Punishment in Kindergarten- Kamala Das

Punishment in Kindergarten :

Today the world is a little more my own.

No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace,
“Why don’t you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!"

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my schoolmates sipping

Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at other’s tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.

The words are muffled now, the laughing

Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving

Sadly on. My mind has found

An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.

Stanza 1: Encounter With her Teacher

The poet begins with the line “Today the world is a little more my
own” that makes it clear that she is going to talk about a past event that
was not pleasant for her. Next, she begins by narrating the day in her
childhood (in Kindergarten) when she went to a picnic along with other
students.
The poet uses ample of symbols like a blue-frocked woman for her
teacher,  throwing words at me like pots and pans, to make us feel the
intensity of teacher’s words, the honey-colored for the day which was
ruined by the harsh words of her teacher.
While other students were merrymaking and playing together, Kamala Das
was sitting alone that was not liked by her blue-frocked  teacher and she
scolded her by calling her a peculiar child. The in the first part the poet
narrates the day which was quite pleasant and ultimately ruined by her
teacher.
Stanza 2: Laughing of Students
In the second part, the poet says when the teacher scolded her, other
students who were sipping sugarcane  started laughing at her. The
children, according to Kamala are funny creatures. They laugh at others’
pains and they did the same when she was scolded without realizing how
much she was hurt.
Being hurt, she hid her face in the sun-warmed hedge and smelt the
flowers and the pain. The poet associates flowers with pain. I think she
has tried to compare her childhood with the flower which is quite delicate.
Hence she probably wants to convey that this event shook her innocent
childhood.
Stanza 3: Adulthood and Peace
In the final stanza, the poet says that now that she is grown up, the
memory of that event has faded away because there is nothing in her
childhood to cherish and desire for.

She has now found adult peace i.e. Ironically be saying again and again
“No need to remember” her helplessness in forgetting it is quite visible.
The memory has not faded away but quite clear in her mind (as she
remembers very well everything of that day).

Punishment in Kindergarten Summary

The poem ‘Punishment in Kindergarten’ is a childhood hurt recollection of the
poet in the later years of her life. The poet was deeply hurt by the unkind
words of a teacher. It is the incident when the poet was just a school kid. She
had gone on a school picnic with her teacher and schoolmates. While other
kids were playing, the poet stood alone because she was still new in the
school. On seeing her alone, the teacher who had dressed blue- coloured
frock threw harsh words at her. The harsh words deeply wound her heart. This
was followed by one more thing that added more to her pain. The
schoolmates who were sipping sugarcane laughed ridiculously at her when
they heard the teacher daunting her. The poet could not bear this. She felt
insulted. This made her hide in the hedge where she smelt the flowers and
pain. With the passage of time, the poet has almost forgotten the painful
incident and she is now satisfied with herself. Time and her adult viewpoint
have healed the pain. The years have reduced the intensity and harshness of
the hurtful incident. The angry words and laughing faces are vague and
unclear. The years have gone by very fast. Certain incidents close to the heart
are remembered others are forgotten. Life moves on. The poet is now adult
look back on that painful incident peacefully. There is no need more to
remember that childhood incident with pain.

Thus the poet is tinged with a noble sense of forbearance of ‘adult peace’ after
‘the years have sped along’. The poet has survived that pain and reached
maturity transcending memory:

No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge watching the steel-white sun standing lonely in the sky.

The significance of the poem does not lie in ‘punishment’ but in the sense of
hurt inflicted on the child by the harsh words of the teacher and the children’s
laughter that only aggravated it. The ‘adult peace’ the poet because of the
healing touch of time. It is the impact of the sadly moving flux of life that
brings about spiritual tranquillity in the poet:

The words are muffled now, the laughing

Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving

Punishment in Kindergarten | Explanation and Analysis

We carry childhood memories with us into our adult life. Some may be painful, some happy. You
may also remember certain unforgettable incidents from childhood. This poem is moving through
the simple rendering of childhood memory. The poet recalls an incident from the past which is still
very painful. Here we hear the voice of an adult but the hurt the child felt is recreated. Let us discuss
it in detail:

The narrator who is now an adult recalls a painful incident of childhood. The
incident happened in kindergarten on a bright sunny day. All the children were
playing together. The narrator was sitting alone. 0n seeing this the blue-
frocked teacher scolded her harshly in the presence of her classmates. She
called her peculiar child for wanting to be alone when all were playing. In this
stanza, the first line speaks of the present from the second line onwards the
past is described

The narrator remembers the details of that painful day. The other schoolmates
were sipping sugarcane juice on the lawn. When they heard the teacher
shouting at the narrator. They turned and laughed in merriment at the
narrator’s tears. Unable to bear the shame the child buried its head in the
hedge.

We can very easily identify With the little child, can’t we? Children are hurt by
very trivial things. What seems to be a major tragedy to the child will be to the
Adult a silly matter. Notice the two voices in the poem- an adult voice which is
able to talk openly about the incident that is not painful any more and the
child voice which relives the agony of the past.

The adult voice speaks again in the present. The years have reduced the
intensity and harshness of the hurtful incident. Time has healed the pain. The
angry words and laughing faces are vague and unclear. The years have gone
by very fast. Certain incidents close to the heart are remembered others are
forgotten. Life moves on. The narrator is now adult look back on that painful
incident peacefully and do not mind it any more. There is no need more to
remember that childhood incident with pain.

Main Attractions of the Poem

The poet starts the poem by distinguishing’ today ‘ (i.e. the present) from the
past. She still doesn’t feel like the world is her own as an adult, but it’s a bit
more of her own than when she was a child. Note that while she says there’s
no need to remember the pain caused by a careless adult who mocked her for
her tendency to hold on to herself, the poem itself is an act of recollecting that
event — another paradox that adds to those we’ve found.

This stanza is about children’s tendency to be cruel to others. The other

children’s cruelty here reflects that of the woman who called the speaker ‘
peculiar ‘. Curiously, the poet joins the words “the flowers and the pain,” things
that are not usually associated with each other. There is the implication that
perhaps she associates. There is the implication that she may associate flowers
with pain due to the painful memory she laughs at as a child.
The muffled words and blurred images remain in the speaker’s mind as an
adult. Unlike Wordsworth, Das does not indicate that there was anything
about her childhood that she cherishes or sees as sacred. However, she
does indicate that even though she probably shouldn’t remember this
particular memory, she cannot help recalling it. The repetition of “no need to
remember” reinforces the paradox that the poem itself is an act of
remembrance. The final image of the poem, the steel-white sun standing
lonely in the sky, connects the speaker with the sun: it is lonely, just as she is,
and perhaps its presence reminds her every day of the day from her childhood
that she does not want to remember.