International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science

Volume 3, Issue 3, pp. 86-87, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

Theme of Love in Kamala Das‟s Poetry

Abstract—Love means a deep and enduring emotional regard, usually for another person. The theme of love has been a recurrent one in the
history of literature. Love is an interesting subject in literature because love unlike other themes, has many twists and turns and many different
ending. In Kamala Das’s poetry also love is depicted through various aspects. This research is based on the various aspects of love depicted by
Kamala Das in her poetry.
Das can be considered a poet of love. This love primarily comes from what it means to be a woman. Contrary to much of traditional Indian
thought, Das revels in being a woman and the experiences of being a woman. She does not capitulate to the standard depictions of women as
victims. Rather, she is able to assert a sense of identity that exists within women and one that gives voice to them. In poems as "The Looking
Glass," Das takes the idea that women need to revel in what defines them: "The warm shock of menstrual blood" or "The musk of sweat between
the breasts" are instances where being a woman is revered and vaulted. This might be one of many statements that Das is making about love. In
praising being a woman, Das asserts that if one is to love, then there should be a complete immersion of one's identity and soul within it. This
involves standing naked "in front of the glass" and bathing in what one is. There is a statement of love and affirmation here, which might be a
part of Das' overall body of work.

Kamala Das (1934-2009) is one of the most distinctive and “I do not love, I cannot love,
original of Indian poet‟s writing in English today. Her poetry It is not in my nature to love”
is significantly love poetry. Man-woman relationship in her She wants to forget herself in love which might transform
poetry is depicted on different levels i.e. Love, lust, physical her into a new being but society punishes her for demanding
nearness, frustration and disillusionment in love. She has freedom. She is declared insane and imprisoned herself in
surprised the critics with her frank depiction of man-woman tears till.
love-lust relationship. Her poetry is replete with, “Shocking “The returned to take her out, she was a cold and
and unorthodox details about love marriage and sex.” Keki Half-dead woman, now of no use at all to men”.
Daruwalla discerns three constants in her poetry,“Skin‟s lazy Her experiences in love and marriage become traumatic
hungers,” “male indifference” and “female need for love”. She which only intensifies the identity crisis in her feminine self.
seems to be a prisoner of her own passions and prejudices and The „cat‟ her feminine self-realises that she is nothing but an
her “Confessional madness” reveals her to be a capture of love object of mistrust and humiliation at the hands of her own
and sex, glorifying her unorthodox views. Her heart longs for man. This deep rooted anguish of herself surfaces in many of
love but gets only lust from the male partner and thus it is her poems.
filled with frustration. The poet‟s search for love continues in The Looking Glass.
Kamala Das writes in her autobiography „My life‟, “Love She knows that she can easily get a lover by admiring his
has a beginning and an end, but lust has no such faults. I superiority and offering him all the feminine gifts of the scent
needed security. I needed permanence, I needed two strong of long hairs, the musk of sweat between the breasts and all
arms thrown around my shoulders and a soft voice in my ear. female hungers. The lover vanishes and her vain search
Physical integrity must carry with it a certain pride that is a among, strangers leave her “drab and destitute”.
burden to the soul. Perhaps it was necessary for my body to “His last voice calling out your name and your,
defile itself in many ways, so that the sound turned humble for Body which once under his touch her gleamed
a change.” Like burnished brass now drab and destitute.”
She longs for love in its sublime form and is disgusted The woman in The Invitation has had a taste of paradise
with skin‟s lazy hungers. Man can only excite physical from man. The lover comes to her at intervals like a fish
pleasure and the heart remains empty cistern. coming up for air. Then he is gone for good but she waits for
“The heart him and lives in the memories.
An empty cistern waiting “On the bed with him, the boundaries of Paradise had
Through long hours, fills itself shrunk to a mere six by two had afterword‟s, when we walked,
With coiling snakes of silence….. out together they”.
I am a freak. It‟s only In her bleak poem, In Love, Kamala Das describes her
To save my face. I flaunt at relationship with her lover, which is based on physical
Times, a grand, Flamboyant lust” coupling. She experiences her body as scorched and consumed
The Sun Shine cat depicts the miserable condition of the by her lover in unpleasant ways: his kisses are like the
poet because she had failed in her search for true elevated "burning mouth" of the sun (she repeats "burning" twice in the
love. She feels the suffocation with her husband who neither opening) and her lover's "limbs" like "carnivorous plants"
loved nor used her. She becomes promiscuous but turns reaching out to devour her. Neither image is pleasant or
hysteric when her lovers deny love saying. inviting. She calls her "lust" a sad "lie": in her imagery she

