{"id":2420,"date":"2012-04-15T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T03:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eltweekly.com\/elt-newsletter\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2012-04-15T03:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-04-15T03:00:08","slug":"vol-4-issue-165-research-paper-regional-component-in-foreign-languages-teaching-to-the-students-of-non-linguistic-specialties-by-d-k-kurmanayeva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/?p=2420","title":{"rendered":"Vol. 4 Issue 16 \u2013 Research Paper: ‘Regional Component In Foreign Languages Teaching To The Students Of Non-Linguistic Specialties’ by Mayur Agravat & Rita Dabhi"},"content":{"rendered":"

ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#16 | April 16, 2012 |\u00a0ISSN 0975-3036<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>
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This paper is submitted by\u00a0Mayur Agravat <\/strong>of Shri Chimanbhai Patel Institute of Business Administration,\u00a0and Rita Dabhi <\/strong>of L J Polytechnic, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kamala Das, in spite of her royal background, was a woman of spirit, a spirit which was like a sparrow, who can not be caged. It was the century when women of reputed families were not allowed to express publically their views or experiences related to \u2018sex\u2019<\/em>, but Das wrote unflinchingly of her sexual encounters and that too in a period when women were treated not more than a pat animal. Kamala Das\u2019s poetry can rightly be called her \u2018poetic autobiography\u2019<\/em> as it reveals all about her ideology, conception, psychology formation and her experiences. Her field gives immense knowledge about poetic genius.<\/p>\n

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Kamala Das and her Field<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI who have lost<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My way and beg now at stranger\u2019s doors to<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Receive love, at least in small exchange?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -\u2018My Grandmother\u2019s House\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The quoted lines would evoke nostalgic feelings in reader\u2019s minds that cannot be expressed in any other way. The poet Kamala Das has spread the fragrance of \u2018Neermathalam\u2019<\/em> and the hidden emotions of a female mind to an international level through her confessional writings. It is difficult to see any other Indian poet who found herself amid controversies at all times for her truthful writings.<\/p>\n

Das is one of the best known contemporary Indian women writers, writing in two languages, English and Malayalam, Das has authored many autobiographical works and two novels, several well-received collections of poetry in English, numerous volumes of short stories and essays on a broad spectrum of subject. She always had the will and therefore managed to find her way, that\u2019s Kamala Das, the rebel Indian English poet, or Madhavikutty, the firebrand short story writer in her native Malayalam, the author of \u2018My Story\u2019<\/em>-a book that has not stopped selling since it was first published in 1976, she talks about her beginnings :<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI started writing stories when I was 17. I wrote my first story and sent it to \u2018Matrubhumi\u2019 It was published, and I got Rs. 12 for it\u2026 I would publish a story every month. My first story was a love story. I published it under the name of Madhavikutty (Madhavi because I was Madhava\u2019s wife and Kutty because I was just a child) because I did not want my grandmother to know. And since then there has been no stopping me. I write about the poor and the disadvantaged. They are voiceless\u2026 little maidservants who get beaten up, little 12 year olds, fetching pails of water, who do not even get proper salaries. I wrote a story about a child prostitute after visiting a brothel.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She is a most talked about Indian poet, novelist, short story writer, dramatist and essayist. Since the publication of her first collection of poetry, \u2018Summer in Calcutta\u2019 <\/em>(1965), Das has been considered an important voice of her generation, exemplified by a break from the past by writing in a distinctly Indian persona, rather than adopting the techniques of the English modernists. Das\u2019s provocative poems are known for their unflinchingly honest exploration of the self and female sexuality, urban life, and women\u2019s role in traditional Indian society, issues of post-colonial identity, and the political and personal struggles of marginalized people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Das was born into an aristocratic Nair Hindu family in Malabar<\/em> India, on March 31, 1934. Her maternal grandfather and great grand-father were rajas, a caste of Hindu nobility, born in Punnuyurkulam <\/em>in Malabar<\/em>, that is an area of Kerala, she was a daughter of the great Kerala literary household Nalapattu<\/em>, born of M. K. Menon<\/em> and well known Malayalam poetess Balamani\u00a0 Amma<\/em>, her love of poetry began at an early age, through the influence of her maternal great uncle Narayan Menon<\/em>, mother Balamani Amma<\/em> and it grew through her acquaintances with the great writers in Malayalam <\/em>literature at her stay in Kerala. Das was also affected by the poetry of the sacred writings kept by the matriarchal community of Nairs<\/em>. At the age of eight she read Malayalam translation of Victor Hugo\u2019s \u2018Les Miserable\u2019<\/em> by Nalapattu Narayan Menon<\/em>. This ancestral Nalapattu<\/em> household and the love for her grand-mother influenced the young Amy to grow into the Malayalam writer Madhavikutty<\/em>, as well as English poet Kamala Das<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Das\u2019s father was a successful managing director for a British automobile firm, was descended from peasant stock and favored Gandhian<\/em> principles of austerity. The combination of \u2018Royal\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Peasant\u2019<\/em> identities, along with the atmosphere of \u2018Colonialism\u2019<\/em> and its pervasive racism, produced feeling of inadequacy and alienation in Das. Educated in Calcutta and Malabar, Das began writing at the age of six, her poems were about dolls who lost their heads and had to remain headless forever and had her first poem publishes by P.E.N. India at age fourteen. She did not receive an university education, got married to Madhava Das an employee of the Reserve Bank of India who later worked for the United Nations. At the age of sixteen she gave birth to her first son and ended up as a mother and a disgruntled wife who began to write obsessively. Although Das and her husband Madhava were romantically incompatible, Madhava supported her writing. In an interview when she was asked \u201cWas your husband jealous of all the attention you got?\u201d<\/em> she very coolly answered back, she said,<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all. He was much older, and he felt that I should move about with people of my age. He was very understanding about it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

