Love Poetry of Kamala Das

Kamala Das (1934), daughter of V. M. Nair and Balamani Amma has published four volumes of Poetry in English Summer in Calcutta, published in 1965 was the first collection that created the ripples in the horizon of Indo–English poetry. It was followed by The Descendant (1967), The Old Playhoue and Other Poems (1973) and Stranger Time (1977). It is also remarkable that there are as many as eighteen of her uncollected poems is British Nandy's anthology titled Indian Poetry in English (1947–1972). Gauri Deshpande's An Anthology of Indo–English Poetry has eight poems of Kamal Das. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1984. My Story, her autobiography originally written in Malayalam, is also one of the reputed title credited to her.
The development of a love poet, can be traced easily by subtle analysis of various strains that define different moods and shades of love. The great metaphysical poet, John Donne provides a great instance of this kind of analysis of the poem. The first phase of Donne's love poems are conspicuous for exasparation and eccentricity that owes its genesis to peculiar notion that woman is essentially unfaithful and the object of sexual pleasure only. The second phase begins with the realization of the sentimental worth of a woman and in the third phase the poet enjoys the bliss of Platonic love where body, despite lingering functionality, ceases to matter and love is manifest at spiritual level.
Kamala Das, in her long career as a love poet, has passed through many phases and has lived in the emotions of love as various planes leading to a gradual and systematic development and at the same time a rich variety of strains defining the emotion. It is, however, not justified to read and appreciate the poetry of Kamal Das without locating these strains defining various phases of her development as a love poet. These strains serve to define the inextricable relationship that subsists between her poetry and her life.
Yearning for love is the first important aspect of the love–poetry of Kamala Das. The strain embodies numerous expressed and unexpressed pains of her life that owe their genesis to the birth and consequent rupturing of the ideal she enshrined in her heart in those long years of seemingly endless neglect and inevitable loneliness. The quest began and the ideal took shape in the lonely hours of childhood when she realized that her 'father was not of an affectionate nature' that resulted in to the vacuum that despite success and glory could not be filled. The poetess admits that she was 'aware of' herself as 'neglected' child resulting into a 'strong relationship of love, the kind XXXXX may feel for his mate who pushed him on a hand cart when they went on their begging rounds'1. The reverberations of loneliness and the echo of neglect grew more tormentry after her nuptial conjugation with a monster who has throughout been insensitive to her needs :
My husband was immersed in his office work, and after work there was the dinner followed by sex. Where was time left for him to want to see the sea or the dark buffaloes of the slopes2.
Obviously the ideal nurtured by the poetess has another strangulating disaster that brought in to prominence a quest for liberty and escape from this male dominated society. Kamala Das' beautiful poem – "A Request" aptly reveals her pains and quest with precise simultaneity and comparable intensity.
O Krishna, I am melting, melting, melting
Nothing remains but you
You ...
(A Request : The Descendants)
The lines quoted above are conspicuous for the use of Krishna myth. It is remarkable that in Devotional Poetry of Bhaktikal, Krishna is a symbol of pure–love. The melting of Radha in this context leads to mean the decay of human body caused by the absence of the ideal of love.
"Dhanshyam" is another poem in which Kamala Das invokes Radha–Krishna myth. The poem is also a revelation of painful purgatorial quest for the ideal of love. The quest compels her to say that she sees 'the beauteous Krishna in every man'. She also puts forth the bold assertion that 'every Hindu girl is in reality wedded to Lord Krishna'3. Summer in Calcutta has a fairly large number of love–poems bearing different shades of love. The poetess herself admits that there is too much love in her poems but she justifies that 'love is a beautiful emotion' and it is 'the foretaste of paradise'4. It is remarkable that Kamala Das in her poems doesn't advocate free love nor puts forth a plea for lust, but she maintains a clear distinction between love and lust. She, in much anthologized poem, "An Introduction" reveals :
I asked for love when 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.
(An Introduction)
The lines quoted above clearly illustrate poet's longing for love and the vacuum which was created as an aftermath of yearning for love that meets no desired end. In 'My Grandmother's House" she discloses her nostalgia about the house at Malabar where she spent her childhood.
