Poem An Introduction by Kamala Das

—Summary and Critical Appreciation

Summary of the Poem:
The poetess shows her frank indifference and distaste for politics. She tells us
that although she does not have much knowledge about politics, yet she is
aware or the names of the persons who had been in power from Pt. Nehru to
her time. She is able to arrange their names according to their times when
they came in the power. She can never feel confused in repeating their names
in correct order like the days of the week or names of months. She, then,
describes herself as an Indian. She tells that she has brown complexion and
she was born in Malabar. (She is far from regional prejudices. She first
defines herself in terms of her nationality, and the second by her colour.)
She asserts her right to speak three languages and defends her choice to write
in two-her mother- tongue, Malayalam, and English. She thinks to have
command on the third language. Her friends and relatives irritate her by
advising her that she should use her mother-tongue, Malayalam instead of
using English. They badly criticise her at the use of English while speaking
and writing. She thinks why these people make her angry by giving their
advices and why they interfere in her personal matter. In fact it is the matter
of her choice. She may speak and write in any language she likes. The
language in which she speaks and writes becomes her own. She gets the
complete possession over that language. She can use that language in her own
way. She can twist out the usual shape of the language and can impart it a
kind of singularity due to having sole right on it.
The poetess presents the conflict between writing in one's regional language
and utilizing a foreign language. The language that she speaks is essentially
hers. She takes complete possession on the language which she uses. For
instance if she used English language, she makes distortions by using Indian
language. This kind of mingling may be called funny, but it is an individual
change. She distorts the language by using her own ideas and expressions and
in this way she makes it real, honest, human and very expressive language.
By making distortion and bringing a kind of queerness, she makes it
completely natural and individual. In spite of having imperfections, the
language used by her presents the reality and naturality and it is an
appropriate language to human beings. Her language speaks of her joys,
longings and hopes. It comes to her as cawing comes to the crows and roaring
to the lions and is therefore impulsive and instinctive. It is not the deaf, blind
speech, though it has its own defects, it cannot be seen as her handicap. It is
not unpredictable like the trees on storm or the clouds of rain. Neither does it
echo the incoherent mutterings of the blazing fire. It possesses a coherence of
its own: an emotional coherence.
The poetess could not feel and understand that she was going to get the
functional capability of procreation. She still thought herself as a child and
sometimes made childish activities and behaviour. In fact she was unaware of
the changes taking in her body. There were remarkable changes in her body.
Those who were her friends and relatives told her that she had stepped in the
age of maturity. They made her feel of her physical development. A change
could be seen in her stature and in the shape of her body. She grew tall and
beautiful. Her limbs began to swell. One or two places sprouted hair. She
knew that she grew up only because according to others her size had grown.
The emotional frame of mind was essentially the same. She was married at an
early age. Love for which she greatly pined in her adolescence was badly
suppressed under the sexual exploitation. After her marriage she became only
an embodiment of sex. She was sexually tortured and exploited by her
husband. She could not get emotional fulfilment. Her husband, who was
extremely hungry of sex, took her on the bed and after closing the door,
enjoyed the sexual intercourse. He had sole concern with sex. He had no care
of her emotions. Though he did not give her any physical harm, he crushed
her feelings. Her husband confined her to a single room. She was shamed of
her feminity that came before time, and brought her to this predicament. This
clears her claim that she was crushed by the weight of her breast and womb.
Her husband's way of performing the sexual act with her in the crudest
possible manner made her condition very pitiable. She was greatly frightened
of this kind of state of woman. Though she was compelled to accept the
traditional feminine role, she began to hate the traditional and social
institution of marriage which suppressed her emotions, desires and ambitions.
