An Analysis of Poetry of Kamala Das

1. INTRODUCTION

Kamala Das is a creative artist who often does not choose to compose under the West influence of feminist writing in the contemporary and modern roots of thinking and action, criticism, resistance and dissent. The poet followed her instinct, her own tradition and Indian culture. Among feminist poets, she has achieved a unique position. She also made a substantial contribution in liberating women from oppressive and mandatory learning. And thus, it paves the way for such a new poet to be known in realistic immediate poetical combat with contemporary men. She has her own writing style, which is distinct from the writers of Western women. But it also has other common features, such as an attempt to liberate women from their literature and to convey and depict their perceptions and their sensitivity to the desires of people. This has established a reciprocal exchange between herself and the other that constantly stays the mystery and she herself actively continues to collapse into battle and try her hand differently. Kohali describes Kamala Das most appropriately according to Vrinda Nabar when referring to her article 'I studied all men.' In that article Kamala Das clarified her way of searching for a substitute for her disharmonious family. The poem 'Substitute' compares love with a pivot, so that when someone else comes out, people can enter it.

Kamala Das is debatably an Indian-style classical feminist. She comes from the family of the South Indian Nair and was part of Kerala's matriarchal tradition and folk believing rituals. Kamala was born in Malabar, Kerala, on March 31, 1934. Her poetry of love started at an early age. From morning until night, his uncle, Nalapat Narayan Menon, worked and thought he had "a happy life" (Warrior Interview). Her mother's poetry also left her young mind with an indelible impression. Her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma, and the sacred writings kept by women in her house in Nayyar have no less influence on her mind. She was trained at home and at fifteen she was married to K. Madhava Das, who was her older for several years. At sixteen, she bore her first child. Her husband often played a fatherly role for the children and also for her. He encouraged her to join people of her own age and also encouraged her own work. Her poetry rejects this biographical fact. She has sprayed on her husband because she has been indifferent to her troubles and needs. Her husband was always proud of her achievements, even when they were controversial. This fact goes far against her husband's image, which she depicted in her poetry. Only when you like the poems of your wife can you be proud of her achievements. Why she wrote such derogatory things about her husband is hard to understand. We know that when she decided to start writing, her husband supported her decision. Could such a gesture from her husband have earned such a disgusting portrait, except in an imaginative way!! At the age of seventeen, she said "she was old enough to be a mom just at the birth of her 3rd boy" (Warrior Interview). That had to do with writing together with her household duties; in contrast to her great uncle. After her family came to bed, she began to write poems until morning. It tolerated her health. "The kitchen table which gave her more energy to compose. How could her husband blame her? He was proud of her even though her sexually laden poetry and my story swirled in controversy and scandal. Her husband was very proud (Warrior Interview) of her. Though he had been distressed for three years before he breathed his last, his presence brought great joy and comfort to him. As a syndicated columnist, she was popular. She gave up writing poetry because she claimed it wasn't published in India. Her columns have been popular. The range of topics in her column was different. She has written columns on women's issues, childcare, politics and other important topics. Kamala Das converted to Islam in December 1999. She promised her loyalty to Allah. She said she never will "repose faith in Hinduism because Hindu gods never forgive. They prosecute just "(Warrior Interview). Five times a day she prayed 'Namaz' with a special prayer at 3 a.m. Her Krishna converted to Prophet Mohammed and she read unexpectedly, "Yaa Allah! Oh my beloved, I perceive the characteristics of the prophet that are unrevealed yet. She floated her Lok Seva political party for less than a year. Her Malayalam readers are known as Madhavi Kutty, her English viewers as Kamala Das and her Muslim brothers as Kamala Suraiyya. She is renowned worldwide for her intensely feminine and lyrical English poetry and her Malayalam short stories at home. She and her family moved later to Mumbai and then back to Kerala to Calcutta. That had many experiences in her life. In painting, politics and fiction, she dabbled. She died in Pune on 31 May 2009 at the age of 75. Her body was flown to Kerala, her home state. She was buried with full state honor at the Palayam Juma Masjid in Thiruvanthapuram.

