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Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Available online at www.ajms.co.in Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2014 ISSN: 2321-8819

Kamala Das as a Postmodern Indian English Poet Angela Sadeghi Tehrani PhD student, Dept of English in Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune (India). Abstract Postmodern Indian Poetry in English is one of the many „new literatures‟ which began to emerge after 1980. It is the great trio – Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan, and Raja Rao who wrote novels and stories in the nineteen thirties, and Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, and A.K.Ramanujan who wrote poetry in the sixties, have greatly contributed to the creation of a new literature in English in India. If Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight Children marks postmodernism in Indian English fiction, the works of the poets like Kamala Das can be said to embody the characteristics of postmodernism and post-colonialism in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Both in content and in form, Kamala Das‟ poetry shows originality and reveals Indian sensibility. Above all, her poetry contributes substantially to the creation of an Indian English idiom that helps us to distinguish Indian English poetry from poetry written in English anywhere in the world.

Postmodern Indian Poetry in English is one of How to Sing (1996) – in the post-1980 era. Her the many „new literatures‟ which began to emerge imaginative world derives its power to involve the after 1980. According to Bijay Kumar Das in his reader from its rich mimetic content while its book – Postmodern Indian English Literature enduring quality comes from verbal imagery drawn (2006), the substantial body of Indian English from many sources. Thus, she grapples with ideas Literature – be it poetry, fiction, short story, and abstractions, images of men and women on autobiography, and drama – was written in the several planes, the complex of emotions centring post-1930 era. It is the great trio – Mulk Raj round human activities such as love, sex, Anand, R.K.Narayan, and Raja Rao who wrote companionship, and problems relating to her own novels and stories in the nineteen thirties, and art. Her feminine sensibility finds its true and Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, and A.K.Ramanujan fullest expression in her love poems. Indian who wrote poetry in the sixties, have greatly sensibility is transparent in her poetry and the use contributed to the creation of a new literature in of Radha Krishna myth makes it more appealing to English in India. In poetry, the beginning of the the Indian readers; so, the use of national myth postmodernism was with Nissim Ezekiel‟s Latter- helps to create an identity for the poet. Day Psalms (1982). Important poets, in the post- 1980 period include the names of Nissim Ezekiel, Everything in me A.K.Ramanujan, Jayanta Mahapatra, Kamala Das, Is melting, even the hardness at the core. Shiv K.Kumar, Keki N.Daruwalla, Dom Moraes, O Krishna, I’m melting, melting, melting, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Upamanyu Nothing remains but Chatterjee, Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai, You ... (Radha: The Descendants) Vikram Seth, Vikram Chandra, Arundhati Roy, Kamala Das‟s collections appeared at a time Manju Kapur, Raj Kamal Jha, Ruskin Bond, Manoj when English poetry by Indian women had moved Das, Hari Kunzru, and a few others. on from such colonial and nationalist themes as the If Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight Children marks rewriting of legends, praise of peasants, and from postmodernism in Indian English fiction, the works general ethical statements to writing about personal of these poets mentioned above can be said to experiences. While outmoded diction and embody the characteristics of postmodernism and sentiments were at last overtaken in favour of a post-colonialism in the last two decades of the more contemporary and less artificial manner, the twentieth century. Kamala Das is the second subject matter of the women poets was often important Indian English poet to appear on the limited to well-meaning platitudes about romantic poetic scene after Ezekiel with the publication of love, which were treated without depth, her book of verse, Summer in Calcutta (1965), in complexity, interest or even the projection of much the post-colonial era. She is also the fourth Indian emotion. By contrast, the poems of Kamala Das English poet to win the Sahitya Akademi Award when focused on love treating it within broader for her book, Collected Poems Vol.I in 1985. She ranges of themes, more realized settings and with has published two volumes of poems – Collected deeper feeling, bringing to it an intensity of Poems Vol. I. (1984) and Only the Soul Knows emotion and speech and a rich, full complexity of