His career took them to Calcutta, New Delhi and Bombay, thus Das\u2019s poetry is influenced by metropolitan life as well as by her emotional experiences, which draws upon religious and domestic imagery to explore a sense of identity. She talks of intensely personal experiences, including her growth into womanhood, her unsuccessful quest for love in and outside of marriage and her life in matriarchal rural south India.<\/p>\n

The impact of her poetry has never been in doubt; she was a pioneer among Indian women poets writing in English, who expressed a profound dissatisfaction with their situation as women. Her first book \u2018Summer in Calcutta\u2019<\/em> was a promising start. She wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal, and the consequential anguish, and Indian readers in 1965 responded sympathetically to her guileless, guiltless frankness with regard to sexual matters. Das has abandoned the certainties offered by archaic and somewhat sterile aestheticisms for an independence of mind and body, and that too in a period when Indian women poets were still expected to write about teenage girlie fantasies of eternal, bloodless, unrequited love.<\/p>\n

She never initiated into professional writing till her marriage, she married to Madhava Das at the age fourteen, as he was much elder to her, so he kept a father role to both, Kamala and her children. When she wanted to initiate writing, her husband supported her decision, and she started expressing her nostalgic and hidden feelings through her poems.<\/p>\n

Her first poetry collection \u2018Summer in Calcutta\u2019<\/em> promised a rise of a revolutionary woman poet in India. Her stories and poems were greatly misunderstood and criticized by a section of Indian critics, as it mainly reflected women\u2019s social condition and her longings for love. Poems like \u2018An Introduction\u2019, \u2018The Descendants\u2019, \u2018Alphabet of Lust\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Only the Soul Knows How to Sing\u2019<\/em> were open voices of restricted women in orthodox society. She has published six volumes of poetry from 1965 to 1985. Since the publication of \u2018Summer in Calcutta\u2019<\/em> Das has been a controversial figure, known for her unusual imagery and candor. She uses, for example, the terrifying religious image of Kali the Goddess of war and destruction in her defiant reaction,<\/p>\n