Her early marriage did not allow flourishing her desires. Her aspirations
remained unfulfilled. She tried to overcome this pitiable and miserable state
of woman by changing her appearance of a Tomboy (a romping girl). So she
cut her hair in boys' style and adorned herself in boyish clothes and tried to
ignore her womanliness. Seeing her in such a boyish appearance, the people
criticised her and told her to conform to the various womanly roles. Everyone
wanted to give some advice to her. Her advisers advised her to come in the
appearance of a woman. They asked her to wear woman clothes such as saree
and blouse and to lead a life like a girl and wife. They asked her to fulfil the
traditional form of a woman. They urged her to do some embroidery or
cooking and also to keep quarrelling with the servants. They also urged her to
remain busy in domestic duties. They told her to call herself Amy or Kamala
or better still Madhavikutty. They urged her not to pretend to be a split
personality suffering from a psychological disorder and not to become a sex-
crazy woman.
When the poetess tried to come out from the traditional role of the woman by
changing her outward appearance, she was badly condemned by the people of
society and she was advised to perform the role of a domestic woman and
wife. They asked her to take interest in household activities. They asked her
to remain sincere towards her duty for her husband and to satisfy her
husband's desire. They suggested her that she should be satisfied with her
present life. Next she describes her experience. Under the great aspiration of
love, she turned to a man and loved him, but instead of loving and caring her
emotions, he showed the same interest for the sexual intercourse as the others
had. He also suppressed her emotions and aspirations for love under his
lustful feelings. He also regarded her an embodiment of sex and used her to
satisfy his utter lustfulness. She found out that as every woman pined for
love, in the same way every man showed the great fondness for sexual
intercourse. In that man she found great eagerness and hastiness for making
sexual intercourse with her. Whenever she aspired love from him, she got
only sexual exploitation. She had ceaselessly been waiting for her emotional
fulfilment. She developed many relations with different persons, but she got
the same sexual response from them. Every time her tender feelings of love
were crushed under the lustfulness. Wherever she saw, she found every man
wrapped with the tendency and attitude of sexuality. Every man pined for a
sexy and beautiful woman so that he might be able to satisfy his hunger.
Every man took the woman to be the source of performing sexual act. In
search of love, she kept on turning to different persons. She could not get a
true lover who could soothe her offended feelings with his love. She always
longed for a true company, but in vain. In spite of having many concerns, she
felt herself alone. Sometimes she passed sleepless nights. Under the great
impact of frustration and dejection, she drank at midnight in hotels of strange
towns. She was so crazy in search of true feelings of love that she kept on
changing the company of man. Sometimes she laughed at her craziness, but
another time she felt ashamed. She thought that she was not different from
other human beings. Like every other human she was sometimes sinful
because she committed a kind of sin by shifting her love from one man to
another man in search of true love. In other words, it was also an immoral
act. But sometimes she thought ber act pious because she was after true love
and she wanted to get true feelings of love. She was sometimes loved and
sometimes betrayed in love because every man was fond of her fleshy body
and showed interest in sexual act. She had the same joys in love as others
had. It means that like other women she met the same destiny when she
yearned for true Jove. She suffered the same disappointment which others
suffered.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem:

Introduction:
The poem entitled An Introduction introduces Kamala Das as a rebellious
poet in the tradition of confessional poetry. It deals very frankly with the
poet's search for cultural-linguistic as well as sexual identity in a post-
colonial reality so oppressive and overbearing. It is extremely quintessential
poem embodying the strict traditions and confessions of a true Indianness.
This poem is a truth at its best that flows out with a mixture of rebelliousness
and helplessness at the same time. The poem included in Kamala Das' first
volume of poetry, Summer in Calcutta (1965), begins with a statement that
shows her frank distaste for politics, especially in politically free India ruled
by a chosen elite. The poetess asserts her right to speak three languages, and
defends her choice to write in two-her mother-tongue Malayalam and
English. She does not like to be advised in this matter by any guardian or
relations. Her choice is her own, authentic and born of passion. The poet
looks upon her decision to write in English as natural and humane. As an
Indian woman, the poetess has shown the confidence to speak against the
things which are not to be spoken by a woman of India.
Thought-Content:
The poetess, after discussing her indifferent attitude and distaste for the
politics, goes on to articulate that she speaks in three languages, writes in two
and dreams in one; as though dreams require a medium. The poetess echoes
that the medium is not as significant as is the comfort level that one requires.
