International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124

"An Introduction"- My Confessional Note.

Ms. Leelavathi Malaka.

B.A (Tel Litt); M.A(MSW) B.Theology
M.A(English Litt) (Retired Lecturer)
Email ID: [email protected]
Mobile: 919490434100

Life is not as we desire it to be. It serves differently to different

people. Some enjoy the platter full of dainties. Some are half filled,
starved and thrown out. Some try to create something from that
empty platter, to tell the world how hungry the others are. Kamala
Das comes under the third category.

“An Introduction"!? A Poem of Kamala Das,

The versatile queen of the South Asian Literature. a poem on herself, by
herself. It is a ' Looking Glass' of every thinking woman caged in Man's world.
People introduce themselves with their achievements, with their famous backgrounds.
But Kamala Das’s “An Introduction” is not an ordinary one. It’s an aggressive
individualistic self reflection. There are many women and men poets who
portrayed beautiful lives, colorful events of women.. Their poetry takes us into utopia
and makes us day dream for wonderful lives. Their poems are heartfelt, and their
words are heart touching. They talk about love, sacrifice, adaptation and adjustment in
life of women.

But Kamala Das is the best female poet in India whose poems and
short stories are unique music of life. She is known as Madhavi Kutty , but brought up
in Kolkata. She wrote “My Story” one of the best autobiographical writings. She was
known as daring memoirist and prominent Indian poet and short story writer, mostly
on sexual lives of women.

Most of Kamala Das's poetry is in English. Her pen name was

Madhavi kutty and wrote in Malayalam. She was born in Malabar a South Indian state
called Kerala, otherwise known as "God's own country" .Both her mother and
grandfather were poets in Malayalam. She started writing poetry in school days itself.
She had won the PEN's Asian Poetry prize. She wrote "Summer in Calcutta", The
Descendants", " The Old Playhouse and other Poems" and so on.

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International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124

The portrait of ' other women' by man is a common goal of any

spectacular sphere of a life, either in the literature of any language, in painting, in
sculpturing, in any art of life. Men wrote, described depicted, dissected woman's
mind, soul and beauty of her body.

We women read and reread the 'other woman' in pieces, in angels, in

squares, spheres, or in any shapes. We cried, we laughed, we overwhelmed, we
shouted in anger to the plight or beauty of those women. We tried to amalgamate
ourselves into those 'idols' and try to identify ourselves into the other.

"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 queernesses, all mine, mine alone.
It is half English, half Indian, and funny perhaps, but it is honest."

I see myself standing there in her place arguing, disputing, and

discoursing with that sweet circle of my so called well wishers. --These people loved
my books in my own language, they look sincere but yet 'leave me alone', was my
answer to them just like Kamala Das.

I admired Kamala Das for her Sweet voice of Nightingale that

comes out from her Tigerly, yet Tired heart in her poems. How could she expressed
my thoughts, my feelings, my musings in her poems long long back , even before I
learned the ABC of the English language.

The poem "An Introduction" drew me to peep into her inner soul,
life, her frankness and smell her fragrance of being. Her beautiful visage surprised me
to read her rebellious questions in seeking justice in her life.

She is a taboo to men and women, why? Because she is 'beyond

herself?' metaphysical? She is right up in the sky, looking down unto the weeping
womanhood to speak out the language of hidden woman? She is called by names
even in literary circles, as an 'adulteress' because her's are confessional poems, she
was hated, looked down because she deliberately expressed her sinner's life.

Confession! It’s not secret confession, its public one. Confession

needs repentance! Without repentance confession has no value, its only a proud

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useless outbreak. We can imagine her pillows being drenched in her tears. She is a
woman who never ran after fame or name or for good views of others. If she ever did
seek such glittering glow, she would never had written her confessional free verse.
She never worried of ' of what others would say’, including her own kith and kin,
including her own son. A mother usually dare not to reveal her secret life to her son
at least, but she is above the myths of colored games of fame. Never she was afraid
whether her reputation would be tarnished by her writings.

She is there, transparent, transcendent, turbulent in crystal clear

glass room. Standing as an angel, a saint, saying, " Hey it’s me, Listen carefully, it’s
me, Kamala Das-- I am human Don't you see?"

" It is as human as I am human, don you see?

It voices my joys, my longings, my hopes,"

She wanted to find the answer to such simple question such as

“What is love?" The result was horrified experience to any Sixteen years innocent
girl. I imagined her as she was molested, raped and trampled by her own towering
heartless creature called husband. Torn apart, abused and crushed to the utmost,
swollen face in disheveled hair, crumpled silk dress, ran out of that jungle room into
weird wilderness of life.

“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 breasts and womb crushed me I shrank pitifully."

"People!! Why don't you try to understand me? "---Her inner being
cried aloud, I see her there in tears, sobbing, hiding in corner of life.

"..and as it is useful to be as cawing to crows or roaring to the lions,

it is human speech of the mind that is here and there....."

