topics: |  poetry | india | english | women

An Introduction: p. 26--

	I don’t know politics but I know the names
	Of those in power, and can repeat them like
	Days of week, or names of months, beginning with
	Nehru. I am Indian, very brown, born in
	Malabar, I speak three languages, write in
	Two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said,
	English is not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
	Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
	Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
	Any language I like? The language I speak
	Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernessess
	All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half
	Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
	It is as human as I am human, don’t
	You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
	Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
	Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
	Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
	Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
	Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
	Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
	Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
	Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
	Told me I grew, for I become tall, my limbs
	Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair. When
	I asked for love, 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.
	The weight of my breast and womb crushed. I shrank
	Pitifully. Then . . . I wore a shirt and my
	Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
	My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl,
	Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook, 
	Be a quarreler with servants. Fit in. oh, 
	Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit
	On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
	Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or better
	Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
	Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
	Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
	Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
	Jilted in love . . . . I met a man, love him. Call
	Him not by any name, he is every man
	Who wants a woman, just as I am every
	Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste
	Of rivers, in me . . . the ocean’s tireless
	Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
	The answer is, it is i. anywhere and
	Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself
	I ; in this world, he is tightly pack like the
	Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
	Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
	It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
	And then feel shame, it is I who lie dying
	With a rattle in my throat. I am a sinner,
	I am saint. I am beloved and the
	Betrayed. I have no joys which are not yours, no
	Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.

In Love: Kamala Das : p. 271

Of what does the burning mouth
Of sun, burning in today's
Sky remind me... oh, yes, his
Mouth, and... his limbs like pale and
Carnivorous plants reaching
Out for me, and the sad lie
Of my unending lust.  Where
Is room, excuse or even
Need for love, for, isn't each
Embrace a complete thing, a
Finished jigsaw, when mouth on
Mouth, I lie, ignoring my poor
Moody mind, while pleasure
With deliberate gaiety
Trumpets harshly into the
Silence of the room... At noon
I watch the sleek crows flying
Like poison on wings -- and at
Night, from behind the Burdwan
Road, the corpse-bearer's cry '_Bol
Hari Bol_', a strange lacing
For moonless nights, while I walk
The verandah sleepless, a
Million questions awake in
Me, and all about him, and
This skin-communicated
Thing that I dare not yet in
His presence call our love.