Feminine Fragrance

A Bird In Search of A Nest

“This is not a revolt against religion, or a plea for any religion. This is only a wailing. This is only a cry.”

These are the last few lines from one of Kamala Das’ short stories “An Incomplete Love Story.” It is a sad love story about a love between a Muslim and Hindu, which was first published in Malayalam and then translated into English by the author herself.

Being short-listed for Nobel Prize in1984, Das possessed a significant position in the Indian literary scenario. Writing in English and Malayalam, Das authored many autobiographical works and novels, several well-received collections of poetry in English, numerous volumes of short stories, and essays on a broad spectrum of subjects. Since the publication of her first collection of poetry, Summer in Calcutta in 1965, Das has been considered an important voice of her generation who exemplified a break from the past by writing in a distinctly Indian persona rather than adopting the techniques of the English modernists.

In her life, Kamala Das was also put into controversy for her inclination for Islam and for the man behind this inclination, Sadiq Ali, who was an Islamic scholar and a Muslim politician who became an MP from Malabar. Needless to say, there was a strong love relationship between them despite a significant difference in age and a bar of religion in between them. Eventually, they decided to marry and for that, Kamala Das changed her religion and then became known as Kamala Suraiya. The wedding hall had been booked and plans had been made for a ceremony but strangely enough, Ali absconded before their wedding day.

Kamala Das had written “An Incomplete Love Story” before the failure of the scheduled marriage but ironically, her last love actually did become an incomplete one.

Here, we will discuss the pathos fate of female sexuality with respect to Kamala Das alias Kamala Suraiya’s life.  The poetess herself describes the myths and facts regarding female sexuality through this autobiographical observation in one of her poems:

“I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became 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 breasts and womb crushed me.

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 quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.”

[‘Composition’ by Kamala Das]

An Introduction to Kamala Das

Poet K. Satchidanandan elaborated on Das’ views explaining that “the woman cannot change her body; so the poet changes her dress and tries to imitate men. But the voices of the tradition would force her back into sarees, the saree becoming here a sign of convention. She is pushed back into her expected gender roles: wife, cook, embroiderer, quarreler with servants: the gender role also becomes a class role.” (Satchidanandan, K., “Transcending the Body” Only the Soul Knows How to Sing by Kamala Das. Kottayam [DC Books, 1996])

Merrily Weisbord, a Canadian non-fiction writer wrote a book in 2010, The Love Queen of Malabar:  Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das (ISBN: 0773581413, 9780773581418, published by McGill-Queen's Press) based on her decade-long friendship with Das and in a chronological narration which travels through pain, desire, hope and despair, has documented a riveting decade in the life of the great Indian poetess. Weisbord first met Das through her poems and found the verses resonating with a kindred spirit. In a brave moment, she decided to pursue a further connection and visited Das in Kochi in1995. In return, Das visited Canada twice.  Weisbord visited Kochi six times between 1995 and 2005 with the idea of writing a book on her friend poetess. In the process, she got closer to the writer and the woman in Das like no one else.

Nominated for the 2010 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, this book is not only an intimate portrait of Kamala Das but also a truly original example of cross-cultural adventuring, typically with an Asian focus. In these memoirs, Weisbord pries open a hermetic Asian culture and exposes it to broad view with real understanding and style.

Who Was Kamala Das?

Daughter of the renowned Malaylam poet Balamani Amma, Kamala Das had writing in her genes and was further deeply influenced by her uncle Nalapat Narayan Menon, a prominent writer. Her formal education was limited to a short span of schooling – a European School in Calcutta. Married to a quite matured man (more than double her age) shortly before her 16th birthday, Das never enjoyed sex with her husband, though became mother of three children from that marriage.

According to Weisbord, her husband consummated the marriage with a penis longer than most and consequently, Das bled profusely and needed surgery. What Das experienced in her sexual life is not new for many women. At this juncture, we are reminded of Sylvia Plath, another woman writer who also underwent the same trauma as Das did. In one of my stories in Odia “Doora Pahadara Chhabi” (the story is yet to translated into English), I describe how the protagonist gets raped by her lover husband during their first night mating, causing bleeding of her vagina.

Most women are taught to suppress their libido and it is thought to be the conspiracy of patriarchy in order to maintain its hierarchy. Women are valued for their unique qualities and "rulers," either from the religious or socio-political spheres, tell us, in essence, what a woman should think and do. Once again, the question of women empowerment deteriorates into another form of what it is intended to eliminate. Direct about sex and uninhibited, a woman cannot approach a male if she so desires. She doesn't need the hierarchy to tell her when it is right. She doesn't play games, because the games are meant to limit her to begin with. Taboos and myths are shattered. The truths about sexuality are not important for a woman; they are only meant for men.

