MY MOTHER AT SIXTY SIX

KAMALA DAS

Prepared by
Ms Saira John
BALAMANI AMMA, Kamala
Das’ mother, herself an eminent
poetess
 MAIN THEME
 “My Mother as Sixty Six” is one of the most relatable poems ever written by
Kamala Das. All of us know that death cannot be escaped. We know this
theoretically, but we choose to ignore this fact on a day to day basis in order to
be able to live our lives peacefully. However, this thought does suddenly occur
to us from time to time. And at such times, we become filled with sadness and
pain. However, we also know that others do not like to be reminded of the
brevity of life either. That is why we hide our pain and try to assure others that
nothing of the sort will happen. No matter how hard we try, we cannot suppress
the fear entirely, but must choose again and again to smile through the pain.
This is an experience that all of us have been through at some point of time or
the other. So when Kamala Das writes about it, we can feel that she
understands us and she is able to express everything that we have felt in the
exact amount and the exact order in which we have felt it. This is what makes
the poem easy to relate to.
A beautiful exemplification of Kamala Das’s reflective
emotional poetic voice, My Mother at sixty six, is a run-
on single-full stop poem that deals with the tender
emotion of a child’s primordial fear of losing its first
ever support – the mother, expressing it from an adult 
woman’s perspective. In this My Mother at Sixty Six
summary, we will offer to you all a gentle exploration of
these poignant lines. We will also do some heartfelt
reading between the lines to get an idea of the poet’s
emotions of insecure filial love and the consequent
coping mechanism of processing such troubling
emotions she employs.
My Mother at Sixty-Six :

Driving from my parent’s

home to Cochin last Friday

morning, 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 but soon

put that thought away , and

looked out at Young

Trees sprinting, the merry children

spilling

out of their homes, but after the

airport’s

security check, standing a few yards

away, I looked again at her, wan, pale

as a late winter’s moon and felt that old

familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,

but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,

all I did was smile and smile and

Driving from my parent’s
home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother,
beside me,

 The underlying tone of nostalgia is instilled into this poem right at the outset with
the words, “parent’s home”. The overarching idea of things coming to an end also
finds its first introduction into the poem through the words “last Friday”. Now,
we maybe reading a little too much into this seemingly innocent choice of
weekday, but think about it… What do you associate Friday with? Isn’t it the end
of weekday busyness and the transition into weekend rest? It is in this same
Friday-like limbo between adult life and old age that Kamala Das finds her
mother at the ripe age of sixty six, while accompanying her on a thought-
provoking drive. The poet mentions that her mother is sitting beside her, instantly
creating an aura of intimacy.
In these lines, the poet recalls a trip back to Cochin from her holiday in her
parents’ house the previous week. It was a Friday, and that morning, she was
driving with her mother next to her on the front seat.
 doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realized with pain
that she was as old as she
looked but soon
put that thought away,
 Kamala Das then paints a very realistic image of ageing, by portraying her mother as a dozing
ageing lady, with a mouth ajar in carefree sleep and a face turned pale in course of the passing the
time. And then, almost without warning, the motif of impending death is rudely introduced into the
poem when the poet compares her dozing pale mother to a corpse. This almost reflexive
comparison that the poet makes in her head culminates in the brutal realization that her source of
life had actually aged and become old. But before the poet could even complete this painful train
of thought, she brushed it aside, not allowing this realization to get processed. Look within,
doesn’t this impulse of the poet of “putting that thought away” resonate well with what we all do
when an unpleasant thought dawns on the surface of our mental horizons? It is through these little
actions that the poem tells us a lot about human’s dual coping mechanism of denial and escape.
  and
looked out at Young
Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes,

In an attempt to escape the painful realization that the poet has just had, she instead
focuses on the trees that her car speeds by, creating the beautiful illusion that it is the trees
that are sprinting, while it is actually the poet journeying ahead in life with her ageing
mother. Through the transference of this fast motion onto the trees, we find the poet again
negating the reality that it is actually herself and her mother who are progressing steadily
into time and not the trees that are still young with all their greenery ahead of them. Next,
the poet shifts her focus onto young children jovially stepping out of their homes in hoards
to play, with their life bank still full of youthful years. What is interesting to note here is
that when the poet wishes to avert her attention from the reminder of ageing and death, she
chooses to look at “young” trees and “young” children, signifying youth and life. This
strikes a sharp contrast with the ashen image of death the poet had conjured just a few
lines ago, thus accentuating the poet’s desperate attempt to avoid hard realities of life.
 and
looked out at Young
Trees sprinting,
the merry children spilling
out of their homes,
 but after the airport’s
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her, wan, pale
as a late winter’s moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear

Now the setting shifts to the airport – the universally recognized symbol of goodbyes and
endings. The previous image of youth is again sharply contrasted with the image of a late
winter’s moon. The season winter always carries with it the sense of an ending and the moon
always generates am ambience of longing and lonesomeness. And as the poet observes her
mother go through the airport security check, she cannot help but acknowledge that her mother
is now weak, with her colours of life diluting, just like a feeble winter moon. This time, though,
this thought is not pushed away; hence it gives rise to an ache within the poet that is all too
familiar, having been around since childhood days – the fear of losing her mother, something
that all of us have felt as kids. This adult voicing of a deep fear that has its roots in childhood is
poignant and pregnant with meaning, but the poet does not delve any deeper into this thought,
and instead says her goodbyes:
I looked again at her, wan, pale
as a late winter’s moon
 but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and
smile……

Through the course of the poem, the poet has stirred some deep-seated fears of
losing her mother, and has brought to the fore the troubling relationship we
humans share with the idea of death and ageing with regard to our loved ones.
However, in the end, the poem takes on the spirit of hope, expressed through “see
you soon, Amma”. Additionally, from denial the poem shifts towards a calm
acceptance and resignation, evoked beautifully through the poet’s action of 
breaking into a long smile as she watched her mother standing by the gate. If you
look deeper, you might notice a slight hint of bravery in the way the poet makes
peace with what is inevitable – through self-comforting smiles.