Kamala Das Poems Indian Poetry

Kamala Das

Kamala Surayya / Suraiyya formerly known as Kamala Das , (also known as

Kamala Madhavikutty, pen name was Madhavikutty) was a major Indian

English poet and littérateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author

from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short

stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the

name Kamala Das, is noted for the fiery poems and explicit autobiography.

Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of

guilt, infused her writing with power, but also marked her as an iconoclast in

her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune, but

has earned considerable respect in recent years.

Early Life

Kamala Das was born in Punnayurkulam, 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.

She spent her childhood between Calcutta, where her father was employed

as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentley and

Rolls Royce automobiles, and the Nalappatt ancestral home in

Punnayurkulam.

Like her mother, Kamala Das also excelled in writing. Her love of poetry

began at an early age through the influence of her great uncle, Nalappatt

Narayana Menon, a prominent writer.

At the age of 15, she got married to bank officer Madhava Das, who

encouraged her writing interests, and she started writing and publishing both

in English and in Malayalam. Calcutta in the 1960s was a tumultous time for

the arts, and Kamala Das was one of the many voices that came up and

started appearing in cult anthologies along with a generation of Indian

English poets