She is not a Pativrata, of classical myths, willing to sacrifice under

the merciless blows of a man, a cruel heartless so called husband. She is not there to
imitate the role of “better-half". She is a woman, an individual and a 'Song Sung by
Mayfly" can’t be heard, flies in search of partner, lives a day, unseen, unheard,
unnoticed. But it frantically tries to fulfill its goal searching for a life partner, for love.
She can't but speak out her feelings, therefore she has to write, confessional themes.

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" Then I wore a shirt and my brother's trousers,

cut my hair short and ignored my womanliness"

Her inner soul wanted to know how it would be if she could have
different physique, the much coveted gender, the boy, She too wanted to transform
into genie of a boy. She could show the world that she is 'boyish', tomboy, by wearing
that attire of boys, who are not restricted to jump, to climb, to run in the streets. What
if she posses that much coveted freedom of life, by dressing herself in shirt and
trouser, and cropping her hair close to the temples.

"Dress in sarees, be girl, be wife, they said. be embroiderer, be cook,

be a quarreller with servant Fit in , belong, cried the categorizers’.
Don't sit on walls or peep in through our lace dragged windows.
be Amy, or be Kamala or better still be Madhavi kutty.
It is time to choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending genes."

Ignoring Womanliness? What is it in the "Text book of

expectations of the society"? She being a woman ignores womanliness?
Yes, she was not that type of a girl who "Who looks like an angel
walks like an angel, talks like an angel'. No, all that she wanted to live in two words,
"Love and Freedom" Love spotless, respectable; Freedom in thought and deed. She
doesn't want to be prisoned under the disguise of womanliness; she would rather be
'disguised devil' as a boy--

What is wrong if I walk like a boy and enjoy all the freedom he
enjoys without any Do’s &Don'ts which are imposed on her , just because she is a
girl.

She is betrayed, -therefore she experimented her life, she

experienced every aspect of life of a woman, objectively, studiously, respectfully. She
is a scholar in woman's body to research the encounters of woman's life.

Man drinks liquor? Drinking alcohol is their right? Why they

drink? Men go to brothels? Leaving his wife at home and eat at hotels? Men can be
friendly and go for outings, movies with 'other woman'? Men can secretly speak to
women without the knowledge of his family members? Men can love others and also
can cheat their own?

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The answer is an open book. Men work and stressed, they drink
to forget their misery, they go to brothels to experiment in sex, they are friendly with
other women because their wives can't joke, they do filthy mischievous things with
other girls in by ways and sideways because they are DEPRESSED.

Just because they are depressed their agony knew no bounds.

They are at the verge of suicide because the wife is not 'up to the mark' or they could
not make two ends meet. Or cheated by a woman or man. So they find solace in
drinking liquor. Wife died so they need other woman immediately. They are not
consolable, the liquor and women give them comfort.

Kamala questions, " So what if I am depressed, cheated,

widowed? Am I not DEPRESSED? I am also a human, I too go through the problems,
I am also despaired, I too need some comfort. They drink liquor to forget their misery
and to be consoled, why shouldn't I try Liquor!?

"It is I who drinks lonely, drinks at twelve, midnight,

in hotels of strange towns. It is I who laugh,
it is I who make love then feel shame."

At least she feels remorse, shame, repentance, unlike the other two
legged HomoSapien who walks on roads shamelessly as if nothing happened after all
that dirt he rolled in. She spills her beans on the public stage, frank and clear in her
thought, accepting that she is a sinner yet a saint because she confessed her free verse
is confessional and hopeful.

"It is I who lie dying with rattle in my throat, I am sinner,

I am saint. I am the beloved and the betrayed
. I have no joys that are not yours, no aches which are not yours.
I too call myself I."

She conferred, confessed, cajoled, and brought out everything in her

life on public screen. She says she did never have happiness, which is a simple thing
in life for others; they have no aches like her, she is the one who is always betrayed.
She utters in low voice :

”I have no joys, I too call myself ’I’

I have an identity, I have a name, I have a desire, I long, I crave, I live,

I breath, I thrive, I struggle, I suffer, I too am a human, robbed of simple pleasures of
life, a being betrayed of life; But I am alive, I call myself 'I'.

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With this note she ended her “An Introduction" --of herself.

Tears rolled down on my cheeks. Here is a 'Lady with the Lamp' to

give a chance to people to peep into the soul of a real woman. Here is Lady shouting
silently the agony of millions of voiceless Ladies.

A gentleman could imagine that life of suffering and oppressed

woman, he depicts it with his intelligence but could never experience it. Only a
woman, a Kamala Das could infiltrate right into the womb, heart and brain of a
woman, feels, touches, tastes the life of woman could be. Her femininity, her
transparency, her frankness, her literary skills, her courage in the language of English
were her strengths to bring her to the summit of South Asian Writers and as a proud
South Indian to be mentioned.

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