasizes that the language she speaks becomes her own, all its imperfections and queerness become her own. It is half-English, half-Hindi, which seems rather amusing but the point is that it is honest. Its imperfections only make it more human, rendering it close to what we call Natural. It is the language of her expression and emotion as it voices her joys, sorrows and hopes. It is as integral to her as cawing is to the crows and roaring to the lions. Though imperfect, It is not a deaf, blind speech like that of trees in storm or the clouds of rain. Neither does it echo the "incoherent mutterings of the funeral pyre." Instead, it has an inherent natural coherence of its own.

She moves on telling her own story. She was a child, and later people told her that she had grown up for her body had started showing signs of puberty. But she didn’t seem to understand this interpretation because at the heart she was still but a child. When she asked for love from her soulmate not knowing what else to ask, he took the sixteen-year-old to his bedroom. The expression is a strong criticism of child marriage which pushes children into such a predicament while they are still very childish at heart. Though he didn’t beat her, she felt beaten and her body seemed crushed under her own weight. This is a very emphatic expression of how unprepared the body of a sixteen-year-old is for the assault it gets subjected to. She shrank pitifully, ashamed of her femininity.

She tries to overcome such humiliation by being tomboyish. And thereafter when she opts for male clothing to hide her femininity, the guardians enforce typical female attire, with warnings to fit into the socially determined attributes of a woman, to become a wife and a mother and get confined to the domestic routine. She is threatened to remain within the four walls of her female space lest she should make herself a psychic or a maniac. They even ask her to hold her tears when rejected in love. She calls them categorizers since they tend to categorise every person on the basis of points that are purely whimsical.

Towards the end of the poem, the poet describes her encounters with a man. She doesn't take names, for it is the symbolism in her relationship that she seeks to convey. He is every other man who wants a woman, like an embodiment of the hungry haste of river, while she is every other woman, an embodiment of patience like the ocean's tireless waiting. When she asks every such man who he is, he replies saying he is I. The poet herein through symbolism presents to the readers the inherent male ego of a patriarchal society. He is rigid in his mindset like a "the sword in its sheath", and his views are not open to discussion. It is this "I" i.e. male ego that justifies lying drunk at 12 in the night in a hotel in some strange town, that justifies the condescending laughs, that makes love to woman and then feels ashamed about being so easily carried away, and yet dies with a rattle in the throat, like everyone else. Death exposes the futility of male ego, showing that the "he" is no greater than "she". Thus the poet concludes by saying that this "I" should be no different from "her", and thus I is both the sinner and the saint, both the betrayer and the betrayed, and both the man and the woman. There are no joys to "I" that she doesn't get to experience, nor any pains to him that she hasn't gone through. Thus "She" is "I" too.

At The Lahore Karhai- Imtiaz Dharker

Imtiaz Dharker

The Poem-

It's a great day, Sunday,
when we pile into the car
and set off with a purpose –
a pilgrimage across the city,
to Wembley, the Lahore Karhai.
Lunch service has begun –
'No beer, we're Muslim' –
but the morning sun
squeezed into juice,
and 'Yaad na jaye'
on the two-in-one.                    

On the Grand Trunk Road
thundering across Punjab to Amritsar,
this would be a dhaba
where the truck-drivers pull in,
swearing and sweating,
full of lust for real food,
just like home.

Hauling our overloaded lives
the extra mile,
we're truckers of another kind,
looking hopefully (years away
from Sialkot and Chandigarh)
for the taste of our mothers'
hand in the cooking.

So we've arrived at this table:
the Lahore runaway;
the Sindhi refugee
with his beautiful wife
who prays each day to Krishna,
keeper of her kitchen and her life;
the Englishman too young
to be flavoured by the Raj;
the girls with silky hair,
wearing the confident air
of Bombay.

This winter we have learnt
to wear our past
like summer clothes.
Yes, a great day.
A feast! We swoop
on a whole family of dishes.
The tarka dal is Auntie Hameeda
the karhai ghosht is Khala Ameena
the gajjar halva is Appa Rasheeda.

The warm naan is you.

My hand stops half-way to my mouth.
The Sunday light has locked
on all of us:
the owner's smiling son,
the cook at the hot kebabs,
Kartar, Rohini, Robert,
Ayesha, Sangam, I,
bound together by the bread we break,
sharing out our continent.

These
are ways of remembering.
Other days, we may prefer
Chinese.

Summary-

“At the Lahore Karhai” by Imtiaz Dharker portrays the nostalgia experienced by Indians living outside their home land. The poet herself is of Indian origin but has been brought up in Wembley, a county in England with comparatively larger population of residents from Indian origin. The poet’s cultural background helps her to do justice to the emotions and feelings she has tried to express through her poem.

The poet narrates the old memories surfacing from within her heart as she travels down to the Lahore Karhai, Wembley, an Indian restaurant in the area, and she feels a powerful nostalgia erupting from within her. The fact that she calls it a pilgrimage itself expresses how meaningful this journey went down to be for her. She compares her journey to that of truck drivers back in India, driving their trucks on The Grand Trunk road, across Punjab to Amritsar, and then, drenched in sweat, swearing, getting down at a dhaba with an expectation to get food that tastes like home. She is also a trucker, only of a different kind. Instead of trucks, people like her, the Non-resident Indians, years away from their home in Sialkot and Chandigarh, bear the weight of the rush and chaos in their lives for some extra miles, and then at moments like these, they too stop, at restaurants and places which promise them the feeling of home, with a hope of getting a break, and giving a chance to the memories reverberating in their heart to come to life and fill their environment with nostalgia. With such a feeling does the poet enter the doors of Lahore Karhai, expecting the taste of her mother’s hands in the bread she is about to break.

She describes the company that she has got around her on the lunch table—a Sindhi migrant, who left her home back in Lahore, sitting with his wife who prays to Krishna everyday, “the keeper of her kitchen and her life”; an Englishman too young to be influenced by his domicile and instill that feeling of superiority, and two girls representing the typical Bombay culture with their confidence. She further goes on to say that that winter taught them to wear their past like summer clothes.

As they swoop on the divine meal on a great day, memories from past rejuvenate in the poet’s mind. Every dish she tastes reminds her of someone back home. The tarka dal reminds her of Auntie Hameeda, ever bite of karhai ghosht brings to life memories of Khala Ameena, and the gajjar halva synonymously reminds her of Appa Rasheeda. The warm naan reminds her of a second person singular “You”, perhaps referring to her soulmate. As she brings another bite near her mouth, her hand stops halfway to witness the divinity and nostalgia of the moment. The smiling face of the owner’s son, the look of the cook preparing the kebabs, and the fact that all people on the table feasting together--Kartar, Rohini, Robert, Ayesha, Sangam, and she herself—sharing their past, bounded together by the bread they break—the nostalgic meal. She wraps up by saying that activities such as these, such traditional feasts, are rather excuses for remembering our long-forgotten past. On a normal day, they would have preferred Chinese, but the tradition and nostalgia such a feast encompasses within itself is unparalleled and is perhaps more important a reason than the food itself why people such as her, Truckers of different kind, go for such a pilgrimage once in a while.