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science
Volume 3, Issue 3, pp. 86-87, 2019. ISSN (Online): 2456-7361

appears consumed rather than fulfilled; she realizes this joins and bones remain pristine love without achieving
relationship is not what she would like it to be. consummation remains a skin-communication thing.
Yet she admits that while her mind is "moody," not happy Kamala Das ultimate vision of love forms the central core
with the mere bodily component of her relationship, there is a of her poetry. In her own words “Love is beautiful what ever
certain "pleasure" in the physical relationship: she calls it four lettered name the puritans call it by. It is the foretaste of
"deliberate gaiety" but at the same time undercuts the idea of Paradise. It is the only pastime that involves the soul”. Das is a
pleasure with her image of it as "harshly" trumpeting into the poet neither of sensuality nor of promiscuity. It would be more
room. sensible to say that she is guilty of extraordinary candor she is
Her imagery continues to convey the destructive quality of too honest to be hypocritical.
her relationship: all around her is a malevolent world. Crows Love is the main theme in the poem of Kamala Das and all
fly like "poison," she hears the cries of "corpse bearers," her other themes are related with it. She confesses everything
nights are "moonless" and she is "sleepless." She questions from her marriage to extra marital affairs. She considers
this "skin communicated thing" that she can't call, at least in physical love as a step for the realization of true love. For her
her lover's presence, love. love is emotional-cum spiritual relationship. It is a relationship
The poem shows the dehumanization of the decoupling of based on mutual understanding between two people, who have
love and lust as the narrator experiences it. The narrator would respect for each other feelings. She also does not opposed to
like more than the bodily relationship that leaves her feeling extra marital relationship which victimized women at the
used up, moody and despondent. What she has makes her feel, hands of their husband.
by implication, poisoned and corpselike. At the same time, she So, it can be seen in her poems that her quest for true love
is afraid to bring up the idea of love "yet" to her partner. The has ended in frustration and discontentment. Her poetry
word "yet" is possibly the most poignant word in this poem: reflects her own self with a powerful force of protest against
despite the bleakness the narrator experiences in her the male dominated society. Her poems show her failure in
relationship and despite her seeming inability to talk to her love and voice of the victimized women of the world.
lover and express her feelings, she still ("yet") longs for the According to her love must lead to self-realization and self-
lust to transfigure into love. growth. It is pure love that satisfies her romantic aspiration
In the poem “Gino” she expresses her consciousness of and emotional need.
identity as a woman. The poem begins with a note of fear and
warning. Here she compares a lover‟s Kiss to a Krait bite REFERENCES
which fills the blood stream with its accused essence. [1] Ayaz, Nasreen. "The Concept of Love in the Poetry of Kamala Das.
l'erspectivcs On Kanlala Das's Poetry. EdJqbal Kaur. New Delhi:
According to him lover are reptiles who keep sucking the
Intellectual, 1995.
female blood. She discovers that the body she wears is without [2] Braidoth, Rosi. "Locating the Subject. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment
joy. and Sexual Differences in Contemporary Feminist Theory". Mary
The body I were without joy Shall wither with My Eagleton,. Ed Feminist's Literary ileory- A Reader. 2""d. U.K:
Blackwell, 1996.
darling‟s impersonal lust. [3] Das, Karnala My Story. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1988.
Quest for love, or rather the failure to find emotion [4] Nair, K.R. Ramachandran. The Poetry of Kamala Das. New Delhi:
fulfillment through love is the central theme of love outside Reliance, 1993.
marriage. She is not actually propagating adultery and [5] Brewster, Anne. "The Freedom to Discompose-The Poetry of Kamala
Das." The Journa1 of Indian Writing in English, Jan-July 1980
infidelity, but merely searching for a relationship which gives
both love and security. That is why she sometimes gives a
mythical frame work to her search for true love, and identifies
it with the Radha Krishna myth or with Mira Bai‟s
relinquishing of the ties of marriage in search of Lord Krishna,
the true love.
“Virndavan lives on in every woman mind,
And the flute luring her
From home and her husband.”
She does not advocate promiscuity her love poetry merely
voices her life long. Yearning for fulfillment through love.
Each of Kamala‟s love relationships has proved lurid and
rootless. Each of these relationships brings to her again and
again only the vacant ecstasy of the dancing Eunuchs. Sex is
no more than a “mindless surrender” or a heartless
participation and therefore not a “humming fiesta”. The
genesis of almost all her poems is this conflict coursing from
the desperate involvements of herself and her dejections.
Suffering leads her to seek peace in another‟s arm to knock at
another‟s door. But such experiments often and as tiresome
physiological function of see in which only the flesh lazily

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