An Introduction by Kamala Das

  An Introduction by Kamala Das

This task is based on An Introduction by Kamla Das and this task was assigned by Prakruti Bhatt ma'am.we have group discussion on this poem and this is report of that.

Question which discussed by group 

1.Is “ An Introduction” by Kamala Das a personal or a universal poem? Justify your opinion.

2.Comment on the writing style of Kamala Das.

3. is there any personal connection between An Introduction poem and Kamla Das's life ?

4. Thematic and critical study of An Introduction poem ?

     

5. Kamla Das as confessional poet.

We also discussed the poem An Introduction in terms of escape and protest.

Name	Need Improvement	Good	Very Good	Excellent	Attendance
Jay			✔️		Present
Khushi Raviya			✔️		Present
Jyoti Mer	✔️				Present
Divya Paledara			✔️		Present
Rozmin Pathan		✔️			Present

Shruti led the discussion, and all members contributed equally. Taking turns, we explored each question in depth, ensuring active participation from everyone. Together, we thoroughly discussed all the key points related to the topic.

1. Is “An Introduction” by Kamala Das a personal or a universal poem? Justify your opinion.

“An Introduction” is fundamentally a personal poem, yet it transcends the personal to touch the universal experience of womanhood, identity, and linguistic alienation. Kamala Das begins with a declaration of her identity “I don’t know politics but I know the names of those in power” immediately situating the voice as both specific (hers) and emblematic of the politically uninvolved yet affected citizen.

Her reference to language “The language I speak, becomes mine” highlights her personal rebellion against linguistic hierarchies but resonates universally with postcolonial struggles of self-expression. The poem also expresses the sexual awakening and psychological conflict of many women, making lines like “my sad woman-body felt so beaten” not just autobiographical but representative of the collective feminine experience.

Thus, the poem is deeply rooted in personal narrative, but by exploring issues of gender, language, social roles, and love, it becomes universal.

2. Comment on the writing style of Kamala Das.

Kamala Das’s style in this poem is confessional, spontaneous, and emotionally charged. It combines:

• Free verse: No rhyme or strict meter, allowing her unfiltered thoughts and emotions to flow.

• Code-switching and hybridity: Use of English infused with Indian sensibility, reflecting her cultural and linguistic hybridity “It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest.”

• Colloquial tone: Casual expressions like “Why not leave me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins” reflect a direct, confrontational tone.

• Imagery and metaphor: She uses metaphors like “the cawing of crows” and “the oceans’ tireless waiting” to express her feelings vividly.

• Repetition and rhetorical questions: These enhance the emotional intensity and invite introspection: “Who are you, I ask each and everyone...”

• Shifting registers: From political commentary to bodily awareness to existential reflection, the poem moves across themes without formal transitions, mimicking the mind's raw thought process.

Her style is thus deeply personal, boldly expressive, and modernist, aligning her with confessional poets like Sylvia Plath, yet uniquely Indian.

3. Is there any personal connection between An Introduction and Kamala Das's life?

Yes, the poem is strongly autobiographical and mirrors key events and conflicts from Kamala Das’s life:

• Cultural identity: Born in Malabar (Kerala) and writing in both English and Malayalam, she reflects her multilingual self in the line: “I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one.”

• Patriarchal suppression: Her early marriage and experiences with male domination are hinted at in: “When I asked for love… he drew a youth of sixteen into the bedroom…”

• Struggle with femininity: She refers to body consciousness and gender roles “The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me” echoing her rejection of traditional femininity, as seen when she wore her brother’s clothes.

• Search for self: The repeated use of “I” and the final declaration “I too call myself I” reveals her quest for individual identity, beyond names imposed by society (Kamala, Madhavikutty, Amy).

So, the poem is a mirror of Kamala Das’s psychological, linguistic, and gendered journey, offering a poetic autobiography wrapped in social critique.

4. Thematic and critical study of “An Introduction”

Major Themes:

1. Identity and Selfhood
   The poem is a quest to define the self“I too call myself I.” The speaker resists societal labels and seeks authenticity.

2. Gender and Patriarchy
   She exposes how women are forced into roles “Dress in sarees, be girl, be wife” and critiques these expectations.

