AN EXPLORATION OF KAMALA DAS’ MY STORY

K. P. SUCHITHRA DR. V. UNNIKRISHNAN

Research Scholar, Prof. of English,
Dept. of English, Karpagam University
Karpagam University Coimbatore TM (INDIA)
Coimbatore TM (INDIA)

This paper is an attempt to study a single ‘woman’, whom the society often treats as
mysterious. She is no one other than Kamala Das. Every person lives with a mask on his face.
He expresses his real face only at some particular moments. But, in case of writers, this mask
play is a bit complicated one.

Keywords -Kamala Das, autobiography, domestic issues, Indian women writing.

Introduction-

I think the hardest lesson for me to learn – and I have not learned it, one attempts
to learn it every day- is that the word ‘woman’ is not after all something for which
one can find a literal referent without looking into the looking glass.
Gayatri C Spiwak, The post-colonial critic

This paper is an attempt to study a single ‘woman’, whom the society often treats as
mysterious. She is none other than Kamala Das. Every person lives with a mask on their face.
Throughout their entire life only in some particular moments they make their real face
visible. But, in case of writers, this mask plays is a bit complicated one. This is because the
real personality often merges with the unreal world they create and, as a result, the readers get
confused whether what they are reading is autobiographical or fictitious. Things get worse in
case of women writers because there is a general tendency among readers since the olden
times to connect the personal life of women writers with their works assuming what all the
things they have written is autobiographical.

In reality, the women writers are often struggling with their problematic ‘home’ and
problematic ‘society’. As a mode of escape from the societal stoning, they have started
writing with an indirect persona and the result is creating a literary ‘other’. The choice of

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Indian women’s writing in English is deliberate. Women writers including Kamala Das
learned English during the colonial and post-colonial periods and they found it more
comfortable in writing in English than in their native languages because of the acceptance
and value of English at the global level. Kamala Das’s English writing was much different
from her contemporary writers. She never copied the style of writing of native English
authors and used a kind of ‘Indianized’ English. Before that, Indian English was not taken
seriously. A women writer is often confused about what to write because a free flow of ink is
not allowed to her. Before writing anything she has to censor and re-censor it in mind
because she always fears what the society may think about her when writes honestly. So, she
always searches for something safe to write, for example, about weddings, religious
ceremonies, childbirth, deathbed, etc. All these are events which happen inside the security of
home which she is able to connect with than a male writer. Kamala Das also wrote about
these kind of domestic stories than dealing with the complicated world issues. But she differs
from her contemporaries only because of her fearless honest writing. Most women writers
lack courage to write about their private life, especially about sexual encounters. A few
women writers talk about body or body expressions .It is amazing to note that the physical
dimensions are systematically eliminated from their works. For example, in almost all works
children are born but sexual union is not described. It is the middle class morality which
stresses that women should not write about their own body. When compared to the past,
present women writers are bold enough to focus on their own bodies.

Autobiography is, etymologically and in practice, the story of a person’s life, meant to be
shared with others. Broken down, the word auto/ bio/ graphy which means self/ life/ story, is
the narrative of the events of a person’s life. Autobiography is not regarded as a literary genre
before the eighteenth century for so many reasons. The first critical controversy was over the
division between fact and fiction and it is interesting to note that even in the 21 st century
critics have not found out an authentic solution to this controversy. Readers also are divided
in their opinions about autobiography. Some people take it as a factual document and some
others view it as being much more closely connected with fiction.

Everyone knows what an autobiography is but no two observers, no

matter how assured they may be, are in agreement.
(Olney 1972, p 7)

This statement addresses the problem of defining autobiography. In olden times,

autobiographies are considered as history texts because autobiographers mirror the history
and culture of its subject. Actually autobiography is an interplay between the past and the
present. An autobiographer writes about what all the things happened in his/her life and on
what situation he/she is placed in, that is at their present. Truth in autobiography is a very
complex question. The autobiographers present truth as seen from inside; so it is more
subjective than objective. It is not a fault at all. Kamala Das turned out to be a controversy

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queen after publishing her ground breaking autobiography My Story in 1989. The admission
of intense feelings of hate, love and fear, sexual encounter and painful psychological
experiences are something about which autobiographers are generally silent. This marks
Kamala Das out as a unique writer among the autobiographers because she had pulled
everything out under the carpet. It is hard to write and it is more hard when the writer is a
woman and it is harder when she starts writing the truth or revealing the self. After the
World War II, two bibliographies of autobiographies in both British and American literatures
were published but it is important to note that no woman writer was included in those texts.
Autobiographies written by women are treated as sentimental chronicles and what all the
things they are writing about are seen as either ‘made-up’ stories or non-sense.