\u201cI hung a picture of Kali on the wall of my balcony and adored it daily with long strings of red flowers, resembling the intestines of a disemboweled human being \u2026. This gave the villagers a fright.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kamala Das (My Story) Pg. No. 201.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Das often thus uses traditional religious imagery to sustain and dignify herself. She claims to search for an incarnation of the God Krishna in her love affairs and worships the God, when the real man turns out to have flaws. Once, calmly facing death before a potentially fatal heart operation, she pictures herself as Goddess Durga and titles one of her chapters as \u2018I was Carlo\u2019s Sita\u2019<\/em>, in which she tells about one of her affairs. In many of her poems she makes use of Radha-Krishna <\/em>imagery.<\/p>\n

In poems such as \u2018The Dance of the Eunuchs\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018The Freaks\u2019 <\/em>Das draws upon the exotic to discuss her sexuality and her quest for fulfillment. In \u2018An Introduction\u2019<\/em>, she universalizes and makes public, traditionally private experiences, suggesting that women\u2019s personal feelings of longing and loss are a part of the collective experience of womanhood. In the collection \u2018The Descendants\u2019<\/em> (1967), the poem \u2018The Maggots\u2019<\/em> frames the pain of lost love with ancient Hindu myths, while the poem \u2018The Looking-Glass\u2019<\/em>, suggests that women are the untouchables of love, in that, the very things society labels dirty are the things the women are supposed to give. The poem implies that a restrained love seems to be no love at all; only a total immersion in love can do justice to this experience. In \u2018The Old Playhouse and Other Poems\u2019<\/em> (1975), poems such as \u2018Substitute\u2019, \u2018Gino\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018The Suicide\u2019<\/em> examine the failure of physical love to provide fulfillment, to allow for escape from the self, or to exercise the past, whereas, poems such as \u2018The Inheritance\u2019<\/em> addresses the integrity of the artistic self in the face of religious fanaticism. In \u2018Tonight, This Savage Rite: The Love Poems of Kamala Das and Pritish Nandy\u2019 <\/em>(1979), Das invokes Krishna in her explorations of the tension between physical love and spiritual transcendence. \u2018The Anamalai Poems\u2019 <\/em>(1985), a series of short Poems written after Das was defeated in the 1984 parliamentary elections, rework the classical Tamil \u2018akam\u2019 (interior)<\/em>, poems that contrast the grandeur and permanence of nature with the transience of human history. Poems such as \u2018Delhi 1984\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018Smoke in Colombo\u2019<\/em> evoke the massacre of the Sikhs and the Civil war in Shri Lanka. Das has also the authored a novel \u2018The Alphabet of Lust\u2019<\/em> and several volumes of short stories in English. Under the name of \u2018Madhavikutty\u2019<\/em>, Das has published many books in Malayalam language. In addition to writing poetry, fiction and autobiography, Das has served as an editor of the poetry section of the \u2018The Illustrated Weekly of India\u2019<\/em> from 1971-72 and 1978-79.<\/p>\n

Das\u2019s work in English has been widely anthologized in India, Australia and the West and she has received many awards and honors. She was short listed for Nobel Prize for Literature<\/em> in 1984, along with Marguerites Yourcenar, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer<\/em>, apart from that, recognition also came in her way in the form of Kent Award for Asian English writing, Vayalar Award for Literature. P.E.N. Philippines Asian Poetry Prize <\/em>\u2013 1963, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award <\/em>for her writing in Malayam \u2013 1969, Chimanlal Award <\/em>for fearless Journalism (1971), the ASAN World Prize<\/em> 1985, and the Sahitya Academy Award<\/em> for her poetry in English (1985). Recently the Kerala government conferred Kamala Das with the Ezhuthachan Award<\/em>, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the language and the literary world. Although, she is yet to receive the award and already creating waves with fundamentalists, opposing the government\u2019s argument that \u201cShe who writes on love and lust, does not deserve such prestigious recognition.\u201d<\/em> She justifies her works with the answer that,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf love is a flower, lust is its fragrance.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Without love, where is lust and without<\/em><\/p>\n

Lust, can life be created?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She further adds that,<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of Radha and Krishna when I<\/em><\/p>\n