(i) In English (ii) In Malayalam Language 1965: Summer in Calcutta (Poetry; Kent‘s Award winner) 1967: The Descendants (Poetry) 1973: The Old Playhouse and other Poems (Poetry) 1976: My Story (Autobiography) 1977: Alphabet of Lust (Novel) 1985: The Annamalai Poems (Poetry) 1992: Stories Padmavati the Harlot and other (Collection of short stories) 1996: Only the Soul Knows How to Sing (Poetry) 2001: Yaa Allah (Collection of poems) 1979: Tonight, This Savage Rite (With Pritish Nandy) 1999: My Mother At Sixty- Six (Poem) 1966: Naricheerukal Parakkumbol (Short stories) 1968: Thanuppu (Short story, Sahitya Academi award) 1982: Ente Katha (Autobiography) 1987: Balyakala Smaranakal (Childhood Memories) 1989: Varshangalkku Mumbu (Years Before) 1990: Palayan (Novel) 1991: Neypayasam (Short story) 1992: Dayarikkurippukal (Novel) 1994: Neermathalam Pootha Kalam (Novel, Vayalar Award) 1996: Chekkerunna Prakshikal (Short stories) 1998: Nashapetta Neelambari (Short stories) 2005: Chandana Marangal (Novel) 2005: Madhavikkuttiyude Unmakkadhakal (Short stories) 2005: Vandikkalakal (Novel) 1999: My Mother At Sixty – Six (Novel)

One of the important aspects of Das is that she identifies and demonstrates the urge of women in literature. C. In his article, R. Nambiar; Virginia Woolf cites "Quiddity of Kamala Das." "These were two professional experiences. The first is to kill the angel in the house. I think I have solved it. She is gone. But the second, I don't think I have overcome my experience as a body speaking the facts. "It is precisely here that Kamala Das is of interest. She murdered not just the man, she said the truth about her body life. Kamala Das

naturalistic knowledge and perception and so the poems she creates have the direct consequence of the poet's emotional trial during her life. Looking at love, desire tangle from the point of view of love as a phenomenon, the poet has definitely conceptually and sensuously discovered that love is an actual phenomenon. The two sides of a coin are therefore the aspects of love and desire for the poet. Both perspectives are simultaneous. As Kurup put the poetry of Kamala Das, it emerges from the simultaneous predominance of love in its higher and lower dimensions. In brief, it means that the idea of love leading to love hate tangle is intellectual and visual differentiation for a poet. Kamala Das's concept of love refers to the visualization of a man and a woman through which their partners attain their ultimate goal. Love is frequently regarded for the poet as an end in itself, on the one hand, but on the other, as a way to achieve a greater meaning and meaning in life. The expressions of Jayakrishnan Nair are like passion as a path to obtain a kind of absolute liberation, which discloses a theory of life, which holds away all kinds of secondary considerations in life and becomes an end in itself (Nair, 2009, pp. 112-113). With love warmth and care from the partner makes a difference. The poems of Kamala Das become her own story in today's mode and modes of living when such a love is denied, an itinerary for love and life even outside the home. In her case, it's actually love as an end that keeps balance. Since the genesis of love is our life in the world, Das's love concept does not reject the body's love seat. Sunanda Chavan summarized in this context that Das feels love for fulfilling the soul through an experienced sex, beyond sex that is clarified in the poem as 'unity'. Das as a poet in its writings doesn't restricts the suffering to the connotation of love as a concept or to the achievement of life, which brings a companion comfort and affection, but also to the labyrinth of existence. For a poet, love works as a blind elixir between man and woman, rather than as a partnership confining it to an entity which involves the body and spirit in equal proportion and which forces the partners involved to achieve greater satisfaction. But the absence of involvement of mind and body leads to frustration and agony among partners. In this situation, Die's worries as a poet in a romantic partnership between man and woman are postulated in her poetry that needs to be considered from a forested point of view. It indicates that the author has a strong yet overlapping interest for the physical and spiritual dimension of being together to fulfill the meaning of life. Everything Kamala Das strives to is to consider man and woman in an environment of an agape or Christ- patriarchal 'botch culture,' which does not require intimate openness in cases related to the shared pleasures and sublimations of men and women as life partners. (Nair, 3). The whole literary revolt in Das is nothing but the agitation against a society, which has made