My Mother At Sixty-Six

By: Kamala das

Represented by: Aparna Joshi

Class & Section: XII ‘A’
 About The Author :KAMALA DAS
 Kamala Das was born in , Thrissur
District in Kerala, on March 31, 1934, to V. M.
Nair, a former managing editor of the widely-
circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi,
and Nalappatt Balamani Amma, a
renowned Malayali poetess.

 On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital

in Pune. Her body was flown to her home state
of Kerala. She was buried at the PalayamJuma
Masjid at Thiruvanathapuram with full state
honour.

 She adopted the name Kamala Surraiah after she

embraced Islam.
CAREER
 Das' first book, Summer In Calcutta was a
promising start. She wrote chiefly of love,
its betrayal, and the consequent anguish.

 At the age of 42, she published her

autobiography, My Story, which was later
translated into many foreign languages

 Kamala Das wrote on a diverse range of

topics, often disparate- from the story of a
poor old servant, about the sexual
disposition of upper middle class women
living near a metropolitan city or in the
middle of the ghetto.
 POEM
Driving from my parent’s home to Cochin
last Friday morning,..

•Kamala Das had gone to her

parent’s house .

•She is now going to Cochin

Airport from where she had to
board an airplane for her journey
back home.
…I saw my mother, beside me, doze,
open mouthed, her face ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with pain that
she was as old as she looked…
 The poetess describes her
mother as old and pale

 She looked almost like a

corpse, her face was
colourless and seemed to
have lost the fervour of life
...and looked out at young trees sprinting,
the merry children spilling out of their
homes…
 To drive away the pain and
agony Kamala Das looked
out of the window.

 Trees symbolise life and

growth.

 Children are symbolic of

youth, vitality, vigour, life
and growth.
…But after the airports security check,
standing a few yards away,…

 At the airport they had to

undergo a security check.

 After that, the poet stood

few yards away, and
looked at her mother
again.
 ..I looked again at her, wan, pale as a
late winter’s moon…
 Poet’s mother was aged and
hence looked pale and colourless
like a late winter’s moon.

 Winter’s moon lacks luster and

brightness similarly mothers face
has lost radiance and is now
misted by age

 The winters moon that appears at

the end of the year also
symbolizes the ebbing state of the
mother’s life
... And felt that old familiar ache, my
childhood fear..
 Familiar ache refers to the
ache of helplessness; the
pain of separation that
arises at the thought of
mother’s death.

 Childhood fear refers to

the fear of losing her
mother, getting separated
from her or that death
would consume her mother
 …but all I said was, see you soon,
Amma, all I did was smile and smile and
smile……
 Kamala Das bids a formal adieu to her
mother with the hope of seeing her soon.
 She smiles only to hide her anxiety and
fear of the unknown.
 She also wants to bid a cheerful farewell
to her mother before she boards the
flight.
 The poetess tries to put up a brave front
in order to hide her true feelings of pain
at seeing her old and weak mother.
 Her smile also reflects her optimism.
Some Characteristics of Youth
and Old age
Old age Youth
Grandparents Cheerful
Grey Green
Death Birth
Loss of memory Games
Doze Activity
Ashen face Energetic
Corpse Lively
Pale Merry
Wan Sprinting
 Something About The most used figure
of speech in the poem
A simile is a figure of speech that draws a comparison
between two different things, especially a phrase
containing the word “like” or “as”.
Sleeping like a log
My Love is like a red, red rose (Robert Burns)
Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean
(S. T. Coleridge)
Examples from the poem:
Like that of a corpse
As a late winter’s moon
Repetition:
It is the repeated occurrence of a word in the same line.

Smile and smile and smile

Contrast:
 her face like that of a corpse/ trees sprinting, the merry
children playing ,etc.

Old age/ youth

 Appraisal of the Title
The title, “My Mother at Sixty-six” is an excellent example of showing an
ever unfailing relationship between a daughter and her mother.
Nostalgia smeared in
separation appears to be the default setting of the poem. The title
scrutinizes every mother lumbers towards the age, 66, with care or
without care. But this very mother gets to the same age through the
growing eyes of her daughter. The number 66 also points out to the
beginning of double quotation marks. It seems Kamala Das indicates the
estrangement has just begun, and it's absolutely way afar to meet the
end. It also sounds a little ambiguous, since the daughter, for the first
time, notices her mother has stepped into the wrong box of sixty six. In
some Hermetic systems, 6 means "beauty," and the speaker's mother
appears more beautiful. 6 + 6= 12, the number of signs in the Zodiac, and
so may represent the totality of Creation. So, sixty-six signifies a mother
is the symbol of the totality of Creation.