Think of love. Life is all about various <\/em><\/p>\n

dimensions of love.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally Kamala Das, <\/em>then Madhavikutty<\/em> and then Kamala Surraiya<\/em>, after she embraced Islaam <\/em>in 1999, inviting the wrath of the conservative Malayali Hindu society<\/em>, she justified her decision with the argument like,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI have converted my Krishna to Islaam.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The poet,<\/em> who always wrote about Lord Krishna <\/em>and imagined herself as his beloved Radha,<\/em> suddenly started addressing Allah,<\/em> started working on a prayer book,<\/em> soon to be released in Qatar.<\/em> A second edition of a Malayalam poem addressed to Allah<\/em> has just been unveiled.<\/p>\n

On questioning her religious decision in an interview given to the Times of India<\/em>, She responded,<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want freedom\u2026 Freedom had become a burden for me. I want guidelines to regulate and discipline my life. I want a master to protect me. I wanted protection not freedom. I want to be subservient to Allah.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Setubondhan\u2019,Dec.20, 1999. by-Farooq Nazrul<\/em><\/p>\n

Keralites saw an active Madhavikutty<\/em> entering into politics, with a green campaign in 1970s, she lost but then she released her first nude painting in 1980s, she proclaimed;<\/p>\n

\u201cI find the female body the most beautiful in the world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with a senior associate editor George Iype, Surraiya beckons her political decision with Allah\u2019s<\/em> consent, calling Hindu religion full of prejudices and sans any Guru to resolve these prejudices, whereas Muslim scholars are always moving around trying to teach the tenets of Islaam.<\/em> Later she realized that changing religion was a folly, after all,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGod has no connection with any religion. There is no respect for woman anywhere. Women are just an object of sensual pleasure.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She says,<\/p>\n

\u201cYou begin to seek spiritual freedom after the end of the menstrual cycle, as I was but there was none. I give no importance to religion now. God has been appropriated by a few people for their own selfish ends.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This controversial gesture of hers has earned her a lot of enemies and criticism. A forty five minute documentary \u2018Malayalathinde Madhavikutty\u2019<\/em> still remains in the surprise box, as fundamentalists threatened the producers and the theatre owners of dire consequences. These critical responses are intimately connected to critical perception of her personality and politics; Reviewers of Das\u2019s early poetry praised its fierce originality, bold images, exploration of female sexuality and intensely personal voice. Scholars such as Devendra Kohli, Eunice de Souza, and Sunil Kumar find powerful feminist imagery in her poetry. Much criticism analyzes her as a \u2018confessional\u2019 <\/em>poet, writing in the tradition of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Denise Levertov. Some scholars find Das\u2019s poetry, autobiography and essays frustratingly inconsistent, self indulgent and equivocal, although they too praise her compelling imagery and original voice.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite disagreement over the aesthetic qualities and consistency of Das\u2019s body of poetry, scholars agree that Das is an important figure whose bold and honest voice has re-energized Indian writing in English and provided a model for other Indian Women writers. Engulfed in all such miss happenings and controversies, she is yet to provide us with her biography named \u2018Malabar to Monterial\u2019<\/em>, for which she has worked with her Canadian<\/em> biographer Merrily Weisbord.<\/em> She is all set to tell another soulful tale, in her new persona as the intriguing Kamala Surraiya.<\/p>\n

A Canadian <\/em>movie company is to make a film on her. The movie is about Kamala Surraiya<\/em>–the writer, poetess and her experiences with Islaam<\/em>. We have many of her works translated into movie, now her life is to be translated in this form, and as if all this is not enough, there is still much more on her platter, her charity organizations, Lok Seva Trust, Raksha School,<\/em> where she is a patron.<\/p>\n