men and women mutual non-entities partners in life. According to her, harmony should exist in life. The state and status of women in the Indian society are always rational and realistic. Her poetry has an ardent love of life, freedom and progress. The writing of Kamala Das also plays an important role in showcasing women's protest issues. The texts have been violently clarified and made transparent for readers to understand. In contemporary times, Das emerges as India's only poetic voice that attracts a broad critical applause outside India. Using a defiant instinctive way of looking at the whole world as a nature of human life in the light of the talents of the men and women. Das's poetry has a modernistic terrifying and bureaucratic essence. In reality, as the Educational Encyclopedia of Hutchinson postulates, modernism in literary works entails a deliberate and aware rejection of conventional modes and recourse to new ways of speech. If we look at Das's literary disposition, some discussions about the feature of the poet suggest that its anger is irritated with itself. Therefore, the startling modernity in Das's poetry appears with an aggressive and irrepressible appeal. Rage and anger are also the other voluptuous feelings that unexpectedly collapse inside their inner true selves (Nair, 2009, pp. 16-18). On the other side, as Nambiar (2000) put it, Das still has a delicate soul that cannot stay satisfied until the reality is known. It is quite curious that only the poet does not complete higher education; she understands a writer's essential standard. And any poet's writing demonstrates that you can be true to yourself. The female self of a poet has distinctly different roles; one is the ultimate self of a poet who shouts honestly and automatically results in a group cry. And this yell is a scream for democracy. In woman authors like her, the quest for equality is a prevailing theme here. She is the only Indian English poet who has unambiguously described the dynamic partnership between man and woman and the physical aspects involved. Her theory and love history is not linked to the conventional concept of love but stretches beyond marital relationships and involves additional marital love affairs. This speaks of anger, She talks directly to the reader and confesses her disillusionment in poems such as 'Ghanashyam.' She is outrageously honest about her romantic relationship encounter. In the poem such as 'the House of my grandmother,' she never shames her desire for love, but honestly recognizes it. In an article Reading Kamala Das in the Light of Lokoff‘s Feminist Theory‘ Dr. Shibu Simon said 'Kamala Das's poetry protests against the injustices and persecution women have had for a long time in India. She argues against Indian women's passivity and timidity and their subjugation to husbands "(Prasad, Sarkar, pp. 182). Poetry for Das is a vehicle for expressing injustice, resentment and outrage. When Das began to write the feminist movement in India, she felt she had gone beyond the struggle and frustration of the movement that every movement is going through, and she expresses her fearless resistance against the condemnation of women. Through her experience of overwhelming desires, she is trying to free her soul from the marital cage and to satisfy her spiritual thirst Trishna. Since her youth she seems to be looking for a spiritual love. M. H. Siddiqui's essay 'Feminism in the works of Kamala Das, D. H. Lawrence and Walt Whitman' notes that Kamala Das has strengthened her reputation as a feminine yet clearly unorthodox, truthful and bubbling but unsecure poet. (..., pp. 87). Kamala The project countless facets of the partnership between man and woman in general and husband wife in particular. However, when she examines her lover relationship, in which she wants to find the best counterpart of her intellectual and emotional life. She writes stronger when she reacts strongly against men, especially her husband and her lovers. She speaks of unalterable conditions in Indian women's relationships. Such classic roles of husband and wife as people were produced in the poem 'The Stone Age;' husbands and amateurs. She considers her husband a wonderful friend, an old settler in her memory. He is a "spider" who weaves magnificent webs of admiration. The web of confusion is an oxymoron since the web is a prison; it cannot be an object of confusion. She asks him to be kind to her. He also says he made her into a stone pigeon instead of the allusive birds of prey in the poem. Similarly, Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Wife" is rather cruel and affects her sleep in the morning. In her visions of the day, there are many strong men. She drives