106 Kamala Das as a Postmodern Indian English Poet

life. Das‟ themes go beyond stereotyped longings expression and natural, idiomatic, colloquial vigour and complaints. Even her feeling of loneliness and is more often found in the verse of Das, Mamta disappointment are part of a larger-than-life Kaila, Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo than personality, obsessive in its awareness of its self, in the male Indian English poets. In their rebellion yet creating a drama of selfhood. against the traditional role of Indian women, the women poets, led by Das, had to fight against the Writing is a means of creating a place in the kind of diction used by some poets such as Varma world: the use of the personal voice and self- and Deshpande, in which refined, lady-like revelation are means of self-assertion. Das opened language was associated with conformity of areas in which previously forbidden or ignored behaviour and attitude. As this may seem a large emotions could be expressed in ways, which reflect claim for Das‟s poetry, a few examples may be the true voice of feeling: she showed how an Indian useful for comparison. Monika Varma, one of the woman poet could create a space for herself in the better women poets of an older generation, who public world. She brings a sense of locality to her often appeared under the Writers Workshop poems. There are the rooms in which she lives, the imprint, has criticized Das for falling into flat, homes she has left, the bedrooms, restaurants and adolescent and old-fashioned expressions. Here is streets in which she meets her lovers, the rides in the opening stanza of Varma‟s first poem, In the cars, the people she visits or notices, the people Domino Dusk, of her Dragonflies Draw Flames who address in personal terms. Whereas Ezekiel (1962, 1966) volume: consciously refers to his environment, Das‟s poems assume their location; create their space by being Read Rimbaud in the domino dusk of the set in situations rather than by observing or stalagmite alluding to their environment. evening when little bats go wheeling blackly into Kamala Das‟s most remarkable achievement, shadows asprawl upon the ground however, is writing in an Indian English. Often her vocabulary, idioms, choice of verbs and some While „domino dusk‟, „stalagmite evening‟ and syntactical constructions are part of what has been „shadows asprawl‟ show a poet‟s love of words, termed the Indianization of English. This is an they are parts of a self-conscious poetic diction accomplishment. It is important in the development with no roots in common speech. Gauri Deshpande, of a national literature that writers free themselves one of the younger, university-educated women from the linguistic standards of their colonizers and poets, often writes of love and motherhood without create a literature based on local speech; and this is intensity of feeling. In the concluding stanza of especially important for women writers. Such a Deshpande‟s December, the language is abstract, development is not a matter of national pride or a pretentious, and far from spoken speech: linguistic equivalent of „local colour‟ ; rather it is a matter of voice, tone, idiom and rhythm, creating a When I feel the sun warm on my back style that accurately reflects what the writer feels or And tend to forget is trying to say instead of it being filtered through It’s winter speech meant to reflect the assumptions and And you about to depart nuances of another society. Then the other times clearly felt Futility of my life assumes import In the poetry of Kamala Das, the directness of As a vast preparation speech rhythms and colloquial language is an For our confrontation expression of emotional involvement. Her language And its brief but vicious anger that set reveals feeling in all their quirkiness and Your hands hard about my face unpredictability, whereas with previous women Before you went. poets‟ language stands in the way of emotion, Contrast such artificiality with the natural, direct poeticizing and generalizing rather than reflecting speech rhythms of Das‟s Words: it. Das offers a range of highly volatile emotions … Words are a nuisance, but with poems unexpectedly, changing direction and They grow on me like leaves on a tree, gaining effect from their inner contrasts, conflicts, They never seem to stop their coming, ironies and extremes. From a silence, somewhere deep within . . . (Words: Summer in Calcutta) With its repetition of words, phrases and symbols, and its curious blend of Indian English The women expressing new attitude required a usage, Das has created a climate for a more honest, new, more appropriate way of writing about their revelatory, and confessional poetry for Indian emotions, experience and consciousness of women. themselves as women. As it is often the case with poetry, language is an index of content. While the liberation of Indian poetry from a conscious, formalized British speech and diction Like Ezekiel, Kamala Das brought everyday occurs about the same time in the mid 1960s for conversational language into the realms of poetry. both male and female poets, directions of

Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(3) March, 2014 107 Kamala Das as a Postmodern Indian English Poet

There is a free flow of colloquial idioms in her Did I disappoint you much poetry and words as it were, obey her call. With my skin as dark as yours... You chose my clothes for me I am Indian, very brown, born in My tutors, my hobbies, my friends, Malabar, I speak three languages, write in And at fifteen with my first saree you picked Two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, me a husband they said, I am grateful English is not your mother- tongue. Why not For choosing for me a man leave And a life of sunburn dullness Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins, Brightened with embroidery and crochet work Every one of you? Why not let me speak in And the Thursday Cookery class Any language I like? The language I speak But it was not the rightmost groove for me Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness It wasn’t my cup of tea All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half I know I let you down, father. Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest, But you have punished me enough, haven’t It is as human as I am human, don’t you? You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing (Next to Indira Gandhi: Only the Soul Knows Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it How to Sing) Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is The autobiographical note is unmistakable. Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears The sincerity of emotions and feelings, the agony and and the anguish go together in these poems. The Is aware. (Introduction: empirical personality and the implied personality The Old Playhouse and Other Poems) become one and what is more, here the love triumphs over hate. Both in content and in form, Like A.K.Ramanujan, Das excels in her Kamala Das‟ poetry shows originality and reveals family poems; in her latest collections, she has Indian sensibility. Above all, her poetry contributes portrayed her love-hate relationship with her father. substantially to the creation of an Indian English idiom that helps us to distinguish Indian English Father, I ask you now without fear poetry from poetry written in English anywhere in Did you want me the world. Did you ever want a daughter

REFERENCES Das, Bijay Kumar. (2006:1-14), Postmodern Indian English Literature, New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors Das, Kamala. (2006), Only the Soul Knows How to Sing, Kerala, D C Books Das, Kamala. (2004), Summer in Calcutta, Kerala, D C Books Das, Kamala. (1991), The Descendants, Calcutta, Writers Workshop Das, Kamala. (2004), The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, Mumbai, Orient Longman Kaur, Iqbal. (1995), Perspectives on Kamala Das’ Poetry, New Delhi, Intellectual Publishing House King, Bruce. (2005), Modern Indian Poetry in English, USA, Oxford University Press Warma, Monica. (2010), “In the Domino Dusk”, in Modern Indian Poetry in English,New Delhi, Oxford University Press Deshpande, Gauri. (2010), “December”, in Modern Indian Poetry in English,New Delhi, Oxford University Press

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