There was a hour now far away where once
I received love ... That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books I was then too young.
(My Grandmother's House)
The lines quoted above provide strong emphasis on the despair that makes her present through an oblique reference to past when she received love. To the poetess, love is a memory not the present : the oblique reference makes it clear that the present is deprived of love and justifies the quest for love. The paradise enshrined in the above poem recurs in another famous and much anthologized poem, "Vrindavan" in which Kamala Das says that Vrindavan 'lives in every woman's mind'. Kamala Das, in her poetry as well as occasional writings, maintains a clear distinction between love and lust. The poetess feels proud in recollecting her grandmother's house because the house gave her love in its purest form, the emotions that could not be enjoyed again by her. The pride expressed in the poem owes its genesis to the love she received there. She admits :
... 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 stranger's doors to
Receive love at least in a small change ?
Harish Raizada locates the 'hunger' of woman and reaches 'simple love which she considers a necessity of her life'5. K. R. Ramchandran also feels that the 'woman's ideal relationship is based on mutual love, without lust, passion without desire and possession without condescension'6. Kamala Das's plea for pure love expressed in her poetry is manifest candidly in Meet the Author Programme organized by Sahitya Academy. She firmly asserts :
A man not loving a woman but only feeling lust has no right to touch her and defile her. He should not enter her. I think, it is like counterfeit money7.
The words of Kamal Das seeks ratification in the famous poem, "The Seashore"
... love can take us to world's where life is
Evergreen, and you, just at these moments raise your
Red–eyes at the smile perhaps at the folly
Of my thoughts.
The ideal soon gets ruptured. The 'red eyes at the smile' suggest the quaintness of the ideas and ideas. She further writes :
I see you go away from me.
And feel the loss of love I have never once received.
(The Seashore)
The absence of pure love obliges the agony of a prisoner and she feels that the relationship without 'simple love' is a prison house. The yearning for love draws a close parallel with the escape from the prison house. In "The Prisoner", she writes :
As the prisoner studies
His prison's geography
I study the trappings
Of your body dear love,
For I must some day find
An escape from its shore.
(The Prisoner)
It is an obvious that a reference to Krishna myth or to the imaginary ideal of Vrindavan is a quest and simultaneously, it is an attempt to escape. Sudhir Kakkar, interpreting the myth, points out that Krishna 'encourages the individual to identify with an ideal primal self released from all social and super ego constraints'8. She reveals her pains in her poem, "Maggots" by transferring her experiences to Radha, who after the blisful love relation which Krishna, feels like being a corpse after her marriage :
At sunset, on the river bank Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left
That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong
Do you mind my kisses, love ? And she said
No, not at all, but though what is
It to the corpse of the maggots nop ?
(The Maggots)
Kamal Das's poems show strong sense of consciousness towards the feminine psyche. Iyengar takes her to be writer of 'fiercely feminine sensibility'9 while Satya Dev Jaggi affirms that 'she is intensely conscious of herself as a woman'10. This consciousness is often reflected in quick apprehension of male desire and the sharp and prompt reaction to it.
... these men who call me
Beautiful, not seeing
Me with eyes but with hands.
And even ... even ... love
(Summer in Calcutta)
The quest for the ideal attains the climax of pain and agony in the poem titled 'Love' in which she encompasses her resilience in a manner which is personal. She writes :
Until I found you.
I wrote verse, drew pictures.
And went out with friends
For walks ...
Now, that I love you
Curled like an old mongrel
My life lies content in you.
(Love)
The most piercing revelation of the feminist sensibility of Kamala Das is expressed in the image of the womb in her poem, "Afterwards". "Son of her Womb" looks ugly in loneliness and is advised to 'walk the world's bleary eye like a grit'. She confides :
The earth we nearly killed is yours
Now, the flowers bloom again,
But a savage red; it takes
Time to forget blood or quick gasps
Of the dying. And the sudden pain
But the sun came again and rain.