around the sea to search for 'other screens' (p. 9). Neighbors are watching her when she's in the home of this other guy. She explains his mouth's tastes, his hand's action and his nearest physical relationship with women does not change at all. He treats a woman as a pleasure object. For centuries man has not improved. It's like we live in the Stone Age until now. Man is not civilized sufficiently to turn the Stone Age into a civilized world. She says: ―Ask me why life is short and love is Shorter still‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 9) Kamala Das claims that love and peremptory lasts for a while. In Kamala Das's poems there is a co-relation in that her attacks on men are part of love. In poems like 'The Old Playhouse' and 'The Freaks,' she portrayed a man as her most unaesthetic counterpart in man/woman relations. Kamala Das is rarely able to remain totally true to a certain point of view and this rare ability gives her strength. She speaks about the different facets of passion. In her book 'Contemporary Indian poetry in English,' Saleem Peeradina in a review and choice of Kamala Das reads: "Kamala Das talks of love or, perhaps, a love loss or a lack of love with a woman who can only truly understand who she is by way of lust" (Peerdina, pp. 85). Her prose is often slow, self-indulgent and dramatic, but nevertheless she has the ability to deeply push her readers. There is a passionate urge and rhythm and the rebellion or resilience to subjugation is in his chore. The poem 'The Old Playhouse' is a marvelous poem about her love once more, in which another thread is tangled. The poem has feminist overtones. She calls the "Old Playhouse" the traditional marital institution. 'She wants to overthrow the authority of men and to uphold the rights of women. There is a "you" in the poem who is her husband or who is speaking with her husband as a woman who wants to free her soul. She says that this 'you' have collapsed on the free swallow and missed her free flight, her countless journeys to the sky and houses. This swallow photo is beautiful and this swallow is nothing but a "woman." She explains the typical male-dominated family and arranged marriages in which 'female' is sadly considered a tamed pet. She says: ―You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her In the long summer of your love so that she would

Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless Pathways of the sky‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 13) The husband gives her all the comforts or attempts to give her (the wife) to forget that she has left her home and is a bird in enslavement. The swallow forgets her flying urge. Good treatment makes her slave forget they are 'slaves;' it's a trick. He was a husband of self-centeredness. She says every lesson he has given was 'himself.' She even explains sex and claims he was physically satisfied. The line "you called me a wife," is thought to be very provocative. It means that husbands are forced on women. The women will take charge of the household duties. She says: ―...Cowering Beneath your monstrous ego, I ate the magic loaf and Became a dwarf‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 13) The husbands govern so often that the ladies have to fulfill their needs and wishes. Under the husband's vanity, she was weakened and became tiny. 'The incoherent responses' to the husband's inquiries are to keep him satisfied. Women are playing peacefully, they want to satisfy their husbands and stop subjects that might dispute. The phrase 'The windows are always locked' implies that the mind is closed, there is no conversation and an exchange of thoughts, feelings and emotions is never kept. There is no conversation if there are two ways of communicating. 'The summer starts picking up' – it means they're getting older, rough blows. Youngness is fading away. The poem is brimming with the outrage of her spouse's presence. There is an all-out male aroma, which dominates so much in the house that the cut flowers in the vases also smell human sweat. The entire atmosphere is very dominant, air conditioning is a bit helpful. His is an intrusive, powerful, male scent. She says: ―...There is No more singing, No more a dance, My mind is an old Play house with all its lights put out‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 14) is served. This medication allows her delicate and loving mind to suffer from a toxic and lethal dosage. The last four lines of the poem are important. She says: ―For; love is Narcissus at the water‘s edge, haunted By its own lonely face, and yet it must seek at last An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will the mirrors To shatter and the kind night