To sum up her works and her academic life it would be appropriate to end with her own poetic lines:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had been a loved person, I wouldn\u2019t have become a writer\u2026 Of course it has given me a lot of pain, each poem is born out of pain, which I would like to share but then you live for that person, the sharer of your pain, and you don\u2019t find him anywhere. It is the looking that makes the poet go on writing, search. If you find someone, the search is over, poetry is over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018My Story\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/strong> – Kamala Das<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kamala Das\u2019s poetry has her autobiography written into it. She is not any woman or the incarnation of \u2018essential womanhood\u2019<\/em>, if at all there is one: she is an Indian poet, writing in English, when Indian poetry in English was breaking free from the rhetorical and romantic traditions. When her male counterparts like Nissim Ezekiel<\/em> and A. K. Ramanujan <\/em>were struggling hard to form an \u2018Ironic\u2019<\/em> image in their poems and Jayanta Mahapatra<\/em> was trying to relate his poetry to his immediate environment with pain and anger. She is a woman poet acutely conscious of her feminity, with all the contradictory demands made on it, by the family, society, and her radical companions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book has cost me many things that I held dear, but I do not for a moment regret having written it. I have written several books in my life time, but none of them has provided the pleasure the writing of \u2018My Story\u2019 have given me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Virginia Woolf, any woman who takes pen and paper to write and takes writing as a profession, has to do two things : first, she has to kill the \u2018angel\u2019<\/em> which resides in her body and second thing that she has to be truthful about speaking of her physical experiences. She describes the \u2018angel\u2019<\/em> in the house as a very sympathetic, extremely beautiful and absolutely unselfish woman, who never had her own distinct desire or thoughts. To give respect to other\u2019s desires and thoughts was her only life-mantra. To kill the \u2018angel\u2019<\/em> who resides in her, is no doubt a tough task but to speak truth about her body is the toughest. Woolf says she has succeeded in the former but accepts her failure at the later. According to her a woman who speaks of physical desires, often her creativity is hindered by the thought that, what will the \u2018male\u2019<\/em> think of her writings.<\/em><\/p>\n

The woman whose physical experiences work as the root cause of her social, psychological and spiritual growth, to search it and present it in front of others is the main theme of \u2018My Story\u2019<\/em> of Kamala Das<\/em>, who is the sole Indian writer to write on this subject. Other Indian women autobiographers avoids talking anything of their body and tries only surfacially to solve their serious existential problems, unlike these autobiographers Kamala Das<\/em> faces her body with rare kind of frankness and genuineness. The significant aspect of her brave effort is that, in spite of the constant effort to kill the \u2018angel\u2019<\/em> in her and throwing the traditional Indian morality, just to enjoy her love life, Kamala Das is aware that she has diverted from the accepted rules and regulations. Culturally defined woman constantly attacks on her existence, she again and again returns to her culturally defined self and after realizing that it\u2019s not for her, or she can\u2019t live according to the cultural order, she throws them up.<\/p>\n

Life has turned full circle, as she returns to being Kamala Das<\/em> and her poetry-writing, her first love. The aliases she has nursed and nurtured like Madhavikutty<\/em> and Kamala Surraiya <\/em>were cast away once Kamala Das made Pune <\/em>her new home with son Jaysurya. She has used many aliases, taken many liberties, experienced a gamut of emotions, including a change of religion in her seventy odd years of existence, that in the twilight of her life, she has veered around to the view that there is no greater joy than returning to one\u2019s moorings, one\u2019s roots, the world one is familiar with. She is best known for her bold and sensuous \u2018My Story\u2019<\/em>, published in 1976, and her controversial conversion to Islaam<\/em>. She has tragically let down by the false Gods whom she had worshipped. \u2018My Story\u2019,<\/em> her autobiography is acclaimed as one of the ten best books of 1976. When it was first serialized in the now defunct \u2018Malayanadu\u2019<\/em>, a Malayalam periodical, as \u2018Ente Katha\u2019<\/em>, the rather conservative society of Kerala was stunned into disbelief. She was accused of spreading the idea of extra marital affairs. When she was asked by a Rediff interviewer that, \u201cWhy is it that people get shocked when you wrote \u2018My Story\u2019?\u201d<\/em> her answer was,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they did not get shocked. They pretended to be shocked. That is to prove that they are innocent\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Further she says,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI have never killed anybody, never hated anyone, I have always wanted love, and if you don\u2019t get it within your home, you stray a little.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

