topics: |  poetry | india | single-author | english

I first ran into this book at the Kern library in Leiden, Holland, where I am sure it had not been disturbed for many years.

At the time I had never heard of Mamta Kalia, though later I found that she had appeared in several anthologies I already had. Her earthy poems seemed to speak to me much more eloquently than many other better known names.

This volume was published from Kolkata in 1970, a period of ferment when Indian English was emerging as a language for poetry - see, for instance, the vigorous strangertime ed. Pritish Nandy, which includes four poems from this book, plus two more. I also found her anthologized in Eunice De Souza's Nine Indian Women Poets (seven from this book, two others). More recently, she appears in Jeet Thayil's 60 Indian poets (two from Tribute, plus four from later works).

This is Mamta's first book, but there is a vividness and lightness about her writing, together with a lack of finesse that makes it more appealing. Her style is direct, and others may find her lacking in grace, but the voice speaks to the heart, and there is none of the overworked pretentiousness accompanying many more modern voices.

Unfortunately for Indian English, it appears she is writing mostly in Hindi these days, since she moved to Allahabad, the "nerve center of Hindi writing."

Excerpts

Tribute to Papa : p.9-10

Who cares for you, Papa?
Who cares for your clean thoughts, clean words, clean teeth?
Who wants to be an angel like you?
Who wants it?
You are an unsuccessful man, Papa.
Couldn’t wangle a cosy place in the world.
You have always lived a life of limited dreams.

I wish you had guts Papa
To smuggle eighty thousand watches at a stroke,
And I'd proudly say, "My father's in import-export business, you know."
I'd be proud of you then.

But you've always wanted to be a model man,
A sort of an ideal.
When you can't think of doing anything,
You start praying,
SPending useless hours at the temple.

You want me to be like you, Papa,
Or like Rani Lakshmibai.
You're not sure what greatness is,
But you want me to be great.

I give two donkey-claps for greatness.
And three for Rani Lakshmibai.

These days I am seriously thinking of disowning you, Papa,
You and your sacredness.
What if I start calling you Mr. Kapur, Lower
         	Division Clerk, Accounts Section?

Everything about you clashes with nearly everything about me
You suspected I am having a love affair these days
But you're too shy to have it confirmed
What if my tummy starts showing gradually
And I refuse to have it curetted
But I’ll be careful, Papa,
Or I know you’ll at once think of suicide.

Sheer good luck p.11

So many things
could have happened to me.
I could have been kidnapped
at the age of seven
and ravaged by
dirty-minded middle-aged men.
I could have been married off
to a man with a bad smell
and turned frigid as a frigidaire.
I could have been
an illiterate woman
putting thumb-prints
on rent-receipts.
But nothing ever happened to me
except two children
and two miscarriages.

Compulsions

I want to pick my nose
in a public place
I want to sit in my office chair
with my feet up
I want to slap the boy
who makes love in a cafe
while I wait alone for the waiter
to bring me coffee·and sandwich~
I want to pay· Sunday visits
totally undressed
I want to throw away
all my cosmetics
I want to reveal
my real age

Viewpoint p.13

I was born upside down
and I'm very proud of it.
Not that I walk on
my head or talk with my toes,
but I swear I feel comfortable
	in the world as it is.
(In school I believed it had something to do
with how my parents made love.)
Once I did stand up
but I found everything down:
prices, politics, love.
So I stood on my head again
and struck a tidy bargain.

Brat p.20

Looking at my navel
I'm reminded of you, Mamma.
How I lay suspended
By that cordial cord inside you.
I must have been a rattish thing,
A wriggly roll of shallow breath.
You, perhaps, were hardly proud
Of your creativity —
Except for the comfort
That I looked like Papa
And not like the neighbour
Who shared our bathroom.

Against Robert Frost p.21

I can't bear to read Robert Frost.
Why should he talk of apple picking
Wnen most of us can't afford to eat one?
I haven't even seen an apple for many months --
Whatever we save we keep for beer
And contraceptives.

Dedicated Teacher

It seems funny at times-
I've rarely seen a mountain,~
a forest or a river
yet I teach geography.
I'm working for a PhD these days.
Even if I know
I'll never complete the thesis,
never mind,
that I'm registered is enough.
I'll talk my lungs out about it.
It's all to wangle a Readership, you see.
The University needs me. 

Sunday song p.24

The calendar has just dropped
a Sunday in my room
I'm puzzled how to hold on
to this long vacant day.
There's a lot of dirty linen
and many pending phone calls.
On the table, there's a shaky
       		      	mountain
			of
			books,
and I have to wash my hair too.
I know I won't attend to any of these.
Every now and then
I'll ask my room-mate the time,
and pretend to be sleepy.
I know that in other rooms
the girls are dressing up devotedly.
Looking at them you can easily tell
with whom they plan to go out.
But ask them and they will say,
"A cousin has come from Bhavnagar."

I wonder at the emptiness of this Sunday
and of all Sundays.
It was never like this
when you were here.
We'd rise late, sip each other's tea,
bathe together,
quarrel,
all in a few hours.
We'd go places, visit friends, eat bhel puri,
We'd come back, make love again, call it a day.

I don't know how it has happened
but the road seems narrower without you,
and the sea less dignified.
I can't talk to a soul
without mentioning you.
You know how it bores them.
No one wants a moping matron around.
In reality
all our friends were your friends,
all our ideas your ideas
all our projects your projects.
I followed you like a corollary.
Now I am away from you,
missing my handcuffs,
feeling stupid
on this long unpromising Sunday.

Contents

	Tribute to Papa          9
	Sheer Good Luck         11
	Compulsions             12
	Viewpoint               13
	An Active Life          14
	Made for Each Other     15
	Tit for Tat             16
	New Deal                18
	Dubious Lovers          19
	Brat                    20
	Against Robert Frost    21
	Sunday song             24
	Positive Thinking       26
	Seize the Day           27
	Speechless              28
	Love Cure               39
	Matrimonial Bliss       30
	    And in the evenings you go out
	    I keep hanging onto you like an appendix.
	Self-pity               31