My Grandmother's House - Kamala Das

The poem:
There is a house now far away where once
I received love……. That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books, I was then too young
To read, and my blood turned cold like the moon
How often I think of going
There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a brooding
Dog…you cannot believe, darling,
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved…. I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers' doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?

About Kamala Das:
Kamala Das is one of the best poets in contemporary Indo-Anglian literature. Kamala Das, born in Kerala in 1934, is a bilingual writer. She writes in Malayalam, her mother tongue, under the pseudonym Madhavikkutty. Her poetry is an exploration of the geography of her own mind, and the lyric is an instance of such self-exploration. Through images of repulsion and horror, she brings out the emotional emptiness and sterility of her married life, and the intensity of her misery as a wife who had to submit to her husband whom she found repulsive, and with whom she had no emotional contact at all. She has won many prizes for her work . some of them being the P. E. N. Asian Poetry Prize, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award for fiction, Asian World Prize for literature, Kendra Sahitya Academy Award etc. She was short listed for the Nobel Prize along with Marguerite Yourcenar, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune, but has earned considerable respect in recent years. 



Summary-

      

   “My Grandmother’s House” is a constituent poem of Kamala Das’s maiden publication Summer in Calcutta. Though short, the poem wraps within itself an intriguing sense of nostalgia and uprootedness. In her eternal quest for love in such a ‘loveless’ world, the poet remembers her grandmother which surfaces some emotions long forgotten and buried within her-- an ironical expression of her past which is a tragic contrast to her present situation. It is a forcefully moving poem fraught with nostalgia and anguish.

The poet says that there is a house, her grandmother’s home, far away from where she currently resides, where she “received love”. Her grandmother’s home was a place she felt secure and was loved by all. After the death of her grandmother, the poet says that even the House was filled with grief, and accepted the seclusion with resignation. Only dead silence haunted over the House, feeling of desolation wandering throughout. She recollects though she couldn’t read books at that time, yet she had a feeling of snakes moving among them-- a feeling of deadness, horror and repulsion, and this feeling made her blood go cold and turn her face pale like the moon. She often thinks of going back to that Old House, just to peek through the “blind eyes of the windows” which have been dead-shut for years, or just to listen to the “frozen” air.

The poet also shows the ironical contrast between her past and present and says that her present has been so tormenting that even the Darkness of the House that is bathed in Death does not horrify her anymore and it is a rather comforting companion for her in the present state of trials. The poets says that she would gladly (“in wild despair”) pick up a handful of Darkness from the House and bring it back to her home to “lie behind my bedroom door” so that the memories of the Old House and its comforting darkness, a rather ironical expression, might fill assurance and happiness in her present life.

She wraps up the poem saying that it is hard for one to believe that she once lived in such a house and was so loved by all and lived her life with pride. That her world was once filled with happiness is a sharp contrast to her present situation where she is completely devoid of love and pride. She says that in her desperate quest for love, she has lost her way; since she didn’t receive any feelings of love from the people whom she called her own, she now has to knock “at strangers' doors” and beg them for love, if not in substantial amounts, then atleast in small change i.e. in little measure atleast.

The poet has intensified the emotions of nostalgia and anguish by presenting a contrast between her childhood and her grown-up stages. The fullness of the distant and absence and the emptiness of the near and the present give the poem its poignancy. The images of “snakes moving among books”, blood turning “cold like the moon”, “blind eyes of window”, “frozen air”’ evoke a sense of death and despair. The house itself becomes a symbol - an Ednic world, a cradle of love and joy. The escape, the poetic retreat, is in fact, the poet’s own manner of suggesting the hopelessness of her present situation. Her yearning for the house is a symbolic retreat to a world of innocence, purity and simplicity