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--
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-
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 |
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.