3. Language and Postcolonialism
   The poem rebels against linguistic purism “Don’t write in English… English is not your mother tongue.” Das claims English as her own, asserting that language is a personal tool of expression.

4. Sexuality and Female Body
   The poem discusses sexual trauma, desire, shame, and empowerment, especially in lines like: “my sad woman-body felt so beaten.”

5. Rebellion and Protest
   Her refusal to conform to names, roles, languages, clothes, emotions is a form of existential and cultural rebellion.

Critical Perspectives:

• Feminist reading: The poem deconstructs gender binaries and challenges the objectification and silencing of women.

• Postcolonial lens: Kamala Das reclaims the colonizer’s language (English) and destabilizes its authority by making it her own.

• Psychological dimension: The poem’s shifts in tone, references to schizophrenia and identity crises reflect psychological fragmentation a theme of modern alienation.

• Existential humanism: The poem affirms individual consciousness, with lines like “I am the beloved and the betrayed” presenting the self as multi-faceted and universal.

5. Kamala Das as a confessional Poet

Kamala Das emerges as a powerful confessional poet in her celebrated poem An Introduction. Confessional poetry, which developed in the mid-20th century, is marked by its deeply personal, autobiographical, and often painful revelations about the poet’s inner life, identity, sexuality, trauma, and emotional landscape. Poets such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell were central to this movement in the West, and Kamala Das stands as one of its strongest Indian voices.

Personal Revelation and Emotional Honesty

Kamala Das opens An Introduction with bold declarations about her ignorance of politics yet her awareness of political power, beginning “with Nehru.” This juxtaposition of the personal and political reflects her inner conflict as a citizen, a woman, and a writer in postcolonial India. She lays bare her identity:

“I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar.”

This declaration roots her in geography and ethnicity, but also asserts ownership over her identity in a society that often seeks to define women through external roles.

 Language and Self-Assertion

One of the most confessional elements of the poem is her rebellion against linguistic authority. She confesses her struggle with language politics, especially criticisms of writing in English:

“Don’t write in English, they said, English is / Not your mother-tongue.”

She defiantly claims that her expression, even if it is “half-English, half-Indian,” is authentic and personal, an extension of her emotional truth:

“It is as human as I am human.”

This assertion aligns with the confessional poet’s need to express personal truth regardless of societal expectations.

Sexuality and Womanhood

Das confesses not only her physical growth and sexual awakening but also her deep emotional vulnerabilities and the trauma of early sexual experiences:

“When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask for, / He drew a youth of sixteen into the bedroom…”

Here, she explores the beating of her “sad woman-body” and the societal burden of femininity. This is a raw and unfiltered look into a woman’s emotional and bodily realityhallmarks of confessional poetry.

Gender Nonconformity and Protest

Das confesses to resisting societal roles:

“Then… I wore a shirt and my brother’s trousers…”

She recounts how society forced her to conform, to “be girl / Be wife,” thus echoing the inner conflict of identity that defines much of confessional work. Her protest against gendered roles whether as Amy, Kamala, or Madhavikutty reveals a schizophrenic cultural identity, an effect of colonization, patriarchy, and tradition.

 Universalizing the Personal

Perhaps the most powerful confessional moment arrives when she blurs the line between personal and universal:

“He is every man who wants a woman, just as I am every / Woman who seeks love.”

This merging of the individual with collective experience is a powerful device in confessional poetry. She becomes the ‘I’ who represents all women’s struggles, joys, shame, longing, and defiance.

Spiritual and Existential Dimensions

The poem concludes with an almost mystical understanding of the self:

“I am sinner, I am saint. I am the beloved and the betrayed.”

This self-characterization encapsulates the totality of human experience embracing contradictions, shame, dignity, and spiritual conflict all expressed through a deeply confessional tone.

Additional Insight: Escape and Protest

As discussed in group, the poem clearly reflects themes of protest:

• Protest against patriarchal control (“Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or better still be Madhavikutty”)

• Protest against linguistic elitism by owning “funny English.”

These aspects frame the poem as a declaration of freedom, both existential and artistic.

An Introduction poem 

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 amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,

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, halfIndian, 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.

WhenI 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.

Thank You !