Feminine aesthetics

The poem Feminine aesthetics is dedicated to Kamala Das(1934 - 2009) who has authored many autobiographical works and novels, several well-received collections of poetry in English, numerous volumes of short stories, and essays on a broad spectrum of subjects. Her poems are known for their unflinchingly honest explorations of the self and female sexuality, urban life, women's roles in traditional Indian society, issues of post colonial identity, and the political and personal struggles of marginalized people. 

An Introduction

Kamala Das

I don’t know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like

Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.

I am Indian, very brown, born inMalabar,

I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one.

Don’t write in English, they said, English is

Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like? The language I speak,

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human, don’t

You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my

Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing

Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it

Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is

Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and

Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech

Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the

Incoherent mutterings of the blazing

Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

WhenI asked for love, not knowing what else to ask

For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the

Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.

The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

I shrank Pitifully.

Then … I wore a shirt and my

Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored

My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,

Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.

Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a

Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when

Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

Who wants. a woman, just as I am every

Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste

Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans’ tireless

Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,

The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I

In this world, he is tightly packed like the

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,

It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying

With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,

I am saint. I am the beloved and the

Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.

My Poem Feminine Aesthetics is a tribute to Kamala Das who was my inspiration behind this.

From any and every Indian woman’s desk; urban and rural;  yesterday’s and today’s, in the background of patriarchy .....

I was going through the theories of feminism and gynocriticism while writing an article on gender bias and a doubt suddenly occurred to me that the scenario and plight of women are so much the same even now! For so many of us 'modernism' got stuck to cutting the hair short or dancing at a pub or smoking publicly etc etc. How many of us are being able to really create a space of substance for ourselves; a space that's not just feminine but human!

I have come ahead of the 

pestle, mortar, cooking pan;

now my sky is vaster and

I have a storm beneath my feet.

I am a life, an essence, a child of God.

I am worn out perfecting myself straight,

I am weary of being ever careful 

with my dresses and my plaits.

Why do you ask me to fit in, always?

A role, a stereotype, a task suited only for me!

You feel odd at my inedible behavior,

you find it weird when I claim,

without a morsel of shame, that

I can’t embroider or knit or cook.

You get angry when I tend to defy

my womanliness and try to be a human!

You fail to understand

why I have so many opinions!

But let me convey that

I am no different

but an individual

just like you.

I too feel

angry when refused,

sad when deceived,

thrilled when praised,

fallen when ridiculed.

Just like you,

so much like you.

See, I too have limbs and hunger

I too have a mouth and tears;

I am

Just like you;

so much like you.

I too call myself a sage and a sinner

I too call myself a pious and a pervert

I too call myself a beloved and a betrayed

I too am virtue and vice

I too am a soul

I too am ‘I’

I am

Just like you.

so much like you.

A whore, a seductress,

a daughter, a wife, a mother;

a worker and an intellect,

a sister, a friend;

a human,

Just like you,

so much like you.