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By Shweta Shah, 10/11/2013 7:04:53 AM
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My Story is not one story, its more like a collection of stories, series of events. It was first published chapter-wise in a Malayalam magazine and we can see how years are jumped according to her whims. We see Kamala Das grow, develop, evolve, change from childhood where she's full of life to middle-age, where she comes to terms with death and is not afraid of it.
Reading My Story felt like a friend telling you stories from her life and in that process you see, you hope, that she experiences catharsis. Well, sometimes you did wish that she would stop talking about distant relatives, which was futile - the talking on Das' part and the wishing on my part.
"A poet's raw material is not stone or clay; it is her personality." Let's not forget that Kamala Das is primarily a poet. The sheer brilliance of her poetry dazzled me, I had to close the book, stare out of the classroom window with a fixed gaze after reading her poem(s) (*features regularly from chapter 27, where she learns to surrender completely). I could read her poems again and again and again and get mesmerized every time.
After reading the book, I got a feeling that she has not been loved or has never loved or worse, both. At one point in the book, it appeared as if the only thing that mattered to her was- which people gave her attention and whom she could charm.
I believe promiscuity is fun only when the person practicing it enjoys it. Das, rather gave me an image of a lost girl in the wide world, waiting for her lover (Krishna).
"I am a freak. It's only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust."
I can't stress enough the amount of courage she must have needed to write about her sexual life - she mentions in the book how men made passes at her after reading about her carnal encounters, or people scorned at her, or scandalized her.
What was that about fickle religious beliefs: from being Krishna-Obsessed to converting to Islam? She keeps referring to the blue god, whom she believes to be her lover. She converted to Islam later in life (not included in the book). So, I would like to know how her beliefs changed. It always interests me to go a step further from what-a-person-is to how-he/she-became-what-they-are.
She writes in the closing chapter...
"Life has been, despite all emotional involvements, as ineffectual as writing on moving water."
Rest assured, her writing in not ineffectual and it is as smooth as wind on the moving water.
NB: If nothing, read the poems in the book. PURE DELIGHT!
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My Story
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