to erase the water‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 14) She uses the metaphor and says Narcissus is love. We can't serve anyone, spouses respect themselves. They like Narcissus, they love themselves, and they love themselves. He's plagued by a sad mask of his own. Time will come, before water rushes, 'Water is like a mirror' moves on the lake. When a free wind is awoken, she must guarantee that the sea is washed downstream. Switch winds should be such that they can't hinder her. Independence aims to smash the constraints in it. Patriarchal dominance will no longer be, life itself will be a playhouse, and you must aim to fill it with various colors. The other elements of this playhouse are not taken into account, i.e. theater (life), play house is no longer fun. The day is coming when his male ego is destroyed. It's a roaring fire of liberation in her head. In this poem the poet described a woman's most humiliating treatment. The worst aspect of humiliation is that a woman calls this humiliation on her own request. She may stop the threats and the cruel treatment, but she goes to the guy despite the most earnest efforts to pursue happiness, the most barbaric treatment she has ever got. In the other side, in toxic strokes and deadly tactics he represents his passion. This was the picture of the relationship between men and women from time immemorial. It didn't change and therefore she very aptly calls it the old play house. This is a critical poem about love in her poetry. In the poem 'Freaks' she described in detail the ugliness of men in their relationship with women, for example, calling their mouths a dark cavern. Their thoughts drift through lust puddles. He can't do much more than the idle fingertips of his face. She says in love they failed. Emptiness exists in their hearts. Throughout their lives, silence has invaded. Because of these 'coiling silence snakes,' she became a 'freak.' She shows her lust just to save her face from being called an unwomanly woman. She doesn't even worry for the guy who has a cavern like a chest. The title of the poem also suggests that a strong-minded individual would particular in a framework based on men, rather than naming herself a 'safe' then a organize individual with worldly sense and understanding. In this poem, the poet successfully turned the tables against man. By choosing the man-centered and well-coordinated world and calling herself a freak, she created her unique world of freaks and a few independent minded women like her living in the world. She says: ―I am a freak, it‘s only To save my face, I flaunt, at Times, a grand, flamboyant lust‖ (Peeradina, pp. 8) 'My November' is again the poet's usual and acerbic assault on the patriarchal dominance on every aspect of life. She presented the man's face as abominable as she might, but it is as true as it can be. The scenario is most tragic in the poem. The protagonist is on the bed of burial, where guests complain on the slowness of burial's entrance rather than their compassion. She is lying in bed like a 'sickle' stuck in the skin. The portrayal becomes more tragic as the protagonist speaks of her lover's cruel grip of a breast. She condemns her lover's double expectations and inconsistency, declaring her his "loveliest." The poet communicates his arrival at the door using the most condescending picture of a 'locust wind.' He wants to make love even in such a wretched state. The poet says: ―We shall stunt our love, he says, his lips Forever my strangers, his dark hands, Always, always in his pockets...‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 20) The underlying explanation for their deep-rooted resentment is the detestable alienation in their conduct. He's just working in his pockets with his fingertips. It shows his mean mind and shirks away from his personal responsibility. It is the fundamental fact that the author has often poignantly conveyed. "The Caretakers" are the most sensitive, special and typically unexpressed encounters in the lives of lovers at an unforeseen moment. When they both know that they don't belong to each other and they want someone far and away. In the prospect of loving someone who is far from each other, they both wanted to pack their respective past lives in a suitcase. Eventually, they book a place in a hotel together. He had his face closed and his limbs were poor. Both hands were shy in love-play. Their hands shifted on the flesh of each other. We understood occurrence in the most exquisite manner of his writing. She says that each other's caretaker hands made the other partner's bodies, their respective homes. These homes would last for a very short time and they knew it. The guardians view the