When she is under the spell of the \u2018angel\u2019<\/em>, she behaves like a traditional Indian woman, who has deep fear for sex and affection for her womanly role, but as far as her autobiography is concerned, her inconsistency of going away and again coming back to her womanly role is appropriate, as she is just like that only. Like a true autobiographer she presents herself, the way she basically is, and prefers to leave the final verdict on her readers, and a sympathetic reader who doesn\u2019t see her as a convict but as an another human-being, for him Kamala Das is an imaginative and a romantic woman, who couldn\u2019t get the desired things from the socially accepted relations, whose emotionally deprived life, gave us the best opportunity to study her life psychologically.<\/p>\n

Her story starts with her school days and her childhood memories, which she has preserved till this day and expressed it through her works. Her story is consistent and tells us that, she started writing poetry when she was in schools, unfortunately, \u2018Shirley\u2019<\/em>, a classmate of hers, a small beautiful girl got all the credit. It was the time when Britishers ruled India and the effect of fair skin was ruling Indian mindset. In each of the beginning chapters a reader feels that, her childhood days are a good account of how she moved to and from Malabar to Calcutta. Calcutta, where her father worked and Malabar, where her ancestors lived, especially her grand-mother, who had played a very significant role in Kamala Das\u2019s life and works. Nalapattu house which was her holiday home, she describes it so passionately that it can be seen on our imaginative eyes, it\u2019s full of vitality and natural surrounding. She talks of her ancestress Kunji and her daughter-Kamala\u2019s grand mother, who was quite fond of young Kamala. Uncle Menon, who was a very renowned poet and writer of Kerala. Young Kamala used to spend time with her grand-mother\u2019s sister Ammalu, whom she discovered as a poet after thirty years of her death. As a school girl she was infatuated to boys and girls alike, it\u2019s a long list of boys and girls at school, in Calcutta and Malabar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her father, who was working in Calcutta, thought of sending her to a Christian boarding school where she got new friends, and fell in love with girls. She describes her school life very effectively. In Malabar she and her peer groups used to perform plays of famous English writers, like Victor Hugo\u2019s \u2018Les\u00a0 Miserables\u2019<\/em>, famous Kalidasa<\/em> plays, Moghal history<\/em> etc. she tells us how their performances used to mesmerize the elder audience.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Calcutta, she again fell in love with an eighteen year old girl and missed her when she got engaged to Mr. Das. In spite of her young age, and her heartily desire to study further, she was forced to get married. Her fianc\u00e9 was of her father\u2019s age and lusty, she has described her experiences with him, \u201cHis hands bruished my body and left blue and red marks on the skin.\u201d<\/em> Its only after her engagement or marriage that the readers meet, the real Kamala Das, up till then she is a child and describes her life as a childish account, after the engagement, she realizes her desires and wishes. She describes her marriage celebration as a wealth show and talks to the readers with a rare frankness, how tragic her first night was, shattering all her pink emotions.<\/p>\n

The couple moved to Mumbai<\/em>, it was totally unlike Malabar, and she lost weight and again went back to Malabar<\/em> with her first son in her womb, but unfortunately the child was not the sign of her husband\u2019s love, but of lust. She thought to betray him for the search of true love, because it was her social status and financial gain that made Mr. Das marry her. She approached a young bricklayer for this, her cousins also got attracted to her, she says, \u201cI was ready for love. Ripe for sexual banquet.\u201d<\/em> and accepts, \u201cI had stopped loving my husband.\u201d <\/em>Her life in Bombay was so wretched that, one day she sent her servant to get some \u2018barbiturates\u2019 (Sleeping pills)<\/em>. Days were spent in taking care of children and nights were to surrender to the \u2018tax collector\u2019<\/em>. She thought of suicide and divorce but it was impossible for her to go to any of the paths, just because she was a daughter of reputed Nalapattu<\/em> house, who had a good history and reputation in Kerala<\/em>. When her second son was born, and when she was greatly in need of her husband\u2019s company, her husband turned to one of his friends and they acted as lovers in her presence. In this inhuman conditions, she tried to commit suicide by falling from her apartment\u2019s terrace, but a miracle happened and she thought that she was not born to die like that and a poetry emerged, which told her to,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWipe out the paints, unmould the clay.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let nothing remain of that yesterday\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It was published in P. E. N. next month, and she felt that now her pain was distributed and she was relieved, but before her starting a new life she was attacked by nervous breakdown as a result of her wretched married life. After her recovery she was a new Kamala with a firm decision to live a life she had lived. She got love and affection from many men of diverse fields; some of them were of her father\u2019s age. They fell in love with her for variety of reasons, some to fill their life\u2019s void, some just to be in her poetic company, and some were there who worshipped her as a Goddess. Carlo- a pen friend loved and wanted to marry her, but she was not willing to divorce her husband. She knew that at the end of the day she has to return to her husband and children. At that stage of her life she was an established poet, and having these many lovers and fans, she felt her life bliss; she expresses her heart, and says,<\/p>\n

