Kamal Das

Kamal Das is one of the most authentic and assertive voice in Indian poetry in English since Independence. Her poem talks boldly about the passion and love of woman which is mostly hidden from the society. This openness makes her poetry strong , but same time became difficult for the male dominated society to accept. kritya is presenting some of her poems.

the swamp

in Malabar during the rain after one
singularly dark week and one hot morning
our background was a swamp my feet
cracked the gray crust and I sank with a
wail my lover ageing without grace says
why do you want my child yes yes yes
then again and again this tragic sport
that has made of us its addicts he
undressing my soul effortlessly blindly
reaching the locus of anguish but still i
shake my head I leave unsatisfied for what
does he bare for me on the bed in this
study except his well tanned body

the bhagavatis oracle tool two steps
forward to swing back again the chosen
one with the long hair the waistlet of bells
and the scimitar he spoke to my great
grand mother in a warble not his own I
shall protect our descendant from illness
and untimely death is this not enough and
the old one her hand folded her eyes
closed said yes it is enough I can not ask
for more

virtue is the richest jewel said my great
grandmother she wore invisible jewels
that respect one while the family sold
every bit of gold to retrieve lost land and
the maids turned anemic

I was born fair but within months like the
rolled gold bangles on my ayahs arms my
skin grew tarnished I was the first dark
girl in the family there was some thing
tainted in me of this I was aware but my
mother told my bridegroom be gentle she
is the most innocent being you will ever meet

words

all round me are words , and
and words,
they grow on me like leaves, they never
seem to stop their slow growing
from within. but I tell my self, words
are a nuisance, beware of them, they
can be so many things, a
chasm where running feet must pause, to
look, a sea with paralyzing waves,
a blast of burning air or,
a knife most willing to cut your best
friends throat. words are nuisance , but
they grow on me like leaves on the tree,
they never seems to stop their coming
from a silence, some where deep within.

The Gulmohur

my hands before I met him were cold as
though they had reached out and touched
a corpse I was so uneasy with them but in
his room against his body my body
summered my hands grew warm

the gulmohur shrieked out its seasonal
anguish I burn I burn and I made his
servant bring up a branch and he
brought to me waving it as a rustic may
wave a burning torch in the night and i
put it in the glass vase on his desk near
his glasses and the evening paper

he was absent –minded that evening and
worried when I handed him his tea in the
blue and gold cup his hand clutches it
trembling and soon he said I do not want
any more I don’t feel like tea today

some miles away the battle was
raging I knew he would make a poor
loser he would stamp his feet and
rage and abuse his foes and plan
their destruction

A phone call in the morning

just voices in the morning, you
and I, and not even new, but
those that spoke those very words
perhaps and after years, let them
die. what is new? not this body
now slightly worn that was both
the player and the toy, not this
hunger to set mouth to mouth and
limb to limb, not this love, but
only the blue morning, dew- drenched
bruised with bird sounds and the whir
of insects waking on the lawn….

Weeds

the fault is neither his or mine. his
gross face imprisons
the right response. with strange words
whiplashes, he winces, that brave
buffoon. I watch his eyes close over
secret pains and let him
return to safe everydayness and work
wiser than he,
I let the weeks slide by and wait for
silence to grow like
weeds among words once spoken, for
faith grows but in silence
and a woman’s voice
sounds best in memory
 

A Man A Season


A man is a season,
You are eternity,
To teach me this you let me toss my youth
like coins
Into various hands, you let me mate with
shado~,
You let me sing in empty shrines, you let
your wife
Seek ecstasy in others' arms. But I saw each
Shadow cast your blurred image in my
glass, somehow
The words and gestures seemed
familiar. Yes,
I sang solo, my songs were lonely, but
they did
Echo beyond the world's unhighted edge.
There was
Then no sleep left undisturbed, the
ancient hungers
Were all awake. Perhaps I lost my way,
perhaps
I went astray. How would a blind wife
trace her lost
Husband, how would a deaf wife hear her
husband call?


Herons


On sedatives
am more lovable
Says my husband
My speech becomes a mistladen terrain
The words emerge tinctured with sleep
They rise from the still coves of dreams
In unhurried flight like herons...
And my ragdoll limbs adjust better
To his versatile lust... he would if he could
Sing lullabies to his wife's sleeping soul
Sweet lullabies to thicken its swoon
On sedatives
I grow more lovable
Says my husband.