body component as the whole body of the human. Each portion of our body reflects the whole organism. Part isn't unlike the whole. There is an inversion in the term 'the caretakers,' because it is actually the caretaker by pouncing on the lot of someone else. "Words Addressed to a Devdazi" is a poem regarding devdasis, oppressed people, given and presented to any god and abused by men on behalf of fake religious practices. There are so many men in their lives. The poet says that in the lives of these devdasis, all men's faces appear alike and even their voices sound identical. The poet presented the image of these women who are ill-treated at every stage of society. Words have no particular meaning in their questions. Their desires are no longer there. The poet's storyteller describes herself with a Devadasi woman seated on the temple stairs. Looking at her, the poet connects with her who is a lady who is missing affection. She knows her destiny. The poet also knows her own density. She can identify with the most disadvantaged and disadvantaged woman in society. The poet effectively presented the image of a devdasi and effectively described his own state.: ―A silent Devdasi, lovelorn And aware of her destiny‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 26) ‗A guy is a season, which implies he (guy) is as random in nature as the season. A woman is an immortal who has endured from times immemorial the brunt of man's contradictions. He mistreated the woman and her young men, to show them how to please so many hungers of a guy that they are tossing in various hands. He also lets his wife "look for happiness in the hearts of another." She started to sing her despair, which went beyond the edge of the earth, where ancient hunger was awakening. She missed her path or headed the opposite direction as she was blind and deaf. Men are so self-centered and egoistic that they do things like throwing themselves in the arms of others. 'You've made me throw like coins my young men.' And after she had gone through these strange actions, she claimed she had gone mistaken and felt 'missing.' Men continue to change unpredictably during the seasons.

house. She was her only company with reading, a little ray of optimism like sunlight. She calls her only company this sunshine. After spending time like this locked up in the house, winter arrived. Her husband found that only the sunlight was left and almost dead in that house. She had been without presence for too many years in isolation. She'd become a half dead woman. As a half-dead kid, books could not give her the life she wanted. Her husband even missed the chance to appreciate her service. A life without the caring community is no existence whatsoever, as the poet described in this poem. It's a breathing death because it's a complete error. The poet has successfully articulated the essence of the love and human culture of desired individuals in this poem in real experience. And so she says: ―Winter came and one day while locking her in, he Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a Lone, a hair thin line and in the evening when He turned to take her out, she was a cold and Half - dead woman, now of no use at all to men‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 30) 'Ghanashyam' is a wonderful poem about the 'Bhakti culture.' Both the poet and Lord Ghanashyam, there is a duologian. She says Ghanashyam created her heart's 'nest.' Her stagnant mind was stirred by music. She says that Ghanashyam has led her on a route she hadn't known before. She has a complaint, however, that she realizes that every time she approaches him, he disappears. She says: ―But at each turn I near you Like a spectral flame you vanish‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 22) Further she speaks about ‗life‘ and ‗death‘ and compares them and says that while life is moisture, water, semen and blood, death is drought, hot sauna. According to her this sauna leads to cool resting rooms. Then she comments on the worldly passion and lust and mentions that her lover turned his back on her after the lust was quietened. She tries to seek his attention and bring him back to her but it was all in vain. She says that she migrated to warmer climes when the snow of love began to fall, by which she probably means that she had turned to other lovers and calls it ―At three in the morning I wake trembling from the dreams of A stark white loneliness‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 23) She suffers from utter loneliness like bleached bones in the desert sun. The real crux of her poetry lurks in further lines where she reminisces of the bitter smell of her husband‘s mouth but she is really not talking about his kisses and love but the love as the highest universal value to be one with God i.e. ‗Advait‘ (inseparable). She says: ―But if he is you and I am you Who is loving who Who is the husk who is the kernel Where is the body where is the soul?