Autobiography of poet kamala dass my story

Her protest is directed against the injustices and the persecution to which woman in India have always been subjected to. My Story brought Kamala Das to prominence for being exceptionally vocal about her most private experiences. Kamala Das passed her childhood very nicely at Nalapat house with the host of relatives around. She studied in a European school in Calcutta for a few years.

Her father used to work in a private firm. She mentions that at that time British families had friendly relation with Indian families. So, her family too had close connection with a number of British families. She and her brother were treated very rudely by the other students. They were made fun of their colour. She also realised that the white students were given priority in everything.

Once, a poem written by Das was given to an English girl called Shirley Temple to be read in the assembly saying that the latter wrote it. For instance, she was conscious of the reality that her parents were awfully incompatible. Her mother never loved her father, and only because she was a typical Indian wife who never raised her voice that domestic harmony prevailed in their household.

Her father never articulated any word of appreciation for his children, which affected her as well as her siblings.

Autobiography of poet kamala dass my story: My Story is an autobiographical

Kamala felt a sense of alienation at school and at home also. The life she led all throughout might also have been affected by her childhood experiences. It is an account of her childhood days, her married life and her growth as a woman as well as an individual too. On reading her life story it becomes quite explicit that she had never been a tradition bound woman, who would conform to the social norms.

She led her life on her own terms and conditions, turning a deaf ear to what others said and thought about her. She epitomizes a modern Indian woman who is extremely vocal about her feelings and experiences, and rarely succumbed to the situations which did not suit her temperament. She, through her courage and confidence, asserts her identity as an individual.

She puts forward the reason of being different than the other women of the time as:. It therefore becomes evident that her extensive reading of different authors moulded her sensibility. The editor of the weekly in which her biography was published in serialised form was asked to be suspended by her father V. Her unconventional lifestyle and rebellious attitude seem to be the outcome of a demoralised and desolate woman, who tries to relieve her frustration and anguish inflicted upon her by the situations and conditions corresponding to the tradition bound society she represents.

The unpleasant circumstances have rendered her vision tragic for various reasons such as her upbringing by careless parents, her marriage to an egoistic and indifferent person, her disappointments in love, and her illicit love affairs with other men that she got involved in to remove her boredom and anxiety. Her autocrat father fixes her marriage against her wishes to a man who is much older than her and obsessed with sex.

Autobiography of poet kamala dass my story: She grew up in

Her marriage proved to be an absolute failure because her husband treated her merely as a means of providing sexual gratification while giving her no love and affection. At a point of time when she even thought of a divorce, which she could not initiate. She reasons about it as:. I could not admit to all that my marriage had flopped. I could not return home to the Nalapat House a divorcee, for there had been goodwill between our two families for three generations which I did not want to ruin.

It shows that in an Indian society the institution of marriage rests on many things other than the bonding between two individuals. The communication gap with her husband, the loveless marriage confined only to lust, makes her life miserable and she leaps into a few relationships outside her marriage, for which she is criticised extensively by the society.

Autobiography of poet kamala dass my story: 'My Story' presents a free flowing

Her straying thus becomes an escape for her from the unfulfilled desires of being loved. Once, while she finds her husband and his friend becoming intimate in her presence, she expresses: I felt like revulsion for my womanliness. The weight of my breast seemed to be crushing me. My private part was only a wound, the souls wound showing through….

It shows her helplessness as well as the pride of an individual soul which forbids her from demanding any explanation from her husband. The non-writers do not normally trust the writers. This is because they are entirely dissimilar except in appearance. The mind being an invisible limb, is not taken into consideration. Even birds have their own particular heights.

The land birds who do not rise far into the lonely sky, often wonder why the eagles fly high, why they go round and round like ballerinas. The essence of the writer eludes the non-writer. All that the writer reveals to such people are her oddities of dress and her emotional excesses. Finally, when the muscles of the mind have picked up enough power to read people's secret thoughts, the writer shies away from the invisible hostility and clings to her own type, those dreaming ones, born with a fragment of wing still attached to a shoulder" p.

Newer Post Older Post Home. The book, with 50 chapters, follows Aami's Kamala life from age four through British colonial and missionary schools in Calcutta where she had to face racist discrimination; through the brutal and indulgent relationship with her husband; through her sexual awakening; her literary career; extramarital affairs; the birth of her children; and, finally, a slow but steady coming to terms with her spouse, writing, and sexuality.

She mostly upholds her personal self in her autobiography rather than the political and social upheaval predominant during the war of independence in the then India. Ente Katha was serialised in in the now defunct Malayalanadu weekly, a literary magazine published by S. The novel not only created a literary sensation but even invited the wrath of Das' close relatives who wanted to stop its publication.

Nair, the Editor of Malayalanadu recalls, "Despite pressure from her influential relatives to stop the publication of the work, Kamala remained bold and it proved a roaring hit boosting the circulation of the weekly by 50, copies within a fortnight. Das had written My Story in English a couple of years back before it was rendered into Malayalam.

At the time when she was penning down the memoir in English, S. Nair suggested her to translate it for his weekly. The novel was first published as a book by Current Books in February It is being published by DC Books from August The English version was published in the year by Sterling Publishers, with many changes made to the manuscript which she wrote in Both these books were a treat to read and a wonderful gift from my cousin who is into Malayalam literature and such.

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