(Afterwards)
The poetess identifies herself with calm of quite existence of the earth : the primordial image of motherhood. In the context of sexual union of the poetess with her man there emerge with new shades of meaning of the blooming flowers. The blood and the quick gasps are attendants upon the act of sex.
There is another very important theme that runs parallel to the theme of the quest for ideal of love : that is the theme of disillusionment in love. 'The Freaks' are the two lover which in the poem have been identified with the poet and her husband. The lover, instead of being attractive and charming falls on the other side and appears to be repulsive. The abnormal situation also contributes significantly to this theme. They decide in favour of love but their mind keeps wondering away just because there is no emotional contact between them, and, as a result of this emotional void the lovers feel like walking along a narrow lane with a stink of filth, that symbolize lust and void. The rhetoric makes the feeling enshrined in the poem more clear and vibrant as there is no fulfilment in love :
Can this man with
Nimble finger tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin's lazy hungers ? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love ?
(The Freaks)
The poet's scorn for the man – reduces the love to lust and affords no satisfaction. There is scintillating contrast between the exalted and common place that provides intensity to the poem. The question marks used successively twice raffled the painful compromise of the poet that she is left with no other option but to suffer and endure in the snore of love.
"A Relationship" is another poem dealing with the theme of identification between love and desire. The poet candidly claims that 'it was her desire that made him male' and confesses that she 'shall find her sleep, her peace and even death nowhere else but there in her betrayer's arms' (A Relationship). The poem encapsulates the history of her love–hate relationship with her love.
"The Bangles" symbolically represent the agony caused by the rupturing of the ideal of love between husband and wife.
... At night
In sleep, woman lashes
At pillow with bangled arms, in
Vain she begs bad dream to fade
The man switches on the light and
Looks into her face with his
Grey pitiless eyes ...
(The Bangles)
The poem is a profound realization of the sufferings of a woman. The protagonist, with obvious shade of the poet is deprived of love and in turn, is enslaved by the whims of the husband.
"The Sea Shore" opens with the death, imagery and consequently expand upon the inter–dependence between love and death. The experience on way while passing by the cremation ground is of tremendous important from the point of view of love–death relation as theme :
On same evenings I drive past a cremation ground.
And seem to hear the crunch of bones in those vulgar
Mouth of fire, or at times I see the smoke in strands.
Slowly stretch and rise, like serpent's satiated,
Slow content, and the only face I remember
Then is yours ...
(The Seashore)
It is an interesting observation that Kamala Das reminds us of major metaphysical poets like John Donne and Andrew Marvel in the cast of death imagery. It is, however, interesting that the death image is metaphysical poetry, performs a distinct function from that in the poetry of Kamala Das. Donne, in "The Canonization" writes :
The phoenix riddle hates more wit,
By us; we two being one are it
So to one neutral thing both sexes fit
We die and rise the same and prove
Mysterious by this love.
In the light of the above quoted lines it is easy to infer that the death image used by Kamala Das has the poignancy of John Donne, though thematically it performs a distinct function. It is ironical that Kamala Das has always been accused of vulgarity and advocacy for lust whereas she discards sexual pleasure in the absence of emotional satisfaction. 'In love' is her remarkable lyric which deals with the same theme. The speaker of the poem identifies herself with the fire of the sun and reminds her of 'his mouth, and his limbs like pale and carnivorous plants reaching out for her ... (In love). It is important to note that the poem is set against the scorching sun that drews a close analogue with the scorching soul of the poetess. The tension in the poem is expressed well by Devendra Kohli, who says that 'it is difficult to say whether Kamala Das succeeds in resolving her tension between physical and spiritual aspect of love'12. C.N. Srinath also emerges with similar view and takes genuine love to be her 'main preoccupation, her obsession'13. It is, however, a great irony that many critics have been interpreting the poems of Kamala Das as expression of lust and the pivot of the dynamics of themes and images has been ignored in the assessment.
"Summer in Calcutta" is one of the most anthologized poems of Kamal Das. The image of April sun stands for heat and intoxication whereas the juice of April sun sparks with sensuousness. There is induction of the mood of sensuality through repetitive occurrence of the words like 'drink' or 'drunk'
What is this drink but
The April sun squeezed
Like an orange in
My glass ?