…. a book? NO, it is the personal outpouring of a disturbed lady

- albeit genius – whose eclectic life is of no more interest to her than to the
reader. There is no story line, no plot, no continuity. Her writing is frantic
stringing together of words without any thought for the ordinary arrangement
of noun and verb, it is hard reading ….it is utter confusion.
(Alhearn 1974:17).

Saradakutty , a famous Malayalam critic, is of the opinion that Kamala Das’ My Story is the
consequence of her reading My Life, Isadora Duncan’s autobiography. She was much
influenced by the liberated U.S dancer who rejected the conventions of classical ballet.
(Saradakutty, Mathrubhumi weekly, March 7-2007). My Story had its origin in a hospitalized
condition of the author for a serious heart disease. It is even commented that the work was
begun to “ distract her mind from the fear of sudden death as well as to clear her outstanding
hospital bills” (Dwivedi p140).

Kamala Das bravely fought against all criticism and protests and she courageously disclosed
in the preface of My Story, “ I have written several books in my life-time but none of them
provided the pleasure the writing of My Story has given me”. It was her childhood in
Nalappat house which contributed much to her literary career. Loyalty and affection of
servants from different castes, traditional Nair weddings, stories told by her grandmother,
trees and flowers around Nalapat house, dance of eunuchs in the streets, religious beliefs,
downtrodden women, clever women who can win the heart of any man, freedom struggle,
woman who seeks fulfilment in lesbianism, etc are all themes which she got from her village.
Kamala Das’ autobiography My Story reflects the social structure of Kerala at that time. The
attitude of upper class people towards the lower class and their pathetic plight are discussed
in her autobiography. People belonging to each caste have to perform certain jobs in those
periods. In India, presently people are free to choose their own jobs but still, the caste in
which they are born forms part of their identity. In almost all societies distinctions based on
wealth or status are there and one can alter their wealth or some other status but one cannot
step out from the castes into which he/she has been born.

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 Kamala Das’ life story is bigger, bolder and better understood when one peeps into her
battered emotional love life. She was born with a dark complexion to unsuitable parents who
lived in their own worlds. Sorrow played an important role in her life from the beginning and
it continued when she married at the tender age of 15 to a lustful cousin who unashamedly
boasted about his illegal affairs with his cousins and maid servants. Her very first experience
with him was very bitter but an innocent girl of 15 did not know how to say NO to a man.

Early marital knot seemed to have given a jolt to her sensibility as a woman. She always
craved for a beautiful emotional bond with her husband but his prime importance was for
physical love. Love was an obsession to her. When marital love degenerated into lust she was
haunted by frustration which later leads her to seek sexual fulfilment in extra-marital
relationships with other men. She frankly admits it in this way:
……..you let me toss my youth like coins
Into various hands, you let me mate with shadows,
You let me sing in empty shrines, you let your wife
Seek ecstasy in other’s arms…….
Kamala Das, A Man is a season

The post-colonial Indian women writing in English is more concerned with man-woman
relationship than any other issue. Many of these women writers including Kamala Das
portray woman as an individual in search of freedom than an object of sexual pleasure.
Kamala Das’ poems express the quest for love and frustration in married life. Vrinda Nabar
observes:
My story and her responses to my questionnaire suggest that she began seriously
writing verse because of her intense unhappiness in her marriage.
The Endless Female Hunger, p 30

Kamala Das’ life has been written, talked and gossiped about, there’s nothing left to be said
but still turns to be the favourite for the critics. There was a girl inside her, a wife, a mother
and a lover who always longed for love. During her childhood for her ammammas attention
Kamala Das obeyed what all things that old village lady told her. After marriage she adjusted
with the likes of her husband. She played with her kids like being one among them. The only
reward which she expected from all those people was nothing other than love. She says:

I always wanted love, and if you don’t get it within your home, you stray a little.
Kamala Das, Interview with Warrior
Conclusion
One of the significant features of Kamala Das’ autobiography is her instable feelings. While
reading one page, the reader may feel that her husband is a womanizer and she hates him,
another section may be a dedication to her loving husband where she mentions him as her

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‘darling’. She rapidly shifts her emotions and feelings and thereby surprises the reader. She
says her autobiography is an authentic one. Later she disagrees with the statement and proves
with reasons that there is something fabricated in My Story. Instability in speaking and
writing is the fact that one researcher finds out while working on Kamala Das. And this is one
of the main reasons why researchers and readers follow her and her works after her death
also.

1) Olney,James. Metaphors of self: The meaning of Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1972.
2) Alhearne, Louise Montaigne. (1974). Rev. of Flying by Kate Millet. San Francisco
chronicle, 21 July 1974. 15-23.
3) Vrinda Nabar, The Endless Female Hungers: A study of Kamala Das, New Delhi:
Sterling Publications, 1994.
4) Das, Kamala. Only the soul knows How to Sing. Kottayam: DC. Books, 1996.

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