Das had a very vague idea about female sexuality in her teen days before her marriage. In my college days, like Kamala, I was not taught what ‘sex’ actually was. Madhav Das, the husband of Kamala, was actually a homosexual who brought boys to his bed but would also introduce her to his bosses to help him to get job promotions and encouraged her to share their beds with her; he would ask detailed questions later about her activities with them. When Kamala was 37, her ovary was removed for constant hemorrhage and she was under the treatment of estrogen hormones, which lead her to experience a heart attack at a young age.  (Weisbord, M, The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das, McGill-Queen's University Press | September 30, 2010 |)

She was not an academic nor could she be placed with enlightened writers if we measure her writings from a metaphysical point of view. What we can say is she was a trendsetter in her own style and her own conviction.  She was an original poet and writer known for the intensity of her emotionally charged diction. Even Linda Hess, a ruthless critic of Das, also concedes the poetess had “a genuine poetic talent” in her poems. (Linda Hess’ essay "Indian Poetry in English," Quest 49 April - June 1966, 37-38).

We cannot catagorise Das with her contemporaries. She is not a feminist if we apply feminist methodology to all her poetic works.  Rather, we can place her along with this articulation of feminine concerns.

Examples from Das’ Works Regarding Her Identity as a Woman

Kamala Das’s poems are a very strong expression of her femininity:

“I am every woman

who seeks love

I give a wrapping to their dreams

A woman voice

And a woman smell”

[‘Glass’ by Kamala Das]

Her poems “Jaisurya” and “The White Flowers” are expressions of her maternal instinct and celebration of filial love. The poem which best expresses her consciousness of identity as a woman is titled “Gino.”  As a patient lying in a bed, she is ‘dreaming of home’ and imagines herself performing all traditional feminine chores and roles:

“I shall be the fat-kneed hag in the long bus queue

The one from whose shopping bag the mean potatoes must roll across the road

I shall be the grandmother-willing away her belongings, those

Scraps and trinkets

More lasting than her bones.”

[Gino by Kamala Das]

                                                       

The same tone can be encountered in her prose. She writes:

“First I will strip myself of the clothes and ornaments. Then I will peel off this light brown skin and shatter my bones. I hope at last you will be able to see my homeless, orphan, intensely beautiful soul, deep within the bone, deep down under, beneath even the marrow…will you be able to love me, will you be able to love me someday when I am stripped naked of this body…” (from “Ente Katha,” the Malayalam version of “My Story”)

Das on Religion

Kamala Das was seriously and creatively concerned with her own identity as woman. She met the definition of ‘confessional poet’ who pours out her agonized heart, tortured feelings, sufferings, and psyche in her prose and poems. When we read her writings, we encounter a common woman’s life.  Her entire life and writings were a quest for true love which she could neither get from her husband nor from any other lover. Her concept of love was all-inclusive where she wanted not only physical but also emotional and spiritual fulfillment as well.

For her, religion didn’t have any distinct meaning. To her, there were no differences between Krishna or Mohammad. She once told an interviewer she was going to take Krishna from the Guruvayur temple, rename him Mohammed, and make him a prophet. She relied more on Krishna than his lovers because she never found true love from any man. She only agreed to convert herself to the Muslim religion because Sadiq Ali, a much younger man, came into her life and assured her he would marry her if she joined Islam.  What attracted Das, however, was not really Islam but the love for which she longed her whole life.

After her conversion to Islam, Das wrote the following letter to her aforementioned friend Weisbord:

Dearest Merrily,

Life has changed for me since Nov. 14 when a young man named Sadiq Ali walked in to meet me. He is 38 and has a beautiful smile. Afterwards he began to woo me on the phone from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, reciting Urdu couplets and telling me of what he would do to me after our marriage. I took my nurse Mini and went to his place in my car. I stayed with him for three days. There was a sunlit river, some trees, and a lot of laughter. He asked me to become a Muslim which I did on my return home. The Press and other media rushed in. The Hindu fanatics, Shiv Sena, and the RSS pasted posters all over the place, “Madhavi Kutty is insane. Put her to death.” I refused the eight policemen sent to protect me. There are young men, all Muslims, now occupying the guest flat and keeping vigil twenty-four hours a day. I have received court orders restraining me from going out or addressing more than six people at a time. Among the Muslims, I have become a cult figure all dressed in black purdah and learning Arabic.

My Hindu relatives and friends keep a distance from me. They wish to turn me into a social outcast. My sister visited me twice but wept all the time. I cannot visit my old mother. Otherwise life is exciting…

Affectionately,

Kamala Das (Suraiya)

But alas! Das couldn’t marry Ali. Here again, patriarchy was at work. Ali could sleep with a 67-year-old woman when he is 38 but could he marry such an old lady? Personally I can never differentiate anything between Madhav Das and Sadiq Ali. And I can realize the pathos of her poetess heart when she wrote:

“The only secrets I always

Withhold

Are that I am so alone

And that I miss my grandmother.”

(“Only the Soul Knows How To Sing,” page 23)