(Summer in Calcutta)
Devendra Kohli opines that 'the poem is an Indian poet's reaction to the torture of the Indian summer'14. It is evident that the noted critic fails to appreciate the deeper layers of meanings and experience XXXX in the poem.
"The Looking Glass" is Kamala Das' effort to externalize plains and humiliations that occur as aftermath of the disaster in the realization of the ideal. The mirror constitutes a complex symbol that embody the pride of man and the humiliations of woman.
... Stand nude before the glass with him
So that he sees himself the stronger one
And believes it so, and you so much more
Softer, younger lovelier ... Admit
Your admiration. ...
The poem ironically suggest the lack of realization of the worth of woman on her part. She 'notices the perfect of his limbs' but has only a shy walk across the bathroom floor'. She further confides :
... All the fond details that make
Him male and your only man.
(The Looking Glass)
The poetess balances the jerky ways he urinates with 'the scent of long hair' and 'the musk of sweat between the breasts'. The balance work at the painful contradiction between man–woman relation.
... Oh yes, getting
A man to love is easy but living
Without his afterwards may have to be
Faced ...
The complex theme of the poem also defines Kamala Das's concept of love which lead to the experience beyond sex through sex. She candidly admits her participation into extra marital sex–relation and doesn't feel ashamed of it. She reveals :
... You let me toss my youth like coins
Into various hands, you let me mate with shadows
Seek ecstasy in other arms.
(A Man is a Season)
The frustration caused by the disaster in the quest for the ideal of love leads to frustration that seeks purgatorial outlet through her poetry. The need for other man is born of the need of fulfilment in love. The poems of early phase show bursting frustration.
Oh Sea, let me shrink or grow, slash up.
Slide down, go you way,
I will go mine.
(The Invitation)
It is, however, noteworthy that she in later poem emerges as a matured poet, and, the maturity is attributed to her profound insight in to human psychology. Her frank views on sex bear the impact of the psychological researches of Freund and Jung. The revelation of suppression of sex is present in the subconscious. Nasreen Ayaz rightly points out :
Repressed sex instincts are present in the subconscious and this uncconscious is the basis of human behaviour. This psychological dimension of love is a significant aspect of modern poetry which is full of the emotions of anxiety, frustrations, hollowness and chaos.
It is an easy inference that the poetry of Kamala Das is a vision of love–experience through the Kaleidoscope of her personal experiences of set–backs in instituting ideals which leads to the inference that a woman is nothing more than a passive partner in the enactment of lust. The quest and the consequent disaster is the pivotal aspect which determine the experience in this strain of her love poetry. However, besides interpretations it leads to numerous misinterpretations also that bring forth hostile criticism. Bruce King too comes out with similar views. He comments :
Her poems are situated neither in the act of sex nor in the feelings of love : they are instead involved with the self and its varied, often conflicting emotions, ranging from the desires for security and intimacy to the assertion of the ego, self dramatization and feelings of shame and depression.15
Devendra Kohli is also little liberal when he says that her poetry is a sort of "compulsion neurosis"16 and the form and function of the poetry originates from several alignments and extringements exploring the meanings and experiences of love, lust and sex. The image of death is also variedly used image in the poetry of Kamala das which invites a vast range of possibilities of interpretation. Life and death are judge in juxtaposition with each other that together imply that one without the other cease to mean. There is also mystic interpretation of death in some poems like "Words and Birds" and "A Holiday for Me". Death is manifest as a metaphor of fulfilment of love, milestone on the way to eternal quest that obliges her to like death as the "only reality" and the endless stretching "before and beyond our human existence"17. The mystic concept of love provides serenity to the quest for the ideal of love. "The Old Playhouse" offers to our scrutiny a sharp and scintillating correlation between love and life and death while the latter two are taken to mean two sides of the same coin.
Love is Narcissus at the water's edge, haunted
By its own lovely face, and yet it must seek at last.
An end, a pure total freedom, it must will the minors.
To shatter and the kind night to erase the water.
