Expl. 1. Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds Funeral pyre’?
These lines form part of the poem An Introduction’ written by Kamala Das. In this poem, the multi-dimensional powers of language of Kamala Das are suggested by the images of trees in storm. The trees produce various sounds when they are lashed by a storm or stormy wind. Monsoon clouds burst into claps of thunder. Language, too, seems to act like claps of thunder and flashes.
“The blazing of Funeral pyre” too, produces the cracking sound of burning. The funeral pyre is the ritual where the dead body is burnt to be consumed by flames. All these fictions of languages are reproduction of natural sounds and images. Kamala Das here speaks of the evocative power of words. Mrs. Das was remarkable for her evocative power of words. She is fond of making onomatopoeic power of words. She is particularly sensitive to the power of words and their evocative power and faculty. Her poetry is praised for her evocative power of words.
Expl. 2. I was child, and later they places sprouted hair.
Or, When I asked for love body felt so beaten.
Or, I wore a shirt and my cried the categorizers.
These lines are taken from the poem ‘An Introduction by Kamala Das. An Introduction is an autobiographical poem. In it the poetess describes the process of her growth and development into a woman.
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The poetess found fast development in her physical outlook, her limbs swelled and one or two places sprouted hair. She was in her puberty. She is described as an adolescent young woman with strong sexual urges.
The heart of the speaker was hungry for love. Not knowing what so ask. she asked for love. She did not know what else should ask for. Her desire was granted. She had been married at the age of fifteen. Her sad woman body felt so beaten. Thus the speaker indicates the process of her growing up into a young woman. The weight of her breasts and womb crushed her.
The speaker’s heart was hungry for love; it hungered for love. But the call for love is unawarded in a brutal callous fashion from all these experiences, the speaker stands pitifully. Then the speaker puts on male- dress. She wore a shirt and her brother’s trousers, cut her hair short and ignored her womanliness. This was something unnatural, something perverted. She was advised to develop as a woman, she was advised to dress in sarees, she was urged (to be wife) to be girl and not to mimic male attire. The poem is written against background of commercial expectations surrounding Indian womanhood. The poem asserts the freedom of individual choice and personal growth in the face of persistent, demands to conform. The speaker further points to the pain and loneliness involved in such a process of growth.
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Expl. 3. I am sinner, I am saint. I too call myself 1.
In her confessional poem entitled An Introduction, Kamala Das thus writes I am sinner, I am saint, I am the beloved and the betrayed. In her explanation of the self, Mrs. Das celebrates the awareness of her multi- dimensional personality. She experiences contrary and contradictory experiences. She suffers from a sense of guilt. She knows that she has sinned, for she has behaved like an unchaste person. She is a sinner and at the same time and in the same versions, she has a sense of being noble, holy and saintly. In a moment of intensely personal experience in all its uniqueness, the speaker is aware of contradictions in her experiences. She is thus both the lover and the beloved, the saint and the sinner, the betrayed and the betrayer. While reading An Introduction, we are jolted with an awareness of the whole gamut of the poetic experiences. The poetess, while celebrating herself is fully conscious of the contradiction in her experiences. Kamala Das records in An introduction, her awareness of the limiting contradiction in her quest for self identity. The poetess forcefully and vigorously asserts her right to exist as an individual with a distinctive identity and to be her authentic self even if this involves the breaking of the traditional rules of ethics and proprietary. She reveals herself as a poetess in full control over her experiences. She refused to fit in any section devised by ugly categorizers or the traditional critics.