\u201cAs if I was a poor girl who suddenly became rich, and I was intoxicated with Power.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She again fell in love with life. When the euphoria was at its peak, then suddenly she realized her sins and fell ill, this time it was longer than usually she had spent time in hospital and it was so severe that she promised her God that, now if she recovered then she will lead a pious life, but as she recovered, she again fell in love with life. Her sins accompanied her wherever she went. People couldn\u2019t get the reason of her betraying her husband, a lady who had everything a woman usually wants, but for her it was impossible to persuade the masses about the pain she had in her heart. Though being surrounded by relatives, friends, and fans, she became miserably lonely. In addition to this loneliness she started feeling the autumn of her life. She asks,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWas it no longer possible to lure a charming male into a complicated and satisfying love affair, with the right words and the right glances, the right gesture? Was I finished as a charmer?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Then with the double force she fell in love with an elderly man. He was handsome and had a tattoo between his eyes, famous for his innumerable love affairs and sexual prowess. This was the most satisfying of all the affairs she had. He gave her a feeling of safety which she longed for all her life. She says,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI am at last in love, I have found my Krishna.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She addresses the society and says,<\/p>\n

\u201cCity fathers<\/em>, friends and moralists, if I were a sinner do not forgive my sin. If I were innocent, do not forgive my innocence. Burn me with torches blood-red in night, burn my proud Dravidian skin and burn the tumult at the core. Or bury me in your back garden, fill my crevices with the red dust of Bombay, plant gentle saplings on my belly, for, he and I met too late, we could get no child of our own, my love for him was just the writing of the sea, just a song borne by the wind\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This is just a small example of how boldly she expressed what she felt. This frankness earned her the orthodox society\u2019s anger. Though being a member of such an orthodox society, she displayed her physical experiences with frankness and truthfulness. Her relationship with the elderly man satisfied her the most and as a result her physical hunger vanished. Then she, to live a peaceful life, returned to Kerala, but there her defame led the Keralian society and her family to hate her. They thought that she had ruined the great Nalapattu house\u2019s fame, but she couldn\u2019t do anything, whatever she did automatically became public, after all she was a poet. She was a brave girl who lived her life on her own terms and conditions. To lead an unambiguous life, she returned to her hometown with her family members, and settled there. She seems a satisfied woman towards the end of her autobiography, who has accepted death as the final destiny of life, because her only aim of writing the autobiography is fulfilled, as she says in the preface of the book, that,<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote because I wanted to empty myself of all the secrets, so that I could depart when the time come with a scrubbed out conscience.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018My Story\u2019,<\/em> as well as several other of her past \u2018sins\u2019<\/em> are now visiting her to haunt as never before, forcing her to retreat from her beloved Kerala. It may be recalled that when criticism mounted about her bold writing, she made a disclaimer that \u2018My Story\u2019<\/em> was a fictional account of her life and time, but nobody believed her, \u201c\u2018My Story\u2019<\/em> ruined my reputation\u201d<\/em> she confessed when she was moving out of Cochin. She reiterated that \u2018My Story\u2019<\/em> was not a truthful account of her life, but a mix and match effort. She once said,<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a selling strategy. Readers would not have been interested in the prosaic life of Madhavikutty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Das has succeeded in describing her physical experiences-this is the thing where even writers like Virginia Woolf also hesitated. If one is a true fan of Kamala Das, then he also has to accept that while talking about her physical experiences, sometimes her pen becomes exceedingly frank and crosses the limits of womanly politeness and reaches to vulgarity, even the titles of her chapters are shocking to her conservative readers.<\/p>\n