(The Old Playhouse)
The above discussion makes its clear that Kamala Das imparts new dimensions in the genre of love poetry. The first strains of her love poetry deals with the quest for the ideal of love which aims at the feeling beyond sex, passing through it. The failure of her efforts to institute ideals lead to the depression and frustration that acquire new shades and complexion in the light of the biographical realities of the poetess. The other strain of her love poetry provide a logical perpetuation of this strain of love that she candidly puts to our scrutiny.

References
1Kamala Das, My Story (New Delhi : Sterling Publications, 1976) 2.
2Kamala Das, "I have lived beautifully", Debonair III No. 5; May 15, 1975; 41.
3Das, My Story, 5.
4Kamala Das, "Obsenity and Literature", Weekly Round Table; April 1972, 32.
5Anisur Rehman, Expression Forms in the Poetry of Kamala Das (New Delhi : Abhinav Publications, 1981) 33.
6K. R. Ramachandran, The Poetry of Kamala Das (New Delhi : Rehana Publishing, 1993) 98.
7Kamala Das, "My Instinct My Guru", Indian Literature XXXIII, 5; Sept–Oct 1990; 159–160.
8Sachin Kakar, The Inner World : A Psycho–Analytic Study of Childhood and Soiety in India (New Delhi : Oxford, 1981) 98.
9K.R.S. Iyengar, Indian Writings in English (New Delhi : Sterling, 1983) 680.
10Satya Dev Jaggi, "A Feminine Awareness", Thought, Vol. XIII, No. 6, April 16, 1966; 17.
11John Donne, "The Canonization", John Donne – The Complete English Poems (1971; London : Penguin, 1975) 47.
12Devendra Kohli, Kamala Das (New Delhi : Arnold Heinemann, 1975) 49.
13C. N. Srinath, Comtemporary Indian Poetry in English – The Literary Criterion, Vol. III, No. 2, Summer 1968; 62.
14Kohli 73.
15Nasreen Ayaz, "Conept of Love in the Poetry of Kamala Das", Perspectives on Kamala Das's Poetry, ed. Iqbal Khan (New Delhi : Intellectual Publishing, 1995) 110.
16Bruce King, Modern Indian Poetry in English (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1987) 150.
17Kohli 20.

Select Bibliography
A. Primary Sources
Summer in Calcutta. New Delhi : Everest Press, 1965.
Dass, Kamala. The Descendant. Calcultta : Writer's Workshop, 1967.
Dass, Kamala. Old Playhouse and Other Poems. Madras : Orient Longman, 1973.
Dass, Kamala. My Story. New Delhi : Sterling, 1976.
Dass, Kamala. Alphabet of Lust. New Delhi : India Paperbacks, 1977.
Dass, Kamala and Pritish Nandi. Tonight His Savage Rite : Love Poems of Kamala Dass and Pritish Nandi. New Delhi :
Dass, Kamala. "Obscenity and Literature". Weekly Round Table, April 23, 1972; 31–32.
Dass, Kamala. "I have Loved Beautifully". Debonair III, No. 5, May 15, 1974; 40–41.
B. Secondary Sources
Ayaz, Nasreen. "Concept of Love in the Poetry of Kamala Dass", Pespectives on Kamala Dass's Poetry. Ed. Iqbal Kaur, New Delhi : Intellectual Publishing, 1995.
Donne, John. "The Cononization". John donne : The Complete English Poems, 1971; London : Penguin, 1975.
Iyengar, K.R.S. Indian Writings in English. New Delhi : Sterling, 1996.
Jaggi, Satya Dev. "A Feminine Awareness". Thought, April 16, 1966.
Kakkar, Sudhi. The Inner World : A Psycho–Analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India. New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1981.
King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1987.
Kohli, Devendra. Kamala Dass. New Delhi : Arnold Hernemann, 1975.
Ramchandran, K.R. The Poetry of Kamala Dass. New Delhi : Rehance Publishing, 1993.
Rehman, Anisur. Expressive Forms in the Poetry of Kamala Dass.
Srinath, C.N. Contemporary Indian Poetry in English – The Literary Criterion. Vol. III, No. 2, Summer 1968.