The essence of one's thinking is the prerequisite to writing. Hence, she
implores with all—"critics, friends, visiting cousins" to leave her alone. The
language that she speaks is essentially hers; the primary ideas are not a
reflection but an individual impression. It is the distortions and queerness that
makes it individual. And it is these imperfections that render it human. It is
the language of her expression and emotion as it voices her joys, sorrows and
hopes. It comes to her as cawing comes to the crows and roaring to the lions,
and is therefore impulsive and instinctive. it is not the deaf, blind speech :
though it has its own defects, it cannot be seen as her handicap. It is not
unpredictable like the trees on storm, or the clouds of rain. Neither does it
echo the incoherent mutterings of the blazing fire. It possesses coherence of
its own: an emotional coherence. From the issue of the politics of language,
the poetess passes on to the subject of sexual politics in a patriarchy-
dominated society where a girl attaining puberty is told about her biological
changes by some domineering parental figure. As the girl seeks fulfilment of
her adolescent passion, a young lover is forced upon her to traumatize and
coerce the female-body since the same is the site for patriarchy to display its
power and authority. Where thereafter, she opts for male clothing to hide her
feminity, the guardians enforce typical female attire, with warnings to fit into
the socially determined attributes of a woman, to become a wife and a mother
and get confined to the domestic routine. She is threatened to remain within
the four walls of her female space lest she should make herself a psychic or a
maniac.
Moral of the Poem:
The poetess opens the loneliness of pot just Indian women but women of
many a ration. She presents crankiness, distority, honesty and brutal
frankness and a tradition and culture of that time and the earnest rebellion of
a growing girl who was trapped in a time zone different from her mental
time. The poetess has grown to see her rebellion in many a women. The
poetess, who is an individual woman, tries to voice a universal womanhood
and tries to share her experience, good or bad, with all other women. Love
and sexuality are a strong component in her search for female identity and the
identity consists of polarities.
The Use of Sex Imagery:
In the poem, the poetess gives us a vivid picture of how she grew up from a
child to an adult, becoming tall, with her limbs swelling (or becoming bigger)
and hair sprouting at one or two places in her body. Here she also gives us a
picture of her husband, to whom she had just been married, drawing her into
the bedroom, closing the door, and performing the sexual act with her in such
a rough manner that her body felt beaten, with the weight of her breasts and
womb crushing her. This is sensuous, nay sensual imagery, candid and
inhibited. The reader would enjoy this imagery because of its very candour.
Style and Language:
The assertion of the self against the various given social roles, identities and
communal demands is an indicator of the existentialist leaning of the poetess.
The first person narrative of the poem also reinforces the idea of the asserting
self. The use of the indefinite article 'An' in the title is also indicative of the
fluid but resisting and self-determining position of the poet. She explains her
encounter with a man. She attributes him with not a proper noun, but a
common noun-"every man" to reflect his universality. He defined himself by
the "I". the supreme male ego. He is tightly compartmentalized as "the sword
in its sheath". It portrays the power politics of the patriarchal society that we
thrive in that is all about control. It is this "I" that stays long away without
any restrictions, is free to laugh at his own will, succumbs to a woman only
out of lust and later feels ashamed of his own weakness that lets himself lose
to a woman. Towards the end of the poem, a role-reversal occurs as this "I"
gradually transitions to the poetess herself. She pronounces how this "I" is
also sinner and saint, beloved and betrayed. As the role-reversal occurs, the
woman too becomes the "I" reaching the pinnacle of self assertion.
The poem is remarkable for its compression and for the compactness of its
structure even though it contains a diversity of facts and circumstances. The
rules of punctuation have here been fully observed; all the lines are almost of
the same length. The words used and the phraseology show Kamala Das'
talent for choosing the right words and putting them in highly satisfactory
combinations. Indeed, the poem contains many felicities of word and phrase.
In the poem, she very appropriately writes:
“...…., He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me."
In the same poem she speaks of her lover's longing for her and her longing
for him in the following words:
"In him...…the hungry haste of rivers,
In me...…the oceans' tireless waiting."