‖ (Tonight this Savage Rite, pp. 23) There is an earnest craving in her to meet ‗Him‘ and to be one with him. She says Ghanashyam comes in many forms and he has many names, which has a lining of typical Indian Bhakti tradition or Bhajans as afforested. She also introspects and broods over the thought whether her love for disguise and name is deeper and more than that of ‗He‘ himself. She asks herself: ―Can I consciously weaken bonds?‖ When the umbilical cord of a child falls, new traps, connects are formed and they give pain and therefore she adds: ―Ghanashyam,

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I want a peace that I can tote Like an infant in my arms I want a peace that will doze In the whites of my eyes when I smile‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 23) thinking about the ‗unsaid‘ by these sadhus. Towards its end the poem speaks about the ‗wisdom‘. She says: ―Wisdom must come in silence

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Wisdom must steal in like a breeze From beneath the shuttered door‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 24) This wisdom is the knowledge and the wisdom of life which spiritually uplifted the souls. She calls herself a ‗fish‘, who wants to be ensnared by Ghanashyam i.e. Lord Krishna who she calls fisherman ‗what prabhu milan ki aas‟ is to Meera, thoughts racing towards Ghanashyam like an enchanted fish is to Kamala Das. The poem speaks about the crucial aspects of love of Kamala Das. It expresses how she has drenched in Bhakti rasa, after she is redeemed, from material pursuits like lust and passion of carnal desires. The poem shows her love, Bhakti for Lord Krishna. We realize that there is a crucial spiritual aspect in her poetry. Her soul has become one with Lord Krishna. She addresses him and speaks about her desire to be one with Him. The poem has wonderful similes and metaphors which contribute towards the strengthening of the theme of the poem e.g. ‗Ghanashyam building nest like a koel‘, ‗like a spectral flame you vanish‘, ‗Like a bird I migrated to warmer climes‘, ‗Lovers unwise like children play and often lose in‘, ‗peace like an infant‘, ‗wisdom stealing in like a breeze‘ and lastly ‗Ghanashyam like a fisherman casting his net‘, and the poet wishing to be enthralled by Ghanashyam like an enchanted fish. These all similes and metaphors are interwoven together in order to stress the complete submission in love which is glorified in the tradition of Indian spiritualism called Madhura Bhakti, as has been elaborated here. The poem has highest universal value ‗love‘ in the form of ‗Bhakti‘ which has its roots in Bhakti tradition and in the poems of saint poets like Meerabai, Surdas, Saint Eknath and the like. Das elsewhere says: ―The only thing that matters is That all this love is mine to give‖ This basically means that she has a strong desire to get vanquished and offer her whole existence to Lord Krishna. Kamala Das is the literary progeny of the the long lost tradition. It is supremely significant that the poem is written in English language, the language which represents the material progress in 21st century. The poem also does reflect the furtherance of materialism and so called intellectualization by the same by economic growth that has been evolved during the period of neoliberalism broadly in last 20 years. It is unique achievement of Kamala Das to revive the Bhakti tradition in modern Indian English poetry. It is equally important to note that there is a strong ‗Sufi‘ ambience in this poem. This takes us to another important point that Sufi is actually at the foundation of all endeavors of Bhakti tradition which is evolved and progressed for several centuries. This is a very significant poem of about the theme of love expressing spiritualism in her poetry. ‗Radha‘ is a short but powerful poem that expresses the immortal love of Radha and Krishna. In a few lines there is a very powerful and divine message in that. In this, Radha says to Krishna that ―Nothing remains but You ...‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 32) This implies spiritual and heavenly passion and total commitment. Although their bodies are two or three, in the first true embrace they transform their selves into one person. That form of union and complete absence of the quality of life is only feasible if anything in the storyteller melts amid the toughness of the center. She undergoes the rapid melting process until the only thing that remains at the end is Lord Krishna. Among all other poems, the poem may be called the core of her literary awareness. She expresses her agony as a result of exploiting men and her desire for true love. The relentless discovery of true love and the quest for a perfect lover seems to be understood in these poems. There is a striking quest for true love in all her poems of love, which seem to be completed in poems such as "Radha" and "Ghanashyam." 'I 'm going to be some day' is a poem that stands for the voice of women's rebellion, trapped inside the four walls of their marital life. In a cocoon he built around her with his morning tea, his words of love and his tired lust she was imprisoned. She aspires to take a flight away and is left on her double bed, complaining for his beloved's permanent loss. She decides to return to him because she was empty with nowhere else to go, as she is fed up with artificial independence with needs to return to cocoon. The intense joy hurts her as she needs to build the universe with her own dreams. The most disturbing part is that she

―My world de-fleshed, de-veined, de-blooded, just a skeletal thing‖. (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 42) This would be the end of her life as she will remain content with her lover's usual contempt rather than seeking attractive means of survival in his affection. There is a strange similarity between Sahir Ludhiyanvi‘s ―Ye duniya agar mil bhee jaye to kya‖. He expresses the terrible sense of emptiness in life and the condition through which the protagonist passes. 'In Love' is a poem in the following of other poems, such as 'To a Devadasi,' in which they identify like poor women, prostitutes and all those victims of a male-dominated society with marginal women. The direction of the skin journey from the whore to the abusing man through the skin with the stigma in the shape of many diseases is the most tragic image and the skin breathes the last. The author is telling: ―Night, from behind the Burdwan Road, the corpse bearers cry – bol‖ Hari bol‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 03) The man who sucks the woman's youngness in love's name is described as the 'carnivorous plants' for which she reaches out. She labels her desire like limitless love. The influential moral of the poem is that the polluted skin cannot be considered the instrument of affection. She says she says: ―Thing that I dare not yet in His presence call our love‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 03) She uses the word "heart" as an example of irony. Love cannot appear in the form of contaminated skin. Love cannot draw your mind to the owner of the bone. 'A Lost Fight' is a little poem that seems to be linked with the meaning we get in her poems like 'Freaks' and 'In Lust.' She has revealed the lowest degree of friendship between man and woman. Man never cares about love but always runs after lust. It is a woman that is compassionate and has a strong degree of honesty, whereas the one who loves him is man she cherished in her most poetic terms and declared that the guy would never be cherished. There is universal message in this poem that every woman is honest and loving, but nearly all men only follow lust and cannot love.: ―Men are worthless, to trap them Use the Cheapest bait of all, but Never Love...‖ (Tonight This Savage Rite, pp. 10)

Kamala Das wrote poems on different topics such as love, protest and so forth. She has spoken and written about a variety of themes related to love, love, hatred, sacrifice, treason and an enduring pursuit of true love. In some of her poems, she's restless and disturbed. There's a trishna she wants to meet Lord Krishna through her poetry. Maya Angelou said, "There is no more agony than to have an untold story within you." Kamala Das tried to unveil her untold truth, emotions, and feelings through her poems of love and protest in particular‘.

1. Prasad Amar Nath & Sarkar Bithika. Critical Response to Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2008, pp. 182. 2. Prasad Nath Amar, Sakar Bithika (2008). Critical Responser to Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons 2008. 3. Nair Rama (2001). ‗Trends and Techniques in Cotemporary Indian English Poetry‘, New Delhi: Prestige Book. 4. Das Kamala, Kohli Suresh (2009). Closure. New Delhi: Harper Collins Pub. India. A Joint Venture with the India Today Group. 5. Kohli Suresh (ed). Wages of Love. Noida, India: Harper Collins Pub. India, 2013 6. Narasimhiah C.D. (1990). An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Chennai: Macmillan India Ltd.

Research Scholar, Department of English, Sri Satya Sai University of Technology & Medical Sciences, Sehore, M.P.