Was She Brave?

Just a literary testimonial to Das, for being brave in life.

I often receive surprises when it comes to reading novels. The biggest of all was my ability to read a 500-page novel The Great Expectations by Charles Dickens) without any academic pressure or requirement.

Initially, I was a quote person. I was amazed by the idea of compressing ideas. Oft on YourQuote I discovered such writers. From there I even tried to come up with quotations that would amaze me when I re-read it sometime later. 

लोग चांद पे जा रहे

और बच्चे काम पर।

चुप हूं,

गलत नहीं।

-are some of my favorite self-composed quotes.

The goal was achieved, when I re-read these I feel happy. But it's not that just quotations amazed me. For the first time when I read an open letter, my brain stopped braining (if braining is a word). It was like slowly sliding the curtains to literature’s window, only to discover an unexpected serene scenery. 

But Kamala Das’s glimpses from her autobiography scared me for a while. “What will I do if someone I marry locks me in the house before going to work?” (of course he won't) and a lot of similar questions. Yea, you guessed that right. Das’s husband was a corporate majdoor. Every day before leaving for his office, he used to lock Das in the apartment, only to unlock it upon his arrival in the evening. All the details of this incident are depicted in Das’s The Sunshine Cat. So unless you've known the author from their experience, you can't appreciate- the lens, the ink, the expression, either all or even one at all.

Excerpt from Kamla Das's The Sunshine Cat

They let her slide from pegs of sanity into

A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping,

For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears,

She said, walls to shut me in. Her husband shut her

In, every morning, locked her in a room of books

With a streak of sunshine lying near the door like

A yellow cat to keep her company, but soon

Winter came, and one day while locking her in, he

Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a

Line, a half-thin line, and in the evening when

He returned to take her out, she was a cold and

Half dead woman, now of no use at all to men.

Kamala Das

You must be wondering, this isn't so bad of an experience, so why were those people scared to read her? To your surprise, these aren't the ones. The love poems of her sexual experiences - both deceitful and hopeful, that's what scare people. 

“How could she!?” 

“This is not supposed to be discussed.”

Well, she talks about her husband's and own extramarital affairs. How men left her drab and destitute. A child who has had nothing in the name of love or its synonyms- right from childhood and even gets unlucky in marriage, that's what Kamala Das's poetry pleads for, the urge for belongingness and attachment. She even changed her religion for a man, only to regret it later. This doesn't conclude her detachment from her memories. The poet's nostalgic expressions are poured into her poem A Hot Noon in Malabar, from the episodic scenes from her hometown Malabar. 

Excerpt from Kamla Das's A Hotnoon in Malabar

Is a noon for strangers with mistrust in

Their eyes, dark, silent ones who rarely speak

At all, so that when they speak, their voices

Run wild, like jungle-voices. Yes, this is

A noon for wild men, wild thoughts, wild love. To

Be here, far away, is torture.  Wild feet

Stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my

Home in Malabar, and I so far away ……..