 Nani


Nani the pregnant maid hanged herself
In the privy one day. For three long hours
Until the police came, she was hanging there,
A clumsy puppet, and when the wind blew
Turning her gently on the rope, it seemed
To us who were children then, that Nani
Was doing, to delight us, a comic
Dance... The shrubs grew fast. Before
the summer's end
The yellowflowers had hugged the deorway
And the walls. The privy, so abandoned,
Became an altar then, a sunny shrine
For a goddess who was dead. Another
Year or two, and I asked my grandmother
One day, don't ~u remember Nani, the dark
Plump one who bathed me near the well?
Grandmother
Shifted the reading glasses on her nose
And stared at me. Nani, she asked, who is she?
With that question ended Nani. Each truth
Ends thus with a query. It is this designed
Deafness that turns mortality into
Immortality, the definite into
The soft indefinite.

 A Relationship


Tns iove older than cy myriaa
Saddenea cenI~.r es ~vas once a prayer
[0 his bones that made them grown
years of
Acolescence to this favoured height. Yes,
It was my desire that made nim male
And beautiful, so that when at last we met
To believe that once I knew not his
Form, his quiet touch,or the blind kindness
Of his lips was hard indeed. Betray me?
Yes, he can, but never physically
Only with words that curl their limbs at
Touch of air and die with metallic sighs.
Why need their quick sterile sting while
My body's wisdom tells me and tells again
That I shall find my rest, my sleep, my peace
And even death nowhere else but here in
My betrayer's arms...


 The Ferry


Will your slim body ferry me to that
noiseless shore
where I can lie featureless
as a planet blanched by the day?
My blood is salty with the tears of prophets
but tomorrow must erupt from between a
barren woman's
thighs...


A Feminist's Lament


An ideal woman, they said, was but
a masochist. Trained from infancy
to wear the flannnels of cowardice
next to her skin, trained to lie inert
under a male, committed by vows
to feed her, clothe her and buy for her
the 1000 sq. ft. flat with a loft
for storing the debris of passing years.
I was never that ideal dream. Nor
did he buy the flat for me.
Widowed and diabetic
wrinkling like a bitter gourd
not even death can perfect me now
What was courage worth
at the very end?
Even Phoolan the dacoit queen
finally threw down her guns
to settle for weeklyorgasms.


A Journey with no Return


Desire swims as a dolphin does
In the rivers of my blood tonight,
desire sports as a dolphin does
with sudden leaps and lurches.
My limbs are tense with embarrassment,
I am ashamed to raise my face to yours.
I long to put aside my sacred vows
and long to forget the sweet domestic past.
With an amnesiac's level gaze I shall walk
by this scroching love made new...
There are but a hundred yards to reach
your home
but it would be a journey with no return
for, the fire that I bear to warm your bed
tonight
must burn down the ramparts of my home.


Afterwards


Son of my womb,
Ugly in loneliness,
You walk the world's bleary eye
Like a mote. Your cleverness
Shall not be your doom
As ours was. I will tell you why.
Just a while ago, this place
Was ours. You should have seen us
race, fly
Thread-wise across the turquoise sky
And talk of love, music, science
And beauty. Lovers held hands
And watched the eagles fly
Too near the sun and fall
Children were told not to lie
And it was normal for a girl to sigh
Over a dying bird; we learnt kindness
As we learnt our books, yes.
There was no sign at all of what was
Coming then, the earth was
Sagging heavy, fruits were sweet
And ripe, fishes died on their bait,
And as a little girl, I watched
My brothers squat beside a hedge


Evening At The Old Nalapat House


No lamps are lit at the Nalapar House
When the first star comes, only the ~irelies
Light up the stone steps and their potted
plants.
The only servant who caretakes, cycles
In the evenings to the warm well-lit
Bazaar, only my grandmother walks there
Then, though dead for eighteen years and
wispy
As a shed of mist, walks on the white sand
Of the courtyard where she watched us
play as
Children, a long long time ago, walks thmugh
The barred doors, all brass-knobbed and
dark and
Climbs the stairs scaring even the civets,
The bats and the insane rats, clambers
up to peer
Out through hinged windows at the roots of
Old trees all cut down and sold, thick
roots like
Truncated necks wrapped in the lichen of
A dozen monsoons, and sighs. The
fieldhands,
Returning home with baskets on their
heads,
Hear that sigh and speed, their ankles
bruised by
Thorns, their insides bruised by
memories...