My facebook Page link- groups/17050...
My telegram link-
t.me/debchieducation
An Introduction
By Kamala Das
I don't know politics but I know the names Of those in power,
And can repeat them like Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
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, funny perhaps, but it is honest, It is as human as I am human, don't you see? It voices my joys, my longings, my Hopes,
And it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and is aware.
Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre.
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. Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games. Don't play at schizophrenia or be a Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when Jilted in love …
I met a man, loved him. Call Him not by any name, he is every man Who wants. a woman, just as I am every Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste of rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless waiting.
Who are you, I ask each and everyone, The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and, Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I; in this world, he is tightly packed like the Sword in its sheath.
It is I who drink lonely Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns, It is I who laugh, it is I who make love And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying With a 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.
#Anintroduction,
#Kamaladas,
#Indianenglishpoem,
#ssc, #tet, #slst, #indianpoem,
#ignou, #nsou, #eeg, #englishhonours,
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.This video has no negative impact on the original works (It would actually be positive for them).This video is also for teaching purposes.