It is not a feminist autobiography, throughout the book reader do not find Andro-centric point of view. There are numerous differences over her poetry, but in spite of all these issues the world has to accept her as a great Indian woman poet.<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. The Old Playhouse and Other Poems<\/em>. 2nd<\/sup> ed. Mumbai: Orient Longman, 1986.<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. My Story<\/em>. 1st<\/sup> ed. New Delhi: Sterling, 1976<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. \u201cThe Many Journeys of Kamala Das\u201d<\/em> M. S.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unnikrishnan \u2013 26th<\/sup> June. 2008.<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. \u201cI have Not Glorified Lust\u201d<\/em> Rediff (http:\/\/ www.rediff.com\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Kohli, Suresh. \u201cZest for Life.\u201d<\/em> Hindu.com (http:\/\/ www.hindu.com\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. \u201cI have not Glorified Lust.\u201d<\/em> Rediff.com (http:\/\/www.rediff.com\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. My Story<\/em>. 1st<\/sup> ed. New Delhi: Sterling, 1976.<\/p>\n

Das, Kamala. Interview with George Iype. \u201cAllah told me in order to \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0be effective, you Should have Political Power.\u201d<\/em> Rediff.com\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (http:\/\/ www.rediff.com\/<\/a>). 16th<\/sup> July. 2000.<\/p>\n

Harish, Ranjana. \u201cIndian Women\u2019s Autobiographies\u201d<\/em> Translated in Gujarati by Thakar, Bela. \u201cBhartiya Strioni Atmakathao\u201d<\/em> revised ed.\u00a0 Ahmedabad: Gurjar Granth Ratna. 2007.<\/p>\n

Joseph, Mini K. \u201cLove and Longing in Kerala.\u201d<\/em> Times News Network. Dec. 15TH<\/sup> 2002.<\/p>\n

K. Satchidanandan. Indian Literature-Position and Propositions<\/em>. Ed. New Delhi: Pencraft.<\/p>\n

Nazrul, Farooq. \u201cFrom Kamala Das to Dashi : Doing Right Things for \u00a0the Wrong Reason?\u201d<\/em> \u2018Setubondhan\u2019.<\/em> Dec. 22nd <\/sup>1999.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unnikrishnan, M.S. \u201cThe Many Journeys of Kamala Das.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamala Das, in spite of her royal background, was a woman of spirit, a spirit which was like a sparrow, who can not be caged. It was the century when women of reputed families were not allowed to express publically their views or experiences related to \u2018sex\u2019, but Das wrote unflinchingly of her sexual encounters and that too in a period when women were treated not more than a pat animal. Kamala Das\u2019s poetry can rightly be called her \u2018poetic autobiography\u2019 as it reveals all about her ideology, conception, psychology formation and her experiences. Her field gives immense knowledge about poetic genius.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","omw_enable_modal_window":"enable","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,39,45,466,172,332,335],"tags":[768,851,873,1052,1110,1120,1128,1132,1152,1468,1601,1762],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elt","category-elt-articles-and-research-papers","category-elt-newsletter","category-elt-research-articles","category-elt-research-papers","category-eltweekly-vol-4-issue-16","category-english-language-teaching-webinars","category-esl","tag-efl","tag-elt-newsletter","tag-elt-research-papers","tag-eltweekly-vol-4-issue-16","tag-english-language-teaching-newsletter","tag-english-teachers-newsletter","tag-english-teaching-newsletter","tag-english-teaching-tips","tag-esl","tag-mayur-agravat","tag-rita-dabhi","tag-tefl","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,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